The Ariel Helwani Show - Michael Chandler, Bryan Battle, On the Nose, McGregor reaction, Thanksgiving rankings

Episode Date: November 27, 2024

Ariel Helwani and The Boys In The Back answer your On The Nose questions about PFL's ongoing issues with Bellator fighters, proper public bathroom protocol, UFC's continued support of Kron Gracie, Ariel's cameo on Netflix show "The Cage," Uncrowned's coverage of Conor McGregor's sexual assault verdict and more (06:43).Michael Chandler reacts to his UFC 309 loss to Charles Oliveira, criticism he received from UFC commentators for back-of-the-head punches, his viral leg injury, why the loss was so painful, the status of a potential fight with Conor McGregor, his Thanksgiving pound-for-pound and more (01:00:53).Ariel rates the gang's Thanksgiving pound-for-pound rankings and gives his own definitive list for the holiday feast (01:34:59).Bryan Battle previews his UFC 310 fight against Randy Brown and discusses his viral heel promo at UFC Paris, his nickname change, memorable experiences being a bouncer, why he enjoys crushing someone's hopes and dreams in front of their family and more (02:02;25).Join us on the bike: avironactive.com/uncrowned

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Ariel Hawani Show! The Ariel Hawani Show is back in your life. On this Wednesday, November 27th, 2000 27 2000 and 24 hello again everyone you know what the problem is you know what i'm workshopping here it feels weird saying my name after she just says my name however if you remember my interviews on site for many many many many many years i would always say ariel hawani here in new y York City alongside so-and-so. So it's just something that we're workshopping, as they say. I think two Ariels make a right.

Ah, you know yourself, Frank. I will say the the feels good. It gives me a moment to kind of take it all in, a moment of zen, if you will. It's been Thanksgiving week all week long here at Uncrowned HQ. As you can see, we are on the last stop before Thanksgiving. Whoops, almost just stabbed myself there. And this is Thanksgiving Eve, which has now become somewhat of a holiday here in the United States. Very quiet around the streets of New York, but not quite here, my friends.

Number one, we're not just an American show. It is only an American holiday, Thanksgiving. There's a lot of people out there who are working tomorrow. And so we are here to, well, not do a show tomorrow. We won't have a Boys in the Back tomorrow. We won't have a crack tomorrow, but we are here, full show on a Wednesday with a lot going on and a lot to get to.

And you know we love to shoot on Wednesdays and you know we have on the nose and on a Wednesday with a lot going on and a lot to get to. And you know we love to shoot on Wednesdays, and you know we have on the nose. And you know there's a lot going on in the world of combat sports, as always. I'll tell you about this weekend, because yes, this weekend doesn't have a UFC event, but you do have the PFL Championships on Friday. You do have Misfits on Thursday. You do have a domestic dust-up on Saturday afternoon, and you also have Survivor Series on Saturday evening. So if you are jonesing for combat sports, there is a lot of combat sports coming your way this weekend, in addition to the usual stuff,

the NFL, the Premier League football, all that stuff and more. Today on the program, we're going to be joined by a guest that I have been so excited to speak to. I've been wanting to speak to this guy since the hiatus, really since I saw him fight in Paris in late September. That's when I really said to myself, I need to have this guy on. I need to speak to this guy. I need to learn more about this guy. I need to find out if he's one of us

because I kind of feel like he's one of us. You'll recall that Brian Battle fought a man named Kevin Jussette in Paris. And I think as of right now, end of November, 2024, I do believe that he is the front runner for promo of the year. It's one of the great promos of all time. In my opinion, it's one of the best promos in the history of the UFC

because it's not just about the promo. It's about the interaction with the crowd. It's the way the crowd reacted to him, and it's the way he then reacted to the crowd. He'll be joining us on the show today. First time I speak to him. Can't wait to talk about that moment and his entire run so far. He's a great character and he's returning to action next Saturday, UFC 310 against Randy Brown, an important fight. By the way, in case you don't know what I'm talking about,

I wanted to play that promo for you all because I really, like, I can't stop. I've been listening to it all day. I love it. I love it. I think it's just phenomenal. And it's so good because of the crowd. The crowd deserves a lot of credit here. If this is an Apex fight, we don't get this moment. One of the many reasons why I don't like the Apex for these big fights and these big fight cards, because you don't get these types of moments, these magical moments, crowd, fighter, everyone's game is elevated. Anyway, I'll stop yapping. Here's the moment I'm talking about. Listen, listen, people been booing me and downing me since I started training. I love it.

The more you boo me, the stronger I get, baby. I'm used to this. Y'all can't stop me. Keep it up, baby. Keep it up. Y'all can't stop me. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Hey, USA in this, baby. Yeah, let me hear it hey hey i know y'all didn't think the butcher was gonna lose in a fistfight to a french dude i know y'all did not think the butcher was gonna lose in a fistfight to a french dude i know i know y'all did not think the butcher was gonna lose to a french dude i mean it's just amazing and you hear the crowd it reminds me of of wu-tang and it reminds me of of like the sound of triumph you know triumph with the bees the crowd is so fired up. It's so, I mean,

it's just so deafening in there. And he reacts to it and he rises to the occasion and it sounds like a swarm of bees and it's, and he, I know, I know y'all didn't think the butcher was going to lose to a French dude. I mean, it's just fantastic stuff.

Promo of the year. He'll be joining us. I could talk about it all day long. Michael Chandler is also going to join us to of course talk about the loss to Charles Oliveira, where he goes from here. I don't know if you guys saw his leg. He posted a video of his leg recently. And I think it was yesterday he posted he was in the sauna. Take a look at this video here because this might be one of the most gruesome injuries or aftermaths to an injury that i've seen in recent years look at this look at this

right here what look at that yeah what is going on would you do that what is happening there i think it's like his shin is swollen and that's what he's pushing in yes i understand but how is it staying there it's like it's like it's like in? Yes, I understand, but how is it staying there? It's like one of those toys and you press in like with the clay. When you're like retaining water? Yes. It must be really swollen. That's crazy.

Real nasty. Not sure I've ever seen that. Pushing hard too. Not sure I've ever seen that, if I'm being honest. So we'll talk to Michael Chandler about all of that. But first, you know we like to shoot on a Wednesday. You know we love On the Nose. And we have some breaking news, Frank. Our very first, our very first brand deal has been secured here at Uncrowned. You know, we've had sponsorship deals and different types of partnerships, if you will, but this is a big day because today marks the very first brand deal, the launch

of a relationship that I hope will last for many, many years to come. And what I love so much about this particular partnership, if you will, is that I believe in this brand. This isn't just like, hey, they brought me a piece of paper, like, okay, today's program is brought to you by so-and-so. I've used it. I know the owners. I know about their story. I know about their backstory. I believe in them. And I'm so honored that they are our first. And I'm so honored that we are able to rep them on this year program. And so let me tell you about my good friends over at Averon. And let me tell you about the founder, Andy, and his partner, Anessa, two fantastic people who I've had a chance to spend some time with. It's a tremendous story because they are as mom and pop as you can get in the sense that they are doing this on their

own. There's no massive corporation behind them. It is a true blue Canadian company that is taking on all the big corporations and doing a phenomenal job of doing so. Andy's a guy who loves to work out. Maybe a little ADD gets a little bored with the workouts. They could be a little bit boring. And he thought, what if I could gamify the workout? What if I could bring fun games, interactivity, watching different things? What if I could bring that games, interactivity, watching different things? What if I could bring that to the workout as well? And he has nailed it. First with a rower, now with a bike, and also with a treadmill. There's the bike right over here. You can see it right over there. And what's so great about it is, like I said, it's not just, okay, hey, let me jump on this thing and, you know, just watch a workout, watch someone telling me what to do.

No, you can play a ton of games. And in addition to that, you've got on-demand workouts, scenic destinations, live competition, entertainment platforms like Netflix, Prime Video disney plus max hulu paramount plus you can stream all of that right now we have a link right over there avaronactive.com uncrowned you can go to that link right now to learn more about the rower about the avaron treadmill about the avaron fit bike about the strong go the Strong Rower, about their litany of great products. And I've used the rower. You've seen me probably show it on my Instagram. My kids love it. Sometimes they just sit there and watch stuff or play games as well. Great for everyone. Great for the whole family. And like I said, True Blue, hardworking, lunch pail, hard hat, good people who are trying to make working out,

staying in shape, fitness fun. They've gamified it, as they say, and I love everything about it. Now, I wanted to say that from the heart because I believe in them, and I'm so proud that they are part of the family. I'm so proud that they are believing in us as well. That's just my own testimonial. That's just me kind of riffing, but I also want to read this ad read here because they deserve that. And I want to tell you more specifics about the brand. So as you guys know, workouts shouldn't feel like a grind. That's why I have made Averon a part of my fitness routine. And let me tell you, it's changed the game. Averon takes exercise to a whole new level using gamification. Yes, you can play actual video games while you work out.

Powered by their award-winning Averon World software and powered, excuse me, paired with industry-leading hardware, Averon's rower, bike, and treadmill deliver the best workouts I have personally done in a very long time. I've been using the strong rower for a while now, and I'm absolutely hooked. In particular, I'd love to see what I could get two minutes 500 meters let's go they also recently released the avaron fit bike which we've been using here in the studio and i won't lie it's a little addictive i get so into the games that i completely forget i am working out once you start you are locked in competing head-to-head racing against the clock or chasing your personal best they've got multiplayer games races on-demand classics classes scenic rides and the most streaming options i have ever seen

on any one of these types of workout machines i'm sweating it out getting competitive and actually looking forward to my cardio days which makes it way easier to stick to the routine. Right now, Averon's Black Friday sale is on, so you can get your best prices of the year right here and now. Plus, you can head over to AveronActive.com slash Uncrowned, get an extra $50 off. That's AveronA-V-I-R-O-N Active.com slash Uncrowned to end boring workouts. We even have a bike in the studio and we have an

Averon bike cam. There it is. Look at that thing. Yeah, right in the studio at the Uncrowned HQ. Look how nice it is. Beautiful stuff. The guys jump on there, get the blood, you know, boiling, get the body moving. It's a beautiful thing. So thank you so much to Averon for their support. I really do appreciate them and happy that they're a part of the family now. All right. Let us get into things. How about that?

Southside Fox, number one, ariahawani.substack.com is the place to be for all the questions. Okay. This is one that we've gotten a bunch of times in the past. Who'd be each of your picks to replace Dana? What do you think it would take for him to leave? I mean, people keep talking about the Dana thing and they talk about like, oh, is it going to be DC? Is it going to be Chael? Is it going to be this guy, that guy? A, the UFC is so big that they may not even need a new Dana if and when he ever leaves. And by the way, he, you know, Bob Arum is still around and he's 92. Vince McMahon was around into his late seventies. So I don't think it's happening tomorrow. And I'm not really sure why everyone's so obsessed with this question because he gives

no indication as to any desire to leave anytime soon, really. But yeah, we get it asked all the time. If I had to nominate one person, it's probably Hunter Campbell, if only because he's like the second in charge and he's the one who's most involved in the business side of things. And again, ultimately you need someone who the public and the media believes is actually making decisions like a figurehead like one championship tried this with rich franklin and other people have tried like putting in figureheads and it kind of usually falls flat because to be honest no one really believes that they're decision makers so if i had to pick one right here and now it's hunter campbell and i've told you in the past

he's the one who's really doing a lot of the business deals at this juncture with the fighters and now you're starting to see him out and about more you're starting to see the fights um or the fighters i should say cred him, talking about their relationship with him. And then when they had that Roku documentary series, he was a massive part of it. FTMMA. I think my question got lost in all the political nonsense last week, so I'll try again. Ariel, before UFC 309, we saw Jon Jones pull out of a scheduled interview with TNT's Adam Catterall, referencing his close relationship with Tom Aspinall. I think this was a real shame as I feel Adam is a true professional and is only rivaled by herself when it comes to interviewers in the MMA space. That being said, how difficult is it to balance personal and professional relationships in sports media? And what is your opinion on Jon refusing the interview. I mean, I thought it was silly, to be honest. I do think that Adam is a pro and yeah, sure, he may be English and he may have relationships, but I've never seen an interview where he's talking to someone fighting an English fighter or a UK fighter

or a European fighter. And I felt like he was unfair to that person. And, you know, John is allowed to speak to whomever he wants. He's fully allowed to decline any interview. I don't love the way he did it. If I'm being a thousand percent honest, I do give him a lot of credit in the aftermath. You see him go up to Adam and explain further. If that part didn't happen, then it would have been really crappy. But at least he did that. So maybe cooler heads prevailed. In the end, unfortunate.

Not the first time someone's declined an interview. Won't be the last. Just a very public one. And I'm actually kind of surprised it turned out to be such a big deal. Adam didn't deserve that. If I were John, I would just do the interview. And sometimes those interviews where there's a little bit of tension, friction, end up being the best interview for everyone involved, including John, where he can have some fun and be like, I know, you know, I know that you're a Tom guy and blah, blah, blah,

blah, blah. Just answer the questions and move on. Like what is really controversial about an english person interviewing you on that fight week i mean he was talking about john a whole host like if you wanted to avoid the tom topic that week he certainly didn't do that he talked about him more than he ever had so i thought it was unnecessary but this has happened. It happened to me and it's happened to me with John. I've experienced John's, John has come a long way when it comes to media. But I've said this before, the experience in 2015 going over there to do the walk and talk was, was not a fun experience. And because he overthinks things and he goes back and forth

and he's got a million people in his ear telling him, no, you shouldn't do this. You should say this, you should take this out. And so it gets to be a bigger thing than it actually is. As far as balancing personal and professional relationships, look, we're human beings and we're going to naturally at times get closer to some people as opposed to others. But i give a lot of credit to the ones who are able to say like look i trust that you're going to keep it down the middle i trust that you're not going to be unfair that you're not going to hit me below the belt so to speak and i'll do the media and especially when it's a partner of the ufc they get those interviews as part of the deal it would have been an interview it would have been 10-15 minutes it would have been a thing and everyone would have been 10, 15 minutes. It would have been a

thing and everyone would have moved on. And then it turned into a bigger thing because it was declined. I'm not sure who released it, who released that interaction. Maybe it was TNT. You know, that stuff tends to be better for the brand, the network, the reporter, because it makes it out to be, you know, a thing. But again, credit to John. Once again, I do believe Adam asked him a question at the press conference and he answered it. And I think he even complimented the question. So kind of much ado about nothing. Adam's been in the game a long time. I'm sure it's not the first time someone has said, no, I'm not interested. It might be the most public example of that, but I'm sure he didn't lose too much sleep over it. And it could have been avoided. But again, this is just a part of the game. And I don't think anything horrible happened as a result.

John just kind of overthinks these things and he's entitled to it. It's fight week. He can pick and choose whomever he wants to speak to. We shouldn't necessarily hate on him for that. Jamal 2020. What is the real story behind the audio issues? The real story, there is no real story. I mean, there is a real story, but it's not that interesting. I guess there was some sort of routing issue. And there's another show that is taped in this same facility. It's a Yahoo Finance show. It's like an eight hour show. I think there's different shows within the block of time. And I think the routing issue caused their feed to come onto our show. And I think something from us went onto them, except it wasn't Rampage's audio. I think it was just his picture or my picture. So something got crossed, and these things happen when you're putting on multiple shows at the same time. That is a very, very, very elementary take on what happened.

Am I missing something? No, that's correct. Not insolacious. It was a routing. They got routed some of our stuff. We got routed some of their stuff, and the routed some of their stuff. And the engineering team over here got it sorted, and all was well. Shout out to our fine folks at Yahoo who took care of it. But if any of you are looking for a sloppy audio engineer, get at me.

Get at me. Yeah. It was Frank's fault, but I was trying not to say that, but he volunteered now. Just send over the request. I do feel bad for Frank. I felt like everyone just kind of blamed you off the fuck is we yeah yeah i was like uh after the show i was like man my head hurts a little bit he was like oh yeah well you haven't been getting shit on in the chat for the last four hours i was like all right i'm sorry to hear that frank yeah it's it's listen i tell you, Frank, we love you.

We will forever back you. You are one of us. Hit the who the fuck is we. And we will never throw you under the bus, and we will never blame you, even if there is. Who the fuck is we? Even if there is an issue that is your fault, even if there is an issue that is your fault, we will never blame you. It actually was not his fault. It was no one's fault. No, it was not his fault.

Oh, hey, PT. How are you? He's got himself muted. you but it actually was not his fault it was no one's fault no it was not his fault oh hey pt how are you he's got himself muted that was that was frank that was frank's fault okay no that was yes but frank frank is very very like you know he's very on top of me with the mute button you know he's really really rigorous in his mute button i know because if you leak out over the air because you forgot to mute everyone's gonna blame frank so he makes you and then by association he's at fault because he made you mute i get that i agree for what it's worth frank i love you and i think you're a magical magical person yes we all love you all this flattery just brings a smile on my face keep it coming yeah just don't fuck up again i'm looking at him right now i want someone to spice this it's been a ton of fuck we've always got your back to one

of the moments where uh where we did it uh bakri salut de montreal how does the fighters entrance music selection work can they choose any songs they want does the ufc then have to go get the rights for these songs wouldn't that cost a fortune how long in advance okay it's a lot of questions here um basically they get to pick uh in the past dana white has sometimes said don't like these songs and or this particular song and they've had to pick a new one or there have been some times where dana has picked uh the song for the fighter lorenzo as well i think they're a little less controlling when it comes to the music these days my understanding is they don't have to get the rights they don't have to clear it per se for the live but for the replays they do so that's why sometimes when you watch fight pass or a clip online or on youtube

you'll hear some sort of generic track it's awful because it very much is a generic track it's like like the guy's walking out to uh i don't know uh run this town by rihanna and then all of a sudden it's aldo walking out to like bing bong bong bing bong it's tough it's it's it's actually legitimately tough so yeah so that is something they would have to pay for but i don't believe for the live they do or the um you know the pay-per-view broadcast the fight night broadcast etc and it's up to the fighters there have been some classic we actually debunked a myth uh i believe it was was it on the boys in the back where yeah yeah the the one of the most famous cases of this was i think for the longest time, we thought that Mike Perry asked for the Halo video game song. Yep.

But then they gave him Halo by Beyonce. And then in the walkout, he's like, this is, this is not what I asked for. And then I think on the boys in the back, you guys revealed that in fact, what we thought was the case actually isn't the case, right? Yes, because he lost the fight. He never did the post-fight media. I can't believe this never came out after that fact, but he never did the post-fight media. And it turns out he had submitted Halo

and then changed to a different song and then they played Halo. So he was rattled, but then delivered one of the best walkouts we've ever seen on the back of that. Yeah. So thank you for debunking that, because I think everyone just ran with, oh, this. The Halo video game, yeah.

Or that they screwed him over, or that they screwed it up, et cetera, et cetera. Well, they did mess it up. Sure. They just had it right from what he initially said. Right, right, right, right. Ariel, War135 I acknowledge you as my tribal chief However y'all gotta start putting some respect on Cyborg's name

This is written by Rick If there were a MMA Mount Rushmore Cyborg would have to be on it Please consider these three quick points If Jones and Anderson are eligible Then she is eligible She started in 2005 Won a major title in 2009 please consider these three quick points. If Jones and Anderson are eligible, then she is eligible. She started in 2005,

won a major title in 2009, and then won another major title 15 years later. She is 17 and one in title fights and seven and no in title fights since her last loss. Compare that to Anderson, Aldo, or even Nunez, who is two and oh, since her last loss.

You cannot tell the story of women's MMA at any point without mentioning Chris, please give her the respect that she deserves. Who hasn't given her the respect that she deserves? Reach my brother. I don't even know what is he talking about? I will say Is he talking about like a full on because when I talk about

Mount Rushmore I do men and women. Is he saying if there's one Mount Rushmore she needs to be on there? I guess so but as somebody who agrees I'll say it again. I have Chris Cyborg as my women's MMA GOAT. I know controversial.

Most will say Amanda Nunes. We can have that debate another time. But I don't think the way that people attack Chris Cyborg's resume is that she hasn't been dominant. It's that the level of competition she faced at certain points throughout her career is not equivalent to others now i would make the case that the dominance for that amount of time is kind of offsetting there the the head-to-head battle with amanda nunez that she lost uh is what a lot of other people will point to these i think are the things that people poke holes in in terms of you know if you're trying to make the argument for one or the other that's the direction to go but i don't think anybody doubts cyborg's dominance like for as long as i've been watching mma cyborg has been a staple and just been destroying the competition and now we see her at

in in the tail end of her career beating young hungry nasty savage challengers like larissa pacheco like she is a marvel of of mma and marvel of MMA. And I don't think anybody would deny that. I think the case that is made when you're trying to make a case for somebody else other than Cyborg is the level of competition. If you look down the resume, she did not face at all times the same level that would be existing in the UFC. But that is not her problem. That is not her fault. She is a 145 pounder that division just doesn't really exist as we saw the ufc tried it it just does not exist um but there are great fighters like kayla harrison larissa pacheco she got to fight pacheco she never got to fight harrison it just

is what it is i'm seeing uh via social media here in the chat that i have i have drawn the ire of the cobra carl frotch i haven't seen carl frotch is a very popular youtube channel what did you do i guess i think i haven't seen it because i'm just seeing it now that people are saying that he is mad at me that he told me to keep my mouth shut um i guess i guess it's because i imagine it was related to something with jake paul but what what could you have well the only, the only time I mentioned Carl Froch was when I said that in America, he's just not as well known as a, as a, you know, an American fighter, the people that Jake Paul is fighting right now. And I said that him and Tony Bellew, I don't remember when we were talking about this, but we were. And then I said that like, he's one of those guys who, first of all, I have the utmost respect for Carl Froch.

He's a freaking legend. Part of me kind of feels like, wow, I can't believe I was mentioned on the great Carl Frotch's YouTube channel. I've made it as a boxing pundit, even though he's calling me, I think, a total buffoon. Here's the thing. There's a bunch of people who do the gimmick of like, Jake Paul, you suck.

You're a disgrace. You're a schmuck. You're ruining boxing, all this stuff and more. But please pick me, pick Paul, you suck. You're a disgrace. You're a schmuck. You're ruining boxing, all this stuff and more. But please pick me, pick me, pick me. Give me the lottery ticket. I'll beat you with one hand behind my back. So you do the thing where like you're above it and you would never lower yourself.

But then you're saying, please, please, please give me the chance to shut you up and I'll do it for a hundred million dollars with one hand behind my back and both my legs tied. So like, we know what you're trying to do. You're trying to get the payday. I get it, but just be honest about it. Just be like, yo, I'll give you a fight and I want the payday and it will be a great fight and I'll sell the shit out of it. And that's it. So I think he's upset that I said that maybe in America, you know, 80 or so thousand people supposedly may have seen him

fight against Groves back in the day at Wembley Stadium. But, you know, here in America, he probably doesn't sell out Hammerstein Ballroom. And that's not a shot. It's just some people. No, that's just some people are big in the UK and some people are big in America. That's, is that a shot? I don't know. I mean.

