The Ariel Helwani Show - Nakisa Bidarian talks Netflix numbers, plus: Alistair Overeem, Phumi Nkuta in studio, Nico Ali Walsh, news & notes, more

Episode Date: May 21, 2026

Ariel Helwani kicks off with a recap of last night’s spectacular win by his New York Knicks and Arsenal winning the Premier League title (23:47). Most Valuable Promotions CEO Nakisa Bidarian is back to address fan criticism of the promotion’s MMA debut on Netflix, then discuss the event’s viewership numbers, UFC announcing Conor McGregor’s return during Francis Ngannou’s walkout, how many events they plan to do in the future, Jake Paul’s return from the jaw injury he suffered against Anthony Joshua, and more (31:21). Old friend Alistair Overeem returns to the show to talk about a potential comeback, his role as an analyst for Oleksandr Usyk vs. Rico Verhoeven, and then break down the heavyweight clash (1:04:49). Nico Ali Walsh, Muhammad Ali’s grandson, makes his show debut to discuss all things related to the proposed Ali Revival Act, including Zuffa Boxing’s role and intentions, the Congressional committee hearing, the narrative that boxing needs to be fixed, and more (1:30:53). Phumi Nkuta joins Ariel in-studio, reflecting on his controversial loss to Adriano Moraes, talking about the sequence leading to the submission attempt, Moraes holding the choke after the bell, the referee’s decision to grant Moraes the win, appealing the result and what he hopes to achieve, why he hasn’t been offered a UFC contract, and more (2:05:33). The show closes with some news and notes (2:55:14) and Super Chats (3:28:29).

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Wednesday, May 20th, 2000. And 26, hello again, everyone. I sure hope you're doing well. I sure hope you are doing well on this lovely, lovely Wednesday in New York City. It's still incredible weather out there. The vibes are still immaculate.

And truth be told, can I just be on, like, you all know what's on my mind, you all know what I'm going to talk about. I don't know how to handle the top of today's show. I don't know how to verbalize the emotions, the feelings for multiple reasons, because what I witnessed last night at Madison Square Garden is one of the most insane sporting events, achievements, seven minutes that I've ever witnessed. But to be told, exactly a year ago, 363 days ago, to be exact, I was on the opposite end of that gut punch, that heartbreak. And it just so happens that my good friend and partner in crime, Mr. New York, Rick, is a fan of that other team. And so I can't sit here and actually gloat. I can't sit here and say, oh, my God, we're going to do it. We're a team of destiny.

This is a shoot, brother. This is a shoot. I was so emotional. First of all, I was so upset. up until Landry Shammit gets into the game. Landry Shammit changed everything. Everyone's going to focus on Jalen Brunson last night. Landry Shamit changed everything and why it took so long for him to enter the game

when he played so well in game three and four, I will never understand, but alas, better late than never. He comes into the game. We end up being down 22 with about 740 left. And then all of a sudden Brunson takes over. Landry gets an offensive foul. He makes a three. Mikhail Bridges is back to the Phoenix Sun's version of himself.

and Rick, when Landry hit that three to tie the game sub one minute, I kid you not, this has never happened to me, I fell back into my chair and I started crying. I could not process

what had just happened. I was crying too. And I was crying too when that shot that was about to go out, goes in, and then when Sam Merrill gets the bang from Mike Breen and it rolls out,

I mean, the basketball got smiled upon the Knicks last night. For one. for once, but it is absurd, right? Exactly a year ago. Almost to the day, I looked it up. It was May 21st.

Yesterday, it was May 19th. So it was May 21st of 2025. You remember what happened against Tyrese Halliborne and the Pacers? I think we were down 14 with 2.40-something left. So it's almost even more absurd, even though it was less time. Up. And sorry, we were up 14. Yeah, what did I say?

Down. We were up 14. And then we blew it, knee-smith, with the threes and whatnot. I was sitting in the same freaking room, on the same freaking couch, frozen afterwards. And then, of course, we lose game two, and then you're never going to come back after that, losing two games like that at home, and then you have to go on the road. So I know the feeling. I know the feeling to be there exactly a year later and say, how the hell did this happen?

But in a good way, words escape me. I'm happy for you. I don't think you're happy for me, and I don't expect you to be happy for you. I am happy for you. I just don't even know how to process it. I don't want to sit here and gloat. I want to be respectful of the fact that you got gut-punched because I wouldn't want you to come on and gloat

if the opposite happened to me. But it was just beyond comprehension. There was a point in the third quarter, I was like, man, how am I going to handle walking in after the Cavs beat the Knicks by 25 points? Thankfully, I didn't have to navigate that. I know what you're going to do right now. You're going to say you guys suck and you're dead and this and that.

I don't believe that. The Knicks and Cavs both suck, as I've said all along. I take offense to that. I'm sorry. The East is just crap. You can't watch the game two nights ago and then watch last night and be like those are the same quality. Yes. You can't.

But if you make it there, remember, 2019 Raptors Warriors, no one thought that the Raptors had any chance. The Warriors lost their entire roster. No, no, no. Yes. Durant gets hurt in the finals. Clay gets hurt in the finals. Durant was hurt before that and then got hurt to the point that he couldn't even play. Clay tears his ACL.

They probably still win that series without Durant. if Clay's okay. My point is, you just got to get there. So, like, I get that thing on Twitter all the time where it's like all to lose in the finals. I just want to get there. I just want to know what that feels like. Oh, you're going to get there.

The calves stink. The calves fucking stink. That was what? James Hardin is a traffic wall. How quiet was MSG? It was silent. Crickets. Never heard it like that for a playoff game.

And then it erupted. It was like an earthquake. There's no greater arena when, like, they're hot, there's no arena that sounds like that. Kenny Atkinson, the noise must have affected him. Maybe he couldn't process the idea of calling a timeout or something. Didn't call timeout. Because of the noise that was coming in. James Hardin on Jalen. James Harden in isolation on Jalen Brunson for eight straight plays. The degree of difficulty of some of those shots that Jalen was hitting? He's a bad boy Jalen Brunson is. He's a bad,

bad boy. McHale Bridges turning back the clock. Of course, I get the extra. Yeah, yeah, let's relive it all. No, no, I'm sorry. Let's go play by play. When McHale Bridges on a shot clock bailout is hitting fadeaway threes, Landry Shamitz from the corner, a three that looks like it's going to break out. The crowd goes, oh. That was wild. I thought he missed it, too.

It was destiny. It was destiny. It's hard. Sam Merrill, pure shooter, brilliant fucking game. Have we earned that, though? Have we earned that, though? What? I am genuinely happy for you because my expectations for the calves are so fucking low.

It's unbelievable. Like, they do this. Every game. They do this every single game. One of the highlights of the night was this was happening at around 1045 late, and all of a sudden, no chatter, no chatter whatsoever about this game. And all of a sudden I get a, I don't know what, I forget what he wrote, but a text from Pizzi just like mate or something like that. I'm like, wow, Pizzi's up. What time is it? 340. Pizzi, what are you? By the way, I can tell that everybody was on Pins and needles because there was no talk of this incredible game in the group chat. Yeah, there couldn't be.

There couldn't be. Why? I don't care. Please, I encourage everybody. If it's not, I always think if I'm not talking to him beforehand and into the game, don't start any time in the midst of it. Oh, this was like, don't disturb Helwani while he's not. I didn't ask for that. I'm just not.

No, no. I just feel like. I put my phone away. I thought people were concerned for my, for my well-being, but trust me. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know. I had nothing to say. I didn't know what to say.

I thought it was done. I was going to bed. About 3.30, I was like, right, it's over. This is going to be it. I think Kenny Atkinson did too. He fell asleep at some point. I will admit, there was a moment where I was like, should I just, why am I putting myself through this?

Landry comes in. I'm like, and you know, my boy loves Landry. That's his favorite player. My son, and he's like, yes, here he comes. Like, that's his guy. And then he does this. He gets an offensive foul. He hits a three.

And then he does all these other little things. And he's like, I told you. I told you. Let me tell you something. One of my favorite memories as a kid, one of my favorite, favorite memories, A memory that I'll never, ever, ever forget is game six of the 1994 NBA finals. Nick's Rockets, we're up three, two.

We go to Houston. It's a Sunday night game. And I'm in sixth grade, same age as my middle son. I tell my dad, who does not give two craps about sports, doesn't watch anything. Immigrant from Egypt has no interest in any type of sporting event, watching a sporting event, playing in a sporting event, nothing.

Doesn't hate on it, just doesn't watch it, doesn't want to partake, is not interested in it. And I remember telling him, the Knicks are going to be champions tonight. They're actually going to win the NBA finals all these years of heartbreak. They haven't won since 1973. I was obsessed with him. And he sat there and watched the whole game with me. And it ended with a John Stark's block three-pointer, Hakeem Olajuwon,

Ewing was open in the paint. He didn't pass to him. He went for the win. They're down to, man. And I remember us being quiet. And I remember him getting up and him saying, like, it's okay, they'll win the last one. Because it was game seven. and I explained it all to him.

And so to now be in that position all these years later with two boys who are as into it as I am going crazy around the same age as I am, it just makes it so much more emotional. Like 1994 was what? 22 years ago, am I right? 32 years ago. 32 years ago. Yes, 32. Holy shit. And so to be in this position and react to these things with now two clones, it's spiritual.

I hate to say it. I was talking to my mom about this, about the Canadians, because I feel like Montreal has been divided. And it's the same with fighting as well on sports and what we try to be for people. Sports is the ultimate unifier, and it's spiritual. Look at the scenes in Arsenal, in North London yesterday, for Arsenal. Look at those scenes. Look at what those scenes will be when hopefully Spurs stay up on Sunday. It is spiritual.

It is, if you don't understand it, and that's why I love this thing that I'm doing with the Premier League, because it's not just sports. It really isn't. That was something I'll never forget. I couldn't go to sleep, guys. There's no better. I was Daniel Cormier. I slept right away.

I was the Daniel Cormier meme. You know the one? Scrolling? No, like you're in bed. Yeah, looking at the phone with the glow. And every single highlight, I'm rewatching it, every single moment. Gosh. The Bridget one was insane when the clock was running out and he just torn hit the three.

I was like, there's no fucking ways in this. Yeah. Unbelievable. Oh, my God. Mikkel Bridges has the confidence of the Mikkel Bridges that we saw in like 2021. Also, he had a corner three. Anyway, I don't want to relive it all.

No, no, let's go play by place. Hopefully when they make it to the finals, if we'll all be on the same page for that one. And yes, I know they'll be. I will not be. No, you'll be rooting against them. I will be rooting against them, but I kind of know how this goes.

Well, you know, just about that James Hardin or didn't they? That's right. I don't know if it would be a fair fight anymore at this point. Yeah, Piztie, you're probably loving this, right? Fucking Hardin, as usual. You know what I mean? I still don't understand where the heart and hatred developed,

but it is funny that Petey so hates him so much. Oh my gosh. What a time. By the way, congratulations to the Arsenal fans out there. I actually really like the Arsenal fans. I don't mind them. They're a little bit hoity-toity, right, Pizzi? Like, they're a little bit entitled,

even though they haven't wanted anything in, what, 22 years? But I thought this was nice. The scenes were, like, you know, that's the way you want to see them celebrate. And I think they just hit a bit of a bad patch during the season because they were in everything. They were complaining a lot, obviously, with city gaining on them, but, like, I was listening to a fan speak about it

on second captain's day. He's from North London. He lives around there, and they were asking him what the scenes are like. He's like, I could only compare it to the fall of a dictatorship or something. Like, it was like some massive moment that happened in North London. So everyone seemed to congregate around the stadium there.

So, yeah, great to see it. Happy for Frank Warren, happy for KSI, all those fans, they seem to be true fans. Actually, Dakota Ditcheva's manager, Azhar Muhammad Saul, sent me this message. He just dropped this in the WhatsApp to me. A conversation that we had with Dakota, who is obviously a noted Man City fan.

He dropped this clip from our show from back in January. Take a look. Do you think you guys catch Arsenal? Yes. Yeah. I think so, too. You know what Arsenal are like at the end? My manager's going to hate watching this.

Botlers, right? The absolute biggest butlers of all time. Bottlers no more. He kept... Yo, did you see... There was this meme throughout there kind of like as they were kind of hitting this calamitous spell where city were going on them.

And there was this dude, this city fan who would carry around this arsenal bottle full of their tears or whatever. And he'd start, like, you know, they're bottling it, basically. Man, that dude, every game he's in the city stand watching them he's watching them lose the born with and the fucking camera just fixed on him imagine being that dude you made your whole gimmick about arsenal bottling it and then the cameras on you a city inevitably bottling it

yes and the scenes of pep with his books walking down the street all sad i don't know if you saw that uh but there's some great imagery out there there's some fantastic imagery and now they have a chance to uh to actually pull off what would it be the the double not the double What would you call it? The brace? Be a double, yeah. Would it be the double? Went to Champions League next weekend, right? Now they have a chance to win Champions League as well.

I mean, they could erase all that bottling mojo in one fell swoop. How are we feeling on air, Jordan, about Spurs? How are we feeling? I think that question really should go to Pee T's dad. Pee's dad? How are you feeling, sir? Wait, that it won't even watch the play at the moment. And I'm bringing him to make him sit there and watch this final game.

Like, you know, he goes to the shop last. night as the Chelsea match is on. Like, you just can't, he can't sit there and watch it. He's like calling me, what's happening now? All right, it's free kick that. All right, go ahead, yeah. I'm just going to stay on the phone for a minute. Like, just making me talk him through the match as he wanders aimlessly around the local supermarket

pretending he has something better to do. I am nervous for him on Sunday because, again, for those that don't know, you will be in attendance. You will be at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. And if anyone sees Pizzi and Mr. Carroll in attendance, give him a hug. Give him a hug. You're all in it together, man. You may see one of the greatest moments in Spurs history. I hope you don't see the opposite.

You do know the last. You know, man, imagine this. We went from winning Europa League to maybe not being in the Prem in a year. It's fine. It's fine. Well, one good almond, Jordan, is that my dad and me watch that Europa League final together because obviously I'm in Manchester Noe fan. And Spores won.

So I'm hoping I will bring a similar kind of energy to this situation. But, man, it's like, as you're saying, the scenes around London. I was kind of hoping that Arsenal would win that day, so you're in North London. Hopefully Spurs stay up, Arsenal win. Everybody's happy. But like the other thing about it is I'm in London, West Ham or Spurs have to go. It's going to be a scene of jubilation and a scene of absolute devastation for either of these clubs and probably going to see a lot of the fans as I'm going around London on Sunday. So crazy times. Well, if only you can call up a certain WWE superstar and have them curse West Ham, because

because I believe this is actually a real thing. Are you aware of this PT what's happening here with this Danhausen fellow? I have seen some of this Danhausen guys. Dadhausen has cursed the Cleveland Cavaliers, and I'd like to ask New York, Rick, how he feels about this. He went on ESPN yesterday. He said, I'm cursing the Cleveland Cavaliers,

and I'm rolling my eyes about all of this. It's a little bit funky, like, what does this have to do with anything? But this cannot be working out better for WWE, SPN and Danhausen himself because there he is on the court before the game holding up the Knicks Danhaus jersey. I don't even think he lives in New York. I think they're just flying him out here to do this. He looks like that.

Imagine you're just some guy sitting in the stands waiting for the game to start and you're like, who's this guy dressed as Dracula holding up a Knicks jersey? And then, of course, he takes to Twitter, as they say, after the victory. And he says this. Dan Housen told you the curse was real. We did it. Dan Housin has cursed the cavaliers The Knicks have won

And Danhausen is one And now his old Hot side seats In between Timothy Chamelay's And Kylie Jenner Yes, that's right And then the curse will continue Rick, how do you feel about this curse?

You have to go back further What you didn't stay Is that previously the Knicks were cursed That's right Stephen A Smith and Danhousen were going back and forth And he cursed the Knicks And then that's when C.J. McCollum was doing his thing against the Knicks

That's right. Now it has shifted to the Cleveland Cavaliers. The power of Danhausen is impressive. I don't believe in the Cavaliers, but I do believe in Danhausen. It is a remarkable thing how poorly his debut, like, went off, and how amazing everything has gone since then. What happened in his debut? Oh, well, they built up this, you remember they built up. Oh, he was in the box.

And then he came out and it was a bit of like an underwhelming reveal. But he's been incredible. Every single thing since then has been like a 15 out of 10. Unbelievable. They've hit on everything. Including this. Ultimately, did he really curses him?

No. Yes, of course he did. What are you talking about? Hang on, can we, I'm not real in this. Can we talk to him about Weston? Can we have a word?

That's what I'm saying. If I was a sports team out there, I would be calling Danhausen, yes. This could be a whole other lane for him. All he needs is American monies. You pay him American monies and it's all good. He's playing a character, but in his head,

breaking K-fabe when that was happening. He must have been like, holy shit, I cannot believe how well this is going. I think his first thought was, I cannot believe this. I think he was just like, I'm about to make so much fucking money,

like as soon as they start calling. Without even wrestling. Also, Pete, speaking of making money, if you wanted to do an emotional hedge or your pops wanted to do an emotional hedge, taught him to get relegated is plus 475. Oh, you can't do that. You can't do that.

I'm just saying, like, it's just like, I personally don't think you even have to worry. I think it's going to be great on Saturday for you and your pops or on Sunday. But, yeah, just saying it's awesome. You're three bites of the cherry. This is as me, dad, put it there yesterday, on the phone, of course,

because he could no longer sit, down and watch the fucking game. He rings me and he goes, this is the way I see it. You know, we can win, we can draw, we can lose once they don't win.

We have three bites of the cherry. And I was like, all right, and he goes, but if anyone could fuck this up, and I was like, don't, don't even go there.

Don't even go there. He's calling on the supernatural as well. He's talking about hooking up with long-lost cousins and he thinks the love that he'll feel from these experience will somehow extend itself onto the pitch. So Dan Hewzen,

completely in the orbit of the Carol consciousness right now, I can assure you. I bet we could reach Danhausen if your dad wants to have a chat. Oh, he tweeted me after I said, I said, like I wasn't really a believer in all of this, but please keep this going, Danhausen. If this, could you imagine, let me just tell you something, if they do pull it off, and I know the cards are stacked against him and all this stuff.

But like the aura that this guy will have in the city of New York, put him in the fucking parade. Well, he would have to. Danhausen on one of the floats. They've got to give him cards to seats, right? They have to do it. He was there, but they're going to have to curse the, he has to curse their, opponent in the Western because right now all he did was curse the Cavs.

No, no, no, I'm saying, imagine if the Knicks win at all. No, I know what you're saying, but I'm saying he didn't curse the... Sure, sure, sure, one curse at a time. It's a, he's an anti. He's not saying the Knicks, he's not exalting the Knicks, although he is wearing the jersey. He has cursed the Cavaliers. What you need is next round when the Thunder or Spurs

win for Danhausen to be paid off to then curse them. I'll pay him off. I bet you Knicks fans would all... Oh, they would go fund me in a heartbeat. We'll do anything. You know whose fault this is? This is the Mizz's fault. He's a Cleveland guy.

Because he has a feud with his. So he's trying to get back in. By the way, Pizzi, three bites of the cherry is the expression over there? I don't know, man. He's that to me. We call it the apple just because I'm thinking like a cherry's pretty small. That's a one-biter, like, no matter what. I mean, two max.

Two max. We rationed food very well. Yeah, now for Pizzi's that. He's watching his caloric deficit. Very well played Pizzi. It's fun. If only you had a. winger number uh maybe i don't know a 22 flying down the sides there you know you know fucking

right a good goal you know if why'd they get rid of them i don't get it why'd they get rid of them everything went to shits for them after they got rid of brennan johnson uh anyway like a good team on paper right you have a good team on paper i don't understand it like give a like a center hofster to play for most teams in the in the premier league defenders saving grace is that james madison is back and you know he's been out for nearly a year with an acel injury and we're relying on that guy to save the season. He has 25 minutes on him, right? That's all he has along.

Get every single second you can. The off-season's long. In any event, it was an amazing night. There was one moment. What makes it all that much better is that the Knicks have really embraced their legends, and my favorite athlete of all time is Patrick Ewing, and he's sitting there, and my kids find his attire very funny because he kind of dresses like an older guy with the hat and the shirt and all that stuff.

And at one moment, Landry hits a three, I think, and they show. Pat, Pat doesn't even get up. His knees are so beat up. He can't even stand. And I was like, yes, Patrick. This is for you, Patrick. And my kids are like, he's like, they're like, oh, Unc just tapped into his youth there with that scream.

Jesus, I yelled so loud that the alarm went off in our house. Are you just Unk? Now, like, that's all they call you? They call me Unk, yeah. Just Unk. Is that just to be like, you old ass? 100%. How old did you go?

No, dad at all? Just Unk. Wife came down. like, what's going on here? It's the greatest comeback. Can you keep it down? Claire's sleeping. No, I can't keep it down.

Wake her up. I'm trying. I'm trying. Yes, I am full on unct to them. Even in our group chat, I spell people PPL. And they think that I'm trying to do that to be cool. Since when did PPL, I'm just trying to write. It's not.

It's not. You never drop PPL to any of those thought you were definitely trying to be cool. I'm not trying to be cool. I hit them with an H. an LK didn't go off well. Yeah.

No, I had to explain what a man. Shit, it did it. Me and my brother had a phase in our teenage,

early teenage years where we called our dad Big Dog or by his first name, Wendell? Never called him dad. Wendell's an amazing name, by the way.

I love names that start with W. I don't know how I'd feel with that. I'm cool with Big Dog. Yeah. With U. first name,

I don't know about that. What? With that. It wasn't a long- loft. If your kids, Rick, if your kids called you

Eric, you'd be okay with that. Think about how cool it is when Arnold Allen's talking about Pacer. You know, like, it's like, it's cool. It can be. My nieces and nephews, the nickname is Uncle C. They think it's hilarious to call me Connor. They think they're like breaking the rules by doing that.

I'm just like, it's all good. I would think it's weird because my kids don't call me that and have not called me that. If they all of a sudden switch to it, it feel weird. But I'm down for it. It's all good. Yeah, the chat is telling me, by the way, that PPL is okay. I'm fine with PPL. Sheldaladsda.

Screenshot, that, show de ladsda. Number two. Yeah, I'm sure they're going to love that. Oh. No, I don't do that. That's crazy. That's crazy. That's too much.

But PPL is old school, if you ask me. Can I tell you? This is like old school texting. My name to my friends is shaft after the black detective movie. Oh, wow. God, that's one of my favorite movies of all time. You know who's in that movie, by the way? Isaac Hayes.

Yeah, yeah. Of course. A.k. Ade Ola Depot. I thought you were going to say that... I actually saw the movie and thought how they got into acting. That's right. I thought you were going to say the Sam Jackson remake one.

