The Ariel Helwani Show - MJF in studio, Carlos Prates, On the Nose, Netflix numbers revealed, Ryan Garcia vs Conor Benn announced, journalism discussion

Episode Date: May 19, 2026

Ariel Helwani starts the show with a media discussion, sparked by NBA insider Shams Charania’s recent reporting of NBA’s MVP award (10:21). Carlos Prates is back to reflect on his dominant performance against Jack Della Maddalena, then talks about deserving the next title shot, facing Michael Morales in the future, Mauricio Ruffy’s relationship with The Fighting Nerds, a dream fight against Ilia Topuria, and more (32:05). Ariel and the gang answer On The Nose questions, with topics including their adventures in Hollywood, Conor McGregor’s return announcement, reactions to Netflix’s MMA debut, and more (1:02:21). Maxwell Jacob Friedman (a.k.a. MJF) joins Ariel in-studio, discussing Tony Khan’s growth, wrestling fans being disenfranchised, the strength of the AEW roster, having unfinished business with Darby Allin, WrestleMania 42, Danhausen’s success, legends Steve Austin, Bret Hart, and Shawn Michaels, his 2024 free agency, and more (1:44:57). Ariel and The Boys in the Back close the show with some news and notes, more On The Nose questions, and your Super Chats (3:03:44).

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Air... Tuesday, May 19, 2000. And 26, hello again, everyone. I sure hope you're doing well. It is a beautiful day here in New York City. It is above 90 degrees, like 95 degrees. It's going to go all the way back down to the 50s on the weekend, which is bizarre.

But it's great. today, vibes immaculate, game one tonight, MSG, Rick versus I, I versus Rick, Cleveland Rick, as he'll be known for the next two weeks, because you can't call yourself New York break and actually root against the Knicks in a playoff series. Sean Kemp, it's like saying I'm a Mets fan because I was a big Willie Mays guy back in the day. I'm a big, I'm a big Dolphins fan because I love Thurham. Thomas back in the day. I love the Wizards because MJ was my guy. No, it doesn't fly. It doesn't fly. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, it doesn't fly. So the vibes are high. The weather is tremendous.

I do want to extend a big hug and a commiseration to my good friends in Western New York. You know, I never wanted this. I didn't ask for this. I wanted nothing to do with this. But in the end, one team did have to advance. And of course, that was Les Habiton, the Habiton, the Habs, the Montreal Canadians, winning in game seven in overtime, sudden death overtime, golly. And of course, I have so much love for the 716, for Western New York, for those people. I didn't want them to have any sort of heartbreak here. It was such a magical year for the Sabres. But that is my hometown, and it's great to see the 514, the city of Montreal Unite.

There's been a lot of crap in that city over the past couple of years, and so it's great to see everyone come together. There is no greater unifier in the world than sports. So to see all the celebrations, to see everyone going crazy, is a beautiful thing. But I do feel bad. I feel awful. I'm happy that we can move on and hopefully whoop Carolina's ass. I did see a tremendous stat which stated that the team that has won in seven games and then plays a team that has swept in the NHL, not the NBA, thankfully, because that's

the case with the Knicks and Cavs. In the NHL, that team that won in seven games is seven and one in the next series. So perhaps an omen for Canada's team. Last team to win a Stanley Cup, that was 1993. Last time they won a Stanley Cup, of course, 1993. I was in fifth grade. And so, Frank, I do want to know, how are you and the misses doing?

Because I know it was a tough one for you guys. You had the wings ordered to the pad. You were living and dying with every single shot, every moment, every period. You were talking a lot, but didn't get much of a text from you yesterday. How are you feeling on this? I appreciate you checking in with the family. I'm doing all right.

I kind of expected that this might happen at some point. Really? Yeah. But I'm learning with the Buffalo Sports, that this is kind of a common thing. It's tough. However, she took it really well. Just a slight nod of the head,

then requested to see the replay, and I was like, you don't want to see that replay because it was kind of a nasty shot. How does she request to see the replay? Does she call for it in the booth or something? I'm not willing to even accept the truth until the replay was back up. It was like she was the fucking director because she said that it popped back up. Wow.

I'm trying to distract her. I'm like turning everything off. Like let's just go brush our teeth and like get to bed. Yeah. I already sent a text to you, the O'L Congrats. You did hit me with the O'Ill Congrats. I will acknowledge that. But my favorite part was, you know, we're done brushing teeth.

And she was like, you know what? If Ariel was just a little bit more supportive of the savers, and I was like, I can't tell him that. And here I am telling it. It all comes down to me, huh? I mean, I'm just saying it's, she just didn't feel like we were there in that moment. I feel for those people. I know what that heartbreak is like. I really, really, really do feel for them. I did not want this.

In fact, in my family group chat, I'm getting crap because I said that I like the Sabres. And now they're saying you can't, you can't be happy about this. So I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. Nevertheless, I will never admit that hockey is as, you know, as meaningful to me as the Knicks or bills. I will never, ever admit that. I'm very happy. I watched the game. I was into it.

Watch the NBA as well. But tonight, tonight is big. Tonight is, like, tonight makes me nervous inside. Tonight gives me butterflies, just like the bills would as well. So I am very excited. Game one, eight o'clock tonight. And thankfully, we got Breen on the call. No Reggie Miller.

That is tremendous news. We have a lot to talk about on today's program. We have a tremendous show. I do want to say off the bat, I was told some 30 minutes ago, that Ryan Garcia is sick, and he will not be able to join us today. Now, I did see a very healthy looking Ryan Garcia on the Tonight Show yesterday, and I know things can happen overnight. I'm not suggesting that they can't. I did offer a Zoom chat. He was supposed to come in studio. We had booked this about a week ago, and had checked in many a time, but unfortunately not to be. So I hate to be

the bearer of bad news. We've had a lot of guests over the past week or so, but no Ryan Garcia today. He was on the Tonight Show yesterday looking snazzy in a tuxedo had the WBC belt as well and announced that on September 12th he will be fighting Connor Ben. I believe he said in Las Vegas. What was interesting about it is you can very easily tell that, you know, Jimmy had no idea who Connor Ben was a wow, Connor Ben, wow. But that's a huge spot. That's an amazing moment. He looked great on there. That's big for the sport. That's big for the fight. That's big for everyone involved. There's a lot of questions that I had regarding the promotion. Connor Ben being a Zufa guy. Is this going to be Dana White and Oscar Delahoya on the dais together? Are they going to loan him out?

Is there going to be a Zufa title on the line? All that and more will not be answered on today's program. Hate when this happens. Gutted, nothing pisses me off more, but that's what you deal with when you deal with live television. And for some reason, it seems to happen a lot more with the boxers. I'm not sure why. We got a list of like 15 people that were coming today as part of the crew, and that was great. It's just all very different with the boxers for some reason, and we were very excited to have him on in studio for the first time in about, what, two and a half years or so. We've always been cool. So, you know, if he's sick, do hope that he feels better, and hopefully we can reschedule and do this again in the future.

We do have, wow, the long-awaited return of Maxwell Jacob Friedman. Maxwell Jacob Friedman, aka the Big Hebrew, aka the generational talent, aka, in my opinion, the face of AEW, aka MJF, who will be going up against Darby Allen for the AEW World Heavyweight Championship

on Sunday at Louis Armstrong Stadium, right here in New York, Queens, to be exact, where they do the tennis. They had a couple shows there in the past, and obviously there was the boxing, which of course Stevenson and Humboldened. Ashira's last July. But this is double or nothing. Big show for them, usually around Memorial Day

weekend. Rematch between him and Darby. Darby won the belt a month ago, and now he gets another crack. It's a hair versus title match. So if MGAF loses, he's got to shave his head. If he wins, he gets the belt. And of course, Darby loses the belt. We had Darby in studio a few months ago. We have not had MJF in studio on this program since the MMA hour days since September of 2022. In fact, the week of a Louis Armstrong show. One of my favorites in pro wrestling, I've said this many a time. Unbelievable, old school heel. If you are unfamiliar with MJF, do me a favor, stick around.

He is going to be, I can't stress this enough. He is amazing in interviews. He goes back and forth, workshoot, heel, non-heal, all that stuff and more. I can't wait to talk to him. He was in Happy Gilmore, too, by the way, and he's in a new movie coming out. that movie is Violent Night 2 and another movie

called Stranglehold coming up later this year Has anyone seen Violent Night 1? Is Violent Night Isn't that a Christmas horror movie? Well I guess that's coming out around Christmas

Sounds like it would be right Silent Night Violent Night Anyway, I thought he was great in Happy Gilmore too Anyone check him in that? Anyone see that? Yeah, yeah, we all saw it

Yeah, he was good in that right? He was good. I thought he was good He played one of a happy sons. He was like one of his sons. Yeah, one of Sandler's sons. I thought he was great. So I've seen Violin Night.

Shout out. Oh, it is good. Of course you've seen it. Is it a Christmas movie? It's a Christmas action movie where Santa comes and beats the shit out of like home invaders. Fuck. All right. Shout out.

With the guy from Stranger Things, his name is escaping me right now. David Harbor. There it is. Prior to that guy's Carlos Pratchett's going to join us coming off the big win over at JDM. That will be in about 20 minutes time. So looking forward to. to checking in with the nightmare. There's your lineup.

Also, on the nose. And we posted that a little late today. I apologize, had to move some things around, as you can tell. So go to areaohwani.substack.com and at around 2 o'clock, we'll kick off on the nose. I'll give you some time to get over there now. If you want to ask us a question or two, certainly a lot to discuss. We are anticipating still, as of right now, we are anticipating the numbers for the first MVP MMA event on Netflix. We haven't gotten them just yet.

There have been some rumors, unconfirmed. I haven't gotten any numbers as well about what those numbers will look like. Let us see, let us see. So when those come in, if it comes in during the show, we'll react. If not, if it comes in after the show, we'll react tomorrow. If not, the boys in the back can react on Thursday. If not, the crack boys can react on Friday. I suspect we'll get it in the next, I don't know, 24 to 48 hours.

But, guys, I actually wanted to start, and we'll do news and notes later. Nothing massive at the moment, but there are some things that we'll get to. I actually wanted to start for the next 20 minutes or so before we get to Carlos with a fun little discussion. The type of discussion that we would typically have on a show called the MMA Beat or the crack these days, but one that caught my eye after yesterday's show, anyone see all the heat that NBA insider Shams Charnia? I believe that's how you pronounce his last name. Everyone just calls them Shams has been getting for Brits. breaking the news that Shea Gilgis Alexander was about to win and be named the NBA's most

valuable player for the second straight year. And they officially announced it yesterday and they gave him the trophy and all that stuff and more. Chams has been getting a ton of heat for this. And I only saw it like, I don't know, at like nine o'clock. Just I opened X and all of a sudden I see all these things, all these people going after including the Amazon crew, the Amazon, the Prime NBA on Prime crew, and Blake Griffin calling him a nerd saying, come on, man, like, go to brunch on Sunday. Don't break this news at 6 a.m. What are you doing? What are you doing? I don't know if this crossed over to you, Pee-C. Did you see any of this? Have you heard any of this? This is not

unique to Shams, people getting upset about someone breaking news, but I was wondering if you saw any of this. I did. I saw it. I saw the clips of the broadcast as well on Prime. And I can't help think that it reminds me a bit of your situation back in the day with the Brock Lesnar. Yes. Reminiscent. Also, we talked about this recently with a wrestling reporter named Sean Ross Sapp, who was reporting some releases from WWE, and one of the wrestlers got mad at him saying, you know, could you let me break it? It's my news. It's not your news, etc. Here's something that I want to talk to you about PTC. Can we bring? Yeah, bring Ptze back up and Rick as well and Connor. I have many thoughts about this. And I couldn't believe the heat that Shams was getting for this. And I understand why the

Amazon crew would be upset because it appears as though they had a deal in place to announce this themselves. So if you're an Amazon executive, you're like, ah, damn, like we got we got out scooped here, right? Like, we were promised this. We got out scooped. But make no mistake about it. Shams did nothing wrong. Number one, he got it right. That's most important. He got the news right. Everyone keeps saying he'd leak the news. That is factually incorrect. He did not leak anything. He reported news and he got it right. If you want, and it would always drive me nuts when people would say this to me about the Brock thing or anything else. You leak this. You leak that. No, no, no. Leaking implies someone receiving news within the organization and them telling someone who then went on to report it.

That's the leak. The leak isn't the guy who disseminated the news, who reported the news, who made that news public. That's the journalist. And now we can have a debate as to, like, the different levels of journalism. Is Sham's an investigative journalist? No, of course not. But he's an insider, right? This insider exists in all forms of sport.

Fabricio Romano is a soccer insider. Bob McKenzie was an NHL insider. Adam Schefter, Woj, et cetera, et cetera. He leaked nothing. Someone told him he verified. that news and part of his form of journalism that he practices is getting that news right, verifying it, making sure it's vetted, and then going out and telling the world. He did nothing wrong.

And so I couldn't believe, guys, we're on this app all day and people are breaking trades, free agency injuries all day long before the league or team announces it. What did he do wrong? What was the issue here? I don't understand the vitriol that he has received. and then you see players like Draymond Green, and then you see players like Blake Griffin say, oh, this has to be, this has to be put to an end.

This can't happen anymore. This is a sham. This is a black eye. What is a black eye? Why is everyone so upset about this? I even saw someone post a screen grab of a newspaper article from 1998, which reported early that Michael Jordan was going to be named the MVP of the NBA. This isn't a sign of the Times.

This isn't a stain on, you know, what journalism has become. This is just a guy getting information and confirming it, vetting it, and putting it out there, and he just so happened to beat the entity that I guess was promised the announcement beforehand. Why is he getting so much shit for this? I don't understand. It feels to me, Rick, one last thing I'll say, that people's opinion of what a quote-unquote journalist is in 2026 has become completely warped.

Like they don't really understand the job anymore. And that's not necessarily a new phenomenon, but it's a very interesting thing to follow, especially for someone like him, who everyone loves when he's breaking trades all day long, but yet for this particular thing they got mad about, I don't get it. So I want to touch on something there because you're talking about like the 2026 environment,

but I would go so far as to say, Pizzi being astute, saying that this resembles your reporting of Brock Lesnar's return and fight, preempting the UFC's own, you know, reveal of it and an announcement of it, in the case that unlike a trade, which there's rumors of, but there's not a scheduled,

hey, at 7 p.m. tonight, you're going to find out when the, who the NBA MVP is. On this broadcast, this is when you're going to find out, which was then preempted by his reporting. The trade is kind of,

there's rumors, rumors, rumors, and all of a sudden, Shams breaks it. There wasn't that anticipatory thing. So I believe what the, and let me say for the record, I don't have this sentiment.

I cannot personally identify with this sentiment because I understand the business a little bit better than that and I understand how the reporting is done and I don't have a problem with things being quote unquote spoiled but I do believe that that's what the feeling is right speaking for these people that seem to be upset again I'm not one of them I think it's a feeling of we wanted this to be a community experience

and a thing that we were all learning about together at this specific time and we get it and it's this big reveal like a trailer dropping for a movie and it came out in this tweet. And so there's this, there's this feeling of, I guess, like, we didn't get something that we were anticipating or promised. We got it in a different way than we perhaps wanted. Again, I don't feel this way, but I'm trying to summarize it. I get it.

They feel like the surprise was ruined. That's exactly what was said to me. Yeah. And so, P.C., you're right. You know, I sympathize with him probably getting a lot of crap for this, but I don't understand why people don't understand what he's doing. It's not like things aren't. told to us before the official announcement.

Every day, all day when Apple has something coming out, there are all kinds of reports about these things. That's what journalists do. They're not trying to be party poopers necessarily. They're just trying to get information when they know something is coming. You dig around, you try to find out. And your job is if you find something out and you confirm it, it's fair game. What do you think, PT?

Before you go, can I just ask one follow up? I just want to ask one follow up. There's obviously scenarios that happen like this where people know, the information ahead of time, but have had a conversation with somebody that would say I'm giving you this information, but you can't report it, right? It's off the record, it's embargoed and you can't go with that, right?

But there are probably many people outside of Shams. I'm just assuming here, but you tell me if you disagree. I think there are many people outside of Shams who knew who the MVP was going to be. I don't think he's the only one. I mean, there's a lot of times where he's the only one who knows about trades, but yes, on a higher level, I have been told that in the past.

Hey, I'm going to tell you something, But you can't go ask around about it. You can't dig. If I tell you this right now, that's it. And if I see it, I'm going to blame you. And so people have prefaced that to me. And I've said, don't tell me. Because what if someone else comes to me with this?

I don't want to get any heat with you. So please, before you continue, don't tell me. And then there have been other times where I'm like, I'm not interested in pursuing this. So yeah, go ahead and tell me and I'll give you my word. And no one has got mad at me. The thing that pissed me off about the Brock thing way back in the day, not to relitigate that, but it's that people says,

people said that someone told me that, hey, we're announcing this tonight. I had no idea that there was an announcement. I had no idea it was coming that night. They didn't even have an opponent. So I didn't even think that there would be an announcement because they usually announce a fight with an opponent attached to it, right, two to tango. So I had no idea. And if someone would have told me that night, hey, we've got this thing. You can't announce it. You can't report it, is the word I should have used. And if you do, we're coming after you. I would have said, hands up, I'm not touching this because then that is off the record. You can. can't break that rule. To the best by knowledge, he did not break that rule. Now, if you're saying he knew Amazon was going to announce this and he tried to us up to usurp them, is it, you know, is it a little bit of a of a sly move on his part? I guess, but I mean, that's news. And it's not the first time that we have found out about an award winner beforehand. I want to give P.T. a chance to, I just wanted to say, I raised that point to say that I don't believe Shams broke anybody's trust or it did anything wrong from that perspective. Right. I get that. Because that's important to note because there could be a feeling of like he turned on somebody or did something he wasn't supposed to do, right?

We heard Jeremy Green talking about like the NBA can't have this happen as if Shams reports to the NBA, right? If his Shams is hired by the NBA. And so it's just important to establish like sham did not break anybody's, to the best of my knowledge, did not break anybody's trust in reporting this. Otherwise he probably wouldn't have. Sorry, Pizzi. No, no problem. I think the journalists are disappearing from these broadcasts. across sports in general,

even if you look at the Premier League, the biggest podcast, probably show, breaking down to the sport is probably stick to football, you know, all ex football players on that show. That used to be kind of a journalist thing.

I think here we have a space where we have a, we have journalists here that can talk and that's very rare in this day and age. I think it's interesting that the players are the people kind of saying, like you mentioned Blake Griffin saying, oh, what a nerd.

He has a far, like I understand. Stan Shams is a massive deal in terms of NBA coverage, but he's not as prominent the figure as Blake Griffin. You mentioned Draymond Green. Like these people are massive, massive, massive superstars. They have massive audiences. So they're kind of guiding the audience in a way

when they're kind of talking shit on them. I feel like they're the people that they look to now for the truth. There's also a general mistrust of media. I think on both sides of political devoid in the US. Those people are lying to you, those people are lying to you. So I think that all kind of, that all kind of leads to this frenzy online or people like, oh, I can't believe you did this when really, like, that was the way it always was with journalism. That's what, that's what you're there to do.

You're dared to break the news. I wonder, Ariel, is Draymond Green, does he work for prime as well? Because if you're in that studio environment and Rick was talking about the production, this kind of big announcement that they had planned, like if all of them around you're like, shit, we have to really plan what we're going to do on the show now because of this tweet, you're feeling that frustration all around you and that might lead you to say. at but again these players are massive deals if they're saying if they're going to shit on this guy for doing that the audience are going to follow suit I feel and there's so so little journalism

on TV on these broadcasts now that you know they don't have anyone to correlate to what is the journalist what is the journalist jobs it's getting minimized all the time you're that's my feeling right to answer your question draymond actually um he works for he was doing stuff with tn t and T&T when Inside the NBA was with TNT. Now he has appeared a few times when it's now with ESPN. He will transition eventually to being one of these talking heads, probably with the inside the NBA crew because he seems to get on with them quite well. There was once a time where there was someone named Peter Vessy on the NBA on NBC,

the 90s version of that, where he was their insider and he would piss off a lot of people. He would talk about the news and notes in a much deeper way than what we see now with these insiders. But again, the word leak seems to have some sort of like nefarious connotation to it, which is not true. He did not do anything wrong. G.C., what do you think about this and the way it's being received? Yeah, I mean, I feel like I haven't seen a ton of hate on the timeline for him. Oh, man, crazy, crazy. I just, I have a hard time resonating with it because I just couldn't imagine getting this upset about the MVP award getting announced. I understand it from like

the prime standpoint. To your point, they definitely had a deal in place. They were supposed to do a show at 7.30 p.m. on Sunday to do the announcement. They had the finalist and everything like that. It's almost like the Heisman trophy for college football. And I imagine in that studio, in that room, everybody was wildly frustrated when it came out. And that's why Blake Griffin let that go off the air. Dramon, though, going off on champs like this, like he really is. Like, he's just doing his job. He got the news, and so he reported it. I just don't understand being so upset about it. I just can't imagine it. Like, you're just going to sit there at 7.30 and someone's just going to tell you the same news anyway. Why would you not want to just get it in a tweet? All these award ceremony

Tony's could just be a tweet. They could just be an email. Like, I just can't imagine caring about this. I'm sorry. It just isn't something that resonates with me. I think it's ridiculous to get mad at, mad at champs for this. Here's the big question, and it's one for him. If ESPN had the exclusive, would he have done it?

No. No, I think they would have told him not to. And therein lies the issue that you face when you try to practice journalism for the network that is in business or in bed with the end. entity that you are trying to cover. I've faced that before. I've been told, I remember when I was at Fox, they were going to announce McGregor RDA at half time or during one of the quarters of an NFL playoff game on Fox.

And I was told I couldn't, I couldn't break it. And Jeremy Bauder, I remember, I think at heavy, ended up breaking it. And I was annoyed, obviously. And so this is the thing. And it goes back to yesterday about being on networks and being a journalist and how things are changing in 2025 or 2026, excuse me. I don't believe, I'm not naive enough to believe that like the state of journalism and more importantly, the state of media is the same in 2026 as it was when Walter Cronkite was doing the CBS Evening News back in the day. Obviously things have changed

and teams have their own networks now and their own media outlets and things like that. And so you have to kind of pick and choose your battles. Ultimately, if you want to push back on one thing with him, it would probably have to be that. Would you have done this if ESPN had the exclusive? I'll tell you one other thing. And I hope he doesn't mind me saying this. Rick, Jordan, and I used to work for a guy named Glenn Jacobs at ESPN. And I was frustrated at times with the way my relationship with the UFC and ESPN was working out in the early days of my time there in 2018.

And he told me that, and to his credit, he stayed true to this, that he would never, he specifically would never stop me from reporting something on the UFC because he was working. working for a show called Sports Center in 2010 when there was an announcement that LeBron James was going to announce on the air who he was going to sign with in an interview with Jim Gray. And he knew that that announcement was going to be on ESPN, but he was working for Sports Center in the news department. And he said that they actively tried to find out where he was going before the announcement. Now, was he being honest with me? I'm going to believe so.

do I have a hard time believing that SportsCenter were to broken the news before that special on the same network a little bit? But that's the issue that you face when you are working for the network while trying to practice journalism. And that is never going to change. And in fact, it's only going to get murkier

as time goes on as the networks get bigger, I should say, as the relationships between the networks and the leagues and the teams get bigger and bigger and more lucrative, these issues are going to keep popping up, I just don't understand the animosity towards him. If you're a fan online, why are you mad about this? Were you sitting around going to have a party and waiting for this news?

I guess if you're Shay or Amazon could be a little bit annoyed. Everyone else seems like much ado about nothing. It could have been an email, like Connor said. Yeah, let's just do the Oscars that way too. Didn't Woj back in the day? All the time. He used to spoil the draft. The draft, yeah.

You would do like the XYZ is lasering in on whoever. That's after I'm mad at him. That was in response. Yeah. You're still doing it. Okay, so here's what I think, where I think this gets interesting and even more dicey, right? Yeah. Shout out to Robin.

Even if you're not the partner or the partner who gets the announcement, right? Even if you're not ESPN having that show that's coming out. If the NBA says, hey, as you know, we're going to have this announcement that's coming out on prime, right? and you, ESPN, as our partner, we're going to ask you not to report this ahead of time. We're going to ask you and utilize our leverage and ask you, if Shams is working on this, don't have him. Or if your NBA PR, reach out to Shams, Shams, and say,

they're going to do this. I'm going to tell you, off the record, don't report it. That's where I think it's going to get even more fascinating. How much leverage do these leagues have now that they might be, and because the pie is split up, might they be able to have control over this arm of it, this arm of it, and this arm of it, just when it's going to be on Amazon Prime? Because if I was in their position, that's what I would do.

I would try to tell ESPN, we're doing this. Don't report this. Ultimately, my biggest takeaway, everyone has a microphone now, and that's fine. Everyone can have a microphone. But it has become increasingly more clear to me that people just don't understand what the role of a journalist covering these sports leagues are. Even me. The criticism I received for some of the questions, you're instigating. John Jones is right there. Why wouldn't I ask about John Jones?

Imagine if you didn't. Imagine if you didn't ask. It would have been a massive fumble. But it's always, it's leak, it's instigating, it's things like that. It's stirring the pot. It's being a weasel. It's always negative when it comes towards media. I don't get it. Why is that? Where did that come from? Is that a Trump thing? Did that happen before Trump? I mean, fake news and all this stuff definitely didn't help. Yeah. But it's both sides as well. Both sides are the political void. Their point that some publication saying that's a lot of bullshit, the other ones up, it's on both sides. It's just it, if it was just one side, you'd be like, you know, we can probably, maybe we can deal with this.

It's a general vilification of media and what you are hearing is not true. These people are lying about you. This is the obfuscation of truth. You know, like, who can we trust anymore? That's, that's been around for a decade now. I think there is, sorry, go ahead. I think it's social media, to Pizzi's point. I think it's been around for a decade.

I think it's social media because now people like Dremonde and others are us. Everybody has their own voice. And so when somebody reports something about you, you're going to say, no, that's not true. That's fake. You didn't hear it from me, so it's fake, even if it is accurate, even if it is truthful. I don't think it's, politics uses this kind of like, you know, turn a phrase and thing a lot. But I actually think it's more of a social media contrivance, a social media construction where it's like, if you're not hearing it from the source, it's fake.

You don't trust anything that you hear from anybody else, and people are in that mentality now. They believe that to be true. Draymond's just going right at Shams. He's just like embarrassing, pathetic. It's an abomination for the league. It's crazy. Blake Griffin, I know he's kind of joking,

but he's just like, go to Brunch Shams, you nerd. Like, it's just like, all of this is just like downplaying Shams and his role in the league. It's a little mean-spirited, I must say. It seems like they're upset again. I understand it from the Amazon perspective. We can have a whole other conversation about what journalism is, what it isn't. There's a whole other thing going on with Stephen A. Smith and Jalen Brown right now.

I find all of it fascinating. And we obviously see it come up in our sport, you know, regarding who the UFC welcomes in, who they speak to, who they don't speak to, who they credential, who they don't credential, the types of questions that they like, the types of questions that they don't like. It's just a fascinating thing. And we have to continue to try to evolve. Look, every time I sit in this chair, I'm not always practicing journalism. journalism when I'm giving opinions and whatnot, but I try to have my opinions rooted, in fact,

rooted in reporting. So when I tell you that it seems like it's going to be Max Holloway against Connor McGregor, it's not just me picking it out of my behind. If I tell you, I think it should be, sometimes that's rooted in fact, sometimes that's rooted in reporting. It's all evolving, because these things didn't exist 20 years ago. These types of shows didn't exist. Podcast didn't exist. First take didn't exist. All this stuff. Insiders, Twitter, all this didn't exist. So it was a little bit different. If Shams would have found out about that news on a Sunday morning, he's posting, you know, he's putting that in the paper for Monday morning. He's late at that point. Anyway, so anyway, everything has changed. Everything has evolved.

We could probably talk about this for another hour, but I just kind of wanted to react to it because I saw it at night and I was like, I even texted Rick. I'm like, what am I missing here? Why is everyone mad at him now? And not when they find out that Cat has been traded to the Nix or when Luca has been traded. Like, no one got mad at him for reporting that Luca had been traded to the Lakers, right? No one said that he ruined the surprise there, but they're mad about this one. Is it because it's like a sort of ceremonial thing? Who knows? We can talk more about that. You can ask me a question about it on Substack, on the nose coming up at two. After that, will be joined by MJF in studio. But what about Carlos Proches two weekends ago?