No, that's not a mess. I'm messing with you. I was there. I was there. I was there. I love Tony Bellew, but like I was there. I saw it. No one reacted to him standing up.

And again, I think that's what he's referring to here because everyone's saying, oh, the Cobra. We're trying to listen to it, get sound on that so we can. Yeah, I'd love to react to it. We haven't had one of these in quite some time, but I think I've drawn the ire of the Cobra, which kind of feels like I've been like, have I been anointed? Is this a big moment for me, Pete C? Wait, it's incredible and i mean you even dropped his claim to fame when you were 80 000 i don't know if you know oh he fought in

front of 80 000 people at wendley's stadium carl fraudge he is of course a legend he was also on the mcgregor train i believe after the mayweather fight right he was trying to get that one going as well um so i understand what i understand what you're saying though. It is kind of hypocritical to be like, you're so terrible, fight me, former world champion. I will do it. I will do it. I will do it for the sport. I actually like his channel a lot.

He's doing great. The channel's good. The Q&A with his wife, they're a great duo. I'd like to have him on the show. Maybe we could debate it. I don't. I think this is the way we get it done. This is it.

This is it. Open forum, little debate between Ariel and Carl Frosch. Yeah, I don't know. Get Ade on. Be like one of them face-offs. Get Ade in the middle. Oh, Ade in the middle.

And you and Frosch. But what is the issue? Do we know what the issue is? GC is listening to it now for some. You're a buffoon, Ariel. GC, tell us what the issue is. We don't know what we're Talking about over here We're boxing noobs

How dare we speak about The sweet science And ruin the sanctity Of the sport Is that it He just like He uses a clip of You and Ade

Talking about Carl Frosch And Tony Bellew Okay That's what I suspected Yeah yeah yeah He just kind of reacts to it Says you're talking bollocks He's dipped his toe in MMA

But he would never talk about it And says the inverse for you That I should keep my mouth shut You're a new burial I'm a new Did you see the thumbnail I sent? Useless clowns And it's a picture of you

Oh my god Wow Poor Gareth It would be great when he sees this And he's just like useless clowns for boxing He's like let me go back to my producer And he's wearing a fucking turkey hat The clown

First of all Gareth I mean I don't know what Gareth said But Gareth's been covering boxing forever By the way if it's on the Ade show Which by the way you can watch right now on the DAZN Boxing It was actually the Ariel Adé show With a picture of you from the MMA hour What the fuck, guys?

It was just an MMA journalist You know? It was the Adé, actually Adé wasn't even mentioned He said, you don't know what you're doing Maybe, you know, return that He doesn't have the shows right He doesn't quite have it

Yeah, I mean, if you're going to take a shot of this A, get the show right B, have the shows right. He doesn't quite have it. Yeah. I mean, if you're going to take a shot of this. It's actually a great video. It's like an amazing video. A, get the show right. B, get the picture right. C, I want Ade's face on that thumbnail too. Ade's face needs to be on there, but credit to Carl Frosch, man. The setup is great.

Yeah, he's got a nice setup. With the YouTube black in the background. He's got the boxing belts, a couple of nice bottles of tequila. We must make this. Good production value. We must make this possible. Can we drop a link for Carl Frosch's page?

Yeah. Shout out to Cobra Casino as well. I don't know if itol frotch's page just yeah shout out to cobra casino as well i don't know but he always talks about it um looking bloke man straight uh straight across airline he's doing well for himself nah he's doing great but uh i'm actually more honored than anything that he's uh that he's listening to my commentary um so anyway you know if i offended him uh i i well i'm not really that apologetic because i don't really know what i said that would offend him i guess i guess he's mad at the notion that he you said that carl frosch jake paul does nothing in the states and he begs to differ he said it would be massive what What? Okay, this is the issue? Then I'd gladly debate this. I'd gladly debate that.

Carl Froch versus Jake Paul is a nothing burger fight here in the United States. Do you guys disagree? No, I agree. Nothing burger. People will be like, who? What? What YouTube channel is he on? And then you would direct them to the Froch on boxing YouTube channel.

They'll be like, oh, is he another YouTuber? They just don't know. There's a difference between British boxing,ish boxing domestic dust-ups if you will and global boxing at one time he was a name in global boxing i'm well aware uh but in today's day and age and you also understand the the audience that that jake is tapping into it's the same reason why i've even said it myself. And this is, this is just, you know,

the facts in my opinion, Jake versus Jio Pataya doesn't do as much as Jake versus KSI. Does anyone disagree with that? No, like that's, that's very obvious to anybody. These are different audiences. Anyway,

I just hope when he talks about me, he talks about me as DAZN boxings, Ariel Helwani, because, or, or you, he talks about me as DAZN Boxing's Ariel Helwani. Or you could just refer to me as Olympic host Ariel Helwani. Or 15-time, soon-to-be 15-time World MMA Award Journalist of the Year Ariel Helwani. Or Emmy Award winning Ariel Helwani. I did get an Emmy for SportsCenter in 2020 Who, me? Or Real Sports Correspondent

I love when they try to whittle me down to just MMA journalists I mean, we've been doing a little bit more Or executive producer slash executive editor Of the global home of combat sports Uncrowned.com Anyway much love Peace and love Carl You're invited let's have a debate

How about this Carl we'll fly you into New York You come here in studio We'll debate whether or not Carl Froch versus Jake Paul Puts more butts in seats than What are we talking about What's the litmus Frotch versus Jake Paul puts more butts in seats than what? What are we talking about? What's the litmus? KSI versus Jake?

Or Jake Tommy 2? Or I don't know. What's another one? Like all of the above? All of the above. What does more? What does more in 2025? Jake Canelo or Jake Carl Frotch? Oh, come on.

Jake versus... Is it a net-net like Jake Jaya Pataya? Jake Karl Frotch? I don't think there's really a barometer for that because I don't think those track. You know? And this is what I have...

This has always been my point about the Jake Paul experience. The real top-level boxers versus Jake Paul, I'm not particularly interested in that. I don't think the public is either. Karl Frotch is too good to fight Jake Paul, in my opinion. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if there's a strong demand and the juice isn't necessarily worth the squeeze. Anyway, peace and love, peace and love. By the way, we have that rower back there and it looks so damn good.

And I told you guys that we use it, but I actually want, what did I say? Rower. Yes, of course. It's the bike. We have that brand new bike. It just came out. It's hot on the market. And I thought it would be fun maybe if we can actually put our money where our mouth

is here. Oh, you're going on it? No absolutely not I can't I gotta do the show We'll take over No no don't worry about it Alright Pete we're hosting now Get with the Blanche here and I'll just do it for the whole show I'll be talking to you while I'm on the thing

It's been a while It's been a while it's been a minute As the kids like to say since we had an old school competition Here on the program. And so since I'm talking about the games and all the cool functions and whatnot, GC looks revved and ready to go. Rick's on this fitness health kick. Why don't we do an old school GC versus Rick battle?

Because I'll smoke him. GC's like an athlete at this stage. It's fucked up. I'm in jeans right now. I'm in jeans and some dunks right now. You got a hat on, too. Did you go to the gym today, GC? No, you know, we're recovering from an illness,

so I have a built-in excuse for it. Oh, here comes the excuses already. Good, good, good, good, good. What do you guys say? I'm in. I'm in. Okay. Who goes first?

What are the stipulations? GC versus Rick, what are we doing? One minute sprint, 30 second sprint, two minute sprint. One minute sprint. Not two minutes, that's a lot. One minute sprint, 60 second sprint. Who could get the higher output?

Yeah, I think that... GC, you in? Are you kidding me? Okay, who's going First? I'll go first Oh I was going to Do coin toss You're just going in

You have a coin? No I don't but I Was going to find Something 1986? I was going to Find something How about this

Let's I have a number From one to two Rick you go first Number from one to Two One Wrong

GC you go One No Alright I'm going First Alright Rick goes First You right, I'm going first. Yeah, you both said one. I love this song. All right, Rick goes first.

Rick, you go first. I'll go first. Let's follow Rick. You set the tone, and then I can just beat it. Big Tour de France guy. That's how it goes in the time trial. That's me having you, Rick. Oh, look at that shot.

Oh, there he is. Look at that shot. There he goes. Yes. Oh, he's got the sweats on. By, there he is. Look at that shot. There he goes. Yes. Oh, he's got the sweats on. By the way, is Rick wearing track pants? Yeah. I'm fucking...

It's the day before Thanksgiving. So I was like, I'm going to come in casual. By the way, PT, what do we make of the track pants? The Adidas three-stripe special. They look so comfortable and also athletic. This is fantastic. I have to say, every time I get on the bike, I can athletic. This is fantastic. Look at this shot. GoPro shot.

Rick's POV. This is incredible. I'm praying to God that there are people that come off. There's people right over there. You can see everybody in the background. We're actually going. Here we go. 3, 2, 1. 60 seconds on the board. Full steam new york forgot to change the resistance

on the bike it looks like guitar hero yeah by the way why would you want to put the resistance up you'd want because i can get more output if oh that's a good point what is the parameter like do we have a number what number are we looking for there's an output he's about to set a number and then i have to beat it okay okay all right let's go rick let's go number are we looking for? There's an output. He's about to set a number, and then I have to beat it. Okay, okay. All right. Let's go, Rick. Let's go. What are we at time-wise? Give us an update.

37. 37. Look at the hips going on this guy. I mean, look at that speed. Look at that form. He's looking like a young Floyd Landis. Not quite Lance Armstrong just yet, but very Landis-esque. I should have put the resistance higher.

What are you feeling? What are you feeling right now? Nothing. How's the cardio? Good are you feeling right now? Nothing. How's the cardio? Good. Too good. Too good. Okay, what are we at?

What are we at time-wise? Time-wise? 10 seconds. 10, 9, 8. Come on, Rick. Come on, boy. Push. Come on, man.

7, 6, 5. Come on, dig deep. Dig deep. 4, 3. All right. That was it. What did we get? Five Come on dig deep Dig deep Four Three Alright that was it What did we get 11.9 11.9

Okay so what's the mistake What did you do Too low resistance Too low Look how tired he is He's breathing like a motherfucker I'm getting nervous now Look at him

He's coming out like a champ I think he's actually pissed 11.9 I'm going to absolutely smoke this. All right, you're up. You're up. Are you going now, GC? Yeah, you go now.

I'll wait for Rick to get back in there. No, just go. Just go ahead. Go ahead. I've actually seen Ariel has this rower in his gaff as well. All right, 11.9, that's the number to beat? Yep, that's the number to beat. Output 11.9, 60 seconds on the board.

What are we putting the line at right now? Huge mistake. Tell us, tell us, tell us. GC minus like 500. You're kind of out of breath, though. Some people are saying that you need Austrian. Sprint, sprint, dude. It was a sprint.

Is it the gout? Was it the gout that was going to be the gout? Look at that. He throws off the jacket. Oh, my God. Yeah. The man in the arena. Here he comes. Oh, my God. Yeah. The mind of the arena. Here he comes.

Okay. Here's the thing. Very good point. I want to give a shout out to Plus Money MMA. GC, you can hear me? Yeah, I can hear you, brother. Plus Money MMA says that you should put it on the same resistance as Rick. Oh, wow.

30 resistance? That's what he was on? Yeah. Okay. I think that's fair. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I like that.

How do you feel about that? How do you feel about that, GC? Yeah, yeah okay i think that's fair yeah yeah okay i like that i think how do you feel about that how do you feel about that gc yeah sure i guess i guess that works 11.9 is what you have to beat yeah i just need i just need a second to uh i just got to reset it we have a whole production you're gonna warm up they're just sleeping on the job okay are you nervous how are you feeling i'm not nervous at all jeans i don't know what camera is looking at me right now but gopro gopro we're right on you let's go let's get right up in this thing yeah it's so good it's so freaking good all right here we go hold on okay look how easy this thing is man the interface you see all the interface is just absolutely so easy that just switched to my

profile avaron makes it seamless man we love our friends our friends over at Averon. It is kind of addicting and it's pretty fun. Alright, here we go. Lightning lap. We're going to go two laps. We're going to go one minute. Yes. And just like that. You see how easy that is? Alright, so I have to keep this at 30 resistance? You don't have to. I think that's fair.

Lesson learned. I messed up. In the chat right now, give us the odds. Some people are saying minus 1,000 for GC right now. Oh, and we're off. How are we feeling early on? Oh, I feel fucking great. Prime Lance Armstrong right here.

Tadej Pogacar, for those that know. He's on EPO, lads. Are you pacing yourself? There is no pacing. This is a one-minute sprint, man. This is easy money right here. I'm already at 5.7. I'm absolutely leaving this dude in the fucking dust.

What was it, 11.9? Yes. Oh, my God. 30 seconds in, I'm already at eight. This is over. This is Jake Paul Mike Tyson. He's saying that he hopes Rick loses. 23 miles an hour right now.

I could be on the freeway. Take your foot and stick it on his neck. Stick it. The resistance was too low. There it is. 15 seconds to go. We're already at 11.9. Wow. Rick. Rick, your thoughts. You're fuming right now. The resistance was too low. I was

going too fast. Oh, we're going to get to 15. I was getting to 20 in practice on 50. 15.3. Are you going to double him up? He's done it. 50. Oh, 15.3. Are you going to double him up? He's done it. There he is. 15.3.

Wow. I'm not even breathing heavy. I'm going back. Hold on. No, no, no. Winner, Lerner. Winner, Lerner. Winner, Lerner.

You know what? Maybe rematch later in the show or next week? Nah, save it for next week. All right. I love this. But now having seen his output, I'm fairly confident that I'm going to destroy him. I've made a critical error. Rick warned me to bring my wallet, and I forgot it.

And now I'm not inclined to get him. Leave him outside. Frank, it's an amateur move right there. Someone's helping him out. Look at this. Tyler. Yeah, shout out to Tyler. Leave him out there, Tyler.

He's staying. He's staying. Yeah, big mistake on my part. My legs were actually going too fast. There was no resistance. It was a bad mistake by me. Can I just make a comment right now? Yeah.

I think I would double both of you up. All right, let's see it. Let's see it. The bike's still ready. Yeah, maybe. Let me hop back on there with 50. I'm going to crush. 50 is tough, man.

Nah. 15.3? 50. Both'm going to crush. 50 is tough, man. Nah. 15.3? Both of them are kind of out of breath. 15.3 the number to beat now? I mean, it's a sprint. 50 is tough. Out of breath, man. I just walked to the park.

You want it to be tough. I'm not even breathing right now. It was too easy that the legs. His strategy was actually smarter. Pacing was actually better. But on 50, you can... 15.3, the number to beat. Next week, destroyed.

It's like you're interviewing someone after they fall. I freaking love it. You know? He should have been able to pick any resistance he wanted, though. That's not... I could have gone to 70. I could have put up a number if you let me get on 100 resistance. Same.

You would have seen these thighs come out. I would have gone to 70. I could have put up a number if you let me get on 100 resistance. You would have seen these thighs come out. I would have started churning. Next week when we get the rematch, I think it would be cooler if both of you pick whatever resistance you want. Because you're both now coming out with these theories. This should have been better. This should have been better. And we'll see. Round two.

I'm going to start blood doping. Next week, avaronactive.com slash uncrowned. It's a tremendous time. That's tip of the iceberg stuff right there. Great people, great product. The bike, the roar, the treadmill to come. Thank you so much to them. And that's one of my favorite segments in the history of the show.

And I can't wait for next week now. Wednesdays just got better here on the program. Back to the questions. Ben P, some quick fire questions for you guys. True or false, Murab fights Umar next for the title. I say true. Anyone disagree? I think so. Okay.

Did everyone go home? I think they were just chatting about what they just experienced. No, we all agree. Okay. How about this? If you guys disagree, just speak up. Gun to your head. Who does Sean O'Malley fight next? Fumar. Wait, Sean O'Malley? Oh, sorry. Jan.

Yeah, that's what I thought. True or false, Conor McGregor fights in 2025 given the recent news? No. You think no? Not even back end? No. Yeah, tough one Not even back end? No. Yeah, tough one. I'll go with you.

True or false, Tom Aspinall's next fight is against Jon Jones. I say yes. Yes. And lastly, I don't know if these answers are from PC.

Who will have fought in the UFC again before the end of 2025? Nate Diaz, Jorge Masvidal or both? Masvidal. I think Masvidal might come back in the spring.

P.S. Shout out to the boys in the back who do a great job of previewing the upcoming fights and always increase my interest slash excitement levels. No problem, mate. Yeah.

Matt. Shalom, Ariel. Often you have reacted to MMA and sporting events to provide some brilliant and viral takes. However, last Thursday we were blessed with what seemed like 90 minutes straight of gc frankie and nyg discussing gout in what was probably the funniest show this has ever been my question is when you gave these boys their own show did you have any idea that within a few weeks it would just be pumping out non-stop content and

rick's long hidden condition yes absolutely um i i wanted them to have a show in the previous era as well. And we're just scratching the surface. So yes, I love it. Is gout itchy? Is that what you're referring to? I don't know what it is. I'm just, you know, I'm bummed that we're not getting another show tomorrow.

But no, thanks. We can re-rack if you want us to. We're lucky we're getting a show today, man. Wednesday before Thanksgiving is a national holiday. You kicked off the show you were like Something going on in the United States of America It appears that the Wednesday before Is beginning to be a holiday

It's always been a holiday I wrote in today it was completely Yeah it was great There was not a soul on the road It uh It feels like everyone's just you know Okay so tell me what's Friday Black Friday

Is that a holiday It's a whole You get the five days to spend time with family Be thankful you know Waiting in line for a door buster I'm not in support of this Wednesday holiday stuff Yeah crazy This is where we draw the line

This is grinders versus sandwiches Kenny Aloha Ariel 12 days removed from Tyson vs Paul Crazy this is where we draw the line This is grinders versus sub sandwiches Kenny Aloha Ariel 12 days removed from Tyson versus Paul has it fully Soaked in that over 100 million people globally Who hadn't been exposed to your career yet Have now seen you work and know who you are Have you taken a moment to reflect on how far you've come

Has the dynamic changed between you and your kids Classmates parents and others who weren't previously Aware of your success happy Thanksgiving Ariel and crew Not really I mean And if you would probably ask the likes of kids, classmates, parents, and others who weren't previously aware of your success. Happy Thanksgiving, Ariel and crew. Not really. I mean, and if you would probably ask the likes of Carl Frotch, it was a black eye on my career. So, you know, it's something that I am very regretful that I was a part of. It's one of the darkest days in my life.

No, no, no. I mean, it was incredible. A hundred or so million people, 70,000 people in attendance, Netflix getting to be on a platform like that, working with legends like Andre Ward and Roy Jones Jr., who I'd never worked with before,

Mauro Ranallo, Katie and Amanda. And the whole thing was a great time. And like I said, the behind the scenes production was what was most impressive to me. How organized they were, how on the ball they were with everything, how buttoned up everyone was.

It was really, really impressive. Would love to do it more. Would love to be a part of more of those events. Obviously, who wouldn't? It was one of the highlights of my career, dare I say. Life, dare I say. Jordan.

Hey, Ariel. Last week you talked about road trips with the boys in the back as a fan not as a media member but as a fan do you have any memorable sports-based road trips you took with family or friends um probably my most so there's a few that come to mind when i went to no mercy in 2000 in albany watch Kurt Angle beat The Rock, October 22nd, 2000. I talked about that being a day that my friends and I always celebrate. My friend, Jason Tackman and I, who's probably watching this right now, what's up Tack? We drove on a Saturday, Montreal to Toronto, which is like a six and a half or so hour drive, watched

Blue Jays versus Cleveland, and then went to eat, I think we went to a Wings place. Remember, he's the guy that I said that I would pay good money to watch him eat Wings. It's just very entertaining. And then we drove back home, same day. So it was a collective, probably 13 hours of driving, didn't sleep in hotel back and forth he drove the entire way back and forth which i kind of felt bad about but like what a monster yeah he's a beast that was a memorable one another memorable one was when i went with my um when my family recently for my 40th birthday when we went to the blue Jays playoff game

and then also the Bill Steelers game in Buffalo. That was a very memorable one. There have been others, but those are three that come to mind. I'm surprised you didn't say Spores with the lads. Well, that doesn't feel like a road trip. I mean, we got on a plane for that one. Is that a road trip? Of course it is, yeah. You mean, we got on a plane for that one. Is that a road trip? Of course it is, yeah.

We went to AEW. That was fun. That was fun, but was that a road trip? I mean, I feel like a road trip has to be like outside of where you live. Well, you don't live in London, mate. Yeah, no, but that's a plane. You don't live in Queens either. That's a plane trip.

They were all fun. Marcelo, Ariel, do you play chess? What's your win-loss record between you and the boys in the back? Who is the best player? According to Aura, match each member of the team to a chess piece. I play chess a little bit. My kids like it. My wife is incredible at it.

But I would say in the family, I'm probably the worst, and that includes my daughter. Any big chess players here? I own a set. I dabble here and there, but I'm probably the worst, and that includes my daughter. Any big chess players here? You know, I own a set. I dabble here and there, but I'm probably the worst on the group here. You think so? Dude, I tried to get into it for the minute. I took a master class on it and everything.

Like, I know how to play, and, like, I can hold my own, but, man, I would go above, like, 800 level or something on the computer, and they would just run through me. I feel like Rick's a big chess guy. I used to. I used to. I used to play. Now my daughter, my seven-year-old daughter is learning. Yeah, it's fun when you play with kids.

Yeah, because you can beat their ass, right? Because you can cheat. They don't know better. No, no, no. The rook goes anywhere it wants. Come on now, sweetie. Yeah, it moves every direction. My pawn is able to go diagonally.

You see the horse? It pops over people. Rick's just an MTG guy now. Yeah, he is. Shout out. What is that? Magic the Gathering. Oh, jeez. I'm on Arena Hall. diagonally you see the horse it pops over rick's just an mtg guy now yeah he is shout out and what is that magic the gathering oh i'm on arena sometimes we're sitting talking about the show and you look over at rick it's kind of like sometimes when we look over i'm like man gc's just grinding over there he's just grinding the memes and then he's just i'm like oh he was just

making like 45 memes so now it's we we over at Rick Like man That Rick He's really going Above and beyond And then you look at his phone And he's playing Magic the Gathering A very A very brief story here We were filming

A fight feast Me Rick And Frank And we were on the way Back to the office From the fight feast And me and Frank

Are walking And it was like Rick was like a dog On a leash behind us We are walking Through the Crowded streets of Manhattan And he did not look up From his phone One single time And I was like Rick was like a dog on a leash behind us. We are walking through the crowded streets of Manhattan, and he did not look up from his phone one single time. And I was like, Rick, man, you got to get off the phone.

