The Ariel Helwani Show - Memorable Mike Perry & Dillon Danis face-to-face, Edson Barboza, Teofimo Lopez, John Martin, On The Nose, news & notes

Episode Date: August 19, 2026

Ariel Helwani kicks off the show by recapping Contender Series and previewing some upcoming sporting events (02:09). The Boys in the Back and Petesy Carroll join Ariel for On The Nose, answering questions about the Din Thomas drama, Ariel’s Hawaiian vacation, comparing the résumés of Khabib and Islam Makhachev, and more (28:48). PFL CEO John Martin is back in-studio to discuss the MVP merger, whether Ronda Rousey and Francis Ngannou will be involved with the new company, the future of Usman Nurmagomedov and his free agency, Paul Hughes’ recent comments about drug testing, exploring partnerships with RIZIN and other promotions, Jake Paul wanting to do MMA, and more (1:02:25). Teofimo Lopez joins the show during fight week, talking about his title bout against Rolly Romero, his deal with DAZN, being snubbed by Dana White and Hunter Campbell at a Brand Risk event, how he matches up against Romero and vowing to finish him, and more (1:59:51). Mike Perry and Dillon Danis go face-to-face, previewing their Duel Arena fight and talking trash. They argue about the grappling disparity, knockout power, their respective résumés, the stakes of the fight, how negotiations played out, drug testing for the fight, and more (2:27:38). Newly-retired Edson Barboza is our final guest of the day, discussing his decision to walk away, his impaired vision, some of his career-defining moments, his plans post-retirement, and more (3:28:54). The crew covers news and notes, including the ongoing feud between Dana White and Eddie Hearn over Tyson Fury vs. Anthony Joshua, Yair Rodriguez pulling out of his fight against Jean Silva, Jon Jones weighing in on the GOAT conversation, and more (3:54:02). After answering a few more On The Nose questions (4:06:51), the show ends with your Super Chats (4:12:49).

Lazy! Welcome to the air... On this Wednesday, August 18, 2006. Hello again, everyone. I sure hope you're doing well. It is great to be here on a lovely summer Wednesday. In New York City, they are... Unfortunately, they're trickling away. They're trickling away. I love the summertime. The summer wind came rolling in from across. the sea.

Yes. Throw them up, everyone. Throw them up. Actually, that was too strong. It should be more like that. I hope you're all doing well. We love Wednesdays around these parts. It's a great time to be alive.

We've had a phenomenal first couple of shows back. A lot of drama, a lot of fun things to discuss. A tremendous amount of guests. Yesterday, six guests on the program. Today, technically five. But we do have a face-to-face. Interestingly enough, my good friend, Jedi Goodman on Twitter noting that it was exactly one year ago today that we had Platinum Mike Perry

and Jeremy Stevens on at the same time doing the face-to-face. No one's better in the history of our program at face-to-face. We've done them with Mike Perry. Now twice, soon to be three times. First time was with Luke Rockhold, you'll recall. That was a hilarious one. Then Stevens last year, more intense. And then today, it's Perry v. Danis. They're fighting August 29th. in Orlando, dual arena one. We talked to Perry about this before the break, but now they're going head to head. And we haven't had Dennis on the show in exactly one year.

And if I'm being honest, the last time we had him on, it was a horrible interview, so much so that we didn't even clip it off, wanted nothing to do with it. It just wasn't very enjoyable. And I kind of said to the crew, I said, guys, you know, I think I might be done. But I did see Dylan at the BKFC,

see Mike Perry, Jeremy Stevens' fight in Newark, in October. We patched everything up, kumbaya, kiss, kiss, hug, hug, peace and love, and now here we are back. So in a weird way, it all kind of comes together. And it all culminates today as we do a virtual face-to-face with Mike Perry and Dylan Dennis. They're fighting next weekend. They'll speak to each other today on the program.

That will be at 3.30. At 4.15, I'm kind of jumping all over the place here, but 4.15. Etzen Barbosa Jr. is going to join us. Just retired on Saturday. Didn't go his way in his final fight. Very emotional walking to the cage, walking out of the cage, in the cage, gloves down. Beautiful soul. Legend of the game. debut back at UFC 123 in November of 2010. God, what a time. UFC 142. Terry Adam kick, one of the greatest of all time. Just a great dude who I'm very excited to talk to as he. he kind of rounds out the career. Are we not getting audio?

What's going on? What is this? Is everything okay, Frankie? Yeah, right. I don't know. I got a slack here message about audio. The summer, did they miss? Or maybe I'm just reading things that I shouldn't be reading.

Did they miss my singing? The summer when? Should I start again? No, we're good. Okay. In any event, maybe I shouldn't be reading these things as I'm doing the show. Where were we? Where were we?

Etzabarbo said 415. This is so great. And then prior to that is going to be Perry and Dennis. And prior to that, Teofima Lopez, the takeover, as he calls himself, he's returning Saturday, August 22nd. He's fighting at 147, moving up from 140 to 147, fighting Roli Romero. They are actual friends. They like each other, trained together. He's moving up from 140.

He fought Shakur Stevenson, lost his titles there, now going up to try to win the WBA. a Walterway title, but Tio Fiuma Lopez is one of the great characters in boxing. We've had him on before. He's signed with DeZone recently. This fight's going to be on DeZone. PBC did a deal with DeZone. They're also on Amazon Prime pay-per-view. There's a lot to get into with Team Fima Lopez.

There's actually three pretty interesting events happening this weekend. Actually, dare I say four. There's the RAF anniversary show. We talked to Chad Bronstine about that yesterday. There's the UFC in Sacramento, Robocop, Gregory Rodriguez, against Fluffy Hernandez. Important fight for both, middleweight division. Fluffy getting back on track. There's this boxing match to Afimile Lopez going up against Roli Romero.

And there's Chris Cyborg's retirement fight. And that's happening also on Saturday. You may have missed it. It doesn't feel like there's enough promotion, if I'm being honest. That's happening in Tampa. Cyborg against Caitlin Vieira, arguably, I don't even think it's arguable. Cyborg's last, like, big fight was probably the Pacheco fight in 24. She's had five or six, one MMA.

a few boxing. This is like a legit test, in my opinion. I know it's Caitlin leaving the UFC and maybe she's not as good as she once was, or maybe what people thought she was going to be, but this is a legit test and more people should be talking about it. Well, guess what? The CEO of PFL, John Martin, who's now had the job for 13 months and look at all the changes that have happened since.

They got rid of the tournament format, all this stuff and more. He's going to join us to, of course, talk about none of that. We're talking about the merger with MVP that was announced right before we went on the break. MVP, PFL coming together, really going to kick in come January. So 27. What's up with the TV deal? How did this come about? All that stuff and more.

John Martin joining us in studio at 2 o'clock. Stay tuned for that. There you go. An amazing five-pack, if you will, of guests and something for everyone. No one covers the world of combat sports like us. Boxing, pro wrestling, MMA. BKFC, bare-knuckle, grappling, wrestling, freestyle wrestling, kickboxing. You want to get your story out here like like, like, Chamsa Shira's yesterday?

You come to us. You come to us. Now, as always, today's program is brought you by our good friends over at Kalshi. We love Kalshi around these parts. There's the QR code right there. K-A-L-S-H-I. Download the app. Use code Helwani.

to get up to $25 when you trade $25. And I was taking a bit of a gander over at the Calci odds for a whole host of things happening this weekend. Shall we take a gander? Shall we take a little tour around the world of Calci real quick here? Anthony Hernandez, Gregory Rodriguez. I want to play a game. Well, I saw this one already.

Hernandez, 61%. Rodriguez, 39%. I, I messed with it. Yeah, that makes sense to me. That makes sense. Okay. Spivak Petrino. Hey guys, how are you?

Hello. Pizzi, missed you yesterday. We'll get you in a moment, all right? We'll get to the dilly dally-dalling in a moment, the kibbutz thing. We just have to get through this ad read here. Spivak Petrino. Spivak. Favorite.

Oh, really? Yeah, that's what I... Patrino, for sure. What do we say? What do we say? What do we say? You can get good odds on Spivack then. Polar Bear.

59% for Petrina. Okay. RDR Dolite. Of course, RDR. Was on a roll, a bit of a... I'll say RDR. I'll say RDR. People are still, yeah.

Okay, what do we got? I'm going to say 59% for RDR. Ooh, 77%. Okay, no love for the Georgian Dolite. Tiafemale Lopez. Okay. Ophimo, Lopez against Roli Romero. I'm going with Lopez.

How about that? I'm going with Lopez. I think the people love him. Even though Roli's coming off the Ryan Garcia win in Times Square, but it was over a year ago, May of last year,

Rick and I were in attendance with all the luminaries. Spider-Man, of course, was there too. What else? What else? Oh, look at us. Look at us. Fuck.

57% for Tio against Rolando Romero. Okay, here's a fun one. MVP MMA fighters before 2020. These are fighters that are competing. They say they're going to compete in MVP MMA before the end of 28. So we're talking two years, 27 and 28, right?

What are the names? We can't really guess these. Jake Paul, 80%. Okay. Mandasarano, 64%. Tank Davis. Is that a 30 or a 38? Doesn't matter.

38 for Tank Davis. All right. Connor, 29? Sure. A lot of boxers. 25. Chandler, 20? Floyd?

10? Yeah, a lot of boxes. for MVP MMA. Floyd and Mayweather at 18% for MVP MMA not happening. Ilya 17? Don't see that. Sean, 13. Only four MMA for it is listed.

That's crazy. Tyson 2. Joshua 15. Weird. Okay, let me ask you guys. Of this list, is there a single one you're taking? No. I'll take Serrano.

I'll take Serrano. Serrano's possible. I'll take Jake Paul. You'll take Jake Paul? Before 2028? I think I'm with Pizzi. You're also getting terrible odds at that point. You're not getting great odds on it, but I do feel like for this to have enough headliners,

Jake Paul needs to be in that mix. And so I would say Jake Paul seems like a sign trade there. Guys, you may not know this, but the Barclays Premier League kicks off this weekend. Is he like if you know, you know, you know about Barclays, right? You know about Barclays, come on. Don't call it the Barclays. Please, I know you're going to do this now. Gonna do it now.

The Barclays, you know it's another thing that people hate when you call it the EPL, right? They hate when you call it the EPL, right? The Barclays EPL kicks off this weekend. Let's take a look at the odds here. No Barclays mentioned. What are we saying? Arsenal 45, Manu nine. Tarres in the mix.

Out of one. Let's go, boys. Forrest, the magic. Teams? Teams. He's in the league. Yeah. Nancy got to be on the pitch.

Well, I mean, I. He selected. For our four teams that we are interested. I mean, personal favorite, Tottenham, I'm kind of disrespected at only 4%. But not in the right where they're a lot. I think Tottenham are going to do well, Jordan, because he's don't have any European competition.

That's probably Manchester, you know, I finished in the top three last year. Yeah, they're going to be really rested to be bad. To win the league, Tottenham is less than 4%. They've signed so many good players. They've signed amazing players. Like, that obviously doesn't always work out, especially for spores.

But I think they're going to have a good run. What happened that man you went down? Did something happen, recently? Like that graph is showing a lot of lack of... Oh, interesting. We haven't had a gray window.

Let's go back. Let's go back. Which color? I can't tell. They're the middle line. At some point in June, they were up 40% They were trading near where Arsenal was.

And he was a pop 40% to win the league? All the talk was, we're going to spend all this money, all this shit. Now, they got Belava. It looks like we're going to get Belava today. I don't think he's... I don't think Arsenal or city.

would want them. We were getting all the sweet talk from the board. Oh, they're going to sign all these lads. Sown tree lads, not bad players. But I'm in. I don't think. I don't think it's good enough. We need bodies because we have those extra competitions that sports don't have to worry about, but. Well, I'm very excited about force opener this weekend. No Europe, you know, distractions. Kept Marillo as well. He kept Murillo as well. Kept Marillo. No one thought that was going to happen. Lost Elliott. We got the new gaffer. Ollie. I like to call him, Ollie. Oliver Glastner. How are we looking for us this weekend?

How are we looking? How are we looking? Yeah. Oh, 41. Okay. I like it. It takes me a minute to see the whole thing here. Against leads? Yeah, lead sucks. We'll do fine. We'll start off right. And then what is this last one here? Is this about Namo Fizil? Yeah, we, I noticed yesterday that there's trading on Dana White's Contender Series.

Oh, wow. Okay, so Namo Fazil, super hyped. He's coming off the win over our guy. Jake, the bar. Barbabian, you may recall back in May, then gets on the microphone, calls out Armin, almost gets into a brawl with Armin, signs with Ali. I mean, this guy talks an amazing game. He, like, marketer, extraordinary, talks a great game, has a great look, great following as well. He was amazing at the pre-fight press conference in May. A lot of hype surrounding him, and unfortunately did not go his way. Got knocked out yesterday. Didn't get the contract. And so what is what is Kalshi's saying?

So this was the real time of the fight. Oh, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. So he loses to the Brazilian? Yeah, the market was thinking that Fizil was going to win until he wasn't. Wow. And he was actually down 2 to nothing on two scorecards. Kike Brito is who knocked him out. Fizil gets knocked out. Knock out of the year contender.

Yeah, it was unbelievable. Like he stole his consciousness. He was completely out. Can I say I noted this last night, it is just, it is a vastly different product, right? It's not bad. Like, Contender series with these fights

in that venue now, I'm not going to say it's must-cTV, but it's a fun product. It is the perfect size venue for contender series, for tough, for a low, low-level fight night.

No problem. You're not going to hear a single complaint out of me. Now, when you start putting Quill and Salkield in there, like he should be fighting in a bigger arena. But, like, for those fights,

Bellamier, debut next week. There's going to be a ton of Vegas people there. She's a Vegas gal. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. I, I trolled for a very long time, like, kind of defending the apex. But there was a value in the apex, which, and we saw it during the pandemic was the intimacy, right? The idea of like, you can hear everything. You can see everything. You're up close to it. And you kind of get that experience that you can't necessarily get in a big arena and certainly not in a stadium. Now they've implemented a best of both worlds, right? You kind of have that apex feel that's retained. And then you add in a bit of a crowd, enough of a crowd to make it feel at least like a lively product. To your point, like this is a perfect kind of like low to mid tier

venue for them now when they're not in the road at some of these bigger venues. Very fun, very fun performances, fun finishes, fights. Like it just, it's, it's, there's so much more energy. There's so much more excitement. Again, we talked about like the camera angles are different, seeing a crowd there, the lighting, like they did a phenomenal job. Apex and Contender Series, last 10 or so years, the two best things that the UFC did. Now, you may be hearing this and being like Apex. No, no, we've always said the Apex was brilliant, and it certainly helped them in the pandemic. I just hated that they stuck with it way past, you know, the pandemic being a thing. And Dana kept talking about the world opening up and all this stuff. No, no. It's silly to put,

like, real UFC level fights on there. But for, for Contender Series, brilliant. Absolutely. It's only like $40 as well. 25. 25. 25. I mean, you might as well just go if you're in the area. That's incredible.

I was like, can I shout out my neighbor real quick? My neighbor, Jonah? Yeah. I received the text yesterday at like 4 p.m. All it said, dinner and contender question? Wow. I was like, wow. You are beating the casual allegations if you ever got them.

Did you take him up on it? Well, no, we had to do something for work last night. I was like next week, next week it's locked in, Bellamere. I'm hyped for that. I am so high. hype for that. It's got to be surreal for Dana White. Like Frank Mier was such a big part of his career, UFC 100. Now he's promoting his daughter, potentially, if she wins. That is crazy. That is crazy. So anyway, shout at the contender series. Brito was amazing. Namofazil went online afterwards.

So, you know, credit to him. I know he rubs people the wrong way. I know he's very boisterous. I know a lot of people don't like his shenanigans, his trash talk. I think he's a great promoter. And credit to him, he did show up online. and kind of take his lumps. He did say something at the very end that I think some people didn't like, but anyway, here's Namo after the fight. I'm making this video to acknowledge today's loss I had.

I'm not the type of person to shy away and just hide and be like shit. And I'm a fighter. We take this to the chin as every real man does, you know. Today was not my night, I could say. I've had a few issues I can say and I'm not here to take say this happened that happened I take it as a real man and Ignatja good night for kai-ti burrito congratulations to him he was the better man tonight but I promise you

you will see me 10 times better stronger when I come back and he will see me come back very soon this was a small fluke that happened And we'll see a better inversion. Okay, so the word fluke, I think, is rubbing people the wrong way. But, you know, is what it is. He goes online. He's a proud guy. He's saying he's going to be back.

Mentioned Brito gives him some props. I think some people don't like the fluke line. I did happen to see in the comment. I saw a ton of fighters in the comments sort of celebrating the knockout. And now Jordan showing me this screen grab, also from the U.J. excuse me from the UFC IG Mofsar Evloev writing Whoever exalts himself

will be humbled And here's Hamzat With the Brazilian flag Brito is from Brazil And the You know What is that? The bicep

The robotic bicep Anyway clearly Happy for Brito So for whatever reason I saw a video of Islam Doolotov Who said he was like $5,000 to Brito

For knocking him out Because Fizil had had prior comments about how good looking he is and he's not a real fighter and everything like that and he was like he ended the video with like i mean it five thousand dollars send me your bank account info i'm sending it to you thank you so much for knocking him out i don't recall a fighter having so many people sort of dance on their grave in the immediate after this early yeah there's certainly fighters that they there's the shot and fraud that comes you know later this early no but honestly if i'm him i'd look at this as i'm doing something right like i know yeah it's hard

to look in the moment, you know, that was a big opportunity and feel like, I'm not going to say best case scenario. I'm not going to say best case scenario. I'm not going to say best case scenario. But he's doing something right if he's getting this type kind of reaction and this kind of attention, right? He can be a figure. Like, if I was a promotion, whether it be the UFC or somebody else, he at least comes with some kind of like energy around him. He at least comes with something where people are going to either want to see him win or lose. And so I'd be interested in signing him. I was up there in May at a press conference with Ronda Rousey, Gina Carrano, Mike Perry, Nate Diaz, and he was my favorite guy to go to.

He stole the show. Without him, that thing would have been pretty damn boring. He was amazing. So he's got a personality. He's obviously got something to him, but he's not a UFC fighter. No. Curious, do you think MVP tries to get him back? They should.

They should. Interesting, because I think he was talking before, like leveling up and this is destiny and all this stuff. He's got to be humble now. Yeah. But by the way, I don't think it's out of the question that UFC signs him, right? Like, how many times have we seen like a short notice opportunity where it's like, you could do worse than signing him to a short notice opportunity against somebody? Give him another chance.

This time if he loses, maybe you don't go back to that well. This time if he wins, you've got a guy. Like, I think he's got good options now, at least like on the heels of this. But I do think we need to focus in on the flute part. Like, certainly it was a flash KO. But to G. Like, he was also losing the fight. Like, it's not, you know, like, let's not get ahead of ourselves here with that.

he will have to humble himself after this, but I do think he's a valuable commodity. I do as well. I do as well. I was shocked. I was shocked to see that. And just like the viciousness of it all. Amazing stuff.

So if you miss Contender Series, go check it out. It was really fun. By the way, I also want to mention. Shout out to Michael Kiesa. He was in the booth. So, so happy for Michael Kiesa. He's wanted this for so long. He's been talking to me about being a color analyst

for as long as I can remember. he loves doing the desk. He wanted that, but he really wanted color analyst. And he's also doing the Shanghai card. This is his big break. This is his big opportunity. They haven't given him that shot before. I thought he did great. I'm so happy for him. And I hope he gets more opportunities. And I also want to give a big shout out to Paul Felder. I think Paul Felder has become one of the best broadcasters in MMA. But also, he's doing that backstage interview spot with Dana White that is usually the Lorasanko spot. It's not easy to go from being, you know, a top level fighter to then being a broadcaster slash interviewer. I think for post-fight interviews, he does

maybe some of the best, if not the best, on the UFC broadcast. And in that 10-minute spot in the back, you know, moving the conversation along, setting Dana up, all that stuff. He's got a great look with the stash and the hair and whatnot. You almost forget that he was once a fighter because he almost looks like a broadcaster now, if that makes sense. I thought he did a great job as well. So overall, high marks. No complaints. I thought it was really good. And amazing. that it's been 10 years. I remember when this launched during the Mayweather McGregor fight, you know, the world tour that they did. That's when it really launched 2017. Amazing that it's been 10 years and Dana was touting the numbers and all that stuff.

He's very proud of it and he should be. We can dissect like, okay, what those numbers really mean and what it all translates into and that of, I think they said like 400 fighters have come out of there. Something crazy. But it's worked out for them. You get fighters. in early, you get them on the cheap, and they seem to be all very happy about it. Pizzi, you had a very busy morning. Tell us what you did earlier. Yeah, well, you know,

we have a little chat in Vegas and we're talking about Crow Park and you were kind of saying, well, you know, you've got to try and explain it to the international audience what this means to Ireland, because it's kind of vague. And the more I thought about it, I was like, yeah, it's kind of something we grow up in Ireland, this kind of monument

to Irish culture and sport. And we don't usually have to explain it to anyone, you know? So given that, I said, you know what? I can't trust the old Noggin here. I have to go back and educate myself. So I went on a tour around Crow Park and at the moment, the legendary North Dublin Stadium is preparing for a big concert, the weekend, playing this weekend at Croker. So it's actually, it was really interesting to be there because it's amazing to see how much the stadium gets shut down when they're planning to do these events. Like we talked about the amazing effort. It's going to take four match room to pull this off.

But so much of the stadium was closed off. I had an excellent tour guy called Sean, fan of the show, shout out Sean. He was explaining to me that, can you see the Florida area here that they have over the green grass if you saw it as they were passing through there? The pitch has to be relayed immediately after this. The GAA, which is the governing body of Gaelic football and hurling,

the prominent sports that are played in Crow Park, they have a farm out by the airport, but they'll only use that soil and bring that in to re-react. relay the grass, the turf there. Interesting, right? If you can see this shot that I'm looking at here, it's a very, like I know you guys are looking at this, you're used to gargantuan stadiums

in America. It's a very long, long stadium though. And you can see that because the first lions you can see after the gray flooring there, that's a Premier League size pitch. And that's at either end, it's cut into this level. So you can see it's a bit longer here in Crow Park, the area after that white lion there on the grass. Also, if you look,

to the back of the green into the right-hand corner of the green pitch you'll see a little tunnel there. Do you know what that tunnels call, Ariel? I do not. It's called the Muhammad Ali tunnel. Oh, yeah, I forgot about this, yes. So, Muhammad Ali fought Alvin Lewis in 1972.

There's a sign trunks that are in the museum. He fought him in 1972. It's the only boxing bout that ever happened at Crow Park before Katie will take center stage on September 5th. But it wasn't named that until the 90s. And the reason it was named, that in the 90s was Ali came back as an ambassador for the Special Olympics and they had the opening

ceremony in Croke Park and they brought him out onto the pitch and he said, hang on a second, someone needs to bring me around here. I need to go over to the other side of the pitch and they're wondering why they brought him around and he said, this is the tunnel I walked out of when I fought Alvin Lewis in 1972. This is the tunnel I want to come out of when I'm waving at all the people who are going to be gathered here for the Special Olympics. So henceforth, it's been known as the Ali Tunnel. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Now, this is something that anyone can do, right? Yeah, absolutely.

I just jumped in. I just thought, I know they're going to be closing down to the stadiums because I think the weekend is playing this weekend. And then Bon Jovi's playing the weekend after. So I think they're going to shut down all the tours and everything like that. I jumped on Google and I saw that there was tours available today, not tomorrow the next day or I don't think next week either with Bon Jovi coming to town. So I said, I may as well go and feast myself on Irish culture.

And did you feel proud walking the grounds? This is your country. This is your country's prize possession that we've been talking about for years and years and years. Finally, it's coming to fruition. Did you feel that pride? Absolutely. And the place is so steeped in history.

You know, they were trying to fobb Katie off a bit, lads. They were trying to tell her, you know, we don't have to do it in Crow Park. How about we do it at the Aviva Stadium? It's where the soccer team play. It's where the rugby team play. And she said, if it's not Crow Park, I don't want to deal with me. Yes. And the reason why is the whole place is steeped in history.

This thing was started in 1884, the GAA, that is. That's the governing body of Hurling and Gaelic football. These were games played under different rules sets. Games would break down because the two different teams were playing different rules. Hurling especially goes back to the mythological times in Ireland. You know, there's folklore all about the sport. They've made it a real game. You know, obviously the opposite side from the Ali Tunnel is the tunnel

in which the Black and Tans came in and opened fire on the Irish people in 1920. Again, killing a player on the pitch, killing 13 people, including three kids in the crowd. This is a place that is really at the forefront of the Irish the Irish fight for their own culture,

the fight to be Irish, and the GA were at the forefront of that. And it's amazing that Katie's going to get this opportunity. And even putting that up today, the amount of people that are on to me, can you get tickets? You're many people still looking for tickets. There was 82,000 people

got tickets for this thing. People are saying that you wouldn't sell it out. It's sold out in less than 30 minutes. And people are still scavenging for resale tickets. Anything going to do with to get there, I think it's going to be an absolutely magical moment. Wow, wow, wow. Wow, yes, yes. Thank you, Armand.

It's so good. It's so good. I love that. That's amazing. Can't wait for that. Can't wait for the piece. Can't wait for your coverage. Also, can't wait for the event.

And shout out to your tour guide. I hear he's a bit of a hell wannabe, they say. That's what people are saying. Man, name checking everyone. Even Chook and Ben getting the show. Come on, for real. He's a crackhead, huh? I went up and I was just trying to be all coy.

I was like, oh, you know, a lot of the stadiums shut down here with this concert. What's it going to be like with Katie, you know? And he was like, I know exactly who you are. So let's skip the bullshit here, buddy. He didn't say that so many words, but yeah, share it with the shawnee. He was absolutely brilliant. I hope if anyone goes on the Kroke Park tour, there's many available throughout the day. 18 of your finest euro is all that will cost you.

You'll get out onto the pitch. usually when this shit doesn't happen you definitely will you'll go into the changing rooms you'll get brought around taught about the history of the stadium I hope you get Sean if you go because he was absolutely brilliant

to that amazing amazing shout out to Sean much love thank you so much that was great and can't wait for all the coverage leading up to the event on the 5th of September all right time now for everyone's favorite segment of the week it is time

and also much thanks to our friend El Emmanuel who continues to hook us up and is doing a tremendous job as moderator. We give a big shout out to moderator emeritus, Lewis, who I don't even think is consuming the show these days anymore. He's so busy. I don't know.

I don't hear from him as much. I also just want to shout out El Mmanuel's daughter. Oh. Marlena. Shout out to her. Birthday? Beautiful name. Or just life.

Marlena? Just shouting her out. Just shouting her out. Sending warm wishes to the whole family. Princess Marlena. Yeah. Much thanks to your father, to your father. to your Padre and to the Nina Marlena.

What about that Spanish? What about that Spanish? Life is good today. R-I-P-T-O-Gimmy. Of course, we always... He wants to shack it every time he lifts his on now. He's trying to stop us. Hey.

The name of a questionnaire? You're Spanish from lunch to now? Not bad, right? Very improved. Muchos gracias. What did I? I hit you with a couple lines. That's how much.

Mas-o-menos. Princess. A little. Hermosa. Excuse me. I'm getting offended now. That Spanish is from where? Puerto Rico, which is where El Emmanuel is from.

R.I.P. T.O. Jimmy. Hey, he says. Walked into the office, spotted my friend, and yelled in front of many co-workers, quote, this guy's some can a piss. The office grew silent as I stared at a sea of dismayed faces, including my friend whose face expressed anger and disrespect. I explained how it's an Irish term of endearment, which complicated things further since I'm not a drop of Irish by heritage or nationality,

all of which is to say, welcome back. That's lovely. Yesterday, by the way, Hamza Shira's dropping a piss take on us, He said he felt like it was a piss take from the WBO, so I thought that was a knot. I know you had some stuff yesterday, so is everything okay because you couldn't join us? Yeah, I don't want to get into it right now, but, you know, getting back on track slowly. Peace and love. Some A.O. shit, like, I don't know.