The reason why they did this is because he bought, he used car once and it was a small Ford Fiesta, but it was purple. Like the guy had in the film, so they just called him shaft all the time. Oh, my. He's still saved him my phone as shaft. Like all these years later. Wait, he's in your phone? A shaft? Wow.

Yeah. That's incredible. Holy shit. That is incredible. I never knew that. Shout out to Shaft. Shout out to sports. Shout out to everyone. Shout out to the legends. If they do it and those guys get a ring or something, I would, I don't know what I would do myself. And shout out to the Arsenal fans. I am happy for you guys. Congratulations. Those scenes were actually pretty amazing. So well done. Congratulations. Okay, we haven't even talked about today's show because there's just so much going on in our lives. I do want to tell you who's going to be on today's program. In about six minutes time, we're going to be joined by the CEO. of most valuable promotions, co-founder of MVP as well. You may have heard about MVP over the last few days. Quite the topic of discussion. Golly. Anyway, Nikisa Bedarian is going to come on to talk to us about, obviously, their debut on Netflix as far as MMA is concerned. It has come and gone. And just as we were wrapping up yesterday's program, we found out how it did. In short, over 12.4 million viewers on average tuned in. It peaked at 17 million. That's globally in the United States alone.

It averaged 9.3 million. It peaked at 11.6 million during the main event. 410 million impressions across MVP's social channels and a live gate of about 2.2 million. So we're going to talk to Nikisa Bidarian about all of that and more. He'll join us at about 130. After that, we're going to be joined by Alastair Overeem, our old friend, the Ream, just actually celebrated his birthday two days ago. And some of you may recall that 16 years ago on this program, we celebrated his birthday. It was actually amazingly in this building on this floor. It was called a different show at the time. The MMAR.

By the way, speaking of the MMA hour, to all the people out there on Twitter, I don't care if you clip off the show. I really don't. Clip off all you want. I never report it. Do what you want. But could we get the name right? Like, you guys keep calling at the MMA hour. I feel like it's deliberate at this point.

I feel like you're actually doing it on purpose. It's called the Ariel Hawani show. The website is called on Crown. We are in partnership with Yahoo Sports. Why are we playing around with this? You're not helping yourself here. They're going to just doble down now. Damn, man.

You shouldn't have said it. Actually, the funniest part about that is when we were doing the MMA hour, people would casually be like, oh, yeah, I'm going on Ariel today. I'm doing Ariel show. wouldn't call it the MMA hour. Now it's actually the area of Hohuanishu and they call it the MMAO. It's a weird thing. I saw it a lot yesterday for some reason and there's no, like if you just even look at the clip, it doesn't even say the M.M.A. In any event, Al-Star O'Rean's going to

join us. Why? Because he's in Egypt ahead of that big Riko Verhoeven versus Olegander Usoc fight, or maybe it's Usoc versus Verhuvan, which is now just three short days away. So stay tuned for that. Nico Ali Walsh is going to join us as well. He is the grandson of, of, you know, he is the grandson of of Muhammad Ali. And he has been trying to fight the battle of keeping the Ali Act intact. He was at the Senate hearing just a few weeks ago, fighting on behalf of it. He's a boxer in his own right. And I'm really looking forward to having him in.

And then we will round out today's interviews with Pumi and Kuta or Nakuta, excuse me, Pumi and Kuta, Nakuta, Ghali, Turbo, who fought on Saturday on the MVP card. And I think should have won that fight against Adrianna Marais, but unfortunately did not win the fight. He went for it in the final seconds, probably didn't need to, and then eventually got submitted. We had Herb Dean on the show on Monday talking about the decision to call it a tactical sub and not go to the scorecards, a crazy turn of events for a guy who has been scratching and clawing his way to a fight like this. He has wanted an opportunity like this. He has never gotten an opportunity like this. was undefeated heading into this fight and now is trying to figure out where he goes from here.

By the way, he's also a pro wrestler. He wrestles for House of Glory, which our own Jason Solomon, new episode of Uncrown Wrestling. The Uncrown Wrestling show is out right now, wherever you get your podcast. The Solomaster is actually the commissioner of House of Glory, and Pumee wrestles for them, including this weekend. How about that? So yesterday I was listening to the Uncrown Wrestling show on my way home, which is a a tremendous listen. And Solomonsters talking all about this fight. I'm like, why is he talking

about the Pumi Nakuta fight? And then all of a sudden, come to find out, Pumi actually wrestles for House of Glory. How about that? It's a crazy thing. So that's our show. In case you're wondering, no OTN today, because it was yesterday. We had OTN yesterday. We had a, you know, a late scratch. I did see Ryan Garcia at the the Knicks game. He seemed to be okay. Miraculous recovery, thank God. Yeah. I saw him going back and forth with our boy Canobio there. Anyway, I hope he's feeling better and hopefully one of these days we can touch base with him. By the way, I did want to mention speaking of that Rico Verhoeven versus Alexander Usik fight, we saw yesterday that the WBC, and this is pertinent to Nico Ali Wall.

they are introducing a title. They are bringing out a title, a new title for this. And so when they go to these hearings that they talk about, there's like 900 titles out there, a lot of them, a percentage of them, are these sort of ceremonial belts, which are funky, no doubt about it, and unnecessary, in my opinion.

But the WBC in particular likes to do it. Anyway, for this particular fight that is happening over in Egypt, in front of the pyramids, they are introducing a space, special edition, a commemorative belt, if you will. Here's Maricio Suleiman talking about it all. Well, this is the King of the Nile belt for the historic night at the pyramids of Egypt. First time ever, and perhaps only time we were going to see an event like this happen.

And it has all the elements from the eye in the sky and everything that has to do with the history. of this rich country, millennial country of Egypt. Psy, your thoughts on the King of the Nile Belt? A lot of bollocks, let's be honest. That is. It looks like a child's project. Like, they're doing Egypt in school and like, I made this.

Look at all the hieroglyphs on it, mate. Why do they keep doing this with these belts? I don't know. I don't know. They're not doing themselves any favors in the city. No. Also, those belts aren't cheap. I'm not saying they cost like, you know, $5,000.

I reckon Turkey has a few quit. Yeah, that's true. That's true. It's all very weird. It's all very weird because on the one hand, he's in business with Zufa Boxing, who wants nothing to do with these people. And then on the other hand, they're promoting this event in which extra belts are being made to commemorate the event. In any event, there you have it. And we'll talk to Alster Overeem about it all in about 30 minutes time. All right, let's kick things off as far as our interviews are concerned.

And very excited to talk to this man. at a very busy week last week in Los Angeles. Obviously a busy Saturday night as well, the very first MVP MMA event, period, the very first MMA event on Netflix, the very first MVP MMA event on Netflix. And it has been the source of a lot of chatter ever since. All throughout Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday,

and still, till this day, mid-Wendnesday, May 20th, people are still hotly debating this thing. It's unbelievable. the vitriol, the takes, the debates, the division, the pros, the cons, all that and more. Let's talk to the man who put it on, as well as his partner, Jake Paul, Mr. Nikisa Badarian. Kind enough to join us right here and now. Hello, Nikisa. How are you?

It's great to have you back on the show. Can I just ask off the bat? And congratulations to you and the whole team, of course, and we'll get into the numbers and the success of the show and all that stuff. Are you surprised at all the chatter? Because you have put on events that have generated chatter. I don't know if it's created this kind of division. Maybe I'm a prisoner of the moment.

Are you surprised at how much chatter, how much debate your event on Saturday generated? Well, good to see you, Ariel, and thank you for having me. Not surprised given where MMA started, right? I always speak to this within our team, with our partners. MMA started on the internet because it wasn't embraced in traditional media. and as such I still think there's a very consistent online audience that debates every single thing, good, bad, and different about the sport on X, on social media. And so not surprised.

And I think it just means that we had great impact, right? If it was something that just didn't land, there would be no discussion. But it landed pretty well. Do you view all chatter as good chatter? Or do you get worked up when you feel like certain things are being paid in? in a certain light that you don't agree with? I don't get worked up. Some of the things I find ridiculous, right?

My wife said to me, she saw a comment where said MVP had Photoshopped fans into the stands in their photos. And it's just like, how moronic do you have to be to think that's what's happening? That, yes, we're partners with Netflix and we're photoshopping fans in the seats to make it seem like it was busier than it was. That kind of stuff just kind of makes you pause and realize there's a lot of not too intelligent people in the world. By the way, speaking of that, not necessarily where I was going to start, but since you brought it up, how do you feel? Because I will be honest, I kept seeing people say

there's no one in the stands, and I was there, and I saw a ton of people. I saw it full by the time the main event happened, but I did go and watch it afterwards, and those lights on the seats do create an illusion where it seems like no one is sitting in the seat. In retrospect, do you, and to be clear, that's an Intuit Dome thing. That's not a U thing or a Netflix thing. I don't even know if you can turn those off or if it's a part of the show. You definitely can turn them off,

but I mean, I think the cinematography that it creates is much more important than people without knowledge of what's actually happening in venue talking about there's no fans there. That doesn't bother us. The reality is we sold about 11,300 tickets over $2.2 million in gate.

And we had veterans and different police force fire firemen in attendance as well. If you look at Rhonda's first event at the Honda Center, I think the gate was $1.2 million, right? The first ever UFC women's headlined event did $1.2 million. We did $2.2 million for the first ever MVP MMA event with Ronda Rousey, who people were saying is way past her prime with Gina Karano, who people are saying is way past her prime.

With Francis Nangano, who people are saying, he doesn't sell. With Nate Diaz saying he's way past his relevancy. We're very happy with the outcome on the live gate side. Okay. Let's talk about the numbers, because those were the ones that everyone was waiting on. We got them yesterday afternoon. In short, I read them at the top of the show. There's the graphic, courtesy of you guys over at MVP, over 12.4 million viewers on average

around the world tune in live on NetFlow. The viewership peaked at almost 17 million during the main event in the U.S. alone, 9.3 million viewers on average peaking at 11.6 million viewers during the main event. Your reaction when you got the news of these numbers? Delighted, particularly with the averages, right? To average over 9 million viewers in the U.S. alone for the triple main event is pretty remarkable. Going into it, both Jake and I were kind of landing on. on 20 million as peak viewership. So we got close. We didn't quite hit it, but it was the first time that we're doing this on Netflix.

In a space where there's a clear number one brand in UFC, right? When you have these big events in boxing, it's never brand driven. It's fighter driven. Here we came into a sport where there is an NFL within that sport, and that's the UFC. And we were able to perform as well, if not better than anything they've ever done on U.S.

television and that that is very satisfying there's a case to be made if the if the main event goes into the second round you you know very well could have hit that 20 million number what was your reaction when you saw it last just 17 seconds ronda's back right like the the fact that people are speaking about oh that must have been fixed how did that happen one you definitely don't know the history of ronda rousey two if you're going to fix something you certainly wouldn't do it till that 17 seconds. And three, it just speaks to the beauty of the sport and the unexpected. Of course, ourselves and Netflix would have liked the fights to last a little bit longer at that point. That only builds viewership. But that's the, you know, that's the unexpected nature of

anything that can happen within MMA. And that's a wonderful thing. And that's what keeps fans on the edge of their seats. I saw a clip from someone who I respect very much, veteran of the broadcast game, Jim Rome, use words like circus. spectacle, you played everyone, talking about Gina and Rhonda in particular, work the system. I'm wondering if you saw that clip in particular and other chatter like that where it seemed like people were very upset with how that fight played out. I didn't, but I guess, you know, Connor McGregor worked the system when he beat Josealdo as quickly as he did.

Or Ronda Rousey, when her three other finishes under 35 seconds, worked the system. Or when a fighter comes out and knocks someone out in boxing in one round, I guess they work the system. It just speaks to a lack of understanding of the sport. Similar to I think I saw some some blurb about Mark Shapiro saying, oh yeah, not good for the sport. We knew it wouldn't last 20 seconds. The entire UFC Ronda Rousey train was built on quick finishes, right? She was the biggest pay-per-view star in the sport based on quick finishes. UFC offered her a certain amount of money to do the fight. It just wasn't enough. They didn't want to hit the market. They didn't want to hit the profile. But to come out and say bad for the sport, what's bad for the sport is not paying the

fighters. What's bad for the sport is not paying attention enough to give Connor McGregor his due moment after five years of not being in the cage in the octagon and you announce them on an Instagram live. That's bad for the sport. Not what we did. What we did is tremendous for the sport. Were you surprised when you heard his comments and the way he painted it? We've heard the backstory from Rhonda, from you, from a lot of other people involved. he essentially said we weren't interested. We had a chat about it and we passed because we didn't think that this was the best representation of the sport. We're in the weekly MMA business and I'm paraphrasing, but that's the general sentiment. Were you surprised that he that he positioned it that

way? No, I mean, he's talking to an audience that's not sophisticated when it comes to the fight game and he's selling a narrative for his investors because he's worried about the stock price, which he has share ownership in. So that doesn't surprise me. I think in some ways it's expected. I would also say we are not in competition with the UFC. That was our first event. Judge us versus Zufa 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Judge us versus UFC 30 in Atlantic City, which was the first event that Dana White oversaw as, you know, the president of the UFC. We're four and a half years in. That was our first MMA event. Tell me another organization who's entered a sport with a strong existing player and delivered what we did with Netflix.

and the fighters, no one. Look at NFL. The Rock is a pretty globally world-renowned athlete celebrity influencer. He created the XFL. The XFL's peak viewership in its history was on ABC, I think, at 2.3 million. So I think that's like 15% of the average viewership of an NFL game, of a standard NFL game. the Fox broadcast of the Tom Brady flag football, which is something that I think has a lot of legs, flat football as a sport. But they had Tom Brady, 30 other current and former NFL athletes, massive influencers like I Show Speed, a crossover star in Logan Paul, and they delivered 650,000 viewers on a Fox broadcast television airing.

So whether we are the same slightly below or slightly above anything UFC has ever done in the U.S., just that we're in that vicinity is very impressive. Of course, now the onus is on us to show that it's repeatable and can become consistent. But we're not fools. We're not in competition with the 800-pound gorilla that's the UFC. But do we believe there's a path for us to become a relevant player within MMA? Of course. So let's stay there if we can.

I asked you this a million times leading up to it. If it's one and done or you're going to keep on keeping on with MMA. And you did seem towards the end, as we got closer to fight night, suggest that you're in the MMA business, but also did say that a lot of it hinged on how Saturday night did. And so now can you definitively say on the Wednesday after the event, MVP is in the MMA business? 100% MVP is in the MMA business.

There is a clear opportunity to create an alternative. avenue for fighters that truly represents the best of the sport and as fighters first. Our hope is that's with our partners at Netflix, but we've been very fortunate with the outreach we've gotten around what we did and what we accomplished and what we delivered, and we're now looking at all strategic alternatives to implement our strategy. And so when you say that, because I read the press release, obviously, and the last line really caught my attention. 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, as opposed to with Netflix. And so as of right now, would it be fair to say you don't have that commitment from Netflix to say, hey, we're in this with you guys. We're going to do it for X amount of shows for the next X amount of games. We haven't even had the discussion yet, to be honest, right? We're long-term partners with Netflix. We've done things that are unimaginable for a company of our size. Paul Tyson is the most streamed sporting event in the history of the world.

Paul Tyson is the most viewed boxing events since the days of Muhammad Ali. We then did Taylor Serrano, three all women's card. Most viewed women's MMA for boxing card in history. Jake Joshua, 33 million viewers. And now to do this and set a record in the U.S., there's obviously great synergies between our organizations. Some people will say, well, sure, it's on Netflix. Of course it's going to do great. I would point them to one, Netflix is amazing, two, greatest platform.

But it has to be more than that. Netflix had the season opener for a major league baseball with the New York Yankees and the Giants. Amazing big market teams. Look at that viewership. It was great. It was three million viewers. Similar to what NBC Peacock did that week and not a record breaking at the office. So it's not just, hey, put it on Netflix and it does great.

there has to be great storytelling. There has to be a compelling product. And I believe our partnership is very unique in its ability to make outstanding things happen. I recognize this is a more fair question to ask to a Netflix executive. But since you are here, what could you tell us about their reaction to the numbers and their interest in MMA going forward? I think one, everyone was super excited by how the night unfolded and seeing the engagement of the fans, the excitement of the different finishes that were happening, and the pace of activity throughout the night. So I think we all really enjoyed it. And for me, I hadn't been to

an MMA event. A, as an employee of the UFC, my last event was our first New York event, right, Connor McGregor Eddie Alvarez. And as a fan, I went to the Connor McGregor-Kabeeb fight, hadn't been to an MMA event of that scale since. So it was great to sit there and really take it all in. And having been ingrained in boxing now for four and a half years, reminding myself that close up, how different the two sports are in good and bad, bad ways on both sides. And I think on a post-event basis, of course Netflix is happy.

How can you not be, right? Again, to enter a sport with a unknown brand in MVP MMA, bringing back fighters that obviously have equity value, but in many people's eyes, not premium top tier fighters. You know, the question is, if you put the White House card on Netflix, does it do as well as what we did on Saturday night? I don't believe it does because I think the magic of it was with the names that we had, with the partnership of MVP and Netflix, that's what made it so powerful. And I think they're very happy with the outcome. As you know, Netflix is, you know, their thought process when it comes to live sports is they want big events, right? They have the opening day for MLB,

home run derby, the field of dreams. They're not doing a package of 50-something games. Same with fighting, same with everything that they're doing right now. And so even if MVP MMA continues, and it sounds like it will, it probably can't just continue with Netflix, right? There has to be another player, just like your MVPW events are on ESPN and prior to that DeZone as well. And so what could you tell us about your strategy as of right now as far as how you would divvy this up? How many events per year, et cetera? I would say we're still working on it, but I will say similar to a WWE that's on Netflix every single week, I think for the right opportunity, the right product, there is the potential to do more than what you're saying.

Boxing is more difficult to own than MMA. I say own, obviously, UFC is the reference brand. They're going to be the reference brand for many years to come. But there's no true number two player. boxing there's six or seven of us putting on premium big events every single week so do i think that we could come in and take real share within the mma sphere yes do i believe that we can convince netflix to do it on a more regular basis than they've shown to do so with boxing i think if we have the product and we show them the path of how this can work and set expectations appropriately

and ask for the right amount of rights fees that are appropriate for that, my hope is that the answer is yes. But I will say there's Amazon, there's Fox, there's ESPN, there's definitely other outlets that once we present them this whole package and what we've done here, we'll have interest in what we're doing. In your opinion, what is that number? How many events could you, would you want to put on? I think it depends on the partner, right?

but if I look at Netflix, I would love to be in a situation to have 12 events a year, one per month, effectively, would be the ideal scenario. Do you feel like there are enough big names, stars, draws to put on that many events? I mean, is there enough big names, stars, draws to put on 42 UFC events? I'm asking the questions here, Nikisa, right? The UFC is the brand. Every event isn't going to be rousy corona, but it's about having a consistent. base that delivers a certain viewership number, right? The WWE delivers two and a half million views on Netflix every single week pretty consistently.

What can we do that delivers a consistent level of ratings that is appropriate for the investment that your distribution partner is making? That's kind of the math that we have to figure out collectively with our distribution partner. As I said at the top, a lot of people nitpicking everything. And I think to a degree this is all expected and healthy. This is what happens when someone comes into the space that is new. One of the things that was brought up was the matchmaking. These were one-sided fights.

These were squash matches, if you will. What is your response to the criticism of the matchmaking? I'll say there was some great fights on the card that didn't last one round. I will say that when you have extraordinary talents coming into the cage that unbelievable things can happen. Of course, the Ronda Gina outcome, for me, was very expected, right? That's what Ronda Rousey does. Now that I think that Gina Carrano could, you know, do something that would negate that? Absolutely.

There's a, there's a former MMA fighter who never, what's Matt Brown? Matt Brown was going into this fight saying a lot of negative things, but was very clear that Gina Carano was going to win. Post fight, very clear that it was all a hoax and this was, we were sold and Ronda Rousey was always going to do this. I have messages from Vitor Belfour, from Karate Hadi, from Dan Henderson. We've put them up saying Gina Karano was going to win. There was many within the MMA community that thought Gina was going to win. Rhonda just did what she's best at doing and implemented it and did it in 17 seconds and we got 17 million viewers. In terms of the

Nate and Mike fight, I think we all were surprised it stopped when it did and I would love to see that rematch. Francis against Philippe Lins was that one-sided? No, I thought it was a tough battle for Philippe and I thought he hung in there and, you know, Francis caught him with a perfect shot to the top of the head that resulted in that knockout. But I thought he performed very well. And then, you know, I look at the other two main fights on the card, Saladin versus Ken Cross.

Saladine's a special talent. And with JDS versus Big Boy Robles, that fight could have ended that way either way. It was about who caught who first, and Robles caught JDS. Earlier this morning, Mike Perry tweeted, they're really talking about this rematch, and I'm assuming the they is you guys.

And so what could you tell us about these quote-unquote talks? I think their respective teams have gotten the line that they would like to do it. I think from our perspective, we think that's a great headline event. We haven't advanced the ball more than that. I think Nate needs a little bit of time to recover, and then we'll get together and figure out what's the right strategy. But I think they both deserve that rematch.

I don't think Mike wanted the fight to end that way. Has anyone been signed post Saturday? Are there any fighters under contract with MVP MMA as of right now? No, but Namo Fazil seems to be. under contract with UFC post Saturday. So what do you make of that? Because I thought he was one of the stars of the week. I'll be honest.

Like press conference, he was incredible. Fight was incredible. Even the thing with the arm... I thought he was a little over the top of the press conference. Like parts were great, but parts were way too drawn out. Sure. He obviously is a charismatic guy. And to his team's credit, they told us he was that.

And I believed them. And that's why I ended up moving them to the main of the prelims. He delivered. Jake Babian delivered. And what I thought was remarkable was how calm, Namo was in that first round when he was obviously potentially in trouble with Jake on his back, but he never got nervous, right, never got out of sorts and fought his way out of it and obviously got the finish in the second round.

So I make of it that, listen, this guy obviously deserves a great opportunity. And if he wants to go to the UFC, we fully support that. But chase your dreams, make it happen. Okay. So there was no talk of that beforehand, though. Like, was that news to you or did you know about it? That would mean to me, yes. Okay.

What about Rhonda, though? Because I'll be honest, as I said to her, I want to see more of her. And you have a young lady fighting May 30th next weekend in El Paso, Texas, in the main event, in the sport of boxing, but who obviously has a history with her, Holly Home, Stephanie Hantu. It's going down next weekend. There it is on ESPN. And I'll ask you more about it in a moment. But, like, I said yesterday, I feel like Holly Home in the year of 2026. is actually in pole position for two mega fights,

if all goes well for her next Saturday. I would say three big fights. One is Kenny Taylor. Well, that's the, what's the third then? Gina Carano. Okay. Sheena Carano deserves a lot more than what happened last Saturday night, right? And going into this, I said this to the people closest to me,

my biggest fear for Gina was she'd worked so hard to get to where she'd gotten to, but she hadn't had the opportunity to work hard at where she'd gotten to. Right. So it was a process to re-transform back to the fighter that she was, but by the time she got there, it was a few weeks away from fight night. Now she's a fighter again. Give her a full camp as a fighter, not as someone who's becoming a fighter again. And I think you'll see who she really is,

and I hope she considers doing at least one more with us. In terms of Ronda, I think she's been very vocal, very clear, very transparent. This was one and done for her. We haven't heard anything different, nor am I aggressively trying to convince her differently because you never want money, for example, to be the reason someone does something. And I don't think that's how she's motivated at all. Will you try, though? At some point, will you try?