What are you doing? And he's like, I'm in the middle of an MTG Arena game. And I was like, dude. Here's the thing. I'm a free-to-play player, meaning I don't pay money to, like, get extra things on it. I only grind out stuff. I've got to get 15 wins so I can get the coins from that. You sound like an addict.

Oh, I'm definitely addicted. So I find little moments, pockets. Walking down the street in Manhattan, that's a perfect pocket to get one or two games in. He would have taken a four-dash court to the hip just to get his coins. Do you know what would be insulting? Is the person that you beat if they knew that you were just walking down the street. His neck is craned. Here's the real tragedy that happens.

When I'm on the Long Island Railroad and I'm pulling into Penn and I've got somebody beat and then the internet cuts out and they think they got one on me because I disappeared from the game and I was actually going to crush them. That hurts my soul. They need to know how superior I am and how superior my deck is.

Keep coming back, Rick. But shout out to the Wizards of the Coast. Shout out to MTG and all my players out there. Oh, yeah. I'm so sick. Wizzy's on the coast. Those are my guys. Wizards of the Coast, baby.

Shout out. I'm trying to do this, but with like a Pokemon or a Yu-Gi-Oh! Here's the next move. The question was about chess, just to be clear. Yeah. I'm going to get the Avaron bike in the house. We're going to be on that. These days, I'm on the elliptical playing MTG. We're going to get the Averon bike In the house We're going to be on that These days I'm on the elliptical playing MTG

We're going to get the Averon bike in the house I'll be on the bike with the MTG I bet you can get it full screen on there Maybe I can connect it A couple of rapid fire super chat questions Jonah Friedman asks When is the Costco guys X

How do you say X Fight Feast collab Or did you just the Costco guys X? How do you say X? How do you say the X? X. Okay. Fight Feast collab, or did you just say Costco guys Fight Feast collab happening? Can we get a mini audition from GC to become CGGC? CGGC. Costco guys.

Wow. Yeah, that would be incredible, but they're too big for us, man. They're out of our league. Yeah, you never know. It'd be incredible. All right. Well, that sounds be incredible, but they're too big for us, man. They're out of our league. You never know. It'd be incredible. All right. Well, that sounds like you're in. AZ Ray Videos, will you interview Lorenz Larkin since he's a free agent now?

I think Karate Combat would be a great home for him. Sure. I mean, and I do agree with that. Karate Combat would be a very fun fit for him. Gabriel L., did Turkey ever really try to bring you and Dana White together, as mentioned on that one interview? I don't know if he tried, but I can tell you it didn't happen. And I can tell you, like, there was no discussion of it happening

other than what went on in the interview that you guys saw. So I can't speak to whether or not he tried. I never asked him. I never followed up and said, hey, are you actually going to try to do that? But I can just tell you that nothing ever came of it after the fact him. I never followed up and said, hey, are you actually going to try to do that? But I could just tell you that nothing ever came of it after the fact. It was never brought up afterwards. Aquiles Jr.

Frank, you're the best. Brings a tear to my eye. That's it. Nothing for me from Aquiles Jr.? That's surprising. It was while you guys were on the bike. It was ignored. Here's something from Robert McAllister.

New York Rick is the spitting image of Felipe Machado on the Mikey Musumichi versus Felipe Machado promo poster. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Love from Scotland. Wow. I've gotten this guy and the MasterChef guy from last week. How the hell did you guys have that so quickly? This actually looks like Rick with gout. Jordan, how did you have this so quickly?

Did you read the question in advance? There's my guy. Okay. Gavin? Gavin. Gareth. Gareth Crimmins. Shout out to Gareth Crimmins.

I'm pretty sure that's you, to be honest, Rick. How are you here and there at the same time? I didn't tell you guys, but I was on MasterChef. Professional, too. So Jordan has some competition here with the- Gareth Crimmins.. So Jordan has some competition here with the Gareth Crimmins. Gareth sounds like a fake name. No, Gareth Crimmins. It sounds like a name Rick made up so he could have a double life as a MasterChef over in UK.

By the way, Aquiles Jr. also added that he hopes you lose the bike challenge. Well, he already lost, so your wish is my command. I think, yeah, I don't know. I said it in the middle of... I'm not convinced GC didn't pump up the resistance, but we're going to have to go back to the tape. Could we get a replay? We're going to have to go back to the tape.

We're going to have to go back to the tape. You'll have your chance next week, man. We have to go back to the tape. Tech is actually throwing out a pretty good suggestion. Can we get a ref next time for the bike challenge? Yeah, for sure. Who could be the ref? Was that not you?

I'm lying around the office. PT, can you fly in next week? Can you and Carl Frogg fly in? Can you pick him up on the way? I need to get Ade as well to do the face-off. We could all go in together. Yeah. That would be fantastic.

Oh, that's a great idea. Ade doing the face-off. You and Ade, Ade will do the face-off between you two, and then halfway through, Carl will be like, wait a minute, your voice sounds familiar. You were the one in the clip with Ariel talking shit. All right. Rick just said to check my Slack, but I don't see anything.

Is it about the phone number? Yes. Yeah, no big deal. We'll deal with that later. Ice. That wasn't to air before. Oh, all right. I couldn't tell.

Just want to chime in and say, Frank the Tank. Look at that. They're all coming out of the woodwork. I need to stop paying for these. It's starting to make me feel guilty. Derek the Dad. What happens first, Tom John or Connor Chandler? I'll tell you Tom John.

Right? Yes, Tom John. yes tom john um i i i got a kick out of the fact that yesterday you know we clip off the um we clip off like little moments and and and we do such a great job of that while we're doing the show shout out to the big man spence and uh there was a a conversation about the bare knuckle event coming up on january 25th and we mentioned connor and like the the story of it all coming together and people are like oh so this is what you're talking about like how much more you cannot i saw someone else a great media pundit in the mma world being like no commentary on uncrowned about the conor mcgregor situation pt ben and chuck were live literally for an hour minutes after the verdict

we've talked about it on the show multiple times we've had multiple articles like the the the critics the media critics weighing in oh i bet you won't talk about this or i bet you won't say that or i bet you won't do that or i bet you guys won't go there or i bet you won't do that. Or I bet you guys won't go there. Or I bet you won't really tutorialize. Like, ah, shoot me in the head. Shoot me in the head. So yes, it was mentioned, but I think we have covered it. And you could do five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 hours on this. And we're trying our best and it continues to evolve. And I could tell you the only real update, I did check in today, and the only real update since yesterday pt correct me if i'm wrong uh you have your finger on the pulse and you're right there is the statement from statement quote-unquote instagram stories from his fiancee d devlin that's the only real like from a business

standpoint or from an appeal standpoint nothing new has happened since yesterday yes well the only thing i did talk to you earlier about this they have moved the hearing which is meant to take place on thursday to decide who was paying the lawyers fees that was meant to happen thursday thanksgiving for you guys but they've pushed that back to a later date it's a big subject of intrigue in ireland at the moment because connor's tweets he said a lot of controversial things pertaining to the court pertaining to the decision so the judge can react to that in that moment we're expecting it to be tomorrow but it has been pushed back to a date that has yet to be decided so that's the next big

date and it will be to decide who is paying which uh fees as we know um conor mcgregor has been found liable for the sexual assault of nikita hand but james lawrence hasn't so we need to have that explained does that mean nikita hand is on the hook to pay james lawrence's fees or is it that the sexual assault of Nikita Hand, but James Lawrence hasn't. So we need to have that explained. Does that mean Nikita Hand is on the hook to pay James Lawrence's fees? Or is it that the jury saw Nikita's side of the story being accurate in which she claimed that James Lawrence was a patsy? So we need to see this play out. And obviously Dee Devlin's comments met with enormous scrutiny in Ireland yesterday. Yes, I will read those on the back end

um and we can continue to talk about this and we'll get to a few more of the questions as well uh because well the bike challenge took up a lot of time although we did get to 18 so that's actually more than i thought we got to so well done and and i will get to more super chats as well so uh stick around brian battle coming up at 3 p.m. Eastern, but very, very grateful that we have our next guest standing by. We just saw him in action about 10 or so days ago,

right here in New York City at Madison Square Garden. Prior to the fight, he was sitting right over there previewing the fight. It has now come and gone and he's kind enough to join us. He is Iron Mike Chandler joining us right now there he is what's up ariel hello mike a bit of a

dramatic pause there from me to you how are you doing mike oh man i'm doing good uh replayed the fight a thousand times in my head but uh here we are. And I'm happy to be home with the family. We got the holidays coming up. So we rest and we recover and we think about what's next in 2025. Okay. So we're going to get into all of that. But, you know, sometimes when you ask someone like how they're doing, it's like in passing, Hey, how are you doing? Hey, I'm good. Great. But you don't really actually want to know, or, you know, get into it. This, how are you doing is one where I do want to know. And it's first off from a physical standpoint, because I did see yesterday, Mike,

you posted a video. I think you were in your sauna and you were pressing on your shin. And I've never quite seen that before. This is the video right over here. Like, this is wild stuff. Like, that doesn't look real. That looks like clay or something like that.

So can you, A, while explaining what is going on here with your leg, tell us overall, how are you feeling? No, I appreciate it because yeah, I mean, obviously I'm a guy who's not afraid to go deep, to really wear my heart on my sleeve and tell you exactly how I'm feeling. Um, so I appreciate the real sentiment. I mean, I'm disappointed. Um, I think, I think I could replay the fight a thousand times in my head and I could have made some different decisions. You know, you, you bring up the leg, um, something happened to the leg in that, in that first exchange, the first grappling exchange, actually, uh, pretty sure I ripped the MCL almost off the bone toward the, toward the, uh, meniscus. And I kept remembering in the fight. Um, and it's actually a really funny story because Robbie

Lawler, the legend, Robbie Lawler, who doesn't make excuses, doesn't take any crap from anybody. I'm like, guys, I can't get my footing. I don't know what's going on with my footing. I kept putting water under my, under my feet, um, getting sweat on my feet, trying to get more grip. I just couldn't get my footing underneath me. And it turns out I did something to that left leg in that first round, two minutes into the first round, three minutes, whatever it was. And I just wasn't able to really put a lot of weight on it. And I hate these, you know, looking back excuses. You know me, I'm not an excuses kind of guy. What happens in the fight game happens.

And it's a learn on an excuses kind of guy. What happens in the fight game happens, and it's a learn-on-the-fly type of scenario, and I wasn't able to learn enough on back. Um, we'll see what the protocol is going to be. Um, but as of right now, I'm walking around on it. Uh, I got a pretty high pain tolerance and they're going to stop me from smiling and they're going to stop me from moving forward. Glad to hear that. I watched your interview with Bussin with the boys and, and I think, correct me if I'm wrong, you said you have never been in so much pain after a fight. Is that accurate? And, and if so, why? What's hurting the most? Yeah, I mean, I think, number one, I haven't felt this in two years. So maybe that was a little bit of an overstatement. Now here I am seven days after that. I feel fine. I think

there was just things that happened in the fight that should never happen. I mean, I'm a pretty athletic guy. I train athletically big time. I've been doing hand-to-hand combat since I was 14 years old, but I fell like four or five times in the fight, tripped over my feet. I tripped over one time in the cage, banged up my ankle, and on the same fall, felt like I dislocated my thumb, and they just stuff like that, where you're just like, man, little injuries that happened inside the fight. You know, luckily I didn't take a lot of damage to the head. Didn't really take any punches, uh, at all compared to the Gaethje fight compared to the Poirier fight, um, compared to some of these other fights. So the head was good, but the body, you know, I got ribs going on, uh, obviously the knee, the shin, the ankle, uh, the hand, and, uh, obviously a 25 minute fight, 25 minute war. And, uh, you know, I still had gas in the fifth round, so I was very, very happy about that. And, uh, yeah, I mean, it's a fight, man. Bones aren't, bones aren't meant to bang up against each other. Um, a lot of things are happening there. You're falling around. Um, a lot of it

had to do with my inability to really shift my weight correctly and just not happy more than anything. And I'm just, I really laid out that plan that I thought was really going to come to fruition. I shed tears on your show just a couple of days prior to the fight, really feeling like this was going to happen for me. And it didn't. And that's the fight game. And more than anything, I got to lick my wounds. I got to pick myself up in 2025 is going to be a big year. Happy to hear that sentiment. Happy to hear the way you're thinking about it all. You also did mention you were peeing blood afterwards. Is that common for you? That's normal in a 25 minute fight.

You know, uh, I exert myself so much. I, I. I pour myself fully into this sport. Honestly, probably a little bit less in this fight than I have in the past because I didn't force a lot of positions. I didn't need to. I didn't force myself out of positions and put myself in bad positions. I wasn't exerting like crazy. We spent a lot of the fight with Charles Oliveira on my back, just holding me and not doing damage and not really threatening too much of submissions. I mean, if you really think about the entirety of

the fight, I had my back taken and I was willing to concede that position to get from round one to two to two to three, three to four, and then eventually hoping that his gas tank was going to slow down and we were going to put it on him later in the rounds. And the way fate would have it, that obviously did not happen. And hats off to Charles. He showed a lot of gall. He showed a lot of stick-to-itiveness. He showed the heart of a champion. And I look forward to watching him fight Islam Arman, whoever wins that fight, to fight for the title. And it will be bittersweet. It will be painful to watch because I believe I should be in that position. But I didn't I didn't get the job done. Have you have you rewatched it fully?

I have. And I was a lot I was a lot happier before I watched the fight than I was after the fight. Not necessarily the fight itself, but just the commentary, the, you know, watching it on TV compared to being in the arena. You know, if you if you were there that night, a lot of people, they were wowed by it. They loved it. It was an awesome fight. But watching it on TV wasn't as appealing to me. So what bothered you most, the performance or the commentary? What was leaving you with a bit of a sour taste in your mouth. Yeah. I mean, a little bit of the commentary when it comes to, you know, some of the, some of the stuff that they were saying, um, the, the misinterpretation of what the back of the head is by the unified rules of mixed martial arts. Um, the misinterpretation of what cage grabbing is, um, and all in a couple of different things,

you know, it's, it's all, uh, it's all water under the bridge at this point. Um, but more than anything, I'm an honest guy. I try to live pretty full of integrity and full of honesty and a narrative that has been painted is, is not, uh, not very, uh, interesting to me, not very happy, not very happy about it, but you know, it's all part of it. Uh, can I ask, I mean, that's obviously a much talked about moment, The, the, you know, the, the shots that some deemed to the back of the head, what is your interpretation of that rule? And why do you think that you didn't do anything

wrong? Well, I don't think I did anything wrong. I'm not going to say I didn't do anything wrong. Okay. I'm not, I'm not going to say that, um, people couldn't look at it and splice it and look at it under a fine-tooth comb and a magnifying glass. But the unified rules of mixed martial arts say that there is a line drawn from the crown of the head, if this were the back of the head, the crown of the head down to the neck, one-inch variance on either side. So you're talking about a two-inch area on the back of someone's head that is considered the back of the head. And if you watch 90% of the shots, at least most of them, almost all of them, or at least where I was aiming, all of them, my hand, my fist was catching the ear. So if you're catching the ear, that is not the back of the head. And actually the back of the head is not really you and I, what you and I would call the back

of the head is not what the actual definition of the back of the head is not really, what you and I would call the back of the head is not what the actual definition of the back of the head is, that two-inch strip down the back of the head. And a referee who was within two feet away never said one thing about it. And then you got commentators who were 35 feet away saying it's the back of the head. And then you got other people who are saying, hey, that's the back of the head. Just like the Poirier fight. Um, you're pushing a guy behind the ear. If it's not within that one inch, that two inch variance, one inch variance to the center line of the back of the head. And it's just, things are happening. It's going a thousand miles an hour. If the referee was yelling at me, Hey, Michael, watch the back of the head, or that is the back of the head. He might give you one shot, say it's the back of the head. And then I would have changed courses.

I would have changed the trajectory, but none of them were going straight down. They were all coming at a 45 degree angle toward the side and the ear. Um, and ultimately, man, you're dropping a guy you're down, you're down on points. You're dropping a guy you're trying to hit them. Um, and you're trying to get them out of there. Um, I'm not a hundred percent thinking about, you know, that little red line between the back of the head the whole time, but it's, uh, it's water under the bridge at this point, but more than anything, what you and I would call the back of the head is not what the unified rules of mixed martial arts call the back of the head. So it, uh, it needs to be defined and it also needs to be understood by

yourself, the media, the commentators, some of which have fought in an octagon for years and won championships, and the general fan base. In your defense, I will also add that referees and commissioners have told me that when it's part of a scramble, if you will, and I know that that was more than just a scramble. It was a little bit more prolonged that there is some leeway given because of all the movement. Um, and so it's hard to pinpoint the shots. And so the referee does take that into account. Yeah, that's, that's a very, very good point. I mean, things are moving. His head is moving. I mean, just like, you know, we, we just got a new rule change with the grounded opponent, right? Yeah. If you're on top of me, right. I could, I used to be able to just put my hand down and you not be able to strike me because my fingers were touching the ground and people got privy to it or the referees and the rule book got privy to it and saying, Hey, well, you can't, you can't put yourself in

that position and just stall there and not let your opponent be in a position where they can strike similar to the back of the head. You can turn your head away where the only the back of the head is showing. And it's kind of a moving, you know, it's, it's a moving target. So more than anything, man, it, uh, I try not to get too emotional about it because I think, you know, the type of person that I am and these types of labels. I mean, you want to say I suck at fighting. You want to say I'm not a good technician. You want to say I got low fight IQ. You want to say I should have wrestled and not struck or struck and not a wrestled. You want to talk about these tactical things. That's completely fine. But when you talk about, Hey, this guy's a dirty fighter because he was striking to the back

of the head and it wasn't really the back of the head. And quite frankly, we have a guy who gets paid to be locked in the octagon with you has, who has reffed thousands of unified mixed martial arts bouts and never said anything, just like I think it was Herb Dean didn't during the Poirier fight. It's interesting, man. I'm going to ask you about the fifth round in a moment, but when you watch rounds one through four, what do you wish, and I know there could be a million things here

or one overarching thing, what do you wish you would have done differently? What do you wish you could do over? Um, you know, I, as I said, I think everything changed in that first round,

in that first exchange, uh, the first grappling exchange when, when the knee got compromised and it just, it sucks. I don't even want to talk about it cause I'm not an excuses guy. Charles Oliver, Charles Oliver grappled me. He grabbed my leg. He did what he did. I did a 360 and he caused the injury. Right. And it happened in a legal manner. Um, this is what we have to deal with.

And I need to improvise, adapt and overcome. But from that moment, obviously I just, I held onto him and said, Hey, I'm going to let go around one one. I'm not going to get submitted. None of the elbows landed. None of the big strikes landed. I was in a good position, and I conceded round one, and I was going to go back to the stool round two. Got up, leg felt weird, guys, I can't get my footing. I don't know what's going on here. And that's where I was saying to talking to Henry, like, Hey, let's, let's talk about, you know, combinations. We're going to throw different, very basic, simple tactics that we can put pressure and move forward. A guy like me, I'm a pressure fighter, which means a lot of the weight is on my front leg. And when you can't put weight on the front leg, you can't pressure. I had no problem moving backwards. I could run, I could run and shuffle backwards for a mile and have no problem doing so. But it was the, it was the prospect of moving forward with my hands up and pressuring a guy like I had trained for the 16 weeks prior, um, that immediately that game plan just went out the window. And then, uh, I don't know more than

anything, man, I just, uh uh i wanted to be able to put it together and i didn't so obviously the fight doesn't go your way but man if there could ever be a silver lining in a fight if you will or a case to like at least finish strong it's that fifth round because you gave us multiple moments and i don't know if you get the microphone afterwards and i don't know if people are still saying like, oh, yeah, let's have him in this big fight or that big fight. And so could I ask, like, what is the mindset at that point? It sounds like you're pretty well aware at this point, you know, you need something dramatic to happen in this fifth round. And it seems like you just go for broke. You go balls to the wall and just say to F with it all. I'm just going to go for it.

Is that what you're thinking? Is that what your team is saying to you? Yeah, pretty much. I mean, that's, that's what, that was what my mindset was going into the fourth. And I think I started the fourth out, um, like that. I even switched to Southpaw trying to try to see if I could, uh, have some success there. You know, it was more just, not only are we dealing with a million things now you're dealing with a million things added onto, well, the other million things that you've been training, you can't do, uh, from a tactical standpoint or a biological standpoint. Um, and yeah, the fifth round, it was, you know, Henry looked at me and said, Hey, you gotta go, you gotta go, go for the finish. And, and that's what we, uh, what we've done our entire careers. We we've nonstop looked for finishes. This was the first time in my career

that I'm very happy that I, I was willing to settle into a 25 minute fight. I proved to the whole world that I can You know fight 25 minutes at a high pace, uh finish stronger than my opponent I mean, there's a lot of people that would would look at the way the fifth round ended and you had one guy who was hanging on by a thread one guy who was Backpacking me and holding on tight, digging his chin in and just along for the ride while another man stood to his feet twice on a ripped up MCL and meniscus, carried him to the center of the octagon and backdropped him in front of a standing ovation, 20,200 people. There was not one person sitting in their seat. There was not one person who was unhappy that they bought the pay-per-view. I think more than anything, I knew that the fight

probably wasn't going to go my way at that point. Not probably. I knew the fight wasn't going to go my way at that point. And that's a really great picture. You can see if you zoomed in on that left knee right there, you can see how my MCL is swollen and displaced out of place there. But I still carried him to the center of the octagon, bounced him off the monster M. And we did it not just once, but twice. And I think part of it was, obviously, we wanted to... I had the thought earlier in the fight when he had my back. I was like, should I get up and just slam this dude just to prove a point?

And I thought, no, Michael, you're a veteran. Don't do it. You don't need to do it. But in the fifth round, you're like, hey, we're going for broke here. And we're going to give the crowd what they paid for. We're going to give the crowd what they came here for. And I think 95% of people on the roster never think about that. And that's why I must see TV. And that's why I'm a pay-per-view fighter. Do you agree with the sentiment that that fifth round alone kept you in the discussion for all these big fights in 2025? Perhaps if it ends being 5-0 dominant and no real great moment for you in that fifth,

then, you know, it's a bigger climb back to that discussion. Is that a fair thing to say? I'd say that's fair-ish, you know? I mean, I think, yeah, I mean, I'm not happy with my performance. I mean, I would give myself a 2 out of 10. Like, it's, I cannot, I cannot overstate how horrible a performance this was or set of circumstances it was after that first round compared to what my vision was for what I am capable of. And I, I believe I beat Charles Oliveira nine times out of 10. Um, and obviously

I've lost to him twice now, two out of two, I have a hundred percent loss rate to Charles Oliveira. So I understand why people might test, get that, roll their eyes at that. Um, but I just, I'm so unhappy with the performance man i'm so excited to get healthy and i'm so excited to give the fans and my supporters and you and everyone else out there um the performance that they deserve and my coaches man henry hoofed and robbie lawler and these guys they pour their lives into me um and it just was not the performance that I wanted, you know, and, uh, it really sucks, but here we are, we're going to enjoy the holidays and we're going to, we're going to hit 2025 with a bang. And yes, there's a huge fight out there that needs to come to fruition.

