The Ariel Helwani Show - UFC 321 preview, Conor McGregor 'saved,' Tom Aspinall to boxing? | The Craic

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

The Craic is back! Petesy Carroll, Chuck Mindenhall, and Ben Fowlkes get together to unpack the biggest stories in MMA.To get things underway, they preview UFC 321’s title fight headliner: Tom Aspinall vs. Ciryl Gane (5:30).With another championship on the line, the crew discuss the stakes in the co-main event between Virna Jandiroba and Mackenzie Dern (31:30).Plus, Dana White teased new UFC scheduling in a recent interview. Could this mean better start times for European fans? The trio break down what the changes might mean (48:40).And of course, Conor McGregor’s back in the headlines. Petesy and the boys dissect his recent “spiritual journey” comments (54:30).To close the show, the guys answer your Super Chats (1:06:15).

Crackheads, it's Friday. It's a pay-per-view week. You are spoiled because you are here on this show. The Crack Baby. How are you all doing? A big one tomorrow, Abu Dhabi. Isn't it weird when it's taking place in that time zone? And you wake up and you feel. feel like everything's happened already. Like, I mean, I'm in Europe, only three hours behind these guys. I can only imagine how you guys feel in the US. Like, has everything happened? Did I miss everything? Nah, it turns out you didn't. But we do have a fight tomorrow. And it is

a heavyweight division that rapidly needs some movement. There are a lot of heavyweight fights, but of course the big one is, Tommy Aspinall and Cyril Ghan, a clash of European Goliaths. And then we have a strawweight meeting. Zhang Wili, obviously,

has relinquished her crown to go and fight Valentina Shefshanko and it is Mackenzie Dern and Jandy Roba and they are going to get things done Din Thomas has had some things to say about it Din Thomas, a legendary talking head at this stage I mean the media we love you din please keep them coming because we need it baby

Andy Aspinals also done some Andy Aspinall things over the last 24 hours which again we absolutely love in the media landscape but before I talk about all that Let me bring in my two beautiful journalistic heroes. It is Ben Folks and Chuck Menhal. Look at these guys.

Look at these lovely, lovely boys. Up front, just want to apologize, Chuck. You got a phone call there last Sunday. I was full of enthusiasm, let's say, after a date of sport. Glad I could include you in the festivities. That was fun. I was glad to hear from you. Although you actually were calling me before the last field goal even went through on my TV.

So I was like, oh, no, somebody's calling me to tell me like, what happened? So I saw that you were calling. I could not pick up the phone. But when I did, I realized you wouldn't remember our conversation anyway. And I appreciate it, though. You look like you're having a good time at the pub. Yeah, that was. And to be fair, had I not, like, gone into recents the next day and saw that chook, the 17 red chooks, and then the one that you picked up at the end?

I wouldn't have you been known to happen. So I appreciate you, buddy. That's what real friends are for. Ben, I can't feel, help but feel a little hurt that I didn't get a phone call. I mean, I wouldn't have picked up. I'd have let you hit 18, 19, 20. But still, it was nice to be included. You know what?

We need the star show in the Cracken games on Irish TV. And then I will be in. I will be gambling and I will be very in. I will be very, very in. You'd be getting a lot of phone calls, Ben. Let's wait and see what we got this year from the Cracken before we decide to reach out internationally and try to spread the gospel there. We're doing it. We're doing okay.

But it's been a rough go recently for the Cracken. So I don't know if you want to get on board just yet. You'd be surprised. If there are betting lines, she'll find that I get very involved very quickly. Can I just say, Ben, before we get into all this MMA stuff, you piss me off again today.

Fixing a fridge? I mean, what else is it? You know, what can't this guy do? You know, you come in, everyone likes you more in the office, and now you're just posting random man wins. I can't deal with this shit, dude. I'm sitting there going,

this is a personal affront to me for being useless. Why do you need to do this? Well, in fair and, I would not have been able to do any of this in an era before YouTube. I don't know, frankly, how anybody did anything before YouTube. Because now, whenever I have any sort of like home improvement issue or project I want to work on or anything going wrong around the house, I Google the most simplistic, childish question into Google or like, you feel like a caveman trying to understand the modern world. Because I'm opening up Google and I'm being like, freezer cold, but refrigerator not cold. And lo and behold, it works.

