The Ariel Helwani Show - Tom Aspinall x Ciryl Gane Presser Reaction, UFC Paris, Tyson x Mayweather?! | The Craic

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

The Craic is back from its summer hiatus. Petesy Carroll is joined by Craic regular Ben Fowlkes, and they kick things off by reacting to the Tom Aspinall vs. Ciryl Gane press conference (5:08).Next, the guys unpack the fallout from Rampage Jackson’s interview with Ariel earlier this week, and Petesy and Ben weigh in on the former UFC star’s comments (28:02).The boys then talk the recent update on the potential White House UFC card, and touch on Kayla Harrison’s visit to meet the President (40:00).After that, the boys react to The Smashing Machine debuting at the Venice Film Festival and receiving a 15-minute standing ovation (46:40).To close the show, the duo react to the surprising rumors of a Mike Tyson vs. Floyd Mayweather boxing match (56:15) and look ahead towards UFC Paris (1:09:21). 

Crackheads, I know you've been feeding, and it's been a long, long time since you had some crack injected into your veins, but I am back, baby. It's Friday as usual. You got to be thrown through a loop there. The last one was a Thursday or something. I knew you were all out of sorts. I've been away on vacation. I've been missing the conversations we have with you beautiful people. But today, everything is back to normal. Order has been restored. We've a lot to talk about. I mean, just hours ago, Cyril Gan and Tom Aspinall having their first face-off since their October bout has been announced for the undisputed heavyweight title now. A bit of an old It wasn't a great reception, Tom got to be honest. We're going to show you some clips of that later.

But we've a lot to talk about. You know, we had that Rampage Jackson interview. It was a huge news, him coming on Ariel's show earlier in the week. I was quite surprised he did come on, as were a lot of people, 10 or 15 people who text me as the interview was going on. Why is this happening as if I'm his legal aid or something? I don't know. You know, we've got more stuff on the White House. I know we're all buzzing about that.

Kayla Harrison meeting 45, 47. during the week and a little bit of a leakage going on there and the wall street journal had something on that as well of course it is ufc paris this weekend but we've already lost a fight uh kata v pitbull is off um kata a double champion with octagon uh i think it's it's fair to say the most highly touted prospect that's come across from that eastern european promotion and a lot of people when it was announced they had some doubts it was three weeks to make 145 he hasn't made 145 since 2003 and came in

four over and the fight has been pulled Patricio Pitbull has given some comments to the Brazilian Beast and to others about this. Not too happy to say the least. We've all that. We have smashing machine. We've got lots and lots of shit to talk about guys. But please

let's welcome in one of our favorites. The most handsome man in MMA media it is Ben folks. Look at that beautiful, beautiful man. Now look Ben, people might be looking at and thinking, is Ben a bit sick because he doesn't quite have the glow that Pete C. Carroll has right now. I mean, it is me. I know it is. I know people will think, well, is that Peecey Carol? We've never seen him glowing like this before. But yes, it is in fact me and Ben is not sick.

Ben, welcome to the show. How are you? I'm good. I'm impressed that you went somewhere where the sun shines and got out there and enjoyed it based on what I saw on the Instagrams. And you actually, you managed to not just immediately turn a shade of bright red. So congratulations to you on that. I'm sure that that took a lot of planning and reapplication of sunscreen over and over again. I'm glad to hear it. I'm glad to see you back. Truth is, uh, did get very burnt.

Did get very burnt. This is, uh, this is two weeks after, you know, I hadn't been kind of hitting the sauce the way I had been for some time. And I'm going to cut loose over there. First day out in that, uh, agency just getting blasted out of it. Um, very bad. by day three I was peeling and yeah so this is actually me recovering

from a serious bout of Sunborn I can't do it I'm just too Irish for that shit but look the people will never know they've got these lights on me it looks fantastic at the moment though you know you'll never know

the magic that goes in here how are you first of all I haven't talked to you in a long time Chuck Menadol is in here got that book deal and suddenly did you not notice that like suddenly it's like oh I'm actually

a bit busy today actually yeah you know is weird did a video call with him earlier this week just to see if he was going to be on the crack and all of a sudden he was wearing a beret and he was smoking a cigarette out of one of those long cigarette holders and uh it appeared that he was draped entirely in mink first and i was just like man a guy gets a book deal and he changes immediately just living that that luxurious life nothing pays like books in 2025 we all know that so right away that that booked the literary direct deposit hits and chuck's changed he's not the same man kind of new chook's always been that guy though right like you know if it was ever going to go like someone like this kind of like mcgregor when he took off you're kind of like oh i don't know who he's going to react to all this money always going to have the same view of chuck like this guy is going

to fucking lose his mind when he finally gets that big check and it's on the way and look i'm sure he's going to be back in a couple of weeks to talk all about it it would be great to see him he hasn't answered my calls and I've left him a few voice notes quite emotional saying like remember our friendship and he just doesn't give a fuck and fair play to him hopefully we'll be back next week

but Ben let's start talking about MMA because that's what we are here to do on the crack I hear you had been tuned in first thing you did this morning you were like 9 a.m. out there in the mountains and you're like let's stick on the Tom Aspinall and Cyril Gann press comments

because you love press conferences you love all the questions that they get asked and I think we have a bit of video here Jordan just to garnish the comments we're about to make Paris, France, not a big fan of Tom Asmel by the looks of things I mean I mean

there was nobody else to fight I'll just like, Cyril, you just do your thing, man. You just do your thing. I'll just chill. There you have it. I like, I mean, not too shocking, but I love, like, Tom trying to give a rational answer in this environment. Yeah. Like, there's no one else.

Like, what do you want me to do? Well, it also seems like, I don't know if this is just Tom's genial nature that he seems incapable of flipping the switch there and going, oh, okay, I'm the bad guy here. All right. I'll go ahead and I'll be the bad guy. And instead it's just sort of like, I don't know, Cyril, why don't you talk? They seem to like it better when you do. I mean, this does seem like maybe what we should have expected all along. I'm not too familiar. I'm not much of a history guy. I understand, though, that those two countries, that they have some feelings about each other, that may be some. stuff has happened here or there in the past that has made them develop some strong opinions about each other I don't know however it does seem like if you're Tom Aspinall and they're like hey we're already in Paris why don't you swing on by and you know let everybody get a look at you you and Cyril together and you you kind of out of know that that is coming and it almost feels like don't you think

the the French fans feel obligated to do that whether they whether they actually hate Tom Aspinall as a person, right? You got to get behind Cyril Gahn here. You got to cheer for your guy. And in fight sports, that usually means booing the other guy. And so everybody's kind of getting to do their stuff here. They're going to boo him. Tom's going to be like, all right, I get booed here.

We turn around and do one of these press conferences in London. Maybe it's going to be a different story. But you just kind of got to roll with it. Because otherwise, I don't really see how you hate Tom Aspinall. Yeah. Especially in this sport where our bar for being a good. person is low it's real low man if you just like if you're actively not committing felonies you're you you got a good chance right there of being one of the

likable people in this sport and Tom it hasn't really done anything it's just he's the guy fighting their guy and so they boo them and that's just part of the game I guess yeah it's it's it's an it's interesting that you've noted that because that was I was contacted by one of the aspiral crew as this is how happening. And they're going to say, what do you think of all this booing? Like, I don't feel hostility. Like, we're walking around Paris. There is no hostility to us here from any of the people. Everyone, like, we're taking lots of pictures. And I was like, no, they, they understand the assignment. Pretty much like you're, you've said here, like there is the guy, our guy is

fighting. Cyril Gan is a huge deal over there, by the way. Like, I know we talked about Cedric Dune Bay and what he did for PFL over there. I went to see him fight there. They sold out the ACOR arena, the same arena that the UFC used. for the when they first went to france in 2022 very very impressive for pfl to be pulling those kind of numbers but cyril gan is kind of like more of a mainstream guy he's been the guy and i think that's been featured more in lekeep the magazine the famous sport magazine over there the the french equivalent of marco which we talked about before when it comes to ilip tepourri in spain he's like he's the guy that is the face of m mma there like he's the guy that's pulled out on these chat shows and and

you know they asked cyril about you know how he's going to correct stuff because this is his third time fighting for a world title and as we know it has not gone well it has gone spectacularly wrong i'd say twice against francis and ganu and john jones and i think you'll be excited to know ben um it's kind of from the sean o'mally not jerking off wheelhouse here oh boy oh boy cyril gan he's not going to play the playstation and he's not going to go to championship and he's not going to go to champion Champions League's game, which you've been a victim of before in the past, your great support of Paris Saint-German. Do you think this will help him in his quest to be Tom Asperl? No PlayStation, no Champions League. I'm curious what led to those, especially the PlayStation one. Did you find that you were there at the gym texting you, hey, we're supposed to work out, where are you? And you're just like, let me just save the game. And I'll be right out the door. I promise. And the next thing you know, you'll be right out the door. I promise. And the next thing you know, you'll look up in 30 minutes as pat that could happen to any of us we've all been there i'm sure as you're playing the nintendo switch and trying to pretend that it's for your niece and all that is well the postman's looking in the window i'm sure that you've had this experience so i can i can maybe understand that and maybe the not going to champions league games is that you get out there you're

getting that fun atmosphere somebody hands you a soda pop or something and the next thing you know you're you're breaking your diet i don't know exactly what it is but i could i also think i could see why Cyril Gond would be a big deal in France because for one thing, you know, he's been at or near the top for the heavyweight contenders for a long time. The guy looks good getting off the bus, frankly. He looks like

what you think a heavyweight pro fighter would look like. And so I can understand why they want to take that man's picture put in the magazines. I'll tell you what, though, the moment that I decided like, all right, no matter what happens, even if I'm not ever going to be a huge Cyril Gond fan, you can't hate