Was it two weekends ago? It was in early May. I'm losing track of time down under in Perth, enemy territory against Jack Delamadelena, a virtuoso performance. In my opinion, his best in the UFC and he's had really good performances, great performances, spectacular performances, but the way in which he broke him down, the way in which he beat him, was incredible. And so he is kind enough to join us to talk about all of that and more right here and now. There he is. Hello, Carlos.

How are you? Boa-Tar-Dade, my friend. Boat-A-Tar-Deg. Hello, my friend. I'm good. How are you doing? I'm good. Are you still celebrating?

Because we saw some amazing videos of you celebrating. Are you still celebrating? Celebrating a life, you know. Celebrate a life. Yesterday we come to celebrate because Neymar going to the World Cup. So I have many things to celebrate. But already I'm back to the training. Oh, I saw those videos.

I wanted to ask you about that. I saw how emotional you were. Did you see how emotional he was hearing this news? Can I ask, can you explain to us? Here's the news. Here's the video of him receiving the news. Beautiful, beautiful stuff. Why does this mean so much to you to see names?

And was there talk that he wasn't going to be added to the team? Bro, because I'm really big of fun of Namir. I'm really big of fun of soccer. And for me, Neymar is one of the greatest of all time. And you know, like, it's weird to say, I have two friends from Holland, from Netherlands. They are here in my city. And they are like, they ask me, why people just talk about if Neymar go to the World Cup or not? And they say because in Brazil a lot of people don't like don't support Neymar and there was like what the fuck how no you know and that's why like a lot of people was happy and then we was celebrating that was really nice.

So did they air this on TV for the world? Like was it a big deal? The announcement of the team, the selection of the team? Yeah. Wow. And the main point of the main point of the announcement is not about the team. It's about Neymar. Everybody was asking like in Neymar going to the world.

Cup or not? And do you agree? Do you agree with his selection? 100%. Will he play? Is he healthy enough to play? Like he, I think not like in 90 minutes, but he can go to the second half and, you know, he needs just one, three times just to finish the game, you know?

Like he's really important because he has a lot of experience on World Cup, Champions League. So the Brazilian team is really young. So he have a lot of experience. So I think he can talk with them and all like help to organize everything, organize the team. How do you feel about their chances? You know, now is not the most strongest Brazilian team I ever, I saw. I haven't seen in my life. But, you know, World Cup is a different, different tournament, you know. In Brazil, we like to say, like, the shirt is heavy, you know, like when's like a quarter final, semi-final, sometimes not the favorite team going to win, you know.

So I'm really confident. I can't wait. That's next month, of course. Let's talk about what you did in Perth. Carlos, you looked incredible. That was an unbelievable performance. What a performance against a former champion. Was that the type of performance that you were expecting?

Were you feeling amazing all week? Were you expecting to rise to the occasion like that? Exactly, exactly the same way I was expecting. I trained with my friends, with my coach. And the first time when JDM come close to me and try to punch me and they defend, and then I was like, it's exactly how you were training, you know? That's the way I was expected to win and finishing. Sometimes I was like alone thinking about the fight,

And I was like asking myself, like, hey, maybe I'm thinking it's going to be too easy, you know, maybe I'm wrong. But no, let's do this. Let's do this. And then I think again, like, no, maybe I'm wrong. I'm wrong because he's a former champ. So I think the fight going to be like more close, more, a little bit more hard. But no, that was exactly the way I thought. Was it about him?

Like that made you something about him. made you so confident or was it just how you were feeling how the training went how everything went leading up to the fight was it something about his style or about you i think i think they both know his style and about me also i was wondering also you know seeing you and your daughter there all week together i wondered if that gave you more motivation your mother as well it just seemed like you were in a very happy place all week in perth well uh not i cannot say like motivation you know because my motivation is always get the wind inside the cage, you know.

Don't matter who is there watching. If my daughter is there, if my mom is there, of course it's nice. Of course, spend the week with them. I get more happy. And when I'm happy, I'm really hard to stop. You know, I'm almost unstoppable.

But I don't want to say like the motivation, but I'm really happy, you know? Your daughter is a character, man. She's so cute. She's so funny, like the facing off with him, the facial reaction. She's amazing. Where does she get this from? From you?

Yeah, I think so. I think so. And also, the last time when I was in Perth, and then I followed Li Jingleung. Yeah. He come, we went on the elevator. And Li Jingleang come inside to the elevator with us. And then he comes to talk with her, like, hey, hi, he's going to fight daddy. and she didn't talk with him, you know.

She really looks up to you. It's beautiful to see and to see just how comfortable she is in front of everyone and on camera. Did you injure yourself before the fight? I think I read that you had a shoulder injury before the fight. Yeah, I almost,

I don't know the right word in English, but almost like he broken my ligaments of my shoulder. Like two or three weeks, two or three weeks ago. goal. I don't remember. Wow. And I couldn't like put my hands up, you know, like all the way. But I have a really good doctor in Brazil.

My physiotherapy is really good. So they take care about everything and I could fight really well. Was that your right arm or your left arm? The right arm. Wow, wow, wow. And how does it feel now? Not as much better. Okay.

I feel a little bit pain. but a little bit painful, but it's working. In the immediate aftermath of the fight, you did say that, you know, Ian is going to fight Islam and you want to be next and whatnot. Now, how do you feel a couple weeks later? We still haven't gotten this announcement. I've heard the same, but, you know, things can change.

Where do you think you fit in all of this? I think Ian going to fight Makashav, and I'm going to fight the winner. So I said this in the aftermath as well, I'm worried about this for you, but you tell me if I'm wrong. Because let's say Ian fights Machachev in August, right? That's what you heard too. That's what I heard in August. And then let's just say Islam wins, just for the sake of this.

He doesn't fight very often, right? So that means his next one's going to be what? 2027? He's not going to fight again in 2026. I'd be surprised. A, would you be okay with that? And then B, if Ian wins, I can see them giving. Machashev an immediate rematch because he's been undefeated for so long,

and then that keeps you on the sidelines even longer. And so I'm worried because you looked so good in that fight, you'd be out for almost a year at that point. Well, I don't think it's going to happen, you know. I don't think they're going to do a rematch if Makashav lose. And I talk with then, you know, with the UFC after my fight. Of course, we talk some things I cannot say. but

I really think I will be the next like don't matter who got the win between Isla and I and Gary

I will be the next okay and you're okay with that you're okay with waiting until after that fight yeah yeah it's good for me

you know it's good for me get my injuries like he better train a little bit more improve you know

grow up as a fighter yeah it's like Like, if it's to get long to fight for the belt, I will be more prepared, more well prepared, you know. When you say that you don't think that there'd be an immediate rematch, is that because you don't think Ian is going to win the fight? No, because, bro, they don't want to do rematch. Who do you think is going to win the fight? But I think the favorite

is Makashav, you know, and I think he's gonna win. But I really think, like, I have some skills to beat Islam. You know, he can beat Islam. He has a real chance to beat Islam. And I want him to win, and then we can do a rematch for the belt.

It would be amazing. Yeah, because you have that history with him, which fight excites you more? Getting the rematch against Ian or trying to be the one to beat Islam? You know, beat Islam would be huge in my career because he's number one pound for pound.

But I still have some business to do with Ian. So I think I would like to fight Ian, but don't matter who gets a win, I'm going to fight them, I'm going to fight for the belt against the winner, and I'm going to bring the belt to Brazil. Can I ask about that performance against Ian?

Because every one of your other UFC performances were so much different than that one. Obviously undefeated, and you had an amazing run before that. What do you chalk that night up to? Is that something Ian did, something you didn't do? When you look back on that night in Kansas City, why did it look so different than the other performances? I think they both.

At the time, I was, like, really confident. you know like I was winning maybe 12 winnings streak, 10 knockouts 10 or 11 knockouts something like that and then I was like some point of the fight I'm gonna

punch him I'm gonna find one punch and gonna knock him out I have five rounds to do this and I didn't find a punch you know like I was like he I didn't move if you watch the fight it didn't move too much I didn't like he tried to touch

him just I try to give one and finish the fight. But he also is really good, really smart. So he did a really good job also. Okay. I did see Michael Morales call for a fight against you after the JDM fight.

Yeah, I saw him put the picture of you two together on his Instagram. What do you think of that? I think he needs to fight some former champ. Like who? Who would you suggest? I don't know. Maybe JDM.

Amaru, maybe more Leon Edwards. Sean Brady maybe? He beat Sean Brady already. That's right. He just beat Sean Brady, right. Balal, if he wins? Yeah, but Belal gonna fight

No, but he's gonna fight who? Gabriel. Yeah, but that's next week. So maybe like... Yeah, it's close. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he need to fight somebody, some former chain. Oh, we lost your...

We lost your audio. I think it muted. Okay. We lost the audio there. Yes, of course, he just beat Sean Brady. I was thinking of someone who just won recently, but he did just beat him in his last fight. We haven't seen him since November, Michael Morales.

He's currently number three. Proches to Ian Machado Gary won. Jack Della 4. Are you back, Carlos? Yeah. Yeah. Morales versus Jack Della. My last three fights,

I won by knockout against two former champs, you know? Ian, the former, the last three fights, he won two fights, one against me, of course, and two fights he won by decision, you know. So after Ian, I will be the next, bro. I don't want to fight nobody.

I got you. Morales, Shambredi, they can cry, they can scream. But I will be the next. I'm going to fight the winner. Did you convince them or try to convince them when you saw them in Perth after the fight? Hey, give it to me next. Let me fight Islam in August and said since you haven't announced it yet. Did you try that?

No, I didn't try. I didn't try. Okay. I did see, were you in a boot after the fight? Is your foot okay? Yeah. I thought it's broken, but not. I'm not broken, but it was really bad because I kick a lot.

Yeah. Look at this. Where did you get that shopping cart, by the way? I couldn't walk really well. It's a far away to go to the restaurant. Then my friend just helped me a little bit. Amazing. Yeah, it's a really interesting time, but I understand where you're coming from.

And obviously, hopefully we get that announcement very soon. By the way, we did get the announcement that Connor McGregor is fighting at 170, your weight class against Max Holloway. And I know there was some talk of maybe you fighting, Connor. Do you think he can beat Max at 170? No, I think Max is going to win. I'm super fond of Max Hollow, you know, like he... But he has, like, he's fighting more, you know.

Like, McGregor's five years without fight. Yeah. So I don't think he's going to beat Max Holly. Even though they're fighting at 170 and Max has never gone there. It doesn't matter. No, I don't think so. I don't think so. Okay.

Hey, by the way, I saw someone get a tattoo of you on their head. Did you see this? Yeah, that's my coach. Oh, that's your coach? No way. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

This guy's a legend. Yeah. Like my father, you know. Oh, there you are. Okay, you're in, I didn't see the other. Yeah, but, but he did the tattoo for a long time ago. Oh, really? Wow.

What was the, like, what were the circumstances for him to get your name tattooed on his head. I think when I sign UFC, he got the tattoo. That's real love right there. Yeah. He like your father and so on. And what's his name?

Chris, Christian. He's my coach, my main coach. Yes, yes. And what was it, like, what did it feel like when you saw that, the reaction? Did he tell you in advance, or did he just come to the gym one day and you saw your name on his head?

No, he just come to the gym and then I saw it. Oh, my God. Does he get all his fighters tattooed on his body? No. Just you? Yeah, me and Marcos. You're the special ones.

Yeah. Amazing. What an honor that is. Yeah. It was your honor for me. Of course. While we're talking about training, can I ask your opinion on the Maricio Hoofi stuff?

It sounds like he's left the team now for sure. What do you make of this? No, he's on team. really smart, intelligent. I'm sure he's doing a really good job, you know. And I think he's going to win. Also, Chandler. I'm really excited to watch the fight.

Okay. So it sounds like no hard feelings or anything like that. No. For me, no. No. No. Is he still training in Brazil? I think he's on USA.

Okay. Interesting. Did you watch the Netflix card on Saturday? No No Because there were some 170 fights Nate Diaz and Mike Perry

Yeah I saw I saw the end of the fight You know It's like he a lot of blood You know Yeah what'd you think Based on the fight Ah bro

You know I'm big for him for Nate Diaz But A long time without fight You know Mike Perry He's fighting Burn Uncle

And MMA But Nate Nade was a long time without fight, so I don't like to watch like the guys that I really like to watch before, you know, like

now they're losing, they get hurt, but it is what it is. Yeah, it's hard to I guess know when to say when. Do you think you'll be one of those guys who fights into their 40s or do you want to leave before? No, I want to leave before. Yeah? Like what? Like what's the age?

What's the perfect age for you? Maybe 35, 36. Why? Bro, I have almost 140 fights, bro. But you don't seem like the kind of guy who just wants to... When I wake up, when I wake up, and then I go to out of my bed, bro, I cannot even walk well. I need to wait like 20 minutes, you know, to my back, it's stopped to pain, my feet, you know? Wow.

Every day, no matter what? Every day. What hurts the most? My feet, the both. Wow. And I think my back and neck also is bad. But you're 32, so that means only like three more years. Yeah.

You think what you get, a lot of people say that and then they get to 35. Let's see. Let's see how many zeros they're going to put on my bank account, you know? And then. A lot of people get there to that age that they see. say and then they're like, nah, I'll keep going for a few more. I feel good. Yeah, let's see. Did you see Kobe Coveington retired yesterday?

I saw something like he, UFC, like he don't want him to fight anymore or he got retired, I don't know. Apparently he informed them that he was done. He stopped the fight. Yeah. It's okay. Nobody cares about him. Resilians don't like Kobe very much.

Yeah. Are you one of them? Yeah. You want to be... Not against him, but he's there and I'm here. You don't care? Not too close, it's okay. You want to be the first Brazilian to win the Welterweight title?

Yeah, I will. You will be? Yeah. You think maybe this time next year you're a champion already? I think so. Wow. Yeah. What do you think that party scene would be like if you win the belt?

Like, I see you partying after Jack Della. I can't imagine what it would be like after you win the belt. No, but Jack Della, I didn't party. Really? I just got some barbecue because I was with my family, my daughter, my mom, you know. I saw you drinking out of the bottle and everything. Was that not from that one? Bro, I think it was against...

Old videos. Leo, yeah, I think it was Leon Edwards. Okay, so you kept it, like, rather, like, civilized, chill. Yeah. Okay, okay. Just chill with my... I think barbecue, drink a little bit, and then done, you know. But to get the title, I think the party is going to be hard.

Like three, four days? Yeah. Have you ever party to the point where you haven't gone to sleep for multiple days? Well, I cannot sleep too much, you know? Like, I sleep in normal days. I sleep like four hours per night. Really? Three and a half.

Yeah. Even when you're training. Yeah. Why? I don't know. I cannot sleep too much. I cannot stay on the bed like for long. What time do you go to sleep? I go to sleep like 11, midnight, and then 1.30, something like that, I wake up, and then I wake all night. And then I sleep like 6.30 until 8.39. And then I wake up and go to the gym.

What do you do between 1.30 and 6.30? I watch TV. play video game eat something oh you leave the bed you go out in your house yeah sometimes

yeah most of times yeah the problem is if you look at your phone it wakes you up do you look at your phone when you wake up yeah yeah sometimes but most of times I go to play video game

smoke think about life think about the fight okay okay yeah I know it's a lot there's a lot but you don't feel like that affects you like your recovery or the way you feel in the gym No, really.

No really. The other one I wanted to ask you about was, what happens, have you thought about this? If Ilya wins at the White House and then he says, Islam, I'm coming for your belt. Now there's another roadblock for you. Are you worried about that? No, I think he's going to still fighting on the 155.

Against like Armin or someone like that, right? Yeah, I think so. I feel like you know something. I feel like someone told you something and you have the confidence of someone that knows something. You know the plans. No, brother. No.

Just thinking, no. That's good, that's good. Were they all there at the fight? Was Dana there? I don't remember. I'm thinking about, I'm thinking about to get the belt. And then maybe ask him to Pura, if he wants to come to 170, let's do this. Let's dance.

You like that one. I heard you say that's one of your dream fights. Yeah, it's a super fight, you know, money fight. Teporia going up. How tall are you? What's a... 190. 190 what is that that's a six foot one right and what's ilia ilia tilio ilia to ilia how tall is ilia do you know

have you looked this up no he's five foot seven that's a that's six inches you're six inches taller than him it's too much no it's not i mean it's a big difference but you're much yeah but but there at the internet yeah it's wrong oh the internet i'm 185 but for real i 190 so you're even more taller than him Yeah. That's an interesting size difference there. You don't see that often in your weight class. Yeah.

Welcome to the wealth race. I understand what you're saying about Morales. One day I would love to see you versus him. When you're a champion, I think that's an unbelievable. I think we're going to fight soon. I think we're going to fight soon. Once you get the belt. Yeah.

Yeah. And are you going to go to Philadelphia if the title fight happens? Are you going to be sitting there watching? Yeah. It's around your birthday, right? Yeah, two days before my birthday. Oh, man, you're going to have a great... Have you ever been to Philadelphia?

No, never. Amazing cheese steaks there. Have you ever had a cheese steak? Yeah, I heard about that. I heard about it. I don't have to try. Those people are wild. They love the cheese.

There's like all different places. They all do the cheese steak a little bit different. You'll be eating a lot over there, a lot of drinking and partying. Yeah. And overall, in Perth, they treated you well? Stay again? In Perth, you felt the love. even though you were fighting one of their guys,

they treated you well there? Yeah, yeah, I really like Perth. A lot of people are saying about enemy's territory, but I didn't feel like enemy territory, you know? Okay, you felt the love. Because everyone loves you. You're such a happy-go-lucking guy. Yeah.

And I wanted to give a shout-out to the T-shirt that I saw. Now there's a new one with the face from the Leon fight, but it's you smoking. Look at this. Oh, yeah, yeah. This is some kind of shirt right here. Who did this? Full violence?

Full violence, yeah. Those guys are great. Yeah, they're amazing. That's a great picture right there. Well, congratulations, Carlos. Well done. Thank you, as always. Incredible performance, really, was blown away.

I thought it was your best in the UFC. Do you agree? Yeah, I agree. Best performance. Heal up, get well. Enjoy the World Cup. Enjoy all the action. Good luck to Brazil.

And we'll talk to you soon. Thanks, as always. Thanks so much, brother. There he is. Carlos Prakis, the nightmare. Kind enough to join us, talk about the big win. I met actually the full violence guys in L.A.

They gave a big shout at to G.C. They said G.C. always puts them over. I love those guys. Yeah. Way too many of their shirts. Yeah, yeah. Shiv or whatever is, the IG handle is? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, there was like three of them. Yeah. They said that they loved when you wear the shirts, you put them over. They want to do a Heelwani one, but I'm like, yeah. Capitalized, man. It's like, this is for the fighter is the full violence. It's not for me, you know? Yeah.

I actually have a Carlos Prochis full violent shirt. You have that one? Nah, but I should get that one. That is a sick one. Great. Yeah, with the cigarette on it? Oh, my gosh. Yeah, they kill it, man.

They do great stuff. They're probably... They're probably... Oh, yeah, they were doing stuff out in L.A., right? Did they do the shirts? I'm sure they had some, yeah. Yeah. Maybe they had Nate Diaz once?

I don't know, but they always... They have the best fighters, and they got the best merch. They're always killing it. True or false, this one's for you, G.C., true or false, Carlos' next fight will be for the belt. Mm. It seems like he feels like he feels like it's happening that way. I know.

I would love for it to be that, but I'm going to say false just because of the timeline where I mean, August, Islam retains. There's no telling when he's going to fight again, January, February. I think if that's the case, then we're looking at a lengthy layoff for Carlos Broch. No. And maybe that's for the best. I mean, he talks about the bumps and bruises, the aches and pains. Maybe he relishes that idea.

Then at the same time, he's, He's been talking about this 35 thing for a while. He seems like a guy that wants to make his money and then get out of the fight game. I know. He said that last time, too. But I just, I don't know. Fighters always say 35, 36, 37. Never comes to fruition.

No matter what, whenever he fights next, I'm going to be hyped for it. Oh, yeah. Must see TV. In 30 minutes or so, 30, 40 minutes, something like that. MJF, Maxwell, Jacob, wait, is he here? Wait, what are you saying? What are you saying? nothing i was just following up on that and then you said on air to answer to my question yeah

in 30 minutes yeah yeah but but you even if it's in 50 i don't care if he's here nice be nice no it will be it will be then as early as then right that would be the earliest that's correct um this is so great camp it's better frank better uh that's what by the way that's what i was saying to my kids when the hab scored in overtime i just turned wow all right let's move on now i just I just turned to them, I said, this is so great. That's it. You got both your teams in the Easter Conference finals. It's kind of wild.

They play on opposite nights. They don't. Game one is the same time as game two of the Knicks. That's a dual. Oh, shit. You're going to be it in the show. You got PIP on your TV? Well, I might be in the house, you know, in the big house.

Yeah, yeah. You go on to the Bell Center. I'm on a generational run of sports, like, greatness, except I haven't won a single one. I was going to say, let's take it easy on that because... No, no. It could be traumatizing. It is too.

It burns as right. Burns is half as long. NBA Cup champions. You have it on your wall in your house. No, you got to admit. It's a great... If you go NBA Cup, World Series, unfortunately, game seven, NBA finals and Stanley Cup finals, and you... And lose all of them?

Very good chance, by the way. Incredibly good chance. You're fucking Harper. I'm going to... I mean, go back to the Bills, Chiefs, and Broncos. But bills were also favorites going into last. year. And it was at this one.

Yes, yes, yes. No, that's why I say. Most fans would die for this. You're in it. You have something to root for. It's just always ending in heartbreak. There's a fan out there betting the Halwani fade. They're just like, Hwani's teams in the final, bet against them.

I will say this. Yeah, me. Spurs are going to dominate everybody. Yeah, me. 94. I'm still liking the Thunder. There was a Long Island Railroad strike in 94. Nick's made the finals.

How about this? The last time the World Cup was in the U.S.? Ninety-four. Nigeria v. Argentina. Also, also, in 94. Marodona. A white Bronco went rolling down the highway in L.A. What did we see when in L.A.?

A white Bronco rolling down the highway? Right, but are we forgetting they didn't win? That's fine. It'd be kind of crazy if all this time later my kids see it. But they didn't win. I know, okay, we're writing the wrong. It's just one game at a time. If they make the finals, it'll be very excited.

We must win game one. We have to exercise the demons of last year's game one. We must win game one tonight. That's a must. That's in the garden, isn't it? Tonight, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where's my favorite? You going on?

Maybe game two. Working on it. Maybe game two. Time now for everyone's favorite segment of the week. It is time. Wow, a ton of questions. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

I only put this out like an hour and a half or so ago. 76 questions. Steve Bouchemy. Rick, have you seen Hocom or Obsession yet? I highly, highly recommend both. Haven't seen undertone yet, so I can't compare them to that. What is your horror of the year so far? Once you see these two, I guarantee they, I guarantee me of them will be one of your favorite.

Either of them maybe will be one of your front runners. Cheers. I haven't seen Hocom, but when we were in L.A., I went to the TCL Chinese Theater and saw Obsession, and it is my number one for the year for sure. Wow. Oh, you saw it at the Chinese Theater. I did. What is the review of the Chinese theater

as far as watching movies? Andy went and saw a sheep detective. That was her grail for the year. That's what she was trying to see. Is it a dump? The hands outside are fantastic. Like, if you want to put your hands, you know, where famous somebody's

that put their hands, it's fantastic. Concession prices are great. If you have back problems, I probably wouldn't go. Not very comfortable seats. Not a great time in the theater. They're putting it nicely. It's really bad.

Is it dirty? Is it dirty? It ain't clean. Is it sticky floors? What is it so iconic? Like, what is the story of it? They premiered a lot of movies there. Like it was just a staple of Hollywood.

It is like in the heart of Hollywood. It's like Hollywood and Vine. You've seen it, right? Pizzi. You know what it looks like, right? I think so, yeah, yeah. Red and black. Did you Tarantino, boy, that one's dietrich?

No, no. He owns a separate theater outside. I actually saw that theater. But when they've done premieres and you see the celebrities dipping their hands in the concrete, that's there. It's right there. It's very iconic. It's very famous, not comfortable.

Obsession is my favorite horror movie of the year. Maybe in a decade. Hollywood, a bit of a myth. Incredible. What does that mean? It feels like it had its heyday has passed. Like journalism. Yeah, after spending a while in Hollywood.

Well, when you hear Hollywood, you think that that's like the glitzy glamour part of Tenzeltown, Los Angeles, and then you find out like, movie stars. It still has, it still means something to me. I still feel like there's magic. What does it mean to you? I like, the smells? No, not the smells. Like, when I was a kid, I loved going to Universal Studios. There was

something about the magic of the production. Wow, there's a lot there, and they make movies there, and look at the cameras. The movie lots might still have that, but like the Hollywood Walk of Fame was. Yeah, dumpy. Well, when you had to clear out all the garbage and then, you know, look at the star. This is what our boy, Spencer Pratt is

trying to bring to L.A. He's trying to clean it up. Are you casting a... Is the Hollywood resident? I approve that. Also, I also have to say, several... Last time I endorsed a candidate or didn't endorse one.

I got a lot of shit for that one. Yeah, let's start out of that. Several of our guests, when they got out at the studio, they were like, ooh, Hollywood, yeah. That's... We got it.

They were like, it's dicey. I think Mike O'Hern, his wife was parking the car and was like, you got your oozy? on your honey? Oh my damn. Y'all really don't like it like that. We got a few.

Is it safe to park here? We got a few of them. I had a couple, I swear I walked to a coffee shop and then someone, I was telling them where I was from and what I was doing there. Don't walk there. I'm like, we're in Venice. What do you mean? It's 11 o'clock of the morning.

Don't say I didn't warn you. It was all right. And then I told you the story about when I was walking home floodlight. Hey, bitch, where are you going? I'm like, what? It's 8.30. What is going on here? In my face, terrifying.

I get killed it. Nate Diaz's team was like, oh yeah, the best sushi in Hollywood is just a block over there. And if you want the hookers, it's just a block that way. I was like, thanks, guys, really appreciate that. Great to see you. Wait, what, you guys are all up in arms about the Shams thing. Curious, if someone... We were just having a discussion.

But again, even that is always misconstrued as being like emotional. Curious, if someone says they are going to tell you some pertinent information, but you can't say anything and if anything comes out they will assume it was you what is the point of them even offering up that info in the first place? Well, okay, I'll explain that

because we did talk about that scenario. Like, I'll check in, I'll check in, I'll ask, I'll ask, and I don't do this as much as I once did just because I don't really enjoy that part of the game. Someone like Woj or Shams, I remember talking to Woj at ESPN and he kept checking his phone every two seconds

just because there's so much information there and he's talked about missing stuff and how much he hated it. that was his currency that he dealt in. I may ask someone like, for example, is the Conor fight done? Let's just take that because that was one that I was checking on. And ask, ask, ask, ask, ask.

All right, man, yep, I do have an update, but you can't report this. That's when I'll say either yay or nay. You know what I mean? Or there are times, by the way, where a person, a manager will call and be like, yo, I got to tell you something. they want to tell someone, but you can't report this. All right, fine. So that has definitely happened.

And if, and I would, I would like beg anyone to say otherwise, I have always stayed true to that. Again, that's why I was so upset about the way Rogan and others framed what happened at 199. I was never, ever, ever told by anyone, don't say this, we're reporting this, we're announcing this, we're doing that, that never, ever happened. G.C. said he can't imagine getting mad about it and that it could just be a tweet to avoid the whole ceremony, but then you complain when Dana does his half-ass tweet or live video because it isn't enough. So which one is it, G.C. It is so hypocritical that it's comical. They have an entire ceremony dedicated to this award and someone lets the info go ahead of time. That is annoying plain and simple. I'll let you answer in a moment. But here's the thing. Don't be mad at the guy reporting it. Be mad at the guy or gal who told the reporter. That's who should be in trouble if you're the NBA. But, the other guy's just doing his job. If someone internally in the company leak the information, again, difference between leak and report. The leaker is the one telling the reporter. The reporter is then reporting the information. Massive difference. That's his job. This person, it's not their job to leak. They may have done something wrong. This person didn't do something

wrong, and that could happen. One person in the equation could do something wrong, and the other can't. And that's not absolving the journalist, but it was this person who had proprietary information who then told a reporter whose job is to get the goods. That's his job. Now, G.C. said that about the tweet and the email and all that. I don't necessarily agree with that stance. That's a big deal. I get that.

