The Ariel Helwani Show - Netflix's Dana White gambling documentary, UFC betting scandal continues, more | The Craic

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

The Craic is back! As always, Petesy Carroll is joined by regulars Chuck Mindenhall and Ben Fowlkes.They open the show with the UFC gambling scandal, beginning with the ironically timed announcement of Netflix’s upcoming documentary on Dana White’s own gambling exploits (0:22).The trio then react to further developments in the scandal, including unearthed comments by Isaac Dulgarian (15:00).Switching to boxing, Petesy gets Chuck and Ben’s take on the cancellation of Jake Paul vs. Gervonta Davis on Netflix, and whether Francis Ngannou would be a suitable replacement (40:55).Another heavyweight making waves is Jon Jones, following his recent podcast appearance where he called Tom Aspinall a quitter. The guys react, and talk what’s next for the UFC heavyweight division (57:00).To round out the show, they spotlight Ben Fowlkes’ new Uncrowned feature on Frank Shamrock and answer your Super Chats (1:03:03).

Crackheads. It's Friday. It can only mean one thing. It is the crack. And my God, look, there are events happening this weekend, but I don't know if we're going to talk all that much about them, because we are in the midst of a wild, story for the UFC crazy, crazy things happening here. Another gambling scandal on the back of the Minner ordeal a few years back this time. Isaac Delgarian at the center of it all. I know

that Ariel spoke about it from Monday to Wednesday. I know the boys in the back spoke about this yesterday, but the story continues to develop. The Hollywood reporter have put out some claims about gambling death, prescribed to Dana White, which he denies. But they've also told us that

Netflix. And, you know, you're not going to believe this. Dana White is supposedly the subject of a Netflix documentary focused on his gambling habits. That's according to the Hollywood reporter. What a time for this to be happening. What a time for the sport. We need to get into it all. And we also have a new unearthed clip from Isaac Dolgarian saying some pretty crazy things about people gifting him things after a UFC loss which can seem incriminating to even

the most skeptical eye. I've got my two main men with me today and thank God I do because they're a lot more intelligent and a lot more sophisticated than I am. Please welcome in Chuck Mendenhall and Ben folks. Lads, thank God you're here. I'm absolutely terrified of this whole ordeal

and I know you are much braver than me. Ben how are you feeling about this whole situation right now because it just keeps coming at me in different ways. First of all, I want to assure you, everything is going to be fine, BT. Everything. I mean, maybe not fine. Maybe some bad stuff is going to happen.

Maybe some bad stuff has already happened. But one way or another, it's going to be okay. Eventually, the sun will swallow the earth and all of this will be not that important. That's what I want to say to you here today, first off, right off the top of the bat. Just don't stress out that much about it. Also, you know what, there's an alternate world here where none of this happens and we're sitting here trying to figure out how to make a show out of a fight night with Gabriel Bond theme and a bunch of unranked people on the undercard. This world is probably at least more interesting than that world. So let's be grateful for that.

That's true. Thank God for the scandals, man. You know what I mean? How are you feeling over there? The scandals start coming and they don't stop coming in this sport. I'm feeling like you are Pizzi. I mean, let's tread lightly on this one, right? Like, I don't know, we don't have all the facts, but they keep trickling in.

And let's face it, we could fashion some tinfoil hats on the show, right? Like, we can do that. We can, we can put those on for, for an hour. Absolutely. And there will be, speculation will be a theme running out through this because, as has been reported, there's an investigation going on pertaining to Delgarians' fight with Del Valle, last weekend. He was a heavy favorite. The line moved a lot. We have

heard from Dana White saying that he was contacted by their own gambling watchdog and then afterwards when the Valle won by Rear Naked Shoke, he contacted the FBI himself since then Delgarion has been cut from the UFC and there has

been a lot of reports online particularly from one Harry Mac which we'll talk about later on as well with Factory X refuting some of his clans times yesterday, as did Jason Herzog, the referee. Ariel, of course, has been reporting on this throughout the week with multiple people reaching out to him and giving their own stories about people approaching them. Several fighters have tweeted or posted about this on social media too

and then have revoked the statements in some of the cases, which is very interesting in itself, but the lads are doing the show yesterday. And the gambling topic is obviously the thrust of what they're speaking about. And Ben sends us in this Hollywood Reporter article. And I'm like, well, what could this possibly say? And my God, it had a lot to say. Look at the Photoshop job they did here on Dana White, too. Because we're clearly what we did. We got the dice and the poker shows. But also clearly what we did is take like one photo where like, you know, maybe he's throwing his arms out as in like the what's up everybody. Welcome to the press conference. But then we took a different face that is like him being like, oh, no.

That is clearly what we've added here to create a thing where, and he seems to be falling into what appears to be a gambling vortex. I mean, somebody in the art department over there had some fun with this one. They're having a good sign. Timing is everything on this, Ben. Timing is everything here. Oh, my God. So basically, the thrust of the claims come from casino.org as far as the great New York

Rick has informed me. and they had an article up about this as well and they estimated that he'd between 25 million and 50 in death to Red Rock's THR, the Hollywood Reporter, with that fantastic graphic that we just showed you. They believe it's closer to 30 million and they've zoomed in on that a bit.

Dana, though, has come out and completely refuted these claims as is quoted in THR. This story is pure clickbait bullshit. Everything about this story is completely untrue. But of course, Of course, lad.

Media doesn't care about facts. They care about clicks. This is exactly why I always say, you can't believe anything you read. Anything. You cannot believe anything. You pull up to a stop sign. Nope.

Go believe it. Yeah. Oh, man. So wait. So this is the comment he gave to them in response when they called them out to be like, hey, we're reporting this story. Do you have anything to say?

And instead of going through and talking about, what it is he just says like hey everything you are about to write is bullshit and i know even though i haven't seen it yet i mean surely it can't be all bullshit right like there must be some some fire here beneath all the smoke if he's just saying like hey yeah i owe some money to some casinos but i'm good for it don't even worry about it like that's one thing but if you say everything is bullshit that makes me think that you're not exactly going through with a fine-tooth comb here you're just trying to make the story die. And the up and flow of gambling, right?

Like, if you're gambling in general, like, you generally lose. This is just a, the house wins. You're generally going to lose. We've seen so much evidence of Dana. Like, he's proudly, he's proudly shown you how much he loves to gamble over the course of time. I still remember one of the first times I understood it was, I forget where the event was.

It might have been in Virginia or something like or Kentucky. He took a helicopter to Atlantic City. He said, he did like a little video vlog thing saying like, hey, we're going to go out and We're going to clean up Atlantic City. We're going to win some money. It comes out with the, you know, the second part of it. It's got a stack of money, like a couple stacks of money. He was like, yeah, we went into Atlanta City and we did work, blah, blah, blah.

He's been doing this forever. What is, in a weird way, knowing that he gambled six figures on double hands of blackjack and things like that, is it so out of whack that he could lose $20 million? I mean, if you're gambling with such high stakes, you're bound to hit some kind of losing streak at some point. And that seems to me modest in a weird way. Like if you get a stubborn person at a table who's doing six figures, you could rack up millions in a night. You know what I mean? So it's just it doesn't seem so far fetched to me just based on the evidence that we have. Well, yeah.

And it also seems like, I mean, there's really kind of like two different stories going on here. Because it kind of reminds me of the Jordan gambling over golf stories that we used to hear back in the 90s, you know. And I don't think Jordan did a great job handling. those at the time basically because he just didn't want to talk about it, didn't want people looking into what he felt like was his private life. And instead, the way to do it would be like, hey, yeah, I go out on the golf course and gamble. I get a rush and a thrill out of that, but I got the money. So it's not a problem. It's not like it would be a problem for you. If you were losing this kind of money on golf, it would be a problem for us. If we were losing

you know, millions of dollars on Baccarat at a Vegas casino. The way to handle it is to be like, look, I'm rich. So I got the money. I'm good for it. It's not an issue. But when you try to just shut it all down and be like, hey, this is all bullshit. And it's like, well, we have seen you do a lot of gambling. Like you said, Chuck, like my grandfather used to say, they don't build all them

casinos in Las Vegas from all the people winning. You know, like you're going to lose sometimes. And so the way to go about it is to kind of just like own up to it, especially because we have seen him doing this stuff. They mentioned into Hollywood Reporter. They kind of phrase it as if they are suggesting that it's video that sort of leaked out and made the rounds on the internet. But it's from that Roku show that the UFC put out about the UFC, the entire first episode of which is like, hey guys, Dana White is rad. And part of that shows that it was like his birthday. He was on a yacht off the Amalfi Coast.