Cyril Gond. Do you remember the moment from one of those embeddeds where he and his team are walking through an American shopping mall. Just one of those classic embedded moments because they're like, we got to kill time. There's a lot of downtime on Fight Week. You don't want to just be sitting around the hotel room going crazy. Let's walk around the shopping mall. And they wandered into a just one of those weird clothing stores. And he happened to see a lot of Martin merch, like from the old Martin Lawrence show, Martin.

And there was like a leather jacket or something that where. and something about it is so much funnier because he's speaking French to his coaches and so they're using the subtitles to tell us what he's saying where he's saying to his coach like, do you ever see Martin? His coach had no idea what he was talking about

and he was like, oh brother, Martin Lawrence is so funny starts singing the song, Martin, and you're just like the joy, the joy that lit up this man's face when he saw like, man, the USA really does have everything. It has a Martin leather jacket here we are like 30 years after the show was popular they're still selling this stuff and he got so excited about it and i was just like even when he goes mad at francis and gano

even when he they kind of had a rivalry it was like the most polite rivalry because it was cyril gone saying like francis walked by and didn't say hello and i was like that is the kind of stuff that my mom would get mad at you for you know like it's wonderful i love it look you mentioned like the the the sheer so is these guys you know in comparison to martin aren't significant. Let's just say the height difference there. I think they're two of the best athletes we've ever seen in a heavyweight. Just in terms of like, do you ever hear like Cyril Gans's origin story? He was playing for a basketball team and they broke like it was like the end of the season. And he's working in some like, I think it was like a restaurant or something. And one of the

guys there is like, oh, what's wrong? Cyril. He's like, I can't play sports because the basketball team has broken for the end of the season. So for two months, I've nothing to do. And he's like, oh, do you want to come and try kickboxing with me? He's like, okay, I may as well try kickboxing. Goes in and is just beating the shit out of guys have been doing this for like 10 years. And like, yeah, I think you're pretty good at this. We're going to send you over

to Fernand Lopez, his coach, and from there basically, like it's just been a rampage. I think he had a few toy fights, then he had two professional MMA fights in Canada and was signed to the UFC. Like this guy has just been a meteoric rise.

Tom similarly, like, obviously, has been, he was, he took some time out to, to, to, uh, pursue boxing. He was in Tyson Fury's camp. Then he comes back. Like he pretty much, like everyone had seen him as this kind of like scintillating prospect. Oh no, he's gone to boxing. We've lost one to boxing. He comes back. I think it's two, two, two fights in cage warriors and straight to the UFC. And obviously, signs during the time of the, of COVID. He gets a lot of action because he can get to Abu Dhabi. And here they are now, two guys on the top of the world, uh, fighting for the heavyweight title. There is one guy that came up. I don't know if you ever heard of him.

We had a weekly segment about him for the first year of this podcast. What did they have to say about John Jones on Air Jordan? Tommy, you were originally supposed to fight John Jones for the belt. Now it's serial. So my question is simple. Considering that Jones is nearing the end and cereal is in his prime, who do you consider the biggest test right now? Cyril's a guy I'm fighting, so he's the biggest test right now. John Jones is retired, so I don't really have much to say on that, to be honest. So I'm fighting this guy, and this guy's really good, so I'll be as ready as I can be. It's the only way you can play this shit.

Like, this is literally the only way you can do this at this stage. Isn't it just like, listen, fucking, not happening, lads. I don't know how many fucking times I can say this. I am fighting Cyril Gant. That is what I tell him to do. Yeah, and I also think that maybe the right approach whenever he's asked about John Jones, is to appear supremely bored with John Jones as a concept, which Tom has managed to master that,

you know, where Ariel was asking about what about this White House thing, John Jones wants to fight there, and him just being like, man, I'm so over it. And I think that mirrors the way a lot of people in MMA feel because we just spent so long hearing about this,

Dana White assuring us that it was going to happen. It was clearly never going to happen. And at this point, Who even wants to hear about it? Like, I'm, I'm not that excited about Tom Aspinon and Cyril Gahn just at this point, just because it felt like after all that buildup, Cyril Gon feels like a plan B or C or D. Like, hey, we just, we need somebody. We need a warm body to get in there with Tom Aspinall.

Cyril Gons here. So let's go ahead and do that. I'm sure by the time we actually get to fight night, I'll be much more excited about it. Because, you know, it is an interesting stylistic matchup. be interested to see how that fight's going to go. But it does feel like, all right, hey, if you're Tom Aspinall, you've got to say, I'm the heavyweight champion. My job is to defend this belt against whoever they think could take it from me.

Right now, they've said it's Cyril. Give me Cyril. I'll take that guy. I do think, you know, you mentioned the stuff about Cyril Gone just sort of being shuffled into a kickboxing gym. Don't you kind of imagine the alternate scenario where he shuffled into a wrestling gym? Maybe we end up. Something different here in this one?

Because if I'm Tom Aspinall, and I've seen what we've seen from Cyril Gone, you know, Tom Aspinall, he's known as a big guy, he'll throw those ham hawks, he'll knock people out with the gas hands. But that's a guy who knows a little something about the ground game as well. And everything we've seen from Cyril Gaon, I'm going to go out there and I'm going to make that man prove that he has gotten better in terms of just like wrestling defense and submission defense until he shows me, until he makes me believe. that he's better at that aspect of the game that's all I'm thinking about no you're right and I remember the first person who actually said this to me like

like a lot of people are talking about it when we're considering the the Aspel and Gan matchup was it was your guy Chad done this from the common event podcast he was like you are fucking crazy if you don't immediately double like this dude like you're like it's insane like

to even fathom and look you're right about Tom he's not just good at jiu his dad trained him since he was a child you know he is he is very good on the ground i just think he he said to me before these guys are huge you don't want to fail on a takedown attempt a heavy weight like he's like if it's there perfect like i'll be going straight for it my body will automatically do it like i will just go for the takedown if it presents itself but the fear he has and i know you see this a heavyweight i mean um i'm blanking on the name and martin budey beat him

in his last fight the Jiu-Jitsu black belt Buccecha Buccecha failing on those takedowns man and it is just misery like when heavy weight is missing and he's missing

it's like you might not last three fucking minutes in here buddy this is going to be a fucking disaster yeah but I don't know if that's a huge concern against Cyril Gahn because for one thing he's not necessarily

just in terms of weight wise he's not one of the massive giants of the division I also think that you know you definitely you don't want to be shooting in and coming up empty on takedowns it's exhausting for one thing but the the real concern is i shoot in he stuffs it now he's on top i'm crushed underneath and then what and with cyro gone don't you think if he found himself in that situation he just wants to reset

and get back to zero that's true he'll just want to step back and bring it back to the feet especially because damn he should have learned something from that enganu fight where where he made some Real mistakes down the stretch was thinking like, okay, I'm on top. Let me try to go to work on top here. And that's not what you want to be doing at all. Because I think Tom Aspinall, even if he shot for a takedown, ended up on bottom, ended up with Cyril Gon agrees to play that game. I think Tom Aspinall sweeps him inside a 10, 15 seconds and then ends up on top.