I think what you were trying to say and correct me if I'm wrong is like, it's the NBA MVP award. Like, no one's sitting at home waiting for this information. Like it's some big deal. No one's even sitting there other than maybe if you're a fan of the Thunder or SGA dying for this big ceremony. It's just a nice little TV thing that they did and they got out scooped. Yeah, I mean, my main point, and honestly, that's a fair play,

evaluation of, like, you know, Dana and doing this and, you know, I guess calling me hypocritical, I guess that works as well. My biggest thing is, like, why would you care? Like, why would you be angry at Shams for this? It's just like, I'm just not someone who's going to sit there and broadcast it. When it comes to Dana White, they tease this big announcement. And I guess my frustration is the amount of production value they put into it. If it was just Adam Silver getting on an IG live,

then I would also be critical of that. I know they were going to do an entire ceremony. But it's just teasing this big announcement and then the production is just Dana getting on the IG Live. When we used to see high-level production value announcements, like, why not, if you're just going to do Dana like that, why not just thread it? Why not just, if you have a deal with meta,

why not just throw it on threads and be like, okay, here's the fight announcement, and that's what it is. I don't sit there and watch the Dana White IG Lives anyway, just because they're that inconsequential to me. They're not interesting, so I'm getting it through Twitter anyway. It's also, in my opinion, apples to oranges,

because the announcement of a fight, to me is akin to like the announcement of, you know, who's going to play on Christmas Day in the NBA, right? That's like a thing we're anticipating. And guess what? That gets reported all the time beforehand. Before they make the big to-do announcement or who's going to play on Christmas Day

or Thanksgiving Day in the NFL. We know about this before. beforehand. So that to me is the apples to apples. The announcement that someone's getting an award is not the same as a fight announcement. Fight announcement's like, holy shit on July 11th, this guy's fighting this guy. It's big. You want us to pay for it. You want us to get tickets in a hotel and airplane and Paramount Plus or pay-per-view back in the day. This is just like a personal award. It's not the same at all. So I don't think the same pomp and circumstances should go into that as opposed to what we criticize the UFC for doing, which is a promotional company. The UFC is a

promotional company, and we are critiquing their promotional or lack thereof skills. Yeah, I mean, totally different. We've also seen the production value plummet for these. Yeah, we've seen them actually like deliver bangers. I would be okay if they just put it. I would, I would legit be okay if they just put out a threat. And more to the point, nobody is saying that Amazon shouldn't do a production for this. That was not what anybody says. that Connor was never like, oh, just don't do it. I'm just saying,

why get upset if it doesn't come to fruition? You know, I play Carissa. That's not a back comparison. Shilwani says, out of one side of your mouth, I like this. Oh, boy. These are good questions today. At one side of your mouth,

you say JDS shouldn't do this anymore. And out of the other side, you say the rematch between Perry and Diaz is very interesting and could headline an event. Are you that biased and blinded, or did you turn it to Rick with the worst takes of all time? How is it that all compelling after Diaz just got thumped until he bled to a fight ending?

How is that at all compelling after Diaz just got thumped until he bled to a fight ending massacre? What? Come on, Unk. Stop it. Don't try to talk yourself out of this. Just admit you are diluted. Leon Edwards' voice. So do we think that the two performances were the same? JDS got knocked out cold by Robles Despan, who I think most of us would say is a lesser talent than Mike Perry, just given the fact that he's been in this game a lot less. less longer than Mike. I know he's a bronze medalist from 2012 in Taekwondo. And then also, like, JDS had a losing streak of what, four or five in a row at one point. I know he came back on track at Game Bread and that was fine. And I don't think I was like sitting here stumping for this in a very, very strong way. I just kind of threw it out. I'm not like saying DS Perry has to happen,

but I could understand if they're going to run it back for two reasons. Number one, did it inconclusively no, but look, if they are going to be in this MVP MMA business, there's only so many matchups you can make, and because it didn't end with the referee stepping in there, you can sell it. I understand it's not the first time that something like that has happened. I didn't think, guys, please jump in. I didn't think Diaz embarrassed himself out there. I think most people thought Perry was the younger, more active fighter as of late, had a great run, but I didn't watch that saying, like, this is sad. I don't think it was sad, but I have no interest in a rematch.

It was a fairly one-sided beat down. Yeah. And I think the longer it continued, the more it would have just gone on. You know, it not being, like saying it's inconclusive, I think it just happened to happen to be called while it was on the stool. I think if they had come out for the third round, Mike Perry would have finished him. Yeah.

Oh, actually, I think if there was like 15 more seconds, that fight was going to get stopped. Yeah, I mean, if you go back and watch the replay that led to the end of the round, where in real time, as I'm watching it, the cage, it looked like Mike Perry landed like a massive knee that put Nate Diaz down, but it didn't even really land at all. It was sort of just like Nate Diaz stumbling and Mike Perry able to set it up. Yeah, I have no interest in a rematch for Mike Perry. To be 100% clear, if you're asking me, like, what do you want to see next for Mike Perry? That's not my top choice.

All I was saying was, I understand if they do go in that direction because of how they can sell it and because there's not that many options. But like, Namo Fiziel, who was talking mad shit to Perry earlier in the week, I'd be just as down, if not more down, to see that because of how he looked and Perry looked. I know Perry doesn't want to do that because he's not that big of a name. I was just saying, I understand if they do it, but I'm not sitting here saying that's got to happen. It must happen. I'm dying to see it happen. I want it to happen. No, and I didn't say that yesterday at all. We continue. Shake Turkey said, I've asked this numerous times, why won't you divulge what happened with King Green? You continue to ignore the question, but

Now it was also confirmed by Nate in your face to face. He put you on the spot when he said, let's call Bobby Green and you panicked. What happened there? Why so hush, hush? Nothing so hushush. Bobby Green, King Green was supposed to be on the show. He texted me during the show saying, I don't want to come on. He gave me his reasons.

I don't feel like telling you what his reasons are. You want to ask him what his reasons are? Go ahead. I don't feel like telling you. He had his reasons. I saw him at the event. We fist bumped and that's it. I'm not going to divulge his own personal reasons.

If you want to ask him, his personal reasons. But I'm telling you, he was supposed to be on and that he did text me and that his team apologized and he said you know what I'd rather not come on today and that's it you've been asking me this for 10 freaking weeks and I've always thought it was a non-issue and you're dying to know and so there you go so the next time you have a chance to talk to him or tweet him ask him um big game hunting we get it ariel you were right about Connor congrats for the 100th time it's not an excuse to push that button it's it's a funny thing because when it didn't get announced at 328, it was all fraud, fraud, fraud, fraud, fraud, fraud, fraud, fraud, fraud, fraud, we're coming for you, we're coming for you, we're coming like this mentality of like, we're, you lie to us, never lie to you, never, ever, ever, ever lied to you. I said that I thought maybe it could happen or whatever the hell words I used, who gives a fuck when they announced it? I told you from the beginning before anyone. And I didn't see, did I even get credit for this? No one gave me actual credit when they were reporting it, first reported by. Where's all the first reported buys? Huh?

Where's all that? Yeah, who sports? Wait, was that the entire thing? There was no like but. Oh, wait, wait, wait. Dana, not saying click over, going live in 10 for an announcement, shows how little he thinks about MVP and them as a threat. He's just trolling at this point, and you can't help but toot your own horn.

Tushay. P.S. unfortunately, kind of gets sparked. No, if ends or butts. Wait, wait, you really think Dana did that because he couldn't care less about them? You said for shits and giggles. You heard Mark Shapiro's comments yesterday and, feel like they couldn't care less. Come on now.

Brown-nosed Connor. Oh man, G.C. was really brown-nosing today to Helwani about the news-breaking fiasco. It's like a child spoiling what someone's birthday gift is before he opens it. That is fucking annoying, plain and simple.

How are you guys so adamantly defending this shit? It's weird. Why is it weird? It's fucking weird that you care about an MVP announcement. This is a banner. What are we even fucking talk about? Go get a fucking life, man.

What is this? I'm brown-nosing. Shut the fuck up, man. It's crazy. What is this, dude? Sorry, your MVP announcement got ruined. I'm so sorry you weren't able to tune into Prime, Amazon Prime at 730, to see them read it off of a note card.

I actually think Shams did them a favor. Your team's not playing? You don't even have to wait till whatever time they're going to announce it. Yeah. You just read it online. And what did it matter that he did it at 6 a.m.? He got the news. Just that there was so much time before the announcement.

He probably wanted to go for brunch afterwards. You know, get out of the way. You did do that. I hope he did that. I actually was impressed by the fact that he was up at 6 a.m. reporting news. Like, that showed his work ethic. Here's Nate Scar to. Oh, wait, Matt Brown.

This dude's also asked me this the last few weeks, so I'm going to give him a bone because everyone's all sassy today. Is there a difference between the Tuesday on the nose and the Wednesday on the nose? Matt Brown says, why did you call Matt Hardy the immortal one? Because he's immortal. Because he's from Matt Freaking Hardy, version one. What do you mean? He's the man. Nate Scar tissue, will Shemayev and his aura ever be able to recover from what we just witnessed,

dominated by an injured Strickland that didn't do much at all and lied and really miswate? He has got to go on an Islam run and fight more frequent to get any good graces back in my opinion. Nah, he'll be fine. He'll get one win and no one will remember that. G.C., please blind rank these five crew members pass live slash alter egos. All right, we're back on track. This is from Matt from SLC. Stoner de Gen Rick in high school

Three Frank in his ass kissing days One GC tailgating on UGA game day Five 14 year old Pizzi taking a gaff in the tea kettle What is taking a gaff in the tea kettle That was not me who took the gaff in the kettle

That was my friend It was also name I'm not going to say his name Mario alone at Syracuse eating veggie paddy subway sandwiches That should have been five but four I'll go four actually that should have been one Shout out to BITB for delivering the most fried Thursday of all time. Yeah, that was a... Rick with the sunglasses was a look, huh?

They have overextended our stay at the Magic Castle, the night of and there's the accumulation of tiredness throughout the week. Yeah, it was something. Here's a click, boys. Is it freaky Friday? G.C. taking on the Rick roll of saying it's not annoying that they break news before the event. You guys are all a little click merchants.

Hawani still tried to validate his actions from the Brock event. to feel better and defend anyone that does the same whack. This is a great time. I can't get rage going to anymore. I can't get bothered. I can't. You started this and now I don't want this anymore. Okay.

Miguel from Mexico. Ariel, you saying Travis Parker is the greatest drummer in the world is like saying Shade Burgos is the goat of M.A. Oh. Could Frank blind rank these drummers? please. Oh, yeah. Ringo Star.

Fuck, three. Danny Carrey. One, done. Neil Purt. Oh, fuck, two. John Bonham. Oh, my God. Can I squeeze one in between two?

No, you know the rules. Travis Barker. Oh, yeah. Oh, Ginger Baker. Five. There's more. There's more. Good job, Frank.

Sheesh. Every single day, the amount of ads on your videos gets more and more egregious. You got enough ads, Halwani. We get it. You need every penny because you don't get paid by promoters. Blah, blah, blah. Victim, victim, victim. Danaee, Ali is an attention whore.

What does that make you? I don't know. This is great. Yeah, I think this is the last edition of On the Nose. Thanks everybody for your questions. And they're not even questions. They're just people ranting at you. This is the good one.

Matt from Philly. It just says, fuck you, Pizzi. Inappropriately appropriate. Ariel, you're known for the good questions. How did we end up asking Francis? How did it feel after that knockout? That is very reminiscent of. the MMA media, everyone trashes with

how does it feel fighting in X city? No, that's not what I asked. I said, can you describe the sensation when you knock a man out cold? You try to build up to it. And the beauty of that situation was, I had plenty of time to ask many questions. I knew that because they were telling me. So I was trying to build up. You know, you ask a nice little softie,

and then you build up to John Jones, and then you build up to Jake Paul. I thought it was a master class in journalism, if you ask me. James Portland, How does everyone get five, six, seven likes on their questions in 30 minutes? I don't fucking know. No, no, this is not my fault. Oh, here's a fun run from Drum Cota.

PFL doesn't secure, okay, two hypotheticals, guys. PFL doesn't secure a rights deal and MVP acquires them. They then put on quarterly events with Netflix under the MVP MMA banner with the likes of Dakota, Eblin, Dumbay, and Hughes. PFL, this is a hypothetical number two, PFL signs a right thing, steel with DeZone, hires Eddie Hearn to help them with the promotion. This results in a head-to-head battle with Dana White. Which of these two is more likely to happen? And which one would be more impactful to the sport would like everyone's take, including Frank, keep up the great work. To be

honest, two pretty good hypotheticals. I don't think one makes much sense. Why would they acquire them? They wouldn't acquire. They'd handpick. They just pick those fighters. They don't need to acquire. There's no, there's no FFL equity. There's nothing that they're getting. Well, you can't take the fighters unless you acquire them. Well, you just sign the fighters when they're out of contract, yeah. No, but let's say MVP decides like, yo, we want to get into this January 2027. Just do your own fights. They already just did an MMA card.

What do they need PFL for? They don't have enough fighters. So when PFL doesn't have a broadcast deal and isn't doing events and like, why would you need to acquire them? It's the same as when PFL got Bellator. All they wanted was fighters on the roster. It didn't end up being some monumental, you know, partnership for them. It didn't end up being, you know, some massive acquisition. The Bellator assets were the fighters.

And that was the way to them. If you're handpicking, what did the last, three or four names that you can get as soon as they're out of contract, like those are the names you just go after. So you like... Do your own event. You like option two. It makes more sense. Yeah. BT.

Well, I just think one, but like, if they don't get... Look, you've talked about it before, Ariel. the importance of that TV deal to the PFL can't be stressed enough. And if they don't get a TV deal, it's going to be very difficult to keep the show on the road. Some of these people are getting a lot of money to compete for this brand. I think it would be only a matter of time. I think the room would be on the wall if they didn't secure a TV deal. So if I'm MVP in that position,

I'm just waiting for this to dissolve or whatever happens, hoping that someone like the UFC doesn't come in and acquire a roster. I don't think they'd have this kind of space to acquire a whole roster like that and then just handpick the 10, 15 names that can, be bankable for them. Your Dakotas, Hughes, Duneba, Habirora, all these guys, you know, obviously, no matter of made off as well. They have a, they have a, they have a, they have a, they've about, I'd say between 10, 20, really, really bankable people there. I don't think they'd need to take the whole roster. Yeah. All right. So maybe option two. Here's worship, good day. I want to hear

from the whole crew. Do you think Ariel would be a terrible HOA president? I think he would be the most hated HOA president ever, strict everything, strict curfews, strict long care guidelines. I would say I don't want any of those, like, pesticides on the wine. Fair enough. You guys are very loosey-goose with your pesticides here in America. How you feel about composting? No, I don't think you're a good one. We're loosey-goosey on the compost.

I mean, it would be terrible because he wouldn't do it. Yes, exactly. What? Be like, Ariel, someone didn't cut the grass and be like, oh, no, really? And do that thing where he just goes soil on the phones, like, oh, wow. All right, see, later. A reminder to remind me, to check the measurements on that flagpole. Wow.

Any rules on microwaves in the house? We don't like that either. We like to be healthy. We like to be healthy. Here's a side note from this man. Twitter has been a great source for funny HOA content. I recently saw an HOA board meeting talk about banning people from backing into parking spots. You guys are the best.

I did hear from the most famous real estate agent in MMA, the one and only ally Quinta, and he did confirm that HOA is more of like a gated community thing, and that's not really a thing in the Empire State. Well, we wouldn't be able to back into a park. It's the most gangster way to pack, so you can just go straight out. Yeah, it's even harder. So I actually respect people who do that. Nick W. says, Ariel, I believe you went to Syracuse's Newhouse School of Journalism. That is accurate.

Can you share insights on how you develop long-term relationships with sources without being overly transactional? It's actually a great question. And it's something that a lot of other people have told me that they appreciate about me and not about others, just saying. If you want to have relationships with people, the main thing is to not make it overly transactional. And how do you do that? Check in. Wish them luck.

Happy birthday. How is your kid's soccer game? It's okay to have relationships with people and then to feel some sort of, you know, respect there. And one thing that I've heard from fighters, managers, coaches is that they hate when someone only reaches out when they want to know something. you're not really going to go out of your way to help them. And so when you're reaching out for intel, information, confirmation, you don't want to just reach out every time you need something.

You want to have some kind of relationship to where they feel like you're not just using them. So that's what you have to do. Also, he asks, Frank, what are the best in-ear and over-ear headphones? Did you write this one, Ariel? No, but it's funny. I am a big fan. if you're going to do universal in ears, I would go with the Sure

SE 80-846. Otherwise, I would get custom molds made because then you could turn literally like a four armature into a really bang-in set. For over-ear, if I was recommending to a close friend, which I did recently, I would actually just go with the new

AirPod Macs. Apple? Yeah, no. Are you joking? I wasn't joking. In fact, I made the... No, I meant G-C. To you. The Apple. Was that me from last week? Was that him making fun of me?

No, that's me making fun. Yes. I just thought all the hipsters didn't like Apple. Well, you'd be wrong. But that's for convenience. If you were looking for something that's a little bit more referential, I'd go with like an HD 650 from St.heisen. I'm so sad.

I had these Daniel Ricardo, Josh Allen beats headphones, and I lost them. They were so sick. A little AirPods Max 2 to make you forget about it. Yeah. Here's Matt Chihuiewee's. Hey, Ariel and crew, happy World B Day. Ariel, you mentioned on Monday's show that Connor McGregor has only two fights left. Is that confirmed to mean he has two fights left on his UFC contract?

Yes. Has he not resigned a new multi-fight deal? I've been told, no. What information do you have on this? Well, let me tell you something, Matt. I was told, yes, that's what I said. Two fights. Let's go.

It's going to be interesting. James Quoke says, hey boys, love the show. Ariel, how does an MVP MMA show compare to a typical UFC show? Nixon's 6. Thank you. What do you mean? What do you mean? What's the question? Like, production-wise? UFC's a what?

No one does live production better than UFC. And I still maintain till this day the walkouts in UFC, like going through the crowd is the best. I understand why other people try to do other things, but I've always just loved the clean walk through the crowd. I don't like big ramps or big to-does. I always kind of just like the simple walk through the crowd. There's something about it. I don't know why. I went back and listened to some of the music.

What Pizzi said was right, about the walkouts. They needed to be louder, right? I don't know them on my reputation. He's like, Frank, can you tell us like, what's the, what's the secret there? How do you get the music louder as far as what's playing in the arena, but also being loud at home? It really is no secret. Oh, that was a really big, like, like you're about to tell us something that we're not going to understand. I was just breathing, man.

Oh, okay. Do you understand? I don't understand. No, it all comes down to mixing the right microphone, doing an EQ curve for the parts of the human voice that matter, which is from 1,000 to 4,000 hertz. but you can't really stop the bleed sometimes. Okay. And for those at home, when he says bleed, he doesn't mean like actual bleeding, like blood.

So didn't we have a whole thing about this a few years ago? I was like, your ears are bleeding. You're like, they're what? Oh. That might not have been you. No, I don't think so. Ben Mason says, hey, Ariel, back in 2020, you reached out to me when my company was running Mike Tyson's marketing.

Somehow you got my number and reached out to see if you could get any details on how Mike's camp was going in preparation for the Roy Jones fight. Became a fan of yours that day. No one goes as deep as you to get storylines in combat sports. Hope to see you at the Shorty Awards tonight. I will not be at the Shorty Awards, but that's very kind. And that, I do believe, is an example of journalism, what he was talking about. So thank you.

Gio says, Ariel, the suit was fire on Saturday. Thank you. G.C., the suit you wore on Wednesday? Definitely a backshot stain. New York, Rick? Please know more hangovers. Pound for Pound was dog S. I'm from L.A. and was looking forward to it last week.

Oh, my God. I agree with this comment about me. Yeah, yeah. For sure. I got nothing to respond with. He's right. Yeah, I mean, pound for pound was all the time. Horrible.

And there was a stand on your jacket. Yeah, I know. And I was hung up. That's not a back shot. Come on. Okay, here's Eman who says, hi, Ariel and crew. My question this week is for Thugnose himself. I had a hair transplant done in the States, Massachusetts.

Just under four weeks ago, wanted to know your experience with them in the past. I believe you went to Turkey to have yours done, if memory serves correct. How long was the wait for you to start to see new growth? Are you on meds to keep your hair, your native hair? Super psyched to see the results in the coming months. When did you get done at O'Bariol? It was around the summer of 2016 before I really came into my own. Did you even think of that term?

By the way, I've been using it every time. Dotted it up. I wish I could take credit for it. I don't know if I did. I think it did. I couldn't do it. It looks awful. The head's been like, you know?

You have to do that shame picture just to let everyone know. The Mega Mind, you take the sponsorship. You have to post it. The best hair transplants are one. that are done in secret. Like John Sina. John Sina didn't do no sponsors. This one's good.

Do you know, he was a very good one. And shout out to my friend, Collie Marso, who points us out endlessly because he's a Liverpool fan. He says, Mo Sala has the greatest hair transplant ever in the history of man. Yeah. Have a look. A look at the before and after.

The, there are no before and afters for the best hair transplants ever. The ones you don't even know about. That's a good point. Andrew Garfield. Oh, yeah. That hair line ain't real. That's that bullshit. Isn't he?

Like, how old is that guy? I know he is. I don't know, but he got those little receders put right back in the place. Do you remember when Moses Satama called us out? He got one, yeah, for sure. He's like 20. He was like, in that picture, my hairline was cooked. I was like, looks a lot better now, brother.

By the way, speaking of Mos Saleh, you may have noticed on the, I never really talked about this because it happened after the show. on the YouTube channel right now, there are two episodes out of my new series with the Premier League. How about that? Isn't it funny on the week in which there are some people in the MMA media saying that I'm cooked, that I'm trash, that I'm done? I reveal this series with the Premier League that we've been working on for the past like four or five months, Netflix as well. If that's cooked, if that's trash, then God bless us all.

But anyway, first episode out was with Josh Hart about his Chelsea fan. and also some Man City super fans. Basically the premises, it's called Our Premier League, and the premises how Americans watch the Premier League, waking up early, the super fans, the rituals, the famous fans, all that stuff for more. Episode 2 was really well received. It was about Leeds, and the Leeds fans invaded the page and loved it.

And it warmed my heart. I'd love doing it. We went to the Black Taxi in Philly, and that's a Leeds bar. episode three is about West Coast fandom and that's coming out either this week or next week about I went to San Diego remember a couple weeks ago sat down with a very famous chef

named Richard Blaze who's a hardcore Arsenal fan went to a bar to watch Liverpool play I think it was Newcastle or Spurs I think it was no it wasn't Spurs it was Liverpool against some Bournemouth anyway at 7 o'clock in the morning

over there because of the time difference great buzz, great scenes very emotional stuff as well with one particular person. Then we have a fourth episode. So it's going to be four episodes in total, all in the range of like seven to ten-ish minutes. A huge honor to be asked to do this.

Four years ago, we're on this show trying to decide who our Premier League team is going to be. And then all of a sudden, I'm doing a thing for the Premier League itself, Pee, could you believe this? What a life, huh? It's incredible. And you know those episodes are going out

on the Premier League app, which is where everyone does fantasy football. So the amount of the traffic these things are getting is absolutely incredible. You're right there front and the center. Wow. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing.

So yeah, huge, huge, huge honor for me. Had a lot of fun doing it. And there's two more episodes, but you could check out the first two. It's on our channel as well. They let us post it, the Leeds one and the Josh Hart one. And the Leeds one as well, we speak to Larry Nance Jr., who's on the Cavs, who's an investor in Leeds, hardcore, hardcore football fan. And so it's kind of funny.

We've got Cavs and Knicks. represented. His heart, the biggest super fan you met during the, because he's so do you hard with the Chelsea thing, man.

100%. 100%. Like, he's mentioning things, mentioning players. You can tell right away when someone's faking the funk, you know? Absolutely.

No, no, he is legit. He wasn't even listening to me half the time. And that's the day that I met him and Jalen because we taped it where they taped their podcast

and I brought my kids and it was unbelievable. Like, it was so cool to see someone who, like, we look up to and all our hopes and dreams are tied to him. See him act as a fan.

See him act as we act when we're watching him. Do you know what I mean? It's a weird thing. But no, he's die hard. You look at Chelsea games now? Like, thinking game once in a night Chelsea playing spores now in an hour. Oh, yeah, that's right. He's going to be watching.

Are you going to be like, I hope they win, so he's in a good mood and he takes down under the court? Maybe not to that extent, but he's definitely locked in. He did have like a super viral clip on his own podcast that came out yesterday saying that he thought the Premier League was rich. So even he's, what is it, like a conspiracy theorist. I saw, some wild takes about the,

I saw Jim Rome going wild on the Ronda Gina fight. Did you see this? Jim Rome saying that they set MMA back years. Yeah, but you know, like, isn't it all IP, though, like, isn't that what they say? Like, all of this shit, like, where it's like so much negativity, we talked about it on Monday, like, flooded with, like, a lot of negativity online after this,

and we're talking about the tribalism and all that. stuff. Is that not the way Jake Paul has built this whole combat sports career, which has been a tremendous success. There's no doubt about it, whether you like to watch him for it or not. Lots of people are watching him fight. Do you think they consume that kind of shit online differently than your average MMA promotion? Like they're like, well, this is always part of the parcel of our promotions. This is noise. This is feeding back into people being like at least being part of the conversation right now. I just feel like this has always been a thing for Jake. Paul, why would it be different with MVP MMA?

And they are well used to it. I think to a degree, yeah. I don't think they're, they're like quaking in their boots. I think people talking about them is, is a win. But you know, that's silence, right? Yeah. With no one saying shit. 100%.

You know what I mean? But then you want it to continue, right? Like if then it translates into no one watching, then that's a problem. But yeah, you're right. In fact, tomorrow, Nikisa Bedarian is going to join us so I can ask him that very, very question, get a sense of how. how they're feeling after the event. So I look forward to that.

Here's Kit's Corner who says, Hey, Ariel, the boys in Pizzi. I'm a 0.01% top listener of your show. I don't miss an episode ever. You guys are by far the best to do it in today's age. Not glazing, just stating a fact. Now, saying all of that, I feel you guys went way, way, way too soft

on Saturday's Netflix card. Yes, I realize it's show number seven or whatnot. But that show felt like a PFL show in red and black steroids. I mean, show number seven, you mean all-time MVP? Then it would be more than seven. As far as MMA is concerned, it was one. The double introduction is a PFL staple.

I still can't believe promotions still do that. The huge entrance with the smoke flying to me is made for the fans they'd like to bring in, which I suppose isn't the bad thing. But saying it's a copycat league applies here. Lose a lot of the bells and whistles in that glowing neon couch cage side, and it would have felt more like a fight night. This really bothered you. gosh, this really bothered you.

None of you mentioned the time in between fights. There should not be 15-20 minute wait in between fights. It's just absurd. By the way, a lot of you are comparing it to the pre- Paramount UFC era where you'd watch a pay-per-view that was already bought and paid for and there were a lot less commercials. If you watch the UFC now on Paramount Plus, if a fight ends quickly, they're not rolling to the next one right away on the main card.

I landed in L.A. at around like nine something Pacific and the main event had not yet started, Sean Strickland versus Hamza Chimaev. That means the broadcast was still three hours in and they still had another 30 minutes to go of fighting. Yes, in this Paramount Plus, it is taken longer to get through the main cards. Yes, you know why? Commercials. You're saying, yes, commercials. Also, the rebuttal against this guy, I mentioned the length of time yesterday. How as we went on on the main card, it got lengthier and lengthier. That was my biggest complaint about it, especially that between Ingano and between Diaz was just like, all right, man, let's start the fights. So, yes, said it yesterday, agree with you there.

Yeah, but that's just like these streaming platforms that aren't on pay-per-view, they have commercial breaks baked in. That's just the way it is. And so would you rather that or would you rather pay $70? And I guess you can say that about WrestleMania as well. Anyway, you mentioned not having enough time to talk to the fighters. Well, there was plenty of time. It was just used poorly. What?

I said, I said they told me to talk to them longer. What are you talking about? This lad didn't watch the show on one day. Our viewers hate us, man. What's going on? Our viewers hate us. Slava says, hey, Ariel, how do you feel when a foreign-born fighter who is learning English gives you a brief oversimplified answer, specifically when they're translating?

is president and they can give you something deeper if they just spoke of their native language. Actually, what frustrates you more is when they seem to give a very deep answer and then I get like a one line back from the translator. That's more annoying. That's way more annoying, right? He enjoyed it.

Yes. You know, it was funny. With Saladin, I understood what he was saying. And so I was able to pick up on things that the translator did not pick up on. Well, with the Spain, I don't want to discredit the translator, but at the very last question, he called out Francis and was like, I want to fight Francis, and she didn't include that in the translation.

But I picked up on it, thankfully, because I heard Francis. It's tough when the person doesn't know about the sport. That's why he gave a shout out to Fabiano yesterday. So he says we went too soft. Like, I had a fine time. Like, I enjoyed myself on Saturday night. There was no, there's no. No, I guess what he's trying to say is you had to have not enjoyed yourself.

