The Ariel Helwani Show - Michael Chandler in studio, Stipe Miocic, Bo Nickal, Eddie Hearn; Is Jon Jones ruining his legacy?

Episode Date: November 11, 2024

Ariel Helwani and The Boys In The Back break down a big combat sports weekend that saw Carlos Prates, Jaron "Boots" Ennis, and Jesse "Bam" Rodriguez pick up wins, plus more (04:28).Eddie Hearn discusses Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul, his distaste for the fight, Jaron "Boots" Ennis' lackluster win over Karen Chukhadzhian, whether a Terence Crawford fight will actually happen, the potential impact of Netflix's move into boxing, and more (27:21).Stipe Miocic discusses his UFC 309 fight against Jon Jones, the lack of respect he's being given, why he called Jones a "b*tch" and Jones' viral reaction, whether he fights again after UFC 309, the Tom Aspinall dilemma, and more (01:01:45).Bo Nickal discusses his UFC 309 fight against Paul Craig, his relationship with Donald Trump, Khamzat Chimaev's win over Robert Whittaker, recent wins by Shara Bullet and Reinier de Ridder, Darren Till's criticism, the massive betting odds for the Craig bout, and more (01:32:20).Michael Chandler joins in-studio to discuss his UFC 309 fight against Charles Oliveira, why his loss to Oliveira is one of his most painful memories, the latest in the Conor McGregor saga, why he blames himself for how the McGregor situation played out, and more (02:01:46).Ariel Helwani and The Boys In The Back break down the latest in the Jon Jones vs. Tom Aspinall saga (03:09:11).

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Erya Hawaii Show! Back in your life! On this Monday, November 11th, 2000. And 24, hello again, everyone. Hi, Sher. Hope you're doing well. Welcome back to the program. It's good to be here.

It's good to be here at the start of a massive, massive week in combat sports. Here in New York City, down south in Texas, there is a buzz in the air, my friends. There is a lot to talk about. We are blessed. What a time. Friday, Saturday is going to be a lot of fun. We have a whole lot of content coming your way on this program, on our other shows, on uncrowned.com. This is the kind of stuff that we live for.

These are the kind of weeks that we dream about. These are the kind of weeks that we tell our children and their children about, a.k.a. our grandchildren. We tell them all about these things. We also tell them about our brave and great veterans. Happy Veterans Day to everyone out there. Thank you so much for your service. We love you. We appreciate you. We respect you. And we honor you on this day. Now, on today's program, a lot to get into. Obviously, this week, we've got a little fight known as Jake Paul versus Mike Tyson on Friday on Netflix, AT&T Stadium. I hear it's going to be a big deal.

I'll be heading over to Big D. I was going to say something else. What were you going to say? No, I was going to say something else, but people make fun of me. Big D on Wednesday morning to host the press conference on Wednesday evening, to be a part of the weigh-ins on Thursday, and then to be a part of the actual event on Friday. It's a Friday show. And man, I was on a conference call last Thursday.

Rosie Perez was on there. She's a part of the broadcast. Maura Ranallo was on there. He's a part of the broadcast. Mike Tyson's son, Amir Tyson's on there, part of the broadcast. Sean Wheelock, I've never worked with him before, part of the broadcast's on there, part of the broadcast. Sean Wheelock, I've never worked with him before, part of the broadcast. Andre Ward, part of the broadcast. Roy Jones Jr.,

part of the broadcast. Kate Scott, aka Kate Abdo, part of the broadcast. It's a big freaking deal. And I'm very excited and very honored to be a part of it. And that is, in fact, going to change some of our offerings for this week on this particular week, you'll have a Helwani show on Monday. You'll have a Helwani show on Tuesday, which we'll include on the nose. And that post will be going up in about a couple hours' time on the Substack page. Then you'll get Boys in the Back on Wednesday. And you'll get Crack Live, hosted by P.T. Carroll, on Thursday. There it is.

There's the offering for this week only because I'm going away Wednesday morning. Isn't this great? Isn't this amazing? Now, Friday, usual 1 p.m. Eastern slot, there will be no live show. Why? Because just a few hours later,

we'll have a Paul Tyson watch party and a post show right here on the YouTube page. And then the boys will be right back at it on Saturday for a UFC 309 watch party and a post show as well, which I'll be a part of. You got all that. So this is the offering for this week, a lot coming your way and a ton of great stuff coming your way on uncrowned.com.

I was actually watching the, and by the way, shout out to, whoop, I went the wrong, look at this. Can you imagine? Oh, that's awesome.

I mean, this is handmade by my good friend. Yeah. Sav Jelly on Instagram. I wanted to gift, I wanted to gift this to Tom. This is a handmade crochet one-of-one commissioned tom aspinall i mean look at that got the little fu manchu thing got the mustache got the tattoos in the back in the front and what a week for big tom uh big tom and i will be two trains or two ships in the night oh that's kind of covering my name um he gets here tuesday night so he won't be able to visit us in studio,

but we do have a lot of in-studio action coming your way this week. It is a big deal to have him a part of Fight Week. So there he is. The newest addition to the set is Big Tom. I mean, look at that. I love this. Can you stop poking him? I love it so much.

She is so talented. Go check out her Instagram page. She made an Alex Pereira one, Max Holloway one. She's unbelievable. Look at that. I mean, I just love it so much. I love it so much. So, okay, where was I? Where was I? Oh, yeah. So, Massive Week, Tyson Paul coming up, Netflix. You go on Netflix right now, and you can see Countdown Episode 1 and 2. Now, full disclosure, I'm a part of it, okay? A lot of people talking to me about, you know, the double-breasted suit that I'm wearing, NBD,

NBD, NBD. That's not why I'm bringing this up. There's one moment in there that to me, they're making a huge mistake not clipping this off and posting it everywhere. This is how you sell this fight. And I know it's polarizing. And I know people are conflicted. And I know every dad, including yesterday at a birthday party that I was at for my daughter, every dad wants to talk to me about it. Every family member wants to talk to me about it. People that never speak of fighting want to talk to me about it. And in fact, I watched the countdown show

with my wife and kids. They never want to talk to me about fighting. There's one moment in there that sells it all, that tells the story of this fight, the dichotomy, the juxtaposition of these two characters. This is the moment right here. It was first tweeted out by Wade Plum.

It's from the countdown. I believe episode one. Take a look at this. I'm so, so honored you're a legend, but I'm going to take your throne, brother. There's a fundamental difference between me and Jake. He's a manufactured killer. Television and paper made him a killer. He's manufactured. I'm a natural born killer. That's the difference.

That's it. I saw that. I saw the look on his face. When he goes deep like that and he starts talking, sometimes he gets emotional. There's another moment in the car where he talks about Customato summoning him. Man, I'm a natural born killer. He's a manufactured killer. And you know, Mike's so old school. He's 58 after all. He's talking about papers. There ain't no papers writing about Jake Paul, but he says television, papers. He might as well have said Vine and YouTube. Same difference. We get the point.

Made Jake Paul. He's manufactured. I'm natural born. I'm a natural born killer. That was it for me. I was like, all right, I'm in. Let's go. I'll see you Friday.

Now it's not only about Friday, of course. It's Saturday as well. Madison Square Garden, the world's most famous arena. Madison Square Garden. Yes, the most famous arena. Madison Square Garden. Yes, the Knicks are struggling right now. Yes, I'm very concerned. Yes, the vibes are not quite as immaculate as I thought some 10 games or so in,

10, 11 games. I think they're 4-5. They lost to the Pacers yesterday. It was ridiculous. But nevertheless, MSG, it's always special. Early November, fight week at the Mecca, at the Garden. And it's a big one.

It's the one that we thought we were getting exactly a year ago. I think it's a year ago today. In fact, Stipe versus John, Bones versus the firefighter, heavyweight title on the line, the disputed heavyweight title on the line. Tommy Aspinall going to be in town.

Of course, the interim champion hoping to fight the winner. And it's a big freaking deal. Not only that, Michael Chandler against Charles Oliveira, part two, their first fight back in 2021, an all-time classic. It was essentially like five minutes and 15 seconds of just pure madness.

Ebbs and flows, ups and downs. That's on the card. The return of Bo Nickel, first time fighting since April, going up against Paul Craig, his toughest opponent to date. The return of Chris Weidman against Eric Anders. I'm pumped. I'm pumped for this week. I am pumped for this week. Okay, what are we talking about on today's show? I don't even know. I'm so pumped for this week that I'm all over the place. I'm all over the gaff, as P.T. Carroll says. What about today's lineup? An all-star cast of characters. Unbelievable.

1.30 will be joined by Eddie Hearn. Matchroom had their show in Philadelphia on Saturday. Watched it all. Boots Ennis reigned supreme. Was he impressive? We'll talk to him about that. Bam Rodriguez, definitely impressive. He'll come up at 1.30,

talk about all the comings and goings in the world of Matchroom. Of course, his pride and joy, joy Katie Taylor also fighting this Friday in the co-main event against Amanda Serrano a fight that is kind of flying under the radar but kudos to the countdown team they put it as a part of the countdown show which I like so it's not being overshadowed well done now two o'clock the most decorated and celebrated heavyweight champion in UFC history, the pride of Cleveland, the pride of the 216. I'm from the land. Stipe Miocic will join us. Haven't talked to him in quite some time. Haven't talked to him since the Monday after Joan Cyril Ghosn. He'll join us at

two before he heads off to this beautiful city. 230 Bo Nickel. The aforementioned will join us. Before he heads off to New York City. To talk about the big fight against Paul Craig. And 3 o'clock. Our very first in studio guest. Of the brand new era. The one and only. The man fighting in the co-main event.

The former Bellator champion. The number one contender. Potentially if he wins in the lightweight division. The former number one contender. In if he wins in the lightweight division, the former number one contender in the UFC lightweight division. Let me get this right. Let me get this right. This is a practice.

I can't even tell you how many times I went over this. Is it iron? Did I get it? It's iron, right? That's what I'm saying. Yeah, you got it. Iron. Not iron. Not iron.

And definitely not iron. Iron. Did I get it iron. Indefinitely not. Iron. Iron. Did I get it, Rick? Did I get it? I want to know from Rick. This is the one. This is the one.

Iron. Mike Chandler. Two Iron Mikes fighting on the same weekend. Are you kidding me? He'll join us in studio as well. We got a lot to talk about as it pertains to Jones and Aspinall and Pereira and Miocic, the ducking, the non-ducking. But before we get to all of that, let us talk about this past weekend. Let us put this past weekend to bed. Congratulations to, by the way, we talk

about the heavyweight division. We talk about, you know, is it disputed, undisputed? Do we need to include Roug Roug in that conversation? Now the one heavyweight champion? I mean, is it disputed, undisputed? Do we need to include Roug Roug in that conversation? Now the one heavyweight champion? I mean, is it time that we include the first ever Senegalese major MMA champion? It's a big deal. Look at big Roug Roug. Look at big Roug Roug out there. An absolute force.

Yes, he won the belt at the one championship event on Friday that was on Amazon Prime, defeating Anatoly Malkin via split decision. Also, shout out to our good friend, Cade Rutolo, who also won and improved to 2-0. That was on Friday. And then on Saturday, we had the very exciting, yes, the yellow card, you got to love that, the very exciting UFC Apex 100 card, as well as the matchroom card. Oh, by the way, card. You got to love that. The very exciting UFC Apex 100 card, as well as the matchroom card. Oh, by the way, on Friday, I do have to mention the scope in Virginia. Norfolk, Virginia was on fire. Keyshawn Davis with an amazing performance. Guy was dancing

in between knockdowns. That place was sold out, 10,000 plus. Really incredible scenes. Shout out to Keyshawn, the silver medalist. Well on on his way and perhaps some talk of him fighting tank davis in the not too distant future but on saturday apex 100 came and went and the big story was uh the the nerd crew once again reigning supreme this time it was carlos predis and i want to bring in the guys and talk to them about that because i know they were all very excited i mean we covered ufc apex 100 Probably more thoroughly Than UFC 300 Dare I say a few months back And so I want to I mean it was

In depth coverage Honestly guys I've watched it all It's one of the weirdest knockouts I've ever seen Carlos Paredes defeats Neil Magny And it's a huge win for him And he has arrived and he's a great character And that whole team is great But anyone else feel that like I'm not I'm not suggesting any sort of foul play I'm not suggesting any sort of chicanery I saw the slow-mo it seems to like graze him here

and there was another there was another fight on Friday it was a fight pass event I think it was LFA where there was a spinning wheel kick and the kick grazed the guy's forehead and sometimes those are the worst shots but that was weird stuff was it not i mean i mean let's go to gc first because he's mr apex when you were watching that did you not think like what the hell just happened here did he slip on a banana peel yeah when you watch it in full speed it does kind of look like that but when you re-watch it in slow motion i guess you can you can see where it hits him on the temple And I mean, Carlos said after the fight When I land, people go to sleep

So I guess he just hits that hard Impressive stuff To beat Neil Magny, when was it? 450 of the first round A guy who's that durable Michael Malad obviously recently had some trouble with him My question to you, PT, is Is this guy, is Carlos Paredes, is he a legit

player now at 170? He is, it is incredible. He has six losses on his record, but all of those were a long time ago. Now he's on a roll in the UFC. He is not lost in the UFC. He won on the Contender Series. He's won his last four fights in the UFC, all via stoppage of some kind in the first or second round beating the likes of Li Jingliang and Trevin Giles as well do you consider him an actual player or not quite yet I actually think he's right on the cusp of being in that is this the new generation of challengers kind of list that we talked about last week you know I think the JDMs of the world the Sean Brady's Ian Gary's are all ahead of him

there's no doubt about that but immediately after that result i was thinking like it's not maybe one more fight before we start considering this guy um in that mix and i think he's got a really exciting style that's going to appeal to the ufc too like we were talking about this last week as well it's not simply sport anymore There's a massive emphasis on entertainment, and this guy has it all in that regard. He's got a really intriguing character, and he's got a brilliant style to watch. So I think he's about, I think he's probably one fight away

from being in that mix where we're saying, I'd like to see him fight one of the top guys in the division. Rick, you talked about Jack Della, and then on the post-show he was like, oh, I hear you, Usman, are going to about Jack Della, and then on the post-show, he was like, oh, I hear you, Usman, are going to fight Jack Della, and I've heard of that as well. I don't know if it's happening. It sounded like it was news to Usman.

Well, I think he was playing a little bit, but also, at this point in his career, I don't see Usman flying to Australia to fight Jack Della and Maddalena, unless they really sweeten the pot for him. I just don't see it happening. I would love to see Carlos against Jack Della. If Usman doesn't take that fight,

is that too soon for him in your opinion? No, definitely not. He feels like a finished product, maybe not even finished. Who knows what the levels can be, but he feels like he is, he is a work in progress that is able to rise to the challenge.

Not dissimilar to Jack Della. Like Jack Della had to kind of get some of those wins to quote unquote arrive but i feel like he's he's right there i would love to see that fight now there's an argument argument to be made that welterweight kind of needs some new blood and maybe you keep them apart right you would almost hope that maybe he gets somebody who is a veteran um and so that you're not killing off two guys who who are potential uh rising prospects and not having fought for the title yet. But on paper, as a fight, I love that fight. I would watch the hell out of that.

To be honest, I'd watch either of those two against anybody. So to pair them together feels like a can't miss situation. Currently, as we sit here on a Monday, he's not even ranked, Carlos. He belongs there. Yeah, Magny is 15, Luque is 14, MVP is 13, Michael Morales is 12, Thompson 11, Jeff Neal 10. I mean, 170 is, I mean, it's pretty stacked. The top half doesn't fight as often as they probably should, and that leads to not a lot of movement. And so I have a hard time seeing them

make that Jack Del fight, but F it, I'm in. The guy's fun. And you know, it's interesting. You watch him on the same night as you watch Boots Ennis, for example. And like, in my opinion, Boots does nothing. Like I was watching the post fight interview and the post fight press conference with Boots.

And he's just, I want to talk to Eddie about this as a promoter, like he's just so apathetic. He doesn't do anything really, it feels like to sell himself. And he's a fun fighter. And I don't think that was his best fight. And then you, you couple it with a guy like Carlos, who, you know, English isn't his first language, but he's got the look, he's got the glasses, he's got a gimmick. He talks a good game. He backs it up. This is so important now with so much fighting available to us. You have to give people a reason to be like, oh, that guy sticks out. Oh, that's a guy that I want to follow. That's a guy that I want to hitch my wagon to and be like, okay, this is my dude and

I'm going to watch him and I'm going to go out of my way to check out his stuff every time he fights. You got to give people a reason to care, to be emotionally invested. And seeing those two fights almost back to back, and then seeing how, you know, Carlos handled the aftermath and how Boots handled the aftermath. I know it's not apples to apples and one's a bigger draw than the other. I just think it's so important. And I love what he's doing.

And by the way, tomorrow he'll be on the program for the first time. So I'm looking forward to having him on. Overall, were you happy, GC, with how they handled UFCfc apex 100 did you have a dream man yeah dream uh have all the bells and whistles the pomp and circumstance that you're looking forward to no actually it lacked all of that which is exactly what i was looking for in ufc did they do anything by the way no no no like there was no even i didn't notice anything that was like. There wasn't a highlight reel. No commemorative video, you know, from first to last. I guess you just got that on Thursday on the boys in the back, just taking a trip down memory lane.

By the way, I do have to give you guys a shout out. I mean, that was incredible. I mean, that was a point of pride. That was a labor of love getting to do that. It was fantastic. One thing that did come out of it, did Carlos Prates enter his name into a fighter of the year ring?

4-0, four knockouts? We've had this a couple times. Remember last year, Lupe Godinez? Yeah. Wasn't the knockouts, but it's a weird thing when someone gets that many wins, maybe not on the highest level

or the most high- fights they deserve a mention but they never get it you know what i mean like and uh kevin holland i was just gonna say yeah i was just gonna say incredible year that like could potentially be lost to the sands of time like if he doesn't become a champion or something how i mean i'm putting you on the spot here how many people do have four wins In 2024 No no no this year Sorry in 2024 Because that's what I mean There's a world where it's like

The Alex Pereira Ilya Tepore debate and then the next guy Is Carlos which by the way who would have predicted that A year ago right So it's not a bad spot to be in He hadn't even made his actual UFC debut a year ago He had just won on contenders It's crazy So there is a world where he's on the short list So it's not a bad spot to be in. He even made his actual UFC debut a year ago. He had just won on contenders. Right.

It's crazy. So there is a world where he's on the short list, but you're not being serious, right? No, of course not. Okay. No, but I mean, 3-0 Alex Pereira in title shots is over 4-0 fighting unranked guys. To even be an honorable mention to an honorable mention, though,

tells you where he is for prospect of the year, rookie of the year, whatever award, and ends up up being in that category like almost being issued he's certain mentioned mentioned honorably 100 and and that to me is a is a victory in its own right um so that was a great win can i say as as as happy as i was or as impressed I should say as I was by his performance, I was not so blown away with RDR. Yeah, he struggled. What'd you think? Gerald's good, man. UFC jitters,

debut, I think you give him look, he found the submission late in the fight, you give him the next one to kind of really make the analysis. Fighting on Apex 100, that's definitely a lot of pressure. Yeah, the pressure of fighting on Apex 100. Also, I mean, of pressure. Yeah, the pressure of fighting on Apex 100. Also, I mean, GM3 is like a submission specialist as well. So maybe it was just-

Also to go from fighting in front of, you know, billions of fans watching one to just a lowly UFC. That might've been the craziest thing that came out of the fight is the things he had to say about one. By the way, can I tell you, the amount of times one was mentioned in his walkout, were you not surprised?

I was, yeah. They mentioned one like three, four four times and it's crazy because you watch the countdown show and once again they completely cut nganu out when talking about stipe they even like go to a shot where his face is not is like they don't mention him of course they skip over it like it was a blip on the radar and then on saturday they mentioned one like three times. Isn't that the indictment though? When they no longer see you as a threat that you're just so mentionable now? They're now jungle fight to them. Exactly. Your original promotion.

If that. Jungle fight. They're cage warriors to them. They're LFA. Too far. Take it easy. Will they say PFL? Who's come over from? Hell no. No. Kayla. Did they mention PFL? Who's come over from... Hell no. Kayla, did they mention PFL? That's a blood feud now.

What they do in those cases is they always say another promotion. They're a champion in another promotion. Yeah, I wonder if Carlos Leal, when he was making the walk, they mentioned it. In the post-fight interview, I noticed BLB mentioned another promotion. But in the broadcast, I think Brendan said one championship.

That went over your head, right? BLB? Yeah, all three. I could see the puzzled look on your face. I didn't want to get embarrassed like PC did last week. I'll do it. What are we talking about? You'd be like, oh, this guy doesn't know BLB. I didn't misspeak.

Some might have thought I was saying BBL, not BBL. No, I thought you misspeak. Some might have thought I was saying BBL, not BBL. No, I thought you said BLB. He's got to open up the lingo because he's doing this influencer show. One of my kids, I was looking at his fantasy league, and one of his opponents, like his classmates, their name is BBL. And I'm like, do you even know what BBL? I learned what BBL was on this show.

Who was it? It was with A.N. Gary. Someone called them. Oh, MVP. Michael Venepage, yeah. No, this is not BBL. This is BLB. Bootlegger Bisping. Come on this show. Who was it? It was with A.N. Gary. Someone called them. Oh, MVP. Michael Venepage, yeah. No, this is not BBL. This is BLB. Bootlicker Bisping.

Come on, guys. Come on. He said one promotion. I had no idea what we were talking about. He wouldn't dare. He wouldn't dare. He said another promotion.

I thought you guys knew that. No, I might have. I'm pretty sure Frank was the one who came up with it. Absolutely. Put a target on my back area that's fine yeah it's uh it's frank at ph no no i'm kidding wow um i mean that's that might be enough right there what is bbl that is you have to try on one of the plus uh pc what do you think of rdr

yeah i was the same with you a bit on themed by the performance and that's no disrespect to the merchant i guess it's just where we had him um in terms of um you know we he was one of those guys and it very rarely happens when you're not in the ufc that people start saying i think this guy could you know challenge the best middleweights in the world i don't think that performance gave me that impression but i'm with rick on this you know you can do a lot better than your first performance um most important thing to do was to was win and then shit on the promotion you used to work for so you can win oh yeah what about that how about that tell us about that in the post-fight interview right in the post-fight presser yeah and i mean this is this is something that's been quite common with even the the biggest names i saw the great Guilherme Cruz, the Brazilian beast.

He was sharing out about Bibiano Fernandez when he left the company and said, like, look, I was frozen out. I need a way to earn. And that was pretty much what the Ritter said as well. Afterwards, you know, it was incredibly stressful time for his family when you weren't getting an opportunity to earn. Like, look, we've had questions about a lot of guys in one we've mentioned them on this show like oh what happened to that guy you know i know roberto solich didn't have the best run with the promotion but it's still a guy that's a massive commodity in europe and we really don't know what's happening with him at the moment so i think that's a really bad look when if you're in the fight game you have fighters like very well

respected fighters some of the best fighters in the world saying if you're in the fight game, you have fighters, like very well-respected fighters, some of the best fighters in the world saying, if you're a fighter, you should not go here. That is not a good sign for one championship. Yeah. In the post, in the post presser scrum,

whatever you want to call them, RDR just flat out saying, if I can give you any piece of advice to any fighter out there, if you're, if you're thinking, if you're considering signing with one, do not do it,

is one of the, the biggest indictments that we've ever seen of, uh, the current state of one championship. And, you know, he had a nice little run there, uh, two weight world champion, all that stuff, but, uh, was on the sidelines for quite some time. Um, that was, uh, and, and he, he says it with

a smile, like he seems like a very nice, mild mannered guy. So you, you don't really know like what kind of i don't know animosity or like a relief though yeah for me like that the smile is like thank god i'm here thank god i'm after winning but did you guys see uh you guys saw casey o'neill's tweet as well i did not uh someone tweeted about rdr saying that and she quoted to quote tweeted it saying advice for young fighters everywhere to be honest honest, do not, all caps, sign with 1FC. The contract is a jail sentence for your career.

Wow, she wrote this? Yeah. Wow. On her Twitter. Okay, well, this is not good. Maybe that's why they're mentioning them. That is not good. We did see some history, though, on the card,

in addition to it being Apex 100. Jillian Robertson with the first 12 to 6 elbow yes uh it was to the i believe buttocks of luana pinero but yeah the way you said that is it was as if that was far as i said but in the buttocks buttocks trying to keep it a little classy here even it's scientific my question is for andy foster if if if this would have been two weeks ago, is that illegal? Like is 12 to 6 to the buttocks illegal or was it just to the head and spine?

