The Ariel Helwani Show - The 2nd Annual Ariel x Ade Boxing Awards, plus a supersized On The Nose segment

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

Ariel Helwani and Ade Oladipo reunite to roll out our second annual boxing awards spectacular, but first, they honor Anthony Joshua's close friends Sina Ghami and Latif Ayodele (07:32).The duo hands out hardware in 20 categories, including Fight of the Year (18:26), Knockout of the Year (23:12), Trainer of the Year (1:09:08), Promoter of the Year (1:16:24) Moment of the Year (1:41:49), Female Fighter of the Year (1:53:52), Male Fighter of the Year (1:59:21), and many more.After saying goodbye to Ade, Ariel is joined by The Boys in the Back and Petesy Carroll for a supersized edition of On The Nose, with topics including Rico Verhoeven's next move (2:22:15), Adam Sandler vs. Will Ferrell (2:37:39), speculation about Justin Gaethje's status for UFC 324 (2:44:52), sportswashing and the state of modern journalism (3:03:21), Conor McGregor calling for a fight against Floyd Mayweather (3:17:50), Sean O'Malley setting a timeline for retirement (3:49:27), and more.Finally, Ariel answers your Super Chats to close the show (4:02:36).

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Eria-Hawani Show. Back in your life on this Tuesday, January 6th, 2000. And 26, hello again, everyone. I sure hope you're doing well. It is so great to be back on a Tuesday. yesterday's show was fantastic. Hope you enjoyed the, what was it, four plus hours of the 13th annual

Helwani Nose Awards. It was a great time. Had by all, we had a fantastic time. And we went through it all. 27 categories. Golly, we did it all. We said it all. We handed him out to all.

Look at this. Look at it. I still can't stop touching it. I can't stop caressing it. I just love it so very much. Look at it. Some people said it should be like, that. Some people said it should be like that. I don't know. Maybe you get a full, you know,

like when it's profile, you get the whole like picture, you know. Anyway, shout to our guys, SARP for making this for us. Tremendous stuff. As I've said, it is awards week this week. So yesterday we have the 13th annual Halwani Knows MMA Awards. Tomorrow, prediction show, 2026 prediction show. But today, my friends, we hand out more hardware. Yes. And we do it. We do it. We with our familiar face, our familiar friend. The boys, as they say, are back in town.

We head over to London town to say hello to my old friend. He's forgotten about me. He's big time now. Ade Oladipo. There he is. Looking dapper as hell. Hello, Aday.

How are you, my friend? Why would I forget about you, Ariel? You're so big time now. You're rubbing elbows with the dignitaries, with the big shots, the VIPs, if you will. I see you all over the gap, but it's so great to see you. Carry that music takes me back.

Yeah, the music was just like, it brought a tear to my eye. Yeah. Honestly, it was, it was hard. I've missed the show. I've missed everyone. I missed everyone in the back room that you never talk about. I could mention the names, but you never do. I've missed everything.

Yeah. It's good to be back, Ariel. Thanks for having me. And I've even dressed for the occasion. I know. What are you wearing? Well, the thing is, you told me earlier today that, you didn't have a tux that it was in the dry clean, so I didn't want to upstage you.

So I went with my Baclava, my Baclava hoodie thing over here. It's embarrassing. It's what the kids wear. It's cool. It's action Bronson. Yeah, but you're not a kid anymore, Mario. Bro, I'm younger than you. You're 40.

I'm actually 43. I'm actually 43. It's tough. Wow, geez. Yeah. What are you? 45? 45 in March.

Why add, why add mumps on to me like this? But of course, I'm a man who loves it okay. Of course I've got my tuxedo here You know what? I have to say something The guys in the back screwed me up I don't have any I don't have my headphones in wait wait I got to put this on here The guys in the back screwed me up out of they I'll tell you why this Can I tell you why the guys in the back screwed me up they actually set me up for failure because you said earlier today

That you I'm gonna struggle through this I was I said I said I didn't have a tux as I as in the jacket It's over the cable fix it I don't know what's going on Frank Undo it. Frank, I've screwed this up. Do you remember what I said? You know what? You guys, you guys actually...

This ain't going to happen. There's no way you're going to put it on. Okay, look. Okay, you've worn these before. Yeah, I've worn these. Yeah, and also I've exposed the fact that this beautiful bowtie is now fake. So I've done that. Wait a way.

Is that a velvet bowtide? It's velvet. Yeah, you like that. Hey, dude. I can lie? This is... Oh, it's a bit bent. Oh, no.

Yeah, but can I tell you why... It looks really nice. Can I tell you why I fucked up the intro? Oh, and I swore, too. intro because they took I put the hoodie over it and they were like oh yeah you can't see your shirt and I look at myself at the intro I'm like you can see the shirt you can see me choking under this thing and no one told me this I didn't see it no I didn't see it oh I saw it I saw I even have my jacket right here I thought you was gonna wear that that horrible top which one no no no I got

my jacket right yeah yeah wait wait wait wait wait wait let me get right oh good you've actually got trousers and shoes as well not quite the shoes but that's okay what am I supposed to do with this now? I don't even want to stand up and show you what I'm Oh, by the way, I saw you when you came in for the rehearsal. Can I get a shot? Can I get a shot? How do I look? That, that's not quite good. But it's good enough. This is incredible. It's good enough. And look at me. I thought you only had one suit jacket. No, Adi, this is a big deal. This is the second annual Ariel and Adde boxing awards, all right? Adi, they tried to kill us. And here we are back rising like a phoenix coming from the ashes, like a cockroach. You can't kill us.

you can't kill this you can't kill this magic come on now and i we're not just m m ms you were yesterday i can't i can't confirm or deny who is okay just check what do you think i got multiple times by the way i'm not as cool as you because when you told me hey i've got a tux in the dry clean i went through the archives and i found many a photo of ade in a tux many a photo i believe we have some of these photos here here he is look up your mothers and daughters Yeah, what's going on? Where's that tux? Is it the same jacket every time?

No, it's the same one. I've only got one. It's in the dry cleaners. Here's another one or just a different shirt. I ain't like that black on black looks good. It looks great. That black on black looks good. Where's that jacket?

Dry cleaners. Ah, for fuck sake. I'm a busy man area. Obviously, I wear these tuxes and, you know, it's not once a year. I probably, you know, three, four times year. I'm at award shows. I'm handing out awards. I'm hosting award shows.

So they're very busy these tuxes. So apologies. No, no, it's all good. I saw you in Monaco. You guys have a great time over there looking fantastic. But anyway, it's great that you're able to carve out some time among your 48 jobs and doing this with us. Actually, this is a good one because last year we got it off the ground. And this year, we've actually supersized it. You were actually lamenting the fact that it's so big. It's over 20 categories this time. Are you ready for this? And you know what, dude. And sorry, if I came across as rude when I was talking about the number of awards, I mean, we could have gone to 40. I mean, there are so many. many people deserving of awards. This isn't like the Oscars where it's just a, you know, best picture, best male, best female. There is so much more. So I'm ready. I'm ready to get to wait. Do they get a physical award? Are we going to start doing that now? Well, this is the 13th annual Halwani Knows Award. As you know, everyone's still talking about it, going crazy over it.

We have to reach at least five of these, five years and then we start making the awards. How about that? So we'll see if you're still, uh, I'll be 50. I mean, listen. You're looking fantastic And I feel like we could get to five Only three more years You're right though There's a lot There's actually a few other categories

While I was on the brain I was like should I say this one Should I say this? And I was like let's just keep it At the number that we're having Which was the number that I gave you Like four different times I said like okay finalist

And then there was another finalist And then another finalist In the end it's the usual suspects It's you know male and female Fighter of the year It's knockout of the year It's fight of the year Of course

Round of the year Event of the year But then there are some fun ones We like to have the fun ones. We like to have the walkouts and, you know, the promos of the year and all that stuff. So we will get to all that in a moment. I'm really excited about this. I think it was a great year for boxing.

But out of my friend would be remiss if we don't start by talking about a bit of a tough break that we just had a holiday break. And I know Anthony Joshua means so much to you. And I know Africa and Nigeria means so much to you. Just heartbreaking stuff over the last couple weeks. I saw on your YouTube channel that you weren't really ready to talk about it. I don't want to put you on the spot, but I did want to acknowledge the passing of Anthony Joshua's two very good friends, Sinagami and Latif Ayodele. If you want to say anything on their behalf, because I know that you knew them on a personal level, please feel free to do so. And if not, I completely understand as well.

No, no, no, look, obviously, it's been a few days now. Initially, when I heard the news, I was aware on the holiday, I was with my partner, was in Dubai, and started to get so many messages about this. And with the way the world is nowadays, I thought it's fake news. I was like, okay, no, it couldn't have happened. I mean, it's fake news. Look, I've been following AJ's Instagram. He's okay.

He's in Nigeria. He's getting ready to travel and meet family and friends. And then when it starts to drip the information, it does drip. It's slow. And you hear about, okay, there's been two people that have lost their lives in this car. You start to kind of think, okay, who was in that car?

And you're praying and hoping it isn't people that you know, people that are close to AJ. And then it comes out that it's Latif Ayadella, as you said, and Sina. And these are two people that I know well because they've been around AJ. So they've been around AJ, obviously longer than I've known AJ. So as soon as I started to do the interviews and sit down with AJ, they were always there. And it's hard to think that they're not going to be there anymore. These weren't just, you know, people that worked for AJ and, you know, Sinabianese personal trainer, etc.

These were AJ's very, very good friends. these are two people that AJ's grown up with and you're probably seeing photos doing the rounds on the internet now and you can see how young they were when they were around AJ these guys have been around AJ for years so it's going to be difficult

it's going to be difficult for everyone involved of us it's going to be difficult for Anthony Joshua it's just a tough moment it's in a tough break and it kind of makes you appreciate life a lot more and I mean AJ obviously had the high of the Jake Paul fight and what it did through his brand in America

and he was really high and then for this to happen it's just it's heartbreaking it's heartbreaking um so look we wait and see there are so many things going out right now about AJ being retired and is AJ going to continue

fighting whatever I think we just need to hear it from the horse's mouth and I think that's going to take time I think AJ needs time right now and everyone around them needs time the families of sinner the families of Latif so um it's going to be difficult. And I don't know what happens next. I really don't, but obviously fought some prayers with

the families of Sinagami and Lateef Ayodele. Amen. Very well said. And yes, I think everyone just needs to chill on the fighting future stuff. He may come up on this show. Obviously, he had a great end to the year. But let's give this guy some peace and quiet, some space. Have to say, you know, seeing footage of him at the funerals kind of rub me the wrong way. I wish that people would leave him alone and not post that stuff or shoot that stuff, but is what it is. Those are the times that we live in. I'll just say being around him that week in Miami, I was struck and I even asked him about it at the press conference. He seemed to be in such great spirits. He was in such a Zen-like mode, right? He just seemed so reflective and happy and appreciative, and he just handled everything so

great. And then to see the explosion of popularity in the aftermath, we talked about it a little bit privately is like, I guess America just didn't know who this guy was for 13 years. And you all knew who he was and hardcore boxing fans knew who he was. And you're like seeing people, you're seeing women talk about him. You're like, wow, good for AJ, man. Like it's happening a little late in his career, but it's so nice to see him being talked about with so much love and respect and admiration. And then this happens. I remember like one of the last things I saw before all this was him and Eddie standing outside some house being like, hey, we got a good early Christmas present. It's going to be a great holiday season. God bless you all. And then this happens. And you

see those scenes. And it's just shocking. It's heartbreaking. It kind of took me back a little bit to the Kobe Bryant accident of a few years back where it's like, wow, this man was on such a high and he was so close to having a horrific, horrific tragedy happened to him. And now he suffers, you know, this accident and his friends pass. And you hear about how loyal they all were to each other. and how close they all were. And they weren't just workers or colleagues. They were his friends, his mates, like people in the trenches with him. And he's been through so many ups and down.

So again, as you said, much love and respect to their families. Our hearts go out to them. I thought it was beautiful what MVP did on their show this past weekend, putting their names on the canvas. Really, really cool stuff there from most valuable promotions and Akisa and Jake. So much love and respect to those guys for doing that, for going out of their way. Of course, AJ, not a part of MVP.

and hoping that Anthony can get through this, hoping that he can recover mentally and physically, and let's see what happens to him throughout the year and beyond. On that note, hard to transition, but we will do our best, and we will go through our awards, my friend. And I wanted to start actually with a new category, and it's a category that you see more in boxing than MMA. We actually introduced it in our MMA award show yesterday. It's one that I think is very important because sometimes the man or woman, who has the performance of the year

doesn't end up becoming the male or female fighter of the year but they are so great on the night they deserve recognition and so let us start with our first award our first category and that is performance of the year

now this could be any performance right this could be a male performance a female performance in a big fight and oh by the way I don't know your picks you don't know mine and I think it's fun that way so we can react in real time

I'll start if you don't mind I thought the absolute best and brightest performance of the year. And quite frankly, I have a feeling we're going to agree on this one because I think it was the absolute best and I don't know how you could go in a different direction.

Of course, there were great performances throughout the year. But when the lights were shining brightest, this man, Terrence Crawford, absolutely hit a grand slam, as they say here in America. On Netflix, moving up to 168, fighting Canelo Alvarez,

finally getting his moment, finally getting the love and respect that he has been, searching for, finally getting the rub, if you will, getting the platform, getting the promoter, and then having this masterclass of a performance, a virtuoso performance against a legend like Canel Alvarez, moving up once again to become undisputed champion.

Just absolutely sublime stuff. I don't think anyone on any particular night over the course of 365 days had a better performance than Terrence Crawford did back in September at Allegiance Stadium in Las Vegas. So he is my pick for 2025 performance of the year. One second, one second. So, see, I was with you all the way.

Okay. But then when you kind of say, I don't think anyone had a better performance as though if I say something different, my pick is suddenly... No, no, no, these are my pick to be your picks. No, no, no. I'm going to go first, then you go first. You go first, I go first. That's my pick. Now you give me your pick.

I'm not saying that's the pick on behalf of the two of us. That's not how this works. That's my pick. Now I want to hear yours. Okay. My pick was early in the year. I felt like everyone forgets what happens in the first half of the year. Wow.

My pick comes from the first couple of months of the year, and it was the great Dmitri Bivel. Wow. That man there against Art of Berturbiev. Wow. Two pound for pounders. At the time, I guess Dimitri Bivel was maybe number five, Art of Baturbiv number four. These two have known each other for years. They trained in the same amateur set up with the Russian national team.

Bivel got beat by Berturb, as you know, a few months prior to that. And he had to run it back with him, and he's running it back with I guy that I, I think it's just a machine, a brick and Berturbiev. And in the earlier rounds in that fight, I thought he was struggling a little bit. All of a sudden, a few adjustments, and we saw the best bill of we've seen. I mean, the feet were excellent. I mean, the movement was just outstanding. The punch selection was perfect.

And Dimitri Bivel became undisputed, like heavyweight champion. Not against a faded guy, like your man Crawford did against Canelo. Oh, wow. Guy right at the peak of his powers in Artaubert. That was the single best performance in the ring this year. Okay, so I love that you're not in agreement with me. I love that. I did not forget about it.

We'll talk more about that fight and that card down the line, I suspect. But here's the difference. Here's the difference. You said something that can't be applied to Terrence Crawford in his performance. You said early in that fight, and you are right, he struggled a little bit. Terence did not struggle. There was no struggle throughout that entire fight. That was a master class.

Would you describe Demetri Bivl, who was coming off a loss to Burturbiath, but let's be honest, I think a lot of us thought he won that first fight. Would you describe that performance back in February as a masterclass? Was it a shutout? Did he completely... You know what it was, Ariel? It was a masterclass for me because he had to make adjustments. Yeah. It was tough.

Berturbiab, you know Berturib. He's the meanest, the scariest fighter out there. He had to make adjustments against him. And that's why I said it was a master class. what Bivell was doing in the first two or three rounds weren't working. Went back to the corner and it's like, okay, I need to try something different and it worked immediately. Whereas Cawford, I mean, I love Cinello, but, I mean,

Cinello against William's skull a few months prior, it didn't look great, did he? He's no longer the Canello we know. And I always had Crawford winning that fight, by the way. Whereas I thought Bivel Berturb was genuinely 50-50 and to beat someone who just beat your six months prior and to find another way to do it, I think it's genius stuff.

But look, I'm not mad at your Crawford take. I think your Crawford takes a good one, but I'm going to stick with my Dimitri book. Okay, I love it. And by the way, I'm not mad at yours either. That's what's fun about all of this. I'm not trying to diminish what Dimitri did, and I can't wait to see him back,

hopefully at some point this year, but I just thought him moving up to 168. Washed or not, and I do think that's a little bit of revisionist history. I don't think people were necessarily... I know there was a time around two years ago, year and a half ago where people were starting to say

that Canella was getting washed, but I think like the last couple performances, Berlanga, Mungia, and even the Skull one, I think more people blame Skull or the fact that Canelo knew that there was something on the other side of that rainbow. He just had to get through this middle of the night fight. Nevertheless, two great performances throughout a year that showed us, you know, many great performances in the ring. So shout out to the two of them. My pick, Terence Crawford, yours, Mr. Dimitri Bivel. And of course, you've got his jumper right there behind you, so perhaps you're a little bit biased. But who knows? I mean, who's to check,

all right next up next up my friend fight of the year you go first who this is this is almost impossible it's almost impossible there are so many that i could have chosen but i've gone for one it may be a bit of british bias to it but it opened a show in soudi arab which is crazy for me because this could have done 20,000 at the o2 arena i am talking about callum smith versus joshua boise who proceeded to kick the you know what out of each other for several rounds. I mean, this was just brutal. I mean, some of the punches that these guys were throwing and landing were just, you

almost feel like, okay, this had to slow down a little bit. Like, surely, this can't continue. Look at that, I mean, I mean, look at that gumsured coming out, getting cracked with a left hook. This was just violence at its best. And I almost feel like this has been forgotten a little bit because it opened a show, but not for British fight fans. This was one of the best fights I've been able to see live.

And this is my fight of the year, without a doubt. Joshua Bwazzi versus Callum Smith. I just thought it was an incredible fight. And I'd love to see it again in the future. But for now, I think both guys need to rest a little bit. I think we saw what it took out of Bwaxi and he's fight against Zach Parker. And Callow Smith hasn't fought since either.

Can I be honest with you? Before the show, I asked Honor Jordan, who does such a great job of taking all our picks and making all these great graphics and all that stuff. I asked them in the back, I was like, by the way, don't tell me his picks, but do we have a lot of overlap? Because I suspected that we were going to overlap on so many of these. I thought some of these, especially the early ones, were going to be layups, like that we would both be in agreement and there'd be no tension, no friction. And so we're now two for two.

I disagree with you. And quite frankly, I am blown away. I am shocked. I thought for sure you would have picked my pick for fight of the year. This was the easiest one to pick. Of course, it's back in April, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Bank Jr. Conor Ben was as riveting as it gets, and I'm not even talking about all the pomp and circumstance. I'm not even talking about the walkouts. I'm talking about these two guys delivering. I was

captivated from opening belt to closing belt. I was in Green Bay. I was there to announce the Buffalo Bill's pick, 177th pick. Of course, Dorian Strong, we wish him well. And I was in the airport watching this on my phone and I was praying that they wouldn't call for us to board the plane because I did not

want to miss a second of this. Thank God I didn't. It was so damn good until the final drop until the final second. These two, look at them in the freaking trenches, in the freaking phone booth. I mean, toe to toe they went. How do you not pick this one? Because also, by the way, when it comes to the fight of the year,

yeah, sure, you know, Boatsy and Smith and so many others were great. But you think about the stakes, the platform, you know, what was actually at stake, no belts at stake, family history at stake. And they rose, they rose to occasion, their father's name at stake. Okay, okay, okay. How? How do you not pick this one?

It lived up to all the hype and then some. Everyone, in particular in the UK, would say this was a nothing fight. It was a fabrication. It was an Eddie Hearn dream. It should never happen. There's the weight issue. And they stepped up and gave us that. It was amazing.

No, no, look, you have maybe made me change my mind a little bit. But the only reason I'm going to stick with Boatsey Smith. The only reason is that these are two, at the time, top six, top seven light heavy weights. I could maybe stretch it and say, Top five, but let's say top six, top seven. So these were two elite, elite fighters going at each other, toe to toe. No feel out rounds going straight at each other. Ben Eubank at 160.

I mean, Ben's never full at 160. Ubank's not elite. So it was more, it's more just a drama of it that I think you're going for was I just picked two elite guys kicking the crap out of each other. I think that's the only difference. But look, you could be right. I'm happy to kind of say, you know, you can have that one. and the fans will vote, and they'll probably vote for you as well.

Can I ask you a question, by the way? The fact that we saw the second one a few months later and the fact that it very clearly did not live up to the first hype and wasn't anywhere near as good, do you think that's maybe a reason why you're not going for it? Do you think that it was diminished a little bit? Do you think that it watered it down, or am I crazy? I'm trying to figure out how you're not picking this one.

Maybe. Maybe because, I mean, we all have like, you know, recency biased, don't we? And I was obviously not at the first one. but I was at the second one. And maybe there's a bit of that where I'm having the sort of flashbacks to the second one in my mind. But, you know, but I feel like, you know, we've got 20, as you say, 27 awards. I feel like there's a chance that Ben and Eubank might come up and a few more awards.

So I can't give out all the popcorn and the gold to Ben and Eubank. I might have to, you know, save a few for other awards as well. Okay, fair enough, fair enough. All right. So we're two for two as far as not agreeing. I love that very much. I want to move along now to knockout of the year. Knockout of the year, obviously, a very, very fun one.

I'm curious as to where you're going to go. We have to agree with this one. You know what? I'll tell you what about this. I'll give you my pick, but I'll say I changed it at the 11th hour. Oh, at another pick, at another pick. But I have a feeling based on your reaction right here that we are going to be in agreement. And so let's not, you know, dance around it.

To me, it was very easy in the end. It was Brian Norman Jr. against Jin Sasaki in Japan is one of the most vicious knockouts that you'll ever see. was actually quite scary in the aftermath. Sasaki was out, the way in which he fell. The way in which Norman knocked him out was as vicious, as powerful, as scary as can be. And the way in which Sasaki fell, and he was out for quite some time. I mean, he was a stiff board. Surely you agree with me.

That's your knockout of the year. Yes, you agree with me because that's what I'm going for as well. Now, I'm going for that one as well. I mean, there are many, obviously, as you say, thousands, right? And so many good knockouts. But that's the one that I just vividly remember. Like, it just sits with me. But the connection was just as good as it can be.

And as you say, Sasaki, just, didn't he have a memory loss as well? I think Brian Norman said he spoke to him and he could barely remember anything. So that one was just violent. And, you know, it's weird because you celebrate the knockout and then you kind of start to get worried. Like, okay, is he okay? Is he going to get up? Is he fine? And that's what that did.

It reminded me years ago of Sergio Martinez, Paul Williams, where they're just out old. And again, so many good ones. but I think that has to be number one. I'm very curious. I said you changed last minute. What was it going to be? Okay, so it was perhaps recency bias. But again, stakes means something to me, right?

So when it's on the biggest stage and when there's the most amount of people, it does feel a little bit elevated. And quite frankly, I was going to, for a moment, pick AJ over Jake Paul. It was a vicious knockout. It was the knockout hurt around the world. Everyone was talking about it went viral. He broke his jaw in two places. Like, that is as good of a knockout as you're going to get.

I think he gets diminished a little bit because I think. think everyone thought AJ was going to knock him out at some point. And after the fact, you're kind of like, oh, yeah, you know, we probably should have saw this coming. If you were one of those people who were saying, oh, Jake had a chance. I still can't believe that Jake was a plus 800 in the end. Like, I thought he should have been like a plus 20,000 given the, you know, the skill discrepancy, the size discrepancy, the resume discrepancy. But then, you know, I went back and looked at some of them. There were some other great ones. Like Fabio Wardley knockout of Justice Hooney was incredible at Portman Road. There were a lot of great knockouts

throughout the year. And obviously in boxing, it's a lot more, you know, zeroed in because in MMA there's a whole bunch of different ways in which you can win a fight. That's the only way that you can actually stop a fight. But yeah, that knockout is one of the most vicious and scary knockouts that we've seen in quite some time. I'm talking about Brian Norman versus Jin Sasaki. Any others come to mind? Not on that level. Because when I do think of sort of vicious knockouts, as you say, I'm thinking of where the ref could count for a minute and you're not getting up. Yeah. So the AJ, Jake Paul, and I actually think Jake would have got up.

If there's another second or so, Jake's trying to get up. Even the Justice Hooney one, Justice looked like he was trying. I mean, he was lucky he's trying to crawl around. I mean, Brian Norman, that knockout, he's not getting up if it's a two-minute count. And that's why, for me, it was just head and shoulders about everything else because that's one of the scariest. And I think that's the word, scary. It scared me watching it back, thinking, is he okay? As Sasaki Fawksense?

I don't think so, no. I don't think so and you're right That's how scary it was And I'm going to confirm that But there were there were those reports About the memory loss I don't know how

No he has not And that was in June You know I don't know how they're able To monitor measure Whether or not he's had any memory loss I don't know how that happens Other than just speaking to him

But yeah When you start to hear stuff like that And by the way Brian did that in Japan He flew to Japan It felt like his coming out party And then of course Some months later Devin Haney

kind of squashed all of that and derailed it at least for the time being. So let's see what happens with Brian Norman Jr. But shout out to him. Congratulations to him. Our hour knockout of the year winner. Okay, let's move along and let's go with upset of the year. Now there's many ways that you can skin this cat out of day because like some people just go like letter of the law, they look at the odds, who was the biggest underdog and that person wins, you know, the upset of the year award. And then there's other people who will be like, all right, you know, maybe maybe the odds weren't as great, but this guy had no chance of winning, and he rose to the occasion, he pulled it off, everyone was counting him out, et cetera, et cetera. You go first,

your upset of the year for 2025. Now, this one might be a bit controversial. It might be. But I remember going into this fight, I was thinking that my guy was surely going to win. And I say my guy, I mean, the favorite was surely going to win. As the fight's playing out, I'm thinking he could get knocked out any second here, is in the favorite. My upset of the year, it might not be an upset for some. But it still was to me, Fabio Wardley stopping Joseph Parker. Wow.

I just didn't picture it. I mean, leading up to the fight, I was like, okay, look, Parker's just two experience. And even if they have a shoot at here, Parker could knock Fabio out because, I mean, Fabio, you know, was an accountant 10 years ago. Joseph Parker was on, you know, he was on a run. He was going to fight Alexander Usick. They've held him back. And he has to get through one more man. And that man's Fabio Wardley.

And when Fabio stopped him, I remember looking around at everyone like, what the hell was just happened here? I'm still astonished watching these photos and these pictures back because I just had Joseph Parker as such a big favorite. Everyone did. Don't get me wrong. Everyone gave Fabio a chance. But this isn't just a Zuni. This isn't Fraser Clark. This is the big Uso.

This is Joseph Parker, who at the time, I thought, was the second best heavyweight in the world behind Alexander Usik. So for me, it's a massive upset. So I'm going to go, Fabio, stopping Joseph Parker. Okay, that is a really good one, and it wasn't on my short list. In the end, I was considering two. I will say, that word upset is apropos when talking about that fight, because I still think it was an awful, awful stoppage. So I was upset watching it.

I was bad watching it. And I understand what you mean, because I did think that Parker was going to win. I'm looking at the odds going into it just for fun. The odds going into the fight. I mean, they were pretty big. Parker was a, it opened minus 1,000 for Parker, plus 560 for Wardley. Interestingly enough, it closed minus 340 for Parker, plus 340 for Wardley. So over time, and by the time the fight started, it got closer.