Somebody out there is like, hey, you have a problem where your freezers seems to be working, but the refrigerator is not really getting cold. Do you have this exact model refrigerator? Well, here's what you do. Here's where you buy the part. Here's step-by-step instructions on how to fix it yourself, everything you need to do. And you just do it and it works. It's not like I know how to do any of this stuff. And it's not even really that technically difficult once you get into following the steps.

I'm just painting by numbers and letting a nice man on the internet, tell me what I should do. And, you know, you buy a $28 part. You get your children to move all the stuff out of the fridge for you. And the next thing, you know, it works again. You feel like a hero. Little triumphs, Ben. Little triumphs. Are you one of those children?

No, I'm one of those guys who would have been like $1,200 for a new fridge. All right, bring it over. That's my go-toe, baby. Oh, I can't believe we need a new fridge. It's one thing. But you know what? The thing that really makes you. you feel so appreciative is you go through you do all this stuff now i'm going up there you know

once an hour or so just open it up make sure it's still working i'm feeling foods that are in the fridge and i'm being like that's right feel how cold this is got one of those like me that's i did that you know you just you feel so grateful for every little thing now look i think it's very manly and i think you should be commended for although it did amasculate me and then i was going to write a comment on the end i was thinking about all your friends seeing this pair of and they don't know being, fuck you, Ben. And I was like, you know, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it today.

We better talk about MMA. That is what we do here on the crack. And what is the crack with UFC 321? I'll tell you why it is. The heavyweight title is going to be decided, guys. Tommy Aspinall, just look at this guy on the scales. Just gliding around Abu Dhabi. Oh, yeah, is it a fight week?

I better take off my shades. Sorry, forgot I was wearing my shades indoors. No one seems to mind because I've hit that, level of aura before my first title defense, Cyril Ghan is there as well, and some people... Wow. That's the selling point

right there. See, I almost hope that Sir Gong wins just so we can play this back. So she can play it back next week. I'm going to you with this actually because then it was you. It was you and Chad, who were like, oh, do you know what we're going to end up with? You know what we're

going to end up? We're going to end up with hospital and gun. Boo-hoo. Tell me. Has it not picked up your spirits a bit this week seeing these massive, massive man being very kind to each other at every given opportunity? You know, it always kind of goes this way, right? Where a fight gets announced, and especially when you had your heart set on one.

And not only had your heart set on one, frankly, but had the UFC president out there for months telling us all, don't worry about it, it's totally going to happen. And then it doesn't. And we get, you know, something that feels like plan B or C. You're a little disappointed initially. we're going to grumble about it. That's what fight fans do.

But once fight week hits, once we start doing the press conference, the weigh-ins, all the stuff, you start seeing the guys standing there next to each other, you get that anticipation built up again. You go, all right, these are two heavyweights who definitely look the part. Both these guys look good getting off the bus walking out there looking like heavy weights like you think heavy weights are supposed to look. No disrespect to Daniel Cormier. But there's something easier for people to understand when you see these two guys.

And you're like, these guys are going to fight for the heavyweight championship. And if you're a casual, you're like, yeah, they are. I totally believe they are. Now, the thing is about this fight, though, is that if there's like this sense of inevitability undercut by dread going into this, because everybody's looking at it and being like, Tom Aspinall ought to win this, right? Like, everybody kind of feels that way. Just from what we've seen from Cyril gone, he's 0 and 2 in UFC heavyweight title fights. we have not really seen much of a ground game

or even take down defense from him he got out wrestled by a one-legged Francis and Ghanu. John Jones treated him like he was the new guy at Jiu-Jitsu class and he is not going to be particularly polite. Everything about it makes it just seem like Tom Aspinall can kind of pick the way he wants to beat Cyril Gond. And so if anything other than that happens,

it kind of feels like a disaster. I mean, it feels like the kind of surprise that we love to get excited about. in fight sports, but it also feels like, oh, no, what hath we wrought by making this fight in the first place? It's tough when it feels like a given that you know what's going to happen, right? Because from that standpoint, Tom Aspinall should be feeling the, like, that's the pressure that comes onto his side of it, where it's like, oh, you're supposed to go in there.