You know that the Malfi Coast, right? You know it, Pacey. You're all up in there. You're in the background scrubbing the deck. It was the night of a UFC event, so they kind of had it on in the corner, you know, or watching the UFC. But he had somebody come on to the ship to deal them blackjack so that he could play and he made some kind of joke about like, the addiction is real, that kind of stuff.

But it's like, you're on vacation. You had somebody bring this. Is a guy from a casino? know like is he ever like he just brings his own private okay and but like you love it so much you can't spend a night on the yacht relaxing in the ocean like all this other stuff that people would love to have and you got to import the experience that you can get at like loughlin nevada harras or something that that to me tells you he does really love to campbell right and so it's not at all inconceivable that he would have gotten deep in a hole here and then the story

becomes like, A, is that a great idea when you run a fight promotion that's already pretty like tied in with Vegas and gambling and all that other stuff? B, are you racking up debts at your friends' casinos and your friends are covering for you in a way that might be just kind of screwing the state of Nevada and like the gambling commission out of their cut of this whole thing? Is there like some kind of like corporate impropriety going on there? And also C, it just happens to be coming out at the worst possible time when people are already looking at the UFC a little bit askance

after this Isaac Dolgarian thing. BNC. Yeah, circle those. Like even that's the 60 minute thing was only a few weeks ago. And that was gambling as well. Like he wants to present, like he actually presents himself

to the world as a gambler. Like look at me being a fucking badass throwing hundreds of thousands down. And throwing chips to like, you know, bystander, you know, throwing chips. Here's 50,000 bucks. He did it to, uh, what's the kid over there at, uh, at Barstall?

You know what I'm time? Robbie Fox. Oh, Robbie. Flips him like a 25,000. Here's for your wedding, man, you know. I mean, it's just, it's, there's so much, there's so much footage of him sitting and gambling and having a good time at the tables with huge amounts of money, sometimes three hands at once, you know?

Yeah. It just, it goes on. And, and like many gamblers, wants to tell us all about it what he wins. Yeah. Yeah. Not so much when he loses. Yeah. I guess, though, real quick, is like, when you mentioned the B aspect of like just

the impropriety of like the state of Nevada and everything that's going on. And, you know, Red Rock Casino, right, was the one that they had circled, which obviously is owned by the Fortitas, who's, I mean, this is probably why you want to say, get out front of something like that and be like, oh, everything you're reading is bullshit, you know, this is when you're going to want to do it is when there's, it's always, it's always that kind of, um, I don't know, when guys are, when guys are associated that deeply with each other that you're like, okay, this story is, it's, it's. not common. This isn't common. This is a normal whale showing up and losing 20 million. This is a guy

who's best friends with the owner. The Netflix element of this is very strange as well. Like THR, as Ben just said moments ago, like they're filming, as we said, like this is not a secret. You know, they are they are allegedly reportedly filming a documentary about Dana White and his gambling habits while this gambling scandal is going on. What does documentary mean in this sense, is my first question when I saw it because it's like especially these days if there's a a documentary about a famous person that's on Netflix usually that famous person is like an executive producer producer yeah and so it's we don't we're not seeing a whole lot of like we're telling the story this person doesn't want told that doesn't really happen so much especially with famous people it happens like true crime or something or somebody who is powerless but with powerful people that's not usually what we see and so it makes me wonder is the Netflix ducts another like you know know, Dana White is a rad dude who's out here living a playboy lifestyle at the blackjack tables until 3 a.m.? Like, is that the story? Because that seemed to be the most likely way they're going with that, right? It's been doing it 18 times as well. The same thing. You know, everyone, like,

even 60 minutes were criticized, like for the thing they did with that. Like, how could you possibly do a documentary about the UFC gambling, the UFC's president, and not have this scandal in it now? You couldn't possibly do that. You know, this is... You could tell that that, uh, the, Hollywood Reporter piece was already in bed. Like it was already with editors when they had to kind of put in parentheses like, oh, by the way, there was a fighter accused of like, you know, and was cut by the organization, they kind of had to stuff that in there because I think that would have factored into this a little more had the, uh, the timing been a little different there.

Yeah, yeah, it's, um, we should bring up like some of the, the people coming out and refuting claims made by Harry Mac online, who's been all over the story in fairness, um, who's been putting out regular updates and some appear to be refuted and see community notes on X doing its thing over there here is a tweet from yesterday he is BB Harry Mac on X and his tweet says breaking update the FBI has raided Factory X that is Isaac Dulgarians gym run by Mark Montoya who was on Ariel's show earlier this week and it continues no arrest at this time um sorry you just cut out there but uh here is factory sorry thanks Rick and no arrest at this time but they've confiscated phones and conducted interviews and you'll see the notes there. It says Factory X has denied that

this has happened and we can see the Factory X denial here. Official statement, there is a false report circling that Factory X has been rated by the FBI following the events of last weekend's UFC event. This is not true. The allegations that are dream had or has any sort of involvement in fight fixing last weekend or ever is both devastating and heartbreaking. It goes on to say that they would be happy to work with the FBI and they are completely. completely clean, according to themselves. And we also have Jason Herzog, who Harry Mack, he had said he was under investigation. This is it here.

Update, federal regulators have flagged over 100 UFC fights this year for abnormal betting patterns, including two additional fighters on last night's card. Shit is about to get very ugly. I agree. Still working to confirm, but it sounds like the feds are moving to audit Herzog's fights. And I think Herzog has got back to him via DM here. basically tell him to pull back those claims and he is not being investigated as far as the UFC have told him so there is a lot of mudslinging going on right now um but

there's you know like there was a report earlier in the week right by knight wilcox um i saw his newsletter where he was basically saying that everyone from the officials referees fighters um a fit like you know the brass itself everyone is being investigated Like, does it feel like that kind of thing to you, Ben? Does it feel like one of these things where they're doing a complete autopsy on the sport right now? No. That's not anything that I've heard. And I mean, what I've heard is reactive to some of this stuff where I've heard from people this week who are just like, hey, what's up?

They're looking into Herzog and I'm just like, all I've, it seems like that's the only statement I heard that kind of set off that speculation. If I were going to make a list of referees, I thought. you might want to look into, Jason Herzog wouldn't be on it. I would be surprised to learn that Jason Herzog would be involved in anything. Also, I would be surprised if you were going to fix fights, you wouldn't go to the referee. That's not the way you do it in this sport. There are so many things that are out of the referee's hands, unless you're saying Jason Herzog himself is screwing with fight results and has money down on them just like

individually and is trying to lead that charge himself, that would be a very different kind of claim and also, I just don't even know if that would work very well. Like, I don't think the referee could affect the outcome reliably enough in some of these fights because, you know, guy might walk across a cage, get socked in the mouth one time and he's laid out there. The referee can't really do a whole lot to change that. It's over, it's over. Yeah, like, if he has money down on that one, he got to lose it.

You know, like, I don't, that would not seem to be the way. I mean, the reason this sport and fight sports in general have always been. so vulnerable to gambling and corruption is because all you need to do is pay one guy. Pay one guy to lose. You don't need to involve the referee. You don't need to involve that guy's opponent. There have plenty of people in boxing history

who had entire careers of fixed fights and they thought they were great boxers. A primo. How dare you? Primo is one example. You know, the guy, honestly, a lot of this, when I was looking at a lot of like how this stuff has played out,

both the Derek Minter thing, this Isaac Delgarian thing. I was really reminded of when I wrote the story on like Jake LaMotta and Sugar Ray, because Jake LaMotta's career mirrors a lot of this where he fought one of these guys who was a mob-controlled fighter who had fought nothing but fixed fights and thought he was really good and had to throw the fight in order to get the mob to give him a shot at the middleweight title, threw it very poorly in a way that exposed it to everybody. It's the one where that guy who beat him started to go, wait a minute, have a lot all my fight's been fake and I'm just now figuring it out.

Because Lomato just did it so badly. But he also did the same thing that we've seen fighters do where he went to a doctor before the fight to basically get a diagnosis of a ruptured spleen so that if he was accused, if somebody who said, hey, we think that there's something off about this fight, he could say he brought the doctor to testify for him. And so they did suspend him, much like they suspended Derek Minner. But what they suspended him for was failure to reveal the injury for concealing the injury. ahead of the fight, which, you know, technically on the books you can't do, but in practice, tons of people do all the time in the sport. Kind of wouldn't have a sport of people didn't conceal their injuries ahead of fights. And it's basically the exact same thing.