Um, and I do believe it does in the first half of 2025 and that's perfect timing for me. And it's going to be perfect timing for him. I'll ask you about that in a moment, but I'm just curious when people try to compliment you and say like, look, when it comes to Michael Chandler at this point in his career, it's not about wins and losses. He's Arturo Gotti-like. He's the kind of guy who delivers no matter what. Competitor that you are, champion that you are, do you like that or does it bother you? Do you feel like it's kind of like, do you not want to reach that point where it's like oh i'm one of those guys who doesn't matter if i want to lose that obviously you want to be entertaining but you want to win as well right like you don't want

to be put in that bucket of like doesn't matter if he wins or loses or am i wrong no you i think you know you're i think you're spot on i think the the competitor in me, and even just the calling on my life, I believe I reach more people and more people are drawn to my story and who I am, where I started from, and where I've come from if I win. With that being said, I've only lost to three guys in the UFC, all of which have been ranked top two in the world when I have lost to them. It's not as though I'm going out there and losing to, to guys I shouldn't be, uh, losing to, so to speak, right. You know, you lose to Charles Oliveira who finished Gaethje and finished, uh, Poirier and, uh,

my other two losses were Poirier and Gaethje, you know, all of which now have been fight of the nights, um, candidate for fight of the year and then fight of the year for 2021 with Justin Gaethje. So, um, I look at my body of work, I look at my strength of schedule and my resume. And I think, yeah, you can look at my record and you can say, hey, this guy's lost more times than he has won in the UFC, but I've also thrown myself into the fire and I've never taken an easy fight. I've never said no to a fight. And win, lose or draw, you will be entertained. You will maybe lose money on me if you bet on me, but you will feel something. You will feel something when I compete. And when it's all said and done, man, it's the work, it's the discipline, it's the passion,

and it's the vigor by which you live by and you train by and you prepare by and you fight by, um, that we shall be judged on. And yeah, I, uh, I got some wake making up to do to try to get myself back into a winning record inside the UFC. But one thing you will never say is that Michael Chandler did not throw himself fully into the fire and brave the unknown nonstop. Um, and I like Dana calling me the Arturo Gotti. I am must see TV. I sell pay-per-views. I put butts in seats and I blow the roof off of every single arena I've ever been in on a Saturday night with a UFC, uh, number attached to it. Um, but I want to get in the wind column and, uh, the next one we will. And so, you know, here we are, and it was two years,

and that was all much talked about and everything you've been through. I'm curious about your take on this now, because now you can speak on it better than anyone. Dominic Cruz probably most famously would always say, cage rust isn't a thing. Ring rust isn't a thing. This is all a state of mind, all that. Can you now say, perhaps, is it a thing?

Like, did you feel it? Did it feel a little bit off i know you talk about the injury in the first round and all that stuff but like do you think the layoff and again please if you're watching this if you're clipping this off i am asking these questions you are not offering up these things but this is just part of the post-fight conversation do you think that was something that you had to battle in the fight the fact that you had not fought for almost exactly two years? Well, it's hard because you don't, you don't really know how the outcome would have been, you know, either way. I mean, I, or I don't, I don't, I don't think so. I really, really don't

think so, man. I did so much work, uh, in my journal, in my visualization, I stepped inside of that octagon, literally telling myself, this feels different, but different in a good way, different in the way that it's supposed to feel. And I think it was because I had visualized it more and I was more prepared mentally and spiritually than I ever have been. Um, yeah, stepping back inside of the octagon. I mean, I think that was part of the meat, the baffling inside my mind was me getting my footing. I'm like, have I not stepped on this canvas for two years and that's why I can't get my footing? But it turns out it was me shifting my weight differently, my brain telling me to shift my

weight differently. So I'm still going to stand by that ring rust is not a real thing. I think it's something that can be used as a crutch and say, well, I was out for two years, so therefore it felt different. It didn't feel different. Charles Oliveira is exactly who we thought he was. Um, I did not perform the way that I should have. And I have to live with that. I have to sleep, um, lay my head on a pillow every night, um, until my next fight with that.

Um, but with that being said, I definitely ain't going to be out for two more years, uh, till the next fight. And, uh, I will heal up. I will lick my wounds and the next fight will be the biggest fight of my life. This may sound like a crazy question, but just curious. I mean, uh, there were some very influential and, and, and important people all around the cage. Some people that you very much respect, uh the recently uh elected president donald trump number 47 and others elon musk there's you and donald and i want to ask you about that conversation but um does any of that put any extra extra added pressure like you want to perform in front of them you think very highly of them did you feel their presence and did that make you a little bit more nervous um no honestly i'm and i'm glad it didn't i mean i had a little bit of i had a little bit more nervous? Um, no, honestly, I'm, and I'm glad it didn't.

I mean, I had a little bit of, of, I had a little bit of nerves about maybe having nerves, you know, stepping in there, looking across the cage, pointing to Donald Trump, kid rock, Elon Musk, and the lot of them. Um, but I didn't feel it. I really didn't. Um, I was more locked in than I ever have been mentally. And I think that had a lot to do with that fight could have gone a lot worse after that first round. Um, if I wasn't locked in so mentally and still believing even, even on a hindered foundation, a hindered leg, even on, um, a, an unknown kind of scenario for me that I didn't train with, obviously. I think the fight could have went a lot worse, maybe gotten finished, choked,

or a thousand different ways that Charles Oliveira could have finished me. But I was just so built up mentally that, no, I mean, obviously seeing Donald Trump there, Kid Rock, Elon sitting right next to Hunter and Dana. I wanted to be draped with the stars and bars and get my hand raised in front of them, of course. But I didn't. And we lived to fight another day. What did he say to you in that moment there, that exchange, Donald Trump? Yeah, I mean, he just shook my hand and said, great fight, you know, heck of a performance. And when he whispered in my ears, he just said, you are one bad man.

I think, obviously, recency bias would tell you that was the fifth round speaking into my ear because the first four rounds weren't great, if I'm being honest. Then just seeing everybody there, Tulsi gabbard um both the trump sons and rfk and man triple h was right there he uh he and i exchanged some words about the mic about me on the mic he loves my mic skills and we've talked a little bit since the fight so um it's uh it was pretty surreal that was the uh the dream team that's going to be running our country for the next four years. I'm looking forward to it. Are you done with MSG now?

I would like to be done with MSG. I would like to fight in Las Vegas. I would love to fight in Las Vegas. Anywhere but MSG at this point. Nothing against MSG. It's just, shoot, man. I've had six fights in the UFC, three at Madison Square Garden, three fights in the UFC, three at Madison Square Garden,

three fights in the night, um, a fight of the year, uh, another one that was up for fight of the year. So I've done well at MSG from a entertainment performance standpoint, but not an actual win standpoint. And, uh, the fight week was awesome, man. Um, everything was great. Everything was awesome up until me not getting my hand raised, but I'd like to fight in Vegas next. We'll see if we can make that happen. Okay. And so on the microphone, you do talk once again about Conor McGregor. I think you just alluded to the fight that we have been talking about for, oh gosh, is it two years? Are we approaching three? I can't even keep track track anymore but it's been quite the saga um obviously we found out on friday you know some some some massive news pertaining to connor and

i'm not going to put you on the spot here and ask your reaction to that i don't think that's fair to you but do you think that him being found civilly liable in this case uh will preclude you from fighting him next year in 2025. There are some people who think this will keep him out even longer. What is your gut saying right now? I don't know the legal ramifications. I don't know what all that stuff looks like. I do know after something like this, if I was in that position, obviously the last thing I would want to do is not be training and not be moving forward toward a common goal. So I'm sure he wants to get back in training. That was I think that's what his statement said.

He's going to be with his family. He's going to get back in the gym. You know, it's a tough position. It's a horrible position all around, obviously, for him and for everyone involved. And it's a tough position. It's a horrible position all around, obviously, for him and for everyone involved. And it's a tough spot. So I don't really have anything else to say about it. But I do think the best thing that he can do, most likely, obviously, is to get back woman needs a common goal to continue to work toward, um, in order to, uh, continue to build ourselves up and, and, uh, why not fight me? Why not be training to fight me middle of next year, international fight week before that, as soon as possible. Um, I'm ready

to get back into training camp right after, um, January one. And, uh, we can make that fight happen ASAP. If he is out for an extended period of time, who would be your top choice? Oh, man. Am I really in a position to have a top choice? Sure. Why not? You're Michael freaking Chandler. Yeah, I got to go out there and win, man. I got to go out there and win. I can't have a performance like I just did. You know, I trained this morning, hobbled around a little bit. You know, I I got to get myself back into into shape and lick these wounds.

Obviously, there's there's a lot of people out there talking, man. You know, obviously, the Max Holloway BMF belt. He's now a lightweight. George Masvidal has said my name numerous times. Anybody inside the top five, top 10 at lightweight, there's a lot of different huge matchups. There's a lot of different huge fights. Obviously, the fight that makes the most sense is Chandler versus McGregor to finish the Ultimate Fighter 31. And we will kind of see what the timeline is there. And we'll see what the UFC is thinking. I know they don't want to keep me out long at all. It's bad business for them to not have me in a training camp training for a fight to go out there and put the most amount of entertainment, the most amount of

violence, the most amount of action of any fighter on the UFC roster. So it's good business for them to have me active and fighting inside of their octagon. So we're having some conversations now and we'll kind of see how the timeline falls. By the way, just curious, like given the beast that you are in the gym and whatnot, how long do you actually take off from working out after a fight like that with your leg in the state that it's in? Like we see the videos leading up to the fight and you were absolutely shredded in the photos that you posted beforehand. Do you take like a full week

off from the gym? Do you do absolutely nothing or is that impossible for you? What do you think? No, I think you don't. I think you're back like on Monday. Yeah, no, I, uh, even before I got the MRI results back with the, you know, the, the tears and the confirmation of all that, I was still on my, on my bike, uh, 48 hours after, or I guess 72 hours after the fight, a that. I was still on my bike 48 hours after, or I guess 72 hours after the fight, a day after I got home because the bike is very, you know, not load bearing

and I'm sucking in the Hypermax oxygen doing my 10X superhuman protocol. I got the red light bed. I've got the cold, or actually my pool and the cold plunge with the sauna. So I'm doing contrast therapy. I've seen my body work guy two or three times since I've gotten home.

Me and Hap did an upper body workout today. I tested out the leg a little bit. So we didn't want to go too hard there. So we went upper body. Hap's doing his pull-ups and his push-ups. And he's going to be a strong young man. And he's going to train. And movement is medicine, man. You know, the old school idea of

rest and ice and compression and elevate and recover and just sit there and do nothing is not, uh, is not my school of thought. So I just want to keep the legs moving, keep the body moving, pump out the inflammation. And, uh, you know, the inflammation that you saw, um, in that video that you showed was, uh, you know, a couple days ago, and the inflammation has gone down tenfold since then because I never stop moving. I keep the body moving, stay on my supplements, stay on my good diet as much as I can. I've had a couple days of gluttony and needed to feel like a normal human being for a second. And, uh, now I'm back to, uh, the regimen and, uh, tomorrow's Thanksgiving. So we'll go hard, uh, with, uh, Taylor, the one and, and, uh, we'll come to with Boston with the boys. We're doing the most buttered Turkey competition is

you can gain the most weight. So I got a competition tomorrow. Okay. And that leads me to my final question. Uh, perfect segue, by the way, well done. You're a pro, uh, we've been debating and I'm going to share mine After this interview Top five pound for pound Thanksgiving foods I'm putting on the spot here I didn't ask you this in advance Can you give us your top five

Going from five to one One being the number one It could be anything that is related to Thanksgiving Your Mr. America All American Thanksgiving Doesn't get more American than that Do you have a top five pound for pound for us? Yes, I do It's going to be tough to, okay

So I'm going to go with Stuffing at number five Interesting, okay Guys, stuffing at number five, I'm not a huge carbs guy I like all the, I don't like the breads as much But stuffing is number five I'm going to go with Your mashed potatoes.

I like mashed sweet potatoes. You're going regular mashed or sweet? I like sweet. Okay, sweet. All right. Cool. With the little marshmallows on top. Yeah. I need to come up with my number three. I probably should have put sweet potato there because I do

like sweet potato. You could swap. Yeah, I'll swap. So I'm going to, I'm going to go stuffing at number five. Okay. What the heck else is there, man? Uh, I'm going to go rolls. Okay. I have some good rolls at number four. Um, cause I do got to have a little bit of carbs when I'm going to splurge on Thanksgiving, sweet potatoes, turkey at number two and dark meat, dark meat, turkey, by the way, I like dark meat, not the, not the white meat. I like dark meat. And then number one is pumpkin pie. Ah, yes. Pumpkin pie. Number one. It's the greatest, the greatest dessert on the planet. I love it. I love it. Well, happy Thanksgiving to you and the family. Enjoy your time off. Enjoy,

uh, you know, resting up, get well soon, heal up soon. Uh, tremendous fifth round, a lot of heart, a lot of grit, a lot of determination as always. Great, great entertainment. Uh, you always lay it out on the line. So thank you very much for that and appreciate you coming on as always, Mike. Thank you so much. Yes, sir. Thank you, man. Happy Thanksgiving. See y'all later. All right. There he is. The great Michael Chandler joining us and giving us his top five pound for pound Thanksgiving foods. This is Thanksgiving week, as we've said, a joyous time, a holiday that is non, what is it, Frank? Denominational? Non-denominational yeah the boys in the back last week on thursday

uh they broke down their top five pound for pound thanksgiving foods and i was watching that and i was like you know what i want to weigh in first to recap oh you weighed in during the chat don't look at those lists look at those lists first of all you you can just say Nom de nom Moving forward Is that the thing? Yeah nom de nom That sounds like the song De nom de nom Da da da da da Da da da da da Da da da da da

Wait wait wait Nom de nom I didn't even acknowledge the list I mean you had your chance Jeez Okay here we go GC going from five to one Mashed potatoes with gravy

And to be clear No sweet potato action here right? No no Give me the white potatoes And give me It's gotta be a quality gravy Pie Now what is pie?

I mean that could be a million different things Any pie you wanna bring Any pie you wanna bring Pumpkin pie I'll eat Sweet potato pie I'll eat Blueberry Apple pie Blueberry pie

Put some ice cream on that bad boy too Meat pie Meat pie I'll eat A meat pie, come on Rhubarb Rhubarb, I'm in Hate rhubarb Strawberry or rhubarb

The one pie You can just do rhubarb by itself One pie that i do not enjoy lemon meringue absolutely despise meringue okay so then it's not if you show up to thanksgiving with a lemon meringue pie you're getting kicked out of the house you're getting kicked out of the house i'd be like what the fuck is this lemon meringue pie on thanksgiving are you shitting me key lime is delicious again though you bring key lime pie to my house on thanksgiving i'm gonna be like what are we doing?

What do people have scurvy and this is their way to combat it? Shut up, Frank. By the way, key lime frozen? I love a good key lime frozen. By the way, what would Francis Ngannou say if you showed up to his house with a lemon rind pie? What the fuck is that? I think to his house with a lemon rind pie? What the fuck is that? I think he would actually enjoy a lemon rind.

Can we just imagine someone being like, hey man, thanks for inviting me over for Thanksgiving. Tough time for me. I have scurvy, but don't worry, I brought key lime pie. I don't even know what scurvy is. It's like gout. It's like an ancient disease. Okay, wait, I didn't even finish

the top five. Yeah, an ancient disease. Ancient disease. Okay, wait. I didn't even finish the top five. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Continue, sorry. Rolls. Shout out to Mike. Crescent rolls. King's Hawaiian rolls. Wait, who's Mike?

Mike Chandler. Oh, Mike Chandler. Right, right. Hi, come on. Okay, okay, okay. Mac and cheese, too. Tremendous. And then stuffing slash dressing.

Explain this. Some people in the South call stuffing dressing. Okay, same thing. Same exact thing, but I just wanted to, you know, shout out to my people down South. Yeah. All right. New York Rick's list is as follows. Cornbread, pumpkin pie.

Now, do you distinguish cornbread from rolls? Yeah. Distinct. Okay. Cornbread. I want the cornbread. All right. Fair enough.

Okay. So cornbread. And then what else do we have over here? Pumpkin pie, sweet potato mash. What's the difference between sweet potato? Okay, so it's just mashed potatoes and sweet potato. Got it. Mac and cheese and then stuffing.

Okay, okay, okay. I like the working through what is sweet potato mash. It's working. We're workshopping. We're workshopping. I mean, definitive list, just unassailable. No, it's a great list. It's a solid list.

Now, last but not least, Mysterious Frank relish dish. Insane number five. By the way, is this like relish that you put on a hot dog? No, no, no. It's like mini pickles. God, that is bizarre. Is that a Thanksgiving dish? No.

Oh, my God. It's a holiday dish, almost like an appetizer like an hors d'oeuvre maybe what you call it in the hawaii household but what it is is things like um carrots some celery with like palmetto cheese but this is not i don't want to say exclusive but it is not a traditional thanksgiving i don't know i mean this was my pound for pound thanksgiving dishes so i went with what i grew up with and I really enjoy a relish dish. This is kind of like where you're waiting for game time. You got to have the relish dish.

Like Google relish dish. What is this game time? Game time when like the dinner actually starts. Oh, I thought you meant like the football, the kickoff. No, yeah. I actually called Thanksgiving dinner kickoff. What time do you eat, by the way? This is a great question.

Well, if you have a relish dish, you can start as early as you want. Yeah, I'm like a Breakfast on Thanksgiving morning is pretty sacred We got into that deeply Making the breakfast casserole tomorrow shout out I'm usually eating at like 2 to 3 It's not actual dinner time but it's not lunch time The sun is still out

But like it's not lunch time Do you work out on Thanksgiving? I'm a big turkey trotter, yeah. Sign up for one tomorrow. Oh, you're doing a 5K? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shout out. Wow, where? Take a day off, right?

In the hometown? Hometown. Wow. Is it 5K? 5K, yeah. See, I like that because then I feel like you earn it. Oh, yeah. You earn it.

Get home. Breakfast getting made. What time? 7.30. The race starts at 7.30. Yeah, so I'll be done by 8. Home by 8.30. Peace. Showered by 8 so I'll be done by 8 Home by 8.30 Showered by 8.15

Nope Showered by 8.45 Right Parade on by 8.50 Feet up by 8.55 Breakfast at hand by 9 When do you brush your teeth? Before the race

I would imagine Yeah Okay back to Rick's Oh no sorry Frank's list Stovetop stuffing Is stovetop a Specific brand Yeah Okay a shitty brand Specific okay it's like it's like it's like uh

it's funny you say that because they've been calling asking if they can get on the show and you're like i love them i love them then you got the dinner rolls which i guess is the same thing as rolls absolutely that's like the classic like fluffy these are all like these are all like packaged like there's no there's no there's no je ne sais quoi to any of this devil relish dish does not come in a pre-packaged thing devil day there's no je ne sais quoi to any of this. Devil's eggs. Okay, a relish dish does not come in a prepackaged thing. Devil's eggs. When you say there's nothing to this, you're talking about Frank's or you're talking about all of ours? No, no, Frank's.

Frank's specifically. Frank, Frank. Well, you do have to cook the stove top stuffing and I am going to defend Frank to the death here on the devil's eggs. Devil's eggs are fantastic. Bacon on top? No. Olive on top is actually how I grew up with them. Why would you ask that?

No, I know, but I have sometimes seen deviled eggs with bacon on top. Paprika, though. Yeah, a little bit of paprika. A little color. A little color. Not a lot of flavor in paprika, I gotta say. You don't like deviled eggs? They're okay.

And by the way, it's pronounced paprika. Let's talk after the show. Right, so you sprinkle a little paprika on top. There's a line, Ariel, and you just crossed it. Actually, one question about the deviled eggs before we move on. When you do eat them, I know you don't love them. When you do eat them, all in one bite, or are you a two-biter? Nah, one question about the deviled eggs before we move on. When you do eat them, I know you don't love them. When you do eat them, all in one bite or are you a two-biter? Nah, one bite.

Yeah, straight down the gullet. Yep, 100%. And then last but not least for Frank, mashed potatoes with gravy. Okay, now, well done, well done, not bad. I'm not going to crap on your list. I'm not one of those guys, but I did want to contribute. I wanted to – no, no, I wanted to be – I saw you in the chat last time.

I wanted to be a, no. I wanted to be... I saw you in the chat last Tuesday. I wanted to be a part of the fun. And so without further ado, my top five pound... By the way, did you guys like Mike's list? Mike had a... Yeah, it was a solid list, man. Yeah, that list with turkey on it? Hell no. I knew he was gonna have turkey. Hell no. That was the biggest

stuck meat was predicted. I am the number one turkey defender on the planet. I eat turkey at least one meal a day. It's not top five. We don't care. It's just not. My favorite part was him saying, like, I don't like the carbs, and then the top three were all carbs. Everything was carbs.

Even the number five was carbs. Yeah. All right. There it is. Wow. Thank you. On Air Jordan. If you have turkey on your list, you have erred.

You have made a mistake somewhere. You ever had white turkey? Here comes Ariel with turkey on your list, you have erred. You have made a mistake somewhere. Here comes Ariel with turkey on his list. In fact, Ariel's going to have dry ass white turkey as number one on the list. I'm predicting it now. Four out of his five were some form of carb. Okay, my list, my list, my list. Here we go.

Number five, Ariel Helwani, Canadian-born Ariel Helwani's top five pound-for-pound Thanksgiving dishes. Number five is mac and cheese Yeah there it is I don't view it as a traditional Thanksgiving dish but

My kids tend to eat more of that than anything else And who could turn it down And I like to splurge a little bit on mac and cheese And have fun I try to keep somewhat of a Carb free-ish diet. I don't do a great job of that. Mac and cheese, Thanksgiving, you can go ahead.

From a box or do you make this from scratch? No, scratch. Uber Eats bringing that mac and cheese right to the door. No, no, no, not Uber Eats. Uber Eats is bringing all that market. The cheese is from scratch? The cheese sauce is from scratch. The noodles are from scratch. Yeah, get out of here

with the noodles. Not the noodles from scratch. We're not making hand-pulled noodles. I'm not going all the way to freaking Roma to do this. Okay, number four. You're going to have to help me out with putting this stuff because I do not remember. So reveal it for me. Here we go. Number four. I gave these before. What do we got? You can tell he's really passionate

about this. I don't remember what I put as number four, you think I memorized this? Okay, so this is a very important one Turkey has to be with cranberry sauce If it's just dry ass turkey Contrary to your belief, Rick Not that interested It has to be coupled with something And the turkey cranberry combo

First of all, a bit of a cop out to have a Thanksgiving list without any mention of turkey. I disagree. It's all about turkey. Absolutely incorrect. It's all about turkey. Turkey with cranberry sauce gives it a little bit of a voice. Turkey than any human who exists, and it is not top five. If you go to like a turkey nest, there's a picture of New York.