I don't know. What do you guys think? It's an interesting way to go about talking about this. I think all that matters is that it's 12 to 6, you know? It doesn't matter where it's going. Straight into the crack, baby. Use the weapons you've got yeah no i mean it was it was all it was one of the most talked about things from the card uh a card that was hit with a ton of uh bad luck and injuries um there were a bunch of stoppages but it was nothing really to to write home about i would say right um other

than a lot of squash matches on that card. I wrote home about it. You told the parents back in Georgia about it? Told the parents. Snail mail. Your daughter. They should hear about it in a few days. 12 to 6 elbow. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You'll never believe. 12 to 6 to the buttocks. It was unbelievable. Hey, big news in the fight game. If you use hashtag Paul Tyson on Twitter And then someone likes it It's a little Paul Tyson

Boxing emoji It's pretty cool stuff Oh I thought you were going to talk about the emojis on our chat Oh shout out to the chat Thumbs up to the chat Alright well that's a little Of this past weekend talk We're going to get into more of that Plus a hell of a lot more regarding UFC 309 with Michael Chandler joining us in studio.

Bo Nickel prior to that and the great Stipe Miocic. But very excited to talk to our next guest, you know, a staple on this show. However, here in this new era, this is his debut. And a lot of people were very surprised. A lot of people thought he'd be a first-week guest, maybe even a second-week guest. There is a reason for that. First, let me say hello

very quickly here to the head man over at Matchroom Boxing and all things Matchroom, the great Eddie Hearn. Hello, Eddie. How are you? I'm very good, Ariel.

I'm actually, I'm in a cupboard at the moment in Delray Beach watching Liam Paro's spa. Wow. So thank you to the club for giving me this uh little cupboard here and uh yeah we're all feeling good mate congrats on the new

show appreciate it thank you very much i hope this isn't a nuisance no never a nuisance to talk to you what did you say before i i interrupted you there never a nuisance to talk to you oh yes no it was before that you said something i missed it i'm sorry maybe it wasn't important it was just okay uh can i tell you why i'm so impressed with you eddie for many reasons you know i think very highly of you but i think that you have changed and evolved i think we are starting to see the um the maturation dare i say of eddie hearn um there was once a time where i think I would reach out to you or anyone would reach out to you.

You do an interview, you stop everything, no matter where you are. I'm pretty sure I've, I've spoken to you while on vacation a week or so ago, reached out to you. Not only did it take a couple of days, you said on vacation with the family can't do it.

I wasn't offended. I was actually very proud of you. I was impressed. Are you now starting to pull it back a little bit? Not, not pull back. Just like realize that I just can't do every interview all the time. Like I hate letting people down.

I hate, you know, you guys have got a job to do. You're all reporting on our shows. You're giving us exposure as well. But at the same time, like I'm, it's not really me.

I'm getting told by people within the business like that you're doing too many interviews you know like you're literally you will not turn down an interview so i don't want to like one of our keys has been we've always been accessible so i never want to change that but prioritization maybe improve a little bit but always time for you ariel i appreciate that no and i'm not being facetious i actually like to hear that because i know we talked in the past about balancing life and and your kids and your family and all the travels and whatnot so i thought that this was a very healthy response um we'll get into this weekend a a somewhat i don't know

if you could say scrutinized performance by boots nsnis. I know you react to it on Saturday. Now some 48 hours, a little less, 40 or so hours later. Your impressions, this is your second fight with Boots under the matchroom umbrella, second fight back home in Philly, a fight that was somewhat maligned because it maybe wasn't the opponent that everyone wanted to see him against. Your thoughts on how he looked out there? Yeah, I thought it was a decent performance definitely not spectacular i mean you know the issue with this ibf mandatory was it was a fight that quite honestly no one really wanted we had to take the fight or lose our belt and the first fight wasn't very good between the two it wasn't very exciting and actually it was actually a

pretty good fight on saturday but boots seemed to be more focused on trying to make the fight exciting for the fans and in turn got hit probably a little bit more than he should do I mean he won virtually every round of the fight but you know not a performance that I wanted to scream and shout from the turnbuckle from but definitely a performance that might make it a little bit easier to match him and we've seen that over the last couple of days as well so yeah I think a solid performance but not spectacular and he will have to be better you know I know that this time around it was a bit tougher for him at 147 it's something we've got to look at we want him to unify but at the same time if he has to move to 54 you know there's been talks uh with his excellency and of course Oscar you've

heard him chime in about the Virgil Ortiz fight I think that's a tremendous fight and we'd love to make that fight but you know it will either be a unification or a big fight at 154 next and he will have to be better if he's fighting that kind of level of opposition so you you make the interesting point that perhaps this will make it easier to match him up against future opponents, big name opponents, because I'm guessing the thought process is, oh, they think he's not as good as he really is.

Basically, yeah. So now they're like... No one's wanting to fight him. And what happens is he puts in an average performance and everyone gets a little bit brave. You know, all of a sudden, Oscar's coming out, Virgil Ortiz will fight him.

Stani Onis will fight him. You know, the other champions, Barrios, whoever, will fight him. So that's a good thing. Obviously, you always want to look spectacular. But I think it will be easier to match him in this next fight. And the next fight will be a defining fight for his career. The problem is, as well, a lot of these elite guys, when they fight down a level, I just don't think he's switched on. He doesn't have the fear factor, not excited about

the fight. It's not an excuse. You always must get yourself up for the fight, but you'll see a much better Boots Ennis against elite opposition. I recognize that this is a question that is probably better for him, but since you're speaking this candidly and openly about the performance, do you think he agrees with you? Do you think he would say it's an average performance? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I mean, I don't think I don't think anyone who knows their boxing could say it was anything but an average performance. I mean, it was solid. It was he won every round against his mandatory challenger. But when we're talking about this guy as a potential pound for pound top five it wasn't that kind of performance and that's okay because i think he went into that fight trying to make exciting take you know taking

chances disregarding his his defense and you know i just think it was a little bit flat so you know you'll see him against guys that he knows you know know, he's going to have a problem with. You'll see him perform much, much better. But for now, hopefully it will open the door to those bigger fights with people that have been reluctant to fight him in the past. I understand what you're saying about maybe easier to match him up against big names. But in terms of selling him to the public, you know, and you are the best at this, certainly in the sport of boxing, you need characters, you need to promote, you need to get people emotionally invested. I have not been impressed, if I'm being honest, with his ability to promote himself.

When he was on the show a couple of weeks ago, he seemed very disinterested. He could have been going through a million different things when he was at the post presser on Saturday. He just, he wasn't giving you much to work with. You were doing the promoting and I know that's your job. And I know he has said, that's why he looks, you know, he looks forward to working with you and likes working with you because you help take some of that pressure off of him. But isn't there a case to be made that like, you do have to sell yourself to the public, right?

You do have to make yourself interesting to the world. Always, you know, I think everybody's different. I mean, Boots is, is boots is actually quite a shy guy to be honest with you he doesn't he's not overly comfortable in front of the camera he likes to be in the gym and he likes to fight obviously when you step up the levels and you start getting more and more media opportunities you need to you know take care of business in that respect as well he's been fantastic for us i mean he's done piles of media but sometimes you know you take care of business in that respect as well. He's been fantastic for us. I mean, he's done piles of media, but sometimes, you know,

you're not going to get a fake Boots Ennis. Yeah, yeah, you know, it's not really his style, but you're right. You know, always you want a fighter that pushes himself. You know, to be honest with you, I think we had 11,000 in there on Saturday. We had 14,000 for his last fight. I don't see other fighters pulling anywhere near

those kind of numbers for the types of fights that he's been in, to be his last fight. I don't see other fighters pulling anywhere near those kind of numbers for the types of fights that he's been in to be a hunter with him. So, you know, in terms of a draw, particularly in Philly, a huge draw. But the next fight is going to be very important for him. And it's very likely that the next fight might be away from home, which, you know, might suit him as well after two fights at the Wells Fargo in just four or five months. What's your take on the IBF these days? Why does it seem like the IBF are the ones ruining everyone's fun? This fight, I know AJ Dubois was one that's near and dear to your heart,

but you can make the case that after a unification bout, it wasn't necessarily needed. Even what they were saying after Better Be Abival, we want to see that fight. Now they're talking about other mandatories. Why does it seem like the IBF is the one that are being the biggest stickler these days? So just purely being honest, what the IBF do is they stick to their rules, which to be honest, like, I mean,

depends what side you're on. You know, when you need them to stick to your rules, it's great. And when you don't, it's not. I feel like at times the IBF lack some common sense. Like sometimes in the, you know, I mean, Saturday was a good example. I have no problem with a mandatory challenger that has really earned the right to this shot, getting his shot. But for me, there's a lot of guys in those rankings.

And, you know, you look on Saturday, Chidazudazian you know Boots had already beaten him you know even Michael Effert from Germany like being called as a mandatory to Art of Better BF these guys haven't necessarily been through a process where they've beaten elite guys to get their shot and I feel like that's how it should be so I can't always knock the IBF for sticking to their rules you know sometimes that's something that you don't always see in boxing but at the same time sometimes there's got to be a little bit of common sense to determine an opportunity to make bigger fights so like i said kind of depends what side of the fence you're on arrow you know if you've got the mandatory challenger you want them to stick to their rules and if you've

got the big name and you've got a fight you know a commercially worthless mandatory challenger it's not the best position to be next time we see boots 154 147 what do you reckon i think it's either a unification at 47 or a big fight at 54 my gut feeling is a lot of these guys will deplete themselves because they feel like they've got a physical edge once they step into the ring so you know you look at boots and how he looks on fight week he doesn't look overly strong but in the ring he might be 167 pounds i don't know 165 pounds whatever he is and there's kind of like a perception that that's a physical advantage for a fighter i actually disagree in most of my time in boxing i've seen the stronger fighter be the guy that's made weight really well and hasn't rehydrated to huge huge numbers and i actually when you see the size of you know here with liam paro right now and he stood next

to boots he's one division bigger than him and he was like he's huge i think he's the guy that's actually going to end up a middleweight and i actually think he'd be surprised with the the improvement in performance at 154 so i think that's a real um option for us next and again you know with everything going on with with golden boy and the 5v5 stuff i think that would be a classic fight for the 5v5. Do you think we ever see Boots versus Crawford at this point? Yes. Really? In the next how many years? Because I think it's very likely that Boots will fight Virgil Ortiz next.

Wow. If he beats Virgil Ortiz, which I believe he does, then I think his excellency will push to make boots against Crawford. You see, Terence Crawford really knows his boxing and he knows how difficult that fight is with boots. So he won financially rewarded. So when that fight becomes big enough, I actually think it will happen. But until then, he's going to have to put in better performances against better opposition to earn the right to have that big money fight against Terence Crawford.

You mentioned the 5v5 with Golden Boy. And recently, Frank Warren said it doesn't look like the Queensbury matchroom 5v5 is happening on February 22nd. Is there any chance we see it, matchroom Golden Boy, February 22nd, following Usyk Fury, that would be the next big Riyadh show? Is there any chance that happens this soon? No, I mean, the February 22nd card is, you know, being built at the moment, you know, with myself and Queensborough and Gold Star, and it has some Golden Boy fighters on there. It has some matchroom fighters on there. It has some Queensborough fighters on there. I'm not sure

whether you see the 5v5 on that day, but, you know, two of the proposed fights already are, you know, could be Jaron Ennis and Ortiz. And of course, Shakur Stevenson against Zepeda, which is already agreed in principle anyway. So I don't know how the structure looks. I honestly feel like, you know, this is something that we should have done quite a long time ago.

To be honest with you, this 5v5 against Golden Boy, we're on the same platform. There's some tremendous matchups. And, you know, Oscar does like to have a go at me most days. And I think it would be a lot of fun. So part of the, you know, the attraction of the 5v5 is the rivalry between promoters. And as far as our rivalry is concerned, it's pretty intense. And it's a matchup that I love the look of, to be honest with you.

I think there's so many great fights. Are we getting Dubois Parker on that card? Yeah, I mean, that's one for Queensbury, you know, Dubois' guy. But I think when you look at the options for Daniel Dubois, Joseph Parker is a guy that's fully earned that shot, you know, and he's beaten Wilder. He's beaten Zhang. Everybody knows him in the UK market. Everybody

knows him around the world. He's a tremendous heavyweight. And I think he's a brilliant fighter if he gets made. Going back to Saturday, Bam Rodriguez, incredible, blown away by the kid. He's unbelievable. I say kid, he's 24 24 so i'm not saying that to put him down but it's it's it's really remarkable the power that he possesses uh that was the type of performance like you're better than the guy you go out there and you just you just kind of dust him off um i had him on the show last week and i asked about the in a way fight and i know that's not on the horizon but that to me feels like the biggest fight for both of them given their weight class he said

three or so years away which was a bit of a bummer because i was hoping he'd say maybe a year or two away how likely do you think this is from happening in the next year or two i actually think the fight is closer than than that i mean i look at bam and i really feel like he's not going to be a super flyweight that long you know he's 24 years of age like you said you go in that guy's a former world champion he's just had a big win in australia against maloney he's a very good fighter and bam destroyed him like for me i think you're looking at the pound for pound number one in the sport over the next few years i think he's going to be there consistently you know the only thing that's going to beat bam in my opinion he's going too far through the divisions you see that quite a lot.

And obviously, the Inoue fight at Super Bantam is a huge step up against a fantastic pound-for-pound fighter. But what's going to happen is Bam wants to try and unify. You know, you've got the Chocolatito fight out there. And where are the next challenges come from? You know, the next challenge would be to move to Bantamweight, try and win a third division world title. And then you're one division away from naira and ue if he chooses to stay at 122 pounds that fight becomes a real big reality and you know in new way sits at number three in the pound for pound you know bam's five i see him him in a new way right there you know i think you're going to end up over the

next couple of years that's going to be one v2 pound for pound matchup. And it's just been an unbelievable fight, but Bam is a special, special fighter. And I'm so pleased he's getting the recognition he deserves now outside of the world of boxing as well. 24 years of age, you know, unified two division world champion, such a nice young man as well. And, um, just a savage in that ring, amazing performance. I know things are going great with your friends at Queensberry and Frank Warren, but be honest, you must have laughed. And I know it just didn't happen last week. After all the shots about, you know, you're not fighting on an app,

dead zone, here they are, you know, joining you. That must have been maybe a moral victory for you. I don't know. Maybe you send them a cheeky message as you know all this. I'm sure you knew well before, but that has to be some sort of validation right it's a validation for our decision five years ago i mean look when i made the the gamble with the zone i felt that streaming was the future of live sports i i had you know i i really believed in the concept of a global app for boxing the global home of boxing and we got you know it was so difficult people were taking

shots left right and center you know streaming an app what is this no one you know no one watching boxing on an app and what is it called the zone and you know and now you're seeing you know obviously queensbury what a fantastic addition but you're seeing every other promotional company in the world right now pitching to go on DAZN and I'm talking every major promotional company in the world so it has become the global home of boxing and you know it's not really a gloating on Frank or, you know, particularly guys like Leonard Elaby and those kind of guys. It just makes me go, yeah, you were right. You knew, you saw it. And, you know, this isn't something that all of a sudden we're coming out and saying, yeah, we like this.

You know, this streaming, it's great. I saw it five years ago. I made the move. And, you know, I'm really proud of what the zone have done. Still lots of improvements to make, but they're dedicated to the sport. You just don't see any major fights taking place outside of the platform and obviously the re-ad season collaboration has been brilliant for them and long may it continue the next big one of course is top rank and espn their deal up next summer would you be in favor

of top rank joining the zone yeah more the merrier i mean you know honestly like the better the product the better the offering to subscribers the more subscribers the zone are going to get the more subscribers the zone gets the more profitable the businesses the more profitable the businesses the more opportunities there are the bigger shows bigger budgets more shows and more subscribers, more exposure to our fighters. I mean, like, you know, I hate, you know, the thing, you know, I don't want the platform all to myself. We want to bring great fights together.

And that's why I said earlier about the Golden Boy stuff. It's crazy that that hasn't been done before. There's so many match-ups between the two companies and we're on the same platform. And now, you know, we're making fights with Queensborough all the time. You're going to see more and more match-ups with the Queensborough fights because there's no network politics now.

We're all on the same platform. And the more people we can bring together on the platform, the more chance there are to see those inter-promotional company match-ups, which is, you know, great for the sport. One of the biggest stories to watch, in my opinion, next year, as it pertains to this subject, is how involved Netflix will get into the world of combat sports. We know about their WWE deal, which starts January 1st, and we know about this Friday,

their first foray, so to speak, with Jake Paul versus Mike Tyson. We know about your documentary series that is coming up in 2025 with the team behind Drive to Survive, of course, Box to Box. And that's huge. That's great. We saw Top Rank do their own type of thing with ESPN Plus. What is your prediction?

Do you think Netflix just gets into these sort of one-offs? Or do you think there's a time where they do something similar to what they did with WWE, where it's, hey, we've now teamed up with x promotion and they're going to hold you know x amount of events per year on the platform yeah i don't i don't know i mean you never say never but i don't see a regular boxing schedule appearing on the platform i may be wrong as time progresses i

think these one-off big events on Netflix, you know, with the ability to cross-promote with shoulder programming, and you've seen that with the J4 Mike Tyson stuff, I think it really works. I mean, obviously they have a huge subscriber base and I'm sure the fight this weekend will do fantastic numbers for them.

And, you know, for us, our documentary series that launches next year is going to be a behind-the-scenes look of boxing boxing like Drive to Survive, which has revolutionized those sports. So that gives us and our fighters and matchroom a huge global audience to, you know, to showcase what we're doing in boxing and sport around the world. So I think they're going to be very important. I think I'm sure this weekend's been challenging for them and it will be until Sunday morning, but hopefully it can do good numbers. And again, like, you know, I want more platforms in boxing. You know, I want there to be more money

coming to the ecosystem of boxing. I want it to keep even our broadcaster on its toes. So, like, even them showing this fight, I think it's good for boxing. And the undercard, it's got some good fights on it. Obviously, Casey Taylor against Serrano. So it's going to be a big audience and big eyeballs on this ball. When I think of the rise of Mattroom boxing and Eddie Hearn, especially in the last 10 years, I think of two people that helped you get to where you are today in particular, and the ones who are closest to your heart, near and dear to your heart, AJ and Katie Taylor.

I feel like you have a special bond with them. My understanding is you will be in Dallas for her fight. But also, you know, you were so involved in the promotion of the first fight against Serrano, and it's a bit of a backseat for you this time. Is that difficult for you? No, no. I've never been one honestly like that when this

fight got offered to us and you know nikisa and mbp made a fantastic offer for katie taylor to fight amanda serrano there was absolutely no way in a million years that i was gonna let anybody deny her the opportunity to take this fight. Now, a little bit awkward with us because obviously we're exclusive and she's one of our fighters to DAZN. And I had to go to DAZN and say, look, I know this isn't ideal and you've invested a lot of money into Katie Taylor, but I'm not going to allow her not to take this fight.

This is the perfect fight for her. It's a huge amount of money. And as part of that agreement it's almost like you know i wasn't told to take a back seat but you know obviously i'm not involved in the show i don't have the greatest relationship in the world of mvp so my role will just be to be there to support katie you know this is she she's coming to the final chapters of her career and this is a massive fight for her. And, uh, you know, we've, we've promoted her since her professional debut. We continue to promote her today. We will do to the end of her career and we're very proud of her. And, you know, it's going to be a tough fight on Saturday on a big, big occasion.

Friday, by the way, it's a Friday night. Friday, sorry. Friday. Don't show up, yeah. By the way, one of my favorite things about that fight week and about that fight was the dynamic between you and Jake. The face-to-face that we did still lives on. It still gets clipped off till this day,

but also you two sitting ringside and cheering. And it was just so fun. We don't often see that. I know you just alluded to the relationship. Is there any path to getting back to that place? You don't have see that um i know you just alluded to the relationship is there any path to to getting back to that place you don't have to be the best of friends but i understand there's there's still the lawsuit from my side from that he's fighting on friday so obviously it's a bit different this time around yeah from my point of view you know i have absolutely no animosity

between you know with with jake or nikisa we've always done good business, you know, with Jake or Nikita. We've always done good business together. You know, we've had our issues, obviously, which will have to be resolved. But from a business perspective moving forward, I never let that kind of thing get in the way of opportunities for our fighters. And this is a great example. You know, it's easy for us to say,

no, we're not doing anything with MVP and Jake Ball. And I'm not letting katie fight on that i'll give her another fight and i'll do this no no that's the perfect fight the the package and the offer was fantastic you know the biggest payday of her career so far um and you know she's had some huge ones particularly the fight against chantelle cameron you know first time around and and even the serrano first fight, although it wasn't at the same level, you know, so this is right up there and this is the, this is the right fight for her. So for me, I don't, I don't, I'm long in the tooth with that.

Now I've been around a long time. I've dealt with all kinds of different people and I'm just relaxed to make sure that we do the right job for our fighters and we give them every opportunity to create legacy and lead the sport financially in the greatest shape possible. You're not really going to leave before the main event, are you? Yeah, I don't know. You're going to be there.

So you're going to be 60,000 people. You're going to watch it. You know, a lot of people ask my opinion and sometimes it gets me not into trouble, but obviously it can ruffle the feathers of the MVP guys. I don't really, I'm not looking to go out and talk about Jake War against Mike Tyson. I just get asked about it in every interview.

And I've always been straight with people. I've always been honest. I'm not going to brown those people. I'm not going to, I'm not calling for this fight to be banned. All I'm saying is, it's not my cup of tea. I grew up around boxing

since I was seven years old. Mike Tyson was probably one of my greatest heroes in sport. I just don't want to see him in the ring again at 58. That's it. And listen, commercially, I get it all.

It's going to do great numbers. People are going to make a lot of money. It's fine. Again, you're not going to see me with a pick card or whatever it's called outside the arena saying stop the fight stop the fight but it's just the world we live in today and a long time ago i made the decision probably cost me a lot of money to stay true to my passion for the sport and and move away from that kind of thing. And it just doesn't sit right with me. Again, I get it.

I wish everybody the best of luck. But I'm allowed to say, oh, I don't really want to see it. I don't want to see Mike Tyson in that fight. But a lot of people will see it. And I'm sure it will do great business. And I wish everybody the best of luck. Let's end on AJ, if we can. If you could look into your crystal ball,

when does he return and against who? He will either fight Daniel Dubois or Tyson Fury. The only two fights I see, he wanted to go ahead on February 22nd and fight Daniel Dubois and he just wouldn't have been 100%. He's still got a couple

of minor niggles from the fight. He can't start camp yet and he needs to now. he's going to fight February 22nd so you're going to see him around May or June time and I think you know he's desperate to really match Daniel Dubois but obviously Tyson Fury win or lose on December 21st it's going to be a fight that's going to be very difficult to remove yourself from you know those two have to meet before it's all over. And that could be next. And so when you say Tyson Fury, I thought you were saying, oh, Fury's going to lose and then it'll be easier to match up, you know, a loss versus... Not quite, win or lose. Really? I mean, listen, if he wins, all right, if he wins, absolutely fantastic. He can defend

his unified world championship against Anthony Joshua. If he loses, it's the last dance for both. So either way, it's compelling. I want Fury to win. I want Fury to be World Heavyweight Champion because that's what AJ wants is to try and become

a three-time World Heavyweight Champion. That's why he wants to rematch Dubois because there is a shot at the world title there. So if Fury can win and we can make the AJ fight, that would definitely be my preferred route.

But we'll see what happens December 21st. I know it's a lot of ifs, but London or Riyadh, does it have to be in London if it's Fury? Either. Either. I mean, look, it breaks all records in the spotlight. It's just, I mean, I can't even tell you. Two million pay-per-view buyers, obviously the sellout of Wembley, but obviously his excellency's involved and we'll want to make sure that a

fight like that could also land in Riyadh, maybe even two fights, who knows? And then they can dance off into the sunset and we can just go and, you know, sip a nice margarita on the beach and say, what a ride. Love it. Love the chats, Eddie. Thank you so much. Appreciate the time. Safe travels out there. Perhaps I'll see you in Dallas. And congrats on a great show this past weekend. Thanks, Eric. All right, there he is, Eddie Hearn, joining us, the head man over at Matchroom. What a time for them, and

what a time this weekend for one of their own. She's one of their own. Katie Taylor. She's one of their own. My third time watching her, and very, very excited to see this one. Obviously, watching her live, that is, in person. The first fight between her and Amanda Serrano at Madison Square Garden in 2022 was one of the greatest sporting events, certainly combat

sports events that I've ever witnessed. The half Irish, half Puerto Rican crowd was fantastic. That was amazing. The energy in the room, the energy in the building was incredible. Loved everything about it. So I can't wait to witness that. And there are some fun names on the card. Lucas Body, who had the big win over H2O Sylve back in July. Remember that vicious knockout on the Mike Perry, Jake Paul card? He is returning. Shadesha Green is returning. Mario Barrios returning as well. Winderson Nunes, who's somewhat of a Brazilian influencer

who has taken a liking to the sport of boxing, he is returning. By the way, speaking of heavyweights, what about this yesterday? I'm scrolling through the timeline and I stumble upon two of my favorite heavyweights in the world, two of my favorite people in the world as well.