It's, you know, 80 years later, but it's pretty much the exact same thing happening here. The thing to me that makes this really interesting is that now when we live in this age of gambling has its tentacles in all sports, everybody's got a gambling app partner. you're throwing the odds on the broadcast. These apps, though, make it a lot easier to track stuff like this. And so that's what we see here, right? It's like they have IC 360, used to be called U.S. integrity. They are monitoring this activity on the sports books and they see something before the fight and they go to the UFC and say, hey, something weird is happening with the odds on this fight.

We're hearing from our sports gambling partners, the sports books we work with, they're saying the action coming in on this is suspicious. The UFC has that information before the fight. That's where I think you need a little bit more robust of a plan of what to do. And you need like a protocol for like what to do because according to Dana White, what the UFC did is call up Isaac Dolgarian and his lawyer and basically be like, hey, real quick though, are you planning to throw this fight? And at that point, you're in a situation where unless the guy says, yeah, I was totally planning to throw a fight, what are you going to do? like you need him to either like go oh shit they're on to me and then you risk pissing off some people who are already paid you money and laid their bets down or you need them to say yeah i was planning on throwing the fight because instead he's like no no i'm not i'm not gonna throw the fight and they go okay good enough let's go like that's where you need to have a better plan in place if you're the UFC you know what just like in the modus sense you're talking about when something like this thing happens with dolgarian you start to get you start reflected you know what i mean like y'all of a sudden you're thinking back on other things and this is just the natural like you said you start to doubt what you've seen or like you start to question certain things that you've seen and if you to be honest you remember the fight like so when he was fighting christian rodriguez um which was another loss of his split it was a split decision but if you looked at the way that fight played out it was a 10-8 he went out there and he destroys the guy the first round 10-8 then the fight turns a 10-8 the other way in the third round these things then become suspicious, don't they?

Like, if you get a guy who, um, you know, brings a red flag into the, into the cage with him, suddenly a lot of his career starts to do this. But that, it's just, I think that that's what it, that's where if nothing else comes of it, there's going to be a moment right now, I think, where everything's going to look suspicious and everything will be enhanced and maybe more scrutinized than ever before, um, on this front. You right. And, you know, your column on it this week, Chuck, I thought really hit.

that nail on the head there because if we're all talking gambling stuff there's odds all over the broadcasts all this stuff as soon as people start to get that in their heads especially if they personally have money now where they're like i needed this parlay to hit and it didn't and now i'm looking around and being like well i have reason to think some of this stuff has been messed with in the past and i just get screwed here once that paranoia sets in i think it's hard to get out. Paranoia is the right word too. I really think that that's kind of what starts to happen as a paranoia takes over. Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned Dulgarian, who we will be mentioning throughout this situation. Obviously, in the immediate aftermath of the fight last weekend,

a clip surfaced of him speaking about, he believes that some, that the fighter should get a percentage of the winnings of these bets, which people saw as a bit of a red flag that a guy's having these conversations in the lead-up to a fight. Another clip has surfaced in the last couple of days. It's an interview with John Honko, and I believe it's in the aftermath of this split decision lost to Christian Rodriguez. And very, very, you know, if you're looking for red flags, here are some red flags. He says that Steve will do it, one of the Nelke boys, a friend of Dana White, a man who

is on camera gifting Dana White 500K, gifting Dana White, a luxury car worth 300k um he says that he bought him a house after this fight he also says that the country and western singer zach brian helped me uh because he didn't think i lost that fight and we're gonna roll the clip here because it's truly designed my life got a lot better because i lost that fight um some things took place in my life that you know probably wouldn't happen if i would want so yeah i'm super grateful i've been living my best life since that last fight and you know I'm hoping to get back on the right track. What are these things?

Can you rebuild to us? What happened? Well, I got this beautiful house. Oh, of course. My sponsors, people do. Help me out. A lot on that, you know. And yeah, I just have all the, I'm getting all the recovery and stuff that I should have been getting before that I could necessarily afford.

So, yeah, man, I'm just happier. I have my daughter now with me and, yeah, everything's just looking up since that fight. I actually had a... who was Zach Ryan he messaged me after my fight cool he's an awesome country singer and he helped me out a little bit

for losing that fight because he thought I won as well so that was amazing to get that well holy shit things actually probably went well for me that wouldn't have went well had I not had I won that for it is a line that's absolutely insane

We also have an embrace between Dulgarian and the Nelk Boys and New York Rick has informed me that this is a Nelk Boys fight night that they ran in kind of with Dana White there obviously where they were going to see if, you know, this guy is going to be sponsored by Happy Dad or something to that effect. It was a fight night they ran. But there we go, all very cozy. This is pretty fucking crazy, right? Chuck, like I'm doubting myself seeing these things.

Like, am I making a mountain out of a molehill here? You want to be responsible in, like, how you approach these types of things, right? Because you don't want to start making accusations, but it is a very, how many prelim fighters, right? Dolgarian stature, like, go on. I mean, these guys, if they lose dude wipes for 10 grand off their trunks, they're very upset. But you've got a guy who's saying, like, somebody bought me a house, you know, this is a prelipar. This is not a highly visible. man. Why is he disconnected? You know, I think that that's really the thing. Why is he

disconnected? Like, generally speaking, we've talked to many, many fighters. How many of them are in this situation? How many times have you been, Ben, you've been talking to guys a long time, like, have you seen people come in? I mean, I know that there are, there are always sponsors who are going to come in. You hear about that all the time, but there's not, there's no red flags around it. I just, it's, it's one of those things where you're like, if a guy is talking about a house that he received or collecting money for oh i thought you thought that uh you you should have won that fight here it takes that's a little weird that's a little red flaggish and i got to say man i mean and again i'm i want to talk responsibly here i'm not trying to i'm not making

accusations but there is a there is a tie between zach brian and um you know like going back into the mma world i was hanging out at a at a uh concert of his that i went to to do a piece on Diego Lopez with some Arridium fighters who were like, so was Diego and some other guys and Jason House was there. There's a connection. I mean, these guys all know each other and you know, I don't know how deep things go

between these guys, but you know, one of the big chief parts of this, this involvement was that a guy like Zach Bryan pays attention to every fight, every fight on a card from the prelims on and this was a thing where I was like, wow, man. I mean, he must really be a fan. Now, this could be that he is.

just a big fan you know what i mean like that he's a huge fan and he thought that a guy his buddy jason house his guy um went down and was like that that's unfair you should get something who knows but i'm saying this is what it does it makes you start reflecting right it starts making you look all over the place for things that it seems suspicious i feel like that's kind of where we're going in the fight game at this moment absolutely man like it's that's that's crazy it's um there is a there is just so many red flags i i i don't know how Given what's being alleged here, you cannot look at a clip like that and be like, well, that's just out of goodness of everyone's heart here. Like, you'd be crazy to just be like, well, what a great guy, you know, buying this ladder house for losing on the prelims, right?

Yeah. Yes. And I mean, it's weird because once you start to talk about it, you feel like you're, you know, rust coal in the storage unit connected and everything with like red strings. and you're seeing connections everywhere. And like you don't want to like fall down that rabbit hole if it's not merited. But it also it does seem strange and it seems strange that people seem to be circling the wagons a little bit on this. Like unless I've missed it, have we heard anything from Isaac Dolgarian on this situation? Not that I've seen.

I saw, I was keeping an eye on his social media because he was posting leading up to the fight, you know, right up to to fight night. He's posting himself on Instagram and Twitter. And I would think if you were accused of something like this, which is very, very potentially a career ending accusation, if you don't manage to strongly refute it, I would want to get out there right away and be like, oh, no, no, I didn't do anything. I had a bad night. It can happen to anybody, but there is no malfeasance here. Because this is blackball territory that you're in. And people found that you You took money and you threw a fight. You know, you're going to get shoeless Joe Jackson right out of this sport.