I remember going to Fador-Millian-Ankels fights. I know you went to some too, Ben, right? Like back in the day, and there was the same feeling of like, oh, he's going to kill these guys, especially in the affliction shows when he's fighting. like Arlovsky. And then he comes over to Belta. I remember the Brett Rogers fight. And people are like, oh, he's going to kill him. There's no route to victory for this guy. And obviously, Brett Rogers almost rocks him and beats him in the first round. And you're like, okay, wait, these are heavyweights, man. They're thrown down. There's

still such thing as a layup in this division and had the same feeling when he fought Verdume out in San Jose. And we all saw what happened with that fight. So in this division particularly, it's one thing if it's a, you know, a featherweight fight or something where you're like, this guy's skill set is so superior. It's going to, I don't know the guy's route who's fighting him, right? But when you're talking about heavy weights, there's always that equalizer. And Cyril gone, there was a point in time when I think a lot of us were like, he might be the best striker going. He seemed like because he was so athletic, so explosive, it's certainly felt that way a little bit early on in his career.

So I know he's capable of springing something here. So I feel like the suspense is maybe out of whack on this. I think it's probably a little bit closer a fight than we're realizing. Yeah, I mean, I do think that You're right about Cyril got like The thing that we thought about him was He seemed to be one of the smoothest strikers Yeah, heavyweight M&A

Not that he had that one punch death touch That guys like Francis and Gano And Tom Aspinall frankly have But that's I think one of the things You're right that it's heavyweight Anybody can slip on a banana peel Or walk into a punch We've seen Tom Aspinall go out there

And just blow his knee out throwing a kick So he was there Front Row That stuff can always have happen. And yet at the same time, it does feel like Cyril Gan needs a lot of things to go right and he needs Tom Aspinall to probably do some things wrong. And Tom Aspinall doesn't seem like he needs that. It seems like he could decide to stand there and throw with him if he wants to or kind of seems like he could just shoot in, take him down, beat him up on the floor. And unless Cyril Gan has improved

greatly in that area since the John Jones and the Francis and Gunnu fights, it's possible. It's possible that he's... Man, I just advised you not to do this, and you talk to yourself right back into this. You're doing the exact same thing. I mean, come on. Tom Aspinall has... I think that if you're charting a path to victory for Cyril gone,

first, Tom Aspinall has to screw up by not taking him down. I think if Tom Aspinall decides he's going to take him down, he will take him down. Yeah. Second, he needs to get a little reckless on the feet, maybe going in search with that knockout, maybe believing the hype that, hey, this guy's got nothing for me, and believing, I need to go out here and make a statement because this isn't the fight people

wanted to see. They still need to maybe be sold on me as the baddest man on the planet, the unquestioned heavyweight champion. I need to really go out there and make quick work of this guy. Those are the ways you could get yourself in trouble if you're Tom Aspinall. And it kind of seems like if he doesn't do something to give Cyril Gan an opportunity, you don't really, we haven't seen anything to this point at least that makes you think Cyril Gan has the skill sets against a guy like Tom Aspinall to force that to happen. Do you think Chuck that he needs to have a spectacular stoppage here? I was speaking to Andy Asperon, we'll speak about this a bit more throughout the conversation we're having because he mentions a number of things that we're talking about here.

I asked him about the takedown situation about John Jones. Like surely, you know, you're a lifelong BJJ practitioner. Surely you just go in here, you know, stick the jab in his face, look for any entry to shoot a double leg and then go for it. And he was like, you know, you're a lifelong BJJ practitioner. And he was like yeah like but you know do you honestly think that if john jones and cyril gan fought a hundred times like that would happen every time he's like there's not like that was a freak situation like you don't see that happen an awful lot like a guillotine presents itself that quickly and it's over he's like we'd be crazy to go in and think that way but um he also was kind of like the pressure we have is like oh yeah you're gonna have to you have to win this fight like the divisions on your shoulders

he's like the pressure the pressure Ghan has is like you better win this fight or you will never be put in this situation ever again so it's like it's two pressure coming from both sides and in the end he was kind of just like but when they're in there you're not thinking about

anything to do with this so it's just like are you stressing yourself and you're just thinking a pure instinct at the time but I guess what I'd ask you Chuck and I want to hear from you too on this Ben like is there does he have to win in a certain way here to please everybody, to have everybody feel like this is the guy, or could he simply

win like a, like a Volk over Holloway situation where it's like, he only wins one way, right? So far, sort of like he only wins spectacularly in that way. You know, man, I did the, I was looking at this just doing the math, you know, like going back, it's through six fights four years, you know, he has nine, a little bit over nine minutes of fight time, less than two rounds. So his, I mean, by his own bar of excellence, right? Like he's trying to uphold. So I feel like for him to get over in the way that we see him, you know, maybe for

people who haven't, and I don't feel like the UFC has done a nearly great enough job of, like, promoting what a monster he is in there. But like, you know, for everybody to see that in a big show like this where he is now the champ, I think that that's kind of a must. I think he needs to go in there. There is a big intrigue. Ben, you tell me, too, to see what happens if he doesn't do that, though. I feel like if he doesn't, like, go in there and destroy the guy within a round, maybe a round and a half, what happens?