Like, gone just doesn't want to be there on the floor at all. And especially if I'm Tom Aspinall, I'm like a one-legged Francis and Ganu was able to keep taking you down over and over again, unless you've got significantly better again, which I will make you prove to me, I'm going to go in there and I'm going to believe I can put you on your back. Yeah, it's, it's a great assessment. The other thing you and Chad have done to me is think that because we have talked about Tom so much, because we have built them up as it's Tom Aspinall. This guy is a generational. I've said this quite a few times, guilty. It is

the MMA God's reward for all this talk that Cyril Gahn wins the fight. How are you feeling about that right now? I mean, we do have this mindset in MMA where we think what's the worst thing that could happen because that the sport has taught us that. The sort

has been like what would just derail all the plans and totally screw up any sort of narrative we're trying to maintain in our heads because somewhere or another that's the thing that will end up happening. It would be for just like the state of the heavyweight division kind of a hilarious disaster

if Cyril gone went out there and won it because you're sick you're sick man even thinking about even saying this out loud it's pretty fucking sick if you ask me because you know what would happen you can just you could close your eyes and you can picture the cascade of events that would follow if Cyrilgan knocks out

Tom Aspinall or something John Jones would he has tweets in drafts waiting for this exact scenario just because he doesn't want to be bothered to have to, like, do the thumb motions on the night if it should come to pass, where he's just going to be like, oh, look, you guys are going to tell me that that's the heavyweight champion. I beat that dude easily. You guys were telling me that I needed to fight Tom and I was scared of him. He just got beat by the dude I beat. MMA math tells us that therefore I am better than both of these guys. You know, it would just sort of further delegitimize the idea that the person with the UFC heavyweight title, is the best heavyweight in the world. And that that claim is already undermined by the fact that Francis Ngano is the lineal heavyweight champion.

And he's outside the UFC. UFC let him walk because they didn't want to pay him more money. And now if you had another layer to that, because we could have at least talked ourselves in them believing, like, well, if they fought, I picked Tom. You don't have to go that far to convince yourself of that. But if Tom were to lose this one and Cyril Ghan, after losing to both in Ganu and Jones,

and especially the Jones won not even being close, everybody would kind of look at the UFC heavyweight title as like a little bit of a trinket at this point until somebody came back to restore some legitimacy to it. That would be, that would be a disaster. Yeah, we'd be having those Henry Sehuto, T.J. Dillishaw fighting for the division talks very, very quickly, I believe. Now let's take one final look at these two absolute Goliaths facing off here

because, I mean, I know, like, we're watching this on TV. If you see these fucking dudes in real life, it is terrifying the fucking size of these guys. I can't. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you see him they're standing there with Mick Maynard, who is not a small individual himself. Going ball cap. What do you think about the decision to go ball cap here at the press conference?

And slim spectacles. Slim spectacles, you know, them French, very French, everywhere, I feel. I just feel like this is, I'm not saying we need to treat it always like a formal, event where we got to go black tie but let's put a little bit a thought into this it's not like and cyril gun it's not like he's having a bad hair day you know we've seen what the guy does hair wise uh let people get a look at your face let's not look like you know you're that he's dressed like somebody asked him to come help them move and that's just not what we need to be doing at the press conference you know let's let's put a little more thought into it i think they should take on as a

consultant for this kind of thing like this is what i'm born to do is just tell people tell pro fighters no don't do that like when they're about to weigh in and they're a bit over which we'll be talking about later you're the guy to just talk to just before you hit the scales look you're going to have to do that yeah sorry now let's think about our options you know now's not the time to be hitting the the double bicep flex pose when you come in overweight yeah and we have some breaking news we like obviously we don't have a sound for that don't we not jordan can you just confirm. No, we don't. Bimp, Bimp, Bimp, but whip a bit one of those. Like hit like a DJ air horn or something like that.

You can't do anything. No? Yeah. You were in the clubs. You heard it. Brian Battle. We nailed it. Brian Battle. Yeah. You ready for this? A sign for the PFL. Ben, there you go. Ben's face is lighting up you can't see as we're garnishing you now with the graphic of Brian Battle and it says signed and then it says underneath signed it says Brian Battle in the top left-hand corner it says to PFL and then it has his record there Brian Battle fresh off his dirty boxing debut two weeks after his weight miss at middleweight he is back he is in PFL Ben you're a massive PFL fan how much does

this add to the promotion as far as you're concerned well and these are the kind of opportunities you got to jump on if you're a PFL right you get a guy the UFC dropped the guy didn't wasn't concerned enough that he might land somewhere that would be able to put him to good use and so said all right you missed wait a couple times we can't use you go somewhere else he signs with the pfl I would wonder if I was because I was looking right on that little graphic I was like are we name in a weight class I was doing middle weight says yeah says middle weight so especially with their structure we could be relying on this guy to make middle weight a few

times within a year and is he going to be able to do that i assume that's a conversation that they had with him but uh that would be one of the questions you have would you right so it looks like pfl don't want to do ebblin v van stanis for some reason um you have fabian edwards who's just bet uh captain of football team dalden rooster um what would you put battle against Ebblin maybe and then left Fabian and Van Stenis go to war for the belt. Like what can you think? Or is that a stupid way to do it? Like Bill Bruin up slowly and then I'm going to enter the fray there.

Any feeling one way or another or what you could do with him? You know, the risk you run if you try to go with the slow build route is the guy comes in and loses right away. Or something bad happens or gets hurt. Can't continue on after that. So I think if you got the opportunity to make some fights. that you think people might care about, make them now. You know, don't wait around to make some of those fights. And this, especially Brian Battle is sort of on our minds and in the news because we've

been following what happens to him. You know, he doesn't make weight. He gets cut. He shows up in dirty boxing basically like the next weekend, wins a fight there, then turns right around, signs with PFL. He's more of a conversation topic now as a result, you know, in a way, controversy. So take him and put him into a big fight. See what happens. Yeah. Yeah, I like that idea. And you're right. Like we saw that with Shane Burgos, remember when he was signed and

we're all like, this is going to be huge. And then it just didn't take off. And then I think they're in a bit of an awkward moment where to like, what, what do we want to do with this guy? Is he going to stay? Is he going to go? And Brian Butler, big personality. People like the guy. And we always think of that magical French promo that he pulled out of his ass in Paris. And here we are ahead of a Parisian card this weekend. We're going to have to take, look, as you guys know we're now on TV we are fucking big time and because we're so big time we need to take breaks the makeup artist need to come in and reapply my tan put my blusher back on but when we come back we'll be speaking about rampage jackson the interview gave arry lowanney i want to hear ben's thoughts on

that we'll be talking about a few leaks consider it concerning the white house event and then of course later on we'll be talking about uc paris all that good stuff the smashing machine ben's done an interview with the director of the original documentary we want to talk about all that stuff in a few minutes enjoy the break and we are back um we've applied the makeup we're ready to go again ben would you believe um while i was sunning myself in greece i put on a podcast i was on the beach and it was your podcast which i've mentioned earlier the co-main event um and it was about this raja jackson incident and you and chat uh because we were away all week and i know we're going to talk about ariel's interview with rampage and of course he broke it down tremendously on his return show

on Tuesday. But when this start coming through, I was in the airport, like I think I was in the airport or I was in transit anyway. And I had like friends texting me that never usually talk to me about MMA or haven't talked to me about MMA in about 10 years. And they're all on to me about Rampage Jackson and this and that. It was so hard to piece it all together. And then you guys put out this great episode, which basically just outlined how everything went down. But I mean, we've talked about it already this week on Ariel's show, but the reaction to this is one of the most insane things I remember in a long time because it doesn't feel like it's an MMA story. It's kind of MMA adjacent. But, you know, when you pull out your phone or you're on whatever social media app, you go into that search thing, it felt like for a few days, all I was getting was Rajah Jackson or here's Rampage, react, here's another person reacting to this. This story really grew in an unprecedented way, didn't it? It did. And also, the story, it had so many of the elements that make it take hold for something like social media, because for one thing, there's footage that when you see it is horrible to watch and has that combination where you see it and you go, some part of me wants to see it again just because I didn't believe exactly what I saw there. And another part of me wishes it was not in my brain at all, which I hadn't seen it the first time. And then just try and to understand what's happening here because you're putting together these worlds where you know you

know rampage and therefore then know of his son through m m m and they're at a pro wrestling thing and you wonder was this just like somehow a pro wrestling spot that went horribly bad did we get our wires crossed did that was there just in somebody's brain finally broke and they lost all sense You're just trying to understand what the hell might have even happened here and it was so bizarre. And I also think that a part of it, especially as we're seeing going forward, is that Rampage has chosen to do so much streaming of just kind of his life, his thoughts, himself as a commentator and just like as a personality who gets used to offering people this kind of constant access to him. People are used to getting that sort of access. And then something like this happens and at least some elements of it seem tied into that. The fact that he was sitting there live, like Roger Jackson sitting there live streaming himself, hearing reactions that like, you know, he's seeming to be kind of goaded by his dad and by other people and by comments like, hey, you're going to let this guy just do that and get away with it.