With that on the line, you would think you would offer a pretty strong defense for yourself if there was absolutely nothing to it. And to say nothing at all and just kind of let this narrative run away where people are absolutely burying you out there. That, that seems like almost an admission. You know, I'm surprised that it has gone on this long without kind of any statement. You're not going to be able to lay low on it forever, right? no do you um dana obviously came out and he refuted the hundreds of fights thing and honestly like i can kind of see it from that point of view like we're all kind of we're talking about this and you know we usually when something goes glaring glaring in a fight we usually all cop it

we're always just like what the what is happening here like we saw dc we saw keezer immediately being like this is weird like this does not look like a fight so i can see to dana's point of you to some degree like he's like I'm at these fights all the time like at this situation like this the minar situation this situation it doesn't happen a lot and i know ben you you would a great piece out about the deja vu element of this because of the minar situation where do you sit on that like do you is it is it believable to you that hundreds of fights would be um investigated after a situation like this hundreds of fights seems uh strange that seems like way more than I would expect.

But I also feel naive if I sit here and go, the UFC and the regulators have a 100% success rate. I have catching this. It's happened twice, the minar situation and now, and they got them both times. Like that feels a little too just like unrealistic for how these things usually go. I mean, it should be easy to catch people doing this just because of all the data you have if they're placing so many of these. bets through online sports books. And what you hear from people, I remember working on a story about the minar situation back when it happened. And I was also working kind of for a website in the sports gambling world. And so I had a little bit more of those contacts. I talked to the guy who's

the president of U.S. integrity at the time. He was saying, we've known for a while that the UFC has a problem of fighters and coaches and people in that world betting on their own fights or on fights that they know somebody that they're involved in. And that it's, it happens there way more than it happens in other sports like the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball and we've told the UFC that we think that this is a problem and that they need to do more about it and that

they've been kind of slow to react to that and if you go back and you look at this used to be a pretty common storyline going into fights where it'd be like so-and-so is betting his purse on himself so-and-so is betting on his brother who you know the pedis is betting

on each other the guy this guy's betting on his training partners And I can understand how they didn't see it as anything going wrong because you're betting on yourself. You're betting because you're saying, I know this guy. I trained with this guy. He's going to kill this dude. I'm going to cash in on it. I remember being at an NFL event.

That's why the Krauss thing, though, like, right? It was so, like, so weird because he's betting, he's kind of given advice to go against the guy within his camp. I remember Henzo Gracie being at this IFL event the night Matt Sarah beat GSP. And he was like, I had $10,000 down on Matt Sarah because he's my. friend and everything. And he was very excited about both the victory for Matt Sarah and also the financial windfall for himself. But it's like that's been a normal part of like the discussion for many years. And so you can see that it just got in there where people got used to it. Even before the days of sports gambling apps were just in Vegas a lot of the time. You got to

walk past the sports book to get into the MGM Grand Garden Arena. You know, like it's right there. And so that that connection was already there. And and maybe we should have been a little bit more worried about it at the time. But it's like for them to say, hey, we've been telling the UFC, you need to do more to stop these fighters. They don't seem to see it as something wrong. It makes it a little easier for them to be like, well, I know my friend is hurt and he's going into this fight basically to get the insurance to pay for his knee surgery at the end of it. I don't think he's going to win. I don't even think he thinks he's going to win. Let me go ahead and profit off it. And then at that point, that's how you do get into like a gambling

controversy. Yeah. Chuck, you know, we spoke about your article area. the headline refers to the situation as an ultimate nightmare. We've also had the Krauss-Minner situation, and we were speaking before, we went live here today, and we're kind of saying, like, we didn't get the closure. Like, people say it hasn't gone away, but it's out of sight, out of mind. Do you feel like there will be some closure in this situation? Because it actually feels like there needs to be, given what's at stake here, the legitimacy of the sport.

Well, it's like, this is the third time, right? What was the other one? There was another one, like it was overseas. There was a fight. The Tejohn Bang and Leo cunts, that one. Right, right. The bang cunts. Well, there somebody did go to prison, you know, like there in South Korea, they actually

did prosecute it. And that was kind of before the gambling episode. I think it was like 2017, right? So, but the minute or one when it happened, it was like we were kind of going back to that one. Now you're kind of going from that. The min or one, we're kind of referencing that more readily than the first one. And that's kind of why I feel like this is.

okay now now you've got somewhat of a trend established even if it's isolated in like instances that we know of um I think that you know there's been a few times and I kind of always catch myself if you're writing something you're like you know we've never really had and I pointed this out a million times because boxing for 40 years 50 years had a mob run uh you know the mob was involved in boxing so deeply that um you know through the integrity of the sport out the window in a lot of ways through big pockets of time and I was like, you know, we really haven't, it's kind of crazy that we haven't had that in the sport, not necessarily through mob, you know, it could be through anything, right? Because it's a prize fighting event. As that's what I was thinking about in this piece, you're like, it's prize fighting. And if you can make way bigger prizes, you know, by not, by just playing the game a certain way, you might be tempted, especially if you don't really feel like you're going anywhere. The, you know, the rational side of my brain says that there should be a lot of people. people susceptible to this. I try to point out like the susceptible is kind of the word, right?

Because these are not athletes who are making millions of dollars. A lot of these people, as Ben, you know, like we've talked about this a million times, are not even making, you know, once they pay their corners and everything, they're probably not even making six figures. This is guys who, these are guys who are veterans within the UFC in a year. And I mean, that's, that's so different from a pro athlete. And we're seeing the controversy in other sports. It's not like you're not seeing it elsewhere, too, with, with guys who do make millions of dollars. But for guys who don't make millions of dollars or even, like, hundreds of thousands of dollars, there's a huge temptation there.

Have we heard from fighters who basically tell us, I went in debt for this training camp to get to this fight? A million times. And so you can see, like, there are a number of things that make MMA more vulnerable and fight sports in general more vulnerable. And that's one of them, the low pay. Like you said, in the NBA betting scandal, that tells you that just having huge money involved, isn't necessarily going to keep people from getting greedy and stupid and doing something. But it would probably help. It probably helps some of them, like walk some of them off the ledge.

And in addition to that, you have just the nature of this sport is that the U.S. doesn't really see these guys for the most part until they show up on Fight Week. They're off, doing their own thing, doing their own training. The U.S.C. doesn't really hear from them. It's, hey, are you going to take this fight? Yes or no. Okay, this is the date. You know, we send the drug testers to you every once in a while.

but we don't have that kind of daily oversight that you have of NFL players, NBA players. You know, they just, they disappear into all corners of the world and then they show up on Fight Week when it's time to fight. And I also think that the UFC really, it has to do more and it should want to do more because the process that Dana White outlined for us where he was like, hey, we got a call from our, the company that we work with whose job is to do this for us, is to monitor activity on these sports books. and tell us when something looks off, they told us. That part of the system worked. You got an early warning before the fight happened. And your response is just to call up the guy and ask him if he's fixing the fight. And so there's not really many realistic ways that your own system can work for you at that point,

if that's all you're going to do. Because there's several good reasons why he's not going to be like, yes, I'm fixing the fight. And from Dana White's telling, if he, the only thing he could have said that would lead to them not going forward with this fight was if he had said, yeah, I'm fixing it. I'm going to load in there and lay down. And obviously, for a lot of reasons, he's not going to do that. And so then you just say, like,

all right, go ahead with the fight. Which at that point, you're kind of doing a disservice to your fans, to the other people who have bet on this thing, thinking that it's on the up and up. You should be a better steward for the sport at that point in the UFC. If only to avoid weeks like this, where the entire week we spend talking, about if and how many

of your fights might be fixed. You don't want that. You definitely don't want it when the Hollywood reporter is out here talking about Dana White's and a huge gambling debt. You don't want to deal with that at all. And the UFC's reaction so many times and this has just been like no, nothing to see here, go away, not a story. That was the first reaction

with the Miner thing. Yeah. This is complete bullshit. If you remember, Dana White's reaction right after that Derek Minner thing happened was, I don't think there's anything wrong here. He said, quote, zero evidence that anybody involved in this fight did anything. And then the evidence pretty quickly came forward. And so it was just like a few weeks, a month later, he was like, they're going to

go to federal fucking prison. This is, this is serious and they're in big, big trouble. That was three years ago. No one has gone to federal fucking prison over that. There were athletic commission suspensions. The stiffest penalty was Jeff Molina, the teammate who, who got a three-year suspension from the Nevada State Athletic Commission. You need something to happen to show, and you should want something to happen.