I don't know. We haven't really seen him put into these positions. We don't really know the extent of his cardio. We don't know how he rebounds if he's getting under a barrage, say, in the second round, and all of a sudden he's surviving, what happens in the third? We don't know any of this stuff yet. So I think from like a filling in the Blinks perspective, I would be interested to see what happens in that case. But I think from a general standpoint, it's probably imperative on him to go out there and make a statement. If he, you know, like the fights that he wants, those big money fights in these last couple of fights of his contract before he goes off to boxing, I think that he probably needs something spectacular here.

Yeah, you know, we have a saying over on the co-main event podcast where there are two kinds of heavyweight fights. There's the good kind and then there's the other kind. and as long as he doesn't win in the other kind where we go five full rounds not a whole lot happens everybody's so worried about what the other guy can do they don't do much and also and Gano Derek Lewis right

like that kind of right oh and like we've seen sometimes where the big guys they spend so much energy early on they're not used to being in longer fights especially a guy like Tom Aspinall and then they kind of don't have the gas for the later rounds but also aren't so gassed out that you could put them away Like we've seen some bad heavyweight fights happen that way.

I don't think that's what we're going to get here. I think that we're probably out of here inside of a round or two, one way or another. And I do think, I imagine a scenario where Tom Aspinall, as he's shown he can do, he goes in there right away, takes Zero Gone down, passes his guard, moves to side control, locks up a pretty basic but effective Kumura from side control, tap, tap, tap, and it's over. I think that there will be a part of us that's like, well, I was looking for some blood and mayhem. That's not quite it. But it's, you know, the same thing basically that John Jones did in a slightly different way to Cyril Gone where we didn't get a whole lot of fight out of that one. It was just one guy being so superior in one area. He can absolutely go in there and do that.

And if I were in Tom Aspinall's corner guiding him career-wise, health-wise, all that kind of stuff, I'd be like, hey, let's win and not get hurt and let's go home with our money. and keep the money machine rolling for the next one. We don't need to go out here and prove anything to anybody. We need to win this fight and take as little damage and expose ourselves to as little risk as we possibly can. So I would be hoping that he doesn't go in there thinking, I need to make a statement in this. All you really need to do is kind of finish it inside the distance, show that you are,

in fact, a superior guy. Because you know one way or another, unless he goes out there. there, levitates across the cage and knocks Cyril Gahn's head off, you know, there'll be people who are just like going to compare it to how did John Jones do against Cyril Gond? You know, that kind of thing is probably inevitable here. For Tom Aspinall, you got to put that out of your mind, though. You got to just go, what's my best path to victory? Let's do that.

Ultimate troll job would be for Aspinall to make it look competitive, you know, to try entice John Jones. Look, man, I'm beatable. Look a little vulnerable in there. You know what I mean? Man, that's so funny. That's so many people have said that to me. That is the strategy.

Were they stand it to you when you were out at the pub until all hours? Because that's crazy. That's crazy talk. They were like, win just fractionally. So John Jones is like, I'm going to beat the piss out of this guy. These people never saw the fight between Dan Doherty and Captain Turner and Deadwood. I can tell you that much because that's, you mess around like that, you get your eyeball torn out of its socket. I remember that scene.

That was brutal. I mean, yeah. I mean, Tom has witnessed a man getting his nose. bit off when he was working as a bouncer in revolutions in Wiggin once, he told me. You don't fight in Wiggin bars, man. What was, what was he doing in his role as bouncer? He's standing by watching and he left, he said, he was covering a good shift and your man was like, it gets pretty heavy and he goes, yeah, I'm sure it does, a student bar.

And then a man chewed a man's face off and he was like, I'm going home, fuck this, not doing this. I said, you know what? I'd do the same thing. We spoke about people who are guiding Tom's career. And in case you don't know something about Andy Aspinel, he's in a very unique position. And it's very funny. It is a hilarious situation if you know what's going on here because Tom isn't with one of these power broker managers that, you know, has 50 guys on their roster.