Daniel Cormier, our good pal, with Action Bronson. Did you guys see this? Cormier and Bronson doing a little wrestling, doing a little workout. Look at these two behemoths. Look at that. The silverback Bronson. Pressing DC up again, looking for the underhooks. A little hand fighting. Reversal by DC. I mean, this is truly the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. Look how big Bronson is. I mean, this is truly the irresistible force meeting the immovable object.

Look how big Bronson is. I mean, he is a rock. And there's DC and the boys over at the Daniel Cormier Wrestling Club. And I do believe Bronson was performing in Northern California, I think Santa Cruz. And he was rocking a Gilroy wrestling t-shirt I did get actually a report that there were a couple of El Nari's t-shirts that of course were designed by the great Bam Bam Baklava in attendance this is what I was told I don't know if you guys saw any of that as you were watching but I did I did happen to see that.

And I can let you all know, ariahawani.com is the place where you can get all of those t-shirts. You can get them all right now. Still to come, of course, great stuff with Eddie Hearn. Yeah, there it is, hawani.com. Michael Chandler, going to be our first in-studio guest.

He'll join us at three o'clock live in studio right over here. I can't wait. Finally, we get to show off the new digs. Prior to that Bo Nickel, prior to that Stipe Miocic, you'll recall last week on the show, we had Valentina Shevchenko on. And I don't think that she was dismissive of Manon Fiorot. I don't think she was really disrespectful. She isn't really the call-out type, but she seems to have irked the Furo team.

I told you they reached out to me about the interview. And then I saw some tweets. I saw one from Mano Furo. I think we have it here. There it is. Bullet Valentina, stop making people wait. Let's do it soon enough so I can send you to retirement and move on. Which I don't think people are really waiting. I mean, her last fight was in September, right? So I don't think that's that long of a wait. Then I saw a response from Valentina Shevchenko. You lose, you retire.

Deal? Ill-mannered first grader. Damn. Valentina with them fighting words and i think there was another one was there another one yeah there it is deal i'll take you seriously when you sign the contract now this is one of those is there actually a contract or is it just like your classic sign the contract fighting words and then she says damn teacher's pet. And then Valentina weighs in once again and says, ask me nicely. I mean, this is a little heated here between the two.

Is it cap or no cap, though? Is it just selling the fight or is it legit? Whose fantasy football score is that at the top of the picture? Take a guess. Not Pizzi. Whose fantasy football score is that? What does it say? It looks like they're winning 108.62 to 91.34.

Shout out to Bijan Dijan, Jordan says. So I guess that's his. What is Bijan Dijan? I guess that's his fantasy. No, I know. But what does that even mean? Bijan Robinson. Dijan is like a mustard.

Dijan mustard. So I guess. Does he own a mustard company? Oh, is like a mustard So I guess Does he own a mustard company? Oh he owns a mustard company Can I tell you the most surprising thing about that photo It wasn't the fantasy thing This is why initially I thought it came from pizza I think I know where you're going Can we put it back up there

Real quick On Air Jordan uses the 24 hour clock 2101 how European of you Real quick, yeah. On Air Jordan uses the 24-hour clock? Military time. 21.01? How European of you. Yeah, I think he was doing it in honor of Veterans Day. Oh.

Well, like yesterday, I was like, what time are you getting in? He's like, 0800. Well, okay, that's one thing, but that's very European. He's a man of culture. I respect it. He eats Dijon. Yeah, good for him. Well done.

All right. Let us move along and say hello to our next guest. So excited. What a great honor on this Monday to have our next guest on. It has been a while since we last spoke to him. I believe it was March of 2023, the Monday after Jon Jones' win against Cyril Gann. In five days' time, he will be headlining the world's most famous arena, Madison Square Garden, the Mecca.

He is the most decorated heavyweight champion. Can I pull this up real quick? I mean, listen to this resume right here. It's actually remarkable. Just for you new kids, you know, new kids to the game. Two-time heavyweight champion. Most heavyweight title fight wins, six. Most consecutive UFC heavyweight title defense is three.

Most fight night bonuses in heavyweight history, nine. Wins over Daniel Cormier, Francis Ngannou, Junior Dos Santos, Alistair Overeem for Reese Overdome, Andre Arlovsky, Mark Hunt, Phil DeFries, and Roy Nelson. He attempts to add John Jones to that list on Saturday. He is the pride of Cleveland, the pride of Ohio. He's from the land till he dies. He is Stipe Miocic. Is he there?

There he is. What's up, brother? Stipe, we're back, baby. What's up brother steve a we're back baby what's up babe did you miss me of course i missed you i know you did yeah it's so good to see you it's so good to see you uh this feels like a treat you're back in our lives five days away uh true or false you told your manager lloyd i'm not flying new york i'm not kicking off fight week unless I talk to Ariel. Is that true? 100%.

Oh, okay. When do you fly out? I think tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow at noon, I think. I don't know. Yeah. I took my itinerary, but I think it's like noon tomorrow. How do you not know?

Don't worry about it until later tonight. I got packed ready to go, so I'm not going to. I know it's like noon, so I'm not worried. Like, I'm good. I get there early anyway. Are you one of those guys who has someone pack for you? No, no, I pack myself. My wife makes sure I don't pack anything dumb or make sure everything matches right.

Oh, wow. She has to like oversee everything and just sign off on it? Kind of, yeah. it's a good thing Yeah I mean what's wrong with that you're about to fight You should be comfortable Oh yeah I know but you know She wants me to dress well

No I understand that When you say she makes sure that I don't pack anything dumb What would be considered dumb Well no I'm not dumb Like you know just sweatpants and a hoodie Got it Good clothes to wear Not like toys or something like that no no no no no i'll bring my nintendo switch that's about it oh you're a switch guy yeah i used to have a games to uh

um unit to like a little briefcase with a screen and all that. I thought maybe you'd be like a PS5 and Xbox, like just higher quality graphics. No, I do. I have both. But just to travel, it's easier with the... Yeah. And it's not that long of a flight, you know what I'm saying? I'll be doing a lot of things, so I won't be able to have time to bring my portable monitor with me.

So I'm just going to bring a Switch, which is great. What are you playing? I don't know right now. I'm just using new games Switch which is great. What are you playing? Uh I don't know right now I'm still using new games out but I play Zelda a lot um that's the Breath of the Wild I think is that the new one that came out one of Zelda ones I came out and played. Not sports? No. Football, Madden? Nah I suck. Yeah Yeah. Well, you're very good at fighting. And I was wondering, because I know one thing you don't love are, like, the media obligations, the interviews. I mean, you'd be happy just showing up, no press conference, no nothing, just let me fight, right?

Yeah, I would love it. That would be the dream. How much, so, like, I say we missed you and you're so excited to fight all that stuff. How much did you not miss all of this? Um, I mean, it's part of the game, you know, it took me a while to, you know, understand that, you know, it's needed and I, I, I'm, you know, I'm good with it now. Is it, is it? It still sucks.

I just, just like anything, I mean, like you've been doing something else right now and there's, there's, it's not like, it's like going home and always telling me to cut the grass or, you know, do something I don't want to do, so I'll try, you know, procrastinate. It's my work. I can't procrastinate this. I have to do it. Sure. Wow, you put this up there with cutting the grass, huh? Oh, yeah. Root Canal

interviews. Oof. Stuff like that. I've had Root Canal a lot, so let's go with Root Canal. None of them, they suck ass, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was wondering maybe because you've been out of the limelight for so long, maybe you kind of missed it. Like, oh, you know what? This is actually kind of fun. No, I do.

I mean, because, you know, it's fight week now. Get ready. I'm getting juiced up. Yeah. It was actually a year ago today that you were supposed to fight john jones at madison square garden yeah it was uh that was gotta wait a little longer no big deal we're here now do you remember what it was like when you got the phone call that he was out yeah i remember i didn't get the phone call till the next morning i just got i uh

went to bed around like 11 11 30 got a text about an hour later and my my phone vibrating and i hear it again i'm like oh that's not good i rolled over and grabbed my glasses i could barely read it i'm like it was dark i'm like oh uh i just rolled over i didn't tell my wife i just rolled over like i remember back then i was just oh it was heartbreaking but i mean it's part of the game we all get hurt yeah uh that's actually quite bold because uh if i get a text that will like affect me emotionally in the middle of the night no chance i could fall back to sleep you were able to go back to sleep after that i think so i don't remember i don't know i

maybe i didn't i maybe i thought about it for a while i don't remember it was a year ago yeah but i wasn't happy you know because you do all the hard work. We all been there. Did you ever expect that it would be a full year almost exactly to the day that the fight materializes? No, I was just waiting. Just having a share.

As far as your body is concerned, that was just a couple weeks before the fight, if my memory serves me correct. It was like 10 days so you're literally almost there you're peaking yeah and now you have to almost there yeah and now you have to pull back and wait a whole year so how do you then like reverse that and then rev it back up that's a science in its own right yeah well we went on vacation like really three days later. That was nice. It was much needed. Yeah, then, you know, just get your mind right again,

let your body heal a little up, and get back in the gym. Is it also weird because you have no outlet to release everything that you, like, you just, like, you're that close, and then it's just nothing. You know what I mean? I just try to keep my mind right. You know, I'm a wonderful wife and two beautiful kids and, you know, they keep me crazy and going.

So that's a really good thing about it much. I have to be honest with you, Stipe. I know there's a lot of new fans to the sport. I don't like, I don't like the disrespect. It gets undermined. It's a little bit,

I find it. Come on. It's disrespectful. You don't think it's disrespectful? I don't care. You know what I'm talking about, right? I feel like people are talking know what I'm talking about, right? I feel like people are talking about you like you're some jobber.

Whatever. I mean, listen, it's been like that my whole career. I always want people to shit on me. We used to by now. You feel like people were shitting on you when you were at the top? Well, I mean, I don't know. I just never, I don't really care, honestly. I don't really care.

It bothers me. I'm sure it bothers your wife. Does she look at this stuff? I don't know. We talk about it here and there, but we don't really care, honestly. I don't really care. It bothers me. I'm sure it bothers your wife. Does she look at this stuff? I don't know. We talk about it here and there, but we have so much other things going on in our life that you can't wait about the distraction outside. Sure.

On the show recently, I was trying to explain to people why this is a 50-50 fight. I think this is a coin flip fight. Did you see this clip of me talking about it? No. Can I play it for you? Sure. All right, here it is.

Here's me talking about Stipe No. Can I play it for you? Sure. Alright, here it is. Here's me talking about Stipe and his chances going into Saturday. I love the chaos theory of Stipe Miocic winning this fight because it does feel like no one's giving him a chance. You're kind of selling me on just blindly packing Stipe. By the way, I'm glad. Yeah, you guys keep

making all these plans, but Stipe's got something else up his sleeve. It's a coin flip fight. It's a 50-50 fight, if you ask me. Wow, man. I really do believe that. Who would have known? This chat must have. I really do believe that.

What did he say? Listen, I did my due diligence. We need to know what he said. I said, listen, I need to know what's going on here. And all the things I heard were very interesting. And I just thought, this guy's not here to take part. He's not here to just be a part of the heavyweight sweepstakes and be like, oh yeah, here John, you

can fight me. Let's be honest. They thought that this was a winnable matchup and you know what really got me going on this? Going through the footage of the 2020 UFC 2020 and just seeing Prime Stipe and seeing how freaking mad he was going into that

fight it was a different the guy who fought Francis was a little bit different and obviously older it was a few years later and it was pandemic and it was apex I think we see motivated Stipe I think we see superhero Stipe I think we see fireman uh first responder Stipe who wants to go out as as the most decorated heavyweight champion of all time. I mean, the disrespect is palpable. What do you think of that, Stipe? What do you think of what I said? I turned my back. It means a lot. Yeah. Did I say anything that's wrong or inaccurate? No, man. I'm ready. I wish I was Saturday ready. Yeah. You've not used any of that as motivation, as an engine to remind everyone who you are, the greatest and most decorated heavyweight champion of all time?

I always use it, man. I use that fuel. Keep talking shit about me. Keep talking me. I just use that as fire. It just fires me up every time. And you're the firefighter. So you could use it as fire and then extinguish it.

How about that? Exactly. Look at that. We did it. That was good. I like that. Look at that photo right there. Look at that, man. When is this from? Is this from when you first beat Fabricio? Boom. Exactly. Look at that. We did it. That was good. I like that. Look at that photo right there. Look at that, man.

When is this from? Is this from when you first beat Fabricio? Yeah. Look at your hair. Do you have to coiff it like that when you're working as a firefighter? No. No, I just have it nice. I usually wear a hat.

You usually wear a hat. That was a great day. That must have been a proud day. It was a fun day. When's the last time they made you clean the toilets uh i mean i clean every time you know i'm a new station now this is the new city i worked for for the last couple years and i mean i clean them every day you know we all take turns look at that guy that was the best wait what's what's the new station uh it's a city south west of uh cleveland oh what's like what's the difference like why are's a city south west of Cleveland.

Oh, what's the difference? Like, why are you there now? Oh, it's full-time. Oh, now you're full-time. Oh, it's part-time. Yeah, part-time. You don't have benefits and all that stuff. So if you're full-time,

you're in a different firehouse? No, no, no, no. It's a different city. I took the test, and I did well on the test, and I got hired. Oh, wow. When did that happen? Two and a half years ago.

Okay. And how does it work with the schedule now? How did you balance it all out as you're full-time for the first time fighting for the heavyweight title? We work one day on, two days off. But I also have a lot of vacation time and holiday picks and personal days. And luckily, no one took days off in November and October so I took a lot of days off and then also uh um if I someone if I couldn't get a day off I would trade with someone so often you know I'll make it up or I already made it up with them so

like if someone worked for me on my day I was supposed to work I'll work one of their days okay did you feel like did you feel like your boys were were willing and going out of their way to help you because this is a very unique thing? Yeah, no, they all came out there like, what do you need? Let us know. We got you. Like, they're awesome, dude. They're awesome. And they're like, whatever you need to do, we got you. You need something covered, we'll cover you. Just, you know, make sure you can do it right. When was the last time you worked a full shift?

Two weeks ago okay so did you have to did you have to like you know cut it off so that you can be fully switched on here no i mean i could i could have worked i was supposed to work um let's see it's saturday i could work uh last saturday but you know uh good day off okay are any of these shifts 24 hours? They're all 24. Wow. How do you stay up? Well, we do go to bed because we have to go to bed, but if you get calls in the middle of the night, that's part of the job.

Well, how many hours of sleep do you usually get on a 24-hour shift? It just depends. you know um you know we you know from we started seven uh seven o'clock and then you know we we have like a nine to five we're like nine five where we say nine to three thirty we have to do things around the station either it's uh you know um these uh calls uh training um kind of just depends we have stuff going on throughout the day or stuff around the city uh we have stuff to do and then after 3 30 you know it's kind of on your own time work out and all that stuff and and then you go to bed and then yeah and then you cause another night you cause another night it's probably some nights you're lucky you know we don't we don't get calls but sometimes it doesn't happen most of the time but it is what it is as you um were

kind of a little bit out of the limelight over the last uh couple years but now ramping up and more in the limelight because of this high profile fight. Did you notice more people being like, holy shit, steep it. What's up? Uh,

yeah. Yeah. Not even before that, you know, it's funny. A lot of the, uh, older folks,

uh, to the entry days, you know, like sixties or older, it was funny. Like, Oh, it's uptown.

That's crazy. It was cool. But I can, they all support me and it's great. True or false, have you ever gotten a cat out of a tree? That is false. Never? Not once? Wow.

We actually had some cats. I think they got some ducks fell into a sewer drain and they had to go to the ducks. I wasn't part of that. That was the extent of it. That was a big mission. I don't part of that. Okay. Yeah. That was like the extent of it. That was a big mission. I guess, yeah. I don't know if I was on hired yet or not.

Well, maybe I was. I don't remember, but yeah. Do you have vacation planned after this fight? I think I have like a day or two after the fight, so I want to go back until the end of the week. Okay. The reason I ask that is like, is it possible you win the heavyweight title again on Saturday and you're back there on Monday?

Well, when I win, I win the title. No, I won't be back until Monday. I'll probably be back, I think, Thursday or Sunday. Okay. That's remarkable. Like, not just a visit, to actually, like, be a fireman. Yeah, after work, yes. That is incredible.

Put my pants on, my college shirt, ready to go. No one cares, basically. They're like, yeah, great, now get back to work. Yeah, we got stuff to do. Well done. Can I ask, yesterday, John tweeted about you, and it's been, I think, fairly civil between the two of you, but I guess he didn't like something that you said in the countdown show.

Do you know what I'm talking about? No. I think in the countdown show, you said something to the two of you, but I guess he didn't like something that you said in the countdown show. Do you know what I'm talking about? No. I think in the countdown show, you said something to the effect of, and I honestly, it went over my head. You said something to the effect of like, bring it on, bitch. Oh, yeah.

I was just, he was, yeah, he was just talking to me. I was talking to him. Bring it on. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what I was trying to say. I mean, you know, he's a threat, you know?

Yeah, and so he tweeted saying that, like, you shouldn't have called him bitch, that that was, I think, here it is, hiring black fighters to mimic me will not help you,

Stipe, and you shouldn't have called me a bitch. The disrespect wasn't necessary. Let's play. Okay, I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to disrespect you in any ways. I was just,

you know, I'm just, the moment, he's the moment. I mean, I'm sorry. I don't know. What'd you make of that first line? what's that?

it's a bit weird like that you're hiring black fighters to mimic him I didn't hire anyone or I think he's talking about training partners or something like that

like it doesn't seem like you're doing it specifically because of their skin color you're just trying to get training partners to help you prepare for him that's the way I would take it yeah I I don't know I you know that's not what you're supposed trying to get training partners to help you prepare for him that's the way i would take it yeah i i don't know i mean there's no way you're supposed to

do when you fight someone you get someone trying to make i don't know i don't know whatever it is what it is i mean i'm not gonna worry about it i get it i get it you two couldn't be more different as as people how do you feel about John? John Jones, you know, one of the best of all time. Well, the reason I asked that is because I don't think you would be necessarily best friends, but we do have to say he was the one campaigning for this fight to happen.

So in a way there, there, there's a, there's a bond there, right? Yeah. I mean, I appreciate everything.

You know, like I said, I'm sorry to disrespect him. It was, I don't know. He's getting, Like I said, I'm sorry to disrespect him. I was trying to be a dick. You know? I don't know. He's getting a lot of heat. People are calling him a duck

because of the whole Tom Aspinall thing. But the reason I was saying that stuff that I showed you was you could screw up all those plans. When you win on Saturday, I don't want to make that mistake twice. I think you were going to chop my head off via the... When you win Saturday, that that's not a story anymore.

And it's been the story the whole time. You surely you'll relish that as well, right? I know you're going to be happy. You don't really care about that stuff, but like to be the spoiler has got to be a little bit nice and sweet. No, it's always nice.

Yes. He says he is not interested in fighting him. He said this as, as recently as last week and everyone lost their shit. Could I ask you if you win, are you interested in fighting him. He said this as recently as last week, and everyone lost their shit. Could I ask you, if you win, are you interested in fighting him? When you win? Who's it?

Tom Aspinall. I mean, right now I'm worried about Jon Jon. It's all I care about. I don't really, I'm worried about anything else. It's all I'm worried about. My focus is on Jon. I know, you don't like those questions, right? No.

How come? Can I ask? Because I try to focus on what I'm doing. No, I know. I get it. Because on what I'm doing. No, I know. I get it. Because he's the backup fighter. So, I mean, there's a chance you know, crazy that he was, that's why he fought you know, a year ago. So, he's sort of a part of the story in a way.

Well, I mean, yeah. God forbid something happens, I got a fight. I got a fight. I don't have to do this, but I'm not worried about like, after, I'm not worried about anything about after the fight. I'm worried about John Jones right now. Got it. Can I ask, are you impressed with him? Have you watched any of his fights? Yeah, he's tough. He's a good boy.

He can move, can hit hard, you know, as well. Do you watch MMA? Like, since you've, you don't watch at all. I've never watched it. I mean, I'll listen to him fight. I'll watch video and stuff like that. I'll film and watch hisances and stuff like that, you know, game planning. But besides that, I really don't watch fights.

Even if it's like UFC 300, like a super duper event, you're not watching it? No. Is it because you don't enjoy it or it's because it's like work for you? No, I just, I think I have other things going on. So I'm just like, yeah. Couldn't care less. Yeah. I'm tired. I'm in bed already. Was there a time where you did watch? I go to one of my friends when you fight, you know.

Yeah. Like when you're in a winery or a blonde pair, one of my boys, something like that, that I know real well. Was there a time where you did watch? No. I mean, I do watch, but I don't go out on the way. It's like my wife watches a fight or something like that.

She's like, we need to fight this fight or I'm really into it. You know, I really haven't much. Yeah, like even I think you were at the Jones-Gunn fight, but I think it was there to kind of set it up. Like we don't see you just as a guest fighter sitting in the front row at these events. You couldn't care less. Yeah, I mean, they're cool. They're fun.

It's great. It's a great experience. Good to meet the fans and stuff like that. You know, they're the ones that make the sport but i mean yeah if i don't have to go i won't go yeah yeah i i would imagine i mean especially these days because they're doing so well and i know you're somewhat of like a bandwagon fan you're probably a big cavaliers fan now because they're they're unbeaten right yeah i mean of course i'm bad way you know because how are your raptors doing you see you know you always up the Raptors. I'm not a Raptors fan. I'm from Canada, but I'm not an actual

Raptors fan. I'm a Knicks fan. Actually, the arena that you're going to be fighting in on Saturday. How are they doing? They're not doing great. They're 4-5. Actually, the Cavs beat them a couple weeks ago. Sorry about that. The Browns aren't doing that good, and the Guardians didn't do that great. They made the playoffs,

but the MS team lost payroll, but whatever. Yeah. Brown's kind of tough right now. Yeah, that was a rough one. Everything that goes wrong is going wrong. So we'll see what happens. You do watch those games? I do.

Yeah. What's the difference? Just because you enjoy watching sports, like team sports, more than fighting? No, I just, you know, I'm a Cleveland guy and I love my Cleveland sports. You know, I watch the Browns game or Indy Guardians or the Caps.

I just do whatever. I love doing it. I love watching them. I try to support them as much as I can. I mean, I watch them all the time. If I can't, I will. Did you take batting practice this summer? No.

First pitch? Yeah, I did first pitch yeah actually I got to bring my kids there for the first time they loved it they got spoiled and I'm like this is not how it's supposed to be every time guys you don't get to run around the field and do what you want yeah and you know they loved it like I was so happy they were they enjoyed it they loved it so much and uh yeah it was uh that was awesome what a fun time uh are they are they into sports i know they're a little bit young but like can you see that they're into it they are my uh my daughter she definitely is just i just don't know how to like figure out what sport she wants she likes doing everything but i just don't know how to i'll be like a helicopter dad make her do something she doesn't want issues I want to do so but we do sports all the time and I mean we do

like yesterday we were you know playing soccer the other day we were doing tennis or whatever and then my son he's just yeah he's a jock he definitely loves sports he runs around does everything he goes kamikaze off the couch or something he's crazy and he you know

he loves sports he does he did band practice yesterday in the basement had a had a little, had a little ball and tease. He drips them off the tee. How old is your, how old is your daughter? She's six. My son's three. Three. So is this, uh, correct me if I'm wrong. Was your son born when you last fought? No, he wasn't born yet. He was born after. Wow. And your daughter obviously was a lot younger. Do they have any sort of idea what you're doing this weekend? Like, can they grasp it? Yeah, definitely.

They definitely, they know what's going on. Well, everyone in my daughter's school knows, like, I'm her dad. They're like, oh, yeah, your dad's fighting. I'm like, I don't see anything. They're staying. We're keeping them home, though, just because, you know, it would be a lot easier. I want them in a controlled environment. Sure, sure.

But, yeah, my son, you know, I think he knows, but I don't try to, like, show them what I do, but my daughter had no choice. She's like, everyone's talking to her about it. How does she react to that? No, she's like, yeah, it's so cool. I don't like you. I don't want to see you fight. I'm like, yeah, cool. Totally, I bet.