and you should want to be seen as like we are proactive and we are aggressive about stopping this, you should have wanted to pull this fight from the card. Because if you pull that fight from the card and it ends up being all smoke and no fire, it's not going to derail the UFC's plans to not have this Isaac Dolgarian fight on the undercard of one of the least memorable UFC fight night events

lineups that you had. You could have done that. And instead you're just like, you wanted to believe everything is fine. You want everything to be okay. And so you're not taking, the threat seriously enough that it might not be okay and it's way worse for you now to be dealing with this fallout when you could have got out in front of it and you could have been seen as

like hey we are part of the solution to this and not just like you know vaguely indifferent to it well said well said well we have a few more things to talk about lads and but let's hit up our first break of the day we'll be back in two minutes to discuss francis and ganu and jake Paul, apparently, and how that could affect the slim chances of him returning to the UFC in the future. We'll be back in two. And we are back on the crack, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah, well, we discussed all of the gambling scandal up until this point. Seven things have probably happened. Well, we were discussing that for 40 minutes the way this story's going. Another story from this week has been the fallout from Tank Davis. Obviously, we spoke about

this last week, and I think we all predicted, this would be a great time to just completely withdraw from this situation, given the severity of the situation with Davis, and, of course, a repeat offender. He has pulled out of that fight. They're now looking for a replacement for December. We have seen Nate Diaz saying that, well, he just took to Twitter and accepted the fight. I don't know if it's that easy. Is that how it works? Do you do that? Oscar Delahoya has eliminated the rumors that Ryan Garcia would fight. fight Jake Paul. But another person who has had plenty of back and forth with Jake Paul is the lineal heavyweight champion of the world. And we're still gone with that, right? Francis

and Ganoe. I think so. Still true. Yeah, I mean, good, good point. But I got to say, this is, as much as we, we give these fights shit, like, that is a way better fight. Like, immediately, as far as I'm concerned, even though I've had my pants pull down every time, every time with these Jay ball fights. I think this is a way better fight than the tank Davis one. Chuck, would you agree with that? 100%. But the times when we kind of get Jake paired up with somebody where you're like,

okay, now this, I'll watch, it doesn't really happen. So, I mean, I feel like this is like the type of blue ball flirtation that I've seen in the past. The only thing I will say is that I think Francis is, it's hard to get France. his attention at this point, but I do think something like this would. You know what I mean? Like, you know, it's kind of, if he didn't look at it as kind of like, well, this is probably the easiest thing I could do directly in front of me and make a lot of money. I don't know.

Like, it just seems like this would be. The guy just got through fighting, you know, Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua before the, like, going back to MA, this feels to me like it would be like, okay, now I'm going against a guy who doesn't have nearly the chops or the experience. as those guys. And I was able to hang with Fury, you know, through that fight. So I think that it would appeal to him. And of course, it would appeal to the public that on some level is like,

why don't you fight somebody your own size and age, you know, to Jake Paul? And I feel like this is probably the closest you would get. In fact, he would have to be the prohibitive underdog. I would think in something like that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the thing is I don't think Jake Paul would ever fight Francis Ngano. I don't think Jake Paul is that dumb.

I think Francis Ngano would do a terrible, terrible thing to him, and we would all be accomplices if we watched it. Terrible from whose point of view. Well, see, we would feel bad afterwards. It might feel good in the moment. Might feel good leading up to it. It'll feel bad in the morning. I don't think Jake Paul is serious about any of this. I think that he's just doing the thing that he does where he's great at getting attention.

but the thing that has made his boxing career the success such as it is is he's really good at target selection. He's really good at picking somebody where we go. I don't think you should, but maybe I guess you could. And he's kind of ridden that all the way of the bank. And I understand why Francis and Ghanu, it kind of seems from the tone of these tweets, do you remember when he was in the ring with Tyson Fury who made a remark suggesting that, he thought uh francis and gano as he put it had a big cori that's right and and and francis and gano made a face like that's crass and i wish you wouldn't do that no like you sir and that and that feels

that feels like the tone of these tweets kind of where not so much like no i'm not going to fight you i'm scared fight you or anything but more like don't drag me into this thing that you do i you know because because you could spot that it's jake paul doing that thing he lost one opponent he's got to generate some other headlines. He's trying to just like spin it off into something else. That's that's a natural instinct for him. And Francis Encano is kind of being like, I don't want to play. I see the game that you're doing. And I don't want to be involved in that. So leave me alone. Leave me out of it. And I also understand why Francis and Gunno is like, hey, look, you're not going to be like, hey, I was trying to fight Jervanta Davis, who I towered over and

had like a hundred pound weight advantage over. That didn't work out. So real quick, can I fight you? And you're just being like, that's a little insulting, honestly. You know, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, like, your Friday night plans fell through. You're going to call me up, you're going to get me with a you up text. Like, I don't want to, I don't want to do that. I understand why Francis Ngano would take it that way. And I don't, I think it's all just headline generation, but also just posturing, you know, because I don't really think Jake, but like you mentioned, it's just more like, hey, look, I was will. It's on the record.

I was willing to fight Engano. You saw that, I was trying to find him. Yes, exactly. I wanted that fight, but it didn't happen, you know, because Francis didn't want her or something. Like, it's all posturing because I'm with you, Ben, I don't think that Jake Paul, if he's, if he wants to continue on what he's doing, this would not be a smart move by him to take on Nangano. It's, it is like, if you want to keep his head on his shoulders, it would be a good idea to take on Nengon. That's true. But like, the PFL don't have an option, don't have a compelling option for Francis.

Maybe for us, right? We'd watch an MCO fight. We'd be very happy to watch a fight like that. They just don't have. Can I ask you guys something? Remember the $2 million, like, negotiation for any opponent who's going to step up and find? Whatever happened to this? Surely they could find somebody.

They signed everyone to contract extensions with the UFC. Remember to Terry Lewis situation? Look at who we got in the UFC's heavyweight division right now. Do you think that that's as a result of them letting a lot of guys walk into free agency who are heavy weights? I mean, anybody who is above 230 pounds and no. how to put their hands next to their faces signed to a heavyweight deal somewhere in MMA. We are hurting for quality of heavyweights.

So, yeah, it's not like there's a whole bunch of out-of-work MMA heavyweights. I remember Frank Meir once saying a thing where he was showing his wife, I think, like a Bellator heavyweight fight. And he was just basically being like, look how bad they are. And she went, oh, my God, you could fight until you're 50 if you want. She was horrified. She was horrified by the prospect. And he was like, I know.

I know. That's the state of the heavyweight division. Little dollar signs in his eyes. It is to be said, though. Like, if you're Jake Paul, the one thing that this could really do is not just generate eyeballs, not just generate like, you know, the kind of fight that Netflix might be looking for, it would really piss off Dana White. It would. I mean, that is the one thing where you're like, do you know what would really piss Dana White off? A massive Netflix marquee of Jake Paul be the guy who never loved.

lost the UFC heavyweight title, which they would say all the way through the promotion. On the flip side of that, we are hoping, we are praying that there's somehow, if Francis and Gann who could be reintroduced to the UFC heavyweight situation with Tom Aspel, etc. This was very much a conversation before the iPoke incident with Gann, but I think if he was to do this, as much as it would help Jake Paul Pistainer Wadoff, I think it would be the death of any return. As slim as them hopes, Archieck, like, that would be no way that could happen at there, if he does fight Jake Paul, right? I mean, even given the circumstances right now, I don't get the indication that the businessman in Dana's head, like, prevails over, like,

the grudge he holds over, like, uh, Francis Angano, for whatever reason, man. And I mean, he points it out all the time. In fact, he's, he's one of those guys who's like, I wish I could just, like, change the people's perception about his, his person in general, like, his whole personality like he's he's not the guy you think he is uh this dude is not you know he tries to kind of almost you know throw like you know it's kind of stain his reputation that's where it's at like he doesn't he doesn't want people liking francis and gano much less want to do business with him i don't know if he's thought on any of that i feel like the the kind of public pressures that we've we've talked about about hey man you might want to bring in this guy linial champion

all this um especially with john jones not playing ball maybe way in the scent and i don't know if that's gotten anywhere through this whole process. It just doesn't feel like Dana is affected like he used to be in this. Because I think sometimes back in the day, you know, you go back to guys like Randy Gautour and people that he's, Tito, guys he had feuds with, he would get over him if the business was right in the end. Like he would put it aside, I've just, I've gotten an indication so far. There's not even been one moment where you're like, well, maybe he's thawing a little bit

on the Angano thing. But so far, I just haven't seen that. I don't know. I could see it happening if it was something that looked like it would be a big enough deal. I also think that if it were something that looked like it would be a big enough, profitable enough deal that it might not be left up to Dana White entirely to make that decision. I think that the guys at TKO would be, hey, we have what they call a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders and whatnot. And if you can make a ton of money having Francis and Gano come back and fight, then you make a ton of money. And that's it.