Yeah, a lot of people started to believe that Wardley had it. Still feel like it was an awful stoppage. Still feel like Parker kind of got shafted this year, not getting the Dubois fight earlier in the year, and then not fighting for the belt, and then this happening. And then since then, testing positive cocaine. Like just crazy year. Like a year that he just wanted to counsel. Yes.

Like just remove 2025 from Joseph Parker. I still feel like there's more to that story. I can't tell you. I did see him at the Parker, excuse me, at the Joshua Paul fight in Miami. He was there, believe it or not. I was surprised to see him. And he told me that there's more information that's going to come out. And in due time, he will share that with the world.

So I hope that there is more to that story. And I hope that it doesn't derail his career for very much longer because I thought that he was having a, tremendous renaissance in 2024 was great year for him so it came down i did not have that obviously there's one that i feel like a lot of people are picking and it's the letter of the law one because if you go with the the odds it was one of the biggest upsets as far as an underdog winning a fight back in may there was a fight in los vegas between armando resendez and yeah hila plant cali plan Resendez was a plus 1,100 underdog.

Caleb Plant was a minus 2,400 favorite. It didn't really move all that much as they got closer to the fight. And as you may recall, it was all being set up to have Plant and Charlo fight down the line. They were both on the same card. Charlo did the business and Plant, you know,

he slipped on the banana peel, proverbially. I still feel, though, that in the end, the biggest upset of the year wasn't that one because that wasn't like, yes there was a discrepancy as far as odds are concerned but to me the one that I watched and said holy shit I can't believe it ended this way was Raleigh Romero over Ryan Garcia

oh yeah it was all being set up for Ryan and Devin to fight they're in Times Square no one gave Rory Romero a chance and here he is coming in there and completely shuts him down in one of the most uninspired performances and what made it an even bigger upset was the fact that Ryan looked so good in his last fight which was against Devin Haney now I know you may want to

put an asterisk there because of, you know, what happened afterwards. But still, who on earth was calling for a Romero win, especially in that way over Ryan Garcia? Not many people. Nobody. And it ruined all the plans afterwards, which were Haney versus Garcia and Riet. So because of that, I thought that that was the biggest upset. And by the way, as far as the odds are concerned, that fight, interestingly enough, opened up Ryan minus 700, Romero plus 480. But as the fight got closer, the odds were even greater in favor of Ryan Garcia minus 1,000 to plus 700. So as we got closer to the fight, more and more people were starting to believe like, yeah, this guy has no chance. Romero, he went out there and picked up the big win. I remember, because obviously

we were doing our wonderful show together. Yes. And I remember saying to you, I need to see crazy Ryan. I don't know if you remember that. I was like, this nice and, you know, happy, go lucky Ryan, Ryan, this ain't the guy for me. Like, some athletes need a bit of crazy. And I think Ryan's a bit like that he needs a bit of crazy. Not for long crazy where, you know, obviously he's out of the sport for a year or two, just a bit of crazy. And I remember in the lead up to that fight, he was just almost just too nice, too mellow. And I remember, look, I'm not going to say I called the upset, because I certainly didn't.

I thought he would get past Roley, especially considering he pulled Roly up to one four seven. But I don't know, man, I feel like Ryan just needs a bit of crazy in him. And hopefully, you know, we see a Barry or see a bit of crazy, maybe see a bit of crazy. if he does eventually fight Devon again but that's a big one. It's one I forgot actually, so I do think that might be the biggest upset of the year considering what was at stake and that nobody gave Roley a chance.

I like the fact that I'm actually like throughout the course of the show convincing you to change your pitch. No, no, no, no, no, I certainly stuck with Bwetcy Smith. I feel like I've done it twice now. One second, one second, I certainly stuck with Bwicey Smith. I've done a pretty good job of at least making you like you've done well. You know what I like?

I like the fact that I'm giving you props for yours and you're giving me nothing. No, I'm giving you props. I said worthy. They didn't give me anything. It made me upset. You know, you know what's interesting? You say you forgot about it, and I don't blame you because that whole event was forgettable, right?

Like that whole Times Square event was one that I think everyone involved, including the ones who paid for it, want to forget. Dude, it's been deleted from DeZone archives. It's not even under the Zona page anymore. It's been God. It was just forget about it. Honestly, just forget about it. But look, you can only try things, and that was tried and it didn't work out. Okay, let's move along now and go with a very tough one of my opinion because you really, there's one thing to like,

pick a fight of the year, but then to go with round of the year, you really have to like zero in on three minutes of action, or if we're talking about the ladies at times, two minutes. So it's tough, and this is a very subjective one. There's a lot of great rounds throughout all the title fights and, you know, all the fights throughout the year, quite frankly. Let's go with you first on this one. Who is your pick?

Two fighters, round of the year. Which one do you have? Dude, again, almost impossible. I mean, you mentioned Ben Eubank, it could have been any round from that fight. I'm gambling with a fight that happened early in the year. Again, I feel like I'm just sort of sticking with sort of the early part of the year for some reason. But I'm going with Issaq Cruz versus Anghel Fierro.

These guys fought back in February, two Mexicans, and it was just brutal. Honestly, if anyone's watching this and you haven't seen it, please go and watch it. The whole fight's up on YouTube. You can watch the whole fight. Literally, round one looks like round two, which looks like round three and go on and on and on to round 10. But these guys, it's a 10-round fight. These guys get up on the stall after what was a brutal. total round nine and you're thinking, okay, something has to give here.

You guys can't keep throwing punches to the body and nobody goes down. You can't keep fran hooks and big right hand and they do exactly that. I don't know what the punch stats are for that round 10, but it must be some sort of record because these two, I mean, there's something about Mexican fighters, right, that machismo where you just don't give up ground. Like there is no, okay, I'm going to fight on the back foot because that's what I'm good. No, no, no. It's a case of I'm going to fron the front foot.

You're going to front on the front foot and I'm going to man on you. And that's what these guys did. And it was a terrific fight. Could have been fight of the year, by the way. It's one of those that's been forgotten because, again, it was the early part of the year. But that round 10 is one of the best rounds of just carnage that I've seen in a long time. Tremendous pick, tremendous round. Issaac Cruz won't be all action, like all violent fighters still in this game, was just in action not that long ago,

although some may think he lost that fight against Lamont Roach, yes. my pick is a little bit off the grid but I think you have seen it and I think I will convince you that it might be one of the biggest rounds of the year and not only craziest rounds of the year but one of the craziest rounds of all time I'm not saying it's like Hagler-Herns round one

but it's one of the greatest one round fights that I've ever seen we're going back to MVP they were in Texas in October I want to tell you about Sebastian Juarez and DeMarcus Laden we have some of this footage here because it is a back-and-forth insane car crash. You see here, Leighton, in the black and white trunks, drops Suarez.

He thinks he's done. He thinks he's got the victory. He's celebrating. Look at this. Just, I mean, first of all, maybe the smallest ring I've ever seen. Dude, I was just thinking that. Like, what's this? It's the complete opposite of the AJ Jake Paul ring, which was one of the biggest rings I've ever seen.

Okay, so you're seeing like multiple knockdowns. Look at this. These aren't the same shots, by the way. These aren't the same shots. Here's Juarez now coming back and dropping Leighton. And look at this. It keeps going. Why do all the knockdowns look like fight-ending knockouts?

All of them look like, look at this. He's doing the Zap-Juda. Yes. And then it's over. If you actually watch it in like real time, full speed, three minutes, it's absolute insanity. Do you remember this when it came out when this fight happened? It was total insanity. And there were a couple times where you were like,

Okay, is this a 10-7? Wait, now it's going to be like a 9-7. Now it's going to be an 8-7. And how do you actually score this if it made it to the end? Because it was stopped right before the end of the first round. I'd never seen a fight swing that quickly, especially that early. That was the first round. So I'm just about to ask you that.

Was that round one? That was round one. Okay. Okay. You know what? The other two, you kind of, you've been convinced me to switch sides and the other two you haven't. I'm switching sides now on that one. I freaking love it.

I forgot about that fight. and I remember it clearly. And even just the way Sebastian Warriors gets knocked down, that looks like it's over. It honestly looks like it's over. So yeah, you know what? Nothing beats knockdowns. I didn't give you a knockdown in my pick.

Multiple. I mean, if you give it, yeah, multiple knockdowns. And you're right, you're kind of working out what score this is. And we didn't need to get to the scores, thank God. But, yeah, I think you've convinced me. So I'm going on with your pick. That's the first one. Wow, wow.

Congratulations. I got you on the third one. Shout out to the good people of the zone, because I just checked. they've uploaded the entire thing. So if you go on YouTube and put in Juarez and Leighton, you will get the full fight,

which is just a five-minute clip because there's like the post-fight stuff. It's very quick, but it's absolute insanity. Back in October's South Podge Island. I love to how many views that's got on YouTube. Oh, well, right now... It went viral.

Yeah, but it was all over the place. It was all over the place. One of the craziest first rounds reminded me a little bit of Nick Diaz and Paul Daly from back of the day in terms of a one-round fight that will be talked about forever. Obviously, the stakes in this one

weren't as great, but very, very memorable stuff. All right, let's move along now. And let's go with one, you know, I've noticed in the boxing award space, people love to go with prospect of the year. And we've made an alteration because, you know, we're trendsetters. We don't follow the pack. We lead the pack. And we've altered it to a more MMA-like category, which is breakout fighter of the year.

Because to me, how do you actually determine who's a prospect and who isn't? You know, people are fighting for belts early on in their careers. Like, what exactly is a prospect? Because quite frankly, I saw some people give Moses Satama the prospect of the year. And I'm like, Moses Atama is no longer a prospect. Like, he has arrived. Maybe he's not fighting for undisputed. And I know he's super young.

And his age would suggest that he's, you know, a prospect. But he's no longer a prospect. You know what I mean? So I feel like my interpretation, my definition of breakout fighter, is someone who was kind of here doing great things. But then by the end of 2025, exploded. is now a major player, a major figure in the scene. Do you know what I mean?

That's how I do it. 100%. 100%. I've always argued this prospect thing. I mean, it's a prospect based on age. It's a prospect based on a number of fights. Like, what is a prospect? So I prefer this breakout star of the year.

And I have three in my head, but there's only one. You want to go first? You want to go first. I'm happy to go first. Okay, go ahead. Can I mention the two that were close? Yes, yes, yes. Abdulah Mason was very, very close.

to be in my breakout fight of the year because he's a guy that's done good work in America and then he puts on an incredible fight of the year. Wait a second. Wait a second. Okay, go ahead. Sam Noakes. Yeah, you can see who that is, right? I think I can. I think I can.

Marba guy was Floyd Schofield, who, again, incredible fight against Kevin Farmer. I fought a breakout year for him. There can only be one. Okay. And you just mentioned him. Wow. And we reveal who is the breakout star for me, please,

of 2025, the great. The wonderful Moses Italma, who, by the way, hasn't just blown up in terms of this performance against Dillian White, who, I mean, look, we know Dillion isn't the same Dillian, but no one expected this. No one expected two minutes of work. No one. No one predicted it. Dillin White looks an incredible shame. It isn't just what Moses is doing inside the ring, which in 2025 was only, I don't know, five minutes of work. It's outside the ring as well now. Like the brands are flocking to him. He's a superstar. I was in Nigeria at a betting company, put them on a private jet. Wow. And they put on the side of the private jet, Moses de Talma.

I mean, Nike have now got him. Really? And we don't know, Nike have got him now. Wow, wow. We don't normally see these brands attached to boxes. It doesn't really happen that much because they stay away from the sport. He is a superstar. He's only just turned 21.

And he is the breakup boxer for me of the year. And he might be, if the plans are right, be literally the star. star of 2026. I am full on the Moses de Tama hype train breakout box of 2025. So it's a great pick and I'm happy because if we would have had, you know, prospect of the year, I don't think he's a prospect anymore, right? No, no, no, you are correct. That being said, I'm pretty sure that we did this last year, first annual awards, and I'm pretty sure I had him as my breakout fighter of the year because if you recall he fought four times in

2024, fought twice in 2025 and yes, the Dillion White fight was the biggest, but he didn't get like that big fight. He's starting off the year. He's very soon he's fighting germain franklin i i presume you'll be there and i can't wait for it of course you know who could forget my interaction with him in paris i sort of like anointed him the future king of boxing a lot of people said that i like kind of like picked him out first out of the back but like i'm not going to say that about myself i'm going to let others say that quite frankly i don't have him as my breakout because to me he already broke through he was already the breakout heading into this year and so my pick for breakout fighter of the year is one of the other names that

you mentioned and it's the 21 year old it's the 21 year old it's the the current youngest champion in boxing today, and it's the one and only Abdullah Mason, the pride of Cleveland, who had a tremendous win over Sam Noakes at the very end of the year, over in Riet. This man is unbelievable. Three wins this year. He's still very young. I feel like he was on a collision course with Kishon Davis.

Kishon had his issues. Top rank has done a great job of building him up. Of course, this last fight was under the Riyadh season umbrella, the ring umbrella, so to speak. And I really feel like he could be that guy. we keep talking about you and I have talked about a lot like who could be the next guy who could be the next face he comes from a great fighting family his dad his brothers he see i was i had him once on the show very impressive young man well spoken seems very humble down to earth and then you see the skills and that fight was great and then his other fights leading up to this point prior to winning that

belt blown away by the guy and i don't feel ultimately why i give him the breakout fighter of the year word i don't feel like people were necessarily talking about him in that way this time last year right at the beginning of 2025. And so that to me is why he was my pick for a breakout fighter of the year. Love him. I've spoken to him a few times. I interviewed him in the lead-up to the Sam Noakes fight. And as you say, just as humble as they come.

And sometimes I don't know if that's good for American fight fans. I feel that they like the people that are brash. And I like the idea of there being an alternative to that. And that is Abdullah Mason. I think he's a great guy. As you say, sorry, he comes from sort of fighting stock. He's only 21. is the youngest world champion, which is incredible.

And he should be everywhere. He's a good-looking kid as well. I want him to be a breakout star in terms of crossing over to the casuals. I don't know if that's happened, and it will happen in 2026. So that's why he was on my list, but I think Moses has literally broken through. And you're right, maybe he broke through the back end of 20204. But I think Moses has now kicked the door down. And I think Abdelah Mason has to do that in 26.

But I am not mad at that pick at all. I won't be changing my mind. Two follow-ups, if I may. This time next year, where's the Ta-Mahad, in your opinion? Like, does he get that? No, champion. But does he fight Usik? Or is he getting, like, one of those belts taken?

You know, like, how is he getting that? I think it's a vacant belt. Yeah. I don't think, I don't think, I can't say Usset will duck him, because I don't think Usset would duck anyone. I don't think Usset looks at the risk reward and thinks, oh, there's no reward. There's a bit of risk, there's not much reward.

It's a little John Jones, Tom Aspenol-esque, right? Where he's like, I've done it all. You know what I mean? Although he's much, much younger, but there's a ton of hype. Yeah, so how does he get there? You think it's just a vacant title fight? I think it's a vacant title fight. I think there's a chance of the Fabio Wardley fight,

and I know they're in the same camp, but someone has to leave that camp. It just doesn't work for me. And I know they hate me saying it, but you can't have two top heavyweights in the same camp on a collision course. Well, maybe he fights with Daniel Dubois, but I think there's a chance he fights a name for a bell,

or I think he's very high in a couple of the governing bodies, he gets a vacant belt, which I hate. So I'd rather invite a Wardley, a Dubois, or a cabal, and then we'll know how good Moses really is because those guys are all given problems. That camp, by the way, is Ben Davison camped, right? It is, yes. Are you surprised AJ left?

A little bit, a little bit. I don't know how many trainers that's been now for AJ. It's been quite a few. Actually, if you think of sort of the ones that are maybe not full, trainers, but just there in the background as well. So I am a bit surprised, but I mean, at this stage of AJ's career, he's maybe looking at other camps, AJ's always done that, he's always gone to camps and, you know, had a couple of training sessions and maybe, you know, Ussick invited him out there, he had a training session

for what, you know what? I like this. Let me stay. So, you know, and also with that Ben Davison camp, it's a busy camp. Don't be wrong, AJ's the head honcho, but it's a busy, busy camp with a lot of fighters, a lot of young fighters as well. Whereas this camp just seems to be AJ

So maybe he just wants all the focus on him Sure It just seemed like they had such a great thing It seemed like they had such a great thing going And I know he had the loss to Dubois But I would have liked to see them stick around Because it seemed like they were so You know, so in unison

One more follow up Abdullah Mason's the WBO lightweight champion There's some big names at the top of that weight class Obviously Shakur has one of those belts He's moving up to 140 Javante Davis who knows if he fights again Not much about him Like what do you think happens

And this is the Kishon fighting. Kishon is coming back on that January 31st fight card. What do you think is next for him? And do you think that he can hang with those guys right now? Those are like top of the tree guys. And could he hang? Yes. But I'd actually make all of those three guys you just mentioned favorite to beat him.

Javonte, Kishon, and Shakur. I think the obvious fight for me is Floyd Schofield. I think you go down that route. Floyd's coming off that really good win against Tavon Farmer. And that was a, that's a win. That's not spoken about enough. That Tevin Farmer, considering Tevin Farmer gave Williams a paid a good work, that's a really good win.

And he stopped Farmer. So I think Floyd versus Tevin Farmer, that next breed of the guys coming up, Kishon's talking about going to 1-4-7 if he wins on January the 31st. Chakur's at 1-4-E, Javonte, we don't know what's going on. So there seems to be these new kids on the block. And I think Floyd and Abdullah-Mason could be the guys that sort of look after the 135 division for the next two three years. And by the way, they are telling me that,

last year, we both had Moses as our prospect. God, that. We both had, but it was good. Prospect. It was called prospect. It was called prospect. By the way, I was at that school field fight. That was on the undercard of Chavez and Jake Paul. And I was blown away.

He came out guns blazing, just like completely annihilated farmer. And this was coming off like that weird scene over in Riyadh where it was the poison and like who the hell knows what really happened there. Okay. Let us move along now and go to comeback of the year. Now, this, we've broken it into two categories. There's comeback of the year, which is really centered around like a performance and a fight. Someone was down. They came back and won the fight.

And then in a moment, we'll have comeback fighter of the year. So two different categories. First, we'll start with comeback. Again, actual performance. Someone's down. They come back. They win the fight. Your pick for comeback of the year.

This isn't easy in. And I'll be very surprised if you don't have the same one, Ariel, because I like to think that you're a man that knows your boxing. I mean, you know you're boxing. You watch the sport as much as I do. Nothing is going to beat Fabio Wardley versus Justice Hooney. Fabio Wardley, an Ipswich man fighting up Portman Road. It was supposed to be Big Baby Miller. They get in Justice Hooney on late notice.

I mean, surely he's going to beat Justice Hooney. He's getting outboxed. I mean, he's getting destroyed. He's so far down on the scorecards. People are not even reading the scorecards. What he needs to do is land the right hand. And he lands it in the last round. It's raining.

It's pouring. one's getting wet and the crowd just go crazy. And I'm thinking, surely you can't lose your homecoming fight. You can't do it and he doesn't. That one hit a quitter and Justin, he's on his backside and Fabio escapes. And that's what it was. It was an escape from Portman Road. It's almost like he stole the belt because he didn't deserve it because he was getting

destroyed in that fight. But that is the comeback performance of the year. Couldn't agree more. There's nothing more that I could say. I referenced it earlier. He looked awful. He looked awful in those first nine and a half rounds. And then all of a sudden, from the depths of hell, he comes out there.

And again, as you said, this was all built around him. The Ipswich guy, the Miller fight was great. He gets hurt. And then you see the size difference. And you're like, oh, my God, this is a disaster. There's some great scenes of, you know, the Queensberry guys sitting, you know, ringside. And they're like, what is going on here?

And then they explode afterwards. I mean, look at the way in which Justice Hooney is just absolutely annihilating him. You watch these highlights. you're like there's no chance that this guy is going to come out and win the fight and then again out of nowhere. Wardley is one of the great stories of 2025 and has been one of the great stories in boxing, certainly in British boxing for the last couple of years, for him to do this at that venue when it looked like nothing was going. I mean, look at this. Oh, by the way, I forgot how bad it was. Yeah. Talk about making adjustments, right? Like talk about figuring something

out, boom. And there it is. Shocking stuff, brilliant stuff. Referenced it earlier for maybe, you know, a knockout of the year. candidate as well absolutely one of the easier ones to pick yeah i agree um and again it's everything around it as you say is fighting up portman road he has to win it's a last minute replacement there are plans for fabia wardly and then you realize the skill gap obviously wardly's only been doing this 10 years and that might sound a long time but when you're doing it against guys that have been doing it since they were knee high you can kind of notice the skill gap and wardly was like shaking his head he was frustrated and then he just made that little adjustment slip to the side and bang

there you go come back at the year it's a beautiful thing especially when you consider the fight he ended up getting as a result of that and then the win that he had he doesn't win that fight the way like if that's going to the scorecards he's losing maybe you know 10 nothing you know what I mean and and he doesn't get the O2 fight he doesn't get Joseph Parker doesn't get the WBO he doesn't get all these things crazy uh yeah crazy shout out to Fabio great guys well really have enjoyed speaking him a couple times and I think he does a great job of flying the flag for the UK. Okay, now let's go to

comeback fighter of the year and I have to say I've been very upset as of late I've been very upset because I've seen a lot of people weigh in including our team over at Uncrown they gave out awards over the holiday break and you know I've watched everyone weigh in and I respect everyone's opinion very much

but I'm like how are we going in this direction because I have seen very few people actually pick the right person Now I'll say Well, wait, one second, one second. Wait, wait, one second. So only you can have the right person? Because it's such an obvious one.

It's such an obvious one. Don't do this. Don't do this. I don't want to start arguing with you. A lot. No, no. Listen. Listen, first of all, it's an hour in so we could start arguing. Listen, everyone's picking Devin Haney.

And I don't understand this. I don't understand this. He had one bad performance mid-20204, right? That was the fight against Ryan Garcia. They overturn it. Whatever it is, performance sucks. Okay, then he comes back, has a fight that everyone hated, a performance that everyone hated, Times Square against Jose Ramirez,

everyone hated that performance, right? Everyone killed him for it, and then has a great win over Brian Norman. But to me, Devin Haney wasn't like down on his luck. He wasn't on a long losing streak. People weren't saying he's washed. People weren't saying that he was out of action for quite some time. To me, I think you're overblowing this. It's a great performance, and no one loves Haney more than me.

But I think it's actually an insult to him to say that he's the comeback fight of the year. this is such an easy one. It's Mani freaking Paciow. Mani Paciow had not fought since 2021. You and I were saying that it was a joke that the WBC ranked him. You and I were saying that it was a joke

that he was getting the Barrios fight. And then what does he do? He almost beats Barrios. It ends in a draw, but I think he actually beat him on the night. And the guy is now 47 years old. No one saw this coming. This guy was doing like exhibition fights over in Japan.

He had not fought since the Ugas fight in 2021. Four and a half years he comes back and he fights the WBC champion and almost beats him and probably should have beaten him and all of us were saying that it was like a travesty that he was even being

we were killing the WBC for this they put him in the rankings and then they gave him the title fight and then he actually does that and looks the way in which he did like I want to see him against big name competition we hear about the Floyd stuff

who knows if that's going to happen but like Pachiao's back what's a greater comeback than being out for four years everyone crapping on you when your fight gets announced and then you do that to the champion how is it not ManiPack

yeah surely you agree yeah i do you know i do it's not what i you know it's not what i had so i want to move on because because mine now seems embarrassing because you have devaney too no no i didn't i didn't but i don't even want to say what i had go ahead no go ahead is it connor ben it's hums shiraz what yeah but wait wait wait hear me out hear me out a second golly you know what you You know what it is. The British, you know what the British are like. British buyers. No, we build you up to knock you down.

Yeah. That's what we do. We're like, oh, he's the greatest. He's the best in the war. And then you lose ones. I was crap. I told you he was crap. And when Hamza Shira's lost to Carla Saddamis,

and it wasn't even a loss. I keep making that mistake. It was a draw. But I think we said it on the show and lost a couple of times because it felt like a loss. And really and truly, he lost that fight. I've watched it back so many times.

I've scored it. He lost that fight. And then it was the case of, okay, what next? Okay, he's going to move up in weight, new trainer, and he's going to go and fight Edgar Balangir in his backyard of Queens. I was like, dude, this is too much. You can't have a new trainer, a new weight, and then go and fight in someone's backyard. And he did all those things, and then he knocked Edgar Balango out. And all of a sudden, the Brits are now back on board.

Oh, we love you, Hamza. We always loved you. So I think mentally, I thought that Card Saddamas, the way in which it played out for him was so difficult that it was always a big comeback to do what he did. and he did it so well with so much grace, Mani Pachio is the right choice, but I think Hamza Cherez deserves a lot of praise for his comeback of 2025 as well. You're right.

I mean, honestly, that was one of the great performances of the year as well. And he really, you know, I think a lot of people were crapping on him saying he was a never was, or maybe like overhyped after the Adama's fight. Yes, that was it. And he looked fantastic. He stole the moment.

He rose to the occasion here in New York. It's worse than the Haney pick, no doubt about it. And it's certainly not on the level of the package. pick, but I understand. You love your guy and I do like Hansa. I will give him props later in the show. I actually have him listed later in the show, but yeah,

I mean, how is it not Mani Packer? No, no, no, it is Mani Paco. It's Mani Paco, you are correct. Because we were saying, as you said, many of us and many of us still were like, how dare the WBC give him a title shot? Like Mani Packers, what, 47? Yeah, 47. Yeah, yeah, like one win in six years. And then he does that to a world,

champion. You are correct. This is one. I, have I given you two now on this show? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I think so. Yeah. Okay. Let me start looking at my list. I need to come back. Boxing aficionado, Ariel Hawani. No, no, it's, uh, it's an impressive thing. And I'm actually really curious to see what he does in 2026. Like, does he fight for him? I don't want to see him fight. Oh, you think he's done. Can that not be it? Can that just not be it? Can that? Oh, no. He's like, do we need to see it again? Like, Barrios was the perfect opponent because Barrios doesn't really hit hard. Right. I don't want to see him in there with someone that crack. It sounds like He's going to fight Floyd.

Oh, God. You're not interested? What if it's a pro fight? Zero. What if it's a pro fight? I don't believe you. I don't believe you. I don't believe you.

Him versus Floyd? Yeah. No, no, no. By the way, by the way, dude, I'd watch two guys falling out of a pub right now. I'd go and literally, I'd leave the show and there's a fight. The Mississippi says,

as a fight, I'm going outside to watch it. But they've given me enough. Yeah. Man, he gave me 30 years of, like, Floyd gave me 25. Is that not enough? Is that not enough? Do you think it would be a giant, like, is that a,

a Netflix fight in your opinion? I kind of feel like it is. I feel like it is a Netflix fight. Yes, it is. I think Floyd would sell it well. I think everyone would. There needs to be an antagonizer on this. I think Floyd will play the role

that Jake's done in recent fights and he'll play it so well. So I do think they'll be injured. I don't think it gets the same kind of numbers as maybe the recent Netflix ones, but I think it's a Netflix fight. I don't know, I don't. I don't think there's that much intrigue.

of them. They love, hate both of them. You know, the interesting thing about Netflix in 26, and we could talk about it later in the show, is that they're not tied to any promoters. So they could just basically say, like, we want that fight. And obviously, there are some fighters who are contractually tied to networks, but we saw it with AJ, like, when there's a will, there's a way, and they could pay the DeZones of the world and say, like, hey, we want this fight. And I think if AJ Fury happens, it would be on Netflix, to be honest. And we'll talk about that later as well. But I just feel like those two names are the kind of, that's the kind of match up the kind of name that Netflix is looking for big events, right? They're looking for things

that kind of transcend boxing and that fight was announced. Also, Floyd fighting Mike Tyson was announced, but I never really believed that one. I believe the, the Pachial Floyd won a lot more than that one. Remember that was announced and it kind of just disappeared? Yeah. Floyd fighting Tyson. I think, I think, yeah, you know what it is about Floyd? Maybe because he's done quite a few of these exhibitions, none recently, but there was a period where it felt like he was doing it every three or four months. Yeah. And I think people just got tired of it.