So I just kind of played it off. Like, yeah, you know, sometime I'm going to work this weekend. She's like, okay. And not tell you I'm going to New York because she'll kill me if I went. And she didn't go. Have they ever been here? No. Oh, wow.

But yeah, it's probably best to keep it a business trip. Yeah, I mean, I would love to be here, but there's just a lot going on. A lot of moving pieces. And just, I want my wife to relax too because she's gonna be here and it's funny to relax and not worry about the kids and just worry about you know what you gotta do and just relax what i said and i'll leave you i'll leave you to it in like two minutes but what i said in that clip about um you know the 2020 steep a compared to you know a couple years later was there anything to that i was the reason i brought that up, you know, a couple of years later. Was there anything to that? I was, the reason I brought that up was I was doing a deep dive on Francis Ngannou,

who of course you know well, and I'm not going to ask you about fighting him again, because I know you've already talked about that. But man, I was going through a lot of that press conference stuff before and after that fight in Boston. And like you were, the fire that you had when you were talking, like, you know, I know there was stuff going on behind the scenes but you were so you were so switched on that I was like I feel like maybe apex fights pandemic like there just wasn't anything there and I know you don't necessarily do it for the buzz or the hoopla or the fans but I feel like this time off could be a

great thing for you your body's rested he hasn't you know a lot of people talk about your layoff he's only fought one more time than you in this period of time. So it's not like, you know, it's that big of a difference. He's fighting five times. But I feel like there's a chance

we're going to see that old Stipe back in this fight on Saturday, the 2020 Stipe. Am I right in what I'm saying? The difference between that guy and the one a few years later? No, I'm ready, dude.

I can't wait. You have no idea. When you go to bed at night, when you think about the fight, can I just ask, how do you see it unfolding? Me winning, walking out with a belt, I knew. I mean, there's nothing new. But is there like a path? Is there like an outcome that continues to come up?

I mean, yeah, I mean, beating him. I mean, every situation, you know, knockout, submission, the decision, I don't really care. I'm going to win this fight. There is a theory that can be made that, you know, knockout submission, the decision, I don't really care. I'm going to win this fight. There is a theory that can be made that, you know,

he hasn't fought that much. The fight against Gunn was short, but prior to that, he was starting to look very beatable in his last three light heavyweight fights.

Do you subscribe to that theory? Yeah, I'm going to do what I do. I'm going to beat him on my terms. Okay,

last question, all right? I have to ask it. Don't get mad at me. When you win on Saturday, is there a chance it's your last fight? Don't tell me. Don't tell me you don't.

You have to know the answer. At least tell me you know the answer, but won't tell me. I can't tell you that. Really? I feel like you know the answer. You just don't want to tell us, which I respect.

I respect. Maybe. Maybe not. Yeah? I feel like you know the answer. You just don't want to tell us, which I respect. I respect. Maybe. Maybe not. Yeah. I've almost got it. You know the answer to this question, but you're going to keep the cards close to your vest. Is that fair?

Always. Always. Yep. All right. Well, I love it. It's good to have you back in our lives, Stipe. Good luck to you on Saturday.

Thank you for doing this. I know you'd rather do anything else in the world, but we do appreciate it very much and wishing you the best this weekend. No problem. Thanks for having me on, brother. All right, there he is. The great Stipe Miocic,

the most decorated heavyweight champion of all time, two-time UFC heavyweight champion, most heavyweight title fights, victories, six, most consecutive UFC heavyweight title defenses, three, most fight night bonuses in heavyweight history, nine. By the way, if Stipe wins on Saturday, he will be just the fourth

champion in UFC history to be over 40 years old. Daniel Cormier, 40. Glover Teixeira, 42. Daniel Cormier, 40. Glover Teixeira, 42. Randy Couture, 44. Interesting.

Heavyweight, light heavyweight, heavyweight. Four over 40? Hey. Look at the merch going. Dancing in the moonlight, everybody feeling

what a guy that's Z-Pay. You know, New York Rick, we've never really talked about, or can I ask you about this or no? Ask about what? Didn't you kind of like work behind the scenes with Stipe? Oh, boy. No? What you see is what you get.

Oh, yeah. No, but I'm just saying he is a sweetheart of a guy. Yeah, well, I don't think that's ever in question. It is just what you just experienced right it is very actually i actually thought that was one of the better versions of stipe sure i'm being honest he is very difficult to what you have to what you have to respect about stipe miocic is he is extremely singularly focused yeah cares about showing up to the fight and fighting he doesn't watch the fights outside of that he doesn't care about the other parts of it even the trash talk he's apologizing for something that i think may have been overblown by john jones just to motivate himself and that is

what you get from stipe miyajic like he he wants to fight and he does not care about the other parts of it and you know what like as somebody who has in recent years gotten so much better about prioritizing things in my life and trying to cut out the fat and not do things that are going to be a waste of my time, he might have it right. Now, does that help in a game where the promotion is to, where the

business is to promote things? Not so much, but he's, if not the greatest, one of the greatest heavyweights ever, so you just have to. Oh, as far as UFC history is concerned, it's hard to argue

with his resume. Sure, sure. I'm with you on that, but like, it's not, you know, Fedor. There are. Oh, you're saying

heavyweight period. Heavyweight period. Yeah. To me, it probably comes to, I'm going off top of my head right now. Fedor,

Stipe, Francis. Nog, Crow Cop. Fedor, Stipe, Francis. Nog, Krokop. Nog, Krokop, Kane. Kane is hard because the longevity is not there, but man, at his apex. DC would have been on that list, but he moved down to 205.

Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, Verdum is in there But maybe a notch below We said Nog We said Crow Cop Josh Barnett in that mix as well I understand Stipe Has custom shorts

I just saw this What do we got? I haven't seen these I saw the note that he has custom shorts. What are they? What? There they are. Oh, okay.

The debut. Initially, I thought it was just black, but I see it's the Croatian check, right? Yeah, checkerboard. Could we have not gotten the, ooh, it's not bad. That's not bad. They look kind of like the Reebok shorts.

Well, initially, I just thought, I actually thought you were joking initially. I thought it was because of the lighting in here. I thought they were just black. Yeah, there's not a ton going on. Chandler got custom shorts as well. They're similar, just American flag. Very Gaethje-esque from the UFC 300 fight.

You know, I was going to say, if he had the red and white Croatian, that'd be sick. Like Mirko back in the day.ian. Yeah, that'd be sick. Like Mirko back in the day. Oh my God, that'd be something. Charles Oliveira got some. Oh yeah? Didn't love them at first.

Now? I actually don't have pictures, but. I thought you were sending me up. Yeah, no. Should have brought them all in. I mean, that's just the production error on my part. But I think all the colors on them represent the favelas of Brazil,

which makes it cooler. Oh, that's favelas of Brazil Which makes it cooler Who's telling you this Intel? Who's telling you that? You just looked at it and you're like There's shorts analyzers out there Analyzing all the shorts that come out I thought you looked at it and were like I said what the hell are these colors at first

Because Charles is so synonymous with the yellow and the green of Brazil These are like red, yellow And blue, I mean this is a huge fumble on my part Not having No, I mean it sounds great Can you tell us more about it? I mean you got a computer in front of you You could just, you know, is it Charles Lowe

Quick look up there or something Alright, well maybe one day we'll see those In about 30 minutes time I wanted to ask, Rick, did you get my text? I'm sorry, but Rick... Rick's running around right now. Okay, I just wanted to know. Putting out fires.

Is everything okay? Everything's great. Putting out fires. All right, well, in 30 minutes, we are going to be joined in studio by the great Michael Chandler. Iron. Michael Chandler.

Iron? Iron! No, no, no. Iron. Now it it's gonna fuck me up oh come on your own words are gonna fuck you up yeah that's a you problem i earn iron all right we'll keep working on it we'll keep um do me a favor the board that you use the iron on what do you call that oh the iron board um but like it has an ing in it so it's the uh oh man the ironing board i love this yeah it almost sounded like you said the irony board no no not at all uh i do love that we're getting the return of bo nickel what a star he is becoming what an absolute stud and this feels like a big step up this feels

like the appropriate step up in his career we last saw him in april he returns this saturday fighting for the very first time at madison square garden as a pro mixed martial artist and he's kind enough to join us the pride of penn state hello mr bow nickel how are you doing well ariel thanks for having me on man appreciate it it's great to talk to you uh have you ever you know i i'm the first to to admit i'm not a wrestling aficionado I'm trying I'm trying I'm trying to get in there I get a little of this and that have you ever competed at MSG in wrestling or in any other competition yeah I actually did once um so my freshman year of college was MSG and uh unfortunately that was the one that I didn't win.

Oh, no. So I'll get a little bit of redemption. So I'm excited. Did that come to mind when you got this? Did you say like, oh, this is my chance to right the wrong? Like, do you think of those things? A hundred percent. Yeah, for sure. You know, it was something that when I was wrestling, it was kind of a bummer because I felt like i'd probably never get to compete there again um but then as soon as i transitioned over to mma then it was something that was on my mind for sure i was like oh nice i get to uh get some redemption back there so that was 2016 yes sir 2016 20 so what happened who uh can you tell us about because 2017 2017, 18, and 19, you won back-to-back-to-back

freaking stud of a career, but what happened in 16? You know, it was just one that got away from me. I was wrestling a guy from Ohio State, really tough wrestler, great competitor, and yeah, it was

got my butt whooped. Yeah, and where is he now? Where's that guy now? So his name is Miles Martin. He competed for a while. He was a very good college wrestler, competed internationally for a little bit. And I think as far as I know, he's in Florida doing some work in construction, something like that.

But yeah, wish him the best. We wrestled, I think, at least a dozen times throughout our career. And yeah yeah he got me on that one and what is it like if you if you competed 12 times 11 and 1 is your record against him 10 and 2 what happened the second time bo i'm not used to you losing anything so he was he was two of my three collegiate losses um so i don't really lose much obviously but yeah he was just the next best guy and uh you know we had a lot of battles but it was it was fun i i enjoyed having a rival of sorts

you know some people say it was a rivalry some people say it wasn't because obviously it's a little lopsided but in my mind he was always my my rival first time for you fighting as a pro in the ufc outside of Vegas. Does this feel different? Does this feel fresh? How do you feel about this? I'm feeling great. I'm excited. This is going to be fun. The only thing I'm not that excited about is that I'm probably going to fight at 11 p.m. So, you know, it's my bedtime usually. And actually, even earlier than that, I usually go to bed 10, 10, 30. So I'm having to adjust. But it's going to be fun. There's gonna be a lot of energy. And I think that given the proximity to Pennsylvania, I'm gonna have a lot of fans. So you know, that's something I'm really excited about. I'm expecting a big turnout for, you know, my fans. Considering you, you say you usually go to bed 10, 1030. Have you been changing your sleep schedule to train closer to when you'll be fighting yeah i'm

adjusting it you know this week or this past week there's been uh some adjustments and stuff but you never want to do something for the first time on fight night so i feel uh well prepared and you know i'm making the adjustment i do believe correct me if i'm wrong this will be your first fight as a father right with with your with your baby. Am I right about that? Or was he, was she born, is it a boy or girl? Sorry. Boy. Yeah, he was born last December. So I fought once, but this will be the first one he, oh, that's so cute. Nice picture. That's an amazing picture. Yeah, that's great. This will be the first fight that he's actually, he's not coming to the venue, but he'll be in New York with me. Oh, wow. Okay. So we were just talking to Stipe, a six-year-old, three-year-old, and he said,

you know, everyone has a different mentality, but easier to keep them at home. Why do you want to bring your son? You know, it's really more just like my wife and the rest of my family really want to come. So he's going to be back at the Airbnb with my mother-in-law while I'm fighting because everybody else wants to be there and stuff. But yeah, I mean, for me, what I do, I don't really like to switch up the mentality and try to become a different person to go fight.

I'm just the same person all the time. And I'm a family guy and I love spending time with those people. So I'm going to do the same thing all the way up until my fight. It's just another day for me. When I brought you on, I said, I think this is a step up for you and an appropriate step up. Do you agree with that? This feels like the first like real big name that you have fought very early on in your career.

Do you agree with that sentiment? Yeah, I agree with that. I think that of course, a lot of people know Paul Craig and he's had some really big wins in his career and he's a dangerous opponent. You know, he's finished guys that have been champions and have fought for the belt. So, you know, this is definitely the most dangerous fight I've had up to this point and a big step up, but I feel prepared and ready to, you know, just continue to build my reputation. When was your, uh, well, excuse me, what was your reaction when you found out that they wanted you to fight him next?

I said, let's do it. Let's go. I'm ready to go. And I felt like that's a, you know, that's what I want to want to do. I want to have step up in competition every single time I fight, but like this was a step up in an appropriate one. uh it just gives me a chance to like I said continue to build my reputation test my skills and improve as a fighter overall what I love so much about this matchup isn't just the fact that he is you know a veteran he's fought some tough guys he's been around he's well respected um obviously we know about your wrestling background we know how good he is on the mat as well he's good off his back and i find that dynamic to be very fascinating the wrestler versus the grappler the wrestler versus someone who's very comfortable off his back and so i'm just wondering if you feel the same way is this a nice way to check off say like okay you

guys think that you know oh i could just beat a striker take him down or i can outstrike maybe a lower level striker give me a grappler and i'll show you what I do against them. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'd agree with that. I think that for me, um, it's just another puzzle to solve. It's another challenge to face. And, um, I'm looking to continue to just develop my skills overall and improve and get better as a fighter. So, you know, this is, uh, a different challenge than what i've had in the past and i'm it makes it more fun for me you know for me the fighting is all um you know it's a little bit physical but it's mostly mental and so i'm looking forward to just going out there and showcasing my mind and uh my fight iq and just the way that i can continue to control opponents and dominate every second.

I don't know if you look at this stuff for care, but I think last I checked, you're like a minus 1,000 going into this fight. I'm used to you being that kind of a favorite against maybe some of the other names. Against Paul Craig is pretty incredible. Are you surprised by this? No, you know, the odds don't really surprise me. I figured they would be even crazier. It's almost like a mania.

So every time I come to flight, I think the people know who are going to win. So yeah, it's all good. But what do you think the odds should be? Oh, I just, it's just more about like his resume and the fact that he's been around. I was thinking before looking, I thought maybe they'd have you listed as like a minus 750 or something like that. 1000 is really like, you know, you often see that in women's boxing or women's MMA. It's rare on a UFC main card between a veteran and someone of your stature to see a thousand or 1500, something like that. So that's why I was a touch surprised, not suggesting

that you shouldn't be a big favorite at all, but minus 1000 is pretty incredible. It is, it is. Well, if you were to make the odds, what would you set them at? Oh, okay. So I'm not the guy, but what came to mind was if I had had to predict,

I would have said like minus 750. So you think I'll win 75 times out of 100? No, no, no, don't do this to me i did is that is that really how it is i mean i'm not that good at math okay so what would minus 1000 be would that be that would be 10 to 1 so that would be like 90 okay interesting you know what now that i think about it i i think minus 2500 is what i meant i meant it should have been more as opposed to less. Yes, that's what I meant. Oh, geez. We once had a feud. I'm not looking to go back there, but I'm not trying

to go backwards. I'm trying to... No, I'm just putting you on the spot. No, I know. I know. It's just more that he's a veteran and you don't often see that. And do you think that he's on the back nine? I know you like to play golf. Would you think that he's on the downswing of his career at this point? You know, it's so hard to say with fighters. Of course, you can look at the trend and him losing four of his last five. So, yeah, I think it's safe to say that if you look at traditional kind of careers and the way they go, his age, his last five five he's on the back half but you see guys make turnaround and it's uh it's all good for me i i hope that you know paul craig's been a big name

and a guy that's competed in the ufc for a long time so hopefully i'll go out there dominate him and do what i do and you know they'll keep him on the roster for at least another fight so that's i don't really wish anybody ill. I just, uh, I'm going to go do my thing and then hopefully he'll just continue on whatever path, uh, he has. Yeah. Um, I do think that 185 isn't good for him. Uh, he, he, he looks too sunken in. How do you feel about how he looks at 185?

Yeah, that's a big cut. You know, from what I've seen, when people drop a weight class later in their career, I've not seen it really go well. I've seen people go up and it go well, but I haven't seen the drop in weight class really improve a fighter overall, at least not to my knowledge. And so, yeah, I mean, it's, uh, something that, that weight cut is not fun. You know, I'm not cutting a crazy amount of weight. He's definitely cutting more weight than me, but I still, I don't enjoy it. And I'm sure he's, he's hurting even right now, even still almost a week out. How do you feel about this factoid, um,

total combined fight time in your pro mma career nine minutes and 37 seconds all your fights all six pro mma fights his last fight seven minutes and 10 seconds alone so you're just two more minutes than him in all your fights combined that's pretty remarkable it is yeah it's crazy it's weird to think about how much uh experience these guys have in the cage versus what i have. But what I mean, I don't need to even say this. It goes without saying. But what I also carry with me is 10,000 plus wrestling matches.

And I've already competed in Madison Square Garden, sold out. You know, I've competed in front of 20,000 people hundreds of times. And so, you know, it's something that I'm very used to and very comfortable doing. And I always carry that with me, that experience. And I just know how I'm going to feel when the lights are on and I'm, when the pressure's on. As far as the best that you can be in MMA, how far away do you think you are from your final form?

Well, that's an interesting question. Um, you know, I've kind of reframed my mindset towards this uh because you know coming into mma i had these goals of i want to be ufc world champion i want to be the pound for pound number one fighter in the world and lately my i've reframed that to just i want to continue to just get better and improve and see where i can go and not really put a limit on it because even though you know to most people uf champion, pound for pound, number one fighter in the world seems like an unattainable goal. I'm, I'm putting a cap on what I can do at the end of the day.

It's still putting a cap on it. And so my, my focus has been now just improvement. And, uh, I think that I'm just going to continue to do that until my career is over and even past that. And I'm going to continue to pursue being a martial artist and learning and getting better at every single thing. You know, I think that when I'm done competing, I'm still going to be training, you know, hopefully I'll still do some jujitsu competition, stuff like that.

And, uh, so this is not a, a destination thing for me. It's really like a journey, even though that's super kind of cliche. I can't believe I haven't said that. I liked it. I put that on the t-shirt. Um, that is actually a big shift because for as long as I've been talking to you, you always talk about being number one pound for pound. When did this happen and why? You know, I just feel like I, um like I'm always trying to grow and improve as a fighter, as a person, as a dad, as a husband. And so I'm looking at different, reading different things or listening to different people and kind of trying to surround myself with people that are smarter than me and better than me at things that I want to do. And I think that's just kind of what was revealed to me is the people that do the best, they're not focused on that, that destination. They're focused on the journey and just continually, continually self, uh,

improving and making themselves better. And, uh, I feel like that's what I want to do as well. You know, my, if my goal is that, and I achieve it, it's like, what's next? You know, it's always a what's next. So for me, it's, I don't want to get caught in that trap of, um, the repetitiveness of the cycle of, oh, set a goal, achieve it. What's next set a goal, achieve it. What's next. It's, I'd rather just be on this journey and enjoy my time and and be more centered and grounded one thing that i think maybe the only complaint that people could have about your ufc career so far is that they want to see more of you that they wish they could see you every couple months especially since uh you're not you know

you're not getting banged up you're not getting hit etc do you think in in 25 we'll see more of you or do you like the sort of on average two fights a year cadence that you're at right now you know i would like to fight more of course uh for me the what the fight and um the actual competition is the most fun part of what i do and so i would love to fight more. There's just a lot of different things kind of at work. And it's tough when, you know, as you mentioned, I'm fighting guys with 25 plus fights, and I have six fights. So a lot of my development has to be done in the gym, I don't have the luxury of getting 10 amateur fights, and then getting 1520 pro fights with low level guys, the way they do in boxing, or the way they do in other sports. I don't have the luxury of doing that. So I got to get a lot of my reps in the gym and get a lot of, uh, the experience in other ways. And so I think that my path is just different than what

most people's, uh, path is. And, and, um, that's fine. I also, you know, enjoy hunting and fishing and spending time with people I love. And, and so, you know, I'm, that's definitely not the main priority in my life. The main priority is being the best fighter I can be, but I'm also, I'm just enjoying my life and, and doing what I love, uh, at the pace that, you know, I think is right. There's usually a moment where it's like a shift, like you get a big win and then the, the, the rocket is strapped to you. A win at MSG, is that the moment for you? Or like, when do we start to see you in these like really, really high profile flights, main events, et cetera? Yeah, that's a good question. You know, I feel that already. I feel like the rocket's been strapped to me since my after my first pro flight you know that was i'm trying to even think of the date what was that

maybe like two and a half years ago something like that and uh so i feel like the rocket's been strapped to me for a while but um you know if you look at anybody else's career they're fighting over a decade before they're in that position. And I think I'll be in there probably around year. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm basically there, you know, I, I went one or two more fights and I'm fighting a ranked guy and then I'm fighting a top five and then I'm fighting for the belt. So that's, that's, I'm already, if I have six fights right now, I'm already past the halfway point. If that's the trajectory. The word is that the newly elected president, Mr. Donald Trump, is going to be in attendance on Saturday. He appears to have a great fondness of

you. I think you might be his favorite fighter. He's mentioning you all the time there. You guys are on the golf course. Is that what you're hearing as well? I see the caption there, see you at MSG. And could I ask, where did this friendship come from? How did it all materialize? Yeah, it's a long story. I guess first, I feel like, yeah, I think he's going to be there. He's told me a couple of times he's going to be there. So, you know, he's the president, he's the most powerful man in the world. So I'm sure that if he's not there, there was something else that was more important, but I think he's going to be there. And yeah, this really started in 2019.

So I won the nationals and got invited to the White House and met him there, told him I was going to fight. He asked me if I needed a manager and he would manage me for the fights. I was like, I think you're a little too busy. But so it kind of started there. And then after my, think my uh second or second fight in the ufc would have been ufc 290 he was in the crowd and invited me to come golf with him at badminster right after that so i flew back out to new jersey that week we golfed together

and then since then he kind of just he kind of liked me for whatever reason i don't know um and uh of course i i loved hanging out with him loved spending time with him and learning and just talking about stuff and so we've hung out a bunch since then we did uh get a live golf tournament um at his course and sat in the suite with them then golfed with him again this past summer uh but yeah he's you know it's really weird for me to have him be mentioning me as much as he has and uh yeah i think that it's just an honor and such a cool thing for the president of the united states to you know be a fan of you and um yeah so it's just uh it feels crazy i'm just a small town guy and grew up wrestling, doing a humble sport, working hard. And now I have the most famous and most powerful man in the world mentioning me and

interviews and stuff. So yeah, it's pretty cool. Are you on a texting relationship? Can you just text him? How does that work if you're trying to text the president? Yeah we uh we can actually after my last fight he called me that uh the next morning on sunday morning and we talked about it for 10 minutes or so and since then i don't want to bother him because he's obviously doing his thing but i'll shoot him a text here and there he'll send me some encouragement i'll send him some encouragement that type of thing wow that is wild uh there's a lot of people who try to uh be the apple of his eye do you think in the rankings you're number one do you think you're his favorite fighter i don't know i think i gotta get a few more wins and prove myself uh but we'll get there i think it's cool um from our conversations he definitely believes in me and um you know most of the time

when we talk we're just we're chatting about fighting or you know, most of the time when we talk, we're just, we're chatting about fighting or, you know, chat about football, talk about boxing, sports and stuff. And he's super knowledgeable on it. And I think he thinks I'm going to be the next champion. And, you know, I'd agree with that. So, you know, he's watched a lot of sports and he's a pretty smart guy. So his opinion matters a lot. My dream fight, you didn't ask me, but my dream fight at 185 is you versus Hamza Chamayev. That's the one for so many reasons. Did you watch his last fight against Robert Whitaker?

And if so, what do you think, especially of the, the takedown and then the finish? Yeah, I did watch it. And, um, you know, I think it was super impressive to be honest. It's, it's funny because a lot of people expect that to be a tough fight for him. And, um, you know, you can ask around all the people that I talked to, I kind of thought he would do that to Whitaker, which it's,

so, you know, it's one thing to think that, or to kind of see that happening, but he actually did it, which is super impressive. You know, Whitaker is not a,

not an easy fight for anybody and, and he made it look easy. So, you know, I was really impressed with his last performance. and, and he made it look easy. So, you know, I was really impressed with his last performance. Um, and yeah, it, it seemed like he kind of took a different mentality into the fight as well, which was cool to see, but that's a fight I'm looking forward to. I think obviously he's quite a bit, um, ahead of me right now, but he'll be fighting for the belt soon.