Will you bring it up to her? I've brought it up to her and she's told me she's not interested. So I've kind of left it at that. Now, maybe one day she wakes up and says, you know what, let's do this. Maybe she sees Holly home on May 30th, live on ESPN and says, I want to get that back. I don't know, but that's up to her. And so do you think, like, you know, I'm not taking this to the bank necessarily, won't hold you to it. But do you think Gina fights again?

I have no idea. I think she's really, in her own words, flies like a bird. and is free-spirited and will come to a perspective at some point. I believe she should. I believe the journey's not done. And by the way, how loved was she throughout this process? She captured so much attention, so many eyeballs that people were fascinated by her story, by her character, by her personality.

I hope that's not the last of Gina Carrano. Perfect world for you. When's the second event? obviously you know later this year early early next year and with regards to jake earlier in the week he tells us leaning towards maybe not fighting again being told probably being in his best interest and then of course he says 200 million for canello and now flirting with an mMA fight idea i saw you tweeting about it as well what do you make of the state of his career right now do you think he fights again a do you think he fights again this year so he he saw his done

Doctors on Wednesday, all very positive. They said sparring in like two months. And I said this post when he made the statement around maybe never fighting again, who knows what happens when he goes in the ring, right? Maybe he gets hit really hard and the jaw rebreaks or gets fractured and he has to take more time off. I made this example, I think to you, Connor hasn't fought for five years. It hasn't stopped the interest or the conversation. I wish they would have announced it on Monday,

given him his own big moment that he deserves and not on Instagram live. Like it's just some throwaway announcement. The biggest star in the sport is coming back, right? Like he could have a very, very well done return of Connor McGregor moment. Didn't happen for some reason. But going back to Jake, whether I expect him to fight at the end of this year. Absolutely.

But that's TBD. I don't know what happens when he gets hit in the face and sparring. That's the real tell. Did you view that IG announcement as a sort of tip of the cap? Like, hey, they're doing this because we're on. They're doing this because Francis is walking. I don't think any of that was a coincidence. Did you view that as a sort of sign of respect?

No, I viewed it as just confusing. Like, why would you do that during what is clearly a massive event in sports, not just in MMA, but in sports? like what is the what is the objective was it because you didn't want people to really pay attention to connor mcgregor coming back was there some criticism you were expecting because the opponent you know fights at 1 455 and connor's walking around at 185 like i don't is that honestly made no sense to me i expected it i saw all the chatter all week long and i was i felt bad for connor Like I'm so happy he's back.

He's, because that's the biggest personality the sport has ever had. The number one revenue driver the sport has ever had. So great for the business, great for UFC, great for fans. Give him his own moment. Give him a big announcement.

Have him there. Do a press conference. Do something. I didn't see the announcement. But what I'm told it was an Instagram live with like AirPods or Samsung. AirPods. I don't know. I think he has two fights left on his deal, that being one of two.

Do the wheel start turning there for you now that you're in the MMA business? If the day comes that Connor McGregor is a free agent, we will do everything in our power to work with him. And that's to work with him to do his own events. That's to work with him to fight Jake Paul in boxing and MMA. That's to try to make Connor McGregor and Nate Diaz and ensure they get the vast majority of the revenue. Conner's biggest payday of his career, by far, is fighting Floyd Mayweather. The one time he wasn't within the framework and pay system of his current employer.

I know he knows that, and I know he knows the power that he has as a brand, and I hope we're able to help him in that one day if and when he's a free agent. We're rounding third here, but I do want to ask you about what happened with Clarissa Shields and Alicia Baumgartner. A bit of an ugly scene, and MVP has since come out. and said that Clarissa is banned from attending MVP events. And not that long ago, you know, there were some talks about her fighting on an MVP card or, you know, being co-promoted or something like that. And so what could you tell us about what happened and the aftermath?

Is this a lifetime ban? Are you saying you don't want to ever work with Clarissa or is this something that can be fixed? What can you tell us about this? I would say we worked very hard to try to convince Clarissa to sign to MVP. And I think she was pretty open that we did a great job in terms of how we presented to her in terms of the opportunity. But, you know, she called me one day and said, I'm getting a $3 million offer to sign to Salida and win records. And I said, great. Like, I can't, I can't justify that number.

You should 100% do that. Congratulations. You've set a new bar for a signing bonus within women's sports. Since then, we've worked hard to develop a great relationship, and we've had very positive communication and personal meetings, just like great understanding between us. I had not talked to Clarissa since the Shadija Green fight. She reached out to me posted, but I thought she was very disrespectful in terms of the way that she was communicating online when a fighter that I cared deeply about, but just any fighter

was on the floor, on conscience, being rushed in an ambulance to the hospital and ultimately had a brain injury. That was not cool. And it really made me think maybe Clarissa and I've gotten too close. I didn't see Clarissa on Saturday night. I did hear about what happened after it happened. She was a guest of the event and she was a guest in a Netflix, Netflix, Netflix specific VIP invite-only area. And for that to happen, reflects poorly on MVP, reflects poorly on women's sports, on sports as a whole. And there's no doubt there was a back and forth conversation between her and Alicia.

But nobody raised a hand other than Clarissa. So for us, I would have hoped she would have come out with an apology, but she didn't. She actually text me that night and said, like, I had a great time. Thank you so much. I didn't respond. Confused that what had happened and that was that was the text that I had gotten. And I'm, you know, I'm disappointed that this is what has had to have happened. But if you're going to conduct yourself that way in a non-fight week setting, I've seen a lot of people be like, you didn't ban Mike Tyson when he slapped Jake Paul.

They're about to fight. No, we were not going to ban Mike Tyson. The commission may have. The commission may step in and say, you're going to get fined. But we certainly don't ban fighters for having animosity towards each other during fight week. That's why if you saw a release, it says there's a time and place for the banter and for the hostilities. At a press conference, even, right? Sometimes that's what helps all the fight.

There was no fight here. There was a bunch of celebrities, athletes, influencers, Netflix, executives, MVP employees. and something happened that shouldn't have happened. And I hope Clarissa takes responsibility for it. And there's a path to having her at our events again. You know, she's one of the greatest boxers of all time in terms of a talent. And it's a shame that this has transpired. Very last thing, May 30th, El Paso.

Why should people watch? It's for back-to-back world championships again. You have, you know, some of the, Top pound-for-pound athletes in the world in Amanda Serrano and Yocastabalaya fighting, you obviously have the rematch between Stephanie and Holly, and very likely the winner of that fight could be facing Katie Taylor. And you have Desley Robinson versus Mary Spencer also fighting for a belt. It's going to be action-packed, exciting, as you would expect for MVPW,

live on ESPN 9 p.m. Eastern Saturday, May 30th. A sold-out event, by the way, Ariel. out event. Really sold out or fake sold out? Like Photoshop sold out or real? 7,000 tickets. Something, look, we still have 460 tickets to sell, but it will be a fully sold out event. It's going to be an unbelievable environment. 44% of the ticket purchasers so far are women. Wow. I'm so proud of that. The fact that women are supporting this event and MVPW events, even Saturday night, there was a lot of women in that crowd. And that's part of our strategy is, yes, we want to meet the hardcore boxing fan or MMA fan,

but we also want to meet the women's sports fans, right? That's a whole different audience, and we feel like we have been making great progress in doing that. Well done. Thank you, Nekisa. Congratulations to you and the team. Appreciate it very much. Thank you very much.

Appreciate you. There he is. Nikisa Badarian, the CEO of Most Valuable Promotions, co-founder as well. Some good news if you are hoping that they stay in the MMA business. All right, let us move along to our next guest, joining us live. I do believe from Egypt's site of Saturday's mega event, if you will, a once in a lifetime event at the Pyramids. It's going to be Alexander Usik against Rico Verhuvian.

He knows a thing or two about Mr. Verhoeven. And oh, he's great to catch up with my old friend, the Ream. Is he there? The demolition man, Alistair, Overeem. Let us say hello to the man himself. Hello, Alistair. How are you? Here. How's everything? Good. See again, Ariel. My good old buddy. My old friend. And, uh, Alistair. Alaster, before we begin, I do have to say a happy belated birthday to you, just a couple of days ago, right? Thank you much.

46 years young. It's crazy. You know, I view time based on your birthday because your birthday was one of the most famous moments in the history of my show. Goodbye 20, Hello 30. 16 years ago you were on the program, Alistair, celebrating your birthday. We're getting old, aren't we? Time is flying. But this is that beautiful?

Look at this. Look at us. The birthday And look how skinny you were I know Alster Hey I mean you got skinny now too We've like I took your weight

And you became me Very true Very true Well it's great to see you And I hope life is treating you Are you actually in Egypt right now Yes We're not far away from the pyramids

And the lovely here I want to ask you about the event In a moment but just because I was talking to Nekisa, did you watch, you know, you're so tied to MMA. Did you watch that MVP MMA event on Netflix? I saw some of the fights, but I saw them replay. Any part of you look at that and say,

hmm, an alternative here, maybe I come out, maybe I fight, what do you think? Well, body feels great. I actually did a couple half marathons. And I actually read. Yeah, I liked it. I liked to kind of be in the line. I like to kind of perform again. I liked also the lead-up to the marathon,

which was, you know, you need to have your supplements on point, your recovery on point, your sleep. So, who knows? Let's take it easy. Let's go slow. Let's not forget, I am 46. But the landscape is interesting at the moment.

I have to admit. Do you get that itch? Do you start to get that feeling again, like you want to go through a training camp, you want to have a fight, something to work towards? Well, it does give energy. Training camps give energy, right? And not even the training camps, but also the target objective,

just to have like a target on the horizon. I've missed it, to be honest. But again, let's not go too quick. I did a couple half marathons. My body is feeling great. The time off was amazing. I actually found longevity. I've been pushing that, ice baths,

massage. yoga, the whole Shabang, body feels great. So who knows? Let's see what happened. Any chance you'll do a full marathon? No. Not at the moment. I'll get that done, but not right now.

Okay. You've become somewhat of a wellness guru, I feel like. Every time I see you doing something, it's something involving health and wellness. Is this like the main thing in your life right now? Well, I just found the longevity. and of course exercise is a huge part of it as well as well as the cold-and-cold plunges. There's so much to do on that field, right?

And to be honest, I did get completely motivated and very creative into this. So definitely is a passion of mine. But let's not forget, my career was very long, right, 25 years. So there was longevity. They were also applied there. And the time off of a fighting and also the injury which brought me out of fighting, which took me out of fighting, which kind of pushed me into the long-term. gravity sphere totally and yeah loving it enjoying it and there's a lot to do there as far as you being

in Egypt this weekend for this fight are you just there as a spectator are you an invited guest what is your position your role over there I'm actually an analyst because Rico is now venturing in the boxing world very exciting for this matchup first of all but of course the world doesn't know Rico. So I, of course, was scheduled to fight him on two or three occasions. So I'm there to give some backstone, Rico. What is he about? Where does he come from? What is his resume? The boxing will doesn't know him. And as you know, there's mention of a mismatch here. I think, personally, it is a beautiful match, even though people are not familiar with Rico, but I think him coming from the kickboxing world being a dominant.

champion for 12 years. I think this is a beautiful match and a beautiful test. And for both, both gentlemen, I think Rico is putting a lot on the line by fighting the best. And then Usik is also putting a lot on the line, although it is going to be on his terms. But I think it's an exciting matchup. And let's not forget, I did the same, right? I did the same 16 years ago. I went into the K-1 and I became champion. So miracles do exist. And let's see if Rico can pull that off. That was an incredible time. And by the way, I didn't know that you were going to be an analyst. This is a great thing.

So you'll be working on the DeZone broadcast? Yep. I love this. I mean, who better than you? Okay, this is tremendous. And so when you say beautiful, you don't often hear that term used to describe a fight. Do you say it's beautiful because you love the fact that he's getting this opportunity and Ussick's kind of testing himself?

Or is there something intriguing about the fight itself that makes you call it that? Well, it's what you just mentioned. Usik is giving him a chance. I believe he was first going to fight AJ. AJ had the accident, so that fight was off. So on the one hand, Rico has been a very dominant champion, so there's no more challenges for him in kickboxing. So he had to make a move, right?

He had to do something because the kind of kickboxing is, sorry to say, but it's a little bit finished. So he had to do something. And then the jump into MMA, I think being a kickboxing is very big. I believe he had a fight offered against Fresengan. I do not think that's a good idea for him. So what else he's then left, it would be the boxing. And let it be that he was training with the furious for 15 years, right?

That was why he excelled in the gay boxing in the first place. So he kind of knows a thing or two about boxing. He has the longstanding relationship with the coaches. Obviously, he's battle tested, he's doing it. So I think it's beautiful for him. I think there's not much to lose, right, only to gain. And he is venturing in a different world than a bigger world, right? Boxing world was huge.

Were you surprised that Ussick did this? The way I see Ussick is as a gigantic code breaker. So he's somebody who just decifers people and breaks codes. And he just sees Rikas, hey, this is like unknown code. A big gentleman, 1125KG, so there's like a weight advantage there. He is undefeated, so he's like a nice resume. And let's just see how I can break this code under these boxing rules set, given the, what is it, 10 rounds or 12 rounds.

And the X factor, I think, is what makes this fight beautiful, because Rico is, he is battle tested, motivation is good, but still there's an X factor. We have never seen a box. So I think that is the beauty of this fight. We're going to see how both fighters will step up the gear, how they'll make adjustments. Obviously, they're both coming to win. And there's more to lose for Usek, less to lose for Rico.

100%. I think it's over when you look at everything, it's cool. I have heard you say that you feel like to a degree Rico has nothing to lose, but would you not agree also that if he goes out there and gets, just saying, like embarrassed, outworked, outclassed, his stock does. go down. His aura does go down, right? He's been undefeated for so long, and he's hoping to still keep on fighting. This isn't a retirement fight. There is an element of you could potentially get, and I'm saying this is the worst case scenario. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but like

embarrassed by someone who is, in many people's eyes, including myself, the best pound for pound fighter in the world right now. So there's a big chance of him being embarrassed, but let's be honest, Ushik has embarrassed many fighters and outclass many fighters. So for him, for his first fight to be outclass by an Usik is not a shame. And actually people are expecting that. And that is his goal to kind of, of course, he's coming into this fight to win the fight. But even if he is able to just put on an exciting fight, he'll have done better than most. So again, there's nothing, there's no much to lose for him into this fight.

By the way, just as an aside, you've known him, as you said for so long, you were supposed to fight a couple times. I believe you've even trained together. You've had training camps together. why do you think i know what happened at the very end but even beforehand you were so big in in holland he was so big why did these fights never come to fruition um he went to do a movie at one point i got injured another point then i got totally injured i can then i retired from fighting what else happened and basically had timings missed because i was in the uc he was then doing the glory of him glory kickboxing so it was just a timing

anything. Okay. There was a time not that long ago where we heard that the UFC had offered him a deal to fight Derek Lewis. I know MVP offered him to fight Francis and Ghanu. How do you think he would do against these types of opponents in MMA? I think against Francis he would not make much of a chance just basically because he's missing the wrestling and the submissions. He's just not training that, right? And it takes years to develop that. And it shouldn't be underestimated and I think that he and his team have made a way of choice to going to stay out of MMA because you're not you're just not going to catch up with that years of experience just like that in a training camp and a Derek Lewis would be an interesting fight but and and at the moment the heavy division might be the heavyweight war also might be somewhat on the weaker side but still you're tied on in you see and yeah it wouldn't give him the

Flexibility. I think, you know, given Rico's resume, boxing was his best choice, right? He wants to go into the movies in a couple of years. He wants to make name for himself. Chances for him to get the UFC title, which was also given the path to the movies. It's slim because he just doesn't have the wrestling. Francis Engano is totally a no-go area to stay away from that. So then it's boxing, right, which I believe he's going to come over some moves. Peter Threatening with Peter Fury. training with the glitch goes so of a go with furies i'm sorry so it should be should be yeah should be very well prepared there's going to be a game plan cardio is going to be on point weight is on

point i'm excited for him so you think that he sticks around in boxing after this regardless of what happens yeah because it's also about the options how much options do you have it's not like he can, yeah, just go into, I mean, he could go into UC. And it would also be a very interesting path, but the success rate would be diminished. I'm curious about your take on him versus Francis. Do you think it's strictly because we have seen Francis at times use his wrestling, even though he is known as a striker? Like if they just stood and trade the whole time, as was, you know, the case in Francis's

last fight, do you think it's a different type of striking? Do you think that he would get worked by Francis in an MMA fight? but why would Francis stay keep it on the feet with Rico I don't know ego I don't know that's not what Francis is clever

he's just going to win the fight and it would not be a difficult fight okay so then as far as this so as far as this boxing match is concerned how do you see it playing out I think both fighters will feel each other out in the beginning

and try to set a rhythm set up patterns. And from there, it's all about the adjustments. How are they going to go into round two, round three, round four? At some moment, either or will accelerate. So it will be curious to see how they're going to deal with that, who's going to accelerate first, who's going to counter first. Usik being the smaller, the faster person,

very well around the right, softball orthodox. beautiful fighter yeah so I'm very excited to kind of see how it kind of progresses also from the coaching standpoint right both corners are also high level sure but you wouldn't be just to be clear

you wouldn't be surprised if Rico pulls off the upset I'm inclined 80% Ussick 20% of Rico I'm going to be realistic this is Ussick's playground Yes, there's a weight advantage for Rico, but this is Ux game. But again, as a fight fan, there's a plan to beat Ucic, right?

They're not going to go in there to lose. So to me, it's interesting to kind of see his game plan and how he executes the game plan to into this fight. It's so curious seeing someone at his level in kickboxing make the transition over to just boxing. Obviously, we know what kind of a kickboxer he is. do you think he will be, and he can't use those two big weapons, do you think we're going to see a different kind of Rico, a different style, a different pace to him because he's now competing in a different type of striking fight?

In other words, because the arsenal has now become a little bit more limited, we know who he is when he has the kicks to his advantage. We don't necessarily know who he is when he doesn't have the kicks. Do you think we're going to see anything different out of him? well and what we also don't know is because basically what Rico did was he used the boxing footwork, the boxing stances, the boxing fakes in the kickboxing ring and that is what gave him the victories in the kickboxing ring

what we have not seen is is Rico in a boxing fight with somebody who's doing all those facets better than him so to me as a fight fan yeah that's what I'm very enthusiastic about curious about also how it's going to do of that. Somebody who's faster who's kind of two steps ahead all the time. Yeah, and has the potential to totally outclass. Have you seen where the fights are going to be held? Have you had a look yet?

We drove by, so I saw the pyramids in the distance. And I had been there 25 years ago, so I kind of know the layout. I don't know the layout of the arena, right? I don't know what they're going to do with the seatings. and the walkout and the lights. But it's a beautiful location. Of course, Egypt, the pyramids, iconic. So very much looking forward to this weekend.

Right. Yeah. I can't wait to see what it looks like and how you'll be able to see the pyramids behind you. Like this, the whole location is so unique. Alster, prior, just a few minutes ago, you mentioned something about the state of the heavyweight division. You were fighting when it was the real heyday of the heavyweight division, right?

Between Pride and then the UFC Strike Force as well. do you have a theory as to why the heavyweight division is so lacking these days, why it's so shallow? Do you think it's just a cyclical thing or is there something else at play? It could be a cyclical thing because what we see now is we see that the boxing is kind of making a return, also with Saudi Arabia, but also just exciting fights, exciting names. And then in MMA, kind of it decreased. And kickboxing totally decreased. So it's kind of always between those three sports, right? So, yeah, I don't know.

You'll have to make a development. We'll have to do something. I mean, I don't see the sport dying out. You've seen it's done a great job elevating the sport. But something does need to be done to kind of make it exciting because you kind of do see that it's kind of becoming less. If we consider also Jones, right, also on the verge of he's already retired. Yeah, I know back in the days there were like 10, 15, 20 heavyweights and now there's maybe, yeah, four or five names.

So that's less. And they were all incredible, some of the best fighters pound for pound in the world. John and Francis continued to talk about each other. John's obviously contractually tied. Who do you think would win that fight at heavyweight? Very difficult to predict. At Trent of John four years, we were in the same room. We didn't really train.

Well, actually, sometimes we did. And super creative mind, super open, super, yeah, great mind. But then, you know, on the other side, you look at Francis and also just like a beast, right? Strong, last performance, impeccable, you know, just one touch and he just finishes the fight. So it's very difficult to gauge the winner of that fight. would love to see it yeah do you think we're going to see it

Ariel? No no not I just I just don't think they're going to let him leave I don't think they're going to co-promote he signed a very long-term deal six or so fights left what's in it for the UFC to let him go fight someone else

I guess there could be a scenario where a Netflix says here's 50 million dollars you let him cross the street for one fight but you know how they are. They're not going to do it. They only did it once with Connor McGregor, and it was a different time.

And so unfortunately, there's so much more flexibility in boxing, believe it or not. Everyone loves to talk about how splintered boxing is and how many issues there are, but if a fight really, really, really has like a lot of juice behind it

and there's a desire to make it happen, it happens. In our sport, it's not even a conversation, unfortunately. No, well, and it used to be better, but you see just kind of cornered off the market, right? Yeah. Ever on it.

Yeah, so it's a little bit frustrating. It's frustrating that these fights can happen. Can I ask, how do you think Alex Pereira is going to do moving up from 205 to heavyweight? That man is an enigma anyways, because, you know, he's a kickboxing. So, like, have we ever seen him on the ground? Yeah, a little bit on his back, but, like, is he even training on the ground? So he's a little bit of an X factor. You would, you know, looking at him from the beginning, I wouldn't give him any

wins but apparently he's winning. Like from the beginning, his entry into the UFC. He's not turning around. Like what ground skills does the man have? Doesn't have any ground skills. And now, of course, he's trained a little bit ground, but what, I mean,

like in my opinion, you need years of wrestling to kind of be able to deal with wrestlers from UFC and he's just going in there, six months camp. Okay, we had the feud with Adasania. Yeah, but, not really tested on the ground, I think.

Wow, so all of this has surprised you. This legendary run of his has surprised you. Yeah. Wow, you didn't see it coming? No. And so, do you think he pulls it off against Gunn? You know, again, I would think absolutely not, but maybe I don't know. He continues to surprise.