They pretty much have to do what the UFC, you know, they're not going to play hardball with the UFC. Here's the thing about Andy. He has one client. It's his son. His name is Tom Aspin. He's the heavyweight champion of the world. He's also biased. I know that.

He's very biased. That's one thing about him. You've got to flag that straight away. We were talking to him, you're like, you know what? I think I know who you think's going to win, Andy. But here's just a snippet of Andy just doing a random interview in Abu Dhabi yesterday, if we have that, please, Honor, Jordan. You said that you wanted a boxing champion.

You're okay with an M.M.A champion, but you wanted a boxing champion. Boxing for sure. The money is. More money. Yeah. More money? Why not? Would that be an outcome for him?

He's three more fights on a contract night. Okay. And I don't want to sign a new conference. okay personally so that's why because I asked him you always talk about speaking your sister at three defenses would he have four but he said no it's not in my life yeah no only one fight we only ever think one fight Cyril win loose next right I'm excited to say Andy told me Tom will be a boxing champion by 2020 he's out there slumming it in MMA right now according to the old man huh oh my god he is uh he's uh I think this is brilliant

I don't know, like, it's just, it's so interesting to have this, and I don't know anything will be made of this, really. I know he has a great relationship with Hunter, but isn't it so interesting to just not know what is going on here? Like, what is the Aspinall play and what is it like to just have a manager where you're like, he's going to want more off you guys to a level that you don't even really, you can't even fathom at this point. Well, isn't this what a manager should be doing for you?

Yes, yes. Going out there and not just being like, hey, we are here to do whatever the UFC wants and whatever they think is fair payment wise, we will say thank you and go along. Because there's no real downside to doing it this way. If you tease the idea that, hey, you might fight out his contract and he might look for greener pastures unless you can convince him to stay. It's like, yeah, you're going to piss the UFC off talking like that. You're going to annoy them. But they're also going to be in a position where if you're still winning and you're still the guy at that point, they're still going to have some motivation to want to keep you around, especially after what happened with Francis and Ghanu.

It would be a terrible look for the UFC to lose essentially a third straight UFC heavyweight champion where guys are just like, this sucks. There's easier, better money out there. There's nothing here. I'm walking. That's a horrible look for the UFC. And if you say like, hey, it's a bad idea to piss off the UFC because what if you're not still the guy by them? What if you're not still winning? Well, if that's the case, then they're going to kind of screw you around anyway because they can.

That's what we've seen. So it is a business relationship. These guys, there are so many managers out there, the ones who have managed to become the power brokers in the sport where they are essentially just brokers for the UFC. Their business is just collecting fighters and funneling them to the UFC. and their interests are served by staying on good terms with the UFC, not by fighting for each individual client who they represent. Here you have a guy. He just has the one client to worry about.

He also has a little bit more feeling for that guy than somebody who just... Hang on. Why is this been? Sorry. You know, he's not one of 150 guys. Yeah. Known the guy a little while might have to answer to his mom if you screw up his career. So, you know, there's a little.

there's a whole different dynamic going on there. But it is, it's weird how weird it is to us to see a manager actually out there advocating for his client and not just being like, hey, you know, I found a penny stock in this guy. And my main business is to keep him keeping the UFC happy. Like, he's not doing that. And it's refreshing to see and makes you think, we should probably see a little more of it. I mean, you'd be, you'd feel weird if you weren't doing this, you know, a little bit. like if you look back at just kind of like the stability of this division you know francis and ghanu kind of paving the way right going and making all that money um against fury and then having a subsequent fight not doing so but making a lot of money where he doesn't have to fight anymore right like you have john jones who's one foot out one foot in um he's kind of been the picture of instability all this and then you had mioch who they were like no but just keep him no you can't go preserve him until we can get him to lose to john jones it's like they they really haven't had a guy who feels like like he's meant, you know, or wants to be their long term.