Yeah. Okay, this has actually now become quite boring. So, yeah, I don't know, man. All right. Well, my pick, Manny Pachia, your pick, Hamza Shira. Shout out to him. Love Hamza. Great win.

Cool venue. Let's move on. Let's go to another one, which is hard to sometimes truly, like, identify, okay, how are you going to do this? It's a little bit like breakout and prospect, and it's most improved fighter of the year. Because it all kind of depends on, like, how did you view this fighter? beforehand, how did you view them now? What did they do that you kind of deem as an improvement over last year or other parts of their career? Were they down in 24? They came back in 25. So I'm

really curious to see and I have a feeling. I'm going to go out on a limb and say, we are not in agreement as far as this one is concerned. You go first, most improved fighter of 2025. Oh, this is easy. This is like not even a difficult choice. I mean, the guy that I'm picking was an accountant 10 years ago. And that's Fabio Wardley. Okay. Fabio Wardley is the most most improved fighter. Like, I saw him against Justice Houni get lit up, completely lit up. I mean, Justice couldn't, and you just played the clip. It was getting, like, hit from pillar to post.

I then saw him take several steps up and fight Joseph Parker. And I'm seeing him cause Joseph Parker problems. I'm seeing him make adjustments. I'm like, how have you gone from that performance against Justice Houni where you couldn't escape that right hand to fight in what I said at the start of the show was the second best heavy. weight and you've caused him so many problems, not just in your feet, but in your hand, your feints, everything, and then you stopped him. Yes, controversially, but you stopped him.

That improvement from Justice Hooney to Joseph Parker needs to be studied. And that's a credit to the Ben Davis and Lee Wiley School of sort of boxing knowledge. I think that is the most improved performance and improved box of 2025. Okay, here's why you're wrong. Why you're wrong, why you're wrong is because he lost nine and a half rounds of that fight against Justice Houni who was not quite on his level and then he actually shouldn't have beaten Joseph Parker because it was a horrible stoppage

so technically he could have been 0 and 2 in those two fights how could that be the most improved fighter how could that be the one second one second so you know this is my point and you've made it quite well for me so he was losing every single round against Justice Haley surely when he steps up against a better boxer

more experience in Joseph Parker is going to be blasted out and he wasn't In fact, in those moments where it looks like one fight is going to be out on their feet, it's always Joseph Parker. And yes, you're right. The ending is controversial, but he was one more right hand away from putting Parker out. I think you can agree with that as well. Sure.

I think the adjustments he made from that Hooney performance where it honestly looked like he was a white-collar boxer again to the Joseph Parker fight where everyone thought he was going to get beat, a massive underdog, I think needs to be looked at. So the answer is Fabia Wardley. and whoever you say is wrong. Okay, here's where you're right. If you look at it over the totality of his career, he has come so far, right?

He has come such a long way. I just don't feel like this was the year to say it. Maybe last year would have been the one to say it, especially he finished that year with that crazy knockout, freaking head, like the jaw being displaced and all that stuff. It was scary, scary stuff. But in the end, I disagree with you.

I disagree with you. Okay, go on. And, you know, I take these very seriously, So I study, I look far and wide, I really break things down. And I had the benefit with this particular fighter of seeing two of their fights in person. So I was really able to see. Jake Paul. No, I was really, are you kidding me?

I was really able to see the improvements that they made. And I want to go back, maybe let's go back to 2023. Let's go back to 2023. There was a title fight at Wembley Arena. You might have been there in which a young woman named Ellie Scottney beat a young woman named Sharnika Johnson, right? And, you know, it looked like there were levels. It wasn't really that close of a fight. Sharnika Johnson's next fight was against Nina Hughes, and, you know, she won via majority decision. But it wasn't the greatest performance. Then this year, Sharnika Johnson,

Sugar Neeks, beats Nina Hughes via TKO, then becomes undisputed champion at Madison Square Garden against Shreda Metcalf, first Australian in the Four Belt era, by the way, to become undisputed champion, male or female, and then against a very tough and very game, Amanda. Galee on the undercard of Jake and Joshua absolutely, I think, dismantles Amanda Galeigh and wins via decision. My pick, and it's not just because I'm in the photo there, Jordan did that, is Sugar Neeks, Sharnika Johnson, who I think early in her career, a lot of people thought,

you know, just a pretty face and influencer has really come a long way, undisputed Bantamweight Champion. I think she has made tremendous improvements and has made the most as far as male or female boxers this past year. One second, one second. This is clearly some sort of bias going on in your studio. What by? Why was my photo with Fabio Wawley in the park?

I interviewed Fabia Wardley on both occasions. Why do I not have the bike picture of Fabia Wardley? But no, no, apart from that, your thought. Chica Johnson's done. No, Shinika Johnson's done incredible stuff. Honestly, you know what? I remember when she came out, it was more about, and people might say, I know, you're being a bit out of order.

I almost felt like she was just selling herself, you know, the physique and everything. She came out. I remember it. There's like, okay, can she box? Oh, she can box. Yeah. And she can box very, very well. I wouldn't mind seeing that Ellie Scotony rematch again.

Love it. I would love it. Yeah, I almost feel like there's a bit there. And that Nina Hughes thing's interesting. And obviously, remember the drama about the scorecards? And we're thinking, okay, this was crazy. And then to say, okay, let's run it back then. And then stop her. And then go over to MVP where you've just got to perform, right?

And she does that as well. It's not a bad shell. Is it as good as the Fabio shot? No. It's a good shout. It's a very good shout. I'm not mad at it. She won that undisputed title back in July.

Short notice fight, fighting Shreda McHaff. And then, again, Gale, who I actually saw also in person in much is a tough fighter maybe not a household name but like a tough like I said before that card in December that was my pick for fight of the night and it did win fight of the night and she faced some adversity she got cut up but I thought she looked really really great in that fight and I think she's come a long way and has set herself up for some really big fights in 2026 so I was very impressed with Sugar Neeks the pride of both New Zealand and Australia obviously very impressed with Fabio we're having a good time here not trying to take it out there there

There you go. Thank you very much. With the, By the way, when you decide when you're going to wear the glasses and when you're not going to wear the glasses, I notice that you go back and forth. Okay, this is such a good question. Yeah, yeah. So I don't wear them on, um, cool.

I don't wear them on Queensbury show. Wow, you break it down like that. As much anymore because I don't have auto queue on Queensby shows. It's just off the top of the dome. Matrum give me auto queue and I can't read the auto queue. Okay, for Americans. It is... AutoQ is teleprompter, right?

Teleprompter, this is correct. So Matrum have teleprompter, and I can't read it. It's so far away, I'm like, I can't read. So I've started wearing glasses for Matrum shows. Queensbury don't really do the teleprompter, so I don't need them as much for Queensbron shows. And any idea why? Like, why does one use it and one not?

I don't know. I've known. I actually prefer probably not using the teleprompter. Yeah, of course. As long as I've got a good guest with me, I can go off the dome. So, yeah, it might just be a thing where they get it rid of it completely for this year. But yeah, that's what it is. For everyone wandering at home, because there are times you're right where there's glasses

and then there's no glasses, then there's glasses and no glasses. Well, to be honest, and this is a great compliment to you, in my opinion, and a testament to you, I've never noticed, like, sometimes you could tell when someone's reading off the prompter, I've never noticed one way or the other. Like, when you are reading up the... Do you say prompter for Matchroom? Never noticed that, honestly. Yeah, prompter for always for the Matchroom shows, Promptor, yeah. Okay, but wait.

So you say prompter for, wait a second, wait a second, wait a second, you say prompter for matrim, that means glasses for matrim. So majority of the time, no, well, the majority of the time, the only time I'd put them on for Queensbury, and this is true, this is true, is if there is a monitor next to me, and obviously because there's no teleprompter, they want me to kind of say what's going on next. Oh yeah, next week we've got, and it's so far away, I've got to have my glasses on. Okay, okay, the reason I bring this up, you know, I'm a very stute person, if I may say so myself, Fabio Wardley, Queensberry, Matron.

Queensberry. Let's show that photo. Let's show that photo again. There they are. What is this? Because what would happen after that moment is I have to run down and read something from the TV screen, which is, as you've probably done these events, about 20 meters away. Sure, sure, sure.

Okay, so wait, is this, do you remember? Is that Portman Road or is that O2? That there, can I put a picture of our cup again? It's hard to say I'm going to say That's Portman Road Yeah it feels like Portland Road I think that's Portman Road

Yeah I'm looking at the belt I think Portman Road He's got the Ipswich Does he always have the Ipswich On the gloves Yeah Always does yeah To be fair

He always does yeah All right Well that's a great breakdown Of uh... At his bifocals Let us move along now Let us move along now Another tough one

You know why this is a tough one We're talking about Trainer of the year now You know why it's a tough one In my opinion Not tough at all. Okay, can I tell you why I think it's tough? Because ultimately, like, we're not in the gym.

We're not in the trenches. We're not there watching what they're doing, you know, two months out, six weeks out, four weeks out. You know, we see bits, you know, you do interviews, you get the one minute in between rounds. But ultimately, like, you really get a sense for what this person is doing with this fighter. It's very hard. We're not there. You know, you may go in one day and see things and you may have great respect for someone. So I always feel a little bit funny about this one, but I do think it's a little bit funny about this one.

but I do think it's an important one. It's very important to, especially in boxing, to highlight, you know, the head trainer. And so you go first, your trainer of the year 2025. I just want to make it clear. Did I give it to Don Charles last year? You did. I don't know if someone in the background could fight. Okay, fantastic.

I remember. I didn't want to repeat the award. This year, it has to go to, well, no, I think because I think this trainer I'm going to mention has done bigger work and better work this year. Okay, okay. And that's the great Robert Garcia, who I just adore. And I think he's trained of the year by some distance as well. And it isn't just Virgil Ortiz.

It isn't just Jesse Barry Rodriguez, who are two, obviously Jesse is a top five pound for pounder now. I think Virgil's on his way to be coming that. Both had excellent years. It's Oscar Duarte. It's Raymond Muratala who fights Andy Cruz for the IBF lightweight title soon. I think in a couple of weeks' time. So it's not just the main two. It's what he's doing with all these fighters.

All these fighters just seem to always win. And what I like as well is that he doesn't change the style of his fighters One thing Robert Garcia got Almost people started to say Beat the drum and say Oh you know these fighters fight one style It's just aggression

It's a good No they don't Jesse's a beautiful boxer And he's allowing Jesse to be a beautiful boxer With a bit of killer Virgil T's Jess is a killer Muratala's a boxer So it's almost like

He sees the style of these fighters And he moulds them the best way he can He adds a bit of clay here, a bit of clay there, and then he has this perfect statue. I think he's an incredible trainer. Obviously, he's won this award numerous years. You can understand why everyone goes there. I wish AJ, you're speaking about AJ of Ben Davis.

I wish AJ was still with Robert Garcia. I've always said this. I think he's just an excellent guy as well. Easy win, 2025 trainer of the year, Robert Garcia. Great one. A lot of people were saying that he could have been trainer of the year last year as well. you know I love one one component that boxing has that maybe MMA doesn't is I love the the father's son trainer fighter combination we see a lot of that and so I do want to give a shout out to Boots Ennis's father Bozianis

Shingo Inouye Naoya Inouye's dad these are two great great trainers who have molded two great fighters who happen to be their sons as well but in the end I didn't give it to a father in the end I gave it to a father in the end I gave it to a fighter turn trainer and quite frankly I'm shocked you didn't give it to him as well to be honest because you've been accused of a bit of bias over the year. You know this this individual doesn't have the biggest stable but I think he's very selective as to who he has

in his stable and I think that you can actually see what he has done with these individuals. I'm talking about the great Andy Lee who has Hamza Shiraz who has Patty Donovan who has Joseph Parker and then took Ben Whitaker to the stable and held

revamp and make him into one of the candidates for comeback fighter of the year. How is it not Andy Lee? Who I do believe might even be a colleague of yours from time to time over at DeZone. I am shocked that you didn't go with Andy Lee. Please, explain to you. You know what?

Okay, okay. Did you even try? Did you do these one day on the toilet or something? What's going on here? Speaking of trying, I'm sorry to interrupt. Yes. But Adi actually picked Robert Garcia last year. Wow.

You even picked Robert Garcia? You just copy and past it from last year. Oh my, you copy-paste it? You know, you know, I will say. about the reason Andy might be close, he's not winning it, is because, and this is maybe controversial. Obviously, Joseph Parker lost.

Controversial. Paddy Donovan lost? Controversial. Patty Donovan lost. No, remember the two fights. No, I know. But even the second one was a little controversial. The first one, definitely was.

But there's still defeats in their biggest fights. What about Whitaker? Joseph Parker, biggest fight. You've got to go on. What about Hamza? What about Shira. Whitaker beat Benjamin Gavatsy. I don't care.

And Liam Cameron. No again. And Liam Cameron. Yeah, good wins, good wins. Is that bigger than what, Jesse Bam Rodriguez? Shira, as you just said, was your freaking comeback fighter, and he did that to Buranga. And you know what?

He's just getting started with these guys. My trainer's biggest fighters never suffered defeat. It's fair. But here's the thing. My guy is- I love Andy Lee. I love Andy Lee. Andy Lee's number two.

He's number two. He's the freaking man. You're seeing tangible differences when he's not working with them and when he is working with them. 100%. I know, he's just, he's incredible. And the cue to get into his gym must be insane. Right. Everyone must be knocking on his door because he's the nicest person in the world as well.

And you are seeing differences. You are correct. I mean, look what Hamza did. Look what Ben Whittaker's done. Paddy Donovan was supposed to fight Liam Parrot. I think he would have beat Liam Parrot in Australia. And Joseph Parker will have, and I'm saying this now to everyone, we'll have an outstanding in 2026.

So, Andy Lee, you're runner up for me. I still think it is Robert Garcia, but I'm sorry, Andy. It's an interesting debate. I was having a hard time, and then it just came to me. And I was like, of course it's Andy Lee. Because we've talked about Andy Lee and how great he has been. And I love the fact that, you know, we haven't seen a lot of fighters, correct me if I'm wrong, like great fighters. I thought he was a great fighter who then become great trainers as of late.

You've seen it over time. But sometimes it's like a Freddie Roach type fighter who becomes a Hall of Fame trainer or sometimes that's a dad. but you haven't seen someone like him really do that transition as recently as he has and as well as he has and so I think it's really, really interesting to see what he's become. I love it and I love the fact that it's for now, unless I'm forgetting a name or two, it really just seems to be those four main guys that he's working with

and he's giving them their attention that they deserve and here we go. Let's see, it's a big year coming up for a lot of those guys so let's see what he's able to do with it. 100%. 100%. And even, and I mentioned the Paddy Donovan defeats Lewis Crocker. Unlucky in both, and I still think Paddy will go on to be a world champion. Hamza Chiras, if he fights Diego Pacheco or Christian and Bealey, I think will be a world champion.

Ben Whittaker is a tough 175 division, but Ben's going to be up there as well. So he's got super talented fighters. And I like the fact that he's only sticking to four or five in that stable. It can't be an over-packed stable. So everyone gets their time. So look, massive fan of Andy. Andy, there's no shame being runner-up to Robert Garcia. I mean, I think you would even accept that, Andy.

So, Ariel, I'm not switching sides. It's fine. Just remember this, Andy, and I, and you remember who had your back. Let's move along now and go with promoter slash promotion of the year. And I do want to offer some facts and figures, all right? We're kind of rounding second here, as they say, in America. So we're halfway there.

Some facts and figures. matchroom, 32 events in 2025, visited nine countries, 15 in the UK, eight in the U.S., held events at some notable venues here in the United States, Wells Fargo, Theater, a Madison Square Garden, Boardwalk Hall, of course, the Copper Bosch in the UK, had a bit of a transitional year, nine events, all events in the UK. And I know a lot of these promoters are working with others, and in particular the re-ad season guys, and we'll get to them in a moment. but I'm talking about their own events. Top rank. Talk about a weird year. Everything just stopped for them in July. They still haven't put on an event since their deal with ESPN ended, which is kind of scary

and mind-boggling. But in total, 21 events, six in the United States. And, no, six countries visited seven in the United States, seven in Japan. Queensberry, 19 events. So not quite what Matchroom was doing. Matchroom, again, 32. Four countries visited for. Queensberry. PBC just seven events. So a relatively quiet year for PBC who was once, you know, an

absolute force. They had six events in the United States, one in Australia. Golden Boy 13 events. And by the way, something not talked about enough. Golden Boys deal with the zone up at the end of 2025. And, you know, you may be on the inside. You may not want to be able to talk about it, but no events announced just yet, to the best of my knowledge, for 2026. So I'm curious as to what happens to them. That's top-ranking Golden Boy now a little bit. it up in the air as far as their TV partner home. You want to say something there? Yeah, I hope on Golden Boy, I really hope that gets renewed

because I speak to a lot of people that go to these Golden Boy events. Obviously, Sergio, Mora, Todd Christian, Chris Mannix. They're fantastic events. And they've produced some really good fighters. And I think they have one of the most colorful promoters in Oscar, who I think's fantastic for the sport as well. So let's hope it does get renewed. I think Matrims, obviously I expect Matrim's to get renewed.

But Matrims is sort of done by the end of 2026 as well. it's an interesting time in boxing but let's hope that oscar and golden boy get an extension because i think they're great value for money agreed agreed um two more mvp 11 events for them as they continue to grow and of course they made a big investment in uh women's boxing which has been great to see uh they had nine in the u s and two in canada and uh salita promotions the sort of little engine that could obviously resigning clarissa shields uh eight events for them they all had great shows but in the and I've said this time and again Ade, I think the best promoter

as far as like who you want there on the dais, on a Thursday or Wednesday before an event, who you want doing media, who you want doing interviews, who you want in the ring after a fight, I think there is no equal to Eddie Hearn. I think especially when he links up with some of these like quieter

more subdued fighters, like A Boots and his pairing is perfect. Boots gets on the mic after a big win in his hometown. He doesn't say much. And then Eddie comes on with the microphone, cutting a promo on Virgil Ortiz. That's what you want in a promoter. But ultimately, I don't know how you can't give it to Turkey Alashake.

I don't know how you can't give it to Turkey slash Riyat season slash Ring magazine or The Ring. Because a shout out to Turkey. Because ultimately, like, they're putting on the biggest events, all the promoters. And I know by the letter of the law, he's not a traditional promoter. I don't think he has a promoter's license per se. but the biggest events of the year and of the last two years have been his events

and so to me he is the promoter his entity are the promotion they're the ones putting up the money again Crawford Canello I know Dana and Zufa Boxing and TKO they were loving it but that was all because of him he made that happen just like Ben and Eubank he made happen

and Bivulam, the Terbia F 2 and 1 prior the year prior he made it happen so to me he is once again my pick from 2024 and now for 2025 it's Turkey Alice Shake who knows how long it lasts Who knows what it becomes? Who knows how they decide between Riyadh and Ring?

But to me, I'm grouping them all together. And I'm saying he is the promoter of the year. Yeah, it's actually quite an easy pick as well. And that's not to sort of look down at the work that Oscar and Frank and Eddie have done. And I agree with you. I mean, Eddie is the person that you want there on the Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. I mean, I've done press conferences where I look at Eddie and think, please, I need you help now. I need you to kind of carry me for four or five minutes.

and he does it just like that. But the biggest shows have been re-ed season. As you was reading out some of the matchroom shows there in Queensby, I'm like, yeah, but several of those Queensby shows were Rear-Season shows and several of the Matchesb shows were Rear Seasons shows as well. I mean, re-ad season shows have become sort of Super Bowl WrestleMania events, and those events only happen once a year, but Read season has given us those 12 times a year.

And it's just been incredible. I mean, since they started, well, October 2023, they've just taken over the space. And now we just expect all the shows to look and be as big as this. So yeah, I think it's quite easy to say at Turkey number one. But I think Eddie and Frank, and now I work with Frank with DeZoan, so I'm close to seeing what they do. I think they put on really good shows as well.

But I think it is Turkey, I'll shake, by some distance. Do you see it continuing? You know, it's interesting. I remember mid-year around March or so, they made that announcement with the TKO. guys, and we'll talk more about them in a moment. But they make that announcement, and he essentially says, I'm passing the baton to Dana White and Nick Con and TKO. And I think everyone kind of felt there for a moment that, all right, that's it. Like, there's no more co-promotion with Eddie or Frank

or anyone else, but that's continued. And so I don't really know what the passing of the baton was, and maybe that plan has changed over time. Who knows? Do you think this will continue, or is it not sustainable? Like, does it end in five years? Does it end in two years? Does it end this year. What do you think? I don't know. It's a good question. All I will say is you only have to look at, I can only take on what you have done lately. And I was in Saudi Arabia for a card that included Inouye and Nakatani, which was sensational. And then September 31st, we have Tiafima Lopez, Chakua Stevenson. January. And obviously there was, yeah, sorry, sorry, apologies, January the 31st. There was going to be an AJ something in February or March. So there seems to be a

schedule already lined out. So I think he's here to stay. I don't think there is no passing of a baton. And if there was, I think that's now taking that baton back, because I think he wants to put on the biggest shows. And as long as there are fighters out there who are worthy of it, I think Turkey's here to stay. And I mean, I remember the fury in Garne one. Everyone thought that was going to be a one hit wonder, one in done. I don't know the amount of shows he's done since October 2023, but I'd hazard a guest and say around 30. And they've all been enormous. So I think he's here to stay. Yeah, and they're sponsoring events

and sponsoring fighters and all that stuff, so could not agree more. Let's see what they do. They've got that big show at Madison Square Garden at the big Madison Square, the real, the Mecca, the world's most famous arena,

not the theater nonsense. Can't wait for that. Shakur Stevenson and Tiafima Lopez, also the return of Kishon Davis. All right, event of the year. Event of the year, and that means like, you know,

what was the, like, what was the, you know, you talk about WrestleMania type things, like what was the actual event of the year. Not card of the year. We have card of the year and that's like on paper what was the most stacked card of the year. I'm talking about the event of the year. The one that felt the biggest that if you weren't there, it jumped across the screen to your face. It felt the biggest. It felt like a WrestleMania, as you say. You go first. What's your event of the

year? There's about a handful. And when I think of event, I think stadiums. Me and you've worked together in these stadium fights and stadium fights are just unlike anything else. I mean, there are so many good arenas around boxing. You just mentioned Madison Square Garden, but nothing feels the same when there are 60 to 90,000 people screaming in unison. The event of the year is easy. It has to be Chris Eubain Jr. versus Conner Ben 1. It just has to be. I mean, this is 30 plus years in the making. And it finally happened and all the drama is surrounding it. You spoke about WrestleMania. It was almost like it was written by the WrestleMania script writers. It was sensational.

That has to be. I mean, the egg slap, is Eubank senior going to turn up or not? And then the ring walks, collectively, that is 100%. Event of the year, Tottenham-Utsburgh Stadium, 65,000 people, nothing gets close. No, no, it's nothing to say. It's obvious. It was my fight of the year. It's the event of the year.

It felt the biggest. And every single step of the way felt big and got bigger. As you say, the press conferences were huge. The egg slap, the walkouts, the revents. reveal a senior saying he wasn't in favor and then showing up i mean like all that stuff it was it was theater at its finest it i don't know if anything will ever top it and then the actual fight lives up to the hype it'd be one thing if it was like great great great drama drama drama the weight cut all that and then the fight fizzles like if the fight if the fight on that night would

have been the fight that we got in november it couldn't have been the event of the year right because it was like a great trailer that didn't result in a great movie but it did result in a great movie. It did actually live up to all the hype and then some. Yeah, it was amazing. It was at that stadium. It was beautiful. The freaking walkout was unbelievable. Both of them were great. They rose to the occasion and then some. There's really not much more to say. It's everything that you want in a big event. I'm so jealous that you guys over in the UK continuously get these stadium events. We obviously got Allegiance Stadium and it looked great and it was pretty damn packed. But yeah, British boxing is on fire. That was

an indication. And again, no titles on the line. And so a reminder that you don't need belts. You just need a great story. You just need two great warriors going to tell a great story who are willing to sell. Chris was so damn good in those press conferences, you know, shutting down Eddie and just being so methodical and clinical with his trash talk. It was brilliant stuff. I remember even the aftermath, the way in which he did that interview. He did an interview, I think was Sky. And it was like in front of the London eye. And he just felt like a superstar, right? Like it just was like, this guy, man. Unbelievable.

We kind of want to forget about the second one because I feel like it happened too soon after and it just was nowhere near as good. So yeah, very easy pick for event of the year. So now let's talk about card of the year. And that's like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, what's a great card on paper? Because that event that we just talked about

wasn't necessarily the most stack card. But this one, I feel like we're going to agree on because you mentioned one of the fights as your fight of the year. You mentioned the first fight. to go through it. Calum Smith versus Joshua Boazzi was the first fight of the night when Dimitri Bivel and Arter Berbia fought back in February. And then it went to Aguq Khabayel, who's fighting this weekend against Gilles-Jang. He's not fighting him. He fought him back then.

He knocked him out. Virgil Ortiz versus Israel Majumov is the third fight on the card. Carlos Saddamas versus Hamza Shiraz, the much, you know, disgust and polarizing fights. Chaucor Stevenson is on there against the late replacement. Josh Padley, Joseph Parker, against Martin Bacoli, that was insane. Obviously with Bacoli coming in on 24 hours notice and then Biville, Better Biav, in a tremendous fight. That fight back in February 22nd, to be exact, an incredible fight card, by far the best of the year.

It was stacked from top to bottom. That is my card of the year. Yeah, easily. And by the way, I mean, this could be the card of the century if it was Parker versus Dubois. If it was, at the time, if my memory serves me right,

Shikur Stevenson was supposed to fight Floyd Schofield. So can you imagine if it was that? Like, this last crescendo card is just insane. Great poster, too. I forgot, like, I picked this. I forgot about Hamza Shira, as Carlos Adama, has been on this card. I was going to reel them off, and I completely forgot about it. And it still would have been my fight card of the year.

There were a couple of other good ones. I mean, I like the one in Queens, which had Shikur Stevenson Zepeda, had Sabriel Matias, Alberto Puello, Hamza, obviously, versus Edgar Balanga. But no, this, when you just read it out like that, it almost doesn't seem real. Like, to have that many main eventors on undercard fights, like Virginal T's versus Madrimov, Texas sells out.

Like, Hamza Shiraz versus Carlos Adamez, Copperbox, sells out. Boatty versus Smith, O2 Arena, sells out. Like, these are all sell-out fights. Parker versus Dubois would have sold out the O2 Arena, Just like that. So no, incredible fight card. One of the best I've ever been to in my life. Yeah.

Tremendous. What can you say? Stacked. And now it's gone to the point where like you would get one of those fights as a main or a co-main at worst and people would have been happy with it a couple years ago. And now you get a card like this and people are like, eh, is it really that good? Is it really that stack? You know what I mean?