What about you, Alastair? You know, you, you, you, I was thinking. about you recently, you know why? Because I have a 14-year-old son now, and he was the last one in his grade to get a cell phone. We held off as long as possible. And he was the last one by like two years, Alistair. It was crazy. All his friends were getting it early. And I said, no, because I know the issues that come with it. And so I know this is a topic that is very near and dear to your heart. How is that, you know, that mission, so to speak, going as far as trying to educate people about the of being addicted to your phone? Well, it's a prolonged project, right? I mean, you can, I'm talking about it. And it is actually resonating with people left and right. But, and there's initiatives there,

but I think it will be another 12 months before it is going to really headstorm. Do you think that there's a world where there's, you know, like, in America, I can't buy alcohol until I'm 21. Do you think there'll be a world where there will be age limits attached to maybe not phones per se, but things that you could do on the phones, social media, et cetera, et cetera? No, I think it's all in the user's abilities, but people need to understand how to use it. And if you know how to use it is fine, right? Yeah.

And a lot of people do. A lot of people do, but a lot of people also don't. And there lies the problem. And yeah. All right. So you're going to be a part of this broadcast. Who else? Are there any other crossover stars, Alster,

that you'll be working with on Saturday? No crossover stars, but there's some other boxes in the broadcast. Okay, this is very fun. I love that you're doing this. It's always great to catch up with you. Happy belated birthday. Also, I believe your one-year anniversary is coming up.

Coming up, May 25. Wow, a lot to celebrate. Look at this photo right here. This is something else. Hey. So, lucky me, right? Well, your wife's standing on some sort of bed or something there,

and it's at your knees, and she's like forehead to forehead. How tall is she? 163-ish centimeters. And what are you? I'm 192-ish. Wow, wow, wow. Wow. What a life, Alastair.

You're living the dream. Yeah. No, she's great, very happy with her, very happily married. One year anniversary coming up 25th. So, yeah, I'll need to organize some nice dinner or something. In Egypt? No, we're going to go back to our hometown, Dubai. Okay, that's where you live now, full time, right?

You like it there? Very pleasant living, growing market, growing area. It's attracting a lot. from all over the world. It's a great environment, to be honest. Yeah. Okay, well, I'm delighted. Have you been there?

I've been there. Yes, I went to a UFC event. You remember when the UFC did a show there, Anderson Silva, the first one, UFC 112. But it was in 2010. That's a long time ago. 2010. So I feel like a lot has changed, right? That's such a long time ago.

So I'll give you a rundown. Since COVID, it became a lot more busy and the city kind of sprung to life. That's my opinion because I was. kind of going in and out every year, every other year for the last 15, 16 years. And since COVID is busy, it's active, you feel the energy buzzing. So I would highly recommend you to come visit a scan. Okay. I would love to do that.

Actually, genuinely, I would love to do that. I'm so happy to connect with you. And let me know, because then I'm going to introduce you to some longevity as well. Oh, okay. We're going to do a nice bath together, you and I. Absolutely. Really? A half marathon? Maybe a quarter for me. No, no. We don't have to do marathon, but ice breath we definitely have to do.

And there's all those cool stuff you can do as well. I would love that. I would love that, Alster. Much love, my friend. Good luck this weekend. Really great connecting with you. Thank you for doing this. Always good to see your area. So soon. Yes, there he is. The great Alster Overeem. What a great guy. And an old friend now. It's always great to connect with him. Always enjoy talking to him. Appreciate his insights.

and yes, he will be a part of the broadcast on Saturday that's on DeZone Paperview, Olegander Usik, going up against Rico Verhoeven. Who would have thought? And it's just three days away now. And it's happening in the afternoon here in the United States, because of course, time difference. They are seven hours ahead over in Egypt. So check that out Saturday afternoon. Memorial Day weekend here in the United States.

Okay, let us move along to our next guest. So very excited and honored to be joined by this individual. Well, he has been very much in the news as of late. He is a pro fighter himself, 13, 2, and 1 with 5 knockouts, just 25 years young. And he is the grandson of the greatest of all time, Muhammad Ali, his name, Nico Ali Walsh. And you may have seen him pop up on your feeds or heard about him, seen clips of him. Very, very recently, as he is out there fighting on behalf of the Muhammad Ali Act. He was at the Senate hearing not that long ago alongside Oscar.

Delahoya, you know, speaking his piece. And of course, when he speaks and when it pertains to something that his grandfather's name is attached to, everyone listens as they should. And I wanted to have him on to talk about how he feels about the state of things and where things are headed. So he's kind enough to join us right here. And now let us say hello to Nico Ali Walsh. Hello, Nico. How are you? I'm doing great. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Thank you so much for doing this, really appreciate it. Thank you so much for everything that you've been doing. And I appreciate your insights very much when I see you weighing in on this topic in particular. It really resonates because this is a family member. To us, he's a boxer. He's a larger than life icon and

hero, but this is your grandfather, who you were so close with before he passed about 10 years ago. And so could I ask, when did you first hear about this revival act trying to get past? And initially off the bat, how did you feel? So I first heard about the Revival Act being passed. I think it first hit the news maybe six months ago or so. Everything has happened so fast. So when we first heard about it, obviously they were selling the idea that nothing was being changed

in the act that my grandfather put in place, the original Ali Act. So they said that, you know, we're not changing a word, we're just adding to it. So that got brought in and we didn't know what they were doing until I did a deeper dive into what was really going on. And that's when I really had to speak out on it. And so once you did that deep dive, what was your takeaway? How did you feel about what they were trying to impose?

I don't agree with they're trying to impose at all. My grandfather, I mean, you know you're a fight fan yourself. My grandfather had very strong morals. He stood on his principle, and the Ali Act that he had put in place is an anti-monopoly act. And what they're trying to do is basically pass a monopoly. And it's going completely against what my grandfather stood for. It's quite literally going against what my grandfather put in place because they are changing the Ali Act. You were there at the Senate hearing, and you've spoken up about this.

Did anyone reach out to you and say, hey, we're trying to fight this, we're trying to work against us. We need your help. We want you to be involved. Or did you hear about it and say, wait a second, this means a lot to me and my family. I need to get involved. No, I'm going to be very honest with you. I was very, I was hesitant to getting involved at all. But I'm one of those guys where just how I was raised, I feel that if you have a fear of speaking out that says something alone,

And, you know, in this sport of boxing, when you speak against something, a powerhouse that is what we are basically fighting against right now, there's professional consequences. So, you know, I may be losing out on, you know, opportunities and whatever. So when it comes to the other fighters, I haven't, no one has reached out in support. It's really been me. And then thankfully, I'm just, I'm so thankful that my team has gotten behind me as well. that hearing a few weeks ago how do you feel like it went i thought it went well i thought it went well um obviously it all happened so fast they asked me to be a part of that i was going to go support that hearing and support oscar delahoya um just to be there but they asked me probably 10 days

before the the meeting to uh actually testify so that's when i had to really just take things serious make, you know, a speech, a testimony, and I really had to do my homework on this act. But, you know, that hearing opened up a lot of doors for me in terms of what I'm able to do now in fighting this battle. We're speaking to senators daily still because of that hearing. And they're just shocked at what me and my team are conveying the point of what Zufo boxing is trying to bring to the sport and the monopolistic control that they will have over the sport if they pass the law that they're trying to pass right now the way it is. And the senators are just shocked to hear what we have to say about that. Okay, so I'll be honest with you. I feel,

I give you and Oscar a lot of credit. Anyone who goes out there and fights for what they believe in and I think has, you know, great intentions, and particularly you. I mean, you're not a promoter or anything like that, you're just doing this, I think, on behalf of what you believe in and what you believe your grandfather believed in as well. And I think that's very, very honorable. And there's a part of me that feels like those hearings are a little bit performative. Like the decision has already been made. And this is all the steps that need to happen in order to say, hey, we did our due diligence. But in the end, given who's in power and given who's trying to make this happen, this is going to pass. Do you feel otherwise now, based on these discussions?

Do you feel like there's a chance that this could be salvaged? Listen, all I know is, you know, when it comes to politics, that's something I never want to get involved. I never thought in my life I'd be involved with politics. I never thought in my life I'd be in D.C. in a courtroom, in a suit and tie. But I don't like getting involved with the politics behind the politics. But what I do know is the senators know something has to change with what they're proposing with this new, with the Revival Act. They know something has to change and I feel that me being there and really just going forward and speaking my piece and being passionate as I am about this, every senator we've spoken to knows that something has to change with this revival act. And it will not be passed as is.

Even Chairman Cruz, you know, when I got to meet him, I testified before him out there. He even knows that something has to change. and he said so as well. So I'm just glad that I'm able to hopefully make a difference. I didn't think I'd be able to. But hopefully we will. We're still speaking with his office. I mean, you wouldn't even believe almost every single day we're on a call with people.

What do you think TCO's true intentions are with their desire to push this through? What do you think they talk about the amount of money you get per rounds and the medicals and stuff like that? Do you think it's that or do you think it's something? else. Well, you know, what they're trying to pass is the UFC model. You know that more than anyone. You know, I know you've been around the UFC for many, many, many years. They're trying to pass the UFC model into boxing. And when people ask, how do you think it's going to work? Well, we kind of know how it's going to work. The UFC had to settle a $375 million settlement that their fighters, you know, put against them. And that was a settlement. So we don't even know how much

the damages really were. You know, thousands, there were over a thousand claims of fighters complaining about pay and whatnot. So we kind of know the direction that they want ahead with boxing. We see it because their business model is apparent today. If you have any questions about what they're trying to do with boxing, you just look at the UFC. And it's, It's kind of unfortunate because I even know like Sugar Sean O'Malley, he had this, I remember watching in a podcast, he had this Reebok deal that garnered the UFC over a million dollars. And I remember him saying that they used his name, image, likeness, and he only received like three grand from it. So that's the kind of stuff that would be, you know, coming to boxing now. Are you passionate about this and spending so much time on this?

because it's your grandfather's bill, or do you think that you would feel this way regardless? That's a great question. I would feel this way regardless, but because it's my grandfather's will or bill, that's given me the opportunity to actually be able to make a difference. If I was just, you know,

if this was just an average law, I wouldn't be on the Senate floor. I wouldn't be, you know, I wouldn't be as the fighter I am where I'm not a champion yet. I'm no Canelo. I'm no Terrence Crawford, so I wouldn't have the opportunity to be there. But because it's my actual name, it's what my grandfather stood for, it's very important to me. And I think it's just important to fight for fighters. I'm a fighter myself.

And this law, if that law passes, if the Revival Act passes the way it is, it will absolutely change my career and it will change every fighter's career. Why do you feel that way? What they're trying to pass is absolutely different from the way boxing is. And boxing is an old sport. You know, boxing has so much history behind it. Boxing has a free market, which is the biggest thing in boxing where, you know, we are fighters, boxers are independent contractors where we can shop different promoters. I can go to, I'm a free agent right now, so I can go to.

to, you know, say, top rank match room or a golden boy, any different promoters. And I have the freedom to do that. But under the Revival Act, it will be a monopolistic power where there's one control over the whole sport. And I won't have that freedom to be able to pick and choose where my career goes. I will, they will have a direct line of where my career is. And I just don't like that. It completely takes away a fighter's identity.

thing that has been brought up in sort of support of the ALE Act, the one that is currently in place, is that, you know, the books have to be open. The fighters will know exactly how much promoters making so they know that they're getting their proper cut X, Y, and Z. As you know, in the world of MMA, that's not the case. Do you think that there is a desire to have that same sort of system in place to where they don't have to share the financials, if you will, with the fighters? Of course. You know, it's, we look at the UFC. In the UFC, the, the, the fighters make around 16% up to 20% of the revenue that's made in the UFC gets distributed amongst the fighters.

In boxing, it's the exact opposite. Fighters make up to 80% of the revenue that is made in these boxing events. So that alone shows you the staggering difference in pay, between the UFC and boxing. So they're just trying to move that model to boxing. It's going to make the promoters richer. And then you don't even want to get involved with like the gate and the tickets and everything because that's just more money for the fighters,

but they're stripping that away. With the Revival Act, they're going to strip that away. And it's really just going to be the UFC model in boxing. A few months ago, we did see a statement. that was attributed to your grandfather's widow, Lonnie Ali, in support of the Revival Act. How do you feel about that? I've been asked that a few times. If you're not in boxing, I don't feel you have a say in what's going on.

If you're not a promoter, if you're not a fighter, you don't have a say in a law that's going to govern us. It will not affect anybody outside of boxing. It's going to affect people like me directly. So I have no further comment on that. Do you have a relationship with her? You know, we did, we were very close. We were very close with my grandfather. He lived in Arizona.

We live in Vegas. So my family was always there. And the dynamic has changed. since his passing. I love my family. I will always love my family, but a lot has changed since he has passed. I do wonder what it is like for you.

Obviously, I'm sure you know everything about your grandfather more than the public knows even, but the trials and tribulations that he had to deal with. In sort of hearings like the one you were in, obviously for different reasons, what is that like as his grandson, hearing so much from your mom about him and everything he went through, reading so much, watching so much.

I can't imagine what it must have felt like wearing that suit, being up there in Washington. Like, you're an Ali, man. You're, that's, I mean, there's no more iconic athlete in the history of this country, dare I say, in the history of the world, than your grandfather and everything that he fought for. And so did you feel that spirit? Did you feel that fire? Did you feel his presence? I can't imagine the pride that you feel when speaking and thinking about him.

I see a picture of him, you know, behind you over there. What was that like being in D.C. Fighting the good fight as you believe you are in honor of him? He can't be here to do it. And you're kind of taking that baton, that flame in his honor. What was that feeling like? I mean, you make it sound very, very powerful. It feels very powerful to me.

I know I made my parents proud. Hopefully I made him proud. It's tough fighting stuff that will have consequences. on your career. So it's like when I was going, when I was going into this fight, I remember it just felt like David versus Goliath. My manager, Amera Abdallah, he was like, you know, do you know what you're getting into? And do you know how powerful of an enemy you could potentially make? And I didn't want to hear any of that. And I just said, I want to fight for what I believe in. I'm a true believer of that. So I hope everything turns out well for, you know,

boxing because that's what I'm fighting for. I'm fighting for us boxers. I'm fighting for the sport of boxing as a whole. But not only that, I hope things turn out well for me because I'm taking a lot just putting myself in this dangerous position. Do you feel that way? Like, do you feel like there will be ramifications against you as a result of you being so vocal about this? I'm speaking on it now. I think 100%, but you guys, you will be able to see the ramifications in time. If you know, if you see how my career pans out from here, we will see just how right I am. I know this is an impossible question to answer, and I say that. I preface this question, knowing that. But what do you think your grandfather would say about all of this?

that is a tough question i never want to put words in someone else's mouth but i think it's apparent what he would think uh about the revival act because it's taking away the act that he put in place uh he would he would not be for it i don't believe why would he be for something that is not for the fighters my grandfather was the people's champion he fought for the people he was ready to literally die for what he believed in. And why would he be okay with fighters now being exploited, taking away, wiping away his act and then, you know, coming in with this new revival act that would just build a monopoly and take away fighters'

powers? I just really don't see, I don't see him agreeing with that at all. I made a point because I heard you say that if this does pass, you don't want your grandfather's name attached to it. So I continue to refer to it as the Revival Act in honor of what you said and out of respect as well. Is that something that if it does come to pass and if it is a thing, is that something you're going to fight for at the very least to remove his name from it? You know, that's something I would have to speak with my team. I'm not really, I don't even want to, I didn't even want to be involved this much in it. I just want to stop it from happening.

Or if not that, I want to make it so that fighters can benefit from it. Just the way that the Revival Act currently is, is not the way it should be. And he just, I mean, the Ali Act, the Ali Act that my grandfather put in place fought to free fighters from monopolies. That's the whole point. and I don't know if I would go if they did end up passing the Ali Revival Act I don't know if I would go a step further

and say remove his name I just know that why use his name as a shield to get away with what you're trying to do in the sport of boxing I just feel it's wrong but I don't feel I would take any legal matters understood how have you felt about the boxing community A lot of people weigh in on this in interviews, in the media, social media, et cetera, but very few, it feels like, are going out and doing what you did and what Oscar did.

I saw you reposted an interview in which Roy Jones Jr. spoke very passionately about this as well. But I'm just wondering, do you feel like the American boxing community? Because, again, this bill only pertains to American boxing. Do you feel like enough people have been sort of putting their money where their mouth is and going that step further in order to stick up for this? You know, I've, on social media, on my phone, I've heard zero support from fighters, zero. But then I go to fights and I go out in public. They just had this boxing expo for David Benavita's fight here in Vegas.

So I go out there and then every fighter comes up to me quietly and says, man, thank you for doing what you're doing. They, they, they, they talk to me in private, because they don't want to do it publicly. And I'm not going to knock them for, I'm not going to knock them for that. They just, they're afraid of the repercussions. And that's what it, we're all driven by like fear right now. So we don't, you don't speak out because you don't want to speak against the machine. And I understand their positions, but this, I, I can't, I can't, uh, stay silent on something like this. How did you feel about how Oscar did at the hearing and the things that he said? My respect. First off, I watched Oscar de la Jolla when I was little going into

boxing. So I've always loved Oscar de La Jolla as a fighter. As a man, I have so much respect for him. I thought he did amazing. He, uh, he has a lot to lose. He's, he's, He's a promoter, he's a promoter as well, as you know, with Golden Boy, but he has a lot to lose in boxing, and he's putting that on the line same way that I am by, you know, speaking out against TKO and the Ali Revival Act. So it's, I just have, I have so much respect for him. Obviously, when you were out there, you were, I think actually literally sitting right next to Nick Kahn.

I'm wondering, did you talk to him at any point, either, you know, behind the scenes while you were together, any conversations with him whatsoever? Well, Nick Conn went to UNLV. I graduated from UNLV, so we were very cordial on that. He's an extremely intelligent businessman, so I have nothing for respect for him when it comes to that. We clearly disagree on these issues, that what he's trying to push, we completely disagree on that.

And a lot of things that he said in the hearing, I just felt were false. He, you know, their goal is we're going to tell the public that boxing needs to be fixed, that boxing is broken. And we are coming to be the saviors of boxing. And that's just not the case. They mentioned like in boxing how how there's too many belts. And I get that. And then they compared it to the NFL where the Super Bowl champion is the one you know. But, you know, I don't know a lot about football, but I know in the NFL you have the A.F.

champion, you have the NFC champion, you have AFC West champion, the the AFC East champion. So it's like there's a lot of champions. And then when it comes to the Super Bowl, that's the undisputed. That's in boxing what is considered undisputed. But you take away that title Super Bowl.

It's just another football game. So it's that it's not a solution to just make one belt. Every sport has multiple champions. You mentioned that you're a free agent, right? Yes, sir. Have you talked to Zufa boxing about fighting for them? No. Would you be interested if they came to you?

I don't see why they would. I mean, I'm the, I feel like I'm the one, the face that's opposing them. I'm the only fighter that's speaking out on it. So I don't feel it would be in their interest to, want me. Well, you, you are a famous fighter with a famous name and a great record so I can see that, you know, and you haven't, you know, you're not a top draw, so to speak, so you're someone that they're, you're the kind of fighter that they are signing right now. And so that's why I'm curious, like, what would you, what would you do? What would you think? If the deal is

right, would you consider it or because, it wouldn't, it wouldn't be about, it wouldn't be about money. They would have to change what's being what they're trying to push right now. They would have to change a lot in the Revival Act. It's, you know, with me, you can call me stupid or dumb, whatever. I'm 25 years old. I'm young. I know money's important, but that's never been my goal, and that will never guide me. Money will never guide me. So if I was to ever do something like you're saying, they would have to change a lot in what they're trying to pass. How do you feel about the product right now? The Zufa Boxing product based on what you've seen?

I'm not a huge fan because I'm a fan of traditional boxing. I love in boxing. One of my favorite things in boxing is the boxers having the freedom to express themselves through their shorts. And I just don't like how in Zufa, you know, you got the plain black and the plain white. And then you can only wear Zufa trunks and Zufa gloves. And it just kind of takes away from the culture behind boxing. there's so many fighters in history who are famous for the shorts like look at Prince

Nassim. You know, can you imagine Prince Nassim wearing just plain white Zufa trunks? So it's, that's something small, but to me it is important to express your culture and to express yourself in boxing. I'm happy you say that because in the world of MMA, I talk about this quite often. There were guys like Tito Ortiz and Chuck Ladell. Chuck Liddell had ice on his shorts because he was the, Iceman.

Titor Tis had fire. He was the Huntington Beach bad boy. And in the UFC, everyone dresses the same. They're wearing uniforms as well. And I feel like that has been stripped away. And I love, I love, you know, George St. Pierre used to walk out wearing the ghee. You can't do that anymore because he came from a karate background. It tells the story of who these people are, right?

Yeah. No, and there was a boxer, Little Red Lopez, who wore, he was Native American. He wore an Indian headdress to the ring. And that was what he was known for. And, you know, like someone like Tommy Hearns, can you imagine Tommy Hearns not wearing his signature gold shorts? Like, that was his thing. And those are just like important and important aspects of boxing that really make, it creates individuality in boxing. It's just freedom, having the freedom to choose. What could you tell us about the next steps? Where things currently stand and

what you're looking at? What are the next steps for this? this journey that you're on. We're working tirelessly. I'm so happy that my team has been just fully supportive with me because I would not be able to do this on my own. We're seriously, I'm training right now. I'm in camp, getting ready for a fight. But almost every single day I'm in a meeting with a senator or a committee or something

DC related, something related to this bill. They understand that something in the bill has to change because every, Every senator we've spoken with has said the same thing. They've been shocked at what's being pushed because they don't know box. They don't watch boxing. We explain it to them. They're shocked at what's trying to be pushed, the centralized system, the monopolistic system. And they all say the same thing.

They say that something has to change in the bill. And that's what we're trying to do right now. That's our next steps. I understand I'm putting you somewhat on the spot here. but when you say something has to change, what has to change? What would you change? What are one or two things about that that you really don't like? Right off the jump is transparency.

That's the biggest thing that was in the original Ali Act. So transparency is number one. You've got to be able, the fighters should be able to see how much is being made. Transparency, sponsorships. Sponsorships are incredibly important for fighters because fighters take 100% of the sponsorship money that they make. And then as you know, in Zufa, there's no sponsors. So that's very important. And that just kind of gets away from the monopolistic control.

Like obviously, we don't want a monopoly in boxing. So that should be cut immediately. And to do that, you would have to just inch by inch take away, like, just more transparency, sponsorship, more freedom, that kind of stuff. And another thing that they mentioned, I remember was mentioned by Mr. Khan in the hearing was, they said boxing was too complicated and there was too many belts. And they said that, you know, in the new Zufa, they will have one Zufa belt. But already Zufa is with the ring. And they've got two belts there.