I'm in there. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey.

I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey.

I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a turkey. I am a man at all costs. Public enemy number one to the nation of Turkey. Number three. Here we go. My number three ranked overall

pound for pound. Also, by the way, that's cheating. Cranberry sauce and turkey are two different things that are all in the menu. Play the game. We don't get to do mashed potatoes With corn at the same time It's one or the other It's a cranberry sauce I respect it

Wait is it cranberry sauce out of the can Nah I hate that That's gross And a jiggle there And you can see all the can lines That's that prank For the love of god what is my number three? Are we just going to sit here and wait?

He's wanting you to steal it. Why can't I see it? Do we ever circle back to my Slack? Are we just never going to talk about it? I do not remember. It's just made it like two hours ago. Don't worry, bro. That was the message there.

This is awful. My daughter just called me FaceTime. She's not happy about any of this. Okay, now I'm going to have to go. I don't know why you're not giving me the three. Are you making me go? There it is. There it is Wow thank you

Is there something wrong with the buttons over there Yeah yeah yeah Okay Pecan pie Mainly so I could just say They got pecan pie up in this She I'm alpha

Yeah Don't we have that one or no No we don't No I actually have heartbreaking news I went back and watched that before I went to Katz Katz's Katz's Katz's

Katz's Katz's yes it's cats k-a-t-z apostrophe s cats is cats you kept calling it cats on the show that's the shitty part is no one knows you're bearing no one no one actually knows everyone knows that's that's the difficult part what's the heartbreaking news no pecan pie there anymore a no pecan pie there b i don't know if he if there ever was pecan pie there I Think he saw something else the Baklava or whatever we had and he thought it was

Pecan pie and then Three he actually doesn't say pecan He says like closer to Pecan now okay well that's just Semantics this is perhaps A greater myth buster Than the Mike Perry halo walkout song Yeah I'm gonna stick With he saw it he reacted to it Perhaps a greater myth buster than the Mike Perry Halo walkout song. Yeah.

I'm going to stick with he saw it, he reacted to it, and that's that. Number two. Because when I asked the guy, he was just like, we've never had it. Really? Never had it. Number two is stuffing. Everyone loves stuffing. Yeah, there it is.

Do you like the stuffing in the turkey and then it comes out or just on the side? I kind of like it on the side. Stove top, right? Yeah, give it its own pan. Give it its own baking dish. We don't need it shoved up in a turkey, man. Give it to me in a box and let me hydrate it and eat it. It's great. By the way, is stuffing the... Does stuffing

only make an appearance on Thanksgiving? Oh, nah, nah. It's on Christmas as well. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's true. Or a Freaky Friday, you know, when you start having Thanksgiving dinner on a random Friday because why not? Is it really? Can you not? I like sometimes you go to a restaurant and they say they have like a Thanksgiving.

Sandwich? Yeah. Yeah, I'll do it then. But very rarely. Capri-O-D does that, I think, where it's like the cranberry sauce and everything in the sandwich. Like how bad does stuffing sound on like June 22nd? Yeah, I guess. You're just like, you want a big heaping pile of stuffing?

I'd be like, get that shit away from me, man. I'm out. Without further ado, and amazingly, we've now shown five, 10, 15, 20 items between the three of you, Michael Chandler,

and then I guess 24 of me, and this one yet to appear on any list. Actually don't know where you're going to. My number one, candied yams. Okay.

You know what I'm talking about? With the marshmallows, right? You talk about the sweet, but no, you need the yams with the marshmallow and a little bit of the brown sugar. My good friend, John Beer, makes it better than anyone. We had a tradition where he'd come to our house for 11, 12 years and cook it all for us, and the candied yams were to die for. You can have that as an appetizer.

You can have it in the middle of the meal, and you could really have it as a dessert, if we're being honest. Candied yams, pound for pound, number one all time. When I think Thanksgiving, I think candied yams. Kind of respected. I like a candied yam. It's a good call. I prefer a sweet mash, but it's very good.

Your list is better than I expected, other than the cheating of combining the cranberry sauce and turkey. I actually respect that. Wow. Thank you. Sorry, EP of you. I was actually – thank you. I appreciate that, Frank.

I was surprised candied yams didn't make it. I'm a sweet mash over candied yams, but I'll take either. I'm not going to lie. I didn't really have candied yams at my Thanksgiving growing up. Pretty omission. I'd also love to – if we could get like some sort of uh cooking class on youtube of john beer making his oh my god that would be all the time i would do it he came over me the whole dinner for you guys oh yeah he would do everything start to finish it was incredible

wait what are we doing these days i'm familiar with the john beer tradition what are we doing these days we have a market right yeah right uh eats arrives and uh you know what maybe you know i i don't appreciate know I don't Appreciate that I don't appreciate that So what is it DoorDash No my brother His wife

I told you Brother, wife, newborn Right right They come How does the food get there You know that's our Little secret Yeah yeah yeah

I'm not gonna I'm not gonna throw Anyone under the bus Donatello's in Downtown New Jersey Hey guys Boston Market right After a big

This is from Derek the dad After a big This is from Derek the dad After a big Thanksgiving feast Will Frank Please finish this I've spent my last Two Thanksgivings

With Frank I can answer this Will Frank Finally fart In front of his wife Oh man Was this a real question Yes

Have you never Farted in front of your wife? Do you not watch Boys in the Bed? Yeah, thanks for watching, I appreciate it I love how you chime in just at the Wow I think we broke Ariel with this Yeah, he's never farted in front of his wife I haven't seen this question, can you ask it again?

Why do you want me to ask it again? Okay, let's actually go I don't know if this is healthy I think you should fart in front of your wife My doctor has shamed me about it They're like, bro Whenever I'm at a restaurant with Frank How did this come up with your doctor?

What was the conversation? I was having abdominal pain Oh my god This is insane Oh my god, Frank Did you guys not listen to the episode that I was on with you? How did I become the gout guy? This guy's having an abdominal

pain because he can't fart in front of his wife. And I'm somehow, I mean, this is out of control. Frank the fart ripper except he doesn't rip any farts. Every time I'm at a restaurant with Frank, after we're done eating, he beelines to the bathroom. And now I know why. I thought he just had digestive issues. It's just so he can go to the bathroom.

As if farting is not a digestive issue? No, it's a natural thing. I haven't gotten the update on what's going on. What happened last year when we waited so long? Me and Frank went to a Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant last year and he was like, I gotta have cognac with my dessert. I must have a glass of cognac.

And it took like 45 minutes. I was like, where the fuck is the cognac, Frank? We got to get out of here, man. We've been here for three hours. Do you remember the Devils game the day after? Oh my God, yeah.

Then we went to the Devils the next day and I... And I waited 45 minutes. Yeah, I bited too much in the Thanksgiving cocktails. I was not feeling so good. I missed the entire Devils game. Wow, the doctor.

This is crazy. Anyway, is that a yes or no frank i have not done it i mean i'll find out i'll be with him again this year i can't account for when i'm asleep or whatever like that i get a freebie there have you ever woken up angry because it happened or not alessio i gotta get it together because brian battle's coming on in 10 minutes and i'm like is he i mean we don know. By the way, Alessio says, Frank's list is just a list of his favorite foods. I mean, this has become the theme

on Boys in the Back. We do, okay, Christmas list, Halloween list, Thanksgiving list, and Frank just gives the I'll do it anytime. That's the gimmick. I was waiting him to kick off the Thanksgiving list with, these foods are great at Thanksgiving, but I'll eat them year round. Read between the lines.

Number five. French is mustard. Hot dogs. By the way, can we acknowledge the fact that on, I think, Saturday, I texted the group and said, hey guys, lots to be thankful for, lots to be grateful for. Let's go out for Friendsgiving. Excuse me. Friendsgiving.

I love it. Let's do it. By the way. This is my favorite day. I got in your head, didn't I Yeah it sucks huh Franksgiving is a tremendous Should we just only call it Franksgiving No because you guys always say I don't like to do stuff

And I feel like I've actually tried to Be proactive in the new era And I got met with Crickets Me and you are still going No one chimed in Why does he make up these lies I got met with crickets. Me and you are still going. No one chimed in. No one waited. Why does he make up these lies when we have the text?

No one chimed in. I said yes. You did say yes. I also said I'm down. I hope he forgets about this and we can all leave. See, here's the real sign. When you said the, oh no, no pressure guys. I'm just feeling like this is maybe a little too much right now.

Oh, that was last night. We were walking wounded last night. First of all, one, that was you just clearly not wanting to go anymore. I would be glad to go. Two, as soon as you dropped that, everybody jumped on it except for me because I'm willing to go. That's true. Everyone was like, oh, great. But everybody was like, great, great, great.

I don't want to go. Nobody can commit except for me. That's okay though I literally I'll always be there For you guys I actually think Frank was the one

That started that yesterday He's like yeah So about Friendsgiving He did He was like While we're on Disappointing subjects

He did But he is also The one who I think is the sickest So he gets an excuse I'm not sick What are you talking about ElTorito94 says

Subcrew Let's hear you guys Let's hear your guys Best best turkey gobble for Thanksgiving. Keep up the great content. No one wants to hear that. I need somebody to do it first, and then I can replicate it, but I can't do it. Just offer it.

Oh, God. All right. Just want to chime in and say Frank the Tank. That was ice. I read that one. I think there's only one other one. Oh, this is from Kido Kai

Yo When we getting Big hitters back GC we gotta know One of my favorite segments Yeah I need to bring it back I still have all the graphics And everything for it

And I still get sent A bunch of slips I just haven't been able To do anything with them Just gotta figure Where I put it Okay Yeah I mean

Feels like a Natural spot for it No Alright Point taken man Do you think we ever get Canelo versus Figure where I put it. Okay. It was in the bag. Yeah, I mean, feels like a natural spot for it, no? All right. Point taken, man. Do you think we ever get Canelo versus Benavidez, asks Hitman600. In my opinion,

this is by far a worse duck job than John and Tom. I'd love to weigh in, but I'm not a boxing guy. So now you're not a wrestling guy. I'm not a wrestling guy. I'm not a boxing guy. I'm not a wrestling guy. When I started in 07, I wasn't an MMA guy either.

Right. By the way, was Jim Lampley a boxing guy when they took him from ABC Wide World of Sports and put him on boxing? We'll never know. There's no way to find out. Was Howard Coselli a boxing guy when he went from being a lawyer to a media guy?

Was Mauro Ranallo a boxing guy when he went from pro wrestling, kickboxing, MMA to boxing? I mean, who is a boxing guy? Other than the fighters, of course, they're boxing guys. Like you have to kind of, you have to be starting from some spot, right? So I always find that very funny. Like, you're not a box guy, stick to boxing.

Meanwhile, you go on Carl's page and he's doing a post ufc 308 reaction uh are you an mma guy carl is that allowed why the double standard why the double 10 we just need to collab i i always i always love when people do the charity thing are you telling me right now are you telling me right now car are you telling me right now you will not take a dime if you fight jake paul is that what he's saying you listen to it gc is he saying he would not take a dime to you fight Jake Paul? Is that what he's saying? You listen to it, GC. Is he saying he would not take a dime to fight Jake Paul? He's going to do it for the good of the game.

Is that what he's saying? Is that what he's implying? That's what he said. Correct. Everything would go to charity. Do you believe him? I don't know. No, I don't believe him.

The Cobra? I don't believe the Cobra. He's going to take no money for this. No sponsorship. He's not going to pocket a dollar. Is he really even going to fight him? No, I don't know. I'm just saying if it does come to fruition, I don't believe for a second that he would do it for only charity.

Maybe a part of it goes to charity. Maybe a portion. Maybe he donates something to charity. He is not doing this out of the kindness of his heart. I don't buy it. Call me crazy. Call me a hater. Call me a naysayer and um you know it's again it's the same

thing that i was talking about back in the day with some other people it's the loudest dissenters of this jake paul thing who who who profit off of it the most you look at their youtube channels and every video is about jake paul oh this is disgraceful because they're they're they like to pander to the audience that typically feels this way but consumes it the most it's like the old howard stern thing where like the quote unquote haters of howard stern they would say would listen to his show double the amount of time as his quote-unquote fans um and so they they profit off of it in that regard they love it they want him to stick around and they also blindly ignore everything that he is doing for boxing.

Not a popular stance to take. I don't mind. I don't care. But if you tell the story of Jake Paul, NMVP, and ignore what they have done for Amanda Serrano, what they have done for Shadesha Green, what they have done for other fighters who have worked under their umbrella, H2O Sylve. I know coming off a loss, Lucas Body beats him. Now he has been signed to the promotion and others.

I think you're being disingenuous, my opinion. By the way, yesterday on the program, we had Ryan Garcia speaking of boxing, and he's in a bit of a super fight, if you will in in japan he had the press conference right after against uh ryu ryuya anpo i'm probably butchering that i apologize it got a little bit heated a couple highlights here for you first off here's anpo talking about ryan garcia in a very entertaining way it was a great press conference. Take a look. on fight day I'll show him the true code of Bushido we'll fight for honor and legacy if not in go

I bring the real Japanese samurai spirit and show him exactly where he belongs fuck you fuck you this is good stuff First of all, it's

Rukia Brian Campbell wearing his best suit there, his Sunday's best if you will, doing a great job as always Rukia Anpo, he is gigantic Look how big this guy is and he's getting fired up

I think Ryan should take him seriously. It doesn't look like he is doing so. In fact, he's dismissing him and he's saying that he just found out about the guy. He has no idea who he is. He just knows him as the guy who tried to knock out Manny Pacquiao. This was Ryan's response, which I found entertaining. I went to Japan about, I think about three months ago, sometime like that, to watch this man. Well, actually, I came to watch Manny Pacquiao. I don't even know who this guy is. But I'm just happy that, you know, I'm working with Ryzen, Famio for this amazing event.

I know it's going to be big. I know in Japan they had like 40 or 60,000 people in that arena, so I'm excited for his words. Like I said, fuck you. How about that? No, but I don't even know this guy. Like I said, I just know that he was trying to knock out Manny Pacquiao. He pissed me off. So I'm looking to teach this man a lesson and teach him how to box. Fuck you. How about that? And then the face-off was pretty heated as well. Here's the two gentlemen going toe-to-toe, head-to-head, face-to-face.

And I think Ryan got a little bit annoyed there for a moment. Do we have the face-off? There it is. Here you go Face to face Forehead to forehead Boo And then he pushed him

Ryan's taking it Very lightly And so let's see what happens Let's see what happens All in good fun That's December 30th Here in the United States Unfortunately right afterwards

Oscar De La Hoya Tweeting this about the fight. And I asked Ryan about his relationship with Golden Boy. He tweeted, Golden Boy Promotions has exclusive rights to Ryan Garcia's fights. The organizers of the event have acknowledged as such and have agreed in writing that our sign-off is needed for this event to occur. As no such sign-off has been given, as of today, there is no event with Ryan Garcia. Garcia afterwards tweeting the SMH emoji, the face palm emoji. I reached out to his team. I reached out to the organizers of the event, waiting to hear back where it stands. We presume it will all get

sorted out, but that is a major development. Let's see how it all continues to unfold. Top of the show, I played Brian Battle's post-fight interview in Paris after his win over Kevin Doucette. As of right now, November 27th, 2024, it is the promo of the year. It's one of my favorite post-fight promos slash interviews in UFC history. He's going to join us in a second but to refresh your memory or if you're joining us late here's what brian battle said in front of a sold-out raucous aqua arena crowd in paris france mike i gotta say something right quick yeah keep fooling me baby keep fooling me i love it i love it listen listen people been fooling me about me since i started training i love it. Listen. Listen. People been fooling me and doubting me since I started training. I love it.

The more you fool me, the stronger I get, baby. I'm used to this. Y'all can't stop me. Keep it up, baby. Keep it up. Y'all can't stop me. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Hey, USA in this s***, baby. Yeah, let me hear it. Hey. Hey. I can't get enough of that. I could watch it over and over again. Tremendous, epic stuff. And without further ado, let us say hello to the man who was on the mic in that clip. The Butcher, Brian Battle. What's up, my man? How are you? Ariel, you son of a bitch, how the hell are you?

Thank you for having me on the show today, man. I really appreciate that. Oh, it is our honor. Dude, I got to say is that is magic right there when i watched it i was like holy shit this guy is a superstar this guy is someone that the ufc needs to get behind and i and i and i wanted to know all of that spontaneous all of that in the moment off the top of the dome or did you prep any of that beforehand man i tell you i really had um something a little bit more wholesome, I was going to say, initially.

But like they were booing so loud. You know, I was like, there's no point in trying to say anything that anyone's going to remember. You know what I'm saying? So what was funny is like the losing a fistfight to a French guy. That was kind of like a little running joke I had. You know, like people would ask me, they're like, OK, so what's your game plan for the fight? And I'd be like, you know, I'm going to do this. He's plan for the fight and I'd be like all right you know I'm gonna do this he's gonna do this I'm gonna do that he's gonna do this um but at the end of it I'd always be like but you know worst case scenario

I'm not gonna lose in a fist fight to like a you know a French guy you know what I'm saying I'm not gonna lose a fight to a French dude and so that was like a joke but you know they were uh they were giving it to me so bad I had to give it to him back you feel me oh my god absolute magic and I'm a sucker for that stuff as a long-time pro wrestling fan. And I felt like there was like, I equated it to like 1984 WWF at Madison Square

Garden as the heel from Russia or Iran is speaking to the American crowd. That's what it felt like. Are you a pro wrestling guy as well? Because I sense something there. For sure. Yeah. I'm more of a Like, are you a pro wrestling guy as well? Because I sense something there. For sure. For sure. Yeah.

You know, I'm more of a ruthless aggression guy. You know what I'm saying? A little bit, you know, I analyze or romanticize the attitude era just like everyone else. But, you know, yeah, you know, it's just like those guys, they know how to entertain people. They know how to, people they know how to like uh get the crowd riled up and uh you know uh you know i've been watching that stuff since i was a kid so in the crowd anytime the crowd gives you energy it's really um easy to play off of that you know what i'm saying whether it's negative or positive energy i'll take whatever i can get

you know i'm saying give me something to do you know i'm saying don't just be sitting there so even if you're booing me, you're giving me the middle finger and you're cussing me out, I love it. You know what I'm saying? I really do. That was just me being honest.

That part was me being honest. I really did love them being vocal with their displeasure of my antics. I have heard from people who say it's more fun being the heel, the bad guy, than the good guy, the baby face.

And something tells me that you fall into that category as well. More fun when people are booing you as opposed to back home in charlotte where they're cheering you um so it's like because yeah that's two totally different things i would say um when i go back and watch the charlotte fight i can still get emotional sometimes because i just remember everything that led up to that you know all the people who were there um and so that was like an emotional fight um this fight was 100% the most fun that was the most fun i ever had every part of it like the the fight week leading up to it you know the uh the ceremonial weigh-ins the uh walk out the fight the post fight everything was just uh so much fun you know what i'm saying and uh you know it's like

i'm thankful for the crowd everyone you know thinks that the french people hate me you know what i'm saying they just want to they want to have a good time they want to be involved you know what i'm saying so you know um you give me something to work with i'm gonna get you involved you feel me what was the uh the walk back to the locker room after that interview like oh man that was that was crazy you know like people are throwing stuff at you you know they're saying legit i don't know what they're throwing at you oh cups and stuff drinks cups and stuff you know there's beer flying everywhere you know what i'm saying that people are doing middle fingers you know doing all this you know um and it was once again it's like it was so much fun i was like i can't believe like how angry everyone is right now this is incredible you know i'm saying

it's like um uh i don't know i guess there's like something um you know when there's when there's 18 000 people and all of them are like focused on focused on you and, you know, even if they all hate your guts, there's something intoxicating about that. You were never worried or uncomfortable or afraid for your safety or anything like that? Nah. Nah, okay. I feel like you would have taken them all on yourself. All 18,000. They're not going to beat me in a fist fight.

They need some weapons, you know what I'm saying? That's all I mean. Oh, my and and and clear it up for us and i know you've kind of touched on it you were not fine there was no 250 000 none of that nonsense right nah man that was that was hilarious too because you know i'm just on the airport like going back and i'm scrolling on my feed and i see that and i was like wait i just get like fine like i was like well you know i'm having to text my agent and stuff like that but um nah that was just um it was a it was a a fake account that had the picture of a real account did and just kind of like took a life of its own it was kind of funny you know what i'm saying i i did i never publicly

said anything about it like went out of my way because it was just like you know any press is good press you know the more people are talking about me the more the legend grows you know i mean um i i did see a video afterwards after the fight where you were out on the streets and it seemed like people were showing you mad love like you were taking pictures and everyone was coming up to no incidents or anything like that no man you know. You know, they're still fans. You know what I'm saying? They're fans. And, you know, people would tell me, like, the week of leading up to the fight,

they'd come up and be like, can I take a picture? They'd be like, I'm rooting for Kevin. But, you know, I'd be like, yo, delete that picture. You know, even though their guy didn't win, you know, I still went out there and put on a great fight. It wasn't like, you know, I just hugged them for 15 minutes. We went out there. We had a great fight. You know what I'm saying?

I gave them. It was more than a fight. It was a memory. You know what I'm saying? So, you know, they were very gracious. And, you know, I appreciated them a lot. Usually, the UFC tries to put the French fighters on the Paris cards. For the rest of your career, you need to fight in Paris. We need to see this feud continue, you versus the French people.

Dude, me versus the world. Okay, fair enough. Me versus the world. I'm trying to go fight in Brazil. I'm trying to go fight. They got the London card coming up. I trying to go fight in brazil you know i mean i'm trying to go fight they got the london card coming up you know i want to go fight all the hometown guys that was just oh man this is the feeling of you know crushing someone's hopes and dreams in front of their friends and families it's just like there's nothing quite like that brother uh that's a little sinister no a little bit yeah like it's one thing to beat the guy you are relishing crushing their hopes and dreams

in front of their friends and family yeah yeah well it's either his hopes and dreams and my hopes and dreams and um you know uh stack the odds in their favor you know what i'm saying give them a handicap you know i'm saying i'm still gonna whoop their ass you know i'm saying they're gonna leave that fight knowing that there was no point in time where they're ever going to beat Brian Battle. You know what I mean? So, yeah, no, I'm trying to go all around the world. You know what I'm saying? Uncle Dan, I'm trying to go fight all the hometown guys in each, wherever we're going.