And I'm like, what are you guys talking about, man? You used to get one of these fights at your main event and the rest was nothing and you were very happy to happen. You get very spoiled very quickly. this sport. Okay, let's, let's stick with the event and the pomp and circumstance and all this stuff. Walkout of the year. Again, I, how do we, how do we disagree on this one? It's freaking Chris Eubank Jr. It's the walkout of the century. It's one of the greatest walkouts. You agree, right? One gazillion percent. You know, from time to time? One second. Are you saying

Eubank Jr. and senior? Are you removing Connor and Nigel from this? Absolutely. Yeah, there's just one. That one was infinitely better. I was going to go, I was going to go both. No, I mean, I was going to go both collectively. Look at the look on his face. And of course, the moment in which the dad, you know, senior is revealed beforehand. And there they are standing. We can't play the music because we don't want to get dinged on YouTube. But if you go on YouTube, it has over a million views on the official his own channel.

And the three top comments, I love so much. Look at this. The top comment is, this is the most happiest I've been for another man. He finally got his dad having his back. The second top comment is, this might be the greatest walkout in boxing history, in my opinion. and the third is maybe my favorite first song for senior second for Sebastian

his brother who passed away third for himself and if you remember there were three songs there was simply the best there was that other one I don't know the name but it's an emotional song

and then the third do do do do do do the still DRE and it's just freaking great man I'm actually having goosebumps right now all across my body just thinking back to it magical promotion walk out of its finest

just insane and then again as you say you're walking out to 65,000 and I mean, the lights go down and everyone brings up their camera phones to light that place up and you've got Senior who loves it he loves the attention

I mean what Junior was wearing as well was different all these bling bling robes I'm not a fan of I love what he was wearing as well it's just so good you know when I see these fighters walk out of rappers it's the most annoying thing in the world

and although you know 50 cent I'm a big fan and he came out of 50 the second time I just like that, what we saw there. Give me that every single day of the week. That is the best. But I will give a shout out to Connor and Nigel as well, just because that father-sson thing, because we built it up for so many years,

and to see both of their fathers just behind them, flanking them as they're making their ring walks, I feel like Connor deserves a bit of a mention as well. Yeah, I had to give it to one, so obviously it's going to go to that one. That was great. The next one, you mentioned the 50-cent. Like the 50-7 one didn't feel as good to me, the one in November.

It didn't feel special. It didn't feel, I don't know, there was something missing. Again, maybe because we just had seen that one, so it's hard. You're trying to compare it. There were a lot of good ones. I mean, Jake's walk out with, who is he? Hocomania. No.

6-9, something. 6-9, 6-9. I feel like we've missed out a number. Yeah, something like that. I don't know. Point is, that was pretty good. Any other year, I'm giving it. Amanda Serrano on Madison Square Garden when she came out to Bad Bunny and and that

what was the name of that rapper? Andy, I always ask. I think it was nothing, Natasha, but I'll double check. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She came out and she was rapping and then they mixed it into Bad Bunny. MSG was on fire. Like, that was a really good one. Sometimes, as you say, when they bring, I remember Terrence Crawford walking out with Eminem before Arrow Spence? Like, that one didn't hit at all. Yeah, because Eminem's not really singing. Yeah. He's like miming the whole way through. I, you know, I will say I didn't mind Edgar Belanga coming out with Fat Joe and Remi Moore. Oh, awful. It didn't mind that. It was awful. The acoustics were bad. It was awful. Can I tell you why? Yeah, because Clarisha Shields was right

there. And I was like, oh, are we going to get a little sight and saying? Is someone going to throw hands? But I'm a big Fat Joe fan, so I didn't mind seeing Fat Joe. But yeah, I'm not a fan of the rappers walking out because they never sound great. Yeah, it's clumsy. And they're miming. and it's just no. By the way, by the way, Clarissa at Little Caesars coming out was pretty damn good just a couple of months ago.

Was that to Rick Ross? Was that with Rick Ross? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was tremendous. Yeah. Larissa coming out there in Detroit, pretty damn great. But yeah, almost impossible.

I mean, it's one of the greatest walkouts of all time, so very, very hard to top that one. Speaking of very hard, at a hard time with promo of the year at A because promo of the year, our next category is one where it's like, it's hard. Because, again, this is,

Different ways to skin the cat here. You could say like, okay, is the promo like the dude on the microphone? Is the promo the actual promotional material? It depends on your interpretation. So sometimes I've gone with the promotional material, like the great trailer, right? AJ and Ganu or Fury Usik, et cetera. Or sometimes it's just the dude on the microphone like cutting a promo, you know? So I'm curious because you're making this face like it was an easy one.

What did you go with? You know, I will say this. We didn't really have the promo videos that we had in. We did not. We did not. We didn't really have as many. I can't think of really any that were great. No. So the one I'm going to do is I'm going to nominate myself.

Wow. The Eubank Ben rivalry line for Eubank Ben. This here, this here, which was voiced by me. I was the main actor in it. And you know what I like about this as well? And this is honestly, this is the truth. Right at the end of this, they're like where I stand up and I hold on to the moving train. They said, Aday, just let it rip.

There's no script, just ad lib this for us, and I ripped it, and I destroyed it. But I like how every stop was a part of the story leading to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, and it was yours truly that was the main character. So Ade Oladipo is nominated himself for promo of the year. Yes, I am. Classic Adé nominating himself. That's amazing that you would nominate yourself, that you would interject yourself into there. By the way, it is great.

Who shot that, by the way? Because it looked beautiful. I feel bad not knowing them. I see why you put me on. I don't know. They're watching this and they're like adding. You're giving yourself credit and not. I do work with them.

Wow. Anyway, it is great and those scenes are great and the way in which. And is it a real tube that you're on or is it like a fake one? No, dude, it was just a fake one. But they did it so well. It's incredible how they did it. I was like, and they said that they use this for music videos all the time. So I started watching music videos back thinking,

saying a real train. Yeah. You're not a fake train. So yeah. You would pay. yourself though you would you know you would you know give your yourself the old barry h the pat on the the back i'm not quite cut from the same cloth and so i wouldn't do that but it's great i'm not trying to take anything away for you but you're right no great real like promo videos not a lot of great

problem you know i thought about that edie herne one with boots ennis the post fight one i was i was because there were no great promo videos i was centered on post fight interviews because you know those are the moments where you have someone on the microphone and what what you and a j and a jay where he's got his hands over you. Look at my best friend. What are you jealous? Is it, is it this one? Brovet tape.

Thank you very much. I'm here. Anthony, Joshua, Anthony, congratulations on the women. How would you describe that? You know, it's very nice here. It's one hand now. Look at the smile. It's one hand.

But eventually, as you know, and I could picture you perhaps back home being like, I thought you were my man, AJ. Now it's two hands on the shoulder out of a. I mean, you have to admit, it's one of the all-time great post-fight interviews, right? I mean, you have to say. It's so good. It's annoying me because obviously that AJ's guy. Look at that.

I'm close. Look at that's from AJ. But you know what I really likes about this interview, Ariel? He kind of gave you like a minute, didn't he? Like, just him talking. Loved it. And normally, that's it. And you're like, oh, I've still got more questions.

And I was like, yeah, go on, Ariel. Kind of get milk it, milk it. We have to, yes. This was AJ's. that is best. This is probably the best post-fight interview of us in AJ do or give. Normally he tries to grab the mic out of me. Oh, I know. That's the worst. And then you have to fight it. But, you know, it was interesting because he said, is that good enough for you? And I kind of took it as like, wait a second,

like, you think we're done right now? We're not done. Yes, that's the part. Yeah. You know, it was funny. My mom and sister happened to be in Miami on vacation. And so they went to the fight, which they would never go to a fight like that. But they were obviously, you know, there to support me and and I look at my phone afterwards and my mom text me like why did he have his hands on you like that what was going on and some people I saw say that he was trying to like big brother me I didn't view it as big brothering I I viewed it as comfort and respect and and the way in which he was kind of like going through the thoughts in his mind and saying like because the first question if I recall correctly was like what did you make of that fight or how

would you describe that fight and he's like well you know like he was kind you know thinking about his words one of the most interesting things that he said in that post-fight interview that I don't know if a lot of people picked up he said something to the effect of like the request was to break him

and I wish I asked him and we didn't have time to get into it by who who was the request from he said afterwards I think of the post-fight that he said it was from he implied that it was from you know the re-ed season guys

that's what the implication was which I thought was really interesting and then we talked a little bit what was interesting to me or not interesting what was a little bit frustrating was and you may have experiences I'm sure you have I was hearing out of the corner of my ear go to Jake go to Jake not from the

ear piece not from the producers from in the ring like ask Jake a question and then there was there was a stage manager who was pulling me saying go to Jake go to Jake and I'm like I'm not leaving this moment this man has his arms on me I'm not leaving this moment and then eventually I went to Jake but what killed me was

I wanted to ask him about the future, but I'm now turned to Jake, and then I turn, and he's no longer there. And then I look back, and he was already, like, back. He, like, he left the ring and was high-fiving and taking selfies with people like Titus O'Neill, and I wanted to ask him, and now what is next? So I turn, and the only person I see is Eddie Hearn. And I'm like, well, I was going to say, and what's next for you, AJ? And I see Eddie. I'm like, okay, well, what's next, Eddie? I didn't even, I didn't even introduce Eddie, because I couldn't believe that AJ wasn't standing there with us. Anyway, all to say, it just to me he was so beautiful in that in that fight week like the whole thing from beginning

to end i enjoyed it of course i'm giving you crap for picking yourself what's great about it is i picked myself too because i couldn't think of anything better both great moments both beautiful stuff ultimately we're so lucky to be in the positions that we are to get these moments to be able to talk about them uh so kudos to you kudos to all of us no honestly fantastic moment it really was I always remember thinking about the pressure of AJ in the lead up to that fight where he's got a little good he can barely get touched

he's got to knock him out and he kind of ticked every single box that mean you've spoken about this privately and I was like it's perfect for AJ it's almost perfect for Jake Paul you lasted a fewer so everyone went home perfect from that moment

so kudos to you for that interview those interviews are not as easy as people think love them though the fight is adrenaline you can see it's still pumping, they're still sweating, their brains all over the place. That's why I loved the way age you just kind of took a breath, calmed down, put his arms on you to almost breathe a bit,

and then gave the answer. And I thought it was a perfect moment. You know, it's funny, and I hope you don't mind me saying this. We've talked about it. The stuff that you do, the presenting, you and Kate Scott, I think, are the two best in the business. I don't ever want to do that. All I want to do are those interviews. And you've said that you love doing the presenting and not so much the interviews, which I find fascinating as well. The interesting thing about just doing the interviews, because that's all I was really doing that night, is you sit for very long stretches to then go on for two, three minutes. So I find like you get a little bit cold in between as you're watching the fight.

Yes, yes. And then you kind of have to like perform for two minutes and then you have to sit for a whole, you know, 12 round fight coming up. So it's a very fun thing, but I love doing those and I hope to be able to do them for many years come. And only boxing could I do them because that's the only sport where the promoter sometimes doesn't control the production. In MMA, you can't do that

because it's always the promoter and I don't want to get paid by a promoter. Let's talk about moment. Let's talk about moment. I feel like we're going to agree on this one because we referenced it a couple of times, but perhaps not. Moment of the year.

What's your moment of the year? Moment of the decade. Moment of the century has to go to Mr. Adam Smith and Chris Ebenks, Sr. leaves the car. It's the greatest. And he's here!

Just those two words. Yes. The rest is forgotten. Just those two words. And this moment here will never leave me. Adam Smith, I think, I've worked with him now for about a year, small shows, big shows. He's the best in the business for me. And I know there are others.

I think John Anick, obviously, did a fantastic job, obviously, but he's more MMA. Just pure boxing. I think Adam Smith just hits those high notes when they need to be high. When you need that kind of WrestleMania scream moment, he does that. perfectly he's knowledge but that moment there was just the way he let it breathe he's here and then let it breathe a little bit and then gave us a bit more incredible look we talked about comeback fight of the year shout out to adam smith comeback person of the year you know for everything that he's been through to come back and have the year that he had so happy that he's on his own that he's

getting these opportunities he should be the guy calling these fights and you're right he makes the fights and the moments feel bigger because that moment is great you watch the moment it's great but his narration, his call of the moment, and it's not a fight moment. It's just like, it is pro wrestling-esque, but it's pro-wrestling-esque in its hyperbole, but it's not in its authenticity.

Pro wrestling is at times inauthentic. This was authentic, and he called it like a big moment, and it was just beautiful. I couldn't agree more. In the end, I gave it to that one as well. It's just, you couldn't have scripted it. We'll never truly know how they got there.

You know, I think before the second fight, It was like, did he get paid? Did he get not? Who knows? And ultimately, who cares? Right? Who cares? Yeah.

If he got paid, good for you. He was there. Yeah, he got paid. And he gave us the moment. He gave us the, you know, you're looking one way and something's going on the other way. Those interviews in the lead up to the fight, I was adamant he wasn't going to be there. But I did a couple of those press conferences.

And I'm waiting for him to come through the door and burst through the door and he's not there. And I'm like, he's not going to turn up. And to see him turn up. And in that way, I mean, and then there's the, the, the, fantastic image of Connor. I was just going to say that. Nigel, looking at them, arrive.

I just, they should have left it there. I was just going to say that. It was an Oscar winning movie that they tried to make a part two and you don't do that to Oscar winner movies. Yeah. I was just going to say that. The production team, the people directing that show, they did a great job of giving you all those different little beats, right?

It was amazing. It really was from beginning to end, from the moment that fight card was announced to the press conferences, to fight week, to everything, to fight. to fight night to the fight itself to the aftermath really a master class and so many things

could go wrong and so many things went right and that reveal was unbelievable I mean just like 10 days prior Eubank senior is in the park

talking to media saying that this is like what do you say he's embarrassed by his son and all this stuff you know what I mean and then he shows up like that

golly one gripe was that he wore the same coat for the first fight as he wore in the second fight that was a little bit you know

I was surprised by that I was surprised by that same because he's so egotistical I'd almost feel like surely he's not surely he knows he wore it out last time and by the way very quickly

you know like on the back end of movies where they kind of put the whole team that has taken part in this production and this fight almost seemed like one of those that deserves everyone's name to be listed because you're right it's a massive team effort I think people behind them people that don't go to fights don't realize

what goes on behind the scenes and there's hundreds of people that do such amazing jobs and I think they all knocked it at the park for this you bank been won. Okay. uh four left and let's go with well technically three and a half let's go with story of the year story of the year um and and this one is media guys you know we're talking about the ins and outs of the

sports uh of the sport on a on a daily weekly monthly basis uh there's stories like for me story of the year when i think of story of the year in any sport it's like okay a story that was kind of threaded throughout the year it could be like a massive deal like a big fight or a drug suspension or something like that or it could be something that kind of just kept getting bigger bigger that we were talking about it throughout throughout throughout and i remember coincidentally we were both in new york when it was announced that turkey would team up with the folks at tk o with dana white and nick con and then i remember every single beat afterwards and it goes from you know from that to you know the rumblings that they're going to try to change the ali act to them teaming up to put on this

Crawford-Kinello show, to them announcing Zufa boxing and calling it that, to them announcing their deal with Paramount Plus, to them announcing that, you know, they're going to go to USA boxing events and all this stuff. And every single step of the way, it just felt like it was getting bigger. And obviously, on Fight Week for Crawford and Canelo,

Dana White's a big part of it, and the way in which he dealt with the boxing media was fascinating as well. And as we sit here today, right now, on January 6th, the rumor is that their first show is going to be January 23rd at the apex, the UFC Apex, in Las Vegas the night before

UFC 324 the debut on Paramount Plus and as we sit here right now not a single fight has been announced that event hasn't been officially announced just yet so maybe they're not going to push it but they had already reserved it they did it with the commission and everything like that

and that's what it seemed like all signs were pointing towards to come out of the gate on an APEC show I hope they don't do that I hope that they change their mind but to me that was the biggest story Dana finally getting into boxing the teaming up with Turkey Nick Kahn going back to his

you know his first true love of boxing it was the biggest story throughout and it kept popping up and then of course the ali act component of them doing everything they can to you know revive it whatever word you want to use change it up was fascinating will continue to be a fascinating story to monitor so that's my story of the year what about you and look yours is very much an important story and it's one as you say that's going to continue to grow and it's going to um it's going to change in different directions i think i don't think it's one way this almost feel like there's going to be trouble ahead in some way, shape or form. My story's more a fun one, and it centres around one man, really, and that man is Jake

Paul, and the Anthony Joshua fight. And it almost starts from Jake Paul being that close to fighting Canello, which was going to happen. I mean, Canello might deny it, but that was going to happen until Turkey got involved, and Canello Crawford got made, and then he's going to fight Giovante Davis. And then everyone's like, pick on someone your own size. why doesn't he fight someone that's live right now and someone that's big and strong

and then he calls out Anthony Joshua and everyone thinks he's mad and there's so many people like this fight doesn't not happen there's no way it's going to happen because AJ would kill him and it does happen and it still blows my mind

that Jake Paul would want to fight Anthony Joshua like this guy's story of having put on gloves for the first time five years ago to fight in a unified heavyweight champion of the world just needs to be studied. I am the biggest fan of Jake Paul. I think what he's done in the sport of boxing is insane.

But this moment here fighting AJ, who is four to five inches taller, 50 pounds on a good day bigger, after everyone has said, you don't fight anyone but retired MMA guys and washed up boxes that you pick off parking lots, for him to then silence everyone and say, okay, give me AJ.

And for it to happen, I think's astonishing. And he deserves so much applaud it's from everyone. I love the fact that you're picking this one. If I would have picked that people would have said that I was a shill, but you represent like the hardcore boxing community. And I love the fact that it seems, in my opinion, that he's finally getting the credit that he deserves. First people were saying, like this time last year,

people were saying he was bad for boxing. How you can say that he is bad for boxing when he's giving all these other fighters an opportunity, in particular the women. And what they've done this year, like they've made a concerted effort to give all these women a home and a big platform to fight on. is tremendous but like his cards aren't they're not influencer cards they're not like you know what i mean and even the closest thing to an influencer fight on that particular card was anderson sylva fighting tyrant woodley who wasn't happy to see anderson get a win like that at 50 years young

right like they're matching him up accordingly and fairly and so yeah to have the balls to do that to go in there even watching those highlights now you know three weeks later it still doesn't feel real that he fought anthony joshua right it still doesn't feel you can make him as one of the stories of the year, right? Because he goes from the Tyson fight end of last year and you're kind of wondering like how is he going to top this and then it's Canello and you're like, holy shit, Canelo. And then it's the Chavez

fight which kind of flew under the radar but all right, some people gave him credit, some didn't and then it's Tank and even before he took the Chavez fight, remember he was gunning a tank when Canello fell through but then the Roach fight happened which was like the debacle of the year if we want to put it that way. And then he gets

the Chavez and then he gets tank again and then it's AJ. It's like he talk about a thread he's constantly being talked about he's constantly pulling in numbers he's constantly making headlines yeah and and that's why my story of the year was just him versus AJ but you're right once you make it bigger and as you say what he's done for MVP promotions I mean I mean it feels like when we did our show it felt like there was a sign in every single week yeah that there's someone else's signed and someone else assigned and what he's done to a man Serrano's career how about Dubois recently we weren't doing a show then like that's a huge

signed for them. Who would have thought this time last year, Caroline Dubois would be with MVP? No. Right? Right? Like, no, no chance. It doesn't mean. And but look what it's done to her. Yeah. She's completely come out of her skin, isn't she? She's now, all of a sudden, she's talking, she's going back and forth with Alicia Baumgartner. I think what Jake's done, but he puts himself in the firing line. It's all good doing that. But he's putting himself in the firing line, and there's no bigger firing line than fighting Anthony Joshua, who I still thinks the top 10 heavyweight. And, you know, All the, oh, it's scripted, and AJ can't hurt him. I'm like, AJ will try and take this guy's head off any chance he can get.

And I think we saw the ending. We even saw the upper cut before the ending where AJ tried to lift him out of the ring. Jake's risking his life for our entertainment. And I think he deserves, again, so many plaudits. Remember when people were saying when this fight was announced, some of the old guard media saying that this was ruining AJ's legacy. Now look at how-nonsense. Famous AJ became as a result of that.

And who could have predicted what happened afterwards? Like in the immediate aftermath, and that has nothing to do with his legacy, like he became a global superstar to the point where Eddie Hearn was saying, we now need to rethink our strategy for AJ. Like, we need to bring them back to the states. We need to get them over here. I wouldn't be surprised if sponsors, big name, blue chip sponsors were knocking on his door here in America. To see the tweets of, especially women, did you get those as well? I was getting tons of those. American women being like, who is this guy, right?

Dude, I'm not going to mention any names. I had two females message me and ask me can I get them to meet AJ? I'm like, well, of course, let me just call him right now. AJ, it just went crazy. Honestly, and it blew my mind

because again, over here, he's one of our biggest stars. He can't just walk the street. Right, right. So I'm like, what, is this the first time they've heard of him? Did they not know who AJ was? So I saw your interview with Eddie

where there is a rethink about how they move forward of this because you've got a capital. on this. America's the biggest market. So if you're AJ, and obviously, look, we have to see how he overcomes what's happened recently. But once he does overcome, and I think he will, I think it's straight to America and just make some noise over there again. All right. Now let us move on to our final two awards, because then we're going to give at the very end our wish for 2026. But now we've got two more awards, and it's the two biggest ones, obviously. One day they will vibe for this type

trophy but it's the big one it's the big one it's fighter of the year we break it down female and male fighter of the year i'm going to go out on a limb here i'm going to go out on a limb and by the way i do want to mention you know tank davis was a great story and and and uh you know the uh the crawford fight was a great story but i i think we kind of you know got it both and and there are a ton of great stories but as far as fighter of the year's concerned i'm going to go on the limb and say that we are not going to be in agreement with either of our picks that's going to be my prediction here. I want you to go first female fighter of the year. Who is your pick and why? This is extremely difficult. And by the way, this should be difficult. Very, very

difficult. I was at ringside for two of this lady's fights. I'm sorry, there's going to be a bit of a buildup here. Okay. I'm apologies. I was ring side for two of this lady's fights. And both times, I was like, oh my God, what's she done? She scared me both times. And that doesn't really happen with female fights. I mean, Alicia's got some punch power. Clarissa's all in now. She's a heavyweight. She's got some punch power as well. I haven't seen anyone as vicious as this young lady, Aleph Turhan, maybe ever. This girl has come from nowhere, Turkish fighter, 135 pounds, and is knocking people out, which you don't see really in female boxing. You see knockdowns. You don't see knockouts.

She first came to the UK and she fought a girl called Shawna Brown who was 5'0 knocked her out in the first round and I was like, oh but I also, you know, okay, Seana Brown maybe is an elite okay, she then had a fight four months later

against a lady that was 8 and O knocked her out. I was like, oh, what's going on here? Then she took on Beatrice Ferreira who is an Olympic silver medalist was at the time the IBF lightweight champion and Beatrice is a bully herself. I was like, oh, this is going to be fight at the year, because Beatrice ain't going to have it.

She knocked her out. The referee stopped the fight. She's now IBF champion. She has fought three times this year, all unbeaten opponents, and she has knocked them all out. I'm sorry. This is the most vicious female fighter I've seen in years, and I dare anyone to go in the ring with her, whether it be Caroline Dubois, Alicia Baumgardner, anyone. I think she is scary and frightening and free fights, three unbeaten fighters, now world champion.

By the year. Tremendous, tremendous description, tremendous breakdown. You can just show it. Show mine. We're actually in agreement. We're in agreement. I didn't know, and I should have known because you were there. And it was the Beatrice fight that really put me over.

She doesn't have the name. I mean, just look at the power. look at that you don't see this you don't see this in women's boxing you just don't see it she has come out of nowhere Istanbul to be exact and when three you know there's nothing more that I could say you broke it down beautifully but to do that to the previously to do this to the previously undefeated Beatrice Faheta who everyone was so high on at Monte Carlo Casino de Monte Carlo tremendous stuff I can't wait to see what she does look at this she's out on her feet he's out on her feet and what a story by the way can make a case for

her being breakout fighter of the year as well, to be honest. Yeah. Maybe she was, should have, maybe she should have been actually in hindsight, yeah. Yeah, but you know, you kind of go one step higher and that would be female fighter of the year. A ton of ladies had great years. The aforementioned Ellie Scottany had a great year. Shanika Johnson had a great year. Tierra Brown had a great 2025. Beating Sky Nicholson winning three fights in 2025.

What about Michaela Mayer? She had a tremendous year as well. Yeah. Like there were a lot of great female performances this year. Women's boxing is on fire right now And I always compare things to MMA Women's MMA not quite on fire Women's boxing, there's a ton of great fighters

The top 10 is great, Clarissa You know, still doing her thing But this young lady is an absolute force Like when she fights go out of your way And you know what? You mention all those great things One thing you failed to mention I'm almost 99.99% if not 100% certain She was the underdog in every single one of those fights this year

The betting underdog You might be right It was the betting underdog Yeah And then she knocked at her opponent. Incredible. And she doesn't, like, there's no feel out rounds. She just wants to take your head off from minute one.

And it's the way I'm seeing these girls getting knocked out. I mean, we just saw the Sean LeBron one. She can't get up. Like, she's knocked her out completely. You just don't see this. But it was the Ferreira one. Because again, Ferreira's an Olympic medalist, world championship medalist. She's the bully.

She's the one that goes and bullies fighters the way we sort of leaf did. And when Elif just knocked her, out. And Leif, by the way, put her down twice in that fight before that knocked down. That's the power she possesses. So, yeah, for me, I mean, you mentioned some fantastic names there, but she, for me, is the standout female fighter of the year. Okay. So we are in agreement as far as female fighter of the year. Now we go to male fighter of the year, the granddaddy of them all. And are you in agreement with me that there's really two candidates here? It seems like everyone was debating. And this is actually a fascinating debate. You know, there's a similar debate happening in MMA, and we had our awards yesterday, where it was Marab Dwalishvili won three fights in 2025, but lost the last one. Does he get the nod over someone like Islam-Hachev, who only fought twice in 2025, but made history by becoming a double champion? And so there were a lot of different takes.

Jan also beat him, all that stuff. In boxing- Marab should have won it. Who won that? Marab win that? Marab won, as far as I'm concerned. But historically, I don't give it to someone who loses in a calendar year, certainly not their last fight of the year.

In boxing, I feel like the debate was interesting, but for different reasons. To me, it was down to Naoya Inouye, who fought four times and ended the year with a tremendous win, his fourth win of the calendar year, or Terrence Crawford, who fought once but made history moving up to 168 and doing what he did to Canella Alvarez. I saw a lot of people give it to Terrence Crawford. In the end, I'll start, my pick for male fighter of the year is Naoya Inouye. What he did four times this year, fighting the competition that he fought, you know, he doesn't duck people he goes in there he had a great win to end the year uh just you know what a few days ago you

were there i believe right were you not there yeah december 27th yeah was that you were there um he is active you know he he had a bit of a dicey one back in may you see him get knocked down he comes back he wins that fight i don't as good that's why i wanted performance of the year i wanted crawford to get his flowers but you fight once and as you say against a wash you know kenal avers i don't necessarily agree compared to four times defending your title being the man all lies on you three of those fights happening back home in japan with all that pressure hopefully setting up the big nakatani fight coming up and he almost didn't do his part in that equation to me it was actually a no-brainer but i saw a lot of people pick

terence crawford i don't hate you if you pick terence crawford and i get it but four is greater than one and those performances were great ones and so he is my 2025 male fighter of the year i can't add no more because my male is I was completely wrong it is I love it how dare you say that we wouldn't agree I didn't I thought maybe you'd go hipster on me with one of them no no no no I look I think in a way is just sensational and you know I'm seeing prospects prospects have two fights a year this is a guy having world title fights so a 12 rounders four times a year and I interviewed him after the Picasso fight in the ring and it was like I'm just tired. And I was like, you deserve to be tired because you are fighting having maybe a two

week break than going straight into training camp. And he's not fighting bombs. Ahma Dahliav. Eddie was pushing Ahmadalev like the next best thing. Destroyed him. Cardenas, after that Times Square nonsense, he had to kind of just put a brave face on for American boxing and got knocked down by Cardenas, got up and smashed him. Picasso, big, strong Mexican, back and forth, beat him. And then then Yi Kundun, who was supposed to be Sam Goodman, I think people forget that. And then he took the fight on late notice,

different opponents, smashed him. Four fights in 12 months. I'm sorry, I can't give it to Crawford. I can't give a fight of the year. A guy that has one fight, I just can't do it. It doesn't make sense to me. No, no. Crawford's had one fight a year for the past six years.