So it's you got the ring belt, the ring rankings. And then you've got the Zufa belt and the Zufa rankings. So already there, it's kind of contradictory because they've got two belts. and they're not even, they're not even official yet. You know, people think that Zufa is a UBO right now. They're not. Right now, Zufa is just another promoter. As soon as they become a UBO, if they pass this revival act, the way it is,

as soon as they become a UBO, they will be able to have that belt and they'll be able to have that control. When you hear, you know, the likes of Dana White, Nick Con as well, say, look, you have the choice now. You can either stick with the old act or, you know, go with ours. How do you feel about that? Do you think that's a realistic option? Do you think that's how it will actually play out?

No, that's how monopolies start. They buy up all the top talent. They put the promoters out of business and then you don't have a choice. So, I mean, like, yeah, you do, you will have a choice. You're not being held. There's no gun being held to your head that you have to go to Zufa, but you're not going to have any other opportunities. Once they put the other promoters out of business, they buy all the top talent.

We hear every day about a new big name. boxer that's going to Zufa. So once they buy all that top talent and they just take over the sport, they've got the money to do that. They have the resources to become that monopoly. And once they do that, you really, you could be fighting, you know, get random fights in Mexico or you can be getting some sort of opportunity with Zufa so you wouldn't have a choice. How do you feel like this plays out? You can call me hopeful or or maybe naive, but I, I think that we're going to change this. I really believe it because of how the Senate has reacted to us speaking with them.

I truly believe that changes will be made. If not, the bill getting destroyed completely. They completely, they understand what we're trying to convey. And I just, I have a feeling that boxing will win this one. Okay. Can I ask you just before we go? And again, I understand I'm somewhat putting you on the spot here, but Muhammad, Allah was your grandfather.

Like, can you tell us about him, like, as just a grandfather, not as Muhammad Ali, just your grandfather? What was your name for him? What did you call him? What was he like being around? I understand, you know, your memories are probably of him being a little bit older and battling what he had to battle. But when you think of good memories, good times with him, what comes to mind? man so we we called him poppy uh all all of us called him poppy and we were just very close with

him so like my thing with him was watching boxing i would always watch him i would always put on like youtube his fights or i would show him like i was just starting boxing at that point so i would show him sparring videos of me um but other than that like the fun stuff we would do we were big into horror movies um so he loved dracula He loved Wolfman. Just, I mean, just sick, just horror movies. Just, you know, it's, it was a normal relationship. So I don't see him as everybody else sees him.

When I, when I see that guy that's yelling and doing the shuffle and knocking people out and doing all these amazing things, I don't see Ali. I see Poppy. So I have the memories now, which is. Very, I'm very happy. I'm very grateful to have those. Yeah, that is amazing. Last thing you mentioned, you have a fight coming up. What can you tell us?

Where will you be fighting against who, et cetera? I'm hoping the fight, so I haven't signed the dotted line yet. So I don't make anything official until then, but I'm hoping, God willing, it will be June 19th. It will be in Long Beach, California, and it'll be on an MF Pro card. Okay. All right. Yeah, they're doing big things over there. opponent?

Yes. I don't know the opponent yet, but, you know, I'm the easiest, I'm the easiest fighter to make opponents with. They just, you send me a guy, my team approves it, I'm ready. I'm training for anybody. All right. Well, good luck to you. You know, I wish you nothing but the best in this journey.

I know it's somewhat of a uphill battle, so to speak. There's a lot of, you know, big forces at play, but very cool to see you. But people like you, you know, giving me the opportunity to speak on it are really helpful. So thank you very much. Much appreciated. Good luck to you, all the best to you and good luck in your fight

if, of course, it happens next month. Thank you very much, Ariel. There he is. Nico Ali Walsh, the grandson of Muhammad Ali. Great to get his perspective on the Ali Act.

We speak about it a lot on this show. And, you know, as I have said to people at TKO, I'd love to get their side of things. I'm not trying to always get, and I know how Lou DeBella felt about it all, and I think that he's kind of more in the middle, if you will, but I want to get their side.

I'd love to get their side. Unfortunately, their side's not readily available to us. I would be more than happy. I really do try to pride myself on getting all sides of the story, on hearing from everyone. I never want this show to be an echo chamber. I never want this show to be slanted. I never want this show to only have one opinion.

There's a lot of things that I don't agree with with people that come on the show. But I want to hear them out. I want to talk it out. I want to be able to hear their side and come to a certain understanding. And then we all shake hands like human beings and say, all right,

none of us will ever agree on everything. That is not normal. That is not healthy. It's impossible. The human race is not built that way. And so I want to hear all sides of the story. We will talk about it when they talk about it. We will talk to the people who are available to us.

And I enjoy this topic very much, obviously. and I think it's a very, very important part of the fight game. And so I hope you enjoyed that as well. All right, we'll get to some news and notes back in. But I'm very excited. Oh, I got to put this on. Sorry, Frank. Usually I get the reminder.

I think it's because of the clip. Thanks mad at me because of the clip. Wait, one second. I got to turn this on. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Oh, hey, Frank. Yesterday we had a great in studio guest. MJF was phenomenal.

What a chat that was. Yeah, he was great. I really enjoyed that. And there are preliminary talks of some members of the team actually going to double or nothing on Sunday. And a reminder, by the way, no show on Monday. It's Memorial Day here in the United States. So we usually take off for two Mondays out of the year when we're not on our spring break, summer break, winter break. That would be Memorial Day and Labor Day. So this is the first. Hopefully, everyone who is not in the United States understands that we won't be doing a show on Monday, but we'll be back on Tuesdays. I think it was going on with this thing, Frankie. I'm sorry. Okay. Obviously on Saturday, we were at the Intuit Dome for the first MVP MMA card.

And man, that fight between Pumi, Nakuda, and Adriano Morice was one that I was super into. I said it was my sleeper fight on the undercard. obviously Marais was supposed to fight Muhammad Makaiev, he can't get his visa and Nakuta comes in, I've been hearing about him from Ali Qinta, I mentioned this a bunch of times last week, and the fight was great and it ended in very controversial fashion.

On Monday, we had Herb Dean on the program to talk about his decision, ultimately deciding that it was a technical submission win for Adriana Marais. Now we have the pleasure of being joined by Turbo himself. Pumi Nakuta is here to talk about what transpired Saturday in Inglewood. There he is. I just saw him and now he's here in studio.

My man. How are you? It's great to see you again. Thank you so much. Please have a seat. Gosh, what a what a last few days for you, huh? What an incredible couple of days. Yo, man. I'm happy that you say incredible. Yeah. You say it with a smile. Of course. Even though it, and if you don't mind, just get to the microphone over there. My apologies. I'm new at this. No, no, no. You're good. You're good. Even though it ended that way, it's still incredible with a mile? Oh, I mean, 100%. I mean, look, at the end of the day, what happened happened, but the people know I won. You know what I mean? For me to do what I did on nine days notice, expecting 125 and then the fight at 130 against a guy that beat Mighty Mouse, come on, man.

At the end of the day, I'm a winner, so it's all good. Okay, so I want to actually take a step back, like a major step back. Yeah. We knew the fight was going to be Makaya versus Marais. Where are you when you get the call, hey, Makayev, can't fight, we want you to fight. Man, so I had an idea that it might happen. I was actually crazy. Shane Collins had just fought for A1 combat, probably two weeks prior than the actual fight was, and I'm probably out drinking, you know, celebrating, you know, his win with Aljo and a couple of the guys.

They told me it might happen, maybe about a couple days later, so I would have had nine days before the fight. They were like, look, he's out, you know, you want to step in? Of course, man. You know what I'm saying? There was no other answer to say but yes. Signed on the dotted line for 125 pounds, 126 plus one obviously. Then they come back and say, no, you're fighting at 130 or there's no fight? Why? Hey, you got to ask Marais and all those guys.

Do you think that was his call? It was their call. It wasn't our call. We wanted 125. But I don't know if it was because he hadn't cut to there before or whatever. but in my opinion I'm like dude he's had a whole camp he should fight at 125 why do we have to go to 130 I'm the one coming on short notice but yeah it is what it is I signed up anyways and man I was still working that guy so and and to be clear the macaia fight was 125 as well absolutely he took this as an opportunity to not cut because in one championship he was flyweight champion but flyweight for them is 135 look that's what I believe but at the end of the day you'd have to ask him in his

camp as to why they wanted 130, but at the end of the day, short notice, nine days out, I was ready for 126. How much did you weigh, by the way, when you took that call? Maybe a buck 45, maybe like 142 somewhere around there, so it wasn't the craziest cut. I've also been working for a short notice call, whether it was UFC MVP or anything, so I was trying to keep my weight a little low. And so top of my head, you were 11 and 0 going into this fight, right? And as I've said a bunch of times now to you,

Ally Quinta always bigging you up. This guy never lost a round, never been knocked down. Yeah. A1 combat champion, champion in other organizations. Yeah. Why did you never get that UFC opportunity? I don't make those calls, Ariel. But what's going on?

You're from Ray Longo's camp, right? Yeah. Your boys with all those guys, that's like a factory of dudes who became not only UFC contenders, but champions too, right? from Wyden to Aljo to Marab. An incredible lineage. Yes.

Matt, Sarah. Yes, of course. All those guys. Al Jermaine Sterling. And, you know, for me, I can't worry about that. My job is to fight. But there were times when we would get frustrating, seeing guys get their opportunity. Lesser fighters.

Lesser fighters, you know what I'm saying? Guys who weren't that good. Even, what's the name? That guy, Paris Moran. He just won by split decision. And I think 56% of his fights. actually went to the scorecard. So he's not like a finisher by any means.

And even he got a call to a contender series. You never even got a contender series call? I never even got a contender series call. How is this possible? Hey, man, I don't make those calls. I don't really care. The only thing I can do is win, and that's what I do. And it didn't deter you, discourage you, get you down?

Look, when I was younger, yeah. And, you know, obviously I had other life problems and stuff like that that weren't helping at the time. but man like you know when I came back from this hand injury one thing I told myself man is I'm just going to have fun doing this I love what I do every day I wake up and I get to train I get to fight I get to help my teammates fight I get to get better as a mixed martial artist as well

so to me it didn't matter where I was fighting when I was fighting as long as I got to do what I love to do and I was content in life man it didn't really matter to me anymore when you talk about other life problems what do you mean by that what can you say and just like at the time I'd broken this hand This was like maybe 2021, and I just had like family issues and personal issues and stuff like that. So I didn't see a reason to fight at that point in my life. And also, you know, I just kind of saw where the sport was going to a certain degree.

We can both agree the sport isn't what it used to be. You know what I mean? What do you mean by that when you say that? Man, it's not about who's the best anymore. You know what I mean? And that's something that I feel like some of the guys that are on the top aren't really the best fighters on the planet. you know what I'm saying and maybe that may have made me bitter

back in the day but I feel like I've kind of adjusted and look whether you love me or hate me I am one of the best fighters on the planet and I could also kill it here on this microphone kill it on the camera kill it in all the other ways that all those other people can't really

live up to me anyway so I was a little bitter back in the day but man I love my life I love this game and you know I'm back full swing What were you doing when you kind of took that break there? What did you support yourself? Crazy.

I just, you know, was working regular jobs and stuff like that. And, you know, it's funny. One of my boys was telling me, he was just checking in on me to see if I was okay because I wasn't really around the gym so much. It's actually Al Jermaine's brother, Kelvin. Okay. He calls me, he goes, look, man, like, you know, I know you're not fighting, but you got to come back to him.

Man, I'm like, dude, I'm not doing it. Well, so you were, like, retired. Oh, bro, I was done. I was like, I just didn't see a reason. to fight anymore, you know? And then he tells me, he's like, look, man, like, you're just too good on camera and you're too good of an athlete. You got to do something.

And I remember, man, it was funny. You had the guy on the show yesterday. I was watching. My brother's a big AEW fan. Oh, MJF. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think right at that point when I had stopped fighting, it was MGF versus CM Punk.

Uh-huh. And crazy, man, I now I know CM Punk now is a good dude. A friend of mine actually was at the fights rooting for me from him. Yes, yes. when I was fighting. And, you know, I'm watching that match with my brother. And my brother goes, do you ever do that? And I'm thinking to myself, like, man, I never thought I would go that pro wrestling route.

But at the end of the day, I was like, you know what? I think this is something I could do. I'm good on camera. I'm an athlete. Obviously, I got the mic skills that other people don't got. School, we're doing it. And I think maybe a couple weeks later, signed up a house of glory, started training with the Amazing Red. And, you know, now I'm back in MMA doing both.

This is amazing. And we're seeing some, here are some photos of you doing your thing. So we have a show here called The Uncrown Wrestling Show, and it's hosted by a guy named Jason Solomon. Yeah. He's the commissioner of House of Gloric. Guy, he's told me about you as well. And so yesterday, so the show comes out every Tuesday,

and it's about pro wrestling. And at the beginning of yesterday's episode, he's talking about you and your fight. And the first thing he's like, he says Pumi, and he says your name right. I'm like, because some people might say foo me, right? Yeah, they mess it up a lot. And I'm like, man, Jason really seems to know a lot about this guy.

And then he mentions House of Glory and he mentions he's the commissioner and that you wrestle for them. I didn't know about all that stuff. That's amazing. That's amazing. So it was all because of Al Joe's brother who says, and then now of a sudden you're watching. And so how far along in wrestling did you get? And are you doing both at the same time? I've heard you refer to yourself as the Bo Jackson of Combat Sports, right?

Absolutely. You got a right, my man. I think you got a match this weekend. Your ears are to the street. We're wrestling this weekend at House of Glory. Crazy. And I don't know who I'm wrestling yet. But for those guys out there in the Squirt Circle, I want the best competitor out there.

Don't matter if it's a dude like Leon Slater, who is former Exivision champion. Anybody who wants that call, come to House of Glory, come get this million-dollar punch, baby. How long did you train before you had your first match? Probably a good year and a half. I put it in a lot of time. And you had no previous. background in any of this? No, man.

I mean, I was an amateur wrestler in high school. But like pro wrestling, gymnastics. In terms of pro wrestling, never did gymnastics, never did any of that. I signed up to House of Glory.

A good dude named Montecchio, who was also a former House of Glory Cruiserweight champion. He was like, bro, you got to come through. I was like, all right, I'm in. I started training with Red, and the rest is history.

And if you know the amazing Red, yeah, legend. Dude, he's not only is he a legend, but he's probably the best innovator in professional wrestling, man. Everyone steals his moves from cold reds to, what is it, the Canadian Destroyer, to even just a style of wrestling, that action pass, fast-paced indie style. That's all red, you know what I'm saying?

So they get to learn from him to, man, it's like I look at my life and I'm so blessed. You wonder why? Like I'm not really upset about anything. like, man, I get to learn from Matt Sarah and Ray Longo in the sport of mixed martial arts, arguably the two best coaches of all time. I mean, obviously now I work with Mateus Nakashay and, bro, he's helped me elevate my game as well. So in that mixed martial arts sense, I have some of the best coaches and best learning tree that I could possibly learn from.

And then in the other front, in the sport of professional wrestling, I get to learn from the Amazing Red. Bro, I'm blessed. I'm blessed. And now that I'm back, I'm doing both. I'm the Bo Jackson and let's just run it up. Which do you prefer? Like if you could pick one and do one for the next 15, 20 years, which would you prefer?

Obviously it would be mixed martial arts. You prefer that, okay. That's my heart and soul. That's my baby. And, you know, wrestling has been my side chick a little bit. But I think I'm at a point now where as long as I could do both, why not? Why not elevate one? Why not use the mixed martial arts to elevate the wrestling, the wrestling to elevate.

elevate the mixed martial arts. There has not been a single person, I don't think, who's done both at the same time at the highest level. You know, guys like Brock Lesnar, even CM Punk. Josh Barnett. Josh Barnett, Dan Severin, Tom Lawler, they've either fought. Ken Shamrock. They've either fought or wrestled.

I'm out here doing both. You want to do both. Just last week, I fought former one-fc-champion beat Demetrius Johnson. Now I'm looking to step in there with someone who's a high-level. level professional wrestler as well just one week later by the way took no damage i'm still looking pretty yeah you know what i'm saying so for me is anyone else doing that not at all and at the same time i'm still in shape so who knows if someone calls i'll fight the week after that you know what i'm saying and then if someone else wants to wrestle i'll wrestle the week after that too i'm in shape i feel

good i got a smile on my face still sitting pretty we're on the aerial show come on man i'm killing it and uh are you exclusive to house of glory or can you work for other indies as well i can't work for other indies as well, but I do feel like House of Glory's home base. Okay. So anytime they call, I answer. Do you feel like your stock has been raised elevated after this weekend? Oh, 100%, man. It was funny.

I was talking to Matt Sarah about it. He called me, left a very lengthy voicemail that was very animated. But he told me, he's like, look, man, this might be the best thing that happened for you. You know what I mean? Because one, obviously, the controversy, everybody's talking about it. But I think most importantly, I showed how much of a dog I am. I showed I got that gangster in me, you know what I'm saying? I showed on nine days notice, I don't care who you are.

World champion, former world champion, I'm stepping in there. And the people know I was beating his ass for the majority of that fight. You know what I'm saying? It's not like it was, you know, close fight. I'm getting beat up, bruised up. I'm sitting here with all these scars on my face and talking about Howard. No, the grand majority is saying, look, Puma, you step up. stepped in their short notice, and you were putting a beating on

Adriano Marais. The people know I was winning that fight. The people know I won that fight. So at the end of the day, I think I had so many eyes on me because of the controversy now everyone's paying attention to it. And if you watch that fight, come on, man. Everyone knows I was winning. And so I understand and appreciate and believe that you're handling this well,

but have you been replaying those final 15 or so seconds a lot in your mind and what you could have done differently. Has that been keeping you up? I mean, it's not keeping me up at all. I mean, obviously, like, I think me throwing the cartwheel kick ended in, like, the danger and all of that. But at the end of the day, man, like, I put on fun fights. And there was always that, like, I don't want to say rumor, but there was always that

notion that I feel like was getting spread about me that I'm a boring fighter and all that kind of stuff. But at the end of the day, you can't say my fights are boring. You got to be as dumb as. the door now to say my fights are boring man i i got a fight of the night uh two fights ago my last fight against uh namiki and a one was you know lights out performance stole the show there and again on a card with ronda rouseyena carano junior dos Santos uh desponine even the french guy i don't want to butcher saladine paris natea yes mike parry all these guys i had the fight of the night

and it's no disrespect to marice actually matter of fact i don't even care Dude was dirty, held the choke on me, whatever. But I believe I was the one that made that fight fun. I was the one that close to the end of the fight was like, yo, let's just scrap. You know what I'm saying? I'm screaming at the guy. I'm pulling on my pants.

I had my little Max Holloway moment. Yeah. And yeah, the fight ended the way it ended. Controversy side. But at the end of the day, I put on a show, and I put on the most entertaining fight on the card that was the most washed mixed martial arts card in history. I won. Do you regret doing what you did at the end?

Why would I? I don't know, because you want the W at the end of the day. You now have a one. And by the way, for the record, I thought they got it wrong. I said that multiple times. I thought they got a wrong. But I'm just wondering, you could have coasted. If you would have just coasted for the last 15 seconds,

I saw the scorecards. You were up on two, tied on one. Very likely could win the third as well. If not, you still win on those two score cards. Yeah. You just stand there and do your thing. it's another dub for you. Of course, and I was funny, I was talking about my manager about it.

I could have just, you know, ran around the author. I could have just played the safe and tried to grab a single and wrestle. That's not me, man. Crowds going crazy. I want to put on fun fights. Obviously, I want the win. I want the W. But when it's all said and done,

I want people to be like, one, Pumi's the best professional pound-for-pound mixed martial artists in the world. And he's the most fun fighter out there. You know what I'm saying? And I gave the fans what they wanted. And at the same time, we still have the appeal. We still have all of that that can go down. So who knows, it could be no contest.

But in my mind, look, at the end of the day, Ariel, I don't know if you know what my name means. My name is Puma Lele, you know, and in Osa, that means successful. People call me Pumi, right? So that means success. I have an undefeated record. I think my career is going to be successful. and whether I win or lose, like this weekend, I always come out on top.

The people know I won, the people know I'm successful. The end of the day, court of public opinion, my hand gets raised, baby. That moment there, I was curious. Did the knee land? Did his knee land? No, no, no. So what happened is...

Do we have it, by the way, guys? Yeah, you should... Play it if you want. Could we play it for him? I don't know if we have... Do we have the full thing? The clip that we played for her? If anyone could let me know?

Could we play it and have Pumi tell us what's going on here? Absolutely. So right? There I go for the car wheel kick. He throws the knee at the same time. Man, almost like a Goku Vigita moment where we both are finishing moves at each other.

And here you see, I'm pulling down on the left arm because I know he's got the choke in. Bell rings. He holds the choke for an extra 2.15 seconds. By the way, we counted. We counted. Me, our attorney, Lance. You know, we counted everything.

He held it for an extra. 2.15 seconds on the clock. And it's crazy, man, because I hear the ticker. I'm pulling on his arm, so I have a little space to breathe, but he's still choking me. I hear the bell. I wake up. Obviously, you know, I get choked out, you know, in my opinion after the bell. Not even my opinion, but if I hear the bell, Ariel, and then I go to sleep, when did I go

to sleep? Yeah, after the bell. It's very clear to me. It's very clear I go to sleep after the bell. And, you know, I'm not discrediting him for taking my back. I probably shouldn't have thrown the kick, but he's an expert level jiu jit-to fighter, so credit to him for taking my back. But I had enough space to breathe, at least just a little bit and hold the choke to where

I wasn't just going to go out right away. He holds it for an extra 2.15 seconds. I get Hussmar Paul Horace, you know what I'm saying? That's a deep cut. That's a deep cut for the guys that I know out there. And I wake up and, man, as soon as I woke up, I was like, all right, I know I didn't get knocked out. Obviously, you're a little cloudy, you know what you don't know what's going on as soon as you wake up. But I knew in my mind, I'm like, I know I didn't get knocked out. What the, what happened?

I don't want to curse anything. My mom will kill me. Okay, no problem. But I'm like, what the F happened, man? Like, what's going on? I wake up, I see Mateus, you know, Nakashay arguing with the ATT guys. All my coaches are upset. They're pretty pissed off. And in my mind, now I'm starting to come to like, okay, I'm here at the Inuit Dome. I'm fighting. This isn't a. dream. I heard the bell. I heard the ticker. What's going on? And then I'm like, dude, did he hold the choke? What happened? Then people keep saying, like, you know, he held the choke. He had you in there for a little bit longer. Then I'm going up to the commission. I'm telling him, like, dude, he choked me out to the bell. I go up to Nekisa, you know, after the fight because he comes into the Yots can. He's like,

look, he, you know, I'm like, bro, he helped me in the choke after the bell. It is what it is. You know, and I thought that they would see that at the time. I guess not. But, you know, thank God in California. We're going to have a chance to fight it. We have our peel in. And, you know, I pray this here from our stance. If you really look at it, any doctor will tell you every second counts when you're in a choke.