He told me to get fucked yesterday. Let's be honest here. Ariel told me. Not true. That's what happened. There's nothing wrong with me. I was ready. I was like this.

No. Waiting by the computer. He said, not today, mate. Not today. Joe Mers says, Hi, Arilyn Lads. Sorry to harp on the Dean Thomas stuff,

but I thought John Anna came out as even more of a legend than he already is. Seems like a proper top lad, one that you'd have a few pints with. With that said, which five lads slash lasses in MMA excluding media would you say are best to go for a few swills with? Swills is what? Like a grandpa's old cough medicine type of thing?

What's a swill? Just a drink. Just a drink. Like a gulp. Quick update on Dean Thomas since he brought it up. And yes, shout out to John Attic. I mean, not easy to kind of, I don't want to say call out a colleague, but certainly made his feelings known that he felt it was inappropriate.

And I think all of us feel the same. We gave you the update yesterday from Jillian Robertson. Yeah, just an awful, awful look, an awful turn of events. I did reach out to Dean Thomas. And I wanted to give him the opportunity to speak about it as well. And I said to him via text, look, I know you have plenty of places to speak about this. You don't need me. You don't need my platform.

You don't need to come on here. You can do it on your own show, which you did on Monday, which you did on Saturday. Essentially, I know the post show is in his own show, but it's his platform, if you will. I just wanted to give you that opportunity because we're talking about it. And we also talked to Gillian via text. He said, he replied to his credit said, thank you, but I'm good. Totally okay. I just wanted to give him that opportunity.

That's called journalism, my friends. I saw some people saying, oh, you're stirring the pop by reaching out to Gillian. No, that is exactly like quintessential journalism. Isn't that what journalism is? Yes, thank you, Jamal. Why would I just talk about something if I could, oh, I don't know, maybe reach out to the actual person who's affected by it and get their POV, see how they feel, get the timeline of events, get the story straight, and then report it back to you. That's exactly what the job is. So I know I have to keep reminding people of that because that word has become almost bastardized and evolved over the years, but that's what it is.

That's the gig. I heard that she had found out about this just like all of us, meaning in the locker room, the show was playing, and that's kind of how she found out about all of this. All right, now we know about the timeline, and then he said he's going to talk about it the next day, and then he talks about it on the show, and then he reaches out and the voice note,

all that stuff and more. What I missed, what I missed, which I think is notable, is that later in that Deepwater's show, someone asked us about this, or at least mentioned it in the, super chat yesterday. Later in that show, about 90 minutes in, almost exactly 90 minutes in, they start talking about Gabriel Bonfim versus Sean Brady.

Sean Brady, another fighter that he coaches and corners as well. And Dean, on the show, says to Masvedal, Pori and Wyden, they're like, oh, yeah, you're not going to corner him, right? Like, no, I'm going to corner him. And then they're like, what? We were just trying to, like, defend you and figure that. And now you're saying you're going to corner him. didn't you just retire from cornering?

And then he makes a joke about cash app and let's see and all that. But initially it seems like he's being very serious that he's going to corner Sean Brady, which then, like, you can see their collective heads explode. My head is exploding looking at this. Like, wait a second, you just said you're done. You said you want nothing to do with this anymore. She's gone as far as you can take her. You think she can go.

You're done with it. You just want to focus on the media stuff and all that. But you're going to corner Sean Brady in November. What is that? Now it just feels personal against. Jillian, who you've been with for 15 years as as coach, trainer, cornerman, and fighter. Very bizarre. So go check that out for yourself.

But I thought that that was weird and also didn't get like clipped off. I didn't see that posted anywhere. I know there's a ton of aggregators these days. But I thought that that was a really interesting like, I don't know, nugget in the aftermath of all this. Anyway, going back and I'm not trying to harp on it, but just trying to get the full picture here. Going back to the question, five lads slash lasses in MMA excluding media to get a few pints with? Who do we say? Who's a fun time?

I mean, there's so many. Precious. Sal killed. Salkild, yep. DDP feels like he could put a few back. I mean, we see him after the winds. You're rifling these off. You're right?

Sugar? Oh, I'd go out with sugar. Yeah. Here's one, Roy Val. I feel like that would be fun. Interesting, okay. Raw dog. Raw dog, for sure.

I'm for a reason. Josh Van? Cool guy. Yeah. How about Moikano? Moikano would be incredible. Yeah, you kind of need someone who's going to give you some stories

who's going to be a little bit fun. But isn't like too crazy. Yeah. He's not going to get completely like off the rails. Go on, let's hear it. Oban Elliott. That'd be a good one. That'd be a good one.

Actually, let's just stay over there. I'd go ahead and get a few brews with Paul Hughes. Paul Hughes? Paul Hughes, I feel like he's a little more mellow. Paul Hughes wants one or two, get a little... He gets a burrito? No? Okay, okay.

Oh, he can pack him out. That's what I'm saying. He thinks he's going out for a few, and then once we're three deep, Paul's like, you know what, fuck it. John Valenti? Yeah. Go ahead.

I was going to say, like, if you catch him on that fight, no, if he wins, like he's pretty much going to go straight back in the camp the week after, but those couple of days, it's a feast. Okay. Ty. Ty. Tycho Ivos.

Oh, Tycho Ivanovich. Yes. Jambahovic. Jamblovich would be fun. Yes. All right, there you know. More stories. Yeah, I mean, that's like nine or ten.

Wyden, I think, would be fun as well. I was going to say Poria, but maybe not anymore. No, no. Let's get Arnold Allen out there. Arnold, Arnold, would be fun. Yes, I feel like Tommy Boy would be fun. Tom Aspinall? I feel like Tom would be incredible.

The problem is when they're not big, don't really get drunk, you know what I mean? It's just fill their legs up. They're just like, I'm fucking fine. Chris Fields. No, no. Chris. Bail's right amount for a point. Just getting him to go home is the problem.

Yeah. Matt Moe. So, Ariel, PFL CEO, now MVP, MMA CEO. John Martin has stated that he was one day away from announcing a rebrand of PFL back to Beltoor. And then he heard your comments saying it was a bad idea in which he then pulled the plug on it. Did he actually say that? Well, we're about to find out.

My question is, when speaking to CEOs like John Martin, Scott Coker, are you cognizantly aware when giving suggestions of the weight that your opinion carries? You are quite literally shaping the future of billion dollar companies. Thanks for all that you do. I don't know if that's true, by the way. I feel that. When you're saying things, they're like, one of the interns better be writing this shit down. When he's given us this a voice.

I genuinely think that that's greatly beneficial to him. He did. And you've seen. I heard that they were thinking about it. And then I did ask him about it. And I did tell him how I felt about it. And then it seems like after that, I think Nikisa heard about it. And then the ball got rolling.

So maybe by. like, I don't know, by proxy, something happened, but it wasn't something that I was consciously trying to sway one way or the other. It's just my opinion, you know? But it's nice. Thank you. Thank you, Matt Moe. Jamal 2020.

Did you meet up with Max when you were in Hawaii? I didn't get the invite to the golf tournament. I didn't meet up with them. Max lives in Wainai, which I believe is on the big island. So you guys have to understand. There's actually like, there's eight islands, but there's really like 113. I do believe. There's a lot of little ones.

Did you guys know there's only 13 letters in the alphabet? Yeah, you said that one yesterday. Why not is an Oahu, by the way? Oahu, which is right next to Kona, which is on the big island. Rick, don't, Hawaii Mug him now. Don't mug him on Hawaii yet. He said that was such disdain, huh? I did.

I've just tried to get you guys the facts. The king? I don't want to, King Kamakamea? Kamamaama. Kamaama'amaya. That's the one that BJ used to go to, right? The big statue? Oh, what happened?

Yeah, yeah. The big statue, yeah. He used to go in front of the statue. Was he the most mentioned for it over there? Max, would you say? You were asked about most? Hell yeah. In the news, it was probably Max and Kendall Grove.

The Kendall Grove thing, drives me on it. That's crazy. Yeah, the spider. No, Max for sure. Everyone loves Max. They would always say, like, oh, Max loves this. Max, I asked the guy at the hotel, like, where can I get good pokey at a grocery store?

Go to Foodland. Great. Max loves it. Like it was always like the confirmation that it was good. It's the endorsement. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know you're in good hands because Max, Max. Yeah, the butter mochi.

Food on is a great name. The butter mochi. The butter mochi. Yo, you roll up in that place. Sandals. Sand on your, on your leg. You get, you grab a butter mochi. You say, hey, hey, hey, sister, give me one of them.

Give me one of them. If you said that in Foodland, I don't know what would happen. Give me one of them spicy Hawaiian poquets, huh? I know you walked in and you were like, excuse me, could I just have one of the spices? Nah, sister. We need to start sending Casey where I go to these vacations. Can we do an uncrowned trip to Hawaii? Can that be the next meeting?

Can that be? It's a long-ass flight. Nah, it's all good. It's a long-ass-off. Don't have the budget for the sunblock that I'll need if we go over there. So good. So good over there. It's like a 17-hour flight for Pizzi.

What angle do you even come from? Do you go west? Do you go east? Same as Vegas. I was going to say, I mean, it's so far. Yeah, you'd probably have to go to L.A., which is a pain in the butt, and then the connector. Look, if you don't want to go, pizza, it's all good, it's a long flame? What are we doing out there specifically?

We're just, we're loving life. It's about the Ohana, it's about the Mahalo. You know, when you fly to Kauai, you don't fly to Kauai, you fly to Lahui. Because I looked at the thing, I'm like, wait a second, I'm not going to this place. La Jolla. I don't know how to pronounce it. How far from the airport to the hotel? airport to the hotel

35 minutes but the driver was great he was telling me all about Zuckerberg training with like Marab there he's like oh there's fighters I guess he lives around there so he was telling me all about that we spoke about you know Brad Tavares

a little bit so yeah it's just like it's just trying to get on the island by Brad Tavares talk I'm all in on no if you knew Kendall Grove you wouldn't be that wild no that was a different guy that was the waterfall hike guy that was Waterfall Hike

I know it's just a Brad Tavaris It's just, you know. Oh, here's a good one. Austin, hi, Ariel and the boys. Hope you guys had a great vacation break. On that topic, where is everyone's favorite place to go on vacation? Thanks for all the great content, as always. I mean, hard to beat Hawaii these days, you know?

I don't know. I don't know. I know Ptie likes to go where, down south there in Cork. Gary. No, if I was picking somewhere to go, if I had to go to one country for the rest of my life on vacation, it would probably be Italy, honestly. Okay.

Oh, yeah. You love that. There's going to Hawaii for sure. Hawaii. Hawaii. It's going to Hawaii. GC, I think, is going to Savannah, Georgia. Not a bad town.

It's not a bad town. I don't really have many repeat offenders. Yeah. Most of the time I just go once. And then you're done. Yeah. I think Andy wants to move to Ireland, she told us. My brother really wants to move.

Brother, yeah. Do you have a spot, Andy? I really loved Hawaii, too. There you go. Big Island though. I didn't go where you guys were going on. Yeah. Frank, Frank, I think, loves Houston, Texas, right?

East Town. Where are you originally from again? Are we allowed to say this? Yeah, Houston. No, no, no, like, originally, originally. You're son of a bitch. What? You don't want to, like, see, like, your bloodline.

Are we not allowed to talk about this? RIPTO, Jimmy. All right. He means no disrespect. Jordan? looks to go to the beach on Long Island. I mean, it's hard to go on vacation when you live in vacation world. That's right. No, you're right.

That's what they call it. Long Island. Vacation world. El Peruano says, Ola Ariel, a lot of Spanish on today's show. Questions for G.C. and Pizzi. G.C., when you're starting BJJ, never too late. I started at 37. I'm now 41. Fuck, respect. I wonder what kind of belt he has at this point. Didn't Casey just get his purple belt?

Yeah. Congratulations, Casey. TBD on the BGAJ. Working on it? Working on it. Pizzi, how far did you get ever thinking of going back? Grazias and so glad all of you are back after a well-deserved rest. You know, I appreciate that because a lot of people gave us shit for the rest.

They're like, oh, you guys take too many vacations. Listen, we have to recharge at times, all right? Pizzi, tell us. Yeah, I mean, you get the feeling you want to go back because you're obviously so much fitter and then you realize like all all the guys I was beating up are going to beat the shit out of me and I did dabble my toe a few times I did and I got the shit knocked out of me and my ego just wasn't ready for it I wasn't ready for the ego death and it was going to be substantial amount of time that I needed to get back you know what I mean it was going to be it was going to be three

days a week easy like for for a year I'd say not even to get back just to start competing again your pro gets a better you know what I mean um I'm I'm at this stage, I just don't think I would. I think it's just, BJJ is like, it's, people are so transfixed on it. And when you're training,

it's just, it's constant. Like it becomes a complete obsession. And we've seen it with like Casey, right? Casey started very late, but he's completely obsessed. Even before he was training,

he was obsessed with the idea of training. I just don't think I could ever get back to that level of obsession, honestly. And I was, I was really into it, you know? I was, I was a nerd.

I was kind of, I kind of cringe. Sometimes, like, Facebook posts pop up, and you're talking about fucking 50-50 guard, like everyone on your fucking, your timeline wants to hear this shit, you know what I mean? And you're like,

I'm a bit embarrassed about it, actually. But I am jealous of all the lads who kept on. They're all still doing great there in the Royal Grapplin Academy. Unbelievable Jim, Roger Dardis, and Paul Fox to Marcelo Garcia, Blackbelts now.

Unbelievable. I wish, it's part of me wishes I didn't stop, but part of me is like, nah, I'm pretty happy I did. Would you ever go back? No, I don't think so

No Here is Troy who says Hello everyone I was wondering Is this TST? I don't know If anyone could tell me Some information about the upcoming

BKFC event Coming up on the 29th At Fenway Park Might check out Doesn't you live around there This is definitely TST It's got to be My girlfriend

Oh it's TSD We gotta get the frag in there We get it there Congrats Congrats It was It was We were on the fence

up until my girlfriend. Oh, yeah. Got us tickets for our anniversary? That might be too soon, right? Isn't the girlfriend new? Monthaversory, maybe. Maybe it's a... Yeah, it could be like a two month, yeah?

We can't wait to go. We watch the UFC more than anything and seen clips of BKFC, but don't know much about the organization or fighters. Thank you guys. Also, this is our first live event. First live event as a couple. Yeah.

It would be. Yeah, okay, fair enough. It's a great, great atmosphere. It's a great show, great energy. I don't know what's going to be like. That's next weekend. at Fenway, but I think it's going to be a scene. I was talking to someone about it here in the back.

It's like Fenway Park's at American Institution, and then you've got BKFC, burnt knuckle. Feels like a nice sort of, you know, blending of the two Americas. It's sick, man. BKFC is just doing cool stuff. Yeah. I'm excited for the interns to do BKFC.

Oh, yeah. The cruise in January. On Crown Film. Yeah. Here's Roboto, who says, Hi, Ariel, I just moved to Ireland. And everywhere I go, I hear someone sounding like PT. Thanks to him, I know what Blue means here.

Questions for y'all, don't you think it's unfair to consider Islam better than Habib? Why? More title defenses, two-way classes, all that stuff and more. Considering Habib barely lost a round without never risking to lose a single fight. Glycantibau? But yes, I mean, like the level of competition is much greater. Islam had a lot of short notice fights

Dober, green, Arm and Hooker, Vogue 2, fair. Risk to lose a couple rounds, fine, thanks for your content as always, peace and love. I mean, no wrong answer. Yeah. Right? I don't know. One guy's undefeated, one guy's not.

It's also, like, Habib means more in a way because he was the first one, right? Like, he kind of opened the door that Islam walked through to a degree, and that's not answering the question because we're not talking about who's a better fighter in that sense. But I feel like it's impossible to kind of just talk about these guys in terms of their record. Like, Habib was so much more than that, you know?

And Islam has become that too, but I just don't think there's a Habit, like, there isn't Islam without Habib, you know what I mean? That's fair. But then if you're actually putting the two resumes side by side, I... Yeah, it's Islam. Yeah, I feel like it's Islam. It's definitely Islam. By the way, want to give a shout out to our eBay auction that is live right now. Half the proceeds going to cancer fighters, the other half going to Yuanian Jacek's charity out in Poland.

Every single guest that joined us, International Fight Week, both pre and post, the likes of Mayhem Miller and Yuanian Jacek herself, John Annik, who else was there? John Wood. Robert Whitaker, Paula Costa. Yes, all those names and more. Plus the whole crew signed that bad boy. you can bid on it from now until Wednesday, I do believe. So the link... Monday.

Oh, right, right, right. 2 p.m. next Monday. So the link right now is live in our chat. It's pinned. Please do contribute 1,000% of all the money generated is going to go to those charities, 50-50. So very happy to do that. And thank you to everyone who signed it for us and who... visited us when we were at the Venetian sports book just a couple of weeks ago. That was such a

great time. Okay, okay. Stu Law, who says, hi, team, hope you all enjoyed your break, but please don't do that again. Them two weeks I spent driving in the gym were boring as F. Oh, spent driving slash in the gym, we're boring as F without the AA show. Sorry, my man. We're back. It's going to happen again. It's going to happen again. Next one, though, Christmas break. quick question which three scheduled fights are you most looking forward to mine are Joshua Van

versus Pantoja Sarukian versus Hufi Derek Lewis versus I'm reading it verbatim Frank's mom's juicy juicy hoop

Oh Jesus That's an Irish I feel like you need to read them Juicy Hoos Guaranteed Irish Crazy God Lord We're mad for hoops

I'm clipping this off at sending it to me It's not a bad three, though. It's not a bad three. It's not a bad three. Marabion three, though, I'd replace with Armandhoof. What is a juicy hoop? Oh, Jesus. It's a voluptuous arse. Oh, okay. Okay. Is that an accurate description, Frank, or is it inaccurate? You know, it's been a minute. Okay, okay, yes, yes. I'll get back to you. Okay, I mean, a little inappropriate, if I'm being honest, but...

Just to ask me if my mom's ass. I'm out for reading it. I just wanted to know... what I said was accurate. That's all. He's a journalist. Yes. Do not let this man around Mrs. Lent. Abay says, Hey, Ariel,

why do I get the feeling UFC are getting ready to put Usman or Magamatoff straight into a title fight? And on that note, rank, no blindfold, these five matchups for Usman if when he joins,

from most to least interesting. Usman versus Gaichi, Usman versus Ilya, Usman versus Army Hoofee winner, Usman Quinlan, Usman Olavera, Usman Max, much love your boy, Bay.

Off the jump? I mean, Gaichi off the jump, title fight off the jump. The most interesting one, of course, is a total fight. Yeah, I know,

but like, I'd love to see him against Max. I'd love to see him against Charles. Quinlan, sign me up. I loved all these fights. Every single one. Quillan?

Quillan, yeah, he wrote Quinlan. Quillin's all killed. Yeah, where do you get Quinlan from? Anyway, sign me up for all. If I want to see him actually tested in what I think is the most significant way, it's Armand for me.

I would like to see what Armin could do against Usman. I'd like to see if Usman could... God, we've got to get Armament. I know, man. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. Gae's right there, too, though. I would love to see Gaichi versus Usman.

I think that's a fantastic... Incredible. But the fact that he's champion makes it a little bit tough, right? You can give Usman. a title shot. I would have zero issue with Usman. Nah, he can't pass Armin. That's that bullshit. Let Armin go for me. People have though.

Yeah, but by the way, he can. Armand is fighting Hoofie for God knows what reason. By the way, I'm okay with him getting a number one contender fight. You know what? Usman versus Hoofie would have been fun. Yeah. I'm okay with him getting a number one contender fight, but not a title fight off the jump. No way. It's crazy. Don Bernetti. I know it's not, but only because Armourne's not.

If Armin's there. If Armin wasn't there, I would have been totally okay with it. But there's also a risk, by the way, because, you know, if he goes into the UFC and wins the belt, now I'll have some PFL could be like, yo, told you, our guy was the best. I mean, that happened with Kayla. Nobody's like, UFC. Not off the jump. Wasn't first fight. Was it one fight? Two fights? I think it was one. One. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean. No, it's two. Holly Holman and Kettlon Biera. Yeah. It's a hollow victory for PFL at that point. Yeah. I don't think that does. If Kayla Harrison didn't get a title shot off rip, I don't think Oussman is. Especially at 155. I know Kaya Sokora got one at 1.25.

Kaya Sokora got a title shot. At 125 though, 125. Pan told you had cleared everyone out multiple times over. They were like, please, God, can someone fight this guy? Come on over, Kaiasakora. 155 is deep, man. I like the idea of a champion from another org coming in and getting one. I don't think this will happen, but I do like that idea quite a bit actually. I do as well.

Yeah, I do. Feels old school. No. I'm out. I like it too. They just historically don't do those things. even like when Eddie Alvarez came over they didn't do it who else

they did it with the pride guys they did it with Gil Melendez but those are guys like they own those organizations they own those organizations right so it was different than taking it from someone else and then validating them they own strike force they own pride at that point do you know what I mean so it's a little bit different

all right what else we got a few more minutes here and then we'll go to John Martin who's joining us in studio Don Burnetti who says, Hi, Ariel, is the UFC a major factor in the recent increased amount of finishes in recent events? Does this stem from the UFC incentives, favorable matchmaking, or just a coincidence? What do you guys think? Who's to check? Is it the 100K bonus?

Is it just a good stretch? Sometimes there's good stretches. Sometimes there's not, you know? Yeah, I wouldn't chalk it up to anything other than odd statistics, chance, probability. it's hard to say. It's really hard to say. It might just be a good stretch. Here's Biggie Smalls who says,

glad to have you guys back, but I need to air something out. Listening to you, Chuck and Pizzi on the post-fight show, question why Ian Gary hasn't won over fans truly puts into question your grasp of the sport.

Nothing he does seems authentic at all. Putting a lot of the absolute cringe he set aside, he spent fight week telling reporters what they can and can't ask him. then spent the fight hugging and patting Islam on the head. Well, he didn't spend the fight. He was doing that in between rounds, but all right, fine.

And even in his post-fight interactions with Morales rubbed me the wrong way. Seemed like something the winner would have done. Am I crazy here? You're not crazy, but you're also saying that us talking about, like, his fans or lack of fans, calls into question our grasp of the sport. What does that have to do with the sport? You're talking about an individual. You're talking about someone rubbing you the wrong way with their mannerisms, with

their personality. That's nothing to do with the sport. Please don't confuse the two. So I can understand you don't want to cheer for the guy maybe because you don't like him. But like, let's give him his props and say he fought a great fight in my opinion, could have done more in my opinion, could have even won that fight, and it's one of the best welterweights in the world. Now, you don't like the way he talks on the microphone. You don't like the way he talks to reporters. You don't like the way he talks to fighters in the back. That's fine. But I think one has nothing to do with the other. There are others like Rick who say, like, this is all very authentic. And this is who he is. What is inauthentic about that?

He didn't say anything that seemed inauthentic to me. The interactional morale is he didn't like it. Does that mean that's inauthentic? The talking to reporters, that's not something other people would traditionally do. He did it. Ian seems to be this guy that like he rubs people the wrong way. And I totally am aware of that. I'm not ignorant to that.

But I think he rubs people the wrong way by being himself. That's how I ultimately feel about it. And I think he's exactly who he says. he is. Like he's exactly who he claims to be. So just like, go ahead, go ahead. Not for nothing. Like, I've been talking about Ian not having backing in Ireland

for a very long time. Yeah. I don't think these people like, he, he's annoyed because we're not insulting Ian Gary. Right. Like we're talking about the situation, him not getting track and him, him being the kind of tographer, the most vitriol from the UFC fan base.

Because of the things we've said, he is rubbing people up the wrong way since he got to the promotion. But because we aren't coming on here and saying, oh, fuck him and blah, blah, blah, that's what you guys want to hear. That's where you're getting upset. You're not going to get that here because that's not what we do. But like to say that we haven't talked about in rubbing the people the wrong way since he's pretty much come to the UFC, that's just bullshit. We are just not saying the things you want to hear. That's the problem. And that is actually quite often the problem with these things. Like with a whole bunch of other topics. But to this topic, yeah,

you're 100% right. Just because it's not the way you want to live or what you would do or what you like, doesn't mean he's being inauthentic. I think we've seen enough of Ian at this point to know that this is him. Now, you may not like that. You may not jive with that. You may not feel like that's like a cool way to live your life. You may be more of a quillin type of guy or a sugar kind of guy or even an Islam or a Habib type of guy. That's fine. But he's a really good fighter and I kind of feel like we know who he is at this point. Now it's up to you to decide. And it's fine to be a fan and be like, I don't like his personality. So that means I don't like him as a fighter. Like that, that friend who texts me being like, I hate this guy. And I'm like, well, why do you hate him? Well, because

of X, Y and Z. All right, fine. But you have to acknowledge that you kind of need people like him in the sport, in my opinion. You really do. One of the most talked about fighters on the roster. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like that's, that's the reality situation. And it's not, it's not positive. The vast majority of it is not positive. But yeah, to say that we aren't acknowledging that is absolutely fucking crazy to me. Here's Chris who says, hey, Ariel and the Boys, I'm headed to UFC Sacramento this weekend. Might rep the Heawani shirt again. Thank you, my man. Arielwhani.com. Limited supplies. We're working on replenishing and bringing out some new supplies, some new designs, things of that nature. Who the fuck is we? Well, it's kind of just me at this point,

but it would be nice to have your help, Frank, if you're willing. I don't know if that was your... Hang with the boys! Who's to check, he says? Who's to check? Man, that fight card is thin, eh? Yeah, it's a bit thin. Some might say it's literally tough.

How'd we get stuck with hosting the tough finale and being robbed of more UFC vets on this car? G.C., please give me a breakdown of this season of tough, so I don't have to endure much love from California. Please, G. The floor is yours. Yeah. I mean, it's going to be...

It's going to be good one in Sackdown this weekend. Yeah. It'll be a fight. It's going to be a fight out there. Okay. Can you, other than the main, oh, are you looking at it right now? I'm actually trying to figure out which one is the tough. Okay, but you're looking, I was going to say, other than the main, can you name a single other fight on the card?

Rainier de Ritter. Yeah. Which is Roman DeLite, which I talked about. Oh, Lehion Douglas fighting. Yeah. Rick's guy. Yeah. Coach, talk about getting back into BJJ.

My coach, Taco Padilla. fighting on the card against Nasrod Harkparas. Your coach. My coach, baby. Let's go. Coach Taco! Yeah.

It is tough. Yeah, I mean... Mason Jones. Mason Jones. Mason Jones. Whenever you got Sergey Spivak in a combane. It's tough. It's tough.

It's tough. Charlie Judis? Why don't just let Gable Stevenson run through them all? Just line up those heavyways. Look, Gable Steven's got to focus on Sean Chiraph on September 19th, okay? It's a big test. Big test. Four and two, Sean Sharaff, big test.

Shamil Ghaziev, Gazeev, Kennedy and Zichiku, Jamal Emmerz? He would fight you, that. Yeah, I think Jamal Emers is fighting with Hayon Douglas. Me and Rick fell in love in Seattle with him. Is he? Oh, yeah, he is.

He is. That's right. Krispy Carly Judees. I was just going to say that. I was just going to say that. Mark Hel Mederos? Who's Markell fighting, P.C.? Mason Jones.

Yeah, okay, I just wants to make sense. It's a great arena, by the way. The Golden One Center? Yeah. Light the beam. Light the beam. Everyone loves that. Enjoy yourself.