All that stuff seems like it's a part of this story in a way that we can't really separate those things. And so then when Rampage comes out and is talking to Ariel about it and says during that conversation that he is right now not talking to his son, talking about his son very, very publicly at this very vulnerable time to him, but not talking to his son, that kind of, that broke my brain a little bit. Because I was just like, what are we doing at that point? Is nobody going to say like, hey, maybe the thing to do is to step back and start talking to each other. without cameras around because clearly something has gone horribly wrong here. Yeah. I was on the show on the back end of that interview and I was watching it with the rest of the world.

And once again, it was like it had just happened again because I was just inundated with messages with people like, why is Rampage doing this? You know, why is he on here? He's not helping himself. We have a clip. Can we go to the clip chart? It's one of the many talking points that came out with this. You just mentioned the situation with his son.

Here's another talking point that got a lot of traction. He should do a little time, do a little community service, and go to anger management class, excuse him therapy. But some people say it was attempted murder and things like that. That's not a little time. It wasn't attempted murder because he wasn't trying to kill that guy. how do you know because i that's my son i know my son he went roger won't try to kill nobody he wasn't trying to kill that he wasn't trying to kill that guy roger probably didn't even know

how bad he hurt that guy he weren't trying to kill that guy you know the problem the problem is everything got blown out of out of proportion and people thought that roger snuck into the fucking ring and did that that's what that's what the problem is like you you know at at at this point roger was was in in the act as a as a as a as a pro rasser but he ain't no fucking pro rassar the promoters had no reason putting my son in that fucking ring so but it was no it was no attempted fucking murder so obviously that's that's rampage given his take on how you categorize the assault that happened and raja and psychostee he also talked about stew being drunk he said several times during the interview and he said that Raj should get a few days, community service, doing anger management class, as he just said in the clip there. Were you watching it in the same way as I mentioned, those other people kind of going, like, what was the goal in this situation? In terms of what could Rampage gain from coming on and doing this interview with Ariel at this time? Yeah, I do wonder what Rampage was

telling himself because there were a lot of statements he made that were just contradictory uh internally with each other and so i was wondering what he if he was hoping to sort of help shape the narrative for raja's benefit or for his own benefit because obviously this you know the reason we know raja is because of rampage so naturally people are going to turn around and wonder what role rampage might have played in this whether just as generally as the father or like around that situation at the time so it's also tricky because on one hand there's a part of me that hates to go like well hey your your son messed up and therefore you messed up rampage but also he's clearly he's a part of the conversation here he's making himself a part of the conversation

after the fact he's also chosen to make his life and you know his personal life and everything so much a part of the ongoing Rampage Jackson brand at this point. And so it's kind of like you're offering all this stuff up for public consumption and you don't know where to stop and be like, maybe this is the stuff that we should be talking about privately. The part for me was where he was saying how he was not talking to Rajah right now because he dishonored my name. And Ariel brought up, I thought, and made the very necessary point there where he was like, but don't you think now is when he needs you the most now is when he needs his father to stand by his side like this is not about you you might feel like it reflects poorly on you but this is you you are not the main character in

this this is something that's going on with your son and he he he doesn't need you now to abandon him just because you're mad at him like you can be mad at him your kids can do wrong stuff your kids are people they're going to mess up sometimes but the answer to that is not just sort of like I'm going to cut you off and I'll come back around later on when I'm not mad anymore the answer is

you need to be there for them at that time especially you know all this stuff going on everybody on the internet talking about the extent of the punishment

they think you deserve the last thing you want is for your dad to also just sort of piece out and just be like I don't know I don't even want to talk to this guy right now

like that's that's the part that I could not understand we were joking about something a few weeks back the comments right like we aren't great uh as far as as the the the shows are concerned we aren't great comment watchers and we appreciate all of you wonderful commenters and we just take your word for it that's going to be all fabulous you know and you said none of my business none of your business right that's what you said right you said none of my business

what any of these people think and that kept on playing in my head when i was watching that scene but raja seething reading these messages right like he's sitting there and and you can literally see him in the video before he gets into the ring reading these things and you can see a physical reaction to it like he looks very angry and then what you're talking about

rampage is it feels like he's doing these things he's letting all of these people you're basically doing these stream things you're looking at a screen all of these comments are endlessly coming and he's looking at this screen and he's saying like

well these people feel this way and you know these people are angry with me because I'm somehow adjacent to what my son did and that feels like a very 20-25 situation where they're allowing the outside world to dictate

how they feel, what they do and for that reason I think it's very unique and maybe the first time I've seen it kind of come to the forefront like this but it made me feel old as fuck man this whole thing I'm like I don't know how we've got to a situation where people are streaming for 12 hours and look that's people have hugely successful things with it

I know who HS Tiki Tucky is I don't know if you know him I know who I show speed is. You know, these are guys who thrive in this environment and have done great things as far as I know. But it's kind of fucking crazy when someone like Rampage who's already done everything, who's a legend of this sport is being controlled by this stream of chat, it would seem, right? Like that's what I took from what he said to Ariel about the thing you just mentioned where he's like, he's brought shame to my name. Yeah. And I think that that it's not surprising, I guess that if you get your head in the comment section or just if you're paying too much attention to

the world as it exists on the internet, it will warp your perspective and you will lose a sense of perspective that way because I think we've all at this point had enough opportunities to learn that the internet is not like what it is in the real world. You know, people will say stuff on the internet that they would never ever say to you in person and not just because you think, hey, if I say the stuff to somebody like Rampage Jackson, he might Ricardo or Rona slam me or something, but just because there would be an extremely weird thing to do. Like the internet is a place where we all just, you're, we're showing up and we're assuming that people want to hear from us in the beginning.

That's why we're all here. It's why we're reading comments sections, things like that. And so you're, you're operating from that kind of baseline assumption. You know, we've all seen like kind of the meme where it's just like you get on Twitter and somebody's just like, I can't believe you would possibly think this when it ignores all this and in real life people are just like hey man how's it going you know like people are a lot more normal in normal in like real genuine person to person interactions and they are on the internet so like if you let that kind of stuff affect you too much and dictate your behavior and you're

trying to please a live stream or people in a comment section it's going to make you think some things that aren't true it's going to totally warp your perspective and that seems to be at least somewhat of what's happening here yeah um I'm sure we're going to keep on hearing about this until a punishment has been handed down or the recovery of psychos do whatever way it is. I'm sure we'll have it beat by beat as it evolves because it is such a massive story here. Another massive story is the growing conversations around the White House and a UFC event. We had Kayla Harrison posting a meeting she had with President Donald Trump during the week and I believe our judo conference.

coach was with her. Dana White was there. She thanked Ali Abdelaziziz as well. And we also had a little bit of a leak in one of the slides she put up where it was like UFCX and it looked like it was on the lawn of the White House. The Wall Street Journal have, oh, there it is there. See a little UFCX there in the background. Mr. Ariel O'Anne pointed this out to me. Eagle-Eyed Helwani spots it there. Looks like they're making the pitch to Kayla perhaps or outlining what it may look like more information has come out in the wall street journal it appears that they are looking at late june or early july which we know is usually uh marked for international fight week i think the the story in the wall street journal is it was july fourth to mark the 250th anniversary of the

wonderful united states of america ben your homeland you're your fabulous country um do we have a quote there from this wall street journal there we go fighters might warm up in the White House. One early idea was to have them emerge from the Oval Office and walk through. This is fucking up into a case

up in the Rose Garden, Alex Leary from the Wall Street Journal article. This is fucking crazy, man. Like, is this? Wait, I just can't believe we're here, you know, but what do you reckon? This seems fun. imagine that you're like you're hitting mitts and you're like man this this is where

richard nixon used to plan crimes man this is crazy i can't believe i'm over here i'm i'm i'm warming up here right you know that's insane you know that you know at this point they are building this thing up to be enough of a spectacle that it seems like it will be of interest to a really large audience sounds so strange like even if you're not a fight fan you've got to hear some of this stuff and be like, well, come on. I need to know. I need to see for myself what this looks like.