That's what I'm saying. Like, I gave my complaints, like the time in between the fight. the hexagon thing, the squash matches. Those were like my main complaints. Other than that, like I enjoyed myself. I thought, you know, Ptie hated it. Also, I mean, how can you have a bad time in the Intuital match? Intuitous.

What a great. I actually hate the sport entirely. Like, you don't actually enjoy it. I actually hate the sport, and I hate all of you. And I hate myself. One thing I didn't ask you real quick. How are the concessions? Okay, another complaint.

The concessions at the Intuit Dome were lacking mightily. Here we go. I mean, like almost every one of the concessions were closed, like the quick in-and-out ones. And then the ones that were open had, you had a chicken tender, you had a hot dog, you had a burger, that was it. And then beer and water. And like the line was forever. I couldn't get a receipt. I mean, like you had to do the thing where you scan into the zone beforehand, and then the gate opens, and then it's auto-scanning the way out.

The classic, I know it's every arena these days, but if you get a dream, you get a dream. drink, they have to open it and pour it in the cup. Yeah, concessions were lacking. Concessions were lacking. Yeah, I thought that they would be, like, incredible. It felt like a lot of the things were closed. Like, there were a bunch of, like, shots. They weren't available?

Yeah, just weren't open. Really? Yeah. Yeah, a little disrespect there from the intuitive, though. Yeah. They got to get their shit together, those guys. It's an abomination. It is.

I've always said it's a dog-shitter arena. Doesn't deserve that big events at it. Pete, see, we love you. We'll talk to you soon. See, Pete. But we do have to Excuse me Did you hear any of that?

You know, I missed the cough button in L.A. Frank. It attenuates. It doesn't cut off completely. Okay. You heard a little vibration? Yeah. It's all right.

Okay. Allergy season. I am so excited to have our next guest in studio. It has been almost four years. Not four years since we last spoke. Not just four years since we last had him in studio.

Four long years since we had any interaction of any kind. I don't know what happened. What were wrong? We had a couple bangers in the year 2022, and then that was it. Discarded, forgotten about. But our long international nightmare is over.

He is the generational talent. He is the former AEW heavyweight champion. He is the man they call the big Hebrew. He is the one and only Maxwell, Jacob Friedman. What the hell? Hell, where have you been? How are you doing, my friend? We're doing it.

We're doing it. Muzzle toast. Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. Wow. Last time I saw you, I definitely wasn't married, right? You were... I think I was 26 the last time we were in studio.

I had two less kids last time I saw you. 22. Oh, my God. Where have you been? Busy. I know. As you know, we're going to be talking about a lot of stuff about how great I am. Yes.

You look fantastic, by the way. I mean, how could I not? Jeez. The hair looks amazing. It feels amazing, too. I've been. I've been trying this new conditioner. Okay.

Can you talk into the microphone? My audio guy's getting very upset. I guess. How's this? Yeah. You know what? I'm going to the left. That's terrific.

Thank you. That's fantastic. Yeah, that's Frank. What's your name? Jordan. That's a weird name for God. It's actually Frank. He was afraid.

He was afraid that you would roast him. Okay. Fair. Fair. Fair. We were talking about my hair? Yeah, before he interrupted us. Yeah.

Yeah. That was a little rude. It was rude. It was rude. It was rude. It was a little too big. I honestly, I thought I was schizophrenic for two seconds there. I was like, hmm, that's new.

It's so good to see you, Maxwell. It's good to see you, too. Come on. You know. What happened to us? In 2022, we were firing on all cylinders. We had two bangers in the span of like... It was quick.

It was back to back. Yeah, yeah. I think you got in hot water. I did. Like a month later. And you got on hot water my boss. And it seems to me like things are good now. That picture that we took, the handshake picture?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. That was a big moment. That was a big moment for everybody. It was an emotional moment for Tony. and emotional moment for you. I loved it. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Listen, no interview is ever going to be as good as like when I'm not in the room. Sure. But for an interview that didn't have me in it, it was a good watch. I thought it was a nice mending of the fences. Yeah, and I also think it showed the evolution, frankly, of my boss as an interviewee. You know, I agree. I think he faces questions head on.

I think that he took all your questions on the chin and answered that. in a very professional manner. I think he continues to be incredibly professional, even when bullshit's happening around him and lies are being spread. So, yeah, I'm happy for him. Has he evolved as a boss as well? Yeah, man. The fact of the matter is, look, do I love the guy?

No, but I love money. And I also love seeing my company do well, and we're white hot right now. Now, is that all because of me? There's an argument to be made there. There's an argument to be made there. But I also am willing to say that, you know, Tony Kahn, is in case you're unaware, he's a billionaire. You're multi-do you know that?

Do you know that? Yeah. Okay. And for him to be a billionaire and decide to, with his money and his time, when he could be doing, he can be sticking with the, as they call it, football thing or the other football thing that's in America, that's the type of football that I prefer. And he could just be doing that. But he decided to start a professional wrestling company because he's so passionate about

professional wrestling. And he loves professional wrestling. And he's become one of the. best minds in wrestling man. And he's been a great leader and you can talk all the shit you want about him. Why, I don't know, because he gave you an alternative. So you wouldn't have to only be eating one type of food. You have options now. I don't know why anybody would be mad about options. That'd be like if me and my wife ate Italian every night and she was like, how about sushi? And I just spat on her. Like that'd just be a weird reaction, you know? So yeah, I think he's become

an incredible leader too, man. And he always was, but I just think he is really, really just, as we all do, you know, we level up, we evolve as we age. So funny that you talked about that you're actually one of the first people to talk to me about tribalism. Yeah. And just this past weekend, another MMA promotion dared to put on an event. How dare you? And I equated it to the reaction to AEW by the WB fans because the UFC fans were so mad. at the idea of another event and shat all over it. God forbid that the guy's getting punched in the face

and stewing their brains into mush get to make more money and have an opportunity to do so. It's a wild thing. Weird, right? Has that quieted down in your world at all? For sure. I mean, to be honest,

we're freaking white hot right now. Why do you think? Outside of me, and I'm not just saying that to be funny because when you look historically at the most pay-per-view buy rates have me in the main event. The most pay-per-view tickets sold

have me in the main event. The most dynamite tickets sold, have me in the main event. These are just facts. But, and as much as it fucking hurts me to say this here, I don't even want to say it all. Okay, okay. We have an embarrassment of riches right now in the AEW locker room.

I mean, I'm not going to sit here and name every single name because it's actually, it's exhausting how many incredible professional wrestlers we have. We have bar none the best wrestling on television. It's not even close. Sorry. Now, WWE has incredible wrestlers. They're putting on great matches. TNA has great wrestlers.

They're putting on great matches. NXT has great wrestlers. They're putting on great matches. But I can look in this camera and say point blank, I feel we put on the best matches. I feel that it's not just a tagline where the best wrestle. It's a fact. And, you know, it's gotten to the point now

because of the black eyes that were created in the past, right? Which you've discussed at nauseam on your shows. It was AEW bad for a while just because. after the black eyes. Now, there was a reason to say AEW bad because some bullshit was going on. In 26, there's nothing to say, man. We're putting on great show after great show.

We're up in houses year over year in most territories in the U.S. Paperview buy rates are up, and I'm about to be in the main event of the second biggest grossing domestic pay-per-view in the history of our company. Now, in speaking about the history of our company, what I think is so cool

when you go to social media now, If there is a post that says AEW bad, it used to just be like, yeah, you're right, screw AEW, I'm just going to stick with my TNA, my MLW, my WWE, what have you. Now it's like, you're not watching the show. Just say you're not watching the show, because you're clearly not watching the show.

Oh, I watch the show. Okay, what's happening? Bullshit. Oh, all right. So you don't watch the show, and that's fine, right? Now, I'm not going to sit here and pretend that our show is for everybody. No product is for everybody.

But we are white hot right now, because we're having incredible matches. We have incredible rivalries, and we put on incredible pay-per-views. And I genuinely feel that we have the best wrestling show weekly. And I feel that right now, wrestling fans are a little bit disenfranchised with WWE and TKO. And again, there are plenty of people on that roster that I'm big fans of.

There are plenty of people in that office that I'm big fans of. But it is allowing people to finally, if they've not taken that leap yet, to be like, okay, I've been drinking diet Coke, let me try Pepsi. So now people are trying Pepsi and they're going, hmm, not bad, right? And it's it's a cool time. It's a cool time to be an AEW fan. It's a cool time to be MJF. It's a cool time to be a professional wrestling fan because it feels like once again,

there's another paradigm shift happening, to quote John Moxley. You know, there was a paradigm shift happened in 2019, and now there's a paradigm shift happening in 2026. If someone's watching this and they just are familiar with WWE, what's the difference in your show and their show? Like I was saying, I feel that we have the superior wrestling. It's just the wrestling. It's nothing more.

Well, I mean, I'm going to say we have the superior talkers because I'm on the show and nobody's a better talker than me in all a professional wrestling. And that's just a fact. And if you don't believe me, you can name the top guys that are great talkers on that show. I've ethered them on our show. So what are we, you know what I'm saying? Who are we going to bring up then, right? So I...

Roman's good. I like Roman. Roman's great. That's one guy I have not gone to go bar for bar with. So I guess I suppose I can't comment on that. Oh, you people know how much I love Seth Rollins. Yeah. But if we're talking about now if we're talking about the future too, okay, I'm 30. Wow.

Just turned 30. Just turned 30 in March of this year. I thank you very much. I'm about to become a three-time world champion by 30 years of age, which is terrifying and puts me in a list of people that is incredibly small in a sport that's been around since the 1800s. Now you look at me and you look at Will Osprey, who's in his early 30s, and you look at Hangman, who's in his early 30s, and you look at Swerve, who's in his early 30s. And you look at Kevin Knight, who's not even 30 yet, and you look at Darby Allen, who's in his early 30s. And, dude, I can go on and on until I'm blue in the face.

we have people we we are showcasing young hungry talent now and they feel like top guys now not projects right and i think that that's kind of what makes us the alternative as well now don't get me wrong we also have incredible guys that have created the fabric of professional wrestling fandom as we know it we have adam copeland we have christian cage we have chris jericho we have the hurt syndicate. And that list can go on and on too. We've got sting as much as I hate his guts. We've got sting, right? And I feel that we've done such an incredible job of blending the two. And, you know, I just think right now we just feel really special and we feel very distinct. And I think the biggest reason why, more than anything else, is because when I'm watching

All-Eat Wrestling, I don't feel like I am watching somebody play a couch. character. How would you, how would you then describe Darby Allen? Is he the same? A bum, school shooting looking twink. I'm confused. What is, he, he sat here. Do you want me to say something positive?

Well, no, because he sat here. And at first I thought it was like, okay, interesting. He poured water on his head in the middle of the interview. Out of the blue. Also, it looks, he's a psycho. It looked like he hadn't taken a shower for several days because all the paint was all like Krusty and stuff. He's literally the embodiment of Krusty, the clown.

He's disgusting. He's, he's the new. Doink. I don't know how long you want me to go on and on about how much I don't like this guy, but the one thing I can't call the guy is, I can't call him fake. He's as real as it gets. So that's what I was wondering. He is the same dude, no matter if the red light is on.

24-7. Wow. Terrifying. I wouldn't want to be anywhere alone with that man. He makes me very uncomfortable. But people love him. Why, I don't know. It's odd, but people love him. happened in Seattle? He cheated. You watched it, right? Okay. So he hit me in the nuts. You guys saw it.

And if we didn't see it, watch it back. Yeah, yeah. Okay, which by the way, quick one. I would never do that. That's cheating. Okay. We can both agree that hitting somebody in the nuts is cheating. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Hits me in the nuts. Then has to hit me not once, not twice, not three times, but four times with a coffin drop, which is a maneuver that he uses ordinarily to finish people. and then the top that off, I kicked out in time at the three, but that, I'm just going to say it.

She's a skank. Aubrey Edwards is a skank. She's gross. She did a fast count. We all saw the fast count. We're still talking about the fast count to this day. So when people bring up that match, all I have to say is it's the Seattle screw job.

I'll make no bones about it. You know, now we're going to be put in a fair situation. I made sure Aubrey Edwards was not the referee for this match. She's not allowed to sniff my match. as anytime soon. I don't want her near me in the locker room. Go away Aubrey Edwards. She will not be the referee for my match. Now, I have dedicated the time from Seattle to now to studying Darby, and he's made it quite easy for me to do so because he's wrestling twice a week like a lunatic,

which is so dumb. He's burning the candles from both ends, and he's expecting to be able to take me on when he's probably not going to be 100%. And what he would tell you is he doesn't care. He lives life recklessly and he lives in the moment And he doesn't care about legacy Well guess what I do I do care about legacy I do care about the fact that I'm about to become a three time world champion at 30 I do care about the fact that this is the second biggest domestic gate in the history of my company

And I care about my hair Oh sorry guess that makes me vain Yeah I'd give a shit about my hair because I do movies and I do TV shows And I'm a top guy in the professional wrestling landscape industry I'm a household name I don't leave my house without getting noticed This is a fact Long Island? This is a fact

I live in Long Island Absolutely I was magical place I wasn't sure No no no All the fame I'll never leave Okay

Unlike other top guys Who claim places Yeah yeah Yeah yeah This is my This is my territory My hair Is a part

of what makes me a star And I'm Putting this on the record If you're buying This pay per view One of two Historical things are going to happen Either

I become a three time World Champion of 30 Which as we discussed previously puts me a very small list of people. Or I get my head shaved bald. Now, pay very close attention to this for those that like to gamble. Do not put your money on bald MJF.

Not a smart move. Put your money on three-time world champion MJF. Because I will literally die in the ring before I allow Darby Allen to shave my head. That's a fact. In New York. In New York. Louis Armstrong. Horrible.

Sold out. But yes, sold out. Absolutely sold out. Wow. I've been to one show there, one AW show there, actually. Yes. It's a great venue for wrestling. It's a tremendous venue for wrestling. It's unfortunately in just a rotten place.

Listen, I'm going to be honest with you. Tell me. There's going to be people in that arena. If they think they want me to, like, be cheered by them, they're out for lunch. Okay. The second I step out of my house, I see nothing but gross people. It's horrible. Which is why I've bought it like compound.

I live in a man. It's massive. I have acre upon acre of land. Okay. New York people are loud. They're obnoxious. They smell. All the sports teams suck.

Am I wrong? Besides the Mets now, it seems like they're turning around. Nix game one tonight, Eastern Conference Finals. You think they're really going to win? Hell yeah. This is our year, baby? It's not. It's not.

It's not. You guys have been saying it's your year. How is a New Yorker cutting a heel promo on the Knicks? I'm just being honest. They're a team that managed. is to get people excited. That's true. Much like the Mets.

And then they just break your little hearts. So I'm a front runner runner kind of guy. So I don't like to associate with underdogs. Underdogs freak me out. Darby Allen's an underdog. I was just going to say that. Yeah, yeah. Can I ask you?

Which is why he's going to lose. Just like the Knicks. Obviously you have an issue with him. I get that. Yeah. But I did see Bubber Ray Dudley on his radio show busted open and say like he's not good for business. Is he selling tickets?

Sure. Is he a draw like MJF? was he was questioning the move of putting him in that main event slot and eventually he wins and he becomes champion. How do you feel about that? Is there truth to that? Do you think it's a mistake? Is there truth to that from a business standpoint? Look, I think having me on top for a business of any wrestling promotion is always what's best for business. But can you be that guy? If you're asking me if Darby can be that guy, I think Darby's proven to be that guy. The company's still white hot and we are about to wrestle. I'll say it again. This is the second biggest domestic gate in the history of our company. So to say that he can't be a top guy is kind of heresy.

Now, do I think optically it looks as good to have the belt on him as it does on a guy like me? Of course not. But optically, who's a better fit for a world title than MJF in the world? The answer is no one. That's why I'm the best professional wrestler on the planet right now. That's why I'm the most complete professional wrestler this sport's ever seen. Point blank. Now, bully Ray honestly has a lot of great takes, and he's a guy that I respect immensely.

And I do listen. I tune in to Busted Open. I tune in to everybody because it is my job to keep my ear to the ground to make sure that I am putting on the show of shows every time I am. Every time MJF's out there, you're going to get your money's worth. That's just a fact. Okay. So now what I'll also say is, and I don't know if you saw this, bully this week gave Darby as much as sickens me credit. Okay.

Because he's managed to turn people's opinions around from the jump. When Darby won that belt, you had a lot of people going, what? Me included. I'm not going to lie to you guys. I was like, how the, what? How did we get here? People have been fully invested. This has been a title reign unlike anybody's ever seen.

It's been a full court blitz. He's defending the title twice a week, every week, like a maniac against some of the best professional wrestlers in the world. Would I do that? No. It's dumb. All you're doing is burning the candles at both ends. You're making it impossible to stay on top for a long period of time. But you kind of have no choice but to respect it a little bit.

This dude's thrown caution to the wind. A la Mick Foley, a la Terry Funk. I'm sure there are a plethora of other examples. The Hardee's. The Hardys, absolutely. A plethora of other examples. Now, do those guys, make for long term top guys that I just mentioned.

I did love the finishing move, the headlock move that he did, the call back to 2021. That was something. So I've beaten him. That was good storytelling. Let's talk. I've beaten him with a headlock takeover, not once but twice. He's beating me with a headlock takeover zero times. Okay?

He hit me in the nuts and the rough did a fast count. Now, if you people want to count that to feel good about yourselves and help yourself sleep at night, by all means, God bless. But the fact of the matter is, he has yet to defeat me with a headlock takeover. And I'm telling you right now, I'm telling you right now, I'm telling you right now. Now, if I want to finish him off with a headlock takeover this Sunday, I will. It doesn't mean I have to. But if I want to, if I want to rub this fucking rules in it, maybe I will.

I don't know. You're so freaking good, huh? I'm pretty good at wrestling. You're good. You're the best heel in the game, in my opinion. You're the best on the mic in the game. I say this time of me, this ring that you're wearing. What is this?

It's the beautiful dynamite diamond ring. I'm a six-time dynamite diamond ring champion. What does that represent? So. It's wonderful. Is it real diamond? Absolutely. Okay.

This is $75,000 that I'm holding in my hand right here. Wow. And it's heavy. Do you want to feel the heft of this bad boy? Absolutely. Wow, wow, wow. It's like a... And if you don't believe me, we can go down to the Diamond District right now.

We're close. You see it right there. It's like an NFL championship like super little ring. Wow. Now, I have six. Okay. You have six of those. Six of these.

Wow. Now, the fact of the matter is if I wanted to trade them all in and make some money, I could. But I, to me, it's a pride thing. Yeah. And also, this year was the first year that if you win, the dynamite diamond ring it gets you a world title shot. Now, I was already

world champion at the time. So I had no reason to go for a seventh ring. So Bandito won this year and naturally, I beat him. You know, what else was going to happen? But it was, I'll give the kid credit, it was a good matchup.

Yeah, no, I mean... It's tremendous talent, Bandito. One of the other guys... No, MJF, but who was? And why are people saying your hair is fake? Did you go to Turkey? First of all. I'm gonna, I want to rewind.

Yeah. Okay. My hair is very real. I would, I would. I would. Yeah, it's real. Very real. Yeah.

Okay. Now, do I have product in it right now? Of course. Absolutely. Absolutely. Looks great though. Thank you. Thank you.

It's beautiful hair. But is it hot in here? It's, dude. You can tell I'm sweating, right? It's so hot in here. Can you guys boost the AC? I'm dying. I'm feeling great.

But I'm wearing a shorts. But yeah, I got the jacket on. I got the dress pants on. Get comfortable. It's a professionalism. thing. I'm not like you. I can't look like a schmach. This is also a year's show. You can get away with being in pajamas if you. Sure, sure, sure. I'm a

professional athlete. This is the tonight show, basically. This is a big deal. It's one thing to go on those other podcasts, those other radio shows. This is the big league's fit. There's definitely a bigger deal. Yeah. You know, tonight show, that's, you know, that's a company. Have you been on it? I've not been on the tonight show. I would love to be on the tonight show, but I'm pretty sure that

as of so far, that seems to be like an almost WWE territory entity. Much like Madison Square Garden, which if we ran Madison Guard Garden, we'd sell it out in two seconds, but there might be some powers at B that want to make sure that we can't do that. Do they have an exclusivity? Exclusivity, I wouldn't say, but I know that when Vince was in charge, we tried to run there and he... Really? Yeah. What about Barclays? Barclays doesn't mean as much to me. Sure, but it's a little city. Sure, just doesn't mean the same thing to

me. If we ran there, great. I'm sure I'll sell it out and be on top, but it's not Madison Square Garden. Have they tried since Vince left? I don't know. That's actually a great question. I don't know. I don't know. Let's call Tony up and ask him. You want me to call him right now? Oh, okay. Yeah, I don't give a shit. But to answer your question, somebody's open. What's happening? Oh, he's going on. What's having? What's having? He's bringing is a bald guy? Oh, yeah. What do you want? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah, what about that line right there. Suck my dick. How about that? How's that for a line? Now, about my hair. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very real. I would wager it's the most real hair. Okay.

For real. And then people are talking about this turkey thing. I didn't get, I had to Google. I I didn't even know what a hair surgery was. I didn't even know that was a real thing. I had to Google hair surgery. And then, look, man, I'm a pro wrestler. I didn't do geography. You know what I'm saying? I don't even know where the fuck Turkey is on a map.

I had to look it up. It's in the Middle East. It is. Okay? I actually believe half of it is in Asia and half is in Europe. Oh, it's like a bridge situation. Yeah, Istanbul. Listen, man, I never, I've never been there.

I never been there. I don't know what hair surgery is. I don't know what, I didn't know what Turkey was until recently. I wasn't exactly the great. greatest student in school. You know, I was just busy daydreaming about being who I am now. This life, literally this life. God bless. Yeah. I'm fucking, I'm so cool. How come I didn't get, I didn't get like a save the date or like an invitation or anything. For my wedding? I saw a lot of like media guys there. For sure. For sure. Look, yeah, I had to fall now with my boss. It's as simple as

that. I got, that's who pays daddy's bill. Was he there? For sure he was there. He was okay. Absolutely. Absolutely. Had I not been in the house? If you were in the graces, I mean, Jesus Christ, Maybe you would have been a grimace. I saw like Rosenberg there. Great guy. I saw all those days. I felt like I was part of the Mishbach. For sure.

Yeah. He blew it. But you're back in now. I'm back in. I'll tell you what. My next wife, I'll call you. How is the married life? I'm not going to lie to you.

I'm having a good time for now. How long? She doesn't act up. I get to have sex with her whenever I want. She's a good cook. She cleans. No complaints. Canadian.

Canadian. Yeah, yeah. I love Canadian. I know you do. That part's a little unfortunate. So I got a teacher how this country works. there was whole Mishagas going on because for a little bit there she got she got blocked at the border. Yes.

Because she was visiting me so often because who wouldn't want some of this? You know what I'm saying? This kosher sausage. But they ended up stopping her because they were like she was visiting so often. They were like, is this chick like slinging drugs? What's going on? And the first time I ever see you sweat. Dude, it is blazing hot in here.

And you know damn well I'm not sweating from these fucking softball questions. Okay. So, can I turn it up? Yeah, no problem. Turn it up. I'm bored out of my God damn mind. I'm sweating, but I'm bored out of my mind. I don't want to get.

I think I'm going to some other news place after this, and they're going to be asking me questions like, so pro wrestling, what's that about? So like, fucking. I don't want to get back into the bad graces, you know? That's fair. So I'll tell you what. Ask it. But honestly, what's a question that I'm not going to answer perfectly? What's your beef with my guy?

Who's, I mean, who's your guy? Brett Hart, I don't have a beef with Brett Hart. I cut an incredible promo on Brett Hard in the very first double or nothing, which full circle, double or nothing's happening this Sunday, May 24th. See how fucking good I was. That was your hard. No, no, no, but I just saw him. I've got no beef.

I just think, look, man, this dude, this dude got rocked by Bill Goldberg, like, to the point where he had to retire. Sure. He's saying crazy shit all the time. And 99% of the time it doesn't make sense. I just think homie's punch drunk. And like, God bless him, he should be. He's one of the greatest wrestlers of all time.

He's no Sean Michaels. But he's one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. He's so much better than Sean Michaels. With all due respect to Sean. In what world, though? In like actual wrestling. I have a reason to like pretend Sean Michaels isn't better than Brett Hart

because he's like the WWE NXT guy. Sure, sure, sure. But like, I'm just not going to sit here and do that. He was the better talker. He was more athletic in the ring. He was the better wrestler. He was more exciting. He drew you in more.

Brett was good at a time. period where, you know, he was able to get away with being this incredible, like, work rate guy. His promos were good, but they weren't fucking, like, real. Whoa. Whoa. Do you hear that? Did you ever go to school and go, did you hear that Brett heart promo? Absolutely. Love them. Come on. Love the coolest guy. Now, I will say, coolest guy. I will say. Walked out there, you wanted to be like him. I don't get it. I think it's because he was Canadian and you're Canadian. Now, the hair, the glasses, the pink, the black. I hope people realize I'm not even talking shit.

I'm literally saying out loud, this dude is a legend. He's a Hall of Famer. He will go down as one of the all-time grates. But when you put him like bar for bar against Sean, I just, I never understood the, I never understood the comparison. Now, if we want to really get into the nitty gritty, I'm getting sick of the Sean Brett stuff, because to me, the mecca is Austin. So what are we even talking about? The greatest of all time. I think he's, he is.

He is. I'm sorry. I think Steve Austin's the have I ever met him. Yes, I have. I've done a podcast with him. And we got to hang out. You were on the broken skull? Oh, yeah.

Really? Oh, yeah. When it was on WWE? No. So I did that back in, I believe, either 2018 or 2019. Wow. We got to a bit of an altercation. I don't think he loved the fact that I kept making fun of the fact that he was bald.

Okay. But he's bald, Ariel. I mean, what do you want me to do? I'm not just, you know. Did you go to the ranch? I it wasn't the ranch so he's got a place in in in in Cali that I went to okay I'm not sure I don't think it was the ranch but it was a I mean it was a beautiful home I brought a bet about a brought a like a very nice fancy bottle of red wine with me class I'm a classy guy bring to us nothing nothing just me because this is old hat at this point it's I mean this is the third time but new studio last it is new yeah what do you think hey why are you in hot water like on Twitter oh yeah what happened yeah people why do people hate you? all of a sudden. You want to know why? I'm listening. MOT. You really think it's because you're a fucking Jew? One million percent. Okay. They're bringing up the people love me and I'm a

fucking, I'm Jewish as fuck. I'm big Hebrew. They call me big Hebrew. I criticize Sean Strickland for basically, so Sean Strickland's a fighter. Yeah, yeah. I'm not going to lie to you. I know close to nothing. That's fine. That's fine. About M.A. I respect it and I'll watch the odd fight out of the blue. But I know close to, we got to get an MJF action figure. Do you have one? I don't have one on me, but we're gonna... No, but they have in the stores? Have you made it to that point?

Absolutely. I didn't know... No, no, no, no. Okay, okay. I thought you had to be like 10 years in the game or something. No, no, no, no, no. Daddy, I was fucking 2020. I think I was already all over the place.

Walmart's, targets. I apologize. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I've got six different figures now. Strickland had a fight against a guy named Hamza Chimayev. Hell of a name. Chechninean. Yeah.

And the promotion got very, very personal. Talking about his mom, talking about his religion, calling him a goat effort. My opponent. That's horror. Talking about all this stuff. That's fine. Yeah, yeah.

But here's what, I know you would, but here's the difference. Fight ends. Within seconds. I was just trying to sell the fight guys. I didn't mean all of that. He said that. I thought that that was weak. I say stand by it.

Okay, so then what happens? Yeah. What happens is I'm critical of it. I took nothing away from the performance. I said it was legendary, incredible. But I said that, how dare I? And then it becomes, you only said that because I made a joke about APAC, or you only said that because you hate this,

and because you're a Jewish leech and all this stuff. So they made it about religion? 1,000% and I was actually backing the Muslims. I was actually saying if I'm Muslim and I hear this guy saying, I'm not accepting the apology. I was just doing it to sell the fight. No, there's certain things. Did the other guy accept the apology?

He did. Interesting. He accepted. All the other Muslim fighters said, if that was me, I wouldn't. Yeah. So here's my thoughts on it in this boiling sauna of a fucking podcast. I feel like we've, have... The AC has been bumped up.

Yeah, okay. The AC's been bumped up. I feel it. Yeah, right. It's a coming. Yeah. So I agree with you and I disagree with you. I think you should be able to say anything you fucking want.