Have a great time. Let us know. What's that? What'd you say? Nothing. You said, yo, yo, yo, yo. I don't know what I was talking about. Pizza, you okay, man?

Yeah, is everything all right? Pete's all right? Is it the Hailstone? Pizzi? What is wrong with you? Are you okay, Pete? What is happening? I don't know.

Just blink if you're all right, man. heard that too. It sounded like Pizzi was like, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo. Yeah, I think he was saying by to Frank because he knew we were wrapping up and it was a bit of a premature goodbye. I'm all about the premature stuff. Let me tell you. Let me tell you. We'll see you next week, man. Thanks for everything. Yeah, it was a good. Thank you for stopping by. All right. Goodbye, Pizzi. Still to come, Mike Perry, Dylan Danis, face off to Fima Lopez. going to join us also

Edson Barbosa but very, very excited to say hello to our first guest of the day kind enough to join us once again in studio. I love these in studio chats and we've got a lot to talk about with the PFL CEO soon to be MVP MMA CEO

Mr. John Martin is here to give us all the goods. Is he in fact here? Yes, he is back. This has been almost like a reoccurring theme for us, a state of the union. Nice to see you too.

Nice to see you too. Nice to see you. Thank you for coming. We always appreciate it. L.A. and New York, by the way, right? Where are you spending more time these days? Split, split, but I consider New York home. Okay, because I saw you with... The last time I saw you was... L.A., and then I saw you was Saka Kibara in L.A. as well, right? Yes. He said he visited you and all that stuff. Yes.

So we'll talk about all that, but there's some big news to talk about off the jump. I'm a little offended, by the way. If you might just bring the microphone here, they get met, yes. Yeah, we kind of wanted the scoop, you know? Where'd you go? Wall Street Journal or something? What are they done that we haven't done for you guys? We cover you on the daily here. In fact, some might even say all of this started on this program, right? It did all start.

Tell me the story. Tell me the story. That's right. That's right. So the last time I was here in New York, which I think was in March maybe. Yeah, yeah. You out of nowhere brought up this idea possibly rebranding the PFL. Because I was hearing whispers.

Right. Yeah. And I also, I tend to tell the truth when people ask me targeted questions. So I said, well, in fact, we are looking at it because we were. And there were a number of different brand names that we were testing and doing some work on. One was Bellator. Everybody jumped to the conclusion that we're going to rename the company Bellator again. But in fact, it was going through.

So anyway, I left here. And Nekisa Bedarian, a co-founder of MVP, hit me up with a text. And he said, listen, watched you on Ariel. By the way, thank you for saying some nice things about their May 16th event, which I did, which I meant. and he said, look, if you're thinking about rebranding the PFL, why don't we talk? Because there's a bigger idea here. And the irony of that was because I had been thinking about something similar. I was going to reach out to him. But I was going to wait until after the May 16th event. I wanted to see how that went. And then I thought, you know, I had been looking at what was happening in the

combat sports landscape with the big UFC deal with Paramount, with UFC moving into boxing with Zufa. Everything in the Turkey Alashik has been doing in boxing. bringing a lot of capital inflows, putting on some of the biggest cultural moment events in boxing in the last decade plus. And then I was looking at what MVP was doing. And what they were doing was really interesting to me because they weren't doing what we were doing. But they had a very strategic relationship with Netflix. And they had Jake Paul. They had big events on the biggest video platform in the world, which I know you were involved in. And I thought it was pretty interesting because immediately what I saw is Jake is a bit of a unicorn. I mean,

he's an athlete, a global content creator. He's one of the most recognizable names in the world. He can catch attention in a way that very few human beings can. And then with what Nekisa had done in terms of building these really interesting events with big stars, legends, and bringing in massive numbers on Netflix. So they really, well beyond what would be considered hardcore combat sports fans and they were reaching casual fans. And we were unable to do anything like that. But we had a world-class roster of MMA fighters. We have a global infrastructure. We have partnerships with 34 media partners around the world. We have all the revenue monetization capabilities already set up.

So what I thought they were going to struggle with is if they wanted, wanted to move more deeply into mixed martial arts, how do they build a roster quickly, how do they finance that, how long is that going to take? That's going to put increasing competition in the marketplace for fighter talent. And I said, we have all of that. But what we need is to elevate our brand. We need to get casual fans to realize who we are. And wouldn't it be great to partner with that attention-getting organization? I thought it was a way to accelerate our company, the PFL and their company. And Nikisa was beat me to the punch, but he was thinking about the same thing.

So when he said, I think there's a bigger play here. I called him up immediately. I said, where are you? He said, I'm in London. I said, great, I'm getting on a plane tomorrow. Come on. And I invited, and he accepted Sudeep Ramnani, who's our principal investor along with his cousin Jay at Sportybet.

and through, well, they founders of Sporty Bet, but their investment arm is called 885 Capital. And so Sudeep was in Spain, so he flew and met me, and we met with the Kesa. I think I sat with Nikisa the first time for about six hours. Come on.

And we went round and round, and the idea from a strategy standpoint, I think made sense to all of us immediately. So then it was just a question of, I wanted to get to know him better. I think he wanted to get to know me better. He said he remembered. me from the 2016 sale process of the UFC, which he did from his perch as the CFO there.

And I think the idea started to get momentum from that day. I left his offices in London and traveled with Sudeep back to Spain because we had some business to do down there and just talking through it with him for another day. And we started to see just, okay, what would it mean for the sport, what would it mean for the future of our company? In many ways, you'd be derisking somewhat an ability to succeed, possibly de-risk it on their side as well. And we started to get really excited about this idea that we could really solidify a number two position in combat sports with a real path and trajectory, with a differentiated idea, product, vision. And we could really only do that together.

And if we tried to do it at a PFL, it would be hard to do. It would take a long time. If they tried to do it at MVP, hard to do. It would take a long time. And so that's really the idea. So then we took, we tried to get a deal done and announced before May 16th, which would have been pretty spectacular. Yeah.

We just couldn't get it done at time. So we decided to pause for a moment, let that go by. I was in the event arena. I said hello to you. I don't know if I remember. Of course. But I was a guest of, of Nikisa and Jake.

And so I was there. I took it all in. There was 16,500 people in the arena. It was a very entertaining card. And I thought it was a card that checked a lot of boxes for a lot of different fans, right? You had Saladin Parnas, who emerged as a real fantastic fighter. In fact, I wish we had them versus UFC. But then you had Francis who still looks amazing.

And then you had Gina and Rhonda with the iconic fight at the main event and Nate against Mike, which was a fun fight. So I thought the event was really, really terrific, but I thought, again, that the PFL fighter roster could help energize that and bring it to another level. And so that was really the idea. And so we just kept at it.

I mean, these deals take on a life of their own. Sometimes, you know, you get caught up on little tricky things, but I'm excited. I'm really energized. Now we're saying internally, like now the hard work starts. Of course.

There's the promise, but now we have to put it into practice. So I think we've set a realistic timetable, which is like, listen, we're going to come out with the new MVP product, really, to kick off 2027. We're in discussions with U.S. media partners, potential partners, and those are ongoing. I don't have much that I can comment on here. But it's encouraging. And I think there's a genuine enthusiasm to a higher level than we had previously in both organizations. And now that I've gotten to meet a lot of the employees,

at MVP. It's a small company. Yeah. But I realize they've got some really talented folks there and already getting together and integrating and we've got to figure out how to work with one another. I have to learn the boxing business, really, which I'm just coming at. I'm a fan from the time I was a little kid, but it's a different business. So I'm enjoying doing that. And I think, you know, I look forward to really working together to do something fun for the fans and the fighters. And I know Jake and Nikis have made it a big point.

over and over and over again to put the fighter first. And I think that's a really interesting perspective. It's easy to say, hey, we're a fighter first organization. But then the question is, what does it really mean when you put it into practice? And so we're coming up with kind of like, well, what does it mean? And how are we going to lay it out? How are we going to define it? Because we do want to be a place where fighters want to come and feel respected and feel valued.

I have a million follow-ups. Just curious, as an aside, if this didn't happen, if he didn't call you, or you guys didn't come to what do you think the name would have ended up being? I don't know. Would it have been, Bellator? It may have been.

It may have just stayed professional fighters. That was an option as well. Yes. Okay, there wasn't a part of you that thought it has to change? There was a part of me that said it'd be good to change. Okay. I do think the brand had suffered a lot of damage

in the past, not to go back and belabor the past. But I think we were coming into, and I was seeing, even in my first several months of being here, knocking on a lot of doors. Some people just didn't want to open the door because they just, they were thinking about what it was. Right. So from that perspective, having a fresh start, and I know Sudeep as one of the lead shareholders shared that, and he said it'd be great to

sort of signal that this is a new start, a fresh beginning. And Bellator had some positives. It had some negatives. I know what your view was, which was not positive. But there was some other ideas that we had too. But this, thankfully, I mean, this is a reboot and a rebrand, but on sterile. and then some. I mean, the fact that the only other thing I would say that we shared the same vision on, and it's something that I started thinking about last fall, is I do believe the future of combat sports is going to be the ability to offer athletes multiple ways to earn a living, meaning that if somebody wants to come in and fight and boxing, they should be able to. And if somebody wants to do MMA, they should be able to. And if we have some hybrid crossover stand up with

four ounce gloves or something like we can explore any and all of that. And I think MVP introduced that concept to me watching their events and seeing these old MMA legends, you know, big, huge names, boxing. And you do realize it's a different sport. But it's good to see that there's additional outlets to continue to earn a living and stay in fans' minds. Can you explain for us for the audience? My understanding was MVP was Nikisa and Jake, right?

PFL has investors, there's a board, Sadipe, as you mentioned, his cousin J 885. Nighthead. Exactly. So did PFL take over MVP? I know PFL's becoming MVP, but what's the breakdown here? No, it's really, we haven't disclosed the financial terms. Yes, can you, please?

It's a private company. No better place than here. We're not going to do it. I figured you would say that. But for all intents and purposes, it really is a merger. And it's hard with these early stage companies, to place a value on it, right? And beauty is always in the eye of the beholder.

I think my kids are better looking than your kids. So we sort of saw through that early on and said, this is really about the strategic upside. How do we put these two companies together? And let's not worry about too much about whether there's value being left on either side. Because the fact of the matter is, if we succeed, nobody's going to worry about what these companies were initially valued at. So it really is a merger.

I think the first phone conversation I had with Nicky said before I left to go to London, he said my view is that PFL should take the MVP name. I said, done. It was that easy. Yeah. It was that easy. That was one of the reasons why I was interested. Sure, sure, sure, sure.

And so as of now, you're the PFL CEO, you will be the CEO of MVP. I think technically I'm the CEO of MVP today because the deal is closed. But we haven't changed the products yet. So does that include the boxing business? Yes. Oh, wow. Yeah. But, but, but, listen, having partners, Jake and Nikisa, Nikisa and Jake invented this boxing

business. And they have quietly assembled the most formidable list of female boxers in the world. Nikisa wants to keep driving that business. I want him to work with him and keep driving that business. So we're going to together do that. Okay. What is his title? I know titles don't really matter, but like.

He's a co-founder, board member. and an advisor. Jake as well. Yeah, these guys are owners. Okay. They call. I pick up the phone. Yeah, yeah.

I understand. So now your plate got a lot more full. Yes. Wow. Okay. So I guess my understanding was MMA is your baby and boxing is his baby. Now it's you're overseeing all of it.

Yes. Yes. I know there's other people. Yes. I mean, I think the view shared by everybody. Because I, you know, full disclosure,

you know, as the CEO of the PFL, I thought my duty was to put the company in the best possible position to succeed. So when I came in a year ago, we had to raise capital. That was a four to five month process. We were able to do that, keep the company in pretty good financial shape, thankfully, with the support of our existing investors. The next thing is how do you strategically put the company in a better vessel, in a better

position to succeed? In my opinion, MVP was absolutely the right thing to do for both companies, but for the PFL side, for sure. So we've done that. So now it's like I would love to stay CEO and I'd love to be helpful to the extent that the board still wants me to be there. If and when they decide they don't want me to be there, I still feel good about whatever happened because I really did this because I loved the sport and I wanted to somehow participate

in the growth of the global sport. What a 13 months for you, by the way. You came in in July of last year, right? Yeah. So much has happened. A lot has happened. You probably didn't think it would happen this fast, right? All this stuff, unbelievable.

We've got a lot done. And don't forget, at the PFL, you know, we changed. Yeah. We moved away from the tournament. We changed the product. We introduced rankings. We sort of reintroduced a lot of the Bellator fighters that had been dormant for over a year, almost two years. You announced this on the Thursday before the Friday night event on Long Island.

And so you're there, boots on the ground. What was the feedback that you got from fighters as this was kind of trickling out? It's all been pretty positive. I think it's a curiosity to positive. Okay, okay. I haven't heard anybody come out and say this is terrible. Ultimately, as you know, you're only as good as your rights deal, right? You don't have a right steal in this business, you pretty much have nothing.

And so that's the big question now. To me, the most interesting story to follow for the next, what, four months in 2026 is that story. What will MVP? You don't have anything else to focus? That is the most interesting. To me, from a business perspective, I mean, this time last year was the UFC's deal that they announced around this time. Now it's this one because I'm wondering, and please tell us, since announcing this July 30th, have you gotten more calls?

Have you gotten more interest? Are doors opening that maybe we're closing? Yes. Your own current partner, are they more interested? ESPN, you've been quite vocal about being unhappy with the way they positioned the company this year. Do you feel more interest from them? What can you tell us about those talks? Yeah, I really don't want to disclose much here because it wouldn't be appropriate.

Sure. But I will share that between Nakisa and myself and. Jake has been part of it too, but I know between Nikisa and myself, within 24 hours of the announcement, six partners or potential partners reached out and said, hey, this looks big. Like, we'd love to make sure that we're engaging. Do you feel like you're in a much better spot now than a month ago before we do? Well, I'll feel better when it's done. Sure, sure.

And, you know, I don't walk around with an excessive amount of hubris. Like, now we have to deliver. I think we have a very, very interesting offering for distributors that, that, that, again, one of the benefits of being in our business is we don't walk in the door with a league format that we have to be on air Friday nights or Saturday, like it's a little bit of, you get a sense of what each distributor is trying to solve for, and then you figure out whether you can have a product offering that can match that. And so we're in the process of figuring that out. But there's been a renewed enthusiasm, and it's exciting. And we've,

got some more ideas that, again, that are non-traditional in nature as well. Can you tell us any? Well, I'll point just one that I think we're going to learn a lot. This Friday in Temecula, California, MVPW as a women's boxing event, it's a world championship fight with Amanna Serrano. In fact, Amanda Serrano is going for the knockout record. She beat Christy Martin if she gets a knockout on this fight. And her opponent is very tough. But it's the first time ever that there's going to be a live championship boxing event on TikTok. And it's going to be on the TikTok live format. Wild.

And this was not my idea. This was all cooked up at MVP before. But I love this idea, call it an experiment, as a way to say, okay, what MVP has done better than the PFL historically is it's gotten a younger audience. And that's part of Jake's influence. But it's also part the way they approach the business, the way they market, the way they use social media, which has been much more aggressive than the way we've used it in the past. So we're learning a lot from them.

But their average audience is younger. So what better platform to try to reach a massive younger audience than TikTok? So the thing, if you, if you're wearing a business hat and you're looking at the landscape of distribution partners, audience, fans, fighters, you kind of go, okay, well, more and more the younger audiences prefer to consume media and sports on alternative non-traditional platforms. That's not a very controversial statement. But the money is still here, over here, more on the traditional side. So the question is, how do you continue to superserve the traditional side and demonstrate

that there's value there for them to be with you and partner with you, but then not lose sight of where the future is? because if we establish a beachhead there, then you can do some really fun things. And so there's lots of ideas around that. But I think first and foremost, really interested to see how it goes on Friday. Excited for the fight.

I've been an Amanda Serrano fan for a long time as well. And then the day after we'll be in Tampa. For cyborgs. Retirement fight? Is it officially her retirement fight? Retirement from M.M.A. What is it? I thought it was.

But now she's left the door somewhat open. Okay. And so it's the last, it's a last fight on our current deal. Interesting. And it was my understanding up until only recently that it would be her retirement fight. So listen, I think, you know, we could talk for 45 minutes about her accomplishments in the sport, which I think don't get fully appreciated and recognized. But she has set the standard virtually everything. I mean, 29 and 2.

This is her 19th championship fight. she's been world champion and UFC Strike Force and Victor Bellator and PFL like she's done it all and Ketland Vieira is going to be a really tough opponent for her I was just saying this I think is her toughest test since she fought Larissa Pacheco and PFL in 2024 she's had five or six fights since Kellyn Vieira if this is her retirement fight is a doozy of a fight to go out on it is it is and to Chris's credit she was like I'll fight anybody And so we, it's not easy to find a fighter at her caliber and at her talent. So I think we may have, now we've got a really, really formidable competitor for her.

And if you're Chris, you want to go out as the legend, right? I mean, so she cares deeply about winning this fight. But Cat L'Auera, I mean, the best stories in sports sometimes are those kind of like people that knock off the legends. And those create memorable cultural moments. So I'm really excited about it. And I look forward to kind of celebrating Chris and her career when we're down at Tampa the next day or so. But then I know she said she's going to talk to her family and talk to her managers and the

people around her as to what she wants to do again. But, you know, I'd love to talk to her. And now that we're with MVP, if she wants to box what she's done some, maybe there's something there to do. Like I could come up with some interesting ideas there. So anyway, it's... I'm looking, I don't want to put too much in front. No, no, I understand.

Focus first and foremost on Tampa, see what happens there. And then, uh, and then we'll see what you wants to do. Back to the rights. Are you close with anyone? I'm not going to get into that. Okay. Because, you know, I, do you think you'll know before December? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay. I've listed to Dana where he kind of said they were close. They were close. They were close. And then Paramount came in like overnight. But you know what usually happens. Historically, Dana has always said, we're close to someone. And then someone else comes in and be, oh, 11th hour.

So it might be in your best interest to say you're close with someone. and then someone comes. We're close with knowledge. Okay. Can I ask you, the biggest one is Netflix? Are there talks with Netflix? There have been, yeah. Okay.

Yeah, but I'm not going to go beyond that. Okay, okay. This is to me a fascinating story. Can I ask, will there be MVP MMA events in 2026 anymore? Or is it like once we get to January 1st, it turns over? Is that the plan? That's the plan. Okay, so nothing before.

Yeah, I mean, we're going to finish the year out with the PFL events. Got it. And but that'll give us time to do appropriate planning, figure out which partner we're going to be with. And then ultimately, start fresh. Start fresh. And with a- How many more events this year? So we haven't, well, I'd be happy to announce another event. Okay.

Because, to best my knowledge, this is the last one in America announced. Announced, yes. Are there more? So we'll do several more for the rest of this year. But I will announce on your show. Okay. Thank you. The next event is going to be in.

Chicago. Again, we were in Chicago earlier this year and there was such a great response. We were at the WinTrust Arena. We'll be there again. Okay. We didn't bring a championship fight there and and the amount of outreach and, you know, social media requests and DMs that I was getting on my professional MMA handle was like, come back, come back, bring us a championship fight. So we're going to do that. Okay, okay. So October 16th, the WinTrust Arena, we are going to have headline Liz Carmouche is going to fight for the Flyway Championship against Jenna Bishop. Okay.

And originally, you know, we had been planning for expecting that if Dakota won in New York, which she did, she would be the legitimate title fight, probably against Liz, although we hadn't totally decided that. But of course, for anybody that knows, Dakota won. Yeah. But unfortunately, she fractured books. both of her hands. Yeah. And so she's already got them out of splints and, you know, I talk to her manager every couple of days and he's like, she's healing and I know she's very optimistic and

enthusiastic about coming back, but that's an unfortunate setback. So I don't want the title to wait. Good. And I think this is not a fallback fight. I mean, as I look at Liz Karmouche, I mean, we're talking about Chris Seibort, but Liz Karmouche, I didn't know this, that she was the first opponent for Rhonda Rousey in the UFC in 2013. She's actually the first woman to step in a UFC octagon because she was the first one out. She was the blue corner. So she's part of that history and almost submitted her in that fight. She did almost submit her. Yes. Seconds away. She was all the way back to then. And here we are over a decade later. She's won 13 of her last 14 fights. She's the former Bellator champ. She's the 2025 world tournament champ for the

PFL. She's coming off a big win in San Diego where she had a second round, uh, stop. through submission. And so she's she still looks amazing at this at this point of her career. And so she's a legitimate challenger for the initial inaugural PFL Flyweight tournament, soon to be, excuse me, champion. Yeah. So to be MVP. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then her opponent is somebody who I've had my eye on since last tournament. Jenna Bishop. Jenna is one of the most decorated grapplers in the United States. She's, you know, um, I beat JJF like world no gey champion and she's represented the United States in countless tournaments and she's won seven of her last 11 fights by submission and so she was also in San Diego

on the card and had a first round submission against Ariane Lipski very very convincing and so and she stood up afterwards and said I want the belt I deserve the belt and I listen and I think she does deserve a real shot so I'm excited about this and we'll be announcing all the other fights on it but it's exciting to me also to have women at the top of the card. So we're happy to show. October 16th? Yep. That would be your next one?

Yes. After this one. And then how many more? We'll probably go outside the U.S. for the last couple. Okay. So maybe. And those are close to, we're going to be announcing those soon. Three or four more?

Probably two or three. Okay. By the way, you mentioned Rhonda. She was very vocal leading up to that fight, wanting to be a part of MVP, one of the faces, if not the face as a promoter. Is she going to be involved in this in any way, shape, or form? Possibly and I hope so. I just met with her in LA last week.

How was that? Great. It was the first time I met her. Okay. I mean, obviously I heard of her and following her career. She's a legend. But we had a great conversation that Kisa had been talking with her and asked her to meet with me. It was a great, you know, hour long session.

And she's expressed a desire to continue to be involved. And we said, we'll come back to her because we'd have to provide her with something that's worthy of her time and attention. And would it be as a fighter or as like a rep? She doesn't want to fight. She still says that she doesn't want to fight. Yeah. I think she's very serious about having more kids. Okay.

But she has, look, she's very passionate about the sports still. She's very passionate about giving back to the fighters. Right. And being involved in a way of being very vocal as a fighter advocate, which is kind of, I think, really interesting. And she, you know, she'd be an incredible person to work with. So I hope we could work something out. So more to come on that, but she's still very much involved. She talks to Nekisa a lot, I believe.

One big talking point leading up to that fight from her and others were like 40K minimum for the fighters and whatnot. Is that going to be the thing with this new MVP? I think, look, providing fighters with equitable pay, equitable opportunities is going to be critical. But fighter first is going to mean a number of different things in terms of the way we approach the fighters. We help them. We help provide them with tools to be able to. create their own platform the first time we sign an MMA fighter to a boxing event is something we're going to celebrate. I mean, I think it's going to take shape in many forms. Okay, okay.

But, you know, I know Jake has talked about percentage of revenue and making sure that that the fighters get their fair share as a percent of overall revenue. So that's things. Does that change the way you think? Like, was that different than PFL's? No, because PFL is, you know, we don't have the profitability profile. that we have unlimited capability to pay fighters what we want. So we have to pay within the construct of the financial envelope that we have. Now, having said that, a lot of people don't realize that. We pay competitively to the UFC.

So we pay competitively by and large, and we have really, really great fighters that like to be with us and stay with us because we can pay more attention to them than the UFC can do with a lot of, then the UFC can do with a lot of their fighters. It's just too big. Quickly to round out on Karmouche, will Dakota fight the winner? She has to, right? Likely.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're talking about paying whatnot. Usman or Magamatov, I think, is another big story. So his contract is up, fought out his deal. I thought it was really interesting in the cage right after saying, hey, Jake talks about Dana not paying. Let's see if he's going to pay.

He was paraded around this past weekend at UFC 330. I said on the show on Monday, I feel like he's gone. I feel like that's it. Am I wrong? I think you may be wrong. Good. I want to know. I want to know what's going on

because it felt to me like it was very happy. Just to set the record straight. Now the UFC has not given them an offer. They're not legal. They can't, right? Yeah, 90 days. So we have an exclusive negotiating period. We're putting together an offer and we're going to sit and we're going to talk with them.

I think our offer will be competitive. It's really up to him. We would love to have them. We would love to keep them. I think there's still enough competition in the PFL. and that we'll be getting more and more fighters in, that we could keep him competitively challenged over the next several years.

Look, I do have to, I have to say it's a little bit funny. About a year ago when I first started, the first event that I went to was Dubai, and that was Paul Hughes 2 versus Usman, and I had watched the first fight on YouTube, and I thought Hughes won that fight. And then I saw Usman fight and the second fight, and Usman, to me, clearly won,

although I think you were even saying a lot of people thought that Paul won that one. First. Oh, the first one. Because the second one to me, I thought. No, no, that was good. I just thought the scorecards were a little wonky on that one. They were. Yeah.

Okay. So, but you fast forward, Usman has done very, very well against his next two competitors, right, Alfie and then Archie. But I started saying a year ago, this guy is one of the best fly weights in the world. Lightweight. Excuse me, lightweights. Yeah. Of course, 155. Yeah.

One of the best lightweights in the world. And I think people were almost mocking me. And the original speculation was he wouldn't even be top 15 in the UFC. I'm like, then you're not watching what I'm watching. And I'm not being overly biased. So now I find it kind of ironic that he is being paraded around like he's the salvation of mixed martial arts. I mean, he's a terrific talent. Yeah.

And we would love to keep him and work with him and love for him to be a meaningful part of our promotion. If he chooses that that's not the path that he wants to do, then, you know, we have a lot of great fighters here, and it's a dynamic ecosystem. And if you look at the lightweight division, I mean, between Gadsie and J.J. Wilson and Amru, who's going to be the next up-and-coming guy in that weight class because he kicks like a mule and chis off. And, you know, we've got a number of other, and Paul Hughes, not to be forgotten. Hopefully coming back, yeah. When you saw him, though, this past weekend, how did you feel? saw Usman DC's coming up to him

Oh that was all staged That was all bullshit I mean come on They parade him around Like putting him on the screen What do you think of Belator Former last Belator lightweight champ Not current PFL

What do you think of that? I laugh at all of this This is all kind of fun And funny games and funny But um Were you disappointed at all He's looking up He's saying you know

I'm gonna smoke these guys Or I could smoke these guys Like did you feel like he was overtly flirting Or is he just playing the game I don't know He would only know that. But no, this is, look, I'm up for all of this.

This is fine. This is part of the sport. Yeah. Would it be a big blow to PFL if you can't keep him? No. I mean, and I'm not diminishing his significance because I'm telling you, he's a prominent fighter for us. And we would love to. But to think that, I mean, when you look at, what I started to look at when I came

it, and I really got to know our fighters, I said the beginning of this year when Castell of Anstinas won in Spain and he won the middleweight championship. Well, he was the middleweight champion. He defended it. I said, I think our middleweight division has among the best fighters. And I think Johnny Eblen and Costello would both go in and fight at the top of the food chain of the UFC immediately. And now I'm looking at the Bannamweight class and the featherweight class. We have some deepening roster of really badass fighters there too.

So I think the difference between the quality of the UFC and our quality is, I've been saying it. Nobody's been listening now, but Usman is evidence of this. It's not that different. And we have to continue to work hard to provide evidence of that. But we've got, you know, we just put out a press release a couple, six weeks ago, four weeks ago. Like we signed nearly 20 new fighters. We're out looking for new talent.

Mustafa Diakete, who fought in on Long Island. What a fantastic prospect he is. We just signed another dynamic French fighter, Wally Tandy, who's going to be fighting at a very, very upcoming card soon. These are really dynamic, interesting fighters. Patrick Harbora, keep an eye on him. We're going to be showcasing him. He's a huge talent.