And then I'll catch up quick. Uh, I young man a ufc debutante reniere the ritter mentioned wanting to fight you did you see his debut on saturday and if so what'd you make of it yeah i watched his fight i mean he's got a good record um he's definitely you know a lot stronger in the jiu-jitsu department than the striking department um i think he's honestly very similar to Paul Craig. He has a lot of similarities in the way they fight. And it was a good fight. It was a competitive fight.

But I wouldn't say I was really impressed with it. Okay, so not something that you're... Like, for example, I saw you mentioned Shara Bullitt. That's a fight that maybe interests you more than this one. Honestly, I'd fight either of those guys. I don't really think that either of those fights are you know i think they're anybody at this level is a dangerous fight but i don't feel like those guys pose a big threat to me so um we'll see uh i would definitely i'm focused on on ufc 309 and paul craig but after that either of those guys, I'd be down to fight for sure. One I'd love to see is Bo Nickel versus Darren Till. Did you see him take a shot at you on Twitter? I mean, what's up with this guy? You see this?

This dude's hilarious. You know, it's so funny. I feel like Darren is the guy that I would actually probably be friends with him if we were trained together or on the same team. But he just, he actually seems just like a funny dude. And I mean, I don't even want to, I acknowledge it because he's Darren Till and, you know, he's fought for the belt and everybody knows him, but it's like, come on, bro. Like we all, everybody and their mother knows what I would do to you, man. It's not, and it wouldn't be, it wouldn't be good. The thing is to me, that to me is, is, is validation on what you're doing.

The Darren tills of the world aren't doing the laughing emoji thing. If there's not some form of, I don't want to say jealousy, but you know, that they see what's happening to you and what you're getting and where you're going. And he's trying to attach himself to you. He's probably not doing that a year ago or even two years ago. 100 i mean it's it's twitter so he's looking for interaction engagement and i think he's a smart guy he knows that a lot of people are interested in me and what i'm doing and uh yeah he wants to attach himself to that but as far as like real competitive fights like that guy he's not lasting like more than a minute or two you know it's it's it would be i would do it because i would get paid and i would make an easy check so that's not a problem with me but if we're talking realistically like no it's not a not a competitive fight how How long is, is Paul Craig lasting on Saturday?

You know, that's the thing I feel like, you know, I mentioned earlier talking about development, talking about, um, changing my mindset from a goal oriented, uh, goal oriented focus to, you know, just improvement. And it's the same thing with the way I'm looking at this fight. I'm going in very open and, uh, just with a open creative mindset where we'll see how the fight plays out we'll see where it goes and so you know it could go a decision i could finish him in 30 seconds and either way i would be be fine with it just because i want to continue to improve as a fighter i don't think that he'll be able to make it three rounds. I don't think he'll be able to make it to a decision. But if it happens, it happens.

It's all good. I'm just looking forward to competing and doing something spectacular out there. And by the way, before I let you go, shout out to the YouTube channel. I like the stuff that you're putting up there, different type of stuff. You're clearly, you know, you're giving it some TLC. And you even had our guest who's joining us in a moment in studio, Michael Chandler, on a nice little chat between you two. Nice to see an ATT guy and a Kill Cliff guy come together. What's the relationship there with Mike?

Yeah, you know, I think before, obviously, ATT, Kill Cliff rivals, but both of us are wrestlers. So we share that common ground and share that uh foundation and so you know i think that um we we vibe on that level and we know you know just the what it what it takes to be a high level competitor in wrestling and um yeah it was great great to talk to him great to get some insight into his mentality and really with the youtube channel the podcast that's what i'm looking to do is just get insight to um how the top performers in the world are thinking and that doesn't necessarily even have to be exclusive to mma that could be any industry and that's that's what i'm interested in and uh i want to see how successful people's minds work and what they do to achieve

what they've achieved so ariel maybe you'll be our next guest. That'd be fun. Oh, you know what? I was actually just about to make a joke. You caught me. I was just about to make a joke. Wow, sounds like you're talking about me yet you haven't invited me on. And then there you are inviting me on.

We're still due for a little cookout. I'm still waiting to try. I'll bring some steaks to New York. I'll drop them off. Listen, I had my sister-in-law made. I hope she's not listening. Very good chance she's not. Actually, 0% chance she's listening.

It was so rare. I mean, I had to do the old napkin thing, this thing. And then I had to do that. I couldn't believe it. I thought of you and I thought of Michael Chiesa. You're the two that I think of when I think of raw meat uh for whatever reason because he always texts me his gross meat uh wait yeah pause how do i get out of this book he texts me his uncooked steak you know what i'm saying anyway it's raw beef it's raw beef if uh if we ever have an

opportunity i would love to uh take you up on that uh well done well done good luck on saturday uh minus 2500 by the time you walk out and uh you should get you should get donald to come in the ring and uh lift your arm something like that i mean he loves you so much i feel like he'd say yes if i'm being honest we'll do it i'll shoot him a text all right thank you bo all the ring and lift your arm, something like that. I mean, he loves you so much. I feel like he'd say yes, if I'm being honest. We'll do it. I'll shoot him a text. All right. Thank you, Bo. All the best and good luck to you. Thanks, Ariel. Have a good one. There he is. Oh my gosh, Bo Nickel. What a guy. Am I going to get cooked there or what? Sorry, Michael. Sorry, Bo. I might have screwed up there. No one's saying anything, so I think I'm in the clear.

Oh, shit. You need to just... Are you just now reading that? Yes, yes, yes, of course. Oh, yeah. I love talking to Bo. I always say this every time, and GC knows exactly what I'm talking about. He's a number one draft pick.

He's a number one quarterback draft pick. He's so well-spoken. He's so polished. He's the guy... If if you want to buy we've done this before well uh you want to buy stock in a in a fighter who maybe not you know not at the top like not in the top 10 not in the top 15 i don't know if i have enough if i have a pick but he's got to be at the top of the list. Got to be. Who's the guy? Who's the guy top of the list not ranked at the moment, if you could buy stock in one

fighter, who's the guy? Probably Bo Nickel. Is it Bo Nickel? I'm trying to think who else it would be. I mean, dude's a minus 1,000 favorite to Paul Craig. He's a three time national champion I feel like he has the most upside Like you said man Media trained knows what he's doing

I mean I would take him over Sharabulla right Oh for sure Who's a guy I'm trying to think You're talking solely unranked fighters, yeah. Solely unranked. Hasn't quite broken through. I think it's him.

Yeah, if I can choose anyone. He's got it all. Penn State, three-time national champion, as you mentioned. He's got the president backing him. It's good to be Bo Nickel. It is good to be Bo Nickel. I am very excited to say hello to our next guest. He's going to join us in. It is good to be Bo Nickel. I am very excited to say hello to our next guest.

He's going to join us in a matter of moments. You guys let me know. First time we have an in-studio guest in our new digs. It has been let known. What does that mean? Yeah, he's ready.

Oh, he is? Yeah. Oh, okay. We just messaged you. Well, this is a big deal. First time ever. He's been here before. He's joined us

in our other studio, but first time at our new studios here at the Yahoo HQ. And he's been here before he's joined us in our other studio but first time at our new studios here at the yahoo hq and he's got a pretty big weekend coming up but he was kind enough to make the trip down to the uh area in which we're in i don't want to give it away because i don't want any crazies coming by but he is competing in the co-main event a rematch of a fight that happened in may of 2021 in houston texas which was one of the best fights of the year. Watched it again last night. A frenetic fight. An insane fight. We're getting it again on Saturday. Co-main event. Five

round co-main event. Charles Dubronk-Solvera against Iron Mike Chandler. Is he there? Yeah. There he is. Big Mike in the house. Hello, sir sir what's up how are we

thank you for coming first ever in studio I know right bring it bring it you are a rock star holy shit

yeah you look great got a fight coming up thank you so much here we are it's great to have you everything okay they treat you well

oh man yeah this is great A plus first class Ariel we made it Mike always landed on his feet yes you everything okay they treat you well oh yeah this is great a plus setup man first class aerial we made it landed on his feet yes yes leveling up and leveling up we're not even landing on our feet that almost implies that i've screwed up in the past is that what you're saying this is true hey

well i i've landed on my feet a few times yes yes you have you have uh thank you so much for this i appreciate it you landed last night i did yep i saw What was that plane 10 X all that? What is that? So 10 X health systems. Um, so it has changed my life. Uh, obviously I've always done things differently than, than a lot of people. I put a ton of ton of training in, but also focus a lot more on recovery. So the 10 X superhuman protocol, especially so red light therapy pimp mat cold plunge hypermax oxygen you see that oxygen mask i wear i've done that here you with some of the 10x guys right that's me and ray lewis there that's brandon dawson one of the owners okay um and uh yeah we did some cool football stuff that day i saw and i put ray lew, the legend, through some MMA stuff. And, yeah, I mean, obviously training is one thing,

but the recovery is just as important, if not more important, especially at my age. I don't know if I'm supposed to be here at 38 years old, but here I am. If you become UFC lightweight champion, you know you'll be the oldest lightweight champion. I will by, what, six years? Yeah, because let's say it's 39 by the time it happens. Sean Shirk, 33.

33. So you knew this? I did. How did you know this, by the way? Did you look it up just to see? I looked it up and I believe it's going to happen. I mean, I do believe it's going to happen. And I think it's bigger than me.

It's bigger than just an athlete in the sport. It's unlocking people's mind on what is possible with the human body, with just a little bit of persistent consistency, doing things right. There is no secret. Everybody's like, what is the secret? There is no secret. It's just, I've been doing this since I was 14 years old, hand-to-hand combat. I poured myself into the sport of wrestling and did every single thing right. I haven't always won, but I always prepared like a champion. And the crazy thing too, with my career is like, you know, you know, the guys that I have fought in the past and Bellator, even before that, um, guys that a lot of people don't know, but I prepared for those guys as if I was preparing for the number one guy in the world, whoever it was at the time, Benson Henderson, Anthony Pettis,

Frankie Edgar could be whoever the number one guy in the world was. I always prepared like I was preparing for the number one guy in the world. And that's really all it is, man. So much I want to ask you about because it's different when you get to talk to someone in person as opposed to via Zoom. Yeah, this is nice. I can't even remember the last time we spoke in person. Yeah, I know.

I'm just, yeah, it's on the screen. Out on the screen. Man, I watched the, by the way, you and Bo Nickel. I saw you guys have a little sit down and we just had him on. What I loved about it was the Kill Cliff ATT thing that you guys are bigger than that. You're two wrestlers. When did you first meet him? And do you agree with me?

We were talking just before you came on. I think if I could buy stock in one non-ranked fighter right now, so no one in the top 10 or even top 15, I think it's him. 100%. 100%. And it's not even, you know, this is a physical sport, right? It's punches, kicks, knees, elbows, it's wrestling, his wrestling accolades, all that stuff matters. But the person, you bet on the person, just like in business, just like in an investment, you're betting on the people behind it, not the actual product itself, right? And Bo is, you know, we talked a little bit on Mike and then we've talked behind the scenes. Man, he's a solid, solid dude.

He's got his priorities in order. He knows why he fights, which is much more important than what he does. And he's obviously, he's taken a good road. This is another great opponent for him to showcase his skills at the world's most iconic arena. So I would buy that stock as well. And how did you meet him? Like, did you meet in wrestling circles back in the day?

I mean, obviously you're a lot older than him. Yeah. And so was he some, I mean, you probably, do you watch wrestling? Yeah, I don't watch wrestling as much as I should, man. It's, it's, uh. You know, like DC,

like DC's texting and stuff. I'm like, I don't even know who these people are. I know, Chael too. Yeah, Chael, the other one, yes. And Ben, you know,

Ben Askren obviously still follows it a ton. Um, I don't. Um. Why not? It's not, I still love it. I probably, I'll probably go to more wrestling

and follow wrestling more when I'm done fighting. I think right now I've just been focused on fighting and I don't really watch a ton of fighting either. I mean, I watched the big pay-per-views and I watched the fights on the weekend sometimes, but I don't know.

I think I'm just selfish and I just worried about myself and I'm just focused on what I'm doing. Right. But the sport of wrestling is the reason why I'm here. Right. You know? So obviously when I see, I'm always rooting for the wrestler. If there's a wrestler in the Octagon and he's fighting anybody around the world, I'm rooting for that guy, no matter what, especially if they wrestled at the division one level or they wrestled in college. Um, and Bo is, Bo was a special, special talent and, uh, dadgum Nittany lions are just about unbeatable. So, um, I forget how we met, but it was really interesting too.

Cause I think, you know, there was a little bit of back and forth where it was like, hey, I didn't, I kind of was a little bit critical, if you will, of the way he was speaking about how I'm at or like, and that kind of got misconstrued, but it was more, it was more just, we know he's a great talent, right?

But the sport of mixed martial arts won't always reward that type of or be attracted to that type of call out and this and that. But he's done a phenomenal job with it. And he deserves to feel that confident because he is that good. So I can't wait to watch that star rise. We had Stipe on earlier. He says he doesn't watch a thing.

Like even if it's UFC 300, he couldn't care less. You're not quite at that level. Not quite at that level. But you're not spending every saturday watching every card no um any particular reason is it just because that's work for you no it's not the work thing um i mean i think it's it's man i don't know i'm a busy guy yeah now um but i mean i definitely watch all the big cards or the or the guys that i truly like and it doesn't matter if it's a fight night or whatever.

If I, if I like the guys or gals that, that I just really respect in the sport and, and love their style, or I want to take something from their style or emulate some of their style. I'll watch it. I have gotten a lot more into watching fights this, this camp though,

being down in Florida and yeah, man, it's a, it's a beautiful sport and it keeps on growing. Is it perhaps because it's maybe easier sport it keeps on growing is it perhaps because it's maybe easier when you're away from your family um just because you have nothing to do maybe on a saturday night i think that's yeah yeah that's part of it too i mean my wife loves to watch fights now you know when we got together she didn't really know what the sport was um which

i loved that about her and then but now she she likes to watch it she loves she likes to watch it when i'm not fighting you you know, like this week is much harder for her. Right. It is for me. She probably wants this to get like to be done. Oh, for sure. She can't wait.

It's always funny. We actually, uh, we liken it to like the night we got engaged is, is like the night of a fight. So, cause for me, I spent months planning it out. I had this whole thing planned out. I had cameras set up and you got the ring and the thing. And she said, yes. And then it's like, okay, boom, I like i'm dead tired and all she wants to do

is sit there and look at the ring and she stayed up all night looking at the ring and excited about being engaged and i'm like i'm dead tired that's the same thing for her like i get done with a fight win lose or draw it doesn't matter we accomplished something and but she carried the weight of the the spouse and all she wants to do is go back to the hotel, crash out. And I'm like, I ain't going to sleep. You know, number one, I can't go to sleep. I've tried to go to sleep and I'm gonna lay in bed and lay in this hospital or hospital, uh, this hotel room, sometimes in the hospital, but in the hotel room, I'm gonna stare at the ceiling. So I might as well just stay up till four in the morning. Every time. Pretty much. Yeah. I mean, it's just

cause it's too much adrenaline, especially if it's a great night for you. it's hard to come down especially if it's a great night i mean it's it's so funny how we as human beings we're like man i can't wait till this is over yeah because we put all the hard work in and then you get done you're like okay but what's next like immediately on saturday night i will get my hand raised and i'll go to that post-fight press conference and it was like what is next yeah we call in hunter and be like hey what are we going to do next yeah um so yeah it's uh it's beautiful and i can we going to do next? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's beautiful and I can't wait to do it again. It's been too long.

Do you think that will be something that you'll miss? Like people talk about the drug and chasing that dragon and it's hard to, I mean, we're seeing the other Iron Mike fighting on Friday, right? 58.

And part of that has to be because like he just wants one more walk into the sun. And of course the 40 or so million that he's getting doesn't hurt as well. But do you think that that will be something that will be hard to switch off because you've been competing in front of so many people for so long? I don't think so. I'm definitely going to compete at something.

It will not include cutting weight. I'll tell you that much. But I'll continue to compete in something. But no, I think I've been very good thus far in my life of accepting the fact that a chapter closes and it's time for a new chapter. I guess I'll have to sit here and we'll talk about it when I do retire eventually.

But I always did say I was going to bury Sanders, this industry at some point and just walk away and be completely done. I thought that was going to be around 35, but here I am at 38 and I feel like I can fight till I'm 45. Um, and that is not hyperbole. I truly feel that, but I know I'm not going to number one. I don't want to continue to do the training camps away from the family. Um, number two, I don't want to keep putting my family through that. Number three,

it's more important to me to be dad and husband and be able to play catch in the backyard and front yard than it is for me to be fighting in an octagon. And, and I have a multitude of options that things that are already set up. Um, I will walk away from the sport and be able to move into the next chapter and still be able to feel like I'm making an impact on the world. And I think I've set that up pretty well thus far. And, uh, I'm excited about that, but I'm even more excited to Saturday night. Will your boys be there on Saturday? They won't. Not this one.

We thought about bringing Hap, obviously because he's seven. Yeah. Ace is only two, but just didn't feel right this time. Partly for Bree. You know, I mean, my wife, she deserves to be wife this weekend

with all that she has to go through you know um because it's it's a tough it's a tough place to be at because you i love them so much and i want them to be there um however she's got to deal with this her own way and yeah and deserves to take care of brie and and then take care of me after the fight um so it'll just be her she gets here on th, I believe. The seven-year-old definitely knows what you do for a living, right? I have an eight-year-old, so I know that they know at that age. Will you even let – I mean, it's probably too late for him to watch, right?

Because it'll probably be like midnight or 1130 when you fight. How does he do it? It's going to be late, and he knows it's on Saturday night. So he'll probably try and want to stay up um so we'll see if he does we might we might just be able to get him in bed and then he'll watch the the highlight of me winning yes you know that's the that's the plan he's only seen my wins i haven't shown him yeah my losses why should thus far yeah at some point though there's a lesson to be learned from those right yes i love it i love i love my losses i love my career i love what I've done,

what I haven't done, what I should have done. I love, I love the failures. I look, cause it's, it's a blueprint for, for everybody. There, there is no just winning. Nobody just wins in life. So that's why I think people love the sport. And I've said it so many times. It doesn't matter if you're a thousand and one favorite or a thousand and one underdog, you're fighting in a cage with a specific rule set. And it's a beautiful metaphor for life. So what's really cool, especially since going to the UFC, man, with the amount of cameras I've had on me and this just beautiful masterpiece that we're painting and my kids, my sons, they will be able to see how their dad operated.

And I've always said what's more important to me is not what I tell them I am. Like, hey, look what I accomplished. Look what I did. I want them to be around people. You know, when you meet them and hang out with them, say, hey, this is who your dad was to me and this is what he has done

and this is what he made me feel. And, you know, and it's a beautiful place. It's a tough life. It's painful. It's sad. There's setbacks, but there's so much beauty in it. And I think I'm getting even more and more sentimental and romantic about it as I continue to age, but then also as the stock has continued to rise, the stakes continue to rise, the opportunities continue to rise. And here I am again on a huge one, number one contender fight. I believe I beat Charles Oliveira and I'm fighting next for the title in 25. You say you love your losses. Can you say that when you're removed from losses? Like if we would have talked May of 2021 in Houston, you can't necessarily say that on the night, right? You need some distance between the losses to truly love them or have that perspective.

Yeah, I think you need it. And I think that's just human nature. We feel it because it's so real and it's so cutting to us in the moment. And that was my, you know, that was the probably the most painful point in my career after a loss because that was my one opportunity. I thought that was my one opportunity. You didn't think you'd get another one? You never know with the sport, man. It's the what have you done for me lately business.

It is you lose and all of a sudden, I'm the flavor of the week this week. People are excited to watch me fight. You lose, but what happens next? Are you able to build yourself back? And then, God forbid, there's any injuries or falling off the, you know, falling off the wagon. And that was my one opportunity I thought to become finally that this dream that I've had since I was 22. And I came into the sport following Ben Askren and Tyron Woodley into the sport and saying, Hey, someday I want to be the number one guy in the

world. And Charles Oliveira shattered that dream. And now it's just so, so, uh, serendipitous that now I get this opportunity against him again to write that wrong. Um, and get back in the wind column against him to then become the number one contender to then fight a widely regarded, one of the greatest lightweights of all time in, in who I think will be Islam. I think he beats, he beats Armin in January or whenever that is. So it's going to be interesting. I watched the first fight with you and Charles twice last night. It's such a great fight. And I wanted to ask you about specific things, but just curious,

when was the last time? I mean, you don't need that. It's like five minutes and 17 seconds or something. When was the last time? 19, five minutes and 17. Sorry, yes. When's the last time you watched it? I watched the first round about a week ago.

Okay. Yeah, didn't watch the second round. The second round was me making this really silly mistake that I have since cleaned up. I was too young, man. Even though I was old, I was too young. I was too new in the sport. I had two and a half minutes of octagon experience, two and a half minutes of UFC cage time and man not only have I just grown as a as a as a fighter but obviously these last year and a half to you it'll be two years that I've been out of the out of the octagon out of competition so many things I've changed and so many things I've worked on and so many things I've turned into a completely different man so we can't show the footage but I actually have like key moments that I wanted to ask what you were thinking in these moments, if you don't mind, because it

really was like a rollercoaster, the fight. Um, so we could, we could show some of the photos up here. Um, this is like very, this is like the first 30 or so seconds you get them in a guillotine. And, uh, you probably remember this cause you, you watch this both Rogan and Cormier thought that you had it. They're like, this is it. This is it. He's got him very, very early on. And they hypothesized that you made the decision to let go because you thought, okay, maybe I don't have it. I don't want to burn myself out. Is that what happened there? That is what happened there. Okay. Yeah. So that was a, that was a surprise shot. I didn't expect it. You know, I think I was coming forward and it was a, it was a beautiful, it was either a beautifully timed shot or it was just how mixed martial arts happened.

He got in on a deep shot, but I felt it. I felt like that guillotine was going to be there. And yeah, I let it go because, yeah, there's nothing worse than in the first round burning your arms out. Yeah. And then gave my back to the most decorated. You regret letting it go or do you think that was the right call? No, I think it was the right call because I don't think it was in deep enough or at least in that moment i didn't feel it obviously um i had to go with my instincts of what i was feeling in that moment and then gave my back up and okay so then next

it's crazy like it is an insane fight i don't need to tell you you you lived it uh next moment he then gets your back yep and everyone's again in the commentary are thinking like oh no this is charles over most submissions all that stuff could you tell us what you're thinking in this moment he's like an anaconda on you at this point right most submission wins in ufc history on my back right now and it's his favorite position um well yeah i mean you can see right there i got the two on one the end and i've been using that two on oneone since wrestling. There was a guy named Pat McNamara, who was a coach of mine, who was an All-American, and we worked on this leg defense.

When a guy throws a leg in, there was two or three different things that we would do, get a one-on-one, and I was almost always able to get that reversal. So it's an area that I like, even though it's a dangerous area, and most people would say don't ever give your back to Charles Oliveira. Now, let's also be clear here. I didn't give my back to Charles Oliveira. He took my back. Yes.

So I don't want to take anything away from him. But yeah, it was a scary, scary spot for other people, but I felt comfortable. To make it even scarier was you then slamming him doing that, which- And I think that's when Joe was like, that's a horrible idea. Yes, the commentary. Why would you do that? What a photo this is as well. You willingly do this.

Why do you do it? Because both Cormier and Rogan were like, no. And look, I mean, look at the impact there. Why do you make that call? Because I guess textbook would be, don't do that. Yeah, I think so. But since he had, he already had the back. He also had the figure four.

So me being on my knees and staying in the turtle position wasn't a great position. I would rather him have my back there to have the higher likelihood of me getting the reversal, which is what ended up happening. Yes. Even though Joe and those guys were like, this is a horrible idea. Why would you ever do that? But that's why people love to watch me fight because I do make ill-advised decisions, ill-advised choices in fights. Maybe sometimes I test myself and be like, let's see if I can get out of this. Let's see what happens here. You know, it's like it's the heart of a man, right?

Like I'm more of a ready, shoot, aim kind of guy. It's like I'm already shot my shot before I aimed at all. And then we calibrate, we recalibrate, we try to figure out. Which you did. Yeah. You reversed it, which is an incredible sequence. We have that, I believe as well.