This is America. So that part I totally agree with. I think it's impossible to take things too far. I've always felt that way. If people, if my opponents get offended by what I have to say, fucking grow up, all right? No line. I don't have a line. Right.

Religion. Nothing. Zero. Zip. I don't give a shit. I'm just trying to fucking get in your head, A, and B, sell tickets and it works every single fucking time for me. I can't speak for everybody else because not everybody's as good as me. I would be not accepting of an apology if somebody spoke all that

shit and then they were just like, I was just kidding. I'd be like, it's still fuck you and fuck your mother. For me, that's me personally. Now, I'm not a practicing Muslim. I'm Jewish as fuck. I'm big Hebrew. Now, in our religion as well, you are supposed to be forgiving and you are supposed to be, who's to say that he wasn't just trying to practice being, you know, a good Muslim man? I have no idea. I don't know this guy. I don't know either of these two personalities, which is, I'm sure to your UFC or MMA fans, they're watching me say that. They're like, how can you not know? The same way, if you don't know me, that means you're living under a fucking rock and you know nothing about professional wrestling. That's why. So, but that's what I would say.

I would say to devil's advocate, I am the devil's advocate is maybe he was just trying to be a good practicing religious man in that moment. Be, be forgivable, be good to thy neighbor, yada, yada, yada. Now, is that for me? Is that my cup of tea? I'm sorry, fucking lulia. I'd spit on the guy if he tried to apologize. Have you felt any difference? You proudly boast the fact that you're Jewish and Big Hebrew.

Have you felt any difference in the way in which people treat you? Honestly, no. I've discussed this at length. I've discussed this at length. So I do feel that due to what's going on in the Middle East, and I, due to what's going on in the Middle East, there's definitely more rampant anti-Semitism hurled at me, which I think is weird because I, last time I checked, I'm not Israeli. Last time I checked, I was born American. Last time I checked, I am not in the Israeli government.

Last time I checked, I don't have a relationship with BB Netanyahu. I'm not telling him what to fucking do. so it's just weird. But also, I've been dealing with anti-Semitism my entire career. It's not going to go away. It's never going to go away. I hate to use the term used to it, but I just use it as more fuel to the fire, man. And I've said countless fucking times that there's only so much you can do.

If somebody wants to hate you because of whether you're white, yellow, fucking black, purple, orange, whatever the fuck, no matter what you do, people are going to fucking figure out a reason. to hate you because they have prejudices. And that's that. But I do think it's weird to hate American Jews who aren't outwardly supporting either side. It's just fucking weird. Well, you know what's interesting. This conversation will get clipped off and then people will be like, look at these guys like playing the victim. I've never played the victim.

I'm not crying if you're throwing like anti-Semitic slurs my way. I mean, you look at my Twitter. It's like, kik, kike, this Jew, die, genocide, supporter. I've never said any of that. Yeah. But because I am... I mean, a huge part of my story is I got a roll of quarters thrown out me and I was told pick it up Jew boy at a very young age.

And I was like, I'm going to get in the gym and beat the fucking shit out of these guys. And I did. So it's like, I don't know. You can use it as fuel. Absolutely. What I will say is I've said outright and if this offends you, I'm sorry. But I'm not in support of what's going on right now in Israel. I think a lot of stuff that's going on right now is super inhumane and I can't back it.

And I personally don't like Netanyahu. Not a fan. I've said out loud, I'm not a fan. Now, even when I say that, there's going to still people, there's going to still be people that go fucking, what the fuck? Like, that fucking Jew. It's like, wait, I'm literally, like, is this not the, like, whatever. You can't, you can't wait.

It's no different than being American saying I don't like Trump. Just because you're Jewish, it doesn't mean you have to support every single thing. I don't agree with, now. I believe that Jews have a right to exist. But here. Here's the thing. Yes. Yes.

And the same way I hope blacks have a right and Asians have a right and Hispanics have a right. People have massed their Jew hate with, oh, you know, I just don't like Zionists. But I'm okay with Jews. No, no, no, no. You hate Jews. Just be open about it. Just be open about it, in my opinion. I think the word Zionist has changed.

It sure as hell has changed. So here's the thing. The Nazi emblem. I can't believe we're getting into this. Yeah, this is not progressive. The Nazi emblem, to my knowledge, I believe it was a Hindu symbol. at one point. Yes.

And then it got overtaken. So I'm sorry, if somebody's wearing a Nazi symbol and they go, whoa, whoa, whoa, it's fine. This is a Hindu. Fuck you. I'm punching you in the face. I do unfortunately feel Zionism no longer means what it meant when I was a kid and what I was told it meant. Zionism when I was a kid meant be proud to be Jewish and be proud of the fact that we

have a place to live in Israel. I don't think that's what it means anymore. To who? Because they've changed the- It does mean the same. They've just changed the meaning. They've changed the meaning because it's, now means something else to them. They've used it as something else. It is the exact same thing

from when you were a kid, in my opinion. That's the way. And I respect you feeling that way. I don't know if I feel that way anymore. That's fine. Because here we are two people from the same background. Same background. We're not all the same. No, we're not all the same. Which this is, it's more proof, right? Right. But all I'm saying is, I think much like words and their meanings change. If I say the C word in England, it's like saying, what up, bro? Right. If I say the C word, in America to a woman or even a man. Those are fighting words. I just think that's where we're at

with the word Zionist, which is unfortunate because it used to mean a good thing. It no longer means a good thing. Now it's a bad thing. Now, we can get into an argument of should it be a bad thing though? But again, the same argument can be made about that Hindu symbol.

It used to mean a good thing. And now when I see it, I think of woke. Woke was not a bad thing. Yes, woke used to be a good thing. good thing. And woke, to my knowledge, was a word that was come up by people of color. And then white people took the word and they were like, how do we figure out a way to say, Pussification of America? You know what I'm saying? Even though I don't feel it's necessarily true,

but now I will say, I find in the year 2026, people struggle to take a joke now more than ever, which also is what's made me very rich because I hit a nerve now. way easier than I did when I first started wrestling. I've been in this game for 13 years and I'm only 30. And I've only been on national television for six of those years. But in that timeframe, words cut more now than they did when I started. Why do you think that is? I think that the generation under me, because I believe I'm last of millennial.

I was born in 96. I think 96 is literally a cut off. If it's not, then maybe I am Gen Z and 95 is the cut off. 95 is the cut off. I honestly don't know. But what I can say is, and it's, by the way, it's, it's, it's going around in a full-blown circle. Because I'd say two years ago, people were more heightened. Their ears were more up. It was, it was almost like getting offended got you points. And I think it got to be such a like, I'm, I'm sitting on my high horse because I, you know what I'm saying? I don't say X, Y, or Z. It got so annoying that now it's

kind of gone full circle. I don't know if you agree, but it's something that I've noticed. I definitely feel like it's way less heightened than it was two, three years ago. Yeah. I don't think COVID helped because Jesus Christ were off the beaten path of professionals. Yeah, yeah. But I don't think COVID helped because what COVID did, and this also helped me make money, because I would tweet and people would be incense because they had nowhere to go, nothing to do, nowhere to be, and you're just sitting in this echo chamber of filth. Yeah. You know, you go on Twitter now X. Back then it was Twitter. back then.

Back then. Look at you. But back then it was Twitter. And like, you're just reading people throw horrible filth out into the ether and hoping it sticks. This also happens in professional wrestling. I will use an example. Now, I have talked about jolly old St. Nick before. I'm a Nick Con fan.

I like Nick Con. I understand what Nick Con's doing. Nick Con's job, this is WWE. This is AEW. Nick Kahn's job is to do this and to make everybody look at this. And it makes sense. It's smart. But we also have to be smart about what sources we listen to.

So I believe this was last week. There was something got, WWE sources are saying that AEW is struggling to get a TV deal. Come on, bro. Warner is over the moon with us. That would be like Coca-Cola sources are saying that Pepsi makes their liquids entirely of ass juice. It's like, let's look at the source and then judge on it, right? So it's like that, that was weird. You think you get planted? Yeah, of course. It's a game of trying to control

the media and trying to control the way people think. Because for the longest time, it was very easy, as I was saying earlier, AEW bad. Yeah, yeah, AEW bad. Well, now people are a little disenfranchise with seeing their favorite wrestlers be asked to take a 50% cut. Or they're a little different disenfranchised with the show as a whole. And they're going, maybe I should give this AEW thing a look. Oh shit. They're talking positively about AEW. What can we do here?

Right? Now, again, I'm not coming for anyone. I'm not saying anything negative. I'm not even saying it's a bad thing. It's a smart business tactic. But it's a business tactic nonetheless. And I do think it's very disingenuous. when people pretend it's not.

Did you watch mania? I did watch Russell. What do you think? I thought it was a WrestleMania. I thought it was, you know, I thought it was a WrestleMania. I don't want to, I don't want to say good,

I don't want to say bad. Why not? Because I'm not a, I don't like throwing stones unless it's opponents or people that I'm going to race. Nah, you can't say that. You said, give me the hard questions.

You're right. You're sitting on the fence. I'll say this. Night two was better than night one. Your sugar, I'll give you that. Night one was awful. I'm a sweet guy.

Why not say that it was awful? Because that's up for analysts and pundits to say, not for MJF to say. You are an expert. I am an expert. And as an expert, I'm telling you, if I was sitting at your house on night one, was better than night one. You were probably shitting all over it.

There were plenty of people sitting in my mansion on night one. Yeah. I watch their product. I watch today. Dude, I watch everything. That's not changed since the last time you've interviewed me. I watch everything. I feel that if you don't watch everything,

then that makes you ignorant to the sport that you're supposed to try to master. And if you don't try to master the sport that you're in, how can you possibly ever try to be the best? Do you root for their sort of transgressions, their demise? Do you want? Jesus Christ, no.

That's tribalism. I do not root for their demise. I want... But it's like your team is battling their team. You want your team to come up better than their team. Is that not true? I want us to be successful, but that doesn't mean I want us to be successful

in spite of them, like having to fail. To some it is, not to me. I think... And yes, they should be successful. They assuredly are counter-programming us. But the same, I showed you visual representation of how some people handle things. That's not how MJF handles things. You want to see how MJF handles things?

See, this stack, this is AEW. And let's pretend this is the WWE stack. All I'm worried about is stacking this AEW block as much as I physically possibly can. Now, whatever happens to them in the meantime, isn't my full. fucking problem. But I don't want to see anybody lose their job. I don't want to see anybody be unsuccessful. I don't want to see anybody fail. I want to see everybody win in this industry because I love professional wrestling. Now, I don't want to see anybody win more than me. That's a different story. Then that's, this is MJF, this is the other wrestlers. Different story. Makes sense?

It does make sense, but like I've heard countless stories about the old days and there's the two monitors when they're going head to head and whatnot. It's still happening. It's still happening. Well, it definitely was during Wednesdays. No, I know now you're not going head to head per se, but is everyone saying like, look what they're doing? What are we doing better? How could we do better? X, Y, and Z. That's got to be a part of the battle here, right?

I think the key to AEW success in 2026 is we're really only focused on being the best and putting that. Did that change? Was there once a part, a point in time where you felt like it was an obsession to try to compete with them and now let's just focus on our own thing? I think it was hard not to feel that way when we were on the exact same night. Now, again, I wasn't looking for anybody to lose a job. I wasn't looking for the more options there are for professional wrestlers, the more money professional wrestlers can make. And I want to see professional wrestlers not be addicted to painkillers

or drugs and alcohol because their bodies hurt. And then by the time their career is over, by the time they're run in one territory or company is over, they have nowhere else to go, that's not really going to happen anymore. Hopefully, God willing, because of AEW. you when you watch their product are you inspired are you interested or do you just watch it because you feel like you have to keep tabs on them i can find inspiration in anything i can find

inspiration in a movie or a tv show a professional wrestling match but you have to be watching it through the lens of like we're doing this and they're doing that no i swear i'm not you're not i'm watching it through the lens of i am a professional wrestler and obviously i'm a professional wrestling fan so I'm going to watch this product as a professional wrestling fan. Are you surprised Danhausen is doing so well? Not remotely. Danhausen rules. Danhausen has always ruled.

Danhausen's a great guy. Danhausen sells merch like a motherfucker. And Danhausen, the person behind the face paint, I've known him since I was literally, yeah, Jesus, 20. And he's, he is as advertised. He so clearly pulls people in through his love of the business, if that makes sense. Were you expecting him to be pushed so much when he went over? Sorry. What do you mean by pushed?

They're really pushing him. They're giving him prime time real estate, so to speak. To me, professional wrestling television is, it's like at bats, right? So there are certain guys, if you put a bat in their hand, and they're up next, you might be like, oh shit. And then there are other guys where you put a bat in your hand and you know they're going to hit a fucking dinger, right? That's me.

I thought that if Danhausen was given, genuinely, if Danhausen was given at bats, that eventually he was going to hit a dinger. Amazing. Would you like to see New Day come over to AEW? Yeah, absolutely. I don't know what their contract situation is. At some point.

But, you know, whenever they are legally allowed to come over, I think that those are guys that would be incredible additions to the AEW roster. They're both crazy talented. They're both massive stars. And they're both guys that know their worth, which to me is the most impressive thing. Were you surprised they left? No, because if you're going to tell guys that they have to take a pay cut, if they know they're worth, they're going to say no. How would you react to that?

No. Are you surprised they even broached the subject? Like usually a contract is a contract. No, it's a belief the report. No, it's a different WWE now. They're owned by TKO. So they are trying to enhance money as much as humanly possible. You know,

WrestleMania is about to happen in Saudi Arabia. You know what I mean? So now it's a business at the end of the day. AEW is trying to make money too. But I just think we handle the business differently. And we look at the business differently in our front office. And again, not shitting on the way that they handle it. that is up to them.

If they're looking at the amount of money they're making and they're saying that's not enough, all right, let's reach out to talent and tell them to take 50% cut. And if they say yes, is that really on them? To the best of your knowledge, has that ever happened in AEW? I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. Genuinely. Now, oh, you mean during a contract? Yeah, yeah. No fucking way. No fucking way.

Okay. Now, if somebody took bad swings at bat and when their contract is up and they're asked to, hey, brother, we're not paying you what we were paying you before because you can't fucking hit dingers. That's a different thing. If you're asking me, hey, have we ever in the middle of somebody's contract been like, hey, man. Yeah. Sorry. No, that's never happened. But we last spoke almost four years ago.

Could you believe it? It's unbelievable. It's fucked up. You told me about the bidding war of 24. It was very real. Yeah. How close did it get to you leaving? Just like I told you last time, you know, pretty close.

Well, when we spoke, did you had just signed? I honestly don't know. I don't remember where we were out on that. But you didn't go to like, I thought that you would go all the way to the end to test the waters. You didn't do that. You signed well before. Why didn't you do that? I wouldn't say well before, but I signed before, but not well.

Did you even talk to them? I can't legally answer that question. Yes, of course you can. But let's use our brains. Okay. Wouldn't you fucking want MJF on your roster? Of course. So there's your answer.

I thought it was going to like truly come down to the wire. Yeah. It didn't, it didn't have to. Was it tough? Was it tough? No. Really?

No. How come? You have to know your worth. And I know my worth. And my worth was built because of the legacy that I'm building in AEW. Right? There is something very enchanting to me, no matter how much money did or does or will gets thrown at me. And trust me, it was a lot hypothetically.

Okay. It was fucking a lot hypothetically. It doesn't matter because I care about my legacy more than anything, as I discussed on TV, which is why I cannot get my head shave this Sunday. Because that's a part of my legacy is my hair. Of course. the idea of going down as the greatest of all time is really important to me and I also think that there's something very special about being able to say that with having never worked there I think that that's really cool I think the idea of that

happening in the wrestling world and to me the Mount Rushmore professional wrestlers turn actors are Dave Batista John Sina Dwayne the Rock Johnson as you know Mount Rushmore has how many heads for my god. goal is to be that fourth head. And if I could pull that off on my name alone and the legacy that I built on my own back, not from a machine, just the Maxwell machine, I think it would feel all the more sweeter. Never say never in this business, ever, right? We know a guy who said never, ever, never, ever, right? You can never say never in this business. But I'm just telling you where my brain is right now at 30 years old

today. For the longest time that guy was Sting, right? It was Sting. You ever talked to him about that? I did. He, I am not going to give away how he felt about that run.

Not necessarily about the run. Okay. But that was a really interesting answer. Sure. About being that guy on the outside. Yeah, we've discussed it. Absolutely. And the pride that comes with that, perhaps?

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because he was that guy for... He had a men's pride. over it and I think it's why he was so tentative, I would say. Even when there, even when there was no, you know, alternate, like real alternative. He was like, yeah. Do you think he regrets it? Regrets what? Eventually going. He's a Christian. I don't think he regrets anything. I think he looks at everything as a lesson. Okay. Genuinely. When you did sign, so did the contract start in 24?

Because you said it was the bidding war for 24, but you signed a little bit before. Did it kick in in 24? I don't know what I'm legally allowed to say yes or no to. Can I ask how many years did you sign for? I can't. I'm just wondering if we're getting another one in 27. Was it a three-year deal? I can't tell you when we're getting it, but there's going to be another one. And I'm going to be very young.

Let me ask you, what changed? Because you, I remember you hitting me with the bidding war for 24 without me even prompting you. Who's to say hypothetically that my contract doesn't have literature in it this time around that I can't go on a podcast and say, hey, my contract's coming up on this date. Hypothetically speaking. Is free agency, though, looming for you? Hypothetically speaking, if I was a free agent, I'd be genuinely the hottest free agent of all time. Yes.

Ever. Within the next. Who's to say? Who's to say? Who's to say? Who's to say? I will say, I'm pretty fucking young. Yes.

Yeah. I mean, to go through another major contract in your early 30s. But as we've discussed, I explained where my thought process is at right now. And I'm focused on all eat rest. and building my legacy in all lead wrestling. And in La La Land. The great swing of 28. I'm trying to come up with like another one.

Who's to say what year it's going to be? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or what, I mean, I'm telling you right now, if it is 2028, I'm going to think of a better one than that. I know. That was fucking horrible. Literally on the spot, though. Yeah. I mean, I guess, yeah.

Yeah. But they love you over there. They do. But they love you more at AEW. You could tell the way Tony, like, talks about you and thinks of you. You're like his guy. You're his MVP. I feel like he has immense.

I know you say you don't like. him or whatnot, but I feel like there's a trust there between you and him. There is. Yeah. I like him enough to admit that. Absolutely. Um, like you're his big game. You're his Jalen Brunson, if you will. He puts the ball in your hands. The Knicks are horrible. But I understand what you're going with. The ball, if the ball is in my hands, he's comfortable. Right. Right. As you should be, because I've proven time and time again how big of a draw I am. But no matter how good you are with that ball, you got to be able to fucking pass it every now and then. And that's why I think AEW is so special right now because if you look at the guys that I've wrestled this year, Bandito, Brody King,

Darby Allen, Swerve Strickland, Hangman Adam Page, Kenny Omega, Speedball Mike Bailey, Kevin Knight. I mean, these are all dudes that I can say confidently are insanely good professional wrestlers. And it all made for insanely good professional wrestling television. So it doesn't, I just, I think gone are the days of a Terry Belaya in the sense of a company only being able, a company only being able, I'm just kidding, a company, but I wasn't, I was being a douche, a company only being able to exist based off the back of one man. Now, can I say confidently that when I am on top, business is always good? No, I can't. But it's also been proven to be good when we pass that ball around. I equate us more to the bad boy like the bad boy like pistons than your bulls. You know what I'm saying? Because the bad boy pistons were a sum of its parts.

Now, you can say it was Rodman or you could say it was, again, the point of us. Isaiah Thomas. So like, sure. But the reason that team was so successful is because it was a sum of his parts. You know? Now, do I think I just so happen to be MJ on the bad boy pistons? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think that's kind of the situation that we're in. But, like I said, we're not in the position we're in if I'm the only person that can shoot the ball.

It's just not happening. Do you watch the Hogan Netflix doc? I did. I think they skimmed over some things. They sure did. I think they skimmed over a couple fucking things. I'm just kidding. Just a little bit.

Just a little bit. Do you watch that and say, man, I can't wait until I have a legacy, not like him, but like, where they're making four part docks on me on Netflix and whatnot. Like, I can't... Yeah, it's going to happen. It's going to happen. I mean, fuck, man. Like, when my career's over, I genuinely think that people are

going to hold me in the same reverence as that guy, or Sean, or Austin, or Rock. And I believe that whole... Flair. I believe that wholeheartedly. Look, man, I've only been on national television for six years, and I've been involved in some of the craziest, coolest moments,

matches, promos, as there's The first link fans like to say it. And I'm only 30. So I'm kind of speed running this shit, bro. And if I keep up at the pace that I keep now, I do think I'm going down as the goat. The physique is nuts these days. I'm looking pretty jacked right now. What's going on?

Hard work, brother. Hard work. Hard work, dedication. Diet's absolutely on point. What's happening? Yeah, dude. Do you see that V to my schmekel? How do I get that?

It's just a lot of hard work. Really? Yeah. So here's what I do. They don't exist on it. me. Here's what I do. Okay. I am I'm taking BPC 157 and TB 500. These are peptides. Yes. Is that legal? It's yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm taking that and it allows me to heal a lot quicker from like just getting thrown around in the ring.

A lot of guys, like, if you're watching a wrestling, you're like, why is this guy so out of shape? Now, there's two reasons why. Either one, they're just a lazy piece of shit. But honestly, nine times out of ten, it's because we're in pain. every day. And when you're in pain, it's really hard to hit a PR in the gym or to do an hour of cardio or to even stretch. It hurts to even try to stretch, right? So ever since I started these peptides, I'm able to go to the gym at 100% every single time I'm in the gym. Wow. And it's benefited me a great deal. A great deal. Best shape of your life right now, right? I would say easily, easily the best shape of my life. Like I, when I, when we hugged it out there. Yeah. No, I'm

fucking, I'm bulbous. Just just boulder upon boulder of muscle. And the more you Sheath the boulders. There's just another boulder behind it. I saw a punk on Saturday. Yeah. I've seen him in a while. How's you looking? Jacked.

Yeah. Is he still a piece of shit? I mean, we didn't get to talking all that much. Yeah. But he was pretty freaking jacked, I must say. Have you been watching his stuff? Are you surprised at how good he's doing? No, I'm not surprised at how good he's doing.

Doesn't change the fact that he's a fucking cunt. Why? Why? What do you mean? Why? I don't know. Tell me? Yeah, he just sucks.

He's a bad guy. But he's an incredible professional wrestler. Did he see when he was on my show? I did not see him on your show You didn't. No, genuinely. You're the one. I guess I'm the one. You watch everything. This happened recently? No, no, no, 2020. Oh, the one right

after he did what he did at Wembley? Yeah, I watched that. I thought something new happened. No, no, no. That was our last chat. What did I think? Yeah. How many times I have to repeat myself? He's a piece of shit, but he's a great wrestler. What did you think of the decision to air that footage afterwards? Hmm. I think as a company

and Tony Kahn decided he felt that was the best thing to do in that moment. I think that Tony Kahn was on your show recently when you asked him that question, what did he say out of curiosity? Because I'm blanking.

I don't want to paraphrase. I don't remember his exact answer, so I don't want to put words in his mouth. And I don't want to put words in his mouth. I'm asking you, what did you think when you saw it? Did you think it was the right move? I didn't really have an opinion on it.

Okay. Genuinely. And I know people are going to be like, you're full of shit. I really didn't have an opinion on it. A lot of people felt like it wasn't the right. move. Like, they should have just ignored it and moved on. But again, now we're looking back on black eyes from what year, what year did we, would do we air that? 23. I haven't had a chance to speak to

since then. Here you. But now we're in 2026 and we're just putting on good shows and we're minding our own business and we're, as I showed you with the stacking, we're just, we're just stacking our shit up and they're going to do what they're going to do. Is there a different vibe in the locker room? Oh my God, night and day. And what do you attribute that to? I attribute that to. There's no longer people in the locker room that look at my company as a stepping stone. They look at it as a legitimate company, and we had a lot of guys, I shouldn't say a lot of guys, but we had some guys that came in and they were like, I'm going to show up and be top guy and go back to Vince. Really, motherfucker? You're going to leapfrog me? Good luck, pussy. Not happening on my watch. And it didn't,

because no one's nearly as good as me. No one's nearly as good as hangman or swerve or Kenny or Osprey and Samoa Joe. The list goes on and on. So I think a lot of guys came in in my company. they thought that they were going to be able to brother, brother themselves to the top. And it didn't happen because we are where the best wrestle. Okay? We are where the realest of real wrestle. So we no longer have that in the locker room. And it's a breath of fresh air, man.

I don't have to look anyone in the eye at work and think to myself, this guy doesn't want to be here. Everyone in my locker room wants to be there. There's no one like that anymore. All the bad edge. Everyone's ready to fucking rock and roll and everybody wants to put on the best show possible. Wow. How do you feel like that?

like we got to that point. People had to get weeded out. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, ma'am. Can I ask, like, who was the biggest offender of this? You want to say a name? Sure.

You told me to ask you the hard question. The biggest offender? Yeah. Who came in there thinking, I'm just going to use you all as a stepping stone to go back to New York? Hmm. I think it's pretty obvious that that's Malachi Black, but I don't know, I don't know the guy, like, on a personal level. Do I think he's a bad guy?

No. Do I think he was a mark for like wanting to have his whole I need my mania moment? Like yeah. And there were a couple guys like that. And they got weeded out. And then they went over there and some of them found out the grass isn't greener. Right. And perhaps some of them did. Some of them for them the grass was greener.

But I'd say a majority of the guys that were like, I'm just going to use all elite wrestling to go to A, to WWE or to go back to WWE. I think you're going to see a lot of those guys. ask for a 50% pay cut from the office. You're going to see a lot of those guys just get released. And it's unfortunate because if you show up to our company and you work hard, there's really no need to burn bridges. Like I said, I'm not shitting on him. I'm just simply telling you what I was told by a majority of the locker room about this specific individual.

So as a team captain, as a leader, even though yes, I am 30, and as somebody who's been a part of this promotion since day one, I don't want to deal with guys that don't want to be team players. Fuck off. Go elsewhere. Or fucking prove me wrong. I would love, I would love to be proved wrong.

It'd be great. Prove me wrong. Were you surprised Jericho came back? Not at all. Chris Jericho is a part of the fabric of our promotion. But for the longest time, it seemed like everyone thought it was inevitable that he was going back there.

Yeah, but people thought it was inevitable I'm going there. Yeah. People think a lot of shit. I mean, Chris Jericho, AEW,

as much as we have a story rivalry and I fucking was punching him in the face and he was punching me in the face for well over a year plus. I can't sit here and pretend that All-Eat wrestling doesn't start without Chris Jericho

because Tony Khan had to go in front of these Warner Brothers executives and they were like, well, who's your big draw? Here's Chris Jericho. Oh, fuck.

You have Chris Jericho? right that that was the like and that is continues to be the power of chris jericho and i think the cool thing is is in wrestling people are always wrestling fans are always going to chirp everybody has their ups and their ups and their downs fucking if you asked a wrestling fan in 2024 what they thought mjf they'd tell you i was the shits you ask him now everybody around the world saying i'm the best professional wrestler on the planet wrestling is ebbs and flows it cycles bro and uh since chris has come back i think he's proven a lot of people wrong and i think he's proven a lot of people wrong and i I think he's doing really good work.

What do you think of Logan? Logan. Paul. Logan Paul? He's okay. Is he good on the mic? Better than most? Yeah. Yeah, he's a good shit target.

He earned your respect as someone who came from outside of the business. He's earned my respect to somebody who came from outside of the business. Absolutely. I think a lot of people in his position would have just been like collecting a check and like doing their thing and fucking around. But like, Homeboys travel. every week. Now, do I think he's on my level? No, not even fucking close. But he's good. You know what I'm saying? So I, and I, and I respect that fact. Like, he very easily could have been like, and this isn't me shitting on jelly roll, but I'm just going to use jelly roll as an example.

Jelly roll isn't there every single Friday or every single Monday, right? So, yeah, yeah. I respect the fact that this dude's grinding it out and he's, he's there every week. I was so jealous of you last summer? Most people are, but you're going to have to narrow it. Yeah, last summer, I'm watching, I am the biggest, number one, all-time biggest Adam Sandler Mark. Yeah. I adore Adam. It's my dad. Are you aware that's my dad biologically? And there you are on the silver screen. Yeah. Just hanging. Your happy Gilmore's son. Yeah. This was unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah. It was an absolute blast. How did you get that opportunity? I know, by the way, you did a whole bunch of media surrounding that. There I was on the outside looking at. Yeah.