Boris Antongana, the guy who goes by Modern Gladiator, keep an eye on him. He's a French fighter. He'll be fighting. He'll be coming back? Speaking of friend? Love. I know.

Was it last time on here? He put out a tweet. You were like, you know, he said, I'm going to kill somebody. He would be such a great addition. I would love to welcome him back. He still doesn't want to fight. Doesn't want to fight, period.

Never say never, but. Regarding Usman, you haven't offered him something new yet. Correct. You're working on it. Yeah.

But you will do so within those 90 days. So the UFC can't do it. They can't talk to him. Correct. Right. And do you expect him to be happy with this deal?

Like do you think the UFC's going to try that? Because UFC can overpay, right, to take him away from you. They can afford to do that. How do you think this is going to play out? I don't know. You don't know. From something I think that's going to be compelling.

And it depends. I can't, I have no control of the UFC's going to, to do. We do have matching rights. Okay. Okay. This is good. And is there like a champion clause as well or can he? Meaning. Meaning some like in the UFC, you're a champion. You have to stick around for a year. There's a whole process there. Francis went through this.

Not typically. Okay. Paul Hughes was on the show yesterday. He's been very vocal about the drug testing and PFL or perhaps lack thereof if you ask him. You've seen any of this, I would imagine. Some of it that he has said. Do you have a, I've seen what he said very, very recently. Yes. And I know he was on. show yesterday. I'm aware of that. You know, he, I only found out the day before yesterday that he reached out to me over Instagram on my professional handle, which I don't check every day. So I have not spoken to him. I will, obviously. Look, what he's raising is, is an important subject in the sport. It's an important subject in all professional sports, but because combat sports is a

dangerous sport, I mean, maybe it takes on a higher level of sensitivity. It's something that when I joined the PFL, I looked into, I said, we have protocols, we have procedures, and yes, ESS, they took me through the program. And it's something that given that it's being raised again, I just started to take a look out again. And I'll continue to look at coming out of this. And I'll talk to Paul. But to be clear, we have protocols in place. We have a commission. It's governed by Mohegan tribe. Mike Missouli, who's the former leader of the ABC, American Boxing Commission, leads that. We follow the WADA set of protocols of banned substances and we use the same labs that the NCAA uses and the U.S. Olympic Committee uses. I mean, from what I understand, I'm not an expert

of what UFC does, but it's very, very similar. We have year-round testing, we have in-competition testing and out-of-competition testing. He says no, though. That's probably his, I will tell you for sure. We have out-of-competition testing. So the fact that he has not been tested, I can't comment. Sure. I guess the biggest thing that he's saying is like there's no person coming to your gym unannounced who's testing you. That's how you catch the cheaters, blood tests, et cetera. If you're just doing it the night before urine test, you know when that test is coming. So it's hard to weed out the cheaters. Yeah, that's not my understanding of what is happening. Maybe that's just been his experience. You know, I'm not an anti-doping scientist. So, you know, it's a little bit of you, you have these regulators. You know, if people do get caught cheating, and the athletic commissions are the ones, I believe, that propose the penalties. We enforce penalties. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But those penalties can vary because different states have different rules. And they also go by the level of the infraction or perceived infraction. And I think they also go by whether this is a recidivism type of a case or not, meaning is it's a multiple offender or not. And so what we do is make sure that the processes are in place, that it's an independent, professionally run set of regulators. we over, you know, we're aware of what the program is. I want to go back and look at now, is it rigorous enough, which I will do.

And I want to make sure that if people are cheating, that they get caught and they have to pay their dues and that it's an adequate punishment for whatever it is that they're doing. Like, it's hugely important to me, to Nekisa, to Jake, to the board. I would say that to Paul if he was sitting here. Like, of course we want a level playing field. It benefits nobody to believe that somehow we're favoring certain fighters over another. As long as I'm here, that's never going to happen. So is this a good opportunity to go back and refresh and take another look and say, are we doing enough? And I want to hear him out.

I'll do that. Yeah. And of course we'll do that. And I'm not making excuses. But we're not like we enforce, but we're not doing the actual test. We don't tell them test this person. No, of course. No, no, I know how that runs.

The unannounced testing is probably the biggest thing in, out of competition. Nearest and dearest to my heart, uniforms. Are they going away? I don't know. It's funny because I've talked to Nikisa about that. Well, you know, Nikisa and I disagree on this because Nikisa was, he introduced it to you. He was part of the problem, as I would say. Well, okay, that's...

I say that to him. I hate it. I hate the uniforms. I hated the Reebok deal. I hate the Venom deal. And I hate the PFL uniforms. I'll say that to you. I've shared in that.

You know what was so great about... MVPW, the women's boxing, they don't have uniforms. It's kind of funny. A, B, that MMA event on May 16th. Right. They were all wearing their own stuff. It was nice.

It was refreshing. That stuff matters to me. Right. So maybe in this new era we can... Maybe. Okay. Yeah. We've got some ideas.

Okay. But we did... All right. I'll share this with you because the results were not intuitive to me. I thought all the fighters would rush to no uniforms. We asked and we took a survey, not of everybody. Interesting. The survey came back that a lot of the fighters said, no, it's just easier. Less stress. I don't have to think about this. It's regulate.

It's like, I get a uniform. I don't mind it. It says PFL. We outfit the corner people. It's just, you know, it's one less thing. I get it. To worry about, to administer, you know, what's up with the sponsorships, where the patch, how that, like, and we had Dan Hardy, who's a very well respected very individual and and deeply respected by the fighters in addition to everybody where in my shop he was part of our oversight committee and he sort of was seeing it in both directions because initially he was very pro let's get rid of the uniforms and and now I think he's he's more mixed oh wow okay this is interesting I can understand that less stress I don't like it though I mean I'll still say I don't like it that's I still I love the walkouts I don't know if you've

watched any of our stuff but we're starting to add a little bit of live music Mustafa Diacete walked out to some, you know. It was one thing I didn't like, I did like that, but there's one thing I didn't like on the Long Island show. There was too much talking during the walkouts. Like there was too, like they were doing interviews. You might have been in one segment, but I know Jake was in one as well.

It's like, we need to let that fighter have their moment there. That's not the time for like a discussion. I agree with you. And I remember exactly what you're talking about. And it was because the broadcast didn't assume we were announcing a merger. So they tried to jam us. It was a lot.

I know you guys had the linear window. Yeah. Dakota didn't get an interview. Right, I heard that. So people were unhappy with that. I got asked that in the after press conference. And I didn't realize that at the time. But then when I went back and asked, it's because, you know, if you're on a streamer

and you don't have to end at a particular time, it's a hell of a lot easier to do, you know, same with pay-per-view. You end when you end. Sure. When you have a finite block of time. And by the way, the thing that is infuriating me about ESPN is I don't think we've started on time on the ESPN network yet. So it's like you think you're on ESPN

that it's like, no, go to ESPN 2, then something runs over there. And it's like, go to ESPN news. And then you're on the app and you're like, and it's this. It was a situation. I think it was the last show in Charlotte where like, I don't think anyone saw anything.

You know, it was just like nowhere. It just. People are texting me saying, I'm watching breakdancing. Yes, yes. It's somebody please help me. And then the next day, I was in Orlando with the MVPW event.

And there was a banana. Savannah Bananas ball game that went like 20 minutes over and you're just so we all learned the rules of the Savannah bananas the hard way we're like what do you mean this though like the guy can't get out yeah yeah yeah yeah crazy uh any renewed interest from ESPN now that this has happened they have the deal with MVP they have a relationship like yeah they reached out they said well let's let's sit down you feel like it's different at all because I got to be honest in speaking with you this year it felt like it was a done deal like you guys are done like this is a divorce that is about to happen and it's all good we're going to move garce different ways look look at it's look at

I express my frustration when I think it's important. And we appreciate that. And I wouldn't apologize for that. And by the way, I don't think anybody at ESPN would disagree with what I'm saying, but that's the most that they'd be willing to give us. I think with the idea of MVP, with maybe some new ideas that we'd like to come in and talk with them about, different approaches to things, with, you know, Jake and Nekisa now being in the mix. And with the experience that they've had with Netflix, I think there is a renewed interest at ESPN.

Some people were asking me this yesterday, broadcast team, broadcast the production. Will that change? Or are you going to stick with a similar look? That's all. We're going to do that. All working on that now. Yeah. You've got a lot to deal with over the next few months.

It's a lot. How do you feel about that? Good. I feel really happy. You feel like you signed up for this? Yeah. I mean, look, yes. I mean, nobody, I have nobody to blame but myself.

How about that? Because, you know, my day-to-day life would have been a little bit easier if I was just stay in the course. But I've never played that way. If anybody knows me, I've always take. and the difficult route if I believe it's the right thing to do. How are those meetings with the Sakakibara and the Risen guys? Yeah. I like him.

Oh my God. Legend. Legend. Yes. And what a presence he has as well. Presence. Yeah. And still passionate.

Yeah, yeah. And so I'm so for anybody that doesn't know what you're referring to. So we, again, challenge a brand. I've been very interested and open to sharing fighters with Risen, which is the Japanese promotion led by Saki Gubara. He is a legend. And so we've announced that we're doing something that I don't believe has ever been done, but you probably could tell me maybe I'm wrong, is that A.J. McKee, who is one of our leading,

he's not our crown champion, but we're basically going to allow him to fight for a PFL belt against the Rizzen champion, which is Jadalayaev. Yes. Rajbali Shadaliyahev. I have to think about that. No, that's a tough one. I think I got his name right. By the way, well done. I'm always very impressed with your promos and the interviews in the back,

Cage side. You nail the names all the time. Pronunciationciations as well, not easy. All right. Well, thank you. Yeah. So he's 19 and O. Yeah.

And he's a beast. He's amazing. So this is going to be a fun fight because I don't think. Which belt is at stake? So PFL. For PFO? Both. Both.

This is the first time. I think this is the first time. So if AJ wins, he will be the rising champion and the PFL channel. Wow. So what happens? Okay. So if he doesn't become the champion, now do you have a deal with the other guy?

Yeah, we're going to make a deal. That's wild. Yeah. And what happened? So if AJ wins, now they could say like, hey, we want him to defend on our New Year's show. Defend. Wow.

Love this. This is very boxing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but this is what, you know, even, and this is one of the things I think philosophically were so aligned with MVP is like, what's cool for the fighters? Have fun, yeah.

What's good for the fans? Like, AJ is really like loving us. Okay. And other fighters, Paul, Hughes is one of them. He came up and stood up and said, sign me up. I'd love to fight over in Japan. And for the fans, there's going to be, there may be 50,000 people in the Osaka Dome. Wow. To watch this. So I can't wait. I'm going to go over and we'll see how it does. And look,

and Saki Kabar and I said, open to further alliance party. Like, I'm not talking about merging or anything. What I'm talking about is in the past, I know Bellator used to do co-promotions with them. They used to be involved in the New Year's Eve thing. Like, let's see. see how this goes, but, you know, it's, it's pretty interesting. And if the fans, like, I was surprised here in the States by the level of attention that that has gotten from the MMA fan community for one fight in Japan. Yeah. No, Ryzen has had an amazing couple years. They've really revived the Japanese MMA scene. I'm going to let you go in a moment, but I'm just curious, like your outlook, it feels like not that long ago that was the UFC, PFL was kind of figuring itself out and nothing else. All of a sudden,

We're looking at a 2027 where it's UFC, year two of Paramount, they're rolling, MVP, this huge deal, whatever your new TV deal is. Here comes Scott Coker back in the mix as well. Like all of a sudden, not to mention Risen over there, KSW, Octagon doing their thing. Like I feel like all of a sudden things are happening in MMA where the last couple of years, it was really a little bit dull. Do you share that? Do you like that? Do you like the fact that Coker's coming in? Let's go.

Let's tangle here. Yeah, of course. I like it. It would be good for the sport. It's not going to be easy for him. Right. I know he's a very accomplished and respected executive, and I don't wish him badly. But what he's going to try to do is it'll be really hard.

So I wish him luck. But I want to make sure by the time he could catch up to where we are, we're not here anymore. Right. We're somewhere else. Yeah. And that's why I think sometimes, and this is like my old media business brain on, sometimes you can scale organically and sometimes there just isn't enough time. And I think, you know, I was taught a business school where one lead competitor has all of the returns, which in MMA, it's UFC, it's going to attract capital.

It's going to attract competition. And eventually those returns should erode if it's a perfectly competitive marketplace. So I think I like the position that we now find ourselves in. I'm really excited about it. I'm very energized. I'm sure you saw Dana's initial comments being like, you know, two failing brands coming. Okay, but then he's parading Usman around. I mean, you think, yeah, he's not paying attention?

Oh, I'm sure he is paying attention, but I'm just curious what was your reaction when you thought? He's expected. Yeah? Yeah. Did you hear from him? Did he congratulate you? No, no, you haven't talked to him. But I smile.

I like this. This is fun. Fun part. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's great. I thought it made all the sense in the world. Thank you.

I'm really curious to see. I actually thought like that 24-hour stretch there, like you and Nikis and Jake are three very different personalities, but you did not seem like you were, you're older than them and all that, but like it seemed like you guys meshed really well together. Does that make sense? Like when you're on the sets of those shows, when you're walking around,

it doesn't feel like, uh, that guy doesn't belong with these guys. You know, they've got their thing, but like, I don't know, the whole thing just kind of fit

really, really nicely, in my opinion. Well, I appreciate you saying that. I haven't really thought about it that much, but I sort of would agree with you. Like,

the whole rollout just seemed organic and comfortable. Yeah. And I, look, myself because I think I am different. I think all three of us, to your point, we're all different. Yes. But I think we can all coexist.

And like I said, I intend to continue to be myself. I'm not going to try to, you know, I'm going to benefit from being partners with Jake and Nikisa. And, you know, I mean, Jake is an interesting man in the sense that, you know, you talk to him and the experience that he's had being a vlogger since he was 15 years old. You forget you're talking to a 29 year old gentleman. Yeah. He's wise beyond his ears. And Nikisa has a unique set of insights and capabilities from having been at the UFC and both from a strategy standpoint and a CFO standpoint and then building MVP from the ground

up with Jake and making a real play in boxing, which is obviously different than UFC. So I hope that we all play off of each other's skills. And, you know, I mean, I've been involved with a lot of mergers and I've been involved with a lot of mergers. I've talked to Nikisa about this. Like, you can have all of the strategy in the world and have it make sense, but it always gets screwed up for only one reason. It's the people. Ego.

Yeah. I mean, I was involved in AOL time Warner. Sure. There's no better example of how not to do something than that. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, I'm going to do everything I can to make this a success, and I believe they will too. I think everyone is genuinely excited about the opportunity.

And I do believe the fighters are excited about the opportunity. It's going to take us a little while to just get everything integrated and get going. But I'm excited to come out with kind of a little bit of a reboot for next year and hopefully with some more momentum. Because there's a lot of really good and interesting things happening right now. We're getting Jake and Nate next year? I hope so. They're going back and forth. Very serious about, well, Jake is very serious about doing MMA next year.

He is. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I mean, there's been talks with Nate. Has Nate sent out a video replying? I don't know. I mean, I know there have been talks in the past.

Yeah. In fact, PFL was involved with that when Ron Davis was around. But he sent out a video in the last few days saying like, you know, pull up or whatever. So it seems like he's interested. I think it would be fun. That would be a lot of fun. Maybe back with Francis. The other thing was, you know, hoist Gracie came to our New York event and they were talking about hoist training, Jake.

That would be a lot of fun. Wow, wow. That would be crazy. Francis back in the mix? Yeah. Why not? Why not? Is that a...

The last conversation I had with Francis, I said, you know, I was, that had nothing to do with MEP. Sure. But I said to him, I'm like, look, I hope our paths cross again. Okay. Very exciting stuff. Congratulations. Thank you for coming on. Well, thanks for always having me.

I like being here in the studio, too. You enjoy it? Yeah. What about it? It's, I like talking to people face to face. Better than Zoom, right? Yeah. But now we've done L.A. and New York.

Yeah. But this is our real home. You're always welcome here. We love these conversations. And actually, I was dying inside because I went on vacation the day of your event. I know you did. It killed me. It killed me because I was like, this is where I love this type of stuff, the business of the sport.

And so it killed me to have to sit on it. But actually, I'm happy now because maybe a couple of weeks have passed, a little more perspective. So I think it worked out. Thank you so much. Wish you guys the best this weekend in Tampa and then October 16th, as you just broke. Yes. And don't forget Friday. MVP.

Friday. Pichanga. Tictock. TikTok live. Yes. Amazing. Amanda Serrano, the return of one of the greatest of all time. We'll take a quick break.

Say goodbye to John. Be back with Tiofimo Lopez, also fighting this weekend. Don't go anywhere. All right. Back on the program. That was my conversation with Adam Copeland, aka Ed. yesterday. He'll be a part of the all-in show next weekend. There's so much happening over the last, over the next couple of weeks, I should say. The events this weekend, RAF anniversary show, the MVP show on Friday on TikTok. Who's going to watch that? Who's going to watch that? I'm going to check it out. I want to see what it looks like. Amanda Serrano trying to make history. 38 knockouts, I believe. The record is Christy Martin 38. So if she gets one, she'll break that record. Fifty first pro-flight. kind of crazy seven division

pfl on saturday r a f on saturday tio against roly on saturday ufc sacramento on saturday next weekend peri danis uh there's a whole bunch of stuff next weekend the wembley show as well it's so good arman

it is so freaking good still to come mike perry and dylan danis on together uh that's at 3 30 and etzen barbosa is also going to join us in a matter moments, we are going to be joined hopefully by Tiafemale Lopez, who is fighting this weekend for the WBA welterweight title. He's moving up from 140 to 147, fighting his friend, Roli Romero. So we'll get to him in a moment, the takeover, 22 and 2.13 knockouts. Of course, his last

appearance was in January at MSG, the world's most famous arena. Madison Square Garden. lost his WBO and ring light welterweight belts against Shakur Stevenson, also had his six-fight winning streak snapped. And so now he's moving up to fight for the 147-pound belt. He's a great character, as you know, signed a deal with the zone. There's a lot to get into with him. I did want to update one small thing yesterday on the show. Glover Tashira was on.

We were talking to him about his book coming out, co-authored by our very good friend Guillermo Cruz, the Brazilian Beast, who he loves so much. I did. So in that interview, Glover mentioned, yeah, staying at heavyweight, Alex Pereira, Josh Hokit's out there talking smack. What I can tell you after digging around a little bit is that is definitely something that's being discussed. Done, no, sign, no, sealed, no, delivered no, but it's definitely out there. It's definitely a thought and definitely a direction being explored, I think would be the fairest thing to say. So let's see. I mean, that would be

wild. Who would have thought at the beginning of this year, Josh Hokit versus Alex Pereira, if it does in fact come to fruition? And if Josh Hokit beats Alex Pereira, and I think this would be a very tough fight for both, but a really tough one for Alex in the sense that Hokit has that style, great athlete, wrestling, smaller guy, so he won't have to deal with. deal with, you know, big heavyweight Surreal Gunn. It would be a fascinating fight. If Hokit would win, he'd be on the shortlist. There wouldn't be, you know, that many people in between Hokit and the very top of the

division. And as of now, we still don't have an update on Tom Aspinall and Cyril Gunn. When it may happen. Will it happen this year? All that and more. But it is definitely a thing. It is definitely a thing. that is being discussed and explored at the moment.

So let's see. Last night was Contender Series, and we talked about it earlier. It was great. Apex looks great. Fights are great. All that stuff and more. Dana White did speak to the media. Just a couple of things of note that we could get into real quick.

One is that earlier in the day, Hamza Shemayev said that he's looking for a fight. He's ready. He's tired of waiting. He did just fight. May, by the way. It wasn't that long ago. Anyway, Dana was asked about it. Here's what he had to say. I don't know if you saw, but Hamzaa Chimae have tagged you on social media saying that,

what are we waiting for? I want to fight Dana White. Wants to fight me? No, he just wants to fight. Who me? Okay. I didn't see it, no. I guess, is he in the conversations to maybe fight in Abu Dhabi or? Yeah, I mean, he's all.

always in conversations to fight. The whole roster is. I mean, everybody, in a perfect world, everybody fights three times a year. So, yes. So pretty much a non-answer there. And we don't know when he's going to come back. I don't think it will be on that Utah card. Probably most notable thing that he said was that since July 17, 2017, the date of the first Contender Series show, the fighters who have made it into the UFC from the show have made a combined $225.3 million. Now, I see everyone breaking it down and whatnot. He was very proud of this fact. He had the number ready.

And what's probably most interesting is the fact that they don't usually disclose any numbers, certainly not the real ones. So if those are the real ones, we can kind of get into the nitty-gritty. I think Ashana Malley would be a big portion of that and some of those other big names. But a number that he was proud of. He also said Tough is doing well, ratings-wise. I'd love to see those numbers, by the way. Can we get those numbers, those tough streaming numbers? I would love to see those.

Can't wait for this weekend, August 22nd, T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas, two of the most entertaining, fun, unique characters in the sport of boxing. Tiofimo Lopez and Roli Romero going toe to toe for Romero's WBA welterweight title. Lopez moving up from 140 to 147. He's kind enough to join us right here and now during Fight Week to talk about it all. There he is. The Takeover is here. What's up, my man? How are you?

Hey, I've been great. How are you? I'm doing well. Look, we got something in common. I got one too. You got one? Hey, look at that. Hold on, wait.

Let's get that. There it is. For our New York Knicks, right? Absolutely. Come on, now. Let's go next. Okay. So even though you live in Vegas,

you haven't turned your back on New York. You haven't forgotten your roots. Absolutely, man. No, no, no. Okay. Come on, now. Yo, I saw this, I saw this room. You did like a Cribs thing for DeZone

because I recognize the painting above your head. Yeah, your house is nice, man. You got a ring in your backyard. Yeah, a supreme edition, limited edition with Everlast. So it was fun. It's still there. So it's been good using it, training, and just staying ready at all means. I love it. All right. So I know this is a massive opportunity, a big week for you. Could we start here? When did you make the decision to go up from 40 to 47? You know something, Ariel, I was thinking about doing it after moving up at 147 after the Barbosa fight, but I just, I stood to my guns and kept the fight going at 140.

And then from there on, Fawkes-Corp-Sceivincent earlier this year at the Garden, where we broke history, I would say, or we made history, where we beat the Ali versus Frazier fight, number one since 1971 with the most attendance ever recorded but uh it's been on my mind for a while so after that that just gave me the decision right there that the fine moment to move up to 147 are you done with 140 oh yeah absolutely i mean the ibf ordered possibly me facing lendofo delgado at 140 for the vacant ibf junior waltzway world title and i decided to just move uh move forward on facing the current, I would say super WBA world champion in Rolanda Romero. What went wrong against Chacore?

Rarely have we seen you kind of in a type of fight like that, right? I mean, that was quite dominant on his end. What went wrong in your opinion? I'd say what went wrong would be just the game plan, you know? He's a class act, a defensive fighter at that. And I think the whole thing was just the miscommunication. and possibly just taking a fight with Shakur, really, at this particular time. Maybe earlier on after the Taylor and all those type of fights would have been best.

But we just move forward now. You know, the whole thing we could do now is learn from it and move forward and just take over the next weight division, which is right now, the Wellswick Division. Did he surprise you? Like, was he better than you thought he would be? No, I always knew Shakur had the goods. I just thought he would be more offensive. That's all. I mean, but he didn't need to do much.

All you got to do is keep his distance, use his jab, and stay from that range. And he won successfully. I could say to me, personally, that was my first defeat that I ever took. But it was one that I needed to realize everything that I know now. You know, I just got to trust in myself and trusting my instincts moving forward with my body, listen to my body. And at the same time, I make sure my team is in checked, so to speak. So when you say that he was, he could have been more offensive.

Was it frustrating? Were you expecting like more action out of him? Is that what you're saying? Honestly, I would have liked it to be that way. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Because for those moments where he's throwing those combinations, I still have him in that pocket to engage with him. You know, I at least get some of my shots in.

But, you know, things worked out the way he did. They worked on their game plan. They successfully succeeded that night. You know, and it's, but I don't really like associating and talking about Zouffer fighters. I really don't. Okay. Yeah, he's a Zufa fighter,

and I'd rather just talk about all my cast fighters that are under the umbrella of the zone. Can you tell me why? Why don't you like talking about the Zufa fighters? Well, there's a particular person and that is calling the shots in Zufa that wants to get rid of all the sanctioning body belts within like a grasp of 10 years.

And I think that defeats the purpose of what I've always aimed for, which was undisputed, what I always reclaimed as being the best, you win the ring magazine, and you've become champion, and you have all other four sanctioning belts. I mean, I grew up in the era in times of watching, you know, my peers. So why, why have Zufa come in now and want to change and rewrite the whole thing, including the Revival Act? I think that it's a disservice. And that's why I trusted my gut. and going directly with the zone, with take over promotions,

and that way it protects me in case they pass this bill soon for the Revival Act. And I think you're referring to Dana White, right? No, I'm actually not. Okay. There's somebody else in the back end of that that's pulling a bit more cards in there

that I spoke to personally right after the, when they spoke to the Congress and stuff. Was it Nick Khan? I would, you know, I think there's a group of them. So, okay. You know, the reason I brought up Dana first, just because, you know, you were a part of that brand risk event at the apex. And there was some talk online that they kind of like ignored you when you were sitting up there on the broadcast. Was that just like an oversight? Was there some friction there? Do you know what I'm talking about? This clip kind of went viral where they didn't acknowledge you. Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. You know, Hunter Campbell, I think he was great about everything, though. He told me afterwards, hey, just miscommunication. We had. We had. had a lot going on that night. As you can see, we didn't mean to ignore you at all. We respect you

and we appreciate everything you do for the sport. And that was when he was in China, apparently for one of the UFC events or so. So, you know, no bad blood with those guys at all. You know, if there's ever talks with them in the near future, then that happens. But as right now, I just believe that in my career and sudden time, it's just not the right fit. It's really not. Okay, so ultimately you signed with DeZone. This was huge news recently. You didn't link up with any typical promoter. You're signing with the broadcast partner.

And we've seen this back in the day in boxing, but not so much as of late. Can you tell us ultimately why this made sense for you? Really why it made sense was how can you go from, you know, the most attendance ever recorded at Madison Square Garden with over 22,000 people in attendance and go back to a small room. You know, Zufa wanted me to be part.

of the Edgar Belonga Richardson Hitchin card in New York, but in the theater and I just, a lot of things didn't play out the way I wanted to see it, how I visioned it. And then, you know, the things that occurred with Zufa with the sanctioning bodies, hearing those things, and it's just a lot of scruffle. So when it came to the zone, the offer was great. It was in my favor. You know, as long as I keep on winning and continue to strive for undisputed at 147, you know, this is going to be a no brainer decision on why we took this deal with the zone. You know, we get to audit them. We get to do a lot of safety measures just to be safe with anything that ever comes up when it comes to the Ali Act and et cetera, et cetera. It's just a protection, you know, and take over promotions. I'm here to

truly, truly, you know, really support and take care of the next generation. I would like to eventually get, you know, I'm going to say health insurance and all these great things to the fighters that I signed. Okay, so, so I didn't realize that they had actually kind of like engaged in talks with you and wanting you to fight on that card. As far as the monetary value of the deal, was it close to what the zone was offering or was the zone deal better? The zone deal was so far better than than what it was expected, you know, respectfully. I just think that when it comes to it, it's nothing personal, it's just business when it comes to that. And the NILs are a main key factor there, you know, the NILs, the ownership, the fight rights, all those. And, you know, the NILs, the ownership,

the fight rights, all those things are a huge key factor once you become that one of the biggest, one of the big stars and one of the big names in a sport of boxing. So I just felt like I wasn't getting that on the other end. Trust me, they have a machine, you know, Zufa, Paramount Plus, what is it, IWG or ING. Yeah. And they got a huge machine behind them. You know what I mean? It's a no-brainer for me if I want to become more popular and more famous.