I mean, I would, I think maybe the bigger obstacle would be, would Francis and Gano would say yes? He doesn't need the money at this point. He left there with a real bitter taste in his mouth. So I can understand if he was just like, no, not interested in working with those guys again. The ones I kind of feel weirdly bad for in all this is the PFL because you went, you signed Francis. You tried to make a big move when you saw the opportunity to make one. The kind of thing we've all been saying you should do, you met all this terms, all this, stuff. And it just really hasn't worked out at all. You got one fight out of them. You got these

events in Africa that Francis didn't even go to. You got a little bit of a beef with your own guy at that sense where, you know, you're arguing back and forth about who didn't live up to their obligations there. And regardless of what they say about their odds of getting them back in the PFLK in 2026, I'd be shocked at this point if Francis and Ghana, who ever fights for them again. I would. I think another, like a, like a, it's a real outside shot, but like, if Francis's contract is coming up next year and Eddie Hearn makes a player, a splurge into the MMA world, like that's who mentioned that. Like that, that, that, that, that, I 100% think he'd be the guy you go after. Um, because he's obviously a fucking huge deal. Did he's a free agent.

Yeah. And there's, I, you know, you could see that happening because Francis might be like, hey man, you know, Eddie, I know what you're doing. And, you know, I think there's a little bit of him that's like, yeah, I could I could get a Dana and I could, you know, answer some things the other way. You're absolutely right, Ben. That's a good shout in terms of like, you get the sense that he's a, that Francis is a principled person. And honestly, like the kinds of stipulations he was coming up with when he was negotiating his deal, that the U.S. He was like, no, man, we don't do this sort of thing. We don't like, we don't negotiate all the things you're trying to do here. We're not going to do that. um he seemed to stand by you know as he was going on so there if anything he may be the one in the end that would probably be the likelier scenario as if the UFC was like hey man would you want to do this that Francis would be the one who would be like no not for me yeah he made a lot of money too you know what i mean dan always points this out when guys make a lot of money they're very it's difficult to get them in the ring again um this is a guy who made a lot of money outside of the UFC. Yeah. I think he said that recently about, um, about Max Holloway, who's all of his total

performance, uh, of the night bonuses came to one million or something. He's like a lot of money. And I was like, yeah, really bad this guy, you know, um, but I wanted to ask you. Bad night gambling, you know, a lot of money. Night down to Belasio. Um, I wanted to ask you guys about this because there was obviously all this talk about heavyweight and how stale it was and the fact that we had John V. Cyril. And we talked a bit of it. last week, the rematch now having so much more intrigue. Waldo Cortez Acosta has this massive, wild performance against DeLea, who looks like he won. He then, we slow it down.

There was a whole situation there, how different it was to Asmels. I wrote about it earlier this week in terms of how it was officiated. But he comes out of it, like a bona fide contender. And he has a narrative now with Tom Asperl, like, this is how you react to getting your eyes gouged out, my friend. It's a weird one, but are things beginning to become more interesting again, Ben?

Like, with all this wild shit that's happened, is it a bit, like, I think it's a good bit more interesting than it was on the way into UFC 321, for all the wrong reasons, of course. Yeah, it's a certain kind of interesting, right? Especially because the, leading up to the main event of 321, right, you had on the undercard

that fight between, Alexander Volkov and Jelton Al-Meda, where you came out of it, yeah, saying wolf. I, in the wake of the Isaac Delgarians of somebody put forth the theory, they're like, what if when we see these bad heavyweight fights, what we're really seeing is somebody screwed up and different people accidentally paid both guys to lose and I've seen fights that certainly appear that way. Yeah, it's going to be my new theory going forward when we see a terrible fight is just to be like the wires got crossed.

Each of these guys is trying not to win. And so you both of these last one houses. What did Zach Brian do here? You know, you're just like, you're heading into the main event being like, man, geez, what are we going to do after this one? And then because of how weird the main event gets, you go, I guess we're just going to turn around and do this one again, which is good because we didn't have a better idea.

And then to have this happen the next weekend where it's like big Tom's friend and training partner goes out there and gets himself into an even weirder situation like this one i still think the way this one played out and i know that there might be a challenge to the results here we'll see where that goes but as i was watching the fight you're listening to the commentary tell you well here's what's got to happen now this is this is it and then two minutes later something completely different that they said could not happen happens and we restart the fight and As somebody wrote into the co-made event this week, and I made this point where they were like, hey, you know, when they restarted that fight, it was just weird just to take a guy, one guy's on the stool, drinking water. The other guy's celebrating with his team and they tell him like, nope, everybody get out of here. We're going again. And like, that's strange. That's a strange way to do this. And they were like, you know, when they restart the fight, you can hear Brendan Fitzgerald say, you know, you got to love this sport. You just never know. And they were like, no, you guys seem to never know. You guys are the ones on the commentary telling us what the rules say, what has to happen. And you don't seem. to know you know because weird stuff is always happening and you come out of that one and you're

just like I mean I guess like that's a good win for a Waldo Cortez Acosta is it though because it's like do does that win stand up do you know you went and you knock the guy out like weirdly right after the restart for this whole thing it's it's a strange way to try to build a narrative and build your way I mean it's been built on frailer ground than that especially in the USC heavyweight division but it's the whole thing is just weird man really weird yeah weird but exciting chuk yeah yeah exciting is a good word for that uh are you guys digging the john jones sort of uh i feel like is this what you're gonna talk about we we have a clip i think we should play the john jones okay all right if we can new york just because talk to me about what you saw in his fight with gan i mean because

God looked like he was controlling the fight. Was it all gone? I feel as Tom. Tom's a great athlete, but I do feel like he's a one-trick pony. I believe that his wrestling in Jujitsu is incredibly overrated. He has a beautiful one-two.

I've got to learn a lot about his patterns in his last fight. Beautiful one-two. That's really about it. That's the one thing that he's setting up real nice. couldn't touch zero gain at at all that's the way I felt I felt like game was just getting warmed up games was down he's shaking his shoulder it was bouncing around he was touching him yeah that jab he was so he busted him open he was so comfortable I

think Tom was looking for a way out and he took it he needs to change his gameplay man Tom when Tom gets hurt it's like he's like immediately incapacitive immediately shut down it's like you poke my eye and then he's like a Immediately, there was no, like. He never tried to look. It was rag on the eye immediately. Dude, I was the silliest looking cat on national TV is just trying. He didn't try.

He didn't try. Same thing with Curtis Blaze, when he hurt his knee, there was no limping. There was no trying to get up. It was just like immediately. Yep. Burn my village. I can't go on. He doesn't have the dog in him.

Yeah, that kill or be killed. Immediately quits. Yeah, when he got tapped out with an ankle lock, there was no trying to fight his hands. There was no trying to fight his hands. There were no trying to, he immediately quit. see the pattern of it immediately yeah you think jones just came for the saloon there it's like yeah where did he find that black cowboy hat that he's been wearing around all over the place was he like on vacation in santa fe and he walked into a store and he saw it and he was just like

everything's about to change like this is because he seems to have got that hat and he's not taking it off like he's yeah you know we're wearing that hat to the gym you know we're wearing it Dirty boxing. Yeah. If you reckon a few quid changed hands for that interview, that's on a chance there was a paid appearance there. There's an irony, isn't there? Of John Jones being like Tom quits as soon as it gets tough.

When, bro, we just watched you quit the entire sport rather than fight. Tom Aspinall for millions and millions of dollars of Saudi money. You know, like that, it's an interesting thing to say about the guy. Also, because it's like, people have been trying to paint this picture in the wake of the Tom Astminol fight as if like he was getting beat up by Cyril Gahn and that's why he looked for an opportunity to get out of there. And he wasn't really. I mean, he got bloodied up. It went better for Cyril Gond than we expected. He looked like he was on the way to win in that first round, but it wasn't a blowout.