You know what I'm saying? I'm trying to go there. I love that. Well, the next one isn't outside of the U.S., but it's a massive one. It's UFC 310 las vegas not your first time fighting in vegas but your first time at t-mobile a little different than the apex were you expecting to return this quickly a little over two months later um i was asking to but i wasn't expecting to you know is they have a, you kind of have like a window you expect

to have in between each fight, you know what I'm saying? No matter how the last fight went, you know, it's like, I've had fights where, you know, I knocked the dude out in under a minute and I still had to wait half a year to get another fight. So, um, um, I definitely didn't expect to get this fight so quick, but, um, fortunately it's just the way, you know, I conduct myself and uh uh treat the fight game you know i'm just like always ready to fight so um when i got the news for that you know this is like the biggest platform i've fought on against the the most well-known opponent it was just like a no-brainer it was a blessing you know i'm saying so i'm i'm just grateful for the

opportunity i'm ready to go out there and just put on a show. And so how do you feel about Randy Brown as of late? Looking good on a role. Seems like he's putting it all together. Are you impressed with him? No, he's looking sharp. He's looking really sharp, but, you know, Randy's Randy. You know what I mean?

What's that mean, Randy's Randy? Randy's Randy. You know, it's not like, you know,andy's randy you know what i mean um what's that mean randy's randy randy's randy you know it's it's not like you know you see some people um they kind of change things up and they kind of uh you know mix things up you can see development and growth and and change throughout their career and um randy's always been really really good you know i remember watching him back in the day you know know, when I was, um, working the door at a bar, you know what I'm saying? I'm watching him in the UFC, uh, fighting, you know what I'm saying? While I'm checking IDs at a door, you know what I'm saying? And, um, you know, I remember the first time I watched him, I was pretty taken aback. I was like, man, this guy seems really talented. He's probably going to go really far, you know?

Um, but you know, he's still more or less in that same spot you know i'm saying randy's randy so um it's my time now so you know i respect randy you know i'm saying um out of respect for him i've this has been the toughest fight camp i've had you know what i'm saying i've pushed my ways in ways that i've never had to push myself before but as a result of that i'm on a different level you know what i'm saying i'm ready to go put on a show uh and go you know just keep on progressing up in the ladder you know what i'm saying uh just curious why do you think as you put it he's still in the same spot why has he not progressed i mean you know he's he's uh 15 fights in you know what i'm, he's 15 fights in, you know what I'm saying? He's 15 fights in, and once again, he's good, he's talented, he hits hard, he's fast, you know what I'm saying?

He's elusive, but I mean, there's like a barrier between him, you know what I'm saying, and what he's gotten to up to this point. He's kind of just been stagnant there, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's just in the most literal way possible, you know what I'm saying and you know what he's gotten to up to this point he's kind of just been stagnant there you know what I'm saying like it's just in the most literal way possible you know what I'm saying he's just kind of like been in the same spot you know what I mean and um you know I'm looking to go right by him you know I'm saying uh UFC 310 you know you talked about um looking at ideas uh bouncing while he's fighting in the ufc were you 300 pounds when you were doing that no i wasn't 300 pounds when um i was bouncing i was uh i was uh 200 200 there it goes there you are you right so so mma mania posted this that uh you lost your first amateur fight via knockout and then you would rattle off eight wins afterwards. And you quote tweeted this saying, most people don't realize I was 21 years old and 300 pounds

when I started training. I found my passion and it changed me both mentally and physical. 300, man. What state were you in? What mental and physical state were you in when you started this? And why did you start? So, you know, mentally and physically, you know mentally and physically you know i had because i was 21 so you know it's like i had certain things you know i i had sports and you know i kind of stopped doing that and that was like a serious passion for a long time you know there was um uh a very like religious period of time and i was like really involved with um a lot a lot of things like that. And, um, you know, I had just gotten to a point now, but fighting was always something to me. It's like, I always wanted to do it. You know what I'm saying? Like I became a fan when I was in like

eighth grade and, um, I was homeschooled. So, you know, I didn't have like a wrestling team I could join. Um, and you know, uh, I played football and basketball that kind of took up all my time. So, uh, when I got to 21 and, you know, I kind of, I wouldn't say like lost my way, but I was kind of like, um, I was kind of aimless. You know what I'm saying? Um, I wasn't even, I wasn't really concerned about my weight too much, a little bit. Cause I walked up a flight of stairs and I got tired and that's when I was like i need to like really lose some weight but um it wasn't something i was like that crazy concerned with uh just because i was like aimless you know what i mean um and fighting was always a bucket list thing so the moment i had time and the money to afford training uh i went into a gym you

know saying they were like you know what do you want to do you know it's just like a hobby you're trying to get in shape and i was like well you know what I'm saying? They were like, you know, what do you want to do? You know, it's just like a hobby. You're trying to get in shape. And I was like, well, you know, you hear this all the time when people come to gyms, I'm like, I want to fight. They're like, okay, well, you know, you got a background in anything. I'm like, no, you know what I mean? Like, all right, well, you know, you know, you keep on showing up, you get good enough, then we'll get you a fight. And so, you know, and that's, you know, the start of a whole new life. You feel

me? Like, um, gave me something to be passionate about, gave me something to get really excited about. Um, and gave me a, just a reason to, to do certain things. You know what I'm saying? Like losing weight was really, uh, something I did for competitive reasons, you know, like even, uh, that, that weight I was at in that video i mean i might have tried to lose more weight but i was kind of happy being at that was i was 240 pounds in that video you know i'm saying coming from two coming from 300 i was i was pretty happy at 240 you know so um i guess it's like uh just the the constant challenge that mma presents and fighting the best dudes in the world presents, it just kind of forces me to, you know, really dig deep and, you know, find out who I am,

you know what I mean? Like, find out what I'm made of. When did you start to believe that you can actually be good at this? When did that start to kick in? You know, Ariel, I was extremely irrational. Like, you know you know it's like i kind of like would have to like talking about all right come on bro you gotta like you gotta chill but there was i remember my 22nd birthday party you know like i got blacked out drunk whatever you know what i'm saying but um there was you know it was you know it was my 22nd birthday party. So a lot of people ended up just spending the night over at the house. And I remember when people would wake up and they were going to leave the next day. Mind you, I'm probably like six months into training at this point.

You know what I'm saying? I wouldn't let them leave the house. I was still a little drunk. But I wouldn't let them leave the house unless they told me I was going to be the heavyweight champion of the world with a straight face like it's like if they said it with the smart i was like no you don't mean that you need to say with a straight face so um yeah i don't know i've just always kind of been like incredibly irrational about it um and then you know just you know, just, you know, it's, it's one of those things that ignorance is bliss. You don't know what you don't know. You know what I'm saying?

And I just like tried really hard and, um, you know, I've been just very blessed and fortunate with the people in my life who've helped me get to the position I'm in right now. Um, and you know, now I'm in a place where it's like skill wise, physically resources it's like i really am one of the best in the world and so i can make a push to really go to the top of the division starting right now where did the pooh bear nickname come from oh man that was you know you know i've been talking junk for a long time you know i'm saying that's one of the reasons it comes off so naturally on the mic. I was, this was when I was going into my second amateur fight.

I was going to be on a card with two of my teammates. And that was going to be my first fight at 205. So I'm still a little bit bigger. You know what I'm saying? I'm probably walking around like 220 something, 230. And I was talking junk to one of my teammates and he didn't have any good responses. You know what I mean? Um, and so, you know, I'm yellow, you know what I mean?

Uh, I didn't have any hair at the time. Um, I was a little fluffier. So he said, okay, poo bear. And, um, I told him this was the mistake. I said, I said, don't call me that. And it was like the moment I told him, cause I had another teammate who was sitting there snickering. I didn't think it was clever. I said, bro, don said, don't call me that. And it was like the moment I told him, because I had another teammate who was sitting there snickering. I didn't think it was clever.

I said, bro, don't call me that. I don't want this to. Sure enough, the moment I said that, it just started spreading in the gym. And then when my second fight came up, the commentator was going around. He was making sure he was saying everyone's name right. So he was going up to each corner. So he came over to my corner. He said, Brian Battle battle and i didn't put any of the nickname like i did not like the nickname boob bear i did not want that to be my nickname but he came over he said

brian battle i was like yes brian battle and um one of my coaches at the time leaned in and um like i don't even know why he covered his mouth. He said it so loud. He was like, he's nicknamed Pooh Bear. And the announcer, he looked at him. He said, are you fucking me right now? And he was like, no. He's like, that's the best fucking shit I've heard all day. So they went back. They did the fight. They made a bunch of Winnie the Pooh jokes during the fight.

You know what I'm saying? And it was funny. And at the time, I was like, all right. You know what? Whatever. There's no point in fighting this. I might as well just roll with it until I need to be changed. I think it's brilliant.

But now it's been changed. It's now the butcher, as you mentioned in that post-fight speech. Did you give that to yourself or did someone give that to you? I gave it to myself. Classic. Classic. But it's good. It's working.

It's working. It's working because you even just... Yeah, why not? Okay, so now you've really leaned in. I believe, I don't know, around two weeks ago, you live-streamed you changing your Pooh Bear tattoo into a samurai

Pooh Bear, right? It was just... There was nothing there. That was just my it was nothing there so that was just like um my tattoo guy he um he wanted to do that as like a shirt or something he was like hey like what do you think about this as a shirt design i was like that'd be a badass tattoo it's a brilliant logo nice it's badass right it's cool you know i mean it's a it's a vibe and um so you know when i said that you know he was like he was like well that's some of my original art you know i mean it's a it's a vibe and um so you know when i said that you know he was

like he was like well that's some of my original art you know like i would love to like record the session and so you know that's how the live stream kind of popped off you know but um i just saw the moment i saw it i thought it looked that ass you know i'm saying people are obsessed with the butchering ice but you know that that's got its place you know i'm saying this is just cool regardless i think it's great by the way why why 68 in your handle uh that was my football number okay no no no no fairness reasons no no i mean it's 68 it's not another number so i was just yeah you weren't born in 68 so uh no i wasn't born in 68 i think my dad was born in 68 bless his heart the uh the tradition that you do with your team before the fight very kind of old

school uh with the slapping and and the this thing where did that come from man um that's one of those things we've been doing that forever um we did we've been doing the slap up forever right um like i think since i was an amateur i did the the slap up, you know, um, it just gets a lot more attention on, uh, those, uh, shows and arenas. But, um, oh, it didn't used to be Shamik. Shamik is like, um, my teammate, you know, um, short with the Afro, you know, he'll be in the UFC soon, you know, whatever. But, um, he, the week before my fight in charlotte um my coach who normally did it um he

got accidentally ran over by a u-haul truck oh my god did he survive he did survive he did survive he's still my coach to this day tom ziggler shout out to coach tom um but like i didn't even think i was shocked that he was even able to like be at the fight and make the walk like that was just like some straight willpower he was like i'm even able to, like, be at the fight and make the walk, like, that was just, like, some straight willpower, he was like, I'm not missing this fight, I gotta be at this fight, but needless to say, you know what I'm saying, he's sitting there with his crutches, and he's like, hey, guys, I won't be able to slap Brian up, who's gonna slap Brian up, and so, you know, now there's, like, a little tension, right, because it's not something that's, like, actually that complicated, but you're like, damn, damn you know we're gonna be an arena um there's we're gonna be an arena and um you know uh there's gonna be people watching and stuff so

you know shamik stepped up shamik said he'd do it i gave him the routine he said after two steps the routine totally went out of his head so he just kind of wung it and just like that first one he was just smacking the shit out of me. And then we went and that like that double lariat, that's just something we did anyways. And he smacked the shit out of me. And I was just like with the way that Charlotte was like, the energy was just so crazy. Like it was really spontaneous. Like you can see me and him yelling at each other. But what you can't see is tom and john also

yelling at me behind shamik so it was just like a like a real moment you know i'm saying then we hit the double edit um then i was ready to go kill somebody you know i'm saying i love it it uh there's a guy named antonio inoki back in the day do you are you familiar with him japanese legend and he would do that as well clay guida used to do that with his brother. Still does it. So, I mean, it looks like it hurts, to be honest, doing that before a fight, but God bless. Yeah, but we're about to do something that's probably going to hurt a lot more.

You know what I'm saying? That's one of the things I want to get that first, I want to get the shock out the way. You know what I'm saying? I don't need the first punch to be the first, like, I don't need that to be a jarring thing. like, I don't need that to, like, be a jarring thing. Like, go ahead and smack the shit out of me. So, you know, I'm already braced for impact.

Do you have a young child? Two. Two of them. Okay. I saw a photo recently. How old? I have my son just turned three. That's Anya right there.

She's nine months. You know what I'm'm saying that's my little she's so cute look at those cheeks she is a little tank that's my little princess she's a she is a handful man she's um she's uh she's like the opposite of her brother you know her brother was um super laid back super chill you know i'm saying like i literally i used to take him with me everywhere like he would sit in his little baby seat and I would take him to the gym every day. You know what I'm saying? Any gym I went to, I could take him with me and he would just sit in his chair.

And if he cried, it's like, I would stop and make him a bottle or I would change his diaper. And then he would just go back to sitting in his chair. Like it was, it was super laid back, low maintenance, baby. You know what I mean? Um, his sister on the other hand, his sister on the other hand is not like that. It was super laid back, low maintenance baby. You know what I mean? His sister, on the other hand, his sister on the other hand is not like that. You know what I'm saying?

She is like the center of attention. You know what I'm saying? Like, she swears she can talk. You know what I mean? She's sitting there trying to have conversations with people. She wants to see eye contact. She's got this big personality. And it's funny.

I think Anya is going to end up being bigger than her older brother like her older brother i think he's about percentile wise about average you know i'm saying like uh like i'm i'm taller his mom's shorter you know so i think he's about average um anya's built like her daddy you know i'm saying that girl she got the battle genes in her you know i'm saying she's gonna be she might be an athlete somewhere i don't know you know what i'm saying maybe she'll be in the ufc one day we'll see you know you'd be down with them fighting um i i wouldn't it's like one of those tough things it's like i don't know i can't really i'm not in a position to where i can't be like no you can't fight um definitely not gonna to push him into it by any means. I'll probably encourage other things like miles. I'm definitely going to try to get him to be a race car driver.

Like I want to live vicariously through him being a race car driver. Anya, she's a princess. She can do whatever she wants. You know what I'm saying? Is that your favorite thing to watch NASCAR? I've seen you at NASCAR races and whatnot. I like NASCAR. I'm a big big big formula one

guy i like nascar a little bit bigger on the formula wow interesting very very european of you who's your favorite uh f1 driver max verstappen man you know i'm just saying but like i like i started tuning in right at and you know i didn't realize um when i was picking my fandoms you know, you know, that Lewis Hamilton was like the only black F1 driver ever. You know what I'm saying? I thought it was a little bit more regular than that. You know what I mean? But, you know, that was when he was like dominating. And so, you know, I didn't want to like bandwagon the number one team when I started watching.

But I also, all my other sports teams suck. And so I wasn't going to pick a bad team either. I was like, this Red Bull team, you know, this Max Verstappen guy, I kind of mess with him. I like his mentality. And,

um, you know, sure enough, you know, he's like a four time champion. Now that guy's a machine. Um, just their reflexes and focus and everything like that.

I love it. You know what I'm saying? I love to watch the races. I'm a, I'm a Daniel Ricardo guy. That's my guy. Hell yeah. Daniel Ricardo.

Yeah. Yeah, man. He's a gigantic MMA fan fan i don't know if you know that about him he's a huge ufc fan i've seen clips of him doing stuff i didn't know if he was like an actual big fan yeah like has he ever been to a fight yeah yeah uh i believe uh he was in um uh the one in new jersey this past june he was there and uh he's been to i think one in australia he's he's australian obviously so yeah not a ton but i know he's a gigantic and he's been to, I think, one in Australia. He's Australian, obviously.

So not a ton, but I know he's a gigantic fan. He's also a big Buffalo Bills fan like myself. So we've been able to bond over those two things. Yeah, Buffalo Bills is, I mean, you know, I can't say nothing. I'm a Giants fan, you know what I mean? Giants? How did that happen? My dad's from New Jersey.

Oh, okay. So I had a choice, you know what I'm saying? I came out the womb and he put me in a Giants outfit. Well, I mean, between Giants and Panthers, it's like... Yeah, you know? That's what I'm saying. If I'm going to start watching another sport, I'm going to the top. The whole fandom has been painful.

You feel me? So you say, who's your favorite Giants? I'll say Max Verstappen. People are like, oh, of course it's Max Verstappen. I'm like, you don't know the pain I've been. Yeah. All the tears I've shed.

I feel you. What, what does, what does Robbie Lawler mean to you? Robbie Lawler is, I honestly, um, I mean,

I probably would have started training at some point, but, um, if like really, like, honestly, from the bottom of my heart, like watching him fight, uh, Roy McDonald and that title fight, that was the moment I was like, I need to, I need to do at least one fight. Like, I gotta, I gotta test myself. You know what I'm saying?

I gotta, um, see how I was made up. Cause I was like, to me, that felt like the most manly thing I'd ever seen like that was like something out of a movie it was like a spiritual moment and um um it was really inspiring to me you know and then just his whole story in general the way he went about fighting um you know it was like something i resonated with so um like i was always always a huge like i started training i almost. I almost went to Atlanta for the fight with Tom Woodley. Thank goodness I didn't go. Oh, wow. Yeah.

UFC 201. That was a crazy one. I love that fight. The, the, the Rory McDonald one. And I have a Rory McDonald. You see that right there. That's, that's obviously of him, but that's right before the fifth round and kind of represents just how gruesome it was.

I feel like you're, you're the kind of cat who would love to be in a fight like that despite how taxing it might be on your body it would be yeah there is something about it i mean it's it's like yes and no yes and no like um because on like one hand there is like a certain point where it gets to like a a spiritual point you know i'm saying it's like it really becomes a a testament of willpower and um you know it's it's like that's like one of the most incredible like rushes you can like experience you know just like your will versus another person's will and who's gonna like come out on top but um you know um there's also said something to be said about going out there and your will is so imposing. You know, you just go and get them out of there easy peasy. And so it's like I'm looking forward to that.

I'm looking forward to having a moment where it's like I can truly like have a contest of wills. But, you know, it has to be with a worthy opponent. You know what I'm saying? And I got to be good enough to, you know, when that moment comes, it's special. You know what I'm saying? I i gotta be good enough to you know when that moment comes it's special you know what i'm saying i don't want to be having fights like that every time like if every fight's like that then it's then it's it's not good but you know to have a fight like that periodically um that's when it becomes special well first ufc pay-per-view card that you're on that's uh next weekend ufc 310 against a vet, a name, Randy Brown. By the way, any pressure to now?

Like now everyone's, if it all goes your way next weekend, they're going to really wait and see. I certainly will. What you got on the mic for us, is there pressure there now? Bro, we just have to see what happens. You know what I mean? It's like this has all just been one crazy, like I feel like I'm riding like a big wave.

And it's like I just have to focus on what's coming next. I can't look ahead. You know what I'm saying? I can't look behind me. I just got to stay in this moment and just ride the wave. Probably. I'll probably say something crazy. We'll see what the crowd gives me.

We'll see how the fight goes. Yeah, no, man. I'm looking forward to to it but there's a method to the madness because i mean look at a guy like henato moicano been in the ufc for years all of a sudden he starts delivering on the mic he delivered right after you with a with a contender for promo of the year as well in his own right and now everyone loves him look at you you were in the ufc for several years you pull that off and now everyone's like holy shit this guy is incredible. And so it just goes to show you don't – it's not just about like, oh, I want to fight this guy next. You have to have character.

You have to have passion. You have to make us want to care. And you did that perfectly. And to your point, it was so natural and fun and authentic. Keep riding that wave, my man. So I wish you nothing but the best. Well done. And good luck. Good luck next weekend. Can't wait to see you back in there. I love that fight. my man. So I wish you nothing but the best. Well done. And good luck. Good luck next weekend.

Can't wait to see you back in there. I love that fight. Thank you. All right, y'all. I'm going to go whoop Randy, and then y'all are going to have to have me back on the show again. It's a deal. It's a deal, my man. Thank you so much, Brian.

All the best to you. Good luck, and happy Thanksgiving. All right. Thank you, brother. You too. All right. There he is, Brian Battle. How could you not love that guy?

What a great personality. What a great demeanor. What a great vibe. Very a great demeanor, what a great vibe very much looking forward to this fight the card is great by the way, the card is great UFC 310 obviously lost the main event but excited for the debut

of Kaya Sikora, I feel like they're promoting it well excited for the Shavkat vs Ian Gary fight excited for the return of Surreal Gunn, excited for that particular fight, Anthony Smith for the return of Surreal Gunn. Excited for that particular fight. Anthony Smith on the card among others. A lot to like there. UFC 310 rapidly

approaching. We'll have a lot of coverage as we get closer to it next week with all the regular shows back. Bryce Mitchell versus Krohn Gracie coming out of nowhere. Aljamain Sterling, of course, against Movsar Evloev. Nate Landwehr against Duhu Choi, Vicente Luque against Demba Garimbo.

I mean, this is kind of an old school pay-per-view where almost every single card, excuse me, every single fight on the card has a name or two, and it means something. Randy Brown, Brian Battle. Oh, by the way, Chris Weidman versus Eric Anders, Michael Chiesa versus Max Griffin, the aforementioned Clay Guida against Chase Hooper,

Kennedy and Zetsuku on there against Lucas Breski, and Cody Durden against Joshua Vann. That's a very good card, by the way, guys. Yeah, it's missing that A++ headliner, but I feel like the value was spread throughout the rest. Old school, right? Like Spike TV days, top to bottom. Absolutely. There's something for everybody on that card i'm i'm excited about it and the more i the long the longer this has had to set in the closer it gets ian gary versus

shopcott is so good such a sick fight so freaking good i would like to have seen uh shopcott fight below for the title but ian gary versus shovcott is a sick fight and i'm very excited for it so no ufc this weekend rare weekend off and next weekend last pay-per-view the following weekend uh last show the one in tampa bay or tampa uh but there is a lot like i said at the top of the show a lot of combat sports thursday tomorrow midday here in america on the zone you've got the misfitsits Supercard, if that is your Thing, it's the Supercard in Qatar They had the weigh-ins earlier today

And the main event, Slim vs. Gib Ade Oladipo telling us yesterday On the Ariel and Ade program That this is a massive one, that Gib Is just a notch below Jake Paul And KSI, which is Quite the hot take, this is what happened In Qatar, our guy Ben the hot take. This is what happened in Qatar. Our guy, Ben the Bane

was in the middle of it all with the microphone. Look at these two. Gibb on the left. Slim on the right. KSI in the middle there. Look at Ben jumping in there with the microphone. And so you've got that.