That could be a really big thing for the UFC. I would say, again, I hope the UFC considers who we want to go with on an event like that when a lot of people who don't normally watch are watching, now is the time to really stop and consider. Do we want to call up the people we know who have a long, long sections of their Wikipedia page about their, you know, criminal investigations and assault allegations? Or do we want to go with different kind of people? I mean, somebody like Kayla Harrison, that is somebody that you would want to spotlight. That's a great pick. There's a

great pick. Yeah, where, you know, she's got a great personal story, seems to be like a good person out of the cage, one Olympic old medal for this country in judo. I will say I saw, I follow Kayla Harrison on Instagram. I don't follow a ton of fighters. I like to think of Instagram as my place away from some of this stuff. I follow Kayla Harrison on Instagram and she posted, I saw this thing come across the feed

and I was like, I wonder what the comment section looks like. And man, the very first comment was just like, did you ask him to release the Epstein files? There's a lot of people making good use of Trump and Epstein together gifts and a lot of people being like, I'm unfollowing now,

you lost a fan. You know, like, that part reminds you like, this is kind of a historically unpopular president, regardless of what he says about his popularity, regardless of how the UFC would present his popularity. So there is going to be that element as well for the fighters, not that any of them seem to care. Yeah, and honestly, like a lot of the people

who they're talking about seem to be the exact way, as you're saying, you should avoid it. You have Carter McGregor, who must be the king of the long controversies section on Wikipedia. this day's the pound for pound great and john jones you can't do connor mcgregor right i mean i heard like jana saying the thing like i trust connor you know more than trust john jones yeah i'm i that's exactly what i said was trust him to do what at this point i don't just make it through a full training camp and show up and and like he says he's going to all that stuff plus he just

doesn't seem like he's got it anymore that there doesn't seem like he's anywhere near the same guy and do you want the kind of attention that he's inevitably going to bring? You have so many people. You have so many other fighters to choose from. UFC has hundreds of fighters on the roster. You have so many better choices and more dependable choices.

It would be a shame just for them to be like, this is the shiniest toy in the box. Let's go ahead and grab that one. I think that you would regret that. I think Kayla Harrison, somebody like that, is a much, much better choice. Charles won't have a great suggestion.

I don't know if you heard it. Ham's at your wife. He's squeaking. clean. Well, that is a suggestion. We could do something with that. You said Chail Sonan had a suggestion. I thought it was going to be, it was going to involve Chal Sonan.

I'm surprised it didn't. I should have you mentioned it. I hear he's going to run for governor. So that should be interesting. Yeah, it's going to be a fun time. Looking forward to that one. They should send you, Ben. They have to send.

If they're accepting. I don't know if I'll pass. the clearance there i mean you are mendinol it has to be both of you actually would be fantastic in tandem and we could call into the crack that day from the way-ins which i'm sure will be in the rose garden uh or maybe they're weighing in in the oval office in front of the desk that would be pretty or like you know maybe in like i don't know there's so many options around that wonderful i tell you what if they gave me a press credential to go to the white house and cover it i wouldn't trust it i'd be like man i'm going to show up there with my laptop bag me like hey i'm here to cover

the fight and they're just going to be like put a black bag over this dude's head and get him out of here you'd have to do it like hunter s thompson style wouldn't you you'd have to do it uh a gonzo store or like the kentucky derby or something like that loaded up with mescaline and just making stuff up yeah no i can do that for sure that's the way we fucking cover events all the time anyway um smashing machine uh is ramping up i i don't know the release date i'm pretty sure it's october third october third same day paul hughes takes on us man amalgamara fantastic um we we've had a lot of uh media related to it i don't know if you saw this um ben the rock or should i say dwayne johnson the actor dwayne johnson who plays

listen okay he plays the smashing machine we know who you're talking about we're all familiar with the guy at this point he got quite emotional jimangi for crying out loud he was in fucking my kids love that movie he was in all that shit and look at this emoting significantly And can I just say, people keep on mentioning, oh, he slimmed down. He's still fucking yoked. What is everyone talking about? Like, he is in better shape than 99% of the world have ever been. And people are like, wow, slim down, Rock, need to hit the gym, buddy.

He looks in fucking amazing shape. What are we talking about here? Now, I know I'm asking you, and you are similar in that 99% oil of yoked athletes. But, I mean, that's like I'm looking in a mirror. you spoke to the original and I'm very glad you did I don't know if the article is out yet on Uncrowned is coming this weekend and it's a must especially for the diehard fans of this original documentary

because you spoke to the director of the original and it's the greatest MMA documentary every made as we've talked about previously I am dying to know what this lad had to say about all this was it positive? Yeah, it was. It was a very positive take in general, but also I think that he understandably has some complicated feelings. His name is John Hymes, and he directed the original Smasher Machine.

And it was really sort of a guerrilla project for them at first. The way that they came together was he had been like a fine arts guy, like a sculptor and a painter and was trying to get into filmmaking. And a friend of his who tended bar had raised $10,000 among the regulars in his bar. to make some movie they did not know what movie or like what like they were just sort of everybody it was just he described this guy he's like he's a very charismatic guy and so he got he convinced these people who were just came into his bar hey let's all throw in some money and let's get a movie made and then the guy he knows who's a filmmaker uh john hyams he calls him up and he's like so we raised $10,000 you got any ideas for a movie that we can make for $10,000 and he was like no it's like that's a lot of money

but it's not a lot of money for making a movie and I don't know I don't really have an idea that is of that budget and then they got to talking and they knew Mark Kerr because one of them had been one of their friends had been on a college wrestling team with Mark Kerr they knew that he was becoming big in the world of MMA you know he had he had fights in the USC by that point made the jump to pride it was coming a really big deal and they were like you know he's an open book kind of guy let's go let's make a documentary about this world that he's in and their plan was we use the $10,000 to take a four person film crew over to Japan to record one of his fights in Pride and then we'll come back home to

Arizona with him where he lives. We'll kind of film his recovery and his training for the next one because it was part of the Pride Grand Prix, the 2000 Grand Prix at the time. And then it was when they were back home in Arizona with him after the fight that they began to learn the extent of his painkiller addiction and that he wanted to get off the painkillers. And so then it became a different kind of story at that point, but not one that they knew going in was going to go that direction. And so they ended up, you know, just these four people who were just kind of like in an apartment with Mark Kerr for extended periods of time in the gym with Mark Kerr making this movie together. And it was, especially for the time, I know a lot of people probably haven't

seen it. And it's really tough to find now for reasons that John Hyams. Yeah. Well, he said basically the rights ran out at a certain point. You know, it debuted. at Tribeca. Then HBO bought it. It was on HBO for a while. He said it was on Spike TV for a while. And then the rights just kind of ran out and it fell through the streaming gaps, you know, where no streaming services paid to pick it up.

If you want the DVD, you can get it for like 160 bucks on Amazon, but that's about it. And it's not something that's very easy to find. And especially it was made like 20 years ago. So at this point, I was just reading a review of this bashing machine, this new movie. and you could tell that the reviewer did not really know that there had been a documentary because it was saying some certain stuff like well surely the rock the the the mark cur's girlfriend was not as bad as she comes off and you're like well you haven't seen the documentary then man oh my god you know and that that kind of stuff i think is not surprising but i think

it was a weird feeling for him because he said the first he heard about it was he was contacted by dwayne johnson's agent who was just like what's the deal with the life rights to Mark Kerr's story because Dwayne would like to make a movie and star as Mark Kerr in it. And he was just saying like, hey, look, if I own the life rights, uh, you know, I have no problem transferring to you. He said, like, I was just not going to stand in the way. And especially if it was something that could be good for Mark, you know, they had an ongoing relationship with Mark, ongoing friendship with Mark for years after that. And if you look in that, that clip where the rock is standing there wiping tears away during the standing ovation, the guy standing next to him in the little

bow tie is Mark Kerr. And it's, it's. you know so something certainly I think that he wanted to see go forward because he thought it would be good for for mark if people could hear his story and also though I think like a lot of breath he hasn't seen it John Hyam's the director of the original well has not seen it had no involvement in the like he's listed as some kind of a producer but he said it was just sort of a ceremonial title was not involved in any way in the making didn't get any money for it just sort of like gave his blessing said hey yeah do whatever you need to do to make the movie and he said when he saw the trailers the same way a lot of us who've seen the documentary when we saw those trailers and you realize wait a minute they're recreating entire scenes and even using lines of dialogue that were said in the documentary and they're just putting them right in the movie like and he was saying at first you know maybe he didn't have high expectations for the movie said when he heard there's going to be an a 24 movie then he saft he was going to be the director he was like well maybe they're actually going to make a good