Every second counts. One second you could be there, the next second you could be out. Yeah. He's holding it for an extra 2.15 seconds. And it's not like, one, it's not like Herb Dean jumped in there right away as well. And I'm not trying to hate on Herb Dean. I'm not trying to be the dominant cruise and have Herb Dean be my, you know what I'm saying? Keith Peterson.

Be my Keith Peterson or nothing like that. But if you watch it, the bell rings and Herb doesn't even get in there right away. So now time is already ticking. And not only that, Herb's trying to pull the guy off of me. guy's not letting go and he's squeezing harder and then I go out you know what I'm saying so I feel like it's very clear it's very clear

that it was post you know bell it was very clear that he held on and to me it was clear that by the time the bell rings you're still fighting it I thought it was a no brainer in fact when I was in the cage someone came up to me who's of great importance to all

of this not a promoter side on an official side but it was a conversation that I don't know if it was on record off, but I asked him, I said, hey, what do you think happens here? And he said quite clearly to me, this is going to go to the scorecards because it was post and whatever happens there happens. And so I couldn't believe that they called it a technical submission saying that you were out with one second to go. Now, that's the scorecard right there. Man, it's crazy, man. Speaking of Herb, he was on my show on Monday. Yeah. I don't know if you saw any

of it, but I did ask him obviously about this. I wanted to play you his response about that controversial moment and then give you a chance to respond as well, right? All right, here we go. Here's Herb from Monday. I see that he's going after the rear neck and I'm like, man, you don't got much time to get this, but he goes straight to it, has it locked in? Now, I'm thinking, right, as we're getting close to end, I'm thinking about, okay, there you see him go out, but I'm thinking about the bell, that the bell's going to sound

and I'm going to have to fight hands. So my folk is usually in a situation like that where I'm thinking about somebody may go out for a rear naked choke, I have a bit of a wider focus. I want to see the body because the hands and often the legs are what's going to give you your clue that someone's out, whereas looking at their face won't. But then, as it's time for me to stop the fight, of course, I'm looking at, you know, at his hands because, you know, I'm trying to figure out which grips he has and what I might have to fight, you know, if he's not letting go instantly. So that's where my focus kind of shifted towards the hands and I was I saw what his body did but I wasn't

focused there and since I had time I wanted to make sure I got everything right and want to know when things happened especially in relationship to the bail I went out and to look at the replay and definitely sure that he went unconscious before the bail right right like a fraction of a second before the bail then I went and stopped the fight he grasped for a fraction of a second let go and then we went and we had the time to look at things and you know I think that looking at it kind of made it seem odd but I wanted to take my time since the fight was already over and make sure that I got all the information so I can make the right decision definitely out before the

bell look he also said that and then he said he held it for a fraction of a second look like I said man he's not going to be my key Peterson I know he's just trying to do his job sure you know what I'm saying and being a ref in this sport where there's so much going on it's not easy so i'm not going to hate on herb or say herb dean is this kind of person or whatever that's that's not my job i'm not going to attack his character or anything like that but i disagree and we have angles as well on film where you could see me still fighting the choke as the bell goes off and where i'm still grimacing as the choke goes off as the bell goes off if i'm grimacing and i'm still fighting the choke at the bell how am I out before

What are you thinking by the way in that moment If anything Well I heard the ticker and I was like I'm good And I'm telling you like he didn't have it He obviously he had the choke in But I'm holding that arm To just at least give me a little space To where he can't just fully squeeze

And it's a rap from there You know what I'm saying So I'm holding it I know I have a little bit of space And man it sucks because I hear the bell And then I go out if Herb Dean was right there at the bell to get him off of me, then I'm not out.

You know what I'm saying? And to hold it for an extra 2.15 seconds, not a fraction of a second, but when you put the timer on, an extra 2.15 seconds, when you're already in a choke for maybe about 9 seconds or so, that's a lot of time. That's enough time for you to go to sleep. and it's unfortunate it ended the way it ended but like this shirt says I'm the man of the people I'm the people's champ new shirt coming out soon

I like that shirt You know what I'm saying You make this after the fight Is this a new one? I made this after the fight Ariel I get you one I appreciate it where can people get it I don't know where we're going to get it yet

Okay You know I'm definitely going to put it out there Maybe on millions.co I'm also going to have my own website So you'll definitely be able to get it there This is good But yeah man I'm the man of the people People's champ, at the end of the day, we know we won that fight.

You mentioned the appeal. How confident are you that something's going to happen? And are you trying to get it turned to a no contest? Are you trying to say, hey, go to the scorecards, I win? What are you actually trying to get from the appeal? Look, I think I'm, I guess I don't really know how that whole thing works. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

That's where Lance and those guys are going to take over and figure it out from there. but I'll tell you what it's definitely not a loss not if I'm awake at the bell you know what I'm saying so I don't know if like if the way the rules work it would be a no contest

or they would call it because it also could be a disqualification as well if I'm holding something on you after the bell I think it was a someone sent me a rules list you know California City Athletic Commission and you're attacking someone after the bell you know that's also

one of the rules, you know, that's a foul, right? So now at the end of the day, we're talking about a foul. We're talking about the referee getting in there late. Man, it was almost like a double whammy kind of, you know, hitting on my record. But at the end of the day, we're putting our appeal in. We hope they're going to hear us out. And I assume they will because, man, the California State Athletic Commission has been great to us so far. Even getting this fight short notice, Like I fought for California in Sacramento as well in A1, March 27th. So, you know, got love for those guys, and they made the whole process easy. I think we formally submitted our appeal in today, you know, with a written letter and everything like that.

So whether it's a no contest or they rule it a disqualification and then we go to the judge's scorecards, regardless, I'm undefeated. Everyone knows it. You know, you'll understand this reference because of the pro wrestling connection. He cut a bit of a heel promo on you afterwards. What did you think of what he had to say on the microphone? He was kind of dismissive of your claims. Yeah, I mean, look, obviously that's what he's going to try and do, right?

He got what he wanted. He knew holding that choke in for an extra 2.15 seconds was going to put me out. You know what I'm saying? He's a Brazilian jiu jitzu black belt, and he was a pretty strong cat. So I'm sure in his mind, he was like, I'm just going to hold this thing and hold it and hold it, and we'll see if he goes out. obviously he got what he wanted so he was going to cut his little heel promo

but let's be honest man what he was saying on the microphone ain't as cool as what I was saying on the microphone I regret I killed on this thing man and as soon as I got on there the crowd started cheering me you know what I'm saying and they started booing him so look I don't know if you asked Nekisa did you ask Nekisa about the fight

we didn't have time unfortunately okay well regardless of all the fights that happened on that card they're talking about making you know Nate Diaz versus Mike Perry too. But the fans, you know, are asking for one fight in particular. Oh, I was just going to ask you about that. Yeah, the fans are asking for one fight in particular.

It's no offense to Nate Diaz, no offense to Mike Perry. The fans aren't asking for that fight. Nikisa MVP, they want to make that fight happen again. But the fans all want to see Turbo versus Marais 2. Me actually on a full camp and me actually had 125 pounds. Why not? Good guy versus bad guy. The cheater versus the best.

Let's make it happen. Have they talked to you about, you know, he did say that they're in the MMA business now. They want to continue and whatnot. It seems like it was a good experience. You're wearing the hat, so that would suggest that. Obviously. And I want to ask you about the experience in a moment. But has anyone reached out to you about your interest in continuing to fight for them

and fighting him in particular again? No, I haven't heard anything from anyone. Obviously, they've been good to me. And it's funny, man, because everybody in the back room, as soon as I get to the back from the security guys to some of the people who are just running around doing stuff for the show, they're all like bro, you were beating his ass, bro, you won.

You know, I don't know if they were speaking on the record or off the record, but everyone I spoke to was like, hey, that was your win, and they screwed you. So I don't know. I haven't heard anything from MVP. I haven't heard anything about them bringing me back. Haven't heard anything about a rematch. But our fight is still being talked about to this day

by everybody. So let's do it. How was the experience fighting for them? Their first show, being a part of it all, big deal. You've seen the numbers now. How was the experience? Man, it was one of a kind. It was awesome.

You know, from going to the regional scene, and the regional scene was cool. Fighting for CFFC was nice. LFA peak, even A1 is cool. But these guys really made you feel like a superstar. You know what I'm saying? With the press conference and the way that whole thing did. And shout out to you, too. you made sure everyone got a little second on a hot microphone in front of those people.

That was pretty cool from the way in show. We're standing on a platform, almost on some Mortal Kombat type of stuff. Crazy, right? Elevated? The pyro and the cryro and all that kind of stuff they had, man. It was a really cool experience. The production value was very high. The people in the back were great. They handled everything well.

Media Day was awesome. The people in the back were dope. Obviously, too. The pay was very nice. Better than anything I had ever had. So I had a pleasant experience with MVP. You'd like to continue to fight for them? Yeah, sure.

If they call me, I'll fight again. You know what I'm saying? I just want to fight and prove on the best in the world. I want to fight on the biggest platform against the best competition and show, without a shadow of a doubt, I am not just the best fly weight in the world, but in the sport of mixed martial arts and even in the sport of professional wrestling,

I'm the best in the business. I'm here to prove that. So when you, honestly, when you watch like a Joshua van against a Tatsura Taira just a couple of weeks ago, you think you're better than those guys? Absolutely. Not even a question. Not even a question. Wow.

Look, Ariel, I took that fight on nine days notice. He had a whole two months, maybe more, to get ready for that fight. That's what I did on nine days notice. I don't throw that court wheel kick, my hand is up. If I don't care about entertaining the fans and putting on fun fights and I just want to skate to a decision, then we're talking about me beating Adriana Marais. But scratch that, man of the people, people's champion, we're still talking about me beating Adriana Maris. The people know I beat Adriana Maris. So at the end of the day, that's what I did on nine

days notice. In my opinion, I think Adriana Maris is a more well-rounded fighter and more experienced fighter than a Tyra or a van. Obviously, they're young, they're still coming up and they have a lot of skills, a lot of good experience, and it's not to hate on those guys, but it's just a testament to how good I am. It's a testament to my years of training with Ray Longo, Matt Serra, with, you know, Al Jemaine Sterling and M. Rob DeVosvili and all the other beats at Sarah Longo and even the guys that I train with now, like Alex Perez and Matthias Nakashay and Odeyazborn, I'm training with the highest-level guys in the sport, and I've been since 2013. If I would, I would. wasn't the best in the world, there's something wrong with me.

I've been training for too damn long to be an average, you know, run of the mug, journeyman bum. I'm one of the best in the world. Scrash that. I am the best in the world. And at the end of the day, for me to have a performance like that on nine days' notice, just imagine what I would do with a full camp against a guy like Tyra, Joshua Van, even a dude like Pantosia.

I'm taking the world by storm. And I think the one important part, the one important aspect about all of the, you know, of this is that Joshua Van, Tyra, Pantosia, even Marais, they don't got this. They don't got that. When it comes to that camera, when it comes to the microphone, when it comes to actually drawing and being a star

at 125 pounds, there is not a single other fighter in the world that can make 125 or 126, that can be a star the way I am and kill it on this microphone, baby. So I don't understand. What is your theory as to, why they never called you. I don't have a theory and I can't.

You never asked Matt, Ray, Marub, Aljo, Chris. I've heard that it's because I'm boring. You've heard that. I've heard that before. It doesn't seem very boring to me. That wasn't a boring fight. You're not boring on the mic. Too many decisions?

Maybe that's the case. But I look at a guy like Paris Moran, 56% of his fights ended by decision. He just won a split decision this past weekend or something on Fury a couple weeks ago. and he got a shot of contender. So I don't know if it's a decision thing because he got his opportunity.

But in my opinion, I'm not worried about that. I know whatever it is. It's not personal. I'm sure they got a business to run and they feel like they're making a good business decision. And for me, I'm not taking it personally. The only thing I could do is put one foot in front of the other, prove on the best in the world,

and still kill it on this microphone in a way that nobody else at our weight class can. Look, there's a lot of fighters out there. There ain't many stars at 125. And I truly believe big platform, big opportunity, look at what I did in nine days notice. I have the potential to not just be the biggest star in the flyweight division, but 100,000 percent be the biggest star in this sport today.

All I need is the opportunity and the platform to do it. I know you are of South African descent. Were you born in South Africa? No, I was born in the States, but my mom moved to South Africa when she was 19 years old to escape apartheid. Okay. Oh, you mean she moved to the U.S.? Sorry, sorry, yeah, she moved to the U.S. Okay.

And you reside in Jersey, but do you train in Long Island or no more? So I born and raised in Jersey. Okay. 18 moved to Long Island. Now I live in Vegas. Now that I have a little bit of money, maybe I can go back and forth between Vegas and New York. but I live primarily in Vegas. Train with Mateus Nakashay, Al Jemey, Stirling,

you know, a lot of great guys who we have coming out of that camp. Man, that camp is Team Nacchasei, it's growing. You know what I'm saying? And now we train at the Q, so we have a great spot to train. I got great training partners. And, man, we're getting better every day. Who introduced you to M.M.A. And how old were you when you got into it?

It's funny, man. I started as a pro wrestling fan. Okay. And I watched Ken Schemock when I was a kid. And, you know, obviously my brothers are much older than me, so I was watching the attitude error. Yeah. That was a golden era to me, man. I was watching Undertaker, Stone Cold.

My oldest brother's a Brett Hart fan, so I was always watching him. And I knew who Ken Shamrock was. One day I'm flipping it through the channels, and I was a boxing fan, a kickboxing fan as a kid. I'm 12 years old at this point. And I see Ken Shamrock fighting Tito Ortiz in a cage. And I'm like, dude, what? Like I've seen boxing gloves before I seen PCA kickboxing

But I'd never seen MMA And I'm watching this I'm like dude Kent Shermark is doing this is for real Like he's really fighting right now Yeah And you know I was at that age able to even just

Turn around and see the technique behind it I didn't see human cock fighting And you know Bareball you know Fighting the way other people were I saw Tito Ortiz was taking him down With technique

Ken Shamrock was trying to use technique to get up and fight back. And it really intrigued me, man. And from that moment on, I was hooked. I was hooked. I saw them wrap that belt around Tito Ortiz's waist. And I was like, that's what I want right there. That belt is, that's my dream. And you didn't train, like you had wrestling background,

but not like no martial arts or anything like that. No, at 12 years old, I didn't really have much of a background in anything. Oh, wow. Okay, okay. I just was an athlete. I loved running around. I maybe take a couple of kickboxing classes. every now and again just to work out.

But at that point, no experience. I was just a kid with a dream. And so when did you get to Saralongo? That was 18 years old. Moved out to Long Island. For that reason or no? No, no, no. My mom was like, bro, you're going to school.

You know what I'm saying? But I wanted to get away from Jersey, so I went to Hofstra. And it's funny, I was like looking at, I was just looking up gym. So I typed in Long Island MMA. And then obviously, you know, I think Laflair's gym came. up yeah um but then as i was like there in that area i saw long goes is in walking distance and i didn't have no car i was broke you know what i'm saying i was just a broke college kid with a dream so i would just walk to the gym and uh and it's funny man long go there with the money to

sign up long ago as cool as he is he's like bro save your money don't care to see if you like it first and uh even that night i took his class it was a great class ally quinto was actually there sitting on the couch at the edge of the mat. What year are we talking here? We're talking 2013. Okay. Wow. Maybe late August, early September 2013. Okay. Chris Wyman's UFC champion, I believe. This was Chris Wyman, bro, I got to see Chris Wybman's whole camp getting ready for Anderson. The first one or second? The second one. Okay, got you. And I'm telling you, to this day, I'd never seen anyone work harder than that dude at that camp, man. And this is no disrespect. Yeah, yeah. I've seen train, but that dude was a dog.

And it's funny enough, like Ray Long was like, look, I know you walked here. We're going to send you on a ride home. You're not walking home. And funny enough, Chris Wyman drove me home in his truck that night. After the first one? After my first day of practice, Chris Wythman drove me home with a truck. Dude, I'm a starstruck. He's trying to talk to me.

I'm sitting there like, what the fuck is going on? And it's crazy to look all these years later where I've come and where I've ended up. Man, it's all been a blessing, man. Man, what a journey, 13 years from that point. And now you see why I have a smile on my feelings. It can't get me down. I'm blessed just to be here and I've been through it all and the ride is still going. Was there any part of you maybe at the press conference, maybe at the Wayans, maybe Saturday you're like, I freaking made it, man.

Look at these people here. 100%. That must have felt great. From the press conference to the Wayans and I don't know if my team could kind of tell, but I was filming the locker room, me walking into the locker room and stuff like that. out on Netflix show. And dude, I had to stop myself from tearing up because it was like, man, like I finally made it to the big show. I finally get to show the world my skills, man. And I didn't want to cry in front of anyone, man. Like, I do get emotional sometimes, but I hold it all in, you know what I'm saying? Which could be good or bad depending on you talk to. You

know what I'm saying? Maybe I need a therapist. I don't know. No, man. But, um, I appreciate you having that perspective to kind of smell the flowers. And this is before the fight. And this is, bro, this is us walking into the locker room and the locker room the way was set up man like they had the lights you had the MVP on the logo and i think they put me in gina carano's locker room before she got there so i'm in like the locker room yeah yeah nice locker room in the india dome you know what i'm saying so it was just such a cool experience obviously stopped myself from tearing up had to get down to business and even when i was walking out there man like the nerves were there but at the end of the day i was just enjoying every second of it because I'd work so hard to get there, you know?

One thing that's been talked about a lot, and I was actually thinking about this when I was watching all the fights on Saturday, you know those lights that were on the seats that everyone's going crazy about because they think no one was in attendance, but it was just because it made the seats look black. I was wondering if the fighter, if you guys were bothered by them, because they were kind of flashing. I know you're looking at your opponent, but there's still lights, all these lights behind you. Was that annoying at all, or are you so locked in? Not at all. Okay.

The lights over top are just shining so bright on the canvas. You've got no choice but to just focus on it. That was good. Okay, okay. What about the cage? Smaller than you expected? Bigger? Yes, small than I expected.

It definitely wasn't like UFC pay-per-view size cage. Yeah. Closer to the apex or closer to what I fought in for A1 combat. But maybe that makes for more action. I don't know. Regardless, I knew it was going to be a small cage. So we just adjust, we fight, and that's it. Yeah, man.

And so you feel like there's been sort of like a tangible difference, the way people are talking about you reaching out. There's good that has come, obviously, from this. And so in a perfect world, when do you fight again? When would you like to fight again? I know you said, like, you'll fight next week and stuff like, but like no injuries, right? You're all good.

Do I look injured? No, I don't know. I'm telling you, I'm... Yeah, my hand's a little bruised up, but this is fighting, bro. This is a hurt business. I'm, nothing's broken, just got to ice it. You know what I'm saying?

I can run, I could grapple, I could go live right now, I'm in shape. I'll tell you right now, Adriana Marais is probably in that hotel or wherever he's at. Everyone was telling me he was bruised up. He was beat up. His face was all mangled up. Come on, baby. I'm still the prettiest fighter out there, man, you know what I'm saying? So I can go next week.

Obviously, where I fight next is got to be a big show. You know what I'm saying? With all due respect to A1, CFFC, all those guys. they've helped me out so much. You know what I'm saying? LFA peak. They've elevated my career to a certain point,

gotten me so much experience. But I think right now it's either MVP or it's UFC, but it's got to be a big show. No flyweight in PFL, right? Is that why you consider 35 for them? I've actually gotten a good offer for them in the past

and that was the reason why I had the decline. I couldn't, I can't see myself right now at 135 pounds. Maybe later, maybe, you know, I eat a couple of Twinkies or, you know, my muscle mass grows a little bit. I grow older into my bones get a little denser or something. But right now, man, not only my 125er, but I'm the best 125er. And I feel like I got to show that out there. You're kind of the walking embodiment of why shows like this one.

And it doesn't have to be MVP, but why there needs to be more shows out there. Because here's a guy who's very good who just wasn't getting the opportunity for, or whatever reason, you get the opportunity on another big show and you make a name for yourself. It can't, there just can't be one show in town in the sport. That's not the way combat sports is supposed to be structured. And so to me, like a lot of the people, you, there were a couple people who maybe weren't, quote, quote, household names going into Saturday, but I feel like you, Namo Fazil, you guys took the opportunity to be on this big stage and people were talking about you afterwards. And that's why we need those other shows. And so you seize the moment is basically

what I'm trying to say. Oh, thank you so much, man. And for that to come from you, you know what I'm saying? I'm an old school head, you know what I'm saying? I know I look young and all that, but you're R. Howard Kosell. You know what I'm saying? That's the way I look at it, man. You're very knowledgeable about the sport.

You've been around for a long time. So for that to come from you, man, means a lot. Seriously. And the fight, I mean, like I said, I've heard a lot about you, but the fight was great. Like, it was the fight of the night. Back and forth, you guys went. The ending was one of the most unique endings that I've ever seen. For better or worse, it was wild.

You couldn't script anything better than that. You know what I mean? So massive kudos to you. And as far as the wrestling is concerned, because I'm so interested in that, do you want to try to get to one of the big dogs? Do you want to try to get to an AW or WW or are you happy with where you're at? I mean, look, man, as of right now,

I'm definitely happy where I'm at. House of Glory. That's the promoter right there, my boy Brian. You know what I'm saying? What's up, man? And like I said, this Friday we got a show. I want to wrestle the best professional wrestler out there. that's willing to come down to Queens on Friday and come get this work.

Where's the venue, by the way? It's going to be at the NYC Arena. Jamaica, Queens and New York come through. I think the show starts at 7 o'clock. Is that right? You know what I'm saying? So there's a poster. I'm going to be there.

Hopefully we can get the best guy out there. That way I could put on the best performance. But for me, it's like I said earlier, I want to be the Bo Jackson of this sport. You know what I'm saying? I want to be that Dionne Sanders. There's a lot of great mixed martial artists out there. and there's a lot of great professional wrestlers out there.

Who else do you know in the history of the game has done both at the same time and kill it? I just fought Adriana Marais, nine days notice, on a card that is the most watched card in MMA history and put on a show. Now, one week later, less than a week later, still looking pretty, not bruised up, not beat up. I'm hopping in there again with a great wrestler who we're going to find. and I'm going to show I can kill it there too. Nobody on planet Earth in the history of either sport, I believe has done anything like that.

And that's why I want to separate myself from the pack. I want to do something that no one's ever done before. If it's UFC, I want to be the first person to hold the belt in the UFC and WWW at the same time. If I don't get that opportunity and they don't call, well, then you know what? I want to be the first person to hold the belt for MVP, MMA, and AEW.

you regardless, I want to do something that's never been done. I want to be the biggest star in both sports at the same time. And I know a lot of people would doubt me, a lot of people would hate on me, a lot of people say I'm cocky, can't do it. But right now, on nine days notice, I did what no one else would do. And this Friday, I'm going to do it again. I love it. Completely another sport.