And then all of a sudden you're in his guard. This is no, I think we skipped it because this is when you rocked him. There you are. Now you're in his guard. How do you get, like, that's one of the greatest submission artists of all time. What do you have to do with your body in order to get out of that position and then land in his guard how do you how do you get like that's that's one of the greatest submission artists of all time what do you have to do with your body in order to get out of that position and then land in

his guard so that one the most important part is that one-on-one so i mean if if you have a man's arm and you're also not just you're not just holding it we're not just hugging it i'm pulling it i'm pushing it away from him i'm getting a position and i'm moving millimeter by millimeter and i can feel it the sweat starts moving here at this point. It's two and a half, three minutes into the fight. So sweat becomes a factor. He does have those long legs and I do have a thick core. So it was a tight, very, very tight around my waist or lower stomach.

And yeah, I mean, I just explode out of it while also pushing the arm away. And I've done it thousands of times. Incredible. In training. And then all the momentum goes your way, as we just saw. Now you start tagging him. And then there's the sequence on the ground where he's like, literally on all fours, moving his head. And you've said in the past, here you are, you know, raining blows that you believe that Dan Mergulata was a fraction of a second away. Yeah. And it's, you know, so many people have told me that as well. And I guess I've never just,

yeah, I've had my moments where I'm like, dang, dude, I was that close. But this is why we love the sport. There's been, you can't love, I like to say you can't love the things that have gone your way that could have gone 50-50 or could have gone the other way

or maybe the ref steps in earlier than he should have you can't you can't love that and be proud of that and be happy about that while also not accepting the fact that it happens on the on the opposite end of the spectrum as well i mean that could have been herb dean it could have been big john mccarthy it could have been a thousand other referees and maybe they do step in and i become the ufc champion i fulfilled the dream of becoming the number one guy in the world but that's just not the way it was supposed to be. It was supposed to be this way. How do you let that go? How do you not let that keep you up at night and fixate over that to the point where you get crazy? It's a good question. It's called accountability. It's called

accountability. You can sit there and you can stew and ruminate and be pissed off about things that have happened to you and stay in the present and stay right here. Or you can just move forward. And I've just always been a guy who has moved forward. Of course, I have my moments. I was ticked off after the fight. Probably looked back and watched it and thought, holy cow, he's head bobbing and landed a good one there. And you see Dan kind of come in and come out and come in.

You're like, dude, he was that close to throwing his arm in there. And if he does, he touches me at all. The fight's over. But I lost that night. Charles won, and he deserved it. He beat me fair and square. A kid from the favelas who was one of the most unreliable guys in the sport, missing weight and losing fights he shouldn't have lost to,

changes himself and becomes the champion. Like that's the way it was supposed to be um and now i just believe november 16th 2024 is my time there used to be this knock on him and you you referenced it in the build-up to that fight and even in the aftermath that he was a quitter um and obviously i think he's proven that to be kind of nonsense do you think there's any element of that left in him? I do. You do? I do. I'm not calling him a quitter, but I do know I didn't put myself in a position to fight him for long enough, to put pressure on him for long enough, to instill second guessing and doubts into his mind and his spirit for long enough for that exit sign to be found. This time, I think we will.

There's a moment in between rounds where your head coach, longtime head coach, Henry Hooft, is telling you that he's broken. And then he also sort of whispers to you, I'm so happy for you. And when I was watching that in the aftermath now, yesterday, I'm like, does he already think this is fed a complete does he already think that it's over is that how you take it did you guys think that this was done that he was seconds away from being finished um i mean me in competition obviously i knew the momentum was on my side i just ten-eighted him in that round yeah um but once again even at that point in time you can watch the first round and everybody

says, okay, hit pause. Everybody put your money on who, who, who you putting the money on. I'm going to get 99.9% of those bets yet. I still lost. And that's why we love the sport. That's why I love the sport. Even this painful and as tragic as it is, it's beautiful. Um, but yeah, I mean, 19 seconds later, I'm on the cage, you know, getting punches rained on me and

my dreams are shattered. Um, but it's, it's, uh, I just, I look back. It's so great to just look back at that fight and think, man, I don't even know who that guy is compared to who I am today. Um, what's the big difference? Just growth. I think we, we, as human beings, we get so, uh, we get so eager for growth. It's like, you know, Hey, I've put in my time, but it's not that people don't do the right things is that people don't do the right things for long enough and they give up too soon. Right. And the hard work eventually pays off. You just have to still be standing there when it does. And for me, it's been 24 years of hand-to-hand combat for me to get this opportunity at this moment. The past does not matter.

This is a clean slate. I am 0-0. He is 0-0. And I'm the happiest, the healthiest, and the hardest to kill I ever have been. And I think part of it was the time off. I love this sport. I love what I have done in the UFC thus far. But it took a toll on me. Every single fight,

fight of the night, fight of the year, knockout of the year, debut of the year, tough, tough dudes, do or die type of fights. A lot of it was self-inflicted wounds that I put on myself by my fight style. A lot of it is the pressure that I put on myself. And maybe it's because I know I'm closer to the end than I am the beginning. Maybe it's because of growth. Maybe it's because of the time off and my cup is so full because I got to spend so much time with my wife and my sons, so much time pursuing who is Michael Chandler outside of the octagon. And I love love who i am what i've created and what i've accomplished and man i'm just a a happy fighter a joyful fighter is a dangerous fighter and i just feel so so damn dangerous and uh it's been growth and if a bad thing happens to you the connor fight you know

they'll build up the the time waiting the fight falling through you know squandering the bag all the naysayers everybody pointing fingers at me laughing at me and joking about me and what an idiot if a bad thing happens to you but a good thing comes from it was it really a bad thing and that has been revealed to me so many times in my life um and on saturday night it comes to fruition what What do you think? Because I don't know if many people, like you talk about turning these negatives into positives. I don't know if many people would have that perspective. And I wonder if there's a part of you that thinks like, I'm built for that type of thing. Like not all these people who comment on it,

like they would have wilted a long time ago, or they'd still be waiting, whatever the case is. And so I'm wondering like, what you think is the greatest lesson you learned from this experience, the waiting? It's that you're not in control. I think as human beings, we're sitting here and we're like, hey, this is my life and I'm in control and I'm going to say what I'm going to do. And I want X, Y, and Z to happen. So it needs to happen. We're not in control. And as soon as you're able to give up control and realize that all you can do is keep the main thing, the main thing, focus on what is most important to you, whatever that may be, what is important to you is different than what's important to me. But as long as you are doing what is important to you, we can take

opinions from the nosebleeds and you can take opinions from the naysayers. Um, but ultimately we are supposed to be and called to be running our own race. And, uh, I had my moments of course, but overall they say patience is a virtue yet. When you show extreme patience, you also get, you also get criticized for that. So at some point you get criticized no matter what. And yeah, maybe a part of me wanted to sit out. Maybe a part of me needed to sit out. I tell the story of when I was in college, my head coach, a man that I love and adore named Brian Smith was my head coach. It's my fifth year.

I go from walk-on, little kid from Missouri, nobody knew who I was, to a guy who's ranked top five in the country wrestling against Jordan Burroughs and Mike Poeta and Jordan Lean and all these guys. And I put so much pressure on myself, had just been grinding nonstop 24-7, 365 for four and a half years at this point. my performance, my energy, my joy, my gratitude, everything was just down in the dumps. He pulled me in and he said, Michael, for 72 hours, you're not allowed to come to the gym. You're not allowed to come to the wrestling room. You're not allowed to come to the weight room. Uh, I don't want to see you till Thursday. You know, it was like Monday. And I'm like, well, wait, wait a second, coach. This is what I do. I work, I train. You asked me to do 10. I'm going to do 20. You asked me to go for an hour. I'm gonna go for two for two hours he said michael you're not allowed to come in until thursday and uh and i came back and i was rejuvenated and i was full of life and i was full of zeal and i was full of joy so brian smith took the sport away from me for

72 hours and i came back and became the best version of myself and become an all-american um and it's just funny how 15 years later the the sport of mixed martial arts, Brian Smith me. I didn't choose to sit out. Right. I didn't choose for Connor to pull out of the fight. I didn't choose for us to do the ultimate fighter in February and March and then promote the show. And then we were supposed to fight like later that year, September, October, and then it get pushed till the following June. And then he breaks a pinky toe.

I didn't choose that. The sport chose that for me. The sport thrust that upon me with a bunch of outside circumstances. And yes, I was pissed off many, many times and I had my moments, but ultimately it was the best thing that could have happened to me because the man who sits here today has never been more proud of what I do, more grateful for what I do and more dangerous. I do. I do. You could throw me in the main event and I will beat John Jones and Stipe in my mind on, you know,

on Saturday night. Probably not true. But, but, but you know, that's just the way I feel about it. So if a bad thing

happens to you but a good thing comes from it, was it really a bad thing? And it's just been, it's been beautiful, man. It really has.

You told me the last time we spoke that you have no animosity towards Connor. Like you don't, you don't hold any sort of, you know, animosity, I guess is the word. And I'm just wondering if the fight never happens, will that stance change?

No, not at all. Conor's doing his thing. I'm doing my thing. And there are 600 other people on the roster. He and she shall just be doing their own thing, and that is it. I think if anything, as we just covered the last 20 minutes or so, I think it was a great process for me. It was beneficial.

So many great things came from it. Yeah, I think Chandler versus McGregor needs to happen at some point. And I do believe it will happen at some point. And we need, if he comes back, his road back to the UFC goes through one man. It goes through Nashville, Tennessee. And we have to finish tough 31. So I'll take care of business on Saturday night and said, hey, we're going to push it to this. It's not happening until at least here or at least here or at least here. Any one of those moments I could have said, hey,

Hunter, I'm done, man. I'm not waiting any longer. It's on me. I am in control of my own career. They didn't tell me to wait. They said, this is when it is going to happen. Do you want to wait? Do you not want to wait? I'll wait. So this is on Michael Chandler. This is the Michael Chandler decision that I made. And yes, there was a lot of outside circumstances, but the oneness rests solely on my shoulders. So I can't be mad at Conor for pulling on a fight. Can't be mad at the UFC for not booking the fight early enough. And if people would just realize that happiness and joy and peace and contentment is on the other side of the feelings of power that you have over yourself whenever you take extreme accountability for yourself and your actions.

Because one thing is for certain, we will get what we deserve, what we work for, what we don't work for, the corners that we cut, the things that we go above and beyond on, the discipline that we have, the choices that we make, we will get what we deserve. And that's just how I live my life. Man, again, we talk about how good you are at expressing your thoughts and feelings and being motivational and whatnot. Do you ever get down? What makes you down? What makes you sad? When do you have the gray days? Do those ever happen to you? Um, I mean, I'm sure they do. Yeah. I mean, I, I'm, I'm human just like anybody else. And I think, but I think, uh, I think what I've gotten really good at is realizing I

am human because I think sometimes we look at ourselves and I just, I know the work that I put in and it is not hyperbole to say that I am the most disciplined man on the planet of mixed martial arts for sure. It's not even close. That is where I am in most disciplined man on the planet of mixed martial arts for sure. It's not even close. That is where I am in my mind. So with that, that means things should always work out. And that means I should always have great days and great sparring sessions and great trainings and not feel sorry for myself, not skip out on something that I should have done. I mean, I'm a human being.

I'm just so grateful for what I get to do. I'm not even supposed to be here, man. I was, you know, I'm not supposed to be here. I w I was told by so many people, I should not have walked on a Mizzou at Mizzou wrestling team. I was, I was, I was, I was told by so many people to stay in Bellator and not go to the UFC. I was told by so many people to give up and pack it in and play small.

And I'm not supposed to be where I'm at. And what I have, what I have amassed and what I've accomplished and what I've done is just, it's so head and shoulders above. I wish everybody could see the vision I had for myself when I was in Jefferson County, Missouri, high ridge of what I thought a win would be, a good life would be.

And I am on a completely different planet. What did it look like it was just barely getting by it was it was doing doing something that I hated that had a paycheck like being a carpenter being a carpenter being that's what your father was right yeah which which I I respect my dad so much sure sure it works so freaking hard he's gonna be in my corner like one of the great oh wow one of the greatest things is uh my dad will be in my corner like i i sent him a message the other day and i just told him about his hands like my dad's my dad has these big ass freaking meat cleaver hands and they're big and they are cracked and they're dirty and but they're they're his hands and i always admired his hands because his hands told a story. And every time, like right now I've got a couple of cuts on my hands

and I feel like, God just put them on my hands, this, this camp to say, look what you have created, look what you have done with your hands. Um, and they were, they were just, they were him. And they told a story because every single day without fail, he was up at 5 AM and he drank his coffee and he put his work boots on and he went and he worked and he came back. And a lot of times he will work a second job and a third job to continue to put money in the bank account, to put food on the table for me and my two brothers. Um,

and he, and he's going to be in my corner of this fight and I'm so happy for that. The only other time he's been in my corner in the UFC was the last the last fight with with charles so i get to write that wrong um so yeah i mean when the vision i had was you know become a tradesman because they have a good pension plan you know i remember my dad putting those little stamps those little stickers in his little book that that did his little hours or whatever it was um and my mom you know the school teacher or be this or be that because of because of some pension plan or some something down the line that you'll have some security and i was raised i was raised to seek security and it's just so crazy

serendipitous and ironic that nothing about me exudes security whatsoever you look at my fight style you look at the way that i train you look at how i run head first into everything completely okay with whatever may be there is no security in sight and maybe that's the wounds from my past that says hey this is who i am and I hate security. I don't want security. Or maybe it's just the way God was just had me in the palm of his hand the entire time in order to turn me into the man that I am today. And now what I have done and what I have accomplished and what I get to do is just ridiculously, it's an out-of-body experience every single day.

It's like I'm living a dream, a new lease on life. And obviously coming over to the UFC was the greatest decision I could have made because now I look back and if I would have died 60 years from now and got to the pearly gates and I would have stayed in Bellator and would have done my thing there,

God would say, hey, well, hey, well, this is what would have happened. Look at all of this. This is all what would have happened if you would have had the courage to step out and make a faithful decision and bet on yourself again, just like you did when you were 18 years old and everybody told you not to bet on yourself and go to University of Missouri and it turned out that you became an All-American and had all these accolades and it turned you into the man that you are today. This is what would have happened if you would have bet on yourself and went to the UFC. So now I feel like I've got my second career and we're still in the thick of

it. And I think it's going to end with UFC gold. I love that you have your dad in your corner. Just the second time I was going to ask you when was the last time, how does that conversation go when you, when you call him up and is it because you get the extra corner man or is he, okay. So how does that conversation go when you tell him this? Yeah, it's always, I mean, it was great. I mean, he's, he's pumped up. He was so pumped up. I mean, my dad and my dad doesn't know anything about mixed martial arts.

He's not there. He's not there to tell me where to, where to duck and where to dive and dodge and where to throw punches and whatever. It's more just his presence, man. It's, uh, it's, uh, yeah. I mean, it's just, you look at, you really start to really gain an appreciation for what your parents did for you. Because they worked so hard. And my dad, they never complained.

The funny thing is, there's a lot of people out there who say Michael Chandler is the hardest worker in mixed martial arts. He's so disciplined and he's so this, and all I am is just a by-product of the example that I become who I am, but it's all rooted in Jefferson County, Missouri, and Mike and Betty Chandler and how they worked so hard. And then now, now this masterpiece that I'm painting for my sons, it's a special man. It's a, it's really, really cool. And fight week is an emotional time, apparently. Yeah, no, I understand. But it i understand but it's but it's uh but this is where it sounds crazy and it sounds counterintuitive but man

a happy fighter and a joyful fighter and a person a man who is who is convicted and and tied to his why and why he does it is a dangerous, dangerous man. And there is no way I lose on Saturday night. When you're cutting weight fight week, you mentioned, and by the way, how much do you weigh right now? Do you mind if I ask? I was 170. Okay.

The reason I bring this up is, is it not true, especially on like the Thursday night, you start to have like, I've heard from a lot of fighters, not like you don't come to terms with mortality, but you start to get deep, right? I'm sure you get very nostalgic. You think about the past, you think about the past, you think about your parents, you think about your upbringing. Do these emotions come to you usually on fight week? Is this the time where like everything, it's almost like as you're depleting all the fat,

so to speak, you don't have a lot of it, but you get what I'm saying. All that stuff, like what really makes up your DNA starts to boil out. Yeah. I mean, the weight cut, the weight cut because it's, it's something unless you've experienced it that you can't explain it.

And it really is. It's like your body is, your body is dying, but your spirit is thriving. Yeah. Your body is in pain, but your spirit is flying high. And you really have to, you have to lean into that. You have to lean into that source. your spirit is thriving yeah you know your body is in pain but your spirit is is flying high and

you really have to you have to lean into that you have to lean into that source like whatever whatever your God is whatever your whatever your thing that you look to you have to lean into that knowing that it's bigger than you um and then on fight night I mean I I I've had this experience a couple different times where I'm in the back and I'm listening to music and my eyes are welling up with tears and I'm crying back there and I'm thinking about my wife and I'm thinking about my sons and I'm thinking about, I'm thinking about them when they're older, I'm thinking about just everything. Um, and that is where I know I'm about to go do something special. If I don't feel that, then it doesn't feel as though i'm about to do something um bigger than myself and uh i don't know maybe i'm a maybe i'm a big softy maybe i'm maybe i'm

too emotional i don't i don't know but i am uniquely myself and i am who i am um and i will feel that on fight night because i'm already feeling it i've been feeling i've felt it for the last couple weeks it's been uh it's been crazy um you probably don't love weight cutting at this point in your life because you've been doing it for so long but i was really looking forward to 170 yeah i was really looking forward to one side just one fight at 170 you could still get it at some point but i'm wondering if you just kind of missed these emotions these feelings because it's been so long it's been two years yeah um because nothing you know nothing in my life uh profession wise business and in these these other things that

i'm doing can can bring this out of me um because it's so tied to my family and my legacy and what i get to do so yeah it's been uh it's been a while but i think it's just tied to my family and my legacy and what I get to do. So yeah, it's been a while, but I think it's just been building up. And I also just think about all the different times in my career where there's been stakes so high. I do believe this is the highest stakes that human spirit wells up something spectacular, bigger than I've ever felt before. And then it comes out of nowhere and you just feel invincible. And that's where I feel I am right now as we speak. And it's been, it's been constantly brewing over the last, you know, after the Connor fight got canceled, um, I felt sorry for myself for a second and then pick myself back up. And then we, we moved on to the next thing. And this just, this feels different, man. It feels special. By the way, why not come back at 170? If you, you know, we're looking forward to it. Good question. Well, I mean,

Charles's name got thrown out there. Um, the stakes are high. He's the highest ranked guy, not named Armin Sarukian or Islam, who are fighting next for the title, obviously. So I beat him on Saturday night. I become the highest ranked guy who is not currently fighting for the title. I will be cage side wherever that fight is, whenever that fight is. And then we figure out timing after that to figure out who I'm fighting for the title. Was five rounds your idea, their idea? How did that come up? I think we talked about it. I was completely fine with five rounds., was five rounds, your idea, their idea. How did that come up? Um, I think, uh, we talked about it. I was completely fine with five rounds. I like five rounds. I like

five rounds against Charles. I like five rounds. Um, I like training for five rounds. I like, I like the extra work. I like, I like the stakes being higher and it's, uh, you know, this is one of the biggest fights of the entire year when it comes to the lightweight division, for sure. Um, Charles, who, who believes that he is going to be champion again, I believe I'm going to be champion again. Uh, co-main event, number one contender fight makes a lot of sense for it to be five rounds because one of us is going to fight five rounds next for sure. Um, and I believe it's going to be me so i was cool with five rounds and i wanted five rounds um going back to the fight just wanted to ask you about one last moment there's a moment at the end where you're you're obviously upset and you're looking through the

cage there's a photo of this i think we have it you know what i'm talking about um come on okay i don't know i don't know because you said you didn't watch there but i mean yeah i just i mean come on like yeah i remember I'll never forget this moment. Are you looking at someone? I'm looking at my wife. There's actually an even better picture because she's wearing this beautiful outfit. It's sparkly, goldish silver, and she looks like a freaking angel. And there was 20,000 people in the arena, and all I saw was her.

And I remember just apologizing to her in that moment, um, for reasons that she did not know. Um, I was going through something that she did not know about because I needed to protect her, um, from it because we were away from each other. And, uh, she knew, you know, it's, it's just funny. She knew it was a different, like, it was a different, I'm sorry. Because I knew I let myself down. I let her down. And sometimes in life, you have to go through these battles.

You have to go through these things that are so, so, so painful to become the man that you need to become, to be galvanized by the most ridiculously painful fires that you will ever, that you would never wish upon your, your worst enemy. Um, and yeah, that was the last fight. And that was, uh, that was the last, that was the last 30 seconds I was in the octagon, you know? Um, so now we get to write that wrong and get back in the wind column on Saturday night. Could I ask what you're referring to, what you were apologizing about? Um, no. um no okay um but someday it'll come out um but it was let's just say it was the worst camp in my life so you're actually saying i'm sorry in that moment because the the videos from the back but then i saw the photo and i was like oh wow this is the different perspective yeah yeah and you're thinking about non-fighting stuff in

that moment too i thought i thought about non-fighting stuff every single day, um, for that entire training camp. Wow. Um, but this is not a, you know, this is not a feel sorry for me type of moment. This is just, that's why people love mixed martial arts. I mean, it's, it's great, right? We can, you can hurl insults at us and you can make fun of us and you can, you can talk bad about us because you bet on us and you lost some money and you can say all these things about us, but we're all just human beings. We are just trying to figure this thing out. And it just so happens that we fight in a cage in front of millions of people, but we're still going through things that people will never, ever understand, as does everybody.

I'm not saying what I've gone through and went through was worse than what a lot of other people have to go through. But it was a chapter of my book that I'm writing at some point. And the next chapter is going to be beautiful. Are you actually writing a book? Well, not currently, actually. Okay. But do you want to? Oh, I want to for sure. Yeah. i've john gordon's a good friend of mine who uh who's written a bunch of books um i've talked to him about it i've got my coach brian smith just wrote a book um i would love to write a book and it's going to be you know

it'll be about me and what i've gone through i mean because what we go through as mixed martial arts and mixed martial artists and what we do it's it's a it's the most beautiful stories that can ever be portrayed to people because there's so many similarities um and crossovers between what people are going through in their lives the fights that they're going through and then what we're going through in our fights plus what we're going to in our lives plus what we're going through in our training plus what we're going through as our lives, plus what we're going through in our training, plus what we're going through as parents and fathers, husbands. It's exhausting. It's exhausting.

Where you guys go. Yeah. It's, you know, so it's, that's why, but the tallest nail always gets hammered. You know, the tallest nail is always the one that gets hammered first. And I think we're just, we're on a platform and we're in a position where people, our hearts are on our sleeves. We are thrown into a cage in front of millions of people. The stakes are high. We are the man in the arena, the man or the woman in the arena. And, uh, and that's why people love this sport. That's why you love this sport. That's why everyone loves the

sport. Um, so I just look at it as a, as a blessing. I had to get over it big time when I went from Bellator to the UFC because I immediately became, you know, a household name. And then, you know, was an overnight success after 12 years of grinding in the sport. So I've gotten better at it because pressure is a blessing. Ridicule is a blessing. The naysayers, they're a blessing. And it's helped me grow as a man. Just a few more minutes.

Do you mind, my team a few more minutes uh do you mind uh my team is in here but do you mind closing the door there i don't know how it opened um thank you for that is this your guy right here that's connor connor what's up you have a connor too what does connor do for you uh everything media okay everything media is he the one doing all the instagram stuff yes shit man well it's it's funny actually because we upped it on the instagram yeah we go hard man connor connor gets after it he does a hell of a job um i've got some great people around me and he is one of them um and i like to boss around a guy named connor ah no i'm just joking but that that is i always tell him that was one of the funniest that was one of the funniest instagram

comments i ever got it's like holy cow chandler's really taking this seriously he hired a guy named connor so he could boss around great it's like really really really high level stuff he does he does a good job and we you know obviously we're not here to to just post pictures of ourselves looking jacked and say the best never rest we're here to we're here to make people feel something um and that's our brand that's a brand brand that's our mission we're trying to to make people feel something with this journey of mixed martial arts that i'm going through and he does a great job what happened last week all of a sudden i'm getting hit up is the fight off is the fight off yeah what was that all about i i honestly do not know um i i reached out to your manager dave he called me in a panic and he's like what are you talking about i'm like well i see

diego lima charles's coach and then i see moicano saying to put me in. What's really funny, I mean, I got a theory. Obviously, I went through almost two years of a year and a half of a layoff, 10 weeks of training for Connor, 13 days before the fight. The fight gets canceled. So maybe there was some internal gamesmanship going on there. Hey, let's leak this thing that

maybe the fight's off again. Let's get Chandler freaked out. But I have been so aloof to everything aside from going to the gym and training and writing in my journal every single day and watching film and being built up, um, that I didn't even, I didn't even call my manager at all. I didn't even send it to them. Didn't even say, Hey, can we look into this? Should we call Hunter? Should we figure out what's going on? Um, it did not affect me whatsoever. What do you write about? I write about myself a lot. Um, like I've had to be better or what you're doing or. Yeah. Um,

I have picked up that journal five, six times a day, every single day. I've, I've got a, I've got a UFC 303 Connor section that was about maybe a fifth of it. And then I've just finished my almost entire journal. I got about 15 pages left of just this training camp. And most of it is gratitude. Most of it is writing to myself, reminding myself what I have done. I mean, cause sometimes I've got this idea of him and I, you put quotation marks around it, him, because I think, you know, I'm speaking as a man to, to men, we, we were, we're working and we're visualizing and we're thinking, and we're trying to become him. We're trying to become that guy, the best version of ourself, whatever that best version is for you is that him, that him that we're chasing,

the him that we're trying to be, the him that we want to be like, the him that we, when we finally get there, we can say, holy cow, I've done it. But at some point there's just the constant striving and you've already become him, but you haven't accepted the fact that you already are him. Um, and I think I've been him, um, for quite some time, but I didn't actually step into the shoes of him. And so putting stuff in my journal every single day, I mean, some of it is, hey, today, this is how things went. This is how sparring was. But most of it is, hey, Michael, just to remind you, this is who you are. This is what you stand for.