You've got King Kenny, Salt Poppy and some of the other players, Misfits, looking to end the year in there with the microphone. And so you've got that. You've got King Kenny, Saul Poppy, and some of the other players, Misfits, looking to end the year in a big way. And then, of course, they have the January 18th card, headlined by Tommy Fury versus Darren Till. That is on Thursday. On Friday, you have the PFL championship card all day in Riyadh. So another day card, if that is your thing uh big one Brendan Loughnane uh to me the most interesting fight on the card is Dakota DeCheva against Tyler Santos the ultimate test in her young career there's something like 16 fights on the card uh if you are sitting at home with nothing to do there is a lot for you to watch and actually kind of

brilliant in a way to do it In the middle of the day I know it's happening in Riyadh So that's the main reason for it But most people here in America are off So you can watch it in the midst of all the other things That you are doing Saturday evening is Survivor Series In Vancouver

And that is a big one Bloodline OG OG Bloodline against the new Bloodline Very fun stuff, war game, Survivor Series A nice way and that is a big one. Bloodline OG. OG Bloodline against the new Bloodline. Very fun stuff. War Games, Survivor Series, a nice way. I saw CM Punk is on the new Bloodline, right? Yeah, Paul Heyman comes back, and he brings out the CM Punk.

That's pretty nice. Paul Heyman guy, come back. Somebody sent me, I forget if it was in this group chat or some of my wrestling friends, they sent me the picture of them when they're younger together. Oh, back in the day yeah yeah yeah yeah i mean it goes deep sammy zane's on there uh really really fun really really fun stuff and um they built it up very nicely survivors here's a classic thanksgiving weekend i personally loved when it was on thursday when it was on actual thanksgiving evening but this is

close enough it's happening in can, which is interesting, American holiday, but nonetheless, War Games, the introduction of War Games to Survivor Series has made that pay-per-view infinitely more interesting. It used to, I mean, just a couple of years ago, I went to the one in Brooklyn and it was just Raw versus SmackDown and there was nothing to it and it was feeling like it was on really its last legs. It was feeling dead. And then they brought back War Games and all of feeling like it was on really its last legs it was feeling dead and then they brought back war games and all of a sudden it's a thing it's the two rings together the cage and all that stuff classic stuff look it up war games very very fun saturday afternoon speaking of bloodline we have two bloodline wars taking place on saturday evening survivor series afternoon

it's a different kind of bloodline It's Sonny Edwards against Galalia Fai I was going to say a different kind of bloodline fight I don't really know how to phrase that but you get the point It's family versus family It's the Fais versus the Edwardses And if you want to learn more about this fight And the back story

Watch the Ariel and Ade show because Ade Oladipo did a great job of breaking it down Yesterday on the show but I will give you a brief synopsis. Essentially, Sonny Edwards and Galal Yafai were on the amateur scene. They fought on the amateur scene. 2015, going into the 2016 Olympic Games, Yafai is chosen to represent Team GB at the Olympics. Edwards not chosen. He decides to go pro. Flyweight ends up becoming a flyweight world champion, climbs the ranks. Yafai ends up winning a gold medal in 2021 in Tokyo at the 2020 Games due to COVID. It was pushed back a year, of course. And Edwards at that point is climbing the ranks. He becomes a world champion. He fights Bam Rodriguez last year. Around this time in Arizona, doesn't win the fight.

And the brothers and the family have been, you know, have been rivals for quite some time. Yafai now becomes a pro. He's climbing the ranks, less pro fights, but he's turning into a solid pro fighter as is. And so now here they are meeting in Birmingham on Saturday afternoon in DAZN. And again, I'll say it. No one does promos better than Mattroom. Mattroom does the best job of any combat sports entity right now, in my opinion, getting you to care. They really up it. And give me these types of promos over the six minute

long theatrical ones. Those are fun. Those are great. Don't get me wrong, but I love the ones. And sometimes you just don't have anything to work with. Like not every fight. The best of the re-ed season promos was Crawford Majumov.

That was the best because it told a story and how these two people from two different backgrounds were able to come together and show the differences and somewhat similarities, Crawford and Matrimov coming from two different worlds, coming together in Los Angeles in August. This particular one was done so well, and I've given a shout out to my guy Alex Haynes. I have to do it again because he leads the charge for Matrim in this regard. They've done so many great ones. The Joe Cordina one in Monaco last year. The Warrington-Wood one, the Nottingham and Leeds rivalry

coming to a head. This one is up there and it might be the best one. No joke. Edwards, Yafai, it's a 90-second promo. Do me a favor, sit back and watch this and tell me afterwards that you are not compelled to watch this and tell me afterwards that

you are not compelled to watch this fight on saturday take a look what's it like growing up in a fighting family i don't know man but it's all i knew you learn the hard way i suppose it's fight or flight so much has to stand a fucking fight. Simple. Yeah man, taking a few beatings, shed a few tears. Bleeding a little, I got faster. I got slicker. Soon, I couldn't be touched. And that's when this shit got fun. I watched my brother become world champion.

I watched my brother become world champion. And I thought, I want a bit of that. And I did. And I'll do it again. And when I do, I'll do it for a name. My name. It's more than pride. It's blood. It's family. And that means everything.

Maybe you're listening to this and my words don't resonate, but that's okay, because they will. When I walk to that ring on November the 30th, take a moment and read the name on my shorts. Look at the figure beside me. This isn't just about me. It's about me, it's about him, it's about us. And all the lessons they taught me. Edwards. Yafoi. They didn't miss about us or the lessons they taught me. Edwards Yafo This is our story.

This is our heritage. This is our bloodline. I have watched that now a gazillion times each and every time goosebumps. That's it. I mean, that's all you need. That is beautiful. That is art right there. That is cinema, as they say, and I can't wait for it. It's a big fight. It's a domestic dust- is cinema as they say and i can't wait for it it's a big fight it's a domestic dust up as they say um and go by the way go check out uh carl froch's youtube channel he's done extensive videos breaking down this fight he's he's paid a lot of attention to it because he's a traditional boxing analyst none of the other stuff he's not talking about that other

stuff he's talking about great fights, traditional You know, true blue boxing Fights like Edwards-Yafai, so I highly suggest checking out his YouTube channel For more on a great Traditional boxing bout like that one He can tell you all about Sonny Edwards and Galal-Yafai I do want to give a Very hearty mazel tov

A hearty mazel tov To the one and only, the Welsh gangster Oban Elliott What a time What a time Wow This guy Flying high Just signed a

Brand new deal With the UFC Thank you to Shore Fighter management Of course The great shaky shore Spearheading

For all The great fighters Coming out of Wales By the way Is that the new house? Nice kitchen Looking good Oban Looking good my man Looking good my man

Looking good brother For getting this over the line Thank you to everyone Who has played a part In my journey so far Thank you to everyone Who has supported me Over the years

Here's to world Domination Enough said I'm the proudest man On God's green earth Brother Who's the man In New York brother

Now Wait wait Take a That's all well and good Congrats Oban Tremendous But look at that Merch right there

You know what That's Minch Signing the contract Wearing the TKO hat Company man But rocking the El Narese That's salt of the earth Right there

That's You know what Can I say something Say it That might be that might be wall worthy nice am i crazy no i mean we yeah okay no you're not crazy yeah this is a good idea i mean signing your new ufc deal that's you know that's on par with casey o'neill which is right here. Still with me. Casey O'Neal wearing the thug nose at a UFC media day. Epic.

Legendary. We shall never forget. That's up there, in my opinion. Signing the new UFC deal, wearing the El Neres merch, which you can get right now at arielhawani.com, the official merch store. Oh, my God. You know you're suffering.

I do. dot com? The official merch store? Oh my god, you know you're suffering. I have noticed, no one really wears the merch on the program or comes to the show wearing the merch. Any particular reason? I literally wore it on air and you acknowledge that. Other than that part, yes. I'm wearing it. We're working on hoodies. The merch king has never worn it.

Why is that, GC? Do they not fit well? Is the cut Is the box cut not Foxy enough? Have I ever seen you wear the merch on the show? Of course I've worn it on the show Also I have a bit of like I can't wear a t-shirt on this

When? You guys wear t-shirts I don't I've done the post show Wearing the merch At home In the comfies Like I said

I will wear it when you least expect it. Okay, fair enough. I appreciate that. It's the middle of the night. I appreciate it. I just love how much it means to you that it was,

you guys never wear it. No, I actually wore it for a whole show. Just completely forgot about that part. We appreciate it. Thanks for your support of my support. It was one and done. You know, I'd like to say. Oh, so every week.

Oh, we need to wear it every day. Now we have uniforms. So now there's a uniform policy here. Okay, got it. We're independent contractors. That's what independent contractors do. They wear a uniform. We've got like five shirts now, so you can kind of go Monday through Friday.

I only have one of them. You would think that the team over there that's working on that, you know, just send them to the boys. You know what? We need to talk to Brandon. You're right. It's actually the second day this week I've just worn black. Yeah. Me and Rick are matching. We just got to beg for it.

Okay. I had an over shirt, but we lost that during the bike race. Is it still back there? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow. No one's here today, so no one's going to take it. No one's here.

No one works with you. It was a little disappointing. It is a national holiday. When they, you know,'re giving us the pitch here To come over Bring the whole operation Uncrowned etc They did tell us that Wednesdays would be coffee day Here at Uncrowned HQ

Yeah but they gave them the day off because it's a holiday Well no it's been fantastic I actually look forward to the Matcha chai Have it right here during the show Sip it while you're doing the program on the nose. Show up today. Guy's not there. Right. It's a holiday. Nah, come on.

You want to call him and be like, hey, why aren't you here? Hey, brother, where you at? He's going to be like, it's not a holiday. It's one to three. The amount of people I saw. He has the little Venmo thing. I love that guy. On the bar. I always over tip. You can scan that, send him a message, where are you? Damn. Send him a send them a message, where are you?

Send them a few bucks and say, where are you? They'll send them back and be like, it's a holiday. He'll be YWD or YWM. Or TYSM. That's a good one though. Anyway, I was a little

disappointed. Could we go back to a couple more questions and then we'll call it a day. How about that? Nick Could we go back to a couple more questions, and then we'll call it a day. How about that? Nick Hammer, we'll go back to the questions here over at Ariel. If that's your real name, that's very strong. Nick Hammer just sounds like a lawyer, right? Yes.

Love it. Strong name. Ariel, let's talk PFL for a second. All right, let's do it. After the tape delay betting fiasco of a couple years ago, PFL Europe being not watchable in America, hype of Jake Paul signing diminished, no opponent for Francis Caligon,

Don being unrealistic, and the only halfway decent cards being on pay-per-view, how do you see their future going now compared to when they signed Jake and Francis at the time? When they signed Francis Ngannou, I never said this was a game changer per se. I think there's this misnomer that I'm like, Mr. PFL. I think I've been quite critical of them. I don't think they should ever be in the pay-per-view business. They don't have that roster. I was

critical of PFL and their model when I was at ESPN and they were on ESPN. And Rick can tell you that's a big no-no. And I was saying, I don't like the season format. Just make the best fights, make the best fights, have the best roster, build stars that way. The season format just doesn't do it for me. Is it fun in a vacuum? Oh, it's a championship. Great. Yes. Love it. But overall, I don't think you can build a fight league that way. It didn't work for IFL. I don't think it ultimately will work for PFL. And their biggest fight cards have been non-tournament cards. The ones in Paris, the one in Riyadh, etc. They need to do a better job selling tickets. You need to build stars to sell tickets. They're paying a lot of money, especially this weekend, right? On Friday, million dollar purses.

That's a lot. If you're not selling tickets now, obviously the Saudi cards are a little bit different, but they're starting to move towards those cards more. The Dubai deal in January. Ultimately, here's what I think is going to happen. 2025 is going to be a gigantic, dare I say

Make or break year For PFL ESPN deal is coming to an end Let's see where they go from there And obviously whatever UFC and ESPN do Is going to be a huge development As well, one of the biggest stories of the year If not the biggest to watch come next year

That and probably the future of Conor McGregor, but on a larger Business scale, it's that one, the former. What are they going to do with all these Bellator guys? Are they going to try to combine the two? It's not that easy. A lot of those Bellator guys make more than your average PFL guy. And so you notice they brought a lot of the bellator guys over to pfl but not the top dogs the reason for that is paying those guys to fight three four times in a year in addition to the million dollars is just for pfl right now not economically feasible so are we moving down a path of them cutting ties with a lot of these guys like they had to do with the

get guy musassis of the world and the pr nightmare that will come as a result of that will not be fun. And so what are they going to do? And how are they going to keep building stars? And how are they going to make us invested in these names? There's enough UFC right now. In the year 2024, Strikeforce was able to have a foothold. Pride, Elite XC to a degree degree because there weren't 43 ufc events now it's almost you know it's almost every single weekend how do you differentiate yourself that's why i think bkfc is having some success because they're able to differentiate themselves they have something different but it is leaning towards mma bkfc is attempting to sell 18,000 tickets On January the 25th

Is there any Card is there any fight Is there any type of event that PFL could put on in the year 2025 That can sell 18,000 tickets in the United States of America I say no Do you guys disagree Has to be Jake Paul other than that no

I don't think the Jake Paul thing is a thing. I don't either. I think Jake Paul was a strategic move on their part to get, it's become very clear to get attention, to be a part of the promotion. But there is no talk of him fighting MMA. And I think it would be absolute lunacy at this point for him to fight MMA. Unless it's some crazy one-off where there's no takedowns or anything and it's like a dirty boxing

thing. I just don't see it. Is there anyone for Francis to fight that is selling 18,000 tickets? Nobody that is available, no. So how are they going to differentiate themselves? How are they going to have a different kind of product? Do they become more of an international brand?

Are they more of the European Middle East, Africa brand brand i don't know but there's there's there's a lot that they need to figure out they've reached a certain point and they've become number two by default but there's there's a lot to be concerned with and and they have the the great fortune of being number two because they acquired the previous number two. One championship feels like they're moving further and further away from MMA. And then there's, you know,

the KSWs of the world and the Cage Warriors of the world and the Octagons of the world. And the difference between those organizations and PFL, they sell tickets. And so if I were in charge, I would try to lean more into the places that actually

Buy tickets to your events Paris England You know those markets Ireland I know why they're keeping Bellator around at least for now TV deal etc

Are they going to be on Max Are they going to go somewhere else There's a ton of questions there. And so, yes, I share the concern that Nick is presenting. And there's a lot that you could say this isn't adding up. This isn't adding up. I do think that it would benefit them greatly to have a promoter type who can speak to the fight fan with passion.

I like Don Davis, but when he speaks, it sounds like he is speaking to investors. Lorenzo didn't go up there on the dais because he didn't have the fire and the passion that Dana had. Dana got you excited. Dana got you connected. Dana got you emotionally invested in the stories and the fights and the fight cards. Don doesn't do that. And so the perfect scenario would be Don being the Lorenzo and someone else being the Dana. That person just doesn't exist for them right now.

He did an interview recently, I think it was with Mike Heck of MMA Fighting, and he was asked, you know, what's his favorite MMA fight of all time? And he gave an answer that I don't know if it will go down as akin to the Hulk Hogan, I didn't do steroids answer on Arsenio Hall, which has sort of stuck with him throughout his career,

because afterwards it was proven that he did take steroids. But to say that you don't watch MMA and that you don't have a favorite fight, like that is a layup of all layups. Just say Shane Burgos, the fight that he had, or say that, I don't know, pick a random Kayla Harrison fight. Pick anything under the PFL umbrella. What's the best PFL fight of all time? It's hard to even think of one because they all kind of bleed together.

Is it the Burgos fight? Would people say that? I don't know. Yeah, I don't know off Dome. I mean, Pacheco and Harrison, the last one was pretty damn good. But you know what I'm saying? How many events have they put on and nothing? But like, he should know.

You can't say that type of thing. So anyway, litany of things. Let's see what happens in 2025. These are all fair things proposed, but what I kind of get back to is like the only fix for this is roster. It will always be

roster. Yes, but you also have to be able to use the roster in the right way, and I don't think using them in the playoff regular season format is the right way. But my question is, do they even have the roster right now? No. No, they don't. Even if the Bellator and PFL, do they have the roster?

It would make it better, but the problem is those guys aren't going to take a pay cut. Now, it could be, hey, pay cut or you're going to be out of a job and they might be, you know, SOL, but it could potentially get ugly. Back to the questions Hg spike

Yo Ariel and crew the next question is just For Rick for no reason Absolutely no reason at all Would you rather every time you sneeze You turn into or sorry you turn Is this the same guy every time I don't know Because I feel like I've been in and out like on the days We've been asking these I've been like popping in

Is this the same guy? The way it's written, it sounds similar. Okay, got it. Would you rather every time you sneeze, you turn invisible for 20 minutes? Okay. Or every time you throw up, you have to write a different three-page book report on the same book again and again? You have to choose one.

Thank you in advance for taking this seriously. How is this one even like debate, like- It's got to be the sneeze. One, I get a superpower and one, I get like a punishment. Like, yeah, I would force myself to sneeze. I'd be like inhaling pepper and then be able to turn myself invisible and do whatever I want. So, yeah, of course that one.

What would you do if you were invisible? See, this is off-the-record stuff. This is where we don't talk about what I'm doing. But, you know, there might be some bank vaults. How long would you be invisible? We already have a mysterious person on the team. How long are you invisible for? 20 minutes.

Is that what it said? Yeah, 20 minutes. Oh, okay. Imagine the debauchery you get away with in 20 minutes. There's a lot that I could do in 20 minutes. Sneezing is much more common than throwing up. No, but the throwing up one is a punishment. I don't want to write an essay.

Yeah, this is a horrible one. This is a bad one by that guy. Usually they're pretty comparable. This one is a punishment. I don't want to write an essay. Yeah, this is a horrible one. This is a bad one by that guy. Usually they're pretty comparable. This one, no good. If I never throw up again for the rest of my life, I would be thrilled. Yeah. It's not as good as you think it is.

It's not as cracked up. We got a few more in us. As a man who also hates throwing up, we definitely got a few more in us. Great Seinfeld episode about the throwing up story. Hopefully I can go like a more in it. Great Seinfeld episode about the throwing up. Hopefully, I mean, hopefully I can go like a decade without

it. Yeah. John Bob 19. Hello, Helwani and the crew. Can we get the AH show Premier League Fantasy Football League

back in our lives for next season? Maybe a quick segment on one of the uncrowned shows. Yeah, we took a break, but I would love to do it.

I didn't do it with my kids. My kids have gone so into basketball. Like, they hardly watch soccer now. I feel like that's a common it. I didn't do it with my kids. My kids have gone so into basketball. Like, they hardly watch soccer now. I feel like that's a common theme. I don't hear anything about soccer from you guys anymore. I mean, no, I'm still, listen, the chat is just me.

You go to the Forrest chat, it's just blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue. It's in the Forrest chat. I'm not in it anymore, right? No, no, no, no. It's me, it's GC, it's Frank. Who, me? Written, I think, well, he was. Frank's in it? Frank's in it?

He was as quiet as I was I feel bad for Frank There was one week where Frank was like I'm diehard Forrest So we added him I'm a lurker now And it's crazy because they're actually doing great They're 7th Frank has never turned on a Premier League game

I actually watch Frank's a lurker on his own group chat Anyway Would love to do it again It's just you know when the season started A Premier League game. I actually watch. Frank, I've watched a few with you in real time. Anyway, we'd love to do it again. It's just, you know, when the season started, there was so much going on here, you know, launching this whole empire. We were very busy, but perhaps.

Who the fuck is we? Yeah, well, I guess you're right. Jimmy, hi, from the DMZ in South slash North Korea for a research trip. But Kermit's asking a question. What? The demilitarized zone? Yes.

Yeah. God bless, man. Stay safe. Did you have a dream number of kids or did you want one more in the future? Also, knowing you're a

big germ guy, would you ever use public restrooms? And I'm not talking about the urinals. Thanks, Ariel. Hopefully I don't get trapped in North Korea.

Yeah. No kidding. Good luck. By the I don't get trapped in North Korea. Yeah. No kidding. Good luck. By the way, these are like the things he's wondering. Like he's worried about getting trapped in North Korea, but before he does, he needs to get your answer on how many kids and you ever use a public. In my mind, it was always three or four.

And I do strongly believe in 2018, we were gifted sweet, sweet matcha. And I think that became a big responsibility and it just kind of, it ended it. Also having a daughter after the two boys, I think if the third was a boy, I think there would have been a push for a fourth to try and have a girl,

but felt like we had everything we needed. Everyone was healthy. Thank God. And that was that. As for public restrooms, I have to use public restrooms all the time. You know, there's just a certain procedure that we have to put into place when using.

And I try to teach this to my kids. Like you can't touch anything. The little handle thingy the the like do you do you guys touch this is kind of a debate like do you guys touch the flusher please say yes i'm uh put on the flusher urinal i'll i'll hit with like the one of those is like you know quick come down with a fist And then stall I'll just kick it Kick it flush What if it's one of those with the buttons on top I'll hit it because what Rick's about to say I'm about to thoroughly wash my hands as soon as I'm done

I'll touch all those things Okay but does it bother you that some people Use their foot to do it I'm not going Yeah I mean sometimes I use the foot I use the foot Why would that bother I'm that guy. Yeah, I mean, sometimes I use the foot. I use the foot. No, it doesn't bother me. Why would that bother? I'm literally about to wash my hands.

Oh, it's awful. It's not awful. But if you are about to go wash your hands, you understand that, right? You can do horrible, horrible things and then wash your hands. I feel like it will take ten washes to get rid of it. Okay, let me ask you this. The latch thingy, do you touch that?

To lock the door? To unlock the door When you're leaving Yeah You touch it Yeah cause he's gonna Wash his hands What do you do?

Toilet paper Do it Yeah fuck the planet right Do you Did you like Did you change your It's a little It's a square

When they were young I would bathe in my kids diapers That is That is like I adore that Kids are like Kids are like factories For illness and disease When they were young I would bathe in my kids diapers That is like so much Kids are like Factories for illness and disease Nah but it's different when it's one of your own

No it's not It's your DNA Okay let me ask you this A faucet thingy When you're done washing what do you touch The faucet to turn it off Okay so now the same thing that you touched to start cleaning your hands, you just touched it after you cleaned your hands, thus making your hands unclean.

Ariel, you were also probably on your phone as you were walking into the bathroom, put it in your pocket for two seconds to go to the bathroom, if not kept it out. Look at all the grime on his phone. Sanitize. Every night I sanitize it. Every night? Every night. Every night, but not,

you washed your hands and then you pulled your phone right back out so all those germs are right back on it. If you want to avoid all this, you need to live in a bubble, otherwise. No, I'm telling you,

I just have procedure. What about the door handle when you leave the bathroom? But the procedure doesn't make any sense. Door handle leaving the bathroom. There are so many other things that you're doing that are exposing you

to these germs anyway. You're wasting your effort. You're wasting time. Do you touch the door handle? I touch everything and then I wash my hands like a normal person. And he drinks raw milk. Drinks raw? Raw milk? You guys don't do raw milk?