But as right now, I just, I'm so a traditional. Hwani, I'm a traditional fighter, man. I'm a old fighter. I love winning belts and being the best. I mean, two-weight divisions, two-time ring, linear world champion, beat the best fighters, number one, pound for pounds in each weight class. Now we're looking at 147 and seeing where that goes next.

It has been said you and Roli, you guys are pals. How would you describe the state of your relationship? And have you trained together a lot over the years? Yeah, we did. We did. Honestly, there was a point in time after our last sparring. I think we just started doing what they call, like the Cubans call it Esquilita, which is just working on drills and stuff together right there in the ring, you know, but nothing excessive and nothing that would damage or hurt any of us, you know, throughout our times of preparation for fights. So, you know, now the time has come.

You know, we're a couple days away from facing each other in the ring and, you know, the friends are out the window and this is an actual competitive fight. You know, this is something that no one should miss out on. It'll be live on the zone. And for everybody, you know, this is one that I think we're changing for the dynamics of the sport about this whole friendships and friends shouldn't fight each other. That's BS. We're not here to do that.

And so what's interesting about this is because you are signed to DeZone now, and this will also, I think, air on Amazon because of their deal with PBC, so you could get it in two spots. the next time you fight it could be on a on a matchroom card because they're on de zone too like you're you're you're tied to the zone but you can fight on any other promotions fight card because you're not tied to any single promoter right you and devon hayney have that deal correct right at the moment i think yeah i'm the first one and i'm hearing rumors that devon haini has done the same idea you know we're trans sudders uh but at the at the same time yeah yeah i think

My whole real goal is to become that lead promoter where we host our events and become the likes of these MVPs and all those great guys out there. So, you know, actually really set up, set forth all the other promoters when it comes to, you know, Golden Boy and PVC top rank and as well as match room. So it's a great look. It's interesting. It seems like a great deal for you. Yeah, you're coming off a loss. Like sometimes someone's stock goes down. It doesn't feel like the loss hurt your stock all that much as a result of this.

You know, something I'd say that it is because we do something. We do something. We do something. We entertain. We actually give out good shows, man. We give out, you know, I'm a people's champ. And maybe that's the reason. Maybe that's the reason why I'm still here doing what I do, you know, and facing the top tier fighters that we can possibly face.

You know, my whole thing, too, is just, you know, you can't go from breaking records to go into a small arena. You just can't. He's got to go bigger, you know, go bigger. I think that's how the sport works for me, and I've always done great for the sport. I think it's the viewerships, mainly. I think the zone and everyone has seen that I bring a lot of views to the table.

Could I ask, after the Shakurfa, you did kind of apologize afterwards, and I wanted to get some clarity. Like, what did you feel the need to apologize for, Tifima Lopos? Because, like, you're out there talking about, like, grandiose historical things that have nothing to do with you. You were talking about slavery and all this stuff. So why did you feel the need to apologize? Well, I believe, like, it's only best, right, as a character, you know, since 1619, their own, when it came to culture and stuff, the blacks were selling to each other, you know, and there was a lot of people forget the history behind it, but then they get all me about it just because I'm talking trash about two fighters, but, you know, it's something that you cannot really pursue.

You know, when you talk about one particular entity, you're talking about a whole culture behind it. And that was something that took me by surprise. But we dealt with it. You know, Choucourt got the victory in their honor, I would say, and just apologize in a sense of the miscommunication. You know, no hard foul. You know, it was February 1st, I believe when we fought, actually. And that was the start of Black History Month. So, you know, which is crazy to me, man.

Black History Month. I think Morgan Freeman spoke on this, but it's crazy to me. You know, like, how is this political, but like Black History Month, but they got the shortest month in the year. I mean, it throws me off. You know, I think that it's a shame because they've done so much in the world in this country and overall. But, you know, we're past that now. We're just focused on, you know, what can we do?

What is the message that we can send out there to the youth and to all the next generation fighters out there and those that are paving away? because they're watching us. They're watching our words and they're watching everything that we do. So I'd rather just kumbaya everything and, you know, just take over. How does it go down on Saturday? How does it play out? What are you feeling right now?

How am I feeling about it? And what I think, honestly, I'm going to tee him up, man. I think it's time to shut him up. So I'm really just going to gun blaze him. Man, I'm so much better than I ever was before. I'm so focused. I don't think it goes 12 rounds. I really don't.

You did say earlier, because I know some people are going to bring this up. Ariel, why didn't you go? You said that the Shakur loss was your first loss. So how do you view Cambosas? I view Cambosas as one of the learning points in my career, too. But it was more so the business. That was it. A lot of people they want, Tio Fimo, after the Lomachenko fight,

a lot of people didn't want me to win. You know, that was back in my hometown. I felt like I did enough, especially with the drop and almost stoppage in the 10th round, but it just wasn't enough as the champion. So, but I just feel like there was a lot of tricks and a lot of things at play in that fight. You know, they didn't even drug test us. Nevada didn't drug test us after that fight. We get a lot of stuff for it, but I'm just someone that's a real list.

I'm just going to be honest. So we don't know what occurred after. And plus my injuries, I had two tears. I mean, I could keep on going about this whole thing, but, you know, I needed that, though. I needed that to, like, really realize really how much of a problem I will say I am, but a good problem to the sport of boxing. Last thing, do you feel like you need to remind people on Saturday? Is that part of the mindset? Do you feel like you need to remind people who T.O. is?

No, people forget. People are going to forget tomorrow. You know what I'm saying? People forget what they had today this morning. So with the eight, so I think it's, to me, it's just more of giving myself a gift, giving myself the, the proper acknowledgement of everything I've done at just now turning 29, you know. So, you know, we're looking at our third division. We're looking at facing the biggest puncher at the weight division and well-to-weight of 147.

So this is just more so for myself, my family, and moving forward. That's it. Keep moving forward. That's all I could say that from that point, you know, It's like the Robbins from Disney and Pixar. I mean, keep moving forward. And coming up in the same way,

Class Garcia, Ben, who do you like in that? All goes well, as I should see it. After August 22nd, I'll be there live just to watch them. And, yeah, I think I was leaning, I'm leaning towards Connor Ben. However, after his last statement, I believe that he said that at 147, this would be his only last fight.

I don't, I think I would prefer Ryan to win. Okay. Okay. That could be a thing. Yeah. I'm going to be there. I will not be there. No, I will not be there.

But I'll be watching. I'm looking forward to it. Let me ask you. Tell me. How do you feel about this whole thing with Zufu and I've been coming into touring into like the sport and doing some certain changes to it? Okay. This is a good question.

I appreciate you asking me. I have many thoughts. out of the gate, okay, where do we start? Out of the gate, they were very, Dana in particular, because he's sort of like the face, the voice of it all, very brash about, all right, we're going to get rid of the sanctioning bodies, we're not going to work with them, it's going to be our own belt, it's going to be the UFC model.

That was like right off the jump, right? But then they signed Jayo Pataya, and Jai wants to be undisputed cruiserweight champion. So right off the jump, it felt like there was some sort of confusion with the messaging, right? And so Dana's out there saying things, but then the other people, the real power players,

are doing something else. Then we get to the Aliak stuff and it feels like, all right, why do you guys want to change this so badly? Is it because you're not trying to share the financials? Is it because you're trying to do

X, Y, and Z to the fighters, that UFC model that has been criticized the class action lawsuit? Why are you so adamant all of a sudden about getting into the sport and radically changing the way the sport is essentially run

here in America? That rubbed a lot of people. people the wrong way and I'll say myself as well. I had a lot of questions. Why are you doing this? What's the point? Now over time, signing the likes of Shakur, signing the likes of Berlanga and Hitchens and whatnot, and you're sorry, Connor Ben and you're like, okay, has the, has the focus change because you're putting on WBC welterweight title fights. You're not billing it as WBC welterweight title fights. You're just billing it as world welterweight title fights, but it feels like the messaging has changed. I hate the uniforms. I don't like the way it looks on.

television at all. I like that they got out of the apex. Now they're doing, you know, smaller venues. They're going to do T-Mobile as well. So I'm giving it a sort of like wait-and-see approach. I like the fact that fighters are getting opportunities to get paid. There's another outlet out there. I think you can't root against them or I should say bet against them. I think the people behind it, in particular, Nick Kahn, who have a previous relationship with is a brilliant, brilliant guy. So I think that he is going to be successful in whatever he does. But I do think the messaging is a little bit lost. It's a little confusing as to what they truly want to be in the end. And I'll, I'll, I'll I'll end with this, sorry for going along.

The stuff with Eddie and AJ and Fury and this fight is very, very strange to me. Like, I find all of this very strange. It feels like a pissing contest and is turning off a lot of fans. I don't think the fans care about all of this stuff and it's kind of all playing out and feels like it's an ego contest that's not very fun to watch play out. Does that make sense? Is that all over the place? Yeah, it's kind of spot on, you know.

And Nick, Nick Conn is tremendous, honestly, when you come and think about it. it right the way he planned out certain things especially um highest man night for ESPN for boxing for myself yeah we've had great talks you know for all those things i i just i'm someone that can't um it's okay to have my opinion and it's okay to feel how i feel about certain things that they do obviously they're new to the game and they're changing their things and pushing forward on it so obviously he's going to rough in like some feathers so i agree to that uh the ego situation yeah that right now just feed the consumers, you know, the people are the consumers, just giving what they want, that's it, you know, put everything to the side. I think that, uh, even despite the talks,

but between Golden Boy, Oscar Delahoya and Dana White, but look, now we get Oscar de la Jolla's fighter, Ryan Garcia versus Dana White's fighter, Connor Bennett, you know, September 12. So, eventually all hash is out, you know, when the, if it makes money, it makes sense, right? It's a lot of fun for us in the media to talk about I'm really curious to see how it all plays out Your story was really interesting to see play out as well with DeZone So really a lot of fun I promised your team I would keep you 15 minutes

Because it's fight week and I've gone over So I feel bad about that So I appreciate you giving us a little bit more of your time But I know it's a busy week for you So we will let you go And wish you nothing but the best this Saturday Tia Always great to have you on really appreciate it Absolutely thank you so much

And I appreciate you Thank you. It's been long overdue man I'll see that. Please come back soon. All right. I'll be there live if anything. Oh, that would be great. Go next.

Money, let me get that money in the bank, you know. Okay. All right. Oh, hell yeah. You can have that. You're going to have that. No problem. You come in here.

That's yours. My man. You're the man. There he is. The takeover. Tiafima Lopez. He is one of the great characters in the sport of boxing, and great to have him on.

A lot to talk to him about. Appreciate him. Giving us some time here on Fight Week. He fights this. Saturday. DeZone has done a deal with him, has done a deal with PBC. Also, they have their deal PBC with Amazon, so you could watch it on those two platforms. And the two of them are fun. I think there's going to be a lot of fun content over the next few days as we get closer to the fight. Interesting to hear him say that there were talks of him fighting on that card at the theater,

right next door to MSG, the Infosis Theater. So he turned that down, it appears. Fischer has his first Zufa boxing opponent. Speaking of Zufa boxing, it is happening at the Copper Box Arena, aka the Copper Bosch Arena. There it is. It's Fisher versus Pyroton. Saturday, September 26th. Zofa Boxing 11. They're going with Z-11 as the branding on SkySports and Paramount Plus. So there you have it. By the way, speaking of boxing, We should have mentioned this to Pizzi when he was talking about his trip to the Croke Park venue earlier today. What's going on? Peecee, did you know that the Katie Taylor fight is in fact going to air on RTE?

This is a big deal. This is like their version of the BBC. This is free to air. This is the announcement. Katie Taylor's historic, undisputed, super lightweight title fight with Flora Peeley next month at Croke Park. will be available to watch live, free to air with RTE Sport. How about that? So I guess it's on RTES sport, not RTE.

I think there's like an RTE, and then there's an RTES sport, something like that. Katie Taylor is a champion. You know who else is a champion? You're New York Knickerbockers, and I do want to wish a hearty mazzletoev to my good friend Carl Anthony Towns and his beautiful bride, Jordan Woods. Look at them at their wedding this past weekend. And unfortunately, I was flying home from Hawaii, and I couldn't attend the wedding in Malibu. There were so many luminaries there.

Of course, Justin Bieber was there. But most importantly, the other J.B., Jalen Brunson and O.G. Ananobee and Josh Hart and Tyler Kolek and Duce McBride, O.G. Did I mention O.G.? Anyway, they had the trophy, the real one, as you saw. And look at this shot right here. I mean, is that not, I mean, come on, is that not amazing, beautiful, could bring a tear. to a glass eye. You got the NBA Cup on the left, the Emirates NBA Cup. You got the Larry O.B. In the middle. You got the Eastern Conference Champion trophy championship, whatever you call it,

right on the right. I mean, could you imagine getting married in the year, 2026, with those trophies by your side? Probably have a drink out of the NBA Cup, you know? Can you do that? Why not? It's yours. But it's not the Stanley Cup. Like, where do you put the drink? In the NBA Cup? Oh, in the NBA Cup. Excuse me. You can't drink out of the Larry. You're right, you're right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it a cup?

Is it an actual cup? I guess it is, right? Can I see it one more time? Yeah, I think it's a cup. Yeah, I guess it is. Oh, could you imagine? Yeah, you take that thing. How do you feel about the-

It's the more prestigious of the three there, if you ask you? How do you feel about the cup being almost as tall? Not good. Yeah. How do you feel about the cup's design? It doesn't bother me. It's just a trophy. It feels a little bland, right?

I mean. It could be. For a trophy that prestigious. Give me a design. I have to think about it. The Larry OB is the nicest trophy in all of sports. The redesign is really nice because they redesigned it a couple years ago. They added some paint and stuff on it.

Sure. Yeah, you'll recall we had a nice makeout session. Yeah, someone kissed it before we actually had it. Some might say... Some didn't touch it. Now I'm like bringing on in. Yeah, can we get it back? Who's our contact?

Oh, KOC brought it in. No, no, no, no. I think that was just... timed. I think he was here because it was coming to us. I think he was piggybacking. Oh, I thought he was like, you know what? It's going to be on my show. I know who needs it.

Nah, no, no, no, that didn't happen. All right, let me get in touch with his people and let him know how we can. Please, please, please, please. Also, what is this? Henry Sehudo. Yeah. What's going on versus Dean the Great? What is this?

You nailed it. Okay, this is a thing? Missfits boxing, Henry Suhudo versus Dean the Great in Miami. This is a real thing happening. A boxing match. Yes, sir. So, who does free and clear? Correct.

Oh my gosh. Okay. September 26th. This was just announced. Yep, today. Dare I say, breaking news. Okay. I did not know about that.

I guess it just crossed over the wire. So thank you very much for that. Good luck to Henry. He's enjoying a lot of fun things these days. He's a part of RIF this weekend going up against Marabd-Dawali-Shealy. All right. Speaking of events happening in Florida. Speaking of newer events.

if you will. There's a event called Dual Arena One transpiring next weekend, August 29th at the Kia Center in Orlando, Florida. Tickets available right now on Ticketmaster.com. You can watch it on dual arena. TV. And it's going to be a hybrid type of event. There's going to be MMA boxing, kickboxing fights featuring influencers and professional fighters, names like Jimmy Manoa, Rashad Colter, Phil Rowe, Alex Nicholson, influencers and content creators like Gypsy Crusader and King Azale, former NXT wrestler Patrick Clark,

aka Velveteen Dream on the card as well, all kinds of fun things happening at the home of the Orlando Magic. But most notable is the main event a pro-MMA welterweight bout between Dylan Dennis and platinum Mike Perry, a fight that we had been hearing about for almost a year or so, maybe even thought that it was going to happen

under the Misfits umbrella around a year ago. It's actually happening in 10 days' time in Orlando, and we are lucky enough to be joined by both men right here and now. Are they actually here? There they are. Dylan and Mike. Long time, no talk.

Good to see you again, Dylan. How are you? Good, man. I haven't seen you in a while. Yeah, last time I saw you was Newark for the Mike Perry fight against Jeremy Stevens. Oh, that is right. Yeah, yeah.

We had a nice kumbaya. You even remember that. You were doing a documentary. I was, and we had a hugging out. session. It was great. Then you blocked me. You blocked me on Instagram. I thought we're all good. Dylan, it's not about me and you right now. It's not about me and you right now. It's about you and Mike. Okay, let's talk about this. Mike, it's good to see you as well.

What's up? Let's go. Okay. Actually, you know what? I'm going to start with Dylan if I can because I think a lot of people have seen you do some RAF stuff. But you know, you did the one misfits MMA fight. But this to me feels like the most important MMA fight of your life. The biggest test, the biggest challenge, the biggest name, all those things and more. Mike is on a role. He's just coming off the win over Nate Diaz. Why did you agree to this?

Because at the end of the day, I don't think there's an MMA or journalist. I could say that fighting Mike Perry is not respectful. Like, there was not a person out there that doesn't respect Mike Perry and say he's the tough fight. There's not a fighter in the world that says they would take my Perry easier. So, like, for me, throughout my career, I feel like a lot of people ducked me,

a lot of people I didn't get the names I wanted to fight. You know, I had guys like you always. say I'm taking easy fights or fucking guys I shouldn't be. But at the end of the day with this one, what can they say? You know, once I submit him or I knock him out, what can you say? There's not a fighter or a journalist that doesn't respect this. And I feel like no one's even kind of even bringing it in, bringing it to light that I'm 3 and 0.

And from my fourth fight, I'm fighting a veteran who's been 15 fights in the UFC on a roll, just not that with Nate Diaz. Well, made Nate Diaz quit. Probably the first person that made Nate Diaz quit. He made him look like a fucking punching bag, which he is. but, you know, but yeah, so I'm excited. Okay, and by the way, don't disagree with a single thing that you said there. I don't think anyone can knock you for this.

It is impressive. I don't know if a lot of people even thought it was going to come. I'm going to ask Mike, though, are you surprised Dylan is taking this fight? No, I think he's got some tricks in the jiu-jitsu world, but so do I. I'm good at jiu-jitsu. I just, I use it to not use it. I use it to hit people. and, you know, I'm looking to make Dylan tired of trying to grab his little locks and twists on me and they just not work.

And then I punch on them. So I'm ready to see what happens. I've been training. I'm so fucking tired of training. But I'm ready. Dylan, how do you feel about Mike? I like Mike, you know, and that's the heart part. I feel like he doesn't understand their intricacies of what's going to happen with my submissions.

and, you know, I want him to go back to Barronoeckel, especially if I knock him out, then the balls might fire him again. So, you know, I think he might be taking me too lightly on the ground, and he might get himself hurt and be in the hospital for a couple of years. So, but I do like Mike, you know, me and I'm trained together. I was getting ready for my fight, and he trained, like, you know, a lot of people usually, they come in and they try to spar me, try to hurt me.

He helped me get ready for my fight. He was a great training partner, gave me great tips and was a great, like, asset to the camp. So I definitely respect Mike in that. aspect. You know, he could have came in there, try to go crazy and do anything like that. But he helped me get ready for my fight, but, you know, fight night is a different story. Yeah, you know, this fight is supposed to happen many times. It was supposed to happen on the MVP card. It was supposed to be me and him instead of Nate Diaz. But Jake didn't like a couple of the

tweets that I had out there. So that ended up not coming to fruition. But yeah, I've been excited to finally first someone that people are going to, you know, no one can say anything after this, even though they're going to. But, you know, I'm excited. Mike, are you taking his ground game lightly? Are you looking past him? Absolutely not. I train with some really good guys all the time. I'm sick of them trying to climb all over me and put all this shit on me. And, you know, I just want to get back to my feet and land some punches. He ain't going to hurt me, especially not for a long period of time. So, you know, I'm prepared. I'm very, strong, I'm very brutal, and, you know, he's coming to my city, and there's a lot of people who got a lot to say about Dylan, and I'm not paying attention to any of that noise, but I do have a job to do, and I got to beat this guy the fuck up. Why does that make you like he looks tired, right? He looks tired, doesn't it? He looks like he's, like, kind of beat up. He looks like you've been taking, like, you know, too many hits or something. You're right?

Nobody's hitting me. Nobody's landing punches. We just fucking... They don't move your head, though. You know that. Come on. You're rolling on the ground and all that. So it don't matter. You're taking the wrong approach. You're taking the longer approach.

Your punches could never do a little tiny bit of damage to me. I don't got them with my head. I'll break your face with my face. I think so. I'll break your face with my fist. That's what's going to happen. It's going to be the first time when I knock you out. When we connect and we collide and you start bleat and you feel that trickle come down your face,

we're going to. don't see what you made up. You're sloppy, though. You know you're sloppy. Come on. You've also seen Daniel Rodriguez. I'm going to be sloppy all over top of you. I'm going to be sloppy all over you.

Yeah, well, you're going to be tapping at the same time. No way, dude. No way. Look at my nice. Look how rich I look in my fucking shirt, my button up shirt with my fish. You thought they called a fishing hat. That's $10 from cold. I'm so 10 and shit from my.

all the money and life that I be living and all I do is train and run back and get a big bar and beat the fuck out of people. That's what I do, Dylan. Yeah. I'm excited. I can't wait. I don't think you're ready for this, brother. I don't

think you even understand what's going to happen. You're going to end up her. You're coming to my city. Like, we got to... Well, Orlando... I got to put the crushers on you for the goons in the house. For Orlando. Orlando, son. You got to fill a gun there. You got Disneyland in Orlando, bro. There ain't nothing It's Disney World. You got to get it right. We got the Disney World that California shit don't fly here. This is the East Coast. This is the state of New York. That's the real East Coast.

We don't play all that. You want the last two minutes in New York, son. Yeah, I fucking, I fuck with New York. I'd be in New York all the time. I talk with Miami. I don't know about Orlando, but, you know, I fuck with Miami. So, Miami's a different world. Orlando's a different world. I feel like it's boring out there. I don't know. I've been out there since probably. Yeah, it's great for my family and raising my children and taking them to school and doing all these positive things in the community after I smash people's faces and I take the money and I create jobs and wealth. What are you doing for what do you do like charities? No, I don't have a charitable organization yet, but I have business. Help help people like you, the mentally disabled, you can make like a big charity guy.

Yeah, I do. I need some help. I am fucking mentally un-haping. I know you're a maniac. And I'm gonna- I'm a maniac too, though, so we're gonna see? It's gonna be crazy, don't. I'm all over. I'm excited.

I mean, you seem like a little bit higher. Like, tired, I don't know. Maybe it's like Geyrash burns on your face. It's because I conserve my energy for when I got to deal with you. This weight cut is fucking killing us. So I don't know what the fuck. They told me 175.

Now they're switching the weight. It's all bullshit, but whatever. No, it was always 170 from the get. Nah. They told me it was a ring. first off. Now it's a fucking, I mean, they told me it was a cage for itself. Now it's a ring. But it don't matter. You know, it doesn't

faze me. I told him, I told him bring the cage down from the, from the top of it. Let's do it. It's better for me. Put that one for in there. Shit, you might have a little better options in the ring. I can't put

wall pressure on you. You're not going to push me up because you're not going to make any contact with me. Did you see it now? You're not going to make any Harry's first submission in his career. He's running. Dylan Dennis, he strangled.

He's training with Philip Roe and Jiu-Zitou. They guys, like, I would, it would even be like me and Ariel rolling. Philip Roe was terrible. Who do you have in your job that day? I've been training with a accomplished lucko. Yeah, some guy that what a nodded. A pro-am champion, a jihitsu pro-am champion. Exactly.

I'm going to know what that is. I've, you don't know what the pro-am is or not a pro-a- That's like a local tournament in Orlando that they give a participant. I'm a metal port. What you're talking about? I meant, uh, I meant, I meant something else. It's fucking. Sorry, get your head together.

We got some good jujitsu motherfuckers. So it's all good. It's not that you think those guys are good. I said it's going to teach me how to stop you from doing all that bullshit. You ain't going to do it. And they forgot about the video clip that I posted on my story recently of you trying that little bullshit. Yeah, but you remember.

That's true. My leg. You're trying to be. martial artist. I'll be a nice on a bunch. If you want to brag about training, you can see that guy. Go ahead. You know me and you were working that day.

Well, the gym I train MMA at is actually well renowned in mixed martial arts, especially in 2026. We've had many great things. Used to have a golf host. You used to have good, good jihitsu guys. I don't know about now. We have lots of great guys. Leoto Machita comes worked with us all the time.

We got, uh, what's his name who won? Rebellus to Spania comes to trains with us all the time. He's an amazing athlete. He's a type of goal by three times. He got to get out of the EOSC. He got not that 4,000 a row. What are you talking about? So Jacaree Rodolfo is always there.

We got some of the best Jiu-Jitsu guys. Those two are good, but I mean, Jogger is washed, and Adolfo is one of my good friends. And my coach, Julian, you left him hanging. So now I got to leave you hanging. I actually saw it, and I felt bad about that. But, you know, I was a little bit out of it that night.

I think we both. I had a good time. Hey, I'll tell you what, man, Jeremy Stevens is a tough motherfucker. I said this in the thing leading up. I don't think you would have to take the shit he was taking. Listen, Jeremy Stevens, I would take down in 10 seconds.

We see what he does in the UFC. It's like on eight losing streak. That was a give-me-a-fight for you. But it was brutal to watch up close. That was my first bare-knuckle event. I was actually with Ariel, he was saying. But watching you guys damage each other. Going that long with Jeremy Stevens, come on.

Jeremy Stevens is literally like a journeyman. I'll tell you. He surprised me how tough he is. And he kept... You're a tough motherfucker, though. I saw you after. You were, like, fucking... That guy in that movie with the ginger hair.

I forgot what it was. Era, what's that movie with the guy with the ginger hair? That's what you look like all the time. Why are your cheeks swollen? Me? Because I'm alcohol. I drink. I'm always drinking.

I don't got to train for this. Okay. Good. I'm glad you. Because I'm fucking... I'm training my ass off. I'm made a stone. Yeah, we'll see.

Let's see when their arms broken. And the stones, like, he's too strong. Donald Seroni's tapping me out. You got a problem, brother. Jones don't, these stones don't crack. And that Seroni shit was one, so long ago, too. He was an incredible jih Tzu practitioner. And who tried to groom me a little bit when we were trying to.

You did take him down, though. I don't know why you took him down, though. I get that. I get that. I'm more advanced in, you know, like, IQ on the fights now. We'll see. I don't know.

And bare knuckle, you got to come straight forward and just swing and it doesn't seem to give the IQ to kind of move away from Jeremy Stevens. You can put your head into the fire. You know, you can only take those shots so long, man.

Everything you say right now, you're going to fucking eat me, dude. You're going to eat shit, bro. You're going to fucking eat. I promise you. Who's that other motherfucker who was talking that shit? Fizzle? last night, boy, he got left.

That guy's ass, bro. He got incredible. You're going to eat shit, my boy. How many clean knockouts do you have? You know, when you can't knock a guy out with Baron Uncle. You were like, let me bang guy. You went into a fucking decision. That guy's not a fucking fighter.

It was super tough, and it was Barcloth. I wasn't allowed to do anything but punch him. So you should be able to get clean knockouts. You know how to put a knockout in Barrenuple. What's your clean knockout? You got three pro fights. Yeah, all submission in the first round Lisa, what I do, I do when I do a quick.

You take freaking five rounds with these guys that are a fucking journeyman. Okay, this will be your first fight then. We'll see how it goes. When I start not getting subbed, when I'm putting pressure on you and I'm on top or wherever. I don't think you know when to tap.

I don't think you have enough brains when I get a certain submission. I'm not going to look at you. There's not going to be a tap, bud. Unless it's you tapping from strikes. I would hope you would tap Mike. I don't want you in the hospital for two, three years. You're going to be ruining your career. Trust me.