Not want to harp on these things, but clearly I do, you know, some sort of way. I have to ask you these questions that seem a little bit outdated now. I'm sorry? Fair, fair. How did you get this? Was it dip that got it for you? It was my whole entire team over an activist. It was my team at CIA, my Michael Gordon, my Chris Skia.

And obviously my manager, Brian Dipperstein, who was the mensch of the Centsch. Yeah, yeah. And a great guy. And I got an audition for Happy Gilmore, too. And it was, uh, what I ended up finding out was Sandman sitting down and watching every audition. And, you know, with, uh, Sonny who, uh, is Adams, one of Adams daughters and it was become like a close friend of mine and I love her dearly. She's, she's fucking awesome, dude. That whole family. Are you around the same age? Um, no. She's, she's, she's a decent amount younger.

Oh, okay, okay. But I have like a big brother, like, energy with her. And, yeah, I can't say enough nice things about her. She's just the best. But anyway, they were watching the clips and they thought I was funny as shit. Man, that's how I got the part. Were you nervous? That's big time stuff.

I was definitely, it's funny. When people ask me, was I nervous when it comes to wrestling? The answer is legitimately always no. I wouldn't ask you yet. I've never had that weird butterfly. It just doesn't happen to me. I definitely had that the first time. I met Adam Sandler because as a Northeast Jew, as a fan of stand-up comedy, as a fan of

SNL, as a fan of all his movies, I mean, this is a dude I grew up idolizing. And now here I am, and I'm playing his son. It's fucking crazy. Surreal. And to get to sit down with him and shoot the shit, excuse me, about wrestling was a lot of fun. Really? Because he is a wrestling fan. Really? He's got some really cool takes. And yeah, yeah. Very cool guy. As he, as he comes across. He's the most, and I'm not, not being hyperbolic,

he's got to be the most down-to-earth person I've ever met. Like a superstar that you've met? Just in general. Really? Period. Forget celebrity,

not celebrity, like the most down-to-earth person I've been. Wow. Yeah. First time I met him, I was like, oh, you're just a,

you're just a cool dude. This is fucked up. We're wearing baggy basketball shorts, probably. Yes. And like a colored shirt. Yes.

In a mansion. Yes. You know what I mean? So it's like, You go to his house. I wouldn't say I went to his house, but I went to his place and I had dinner with him, the place that he had during filming in the movie in Jersey. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it was really cool. I took my parents with me. Wow. And we had, yeah, we had dinner with the Sandler family. Was it just you and them? It was the Sandler's, my brothers in the movie as well, Connor and Ethan and Phil. And, yeah, we had dinner. Any chance of a third, or are they done?

a third. Happy Gilmore. I don't know. Or maybe you appearing, like, you know, Santa likes to have his buddies in all. He certainly does. Yes. Like to have his buddies.

Any talks of that? I don't know. Oh my God. This guy asked for the hard questions, and he's no selling. Sometimes legally, I just have to say. Sure.

I don't know. Violent Night 2. I know about that. Yes. It's going to be in theaters, universal film. I'm going to be in theaters early December. Wow. And what kind of role do you have in that?

Pretty many one. I don't want to give anything away, but I think people are going to walk away from that movie being like, holy shit. We got a decent amount of MJF FaceTime. Wow, and there's another one coming out too in 2026, right? I'm not sure. I know a Violent Night.

Stranglehold? Stranglehold. Oh, yes. I filmed that a while ago. Okay. I filmed that. What did me telling you about your career? Yeah, that's crazy.

have more screen time for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And how do you balance all of this? Like, does it, does it... I just love it all, and I'm a sick fuck. I'll give you, just the truth. This is just the truth. Yes, yes.

By the way, how's the air now? Way better. You feel good. I was dying. I've seen... That's why I felt comfortable doing the shoving of the napkins. We're done with it.

I was done with the napkins. See how we help you out? You're a fantastic guy. Bench, perhaps? Second wedding. You're coming to the second wedding. You're in. Thank you.

We just have to convince my wife to, you know, fuck off. Where was it? In America or Canada? It was on Long Island. Okay. It was on Long Island. Usually you do it where the bride is from. Because of all the scare she had with the border stuff.

Oh, okay, okay. She doesn't love to travel unless she has to, which is, it's so nuts because now she's got the green card gimmick. Yeah, yeah. Married to me, everything's right. To this day, these schmeggues, they still pull us over to the side. Ontario? No matter where we go. No, but is that where she's from?

Oh, she's from the outskirts of Toronto. It's a little town called Pickering. Okay, but that's in on. Ontario. I have no idea. I'm not Canadian. Ontario's the... Again, don't know where Turkey is on a map. Don't know where Canada is on a map. I don't care. I'm American.

When you go to Canada, what is it like? Surely you've met the family, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. What do they think of you? They love me. I mean, how can you not? The in-laws. I'm filthy rich. So now they're rich, too. It's great. Everybody's happy. Okay, back to the movies. I don't know. What were we even discussing? You were saying something. Oh, so I had a match against Mystico in Mexico.

Oh. In Mexico. Wow. And I did this all in the span of 24 hours. I'm not exaggeration. You can look it up. I actually did what Hulk Hogan pretended he would do. It was like, yeah, brother, I wrestled in Japan and in the same day I wrestled in like, but no, like I actually did it. So I wrestled Mystico in Mexico City and then I hopped on a plane. I flew all the way to Toronto to wrestle Mark Briscoe in a tables and tax match. And then I flew to Winnipeg from Toronto to film some scenes for violent. Wow, wow, wow, wow. Yeah. It's a busy schedule. It was all in fucking 24 hours.

Yeah. But when you're the top draw, when you're the guy. When you're the top draw, and that's why you ask me, how do you do all this? If you, if you're passionate enough and you want to leave the legacy that I want to leave, you just make shit happen. Who needs sleep? Right. I want to ask you a couple more. I know you have to go.

Yep. There was this whole thing, WrestleMania weekend where apparently there was a TNA guy going to go up against an AW guy. Yes. And then I saw on Twitter, you said that Carlos. Silva was lying. He was, yes. He tells what the actual truth is. The truth is he didn't want AEW talent to go up against TNA talent because he thought

that my boss intentionally put, I believe it was a collision on the same night as TNA, even though every single year when I believe it's a college playoff, basketball playoffs, I'm not sure. But I just know every single year during a specific. season of the year. We get pushed to, are they on Tuesdays or Thursdays? I don't even fucking remember. Who's that? TNA. Thursdays. Thursdays. Sorry. We get pushed to Thursdays. He thought that we

intentionally asked Warner Brothers Discovery. We were preempted. And he didn't know that. So because he didn't know that, he got offended. And then he pulled a couple of matches off. I was offended because now you're taking, A, you're taking a match away from me that I was looking forward to. I was looking forward to being the shit out of Nick Nemith, formerly known as Dolf Ziegler. And B, you're taking money out of people's pockets. So I was a little upset.

But I have been informed that this guy is getting smarter of the business. He's fairly green. He's fairly new. And he's learning on the job. And I've been told he's a good guy. So I've pumped the brakes a little bit on old Carlos Silva. He's learning on the job. I understand this is a question more for Tony.

But since you're here, all the, you know, Paramount buying Warner and all that stuff, how would that affect you guys? Do you have any idea? So all I know is Warner Brothers Discovery, he loves us right now. To my knowledge as of right now, I don't know, am I going to get in trouble legally for this?

I don't even fucking know. You don't care about anything. You're MGA. Yeah, I guess. I'm fairly certain that these things will all be under the Paramount umbrella, but they're going to be separate still. So HBO Max will still be its own thing.

TBS and T&T will still be its own thing. And then Paramount Plus will still be its own thing. Now, I do think that you're going to have an option for bundle. I believe that that's all still the case. Okay. Now, that's not a million percent. I don't know, no, I know. I don't know.

But what I do know is, is that Warner Bros. Discovery loves us. I also know that Tony Kahn is friendly with, I believe it's Ellis. Ellison. Ellison. I believe that he's friendly with the Ellison family. I believe that, yeah, guys, I think we're going to be okay. There's no worry. To be honest, no matter what happens, we're going to land on our feet.

Right now when you look at Cablevision, the heavy hitters are Fox News and live sports. And we're live sports. So we're going to land on our feet no matter what happens. But I do, I have a feeling you're going to be seeing us on TBS and Turner Broadcasting for a very, very, very, very, very long time. Are there tickets left for Sunday? I honestly think it's genuinely fully sold out. It's unbelievable. I could be dead.

I mean, it's not that unbelievable. I'm in the main event. I could, I mean, let's keep it. 15K, right? It's, I think it's close to 15. I think it's 14.2 or something like that. But, you know, usually in the wrestling business, they round up. Yeah, yeah.

Do you want me to just lie? 20,000 strong here at the Arthurette. No, yeah. I believe it's Louis Armstrong. Louis Armstrong Stadium. Why should people watch if they're not going to be there? Why should they watch that event? I like that Samoa Joe Will Osprey match.

Tell us, tell us. Obviously, the main event is tremendous. Besides the fact that the main event, again, two historical things are either going to happen. Either I get my head-shaped ball. It's not happening. Or I become a three-time world champion at 30, which is absurd. You've got amazing talent that I'm just looking at this poster. You've got a generational class between FTR and Copen Cage.

You've got a tremendous woman's champion right now in Tecla. She's white hot. You got Kazushko Kata versus Takesha, which is going to be a huge match. I mean, these guys have been at odds for what feels like forever, and I feel like this is finally the big blowoff that a lot of our fans have been waiting for to watch them duke it out. as you said Will Osprey versus Samoa Joe. Yo, okay.

Swerve Strickland versus Bandito. That's going to be fucking crazy. Just speaking from like a wrestling fans perspective, that's going to be an incredible match. And then the match of the night is obviously going to be me because I'm in it. And you just got some great stuff. And that's just me coming off.

We got Stadium Stampede, which is always madness and insanity and always a great deal of fun. And yeah, we got to be. got so much great shit coming off. I can't name everything. You guys try other things. I saw you on a golf course a week or so ago. We were on a golf course. It looked cool. I like that stuff. Yeah, yeah. It was Darbyn versus Pac. I need Action Bronson. Great guy. I believe that he did Hook's entrance theme,

didn't he? He wrestled. He did. He wrestled. He wrestled. That's why I went. Yes, yeah, yeah. I like, I like action. In fact, he's the one AW guy who's actually offered me tickets to watch him wrestle. I'd like to think, you know, never got. Are you looking for comps? Do you want to He said, I want you there in attendance. Never got that. Genuine timeout. Never got that text. Genuine time out.

I never got that text. Genuine time out. To my knowledge, this thing is sold out. Yeah. But I'd imagine there's like a friends and family, a little spot. I'm not that guy. You know, I don't want an invitation to do a wedding. I don't want comms.

Don't be a Jew about this. I want. Do you want free tickets? I don't know. I'm busy. Memorial Day weekend. I'm going to watch it home. Okay.

And uncrown.com, the number one unbiased. Let's be honest. You have to watch your children. And even if I did offer you the comps. See? Thank you. Thank you. Here's the thing. We cover you guys better than anyone. You know that over at on crown.com. You've seen us. I've seen the coverage. You're doing an incredible job. I'm proud of you for kissing and making up with my boss. I think this was an incredible interview. This was good. I think that I answered that I answered questions that a lot of people in my seat probably wouldn't have answered.

You answered them all. We went into a little geopolitics. We did. Yeah. It was pretty impressive. We are, listen. We are solving world peace. You know who's the real MVP of AW? MVP, Montelvon. No, the guy you came with. He doesn't like when I say his name. Adam Hopkins. One of the all-time greats. One of the all-time. He's the reason.

He's HR, PR, the best. H-J. He gets it all done. He does it all. He can do it all. He is Maxwell Jacob Priedman. And I'm better than you. And you know it.

Well done. And don't kill yourself on Sunday. Why would I kill myself? I'm not going bald, dude. That would be crazy. I was trying to. Like I was trying to imagine it. There he is MJF Sunday.

Louis Armstrong Stadium, we'll take a break and we'll be back right after this. And so I told you at the beginning of the day, if you are unfamiliar with MJF, you are going to love him. And I'd like to think after that conversation, you love the guy because he is truly, he's one of a kind. He's my favorite character in wrestling. And I've said this even when we weren't talking to him. He is unbelievable on the microphone. He's hilarious. I was crying, laughing at some points.

Thankfully, he was, you know, on the screen by himself. It was the solo shot, if you will, camera three. But he was tremendous. He's absolutely amazing. He made a mess of the studio over there. Maybe. Is there still a mess over there? Or maybe we cleaned it up.

Oh, shout out. All good. Yeah, I mean, I did it, you know. Thank you. Walking literally around you. I was locked in talking to him. We were talking about... Sorry, can you move your feet?

I'm sorry. Yeah, I did not say that. I did not say that. But that was, that was amazing. That was incredible. Was he great backstage, too? Oh, he's fantastic. Behind the scenes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bro, we were trying to get in your ear when he was offering up the tickets. Oh, no one spoke up. We had a great time that one time, remember? I think I'm going to actually try and go on Sunday night. We don't have a show on Monday? We don't have a show.

We don't have a song's like 20 minutes from my crib. Oh, my gosh, really? Yeah. Should have asked the guy who came with him. We're on it? You're on it? No, man. Fuck on her.

All right. That's what they said. And then, you mind if I get it? Fuck, no, man. No, no, no. That was amazing. Wow, we covered a lot. Really, really, really enjoyed that.

So check them out this Sunday. Uncrown's going to have full coverage of it, as we usually do, and always do. And it's called Double or Nothing. It's one of their tent pole events. And it's had a great venue. That venue is awesome for, who would have thought, this, you know, this tennis venue, historic tennis venue, if you will. would be so good for combat sports.

It was pretty cool for boxing as well. And we had a great time when we went in September. So let's see. The weather isn't going to be great. Was there a roof? I can't remember if there was a roof on the Louis Armstrong. Louis does have a roof. I think it's retractable, right?

Yeah. All right. They'll be all right. Okay. Some other news and notes to get to. We didn't really talk about this, but I do feel like it's worth talking about. So yesterday, Ryan Garcia was...

What's going on? Yesterday, Ryan Garcia was on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, which is a really big deal for a boxer in the year 2026. I mean, how many boxers, how many American boxers get on a show like that in the year 26? Terrence? No? I don't even know if Terrence does.

You don't think so? Mike Tyson? Active boxers. Maybe. Maybe Terrence Crawford. Is there another one? Am I missing one? I don't even know if Derek.

Jake Paul? If you want to put him in that bucket? Yeah. Jake gets on there, right? Probably? Yeah, yeah. I think Jake Paul could get on. So Jake, Ryan Garcia, I'll put Terrence in there.

Has Terrence ever been on one of them? I don't know, because his fame came towards the end. Canello probably makes a he's on American, obviously. It's a really big deal for a boxer to be on the Tonight Show. I think we can all agree on that. Which does? To be on there. with the WBC belt, huge.

And to announce that you're fighting Connor Ben on the Tonight Show is equally huge. And so he announced that he's fighting Connor Ben on September 12th. And that is Mexican Independence Day weekend. And so what you're seeing here is a jockeying for position

between a David Benavides, a Ryan Garcia. That date is now open. In the past, De La Jolla would be on there. Floyd took it over a little bit. Canelo took it over. But those guys aren't in action anymore.

There was a report at one time that the Floyd Mani fight was going to be that weekend, but I think it's now being moved last I read, last I heard, who knows what's going on with that one. What's interesting, though, is Ryan Garcia is going to be on there. And this is the first time that he's kind of owning that, and he should own that because he's that big of a star. And obviously he's got, you know, Latin roots. And so he's fighting Connor Ben for that title, that title that Connor Ben has been talking about for so many years, the title that his dad had. And it's just so interesting.

It's so interesting because I don't think people would say that that is, that Connor Ben is the top 147 pound contender. But, you know, like the fight that I think everyone wants to see Ryan in is him versus Devin Haney. But Conner Ben versus Ryan Garcia is going to be box office. Like, they're going to sell the crap out of that fight. That is going to be a huge, huge deal because of how popular Conner is overseas. Or maybe not even popular, just known.

He might be a little bit polarizing. I would say he's probably more well known that Devin is here in America. He's more well known in the UK than Devin is here in America. And he's just going to sell the crap out of it. I'm curious to see how it goes because Ryan's been a little Jekyll and Hyde these days. You see Ryan against Devin, he looks fantastic. Then he comes back in Times Square. He doesn't look all that great.

Then he comes back and he fights Mario Barrios and he looks great again. And so which version of Ryan Garcia is going to show up? and which version of Connor Ben is going to show up? The Conor Ben that we saw against Regis Pro Gray wasn't all that great. The Conor Ben that we saw last time out against Chris Eubank, two fights ago, rematch, looked phenomenal. And so there's a lot of questions. It's happening in America, according to Ryan. I just think it's interesting that he announced it there.

And I haven't seen, again, I haven't been online during the show, but I haven't seen an official sort of confirmation of this, a poster, any sort of announcement. Have they made an announcement? Have you guys seen any type of announcement? I haven't seen that in any way, shape, or form. But that to me is a really, really big deal. No, just Ryan. That's a big time fight, right? Yeah, for sure. Two huge names. UK versus US in Vegas, Mexican Independence Day weekend, which always is big time box office. My question is, where is it going to air? Is it going to be on DeZone? Like, there's so many questions here because of the Zoufa element. Is it going to be on Netflix? Is it going to be on Netflix? Is it? Is that a Netflix fight in your opinion? It is to me. No brainer. Yeah. I mean, I didn't think Tyson Fury

Mahmoudov was a Netflix fight. What excited me about Fury Mahmoudov is that I think initially we all thought Netflix only wants like blockbuster blockbuster. And Fury Mahmoudov wasn't blockbuster. He is blockbuster. He's a plus side. Mahmoodov is not.

And so to me, if they're into the fight business, like in combat sports to that degree, just to get us to the other blockbuster fight, which is the AJ fight. I'm okay with that. I think this is infinitely bigger than that. I think AJ versus Fury is gigantic. It's the biggest one that they can make

of all the options out there, probably off the top of my head. Connor versus Ryan as far as mainstream stars, I don't know, maybe I'm overselling Connor, but I think he's a big deal, and I think that people will watch him, and I think Ryan's a really big deal. I think Ryan is a very big deal.

He's incredibly famous. He's got the streaming going, everything like that, media. I think Conor Ben is one of boxing bigger stars, but I think to the point of Jimmy Fallon's reaction, he might not be that like global superstar yet. I mean, Jimmy Fallon, like, he was like, Ryan Garcia was like, let's just say it's a guy from across the pond. And I feel like he was anticipating a pop from Jimmy Fallon to be like, oh shit, it's Connor Ben. And he was like, it's, I'm fighting Connor Ben. And Jimmy Fallon was just like, oh, okay. I get what you're saying. He may not

know a single thing about fighting, though. And so the fact alone that they had Ryan Garcia on that set sitting in that chair to me is a really big deal, right? I agree. I'm curious. One of the questions I wanted to ask them was like, how did that come about? You know what I mean? Did they reach out to you? Did you reach out to them? Were you feeling sick while sitting in the chair? Okay. I was just going to say, were you feeling all right? Yeah. Or did that come after? Was it bad sushi or something. Never eat sushi on a Monday. That's a big thing that I've always abided by. Just any fish? I've always been told. Isn't this an Anthony Bourdainism? I don't know, but I've always been told, don't eat it on a Sunday or a Monday. Yeah, I've been reading his book,

and he says that quite a bit in it. I think of you every time. It's obviously not a new book, but when did this book come out? It's like a biography on him or an autobiography? 90s. Okay. It's a confidential. Have you seen the, oh, of course, yes. Have you seen the the trailer for the movie. I have. It's actually just like one chapter of Kitchen Confidential.

Is that true? Yeah, it's like his time spent in Cape Cod where he like... Why'd they just choose that? I don't know. Are you enjoying the book? Loving the book. Don't know if I'm going to love the movie.

Don't know if Anthony Bourdain would love the movie. Interesting. He was kind of like anti-that. Is that the sentiment from his fans? You know, I don't know. I've only seen the trailer. I haven't looked into the... We need Frank to deep dive on the Reddit.

Yeah, Frank, what are they saying? You know it's crazy? I was literally just about to say, Frank, what are they saying on Reddit? I have a trusty Reddit guy. The pulse of the culture. I'll get back to you. Frankie? I'll get back to you. Okay.

You haven't checked it out. Either way, yeah, Ryan Garcia probably had some bad sushi last night. Yeah, no, 100%. I love that fight. Okay, let me just be clear. I'd much rather see him fight Devin Haney because I want some sort of conclusion to that feud. and there are other fights out there, but that's going to be a big time fight.

I'm into that fight. And I'm sure that there are boxing, like, let's be also very clear. Conor Ben hasn't really done anything at 147 pounds as of late to earn that fight. He's been fighting all over the map, and if the WBC rankings are a true meritocracy, which we know they're not,

because just last year, Mani Paco got a title fight against Mario Barrios coming out of retirement first time in like four or five years that he even fought. Obviously, it's a little screwy. So while they're out here, like, fighting for their legitimacy and whatnot, this happens. From a box office standpoint, it's a big time fight.

My question is, where does it air? Does Dana work with Oscar Delahoya in the promotion? Are they going to be on the dais together? Could you imagine that? Oscar's Ryan's guy. Are they going to be on the dais together? Connor is now with Dana. And then is there going to be a Zufa belt on?

the line and all this time we heard that Zufa doesn't want to play ball with WBC and it seems like Connor really wants a WBC title. And so then if Connor wins the WBC title, what does he do with it? Does he trash it? Does he get stripped automatically? Will WBC even want to sanction a fight with Connor Ben who is aligned with Zufa who are actively saying we don't want to be in business with these people? Do you know what I mean?

There's like an amazing amount of storylines and layers to this. I'm very, very curious to see how this plays out. as of now, we only have like a five-minute interview on the Tonight Show set regarding the fight, but I think that there are a lot of questions to be answered. At the very top, it's Dana and Oscar working together, Zufa and Golden Boy working together, WBC, belt on the line, Zufa belt on the line? Probably not. There is no 147-pound Zufa belt. TV, where is it going to air?

It's going to air in DeZone? Zufa going to be working with DeZone? Gonna air on Netflix? Going to air on Paramount Plus? Will it be a pay-per-view, I would think? Fascinating. I wonder what the line is. I'm sure Garcia's a favorite, right?

Connor Ben, line. What's that website again? Pro boxing odds. I'm not seeing it on there, though. Oh, it's not? I got Haney versus Garcia. Haney's the favorite. Nothing on Garcia.

I guess because it hasn't officially been announced. Yeah, maybe, but they always have those like futures. Yeah. I'm into it. And the date is also super interesting as well. Speaking of boxing, my friends. Oh yeah, great call from our boy, Josh. It is taking place on the same day as Canelo versus Ambili.

But is Canelo fighting in Riad against Ambili? So Canello is fighting on that weekend versus Ambili, which, you know, I love Christian. Okay, so let me see here. Where is that fight taking place? Oh my gosh. That is wild. Canel is going to be fighting in Riyadh on Mexican Independence Day weekending of Christian Mbidi. That is wild.

Well, so I guess he is going to own. So, Connor is a Zufa fighter. Saudis are involved in Zufa. They're going to be going up against their own event. I mean, it probably won't happen at the same time, right? So then Connell is going to be fighting in the middle of the night or in the morning in Mexico. Weird. What a world. What a world. Speaking of the world of boxing, what about this drama between Alicia Baumgartner and Clarissa Shields?

Did you guys see this? They had an altercation at the MVP MMA event. Look at this. A little sound up here, Frankie. Just a little bit. Clarice on the left, Alicia on the right. Back and forth, back and forth. I think that's Papoose there in the middle, right? They don't like each other. Two Michigan ladies. What's happening? What's happening? Oh, was that a slap?

What was that? Slap? Who's to check? I believe slap. Slap? Who hit the World Star there? Classic. By the way, can I tell you rewind just a little bit there? You know who's in the middle with his mouth open? Michael Irvin.

Loving it. Legend. I believe Levyon Bell was also in the vicinity. They were together all week. Yeah, they were together. Oh, that's Levion? Yeah, in the black. Oh, I thought that was Papuos.

No, Papuuses with the hat back here. Where, where, where? Oh, right there. Yes, yes, yes. I believe Levon went on... Michael Irvin's filming it. Oh, that is? Oh, that is.

Holy shit, that's Playmaker right there. I've watched this video a dozen times. I had no idea that Michael Irvin was there. That is amazing. Our boy, Gabe, got us the rest of the pictures from L.A. He got a good one of Michael Irvin Irvin hitting a nice shadow boxing outside the studio. He's the freaking man.

Abe or Michael Irvin, or both. Both of them, to be honest. I think Levion said that Ronda Rousey's the goat. If that's her career, she's the goat. Did he really say that? I believe on Twitter, yeah. Shout out. That man knows ball.

Anyway, MVP has released a statement regarding this, and they have said most valuable promotions is aware of the incident during MVP's Rousey versus Crowne event on Saturday night involving physical contact by Clarissa Shields toward Alicia Baumgartner. MVP maintains a strict zero-tolerance policy for hostile threatening or aggressive behavior towards fighters, staff, meteor, or guests at any of our events. Physical altercations outside of the ring or cage are unacceptable in any MVP environment. MVP does not condone, tolerate, or accept Clarissa Shields' behavior in that setting, and it reflects

poorly on MVP in women's sports, which we have worked tirelessly to uplift. Effective immediately, everyone. Clarissa Shields is banned from all MVP events until further notice. There is a time and a place for fighter tension and banter, but to physically attack a fellow athlete, while there are a guest inside a private VIP area is unacceptable. MVP would like to thank venue security for their swift response and addressing and de-escalating the situation, appreciate Alicia Bonner for not retaliating, further amplifying the situation. We remain committed to maintaining a safe, respectful, and professional environment for all participants and attendees at our events, and we will continue to enforce these standards without

exception. How about that? Not that long ago, they were trying to sign Clarissa Shields, and now she's been banned. Elisa Baumgartner has also weighed in on this. Long statement, a couple highlights. This situation has been and will continue to be handled legally and professionally. My focus remains far beyond individuals who lack discipline, professionalism, self-control, inside or outside the ring. This behavior reflects a repeated pattern of hostility, chaos, and attention-seeking conduct that continues to embarrass women's sports. I love the logo, by the way. It's pretty sweet logo, right?

The bomb? One of the best things in all of combat sports. I feel the same way. The AB? Yeah. It's good shit. On a positive note, we do have the Alexander Usik versus Rico Verhoeven fight happening in four days' time at the pyramid.

And we got a face-off earlier today, my friend. friends, and would you look at that? It's actually happening. This is wild, man. Where's the setup? I want to see what the ring looks like. This is wild. Who would have thought?

I mean, just RICO fighting Usek is wild in its own right. And then the setting is even crazier. There you have it. Everything about it is tremendous. The poster, the fight card. It's great. I'm curious to see what the, like, and also you see how it's a little bit windy

and like the sand and all that? Yeah. What if it gets into the ring in their eyes? Yeah. Alster Overeim's going to join us tomorrow to talk about this. He knows the thing or two about crossing over from the world of kickboxing, not necessarily in the world of professional boxing, but he knows Rico, and we're going to talk to him about that. So I'm looking forward to that very, very much.

I see something here regarding, is this Jim Harbaugh? What happened here? Yeah, I think it's Jim Harbaugh. He used the D1 Glazer line? Yeah. Serious. Did he credit us? Well, I think you'd have to credit.

Would it be Logan? My ninth-grade daughter, Katie Harbaugh, would say you are a D1 Glazer. What? That is a compliment. D-Y-G. I'm first team. First team. All-glaze.

Wait a second. That is such a crazy conversation to have. Wait, who's he talking to? These guys are D-1 Glazer, right? Who is he talking to? And since when is... Local Los Angeles Sports Talk Radio. The best to do it.

Also, D-1 Glazer is not a, it's not a, it's not a term that we invented or Logan Ball. It's a popular one. D1 Glazer is, I think we like popularized. Professional at glazing. Sure. Really good at it. Well, no, I mean, wouldn't they be amateur? They'd be D1. Yeah, they technically would be. Yeah. Oh. But here's my question. Is it a compliment? No, no, no, no. Wait, is it a compliment? No, but he said it was a compliment. Yeah, it's not a compliment. He's using as, as, you think he said it. Oh, yeah. I'm all American at glazing. Yes.