I mean, I've just got to go into it. A lot of people give him their fighter of the year. I don't know why. Yeah. I don't know why. Yeah. And again, I mean, Inouye's fighting good names. Yeah.

Picasso was unbeaten. Akamadalev was the next man up. Like these, Cardenas in New York. And by the way, it's two fighters in Japan, one fight in Saudi. Oh, yeah, that's right. In New York. So he's doing the worldwide tour. Vegas.

Vegas. Yeah. It was that same weekend in New York. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, yeah. So, no, for me, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, in a way. Honestly, it's in a way. And by the way, shout to Fabio Wardley.

I think he deserves, I think he'll be the British fight of the year. Justice Houni and Parker is very good as well. But for me, in a way, Cawford. I agree, obviously. The Nakatani fight has to happen in Japan. Has to happen in Japan. I mean, obviously, at some point I'd love to see him fight in L.A. There was once some talk way back when of him fighting a Dodger Stadium,

you know, with Shohei Otani doing his thing for the Dodgers and the massive Japanese population over there, I think it would be gigantic him fighting in L.A., way bigger than him fighting in Las Vegas. There was once talk of him and Tank Davis fighting at some point. I think now the dream fight after Nakatani is maybe him versus Bam Rodriguez. Could you imagine if that happened in L.A. with the Mexican... I mean, could you imagine?

Could you imagine him versus Bam Rodriguez in L.A. at Dodger Stadium? That would be gigantic. Golly. I asked him. I asked him. Obviously, Eddie was right there in the ring next to me. And I said, look, I'm going to ask him about Bam. Because that's the... As a fight fan, after seeing the...

Look, I get at the... Nakatani thing in Japan, but Nakatani's performance, as you said, was a bit flat. It kind of made me lose a bit of lust for it, although I'm still going to obviously tune in and hopefully go there. But Bam, I mean, they're separated by Burger King Mill. I mean, he's got, like, there's not that much way. Everyone's like, this isn't like Crawford jumping up to Canelo. And let's not forget, Inouye was a small guy as well coming up.

So I think if you're bam, that has to be the target before the end of the year. Robert Garcia, I think, retweeted something along the lines of. we'll see you soon in referencing Inouye. So I think that's their whole plan now. That's the super fight of all super fights. And it's got to happen soon. I don't want Inouye to be 35. I want Anouye who's still at his peak,

maybe pound for pound number one against pound for pound number four. That is the fight of all fighters in 2026. Please, God, please. Can I ask you a question about Terence while we're talking about him? Do you believe the retirement? No.

you think he fights this year or could it be like a year off thing like Fury and then he comes back could be year off he looks after himself the age is the issue yeah obviously 38 but he always he never looks out of shape I've never seen him with a belly or anything and then it's the case of

who I mean someone has to kind of remove themselves from the pack I know there was a talk about the Canella rematch no thank you no so who it could have been Yanibet but obviously he popped like getting back Not big enough

Not big enough Not big enough Hamza's, I love Hamza He's not yet Big enough as Eva So I don't know I don't know Maybe it's um

If boots can do something Yeah Boots can have a crazy run At 154 Got to fight Ortiz First Yeah he's got to fight Ortiz Maybe win a belt

And then go to 160 That could be it That could be it But right now there's nothing big enough So I don't think it's a retirement Because it was like I can't do this anymore And I'm done

I think the retirement was like there's no one out there. Who am I going to fight? I think it was more about that. But I do think we'll see him sometime in 2027. Early 2027, I think we'll see him. And like I said, he only fights once a year. So it won't mess him up that much.

So I think we'll see him again. I wouldn't be surprised if he's off for a year. You know, we did talk about it when it happened and someone texted me close to him and was like, he is very sincere. And I didn't say that he wasn't sincere. I believe in the moment he is retired, but I think something else is going to pop up. And the reason for that is, like,

he has finally gone to that point where he is getting the respect and love and money that he deserves. And it just seems like, there's a little bit more to do. His next fight would be gigantic. He's got this relationship with, you know, Zufa boxing.

He's got this relationship with Turkey. There's a lot of money for him to make. Even if it's not the Krem de la Krem fights, I feel like in a year and a half or so, he'll come back and there'll be a massive fight that he can have on a Netflix or so. But right now, he is retired, and I believe him. I definitely believe him.

I just don't believe that in the end, he will remain retired. It's very, very rare, as we're seeing with Tyson, I mean, the Tyson thing is crazy. How many times, by the way, is he getting announced? I feel like he announced it, like, three times ago that he's coming back. Why is there always so many announcements that he's coming back? And we never even believed the initial retirement, which was, like, his fifth retirement. And so with that in mind, our final, it's not an award, but we want to end on this note. it's our wish for 26 it is now officially 2026 i could put on the glasses here we are peace and love

peace and love happy new year to everyone much love to you all we'll go with one you can have many and i have to be honest with you on this one ade i thought about changing it but in the end i'm keeping it when i wrote it down when i sent it out life was very different for anthony joshua and i think We all want to see the Anthony Joshua versus Tyson Fury fight once and for all. You know, when I spoke to him there in Miami, the plan was Anthony Joshua versus Rico Verhoeven, the kickboxing champion in February. There's no chance Anthony's fighting in February, right? Like that's, there's no way.

No, no way. But as much as I love that for Rico, and I love the fact that he gets that opportunity, I didn't like the fact that they were saying, okay, AJ's going to have to fight Jake Paul, we suspect he went, and then another guy. And Tyson's fighting another guy, and then they're going to fight back into the year. Let's just fight them. Let's just have them fight now, right? Let's just have them fight now.

Why, all this stuff, look how many times it's happened where you announce a fight. We talked about a couple with Caleb Plant and Ryan Garcia. Let's just have him fight now. And so I'm going to keep my pick, which is Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua finally fight. I do want to say, I'm not trying to push Anthony Joshua. I'm not even caring about his fighting career. If it ends with that win over Jake Paul, God bless, you've done it all. you have nothing left to prove.

But I think it would be a great story if he came back and finally did it and maybe he does it in honor of his friends. Who knows? Maybe he needs that one last one and then he retires. Who knows? I think it would be a great moment.

I think it would be on Netflix. I think it would be at Wembley. I think it would be gigantic. That is my wish. But again, if we were talking and the accident didn't happen, I would feel a lot stronger about it. Ultimately, I won't be as upset anymore.

It will be one of those great what-if fights. I don't know how I feel, but I'll keep it. That's my wish for 26. Fury and AJ finally fight. Do you understand what I'm saying? I know I'm kind of like dancing around here, but no, no, no, of course.

I don't want to be insensitive. No, no, no. I mean, you're a boxing fan, as well as the fact that you know AJ, you're a boxing fan, and this is what we're discussing. And that would, I mean, I don't think I need to tell you,

that would have 100% been my wish for 2026. I actually sent my list in after the AJ News. But even then, I still kind of was, it was like I was um and R in I still would like to see it but ultimately I guess we're gonna have to see

how the next two or three months play out that's my wish and you know I'd be front and center without being sort of thinking of myself I mean the idea

of sitting next to AGM Fury doing a face off just blows my mind the idea of Wembley Stadium selling out in 20 seconds blows my mind it's a fight that I've been screaming for for nearly a decade

so that would be my wish it wasn't my pick just because of what's happened I've gone stateside with my pick and my pick is a fight that I've been wanting to see for three years just because I think

it still probably is the biggest fight that can be made in America and I still think I want to see this guy back and that's Javante Davis versus Shakur Stevenson. Wow. Wow. I just think this fight's just

enormous and no other no other like combination so not Shakur versus Devin or Javonte versus Devin Devon and Shakur versus this is the one I think if you were to kind of put

all those groupings of fighters together Ryan, Shakur, Devin, Kishol I think this is the one that would get the most votes. Javonte versus Shakur, two unbeaten fighters Javonte naturally a 135 guy, Shakur's best weight is 135, not 140 or

anything else. This is the one that I really want to see. For the culture, I need to see this fight. And I think Javonte's great for boxing. I think the last years, he's been all over the place. We saw it in the Lamont Roach performance. We saw it with things outside the ring. When his head is switched on, I mean, I think he's incredible. I really do. And I think Shakur is a pound for pound king eventually. I need to see this fight. I want

to see this fight. Fingers crossed it happens. I agree. I love the fight, but I feel like the next time a tank fights, it has to be against Lamont. Lamont was screwed that night. Why? Lamont was screwed. He should have gotten the rematch. First of all, he should have won the fight. And second of all, he should have gone on the rematch. You don't think that he deserves that? No, he does. But if you are telling me that there's a Shakur fight on the table, I feel bad laughing. And there's Lamon Roach. And he goes, Lamon Roach, knowing Shakur's day, I'd go crazy. It has to be Shakur Stevenson. Shakur is just, and with Shakur, you get Andre Ward. You get Terrence Crawford. You get the element of a Floyd Mabel were floating behind the scenes as well. I just love it. And you know what? I always feel like Javonte somehow tries to bully fighters.

He's got this menacing thing. Shakura ain't scared one bit. I mean, this is two hoodboys going at each other. I love it. I hope it happens. This is, without doubt, boxer versus puncher. And I just think it needs to happen to know who really is the number one at 135 pounds.

Because as long as Javonte is still out there, He will still be considered that guy, whether it's true or not. I think it's Shakur, but Giovante's still floating around. I need to see that fight. I love Shakur. I'm a huge fan. If he loses to Tiafimo, do you still want to see it? No.

So I guess we'll find out in. Yeah, no, no, no, that one is it. Yeah, no, no, no. You're working that one. He loses. No, there's a Josh Kelly fight, world title fight in Sunderland. Don't get me wrong. I've tried to get myself on.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. With all due respect to Sunderland, one of the great stories of the Premier League season, wise man say only fools, you know. By the way, have you removed the Norton Forest logo? Please. Oh, wow, no, sorry, I didn't realize. No, we're still proud.

Oh, of course you didn't realize that you covered it was such a big sign. Yes, yes, this massive. Oh, this little thing. Oh, it's tremendous. No, Deich Ball is still, you know, going strong. We're still very proud of Deich Ball. We've got the Nuno Cup coming up, which is a big one against West Ham. That's actually happening right now, I think.

Let's take a gander, by the way. We're live right here. Can we do that? Can we get it right now? Please God. Please God say they're beating West Ham. If they're not, oh, zero, zero, 13 minutes in. All right.

Okay, no, no. Okay, we need to win that one. I mean, we need to win that one. West Ham is, you know, in tatters. What are you, a Liverpool fan? Yeah. You know what's crazy about the Liverpool fans? Like, you guys want Schlott out?

He just won you the league. Like, can we, can we kill out? It's been like four bad months. Yeah, but no. You want him out? I'm tired of him. You want him out? The grass isn't always greener,

but I just feel like he has no answers to anything anymore. He doesn't know what he's doing. Wow. Yeah. How do he win the league? He's done. It's Klop's team. Wow.

You know what I think? And now he's had the money. Now he's had the money to buy his own team, and he spent half a billion and we've gone backwards. How have we spent half a billion and taken backward steps? No, no. Would you take Nuno? Absolutely not.

What he did with? What about Steve Cooper? There's a reason Steve Cooper's unemployed. Absolutely not. No, no. What about Deich? No, Sean Deich. No.

Everton as well, just manage Everton. You know that team he used to support. Sure, sure. Oh, he doesn't get that one. Listen, at least we're not as bad as United right now with their situation, all right? Well, technically they're better than us. We do, I do have a Crystal Palace. Patch because my guy, Brendan, is a part of Crystal Palace now.

So we're big fans of Self-Hurt. He is, isn't he? We're big fans of Selhurst. Yeah, my guy. Brennan Johnson's been moving around a lot, hasn't he? Like, dude, geez. Just twice. He's a hot commodity, all right?

He's a hot commodity. Just like you are, my friend, Aday. What a great pleasure this was. This was a lot of fun. Shout out to you. So next event, are you doing this weekend in Germany? I am. I fly to Germany on Friday afternoon.

Wow. And it's funny. I love it because, sorry to cut across you, Obviously, me growing up, it was either big events in Vegas or Germany. Yes, yes. The Klitschko's, Felix, Marko, Hark, Zvenokka, the Soutland used to put on all the events. They've not had anything big in Germany for, I guess really, since Klitschko, Tyson Fury, has been that long. So it's sold out.

Big venue? Big venue? I think it's like 16,000. Oh, wow. Okay, that's legit. Which is nice, right? And it's sold out. So the German fans have been waiting. So I'm looking forward to getting out there.

Yeah, historically January, a bit of a quiet month in boxing, but we had the MVP card in Puerto Rico on Saturday, Amanda Serrano, this card, Atama coming up, obviously the Shakur fight. You mentioned Josh Kelly, so good stuff coming up in the world of boxing. I miss doing the show with you, my friend, but they can never take this away from us. They can never take away. I thought you was going to say it's back. No, no, no, no. When you went, but, I was like, sorry, I'm just saying this friendship, this camaraderie. No, no, it's impossible.

It's impossible. They can't take it away. We'll talk next year, but hopefully we'll talk multiple times throughout the year as well. Appreciate you stopping by. Oh, the music, my guy. The music. There it is. So painful.

Oh, my God. It will live on. It will live on and ride again. Much love to you. Thank you so much, my man. Thank you, brother. And check out his YouTube channel, the Adiolo Depot YouTube channel. It's too late now.

Why have you done it now when everyone's just chew? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Check it out. Great stuff. YouTube podcast, wherever you're your podcast. Much love, my man. The Great Adé Oladipo, everyone.

Yeah. What a song. Bound-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-down. I'm still very mad at everyone in the back, I have to say. This was your choice. I asked you guys, can you see the shirt? And by the way, I wasn't able to figure it out. Like, it was falling.

It was a gag gone wrong. What are you upset with us about? I went to the back. Pizzi, I went to the back. I'm wearing my shirt. I tried to pull a you. I tried to pull a you. I had the pullover thing, the Baclav, I tried to pull a you, and I said, guys, can you see that I'm wearing?

No, no, you can't see. I sit down, and he shows me on camera. I see the shirt. I'm like, ah, he's going to know. Also, also, it was not visible. You were supposed to move. I saw my jacket. Yeah, I'm stumbling and mumbling.

But he didn't see it. I didn't know. He had everything to do with you getting the cord caught inside the. Yeah, that was a year. I was flustered at that point. He also did not seem to be bothered by you, not. wearing a tux yeah it wasn't quite the same reaction that you had when ptzee wasn't wearing the tux exactly i was hoping for like hey you told me to wear a tux where's my you know where's your tux

what's going on there's an art to it lads there's an art you know it's not you can't just come along it's not yeah yours was full zip correct ptze yeah that's right and also by the way someone you mentioned that you should do a full zip arreels was full zip mine was full zip but here's yeah it was full zip but this was showing pizzi give him massive credit ptze had the zip up over the jacket yeah this is what i'm saying yeah this is what i'm saying he just zipped and ripped and then he was off cocktail in hand you had to dismount the head oh it was a mess take it off put on your bow tie it was a mess i mean only somebody we could have went through this we could have went through this if only somebody back here was like

nah this is going to be messy you shouldn't do it if only somebody had said i don't remember you saying that you're going to be fumbling with the with the bow tie also said that you even said to and you were like we all said right up the top andy it's going to get messy in there so just yeah oh fuck west ham just scored for fuck for us. They released on the thing. I'm sorry, yes. Jesus. Come on, man. Yeah. Two shows in. Own goal. Own goal. Morello.

Oh, goal. Anyway, that was a lot of fun. That was a lot of fun. Do you guys have any big issues with any of the picks? I gotta be honest. I feel like a couple times, I think at least three, four times I convinced them to change his pick. You definitely did. No, it's not. Yeah. And I think my picks were way better than his, to be honest, as well. Andy Lee was a competition. Andy Lee was a shocker, right?

The Andy's on the phone to me, just saying, I thought I thought we were friends, you know, taught me and Ade were mates. And then, you know, a bit of slander towards the end, this is the guy back in Jamie Carriger, who was calling for the exit of one of the greatest Liverpool players of all the most solid. Like, I mean, find the club, is he? Yeah, yeah. Tell us a little Robbie Fowler book back there. Come on, come on, come on.

You're kidding. I think you lost us a little bit on the back end of that statement, but we got the general. There was a Robbie Fowler book in the back in the back in there. No, I was shocked. How do you not go with Manny Packow? as your comeback fighter of the year. I mean, go. Yeah, man, he was a nice one.

That was a punctuation point, for sure. My round of the year was, I thought, a good one, you know, it's just a lot, you know, a lot. But in the end, we agreed on male and female fighter of the year. That, that's Turkish. Which you did not predict. You thought, you thought it would go Crawford. I thought he would go, you know, hipster Crawford, and then I thought he would go. Who's to love hipster now?

Hipsters. Everybody's a lot of that. Anyway, guys, let's not waste any time. We told you if you're, listen, if you're not. not a boxing fan, I get it. I hope you enjoy the enthusiasm. I hope you enjoy the passion. That does it for our awards, by the way, but tomorrow we do have

our prediction show, which I'm very excited about, and those are all MMA. I mean, I guess you can sneak in a couple of boxing if you want, but my understanding is we're just doing MMA, because that's what we did last year, and we like to keep it consistent. We did it on the Ringer days as well. Tomorrow's our prediction show.

Next week, we're back to our regular programming, and what I mean by that is guests and all that stuff. We're Getting closer to the first UFC show of 2026, that's January 24th. So that's coming up tomorrow, but I did tell you, if you're not a fan of boxing, just tune in back into the show and it'll be on the nose. And I know that there are a lot of questions regarding the world of mixed martial arts, and that's why we have the gang here with us.

And so without further ado, time now for everyone's favorite time for the week. It is time. Yes. Here we are. we are back okay well shall we start with

a guy we just talked about I didn't read any of these but I saw a name that I recognized so I'm going to read it from Moritz School Hello Ariel greetings from the Netherlands with the recent talks about

Rico Verhoeven potentially fighting Anthony Joshua in boxing reportedly involving Turkey Al-Shake and the earlier negotiations between the former glory heavyweight champion in the UFC, I was wondering how you view this situation. From your perspective, which path would be more beneficial for Rico at this stage of his career? A one-off Saudi-backed superfight or short-term boxing run with a massive payday or committing to a UFC career. The money in boxing is obviously undeniable, but a successful UFC run could

significantly raise Verhoeven's global profile, which would undoubtedly help his long-term ambitions outside of fighting, such as movies and broader international exposure. Which route do you think he's most likely to take, and do you see any realistic scenario where he could end up doing both? Great question. I mentioned this around Thanksgiving when they made the announcement about the first card. There was an offer on the table. Okay, so Rico's with glory, Rico and glory part ways.

There's no exclusivity period. There's no ties to glory where he can't sign or talk to anyone for 30, 60, 90 days. he was a free man that day. The day the announcement came out, he was a free man already. And I had mentioned when we were doing our reaction to the 324 news that there was an offer on the table for him to fight on 324, the first Paramount card, January 24th, Las Vegas, against Derek Lewis.

And in the end, he said, thanks but no thanks. And they went with Waldo Cortez-A-Costa. And Derek said this in an interview that came out over the break. and yeah, so he kind of confirmed that. My understanding is, the UFC is still very interested in RICO. My understanding is, during Ben U.Bank 2, Turkey Al-Sheikh did an interview talking about what's next for AJ, and he was sitting next to Jason Statham, the actor. And he mentioned, if you recall, if anyone saw the broadcast, he said, we have plans for him

reference the fury fight insinuated that there'd be a fury fight but the next one if you don't like it blame this guy and he was talking about Jason Statham in a joking way of course and that idea was the RICO fight and the way it was told to me

Jason Statham saw the talk of RICO versus Francis Inganu and do you recall on which program that talk emanated from did anyone remember Rico, Francis, and Ghanem Did anyone still there?

I think it was this program Okay, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Yeah, thank you, thank you, we're more training partners, but now they're, you know, potentially yes, yes, yes, anyway, that didn't come to fruition, and once that ball started to get rolling, attention was turned to Rico versus AJ and I have to admit, and in New York, Rick, I know you've, watched a lot of Rico over the years, I was fascinated by it because I've always, I know Rico did like one MMA fight, he's primarily been a kickboxer, I was fascinated by the idea of

Rico fighting and boxing and maybe going for a bit of a run in boxing. I was also fascinated by the idea of Rico fighting in the UFC, even though he doesn't have the extensive ground game, but look, the heavyweight division is pretty damn, you know, shallow right now, and I think he could go on a great run. I think he could go on a very good run right now. You know, we played, that game with Gable Steveson, who it really does seem like it's all lining up for Gable to make his UFC debut at the White House. I mean, I feel like it's like right there. It's all lining up perfectly. But we played that game with, you know, who would you rank Gable over in the heavyweight division? We could play a similar game as far as the heavyweight division is concerned

with Rico. Like, would you rank him above Cyril Gan? Would you guys rank him above Suril gone right now? I think that's a good matchup for him. So I wouldn't rank him above him, but I would favor Rico in that fight, actually. Would you rank him above? Volkov? Yes. Pavlovich? Yes. Blades?

No. Cortez Acosta? No. Almeda? Definitely not. Spivai? No, this is where it starts to get hard. Derek Lewis.

Again, a good matchup for him. Yeah, maybe. The point is, in my perfect world for Rico, get the bag, get the AJ fight, see how that goes, and then go to the UFC. I was hoping that he'd be able to do both. Is the AJ fight now still on the table, though? AJ's career is...

That's the point, you know, so... If I'm Rico, though, selfishly, again, as you just said, we just had the show where you talked about your wish for 2026, and nobody wants Anthony Joshua back in a ring before he is ready to be back in a room. That goes without saying. Let's start with that as the baseline.

But if you're Rico, you can't now pin your hopes to AJ's return... It's a tricky one. ...time it when we don't know when AJ's going to be back. Now, maybe there's some communication with the camps, Maybe they have a line to Eddie Hearn. Maybe there's some kind of understanding. I would imagine it's too early to be even, like, having had those conversations and those questions answered.

But if you're at RICO, now that UFC entrance might be a little more appealing than something else. Or can you get a boxing fight against somebody like a Deonte Wilder or somebody else who might be still interesting and appealing and get you in front of the American mainstream in the meantime while you wait for AJ? AJ would have been perfect, especially let's say it happens in, what was it, February? or whatever, coming off that went over Jake Paul, oh my God, it would have been an amazing opportunity for Rico. I kind of felt like it was too soon, regardless. For AJ to come back, you mean. Yeah, it was just a little soon and Eddie was insinuating.

It's not act like Jake Paul was hard work now. No, but it was a training camp. You know, you want some time off. You want to relax, the holidays, all that stuff. The point is, yeah, Rico's in an interesting spot now. Look, I like both options. I really am curious to see how he would do against some top boxers. And I'm curious to see how he does in the UFC.

Maybe he gets one boxing match and then he crosses over. I'd still love to see that Rico versus Francis fight. Hell yeah. Right? Are you talking boxing? Yeah. I'm less interested in boxing, but I won't put to it. Or MMA.

What do you think happens in a boxing match? Like, we don't really know how Rico is as a traditional boxer. We have more of a sense, though. Absolutely. And that's why I was curious about them fighting in a boxing match because it was kind of like the in-between for both worlds. Certainly utilizes kicks. no mistake about it but his hands are primarily how he gets his work done and so his boxing is sharp

like it's going to be a problem for a lot of different guys and especially because it's it is a little bit of a difference cadence and a little bit of a different rhythm um which we saw like you know when francis and gunner was fighting Tyson fury to frustrate and to kind of confuse a little bit because they're not used to that and we've heard many boxers kind of talk about how the mma guys um or people from not the primary boxing realm have these different like tics and techniques and cadence and rhythm. I'm interested in RICO boxing, but I don't want to see Francis. If it's Francis, I'd rather see MMA. Like I'd rather just see something, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. But I don't, I don't love the idea of like Francis isn't a boxer primarily. Like that's not what I want to see from

Francis. I want to see Francis do MMA. So it's kind of a weird position. It feels to me almost like Nate and Jorge. Like, I'd rather just see them do MMA, despite the fact that that was a really good boxing match. I feel similarly, like, I'd rather see RICO just go into MMA or box a boxer. Okay, so your pick is MMA. For RICO? Yeah.

If he gets the Anthony Joshua fight, that's the, like, I can't say anything about that. That is what you should do. No questions asked. Take that bag at a time when Anthony Joshua's next fight is going to be one of the most watch boxing matches of the year or the century. take that and run with it. Like Rico versus AJ in Saudi Arabia doesn't make a lot of sense to me as an event. If it's back in the UK,

great. If it's in the Netherlands, great. Oh, man, the Netherlands would be... I mean, if you're AJ... Yeah, it wouldn't happen. It would not happen. I'm really curious to see what he does. It's one of the great stories to follow this year. I love the fact that the UFC was interested in bringing him over. Hell yeah. Man, by the way,

that Paramount debut could have been so much better. Rico on there, With all due respect to WCA, and Ilya versus Patty is the main event with Kayla and Amanda as the co-main, that would have been a, like, it kind of feels like this wasn't exactly what they had in mind, right, now that we start to get more of the details. I'm glad to hear you say, though, that they're still interest in RICO, or what you're hearing is that they're still interest in RICO, because heavyweight needs bodies and he's a great person to bring into your organization. So ultimately, I think we both agree, get that bag, and then let's see how the UFC rub goes. But is that bag still there? No, yeah, of course. He has to make a decision at some point.

He can't wait around. He won't be there in February, obviously. So maybe they have another plan for him. Maybe they say, hey, it didn't work out, but we're going to do something else. Would you be interested in Rico versus, like, another top-level American boxer? Like, I say American, like AJ's American, but globally known boxer, like a Deiante Wilder. One million percent. Yeah, me too.

I'm still interested in Deontay versus Francis, too. like a sure and now they're talking about Deontay versus Usik which is weird but yes absolutely absolutely I would like to see him in traditional boxing and I would love to see him in MMA too especially because the MMA heavyweight scene

isn't great at the moment and I think he could do some some great stuff all right here's triple double this question is for avid movie goer New York Rick have you seen no other choice it has some major hype and it's being talked about as a movie of the year candidate there's also another one called

Resurrection, both Korean films, I believe, have you seen or heard of either of them? I have not seen no other choice, but I am anxious to see it. I was just talking to our good friend, friend of the program, Robert. Oh my God. Why am I blanking? Pearson? Robert Pearson, Rob Pearson. And we were talking about no other choice. I plan to see it, but I have not yet. P.S., Lord of the Rings trilogy is headed to theaters next week with a remastered, extended cut, will you let G.C. take you on a date to experience the hype that is Lord of the Rings.