movie and then when he saw the trailer he was like he said it was a surreal feeling to see that but also a flattering feeling because you realize they saw your documentary and we're like we like this enough we want to just kind of recreate some of this and put it in our movie i guess the thing that he's hoping for the most is that some of these people will get curious about the documentary that maybe the documentary will find a new life on one of these streaming services you'd think somebody would want to seize on this moment to come around and scoop up the rights the documentary and for people who haven't seen it like i think you really will be stunned at how good just as a documentary it is uh the personal story the the drama of it everything but also

how well it documents that era of mma and especially that era of pride and and because especially i could see if you went back and you watched it now and you were a newer fight fan came along in the last five 10 years and didn't really know you'd be you'd be shocked by some of the stuff that that you see in this document where he's headbuttoned people in their already extremely bloody faces in a nightclub in Sao Paulo, the stuff that's going on behind the scenes in pride. It's really a must see for any MMA fan. I think probably the most influential movie that's been made about MMA still,

like 20 years later. And so I hoped also that it gets a new life as a result of this. Yeah, absolutely. I think I have it on DVD somewhere. I mean, I can't, you know, like do you remember when i used i think i've watched that documentary maybe like nine or ten times absolutely baked on my friends like bed you know after playing like eight hours of playstation like okay we need a break here stick on smashing machine again it's one of them like it's

it's absolutely compelling and just that that's actually added such an extra layer to it imagine this guy like throwing a hat around his local bar to do this and then he's filming that scene where car is backstage like do you have any opiates like just so matter-of-factly remember they're like do you need anything uh do you want some like water anything's like do you have any opiates in the middle of japan they're like yeah i'm actually looking for some fucking heroin if you you have any of that there guy um listen we have to have look we're big time okay it's not my fault we're fucking huge stars on tv now okay it's not it's not it's not my fault like my agent gets a call one day it's like ptie carroll we need them on tv he just says yeah

and then i have to do these ad break so what's going to happen now is we're going to have the ad break but don't go anywhere come back because we love rolling ben up and you know mayweather v to Tyson has been announced and I was like that is a fucking perfect opportunity to piss Ben off I cannot wait for that and I also want to say that I read Ben's mailbag piece this week and I honestly think we know he's a massive BFL fan I think he's an even bigger misfits fan based on what he said here I mean it was an open goal for him to just smear abuse all over misfits didn't do it and we'll be back to talk about that ufc paris all that good stuff two minutes guys yes welcome back to the crack ladies and gentlemen and i promised you that i would try my very

best to wind up ben folks in this closing segment and you know yesterday on air jordan sends me a picture of mike dyson and uh and mr mayweather and i was like well this is fucking perfect this is exactly what I want to do Ben how do you feel about the blockbuster fight between two of the greats the one that everyone's been asking for it's Floyd Mayweather v Mike Tyson

fresh off Tyson's brilliant fight with Jake Paul at Cowboy Stadium or somewhere like that but what do you think why that is what I think why who is this for who out there is still

dumb and gullible enough to hear this and be like, oh, yeah, this seems like a legitimate, interesting fight in which both guys are going to go out there and try to do their best. I mean, I get it. We had fun. We all had a good time sitting around on Netflix. Mike Tyson had his entire ass out in the locker room on live TV. It felt like a fun moment in that a large portion of the world seemed to be watching and

talking about the same thing at the same time. we don't really get that very much in combat sports these days and so everybody enjoyed it and they want to find a way to kind of recreate that magic but you do remember what we saw in the fight right you remember what that actually looks like once all the the non-fight stuff was over and it was time to do some athletic physical performance and you were reminded oh yeah Tyson is damn near a senior citizen at this point and so now you're gonna you're gonna try to sell me on like well but the other as much smaller. So maybe it'll be crazy this time. It's not. It's not

going to be an interesting or compelling fight in any way. It's basically going to be pro wrestling, but without people who actually know how to pro wrestle, it's going to be, they're kind of insulting our intelligence with this thing. They're just being like,

all right, piggies, here's some more slop for your piggy trough. And they're hoping that we'll all come snuffling and oinkling up to the thing again. And it won't matter what it actually tastes like in the end that's it's a sad state of affairs in other words you you understood the assignment that's exactly what i want we're going to come oinking up to the trough to say oh my god you know there was part of me and look i've been talking about

throughout this episode how ben folks is his quotes just come into my head in times of need now and when i saw this remember you kind of abused me for the fact that i let jake paul get the better of me with the tank one and i was like what are you talking about jake this is not the best fight ever i was doing that so when i saw this one i was like i just let it wash over me i was like this is what we do now this is the fucking fights that are made in this day and age but it made me mean me think what what is more upsetting jake paul v tank davis or mayweather v tyson not which is better which is more upsetting for you. Oh, Tyson versus Mayweather is the one that is way more inexcusable, I think,

because there is at least a chance that you get Jake Paul and Tank Davis in the ring together and a boxing match might break out. Something interesting might actually happen in that one, if only on accident. You know, you might get something there. You get Tyson and Floyd Mayweather in there, and there's no chance. There's no chance that you're going to see something. athletically meaningful or interesting. You're just buying the sparkle of the thing, which is fine. If that's what you want to show up for, if that's all you need, you hear Mike Tyson's involved, your memory is short enough that you don't remember how awful he looked in the

Jake Paul thing. You want to get in there, you're like, hey, Floyd Mayweather and his long history of domestic violence, that's something I also feel totally fine, supporting. Sure, then go ahead. have fun it's not going to be good though there's no chance that anything good in in terms of athletics or boxing happens in that fight they're what they're promising you is everything before and if they everything before is good enough for you then fine go with god i i wish you the best but at least jake paul and tank davis there's a chance some we might have some sort of

interesting questions answered there's a possibility and there is no possibility on the other side yeah i understand what you're saying i do feel as though it's a very slim possibility i was talking about this on the show earlier this week with new york rriel and gc i i feel like it's going to be exactly the way it always is you know tank v paul like you know he's going to say he's going to kill him all this kind of stuff they get in there and it's exhibition style fight for a 10 rounds or as long as it lasts like that that has happened pretty much every time you know like you know that's pretty much exactly what we get every time um are you expecting anything different is davis that much of a wild card that he could just spark into violence mode but he is you know

as we highlighted earlier in the week five foot five against a six foot one or two guy who is very beefy to be fair to him very beefy he says uh you know i don't know there's a chance one of these guys goes out there and as the pro wrestlers would say goes into business for himself and tries tries to seize a moment like there is at least that possibility and you're you're trying to basically do the same thing you're going hey one of these guys is way better than the other dude but then the other dude is bigger so maybe at a certain point those lines cross and being better doesn't mean as much if the other guy has enough size and strength on you and that at least there's a there's again a very slim possibility but a possibility nonetheless that you're going to see something

interesting develop out of that and i also think you got to give jake paul credit like he is consistently good at selling these things yes the lead up to it the promotion of these things that's where he really excels and so you know you might get a good time out of that the The Tyson Mayweather won, it just feels like, you know, when a band you liked in high school who had a few good songs that felt meaningful to you, not necessarily because of the songs, but because of the time in your life that you heard the songs. And then you look up one day and they're at the county fair. You know, they're, and you're going like, oh, all right, I'll buy the ticket. I'm not like, look, when Guns and Roses came to Washington Grizzly Stadium here in Missoula, Montana, I didn't show up expect an act. Axel to be able to hit all the notes that he was able to hit. And he didn't. He showed up, you know, he looked like a guy who, like he looked like a 50-something year old guy wearing an Axel Rose costume for Halloween. He could still whistle. When, when they did patience, he could still do the whistling part. That's good. That's something. He did an adorable little bow after the conclusion of every song. But other than that, you go no one in. You're like, this.

This is not, I'm not seeing, you know, 1988 guns and roses, and I need to make my peace with that. That's what the Floyd Mayweather, Mike Tyson thing is. So you have yourself to blame if you get disappointed with this one. That's fantastic. Yeah, absolutely. Elaine actually, my lovely partner, Elaine, was like, you love Bob Dylan. Will I get tickets? No, don't.

Please. Hey, Bob Dylan is still, he's a, you don't necessarily know. I've seen Bob Dylan in concert a couple times. one of them was one of the worst concerts I've ever been to And then I don't need that And then another one was great And so you're just like

But he does at this point Seem like a pro wrestler in that Oh, you're not trying to necessarily make money or anything What you're trying to do is not go home Yeah You're touring because you're going to go home Well I just put on Carnegie Hall 1962 or whatever

You know boots of Spanish leather Oh like you know Just pretend I was there Don't need to go to like a fucking castle In the middle of rural Ireland Just be like oh, whoa, I don't know if the three-hour drive was worth it. Worth it for the brand new arrangement of leopard skin pillbox hat that nobody asked for.