There's submissions that you have to tap to. But, you know, that's up to you, brother. You better ask Craig Jones about my jujitsu. Oh, I have. Yeah, I'm trapped in him and shit. Yeah, I've done this shit. I've been doing, I just never used jujitsu in my fights. I don't know why he thinks it's only going to be jitzy.

I'll be stricken, brother. You know my strength is good. You'll see. Well, I'm just not worried about that, Dylan. You're not? So, well, don't be worried, but if I knock you out, that's going to be a tough one as well. Definitely not. You might have to retire after the...

You're not going to do it. I mean, come on, we'll see. I'm going to be standing right in front of you, hands down. I know how you are. My hands are going to be down, and you ain't going to be doing nothing. Hands down? If you have to take downs, you're going to be pulling guard. You're going to be running in circles.

Nash on top, and I'm going to throw short elbows, and I'm going to cut the side of your eyebrow, and it's going to bleed in your face and we're going to show people a real fight. It'll be a way harder fight than eight years, I'll tell you that. Yeah, we'll see. We already have our opponent locked up after. I don't know if you know, so I'm excited. And you're over here rep in New York.

And he's from Jersey. He lives in Jersey. He's talking about, oh, you would last a day in New York. You came over here to train over here. I don't tell people where I live. I got a lot of enemies, brother. I'm all over the place. I got a place of Florida too.

Don't worry about the... Okay. I'm worldwide, kids. I'm teaching you. I teach you the ropes. I got a few places. Maybe I would look at... I would look at it.

But, like, I don't know. I don't want to get... 100 square feet for $180 million. And I get a corner of... Yeah, okay, stop. You got $180 billion place? No, but I got... You know, this place is.

two and a half, so. It's not bad. It looks like a nice place. I'll give you that. Hey, you earned it in blood. So, you know, I respect it. Yeah, baby, we're going to get you earning something. We're going to earn you.

I don't know. I never played in a fight. No one makes me believe in my own blood, brother. I actually feel bad for you, bro. You're going to get hurt. And it's like, you're a good dude, man. I don't want you out for two, three years. You're hurt.

Ain't nothing to this, there. Ain't nothing to it. Except showing up. It's for you. You get tapped. Okay. Go back to bird. uncle, yeah, it's nothing.

But, you know, for me, this means a lot. So we're fighting for different reasons, Mike. I'm glad it means a lot to you, bro. It means a lot to me, too. I take every fight very seriously. The way I train is extremely strenuous. Yeah. I don't know.

You're doing laps, and, I mean, this isn't a fucking triathlon. I mean, you should be training. Oh, my God, dude. The track days on Wednesdays, it's great to be the day out of the gym in the brutal Florida sun is very hot. It might be hotter here right now. It's human as hell. renting my ass off full speed with my whole team out there supporting.

You gas in the second round against Nate Diaz who was fucking laying there as a punching bag. What are you talking about? Gasped my ass, bro. You were gassed. You were a gas. And you got thrown by Nadeas. People was going to be dying, bro. If that third round started, there was going to be some real pain.

You were gassing. You were going to admit it to it. You were like, I was guessing. Oh, a motherfucker can't breathe. I can't take a breath. After I dropped. He is not been moving. Walked away.

He was like a 40-year-old. No, he's 40-year-old. He had like a fucking belly on him. He was standing against a cage. He should have hurt him. I don't know. That was me and him that would have lasted 30 seconds. He knows that.

Like the side where he's not. I haven't seen that in a while. Yo, guys. I don't know. Do you ever get in error? You have anything to say, all right? Yo, it's been 12 minutes since I last spoke. I was going to say.

We can go all day. Yo, that might have been the greatest segment in the history of the show. If you had a camera on me, I didn't want to, you guys, that was, that was fucking unbelievable. I feel like I'm ruining it by popping back in here. That was a, I have a million. I haven't done this since fucking high school or middle school. I don't know. I have a million follow-ups.

Holy shit, that was amazing. I just feel like I need to just, I just need to acknowledge that. Dylan, can I ask you something? You say I blocked you It's not true, I don't know But we looked at your social There's mention of Raff There's mention of Islam

There's no mention of this fight On your Instagram No, they took it down I had me and him had a collab post on it Oh They took it down, did you see that Mike? I just realized that yesterday So they took down our poster

So it was a collab of me and Mike With that dual arena Yeah And they took it down So we were getting worried We were getting worried Like why is there no mention? I didn't

I was looking at I was like, did I delete this or something And then I guess they delete this? I don't know why, so that was on them. Got to make a post, man. Yeah, make a pose. All that. Your little gambling post, you go out there.

You're making my money, son. Make a little, pay a little video. Hey, we gave you what you wanted for this point. Because for Miss Fancy, you don't want to be. A little video clip and post it on your Instagram. Mike demands a lot of money for when he fights. I got to give it to him. He's a smart businessman.

So, you know, this fight was, you know, this fight came out of nowhere. I had a meeting with, you know, my own of a, I'm allowed to say who. Go ahead. We came out that we were fucking going through so many names, bro. So many names. And Mike had a very high price and those people don't want to pay it. So we ended up with Soroni.

So me leaving that meeting. So I don't know if you saw Ariel that I ran to KSI in the elevator? Do you hear that story or no? No, I don't think so. Tell us. So I was going to a meeting with a bunch of owners of his own and all this stuff to see where my next flight was going to be in the city. And I hit the elevator in his fucking KSI. Wow.

But he's by himself. and I hadn't started drinking it we were gonna go drink upstairs I was over and he had his girlfriend or his fiance with him and the elevator opens and she has his she's like on his shoulder and he's holding the luggage and I look at it and I'm like he got he was like so shook

and I just liked them I said you know what you're with your girl brother go on and you know that took I feel like me growing up that that you know I don't know I'm mature you're matured you know I guess so I mean I could have went the elevator you know and fucking strangle them

and made a big scene, but he's with his fiance, he's with his fiance family. She's tired. It was like one in the morning. But anyway, yeah, that's what happened that night. It was funny. But he's acting like, oh, I had my hands all bowled up. I would have killed him in the elevator. I should have went in and be like, hey, what's up?

He was so scared out of his mind. He had no security with him or anything. But, you know, I said, all I said, you're with your girl. Just go on. And I took that other elevator. Wow. I'm not going to do that to a woman or child.

But, yeah, so that meeting, he outpriced himself. We went through so many names. The names I could tell you. I didn't even know Toccoa Rigomi was still alive. They were bringing up names like that. And I was like, holy shit. And then Sakaraba. And I'm like, dude, come on.

And so we ended up with Soroni. It was like the only one that would take it. Pettis is washed up. And I was like, come on, can we do Pettis? And there's like, names that, like, they want to make a main event. We can't do Pettis won't be main event worthy. You know, so then they said no to Perry. And then they called me a couple days later with, you know, him.

And I said, yes, right away. So it was kind of short notice. They can't put it on to zone or misfits because of the gypsy crusader guy, you know, Because that's why they can't play for him. So that's why people were asking why he's not on misfits. You don't know that guy? I mean, I just read his name, but that's all I really know about him. Go watch his content.

I'm actually interested because he's not allowed around me. I'm interested if he's going to be saying what he usually says in front of Mike because Mike is 3% African. Oh. He's a big racist. That's the big anti-Semite. Oh, sorry. Well, now he has a child there.

Yeah. And that's why he's playing a Jewish guy. That's why it's such a big fight. Oh, gosh. I sent my against him so they can't play on the platform. Is that your daughter, Mike? Yes, hello. How you doing?

Nice to meet you. Odyssey, Daddy's going to fight this guy next weekend. Imagine, look. Did you come to the fight? Yeah, I am bringing my kids. I'm not, you know, if you go for a little ankle lock or some shit, I'll be all right. All right. All right, don't worry.

He'll be in a cast or two for a couple weeks, but he'll be home. He'll be able to spend more. He'll be able to spend more time with you. Jay's going to make him bleed. You go see Mama, okay? You get to hang out in a booth for a couple weeks at home and, you know, finally leave you home with your kids for a while.

Sorry, so that was the story about this place. We don't care about all that other stuff, man. All the fights that didn't happen, this and that. You got one. You got one, buddy. I know, by Ariel A. You got the king of violent. I have the intellectual mind or your podcast here to, you know,

ask real questions. Mike, do you think? think he actually is going to stand with you? Do you think he's going to stand and trade with you? Or do you think he's going to shoot right away? Yeah, I think he might throw like a punch, like an overhand right or a bit or a left hook or something. Yeah, I'm expecting he could throw a little clobber punch. And then hold on, Mama.

Go see your mama. Please, please. Go see your mama. Sorry, guys. No problem. Good, bro. Yeah, so I think he might punch, but I'm going to be there. for it and I'm going to be watching out for his little tactics.

Tougher opponent in your opinion, Mike. Dylan or Nate who you just fought? Well, I always think the six one's the best one. I always think that something that's in front of you is a challenge for a reason. There's multiple challenges here. Fighting in my home city and I'm feeling a type of obligation. And, you know, I guess I feel the obligation no matter what fight, no matter what city, no matter where it is, I got to get in the ring and I got to perform. I do that through training hard. But I think Dylan is the more,

after, you know, I grapple with Nate a little bit. There was never anything to worry about in the segments. So I think Dylan could put me in some bullshit, but my guy's been putting me in it. My guy's been putting me in all types of crap. I'll start and crap. and should totally be out and totally get out.

Why are you laughing? Why are you laughing, Dylan? Because those guys are putting them in a crap, and they're not going close to the level I'm at. So when I get in there, it's going to be a different story. There's some drills involved where we start in bad positions, buddy. Yeah, but those guys, I'm saying, those guys aren't good. It's like playing aerial on your back and then saying, like, I've been in bad positions.

Why did I call it the pro-am? It's not the pro-am. What's that shit called? I told you. I don't know what the fuck is the pro-ram. It's like a skateboarding competition. It's called Those two brinsils are fighting each other right now It's like a big ABC championship

For some shit I got a lot of good grapplers here And my coach is thinking I'm telling you that guy That guy is fucking scared He's good man He won the poor him Dylan can I ask

You just said you've got your next fight A who is the next fight And B is that dangerous I mean you've got by far the toughest opponent of your career right there fighting you in 10 days time Is it smart to be talking about and thinking about and maybe even lining up

your next fight already. This feels like a potential trap. It's for both of us, actually. Woffer wins. And I don't know if he knows about it, but I can't say the name. I can't say the name because the person is that kind of guy that won't like his name to be said. But there's not many big names outside the UFC.

It's probably me, Mike, Nate. And then, so I can't say who this person is. It's kind of out of left field, but it's a big, big name. So I'm not looking past it or anything. You know, I'm just saying, I've been active. I just choked out of Tramado. And then I wrestled Kobe. I was winning against Kobe.

I came into a wrestling thing. No, I think it's comical. It's a bit comical because I saw it with different ways. You know, like, oh, this is Hamzat, Hamzot Chamaia moments before he gets the fastest pin in RAF history. In RASTA history, why do you're bringing me back? I have. He was unconscious. I appreciate your thoughts.

And you're going to show up to fight and stuff. And then I think you keep saying, oh, a submission. somebody in 15 seconds when that doesn't happen that's your clock 15 seconds seconds once the fights have to at 30 seconds you're gonna be looking for ways out I got 15 seconds in me that's how long you last in the bedroom brother not me I wish so that fucking tequila in your system brother well I haven't been drinking for my fight I've been preparing for my fight drink I'm not a little puppy red I don't know I never what do you fight

with a knuckle you drink a couple shots before so you don't feel the pain is that true? That's not true I don't drink alcohol you're not a lot to me you know

for a fight I actually the Nate Diaz fight was the closest I smoked up to the fight because Nate was just high every day so I was just like

fuck it I'm gonna hit that bitch too I don't want him to be have any advantages on me so if I start drinking you guys are drinking I'm not, unfortunately

I can't I can't do it until after we handle business Got you gotcha Got you got you Dylan are you drinking leading up to this No no no drinking I stopped drinking the day that This fight got announced too

Okay is that hard for you Nah I mean it is what it is You know I don't mind The big he's a big fight I try to stay active That's why I'm taking all these RIF matches I have arm on after him

You know I'm staying active as possible you know that was a big criticism of people against me was you know he's not active he's not fighting he's not doing this and now i'm just taking everything so i love it going for it i love it and uh you know mcanner it actually said that uh i can't say to who but he's finally he's taking a real fight at 170 so i'm excited to see this so you know ufc's watching uh there's a history between mike and your good friend connor mcgregor has he talked to you about the fight as you've given you i know he's injured right now but any any you know he's he's a great mind when it comes to this stuff John has told me about the messages and has he given you some pointers in his opinion on how to beat Mike?

You know, obviously he was going through what he was going through when this fight got announced. But we did talk and he's he think, well, his prediction is under two minutes submission, an easy submission. He thinks Mike is too forward and his aggression. And I can't say too much of our game plan. But obviously he was going through what he was going through. So I didn't want to bring my thing into it. You know, obviously that was a hard moment for him. Sure.

Hard moment for anybody in the spot that he was in and everything that happened. But yeah, he says under two minutes of mission. I think Mike's biggest, his biggest trait is his biggest weakness. You know, so it's going to be interesting for him because I know his coaches are probably giving him game plans, but I know Mike is a warrior. I feel like he was put on this earth to fight. And once he gets in there, I don't think he follows game plans. I think he just goes through your head.

So I think he's it make it easier for me. If he was smart, you know, I'm not going to give him game plans, but. Game plans aren't a choice you can make on fight night. It's something that the muscle remembers through weeks and weeks of... I just don't think that you think too much. I think you're just like, oh, I'm going to go fucking go crazy on this guy and go try and knock him out. You know, I've seen you fight, so I don't think you ever had a game plan. You don't have to think once all the work's been done and it's time to fight.

Then you just go have fun and fight. And that's what I'm going to do. I know you like the fight. I'm excited. I'm ready to fight, too. I don't think you know me, man. No, I do. I see you're excited for your little real challenge over here, man,

and it's this, you know, I just have 15 points in the U.S.C. It's not easy to have 15 points in the U.S. It's not even putting a hulk to it. He'll show up to another R.A.F. Armand Saruki didn't even say on, he said October 8th. He was wrestling somebody, and it wasn't you. So October 3rd. Yeah, I thought it was October 9, too, but I think they changed the date.

He was on your show, Ariel, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. He's got my trash can or something. like that? There he is. October 3rd. October 3rd. I'm excited for that because, you know, now I get them,

I know he's mad about the Chamaa thing, so he was going to be a little bit of bad blood over there. Me and or I might get along, but yeah, he's not going to be able to handle me on the mic or he's not going to be able to handle me on the mat. And then I get a title, another title, you know, so another world championship. Mike doesn't have a world championship.

He has a king of violence built, so. prestigious, in my opinion? Hey, I mean, it's cool to be the king of violence. It's a MMA world title that was made just for you. The only MNP fight on the card. The only MMA fight on the card, they gave you a little title fight. Because you're a little famous celebrity guy. Well, I'm telling you, your belt is the king of sitting.

I'd rather be the king of not getting hit and just fucking submitting people or knocking them out with one punch and not taking damage. I want a hold drawer by the time you're 40. I mean, you can't believe what's his name landed that good punch on you in the parking lot. Oh, Anthony Taylor? He's his ass. You remember, though, these guys, they get famous when they hit me, so I actually knew he was trying to hit me, and I was ignoring him,

and that's why this whole thing happened. But it is what it is. I don't care. I take my licks, but, you know, it is what it is. You know. You try to put me out cold with a clean overhand, so I don't think you'll be able to. You and Anthony Taylor and Burnuckle would be a fucking war. I don't know why we're giving this guy his fucking clout.

He's a fucking loser. He just got cut for misfits. He's fighting on a fucking, I don't know what the fuck he's fighting anymore. I think your misfits' MMA fight is the only MMA fight in the history of Misfits still to this day. Yeah. This would have been on Misfits, but, you know, Mike, I'll price himself. Is that true, mine? I'm the champion.

I can tell them how much you wanted. I took a huge pay cut. No, they gave you a good deal. I had to get a good paycheck for Dylan to come. Yeah, I had to get a good paycheck. You got a good deal. City Arena. Yeah, it feels right.

Are you a magic fan? Oh, you're going to get a big. bag for smashing Dylan Dennis and at home. I was like, yes, we got to do this. I'll take the pay cut short. Are you a magic fan or no? Yeah, man, since Shaq, T-Mack. Oh, yeah, dog.

I don't think T. And then, what was it? Penny Hardaway? Any Hardway, yeah, in the night. Penny Hardway, right? Yeah, yeah. Mike, can I ask, a lot of people have dreamed of, you know, beating up Dylan, let's be honest, knocking him out.

Do you feel like you're doing this for the, For the community, for the culture? Is this what's on your mind? I'm doing this for me and, yeah, some of the culture because, well, why hasn't he had fights? Because no one can knock me out. We're going to find out. I'm going to tell you why.

I haven't had fights. It's because no one wants to get embarrassed. So if a guy like Nate Diaz fights me and I'm 3 and O and I submit him in 20 seconds, his stock goes all the way down. All those little fanboys that he has are like, all right, you know, we're not fighting. We're not watching him fight again, this and that. So it's embarrassing for these guys.

So I give kudos of Mike. But Mike is going to have the excuse after his name. He'll go back to Baranokel. I was in my training of M.A. He's going to do the whole fucking thing. I know what he's going to do. I know his whole fucking game playing. That's the reason he's doing this.

It's a little jester. He's just a little jester. He's just playing little games. Oh, look at me. You know, all right. Geotined Hamzaa Chama. No, it was the fastest pan. He went unconscious.

He was on conscious. He was on conjure. He didn't know where he was when he stood up. You didn't even try to. He fights to take down. Stop. Okay. He went unconscious.

You don't know what happened in the lead-up into that fight with me and him. So you don't even know what you was trying to use on. I don't watch that wrestling crap. Yeah, because you even know how to wrestle. I hate wrestling. Fuck wrestling. This is how you wrestle with a bare-knuckle fist on somebody's fucking... When you on your back, those things ain't going to be working.

You're not... I'm from my back. I'll knock you out. From my back, I'll knock you out. I can lay on my back and punch you in your face. You can be getting fucking toss a rest. on everybody be freaking having their way with you in prison. Slowly but surely be twitch and a small confined area.

Those fists ain't going to work. You'll see. You're going to be fucking tapping or you're going to be either cut up ground and pound or you're going to be not unconscious. You're going to be napping, buddy. You got one way to win this fight. I got a lot of ways to win this fight. You're gassing against a fucking fifth-year-old Nate Diaz.

That has the same body as a freaking. My grappling is exceptional. I'm very strong. I'm very powerful. I'm very athletic. I'm very fast. You're not technical, though. MMA-type grappling

MMA-style mixed martial arts. You try to rip out of submissions. You're going to get hurt. You're going to get hurt. You don't know the technical side of it. Okay. You're going to rip out of everything. That's what you can think.

You don't know the bloody side of it. Once your eyes start... I don't want to know the point. I want to be a good fighter. I know. I can't wait to see what you made of, bro. Good fighters. Good fighters.

Don't get fucking old bully. They knock people out or they submit them. I disagree. I think some of the best fights in history. have gone. Oh, yeah, great. Yeah, the great fights guys are going back and forth

in, like, the barn burner. Like you and Julian Lane, bro, the bang bro guy. I don't know what the fuck he is. Come on. That's the greatest fight of history. Hmm.

I don't know about that, but, you know. I feel like I'm getting dumber. The Michael Van Gogh page one might be pretty good. Yeah, Michael Van Page. I didn't think you were going to win that, to be honest you.

But I rewatched it, and I feel like that extra round, he might have won. I don't know. I think they gave to you because they didn't have them under contract, the head you under contracts there,

like when you might have greased you up a little bit and got you that decision. I don't think so. And I think even if that were a bit of a case at all, which is not, but if it was, it's like, that's Michael Ben on page,

right? He's so good. He should have just come in and sparked me. And the announcer guy, he goes, oh, both hands down. No, my hands didn't touch.

Not one of my hands touched the ground when he hit me. So knock down versus no. knockdown, like I said, they were going to give it to me at the end of five, but I wanted more blood, baby. Bear knuckles is a different game, though. I mean, the guy that I submitted in the Misfits thing, he dropped Darren Till. I mean, the guy that he boxed, we went to a decision with. They never got dropped by this guy, dropped Darren Till in a box in the bare knuckle fight.

So Barrenuble is a totally different game, brother. If you beat, Mike, if you beat Dylan, you want him in bare knuckle, or if Dylan beat you, could we do like a home-and-away thing here? what you mean home like a fuck that me bro it don't matter bro I'm fitting to beat

his ass we see him fucking box J. Paul Saturday at the here in Orlando it's all good that's what's gonna happen

so you don't want to see him in bare knuckle after this you don't want to see me in bare knuckle you don't want to see me in the streets he knows

he knows what these things got going come on come on I'm he doesn't need more he doesn't need more he doesn't

of course I will bear knuckle him anytime but you don't He can get him in the head of him. Darren Till, about to get beat up by Yowell Ramero. No, stop it. He is, he got to.

That's the bigger version of Mosphid. Is you? Nah, Darren Till's going to kill him. Derritale looks in great shape, and I feel like he's going to fuck him up. Derrick Till said, I'm going to submit you easily. So I guess that's why you're going against him. Actually, I didn't care about that or hear about that. But I know your doctor says, stop doing the barrennuckle.

You're getting hit in the head too much. That's why you went for a grappler, so you can get to himself. submitted and make some money and, you know, help out your mental facilities or whatever they're to the real sport of fighting, sir. I'm going to welcome you with open arms into the real sport of fighting. And fighting, I mean, you haven't really be anybody, but I mean, yeah, I mean, you're tough and bare-knuckle you have, though. I'm going to cut you. I don't mind. I don't mind. The things I've been through, you think a little couple cuts in her. I don't see when I cut you, you always have scratches. I mean, it cuts all over your face. You have

Summa's scar tissue on your face. I don't know. I'm talking about. Come on. I'll cut you open first. And then you're like, oh, shit. Now I'm getting pieced up on the feet. You're probably going to shoot.

And then you're going to get some of it. I don't get paid the big bucks for no reason, bud. That's true. You are a draw, I guess. Yeah. Bare knuckle only, but it is what it is. You're more of a draw. You're the clown show that everybody wants to come seeking.

Hey, you got the opportunity. Everybody in this. I know. I know. I know. It's such a great. opportunity to beat the guy. Like Ariel said, Ariel will

fucking take a million dollars to get to punch me. But everybody wants to punch me in the face and you finally get the chance. So let's see if you get to do it. You got a lot of pressure on you. I got an annoying out of space. You've got to put me out. Do you agree, Mike? Does he have an annoying face? Do you want to punch him? I mean, because I got, we kind of

look the same right now. I'm getting dumber with my hat this way. Why are you trying to jog, dog? Copy your swag, son. I'm back in high school right now. You can try to copy it in the fight, it ain't going to work. Don't worry.

You don't got it on style, buddy. Just swing over hands and fucking put your head forward. You can't break someone's fist with the gloves. Yes, you can. Stop it. You go, let me punch you in the face. You'll see. I got a cold right hand.

I got a cold right hand. If you try to punch me at all and you don't go for the, if you don't just go straight to the grappling, I'm going to fuck your hands up if I have to. You went three, four rounds with Jeremy Stevens. He's on, what, seven losing's tree? Was it in the UFC? No.

Come on. Yeah, he is in the UFC? One five rounds. Oh, one five. There's even one word. Sorry, they're making a worse thing. And he's a tough son of a gun. I'll give it to Stevens.

I want to see him. You know, they don't think of him. You know what I'm talking about Jeremy? 170 might be two. big. No, he made 175. He can do 170. He's a 45er. He's the hardest hitting 145. I know. And you should fight him in

M. M. M.A. after I beat you. You were ducking in the other guy. I don't know what his fucking name was. The fucking other guy that you beat in M.M.A. wherever the hell his name was? I don't know those bare knuckle guys. I was just there for the event to hang out with Connor, but I got to take a couple pictures with you. The bare knuckle guys are all fan boys with me. So it was nice.

Got to do a little charity work there for you guys. Why weren't you at the Max fight? Me or him? You, you, Dylan? I don't know. I understand. Oh, because I was banned and I was just like, yeah. Yeah, I should have flew out there.

I was going to, but I was going through some stuff over here. Someone asked in the chat if you would take a contender series fight. Like, since, you know, if this works out, McMainter is looking at you, would you fight on the contender series? I keep saying no, because why would they waste the money on a contender series fight? You know, I'm a big money fight. And after I beat Mike, I think that, you know, a lot of guys of 170 are going to be willing to fight me because Mike is a very, you know,

respected combat sports athlete in the world of MMA. So, you know, that was one of the problems with all the guys that wanted to fight me. They're like, he hasn't fought anybody. It looks bad on me. So after I submit Perry and a round, there's going to be a lot of, a lot of people that are going to want to fight me. So I think they would put me on a main card. It would make a lot more sense.

But, you know, I think I'm right. I mean, at 3 and 0, who's fighting a guy like Mike Parrard? At 3 and 0, if you watch the contenders series, I was looking at the guy's records. The guys that they beat, they get to the contenders series were four and five. five and eight, six and seven. I'm a little bit like you. I'm an eight year,

10 year blue, uh, purple belt, uh, purple belt or something like that. So I'm a little bit of a sandbagger in my fight career. You know what I'm saying? My jujutor, I'm sorry and no.

You're a sandbagger in the fight game. You're a better than your record allows is three and oh, but you've been here for like 12, 15 years. Like, what are you doing? You know, so we'll see. Crong Gracie didn't do good at MMA, you know, so we'll see. Cron Gracie didn't do good. Hidalfo is not doing good.

And Busheshire has a want to fight. Who else? I mean, you know, so I have a different kind of style. If you think I'm just a jihitsu guy, I guess, I don't know. We're gonna see. Are we got any more questions? Because me and him arguing, we argue. You know, I was actually thinking maybe when this is done,

I feel like a Dylan and Mike podcast would be something. I mean, you guys have tremendous chemistry. I'm gonna be honest. Can I just ask- Yeah, I'm gonna get. I don't mind. I know. There was a part of me that was kind of sad

to see this all kind of fizzle up. But maybe you- After I submit him, hopefully he doesn't have to go to the hospital. Hopefully he's smart and he taps, and then we can see, we can have a jerking contest with something. Whatever he's to kill is.

A jerking contest. Yeah, after the fight, because you won't be hurt too bad. I mean, unless you tap, you don't tap, but then you're going to be in the hospital. But I hope you tap quick and just make it easy because it's going to be sucky to, you know,

rip your, I'm not going to say which body part. It could be any body part, but you're going to be out for a long time. So you're going to need a lot of that to kill, the numb to pain. Mike, is there any fear that he doesn't show up? No, because it can only take him 15 seconds to quit.

You keep saying that because that's how fast I won the last one. You can show up. Oh, you also said two minutes after, so it could take him two minutes to quit. But that's okay because I'm there for 15. So we're going to have fucking broken body. I think he's coming. They stop it even if you don't talk. You tapped against errone.

I mean, if you don't tap and your arm is hanging off your body, they're going to stop it. I didn't really tap against Saroni. I said... Oh, you did the whole deal. That motherfucker had my arm, dog. Okay, baby, I'll come get my food. Thank you, boy, man. Okay, is it lunchtime or dinner time?

What is it? 4.15 over there? Yeah. Is this when you eat, Mike? He works exhausted. It's 4 o'clock. He's exhausted already. I just getting going.

Every sport this morning, I'm about to go to work out again, non-slow, fresh. I don't know. Go work on my bare knuckle, maybe getting a couple of street fights, you know? Yeah. Oh, I thought you weren't training, Dylan. It's all good. I am.

We said that. We don't talk. I got to rest some. You said that. You were like, I don't have you changed. I didn't notice, by the way, Mike, you're looking at his Instagram, huh? You've noticed the stuff that he's posting. You're keeping an eye on him.