Not a chance in fucking how. I actually love those movies. I'm not going to sift for what does that mean? What does that mean? What is the remastered nonsense? I swear Frank, I don't think it's all one haul. If it's not one haul, then I can't imagine anyone's going to the movie theater to sit there for 12 hours. Pizzi, you like

Lord of the Rings? You used to smoke a few Fadi Bumbodies and go to the Washington. Yeah, you know yourself, Pee T. I can't remember a that happened in the movies, but I like them at the time. Maybe they'll re-release in theaters. That's how I watch them like this. Look. I got a spoiler for you, Pizzi.

Nothing happened. You didn't miss much. They walked for a bit. I think the last one was A desolation of Smog. And I was like this. This is the Hobbit movie. Really liked it. Really liked it. Jens, are you familiar with someone named Alex Honold?

H-O-N-N-O-L-D Why does it sound familiar? Yes, he is a rock climber. Social or rock? And he's about to climb a building live on Netflix. Yes. Okay, so for a second, I was afraid that I was being trolled, but I looked him up, and yes, he does have that Netflix. Yeah.

Special coming up, he's going to be, okay, well, here's the question from competent Columbia. Everyone always debates Mount Rushmore of sports, usually mentioning Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps, etc. Can we talk about Alex Honold, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly for a second, I rewatch free solo over the weekend and still can't wrap my head around the reality of what he did. You get an itch, cramp, panic attack, or even let your mind start to wander, you die. This to me is the number one pound-for-pound sports accomplishment.

Please have him on the show in 2026. I think you would do a far better job than Rogan. I don't know if he was on Rogan, but yes, that stuff is terrifying. you know who's an unbelievable rock climber is our good friend Spencer Social media guru Spencer I don't even know what he does He does like free hand what is that called

But he's like free climbing That's what that's what this guy's doing I think he does like bouldering Where it's where he's just using the arms And he's not attached to anything I don't think he does like the solo So this individual Alex is doing January 23rd

Taipei 101 1,667 feet of glass steel and concrete Crete. He's going to attempt to climb all 101 floors without road. I'm getting hard palpitations just reading this. He's going to do it live on Netflix in skyscraper Live, a two-hour global event. Can I tell you what

I love about Netflix, what they're doing right now? They're just doing like crazy massive events. Must see. You must see. It's very 1970s evil-kneval wide world of sports. Like this dude is going to jump over the Grand Canyon. We're going to be there. ABC's going to be there. Kobayashi is going to go up against Joey Chesa. We're there

one-off. We're not in the... Mike Tyson, Jake Paul. We're not in the the hot dog eating business or the rock climbing business but you do something crazy we're going to be there and the world will watch this to me is nuts

because this guy could die right? Absolutely. Free solo is one of the craziest docks have watched I smoked a fatty boom batty like pizza before Lord of the Rings My only pushback to this person's question though is or their suggestion

is death defying stakes like the highest stakes isn't necessarily how I would measure the peak of athleticism it is certainly maybe a contributing factor There's certainly something maybe to take into account, but like F1 drivers are at risk of high risk of mortality as well. And I don't know that I'm putting that, you know, alongside the Usain Bolt's and Michael Phelps. I'm open to the idea that they should be in this conversation.

I like that I like that suggestion. But I don't know if it's like a default that like death defying stakes has to be the number one criteria. Yeah. It's an incredible accomplishment. No, for incredibly athletic, right? Yes, very athletic. Yeah. There's like no competition.

Is he the greatest of all time at this? I can't speak on that, but he's pretty damn good. The fact that we all knew who you were talking, like, we didn't know him instantaneously by name, but I was like, oh yeah, I know that name, and then he knew, like, he's kind of the guy, as far as I understand. Here's Steve Buscemi, who says this is for our resident betting expert, G.C. Over under six months for Tracy Cortez and Alex Pereira to be together,

so did they use Google Translate to talk to you said. Good luck, you said. Good luck. What the fuck is going on, bro? Red flag. I'm going to take the over, I believe, in love. Yes. And yeah, it's similar to the Magamette-on-Galive shit-talking, talk everything, and speak everything into Google Translate and then take it from there. I actually think she does speak some Portuguese. She spent some time down there, but yeah, over six and a half months.

Let's go for that, asks. Not much going on in combat sports. Let's do a little matchup for matchup with the crew. the better movie between Sandler and Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell, I've got 10 movies facing off, right? I mean, this is going to be easy. We should do this.

You should be the one to weigh in. I was going to pick the San Man every time. Happy Gilmore. Happy Gilmore. Yeah. I'm with you. I'll accept that, yeah. Not easy, but I'm going with that.

Anchorman is very good. Yeah, not easy. I agree with you, G. Next one's even easier. Uncut Gems, elf. That's tough. I'm going elf. I'm going.

Very different, though, right? One is not funny. One is not a comedy. You've never even seen Uncut Gems. I was waiting for someone to say that. I'm going Uncut Gems, but I think Elf has a mob that would... Completely different. All right.

All right, one, one, one. Ptie, have you seen Uncut Gems? Yeah. I was stressed out, man. I haven't. I haven't smoked a Fadi Boobody before that one. Frank, what do you say? Uncut or Elf?

I've not seen Uncut? What have you people been doing? It's an amazing movie. It's brilliant. It's the absolute worst, man. He gives opinions on things he's never seen. Okay, okay, okay. So let's just say one more.

It's free on Netflix. It's right there. Waterboy, Talladega Nights. Oh, that's got. Water boy. Oh, that is. Come on. That's rough.

Waterboy, water boy. Oh, we're waiting. I might go Talladega Nights, even though Waterboy. I think I'm going to Taladega Nights as well. Frank, Frank? Water boy. Water boy. Those are heavy hitter.

Two one Sandler. Those are tough. This is actually, wow. He picked, wow. Fifty first dates. I love 50 first dates. I love 50, never saw it. I love it. I love it.

Oh, that's great. You and Elaine watch that tonight. I tell you, I mean... A little problematic, but great. Versus old school. You know what I'm going with old school? All day long. I'm the voice on a Tuesday. I can't believe I'm going to have to pick against

51st 8, but if I'm being honest... Come on, it's old school. It's old school. All right, 2, 2, 2.2. You don't mess with the Zohan? Blades of Glory. Obviously, Zohan. Come on. Blades. Glory. What? Blades of glory.

3-2. Are you guys high? Dude. This one's an easy one. Y'all are getting into the Sandler fallout. Now, three, Big Daddy, Big Daddy, Big Daddy. Big Daddy. Big Daddy. Big Daddy and screaming was okay. Grownups versus the other guys?

I don't think I saw either. Other guys. Other guys. Other guys. Other guys. Other guys. Absolutely. The Desquoise grown-up.

Okay, 4-3, 4-3, 4-3. This one's easy. Wedding singer, all-time classic semi-pro. Semi-Pro wasn't actually. Wedding singer, wedding singer, wedding singer. I'm going, always be a smile. Where's, like, stepbrothers? that?

Five three. Oh, click. Underrated. Very underrated. So underrated. He cried for a time. Yes. Absolute ass.

He falls in the rain. When he falls in the rain, kids are watching? See, he's setting up. This is going to be stepbrothers. Ariel, every time he's talking, oh, oh, my God.

How could it possibly? Oh, it could only be this one. What is the campaign? What is the campaign? The campaign is where he's a, Oh, the president. That was pretty funny. Who's he running against?

South Galphinacus. Yeah, we don't know. Galvanakis. I'm going Yeah, I'm going And then the last one, last one I'm paying for me. This guy knew what he was doing last one. Billy Madison versus step brothers.

That is a heavy way. No, it's not even close. That is a heavy. I'm going to stepbrothers. Get the fuck. I'm actually going to Billy. I'm going Billy. I might have to go stepbrothers. I might have to go stepbrothers. Frank?

Totally. Louis Madison. Yeah. Nah. Frank was an auto vote for Sandler on every one of them. Okay, but this does, we have to acknowledge that Sandler does not get the credit he deserves. He is a comedic icon.

1,000%. Yeah, do you guys feel like he gets the credit he deserves? Nah, wait, wait, he's an icon, period. Punch drunk love is highly underrated. And it's not comedic. Never saw it. That's PTA, right? PTA.

Am I crazy? Yeah, it is. Yeah, what is PTA. The director, Paul Thomas. You might have heard of him. He's pretty good. He's going to win best best director this year. No big deal.

So you know what's funny. Before the show, it was like, okay, like, we're doing the boxing words, Let's focus on MMA questions, but no one's asking me any MMA questions. There's not much going on. So the second... What even is M.A? Between Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell. Will Ferrell's way bigger.

Amazing. That was a good competition. But Sandler is a, as an athlete. He plays basketball all the time. I've seen him play basketball. If that's athleticism, I'm fucking much. No, fuck out of here. He's pretty good.

Don't hate. He's actually great. No, no, no, no. You're wrong. You're wrong. You're wrong. Our next question comes from, that Veronica Vaughn is one fine piece of... I really, their name.

A. I know from experience. Is this your alt? No, no, no, you don't. No, I don't. But a friend of mine, him and her got it odd. Woo-wee. No, no, no, they didn't.

Step brothers are still better. Anyway, it's from Veronica Vaughn, weirdly enough. Ariel, did you see any clips circling of Nick Fuentes on the Pierce Morgan uncensored show? We would love to hear your take on that interview. you. Honestly, I did it. I know that little guy. He's like a little like a psychopath, anti-Semitic, racist, weirdo.

But I mean, that's, that's a collab that I'm not that interested in. Did anyone happen to see this? No, thank you. Someone's trying to explain it to me, and I just, I couldn't understand what. I saw the one clip. I saw the one clip. Was there the one clip where he asked him, like, if he liked women or something like that? No, it was, um,

it was. What was it? Shirley Jordan's seen it. right now. I actually wouldn't know Nick Puentes. He's a huge Fuentes, man. He walked in to the control room.

You went to tell what? If Nick Puentes walked in right now, wouldn't know it was him. Never seen him. He's a weird looking guy. I know what he's about. Yeah, I am. Here we go.

The Wiki Race. I was the one who introduced you to the Wiki Race a few weeks back and honestly, I was laughing my ass off seeing you experience it in real time. I had the same response when I first discovered it. It was electric.

I knew GC would bite. I'm here to follow up. There's an actual site that tracks your clicks and what everyone's path to the final destination was. You select your start page and finish page and each friend joins the room. It times you and ends the game when someone reaches the destination page. Also, you were playing least clicks, which is certainly a way, but an even better way, is just racing to see who can reach the selected endpoint the quickest. Cheers.

All right, that's cool. Thanks. Did he provide the website? No, he did not. Thanks, boss, man. Appreciate that. Wiki-dashrace.com. He wants us to, whoever can find the website fastest will win.

Wiki dash race? And Jordan just won. Wow. Joe, get a PlayStation. You know what are you doing? Wait a minute. Pizzi, you were enthralled when we did the wiki race. No, I never had to have a breakdown.

What was it, Sidney, Sweeney? If I show up to one of my, if I show up to one of my fucking mates house, and he goes, do you want a wiki race? I'll beat the kid out. I'll just straight up. Okay, here's an MMA question, guys. Kitchen scrap right now. Shake the frost.

Hey, Ariel. Rumors have been swirling that Justin Gaci is injured. A few videos have surfaced of him diving and cracking heads with someone which wobbled and bad. Do you have any inside information? Have you not heard of this? Okay, actually, I got to be honest, I thought you guys were talking about, I thought he was going to ask about, I saw a bunch of pictures about this thing.

Yeah. Yeah, the ingrown hair is what he's climbing. Okay. Ingrown hair and a bit of brisket, yeah. Brisket? Yeah, a little brisket on the chin. Because they said he had hair piece on his mouth and he's like, I was eating brisket and I had an ingrown hair. If that is an ingrown hair, that's the gnarlyest ingrown hair I've ever seen.

That makes like a little red dot on your neck if it's an ingrown hair. He had a crater in his neck. I don't know. By the way, could you imagine, just for a moment, just to, you know where I'm going with it. Yeah. You know where I'm going with this. I do know where I do. Exactly the way with this.

Enter Armand. Yes. Enter Armin. Yes, it's time. Now, is Armin ready, is the thing? Is that what he walks out to? Those videos. I'm like, oh, fuck.

Enter Armin. Enter Armin. Dude. Walking out there, eating a fucking turkey leg. I mean, come on. 185 pound catch rate. What a moment, though. What did that kind of be the best thing for the UFC?

And then an eating contest. Yeah. Oh, my God. Him and Patty, yes. Legitimately, though, I don't think Armand Saruki can make weight on this short of a of a time frame. Try him. You don't think Puddy,

if they said the Patti, here, listen, go in at 1-Aid. No, but they had to do this for the Fagasy title. They had to do this for the, they didn't shoot a text arm when they saw the ingrown hair pictures come out.

Maybe, maybe. We did a video, we did a video of Patti back in the day, right, where he had to eat as many meals as he could, and he was like, yeah, just keep ordering them. And I was like, you're in camp at the moment. He ate eight meals

from different fast food places. Like, he just ate, he sat there eating them all. And we thought we'd get some leftover shit. We didn't get any man. He ate every fucking bit of it. And an hour layer he was rolling. So is the thing, Arma versus Paddy in a food competition?

I didn't want to see that more. I don't want to see that on Netflix. For sure. Put that on Netflix. I don't know. He seems to be, you know, he seems to be good. He had explanations, yeah. Yeah.

Rewatch and react. Hey, crew, please have Jordan pull up the old video of Y'all Romero calling out Adesania for a fight and forgetting Dana White's name. We need more reactions slash breakdown videos. Another hilarious one is Begregor over-animating, describing to Tony Robbins, the in-cage brawl after the Habib fight. Please pull one up live today and react. We all want to laugh with you and go down memory lane. What's the U.L one?

I know about the Connor one. What's the U.L one? I don't recall this either, but they want us to recall it and react. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, Steve Bushemi says it's great. Who knows? Is Steve Bushemi? One other.

In Waterboy. Ryder Skyler, sorry, dear Ariel and crew, me and my friend over the last few weeks have been in an argument pertaining to the window right behind Ariel, it has gone in so bad that we currently have a high stakes bet on if it's real or not. I can't believe this is still a thing. I will not say what side I'm on in the argument to maximize unbiasedness as this is the most unbiased show ever. Thank you. All I want to know is, is the window real or not? Thank you, Ariel. Sorry, my jaguars are going to have to give your bills of proper beans. We go for. Yeah, sure they will. Yeah, go fucking yourself, bro. Oh, fuck. Ah. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I'm working.

This is when you accidentally curse, then you're like, oh, for you. He curses again when you realize he curses. Shit, I mean, oh. Ace Cruton. Hey, Ariel, do you have a favorite can... You just pull a frank? So we just got it by it.

The debate will not be settled. Which debate? Which debate? It's the window. He's trolling on. obviously. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's go.

It's obviously real. Look at the damn thing. Does that look fake? My favorite part from the behind the scenes are like, you can see the buildings, you know, like windows do. Yes.

Favorite Canadian beer. Labat, Moulson, Moosehead are the main ones I know, but I would like to try new one. Rickards Red. Anyone try Rickards Red? I mean,

no. Nice. Oh, I feel it right here. La Bette. I don't know. What? Okay, Rickards Red is a popular Indian-Rillians, bro. Okay, Rickards Red is a popular Canadian-Irish-style red ale known for it's, it's me and you.

The Canadian-Irish, what are you talking about? The only Canadian-Irish person about me life is me-uncle, did he move there in the 80s? It's me and you. It's me and you. He started it. That, actually, back in the day, back in the day, that used to be my go-to. that and a little bit of Aguilience?

No, no, no. Shadda. No, what's the one with the two? Oh my God, Jack Daniel. The drink, Guinness, wishes it was. Are we pulling up to the Canucks? I would drop it in. Wait, what was the name of the Red Irish?

Rickards. All right, we got to find that. Wait, you see. A classic Irish name. Do you know how many records I know? What did you just describe? A Canadian? You dropped the JD into the beer?

Yeah, you dropped the JD into the beer. You don't know about that? I know about it with, what is a Yeager and? Bro, you know ball or you know ball? I've heard other names for it. There we go, Rickards. There it is. That's that Irish.

Classic Irish. I will do anything for that right now. It looks like gas station. No, it's tremendous. Rickards. I got to fill up the tank. Is it coming 40 ounce bottle? Oban, next time you come over, give me some Rickards red.

Oh, the Rickards. I was gone off the Rickards Red last night. Oban saw the clip of you giving him the Cracket Red. the year ward and he was very very touched by it and then he sent me I hope he doesn't mind me playing this but you know how we we play the the fucking hell drop

we were a lot to play yeah you know I know he does these don't be mad at us I know he doesn't mind okay he then sends me this okay he sends me this voice note which I was dying of laughter he sends me first he sends me this wait

I've just man I've just fucking realize something mate no that's the first one he's like he's like you know who he is he's Keanu Reeves and Bill and Ted's Excell

he's like what have I just experienced he's me watching Lowered the Rings back yeah and then it's no there's a mate I've I've been fucking watching your show and I've

I don't know if I've thought there was a voice in my fucking head but you definitely there's definitely a fucking hell I say it don't I on the show

it's like a fucking sound though he didn't it's unbelievable it's unbelievable it's amazing what a guy what a guy what a guy

uh James Portland oh Ariel do you have any bold predictions for WWE this year wow not really I can't tell you guys speaking of WWE we did get some news Oh

Ben but Ben Right yeah Specify with Greek Okay well it is breaking news It came out this morning Beginning immediately Netflix Speaking of Netflix

Is the new US home for WW's library of PLEs Premium Live Events Prior to September 2025 including WrestleMania SummerSlam and Royal Rumble as well as award-winning documentaries and original programming

so like the whole network basically what was once known as the network and then went to Peacock we were kind of wondering where this would go outside of the U.S. It was already on Netflix

but in the U.S. It wasn't. It was kind of floating in the wind and then all of a sudden all these shows started popping up I checked it out myself Survivor Series, 97 was on there I watched the old

Royal Rumble where Vince tore both of his quads when he ran down, crazy stuff. Classic moment. I had never seen that clip until like a year ago. That is some of the most wild stuff I've ever seen. He comes down. I think it's Batista and Sina.

They both fall at the same time. And he's just sitting there. Just sitting there. In the corner. Could you imagine the pain that he's in in that moment? It's crazy. It's crazy for him to hang in there and not like immediately get pulled out.

It was just insane. It reminds you the Willam the Foe looking up. Yeah, it's, it's wild. But as far as like, He can't move anymore. No, it was crazy. I always think about the pain. Like, you see the moment where they both go out on him and it's nuts.

He's walking down and everything. The big story last year, of course, was Sina and what they would do with Sina. I don't know if there is that story right now. I don't know if there's that story. I don't even know like who the frontrunner is for, for WrestleMania, the main event, WrestleMania. So do I have any bold predictions? Not at the moment.

It feels, I don't know if it's my algorithm feeding it to me right now or whatnot. But I saw our friend, O'Shea Jackson, Jr., like, kind of down on WW. I've seen a lot of people who are typically, like, big wrestling fans be down on WWE right now. You say kind of down. I think I saw O'Shea's tweet. I think he said, this is unwatchable. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

That's the one. Yeah. By the way, speaking of O'Shea, my kids have been binging a show called Swagger on Netflix. Have you seen this show? I'm not familiar. They were on the plane watching, and I was like, hey, that's my guy, O'Shea. And so I told him, and he's like, oh, man, this made my day because he felt like the show wasn't promoted. It was short-lived.

I think it was an Apple show. And the kids are finding it. It's a basketball show, and he's the coach. I did see this. Yeah. Yeah, I watched an Apple back in the day. Yeah, yeah. He said it didn't get the love that he wanted or thought it deserved.

So here we are. Shout out to O'Shea. We went from WWE to Netflix to O'Shea. Anyway. What's going on with you and Becky Lynch, though? You going to talk about it? Oh, Becky's doing a thing where she's anti-peachie. media right now. She feels like the media is

against her. The truth is, I can't be mad at Becky. Love Becky. Specifically you, though, can I just say? Yeah, well, she's mentioned a bunch. One of three people, I think. Yeah. What happened there? Nothing. Nothing. I'm just happy

to be mentioned, to be honest, but there's no beef. I think she calls me awful Ariel. I mean, I wish I could have Becky on. I'd love Becky, please. Come on the show. Let's talk. Why are you taking heat, though? Like, I mean, it wasn't your... Oh, I know why. I know what, uncrown picked Eoskeye, I think, for...

Right, but you didn't individually... By the way, this is what happens to me all the time. They make the picks and then I get all the heat, which I'm fine with. I feel like it's bad for him by Becky, if I'm not honest. I accept the co-lab. I know she wants me to hate her, but I actually love her. I'm a huge fan, and I think she's a legend,

and she's the pride of Bray? Is it Bray? No, that's Finn Ballard. She dropped from Brick originally, and then she moved to Dublin, uh. Her book was great. Did you read her book, PT? Her mom. Yeah.

No. Sounds like you didn't. No. Her mom worked for Aer Lingus. Yeah. That was my favorite part, actually. No. G.C., please blind rank these six rappers.

This is from Who We. Okay. Mack Miller. Wow. No, no, it's between one and six. Three. Drake. Two.

Little Wayne. Wow. This is tough. This is tough. I'll go one for Wayne right now. I'm going to put someone low that I don't want to put low. Lil Pump. Six.

Who the fuck is Lil' Pulp? Six. Six, nine. I'm trying. M&M. Four, I would probably switch Eminem and Mac Miller, but I mean, I'm down with that. The top four are elite, the last two. I could never hear another song again and be completely content with my life.

Wait, last four. Does that include Drake? No, I'm sorry, the last two. Oh, okay. Yeah, you said it right now. Yeah. Did you enjoy Adi and I trying to figure out what Six-Nine's name was? And actually, it's Six-Nine, right? Yeah, it's Six-Nine.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, shout out. Wasn't that guy, like, in court or something recently doing something? Oh, yeah. I'm pretty sure he went to jail for a while. No, he's going to jail again soon. Federal fucking prison. Irish lad, hey, Ariel and crew.

For the BITB, are you taking the over-under on the fuck. following in 26. All right, here we go. Ariel has new beefs with fighters slash promoters

3.5 beefs. Under. Oh, love it. Ariel mends fences with existing beefing fighters slash promoters

1.5 mended fences. Under. Wow. Yeah, I'll also go under. Does that mean, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

No, it's a bad thing. Oh, damn it. You're mending one or less beefs. Ariel loses his temper with Frank on air

2.5. Over. who's to check I think it's already happened I think we're on about to be a millionaire says happy new year love the heartfelt

that was it that was it love the heartfelt dedication to Abby at the start of yesterday's show real love shown and it's awesome to hear bravo

got a public etiquette question for Ariel and the crew is there a classy way to tell a grown adult blasting full volume movies slash TikTok

slash games on their phone in shared public spaces to STFU It does happen sometimes You have to just immediately go Are you all right? Yeah

Straight away Nice and loud What Are you all right are you? And then I'd be like What the fuck is that And then they just feel awkward And usually someone's

If it's in a public space You're not the only one You know You have a fraternity there Someone just needs to be the one To step up And that's, it's you All right

You're the one You're right The voice in your head That's saying Should I say something about this? Yes you should He's being a fucking dickhead Say straight away

Hey, what's going on there? You all right? And then they look at you like this. What? Yeah. I can't hear you, mate. And you say, yeah, your fucking phone. You know, your headphones aren't it in.

And then they go, oh, yeah, sorry. Has this happened before? You know, I have a bit of a short fuse. I tend to, I don't go on public transport specifically for reasons like this because it probably happened a bit too many times. And in the cinema as well, I tend to lose my shit of it. Yeah, I can't. See if I see a screen. front of me, like, in cinema?

Oh, the worst. I'll lose my fucking, I'll get thrown out of this. Is when they took the headphone jack off of the phones. Yeah. All of a sudden, people think, all right, I'll just leave on a speaker phone. It's annoying. No, they won't. Not in my presence.

You're all right. Is a good, is a good shout. The aggressive, are you okay? You haven't said, like, you're not going. You're not going. You're all right, man? Yeah, right. Well, you're smart about it is you're asking a question, so you open the door for the idea

if they're like, actually, I'm disabled and I can't do X, X, Y, Z thing. You're like, oh, you're not all right. me help you. So you've actually, you've got to make sure. That's perfect. He's going to make sure. You're okay? You okay? Actually, I'm hearing disabled. I have to have it. Oh, okay. All right. And then PT's like, oh,

the word you have to sound on it all that you're hearing disabled. So you're just doubling down. That's the good point. You know what I mean? They're more fight. It is weird to have like such a lack of regard for other people, you know? Dude, there are people in New York that walk around with giant boom boxes just blaring music. But that's because they want everyone to like. Fuck that.

Regale in there. No. Good times. But it's, you know, if you're coming in with this thing, of course.

That's old school. That's 1970s, New York. Now it's concrete jungle the dreams are made out. Now it's just a JBL speaker hanging around their neck. Yeah. That's a lot of bucks.

Blaring. Blaring. Yeah. Some like concrete jungle or whatever. Matt Chihuahuis. Hello, Ariel and gang. Happy National Shortbread Day. Not bad.

What is the plan with all the shows like LFA and Victa Cage Warriors that were on Fight Pass now that all the UFC programming is crossed over to Paramount Plus. Well, first of all, as our good friend Antoine Evans notes, Invicta left FightPass a while ago. They're on CBS Sports Network here in the United States.

I'm hearing any day now we're going to find out about LFA's new home. They have a new home. They're going to announce it. And so we will get that information soon. And I think it'll be interesting. And they have a show coming up in like a couple of weeks. So they'll be okay. I believe Cage Warriors is staying on Fight Pass.

Is it not PT? I believe it is. I mean, I'd be very shocked if they ever left because, whole selling point of the K2R is is the pathway to the UFC. I think it's the one promotion from early doors that its identity wasn't like we're taking on, we're rivals to this, we're rivals to that. It's like, no, we're the feeder league to the UFC. And I think it's a good business arrangement for them. Obviously, Graham Boylan's a manager and he's got a lot of guys that go through that system. So I think it suits everyone. Yeah. So I think the main thing was,

as I reported at the end of the year, FightPass decided that they wanted to own the content, and some promotion said, yeah, we're cool with that, and some didn't, and LFA was one of those. But this happened a while ago, and I think people just caught wind of it and thought that it marked the end of LFA, that LFA was going to die as a result. And that's not the case. It is a fascinating time. This is going to be one of the top stories, and we'll talk about it tomorrow, PFL, their deal coming to an end this year, just talked about it with Aday, top rank, Golden Boy, MVP. Like, there's a lot of things up in the air as far as new homes or new platforms and things like that. So I'm very curious to see how this all shakes out.

You know, we spoke to John Martin, the relatively new now CEO of PFL, and he was quite bullish on the opportunities for PFL, but I don't know how many homes there are out there for combat sports right now. There's obviously the traditional media outlets, and there's obviously the new media outlets, the platforms, but people want big things, big events. I don't think one in Amazon has worked out very well and I think Amazon hasn't been rushing to get back into combat.

I don't think PBC on Amazon has worked out very well so I think some people thought Apple would get into it that hasn't been the case. I don't think a lot of people thought Netflix would get into it and that has worked out so let's see, let's see. Very, very interesting times. Okay, this is from Christian and this is an interesting one. It's a bit of a heavy one.