I mean, if he guarantees, he's going to give me a new rendition, I will go. That's what all he does is new renditions, man. I'm telling you, he's going to go, he's going to do arrangements so different that you don't even recognize the song. That's his promise to you, Pizzi. I wonder what rendition of Heidi Carole is on at this stage, because I've heard like eight versions of that song. There was a reggae version of that song. It's one in the 80s. It's fucking crazy.

My experience going to a show tells you that those long-ass ones that are like eight minutes long and have 12 verses, he's going to give you three. You're going to give you three or four verses and he's going to move on. I like it. I like it. Ben, can I tell you I was shocked reading your mailbag this week. I've already teased this quite a few times. And look, I've texted before when you are covering Misfits events.

I was at a stag party one night and I was watching Darren Till and Darren Stewart. Like a bachelor party? Yeah, yeah. And I text you because they had it on. They were like, PTO, you of the zone, put it on your fucking phone so we'll watch this shit. So I don't wait to be over.

And I was like, I think Ben was covering this. And I got on to Ben and I was like, I didn't really like that, you know? And you were going to like, hey man, what the fuck? This was like, what did you expect? And then I read the mailbag and you're like, Miss Fitz is nailing it. Which, to be fair, I agree with you on.

And then they gave you an open goal to abuse Till and you were like, hang on a second. Till's not even the top 10. people that we should be talking about which is also true but i'm just surprised that you you've opened yourself up shall i say to misfits because you have okay the thing about till first i'll start with that one the question was is he the most annoying man in combat sports and i'm not going to sit here and say that i can't see where the question's coming from or that anything like that but that is such a competitive field to be the most annoying man in combat sports because you're

You're not just including MMA or including boxing. You're including people who are just in and around the sport. Like you're telling me, when you create that as a title you want to hand out, somebody got to beat Dylan Dennis. That's first of us. Somebody's got to beat Dylan Dennis. Somebody got to beat Jake Paul. You know,

like that is a lot of people out there vying whether they mean to or not for the most annoying man in combat sports. It's not an easy, easy field to beat. So that's first of all. The other thing, the thing I'm, appreciate about misfits is they seem to know what they are and they deliver what they promise they don't like it's if you go to if you watch one of these misfits things and you come away being like well that was not the best display of martial arts or combat sports or boxing that I've ever seen in my life well fine but that's like you go to a you go to schindler's list and you're like I didn't laugh once you know Be still more better than this. It's funnier than this.

It's not trying to be funny. It's not like, let it be what it is trying to be. Judge it on those merits. It is trying to give you a weird time. Not necessarily like a pinnacle of the sport time. It's trying to be just weird, interesting, different enough. And the kind of fights where you're going like, all right, these two guys seem like they're both jokers of a certain kind. But let's see which one of them is the joker who gets knocked out.

Like, that's, that's what they're giving you. They're giving you some guy where it's just like, hey, did you hear about this dude? He runs a shop. He's famous on Instagram, and TikTok runs a shop. He's going to get into a boxing match. How about that? And you're going, if you're the kind of person who goes like, all right, yeah, let me watch that. See what that's like.

Then you got to know going in what you're getting. And they give you that. They gave you the four man survivor tag team boxing. Anybody who's giving you something like that, you know what you're getting there. They're giving you something that's just going to be kind of weird. And they do weird well. And frankly, if there's an opening in the combat sports space right now, it's not to go and do what the UFC is already doing, but less so,

what big time boxing, you know, funded by millions of dollars of Saudi money is already doing, but worse. You can't do that. That's not going to get you anywhere. What you have to be is something just completely different. And Misfits is doing a pretty good job of that. Yeah. No, all right.

Fair enough. Okay. I've been about it down. You fucking won that round. Fair play to you, Ben. Great, though. Check out the mailbag. Very good every week. It's a fantastic treat.

And before we go, there is a big fight this weekend. Unfortunately, one of the most compelling fights on the card, Lassenkata, who is a guy who is highly touted from Octagon, has won the titles of Featherweight, has won them at Lightweight. He was going to come in and make his debut against Pipple, which is fucking insane, a double champion in Bellator. A lot of people so high on this kid. I think he got the offer from what I've been reading today

I think he got the offer for this fight three weeks ago he hadn't made weight as I said at the top of the show he hasn't made Fedderweight for two years came in missing by four pounds do we have video Jordan what do we got to supplement this conversation with here my friend okay no let's have a look at his tweet let's have a look at his fucking tweet then let's go

here's what Kate I had to say for the first time in 25 fights I failed to make weight and it had to happen on my UFC see debut. I wanted to continue and would have given everything to make weight but my body didn't want it. I sincerely apologize to all my fans. I will be

back like every time I fall in life. So compelling stuff from Kada there and I believe I don't think Mr. Pitbull was too happy about this situation. Is that correct? Honor Jordan. Kada had all the advances and still didn't make weight.

Fuck you man. The fat panther fantastic he didn't even try Arnold Allen lets me at UFC Rio the fat panther was right there I mean fucking hell fair play Patricio very disappointed but it is a great

card as I've wrote a piece about this for the wonderful ungrounded we used to often wonder about you know what about this regional promotion champion against this regional promotion champion the days of Duke and Juan Nathaniel Wood and us all getting things excited over Duke could want to remove himself from the fight and become a yogi.

I think he's doing quite well in that field. There's two great fights at the top, Imovvi Barallo. And of course, Dana Hoyas said this could be the contender for Shemoev. You have Benoit Sandinia against Maricio Rufu. I think it's fucking fantastic. And here we get with the championship fights. It's Modestis Bukascus, former Cage Warriors champion against Paul Craig, former Bama Light Heavyweight Champion.

Oki from Atomic will be taking on Mason Jones, the first Cage Warriors double champion since Connor McGregor. Axel Sola, the former lightweight champion of Ares, the very, the very, very substantial regional promotion in France against Reese McKee, former Bama and Cage Warriors champion. You have Ruchella from KSW. You have Toybura represented the M1 Global against Ante de Leisure from PFL. Harry Hardwick's another Cage Warriors champion. I mean, fucking hell. You have Breggick from F. F.E.N. Sean Abannon's starting off the card from Lovely Ireland. I don't know, Ben, right? I know people get pissed off with these fight nights cards and this is just a, you know,

the next step up from an apex card is a, is the regional event card. I mean, sorry, the, the fight night card in a new city. But this is very fucking exciting for European fans. I can tell you that much. Will you be having pancakes and feasting on some fights at 10 a.m. Mountain time when this bad boy kicks off. I got to say, it really works out scheduling wise because as you, and I'm sure the entire listening audience know, the University of Montana Grizzlies football team

has their home opener on Saturday and of course Chad Dundas and I are going but this one the rare night game so that means our morning is wide open we'll be able to watch this one and it is a good fight card for a UFC fight night especially like you look at this one you're like okay there's a lot of interesting stuff happening here especially with a fight that could very well be a middleweight

number one contender fight up there at the top but see here's the thing we're looking at a fight card where Nasor deemimov if he goes out there if he wins and looks good he was the number one contender until or like number one in the middleweight rankings the UFC's own rankings until Hamzot won the belt

Dreikas as often happens and those rankings got bumped down to number one but Nasorneemovov still number two still needs like that big win to push him over into true can't avoid this guy kind of title contention but Nassadine Mimovava has a problem

which is that we do not think about this man at all between his fights he just sort of disappears from our minds and from the collective memory of the MMA fans he's good and when we see him show up we go oh yeah this guy yeah I remember this guy he seems pretty good but then as soon as he's out of sight

we don't think about him at all and that makes it tough to bridge that gap between just being one of the really good guys in the division and being a actual title contender who we want to see get a shot at the title. Chad and I discussed this this week. I've come up with a fix. I've come up with a solution to Nasodim.