It wasn't like Tom was getting his ass beat. He just didn't come out there and dominate it the way we're used to seeing him dominate. And so there was nothing in his body language or his approach. at all to me in that fight that looked like he was like, I gotta get out of here. This is going terribly. You know, what happened was he got two fingers shoved into his eyeballs until you could see the tip of the finger disappear into his eye. And so to, especially for John Jones, the other irony is that John Jones is one of the most prolific eye pokers we have seen in the UFC. There's an old video interview of John Jones being like, I poke people in the eye. Like, it's a good

strategy. Here's why it works. And you know, you could see him doing it. And so for him to be like, I would have been trying to pry my eyeball open. It's like, no, the other guy would have been trying to pry his eyeball open. The first thing you hear, like, if you talk to Dominic Reyes or if you talk to Glover to Cher, like, just ask them. First thing about Jones, and that's the first thing they mention is like, you got to get through those pokes in the eye, man, because he's coming at you with his hands like this. I mean, it's so like, you know, it's so like John Jones to do that, you know, to make that. But I am optimistic, man, because it feels to me like he's trying to talk himself into this, which is not where he's. was a couple months ago, right?

Like he's, if you're starting to now say like, oh, you know, he's a one trick pony. He can't really do this. I think he's overrated here and there. You're now building some kind of thing in your head where you're saying, I could beat him, which is, I don't think we were there not too long ago. I don't think that we were,

we were having that discussion. Do any just think like this would be difficult for, for Tom to deal with? Like, it's not as much the physical adversity, like the DOIs, which, you know, we haven't got an update on yet. And it wasn't very positive when we did hear from Andy last week. um but like just in terms of all this scrutiny from his peers like i don't think it's much media it's more like fighters uh the the online guys who lost the leg of their parallel over this you know he's seeing it all like chuk do you think like that's like what we'll be zooming on here

on the next one like this perception um of tom asmo that he now has to deal with in the lead up to a rematch well they've made it a narrative right like people have made this a narrative so if it becomes a narrative that's fine i think that like a lot of times this does happen. If you start to get evidence or people just keep saying something like this, it becomes part of the fact, even if it's not. I certainly don't believe that. You know, and I think that all of the, you know, I think that the evidence we've had with Aspinola is that he's made of tougher stuff than that. You know what I mean? Like, it's not like you would all of a sudden be like, oh, you know, you trained all this time. He waited 15 months just to go in there face a little adverse against a little bit of a nosebleed. And he's like, I'm done. I want to weigh out of this. That doesn't make sense to me. So if that is a narrative if they go into a rematch I think it's the wrong narrative and I think that like in the end you know he'll show that but you know it's the fight game man I mean people are going to they're going to do this kind of thing like John Jones is going to have his field day there are the guys who you know the guy the fellow fighters all that stuff they're going to have their field day

with this type of thing absolutely and we're going to have one more break and then we'll be back to talk to you about a lovely feature that Mr. Ben folks has coming out over the weekend and we will also answer your super chats which i never forget so i'll see you in two minutes welcome back ladies and gentlemen what a what a fantastic show it has been already and you know i got corrected immediately on my exit there because the article that i was going to tickle your balls about immediately now wow it's it's it's already up so let the the tickling of the Ball stop. Take it away, Mr. Benfell's.

This reminds me. That's a table setter. Earlier when we were talking about the Jake Paul stuff, you made the comment. I've had my pants pulled down by every one of these Jake Paul files. Chuck, I'm sure you noticed this too. I did notice. At this point, I always have to wonder, is this an Irish saying or is this a Pizzi saying? Because I've been wrong before trying to guess.

You know, you're left pounced on the street going like, oh, I'm going to stay up for this gray fight and everyone's just like, ah, he's got his ass out again. This, this fight wasn't great. You know what I mean? Like, that's what I mean. I gotcha. Is that an experience that happens?

Maybe. You're out there on the street, somebody runs up and panses you as an adult. Like, we're not talking middle school here. We're talking. I just stand in the middle of Blanchetown village being like, hear ye,

here you. Jake Paul is in another blockbuster fight on Netflix. This is why they keep graffiti in your house, man. Because of stuff like that. As for the feature. Sorry, go ahead. That I'm supposed to tickle your balls about. Yeah.

So I spent some time with Frank Shamrock talking about, you know, where he's at. And, of course, the big question with Frank Shamrock is that he is the glaring omission from the UFC Hall of Fame. And you look at some of the other guys from that era who were in. They all, they all seem like if those guys are in, Frank Shamrock ought to be in. He was essentially the first UFC light heavyweight champion. And it wasn't called the U.S. Light Heavyweight title at the time. But he's the beginning of that lineage, of that division.

And that fight that he had with Tito Ortiz in 1999 was sort of a marker for the sport and like a vision of what was to come for MMA. It was, I remember watching it at the time being a college student who super into Jiu-Jitsu. And that's what got me into watching M.M.A. And then watching that fight and realizing, oh, something different is happening here in this one. Normally we're doing a guy. comes in, he's a jutsu guy, he's a wrestler, he's a kickboxer, and he's learned a little bit of the other stuff. But he has one thing he wants to do. And this was kind of the first fight that you saw where Frank was doing MMA. He was, he had a fighting style that was not just

cobbled together pieces. It was made for MMA, for the rules, for the environment, all that stuff. And he went like, okay, this is, this is becoming a sport. And he's also, though, he will admit, not always made himself easy to work with. And that the UFC was going to induct that fight into the Hall of Fame at least. And then, you know, if that went well, they at least say they were going to then follow up by inducting him as a regular member of the U.C. Hall of Fame.

And he kind of shut that down. He made that difficult for them to do in ways that are detailed in the story. And also, though, I think once you get to know, Frank, and you know a little bit about, you know, his upbringing, his past, you kind of realize there's something in him that is naturally rebellious

that kind of has a hard time letting and you put your arm around him and love him. And when the UFC is kind of coming to him and saying, like, let's make nice, you be a good boy, show up when we tell you to give the speech, don't be a jerk about it. There's some voice in his head that's kind of saying, like, don't let them control you that way. You know, you got to show that they can't control you by doing exactly what they ask you not to do. And that has made it difficult for the people. But when you talk to a lot of the people who know them, they're just like, you know,

a lot of people in this sport who kind of came up with them and talked about. to Boss Rootin, talk to Scott Coker, who worked with him on that big Strike Force show, and they're all like, you know, look, the guy deserves a spot in the Hall of Fame. He was an important pioneer in this sport. And I think also the legacy stuff was a little on his mind because he feels like he's dealing with some brain stuff as a result of all the years of fighting. He's not exactly sure what it is yet. He says he's been to see some neurologists, some specialists, but some scary stuff has happened with him recently. And he's in the position of sort of wondering where that's going to go from here. and I can understand why a guy at that time especially has it on his mind wondering how and if he'll be remembered by this sport that he gave a lot of his life to. Sounds absolutely incredible. I cannot wait to get stuck into that. And just a note on that, I always thought it was funny

when he popped up for that Diaz fight as Mr. Establishment. As you say, my brother would always portray him as like, this guy is a punk, like this guy's a rebel. And then he was kind of, he's positioned as Mr. Establishment against the rebel for the next. Nick Diaz for you. And obviously much later on in his years, but that sounds like an absolutely tremendous art.

I cannot wait to read it. Make sure he's get over to uncrown. Do you want coming up here, Chuck? Or are you going to be dipping your head back into the gambling scandal next week? Do I have a piece coming up, as I was you said? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've got pieces all the time, but nothing like a, I don't really have like a big feature in the hopper like this one. I can't wait to read this.

I didn't, Ben's one of the secretive guys you never know what he's doing until it's there, you know? And if you tell him. Well, you get this fancy artwork also. Yeah, look at that. I didn't do the artwork. That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. When you look around, especially some of our bigger features and everything,

and they've been able to do one for basically every one of the boxing history piece I did. We got an amazing art team working for us here. And you don't even have to get these guys a ton of direction. You're just like, I'm thinking about doing a story about these guys, this kind of thing. And they just come back with something that knocks your socks off. And they'll come back with it later that day or the next day. And I'm just blown away every single time. So I've never had this experience.

of having a great art team at our disposal. It really puts a little bit more of a polish on some of these stories when they come out. I need to get one. GC keeps on slagging me that none of my articles have ever been given the art treatment. So I need to make that happen in 2026. He's right, though.

He is completely right. Do we have any super chats, Mr. New York, Rick? Yeah, there it is. I love the pause. It creates a little bit of attention. Remember there wasn't one the one week I remembered. It was like, there is no super chats. I was like, fuck.