By the way, why do they call you turbo? It's funny, man. I actually used to rush a lot of my techniques. So my coach would tell me, like, oh, throw a one, two, three, I would try and throw it so fast it would look like garbage. And, you know, Eric Hire gave me the nickname. And, you know, one day I was doing that whole thing. And he was like, bro, slow down there, turbo.

Oh, okay. Eventually, it just stuck. I like it. I like it. All right, you're so good at promos. Before we go, cut a promo on Adrian of Marais. Look into the camera right here. Which camera am I looking at?

This one, right here. Tell Adriana Maris how you feel about everything, about the rematch, the offer. Whatever you want to do, this is your time to shine. You, Adriana Maris. Look, a gentleman Rice Eye to eye man and man You and I both know you lost that fight There's a reason why in the back room

You barely wanted to look at me There's a reason why when I called for the rematch You said oh yeah you know maybe if they offer you There's a reason why when we were in that octagon Before the fight even started You couldn't even look me in my eyes I'm the best flyweight in the world You know it, I know it

Hey even your corner man Pedro Munoz knows it. At the end of the day, you had to cheat to get that dub. You Hussmar Paul Horace me. Now, whether the appeal goes through or not, man to man, mono imano in your heart, you know you couldn't beat me on nine days notice. So I know you're going to run from this fight. I know you probably won't want to step in there with me again. But Nekisa, if you can make that fight happen on MVP MMA2, Let's make the rematch happen The fans won it I want it

And Adrianem of Rice Don't run for me Papa You're gonna have to get this work And we're gonna find out who really won again Man of the People The People's Champion It's coming from Turbo Pumi and Kuda

Fucking love it man Well done Sorry to your mom for swearing We don't get a lot of mic works like that She can't get mad at me She'll get mad at you All right my mom will get mad at me Great stuff man

Great stuff congratulations on a great week So so great to meet you finally after hearing about you for so long, great fight and good luck on Friday as well at House of Glory. Tell Jason I say hi if he's in the house. We'll do. Hey, come through, man.

I know, I know I need to come through. Yeah, we'll come through. I will come through. I know you guys did a show in Vegas as well, and if I was going to go to Vegas for WrestleMania, I was going to come, but then I didn't end up going. But one of these days, I will be there. Thank you very much.

Appreciate it. We'll take a quick break. Say goodbye to Pumi. Back with your super chats. News and notes, don't go anywhere. All right, that guy comes. cuts a mean promo. That guy cuts a mean promo. A lot of people like the chat with MJF, as did I. Love the chat with Pumi. And as I said, this is why you need other promotions out there.

It's just good to have opportunities for the guys and gals. So let's see, I'd love to see that fight again. If you didn't watch it, it was the, it wasn't the headliner on the prelims. I think it was second to last. The headliner was Namo against Jake Babian, but it was, it was, was up there. It was a great fight and the ending was very wacky. I maintain that it should have gone the distance into the scorecards. All right, news and notes. Michael Morales on IG saying what? What is he saying? He's posting this. I always create my own luck and that's why I'll be the next champion. And that is the 15th of August 26. Now, I have a hard time believing that he is leapfrogging Ian Gary, but truth be told, crazier things have happened, and I have not checked in.

Last I heard, it's still Ian. I have not checked in, so perhaps things have changed. It would make a lot of sense, though, to have him compete on that same card. So let's see. I'm going to check in on this. Maybe I'll do it in between some of our chatter here. I'll do it. What about Drickus do Plus C?

2 plus C weighing in on the Hamza Tshamayev troublesome weight cut. Let's see what Drickus Duplice had to say. Yeah, I think this whole weight cut excuse is ridiculous, to be honest with you. To Rican City cut 12 pounds in the 24 hours. Those are rookie numbers. 12 pounds in 24 hours, that's not that bad. I think it was 46 in total. In total, but I mean, over the camp, it doesn't matter.

Yeah. What matters is that last 24 hours and 12 pounds is not that much. I mean, I definitely got more than that. Yeah, sometimes I've had bad weight cuts too. One kilogram can make the world difference in a weight cut. Using a weight cut as an excuse when it comes to the fight, even if you did have a bad weight cut, it's fine, it's happened to all of us. But you don't go out to say, oh, I lost the fight because of that, no.

If you want to change weight divisions, change weight divisions. But blaming a bad weight cut is like saying, I lost the fight because I wasn't fit. It's on you. Be more disciplined. Any excuse for me when you get to the octagon, there is no excuse. There's no excuse. If you went in there with a big injury, you made the decision to fight. If the injury were so severe, don't take the fight.

Be a man and take your loss like a man. Don't make any excuses. There are no excuses. This wasn't, I think a lot of aura was lost in that and is this going to break him or is this going to motivate him to say, listen, I can't just rely on my wrestling. I need to fight MMA because that is at the end of the day with the sport is heading. The wrestling guys, they've been so dominant that everybody's starting to catch up. For Hamzad, I think he said he wants to go to 205, the easier route for sure.

I think, you know, just to take off the burden of a weight cut. But he said he's moving up to 205 to Dana, but now he's scoring stricken for a rematch. I don't think he deserves a rematch. You know, he definitely doesn't because he has no title defenses. Zero. So it doesn't justify a rematch at all. Later in that same interview, Drickus says that he has a fight and that it will be announced in short order. I wonder if that fight is against someone who fought Hamzad and is a former champion.

Anyway, I don't think Michael Morales is going to get that title shot, but I do think Ian is. But they still haven't announced it yet. They just announced the July 11th main event. I'm feeling like that's the next big one that's going to come out, I would think. Let's see, let's see. Now, Mr. Dana White was doing an interview with our friend Rich Clyman, who has done a podcast from this very studio in the past for his great boardroom platform. And they were doing an interview about a whole host of things.

And one of the things that they talked about was, of course, the White House card, which is less than a month away now, June 14th, a Sunday night, to be exact. our conversation about whether or not any portion of the card is going to air on CBS or Paramount Plus, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, data actually brought up something really interesting that I had not thought of and something that he experienced while recently being at the White House. Really interesting stuff. And I'm curious to see how they're going to combat it.

Here's what he had to say. Success will be this. Obviously, the thing gets pulled off. Yeah. You know, as far as production goes, with... Close to no hitches. You know, we have to worry about. So the weather.

Yeah. Right. How cold is it? Is it too hot? Is it too muggy? Does it rain? The only thing that can really crush us is lightning. Yep.

You know, everybody, you all have kids that have played soccer or whatever. As soon as lightning hits, it's a wrap. Everybody's got to go hide. And then you can't go. So if lightning happens that night, we'll wait out the lightning until it goes away. Yep. And we'll do the show. a little bit later or however that plays out.

Hopefully none of that shit happens. The other problem that I always think about, especially on the East Coast, bugs. Yeah. So, President Trump just opened the Rose Garden two nights ago and he invited me to dinner there. The amount of gnats that were flying around, I'm like, holy shit.

As soon as I got on the plane, I called my head of production and said, yeah, let me tell you about that. the Nats situation tonight. So when you're a fighter, think about that lighting grid, the claw that we're going to have, the amount of power in the lights, moths, gnats, and God knows what else. Fighters trying to deal with that. This is actually a really, really good point and somewhat terrifying.

My kids play soccer in this huge open field, and often their practices will go to like 738, and there'll be these, like, massive, I don't know, what are these things called? Like the sort of stadium lights, but they bring them out, generator, all that stuff. The amount of bugs that are surrounding this thing when I pick them up, it's insane. And it actually grosses me out. I'm like, did this not bother you? And, you know, their kids, they don't care. But what if that actually does happen?

And if it did happen in that region where he was at an event, why wouldn't it happen in a month or so from now? How the hell are they going to combat this? Climent does mention, actually, if you recall, the Java Chamberlain situation. Yes. When the Yankees played the Indians and the Nats or whatever they were called, swarmed him. I remember that. That was awful in Cleveland.

And he was like going, was C.C. Sabathia pitching for Cleveland in that game? I don't know if he pitched in that game, but. For some reason, you only care about the Yankees side. The last thing, the Raab's career. Did it really? I mean, they tried to make him a starter, but, you know. Right, right, right. That was kind of the down.

But honestly, could you imagine fighting someone and there's just bugs everywhere? What do you even do? You put like a net over the cage? They have trucks where they can do treatments of the days leading up to. Growing up in Houston, those trucks came like once a week because of mosquito problems. Like they would spray? Yeah. And like you need to be inside when they spray because it's like pretty intense.

Organic? Absolutely not. Also, I don't think it always works that well because they do that in Brooklyn too. Yeah. There's still mosquitoes out. Right. So what the hell? Could you imagine?

I don't know if you guys have ever been in D.C. in the summer. It's kind of swamped. And Nats are definitely, definitely a possibility. It is amazing because we all know, Dana has said this. He doesn't shy away from this. It's a great point. He hates outdoor shows. Even if I remember, so there's only been one outdoor show in the history of the UFC,

and it was UFC 112, actually, that show in Abu Dhabi. I was lucky enough to be there. And it was, it was very hot. It was muggy. And I remember the fighters were sweating right away. Like, I remember Phil Davis in his fight against Alexander Gustafsson was sweating right away. And so that was challenging, but that's just sort of the climate. There was nothing else going on.

There wasn't like a sandstorm. It obviously didn't rain. It wasn't unbearable, the heat. And obviously it got cooler as the night went on. The rain is nerve-wracking enough. The gnats and all that stuff is just a whole other level of problem. And again, June 14th, I remember this day because it was my son's bar mitzile last year. And that whole weekend, it was raining.

That whole weekend was raining just last year. So what happens? I'm sure they've thought of all of this, by the way. Like, I'm sure they have every single, you know, every single measure and scenario thought of. One thing he has said in other interviews, though, is if it does get, like, there could be a rain delay. So I think we said that the main card is going to start at eight, maybe. something like that? I think we looked that up one time.

But what if this thing gets rain delayed to like a 10 p.m. main card? And it's one thing for a football game or even a baseball game to a degree, although it does screw up

the pitchers, no doubt about it. But could you imagine if you're a fighter and you think you're fighting at 7 o'clock and now all of a sudden you're fighting at 9 o'clock or you think you're fighting

at 9 o'clock and you're now fighting at 11 o'clock? That does kind of screw you up. Is it a, hey, the fight is off scenario? No, obviously not. But it does screw you. you up. Like you think you're about to go make that way. It just started raining. Golly. To be honest, I'm not hoping for any of this. I'm not hoping for any of this. I think that this is

give me a fucking break. Yeah, no, no, no. I'm not hoping for any. You think I'm hoping for this, Frank? Not at all. No. You're not rooting for a plague of Nats to. I'm not rooting for, no. I'm not. None of us are rooting for that. No, but come on. I'm sure there are people out there thinking that I am rooting for this. Like, I don't want, I don't want, no, I, I, I, come on. Is it, is it, is it, is it, is it a naive thing to say that there are people that are rooting for this to be an utter disaster? Are you kidding me? Tied to, like, come on. Like, there's dudes on Twitter that, that, that, that their whole life is just, there's an obsession over politics and that side and this side. I see what you're getting on now. You don't think there are people that are praying that be, that this is an

absolute disaster and would be thrilled to see this go up in flames. Come on. You're saying like because of their politics. Politically motivated. One thousand percent. That didn't even enter my mind, but now that you have said that, you're right. One million. You don't think that they'll have a massive chuckle. Oh my God. The cage fighting event that was planned for Donald Trump's birthday in honor of the U.S. 250th birthday got completely thrown off, canceled,

whatever, was infested by Nats, they would love it. They would love nothing more. You're right. I actually had not even thought that way. I could see the John Oliver monologue now. Like I can literally see it.

I can literally see it. These idiots, these buffoons decided to put on an event and this is what happens. The presidential gods were laughing at them. Of course, but I just wanted to make it clear that I am not one of those people at all. If anything, because, like, I would feel awful for the fighters.

Could you imagine, you know, a fight against? What if, like, the Masters, there's been a couple times recently where the Masters, I remember the final round of the Masters was on a Monday because of rain. Within the last five to seven years, could you imagine if there's, like, just throwing it out there. like a huge storm on the 14th. Would they do it on the 15th? No, you just tarp it and fight the elements. No.

If it's a lightning storm. Yeah. No, I think they would actually move the event. No, they would delay it. Can you even delay it? I was going to say, if you're on the White House. Also, wait in, you're on the White House lawn. How many days do you have that for?

Yeah, yeah. I don't think you can just occupy the White House lawn. You know, there's a question that I think someone should ask Dana White? do they have an arena on standby? I would imagine that they have some kind of thing. That's such a nightmare though. Even if you move the fights into the ballroom and nobody can watch and you figure out a way

to just still have the fights, I think that's probably what you do. No. No what? If no one can watch, that's such a disaster. Sorry, I mean like in person. Oh, oh, okay, okay. I meant like a crowd.

I thought you meant like you stream it. You have to, but I think the more important thing is this event has to happen. Is the ballroom done? Good news. Capital One Arena has no events until September. There you go. Really? Really? No concerts or anything?

According to their website. Fuck, it's tough. Damn for the Capital One Arena. The Capital One Arena? Sorry, the MCI Center for you. I actually prefer the Verizon. No, it wasn't called the Verizon. What was the original name?

Was it the MCI? It was MCI, yeah. I think it was Verizon at one point. Yeah, it was, right? Yeah. MCI, I think, is first, though. know. That doesn't matter.

That is kind of crazy for a major arena not to have a single thing booked for the next four months. I have a hard time believing that. I've been to a concert at that arena. I feel like they've got to have something. Yeah. That's actually where... Jordan just checked. It was MCI Center first.

Okay. Then Verizon Center. Then Verizon. Okay. That's the arena where Mr. John Cena had his retirement match. Anyway, this is going to be very interesting. It's really, I mean, credit to him for even bringing it up. I didn't even think of it.

I don't think anyone actually thought of it, to be honest. Very, very, very interesting to see how that plays out and what they do. What, like, what are the backup plans? I'll be honest, I didn't see the whole interview. I don't know if he goes into it later in the interview. Like, what are the, I'm sure they have contingency plans and all that stuff already. And I have a feeling deep down inside that Dana White and the entire staff cannot wait. You know, I always joke like, I can't wait for June 15th.

I bet they can't wait for June 15th. I bet that they can't wait to just get back to like regular. This has consumed their lives. He's talked about Craig Borsari, head of production, how this has been the only thing he's worked on for the past year. And there's a pressure involved in making it special and the lights,

the glitz, the glamour, all that stuff and more. The presentation, I still think that at least one hour of it should air on CBS, but there's a lot at stake here. And then you follow that up with a Connor McGregor card. I feel like we heard something similar regarding the sphere, you know, where it's like, we want to do this, it's going to be fantastic, but when it's over, I can't wait and get back to the regular programming.

Yeah. There was some breaking news yesterday. I mean, it was yesterday, but... Yesterday. It's actually kind of, it's disturbing news. It's regarding Logan Storley, the, the PFL fighter. This is according a report, a professional mixed martial arts fighter was arrested in Key West early Monday morning after police say he sexually battered a woman in the street while wearing no clothes before

being stopped by the manager of a nearby strip club who witnessed the incident. Logan Storyly, who up until earlier this month fought as a welterweight under contract with the Professional Fighters League, which is broadcasted on ESPN, was booked into Monroe County's main jail on Stock Island on one count of sexual battery. A clerk at the jail said Tuesday, he has since been released on a $50,000 bond. That is the mugshot. Logan Storley, of course, Bellator fighter, PFL fighter. We were talking about this yesterday, the difference between sexual battery and sexual assault. I want to get this right. Okay, was that on air or off there, Frank? Okay, the main difference, this is according to Google. The main difference is the scope. Sexual assault is a broad umbrella term

for any non-consensual sexual contact or behavior. Sexual battery is a specific criminal charge that legally requires unwanted physical contact, often specifically involving the touching of intimate body parts or the use of force. Often you hear about sexual assault, not sexual battery, so I was curious what the difference was. So there you have it.

That's the news that came out yesterday regarding Logan Storley. I have not seen any further updates regarding anything. Has the PFL said anything? I have not seen. PFL. They have like a public relations feed. Let's see if they've said anything here.

PFL underscore PR, no. Their last tweet was seven days ago. They do have an event this weekend, and that's in Belgium. And it is, I'd say kind of flying under the radar, but it's maybe not geared towards this particular audience, although Benson Henderson is fighting against Patrick Habirora, and I love watching Patrick fight, and he's fighting in Brussels,

and that is going to be a scene. When he fought in Lyon, it was an incredible scene. I'm very much looking forward to this, and he should win. I think he's expected to win, and I think that it's a fight that is being made for him to look good against a recognizable name. And so the Ussick Verhoeven fight is on Saturday.

That's at 11 a.m. It's on de zone. Is it on to zone pay-per-view? It doesn't say here. It's always very hard. I think it's just on the app. Wow. Yeah.

are excited about here in the United States. Mizuki Hirota. So not a bad card at all. And obviously the main event is supremely intriguing. PFL Brussels. That's at 1230 on ESPN here in America. Taylor Lappi loose against Jake Hadley on the card as well. Yeah, a bit of a...

Oh, Joe Schilling is on here. Rick, did you know that? I did not. Shout out to Joe. Joe Schilling is on here. That's a mop legend. Yo, when's the last time, Joe Schilling fought in MMA.

He fought Luke Rockhold and karate combat in 24. That's MMA-ish. Sure. His last MMA fight was 2019 in Bellator. Yeah. Yo, Joe Schilling? Wow. Shout out. I had no idea. Two glory guys. Yeah.

Wait, who would the other one be? Rico. Rico Verhoeven. Different card, yeah. PFL Mena on Sunday. And that's all as far as somewhat major combat sports is concerned. Do we have any super chats? We do. And to start off is Nick Swinierskiy, 83.

Thank you, boy, Danhausen. He cursed the Cavs. Very nice. Very evil. Listen, I'm telling you. I will bow down to anyone who is helping make all of this happen. And so Danhausen, shout out to you. honestly, for the character or the man behind the character, I should say, this dude must be on cloud nine right now.

Danhausen. And by all accounts, everything that I've heard about Danhausen is that he's like a really, really good guy. He honors every commitment. He's great with kids. MJF spoke very highly of him. He just seems like a good dude. So imagine being a sort of fixture on the indie scene. You get the AW opportunity.

Now you're in the big league, so to speak. You're in WW not success. You got what I'm saying. is WW and there's some doubt as to whether or not the gimmick will resonate and not only has it resonated in a really big way, you're now being associated with the NBA playoffs and the New York Knicks of all teams and, you know, this market and ESPN and all that. I mean, like, this is a dream scenario for the guy. So, well done, well done. And yes, I give them all the credit in the world. Thank you. Thank you so much, Dan.

Oh yes, here's an article on uncrowned. Danhausen and the WWE loving Knicks, a beginner's guide to the curse carrying New York to the precipice of the NBA files. Are we on the precipice after one game? I guess just being in the series, you're on the precipice. Okay, fair enough. And that's from our boy, Anthony, who does a tremendous job for Uncrowned and all things Yahoo Sports. Love being a part of the site as well.

but yeah it's a big deal I'm going to game two guys that is confirmed wow yes oh well congrats I'll let you know do I email the ticket

or what do we do that's it dot com oh me yeah okay for sure yeah let me get the ticket I do want to let you know I'm giving a fend in now

I did get a text from a mutual friend of ours who's a big fan of yours Who is it? Who may have attended the game yesterday. And he said, you know, love Rick, mess with Rick, but we ain't down with Cleveland and Rick for the next couple weeks. I understand it totally.

I understand it totally. Just that's, what else, Ricky? Yes, yes. Please. For the city, a Knicks one will be better. You probably have more Knicks fans in your life. I'm in group chats getting destroyed by every one of my friends. So I'm keeping it cordial.

Yeah, yeah. No, totally. Were your friends killing you yet last night? Yes, because I've been on this East Sucks thing, and they're like, yeah, eat that shit. So, yeah, it's getting rough out there. Do you respond? What do you do? Yeah, smack them hard.

I've also been cordial. I don't say half the anti-nick shit to you that I say to them. Not even remotely close. What was the Cleveland Rick thing yesterday? He was out of the room when you're like, saying your Cleveland Rick is Sean Camp is because. I said, yeah, I said, because you're a. Cleveland fan because of Sean Cam. He played for them at that time.

Yeah, yeah. So I said that's like someone saying you're a Mets fan because of Willie Mays. That's like someone saying you're a magic fan. No doubt it was the worst part of his run. It's not even remotely close. It was a debacle. He got fat in the... That's like someone saying they're a dolphins fan because of Thurman Thomas. Yeah, but now

that is such a... That was such ancient history. It's just the funny genesis. Oh, 100%. No doubt. He is a Seattle Supersonic No doubt in the world. Yeah. him in that black and blue calves uniform? Okay, well, he looked good in that. The first season. The first All-Star season,

then the second one... It can be added to that edit of just, like, all of the, like, Shaq on the Celtic, Carri-on-Ree on the New York... Okay, it wasn't that bad. No, no. It wasn't like cup of coffee. He was still an NBA All-Star. Let's not get silly here. You watch the jailblazers... Patrick Ewing in the Magic

jersey was a debacle. Did you watch the jailblazers dock? Oh, I have not seen it, no. I totally forgot that he went from the... Oh yeah. The Blazers. I forgot about the Blazers run. I forgot about that.

No, no, no, no. It wasn't Sonics to Blazers. Was it not? Blazers was after. After what? After the Cavs? Yes, Cavs was... Okay, so maybe.

Anyway, they don't even talk about that. I just assumed it was Sonics to Blazers, but yes, they talk about, you know, acquiring him and how big of a bust he was on the Blazers and whatnot. So maybe, yeah, you're probably right. I just totally forgot about it. I always remembered the Cavs era because, yes, you're right, he was. He was good for, I think, that one year. He was an All-Star, and then they had the lockout, and he became 350 pounds, and then that was the end of it.

It was fucking horrible. I know they played the Knicks in the 96 playoffs. Was he on that team? Let me see here. No, no. He didn't get there until 98, 99. 97-98. Okay, so they played in 95-96.

Yeah, so then he went Cleveland, three years, and then Portland. And shout out, Orlando as well. God, when he was on Orlando, he looked like tractor-trailer. No, I'm not kidding. If you Google Magic Kemp, it's rough scenes. So that one is the one that you're actually talking about. Sean Kemp in a Magic jersey, that's the actual like, holy fuck, this actually happened. Montana on the Chiefs.

Yeah. That's kind of what it is, right? It's a little Montana on the... Yeah, yeah. Not the Cavs one, though. I feel like we're rewriting history. Matt Ryan on the Cole. That's the magic one?