What's raw milk? What's raw milk? Milk that hasn't been pasteurized? Have you guys not been watching the news? No. Is that bad for you or good for you? Yeah, it's debatable. People claim that it's

good for you, but I'm not risking it. I've never had it, but I try it. I'm going to break out a bird flu. I was just about to say, if someone hates throwing up,

I'm not going to do the raw milk. But yeah, I mean, I just feel like you're giving, I don't even know where the fuck I get from. There was a fight, was it Cheeto?

Who's the one who said that he, no, no, Cheeto was the oat milk guy, right? Yeah, I could see Cheeto drinking raw milk. There was a fighter who said that he was a, no. Cheeto was the oat milk guy, right? Yeah, I could see Cheeto drinking raw milk. There was a fighter who said that he was a raw milk guy on the show. God, I see his face.

Who was it? It's illegal as well. Was it Tim? It's illegal? Yep. Yeah, I don't know. That feels like a lot of effort. Good luck to this gentleman in the DMZ.

Did I answer? Yeah, this gentleman in the DMZ. Did I answer? Yeah, I did answer the second question. Are you a urinal at all guy, Ariel? Yeah, it's fine. Are you a urinal at all guy? It depends. Well, me and Ariel ran into each other. Yeah, but I'm not going to.

He stalled it. Yeah, because I don't want to stand right next to you. There's a whole bathroom there. Is that weird? There was one guy next to me at the urinal, and Ariel, from the stall, we started having a conversation. And this guy was just in the middle of it. By the way, I didn't realize that there was someone. Was there someone there the whole time, or did he come?

Whole time. Ariel walks in. What's up, man? How are you? As he's slamming the stall door shut and locking it, he's just like, how are you feeling today, dude? I was just like, I'm good, man. You should have left and let him talk to that other guy. Well, I did leave after a while.

What's the proper etiquette? No speaking? You just cough? No, you can speak, but we did have to acknowledge the other guy in there. I feel like you can't speak until you're at the sink. I had a guy today, speaking of three urinals, me on one end end dude on other end

guy comes in straight in the middle i was like that's that's a play right there what the hell is that i mean that's a there were three urinals for a reason they're not like yeah there's three urinals for a reason so you have a buffer urinal in between you and the man on the other end some plumbers set it up because well you gotta have a buffer gotta have the buffer urinal i would prefer not to have a conversation until we're we're done and we're at the sink. I was going to say, sink is when you typically begin the urinal. Can I also say that diabolical behavior

is urinal, pull out the phone? Of course. I've done it before. What is that all about? I'm addicted. I'm a sick addict. Are you guys a spitter in the urinal? I asked... Yeah, Rick goes no hands at the urinal. He just MTG arenas it.

He goes up to the middle urinal with the MTG. Like a kid in the urinal, his pants already down. He just walks up. My pants are at my ankles. I actually just go in the sink. I go in the sink with the MTG arena. The ankle ass out the MTG Arena. Ass out, MTG Arena playing. Everyone else is just like,

who the fuck is this guy? I've marked my territory back there. I actually don't go to the urinal at all. I always go to stall. It's been too long. Urinal cake, guys? How do we feel? No urinals ever. No urinals ever? Wow.

I'm cool on the cakes, man. I'm fine with urinal. Especially with my kids. With the boys, it's just easier. The funny thing is that when you have young boys, they will go to urinal and completely pull their pants down. That's what we were talking about.

That's what I do when he's playing MTG Arena at the middle urinal. He pulls his pants all the way down. I get naked. There's nothing like that. You're walking in, a struggling dad, and his kid has just got the pants all the way down. You're like, all right, I'll just wait outside. Mr. Mystery Balls, shalom.

Perfect. Shalom aleichem, habibi. I mean, no disrespect toward the UFC. I genuinely enjoy their content and recognize their sensitivity to criticism. But I have to ask, why is Krohn Gracie disrespect toward the UFC. I genuinely enjoy their content and recognize their sensitivity to criticism. But I have to ask, why is Krohn Gracie still in the UFC? It's baffling that they continue to back him and even give him significant opportunities after his last disastrous performance. Meanwhile, they let go of real talent like Mohammad Makhayev and keep fighters like Aljamain Sterling and Moffsar Evloev buried on the prelims.

Sure, some might argue those fighters are boring, but what exactly is Krohn bringing to the table? Maybe they like the Gracie name. What can I say? Also, I think it's a little bit harsh one performance to be like, throw this guy out? I don't know. That doesn't feel right. The main card feels weird.

You should have the Mozart, Aljo on the main card. Oh, I definitely agree with that. I mean, don't get me started on the card placement. Essentially, it's the most dumb thing. Number one contender at 145? It doesn't really matter, yeah. Card placement doesn't matter. It's useless.

Well, I mean, main card versus prelims, though. Still don't care. They all get paid the same. It's all the same. If anything, if you're a fan of Aljo, you should be happy you're not having to pay pay-per-view prices. Well, you're going to pay for it anyway. Krohn. Maybe not.

I don't think you... It sounds like he just wants Krohn cut. I don't know-view. Yeah, prices. Well, you're going to pay for it anyway. Krohn, I don't think you, it sounds like he just wants Krohn cut. I don't know about that. That feels harsh for one performance. Also, again, he's a Gracie. He has a Gracie name. And truth be told, he's a sick grappler. Like if the last fight was a striking thing and it just wasn't going his way

and he's butt scooting and doing all that. But like when he grapples, he's somebody to actually want to watch so i also you do you do say one performance i mean he's only had one fight in the last five years yeah that's absurd wow it's been five years huh one fight since october of 2019 um okay just a couple more steven seagal sensei hi ariel your words and sunday's email deeply resonated with me. My empathy for the Jewish community has grown even stronger recently as I've been exploring books on World War II. I'd encourage everyone to read Ordinary Men by Christopher R. Browning for a close and unsettling look at the atrocities suffered by the Jewish community during those dark times. To balance the heaviness of that book, I'd recommend pairing it with Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. One book reveals how ordinary people can become instruments of tyranny under the wrong circumstances.

The other offers insight into enduring even the most unimaginable hardships brought on by that same tyranny. Understanding is the best path to empathy, and we need more of that now. Stay strong, Helwani. Brighter days lie ahead. Shama. Love it. Thanker days lie ahead. Shama. Love it. Thank you, my friend. Shama. Yes, I appreciate that very much.

Carlos, has anyone watched the new MMA series on Netflix, The Cage? What are your thoughts? Never heard of it. Yes. Oh, I haven't seen it. Have you guys watched it? Never heard of it.

I watched one episode where not only George St. Pierre is in it, but a big area of Helwani in it as well. And I george saint pierre's in it yeah big area hawaiian as well and i have to say you're in it they really big up like the whole like it was cool right the mma hour music hits yeah and then like it goes to new york yeah it goes to the streets of new york i was like this is sick i remember when we filmed this can i can i break the fourth wall for people uh for the and you know what we're talking about right rick yes yes i remember have you i haven't been able to watch the whole thing it i i i'm not gonna lie is it not a french show french yeah and it was dubbed that was like i was like these guys mouths aren't matching up but the way pierre set it up uh

he's just like he's like i know just the. And then the music starts and then it goes to New York. I was like, this is fucking crazy. It's wild. It's wild. It's my, I don't want to call it, what would it be? Not theatrical, like my scripted debut. It's your Netflix series debut after making your Netflix sports debut. And I think that actually came out before the fight.

I will just say, so what was interesting about it, you guys know this. So they reached out about it. And yeah, I've said no to some of these things, but it was a pretty easy lift because we just got to do it from the set here. Well, actually, it was at the old place. But now you're about to explain it. What? What happened? You say easy, but now you're about to explain it.

And it's not so easy. So yes, there was some trickiness if you watch the clip i wonder if we could play it anyway uh if you watch the clip it's me talking to george saint pierre well the trickiness is and this is now the the the magic of of movies that clip the george interview was sent to us beforehand. I wanted to actually just do an interview with George, like a fake interview with George, right?

Per the script. Instead, they sent us the George interview with him pausing in between, which is actually tougher than it may seem because you have to time your questions and the whole sort of flow and cadence to how he's answering things and there's a time where he like jumps in and he's moving so we had to do it a bunch of times like

maybe like 10 times and he also sent it formatted vertically yes vertically we needed it horizontally we would never do we would never do ever do that vertically and pisses me off i just remember that day it was so funny the amount of times that St. Pierre would just, you would run and you'd get railroaded by him. It was so good. Oh my God. It was tough, but in the end, I think it actually comes out looking pretty good. That was one of the more impressive things I've seen you do, if I'm being honest.

To pull that off, because it was pretty impossible. Yeah, it was tough. Plus, I had to remember all the names. Oh, Kevin and the names Oh Kevin And you know The characters involved And I didn't really see I had not read the script they just gave me like a fake script

That I had to fake It was fun I appreciated it great times And some people have been Hitting us up about it so Yeah thank you very much Go check it out The Cage on Netflix Jon Jones is in it as well. Uh, Jamrock Juddy. Hi, Ariel. I really hope you can respond to this being that it's been a big

topic this past week, as well as a big deal for me in my life personally. The way you spoke about McGregor's case this past week felt like a politician's response to a journalist's question regarding what they will do when elected president. You've gone off on other people in the fight world for much less regarding the circumstances, but I, as well as many others in the YouTube viewers, feel like you didn't really want to go in on McGregor being that he's the cash cow and calling it unfortunate news and other phrases that equate to someone's grandmother passing away or a bad visit to the doctor's office, when in reality, this is a much bigger problem in society,

especially with the stature and infamy of McGregor. It feels like you're not condemning Conor for his actions due to your personal relationship with him, and would like to see you come at him the way you've done with others who've committed lesser crimes. Okay, so let's talk about this, and let's end on this one, and I appreciate it, and won't hide from it. I see people saying that. In fact, I will say a lot of it, I do believe, is a self-fulfilling prophecy because I saw people saying, I bet you won't, I bet you won't, I dare you to talk about it, when of course, we were going to talk about it. We talked about it when the trial started, we talked about it

midway through, we talked about it at the end. We talked about it at the conclusion. But people believe, oh, just because of the fact that I've interviewed Connor, I've had him on the show, he's been good to me. We have some kind of working relationship. You know, we're not the best of friends. I've never been to his house. I've never had dinner with him or anything like that. But obviously a good working relationship that I wouldn't talk about something like this, which is absolute lunacy. We've talked about all the transgressions up until even in 2020, when there was an incident that was out there, it was this incident that was coming up and it couldn't be talked about because it was still in the potential investigation criminal phase. So you'll recall initially his name couldn't be mentioned and whatnot. I was sitting in front of

him prior to the Donald Cerrone fight in Las Vegas and asked him about it in a room of like 30 of his team members and zero of my team members. ESPN had no one there with me. And I asked him about it. In any event, I know people were going to say, it's impossible to please everyone. I think Uncrowned, like I said earlier, did a great job. I think PT in particular did a great job. And I think everyone who has talked about it or reported on it or commented on it has done a great job. But this is about me.

And I see people saying, you've gone way harder on other people. Tell me about the people that I've gone harder on. There's another question here about Luis Pena, who had a similar incident. Did you see me go off on Luis Pena? Am I that type of guy? Am I that type of journalist? Let's talk about Jamal Hill, who made, you know, very serious kind of comments, whatever about me, that I even bring up when he got into an issue,

a personal family issue. Did I bring that up? Did I even like, did I even like comment on it? I didn't even tweet about it to the best of my knowledge. Didn't talk about it on the show at all. Okay. What you're all referring to, I know is the Dana White situation. Now the Dana White situation was something that we saw on camera happen. We saw the actual act happen on camera. And let's not beat around the bush. The relationship between Dana and I

is a very personal and sensitive one. And for two days after the incident came out, I didn't say a thing about it. And even on Twitter, I didn't comment on it. I retweeted a bunch of articles and commentary on it, and I waited to the show so I can collect my thoughts to talk about it. And the crux of the issue, if you go back to that, people say I did a whole three-hour breakdown. Not true. That's not true at all. Again, all this is just fake bullshit that people want to bring up and lie about. Didn't do a three-hour show. It was before our award show.

I'm sitting there. I think we did 45 or so minutes at the top of the show. And then we took a break and went to the awards. And I talked about it from a place responding to someone who once said, what are your kids gonna say about you? What are they gonna say about you? And so that was my response back to him. That's personal.

That's next level. That's something that I don't think anyone should talk about. Never talk about someone's family, never talk about someone's kids. That to me is out of bounds. And so that's where I was coming from with that. If you go back to that show, you'll remember that I never said I'm calling for his head. You'll remember that I never said, you know, I never, I don't, again, I have to go back and watch it to the best of my knowledge right now. And you guys can correct me if I'm wrong. Never said it was disgusting. Never said he should be fired. Never said anything. I said, there should be a comment. And I don't believe in cancel culture. I don't believe, I just want to see them address it. And I said, it's a dangerous game to play if you, if you come out and don't address it, because now you're telling other people that this type of behavior is going to be allowed and when you're going to be forced to make some kind of decision about someone who does something similar because it just happens, it's a societal thing, you know, we were breaking down some of the comments, but he did sit there in front of the media and addressed everything. And he's moved on and he's talked about it openly. And that's a private family matter.

Do you see me bringing it up? Do you see me hitting him below the belt? Do you see me talking about it? No, I don't do that because I believe that there should be a line. Now, if it's pertinent to the business, if it's pertinent to the sport, fine, we talk about things. But I do believe that there should be a line. In this case, I said it was disgusting. I said it was unfortunate. I said I want to see how it plays out. He is adamant that he's going to appeal. His wife, like I said, or his partner, his fiancee has commented on it as well. There are some people

who, you know, have one say, have another say. There are some people who have said to me, like, I was only talking about the negative, would you believe? And that kind of tells me if one side is saying you're too harsh and the other side is saying you're too lenient, maybe you are in the middle and maybe you are doing something right. I understand that you can never please everyone. And in particular, when it comes to someone like Connor, people want to see, you know, me call for his head and stomp on him. Disgusting, unfortunate, hard to read, hard to look at. And you're seeing the backlash. He has been able to rebound from a lot of incidents. Let's be honest. There have been a lot. You now have to wait and see how he's going to rebound.

It's not up to me. It's not up to me to determine how he's going to rebound, but you're starting to see a domino effect that we've never seen in the past. We've never seen this before as it pertains to him. The proper 12 news, shocking to me. I thought they were going to wait until the appeal process was over.

Maybe they know something that we don't. Some of the other outlets not carrying, people painting murals of him. I've seen that as well. The video game announcement. These are all very important things and things that I'm talking about. So you want me to sit and kick him and say, this guy is a clown who should never fight in the UFC. I don't know what you want me to say. There's a part of me that thinks that nothing I could say will make some of you happy, and that is totally fine. I believe we've covered this fairly. I believe we've covered this objectively. And I believe I've said how I feel about the verdict

and the accusation and what happened and what the victim Nikita is saying about him. What more do you want? You want me to sit there for an hour and say it over and over again? Then fine. Then I'm sorry, I'm not going to do that because there's a million things that we're going to talk about. Nothing more important than this. And that's why I started the show on Monday talking about it. And that's why when the thing kicked off, we started the show talking about it and on and on it goes. And so I do think this is healthy and I have no problem taking the criticism. I've never said that I'm going to be perfect. I've never said that I'm the end-all be-all. We do our best here covering the show and if it falls short in some people's eyes, then so be it. I do think that some people had a self-fulfilling prophecy and I do think some people's revisionist history of how we covered the Dana story and how we've covered other sexual assault slash domestic

violence slash criminal offenses. Show me the time where I sat here when someone did something like that and went in on them and called for their head and said that they need, do you guys remember that to call me out right now? Call me out right now. I'm willing to take it. When do I do that? When do I hit someone below the belt? When do I do that? We've had the personal issues with the Brendons of the world and the Patties of the world. That's different. That's about me. But when there's been incidents like that, do I try to keep a level head and just sort of, at that point, I go into news mode. I don't feel like it's my place to go into commentary mode in that point. Other people do, and God bless them, and go watch them, and other people have different roles in

this game, but that's when I go into sort of like the old school journalist news role, and that's what I feel most comfortable doing in those cases. Me talking about matchmaking and fighting and posters and promos and matchups and rankings is very easy stuff. That's punditry. That's toy department stuff, as Howard Cosell once said. This is real life stuff. This is family stuff. And so that's how I feel most comfortable covering these sorts of things. And I would argue that I have been quite consistent with that. I did want to bring up the comments from Dee. Dee on Instagram stories saying, imagine a woman with her own boyfriend and child

texting provocative pictures of herself to another woman's man with a family and child on the way. This woman claims to know me yet still went ahead and sent messages and pictures of herself over and over to my man. Really, whilst on a three-day bender texting excuses to her own child at home, where mommy is on a Sunday afternoon, Saturday night, Sunday afternoon, Saturday afternoon, Sunday night, into Monday morning, all the while out of her face in a hotel room, dancing around in a hotel car park.

What sort of woman are you? My sons will be warned. Women like you exist. She goes on, I will let you read that. Nothing or nobody will change that. She talks about the love that he has for his family. Our family stands strong. Connor and I dealt with these issues privately many years ago, as should be done in a relationship, and we have come out stronger than ever. We have four beautiful children now whose smiling faces and happy hearts are a testament to who he is and who we are. They, without sin, cast the first stone. So those were her first comments on what has transpired. And don't wish this upon anyone. Don't wish what Nikita has been through.

Don't wish what she has been through. Don't wish it upon anyone. It's, again, it's an awful story. It's an awful turn of events. It's an awful thing for anyone to go through. And when you read and watch the testimony or read about the testimony and the details from that night, it is extremely uncomfortable. And like I said the first time, disgusting. Them's my thoughts. What did I just see there? Oh, I thought I just saw an overlay. All right. We need to end on a little bit more of a positive note on the Thanksgiving Eve program. Let me pick one out here real quick come on give me a fun one give me a fun one let's do it

give me a fun one give me a fun one well let me see if are there any more um what are some super chats from earlier in the week oh do you have them yeah let me grab that one sec az ray videos uh ray cefo could be a decent figurehead for pfl i feel like i feel like they need someone a little bit different a little bit different who's able to sell the fights. So we do have a couple here that I'll just go in order. Yeah, go ahead.

But one started with Mason Bickner. Said, would it sound better as the 8-8 show is back? They're just adding their... The 8-8 show is back. Just doesn't hit, right? Yeah, it doesn't hit. But at least you workshopped it.

Then a metal-faced gamer became a heel wannabe we're very excited about that thank you then uh cameron mitchell sent is it possible to get video on the spotify feed you know this has been asked a lot a lot yeah i skip over them because i don't want to put you on the spot put me on the spot i don't know i feel like that's yeah it's me um we could. I feel like that's a good thing. Yeah, it's me. We can look into it. Okay. That's a good response. Alright. Then we have one

from Alicio Corbetto. If it's not Frank's fault, whose fault is it? Yeah, that's a good point. It is a great point. So it does come right back to me, doesn't it? And the last one we have here is from Sterling. Cheers, Ariel and boys in the back. Thanks for the content. I'm an American living in Toronto for a bit,

and I am looking for cool places to check out. Any ideas? In Toronto? Correct. What was the name of that pizza place? Danny's. Danny's Tavern. Thank you for that.

That's my good friend Mark Kupfert and his crew. Amazing pizza. Green olives. I feel it right here. Who wants to go for some pizza? It's got the whale. Yeah, it's got the whale. Have you been there, Frank?

Yeah. I went last year, last September. It was great. So you tell me. Yeah? It was amazing. Really good customer service. Really good beer on tap.

I was very pleased with the recommendation. I had a really good night with that. And they brought the pizza between my wife and I. I was like, I don't know if we can do this. We did it. We did the thing. We rose to the challenge. Yeah.

As you, as you've been known to do. Yeah. Rise into the challenge. As we have done. And what a great week it has been. A shorter week for us. No Thursday,

Friday, but we have been a little bit banged up here. So for all of you complaining about too much content, here's your chance to catch up. I do want to thank one more time. Our good friends over at Averon, Averon, A-V-I-R-O-N, active, A-C-T-I-V-E.com slash uncrowned. There it is. You can join us on the bike right now. Our very first brand deal. How big is this for us, guys? Ah, yes, and more to come. We've got more coming in December and January. One last shot of the bike.

There it was earlier in the week. Sorry, earlier in the show. Okay, we don't have the shot of the bike, but we will all remember. We have a picture of the bike, don't we? Look at that. Yeah. That looks like... That looks like Rick.

Yeah. Imagine the gathering on the screen there. God, we've got to see if they can do that. Yeah. That looks like Rick. That's not Rick, is it? Yeah. There it is. Look, Magic the Gathering on the screen there. God, we got to see if they could do that for me. That would be sick. That would be. Oh, look at the happy couple. I mean, look at them. You got the roar on the right.

The roar is great. It's smooth. It's like you're actually on water. It's a beautiful thing. Great, great people. So happy they're a part of the family and happy to support them. And thank you very much to them for the support. Again, Averon.com slash.

No, it's Averon. Okay, at the top it says Averon.com, but later it says AveronActive.com. AveronActive.com. Right here. You see that? See right there? Oh, trust me. I've seen that plenty of places.

Who's to blame for that? I don't know. Great week, everyone. I've seen that plenty of places. Who's to blame for that? I don't know. Great week, everyone. I'll take the blame for that. Happy Thanksgiving. Yeah, there it is. Happy Thanksgiving. One of the great holidays.

You know why it's such a great holiday, Frank? Because it's nom-a-nom. Yeah, the nom-a-nom. So where are we going for Frank's giving? I'm going to go home and get some sleep. Are you struggling? Yeah. I thought maybe you would get a second win.

No. I need more medicine. Wow. All right. By the way, Mazel Tov to manager to the stars, Tim Simpson. I saw he got married over the weekend in beautiful Colombia. And he had some heavy hitters there. I saw Izzy was there.

Leon Edwards was there looking fantastic in a nice tuxedo. Looked like a beautiful wedding, really. You guys see any photos from it? Yeah, I did. I didn't know he was getting married. Must have lost the

date in the mail. You're getting it. Isn't it fun? That was also my fault. Oh, that you didn't get the save the date? Congrats to him, though. Congrats to him.

Looked great. Amateur MMA fighter. Maybe it's Muay Thai. Something like that. Anyway, looking forward to the return of Leon Edwards. He has finally spoken up. He did an interview for one of his sponsors. Let's see.

A lot to look forward to in 2025. A lot to look forward to this weekend. Like I said, Misfits tomorrow. PFL Championships on Friday. Edwards, Yafai on Saturday afternoon. Survivor Series. No UFC back next week. And we'll be talking about

that all week long. Thank you, Michael Chandler. Thank you, Brian Battle. Thanks to all of you. Thanks to all of them. Back on Monday. Peace. I'm out of here.