Andy McCarroll. Oh, Andy McCarroll of Extra Vision, the podcast in Ireland. I was on a recent episode speaking about Smashing Machine. In honor of Pizzi's recent foray into movie reviews on the ExtraVision podcast, thank you very much, Andy McCarroll. What are the rest of the guy's favorite sports movies? What did you say when you were on there talking about Smashing Machine? Did you like it?

Yeah, I liked it. I think I picked those my favorites movies. I think I picked Rage and Bull. And it's a good one I can't remember What else I picked I think that was the only sports When I picked

I picked different movies But that's probably my favorite one But what are your favorite sports? Well let's see Wildcats obviously with Goldie Hawn What else is there Rodney Dangerfield And Lady Bugs

That was a good one actually Katisha I mean I like You know when you have I have a now a teenage boy But like Showing him movies like Hoosiers and Rudy, those kinds that are these

uplifting movies. They're never old. Like, you watch them, you're like, okay, this is still good, you know. Always dug that. I don't know. What about you? Like, in terms of combat movies, it's, it's a lot harder. Yeah. I mean, honestly, I went back and watched Raging Bull for the first time. In like 20 years when I wrote that LaMata thing and I was stunned at how good a movie it is.

How closely it hues to his autobiography, but also just, I was, Like, this is not only a great boxing movie, it's a great biopic. It's one of Scorsese's best works, I think. I also really like Bull Durham, the baseball movie, one of my favorite all-time sports movies. And weirdly, a good boxing movie that at least tells you a lot about how the sport actually works and how combat sports in general actually work is the great white hype. That one with Samuel L. Jackson and. And, uh, Damon Wayans and it's a comedy. I haven't seen that since the day.

Like it was, yeah, it was out. It's a comedy and it's very much a comedy of its time. It has a lot of where you're like, okay, I, I feel exactly when they made this just based on wardrobe. Jeff Goldblum was in it. But you watch that one, I remember thinking about it, especially during the Connor McGregor Floyd Mayweather buildup where I'm like, this is, it's the great white hype all over again. Yeah. We're doing almost exactly the same stuff.

Uh, that one will really tell you something about how the support goes. and it's actually pretty funny along the way. It is really funny to go back and revisit bad news bears as well. There's a lot of anti-PC material in there. About damn time. We've got those wokeys or whatever people say these days. Let's see. What else we got there?

Shout out fellow crackheads. Your Evo, this is from. If hospital can't return before June, how surprise would you guys be if Dana strips him? like we need strips him okay i thought he was going i'm not going to say what i thought and makes jones free prayer with a heavy rate felt pants are down strapping what it don't scrap him for god's sake i can't even see it um look if he did that would be a disgrace you can't do that like it's this guy's waited for so long to let the ufc fucking go about their

business i genuinely don't think they would do that um i do look they don't need to make heavy to make Jones v. Pereira for a belt. And in fact, this whole situation with Gan has cleared the path for it to happen, which we were speaking about last week. So I don't think it's necessary. I think both things can happen. Tom can be the heavyweight champion and Jones can fight Pereira. Anyone? And that's what we have the BMF title for, right? Is when we need to pull a shiny belt out of a closet somewhere and we can grab that one. It doesn't mess with any of the divisions. We still have some hardware up for grabs. Yeah, I agree. You don't need that for that fight. And you can, you can, you can just,

tell people, hey, the reason we're doing this one is because we're waiting for Tom and Cyril Gaon to play out. Anything else there, Rick? Jones public grovelling makes me think Jones Pereira isn't as close as it seems. Oh, that's a good point, actually, a spooky, especially at the White House. Wouldn't be shocked if Dana offers a different card, take it or leave it, to spite John.

And honestly, I saw him, like a new quote. I know we had his beg on from last week at 30 boxing. He did a good bit of begging with the Schmo. He did it again. He's like, I just wish I could be with him, like, to tell him, sorry I am. And I was like, I saw that. I saw that. Puked in my mouth a bit.

So, I mean, maybe there is something to that. Maybe. Be with him. Well, yeah, I mean, but that's also would be a legitimate question, right? Because you would say to him like, hey, do you really want to come back and do this fight? Because we got an opening in Vancouver or something, you know, like, do you only want to do it if you can fight on this card? And that would also tell us what he thinks his future. is would be like one and done essentially like so there we're not going to put him into like a real

title fight if he's just going to walk away afterwards is it only the place you want to fight at and not the opponent like that is a fair question to ask of him yeah and obviously like the fucking if the fucking if the belt isn't on the line you know if the belt to remove him from the situation like you would make perera v aspinel if jones was if jones was like i'm coming back for one fucking fight like what would be the point at that stage you know what i mean yeah i agree with anything else, Rick? Oh, we've got a load. Evo, shout out Pizzie, Chuck and Ben.

Next time Ariel has Derek Moneberg in studio, can't wait. I'd love to test his black belt in BJJ. I'm an SBG blue belt. Oh, under the great John Kavana. SBG, I trained there a bit myself back in the day before they wanted me dead. Yeah. No joke, it's not that. But, yeah, but Ben, like, how long has it been since you grap?

And I was thinking about, could we just throw Ben and a leotard in to just fuck and challenge Money Barrett the next time he's in. Leotard. I got to put on a leotard for this. Yeah, I mean, you know, no, if they see, this is the thing. We've all heard about your arms and your big strong grip. We need to, we need to give you some type of attara that makes Moneyberry go, hang on this guy. I'm going to fuck him up.

Leotard is the way. Well, it's been a few years since I had to hang up my ghee just because my neck finally got too bad from years and years of Jitsu. That's true. Trash neck. That's what it looks. The pile of trash neck is really. And it'll still bother me every once in a while.

But that's not to say I won't drink a couple few soda pops and wrestle someone on the living room floor. I still will do that. My friend's going to attest to that. We all went on a hot springs getaway a whole bunch of us, rented out this huge, awesome house here in Montana. The drinks flowed. Everybody stayed up super late. I got up the next morning, got into the hot springs, and I was like, ow, why is it sting like I have carpet burns all over? Oh, yeah.

Turns out you did have. That's it. I was in there passing people's guard and hitting them with the De La Hiva sweeps at 3 o'clock in the morning on the carpet. That's that's why it feels that way. But sure, I'll take on Moneyberg. There you go, make that point. I have my doubts about that black belt, you know, about its legitimacy and veracity. I would like to test it.

And we'll see. Because if you can't beat me, then you don't deserve a blackout. What a great glimpse into Montana life that was. It was good. Sounds fucking great. Ever injure your friends, though? I've done it a few times. Like, you know, I was once demonstrating what a whizzer is on my friend Dan Brooks

and it threw his shoulder out of the joint. But, you know, in fairness, that had happened to his shoulder a whole bunch of times. But I'm telling you, Google Sleeping Child Hot Springs, if you want to see an awesome place that you can rent out for the weekend and you can be like, oh, what drug dealer built this as a palace for himself? And I'll tell you what, there's an answer that fits exactly with what you're thinking. Wow. Sold.

That sounds fantastic. Um, listen, lads, I love he's very much. Fantastic day speaking about all of the scandals. Um, hopefully. Oh, I'm sorry. Excuse me. Evo. Again, $5 just throwing out the four of us today.

If we're crackheads, Chuck is the plug, PTC is the connect and Ben is the dealer. Go Liverpool. Woof. Yeah. What's the difference between the plug and the dealer? I thought those were the same thing. The plug is the guy that connects you to the dealer. Do you know what I mean?

All right. It's fine. PTO continues on Air Jordan, on vacation still. Pizzi has a sick mansion and blanche. I do. I'm not going to lie to you. We're building a motor around it now. So if you get near one of the crux,

we'll have your leg off. So stay away. I hear your ballroom is coming along nicely. Yeah, it is. We needed one. That's the thing with the ballroom. This year I asked Santa for Randy Brown v. Bonfie.

Well, lookie, lookie go, you are Jean-Blan. I'd say aim higher next year. Let's ask him for something bigger. Bonfim to take a dive in the second. You got it here first. well fucking out I don't know if that's the end of this but we do love us very much

and I love the boys very much thank you to New York Rick I hope on Air Jordan's having a wonderful vacation thank you to Oscar Losef thank you to Ben folks thank you to Chuck Menthole we'll see you next week

on the crack big kisses my Thank you.