No, I literally said it. No, because he posts some stuff. He tags me in some stories. Okay. Okay. Okay, I just wanted to know if you were keeping tabs. Because for this, promotion is basically just me and my promoting it. We're basically the promoters here.

Yeah. So we're promoting this thing. I mean, I don't know. I see Dual Arena on all these like cop videos. Yeah, I know. I've seen the, it's like on their radio videos. Gypsy Crusader and Azule on there. I'm like, sure, okay, put those two assholes on there.

And not. You're going to be sitting next to them. I hope you punch them in the face of one of those bare knuckles. because you know he's going to be I'm going to save my punches for you because I'm a professional I'm going to punch you I don't think they're going to do anything

you got to defend the black community you got to defend the black community and the Jewish community you ever seen that guy in action is going to be a press conference I know these guys so I don't think you know what you sign up for is a little bit of a shit show over there

I don't I don't know what these but I've got to know a bit the Zule because what people were saying a line and then I went ahead and said some shit and then he was jumping on me. So, so we'll see. It's okay. I'm here for the blood and violence and it's my city. So I feel like we can get back. I know you turn to a different person. The city is going to protect itself. This city plenty strong. City's good to go. We can actually have a rampage in this bitch. We should do it. I'm fine. We're going to August 29. The four people I

bring we could run over and take over Orlando soft as hell, bro. I hope you guys have a good fight week, good fight camp. I hope some people, some crackheads probably mess with you and be like, hey, I saw you on a billboard, man. That's all the guys you hang out with on the weekends.

The crackheads down, and I don't know where you was like Skid Row over there. You're probably the king of Orlando Crackett. That's where you go get your fix on the weekends. Back in the day. Back in the day. I go out there drinking and bar hopping, boy, we get Ratchet in Orlando. It's fine.

I know I've seen the video of you knocking out the old man. I said I'm getting paid back for him. He's staying inside out there in Jersey. Can't let anybody know where I be at. I'm out all the time. I know, because I'm Dylan Dennis. I'm famous. They might try to hate on me, try to punch me in a park lot.

Take a CT over here, bro. His two brains cells are fighting each other right now. All right, you got to do the talking for him. Okay, this is tremendous. But I do feel bad that your food is waiting for you, Mike. So any final thoughts to Dylan, Mike? I'll give you the floor first. Anything you want to say to Dylan?

Oh, man. Safe travels. Thank you, brother. Enjoy the city next week. Have some good steak and your weight cut, make weight. And I'll see you next. I need any crack. I'll call you.

I mean, you tell me where to get it. I don't know where to get that, but make sure you smoke something right before we fight. That's the only chance you got. I'll be hop up. I can be hopped up. And you got. You know, there's no drug test. I've seen you've been ripped.

I don't know what you've been taking. They're going to test us on fight night. Yeah, exactly. That's the old, yeah, test after the fight. I wonder you and love to play. You don't even know. You don't even have any fights. I have more questions me.

I don't know. I don't know. Nobody would catch you. You famous guy. You're so easy to read me. Look at you. I can't wait until the press conference. You're so easy to read me.

But anyway, yes. When I'm fucking in front of you. Please rage, baby. Oh, I'm going to, dude. All right, let's go. You can't walk forward without tripping over your own two feet. Okay.

You're going to trip right into a submission. I'm going to trick my balls on your forehead. Then I'm going to submit your balls. No, you're not. Someone needed to give you a bisectomy by now. I'll give it to you. You see how I'm built like a fucking bodybuilder. Yeah, you're five foot tall.

bro. Actually can grab one. Show us, Mike. Show us, Mike. How are we looking? How are we looking 10 days out? Show us, Mike. Let's see it.

Let's see it. Yeah, let's go. Let's go. Come on. Show Dylan what's waiting for him. Here we go. Platinum Mike Perry, 10 days out.

Perry, Dennis, Orlando, golly, Dylan. Is that baby, Dylan? Oh, I'm sweating, bitch. Is that baby?

Oh, he's sweating. Look at him. He's sweating because he's so mad. Dylan. It's not. Not too soon. It's not too. Look at that.

Chiseled. He's chiseled. That doesn't help your fucking bones from getting you. I'm still 119. He's going to go to a ditty party over here. I'm still 190. And he's got 20 more pounds. You would have went to those parties.

You would have went to a ditty party. I told Ariel this story. I've been to a ditty party. I never told the story about it. But I've seen you there upstairs in that freakoff. I know what happened. Dill, now your turn. Your turn.

Your turn. Your turn. No, no. Let's see. Let's see. I don't want to. I don't want to. Dylan, Dylan.

Come on, Dylan. You saw those downs already in the picture. The baby's bottom. Look at that. These noodle arms are going to be knocking him out. Yeah, I bet. I'm excited. Dylan, final thought to Mike.

I'll give you the floor last. You know, I like Mike, so I'm hoping that he taps quick. I don't want him to be hurt. I don't want to ruin his career to get him out of Barrono. Bro, you don't understand what's going to happen if you don't tap. You don't understand. Dude, two, three years. I've been through knee surgeries.

I've been through arm surgeries. I've been through Nathap. So just be smart, Mike. You know, you have a three career. I ain't three years in Dagestan, buddy. You ain't two three years. I don't need it for you. I don't hear it for you. Don't worry.

I just choked out fucking Chamaev in 20 seconds. I saw you talking shit about Islam, man. Gosh, really? Me and Islam, fuck those guys, bro. They banned me, but all the guys have jumped me at MSG or in his corner. They're there. They all have warrants in New York. And they come to New York.

And by the time they get there, they're running. So fuck those guys, bro. There's a big thing going on. There's a big, you know, I'm going to say lawsuits against a lot of people for them. Fuck them. They only fight in fucking hide them packs and they jump me. Look, Perry thinks he's that knock me out.

Those guys were stomping on my face and punting me in the head, punching me in the back of the head. Apparently, Chonko is some big ass striker and he's so good. How many times have been jumped by 100 of those guys? They can't knock me out. No wonder they fucking go and die for the legs and crotch sniff because they can't knock anybody up. So 50 of them can't knock me out. It was more than the 50.

And, yeah, that's bullshit. So Perry thinks he'll hurt me. You know, he's in for it. and yeah Perry some bullshit with those guys Mike if you were there

and people jump Dylan would you get his back would you would you would you would you help him out I think you would I think he would

someone trying to separate the chaos yeah I feel like you want to be throwing I don't just cold cock people in the back of the head

that I don't know who this motherfucker is but that's what they're doing to me they're cold cock to be in the back of the head and trying to

separate people back up and then you never know one of them might hit me, they were popping, or I didn't say I wouldn't help. I said I would low-key help, but. I wouldn't have knocked out Eddie Alvarez for you?

I do it myself. You slipped on the beer or something like that. You went down. I don't think he hurt you, but you slipped, right? Or something? I don't remember. I seen the video a long time ago. The only fight I seen you in was with that old man at the door.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. When they jumped me in. Oh, yeah. That's what I was talking about. I slipped, dude. I went straight down on the ground,

on beer everywhere. I was lit. I didn't know little braw as well. I'll give it to you that. I see my boy do a fucking back clip on beer before. So it happens. But yeah, fuck those. You took some good shots to the back of the head and shit.

That shit's fucked up. That's fucked up. Stomp. So I'm giving you a fair shake. I'm giving you a fair shake from a real fighter to, you know, someone with a superior jiu-jitsu skill we're going to test

I'm excited listen I respect your striking I respect your toughness I respect that you're fucking you're a game bro I know your game no matter what I know you're gonna come in and fight

so that's what I'm excited about no matter how you feel how much the weight cut is you're kind of thank you everybody for watching go to ticket master and buy some tickets to the event the paper view is up on my

Instagram at Platon Mike Perry and the event is at the Kia center man go to ticket master buy a couple extra ticket. I think they're getting pretty low on the amount of tickets left. So hopefully we Ticketmaster.com. Mike, I want to thank you. I want to thank you. Dylan's been on this show a bunch. By far his best appearance. So I'm thanking you for that. Thank you very much. This was great. We're good. We're good. We're good, guys. It's great to have you back on. Good luck, August 29th. This was phenomenal. This was phenomenal. I wish you guys the best and appreciate the almost hour you gave us.

Thanks, guys. Good luck. Take it easy. Dylan Danis, Mike Perry. That was amazing. We have a few. I think we have Henner Gracie. Was there a Diego Sanchez? Rick may remember some of these

as far as like the longest stretches of time. There was a Diego Sanchez talking about the box. That was legitimately like 30 minutes. Remember Henner Gracie? Yeah, yeah. That 12 or so minutes there, we have to get the exact time. Might have been up there as far as like the longest. time that I've gone without saying.

Diego Sanchez with his guru guy. That also, he went for a long time. Yes, yes. What was his name? Gosh. Josh Fabia. Come on. Josh Fabia. I bet, by then. Holy shit. Don't disrespect the legends of the fight game. Be it and corporate Jake just looked at each other in the middle of the interview

like, what is actually happening? That was, yeah, that was up there. This was fun. This was, oh my gosh. It started very friendly and cordial and slow, and then Mike just switched gears at some point. The moment they just kind of went back and, like it was, what was that?

It was amazing. It was like a Perry Dennis podcast. Mike started getting heated and Dylan dove into it. Both of them had some incredible lines. Oh my gosh. If the audience could have seen me just sitting here with a massive smile on my face, I was just, I didn't want to talk. I was sad when I had to chime in.

That was amazing. That was unbelievable. So thank you very much to both of them and go check it out. If you're in the Orlando area, I'm told tickets are quite affordable right now. They're ranging from 28 to 1,500 for the first row seats based on our researchticketmaster.com. Dual Arena, that's dual D-U-E-L-A-Rina.tv, 2999 on Saturday, August 29th. And we mentioned some names. That gypsy guy that they mentioned, you know that guy?

Does anyone know that guy? No, I've never heard of him. What they say his name was? Gypsy Crusader against King Azulay. Yeah, I don't know either of those guys. Not familiar. Not familiar. But apparently a controversial figure, according to Dylan.

Dylan seems to be in a good place. He seems to be good. So let's see. Let's see what happens. Listen, he's 100% right about what he said at the very beginning of all of that. You can't knock him. Fighting Mike Perry at this point in time, Perry looking great against Nate and I,

opinion and just looking very good as of late in MMA. Excuse me, Bear Knuckle as well. The last time Mike Perry lost an MMA slash Barrenuckle fight, obviously he's undefeated in Bear Knuckle was 2021. I mean, Dylan's also right. He's not a boxer. He's good at MMA. Dylan is a good MMA fighter,

and I'm interested to see how he does against Perry. Dylan is a good MMA fighter. Do we know that? Do we know that yet? No, we don't. What? We actually don't know that. He's only 3-0 against, like, you know, the dude's, the mechanic.

And then the other two guys who no one remembers from Beltoe. The mechanic. That took me a second. I forgot about that. Warren Spencer, bro. The dude who ran into the key team. Warren Spencer. You don't remember him?

Oh, my God. Dylan is a top-level grappler. If he gets down. There's a big difference to the top-level grappler and good at MMA. Ocatcha is an incredible grappler. Yes. Yeah. And was okay, like, made it to the UFC.

Obviously, there's no real, like, there's no real system in place to get there. Do you guys think that you don't think they'd put him on Contender Series? I think they would. I feel like they would. Well, it seems like they're kind of not interested in him in general. Because they think he's a troublemaker?

Yeah, I don't know if they think it's worth. Do you think maybe 10 years ago they do? Like the TKO? No, he goes on tough 10 years ago. Meaning they hate him, but they've hated people in the past. Like they didn't like Kimbo and then they put him on tough. Kimbo felt different. That was like a we don't respect

what you do situation. They don't like Dylan clearly. I kind of think like in like 2022 they would have. If Dylan beat, okay, if he loses to Mike Perry, no one cares anymore. But if he beats Mike Perry, you don't think they're considering it? If he beats, by the way, if he beats Mike Perry, the new

MVPFL should sign him. Dylan needs the UFC more than the UFC needs Dylan by a country mile. What about Contender Series? Dana just seems so uninterested. Yeah. I mean, he's not even talking about him fighting for organization.

He's like, he's never coming to another UFC event, period. In the crowd, nonetheless. Does he not have a bit of a point regarding that brawl? Yes. Yeah, getting sucker punch and everything. He does. I mean, he got, like, yes. And I know you may say he ignited it or whatever, but like, how is he the one that's banned?

And no one else is, right? I think he's the only one who got banned as a result of that. there was once a time where the was it the now former mayor of New York was Eric Adams Eric Adams the mayor at the time he tweeted about it do you remember

I do but he might have been out of office at that point Frank remembers he was out of office he was out of office yeah that's what I thought um alright well let's see I think like fresh at office I think like a I think like one or two weeks yeah it was

that's right that's right it was like right after he left office and all of a sudden he's tweeting about the infamous brawl at Madison Square Garden. So there you have it, August 29th, it is in fact going to happen. And you know what? Not for nothing. I feel like just seeing them together, I know there were some people being like, there's no way Dylan's going to show up or make the walk or anything like that.

I feel like he's going to show up. In fact, he wrestled Hamza. He's got the Armin thing going on. Colby. I feel like the talk of them, you know, the talk of Dylan not being the guy who shows up and all that has gone away. What is this? Schlamenco against Michael Venom Page?

In RAF? That can't be real, right? That's, what? On the armen. Is it like Alexander Schlmenko? No. Not like the old Schlemenko. That is what the tweet from RIF said.

What? What is this? This is, see, this is what I was kind of getting at with Chad. Like, do the wrestling fans want this? The tweet says, Vegas, are you ready? Eye emoji. Alexander Schlmengo takes on Michael Page, October 3, Las Vegas, and RAFF14. Tickets in bio, watch on Fox Nation.

That is wild. All right. Well, there you have it. All right. One more guest to go and really, really excited to talk to this legend of the game. On Saturday, he officially retired from the UFC. an organization that he was a part of since 2010. Like I said, UFC 123, Auburn Hills, Michigan, Mike Lulow.

I'll never forget that debut. The light kicks, the speed, the ferocity, unbelievable. Of course, arguably a part of the greatest knockout in UFC history, UFC 142, Terry Adams, second most knockouts by kick or knee in UFC history, joint second most fight of the night awards, 10 in UFC history tied with Dustin Porre. Joint, ninth most fights in UFC history, 33, tied with Max Holloway and Damian Maya. 13 career wins via knockout, two via sub, nine via decision, nine UFC wins via knockout, nine via decision, career wins over the likes of Dan Hooker,

Binald Darius, Gilbert Melendez, Anthony Pedes, Paul Feldar, King Green, Ross Pearson. That knockout that I talked about back at UFC 142 in 2012, definitely, no-brainer, won the K-O of the year that year, and also headline five UFC Fight Night Cards. He is the great Edson Barbosa Jr. Kind enough to join us right here now to talk about his legendary career.

Edson, my friend, how are you? Boa Tardé! Oh, Boa Tard. Always great talk to you, guys. Thank you so much for joining us and parabence on a great career. We saw you on Saturday, Edson. You were emotional walking out.

You were emotional afterwards. Can I ask, now that it's been a couple of days since Saturday, and I know you've had a chance to digest and talk about what transpired. How are you doing? How are you feeling after coming to the end, coming to the conclusion that the great career has come to an end? Happy. I think that's exactly that I feel very, very happy because I'm looking back.

I'm very happy for everything. You know, whole process, all fights, all wars. I'm very, very happy, very happy. It's crazy because I never sleep after the fight. And thank God on Saturday night, I finished the fight to go to my room and lay down and I sleep like a baby. The first time in my career, I really sleep after the fight. That's crazy. That means a lot for me because, yeah, I think that's the end.

I'm very happy and proud of myself. Why did you feel the need to call it a day a career now? Why was this the right time? Because I feel, to be honest, for me, the most important, like I really feel is the end because I'm feel I'm not competitive in the high level anymore. Because I'm still, they have a hard time when I lost. And look at my last three fights, I lost. That's crazy because when we are.

UFC offering me to fight these guys and say, whoa, that's going to be perfect. Fight for me. The fight's going to match. It's going to be perfect. That's the fight for win. And I lost. And I feel on this level, I'm not competitive anymore.

And that's why I decided to stop, you know, because I promised my wife and I promised my mom never fight me for money. And I'm going to do this for money. Did you decide when you signed for this fight? Did you decide mid-training camp, beginning of training camp, when did you decide that this was going to be the last one? When I signed it. Okay.

I signed for this fight. I was talking to my wife for a long time, you know. Besides my fight against Murphy in the main event with the 1-45, I have a really bad injury in my right eye. And I start thinking about. I was like, man, I don't know if I want to do this for a long, long time because I have a bad anger in my eye. I can't see with my right eye. I start thinking about.

That's what I would start thinking about. But for the retire from when I started for my last fight. How is your eye? What are you dealing with there? It's crazy, you know. Like I said, when I started thinking about retire, because this happened. then my fight against Murphy it's a man-event

I have a my eye I don't see my anymore with my right eye you know I see nothing with coming you know outside

and I do two surgery I did surgery twice and yeah I have a hard time to back to training you know because it's super

hard See with the both high, imagine you start training with only one eye. It's not easy. I have a hard time, you know. You see the last two fights, I don't feel 100%. So in these fights and even now, you don't see anything out of that right eye? No. Black?

It's crazy. I don't see everything black. I see like a couple flash, you know? Wow. Right eye. How did you get cleared? How did you get cleared by the medicals to fight then? I'm clear because I'm, I don't know.

The medical says, I'm clear. You're good. Because I think the most important I say I want to fight, you know? And I signed it to say, if anything happens, it's my fault. The doctor is the best. I love the eye doctor. He gave me a big support. And yeah.

What are they saying? What are you dealing with? Like, what is the issue? And can it be fixed? Eventually, can you get your vision back? He said, maybe. You know, it's crazy because sometimes I feel a little better. I start seeing a little bit.

Some days I don't see nothing. When I go outside with the sun, I can't see nothing with this eye. Yeah. Yeah. You know, sometimes in fighting, Etzen, as you know, people retire and then they come back and then they do maybe bare knuckle or boxing or grappling. Do you think you are done?

No more competing? Or would you like to still do other things outside of the UFC? It's hard to say that because I'm a fighter. I'm born kids. I never do nothing in my life. My first professional fighter was 16. I'm still fighting. I do this my whole life.

You know? To be honest, my wife gets crazy, but I hope, I hope, please, any organization, don't call me, please, don't call me, don't call me my manager. Please forget me. Because, to be honest, I don't want to go back to fight. Maybe just do some Jiu-Jitsu mat.

It's going to be. fun because I really love Jiu-Jitsu, but MMA, to be all, like I said, I hope any, no, no companies call me, call my manager, please. It'll be too tempting, right? Yes, yes, to be all right? Yes, but I don't know. I just fought, you know, I fought a couple days ago. If you say right now, I say, no, I don't want to fight anymore because, you know, I have

a whole camp behind me, but I don't know, even a couple weeks, you know. And, you know, you mentioned your wife. I know your wife has been so supportive. She wrote a beautiful post about you online saying that, you know, she saw you when you were 16, 17 years old and has been by your side. I mean, just amazing words. And so seeing her and your family in the ring, in the cage on Saturday,

when you united with them, when you saw them after the, the fight. I know you were probably disappointed that you didn't get the win. I know you wanted to get the win in your last fight. We saw that emotion. Could you tell us what you were feeling, what you were thinking about? What was that moment like for you? Crazy because I don't think about loss on that time. I just see my wife and my kids. I was like, wow, I really have a good time here. You know, I feel this is the end. Mama is so happy. I'm so, so, so happy for everything. Like I said, I learned how enjoy when I win. I learn how enjoy when I lost. That's why I thought I do this for almost 16 years. I do this my whole life, you know,

because I love all process. It's making me who I am today because sometimes I win, sometimes I lost. Like I said, I enjoy. I just have fun and joy and nothing better than joy in that time. with my family, my wife and kids. We saw you very emotional as you were walking to the cage as well, which is a tough thing. You're about to get into a fight and you're openly crying. Can you tell us what you were thinking about in that moment? Because that's unique.

It's not often that we see that from fighters. Like I said, man, that's a great feeling, you know? So it was happy tears. Yes, I just enjoy. You know, I don't hold it. Just let the feel. Let me feel like a feel. the pain, feel the, I feel everything.

That's all I said with the young kids today. Just feel, bro. Put out. You know, that's what I feel. When I saw my kid, I start crying like a very emotion, very happy to have opportunity to do this in front of my kids. First time in my career, my son and my daughter watch my fights. I was very happy, very happy.

That was the first time in your career they were in attendance. Yes. Wow. Because I never push the kids to watch my fight because everybody knows every time I'm fighting, you know, crazy fight, a lot of blood. The first time they both watched it. Did they like watching you fight? My daughter, she don't like it much. No.

My friend of mine with her say between the, when they finished the first round, she said, I feel a little bit sick and she asked to go to the bedroom she doesn't like a whole fight but yeah I think she don't like it much Speaking of which how is your shin doing We saw there was a pretty bad cut there

Yes I have a couple of stitch But this happened before a couple times Yeah But yeah a couple of streets It's gonna be good in a couple days No problem you're not worried No, zero.

This is happening all the time. Can we go back, Edson, to November of 2010. UFC 123, your debut, Mike Lulo in Detroit. Like I said, I was lucky enough to be there, and I'll never forget, you come out of nowhere. Who's this guy with the kicks? You killed his legs. I mean, it was unbelievable to see. Do you remember your debut?

Do you remember that night in the locker room, what you were thinking? This is a dream to fight in the UFC. Here you are, Big Card, Rampage, Machita, and the main event. What were your memories of that debut night 16 years ago almost now? Yeah, man, I definitely remember that day because the first reaction I had on that day, I remember when I was outside, ready to walk into the cage. I was like very excited because I remember the first time I fought in the really big state. When I started walking, I looked around nobody in the state because, you know,

I think the first or second fight of the night. Like, I'm nobody. Like, where's everybody? Nobody comes to watch me. It's crazy. But it's a great night. You know, I really put a show. I put a really good show.

It's crazy because the same game plan that I have on the first fight is the same game plan that I have from my last fight. Never changed. Everybody knows my game plan. and I believe to be honest it's making me different you know that guy that young man

that kid almost back then in 2010 would he have believed all these fights all these awards 16 years like did you allow yourself to even dream that big what did you think that this UFC journey would take you

no I just like I said man I'm ready for everything when I fall I remember I finished the fight, I never worry about the future, you know?

A guy asked me a couple days ago about why, you never be scared to be cut, I say, no, bro. I'm a fight. If I'm not fighting UFC, I go to another promotion and keep fighting. And I never

worry about, you know, who I'm going to fight. I don't know if I're going to fight for 10, 20 years. I don't care about there. I'm a fighter. I do this because I love. You know, I don't never think about like, oh, I want to see UFC for 15 years. It's happened. I'm very happy for that because I'm never forced nothing. I never push nothing. I just fighting. Obviously, when people talk about your career, they always mention the Terry Adam knockout at UFC 142 in Brazil. Is that your favorite moment,

or is there another one that trumps that for a specific reason? I think that's a fight making me people know who I am. A couple guys know who's at Sambra boss. I have no idea. But if they see the eye, oh, I saw this guy. I know him. People know me about that kid. But I don't know if the most important moment in my career in UFC.

To be honest, for me, the best moment that I have in my career in the UFC is the end. When I have my kids and my wife inside the cage on my last fight, definitely is the best moment in my career so far. Wow, the end, really? That's interesting. Even though you were happy but sad, tears, it's over? I don't know, because I have the most important people in my life. I have my wife and kids.

It's all about, of course, I love everybody, you know. The guys, you know, I really enjoy the night with the people around. everybody clapping, say, hey, good job, but I do this for my kids and my wife, you know. I know my mom and my dad brown off me, and that's it. That's the most important for me. It was really nice to see you walk out of the cage with your kids holding their hands. When you got to the back, what was that like? At first I was come down and talk to both, say, hey, I'm crying, but I'm happy.

Then try, you know, say, You see, especially my son, he plays soccer, and I always talk to him, a tribe, always push him and say, Hey, bro, doesn't matter if you win or if you lost, the most important, you go there, give your best, like your daddy. Look, I'm lost, but I give my best. Everybody clap here because everybody knows I give my best. That's not about win, not about the loss.

I do this for 16 years because I give my best. every single day. He knows that. He watched this every single day. And I tried to talk to him about that for my son and my daughter. There were some fans. I think it's a good moment to teach him. Of course.

It keeps something, you know? Of course. I did see some fans who were upset that you didn't get one of those like tribute videos. What is your response to that? You know the ones where the fighter retires and there's a video, you're shaking your head. You didn't want. Yeah, I don't care. I don't care.

You see the video, bro. Everybody like I stand up, clap me, everybody like a, you know. I don't worry about the video. I'm there to do my job to win the fight, but I lost. Look at what happened, you know. I don't worry about the video or whatever. I feel, my feeling on that was that the UFC respects you and likes you and really enjoys having you a part of the organization for all these.

years that it wasn't malicious on their part. Usually they make those videos when someone says at the very beginning months in advance, this is my last fight. But you only really said it like on Fight Week, so maybe there wasn't enough time and it wasn't definitive. I didn't think that you should be offended, but I was curious what you thought about it. Like I said, no offending, not at all, you know. I did my job. And, you know, I asked you about the Edom knockout and then you said your favorite moment was the last one with your family. Totally understand that and love that. What about favorite fight? If someone right now is a newer fan and you want to say, all right, this was my best fight, my favorite fight, you want to

know who Edson Barbosa Jr. was, this is the one you have to watch. What do you suggest? 33 fights. It's hard to choose one, you know. But I believe one fight making it clear right now in my my fight against Sodyk because I have a hard time in the first round and I lost the first round. Soudic almost knocked me out in the first round. I have a hard time for five minutes and I come back and win last four rounds. That's a fight means a lot for me because show who I am. The guy you never give up, you know, you never give up.

but I always go there, give my best, fight, I'm a fighter, I'm a real fighter, you know. That fight means a lot for me. That's the fight, the clean in my mind right now. Okay, I love that. Maybe not one that people would think right off the bat. So you're still a very young man, Etzen. You're 40 years old, turning 41 in January.

What will you do now? How will you pass your time? What's going to be your new thing? When I keep fight. You're going to keep fighting? No, no inside the cage or inside the ring. I'm going to fight like a human being. Everybody has to fight every single day.

Sure. That's why I see the life, you know. I have to wake up. I have to do something to provide for my family. When I keep fight, you know. One thing I want to do right now is take care about my healthy. I never worry about my healthy. That's my whole career, you know.

When you are professional, you don't never think about your healthy. One thing I'm going to do is take care about my body. But what about your career? Like, how do you want to pass the time? What do you want to do? What do you want to work in? I think I'm going to share with the people. Because I train, I fighting for a long, long time.

Like I said, my first professional fighter was 16. I have more than 100 fights in my career. If you put MMA, Jiu-Jitsu, kickboxing, Muay Thai, I fought a lot. I have a lot of experience fight, and I have opportunity to train with the best guys in the world, best coach in the world. It does not be fair, hold all the experience for me.

Hold for me. I have to share it with the people. That was very excited right now to sharing all. all these experience, all these wars, all the time that I see the fight. I want to share with the people. So you want to be a coach. You want to mentor. You want to have fighters that you coach.

You want to corner them as well? You want to be a part of that process? Yes. Okay. I want to be a coach. It's not only like a professional fighting coach. You know, I know I can help a lot, you know, but help people to be more confident and himself.

I want to be teach, especially kids. I want to teach kids. I want to teach. I want to share with the people. I love it. Do your kids train? Yes. My daughter, she trained Jitsu.