Yo, Ariel, apologies if this is long, but I'm really interested in your take Firstly, as someone passionate about journalism, I'm curious about your thoughts on Barry Weiss's spiking the 60-minute story on CECOT, C-E-C-O-C-O-C-T. What does this say about the state of the profession right now? And relatedly, am I off in feeling like there's a lack of focus from traditional MMA media on the sports washing being done via the UFC from the current Trump administration? It feels like the general sentiment is to accept and ignore it, but personally, I feel

I feel like that abandons the people in the crosshairs of this government's xenophobic policies and rhetoric, i.e. immigrants, trans community, et cetera. With the White House card on the horizon, should more MMA journalists be discussing, investigating, and reporting on this? Sorry if this is a bummer of a question, but I'm generally interested in your perspective on the role of journalism here. Okay, obviously these are two very different topics. Let's start with the second one first, because it pertains to MMA. And I'm curious to get everyone else's thoughts on this. Do we feel Do we feel like the White House card in particular falls under the umbrella of sports washing? Yes. Do you guys know what sports washing is, right? Yeah.

Everyone knows you use sport to wash your reputation to make it better to kind of like hide things. But the whole connection, the UFC's connection to Donald Trump is. Yes. Okay. So that is, But that's why I specifically mentioned the White House event.

Now, we could talk about him campaigning, him on the election trail, and I think that's kind of a different thing. Do we feel like that event in particular is a form of sports washing? Or is it unfair to separate them and it should all be lumped together and is it all sports washing? Because I'll say this. Yeah, I do feel, I don't know if sports washing is the best term for it, but I do think that Donald Trump used the UFC as a place.

platform to get, you know, his message across or even to, you know, to connect with younger voters. And the UFC was very happy to take part. And they had him showing up with these elaborate walkouts at like, none of this was coincidental. The very first time, Dana White was asked about it. He was like, oh, yeah, that was just a coincidence. It was obviously not a coincidence. That was a bold face lie. And so he used that in the process. Remember when he got out of jail, the first appearance, the first public appearance was at a UFC event. So I, I believe that that was a form of sport washing, if you will.

I just don't know if the actual White House event is a form of it. Obviously, the UFC is going to take part. It's a huge deal for them. It's a massive undertaking. It's a crown jewel event in their fight calendar and all that stuff. But at this point,

I don't know. I don't know. I don't think the two things can be separated. I don't think you can isolate one thing. In fact, one of the tenants of the sport washing is hosting events like this to distract from human right records and things like that like this is the argument that everybody makes when talking about Saudi Arabia is like yes they're hosting this fantastic event yeah point of it is to distract you from other things that are going on so I don't think you can separate

them but I understand where you're get what you're getting to which is like this is the president like as an example would like when the president or the White House invites a sports team as a tradition a championship sports team to the White House is that consider. I think there is some kind of like ambiguity. There is some grayness, but this in particular does feel to me like part of a sports washing initiative. Yeah, I mean, the walkouts was like, I agree with you. I was like a strategic campaign strategy by, by his whole team to be at these events, you know, get to his base, get closer to them, you know, garner favor to get more votes. This, I don't know. It just, to me it feels like an event that they want to have for

the America 250 celebration, which is going to be a massive deal here. I mean, just in Times Square, as soon as the ball dropped, they like re-racked it with the America 250 logo and was, they're going to do a big ball drop on July 4th now in honor of that. So it feels like this is an event that's part of that. And he obviously has close ties to Dana White. And it just felt like, oh yeah, like let's, let's add this on. How crazy would that be if we did that for the anniversary? Can I suggest that that's how it's supposed to feel, that that's when sports washing in action is... Is this changing my mind on anything? No, but the point, the way you do the sports washing is by distracting from the other things, right?

If we all go, wow, it's a massive event. They did it at the White House while these other things are going on. That is the definition of it. That is how it gets executed. I guess I'll say, Pizzi, why do you weigh in? well i just there's a concern i have and i think i've said it to you i think i've said it to rick before and it's like right so trump's popularity and the popularity of his politics uh seems to be like a response to people thinking that things are too woke or things went too soft or whatever

and you know you see that taking a knock in popularity or whatever like this is politics is cyclical like nothing lasts forever trump will inevitably be very unpopular maybe he is now i'm not keeping up a polls and anything like that. But the UFC has linked itself so closely to Trump and this regime that I feel like that's, that's something I'm very concerned about when it does get to that stage, when it's like this is, people are looking back kind of like, like we do it at affliction t-shirts now. We're like, oh, shit, remember people like them? I'm afraid that the UFC and because the UFC has monopolized a sport of MMA, it's, it's all

going to just be like a thing that people look at back and go, I remember people. like that sport like that that is my concern for the ufc toying itself so close to the trump we're not there yet but i think i've said this to you before like that is my big concern for the ufc tying itself so closely to any political regime it just so happens to be trump now so so i i understand what you're saying and when you have him walk out when he's campaigning when he's not the president when you have him walk out that is you tying yourself to that candidate right they could say all they want we do the same thing for someone else no they wouldn't let's be honest. And it wouldn't be that overt, that blatant, that many times over and over and over again.

And then, of course, all the shots on camera and all the fighters coming up to him. And, like, they went out of their way. And of course, Dana White speaking on his behalf at the conventions and whatnot. Then I'll view this and say, regardless of who is in office, let's say Biden was in office or Kamala Harris. And she said, hey, I have a great idea. Let's have an event at the White House. I feel like they would have done it regardless. Do you understand what I'm saying? feel like because before Trump, as you said, any sports team would have accepted the invitation regardless of who's in office, regardless of their politics. It only was once Trump came in and he was so polarizing and he was, you know, so divisive that people started to say no. And then, you know,

now it seems like more just saying yes and it's becoming more of the norm. And so I feel like regardless of who, like if it was Clinton, if it was Bush, you know, over time, not everyone has been a hundred in favor of a president, but like once the president, once the White House is intact, you're invited, you go. And so if you're invited to put on an event, you go. And so I can understand what this gentleman is saying as far as like, okay, their relationship. And also, let's not forget, there's actual ice commercials during UFC events. Like there's definitely something there, if you want to talk about it being used as a form of sport washing. I just don't know if the White House event is being, because I sort of view the America,

250 celebration as a celebration of America and I know that he's the president. I know he's going to take all the honors and I know some might say Ariel you're being naive right now. But to me I view it as a celebration of America. He'll be gone in three years and the country will move on. I don't think he'll go for another term. I just don't see that happening again. Maybe I'm proven wrong. So I just kind of feel like this is a part of the celebration. And of course the UFC, an entity that was not, you know, that was illegal in the state of New York 10 years ago. who would have thought in 2016 that they'd have the opportunity to do an event. Of course they're going to take that opportunity.

It's huge for them. It's being talked about. It's going to be watched by millions of people. So it's a tricky. It's a complex one for sure. There's no doubt no sports entity has ever tied itself, at least not in like our lifetimes, to a specific president who just so happens to be such a polarizing one, quite like the UFC has. There's no doubt.

And you can make the case that there is no sporting organization that is as political right now as the UFC. right like the ice commercials and you know the appearances by dress it just it just doesn't happen i just you know what i mean like i i just feel like any if if baseball had the opportunity to do a game at the white house they would take it they wouldn't say like no that's too political for us but the problem is all of this stuff happened beforehand yeah it's you know like you can't just separate them and go like this is happening because of this like look at what's happening with the revival act like there's political it seems to be political favors happening here.

Yep. Like, you know, it's very, it's very, but is that sport washing? Well, here's my question. It's not sport washing, but it's part of the board that they've created with this relationship. It's Buya Bayes. Totally agree with pizza. You can't separate it to two, but you're also coming at it from the perspective of the organization, right?

If I am the MLB, if I'm the NFL, if I'm somebody else, I would say yes to that opportunity. Yeah. The point is not what they say yes. The point is, is the administration doing this in an effort to sports wash. The motivation is not from the league side, right? I agree with you that I think nearly every league would take that opportunity. But is the administration doing this in an effort to distract from other things, right?

It's couched in 250 celebration and all these other things that I think are reasonable, expected, and something we would have assumed would happen. But it is also happening at a time of turmoil. It is also happening at a time where there's a lot of. unrest in the country, and so this is an opportunity to kind of, hey, look, look at this great thing we're providing. And I think this is kind of like the definition of sports washing from a administration perspective, not necessarily from like, should UFC turn it down, should MLB turn it down, should NFL turn it down if offered the opportunity. I think they

would all probably say yes, but the administration is the one executing their strategy, not the other way around. Sportswashing is a very real thing. There's no doubt about it. And I do believe that there's like a little bit of like a reputational wash that happened as well. I don't know what the right answer is. There's an article in the Washington Post from December 31st, which talks about the marketing strategy of the current regime. The quote is, the spending would help President Donald Trump's mass deportation agenda dominate media networks and recruitment channels, including through ads targeting people who have attended UFC fights, listen to Patriotic podcasts, or shown an interest in guns. and tactical gear, according to a 30-page document distributed among officials this summer detailing ICE's surge hiring marketing strategy, quote-unquote.

So, you know, there's obviously something there. And if you want to say, I've seen some people say, like, the UFC fighting at the White House is disgusting. I don't feel that way. I don't feel that way. I don't feel like it's disgusting. What was that? I don't think it's disgusting.

If you despise the current regime, if you despise Donald Trump, you might feel like, hey, yeah, this is too close for comfort. But I'm probably thinking that you thought that a long time ago. And I've seen some people, you know, there are a lot of fans. And I know there's, you know, some media members, Luke Thomas probably being the most prominent one who are very open talking about this and certainly have like a, you know, I would say like a Democratic left POV who are very critical of this. And I think that it's all very healthy. to have these conversations. I think it's part of the job.

It's healthy. I'm not offended by the White House event. I did think that the Trump stuff was way too much in the campaign. Like, you want to do it once? Hey, he's sitting there. Fine. I get it. You have a history.

You have a relationship. The elaborate walkouts and all that. I still, to this day, can't believe ESPN was okay with it. Still to this day. And, you know, I made my feelings, you know, known on election. day. But still, I think that there are certain things that should be kept separate.

And it was just a lot. It was a lot. So very interesting. As far as the second question, but one more thing on the, I just want to say one more thing on the first, which is the question kind of presupposed that like nobody's really talking about this. You just highlighted the fact that like Luke Thomas as one example, there are people talking about this. But we've talked about it too. It would be an unrealistic expectation for it to be the focus of every single conversation. but I don't think it has gone unsaid. I don't think there's anybody, and we are now, in fact, talking about it right here.

So I don't think it has gone unsaid. I don't think it will be this non-issue. I don't think anybody will just, everybody stays quiet on it. But I also think it will be unrealistic for every conversation to have that caveat or to lead with that part of the conversation.

So I don't know. I think we've talked about it a bunch in many different shapes and form. It's also happening in every sport in the world right now. That's true. It's happening all over the place. and you're talking about Formula One and boxing obviously in combat sports

soccer like they're buying World Cups you know like that's what's what's happening here and I know the next one's in the US Saudi Arabia's having one guitar has had one like this is this is not a combat sports issue I think the barrier for entry is a lot lower in combat sports

and you know we've seen Katteroff and things like that I think what makes it unique PT is that we've never quite seen this happen in the US you know what I mean? I will say like from an outside of the US perspective this was always sports watching

I just don't think people were aware of it you know because it was so new I don't think people were aware of it was the US yeah maybe maybe because the radar wasn't up speaking of the White House event there is a tweet here from one Connor McGregor saying fun times

Dana White and UFC he's talking about the the Floyd Connor buildup that world tour that they went on. Floyd Mayweather, when you are ready for that promised MMA bout, I am here. The White House is nice in the summer I heard. Just kidding, Mike, although I could fight both on the same night. Floyd MMA, easy, 10 seconds. And a lot of people are speaking about this. Greater chance of Connor fighting Floyd rather than Connor fighting Mike, do you guys think that happened? No, Connor fighting Mike, much more like. I do feel, I do wonder like when the story is

told how involved the White House will be in the making of this card. Like, there's Donald Trump I could see him being like yeah, I like that. I feel like they're going to be somewhat involved. We saw John Anick come out and I forget the outlet, forgive me in an interview. I think it was the Jackson podcast. Oh, okay, there you go. Shout out Rampage.

He wasn't on that one. Oh, he wasn't? No. Who was on it? Just the bear guy? It was the bear guy and Michael Bisping and Anick. Okay. Shout out to that triumvirate. But John Anick saying, six or seven title fights I can't imagine that the UFC was dying to

wow look at Pizzi hip I can't imagine that the UFC was dying to do that because that would probably realistically kill the second half of their schedule and you have to imagine that there's some there's some requests being made at a White House level

for this to be spectacular if you're if the White House makes the offer I imagine that they're going to have some say Is this a jump to shack moment I'm opening that? Why are you got to put me on my? This is what the people want, right? Okay.

Pop one more button. Let's see what's really going on. We're going to see you without the button anyway. Pop, pop one more. This is after a few Reddicks or whatever to go. Can I get a Rickards? You know what I should have done? Where's that, where's that Fon Carver?

Where's that Foncarbara at? I should have done like one of these. No, it doesn't quite work when it's, like, you know, when it, like, comes down both. Does anyone know what a tie a? Don't you need a real bow tie? Yeah, that's what I mean. It doesn't work with, yeah. Does anyone know how to Taiwan?

Nope. No. That's a pull-up the YouTube. That's a pull-up the YouTube. Was that me? When you're doing it. Okay. You're in an Oban-Elli-Mode mode right now. I don't want this gentleman to think that I was skipping the first question,

and it is about Barry Weiss, spiking. I have no idea about this. I don't know what this is. Barry Weiss used to work for the New York Times, I do believe. Then she left. I think she was a high-ranking over there, maybe editor, editor-in-chief,

and started something called the free press, which gained a lot of popularity. And then she was hired late. Well, actually, she wasn't hired. The new Paramount Plus regime, the Ellison family, which we've heard a lot about. I believe they bought the free press and brought her over as the executive editor of sorts of CBS News. I feel like Jordan knows a lot about this. Did I get all this right, Jordan, or did I miss this up? Yeah, no, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, free press, now CBS News.

Yeah, you nailed it. But did she, they bought it, right? They bought her, I think they... I believe so they bought her website, whatever, and then, yes, they installed her as editor-in-chief of CBS News, much to apparently the chigrin of people at CBS News. Okay, and there was a story that was going to air on 60 minutes, obviously, you know, the pillar of news journalism, I would say,

broadcast news, been around forever here in the United States. actually it was about Venezuela right it was about it was about immigrants being put in detention centers yes including Venezuelans

and Venezuela and then at the 11th hour the story did not air her statement I'm paraphrasing all this her statement was like she felt like there were still some reporting holes

that needed to be filled but in a crazy twist it aired in Canada they didn't pull the plug on there some way somehow and then that got posted online and everything spread and and the insinuation was given her politics she is right wing and given her relationship with the white house she pulled it because it made them look unfavorable would that be a fair way of describing all of this yeah i think that pretty much sums it up she said there were holes in the reporting that

they didn't feel like we're correct and then you know and the correspondent Sharon alfonzi said Which is pretty rare for 60 Minutes correspondents to speak on decisions. And I think the previous editor-in-chief of 60 Minutes had resigned because she didn't like or he didn't like how Barry Weiss was getting involved in their editorial decisions, which had really not happened before for 60 minutes. Yes. And I think the correspondent sent an email to the crew or to the team, and that email got published. I don't know if she posted it on her own.

Nevertheless, yeah, it was a huge deal. and there's been some decisions that have been scrutinized since she came over because she's never really been in this position per se like a broadcast executive editor. Look, I'll be a thousand percent honest with you guys. I am a fan of Barrywise. I'm very much a one issue kind of guy. You know how I feel about the Middle East. You know I feel about the state of Israel.

You know how I feel about its right to defend itself. And obviously, it's right to exist. And I think that when she was working at the free press, she was one of the very few media members who was actually telling the truth about what was going on over there. And so I appreciated that. As far as her coming over to the CBS Paramount world,

you know, we're starting to see that it's not that easy. It's not that easy. There are a lot of, you know, there are a lot of different barriers that you have to, you know, consider, that you have to overcome. There are a lot of different opinions. and ultimately you have to do what's best for the entity.

CBS News, to me, is the most, even though it may not be what it once was, that is the home of Walter Cronkite. Walter Cronkite was the anchor of the CBS News. And I've talked about Walter Cronkite. Walter Cronkite, to me, is the most trusted news anchor of all time. He was dubbed the most trusted man in America at one time.

He was known as Uncle Walter. When he said it, when he reported, that John F. Kennedy was shot, the world believed it. And it was a time where there was no, obviously, internet, social media, any of those things, right? I mean, it was like the embryonic stages of TV and media back then. And so there's a tremendous legacy and reputation to uphold, and there are people right now who don't believe and don't feel like she is upholding that. It would be reckless of me to, like, go too deep into all of that

because, honestly, I don't follow it that closely. I'm obviously aware of the stories and I like this type of stuff. I will say, as I just said before, like, I'm very passionate about, you know, the Middle East and the state of Israel and all that. And I'm passionate about what I believe is to be misreporting regarding that and very biased reporting. But I will also say more so than anything is the fact that I do believe that media should be unbiased. And so if it is in fact true that a country, Israel, any country did something wrong, yes, that should be reported. and there should be no bias and the fact should be reported. If there is a story that is not up to snuff, then it should not come to light.

Who the hell am I to say if a story was fully reported vetted because I wasn't there in the trenches? But if it is in fact true that there is bias seeping into her decision making, yeah, that's a big problem. That's a huge, huge problem. There should be no bias. There should be no emotional attachment. There should be no relationship attachment to anything. You should be there to report on the news, report on the truth, and you should be there to report on, you know, the facts to the people without any bias.

And it drives me crazy that, like, I couldn't go on ESPN back in the day and say, like, I hope Connor McGregor beats Chabuddinermag Madov. I would get called out if I said that. But yet, you go on news, whether it's, you know, political news, cable news, podcast news and you see bias all the time and no one has a problem with it. In fact, people accept it. I don't understand why news, which is way more important than sports news, why does news get treated differently than sports news? I know there's opinion shows in sports, but if someone was watching Sports Center and, you know, an anchor, sports center, a cable news program

on a cable news network and the anchor said, yeah, the bills are playing the Jets and I hope that the Jets lose this game because they suck and they don't deserve to win and I hope the bills smash them above blah blah we see the equivalent of that on cable news networks every single day and and if someone said that on ESPN they'd be lambasted for it I'm not talking about a pundon I'm talking about the anchor and yet you see it in in political news I don't understand that I don't understand why you can't go like do you guys feel like there is one outlet that gives it to you straight no bias they don't I don't I think the New York Times is biased I think the Washington Post is biased.

I think Fox is biased. I think CBS is biased. I think they're all biased in some way, shape, or form. You can tell me right now, we can play the game. They're left, they're right, they're left. Who's down the middle? Who's down the middle? I don't know.

It is very hard to find, to the point you're making, it did feel like in a previous era, in a previous time, there was different, but I imagine that that was just there were more stringent standards in terms of making sure not to cross those lines. and now, you know, everything goes. Everybody's just allowed to say whatever they want.

This gentleman is right, though. I love this stuff. I love journalism, and I don't, I don't understand people like we've joked. Frank and I have joked about like Megan Kelly and all this stuff. She's biased too. They're all biased, and I don't like that. I don't want echo chambers. Give it to me straight without bias.

Stop. I don't think you're in the majority, though. I don't get it. want the echo chamber. Why? I don't get that. Because it supports their own belief system and they and they want to feel that. It's so dangerous. It's so unhealthy. It's nothing in Ireland that was nope. It's, you know what I mean? It's crazy. People don't want to hear other people telling them they're wrong. Give me the news. Yeah, but if the news says you're wrong, then you have to confront that. Notting on Forest. Yeah. Oh wait. We scored? Yeah. Oh yeah. Thank you. Most

importantly. Thank God. Can we win this damn game? By the way, just on the specific piece. Yeah. which I've seen like I feel like the cover up was worse than the crime if I'm being honest like it was they should have just aired it it was a harrowing piece

and like it revealed some atrocities that were happening but like I don't think people are unaware of most of those like I think it was you know pretty like pretty well reported already some of these things that were happening

and the cover up ended up magnifying it in a way that well I guess the I guess the thinking was or maybe the accusation is she didn't want to air it because it would make them look bad yeah and in the end

the cover up made it look significantly worse, yeah. Fascinating. I saw the new anchor of the CBS News, evening news, come out and say, like, there's not going to be any buys here and everyone was going crazy over that. It could do your head in. It could really do your head in.

If someone out there knows of a down the middle unbiased, they tell you like it is as it's supposed to be. If you know of that outlet or show, please let me know. I can't wait for everybody to see their, well, yeah, there you go. Well, no, I mean in politics. Yes. Oh, sorry. You know what?

Not even in politics. In the world. Like, because I, sometimes I feel like humanity is in politics. Not everything is politics. In the world, can you just give it to me straight? On a brighter note, Nemesh. And thank you for the thoughtful question. I do appreciate it.

And I don't know. Maybe you didn't like my answer. I'm just trying to be as real with it. Like, I look at every single person is biased. Every single one. I could call them all out. All this, I know every single one of them. You're all fucking biased.

You don't tell it. No, you don't tell it like it is. I'm sorry for swearing. I'm sorry for swearing. I mean you see you see you see it all the time tell it like it is just be honest I was gonna go on a tangent there but we've said enough um Olympics right around the corner what is the most underrated sport what is everyone's favorite sport to watch well nothing beats the hockey would you say curling basketball I don't know if you're

joking about the curling but the curling is curling okay the curling the curling is tremendous no I think they're talking about winter here yeah curling's a winter Olympic sport yeah no no I said basketball Curling the bobsledding The bobsled's pretty sick By the way You know what I learned? It's actually not bobsled, it's Bob Slay Hmm

Damn What are the sport is called Bob Slay? Bob Slay By the way, what about Skeleton? Have you seen Skeleton? Skeleton, those people are out of their mind

They're out of their mind With no cover on it? They're out of their mind The snowboarding is sick The half pipe I like the half pipe Yeah, all the snowboarding and skiing is sick

But are we Are you skating? I'm down four, throw it on. Any Olympic sport I'm in on. Are we more summer or winter though? Summer, I'm summer. Listen, in Canada, it was huge. The Winter Olympics was gigantic.

I think these Winter Olympics, the big prediction is they're going to enjoy a revival. The last one was a complete bust in Beijing and even the prior one in Pionchang was a bust. So the Winter Olympics went down, but I think Paris did great, and I think that now the world is back to normal and I think the hockey is going to be

phenomenal. The four nations last year, was the perfect table setter. The U.S. and Canada, I don't know if you've seen some of the ads on NBC. It's been great. John Hamm involved. I think there's a lot of countries vying. Canada's trying to win a gold medal for the first time since 2010.

And also, it's the first time, by the way, since 2014, that the NHLers are back. The last two, they were not there. So I think hockey's going to be great. You know, we're all pulling for Utah, you know, to win in the speed skating. Of course, we're talking about Jake Paul's fiancé Pride of the Netherlands. Sometimes it's hard when I make the jokes. I don't see you guys.

I don't know if we're landing. We were like cheering. Okay, yeah. I didn't understand. Does Ireland have one Winter Olympic athlete? Like, is there going to be one? Let's see, Ireland. Did you say you?

I said it'll be news to me. Oh, I thought you were putting your name in the hat. Yeah, they have one alpine skier. Hell yeah. Two cross-country skiers. yeah two alpine skiers are they training not in

Ireland what about Ireland winter Olympics medals history do you how many uh 2022 zero medals but six total Olympian no medals huh

2018 05 stuff closest call came in 2002 in Clifton how many boxing medals who can't have Lennox Lewis heard of him Oh, the English guy?

Yeah. Wanted for Canada in 1988 and look it up. Finish fourth in Skelton. Hey, by the way, finish fourth in Skelton. 2002. Did you know that Ireland's first appearance in the Winter Games was 1922? No, I don't know anything about the Winter Olympics and Ireland's participation in Ari. I don't know anything about it.

Why are you getting so? I just want to watch the Coraline, Ari. Do we have any Coralding athletes? Seamus O'Connor competed in snowboarding, becoming the first Irish athlete to appear in three Winter Olympics in 2014, 2018, 2012. What about Tamsin McGarry?

That's Ireland's first female Winter Olympian competing in alpine skiing in 2002 and, of course, the aforementioned Clifton. What do you think? Will you watch it? Is it even on TV there? Is it televised? We don't have television here yet. The Olympic Federation of Ireland's logo is pretty great. It's a nice clover with the Olympic ring.

We tend to go with it. Yeah, man. I never get to. tired of the clover, man. Throw that clover on anything. Give me a killion. I'm there. Stevie B asks, I've started to keep a journal as a New Year's resolution. Have any of you ever done such a thing? TSD definitely has. Hell yeah. I feel like G.C. had a journal back in the day. I have one right now. Oh, wow. I started one last year called Line a Day, and each page is slotted for five years. I went 365 at 365 last year, so now I've restarted it. So then I fill it in now, and above it is a blur. from what I was doing this time last year. Okay.

The discount as a journal, like, because I sit here and I doodle as we're doing the show every day. Really? Are you that bored? Well, you know, I think of things that I should come back to, you know, like here it says...

I respect that. Yeah, I can't really read my own writing if I'm being completely honest. How far back does it go? I don't have... I don't date it. It's just a premium consciousness. Oh, the date's kidding on.

This one says, Dana, Cowboy Stadium. What? Cowboy saying that goes back. Wow. Hope you just to write it down and not be able to read it again? Not for nothing. There's a massive story out there now about them owing 370 million to a whole generation

of fighters. That's another note I've got here. 30 million for the kitchen. I've heard of this. By the way, did you actually write Not for Nothing? Yeah, it is. I was thinking that after I said it. Like, what were working?

Like, usually you say that in the midst of a conversation when you're going back and forth. Questions? This is like what they find in like a serial killer's house when they bring them in. But, oh, look at these musings that he's got here. Can I give you a regret? I always told myself throughout my time on the road like, oh, I should keep like an audio journal to at least remember these things and I never did it. Oh, that would have been good. Yeah.

Start now, you know. Yeah, never too late. Wait, we're not going to talk to. G.C. the only one who actually had a journal? I'd like to know more about the journal. Okay, go ahead. Are you finding the value in it? Yeah, I actually really like it a lot. I really like being able to... This one that you do every day, it's nice being able to flip back and see what happened on that day.

Yeah. That is pretty cool. Nice way to remember your life. Dan Hurley, the coach of Yukon, is a daily journaler. It's nice to put the thoughts out of paper. So one sentence, G. Is that like, did you try and... It's like a paragraph. It's like a short paragraph. Today I did this or whatever.

want to do this. Yep. Oh, no, today, it's just a recap. I do it right before I go to bed. Today, Petez he was asking how to journal. Yeah, I need some voice, man. This shit I got here is terrible. Not for nothing.

My name is Petez. Speaking of Frank, Dorset, Steve says, Hey, gang, could we get mysterious Frank to make some drops of some of Chilpe's most famous mispronunciations? Yeah, man. Send them on over. Oh, all right. That's going to be great.

Can't wait. Steve E.B. says, happy New Year all. Remember when Rick. predicted Hamza to be the breakout fighter of the year for 2025,

are the instructions clear for him this time around or can he justify his past strange pick? We'll talk about it tomorrow.

Tomorrow. Find out tomorrow. But yes, just as a teaser for the conversation, reminder that last year the instructions were clear to me and only me

where it said no prospects, just for the record. Just, you know, let's cement that. The original message that described how you were supposed

to pick your breakout fighter said explicitly no prospects. So, just to be clear. Frutie Loaf says, hey, did you idiots purposely mute the audio during the Risen Convo? If you censor killer, Carol, again, we riot. Happy New Year. Saw a couple of comments about this. Did something happen? I don't know.