And I think that it would feel weird if all of a sudden you have a guy in a situation right now where Aspinall's in and he's just like, I'm going to play the game, you know. You're in the, you're in the glam division. Regardless of it's played out that way over time, everybody can relate to a heavyweight fight. So I think it's only smart, man. It's only smart for them to be setting, seeing everything a couple steps ahead and having confident betting on yourself right because that only that only comes into play if you keep taking care of business everything he's talking about so i love everything about that man yeah he's

and look he's a great friend the furies uh he's friends with peter fury john fury all these guys he would have came up with them um he he put his faith in them when tom was a teenager he sent him there to be a sparring partner of of uh tyson furies of course and that's how tom got into boxing for a while like this is a guy that's around people who are dealing with massive, massive paychecks when it comes to fighting. So it's no surprise where he's going to like, hang on, how much are we getting for this UFC

heavyweight title fight? Hmm. It's going to ring John Fury and ask him what his son got for his last fight. Let's see how that compares. And especially moving into a UFC era where pay-per-view is going away. You know, you've got a contract with the UFC and it's an existing contract

where the big appeal of becoming the champion is that you start getting a cut of these pay-per-view. events. Now the UFC has decided we can get more money just shoveled into our pockets by doing away with pay-per-view. But they're not going to change your contract. Your contract still says the same thing. And if the big bonus of your contract is, hey, you can get a chunk of a thing that we don't do anymore. You know, you're losing a whole lot of the appeal and it's going to hurt you financially. If they don't step up with something to try to make you whole or to compensate

for that loss, then yeah, you have a right to be pissed off about that. And especially if you're looking around the landscape right now, you know, when Francis Inganu walked away and, you know, he could fight in the PFL, he could do boxing events. For one thing, he showed you a blueprint for how it could be done. You know, I don't know exactly what Tom Aspinall's contract says and what champions clause or sunset clauses or anything might be in it. But maybe Francis Inganu was one of the few dudes who could actually do it that way. But he shows you it could be done.

You could walk away. You could get these boxing matches. You could make a whole lot more money, win or lose. The one thing Francis and Gunner didn't really have going for him out there is he doesn't have a ton of people he could reasonably fight. But if Tom Aspinall is out there in the free agent market with him, now you got yourselves a fight you can make. You can make it in MMA. You can make it in boxing. Either way, you can make some big stuff happen there.

And even if you don't actually want to force that issue, it at least gives you something to go back to the UFC with and be like, hey, I have these opportunities on the table. You've seen it too. You've seen Francis and Ghana take advantage of those opportunities. What can you give me out of these $7 billion you're getting from Paramount

that'll make it worth it for me to stay? That's a completely reasonable position to be in and it's a completely reasonable like negotiating strategy. And frankly, I'm glad that Tom Aspinnell is one of the few guys that has a manager that can and will push for something like that. What was the number that Jones asked for that?

Like what he threw it? what was it 30 million okay here's the other side of that just on like imagine you you feel like you have a certain worth and you've done a certain amount of work and they're trying to pay a guy 30 million dollars because as far as I understand the UFC was fine we can we'll come up to your price and he just didn't in the end of the soddies the soddy stepped up I mean the money spends the same but it's like he's getting 30 million bucks like if you know if if if I'm making a certain amount of pizza and they're like offering you 30 million to go against me I'd be hey man I'm in those dollars very familiarly

right into a fight. If I'm worth that much to fight against, you're going to start to think that you have a bigger worth fighting in general, right? Like, that's who you are. Especially if they're trying to put together a White House fight card that everybody's so excited about, wouldn't you like to be able to do

some British versus America, the red coats are coming type stuff out there, you know? Absolutely. It's too good. Please. And look, just for the record, you know, I'm happy that Chook is getting the John's money. I have happily Tom Aspinall without Saudi money for me too, man. It's all Saudi money.

You're speaking about the White House. Obviously, regardless of who wins this fight, there's going to be massive conversations about Jones, Pereira, all these people. Whereas Gan, I've seen people already talking about Gan being a perfect matchup for Pereira if he wins this fight. When this was floated, everyone got very excited and were like, this is the type of thing.

Jones wants to come and fight Pereira. But immediately what was going on, my head was like, hang on, the champion of the world, like, it's Tom Aspinall right now, and he's not even in this conversation. I asked, I asked his dad about it. So funny enough, he agrees with me. This is what he said. My opinion is that John, sorry, that Jones shouldn't automatically be given that fight with Pereira. Obviously, the UFC can do whatever they want, but I think they should prove, I think he should prove to the UFC that he's not going to mess him about anymore. With Pereira, it's a different ball game. He likes to fight

and he gets fights done. I think if Tom wins, he should fight Pereira. It would be great fight for everybody. Do you understand, like, I mean, I know he's not really gone harm there, Ben, but like, do you understand with that position, like, why are we talking about two superstars fighting in my division and my son is not in that conversation? Yeah. I mean, that's what it's supposed to mean to be the heavyweight champ, right? Is that you're the man. They got to come to you if they want to be the man. And I totally agree with that. I've been saying this since Chuck was out here trying to get me on board with John Jones versus Alex Pereira. And I'm saying Alex Pereira versus Tom Aspinall is the fight to make.