Which glazing is... It was a check. What is this here? All the D1 glazers out there. Ari Emanuel and Mark Shapiro among new Raiders investors as Egan Durbin expands his minority stakes. So Ari Emanuel now owns

1.4% of the Raiders and Shapiro 0.6%. It's not bad. Do... Is Tom Brady own a percentage of the Raiders? He does, right? Speaking of our good friend Mark Shapiro, I read the comments that he made about Rousey Karano,

but we now have the audio, courtesy of our friend Jedi Gumman. I don't know how he finds this audio, but he was speaking to, let me get this right, he was speaking to the Global Technology Media and Communications Conference yesterday in Boston. I love his appearances when he's talking about fighting. This is anytime it pops up on the timeline, I am locked. in. Here's what he had to say about the Rousey Carrano event on Netflix.

On Netflix, they staged a fight between Ronda Rousey, Gina Carano. I think it was reported that that was pitched to UFC. Just maybe kind of help us understand why ultimately that wasn't the right fit for you. Yes, that's a good question and obviously a timely question.

Look, it was pitched to us beforehand and we did turn it down. That's to take nothing away from Netflix. First of all, they're a great partner, and clearly they know what they're doing across the board in every genre right now. You don't get to 300 million or 350 million subs for nothing. Their content offering is unique and really distinct and kind of has something for everyone. They're in the big event business. They've been very clear about that. They're not looking necessarily

to buy out leagues. That's why they did the Major League Baseball opener. That's why they do the home run derby, that's why they just did a five game package with the NFL. They want big spectacle events, and they saw this as a big spectacle event. We're in the true MMA business on a meaningful, consistent basis. And when we looked at this potential matchup, keep in mind that there's a real art and skill to matchmaking, right? When you ask Hunter Campbell and Dana White, what they think about that matchup prior to the fight happening, the answers we got back, and I mean Ari Emanuel and myself, was that fight will be over in 20 seconds.

They were off by a few seconds. Yeah, three. And I don't believe that a fight like that, just the way it played out, is really good for MMA, especially because it's Netflix, and they have such an incredible global audience, and it's a massive audience, as an highly engaged audience that is going to sample, depending on what comes up on the front page

with Netflix, for them to then go to that fight and then think that's what MMA is, I don't believe is good for the sport long term. And we saw it that way and decided to pass on it. Taking nothing away from the legend, obviously, that Ronda Rousey is and the win that she got. And I guarantee incredible viewership numbers that Netflix will suit. report. But for us, it was more of a stunt than a meaningful MMA event. I mean, it's a wild thing when you remember that Dana White was interested in the fight. And the way the story was told to us was he was interested. They wanted to do it on pay-per-view. Gina needed more time. Their time on pay-per-view came to an end. And then they couldn't figure out

the economics. If Gina was able to do this fight, in December of 2025, it would have been on ESPN pay-per-view. But she wasn't ready. And when they realized that it wouldn't make as much financial sense on Paramount Plus, they passed. Rhonda didn't like the reasons for it and took it elsewhere. He's painting it as it was a spectacle, it was a circus, all this stuff and more. And to that, I would then push back and say, did you feel that way? Obviously he didn't because he had no idea what any of this was 11 or so years ago.

But did anyone in the UFC feel that way when she was doing this to Alexis Davis or Bech-Coheia or Katzenegano in the exact same way? Three seconds quicker in the same city. Was it a sham then? I don't understand. Look, I understand people saying that Jake Paul versus Mike Tyson wasn't the best representation of boxing. And it especially wasn't the best representation of boxing because you had a 58-year-old against a 26-year-old or whatever he was at the time. And it especially wasn't the best representation of boxing because it felt towards the end like Jake Paul took his foot off the gas. Like he was carrying Mike.

And you don't want to see that when you're being told that there's a professional, well, not professional, but you get the point, exhibition bow where money can be wagered on it and whatnot. You don't want to see that. You don't want to see anyone carrying someone else when you're being sold. this mega fight, all that stuff and more. And that pissed off a lot of people. In fact, I would say that the vast majority of people who are critical of that fight in the aftermath, that was one of their biggest criticisms, not the only criticism, but one of their biggest criticisms was it felt like he didn't try to put him away.

Is that a fair thing to say, guys, that people hated the fact that Jake didn't go for the kill? Like, if you're going to tell us you're going to fight this guy, fight this guy and knock him out. Is that a fair thing to say? Yes. And so people getting mad about the 17 seconds, what would you have preferred? Did you want Rhonda to carry Gina? Like, if you weren't saying that this was a sham beforehand,

how could you say it was a sham after the fact because it ended so quickly? Would it have made you happier if she carried her? No, it wouldn't have because you would have been here saying the same exact thing. You would have said this was a sham. She carried her. It was a worked fight. It was a fixed fight. All this stuff and more.

And so now you say, all right, it was a sham because it happened too quickly. And we were just taken on this journey for three months. it ended like that. And then to that, I would say, yeah, just like it ended like that time and again when she was in her prime. She was the fitter, more athletic, younger fighter going up against someone who had to go on this long journey again. It's not a fight of the year for me. I felt unfulfilled afterwards. I wanted to see more. But I don't feel like it took MMA back. I don't feel like it was a sham. I don't feel like it was a disgrace for women's MMA. It's such nonsense. Like Jim Rome, I love Jim Roombly.

What are you talking about? Like, when Kayla Harrison and Amanda Nunes fight, are you going to think less of them because what transpired on May 16th in L.A.? How did it set it back? How did it set it back? And what did Francis Ngano knocking out Philippe Lins do to set back MMA? Or Mike Perry and Nate Diaz due to set back MMA or Saladin Paranas versus Kandakras due to set back MMA or Roblo?

It's nonsense. It's absolutely nonsense. You know, this idea that, like, it was all old people being trotted out, the only person that, like, you could say, oh, it was uncomfortable seeing them get knocked out? The only one was JDS, because he had suffered multiple knockouts before. I wasn't uncomfortable seeing Nate Diaz get dominated by Perry. It wasn't uncomfortable to see Kenneth Cross get dominated by Saladin Paranaz. We're still not quite sure what's his level at this point, because he's not fought over here

against the very best in the world at 45 and 55. So, like, I hate to use that disingenuous term, but, like, it just doesn't feel real. Just say what it is. Hey, you know. we're the best. We do this every week. They put together this event, this one-night-only event for Netflix. We love Netflix. They're our partners. It wasn't a fight that we ultimately thought made sense. It wasn't a fair fight. It wasn't the type of fight that we were interested in putting on. We looked at it. We thought about it. The timing didn't work out. We were going to put it on our last

pay-per-view. We thought it would be a nice nod to the fact. Like, just be honest. Be honest about what actually happened. That, to me, doesn't feel honest. And everyone's take on the fight just feels like hysteria. It's absolute hysteria. Nothing happened to the sport. Nothing changed. Just like nothing changed when Jake fought Mike. Just like nothing changed when Jake fought AJ and on and on and on it goes.

And this is not me shilling. I would have the exact same take on it all because I think just as MJF said, it is good for fighters to have another place to negotiate with. So people know who Saladin Parnasse is because he now fought on that massive platform. People know who Namu Fasel is because he fought on that massive platform. That's good. And other people emerge. We maybe don't know who MJF is yet, or at least a couple years ago, if there is no AEW. We don't know who Danhausen is yet.

We don't know who Darby Allen is yet. Or Will Osprey or any one of these guys, swerve Strickland. But you know about them because there was that alternative. And Cody Rhodes is valuable again to WWE because there is that alternative. and he was able to build himself up in that alternative. And the young bucks are respected because there is an alternative. And Daniel Cormier and Luke Rockhold were valuable commodities that the UFC wanted because they were doing their thing for someone else,

as was Ronda Rousey and Alastair Overeem and others and others. Misha Tate and the list goes on and on. That's what I continue to try to preach to the fans who are very single-minded. Trust me, I get it that it's easier if everyone's under one roof. But don't take personal offense. to when someone else comes and tries to add more to the sport by doing something else. No one will ever take away from WWE being the first to do it on a global stage, or no one will ever take away from UFC being the first to do it on a global stage.

But that doesn't mean that others can't come and offer up that alternative for multiple reasons, for the fighters and for the fans. You may not like the WWE product. Now you're probably very happy. The wrestling fan is way better served than the MMA fan, because if you don't like WW, you have AWATW. and if you don't like AWFTNA and if you don't like any of those

you have New Japan and then you have Mexico and you've got all these other places to watch things we don't have that but what if you like both why does it have to be one or the other and absolutely

and that is a tremendous point and that's always been the type of fan that I was I remember when I was in college I would watch Pride and I would watch UFC and there was some fights and cards that I liked

from these guys and there were some that I liked from those guys and I just thought shit this is great it's not a zero-sum game at all. Like, I don't understand

the tribalism. Why does it have to be? Why does it? I don't know. Yeah. I don't take anything that Mark Shapiro said there at face value. As we know,

there's holes, right, in what he's kind of laid out, knowing that Dana White had been talking about trying to make this fight, Ronda Rousey kind of being explicit about the timeline for all of that. But if I was in the seat of MVP and Netflix,

I would take it much like the announcement that they made for Connor McGregor's fight during Francis's walkout. I would take this as a, validation. I would take this as an endorsement. If you're suggesting that in our very first fight card that we've ever put

on in the sport of MMA, we had even the ability to have future impact on the sport of MMA, that means that we're a player. That means that we've arrived. That means that we're something, right? Because I don't hear you talking about PFL in this

regard, right? PFL or any of these other promotions, they're not sullying the name of MMA. You don't talk about them. You don't care about them. There's no reason to talk about them. But if you're going so far as to say in the very first event that we've ever put on, that we somehow tarnish the sport of MMA, it means that we're a player. And so I would take this as validation again, the same way I would take the announcement of Connor McGregor's fight during Francis and Gano's walk out as validation. Clearly, there is something here, right? The fact that they continue to

talk about this. Now, granted, this is a question asked, but the response in and of itself to me speaks volumes about the fact that they are aware that this is something. Of course. I mean, it was their partner. Like, when the UFC put on Randy Couture versus James Tony, that was a bit of a sham as well. James Tony didn't even know how to tap. He was like tapping the air.

No one felt like it set back combat sports or boxing or MMA. Like, when you're coming up, and they certainly weren't coming up at that point, they were very established in 2010, you have to get creative with your matchmaking. and we saw that with Strikeforce. Trust me, everything that we're experiencing here, by the way,

is everything that we've seen 15 years ago. And it's very nostalgic again for me. Like, even the stuff that I'm getting, very nostalgic. Because I remember going on the forums and hearing that you're shilling for the UFC or that you don't care about Strike Force. It was just the opposite. And now, you know, 15 years later, you have this situation. Ronda Rousey, by the way, has posted a very, very, very long statement on her social media.

I've tried to skim it. Some things that have stood out to me, me and Gina literally fought to fight each other. I kept hearing people say she's not serious, she can't lose the weight, but I didn't just want to come back to fight. I had to come back to fight her. The story we could tell together

was one I desperately needed to believe, that you're never too low to rise again and that your body is never too far gone to reclaim and that it's never too late to be better than you've ever been. She talks about Gina, There was the process. Then there was the process of putting this card together. Nikisa was a believer, a partner, and just a solid fucking friend from day one.

Jake gave all his support and always treated me with the utmost respect. My dream card was to share the top spot with Nate and Francis. And due to Nikisa's hard work and Netflix's belief in our cause, we were able to secure the funds to make it possible. Perhaps the most hard-touching aspect of this process was experiencing the humility of both Francis and Nate sharing the top of the card with myself and each other. The card went from just an idea to the embodiment. of hope in this sport, watching a superstar be born in Mike Perry, seeing Philippe's courage

stepping up to the challenge and the camaraderie of Francis giving him his performance bonus. Despite commanding respect, returning from combat karate, she means karate combat, Pernas making a statement across the world from home. Jason Jackson's dichotomy of I could go of exuding such warmth outside the cage and cold efficiency within it. I could go on and on. And maybe a fighter deserves a mention. it felt like a night for those who were told they overvalued themselves or weren't valuable enough

for standing together to make a statement. This is our cage. We belong here. We put it all in the line. We deserve to be fairly compensated for it. She thanks Ricky Landell, her coach, who used to be Misha's coach, and that was an interesting storyline that played out her sparring partners and training partners, her family, her husband, her kids. There are so many people who contributed to making this happen that there literally isn't enough space. But thank you to my village. I do. you all. The fight is over. It's bittersweet because for the first time the experience of preparing for the fight eclipsed the joy any victory could have brought. But I'm finally ready to move on this time with my head held high. Thank you, Gina. And so look, I'm not saying that

anyone needs to like feel some sort of way about Rhonda. Certainly over the years she has forced us to feel some sort of way, right? And so I'm not saying that you have to like celebrate the fact that she went on this personal journey and all that stuff. Like, you spent your time on Saturday, not pay-per-view money, and who knows if you were a subscriber already. And if you felt unfulfilled, you felt unfulfilled. She's giving you her reasons. And I do think if you take a step back and now want to, like, fully tell the story one day

of Rond Rossi. If it does truly end like this, I never thought that it was going to end like this. Like, now if Rick wants to come back and say she's the comeback for the year, you can't really laugh. Obviously, she's not going to be, you know, candidate number one. But there's now a story to be told there, right? It is kind of crazy when you think about it. Honestly, we never thought we'd see her loving MMA like this, talking like this. She left UFC in a bitter, unceremonious way. She left WWE in a similar fashion. To see this piece is a nice thing. But I'm not hating on anyone who doesn't feel that way, but I guess if you covered her or watched her

from day one in MMA up until now, it's a very unexpected turn of events. And you don't often see these sorts of things. I don't know if, you know, if Gina feels the same way or if this will lead to anything or anything like that, but I'm just giving you my perspective on someone who covered her from the beginning.

And trust me, had a falling out with her and didn't talk to her, and I could tell you much, much more about all the behind-the-scenes stuff, but there's no reason for that and I have no interest in doing that. She probably doesn't, like me very much. I don't care. It doesn't matter. The point is, I think it's a pretty

cool way to see the story unfold this way, if only because I never thought it was going to unfold this way. Never in a million years. I just wanted to answer a couple more questions because there were some other bangers that probably didn't get the attention that they deserved. I understood what was happening before, guys. People were liking, you know, the trolley ones, which I thought were funny. This one's actually for Andy, believe it or not. This is from El Peruano. Hello, Ariel. Can we get Ladeena, Andy,

to blind rank the athletic prowess of the rest of the team? Are you ready for this, Andy? That's not a blind ranking. UFC fit New York Rick. Now, you weren't around for UFC fit New York, Rick.

But, I mean, he was chiseled, like absolutely chiseled. I was just skinny. I wasn't chiseled. I was very slim. Have you seen photos of Rick when he was doing UFC fit? No.

All right, well, this is going to be tough. Just throw them out, you know, put him in a spot. Perfect. Two? Two, Helwani boxing Ariel. Wow. Three.

Three? Yeah. Okay. Stationary bike G.C. He just got hurt. He said, oh, man. Okay, I've seen this firsthand. I'm going to go one.

It's a good call. Shirt optional a day. Oh. Did he take off his shirt? No, but we've seen the picks. Oh, we have. Have we? We've seen the pull-ups on the scaffolding.

Yeah, yeah. Sick move. That's a sick move. You know what? We've also seen them in the bike. Yeah. It's going to have to be four, though. defeated on the bike

Yeah, defeated, yeah, that's part of him Mom ass-kissing, Frank It does require some dexterity Sorry, only five left Yeah I gotta say, that's not a bad ranking right there Yeah, because you got two, man Yeah

I was in good shape at that time He was, he was What year was that, like 14? Yeah, a minute ago Here's Cameron who said Before you get, or we get to your question Or you get to your question Stick with me here

Been enjoying your vids with the Premier League Chatting to US fans So a football question for you Ooh, now safely in the prem for next season. What would your expectations be for Forrest? I think how they handle the departure of Anderson and subsequent use of his significant transfer fee will dictate a lot.

So it seems like everyone thinks Elliot Anderson is leaving. I'm going to say that Mr. Marinacus is going to do everything in his power to keep him just like he did with MGW. It would be a huge blow if he leaves. But yes, they could probably command, I've heard up to like 80 million for him. So they've been good with something. Like getting a langa and Callum Hudson Addo.

for pennies, and then, like, trading in Alanga for like 30 million, I think, in transfer fee to Newcastle was pretty damn impressive. So I feel pretty good about where we stand, and I'm just happy that we get another season, because it was looking a little dicey there. When we were on our third manager, let alone our fourth, I was getting worried. Now, he does ask a question to Pizzi about United, but Pizzi is not here. Shout out to the whole uncrown team, as always, the uncrowned football soccer show. one day maybe that's F and illegal.

Speaking of the Prem. Yes? Oh yeah, what happened to Spurs? Arsenal. Spurs still going. What, what? What? Spurs, just got one back. Two-one. Seventy fourth minute. Oh, I didn't know who was one. Okay, wait. So it's 2-1 Chelsea. What does that mean for Piz's game on? That it's going to be of importance. It's very important. So if this holds, Tottenham has 38, West Ham has 36, with one game left. Holy crap.

Four Mr. Carroll. Bigger news. What? Good for Mr. Carroll. Man City lost. They lost City, too? Arsenal's chance. Well, actually they drew, but in the end, it's a loss for them.

So Arsenal wins? Confirmed. Wow. People going crazy? Yeah. Not this guy. IG Post has like 1.1 million likes in like 13 minutes. Frank Warren and KSI are...

Picture of Noel Gallagher in the stands looking mighty sad. Frank Warren said... He did say. Premier League champions and Champions League Champions. Just won to go now. Damn. So Spurs has Everton, obviously. And who does West Ham have? Leeds. With nothing to play for him. By the way, Jordan was very quick to tell us the score there. I mean, are you focusing on the show today, Jordan?

I'm locked in, man. All right, right. Be nice. Be nice. Yeah, that's right. Gilbert Manchacha. Manchaca? Hello from San Antonio. Spurs in five. That's all. Hi, Frank. Is he talking about Spurs? Thunder. What a game yesterday, guys. Yeah, Spurs Thunder. What a game. No chance in five.

No chance. That is like... No chance in five? Bro. I don't know about that. Spurs Thunder and five? You are doubting the Thunder too hard, man. Are you out of your mind? I'm not doubting the Thunder. I just... It took a godlike effort from Victor Women Yama to win in Wend-O-T. Yeah. I think the Thunder are going to make this a series.

100%. I believe so too, but no chance? Yeah, I don't know about that. What about the Air and Fox? The Air and Fox didn't even play a night. Yeah, Fox didn't even play. Now, you guys are underrating the Spurs. They're not winning in five. Man, you sound way too confident on that.

I actually think the Thunder are still the favorite. Like, Gun to my head, Thunder are winning this series. Yes, I would imagine. They're winning the series. They've never been here before. They were like a minus two-old to win the title going into yesterday. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it is like the very best of basketball.

It's incredible. The finals. I did see a Cavs fan was like, man, I bet on the Cavs to win it all at plus 800 before the season. Now they've made it all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals, they're plus 2,000. Wow. That is crazy. I also think Rick is discounting. Does

he know that the Thunder have, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, they have the MVP? Yeah. I'm aware. Who won the MVP? The Spurs have the best player in basketball. Have they announced that yet? I just revealed it. Here's my guy Jason Tackoffman, Unk. It has become clear over the last few years that PTC

is an uncontrollable, unstoppable, unhinged maniac. Legit, the funniest person going right now. He adores every day I get a text about something Ptie has said on the show. What's going on? You have probably known this for years, but was there a moment before when you realized this about Pt? Gosh, I wish he was here. I think doing- Are you man, what the fuck is this? I think doing the ringer show with him really turned me on to his brilliance. And then when we were moving over, I felt like he would be a great addition to the program. Love him. Love P-C with all my heart and can't wait to see him very soon.

Tasta. TORIMANN for the kitchen scrap. Go Habs go. Yes. Quick question. Being a Canadian, would a VPN subscription along with signing up for Paramount Plus work for us people up north? That's a great question.

I think so. Isn't that how a VPN works? Yes. Okay. Does anyone on the crew go fishing? I'm going to say Connor does before you even answers. I have gone fishing. I don't go fishing. Okay. Yeah, me too. I've gone like three times.

Team outing? Would love it. I want to go fly fishing. Ooh. You got to get in the river. I love that with the high boots and everything and like the overalls. Have you done it before? No, but it seems like a beautiful Sunday in August in North Carolina, fly fishing seems like the greatest of times. Let's book it. North Carolina specifically, huh?

I don't know why. You hear Montana. You hear like the birds and you also hear like the like it sounds like a rattlesnake. What is that insect? Cicada. I love those. Babbling stream as well.

Yeah, give me Montana. A lot of proud to be a gooner on the timeline right now. Oh, wow. Huh? What? Hello, Ariel. This is from Persian apothecary. I was really impressed with your announcing skills at the MVP card.

I am a UFC D1 glazer, so I only saw the final two fights, but usually your voice cracks when you yell. But it didn't when you shouted. And I said to myself, wow. Ariel needs to do this more. Love seeing you shine and hope to see more of this. Thank you, my friend. I do appreciate that.

A couple more here. Oh, wow. Connor, Ola, Ariel. I was in attendance for the entire fight week for MVP and just wanted to say you did a phenomenal job all week. It's incredible to have watched you since I was 15 to now, 32, and see all the growth and achievements you have rightfully accomplished in this sport. The suits were on point.

The questions were poignant and the name announcements were powerful. after seeing the sea of negativity on X regarding your post-fight interviews, including comments from your old pal Josh Thompson. I can't help but think there's some kind of bot farm paid for the UFC to slander MVP and you. This alongside the rampant anti-Semitic rhetoric spewed makes me feel so disheartened. I wanted to respond to these people, but realize there isn't much of a point to engage. How do you keep your spirits going to keep fighting the good fight and doing the good work? Much respect and love from the guy who was wearing the Blue Jay's hat but didn't watch the game. Saw a guy wearing a Blue Jay's hat and he was wonderful.

And thank you, Connor. And I was like, what about that walk off Grand Slam? He's like, I just like the hat. I was like, damn, the night before. I have not seen what Josh Thompson has said about me. Josh Thompson, like, started liking me again, and now he hates me, and he's in my comments, talking all kinds of madness. Who the fuck knows?

I couldn't care less. And there's enough normal people out there that have told me, including people that I worked for on Saturday, executives, producers, et cetera, that they were extremely happy. I'm totally fine with it. I don't know what else. Like other than the criticism that my interviews were long, which again, I've explained why, and I don't mind interviews being long.

Even as a viewer, that's the boxing model. And I don't mind that at all just because one particular broadcast does it one way, doesn't mean that that's the only way. I don't really know what else you can say. But I'm not too torn up about it. MJF bringing it up those weird. How about that algorithm? Oh, this is a good one.

Why would it the promotion like MVP want to release true fighter payouts? So I saw some people saying that we were, we were like supporting MVP by saying that the payouts weren't right. They're never right. And I've never criticized the UFC payouts because those aren't right either. It's all selective. The payouts are never right. Again, for the prelim guys, yes, maybe. For the top dogs, no.

You know why? The fighters don't want it out. And Dana has created this culture where it's like, hey, we have. don't want the top guys to have their payouts released because we don't want any hangar-oners to come on. And so everyone's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. If there's a way to skirt this, great. So I'm not trying to, like, defend.

I just know for a fact those numbers are not real. That's all I'm telling you. They're not real. I know this for a fact. So there's no incentive there for me to lie about it. I believe there's also just like financial implications as well. In terms of the reported income versus bonuses versus whatever. I believe that there's...

Just the way it's structured. In addition to just like the transparency. We very rarely get actual looks into like the financials of some of these fighters. It used to be very common, not so much anymore. And we've said this a million times that it's not real. How's it going, Helwani? Question, isn't it crazy that the first MMA event you get to be a part of the broadcast team included Gina Carrano of all people?

Is she one of the most important figures you've spoken to in MMA? Sure, yeah. It is wild. Ronda, too, Nate, too, Francis, too. Also, what is next for her? Feels like she might have one more in her, given she never got started. I wonder, but I don't think so.

Why not just, like, kickbox or do moitai or something? That would be so much better. Maybe. Don't worry about somebody taking you down. Um, maybe she wants to do one more. Okay, let me get to two more here. Would it make sense for PFL to cross over the MVP for? an upcoming start to increase awareness.

Maybe. I mean, it's sort of like a boxing model, right? Hey, let this guy go eat here, but I don't know if they'd want to do that, to be honest. Last one, Zerian Combi. Hi, Ariel and crew. Favorite dish to eat on a hot day? Have you ever tried Korean cold noodles?

I think so. On a hot day? That's right of Frank, Sally. I'm a fan of ramen on a hot day. I've never been one of those people like you can't have ice cream on a cold day or soup on a hot day. I don't really care about that.

I don't know when we got ramen in like a 113 degree weather in Dallas? Yeah, I don't mind. No one left disappointed. I don't mind. I enjoyed it. It's a way to hydrate. No compliance of it. Yeah, I don't mind it.

Frankie, do we have any super chats? Let me see here. Let me just triple. Yeah, we have some. All right. Silver Jets. Will Brown 59. Hey, Hawaiian crew. Game 7 hero Alex Newhook is from Newfoundland,

my home province. Oh, back-to-back game seven winners. Frankie. How about that, huh? It's pretty fun. Same age as me and scored on me lots growing up, so seeing him score on any goalies feels great LOL GO HABs. Wow. So for the record, you're now on the Montreal bandwagon. Yes, yes, I am. I need to spend the night at your house. Sure. I mean, in Montreal?

Yeah. Alex is incredible. I can't imagine there's been many people in one playoff run to score back-to-back game seven winners. Pretty remarkable. That is amazing story, too. Wow, good for you. What else, Frankie? What else?

Benjamin Turk 1840, how can we change this journalism problem? Change the narrative to be positive understanding of the job? I really don't know. Is it too late? I also feel like it's like another example of the vocal minority. I do think that there are a lot of people who understand what journalism is and understand what the role of the media is and whatnot. But you see this avalanche and you're like, wait a second. What does happen?

But I think there's still enough people out there who get it. What else, Frankie? Take Barry Weiss, for example. I'm kidding. Relax! Go ahead, Frank. You just cut me off? Sorry.

Jake from Wendy City. Ariel, crazy, it's going to be 27 years when Owen Hart fell to his death. Were you watching that pay-per-view? I also recommend John Pollock's audio doc on Owen. Pollock. Thank you. He did an amazing audio doc on that. That is crazy.

30 years ago today, by the way, was the infamous curtain call at MSG. Our guy, Alan Murphy, told me that, obviously this was completely devastating. So that was 96th, this is 99. I was in New York. And I actually, the day before, I went to see Game 3, Knicks versus Hawks,

1999 playoffs, Chris Dudley game, Jeff Van Gundy, Jeff Van Gundy in the arena at MSG. It was amazing. I was not watching wrestling as actively. was aware of it. I was tuned in and all that, but I wasn't watching every pay-per-view and I was in New York. So I found out either that night or the next morning, but I was not watching live. But maybe the worst day in wrestling history. And yeah, the decision to keep the show going and the aftermath and just heartbreaking, heartbreaking, absolutely heartbreaking. Like, I've read a bunch about it and just so stupid. So such a

such a tragedy on the highest of levels. But yeah, that was like May, I guess, yeah, it was May 26 or something like that. What else, Frankie? What else? One of our Korean fans asked, to everyone here, I'm curious what makes the Korean zombie

so appealing to foreign MMA fans. Even Dana loves him. Sadly, here in Korea, he isn't as popular as in the U.S. despite his achievements. Well, I think that people love his personality, his spirit, his vibe. I think the first thing, honestly,

that they were connected to with him was his t-shirt. His t-shirt was incredible. He had one of the best t-shirts, the iconic Korean zombie t-shirt. Another reason why it's great to have your own gear and stuff like that. And I think that's what drew them to him.

And then the walkout music was great, zombie, and then his fight against Leonard Garcia was great. I think that's it. Yeah, I think all these things kind of came into play. The Leonard Garcia fight helped for sure. That's the first time we saw him was a freaking war with Leonard Garcia. The T-shirt was huge.

The T-shirt. The music was huge. All these things. Yeah, he was a true cult favorite. If he was fighting in today's day and age, like, people would be, like, I mean, he would be like one of those guys. I don't know who to compare him to right now, but he's like what you guys wanted Iron Turtle to be.

You know what I mean? Damn. What the fuck was that, man? What is that supposed to mean? I just mean, like, people... We don't accept the IT. Iron Turtle was like a cult. favorite, but he didn't really back it up.

Story's not done being written. That's fair. What else, Frank? That's that bullshit. In Bu, 90, Ariel has said he isn't in the business of breaking news anymore, for example, Brock. But Ariel had the scoop on McGregor,

eat it, Chale. Ariel, please quote. It was weird how Chale didn't believe me. Seriously, did one person say, first reported by, like, did one? I don't think so. I saw a lot of people crediting the New York Post. Yeah. Wasn't that weird?