Yeah, we lost audio for 25 seconds yesterday on the stream. Yep, well, there you have it. It's a conspiracy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. G.C.'s dirty apartment says, Hi, Ariel, you've described yourself as a journalist with the capital J,

so I'm curious about your perspective on how we define journalism today. What are your thoughts on figures like Nick Shirley, a 23-year-old independent creator whose reporting supporters say he has helped expose billions of dollars in alleged fraud involving taxpayer funds even within a single state.

I believe that's Minnesota, right? Many argue his work, or, yeah, His work has significantly shifted public perception about the scale of fraud that can exist at the state level. By the way, for the record, I don't think I've ever called myself a journalist with a capital J, but sure, I've called myself a journalist from the best school in America. At the same time, critics, many of whom are self-proclaimed journalists with a capital J have focused less on verifying or challenging the substance of his findings and more on scrutinizing, surely himself, his background, credentials, platform. How do you interpret that dynamic and what does it suggest about journalism, about how journalism is about how journalism is about today? this was a story of video

investigative or investigative video that came out on X, I believe. I think it originated on X, right, Frank? Damn right. Don't pretend like you don't know. I love how you stay out of these conversations and you know more about them than all of us.

Says who? Anyway, and he exposed all this stuff and I didn't happen to see this. Are people now coming after him? Is that what that? I guess people who are probably being exposed or the target of his expose are now coming after him. Is that what's happening? Ain't that what journalism is? Yeah, that's a good point, Jamal. I don't know. I haven't

looked too deep into that. That was happening during the break, and I was actually trying to do a good job of staying offline as best as possible. I think I did a pretty good job. Anyway, here's Ethan. Non-Nicks fan, skip ahead. I need a man's take on this. We had a tough week. Did we ever, Ethan? Three losses in a row, games that we should have won. We've actually lost four in a row, so you probably wrote this before yesterday's debacle against the freaking Pistons.

My God, this guy probably wrote it before the Pistons game, and that was the worst loss of them all. Lost by 31 to the freaking Pistons. That's Sad Sack franchise from that Sad Sack City. I look to try to-cham. What's missing?

I see a lot of people pointing to Josh and Mitch being out, true. Do you think there's a deeper issue? Yeah, Hart. Where the fuck is the heart? Sorry. Damn it. Where's the heart? Where's the heart? Where's the pride? Where's the defense? Where's the toughness? Where's the aggression? A lot of people are pointing to the Vegas hangover that the last two

NBA Cup winners. I have my NBA Cup shirt here, by the way. And by the way, if it is in fact true that there is a hangover, it was well worth it for that moment of glory. He says it's still a year, baby. Larry O. B. is coming to the Mecca. Look, the Thunder lost by 20. to the Charlotte Hornets yesterday. So everyone can chill out. And I see my Guy Simmons touting the fact that the Celtics are now a game up on the

on the Knicks. Big deal, all right? We'll see you in May. Dalin Brown being the MVP. Yeah, whatever. We'll see you in May, bro. Jeremy, how's your relationship with Hamza? For the record, I would love to have Janus.

I don't believe in, like, Stan Pat. Like, if it's available, it's available. But I think the team good. We've had some injuries. Landry Shammit is coming back. Mitch has been out. Josh has been out. I believe in Mike Brown. Yeah, we'll be all right. How's your relationship with Humzut? It's fine. Was there a specific fallout or just no contact? No specific fallout. He doesn't do a lot of interviews and it's hard to get him live. You'll recall one time we had him outside of like a kebab restaurant. But that wasn't live. I think that was one of the most

recent times you had him, yeah. But it wasn't live. Like, it's hard to get him live. Yeah. Not a great interview. I'm going to be honest. Yeah. Link one says,

AH, love, love, love the behind the scenes video. Thank you. And learning stories behind all of your collectibles. Do you think in the future you can do a different style behind the scenes where you show what Andy and Jordan do, the prep for when live guests await their interview or how about the cafeteria and other fun things like that? Thanks for all the content. You're in my year every day at the gym and on my walks.

So I appreciate that. I actually thought for a moment when we were doing that, like, oh, let's do the whole thing. But then we decided that would be too much. So yes, I would love to do that. Do you guys think that that would be interesting? No. I think it would be. And then we could do one, a day in the life of Pizzi.

Oh, that's, I can't wait to see that. Oh, so this, okay, so the series is a day in the life of each individual? No. But I mean, like a day in the life of you guys back there. What's the control room like? I think people would be into it. Yeah. You'd need danger money, like, to whatever videographer follows me on the dog walk.

I don't think there's enough story to tell. It'd be like six minutes back here and they can draw them. Yeah. Here's my seat. Here's Rick. Here we are. Now we're going to do these jobs. We could count all the monitors.

And the way he's let Andy talk, like, you know, two to five to two. Oh, yeah. That's the best. Is that your impression of Andy? By the way, my kids love that. My kids love that. My kids love that. They still are not sure what Jordan does.

They still think that he does the least. Who's to check? He presses the buttons. As Andy is saying, the numbers, he's like this. So Pizzi was here sometime last year, and he turns to me. And he's like, I don't mean to ask a stupid question, but what is it that Andy is saying? And more importantly, like, who is she talking to?

Who is she talking to? She's calling her own shots. Well, explain it to people. Explain it to people. So I'm calling the shots so that if Jordan needs to fly something, he knows what he's able to display on the screen. What's fly? What do you mean by fly? People don't know these terms.

Let's do a quick sample. Do it, do it. Okay, this is great. I love this. This is my favorite thing. So this is flying a bar. So let's fly a bar. Oh, there you go.

So if we are, keep it up, if we're on a four box, we can't do that. So if I'm saying, you know, take one, he knows that he can fly the bar. So that's pretty much, it's communication. Peezy, I'm not talking to myself, bro. And just do the thing that you do. Just do the numbers thing. Go on. What?

What? Pete, see where I'm calling you. Camera one, camera two, take camera two, camera three. And we're going back to two, two, two, two, one, two, five, two. To myself, to myself. Okay, so then the question is, I love that. Why to yourself? Why do you have to say to yourself?

No, he thought that I was speaking to myself. Oh. Oh, got it. Okay, okay, okay. What she means is Frank and I don't listen, so we just do. That is actually true, so I do talk to myself, I guess. She's director and technical director, but usually, like, a director would be telling the technical director ready this, take this.

But she's telling herself, but we listen in to know where she's going next in case there's something important for us to do. I'm queuing videos so that Frank knows to track them or not and stuff like that. How do you try to bring up the sound? So when all the mics are on there, how are you doing it? Sometimes I don't, honestly, because then you can hear me.

Yeah. And I'm loud. So it just doesn't, yeah, it's not it. It's a breast starts whispering it. Or I whisper it, yeah. Which makes it sound even crazier to someone like Pizzi, who's like, okay, you know me. Now she just went from talking a lot to whispering to herself.

I love it. You see, people like this stuff. We should do a behind the scene. We don't know that. This is it. This is the one. Someone in the chat says, G.C.'s day in the life is just him pooping.

Can't wait. Can't wait. You know what? Now that I think about it, maybe each person gets their own day in the life. That's what I said. That could actually be compelling. I actually think you're kind of boring.

Don't come to my house. I just sit on the couch. No. No, the Jordan Day in the Life would be great. My day in the life. text with Andy and Frank in the front page? Wouldn't be my day in the life. I love all these production ideas though. Keep it coming. Mine is just in the gaff. So I mean, it's going to... No, we're going to set it up, pizza. You know how like when they fake it, where they fake the

events that are happening? We're going to have you with somebody with their phone playing really loud and just see what happens. You're walking down the street. I do see a lot of people on a daily basis though. So I mean, yeah, could be interesting. We had Psy on air and then we dismissed him to move on to interviews. And then he sends me a text of what his dog took. shit right out of frame he's like oh look what I just had to walk into my bro we're on here okay to see reggie's poop

okay just a couple more Brett from Nebraska GC blind rank these five college quarterbacks Jake from uh four Brady Quinn three Tommy Frazier

do you know Tommy Frazier throwback Nebraska oh yeah hell yeah two Antoine Randall L wow turned wide receiver were with the Steelers, five. Tua, Tung of Ayalao? Is that?

That's one. Really? Is he? Holy shit. Y'all don't know college ball, man. Bro. Y'all do not know college ball. Tua was not number one on that list.

Okay, now real rank them, he's not number one. Tommy Frasier was better than Tua. Didn't he win the Hizman? Tew was pretty nasty in college, man. In college? Pretty nasty in college. Also, Jake Fromm was a mediocre quarterback for Georgia. Am I crazy?

Wasn't Tua the only, like, number one option there? Like there couldn't have been Always has pretty good quarterbacks It was him and no no I'm saying like on that list Two is the obvious one No I think Jail and her I think two is a one there

Yeah He also says shout out to Eric Decker Wow shout out to Eric Decker Great looking cat Shut up Brett Mean Tangerine Hey Ariel and gang I'm flying to New York City

To audition for Juilliard's MFA drama program And during my stay I wanted to know Where I can find The Best Pint of Guinness In New York City Does anyone know

Pizzi. Pizzi took us around, man. You know, you brought me there, so I mean, you can say, G.C. This is your ownership of this. What ownership of what? It was your video. Where did they have the record together? Dead rabbit.

It's the best. It's the best place. And Irish people love it. Wait, what is it called? Dead rabbit. Yeah, Dead rabbits. Where is that? Fida.

Fida. There it is. Oh, we've been there together. $2.000 for the kitchen scrap. You were there? I've been there. I've been there. Everything.

It was next to the old MMAR. Yeah, when did you go? Bro, I've been there. I will say that for... What the craziest thing is? The Russian translator for the UFC used to work there. Weird. Yeah.

Anyway, there's your answer. Pecan pie up in this. Hey, Ariel, question for everyone with the current batch of champions, who is the best chance of moving up in their respective weight class and claiming double gold? I feel like Hamzad and Poetan are the obvious ones, but could you see anyone else? What?

Slander and Tom Aspel's name? Shemoyev. No, I'm just Shemayev I mean Poetan Depending on You know like There could be a world

You know The surgeries and everything Do they do Alex versus Surreal I don't know Valentina No We've seen 35 from Valentina She almost beat Amanda Nunes

She ain't beaten Kayla Harrison Yeah well What if Kayla retires I'm down for it though Why not Yeah But I think those are the ones right I think it's Alex

It's heavyweight MMA at that point And he's got A nuke like anything can happen there Persian apothecary I always have trouble with that one Apothecary Hello I miss you so much

It's my weekly ritual to listen to you all So curious what you think of Sean O'Malley's comments About this potentially being his last year fighting What do you guys think? Do you think this is it for Sean O'Malley Sean O'Malley said on his YouTube channel This could be it I feel like he's still so young

How old is Sean O'Malley? He's got to be I guess it's 31 I was just going to say that 31 31 October Happy birthday I don't

No he's not going anywhere No chance Big deal By the way Yon winning Has kind of like Rejuvenated his career If he beats song

Then he might get a title shot Yes So No And You know I see Matt Mohey You're saying

I could see in boxing He's great at MMA He's got a solid Jiu-Jitsu game No I don't He strikes me though As one of those guys

Who has Smartly Invested outside of The cage Has a life that he has built that is outside of the cage, I could understand if his motivation is starting to wane, and he's going like, look, I've already built

this thing that I love that I can just return to at any point. How much longer do I need to even want to do this? I totally get that. I imagine that Shona Malley's motivation has gone down, but there's still so many big money fights that he could take. It's too easy for him right now to take those. I agree.

Did we score? Do we score? Oh! Yes! They just scored right now. Gibbs white penalty Wow It's a huge result Massive

Oh my god We needed that guys Were you watching Frankie Who was watching Golly Oh my god We needed that Let me look at the table real quick

17 We're still 17 But 7 points Oh how are we still But by the way You got 21 22 23 27 Like hey Brennan We're not that far away

From 14 All right wow And look at Look, in fairness to Jordan, Spores only two wins off Champions League. It's a really interesting league this year. But by the way, there's still five minutes left here. There's still five minutes left. They're at the 92nd minute plus seven, Gibbs White.

Was it, was it a warranted pen, though? Was it a warranted pen? You know what, who cares? All gold star. Okay, that would be huge. Yeah, come on for us. Adi tried to say that way. They're going to catch Leeds.

You're going to catch Bourne with as soon as the menu goes. Yeah, that's true. That's true. It'll be all right. Ditch ball, baby. all right Helwini says early in the second round

of the Harvey Servantes fight on the Joshua card you can be heard in the background saying something like nice to meet you let's take a photo

who was it no idea if you could recall that it would be supernatural you know what's actually minute mark of this card but by the way

you know it's actually like the fact that you could hear me is kind of scary what if I would have said something but what if you were right behind commentary

and it was just their mic making you up. What if I'm saying? Do you know the worst of this? The zone? I hear some of the shit going on. Oh, yes. Yes.

But this is not good. This is not good that people can hear my conversations. What if I'm talking about? I don't know. God knows what over there. That's troublesome. Anyway, just a couple more here. Lukie Dubbs.

Good day, Ariel. Volk retires after his next fight. Will this be the most underwhelming retirement from one of the greatest fighters ever? Just from the standpoint, no one's really calling for this fight. It's a tough fight for him to pull off again. just feels like a missed opportunity, no. Volga has nothing to prove to anyone. If he wants to win,

if he, and I'm assuming you're saying he's going to win, if he wins and then retires in Sydney, it's incredible. If he loses and says, I'm done, then it's still incredible. Like he, the guy has nothing left to prove to anyone, so not underwhelming at all. And he gets to do it. By the way, I don't think he's going to retire at this point, and he's shown no signs of wanting to retire. So, I think that's something that people are just kind of, maybe I'm wrong, who knows, we'll see. But with a win, why would you? Fortunato Acosta, hey, I around crew,

I got this a couple times. What's the Happy New Year's cutoff for you guys? We're past that point, in my opinion. Do you guys? Absolutely. It's a Larry David rule, like two days? Can I say, like, okay, it's hard to say January 5th,

because the first day back at work for most people was yesterday, and so you want to be nice to people you see people a happy new year. It could trickle into today, by tomorrow it's done. Are we in agreement? I think it just all depends on when are you, if this is the first time you're seeing the person, I think until like the 10th or 11th is okay.

10th or 11? The first time you're seeing them though. How's your new year going at that point? I think you're going to get a happy new year. You know how many of these people that come into this office that haven't been here this weekend? We're going to see them on Monday, which will be the 12th.

How many happy New Year's we're going to get hit with? oh hey man happy new year and each one i'm gonna be like our our beautiful amazing front desk lady yeah she hasn't been in this she hasn't been here we're gonna see her next week and she's gonna be like Connor happy new year what do you want me to do oh fuck you're right no you're right no if you could get a video of ariel take an issue with this with someone I appreciate it though no no I've been willing to deal in the happy new year since we got back in the office listen everyone I said hey happy new year having no I didn't don't think I said it to I don't think I said it to I Anyone. Not one person.

That's it. You're a curmudgeon. Not even Elaine. Happy New Year and I was just like this. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Why is your phone so loud? Shut the fuck up.

Yeah. Your phone so loud. You're right? El Peruano. New York Rick, blind rank these guests from Ariel's extended network. The rare New York Rick blind rank. Okay. Let's do it.

Dalia. Wait, how many? How many? Oh, one, two, three, four, five. Okay. Dalia. Oh, geez. One.

Nobody's tough. Devon Dahlia. Mama knows. Oh, my mom. That's one. My poor mom. Never put one in force. My poor mom in attendance for the A.J. Jake Paul fight.

Oh, my God. I feel so bad. She has to be two, though, but I'm sorry. The two buddies, this is a great, this is a great pull. The two buddies, Ariel got high with at an Expos game back in the day. Five. Buddy boom, boom, buddies. Five.

That was a great one. Brad Wilker said, if he hits the Grand Slam, we're smoking. Five. He hit the Grand Slam. Walk off. Ariel's sister. Golly. Oh, I love my man.

I guess three? Tough. Wait, who's two again? My mom? Your mom? Oh, wow. And macha, the dog. All right, I feel good about this other than I'd swap your mom and your sister and then move the number one down.

But I feel all right about it. Can I just say one thing, one thing about the dog? You know, I've famously said I'm not a dog person. I haven't seen my dog in two weeks. Last night coming back from the show. I saw a matchup for the first time in about two weeks, almost two weeks, 10, 11 days. Like the cries, the yelps. Like, you know when you leave pizza, like, you leave your house and your dog is excited?

But I never quite realized, like, you leave for 11 days, they feel it. And she was going insane. And it was actually the greatest feeling of all time. You know what I mean? It was amazing. They are really the best. They are truly the best. I brought Reggie out to say hello to Frank today.

Did you see that, Frank? No, I didn't. Was that when you logged off? Weird. When you were like, oh, where's Reggie? I went down and got him and I put him in front of the screen for a good 15 seconds. I don't know.

No, I didn't care. It's never going to happen again. Yeah, I can see that. No, they are the best. And I get it now. I get it. Okay, last one. We've gone through a lot.

All right? So it was supersized in the end. And Forrestes won. So thank God for that. Huge win, huge win. I feel bad beating Nuno if I'm being honest, but we needed that one. We needed that one.

Zerrien Kambi What's your reverse New Year's resolution What have you guys been doing That you'll never do again That's a pretty good one I don't know It is a good one I'm trying not to cuss on the show

Does that count? No, because you're going to do that again Every episode Don't see that out I'm cutting out sugar Several times You're going to break on that too Don't do that way

By tomorrow Yeah I've done absolutely nothing something that I'm never going to do By the way, a lot of people have been saying I've noticed that that you're on the penjuman, Rick? I'm on the penjamin?

Yeah, definitely not. What is the pendulum? The Benjamin. Benjamin button? Yeah, definitely not. What is that? Like the fatty? Yeah, yeah.

My tolerance is I thought they were talking about the P and the P and the J? Jay and the Pee and the Pee and the Pee. Jay and the Pee in the C. Someone has said that you're a peen in the Pee. He kept saying it wrong. P and the J, yeah.

Yeah. Jay and the P. That was so good. I was cracking me out of the happen with that. I like how confused Sean was when they were talking about it. Sean who? Oh, Mulmally, that's right. The other person that was there.

We're working through it. Oh, do we have the picture of the thing? We got the picture of the Ghi? That ain't know. This is from. Connor. Wait, wait. Gaychi writes, did you screenshot me eating brisket from my YouTube video to make it look like I have herpes on my lip? My neck is healing from an ingrown hair. Eating brisket during camp two weeks out? It's a bit of a fatty meal.

Well, what if it was not from the camp? He's saying it's an old video. Oh, old video. He pulled that ingrown hair out and half his neck fell off. What are we talking about here? What do you think it is? I don't know what it is, but it does not look like it. It's an open wound for sure. I'll give him the brisket because I saw another picture of him and he doesn't have anything on his lip. Someone stopped him with a screw driver. Legit, it looks like Frankenstein got his screws taken out. Very quickly, congratulations to bare-knuckle fighting championship.

They're now in a content promotional and sales partnership with the Yes Network. Yeah, I've been hearing about this one. Have you? Yeah, I got a friend who works at Yes Network. Wow. So what does it mean? What is Yes Network? I actually, it's a regional sports network here in the Northeast.

They are the Yankees games. This is going to be like re-airs, I think. Okay, by the way, by the way. Actually, I don't want to say that for official. This is just what he told me. I think it's going to be re-airs. I don't want to break any news here. Wait, wait, no, I know that, but you say, you say, regional.

It's the home of the Yankees. It's owned by the Yankees, and they air the Nets as well. Yeah. Is that what it's, Yankees Entertainment Systems? Is that what it's on? I said, it's regional, they air Yankees games. Nets as well, yeah. Is that my yes

stands for though? Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network There it is There it is Also I wanted to spotlight real quickly

The aforementioned Alex Perea who gifted his father A beautiful present Over the holiday break He showed this To the world On social media

He in the past Has gifted his parents I believe it's that house And here he is With the big reveal There's Alex's dad Are you ready What is it PT

Any guesses? Golf card Oh you saw it Damn it well there it is did he give wait wait what do ptzee want to say

what are you going to say what are you going to say piti go ahead say it so so when I was watching the video yeah I

so the golf cart was there and I was like oh he's going to bring out the real gift now oh wow I thought the gift was the house

maybe you should have got one to you and then they didn't bring I just want to be clear is what you're saying that Alex Pereira did a bad job a gift giving. He gave too bad a gift

to his own father. He should have given him a better gift than a golf card. Is that what you're saying? If I give you a golf car, you'd be like, where's the real gift, Frank? For instance, I'd take a golf cart down to Blanche and I put it outside me to my Dasgaff and I'm like, close your eyes that and he's like, what do you don't touch me? And I'm like, come on. And then he walks

out so there's a video car and he's, who the fuck is this? And I'm like, just close your eyes. And then he'd be like, what is happening? I was trying to section me I'll be like, no, just close your eyes and then he opens him and it's a golf cart he's like, what the fuck is this?

So you're saying your dad wouldn't appreciate it and you would never stoop so low as to give your dad a golf cart like champion, I just don't think you'd appreciate it. Look, I also have to say I watch Pereira's YouTube channel pretty regularly.

Last year I watched him give Glover to share a brand new 2025 Chevy By the way, Joe, his dad seemed to be like overcome. He was elated. I think it's a fantastic game. I think it's a fantastic game. I think you guys are very disrespectful.

The house is beautiful. It is beautiful. It is beautiful. Did he also give him the house? That's what I was. Yes, yes. I remember that. Hey, have this house and this golf cart. And the golf cart's a cherry on top. Pizzee's over here like, fuck the golf. I'd love to see him when he gave him the gaff. I mean, you imagine your reaction to that? If you get...

I remember him posting, but it wasn't a video. I remember it being like a picture. Frank, any super chats? Yes. And it starts off with What did Cary and Cross end up doing? Oh, he ended up going on the Indies, him and his wife, Scarlett.

They seem to be doing well. He seems to be happy. I've talked to him a couple times. Nothing with AEW. Obviously not back with WW. He still don't really understand what happened there, but he seems to be well and thriving and happy. He got the movie thing going.

So wish him the best. And hope he's happy and at peace with how everything turned out. Frankie, what else? Is one championship dead? Is one championship dead? No, it's not dead. They have been focusing a lot more on Muay Thai.

I think they've made a concerted effort to focus more on that, but they're not dead. No, they're not. They had an event very recently, and they have more. But yeah, they're not the player as far as MMA is concerned that they were a few years ago.

That's for certain. What else, Frankie? What else? There's a new place being created by Johnny Harris called Free Press. maybe you should check it out. It's supposed to be all about the people changing

these bias stories in the world. Wait, isn't the free press Barry Weiss's thing? That is what Jordan said. Yeah. No, it is. I know. It's called the free press.

All right. So, wait, what's the guy's name? Jerry. Or Johnny Harris. Johnny. Johnny. Johnny Harris, Free Press. Well, I see a YouTube channel.

He's a journalist, YouTuber. Independent journalist. Okay, I mean... Maybe one's a free press and the other ones the free press? I don't know.

Just I guess. I mean, I was talking about, I mean, yes, I would imagine there are some YouTube channels, YouTubers at doing this, but he doesn't put out

like his last video was two weeks ago. Incredible views, but then the previous one was two weeks ago and then three weeks ago and then a month ago and then two months ago.

So I'm talking about it like on a daily basis, but this stuff does seem to be really nice. So let us see. Good shout. check him out. What else, Frankie? Also, CNN is very objective. It does a damn good job on international affairs like the Middle

East. Christian Lumpur and Caitlin Collins are down the middle. I mean, there are some of them that are on there, but, excuse me, they are not. They are not objective. Come on. There is no one that could actually say this with a straight face. They are not. And by the way, Fox is not objective either. Fox News is not objective. MSNBC or whatever hell it's called now, MSNC? MSDNC?

MSDNC? MSDancy? DENC. No, it's a... Oh, joke. Yeah, it's true. CNN isn't... NPR?

Is NPR? I mean, I consider it. What about Reuters, Reuters? Roiders. Al Jazeera? What about PBS? News Hour? No.

I always thought Nova was kind of slanted. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, what else, Frankie? What else? More news outlets? No, no, no. Oh, okay.

Need behind the scenes for each person and the cafe. Yeah, I'm going to need you to change that avatar, bro. Enough of that thing already. No, I'm kidding. That would be cool. The cafe is good. My favorite time of the day. My favorite time of the day used to be post-show when we'd go up to the cafe.

Now it's pre-show. P.T., I've been bringing in my own lunch these days. It's been really nice. Talking to people? Talking to people? Talking to people, interacting. A little. How are we feeling?

How we doing? How we doing? How we doing? How we feel it? How we feel it? How we feel it? I've tried to take the temperature. Take the temperature.

I'm just one of the guys. I'm one of the guys. Do you want to sit at this table? You always suggest we move table. I'm going to find one leg at a time like everyone else. Okay, fine. You know what? I'll go back to eating alone.

What else, Frankie? What else? Wow. Rumors, this is the last, by the way. Rumors of Yerie and Oberg from vacant light heavyweight title. This has always been the talk if he moved up. They are the two most deserving. No doubt about that.

I believe I did see Yeri posting a video just like 30 minutes ago. dispelling this no contracts yeah there was some talk that Alex was going to fight Elberg on that January 24th card and when I say talks I mean like tweets online but then we dispelled it so you know take all of this with a grain of salt and to tie up everything that we talked about today consider your outlets and consider who you're getting your news from some create an account they spew news some aggregate news and some have trophies a la this one in which they

present oops please from the base it really is my nose by the way like look at that no I just you know what man oh yeah from the base wait whoa is there two of you on camera

right now it really is my actual nose get the headphones on your nose just so you can see you know what no no no a little big gentlemen it's been a great day

But it's time to say goodbye. Time to say goodbye. I'm buzzing. Psy, I'm buzzing after this win. That's a huge win, man. I mean, it's been a tough time. You know, Nick's getting whoop. A little bit nervous about the bills.

Not worried about the bills. Why is the music so loud, Frank? I'm not one bit nervous. Yeah. Now it's really low. You're not nervous at all? Not even a little bit. Sunday at 1.

GC scared the shit out of me yesterday, though, a little bit. Yeah. But he's like a closet anti-bill, you know? We all a few quid down on this. Yeah. Yeah. We got like 150 on the bills to win the Super Bowl. Come on.

Get in. Also bet on them in 2022. I know. Von Miller jersey. Who could forget? Got out. Legendary. I'm going to get Josh.

The anti-bill, I own a pair of Zubaz pants. I wish we could have gone to a game this season. I was trying at the beginning of the year. It wasn't getting much. Yeah, because I'm very sure. You chose a Thursday night. Yeah, I said we were going to do it. We were going to do it from Highmark.

Yeah, we got to go to the news stadium. For sure. Oh, my God, it looks amazing. Anyway, gents, tomorrow on the program, prediction show. This is a fun one. This is a fun one. Because we'll look back at our picks from last year, and then, of course, we'll look ahead to 2026.

And now we could officially put 2025 to bed. We gave you our MMA picks, our boxing picks. And over on uncrown.com, you can get MMA boxing. and wrestling picks over there doing a tremendous job. So go check that out. Thank you very much to the great Ade Oladipo for sticking with me, giving out his picks. That was a very, very fun time.

I miss him and love him, and he does a tremendous job. Thanks to all of you for the questions. Thanks to all of them. Thanks to all of us. Back tomorrow. Same time, please, I'm out here.