It involves problem of awareness and trying to get people to remember him. Are you ready for it, Pizzi? I kind of fucking wait to hear what this is. He needs to be a guy who has a raven on his shoulder. A literal raven. I'm talking about the big ass black bird. Looks like a crow, but bigger. everywhere he goes you got that raven on the shoulder and here's the most important part

do not even acknowledge it as much as you can don't answer questions about it don't explain to us what's going on with the raven the raven should give out periodic squawks and cause that nassardine appears to understand he should seem to be communicating with the raven at times when he walks to the cage that raven ought to be perched on his shoulder he gets gets to Harley Davidson prep point or whatever we're calling it now where they put the Vaseline on him, the Raven should fly off up into the rafters of the arena somewhere. We can't tell where it went. It's just up there in the darkness. No one knows where the raven is. That's unsettling, frankly, for both his opponent, for the fans in the arena. We know that Raven, which seems to have some sort of close personal bond with Nassadimimov is here somewhere, but we don't know where. And then, you know, maybe between rounds, the Raven comes. comes back, purges on his coach's shoulder, amidst a series of cause as the coaches shouting instructions through the fence.

Certainly, after he wins the fight, he's standing there waiting for Bruce Buffer to say his name. That Raven floats back down out of the darkness, perches up there on his shoulder. But again, most important part, Nazardine, I know you're taking notes on this. This idea is free. I'm not even charging

you for this one. You need to get into business area. This is fucking ridiculous, Ben. Go ahead. People are going to ask you questions about the Raven. Don't tell them anything. Try to keep it as mysterious as possible. It's like a magic trick, man. Once you explain how the trick works, they don't care about you anymore.

It doesn't matter. It's not as impressive. You need to stay mysterious about the Raven. Fain confusion why they would even be asking about this. Actually, get mad. It's your personal business. It's not in their business why you got a raven on your shoulder at all times, who seems to be communicating with you.

You do something like that. You become the Raven guy. title shot title shot tomorrow you wake up on sunday morning and we are begging the ufc to book you into a title shot it's it's actually fucking brilliant like as soon as you said it i was like yeah like if he had a fucking raven i would be you know what i was going to say before this i was going to say i kind of feel the same way about burrallo i'm going to be honest with you you know he at the fighting nerds hook he's going to wear the glasses you know it says that's true yeah across the front of his throat, which I feel like anybody who gets that tattoo, they are, in fact, a free spirit.

So, like, he's got, he's got some stuff, you know, NASA, he doesn't have any stuff. He needs stuff. He does. Q do you like, I like Rufie. I think Rufi's my favorite of the nerds. Of all them, I think he's my fave. And I mean, there's lots of fucking, we love these guys. I thought I would, I've ever the coach, coach of the year last year just because I fucking

like the guy so much. But Rufie is a fucking savage man. He is, I think he's the best of a bunch. I think John Silva, uh, I mean, he's, he's the least nerd of them, perhaps, um, but, uh, screaming blind murder at his appellant before he fights them. I especially when somebody shows up in this sport and they seem like they were born for this in a way, like they are not only like some people show up and they have to overcome the nerves and like all the, the weirdness that goes into realizing I'm going to walk to a cage and fight another man who's been training to hurt me. badly while a bunch of these people watch and some of them cheer from my blood that's a weird thing and a lot of people most people are going to have to do a lot of work just to overcome the weirdness of that and get themselves to do it he seems like there would be a great void in his

life if this did not exist because he seems like it's the most natural thing in the world he's very excited for that opportunity to walk into that weird situation and he's so comfortable there that bryce mitchell fight really showed it because he was just like he walked out there being like, well, I know I'm going to win. Let's really enjoy the path there. And like that, that's a special kind of individual. There's not that many of those people walk in the earth. Yeah, like Mike Perry vibes when he shut up in the UFC. You're like, yeah, he's going to be fine. He's going to be just fine. So what are you going to get together for breakfast this whole day? Start drinking like fucking before like with breakfast.

That's what I'd probably do if I was going to a I see. I know that's what you do. I'll tell you what this. The, the night games are tricky here for the Grizzlies fans because they're used to usually a noon kickoff, maybe a 1 p.m. kickoff. They'll show up down there, tailgating outside the stadium, you know, first thing in the morning and be drinking pretty hard before they go in. And then every once in a while, you know, maybe only once or twice a season, they'll throw the night game at it at you. And some of those people, they're just, the programming isn't there for it yet. They don't know how to pace themselves for that because something in their brain says, it's Saturday morning. It's game day. Like, they start drinking as

if it's going to be a noon kickoff. And the last time I went to, I took my, my, my girlfriend to her first ever college football game for the night game at this time last year. And she said, we went into the bathroom of a bar and it was like 5 p.m. You know, and she went in there, went to use the bathroom. And she was like, there's stuff going on in that women's room that you usually don't see until 1.30 in the morning on a Saturday, you know, downtown. Like, there's women in there telling each other that they're beautiful and they love.

you and they've never met you before and it's it's four 30 in the after magical my favorite time that's like everyone feels good that's that's that's that's that's with the best time to be alive uh but like look central washington wildcats man they're a fucking team that's all i'm going to say they are just in terms of facts a team they are a football team that exists their division two team who's being brought in to just get absolutely stomped so that the grisleys can start the season feeling good about it. Grizz is good? Yeah.

I mean, for the, they're in the FCS. They're, you know, a division down from the top division, but they are one of the best teams consistently

in that division. They bring in a division two team like this. If you don't beat them by at least 30, it's a disappointment. Well, we will, of course,

be keeping our eyes on the game. I mean, NFL's back this week, I've fucking already jazzed up for that. That's my fucking shit. American sports,

that is my one. Amazing. I love it so much. It's just, I stayed up all night. had a fucking weather break. It was 4 a.m. here.

Yeah, yes. And I'm just like, well, I'm going to fucking bed now. And the game was amazing. And then I wake up to see it was absolutely shit at when it resumed. It made me feel really good. But of course, they have the Brazil game today. I'm going to stay up for that as well. Elaine's delighted with this, of course.

Yeah. Sure, she loves this development in your life. Yeah. Oh, like, it's not enough that you miss two nights of sleep every week, staying up to watch people beat the shit out of each other. Now we've got to watch guys playing football and smashing the shit out of each other. It's a fantastic time to be alive. Ben,

you have a fucking wonderful weekend you hear me you you and chad go and get fucking toe up out there i'm gonna get to fucking mizillo someday and me you and chad under a beautiful sunset we're gonna be shotgun and beers until we don't like each other anymore and we say this is a terrible idea we all need to go home before ben beats the fuck out of everyone here and enjoy ufc parents it's a there it is i was waiting for it do you know do you know before it happens oh yeah oh yeah and it's it's the highlight of the show for me is waiting to see you forget the same thing that happens every time it's going to happen down one week and i still fucking forgot i'm trying to look for that page no you ought to wear a hat you ought to wear a fedora and you paste a note inside that says

remember the superchats and every once in a while you just take it off and look inside your hat next week i'm going to fucking remember oh glad to have the crack back in the veins yeah i mean we were fiending i had the shakes i was shaking and ice cream at a few people this week because of the lack of crack I'll be honest with you I'm better off now

is do we have any other ones Jordan y'all watching one FC tonight and two rutulo MMA debut Roto's the jiu jitsu guy I can remember in my late

the dying embers of my jiu jitsu life this guy became popular and I saw him grappling and I said you know what my body can't fucking do that so this is just another reason for me to quit

he looks fantastic He's got a brother, right? There's the Rottalo brothers, am I right? I assume they all have brothers. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have a brother? Oh, that...

Okay. Yeah, he has a brother. I was right, once again. Well done, Patsy. Any other chats? Ah, well, listen. Guys, next week I am going to remember the super chats. It's a lot going on with the ads, TV.

I'm going to fucking write it on this screen. I'm going to paint a lot. This is a fucking lie. Look, I'm just going to go and eat some dinner and completely forget about this. I'm like no idea. Look, we love you all. Ben, I love you so much. Tell Chad to have a fantastic day tomorrow.

I hope a man tells you that you're both beautiful in the toilet tomorrow off way of PM. That would make, you're so fucking, like, you need to start vlogging this shit. You two at this game at a tailgate. Like, I would be, I would watch that. That would be the stream I'd watch. 12 hour day you and Chad tearing the shit out of place consider it for tomorrow

I would enjoy that Jordan you're a fantastic man I hope the New York Jets do something for you tomorrow Sunday you know they're playing the Steelers I believe Steelers who are being forced on Irish people like they're like oh they are your team

now and that makes me go out of Vikings jersey and say well I'm going the other fucking direction I am not going to be led down this path Aaron Rogers of course their quarterback one of Jordan's favorite people second third third only to Bo Tate Brothers. Anyway, we love you so much. Have a great weekend. Enjoy all the

fights and we'll be back next week where I'll remember that there is a section of this show dedicated to Super Chats. Thank you. Lovely weekend.