Oh, man. Come on. God, good God, almighty. Oh, man. Kemp is a fucking legend, man. He's the freaking, he's the rain man. He's the, he's the O.G. Dunker. He's the original. The best. Highlight man and Peyton together. What else, Frankie? What else? Lucid AFC. Arsenal are champions of the print. Oh, yeah. Ariel can't call us Bottlers anymore like he has various times this year.

I hope one day you also feel this joy. That's very kind of you. Tomorrow, we have our third episode of our Premier League series. and it's a lot about Arsenal, so please do check that out. And in that episode, I do sing something that I can sing for at least the next 10 or so days. Champions of Europe, you'll never sing that.

You'll never sing that. You'll never sing that. They've never won the Champions League, but of course they're in the final. So all the jokes can subside forever if they pull that off. I don't think they're the favorite, right? Are they the favorite in that one?

Probably not. against PSG? Yeah, I can't remember. I think it's close. Ooh, they are plus 240. No, plus 230. Draw is a plus 240.

Well, Europa. I mean, Arsenal, I'm sorry, I was reading right off the screen. Arsenal is a plus 240. Plus 230. Draw is a plus 240. How could there be a draw in the final? But anyway, that's what it says?

What is it to lift the trophy? It could be like, they do the 90-minute bet. You could also do the whole game. All right, to win the cup, PSG minus 145 Arsenal plus 120 Wait really? I'm looking at something else that says plus 220 right now

I'm saying like to win the cup That's extra time everything Whoever is wins it all Okay that's actually better Yeah because then like if you bet Arsenal But then it's draw and they win in like PKs Then that one doesn't count Oh is that true?

Yeah Yeah Jordan's saying you can bet the 90 minute regulation time Really? Yeah that has burned me the past one I didn't know that was a thing. It's nasty work. That is crazy. Nasty work. Careful what you bet.

Wow. Gosh. Yeah, take a nice to win the cup just to be safe. All right. What else, Frankie? What else? Create like Mike. Congrats on a ring aerial, because when Rick is so certain in an outcome, it never plays out. So this might be it. As a heat fan with a dozen Knicks fans' friends, I'm happy for you. Knicks fans are the closest to football fans in the U.S.

Wow. I appreciate that. I actually feel like the Knicks have become like somewhat of a darling. I feel like, am I wrong? I know most, most, like, no one feels the Yankees or darlings because they've won a whole bunch of times. No one feels that way about the Giants. Even the Jets, I think people like to make fun of the Jets. But I feel like because the Nix have suffered, I feel like because Jalen.

What? People don't like them. Too many celebrities. They do the, the TV shit outside the garden. Sure, but Jalen, Josh, OG. People call Jalen a foul merchant. Nobody likes the Nix. I'm sorry.

Whatever this... Five years, plus, like, there is something admirable about how the fan base gets into it. Yeah. And by the way, you know,

I said that whole thing about the fans on this show. Now, as I said, make the finals go crazy. Win the finals, I mean, go apoplectic. Now all bets are off. Although I do think it's weird.

Like, why are they still saying F. Tray Young? Did you see that? Yeah. It's weird as hell. That is bizarre. Like, give me a... Give me an F. Donovan.

Well, I saw we want Wembe. They're doing the thing that they used to do with the Celtics. Like, we want the Celtics. They want the smoke of Wembe right now. I was at a Yankees game last year, and they started chanting fuck Trey Young. We do have breaking news. We do have breaking news. This is from West Coast resident and EIC of Uncrown, Chehina al-Shadi, who says,

hard disagree. Pretty much everyone on the West Coast is rooting for New York now. Okay. Yeah, it doesn't sound accurate. West Coast. Yeah, I mean, he's got his rooting for the Knicks because of Bridges. Yeah, I mean, what does Shaheen know

about the people? And we welcome him aboard this. He is a diehard Bridges fan. He's a diehard fan. Yeah, and we're abusing the breaking Hughes. What people on the West Coast are rooted? If I was going to rank how I... Do you think L.A. fans are rooting for the next? We were there last week. Nobody said anything else.

They don't want the Spurs or the Thunder to win. But the Spurs at least has like Wimby who's like he is in sweetheart. Everybody wants Wimby to win. I feel like it would go Spurs, Nick. Thunder Caves Thunder Caves Yeah just because the thunder

Like you're gonna get the bandwagoner What hate do people have for Well first of all She is a foul merchant Sonic fans everyone hate They flop They won last year Once you win everybody hates

He said OKC is reviled Yep Most hate the Spurs And no one cares about Cleven he said Spurs No one cares about that one

He's right about that one No one gives a fuck about Cleveland Nobody cares about them When they win 4 5 in that era Yeah but they have Wemette They're a young team.

Everybody loves this one. Such a ho-hum titles. Yeah, no, this is... This is horrible. Tim Duncan? They had a... Where are these Knicks fans in the West? I'd love to see them.

I will say, in L.A., walking around my Nix hat, a lot of people screaming at me, go Nix. Transplanter. I was going to say, massive fans. I don't know. I mean, they seem like L.A. residents. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, L.A. Residents, they formerly resided in New York. We went to a Dodgers game, and there wasn't anything but Dodgers.

One of the guys might have been driving. driving his car wearing a Yankee hat. Yeah. You talk about that. It was Shaheen. Sheen was out there drumming up the West Coast support for the Knicks. Let me tell you something. I feel like this team is the most beloved version of the Knicks in my lifetime. Like people did not like the Ewing Knicks because they were bullies and all this stuff. No, the Lynn Knicks were. Okay, I mean like the real championship.

Oh, that's not real for you. All right. That wasn't real. Oh, wait, wait, more here. Most over here viewed the Spurs as way too lucky with all this lottery competition. crap just Where's over here? In the sun's country. He's in the sun's, yeah, he's a sun's

man. He's speaking about the West Coast. He's speaking about Phoenix Arizona. That's fine. Nicks are the underdog darlings. He has as well.

He's just making this up, man. He's just making this up. He's just giddy because we gave the website a plug. It's good for you. He's just keeps feeding non-givism. All the Lakers fans

making you feel great about life. What else, Frankie? What else? Tyler Hill 40, you guys got to take down UFC a peg. Who's that? Like, who's he talking about? All of us as a collective. What does that mean?

Like, we've been upping MVP. Now they're like, why don't you take a shot at the UFC? Wait, what? If we've been upping MVP, it feels like we would already be a shot at the UFC. We'll ask Tyler Hill 40. Maybe he's referring to Nikisa. Oh, wait, I see this guy's name again, create like Mike. So I'm always wrong.

me create like Mike we'll make a bet on Knicks versus Spurs or Thunder Wait whoa wait what's this what's this? That was the guy Who said he's like celebrate Helwani They're gonna win the ring because oh I got you I got you listen Let's do it that guy find me find me find me I'd love to make a bet on the finals From Create like Mike

Dana rushed the Paramount Plus deal With the 7 million Dana is short in the vision today Do you think he regrets not taking the 13 big show deal After seeing the numbers? No Absolutely not Also, $7 billion. Yeah, what the fuck?

The Cheddar makes it better, man. Like, what do he rush? He didn't rush any. He got a massive, massive deal. Yeah, he's sitting there stewing that he's got $1.1 billion a year in just broadcast rights for the U.S. The MVP show was a success. In two weeks time, three weeks time when the White House happens, no one will be talking about that anymore. And that will crescendo into a Connor McGregor card the very next month.

I do want to mention something that I saw Josh Gross tweet, a veteran, MMA journalist, who I do believe was at the event. He said, in regards to a clip that was tweeted out with Nikiza saying that the gate was 2.2 million plus, no non-UFCMMA event in the U.S. has produced a $2 million gate since Pride visited Las Vegas in 2006 and 2007. Of all the numbers to parse, this one might be the most impressive for MVP. To be clear, Affliction's first ever had a 2 million gate, but about a quarter of that was purchased by the promotion. So we'll see how MVP numbers stacks up when CSAC releases a breakdown. But I was told a few weeks out from the event that they surpassed 1 million and 2 million was possible. Yeah, I wonder what the next biggest would be.

The first one that came to mind was when Bellator did New York, and it said here, like, I'm just Google's responding with this. I haven't a chance to thoroughly vet this 1.5 mil. because I can't imagine anybody else is really doing an event that has a gate that high in MMA. So, yeah. What else, Frankie? What else? Are you good, Rick? No.

Sucker free. Since fences have been mended, have you considered reaching out to Colby about his retirement? Also, may I request my on-the-nose question be read from yesterday? I love you guys. Oh, well, I thought we went through a lot. I have reached out to him and I hope to have him on next week. So

I want to get some clarity on where he stands, what that all means, etc. What else? What else? Alpharo Danny, RICO 1,000% sparks Francis on the feet. Alasar is wrong. He's a freaking 13-time champion. Francis was struggling with gone.

Wrestling is barely okay. Because, wow. I was actually surprised at how dismissive he was. Isn't that kind of what Alistair said though? It was just like, why would he stay on the feet

with him? He'll just wrestle him. Also, that's M.A. That guy pointed to he was struggling with zero gone. That was also with a blown knee against a mixed martial artist, not a kickboxer. Yeah, but are we pretending like Francis and Gano on one knee

beating Cyril Gond is not impressive? Like, I know that, you know, we're trying to erase history when it comes to Francis as MMA fans, but like, I was fucking blown away that he was able to do that. Because my concept going in was if Francis doesn't knock him out, he's in for a long night. And not only did he not knock him out, but he grappled them on two rounds or not. Yeah, on one knee.

Francis would take down RICO and beat him up. I'm fairly certain of that. Are you interested in that fight? I am. More interested in boxing or kickboxing than I am MMA. Which fight? I'm interested in MMA, though. Me too.

Yeah. It's a distant third for me, but sure, I'll take it. So you're more interested in him versus a Derek Lewis? RICO? Yeah. Yeah, hell yeah. Derek Luce is going to stand with him in the MMA. Yes.

Meaning like RICO versus the winner of Hokit Lewis, because they offered him Lewis. I would love to see Rico in the UFC. Yes. As a guy just doing fun fights or like going for it. Remember, at heavyweight, you're going for it no matter what. Alex Pereira. Hokeet's going to get a title shot after he beats Lewis. Alex Pereira.

Everyone thought he was going to get smoked. Yeah? For sure. Well, especially in the early run. Once the wrestling, like, Jan kind of wrestled him. We don't... Bro, in the very first fight, who was it? Bruno.

And he got grappled the entire first round and then came out with the knee? Yeah. Didn't he go to a split with Bruno Silver or something like that? No, no, no. That was unanimous. That was unanimous. He went to a split with Yombo. He did go to... Yeah, in Utah, the Gaichi-Coye-Poye fight card.

Rico doesn't have Alex's Plus of power But look at the Oh okay fine But look at the road The road to get to that Oh it's short You know what I don't know

But also look at the skill set Of the people who are ahead of him It's not like a lot of dudes Are gonna like wrestle FM There's no Jolten Almeda there Who's gonna like sit on him No I think Hocet would be a pretty bad matchup I think if Derek Lewis wins

That's a great spot to slide in Away from Curtis Keep him away from Curtis Blades That like might be it Give him Waldo Cortez-A-Costo. Waldo will box with him. Waldo was taken down Lewis. All those doing what he needed to do in that one.

Waldo was just poking that jet. Give him Gable. Give him Gable, Steve. Okay, now we're talking. What else? What else? What else? Zach ain't whack.

G.C. and or Ariel, y'all watch in U.S. against the world on HBO. Doc series that followed the U.S. men's national team since last workout. Pretty sick would recommend to get you hype for next month. I have seen ProV. almost for it, but I have not seen the actual thing. Have you seen it, G.C.? No, I need to watch it because I need to get hyped. I am hyped. I am like properly

hyped. I cannot wait. In fact, I've had a few people reach out about doing stuff that weekend because of the way. I'm like, man, I want to be at home. I want to watch those games. I don't really care. I'm assuming I saw the McGregor Day will be two quarterfinals as well. Oh yeah. It's going to be sick. Is that good? I can't imagine they're going to be at night, right? they're not going to be at like well first of all they're not going to be at 11 p.m. whenever he fights. No chance.

I would suspect they're going to be during the day, right? I would imagine it'll be like a 2 o'clock and 5 o'clock. That is an all-time day right there. Fuck. July 11th. That is an all-time day. What else, Frankie? What else?

Jake from Wendy City. Ariel, I enjoyed your writing work in the past. When on Crown launched, I was hoping you would write an occasional column. Ever considered writing again? You know, when I was at ESPN, they really wanted me to write a lot, and I did write a lot. I actually used to write this Monday morning column

that took like every single ounce of energy out of me, which is an absurd thing in retrospect because I would also have to book the show and do the show and all that. And this was like thousands of words. It was sort of like my news and notes, notebook type of thing. And they really empowered me to have an opinion

and all this stuff. I never felt like I was a good writer. There were some people there who would tell me, no, no, you're good. but now with so much more shows and more stuff going on, it's just a lot. It's just a lot. But is there some writing in my future? Yes, there is writing in my future and you will be able to see it in the future. There is writing in my future. It's just a matter of not, you know, burning yourself out and trying to do too much.

We have an incredible team, and they're all way better writers than I am. So they don't necessarily need my help. I do appreciate it. And there is writing in the future, but just not write this second. What else, Frankie? What else?

Jacob Flores 76. You heard anything on Peyton Talbot? Saw that tweet a while back and know they usually like to put him on International Fight Week. Could he have turned down Corey? I don't think he did, and I think he just wants to fight.

and for whatever reason he hasn't gotten to fight yet. And so let's see. The IFW card isn't done, right? It's not finished just yet. I think he just wants to fight and was just kind of throwing it out there. What else, Frankie? What else? Alpharo Danny, after this interview,

I could see why UFC didn't fool me, L.O.L. Didn't sign maybe? Why? What was wrong? I thought he was great in the interview. Yeah, stop Hayden. Wow. All right, fine.

I thought he was great, but I guess different strokes for different folks. I look down, I look down at my, usually like when I'm doing the show, I'm so locked in, and then I looked at Twitter, which is open just for news and notes. And I see like a whole storm of people arguing about me and my pay and all this stuff. Why are people so obsessed with my employment? Why is this such a big thing? Keep my full name out of your mouth? Yeah, Darren.

That's what I need to tell them. One more time, Darren. keep my fucking name out your mouth. We should all live by that. What else, Frankie? What else? This is so great. Yeah. DeKrump underscore golf in response to Nekisa.

I was surprised you didn't push back. If White House card was on Netflix, do you think it would do more views than the MVP card? If White House, what? White House card was on Netflix. Do you think it would actually do more views than the MVP card? I think he, oh, he's asking me. Yes.

I thought he was saying, why didn't you push back? I mean, what is there to push back? Really? Do you really think that? Yes, Ariel, I think that. Really? You really think that? Yes, I do.

What is there to push back on an opinion? Do I think it would do more? With the UFC brand involved? I do, yeah. It's a no-no-no, of course it would. It's on the White House. You got Elliot the poor- Oh, yeah, yeah, I was just trying to process the question.

Yes, yes, yes. If my... I think what he's trying to say... Wait, what? What was you going to say? Is your aunt what? My aunt had a... I think what he was trying to say

is the star power was greater on our card but as I was getting to it, UFC brand, the spectacle of it being on the White House alone, usually the venue isn't to draw. In this case,

it's very much a draw. And then, of course, you do have some names. You have Ilya, you have Aalya, you have Sean, you have Alex Perea. Yeah,

that would be a tough one. I would love to see, I would love to do the exercise, but yes, I think ultimately the UFC brand is, is the greatest. Like that alone on the thing, people know what that is. You know what I mean?

No doubt. Yeah. And there's honestly, there's probably a big, I think we've learned this, a big sector of the fans who just don't know who Gina is, or don't remember, or didn't grow up watching them, they know who all these people are. They're fans right now because they're, you know, those guys are in their prime right now

so they know them. The UFC is not on Netflix, though. So it's like yes, of course it would do better, but they went with a platform that paid them more and will sustain them throughout the entire year that wasn't looking for select events. Like, it just, it is what it is.

It's not like, there is no point to do this thought exercise. Yeah, the point about the MVP card and it garnering so many views wasn't because it was such an incredible card. It was just like, people are going to have to tune into this. The major selling point was that it was on Netflix. That's where it differentiated from the UFC.

I see a lot of people being like, well, Netflix has 325 million subscribers and Paramount only has 80. Yeah, it's the point. That's why it was a big deal that they were on Netflix for the MVP card. I'm happy you say that because even like my opening thing where I was like, this is the dawn of a new era,

I wasn't saying that because MVP's getting into MMA. Like, quite frankly, that's not the story here. The story was that the biggest streaming platform in the world was getting into MMA. But, you know, it seems like that point was missed. Not once at any point in anything that I said. I saw my friend Steve Cofield talk about this, like, oh, Ariel was there criticizing Max Kellerman

for being, you know, like over the top with his praise. There's a massive difference between saying we would not be here unless this guy, the promoter, was born, and all the shilling for TKO and Nick Con and Dana White, and me saying, yeah, the biggest streaming platform in the world getting into MMA is a big freaking deal. I didn't say Jake Paul getting into MMA is a big deal. I didn't say to Kesevedarian getting into MMA is a big deal. I didn't say any of that. I didn't say MVP getting into MMA.

No, it was strictly about Netflix. And if that makes people feel some sort of way, I'm sorry. But that's a big freaking deal. As someone who's been watching this sport and covering this sport before anyone was talking about it, as far as like the major players and slowly but surely that changed, it was a big deal for Netflix to get involved in MMA. They've been involved in the live sports world for like two years now. They didn't show much interest in MMA.

Here they are getting into MMA. And it just so happens to be not with the leader, not with the UFC, who we all thought they would be in. in business with. If you can't recognize that that's a big deal, I don't know what to tell you. And I didn't think that I had to break it down like that. But I made it seem very clear in what I said. We remember the pay-per-view era, and that eventually led to the cable TV era, Spike. And that eventually led to the broadcast, excuse me, the premium cable TV era showtime. And that led to the broadcast TV era, Fox, and then prior to that CBS, then Fox, and then, of course, ABC.

And now we're into the Netflix era. And that feels like the dawn of a new era. And so let's see what it all translates into. But that was a big deal. That was historic. The numbers would back that up. God, please end this. Could we all move on with our lives?

I see these people arguing about my pay and stuff. Do you not have anything better to do? Honestly. Okay, you said it. Great. Now can we move on? Can we talk about Danhausen now? Great.

You're worried about who I'm getting paid by. I'll tell you for the one millionth time. I have never been paid by a promoter post the UFC incident in 2016, not a cent, not a penny. They asked me for a car, I say no, a hotel room, no, a flight, no. I have made it very clear that that cannot happen. When I do the ESPN events, production companies. When I do the Netflix events, production company. And that's why you don't see me on other shows.

But the way this is structured, maybe because it's the boxing model, it works for me. Now, am I naive enough to think that, like, if they hated me, me, would I be there? I think Netflix has that say. Netflix would have that say. But I'm okay with being in good standing with people. That's fine. But I ain't getting paid by them. And ultimately, they're not the ones making those final calls. Trust me, if Netflix didn't want me there, I would not be there. And I know this because people were being discussed. So, anyway, what else, Frankie? Lastly, all I do is UFC. Ariel, if if question. If Connor knocks out Max.

impressively and calls for Islam, does the UFC consider it? If so, biggest fight ever is or past its time? I mean, it would be gigantic. It would be gigantic. Does it get to the numbers? Well, pay-per-view wouldn't exist,

but it would be gigantic. They wouldn't do that. I don't think they would do it, especially on the last fight of his deal. If he has one left, there's no way they're putting him... But I mean, that aside, yeah, it would be a big deal.

No doubt. I mean, honestly, another thing that I can't wait to see, what does Connor generate? This would be the first. first time McGregor is fighting not behind the pay-per-view paywall since he became a superstar, of course. Yeah, when is the last time? Oh, my God.

It was Diego Brando. Yeah, that's a lifetime ago. He fought Diego Brando in 2014, and then the next one was UFC 178 against Porier, and then everything else has been pay-per-view. Wow. So that was 2014, summer of 2014, July of 2014. So he has not been in this position, certainly not when he was this famous and of this stature. I'm curious, what does that number mean?

Like, what does that translate? too. You know, that's going to be fascinating in its own right. So, many, many, many things to discuss over the course of the next couple weeks or months, I should say. A reminder, no show on Monday for me or anyone

else. What the fuck is that? It is Memorial Day. Lashy dumb, though. I wanted you to play that other one about the you know, when everyone's talking about my what Nate said, you know, about the Hall of Fame. No.

Yes. You have it. This is so great. No, there's another Nate. Excuse me, I'm getting offended now. That one. That one's a good one. Anyway.

But there is boys in the back tomorrow. 415 sub-BITB. Do we have a pound for pound? Do we have anything, guys? Yeah, tell them, Connor. Tell them what we got. We will explain it in full tomorrow. We don't have enough time on the program.

Okay, all right. We have it. We have it. It just takes some explanation. Fair enough. crack on Friday, back on Tuesday. Time to say goodbye. By the time I see you again, Rick will be four games in the books.

What do you predict the series we'll be at? James Hardin will be in Cancun by that point. Whether they're still in the series or not, I predict that James Hardin will be in King. What do you think? He's going to get ostracized from the team? Brother, after last night, I think Kenny Atkinson and James Hardin should both be shipped to Siberia. Wow. That was an event.

You want Atkinson fired. Dude, the fucking... To not call a timeout during that run is legitimately fireable. Wow. I don't think he can be the coach after this year, no matter what the result is. You know, did you see when they grabbed the rebound at the very end of regulation and Mike Brown tried to call time out? And hurt himself.

Yeah, and he said that he pulled his calf muscle. Yeah. That's crazy. Kenny Atkinson didn't pull anything because he was frozen in place while the calves were collapsing. James Hardin versus Pizzi Carra is looking more and more likely. Pizza words starched that bum. Yo, yo, do it on that, uh, that Aiden Russia. What are those called again?

The Aiden Russia, the brand risk. Brand risk, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Fuck, we got to talk about that. Oh, yeah, you know what? First of all, I need a deep dive on that tomorrow. Odds and all. Preview and all.

Brand risk. I was going through the schedule this weekend. I didn't mention that one. That's actually, though, like, truth be told, there are people who love watching fighting on Saturday. I think that's like the only major. You get what I'm saying. The only broadcasted MMA on Saturday?

There's no UFC There's no PFL Saturday night that is When is PFL in the morning? It's afternoon because it's in Belgium Where is this on? It's on YouTube Oh shit, YouTube, kick and Twitch It's gonna do crazy numbers

And X, more about Netflix? We'll debate it We'll debate it Thank you to our guests, thanks to all of you Thanks to all of you, thanks to all that Back tomorrow's safe time I'm going to say