This is how much you've worked. This is why you deserve to be successful. This is why you deserve to win on Saturday night. This is why you deserve for. This is how much you've worked. This is why you deserve to be successful. This is why you deserve to win on Saturday night. This is why you deserve to beat Charles Oliveira. This is why, this is why, and this is why. And I ran from that for so, so long because I never wanted to, I never wanted to be the biggest guy in the room because I never wanted people to feel insecure around me. I never wanted to come off cocky, never wanted to come off arrogant because I have, and I

wrote this in my journal the other day, I have become somebody that the former me would have hated. I have become somebody that the former me would have disliked because the former me would have walked into the room with the current me and said, I don't like that guy. He is too confident. He is too arrogant. He has too much self-belief. He has too much pride in himself. So I think I ran from that for so long. And I think there's millions of men out there right now feeling the exact same way. Because my biggest fear was always, I know I'm not better than you. So I want to make sure I don't come off better than you. Maybe I've earned it more than you. Maybe I work harder than you. Maybe I am more disciplined than you. But I never want people to feel like I feel as though I'm better than them.

So with that, I think humility is one of the most beautiful aspects of the human condition. But it also can be a huge detriment to who you are supposed to become because you fall into humility so deeply and you're so tied to humility that the cognitive dissonance of what is happening in real life and who you are in real life isn't what is lining up with your actual beliefs inside of your brain and more importantly, inside of your soul. So I've just had to remind myself that I am him and I do deserve this. And not only do I deserve to be good, but I deserve to be great and not just to be great, but to be extraordinary and to do something that is so ridiculously bigger than not just the former me could ever imagine, but so ridiculously different

and bigger than people would have ever expected out of me, out of a mixed martial artist, out of a man. And I believe that comes to fruition on Saturday night. So I've heard you say that like, even in college, when you were getting better or had a big match, you would say like, no, like, don't win this because then, you know, that proves that you are good and you need to be like mediocre. You need to be middle of the pack. You need to be middle class, right? And I've heard you say that for like 20 years, you had this mentality where you would tell yourself like, it's good to be okay, but don't be excellent. Don't be the man. Don't be him as you're referring to.

And there's sort of like an imposter syndrome there, right? Because like, you're like, oh, no, no, no, no. This, I can't be excellent. Don't be the man. Don't be him as you're referring to. And there's sort of like an imposter syndrome there, right? Because like, you're like, oh, no, no, no, no. This, I can't be that guy. When does that switch happen in your life? When do you make that switch to be like, nah, fuck that. I am the guy and I deserve all of this. I honestly think it's been the last two years.

Even like late Bellator, you're still thinking this? Yeah. Wow. Bellator was really, really tough because nobody will ever, like me fighting Justin Gaethje, Poirier, freaking Hooker, and Ferguson, and Oliveira, and these guys, there's no pressure with that because I'm not supposed to beat those guys.

Right? I was supposed to beat everybody in Bellator. I was almost sick to my stomach with pressure in Bellator because I knew I was the guy. So you can't lose to the guy who's not the guy back then. So now I've got a new, a new found appreciation for the competition that I have in the UFC. Um, but over the last two years, especially, and I think it was the time off. I think it was the sport being taken away from me. I think it was, I think it was getting a,

an inside look into, Hey, this is what life looks like after this whole thing is over. So you better grab the bull by the horns and you better become him now or else you're going to look back and hate yourself for not stepping into the shoes of him. But no, exactly what you said. I mean, yeah, I would do it in college because I think there's a certain amount of responsibility that people are afraid of when it comes to having massive amounts of success. We talk about it. We want to do it. And we listen to the self-help gurus and we want to be the world champion. We want to be the best. We want to win. We want to be the millionaire. We want to be the celebrity. We want to be whatever it is, but the pressure that comes along with that and the pressure that you're going to put on yourself, it's a scary thing for a lot of people. And I think that's the biggest thing

that holds people back. And I'm here to tell you that when you step into that, there's so much more freedom because if you fail, you fail while daring greatly. And yeah, it's going to be painful, but at least you did something and you tried something. Because only the mediocre can be expected to be at their best because they're not truly trying to get outside of their comfort zones. They're not truly trying to accomplish anything that's bigger than themselves. And what I've also realized is I'm not doing this for me either. I'm not doing this for, yeah, I get the money in my bank account and yeah, I get the followers and I get the platform, but it's the butterfly effect of the millions of people who see my blueprint for what I've done. And it's so much less about me and it's so much more about them. So when you start to reverse

engineer that and say, it's not about me, therefore it's okay. If I win, I don't have to worry about me feeling a little bit insecure that I had too much success because it's not about me. All it is is just a physical manifestation of what is able to be accomplished by other people. And once I really started realizing that, the sport changed for me and success, what success looks like changed for me. What having money and platform and fame

or whatever all these materialistic things are, having those things are just a, it's just a by-product of the hard work that I've put in and the calling on my life. Just a couple more. I think you broke the news that number 47, Mr. Trump is going to be there on Saturday. I hope so. I didn't break that news. Well, I did say, I did say I watched an interview where he said, yeah, I'll probably go, but if I lose, I'll be so depressed depressed I won't go. So he won, so I'm assuming he's going to come. Well, I feel like between you, Bo Nickel, I know Stipe is a big supporter as well.

I mean, I feel like a lot of his guys are going to be there. Yeah, I sent the text out this morning. Oh, wow. You're like that, huh? Well, not the DT himself. You don't text with him? Uh-uh. That would be –

It would be cool if i lied to you right now and really listen you could have and i would have believed you i would have believed as long i don't even know how that is possible like how do you even text the president when people say exactly exactly i don't even know how if there even is a phone that allows that sort of thing um so so okay so that that is out of the way uh msg you know historically has been tough right uh premise i'm defeated at at msg oh and three i actually just ran into a dude who was like who had been to all three of my fights at msg man and he's like hey dude we're gonna break the msg curse but i also look at that as another layer where i'm like of course this is the way it was supposed to be that's what i was gonna yeah this

is the way it was supposed to be to fight the guy who already beat you and shattered your dreams to also fight at the arena that has shattered your dreams now every single time you have never won inside there now it's time to write that wrong you're not superstitious at all no not even a little bit i want i asked for this card i mean we talked about october i wanted to fight i wanted to fight in october but i needed to do a a serious legit, legit weight cut. Like, Hey, I've been preparing my mind and body for one 70 for the last year and a half. And now I only have like 10 weeks in order to get down to one 55 for October. Um, it wasn't going to happen. It was just too soon. So I needed it some extra time and I wanted MSG and we got MSG. Okay. Um, and I mean, I remember you,

you remember when you rolled in, I couldn't even actually, we actually have this. You rolled in on the chair, uh, cause you couldn't walk after the premise fight, but that was the Monday. Here you are. Here you are right here. Look at you just rolling. And here it comes. Here comes Mike.

Cause he couldn't walk, but there's the guy. Crazy, right? Yep. That's how much pain you were in. You couldn't walk. It wasn't really pain. It was more just, yeah, the foot wasn't really working very well. But I mean, a week or two later,

I was running. I remember I ran like five miles two weeks later and then sent the message to Scott Coker. I said, book the rematch. Like, I got to write this wrong. But that was when the stool got pulled out from under me. Yes, yes, yes.

We don't need to talk about all of that. It's all right. It's good, man. I love it. This is all part of the story. I love my losses more than my wins, I think. That's so weird. It is weird. You. I love it. This is all part of the story. I love my losses more than my wins, I think. That's so weird. It is weird.

You versus Patricky Pitbull, that knockout, that's one of my favorite knockouts of all time. That was pretty sweet. And like the hooker fight. How could you like your losses more?

The pain that it causes in that moment, I know the perspective afterwards, but man, you've had like, look at that. I mean, that is, that was like a sniper. Yeah.

And I still got that probably even more now. So, I mean i i've actually envisioned that a couple different times i don't know if it's gonna be a right hand left hook uh what it's gonna be but charles olivera is gonna be separated from consciousness i believe um this is what you're feeling this is what you're envisioning 100 wow um so it's uh it's gonna be fun so but i'm not saying yeah i'd rather. I'd like to win, but, but I love, I love, I think it just, it's a little bit of a shock factor, but it's not why I do it, but it's,

we need to talk about our losses. If you don't talk about your, it's, it's the reason why I will be on Bustin' with the Boys on Monday after this fight, win, lose, or draw. Those are my guys. And it's a platform for me to get up there, black eyes, bloody nose, stitches, whatever, to talk about the win or the loss, because I do it for myself as well. Because I remember, you know, you know, I went through 688 days without winning a fight, three losses in a row. Career was on life support. And part of that was because I hid from everybody and I stayed away. You, if you would have called me, I would have said no to an interview. It didn't want to be in the public. I was ashamed. I was embarrassed. So the best way is to get the message out to people that you have to relish in your losses,

knowing that you need those losses in order to get the wins. Um, so I will be on the bus on Monday to talk about the win, the loss, the draw, the whatever happens, um, no matter what, because you got to get back on the horse, you got to keep moving forward. Maybe you could come on this show too? I actually am here till like two on Monday. So I might not actually be on the bus on Monday. So maybe I'll come in the studio on Monday.

That'll be great. And then we can take you to the airport. I'm not going to roll in. One last one. We found this photo of you. I think it might be like your first promotional photo for Strikeforce. Okay. And if we could put, this is the one like the studio shot. One last one We found this photo of you I think it might be like your first promotional photo For Strike Force And if we could put this is the one like the studio shot

I just want to ask you as we're getting so deep here Who's this guy? Look at him Young little dude big neck Look at that hair too See I've always had the receding hairline Just so everybody knows It's just the way my hair is shaped

I think you look very similar It's just a little bit longer i still got the blessed tattoo what how old were you when you got that by the way the blessed tattoo yeah dude i don't know pre-college i don't know okay i don't know maybe it was in college shoot i forgot who is that who's that kid though? Would he have imagined all of this? Would he have? No, no, no, no. I mean, I mean, I told people, I told Tyron, I told Ben, I told the MMA media, the ones that weren't calling back then, but if I ever got the opportunity, you know, but I didn't really truly believe it, I don't think, but, but I had a hard work ethic and I had some, I had some and I had some dreams to accomplish. I needed the belief to work its way up.

But here we are, freaking, what, 15 years later, man. I mean, it's pretty crazy. Like I said, I'm not supposed to be here. And that makes it even more special. It makes it even more beautiful. And Saturday night is going to be fun, man. Man, what a pleasure. Thank you, Mike. Really appreciate you. You're the man. It makes it even more beautiful. And Saturday night is going to be fun, man. Man, what a pleasure. Thank you, Mike. Really appreciate you. You're the man. It's always such a pleasure, honestly. And I don't take these visits for granted. You could be doing a

million things in New York today. So thank you so much. It really does mean a lot. Michael Chandler, UFC 309, Madison Square Garden this weekend. We're going to take a little break here to say goodbye to Mike and rejigger the studio. Speaking of a guy who's had success, as Mike is expecting to have this weekend, Alex Pereira, now 2-0, actually 3-0 if you count his debut, but 2-0 in the big fights at MSG. Here's my conversation with Pereira. It was Alex Volkanovski. I got my Alex's mixed up. So that was Mr. Volkanovski. And that was Mr. Michael Chandler. I was mentioning to him afterwards that, you know, we've talked a lot over the years. Maybe it's been almost since the Strike force days, maybe a little bit after that might've been my favorite one. That legit might've been my favorite one. And, and obviously,

you know, when, when, um, someone, you know, opens up and, and obviously when you're in person and, and maybe it was my favorite one because I haven't done an in-person one in a while because, uh, of the move and all that. But gosh, I just am, I'm very, very grateful. I'm very, very thankful when the guys come in, especially on fight week. I'm extremely thankful. This dude is so busy.

He's all over the place. And for him to make the time means a lot. I can tell you that tomorrow on the program, we will have two in-studio guests. That's how we do it when it's a New York City.

I love when the UFC comes to town or when a big promotion comes to town, in particular the UFC with the biggest names, because we get in-studio guests. And I will admit when I knew I had to leave on Wednesday to go to Dallas, I'm not complaining, but I was worried that we wouldn't have as many opportunities and maybe we're missing out on one or two come Wednesday. Nevertheless, excited that we'll have two in-studio guests tomorrow.

So I told you Carlos Paredes, he's not going to be in studio. He'll be on the show, but in studio, we'll have the Welsh gangster Oban Elliott in studio. First time that I get a chance to meet him. And the former UFC bantamweight, now featherweight contender, bantamweight champion, Aljamain Sterling, the pride of New York. He will join us in studio tomorrow. So how about that?

Two in-studio guests, a contender at 170. We are rolling. Thumbs up to the chat. Thumbs up to the chat. First in-studio guest in the books. The sun is setting in New York City. We've got our Tom Aspinall crochet guy over here. As you knock him down.

Yeah. What's going on, yeah man what a time prank everything okay um let's break the fourth wall i mean we were you know we were debating a lot about the audio and whatnot uh i think i think going with the stick mic uh the traditional mic in that sense and not the lav was a good call he was he was he was making love to it he was he was you know he was giving it you know the the tlc he was speaking into it that you did this um because you towards the end there were talking to the right of your microphone i was just i've never been this upset before wow i was

like look at mike he's actually holding the microphone because he's the way this thing is positioned you always quote um howard stern and that man eats that mic like i just i'm a little disappointed wow by the way you could have come on the uh the loudspeaker and when iron is it no You always quote Howard Stern, and that man eats that mic. Like, I just am a little disappointed. Wow. By the way, you could have come on the thing. The loudspeaker? Yeah. When Iron is at?

No, come on. Wow. Okay. So you're saying here I am in a rare moment of actually feeling happy and proud, and you just shit all over it. Yeah. Like, the anxiety got so high, I was like, I don't know how to handle this compliment. Okay.

So I decided to throw it back at you. But are you happy about his fucking mic? That what i was talking about not my mic yeah yeah he was great okay all right bastion for us all to follow yeah for sure um all right so uh regarding today's program obviously stipe was on earlier and he didn't want to talk much about john jones and tom aspinall but i do want to talk about it a little bit before we go here, because this is the major story that will develop over the week. I wake up this morning and I see a tweet storm from one John Jones. He loves to tweet through it, especially late at night. And it's late for me, but I think it was like 11 o'clock on the West Coast. I believe

he was in Vegas because he was at the event on Saturday at the Apex. There was the one tweet about the bitch line that he was upset about, but the tweet about the fans calling him a duck and then he'll remain the goat, I thought was really interesting. And this was coming off of the interview with Kevin Aioli that came out, I think, onursday where everyone got their pennies in a bunch um do we have the tweet here so i can read it i believe it's the one where he's we have the video no it's not a video it's it's a tweet where he says that is i'm not talking about

the aioli video just yet there's a tweet from last night where he says that you guys keep talking about you know we have like all the tweets. We went through them. You know, the ones from yesterday from John Jones. I could pull it up here. Here it is. I know it's hard for a lot of you guys to grasp, but based on his resume today, fighting and beating him, meaning Tom Aspinall,

would change nothing about my legacy. I would literally be in the same position I am now, the GOAT. And I think this really sums it all up. The clip that I'm talking about, and I will weigh in on this clip in a moment because to a degree, I understand where John is coming from and it kind of speaks to the problem here. This is the clip with Kevin Aioli from last week

where he talks about essentially the same type of thought process. Hey, this does nothing for me. Take a look. Will you defend your vote against Aspinall who has the interim title? More than likely not. More than likely not.

I feel like Tom Aspinall is, I don't want to say nobody, but he just hasn't proven anything. He hasn't done anything. And I understand that. I mean, he won his belt against Sergey. Sergey just got slaughtered by someone else. So it's just like, I'm not here to gamble someone else making a name off of me.

I'm here to compete against the guys where when we look back, you know, 10 years from now, you know, it'd be like John Jones fought this guy and that guy and this legend and this champion and this champion. If there were to be a fight of a guy that's still on our UFC roster that would be not only

financially worth it, but legacy worth it, it would be Alex Pereira. So everyone went crazy over this clip, and I actually like this version of John. I think John is just messing with us. I think he's just playing. The kids like to call it trolling. I think he knows that Aspinall's going to react. I think he knows

we're going to react. I think he knows everyone's going to react except for Alex Perra because he's somewhat oblivious to all of this and he hangs out with Roman Reigns. I think John knows exactly what he's doing. And even the way he answers, like, I think not. That to me sort of implies that he's kind of messing with us. And he knows when he says things like, this guy's done nothing, he knows that people like me are going to sit here and tell you about the fact that Tom Aspinall has way more wins than Jon Jones at heavyweight and way more impressive wins than really anyone who's available to fight Jon Jones after this fight, of course, at heavyweight. And we'll eat it all up. And that will only make the fight bigger and more desired. um just in case you need a little refresher jake collier alan badoe andre arlovsky sergey spivak alexander volkov the freak lost to blades taibura pavlovich blades he mentions pavlovich getting

smoked pavlovich lost a a decision to alexander volkov he didn't get knocked out or anything like that and um you know that's a lot a loss and it is what it is. I don't think it diminishes Sergei Pavlovich. But if you go back to the tweet from last night, people like to bring up the fact that there was once a time

where Jon Jones was 23 and he fought Shogun Hua and he fought Rashad Evans and he fought Lyoto Machida and he fought Rampage Jackson and he fought Vitor Belfort. Those guys fought him and now he's refusing to fight the guy in his position. It's not exactly apples to apples, but I understand why people bring it up. Those guys fought him. They did the job. It's now time for him to return the favor.

That's what people are saying and and that's typically how this goes the difference is those guys weren't sitting on undefeated records so i actually understand where john is coming from i understand that john is saying like look i probably have two or three more fights max i need to be calculated i need to be smart i need to be cerebral i need to pick and choose my fights wisely. That's why he wanted the Stipe fight. There's a legacy attached to Stipe. Stipe's around the same age as him.

And that's why a Pereira fight right now, there's a legacy attached to that because he's so hot, et cetera, et cetera. The part that John is missing is that by the time it's all said and done, by the time this is all finished, Aspinall could very well be the greatest of all time, with or without John Jones. By the time this whole thing is done, we will talk about Tom Aspinall, in my opinion,

like we talk about Stipe, like we talk about Kane, like we talk about JDS, like we talk about Fedor, I think he is that good. And John doesn't see that or doesn't want to acknowledge it or wants to dismiss it or wants to avoid him because he'll be long gone by the time that happens. But when the story of Tom Aspinall is written, it will be said, it will be noted that Jon Jones refused to fight him if in fact it comes to that. Now, I still maintain that it will not come to that. I still maintain that if John Jones wins on Saturday, he will fight Tom Aspinall summer, spring, fall, whatever of next year. I believe that. That's what I feel. That's just

a feeling thing. That's not in writing. There's no contract, there's no nothing out there. If he doesn't do that, I think that there is a very strong case that when the whole story is written, when Aspinall's career is done, which will be much longer and later than Jones, that this will be a mark. There will be a notation there that he did not fight this guy, not necessarily as he was coming up because Tom is there. He just needs the opportunities. But he wasn't willing to fight him when he was the interim champion because the interim champion is the ticket that gets you to the undisputed belt. And I think that's a problem.

There's a conversation to be had about why Francis never happened. John was a light heavyweight. He hadn't made his debut. He wasn't the heavyweight champion. There's a way to get out of that conversation. There were politics. There was all kinds of stuff. There's no real way to get out of this conversation.

If you choose as the heavyweight champion to not fight the interim champ and instead fight the light heavyweight champion when I believe that fight may be sexy big I don't think it's the difference of a million pay-per-view buys you can make the case that Alex Pereira is way more popular he's headlined more shows I'm not being naive here but I don't think it's it's a million pay-per-view buys difference if Aspinall's career goes the way in which we think it's all going to go, this will be noted. Now he could probably get away with it. Now he could probably get away with saying he's done nothing. And who is he? He hasn't main, main evented pay-per-views and

stuff like that. He could probably get away with it. But when the whole story is told, I do think that that will be something that people talk about. And that's why I don't think Jon Jones is not going to fight him. I think the same way Floyd Mayweather knew that he could catch Canelo, I think Jon probably thinks that he can catch Aspinall and shove it up all our asses. And I think the UFC will want to make that happen. I'm taking Dana White's word for it. He has said it himself. Winner of this fight is fighting Tom. And so my advice to everyone out there is don't take the bait. Don't get riled up.

This is good. This is fun. This is heel, John. This is what we wanted. This is what we've always asked for. Enjoy it. Drink it up. Let him be this character.

This makes it more fun rather than him being the soft and proper and polite guy. Let him rile us up. Let Tom sit there. Let us foam at the mouth for it. Let us come here on Monday of next week and be like, Tom's got to fight the winner. Stipe or John, Tom's got to fight the winner. And if either of them vacate it, in the moment, I don't think people are going to necessarily riot. I think the hardcore fans will riot, but by the time it's all said and done, it will be a black eye. I hope that makes sense. Does that make sense to you, Pizzi? I don't know if right now it is affecting his legacy, but I think when it's all said and done It will be a A little X on the legacy Where it says

Ah this dude was here And there was really no one else There is no one else at heavyweight And there is no one in the pipeline at heavyweight This is the one guy He's lucky There's literally one guy You can't even talk about another guy

I mean just look He's wiped out the division apart from gan like that that's the only other guy that's really there um and when you say he who are you talking about aspinall yeah yeah but i'm just saying it's not even like you could say oh there's another guy because some people say like oh there's always gonna be a guy there's always gonna be a guy this is this is the top 10 at heavyweight right now. Aspinall won, obviously. Gunn, Jones beat him. Volkov, Pavlovich, Blades, Almeida, Spivak, Stipe, Taibora, Jairzinho. No one's asking for any of these fights. No one wants any of these fights. No one's going to demand any of these

fights from now until three, four years from now by the time John is done. There's one guy left. He can do it. He beats Stipe. He beats Gunn. gun he beats tom so this idea that there's always going to be another guy that guy doesn't exist no one's coming through the pipeline right now it's one dude it won't be great i i do think it will not reflect well on the greatest mma fighter with the greatest resume who fought a murderer's row who fought a killer after killer after killer that run from ufc 128 and a little bit before Brandon Vera Vladimir Matyushenko um Stefan Bonner followed by Shogun Hua and and and Rashad Evans and Rampage Jackson and Lyoto Machida and Vitor Belfort and Alexander Gustafson and Alexander

Gustafson and Daniel freaking Cormier twice there's no greater resume resume. And so I'll be clear, like right now you may get away with saying, oh, he doesn't have to do it, he's done enough. But I do think by the time Aspinall career is over and he does what we expect him to do, this will be a knock on his legacy. Agree or disagree? Absolutely agree.

And this is the funny part of this. Like let's, let's pretend, right? You have a very optimistic view of this situation, I think. Yeah. That this is all a great act by Jon Jones. But if it isn't, he has already made more people talk about this fight than he had before he started talking about it. You mentioned next Monday.

People are all, this is a bad thing that he's kind of sparked this on the week of his fight. And now Tom is going to New York. And I really feel like this is going to be a circus all week between John and Tom talking back and forth. And, you know, Stipe, the guy he has to fight, this legend who you spoke to earlier really not being part of the narrative this fight week and that was ufc's biggest fear going into this like they were adamant this fight had to happen they uh rebooked the fight a year after it was meant to happen and despite a lot of the fan base saying this isn't the one we want but but the issue here is tom aspinall as backup fighter feels completely symbolic at this point.