They literally had the same information that I've said on this show that I know they've all seen. Bizarre. That's not good journalism. Is it good journalism? But getting things right is. What else, Frankie? What else? Mr. Jade Lee, Ariel, can you please get Stung Gun Kim on the show?

He said he was supposed to fight Mike Perry on Netflix before Nate jumped in. His YouTube Stung Gun TV is on fire and he's open to fighting this year. Is it on fire? Let's see. Is it in Korean? By the way, that is true. I do know that. They were looking at him to be a potential opponent for Perry if the Diaz fight did not come to fruition. Oh, wow. McGregor versus Holiday match is versus Holloway match is set. Ireland training camp. Oh yeah, this is when he was training with Connor. Wow. Does have a lot of views. 482. 239, 319. It's good stuff. Let's see the, what happened on the last day in Ireland. So he's doing like video blogs on there, huh? I think he got, did he get super popular because of, well, here he is with John Kavanaugh having a meal.

Was he on one of those reality shows? The one with Robert Whitaker? I think he was on physical. Yeah. Physical 100 or something like that? Yeah, I think he was on that. But I think he's just beloved there. Yeah.

Right. The earlier person was talking about Korean zombie, not necessarily being one of the guys in Korea. I do believe Stungan is one of the guys in Korea. Okay. That is like super popular. What else, Frankie? What else?

All I do is Uff. So heartbroken aerial ducked the Brett versus heartbreak kid topic. I unsubscribe and watched as a common viewer for nearly two weeks and moved forward. Today I resubscribe. Then moments later, the Ariel Hohanni Show God sent MJF. Did people like MJF today? Absolutely. That was incredible.

Oh, breaking news. guys. Press release. Yes. Is Zadarion and Jake Paul had the following to say regarding the results of the MVP

MMA Rousey versus Karano event. MVP's first entry into MMA delivered on a massive global scale and exceeded every expectation we had for the launch

of this new chapter of our business. Over 12.4 million viewers around the world tuned in live on Netflix with viewership peaking at almost 17 million during the Rousey

versus Karano, making it one of the most watched MMA events of all time. In the United States alone, the triple main card, the triple main card averaged 9.3 million viewers and peaked at 11.6 million viewers during the main event, making it the most watched MMA event ever in the U.S. The event also generated over 410 million impressions across MVP's own social channels, a live gate exceeding 2.2 million, and saw terrific commercial premises distribution across bars,

restaurants, casinos, and hospitality venues nationwide. We're incredibly proud of what was accomplished alongside our partners at Netflix and grateful to the athletes who helped make MVP MMA's debut such a success. We've received an overwhelming amount of interest from investors, strategic partners, and fighters who want to be involved with MVP and the future of MVP MMA. We are currently reviewing all strategic options to do something very meaningful within MMA on a go forward basis with a distribution partner like Netflix that shares our vision to create lasting impact.

Please see below for further details. Just want to see if there's any more stats. What do you guys think? They give an official attendance number? Attendance attendance. Let me search for the word. What do I think? I think it's significant that they achieved what they had set out to achieve, which

was the highest viewed. Do you think that they're happy with that number? I don't know. I don't know. I think they're happy. I don't think they're over the moon with it. I think that's probably right. You think they would have been over the moon with like 20? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think doing, what is that, eight figures? I think eight figures was the goal. So to be able to accomplish that, I think they're happy, but I don't think they're dancing in the streets. And I only say, I agree with GC, and I only say that because

the Jake Paul fights do such massive numbers and the other MVP events do such massive numbers that I wonder what the expectations were but to have the most viewed MMA event on television is a significant thing

the power of Netflix is legit so it says that Rousey Carrano peaked at 17 million that's what I read right yeah imagine if it went two rounds you know what I mean yeah

imagine if it went two rounds they would have probably hit that 20 million number wait I peaked with 17 million it says 12.4 million worldwide viewers with the viewership peaking that was the average 12.4 was the average okay it peaked at 17 million according to this it says

over 12.4 million viewers around the world tune in live on Netflix with viewership peaking at almost 17 million during rousey versus chrono making it one of the most watch. So that was the high point, but the average was 12.4. Yeah. 4.

Yeah, 12.4. So it would have broken that. Now, when they told me 20, I don't know if they meant 20 as the average or 20 is the peak. You remember when Jake said that last week? But like I said, Nikisa Baderian will be on the show tomorrow

so we can ask them about these questions. And the first question would be, are you happy with the number? I think. Also, I think the last line is interesting here, reviewing all strategic options to do something very meaningful within MMA on a go-forward basis with a distribution partner like Netflix that shares our vision to create lasting impact, as opposed to a distribution partner, or excuse me, go-forward basis

with Netflix. You know what I mean? There's a few doors that are being left open about their future. It sounds to me like they are leaning towards staying in the MMA business, but there's still a lot that needs to be addressed. if they, I think if they weren't happy with the number, they probably wouldn't have released. I agree with that. Yeah, this did come. This was a... I mean, they just, Netflix,

the account just tweeted 17 million global viewers to watch Ronor Ozzy versus Gino Carano on Netflix. Averaging 12.4 million viewers across the triple main event, exclamation point, and then with a graphic. So is that how we measured it in the past? This is the part that's murky for me? Like, what was number

two? What was the most watched all time? for this. Well, it's hard because Nika did bring up Anderson on Global back in the day. No, but isn't this U.S. or is this global? No, he's saying global. This is not just U.S. numbers. Yeah, so what was it? I don't know.

That's why they say most... I think they're saying one of the most watch. They're not coming out and saying it was the most watched. Yeah. So, so JDS, JDS Kain 1 viewership is number one, right? On Fox for U.S.?

Yeah. So, So JDS Kane 1, average 5.7 million. It peaked at 8.8 million. That's the most watch for UFC. I have to imagine, then, this is still probably number one then. Well, the breakdown, so that's U.S. only. I'm saying, though, if it's only five average, right? We're talking five-something average.

We're talking about 12 average. That's a lot to make up internationally. I wonder, though, the peak. So if JDS is Brazilian and if that was airing. but one of the most I'd love to know what the breakdown was for U.S. only Yeah You know because they're saying 12.2

Excuse me 12.4 This is global around the world What was it in the U.S.? No they did. They did do the U.S. Did they? Where is that? Here one sec. I believe you read it as well.

Maybe I did. The U.S. was 9.3 million average, 11.6 million p. Oh, thank you. Okay. There you go. That's significantly more than just the Fox

US number. Okay, so I mean, is there something else that could have been in the running? This is where I'm like, I don't, like, was CBS doing these types of numbers? Like Kimbo.

Kimbo. Kimbo. No, I don't think Kimbo James Thompson did this. Probably like what, like three? Two to three. I think getting to that eight three point two figure number is huge.

Yeah. So that is a very significant number. I think that will cement it as the most watched MMA event of 2026. Ken Shamrock versus Kimbo Slice Oh no, Ken

that happened in Beltor, Seth Petrazzelli, which was the last Elite XE won, 6.45. It peaked at 6.45, it averaged 4.31. Yeah. And then UFC

324 viewership, they announced that. Remember that? Yeah, that's a good point of comparison. What was that? UFC 324 averaged achieved an average minute audience of 4.96 million viewers

during the main card with a peak and current viewership of 5.93. The event reached 7.18 million global households. All right. So they basically doubled up and more the Paramount debut. Yeah. I'm wondering if we'll get a release of the

White House numbers. Yeah. Do you actually think that changes the strategy? Maybe they do put some of this White House card on CBS to try and get... that number. Yeah, and try and take that record back. I don't know. This is the one where you could get the most subscribers for it.

I could see them maybe doing like the first hour on CBS, the pomp, the circumstance. Like if I were them, I would do the pre-show on CBS, do like a proper, you know, like an NFL and CBS pre-show. And then like the first like couple fights. From the White House lawn. You put Hokit and Blackbeast and maybe Garcia Lopez. And then you've got how many fights are on there? Yeah, there's seven. Two prelims.

main card on Paramount Plus, right? I'm falling, I like that. With a one hour pre-show. Yep. That's exactly what they should do. Is it? Yes. I honestly feel like you just stick it all on plus.

Nah, because you get all those people who are then like, oh shit, you get people sitting at home on a Sunday, by the way. Sundays are huge sitting at home. Especially people who are like in their habits, right? Especially the older generation who are waiting for 60 minutes. They're going to be like, oh. Bingo. But they're not going to Paramount Plus after, so it doesn't matter.

You're saying, do you just keep it on CBS for a little bit, and then you get that number close of like X amount of people watch now? Like, what is, what is, what is your typical 60 minutes do anyway? How many people are watching 60 minutes viewership, May 26? 60 minutes maintains its status as television's top news program between 6.5 to 6.7 million viewers per broadcast. So let's say there's five million people watching. This is the before. This is the lead into 60 minutes, right? Yeah, then you're getting the MMA fan.

You're getting, you're going to get, I think you're going to get at least a million people going over there, no? I'd still sign up for plus. You want to watch this sign up for, you go. That's a commercial. That's your commercial to sign up for plus. How else do you get people to sign up for plus other than putting it on CBS using the power of CBS to sign? I'm saying the White House cards coming. You know about it.

If you want to watch it, watch it on plus. Who are they speaking to? When they're tweeting about it and doing press conferences, they're speaking to us, the MMA fan. You put that on the eye network. You put that on the Annie network for an hour. You do a pre-show desk at the White House. Connor's parents are flipping through the channels and they're stopping. Are they not?

They'll watch that, but they're not going a plus after. Say you get 5% of those viewers. That's 250,000 people. Those geysers watching 60 minutes, they ain't signing up for plus after watching it. They're not watching the pre-show. We're not looking to get all of them. We're not getting 5%. They're not watching the pre-show and going,

I love that breakdown of that fight. That was incredible. Now I'm signing up. You're not converting. Oh, Josh, Hope it's funny. You're looking at, they're doing a UFC event on the White House won. And they already know that.

And if they need to watch it, they will sign up on plus. My brother, my brother doesn't watch UFC. But he's watching TV on a Sunday night. I think he probably sees that and is like, oh shit, let me check this out. You think,

which brother are we talking about? My older brother. Or any brother. You don't think they know that was working Netflix card. They didn't know I was working Ronda Rousey. They had no idea. So that's, So then that's perfect, right?

Everybody has Netflix. You would assume that they'd know about that. No, they don't. Because it's not, the algorithm isn't feeding that to them. I'm not convinced. You're not getting people. You're not getting anybody. No.

You're not getting one person. No, of course you're getting one person. You're not getting enough to make me remove it from Paramount Plus exclusive. But isn't that all gravy? Isn't that all gravy? You're still putting the five best fights on Paramount Plus. You're just putting two. So wait, just to be clear, are you not in favor of them doing those, like, early

fights on CBS? Yes? Really? I don't think it adds to a value. I think it's worked for them. You don't think it's worked? No, I'm sure it works to a certain degree, but what you're getting a majority of is just MMA fans who are switching between the things. New people, I just don't know that it's worth it.

And especially when you have this one shot that you know people are aware of, that you know people are going to come into the tent for, bring them to the platform you actually want to bring them to. Get those people to subscribe and forget their subscriptions and rack in that money. I think using, like you said, at least doing a pre-show on CBS and trying to use the like hey like you like boxing back in the day

this generation you'll like the UFC here's out for knocking someone out Oh so you're seeing like a highlight package I know I show a bunch of highlights of guys doing exciting things Don't one hour not making anybody sign up Nobody goes

You think grandma You think grandma Not every person that watches 60 minutes is fucking a senile old person. Everything is 75 years old. You think they're sitting there watching a pre-show where somebody's doing talking head shit and they go, I got to watch that now? Let me tell you something.

Let me tell you. Like, this stuff works. I actually just saw, did you guys know that Netflix is airing the Grand Prix of Canada? Since when? No, what? F-1? Yes. Yeah, yeah, F-1.

How could a pre-show hurt? But I'm just saying. No, it's not that it'll hurt. It's just not worth the extra effort. So because I was on Netflix this weekend, I saw this and now I'm going to tune in. So because you're going to be on CBS, I don't really watch, but I'm like, oh, I'm curious to see how this looks on Netflix. So someone's going to be on CBS and they're going to say like,

oh, wow, these guys are on the White House lawn putting on a fight? I actually, I would actually maybe side a little bit even more with Rick in just doing the pre-show because it's just like, yo, that shit's about to come on. And if you want to watch it, get your ass over to Paramount Plus. You can just do that. Get to Paramount Plus. Everybody knows this is happening.

Everyone does not know it's happening. Everybody who's going to watch it knows this is happening. I'm going to ask David Ellison right now and see if he gets back me before the show. I talked to some people my age, and I'm like, they're doing a, they're doing a White House card pretty soon. Those people won't be tuning in. Yeah. Those people will not be tuning in on that day. Okay, are you, do you can see that a one hour pre-show is worth it? Sure. It's no harm, no foul. You could do it. And would you be offended if they put Steve Garcia and Diaco Lopez on CBS? It's not a fence. Yes, he would be. It's, it's, what,

how do you maximize your opportunity? I don't think that's maximizing the opportunity. Why do all the fights have to be on plus. Why not do... Because you... If you want to see this card, you have to come to it. But isn't this... Is this no different than doing Spike TV prelims back in the day two fights, and then the rest of it was on pay-per-view? What's the difference? In fact, this is even

better because it's on CBS. There's no difference other than that was what a lot of people just watched and then did not watch the pay-per-view. This is the same thought process. You put the prelims on... The biggest platform. CBS is a bigger platform than Paramount. You agree with that. Much bigger, yes. You put the pre-limbs

to hook people in. You have Dana White and Joe Rogan do an interview at the cage yelling at us and then they say, go to Paramount Plus right now. This is like time-honored tradition of broadcasting fights. Agreed.

It's time honored. This time is different. This time is different. It's 2026. It is not 2005 anymore. The subscription system is firmly established in how people know how to consume stuff. The people who are going to...

Look, I'm not arguing that no people will come. I'm not arguing that there will not be a number of people who will do it. What I'm arguing is the juice is not worth to squeeze. If you have an opportunity to get everybody to go to Paramount Plus to watch this, and that is the exclusive home of it.

Putting Taporia on there, or Pereira on there, I'm saying put the beginning stuff just to wet the appetite. Anyway, how do we get down this path? Even just the pre-show. Just do the pre-show. I hope they do a pre-show. I hope they do like a proper one-hour pre-show leading into it just to show us

the sights and sounds, but maybe not. They're airing just to like fill time slots, like a UFC show every now and then, like called This is the UFC, I think, with Megan O'Levy on CBS. What's the viewership on that? I don't know. Yeah, what's the viewership on that? Any of those people convert and get on Paramount Plus? What I'm saying is, what is the extra lift to just do your pre-show that you're probably already doing on CBS?

Not extra lift. Minimal Extra Lift. Jordan, ask your contacts how many people signed up for Paramount Plus on the basis of having watched those shows that are airing with Megan O'Levy. I'd be very curious that number. It's not going to be a significant number. I can tell you that right now. It's crazy. Every time we took it just a step further.

None of those geriatric diaper-filling pieces of shit are signing up for Paramount Plus. They're not doing it. If they were going to be a lot of sign-ups at the White House card. Retirement homes are going to have huge sign-ups of Paramount Plus after that airs. No. They might have huge sign-ups just because they're aware that this White House card's happening and they know it's on Paramount Plus and they sign up for that. not on the back end of the 8 p.m.

First of all, they're in bed already. Once that 60 minutes ends, that TV's going off. But on the back of that show, you're not going to see this huge spike of 75-year-olds that are signing up to watch those fights. They're in bed or they're dead. All told, do they do another one after you hear these numbers? Another one, what?

Oh, MVP. Yeah. Yeah. Is it with Netflix? Yes. Yes. And I think it's fights that we're not thinking about right now

Hmm Francis versus Rico Is that big enough? As the main event Yes It depends Look Was Tyson Fury's warm-up fight big enough?

Yeah, we were talking about this really This was I said I don't know if you were here But I said Connor Ben Ryan Garcia As Netflix worthy I was not in the room I agree with that Yeah

When we first learned about Netflix getting into this game I didn't think that they would be doing Tyson Fury versus Same here. Filler talent. Like I did not think that that was the game they were getting into. The fact that they even did that fight

to me tells me that their appetite is a little bit larger than I thought. If you're coming off the heels of the most watched or one of the most watched MMA events of all time, I have to imagine you try something else and see at least one more time. So yes, I think they probably do another one

and I think it's probably with Netflix. But seriously, when did F1 get to Netflix? What is this? Are you doing the jail right now? Just circling back to something that nobody knows on it? I don't know. I don't keep up with F1 stream. How did Luis Palomino do? No, no, no, but I mean... I know. You keep saying no, no, no, and reiterating the question, I truly have no idea, man. I don't think anybody cares. I care. I mean, it makes a lot of sense, but I thought that they were on Apple or something, or ESPN. ESPN. Yeah, well, does this mean, look, there's people writing about it. Does this mean, we will be able to watch F1 on FLA? That means a big deal. I'm sure it's a big deal. PSA, the first F1 race on Netflix is this weekend. All right. Heads up.

Wait, when is it? But when was the deal announced? Oh, wait, wait. Even though this is interesting, I love this stuff. Even though Apple TV is the primary source for watching F1 content this year in February, the company agreed to grant Netflix to the rights to air select races. The partnership makes sense considering Netflix has seen success. All right.

Yeah, drive to survive. Okay, well. NASCAR does this same thing. They're on Fox, and then they got a prime schedule. to me, any time Netflix airs live sports, it is notable because they weren't, they weren't airing live sports at all, and now they continue to dip their toe, dip their toe, dip their toe, dip their toe. And when they deem something to be big enough for them, I find that interesting. So when they get opening day, I'm sitting there watching them like, how are they going to present this? When they get the home run derby, I'm going to watch that and be like, how are they going to present this? Boxing, the hot dog eating contest. I will watch this F1 just because I want to see how they're going to present it as opposed to the traditional broadcasters. It's the biggest, the biggest platform in the world that never aired live sports. Two years ago, they hadn't aired a single live sporting event. And now, you know, they're doing all this stuff.

Frank, I'm going to rifle these off here real quickly. By the way, sorry. Just was investigating a little bit on Paramount Plus.com itself. UFC already, they already have a page up for UFC at the White House. The little synopsis still says just exclusively on Paramount Plus. Smart. Good call. All I do is UFC AH. I thought you did a great job Saturday.

it's a loss. We'll never see you on a UFC broadcast team. A.H. Chale, Bisping, 10 out of 10. What's your ideal plus two? Oh, I don't know. I never say never. YG. Davies says, and thank you very much. Who you boys got?

Bob Menry or Johnny Mansell? You guys know that's happening this weekend at the apex, huh? Wait, is that actually happening at the fucking apex? You didn't know this. I knew it was happening. I didn't know what was happening at the apex. For real? If only they could do a pre-show on.

CBS to let you know. Give me money Mansell, baby. Are you betting on this? I'll be seated. Where's it airing? So what was that? Yeah, see what the, this is the shit. This is it.

And where is it airing? If they had a fucking pre-show, you know exactly where it's airing. I don't wait for the- I'm not going to be watching it. You're the one saying. I ain't watching the shit. You crazy? Are you out of your mind?

We got lines for it? Oh, wait. Is it at the apex? It's definitely at the apex. 14. Is on Aiden Ross's kick? Publisher Okay, here it is, here it is

YouTube, kick.com slash aiden Ross Twitch Main card 11 p.m. Eastern Saturday, May 23rd. Main card 11 p.m.? Yeah, Eastern because it's on the West Coast. These are the matchups, by the way.

Johnny Mansell versus Bob Menry in M.MA. Johnny Mansell's fighting in M.MA? I thought it was boxing. Against fucking Bob Menry. Bob Menary? Okay. The co-main event is an MMA fight between

Super Hot Fire and Ray Jay. Oh yeah. Is this fucking for real right now? I know both of these guys. The main card is another MMA fight that, well, it's actually all MMA on the main card. Michael Beasley versus Lance Stevenson. What? I can see, I can see

the excitement building in your eyes right now. Island Boy Fly Soldier versus Jeremy Smith. Who's Jeremy Smith? Oh, your island boy. That's the dude? Who's Jeremy Smith? I don't know. guessing. No neck Jay versus Shane Chance. All right, it's falling off a cliff now. Dom the troll versus

Tom tough knuckles. Yeah, I stopped I stopped recognizing names after the two NBA players, but God damn. And then there's a couple of boxing matches on the prelims, Antonio Williams versus Haskell Rhodes, Gabe Silva, Anderson Silva's son versus Malcolm Peck,

AP the fighter versus Ethan Stern, Andrew Garcia versus Deshawn Prather, Britain Norwood versus Alvin Varmel. I can't lie, this was a good preview. I actually will watch this based on you breaking that down. It seems like it's, oh, it's free. uncles is going to be sick. By the way, Lance

Stevenson and Michael Beasley was enough to get me. Like, what the fuck? Ray Jee was super hot fire. Bro, what happened to Ray J? No, what do you mean? He's in a co-man event. He went from Kim K to this? Come on, right? There was a lot of stops in between. I was going to say, I haven't heard much.

I haven't heard of a direct line. I haven't heard just Kim K and then... I haven't heard much about him. Ray Jay? What's he been doing? I believe he just did an interview with Cam Newton. That didn't go so long. He's been getting in fights on video. Oh, okay.

And passing out on stage. I'm actually really confused that he's on this. I don't know if he was mentally clear. Sounds like he should 100% be on this. Can we have one of those guys on after the fight? I was talking about Stevenson and Beasley. Oh, Manzell is a fucking legend, dude. Do you think UFC has anything to do with this?

Yes. Them using the Apex is definitely Aiden's close ties to Dana. Do you think that they're like paying for the Apex? No. Probably not. Who gives a shit. Yeah. Dana gives Aden 200K

Like it's chump chain I would imagine he's just like You can use the A5x Wait, he gave Aden Ross money Just be out Before before 2 a year But you can't start until 11 11 PM is a rough start

Ultimately who do we have That's the question Bob or Johnny I'm going with Mansell Okay I'm going with I'm going to go with Super Hot Fire You know that is?

Joe Chow Rajet Oh yeah Super Hot Fire is the guy that like jumps into the crowd after rapping He does the Bada Boobo Bam, bam. He does bad rap lines, but then everybody reacts. Like, it's like the best line that they've ever heard.

It's very, like, YouTube, 2011. Okay. All right. Here's Benjamin Turk. Also, what is the next? I feel like we got a spot from the boys. I've been saying it a lot in my conversations to people. Yeah, he's referring to any time I push for us to go somewhere.

Oh, yeah. Oh. Rick says, I feel like we got it. We just had one this morning. What was it? What do we have to do? Frank, what was the one this morning? That wasn't right.

Well, we're going to Vegas. Regardless, I feel like we got it. His wife actually got on to him about the I feel like we got a trip. Yeah, Holly wasn't happy about the, I feel like we got us. Like, it's too many. When we were in Los Angeles, she texted me like, hey, no more stupid trips. And I was like, no, no, I'm like, this is legit. We're here for the shows all week.

And she's like, yeah, yeah, you are. But you also went to Des Moines and Seattle on some stupid shit. Don't do that anymore. Oh, she's putting her foot down. Don't do that anymore. I was like, nah, we're cooking the next. one. I'm thinking Baku in June. Okay, so Vegas doesn't count.

No, no. Vegas is legit. Those are more legit. She's like, yeah, don't get conned into going on a trip just being something dumb on air and then, like. I mean, Des Moines was asked, but we were there for 24 hours. That wasn't a trip. That was, that was just the, it's more the conception of them than it is the actual going. It's more just like, oh, this Lance Gibson Jr. fought here. Now we're going.

Hell not. It's a dumb reason to go somewhere. I feel like we got a round three coming soon. What's our next? Serbia? Belgrade? Yo, what are you guys doing in July? Go to OKC in July?

Sounds fantastic. There's nowhere on earth. I'd go out and lay in the middle of the street until I melted into the pavement if I went to OKC. Boys in the Belgrade has a ring to it, though. It does have a ring. Shout out, Holly, love you. Scramble egg 2727.

So y'all are just going to avoid the obvious. Obvious, she's delusional about how things ended back in the day. and still refuses to acknowledge her... Oh, Rhonda, Rhonda, sorry. Who are we talking about? She refuses to acknowledge her losses. Well, whatever. Can I just say this is what I love about Rhonda, by the way?

I know everybody hates it. I fucking love this about Rhonda. She's unapologetically, like, deluded, delusional herself. Like, this is the best. Rhonda is the best. I freaking love her. She's got to stick around for one more, but it really does seem like she's not.

Lastly, Boy's not sure if he's been formally released by the UFC. And by the way, Frank, I wasn't, like, you do a great job. I just wanted to kind of... Yeah, man, I'm working on my letters, okay? But if so, I'd love to see Tai Tuivasa and BKFC. He'd be a great candidate for a Rothwell-Arlofsky-style rebound thoughts, James Duh. I don't know.

I mean, I guess he's not getting brutally knocked out. We went on a roller coaster, and I did see this yesterday. I want to end on this, because Jordan was terrified of the roller coaster in the Smonica Pier. Did I get that right? Look at these people. Nailed the bro. The thing broke, and they had to walk down. Jordan, what would you be doing if this happened?

They're not holding on to that railing tight enough, in my opinion. Would you be crapping your pants? I don't like heights to begin with, and now you're telling me that I have to walk down on. No seatbelt, no safety, no. Bro, it's a set of stairs. No, that's too high up. Yo, that's high up. That is high up.

Okay, but what's the fear? You're just going to fall over the railing? Exactly. No, you're fine, just hold onto the rail. I trip. I mean, I can see the guy with the hard hat. Completely entangled. Go back to that. Go back to that.

Yeah, why does one guy have a hard hat? And everyone else is like, yeah, too bad? No, forget the fact that he has the hard hat. You can tell he's pissed that this woman is holding up traffic. He's waving. And this woman stops and he's just like holding as he's like, let's get a move on here. Yeah, go to the rail and get on with it. Those things, the roller coasters often feel very old.

And I feel like... Those are the best ones. Yeah. Like the one we went to was pretty... If it doesn't feel like it's dangerous, then what's the point of riding, you know? It doesn't seem like it's worth it. But anyway, God bless those people. Shout out to Jordan for getting on there.

Yeah, no, you really... Twice. Yeah. Twice. That's right. Back to back. Terrifying. Shout to you for sneaking in the phone there.

Reneggan. I don't want that smoke with the people of Santa Monica. Tomorrow, guys. The Kisibedarian, as I said, is going to be joining us. Alistair Overim is going to be joining us to talk about the... The fight on Saturday in Egypt, Rico Verhoeven versus Alexander Usik. Nico Ali Walsh is going to join us to talk about his part in trying to, I don't know, save, fight for the Ali Act.

And Pumi Nakuda, who was on that card on Saturday, who I think kind of got screwed in the aftermath of that decision with Adrian Maris, is going to join us in studio to talk about everything that transpired. so that will be a very, very fun day for one and all. By the way, I do want to remind you all that we don't have a show on Monday because it's Memorial Day here in the United States. Wait, what? Yeah. So don't come to work, Frank. All right.

It's time to go because we've got a game one to watch, not get to, but watch. So next week we'll have a Tuesday program, Wednesday program, and then the back end of the show will be the exact same. Excuse me, back into the week will be the exact same. It's been a very busy day here on the program. It all worked out, even though things changed along the way. What is this? What is this? The area of Hawaiian show has been named a bronze winner in the general sports category

at the 47th annual Telly Awards. We did it, guys. All right, now it was bronze. Anyone familiar with the tellies? Yeah. Yeah, tellies are prestigious. We've been in the running a few times. Congratulations.

I think they do a reverse order. I think it goes gold, silver, bronze. Ascending order. That one I have to look into. Congrats all. We should sweep at the shorties tonight. I'd like to know. Ariel, report back.

I know you're going. Yes, I'd like to know who beat us. Nobody. We're first. We're number one? Where a number? Oh, maybe we're in the online category. I'm trying to find this out.

Who beat us? Who beat us? I want to know. No, I can't figure it out. crap, there's too many. Too many categories here. Is there like a podcast? What are we doing here?

Anyway, congratulations to all of all. Peace and love, peace and love. Thank you very much to Carlos Pratchez. Thank you to MJF. Thanks to everyone who sent in questions on the nose, short notice. Super chances, well, of course. Thanks all of you. Thanks all of them.

Back tomorrow. Same time, place. So, hey, peace. Come in.