She's a monster. Okay. It's hard for me to say that. My wife, she's so scared. You know, I'm scared to be like a daddy. You know, your son is not good soccer player. And you see like, oh my gosh, He looked like a mess.

I'm so scared to be like that, you know. But my daughter, she's a monster. What about your son? My son, he plays soccer. Okay. The high level, right here in South Florida, he's number four in the country. Wow. Yeah.

Wow. Really good. CBF. Which position does he play? He play in midfield. Midfield. Was he born in the U.S.? Or was he born in Brazil?

He born in U.S. Okay, so if he makes it to the national team, is he going to represent USA or Brazil? Oh, my gosh. I think I was asking him. He said, oh, I want to represent Brazil. But he said, you know, he said he's going to represent Brazil. He said. Okay.

All right. A lot of people said a lot of nice things about you on Saturday. Fans, fighters, I saw Habib Nurmaga Madov, say some nice things about you afterwards. What do you want to say to everyone who reached out, who had so many? nice things to say about you at sin just say thank you just say thank you for all those years you guys support me and i give my best i give my best i try be a best fighting in the earth i really try i give my best every single day i try to do everything right to be the best but i know i know the best and I not get the title,

UFC title, but I really try every single day. And just like, thank you for all guys, support me all those years. Does that bother you? Does it bother you that you never got a chance to fight for the belt? No.

Zero. Okay. Zero. No regrets. No, because no, no. No, definitely not. Amazing. Well, it was a great pleasure watching you fight,

watching you compete, covering you for all these years, Edson, always a class act, your family class acts as well. Just want to congratulate you. Say once again, parabence on an amazing career, all the great achievements and accomplishments. You were always fun. Never in a boring fight. You always produced.

Win or lose, you always produced. You always showed up. And it was always a great pleasure to talk to you before, after all that stuff and more. So thank you so much for coming on and enjoy retirement life now. And I hope no one calls you and tempts you with an opportunity because we want you to stay healthy and safe. Yeah, please, please.

Nobody call me. Nobody called my manager, please. Thank you so much. One more time, I was so thankful for everything. All those moments I passed in the cage. Just thank you. Thank you, everybody. Amazing.

Thank you. Thank you, Edson. All the best, you. And one more time, congratulations on an amazing career. Thank you, thank you. There he is. The great Edson Barbosa, Jr., kind enough to join us And speaking of his manager, Alex Davis in the cage as well, it was beautiful to see him there.

He's been with him for so many years. Great to see his family, his wife, his kids. One of the good guys in the game, as you can see, a great demeanor, great smile, just a beautiful soul, really, a beautiful soul. And, I mean, showed up so many times, like I said, joint third most fights in the UFC, well, for any Brazilian. So that's an amazing feat. That's one that I didn't mention at the top. Only behind RDA, Charles, he's at 33 fights in the UFC. Charles has 37, RDA 36.

Fourth most chaos in the UFC for any Brazilian. He's got nine or had nine, JDS10, Santos 11, Silva, 11 as well. So crazy, crazy, what a career. And you rifle off those names, Hooker, Dariush. El Niño, Pettis, Feldor, King Green, Ross Pearson. That is a who's who right there. That is a who's who. All right.

Thank you very much to Edson for stopping by. We appreciate him very much. There's a few more things. And of course, one more time, congratulations to him on an amazing career. There are a few more things that we need to talk about before we call it a day. It's been a very entertaining day. a very fun day as well. That face-to-face was great.

Tio was great. Unbelievable stuff. I do want to talk about one more thing from that press conference last night. So at the end, the Dana White press conference, at the end of yesterday's show, we played the Eddie Hearn sound.

The Eddie Hearn sound of him saying, hey, I should sue Dana White. He's trying to make deals with my fighter, this down and the other. This is the saga that will never end. Perhaps it's reaching a conclusion. My take on it is it will, and we'll eventually get there. But it's been a little bit messy getting there.

Anyway, Dana Way was asked about all of this and more last night by Oscar Willis of the Mac Life. Here's what he had to say. Dana, there were reports today that Joshua versus Fury is a done deal for November 20th, which is a Friday MSG. I know you're the one who made that deal. Interesting. Would you be able to confirm those reports? We finally found out where the venue is. Is that the venue in the date?

If that's what the word is, then that must be it. There's also allegedly an announcement coming next week somewhere in the UK, to be undetermined aware yet. Have you heard about that announcement? Is that something you're in on? What's that? That there's apparently an announcement for the fight next week. Hmm.

I don't know. You might want to ask the promoters of the fight. I thought you were promoting the fight. Oh, am I promoting the fight? Okay. I'm not going to play these games. with these fucking guys. You know what I mean?

Let's see what happens. I mean, Eddie Hearn did it. I was sitting in Bournemouth saying... He's the one playing the games. He's the one playing the games. Legitimate questions have been asked about this fight, about who's promoting it, who's leading the charge, who's doing the deals.

He's the one that's playing the games. He's been playing the games from the beginning. And it's so frustrating. Just answer the damn questions. And what's amazing about it is, and you're going to hear this in a moment. You know, he's talking about, like, I'm not going to play that.

I'm going to do it. Could you imagine, could you imagine if there was a big MMA fight involving two guys that he built up, right? Two guys that he built up, there were UFC stars and whatnot, and someone just tried to, like, waltz in there and take all the glory.

Because let me tell you something straight up, in case you don't know. Dana White ain't doing those deals with MSG. You think Dana White's calling up MSG and doing those deals? Dana White ain't negotiating with Tyson Fury and Eddie Hearn and all this stuff. He's literally like a figurehead being plopped in there.

You've got the TK.O. Brass, Nick Khan in particular. You've got Turkey doing the deals. And he's taking so much credit for making this fight, for knowing everything, for this, that, and the other. Like, he probably did less for this particular fight and is doing the whole, like, smiley thing and all. More than any other fight that he's ever actually put on before. It's kind of insane when you actually break it down that way. He didn't do anything. Now, he may be eventually put as the guy, but just like he did nothing for Canello Crawford, he did nothing here.

And I'm not trying to take talking points from anyone else. That's just the facts. That's just the facts. He's just coming in there, and I understand he's the one sitting up there and he's answering the questions. But could you imagine what he would say about someone who just waltzed into MMA and tried to put together a fight that he essentially had been talking about for 10 years? There's no apples to apples comparison, but that's what this is. And it's just funny to see him in this position. Let's continue.

Anyway, let's see what happens. And last one on this subject. Eddie Hearn did a lot of interviews today talking about this, saying the fight is not done. He still wants the fight to be in the UK. He says that TKO are now asking him that you guys can be involved. And that I think he even said that because you went to Madison Square Garden, he could potentially sue you for trying to book his fighter in a fight that you don't have him under contract for. Have you heard those comments and do you have any

retort? I have not. I stopped listening to Eddie Hearn about three months ago. Is there anybody more full of shit than this guy? Come on. Completely full of shit. I don't, listen, they may not be friends anymore, but I guess we'll find out where Eddie is full of shit in all of this. I guess we'll find out very soon. There's a chance, by the way. there's a chance that this is a done deal. It's Madison Square Garden. It's November 20th. It's Netflix, all that stuff.

And Eddie knows this. And maybe, I'm just saying, I'm playing devil's advocate. And maybe he's trying to let the UK public know, we don't want this. We tried. We fought for it. We don't want this. We want this to be at Wembley. We want this to be in the UK.

There's a chance of that. That this is like somewhat performative at this point. Devil's advocate. But I'm waiting to see because I feel like everything Eddie has told us regarding A.J., his return, the Fury fight when it was signed, Pranga, now has actually come to fruition. Has actually come to fruition. I can't wait to see when this gets signed. Please, God, announce it at some point. Now, tomorrow, at any point. Announce it. Give us a date and let these guys fight once and for all and we could all move on with our lives. And I still

really want to see it, but this part is just insufferable. Who is actually going to be up there? Who is going to be in the middle? Who is going to be on the dais? All these things that they've been talking about, it's going to be very interesting to see. But let's just get there already. Can we get there already? What's taking so long?

What's the problem? What's happening? One fight that is, in fact, happening is September 5th, the debut of Saladin Parnaz. Shout out to John Martin. Name-checking Parnaz against Dan Hooker. We have the poster. Here it is.

It's magnificent. Parnas. Hooker, not a bad one. One to ten, what are we rating this poster? Art of Triumph? A little tour effel. Can I tell you one thing I hate about this poster? Look at Parnasse's eyes.

Doesn't look like he's looking at him. Yeah. It's a little bit sleepy. It's annoying. Like, Hooker's looking right at him. And obviously this isn't a real face-off, but it's like they didn't position the eyes the right way. He needs to look up.

And he's not doing the John Jones look down. I just think it's a bad picture. Yeah, I guess they're also, they don't have like official UFC photographs in there. Yeah, but I'm sure they could have, you know, gone and taken them. You think,

I think this is like a stock photo? Yeah, yeah. What if they went to his gym and said like, okay, you think they're doing that? Maybe. I saw John Good in there. John's John Good. August 29th guys, BKFC Fenway Park.

Did you hear about this? Yeah. They just had a face off. It's going down. King Kai. Shout out. Look at this. Belt on the line.

Belt on the line. This is King Kai and going up against Harry. Right? Is there talking here? Can we hear this? You don't know what Deepwater says. Oh, Deepwater. You have no idea.

Welcome to Boston. King Kai versus the city of Boston. Harry Gigliotti's got the city on his back. Fighting. for the featherweight championship of the world right here at Fenway. Harry Gigliotti, Kai Stewart for the featherweight title.

We talk about the smile on David Feldman's face as he's holding up that belt. He's loving this. I still can believe they're running Fenway Park. It's incredible. It's pretty cool.

It's going to look great. Shout out to King Kai. Shout to Deep Waters. Well, I'm just saying multiple Deep Waters. Harry what? Isn't that his name? Give us one more time?

Liadi? Yeah. Did I get that wrong? They just said it. No, he did say. No, no, no. I think you got it right. It just sounded like you were like, Harry, do you know? Chris Cyborg, retiring or not? This is the classic M.M.A. retirement. They announced it. Like, they actually put it out there. I remember I was in the control room. Email, blast, title, retirement. Now she's saying, uh, maybe not. It did feel weird that she never acknowledged it. Yeah. She's telling our friend Guillermo that, uh, Maybe not. He did an article for a fight and go check it out. She's doing other interviews as well. I think the clarity is last fight on the PFL deal. Yeah.

And so maybe they wanted to bill it as her retirement and she's like, no. Yeah. How about not? What is this about Noce UFC? I'm seeing this coming through the wire. It's not good. Bad news, brother.

Not good. Breaking news, Frankie. What's the news? Tell me the news. Yeah, here Rodriguez is. out of the main event for Noce UFC, and he will be replaced by Diego Lopez.

Jose Delgado. Lord Silva, Hunter took care of everything. We have a new target, new opponent, same date, same goal. And is that official, or is this being reported by outlets? I saw a report from MMA fighting. I saw an AG fight as well, right? Yep. So, all right, that's a bummer.

We into that? Nope. Okay, no, no, no. Was it a Elgado? He's doing all right. Four and one so far in the U.S. Where's he from? Where's he from?

Is he Mexican? Yeah, I hope, I mean, there's got to be... Austin Bashi in his last row of us. He is Mexican, yes. Yeah, Austin Bashi up to John Silva is tough. Yeah, no, I'm not excited about it. Rick, is this the infamous Frankie Edgar Matt Veach fight? It just...

Do you know what I mean by that? Yeah, but... Unknown replacement, but it still gets you the title shot. Of course. Well, yeah, I mean, the potential for that is there. It's, yeah. It's just not, this is not the headline of Noce U.S. It's not worthy of the headline spot, if I'm being honest.

Yeah. Or is it Lonnie Kavanaugh's stepping into Deaconne-Murana? Could be. Jose Delgado upsets the Apple card. I really wanted Yeyir against Diego. That was the one. Yes. That's the perfect notion.

But Yahir is the one that's out. So no, I know. We're even like, but what are we going to see? Yeah, I know. I think they should have done something different, if I'm being honest. Well, you ain't getting it. You're also getting in the afternoon, by the way.

The real draw that day is Conner banning against Ryan Garcia. That's the real Noce main event. Especially with Connor dropping all the Spanish. Yes. I think we got to just like maybe retire the Noce thing. No. We just got started with it. You crazy?

But it hasn't been any. It's not been anything. May I introduce you to the Ultimate Fighter? The UFC doesn't retire anything. Also, they just let it... The sphere was nice. It was headlined by a Georgian and American. Yeah, and that was two noches ago.

Valentina versus Grasso in 23, right? That was fine. That was the first one. That was the first one, yeah. There's only been four. Who was last year? Diego. Diego, Jean-Soul.

Yeah, it was amazing. Fight of the year contender. Round of the year contender. It's a good fight. John Jones has gone on social media and he says, what's up with all this goat talk? What's happening?

What's the crack? Hopped on social media and heard there was a new goat. I'm so confused. Make it make sense. I mean, look at that. 16 to 7. It's a fair point.

Title wins matter. Connor McGregor out there shooting guns. What's going on? Can we hear? What is he Rambo? What is... Oh, that's Ashton Hall.

That's my boy. Oh, cut! Is he on a movie set? What was that? It was definitely some sort of ad or... Mac Energy. Some sort of content. Yeah, I actually think it was a Mac Energy ad.

Wow. Why didn't he open the can before you? Yeah, it's a good point. Oh, this is a good... Let's go... I feel like I need to just get to a couple more questions here. Back to On the Nose. On the nose.

No? On the nose. Yeah. Hamzako Shakurai. Aloha Ariel. Now you know why I picked it. As a born and raised Hawaii local, I'm so glad to hear you're a bona fide local boy. Now, Rick, put Ariel on game.

Blind rank these five dishes he would love and eats to try. Okay. Mochiko chicken. Oh, okay. Oh, that's like a four for me. Spam Musubi. Now I don't eat pork. Sam, Musubi, yeah.

What is Spam Musubi? Is spam actually even pork? It's like fake meat, right? Isn't it? I don't think it has, what is it? What's in it? Oh yeah, it is pork. Pork shoulder meat.

Yeah, it's just like a bunch of pieces put together. That's a very solid, simple one, but I feel like there's going to be like better stuff coming up. I'm going to go three slot. I'm going to go three slot on the Masubi. Okay. Um, Lao-Lau. I have to look up.

Did I pronounce that? That's right. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The pork. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. We'll go five. Okay.

That is pork again. Yeah. Problematic. Patelli. Okay. Now I'm out of my depths here. Oh, wow. Yeah.

I don't even know what that is. I'm not as Hawaiian as, uh, as this. Meat pie sounds delicious. Let's go two. The last one is Frank's mom's ass. We have to go back to on the nose. There's a very important question. I thought this was going a different way.

Like, where's like pokey? I don't know your mom's like local moco? There's no. All right. Sucker free says, what a do, Ireland crew. I also went on a trip last week. Have you guys ever done Disney cruises? No.

No, I never will. No. I was scared of getting seasick initially, but it turned out to be tolerable. It was perfect my seven-year-old. There were character meeting greets, the food was above average, everyone was kind. Before boarding, we got picked up in a minivan. Get it?

Like mini mouse? Speaking of vans. Not because you can't see the spelling. In honor of UFC 331, never sick Rick, can you blind rank these top five vans? Okay. Yeah. Van sneakers. Five, not a fan.

This is a pound for pound. Five, not a fan. We've already done it. Oh, yeah, that's right. Scooby's mystery van? That's solid. That's a... Fuck, is there going to be better than that?

I'll go three. I'll go three. Vincent Van Gogh. That's great. Four. Rob Van Damme. Two. Paige Van Zand.

Oh, all right. I feel bad. Good about the list. Love you guys. Welcome back. Oh, another one. G.C., please blind rank these frustrations on a golf course. Are you big golfer, GZ?

Oh, man. I grew up playing my whole life. New York is what killed my love of the game. Missing the world's wide. Fairway. Yeah, that's frustrating. God, yeah. I'll go two.

Losing a brand new ball. I lose so many balls during a round. It doesn't even bother me four. Getting trapped behind slow groups. And if we're talking about real slow, you're like you get into a five-hour round, one. The first T-jitters.

Nah, five. Don't have those. I already know something's coming just because of the way you're like, Like, I look that. I look that. What is it? It's Franks Fawzat.

That's the golfing. Look that. I can't read. There's so many tears. Hey, Ariel, I'm going through a separation. Oh, no. Perfect. Yeah, keep laughing.

Feeling pretty down in the dumps this week. I could really use a good laugh. Could you the BITB and P.T. Blind rank? Oh, no. We've got to get back to on the nose A lot of questions And it's been four fucking blind races

He banned race horses' names No, I'm not doing that No way Frank's mom's ass had to have been an option Is Franks mom's ass on there? Just say that Believe it or not, no But it was like weird

He's trying to make you say something Yeah Mike coming back Yeah, I'm going to shout out Mike Mr. Hunt Oh God Wow, this is from Chris who says Question from my fiance

From his fiance? Yeah Did you see the tear Just rolled down my face Daisy, if you could do some intergenerational matchmaking, what would be some of the fights you and the guys would make, peace and love? Intergenerational, like a... Yeah, yeah, fantasy.

Like a dream fight. GSP versus Islam. Yeah. I would like to see a prime Anderson Silva versus a prime Israel-A sanya. I would like to see something like that. Demetri Johnson versus Alessandre Pantoja. Ooh. Ooh. GSP Habib. I almost would rather see Islam versus GSP, but I'm down.

Man. I'll take either of those. GSP Habib. What about like a heavyweight one? What's a good heavyweight one? Brock Fadour. That's not cross-generational, though, though. I mean, yeah, never happened in real life.

Yeah, could have. Fador, Kane. I don't know. Totally cross-generational. Tommy Cain Tommy Frank Mere 2016

Does they look alike versus Peak Ilya Oh Nice nice one That is a good one Um

Kamara Usman GSP No I'm just kidding Um We gotta get more creative here We're chumps Yeah we're chumps Do we have any super chats Frankie

Let me read the super chats Shall I I feel like I didn't get to any of the, there's just a lot of questions today. We didn't get to a lot of them. Sort of drop the ball. A lot of the blind-reaking ones. Well, no, I'm just kind of...

Oh, I thought we did a few of those. Go, Connor, how are the gym gains going? They're coming. Yeah. Wow. We're on week five right now. Still two months to go for the half marathon. My 5K's coming up.

When? No, I don't know. I'm just trying to put it out there. A long time we've been talking about this. Yeah, no, it's going to have it. By the way, this guy's name is Making Love During NBA Finals. Oh, now I get it. I get it. Do you remember?

Action Bronson. Shout to action. That's a deep cut. Oh, this is an interesting one from Gabriel. What's up, boys? This one's for G.C. It's obvious that your artwork shits on the UFC artist series. My question is, what do you do with that artwork?

Would you be willing to sell it or host a giveaway? Legit artwork, by the way. How are you so good at drawing? It takes forever. I do appreciate that, by the way. Can you show us a video? I want to see, like, a video. I'm making up.

I want to see the process. I mean, yeah, I can show you. This week I did, like, I was taking screenshots as I was going along. I mean, it's a, I'm using an entirely other piece of technology. I'm using this, like, drawing pad. And I don't know if I can screen record. Like, I can do, like, an over-the-shoulder type video of it. Yeah, I also do disagree.

It does not shit on the artist series posters. Like, especially this last one was incredible by that dude. Vellie. Yeah, it's, it is a lengthy process. I committed myself, I'm going to do the entire year, and then I'll probably stop after that because... Really? Oh, dude, they take so... Like, like, hours. Like, like, that last one probably put in, like, 20 hours on the drawing pad. Was that the most? Now, the White House one was the most. That was probably like 30 to 35, maybe, maybe even like 40 hours. Like, coming home from work and then just, like, going from like 7 to 2 a.m. for like nights and nights and nights on end. And then like coming up with the whole idea for it and everything and like trying to

make sure that it's good and all that. Yeah, it just takes it. It takes a ton of time, but I said I was going to do it for the whole year, so I'm doing it for the whole year. So there are no physicals because it's a digital pad. Oh yeah, yeah. Every single time I posted it, that's a picture I took back in January for the first one. I've never, I've sent a few to people that have asked that like really wanted them. I think at the end of the year, I'm just going to make a Google drive and put a link in my bio and if you want to download it and print it out you can but like I would never sell them I don't need to do that that's cool though it's amazing it really is I appreciate it it really is impressive it's been a ton of fun it is like I say it takes a lot of time but it's also a ton of fun because like when

I finish it I'm always like hell yeah this is oh yeah this is something that I really and I can see that I'm progressing as well which I'm I'm enjoying uh John John is asking when the video will be available on Spotify I wanted to get that one in no um um Serial gain is asking if I could ever take back an interview, would I? Of course, there's many of them. There really are. But, you know, live and learn. Interesting one from Joe is asking why I haven't had Mason Jones on.

I was talking to Mason Jones. There was a fight that he had, and we were all good to go. And then all of a sudden he came and was like, oh, man, sorry, I can't make it. And then I was like, hmm, who manages Mason Jones? Ah, yes, my old friend Graham. So he, he hypothesized. that that might be an issue, and I do believe it is. So no issues on my end, but, you know, some of these guys, they don't like to come on the show, or at least let their fighters come on

the show. The manager stopped the fighters from coming on the show. Why? I don't know. But he actually reached out to me, and if my memory serves me correct, and we were talking back and forth, and we were trying to come up with the time, and then all of a sudden it was like, I can't make it anymore. I'm like, what? Okay. Okay, now I'm going to the super chats. This is from Lazz, boys in the back. Let's organize a donation for Liam tomorrow night. Peace and love from Melbourne, Australia.

Shout out to Shaheen. Yeah, this was the guy who yesterday, I believe, was trying to do some kind of sponsorship thing for Liam. He's a big fan of Liam, it seems like. Hey, shout to Shaheen. Shout to him. Legend.

Ariel and BITB from Jake from Windy City. Before the break, you talked the most memorable fights of all time. Now, putting y'all on the spot, what are the worst fights in history? Well, I think the first one would be, oh, my mind is much. Inganu Lewis?

Caleb Starrens, nay, Quarry. No, that wasn't even as bad as Inganu, Louis. Yeah, because it was just... It was just interesting because of the literal running that Starns was doing. Right. And then Quarry doing the fake run around. What was it?

He did, like... What did he do? He did like something like this? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that was weird. Anytime when just like nothing happens. Izzy versus Romero, when they're standing,

Yeah. The worst part about that is it was right off the back of John Joanna won. And it was right off the back of the greatest pre-fight speech in history, but from Yowell Romero, the Go speech. And then we got that fight as the result of that. Last UFC fight I saw live. Yeah. Classic one. Here's BD96.

Usman should make his debut against Darius on a big card to introduce him to UFC fans. No. Dariush. Jesus Christ, no. Yeah, why dare you? Remy Suss says visiting NYC for U.S. Open. What are some must-dos? I mean, we could do a whole show just on that.

Pizza spot? Go get a local pizza. Go get a local bagel. Lucius. Yeah, sure, go to Lucia. Enjoy the U.S. Open. That's like one of my favorite things. There's lots of good shit to eat in Queens where you're going to be at.

So just go around and eat. Yeah, don't spend a lot of time in Queens. What? What? What are you talking about? Manhattan. No, Queens is better. Absolutely not even a competition.

Save money, don't get the honey juice. Don't get the what? Don't get the honey juice at the U.S. Open. Don't get the what? The honeydew? The signature drink at the U.S. Open. Honeyduce. It's a like strawberry lemonade cocktail

with these little honeydew balls that look like tennis balls. They're like 23 bucks. They're not great. What about the chicken tendies in the... Caviar chicken tendies is that we're doing? No, no, no. the chicken tending's in the Coke

Oh I know you're talking about someone like dunked it in right? Yeah Oh like a viral clip. It was like a celebrity did it. No, it was they caught a fan. There was a fan. Yeah, the woman did it right? Do you actually remember this?

I do remember it. It wasn't like an iconic moment for me. It was pretty damn icon. It was pretty damn. I think it just like went viral for a sec. Sampris, Michael Kim. Island boys. Island boys.

That's the, that's the rankings. Sampris. Michael Kim. Where's Marty Fisher? in all that. Oh, my guy, Marty Fish. Love Marty Fish. Jordan, you remember Marty Fish?

Of course I remember Marty Fish. One of the great interviews in the first year of the Ariel Waloney show. Hook and shoot, quick thought instead of... I need to reach out to him. It's been a minute. Quick thought instead of eBay should sell raffle tickets, $5 to $10, et cetera,

sell so much more and raise more money for the charity and an average fan could win, win, win, what do you guys think of that? Yeah, I see what he said. I mean, yeah, interesting. So good. So good So good

Ariel I'm a marketing major And an amateur boxer Going to senior year If you need any help Let me know A big fan Thanks man

Good luck This from Sammy I'm going to a wedding This weekend I will hold a speech Is four minutes speech time Good timeline I think so

No you shorten that a little bit Oh Four minutes Three Nah Listen if it's a good speech Four minutes Jordan just let out of a cackle.

What's the difference? Four minutes and three minutes. It's a minute, Jordan, actually. Oh, thank you. It's actually. Thank you for the 60 seconds. Yes, that is how long a minute is, actually. You're getting good at this.

It's like you're doing well. Go for it. This is so great. Just make sure to include both people. If you're speaking on behalf of the husband, make sure to include the bride as well. Four minutes is like we're getting to the limit, though, man. That is a good...

Cut that down a little bit. Good piece of advice. One more. This is from Dave cutest trash talk ever. I do believe he is referring to what transpired earlier with Dylan and Mike. That was amazing.

Tomorrow, BITB, pound for pound? Rods. Because the D-Rod? Because a G-Rod? Gregory. Rodriguez. Of course. D-Rod just fought. Amazing. So just pound.

I feel like you guys thought about doing this that time. Three weeks ago. You felt like... We've been waiting to do this. We've been thinking about doing this forever. You saved it for G-Rod, not D-Rod. Rod-Talk.

It's just time for Rod Talk. Are you going to call up the interns? Are they going to weigh in? No. It's in a list if they want. I feel like they were into the rock. We'll be talking rods. All right.

415 sub-B. Leave us a voicemail. We need them. This is the voicemail. And then crack on Friday. And then we're back on Monday. It is time to go. It has been an amazing return.

But as they say, as the great Yoshihiro, Akiyama once said Chon home to say good But Frank, now that we introduce a new one doesn't mean I want to get rid of the other ones I just want to let you know

Oh really? Like, you want to keep a couple of words? Cheeto Vera would be nice to hear Once in a while. Fight is a fight in a business! What else? What else? What else? What else? What else? What else? What else? This is truly the moment

I have been waiting for. What else? What else? What else? What else? We haven't heard that one in a while. Big main event coming up. What else? What else? What else? Nah, what else?

Beating up babies. Not bad. Heard that one. What else? Mario, man. What the fuck is this? Legendary. What else? What else? Wow. I haven't heard that in a while too. What else? What else? What else? I'm coming! Not a bad one. That's fucking illegal.

Classic one. What else? What else? Those fighting words. Haven't heard that one in a while, Rampage. My man. Not bad. What else? Fucking out. Oban. Love Obon. What else? What else? What else?

I don't get... Classic one. What else? What else? Hang it with the boys. Yeah, not bad. You guys like that one. What else? What else? Oh. That's fucking bullshit.

Without the sex. Iron! Cheetos. Cheetos gone? No, Cheetos? We haven't heard that in a while. What the fuck is going on, bro. Love that one. That's my...

Moreland barrel. Oh, yeah, that's right. Shout out to Marlin. Shout to all our guests today. John Martin, Dylan Danis, Tiofima Lopez, Mike Perry, Edson Barbosa. Shout to you, shout to them. Back to my side, time.

This is a piece of a minute.