If we aren't taking the optimistic view that you are. Like, it means absolutely. Why are they traveling over to New York on Tuesday? The Aspinall group. Like, it feels completely redundant. I can honestly see this ending with another person falling out with the UFC. Let's not forget, John was the guy back in 2020 or 2021 trying to move up the heavyweight. And it was his name that was being kind of tarnished by this situation where he wanted Deontay Wilder money to fight Francis Ngannou. Obviously, Francis as well had his issues with the UFC.

But that was a fight that everybody wanted to see and the ufc couldn't get it across the line and that resulted in the ufc you know having bad feelings towards the fighter i feel like if this can't happen they certainly won't be willing to take the blame for it they've made tom aspel an interim champion which means he is eventually going to unify the title the only problem is neither of the guys who are fighting in this event on saturday seem to be interested in a fight with Tom Aspel and that's a big problem for the UFC yeah I mean look they'll move on just like when they they do the countdown show and they talk about the heavyweight division and they don't even mention Francis Ngannou and

just like when George St-Pierre won the middleweight title and then he vacated and Whitaker got it and no one really brings that up right but I do I do think, like, look at Floyd. When we talk about Floyd and his career, certainly like the Money May part of his career, one of the first fights that people bring up is the Canelo win, right? And so at the time, Canelo was legit, you know, obviously a star, but like that fight was like 10 years ago now, if not more. And so look how that fight has aged. Look how that fight has aged in his favor. The same will happen to John. What's the issue?

We're not talking about the difference between a Conor McGregor fight and fighting a mid-level guy. Pereira and Aspinall, there's not that big of a gap in terms of pay-per-view in my opinion. I don't think. Maybe I'm wrong. Can I just interject for a second? Yeah. Is there a big gap though in terms of current resume, in terms of what Alex Pereira has accomplished versus what Tom Aspinall has accomplished. 100%. Because you are forecasting for Tom Aspinall, and you are saying, one day he will be this. I would make the argument,

and feel free to disagree, Alex Pereira is that. Alex Pereira is that now, today. At light heavyweight and middleweight. Sure. Not at heavyweight. So John's whole thing is, let me move up to heavyweight

and show that I'm the greatest of all time by being a two-division champion. You don't necessarily get to claim that if you're beating a light heavyweight champion. As great as he is, he's not a heavyweight champion. No argument for me there. But if we are talking about Jon Jones' limited number of fights left, to me, there is logic to I would rather fight Alex Pryor. Now, stylistic thing aside, right? He says in that interview with Kevin, he's like, I'm 235 and Alex Pereira is 240.

Forget the style. Forget the size. Resume wise, Alex Pereira is proven. Alex Pereira is already near the end of that trajectory. And he has done the things that we are hopeful that Tom Aspinall can go and do. So as a fight, I would understand. The logic tracks for me. Now, granted, I think one, you're right.

Jon Jones is trolling. Like, no doubt in my mind. You don't believe him, right? We better hope. We better hope he's trolling. So I said on Twitter that I love the heel work from Jon Jones and I got killed because people are like, how could you root for this? First of all, I'm not rooting for anything. I don't give a shit. Like, I'm not rooting for anything. I don't give a shit. Like I'm, I'm not rooting for anything,

but he's very, when he compares Tom Aspinall to Johnny Walker, that's like troll masterclass stuff, because that's going to get people riled up. But I rec also recognize that like Alex Perra makes more sense for John Jones as a fight. Like it just, I, I, I,. People are going to say the interim title for Tom. I think interim titles don't mean anything. They're fugazi. They don't mean anything anyway, so I don't really put much stock into that part of it. Alex Pereira is a bigger fight, period. Alex Pereira is a bigger fight, and it makes sense for Jon Jones to want to fight Alex Pereira at this point.

How much bigger, though? How much bigger in terms of, like, gate, pay-per-view? Well, you're projecting legacy stuff, right? For his legacy. If Tom does not shake out to be what you are projecting, which fight will mean more to... on paper when we look back? Well, that's the thing. You could play the

if. I'm saying I think he does end up being that guy. I'm not playing if with Alex Pereira. Alex Pereira's now. Alex Pereira has already done these things. Middleweight, light heavyweight. I also think in terms of selling the fight, you're talking about the pay-per-view options and everything like that. I think Alex Pereira draws the more casual fans much more than Tom Aspinall does, and I think you can sell that fight so much easier.

This guy who has gotten the title at middleweight, has gotten at light heavyweight, he's got all the success, he's this scary dude, he's one of the biggest stars in the UFC, and now he's going up to try and get a belt at heavyweight against Jon Jones. Then give up the belt. Then give up the belt. That's fine. I'm with that too.

Give up the belt. Okay. Don't hold it hostage. Imagine if Shogun Hua would have said, Nah, fuck that. I'm not fighting this guy. What has he done? No, I actually do agree with you.

I'm just saying, in terms of the size of the fight, I think Alex Pereira is much bigger. But Tom Aspinall is the interim champ. You need to fight him. This is what I would do if I was Tom. PC's right. This is going to be a circus.

It's going to be everywhere that Tom is and John is, it's going to be people just waiting for whatever to happen. It's going to be two ex-lovers. Which is a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. There's going to be a just waiting for whatever to happen. It's going to be two ex-lovers. Which is a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. And they've never loved each other. And a cam here. If I was Tom Aspinall, I would be trying to fight Alex Pereira.

Jon Jones is broadcasting that the fight isn't big enough at this moment for him, or at least saying that publicly. The UFC was not paying. My read on it, and I've always had this stance. If the UFC pays Jon Jones commensurate with taking the risk to fight Tom Aspinall, he will fight Tom Aspinall. That has not happened yet. They have not discussed that yet. He has mentioned Alex Pereira as an option. If I am Tom Aspinall, I want to remove every single other option. Oh, you, you, Stipe, you're going to fight him. Okay. Now that's done. Gone's off the table. I'm

going to beat gone. And then I'm going to beat Alex Pereira. And then you're gonna fight him okay now that's done gone's off the table i'm gonna beat gone and then i'm gonna beat alex perera and then you're gonna have nowhere to run you're not gonna have a single person that you could say other than me and if you do and if you say anybody else or you're not retired it would become even more of a joke it would become laughable so if i was tom aspinall what i would be trying to do is eliminate the alex perera thing and then leave no other options oh you want to fight Alex? I'm going to fight Alex. Because I don't believe you, John.

I don't believe you really want to fight Alex. I'm going to fight Alex. Take that fight off the table, and now you have to fight me. I actually love this from you, Rick. I think this is a great plan for Tom Aspinall. This is it. I really do. It's also—

Because who else is Tom Aspinall going to fight? If he's not going to fight John Jones, then who else would he be against? We're not going to get a massive fight where you're probably going to be a sizable favorite due to the size difference between you and you having fought your whole career at heavyweight and you're getting a monster name, maybe the biggest baby face in all the UFC right now, uh, in Alex Pereira,

like who else are you going to fight? Volkov? If he, if he wins, defend your interim belt again, why not just fight Alex Pereira? It's always going to be for whatever guy perera is the only person they can both point that now and say if it isn't this guy

it's got to be this guy and i will say though the distinction that needs to be known here is i think a lot of people see it as tom chasing jones he's not he's chasing the belt and he's been saying that since day one jones is a name not about one of the greatest of all time if not the greatest of all time but the issue the frustration from the Aspinall side is these guys um whether they should or they shouldn't and this is the Aspinalls as in Andy Aspinall and Tom Aspinall they still think this is a sport they are still pursuing being the greatest in the sport. And that gets muddled by all this. It feels like it's two names that we're looking at here. It's the belt.

That's, that's the situation. Vacate the title if you're going to fight Pereira, if you're Jon Jon. Yeah. That's great. He has, he has, he has a dream. His dad has a dream. Don't hold it hostage. If you are truly serious about this, I'm reminded of what Vince McMahon once said about Bret Hart, my guy, 1997, 27 years ago, two days ago, if you get what I'm saying.

November 9th, 1997, the Montreal Screwjob, Molson Center, I was there. On the Monday after, he was on Monday Night Raw, and he said, and I'm paraphrasing, but this line is exact, there's a time-honored tradition in our business. Now, he was referring to dropping the belt when you leave the promotion. Well, when it comes to the real fight sports MMA Boxing Kickboxing There's a time Honor tradition In our business To fight

The number one contender And if you want to Take it a step further To fight the Interim champion That's the way it goes That's what Shogun Did to John

And that's what Every single other champion Has done for the Interim champion And on and on And on it goes And sometimes It's not favorable And sometimes It's not you know the biggest money fight and and sometimes you're at

the end of your career and sometimes you don't think that this guy is on your level but that's the way it goes gsp fought guys um anderson fought guys uh bj penn fought guys demetrius johnson fought guys and on and on it goes he's not above that just because he has this desire to retire undefeated and as the goat and whatnot it's an amazing thing and his longevity is to be celebrated the naysayer would say you have fought once since 2020 that's what the naysayer would say but the the the optimist would then say you know what maybe it was better for his body he stayed out of trouble. God bless.

The longevity is incredible because none of those guys are still in the sport anymore. But there is a time-honored tradition. If you are the champion, you do what's best. You don't get to pick and choose. You don't get to fight the light heavyweight champion because that's the bigger fight right now. He's got his own stuff to worry about. And after Tom Aspinall, guess who's there? Alex Pereira. We're one fight away from that being a thing.

You beat Stipe, you beat Tom, the Pereira fight is even bigger. You don't fight Tom, you don't get to call yourself champion. And the UFC made this mess last year when they made this for the interim belt. If they allow this to continue, it makes a mockery of that heavyweight title. When he won the heavyweight title against Cyril Gann, I watched it last night. The announcer said, undisputed champion. He is not the undisputed champion. He is the disputed champion at this point. He's the disputed champion because there's a guy named Francis Gann who still hasn't lost at heavyweight. And he's the disputed champion because he will not fight Tom Aspinall if this is where we're going.

If this is truly where we're going, which again, I will say after all of this, I still believe he fights him. But if we're going to take his words truly at face value and say, okay, he's actually telling us the truth, he will be the disputed champion and he should relinquish the belt. Or one step further, the UFC should do what they did to Conor McGregor, right? When it did not make any sense for business They took the belt away from him They took the belt away The 145 pound title Why don't they do it here? There is a time

Honored tradition and I will maintain That the win will look great on his record Today And it will look much better In 5-6 years if Tom Aspinall Ends up being who at least I think, he will end up being. And so I don't know if it ruins his legacy in June if he fights someone else or July. But I think in the end, it will age beautifully.

And I would love to see it happen. I don't think, like, I don't know what you, what do you guys think? Like, what is the line for that fight? I don't think this is like a cakewalk for Tom Aspinall. I don't think he's an 8-1 favorite. You're saying that the win will age beautifully, but what would the loss do? Yeah.

That's the risk. The loss does not age beautifully. Yeah, no loss age. Guess what? If you lose to Stipe, that won't age beautifully either. Well, then we're not having any more competition. No, but the point is, if you're that worried about the losses, then stop fighting.

You're there. But Tom is the most dangerous, no? I think you're making that argument. Can I ask you three lads? Do any of you think that if Stipe or Johns pull out, they get injured this week? No. By the way, Stipe did say it kind of in the interview.

He was like, if something happens, then I'll have to deal with him then and all that. I will say this. I think if Stipe is forced, if something, God forbid, happens to John, I think Stipe does it. If they keep the money the same, which I would think at this point they do. I don't think they were going to. But if they keep the money the same, at this man like steve but we know steve is at the

end of the road he could say it he could not say it you get to walk home back to your you know suburban life very happy like he he's making more on saturday than he'll probably make for several years as a fireman so i i do think he takes it. And I don't think he is clutching onto anything. He already lost. He's not the champion. He's not holding onto an undefeated record. John Jones, for all intents and purposes, is undefeated. He's never been beaten. And so John is being very crafty with that right now. And he's earned the right to be. You make it this far undefeated, you've earned the right to be. But I do think that there's a cycle here. There's a thing.

There's a cycle for sure. And this will be part of the story. If you want to tell the true story of Jon Jones, meteoric rise, youngest world champion, beat every single person, did things to himself that should have precluded him from beating those legends, didn't take care of his body, partied, did all kinds of crazy things which should have precluded him. He overcame that. He overcame all these self-imposed obstacles. His talent was so otherworldly that he was able to overcome these obstacles. Win, win, win, win,

win. Towards the end of his run as a light heavyweight, he was able to overcome these obstacles. Win, win, win, win, win. Towards the end of his run as a light heavyweight, he was lacking motivation. He was fighting down to the competition. He squeaked by against a couple people. He almost slipped up against Anthony Smith. It was a little too close against Tiago Santos. It was a little too close against Dominic Reyes. And then he didn't fight for three plus years. And then he won that fight. And then he got hurt. And then he fought a guy who had not fought for quite some time. And then he, you know, if it ends up being, he refused to fight the number one guy in the interim champion. That's the whole story. And so the front end looks way better than the back end,

if we're being honest. People have short-term memory. They probably will look at the whole resume in 50 years and be like, damn, that was pretty good. But those who know, those who lived it will say, but yeah, towards the end, there were a couple of things. Listen, end of the day, no fight career is perfect. There's all kinds of marks. There's all kinds of things you could say. It's never black and white. It's never perfect. Who loves GSP more than me? I say I think Johnny Hendrick beat him at UFC 167.

I believe it was. So nothing's perfect. Nothing is perfect. Nothing is absolute. But I do think this is part of the story now. And I don't necessarily think it was... When he fought Cyril Gunn, Aspinall wasn't breathing down think it was when he fought surreal gun aspinall wasn't breathing down his neck when he fought surreal gun francis was gone so we all had to move on and even when he was fighting steepay in november of last year it wasn't quite the same

since then tom has starched two of the best heavyweights in the world pavlovich and blades rather easy like like literally in like 120 seconds or whatever it is. This has to happen. And I think it does happen. It has to happen, for sure. I hope you're right because I feel like we're inevitably headed towards a scapegoat situation where one of these guys

wants Deontay Waller money and the other guy is afraid to fight killers or whatever happened last time. I think that's what it feels like to me. I fully think that Jon Jones wants to fight Alex Pereira. And honestly, what Rick said is right. I get it. He's a huge star.

I don't want to see that happen, but I understand it. I think to say there's no one else, it's crazy, as long as Pereira's there saying he wants to fight everywhere. Is this for Jon Jones and Tom Aspinall to even decide, though? not the ufc's dilemma like it tends well that's what i mean i understand what you're saying conversation about francis and ghanu and john jones and we've gone back and forth they wanted to fight they didn't want to fight the same thing is happening again if the ufc pays them both the commensurate money to fight would they not fight i i i have i've i struggle to believe it's not a money

thing for tom as you know like tom's the easier side but if by the way you bring up a good point but the thing is no one in the ufc is calling for prayer versus jones to the best of my knowledge so because he's playing no no but i'm saying because he's playing matchmaker that's why the attention goes away from the ufc and it's like hey john if you're really getting the pick of the litter here because let's be honest it seemed like he got the pick of the litter with with the cp fight right yeah then yo yo yo yo what are we doing you know what i mean yeah but that's why i say take dana's word for it dana told us when did he say he said at the presser right the slap fighting one he said this is the plan the world wants to see this let

me put it this way would it shock you though if ultimately the ufc just doesn't pay the amount that it would cost to make this fight because that's what i know i in my bones believe happened with francis and would happen here that's what i think as well i believe john jones can be convinced with with the right sum of money to fight any person on god's green earth agree man i hope not i think that zero means a lot to him and i think that uh i'm not suggesting that a prayer fight would be cheaper but like i i think tom aspinall is the riskiest fight no doubt i think is does anybody here in this conversation disagree i think tom aspinall is the riskiest fight that anybody, John Jones included, could take right now at heavyweight.

Honestly, I don't. Pereira is such a high-level striker, and John, I mean, I think Dominic Reyes beat John Jones four years ago. It wasn't like he out-wrestled him. By the way, adore Tom. Tom got tagged by Curtis Blades. Did he not? Real quick there.

I think Alex Pereira is a real problem. I don't think he's going for the easier fight with Pereira. I really don't. I do, but I'm with you. I think there's degrees to it. I don't think Alex is the cakewalk that people think when they imagine this. No way.

I just think Tom poses more problems, right? Alex has one problem that he poses, which is if you are within range of Alex Pereira's punches, you're probably going to sleep. That's a real problem to have. With Tom, he has that plus the jujitsu, plus what happens if John tries to take him down and he can't. I think Tom is the tougher problem to solve. But I'm with you that I don't think Alex Pereira is some cakewalk as has been described. I think they're both dangerous problems. But I just don't believe that there's... If the money is on the table, I don't believe John Jones would not take the fight.

These are all good problems to have. When John came back and Francis was gone, it was like, all right, what is out there? Look, Pereira wasn't exactly where he is today. Aspinall wasn't where he was today. And so these are all good problems to have. Let's see how it plays out. We'll have a lot more to say on this throughout the week. I did want to mention two more things before we go shout out to don

madge the ufc and pfl veteran who earlier today uh announced his retirement from mixed martial arts 13 years ago to the day i made my professional mma debut it seems fitting that today will be the day that i announced my retirement from professional mma what an amazing ride it has been the ups the downs the amazing people i've met, the friendships I've built, and the places I've seen wouldn't change a thing. I've given the majority of my adult life to this sport, and I've never looked back. For now, though, it's time for me to say goodbye and set my eyes onto new ventures. I have an amazing family and life. MMA has done this all for me. I'm going to be chasing some new goals in my sporting life and pursuing my coaching role now within the MMA world. The pride of South Africa, Don Madge, announcing his retirement. And what about Robles Despain, guys? Everyone said when

he was released from the UFC that he should go the karate combat route. And I'm seeing here coming through the wire. I always like saying that like I live in the 1950s where we get news reports via the wire. I am seeing here, I had it,

I had it, I had it, I had it, I had it, I had it on the thing It was there Does anyone have it? Just tell us

No I mean I gave you the news I just wanted to give the source Anyone got it? I mean it was here Oh here it is Via Karate Combat Okay it was via Karate Combat He will debut at KC51

In December The former UFC heavyweight Robles Despine has signed with Karate Combat. That's what everyone was saying should happen. And nice to see it happen in case you're a big Robles Despine guy. Also seeing this, courtesy of our friends over at One Championship, Marcelo Garcia coming out of retirement to compete in one submission grappling. How about that? The man who made Dylan Danis into the superstar that he is coming out of retirement.

What a day, gents. Did I miss anything? No. No, what a day. I think we got everything, man. Well, we got it all. Two in-studio guests tomorrow. Knocked off the first one today.

How about Mike Chandler? Emotional, talking about his dad. Oh, yeah. His family. Incredible. Hey, congratulations, Atlanta FC. Yeah, you like that? The big win over Inter Miami.

Taking out Miami. Shocking win. No one believed in us. 37-point differential in the regular season. What was more shocking, that win over the number one seed, Inter Miami squad led by Lionel Messi Or Georgia losing on Saturday Which was more shocking

Atlanta United winning Georgia was only a two point favorite I saw that through the wire as well I was like wow what happened here Two point favorite Who is it? BYU? Who did they lose to? Ole Miss NFL season now

Beat Tennessee you're in the bluff It's all good Oh you mean because there's eight teams? What is it, 12 or 8? 12. 12. I don't like that. Waters it down. I think it should be down to the top two, and that's it. What is this, the BCS era?

God. I know. I actually hate it. Leave the college football to us. That's actually one of the main reasons why I never was a college football fan, because I thought it was insane that it all came down to the top two And you just can't lose Yeah, it's ridiculous No, this is way better

I'm actually I was watching LSU Penn State I saw some of the stuff And dabbling I thought this was for me and my calves But congrats No, congratulations

11-0 Looking good, like I said Stipe got a little testy No, Nick's not looking okay You can't get me back, by No, Nick's not looking okay. You can't get me back. Nick's not looking pretty good. No, you can't get me back. Stipe's still stuck on 2016 Helwani. And of course,

commiseration to all the Forest fans. Tough one. It was bound to end, but there is a manager of the month curse that I heard about. And so this was somewhat expected. We're still better than United though. I mean, most, I mean, there's 12 teams that

are better than Manchester United in that league at the moment. And one of them hails from Nottingham. Not Nottingham. You're still right there. You're still in the mix there. It's not not. Yeah.

I believe we're fifth at the moment, but we're all like, there's like four of us tied for 19 with 19. What are you on 19, for 19 19 and 18 are the big numbers I think it goes from 12th To fifth yeah My son is like literally like A foot and a half out of the Man City bandwagon at this point

It's way more fun I don't even watch as much anymore I don't even follow them Rodney's heard. Yeah. Just let him join. Let him join the movement. Let him join the movement.

Come on. We all make mistakes. Gents, we will be back tomorrow. Aljamain Sterling in studio. Oban Elliott, the Welsh gangster. One of our own in studio. And Carlos Paredes also on the program. Boys in the back on wednesday i'll be in dallas

thursday the crack live live live live live live live live all these shows are live yes you said that earlier at the beginning of the show like i was watching pz on you know did you have no idea he had a face no idea that looked no one told you this i was was doing that. Who produces the show for you? Did he not tell you? On Air Jordan. I don't know a word about it. I mean, he is... Frank, did you know as well, Frank?

Oh, I definitely knew. We definitely had a meeting, and I definitely remember saying, will someone tell Pizzi this? I think it's less that someone didn't tell Pizzi that Pizzi didn't understand. No, we had an actual in-person meeting. These are the things you miss. Oh, yeah, I forget you see each other.

You got to check the crack production on Crown, Slack, WhatsApp channel, and then you have to go on Snapchat. Listen, if you guys don't like the Slack way, just tell me. I was told by Rick, every kid goes through Slack. I'm thinking in honor of Mike Tyson

fight week, we just do carrier pigeons to find out everything. And Serrano. Yeah, she does like a good pigeon or two. We like the Slack. We only like the Slack. What's that, PT? You're going to join the crackdown on Thursday from Dallas.

I think that's fair. You know, I think the weigh-ins are actually... I'll have to look at my... We'll move the time. Yeah, because weigh-ins are Wednesday. Well, that's perfect. No, I screwed that up. Weigh-ins are Thursday.

Press conference is Wednesday. I'm busy that day. What are you drinking there, man? Oh, yeah. Okay, so funny you should say why, because does it look cloudy? It does, and I saw you do that earlier, and I'm like, you know what? I'm going to let him do his thing. Oh, no, not urine.

It has electrolytes. Like, I put a thing in here because I was telling my wife about my headaches, and she gave me this electrolyte thingy. What do you think? Mistake? No, I mean, did it taste all right? We name dropping brands, or? I wish I could tell you.

Element, or limit, yeah. I mean, I'm happy to give him a shout out. I don't know if it worked. I don't have a headache, so. But I also didn't go for a run. I'm getting the headaches when I go for runs and I don't know what it is. Is it my brain moving around too much? Is it the electrolytes? Is it something else?

Dehydration? Dehydration, yeah. Dehydration. Why am I getting headaches? It's not sticking to slack. That's the problem. You know what, Frank? Here I am expressing concern over my health and you crack a joke. It's good to be back. Look, look. The sun is setting.

See that? The sun is just about set. Sun is shining. First in the studio guest. How did it look, guys? Are we happy? It actually looked great. I mean, Mike looked unbelievable, was unbelievable man yeah he did look

great i'm looking at him right now looked all tan yeah looking good weight cuts in them nicely right now oh yeah oh yeah thinned out oh when i um when i gave him a hug i was like damn this guy is yeah we heard it on the mic man you were like oh you're thick as hell mike i had a bad stretch there between the bow interview jesus sends me his gross meat all the time mike is fucking weird right right i just kept that like you're so thick making love to the mic yeah what was that making love to the mic i kept just going with it, right? We can't let Chandler back into that studio. He's looking to have left today.

Why did I keep going? I kept trying to fix it and rectify it and I just kept making it worse. Oh, the gross meat one? You fixed it too. You were just like, oh, undercooked meat. And then you went back to the gross meat thing. Yeah, I don't know. I'm sorry.

Anyway, I do appreciate him stopping by. And I do wish him the best this Saturday. I just can't. I mean, the sun is really setting behind me. Thank you very much to Michael Chandler for stopping by. Much love to him. Thank you very much to Sibé Miocic.

Good luck to him. Thank you very much to Bo Nickel. Good luck to him. And thank you very much to the great eddie hearn as well back tomorrow same time and place until that i say peace