because you get that the history Alex Pereira is trying to make by going up and becoming a three-division world champion. You get champ versus champ. You get all that stuff. Plus, you get to remove the giant, mysterious, unknowable variable that is John Jones. Not only will he take the fight, will he keep you negotiating about it for months and just say, no, he won't do it? Will he disappear on a back of a motorbike into the wilds of Thailand? Will he just get himself arrested? You never know any of that.

stuff with John Jones. There's so many different things that can happen. Alex Pereira has a reputation as a guy who, when he says he's going to show up, he shows up. And so that does seem like a fight that you could reasonably make. It would be a huge fight. You know, I totally agree with that perspective. Like, hey, if we're talking about somebody having a huge super fight at heavyweight, it got involved Tom Aspinall. You know, one of the, one of the problems when we're discussing this is Tom Aspinall is, Tom Aspenal is, what, 32 years old, which is really young in the heavyweight division. It's a psycho.

Yeah. It's like usually we're talking about guys in the late 30s, early 40s. We've done this for years where the guys at the top are kind of elderly in this way. Like the right now John Jones and Alex Pereira are both the same age. They'll be like around 39 around the White House event. It's kind of like if you're going to do any of those, it's got to happen, right? Like there's a little bit of a ticking clock on those types of matchups. And I don't know how much that actually plays in.

This is, and again, this isn't the UFC. This is mostly just us and, like, people out there discussing these things and the fighters themselves and what they would, what their druthers would be. But I do think there's a factor of that. Like, if you're ever going to get this fight or this fight, you kind of kind of, you have to act on it sooner rather than later. And Aspinall is the weird novelty in this division who's dominating it very young. you know what I'm saying so it's like it just kind of adds this extra dimension that we're not used to yeah it's it's gonna be interesting to see how it plays out and obviously we have full faith in mr. Andy Aspinall that he will go to bat for his young champion should have us on Saturday um regards to the strawway uh comment event you wrote a great article about about vera and much needed I feel as well Chuck you know you've definitely given us something to sink our teeth into here with this I'm the only one who wrote about here I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure myself, it's a great article and really, really impressive how many crossovers there is here to Moyer's career and how many contrast there is. Like, absolutely insane when I

was reading it. Like, what, what have you come away with and has it, has it wet your appetite? Are you now suddenly way more on board the underdog train here with Verna Jandy Roba? Well, it's funny because I remember her saying something like this years ago where she was like female or somebody calling her that female name in mind, not thinking much of it. But as, as this kind of went on and now she's in the spot. I kind of revisited it. I was like, I wonder like, what are their careers like? And it was really strange to go through that and be

like, whoa, these all kind of like match up in these strange ways. I'm one of those guys who, like I was like Damien Maya. Like he fought like totally. He was like 41 years old in the UFC. But like he's one of those guys who ages well to me like where you look back on me like, man, what a, what an interesting

fellow he was. Because I wrote in that piece, I remember he was always like, I don't really want to, you know, you don't go in there to like bloody the guy up or whatever. You just want to get them out of there. It was almost like he talked like a pacifist who'd been thrown into this chaotic situation of fighting, but he wanted to get out of there

without big damage either way, you know, that sort of thing. I don't know if Viren is quite like that. That's where I think they're not the same, but what he was saying is when I talked to both of them, but what he was saying is like, you know, he always thought himself as a smart fighter, cerebral fighter, who kept adding to his jiu-jitsu base and adapting it more and more into the sport,

which I think we all saw. him do. And he was kind of pointing out, you know, that they've trained together with Viren a couple of times and he sees that in her. So now that she's getting older, 37 years old, she's kind of shown, like in her last fight with Jan Jaun, like she looked as good as she has, right? Like, so you're seeing her kind of put things together at an older age. And he kind like, in his mind, he was like, you know, that's kind of what I did all the way up until I couldn't compete anymore. And to me, that was the greatest parallel between the two. And in a, in a in a career that had quite a few of them, as it turns out.

Yeah, it's great stuff. I will say, the fear I have when I'm reading it. And, Ben, I'd love to hear your take on this is, Verna, for the most part, dominates people on the ground. Guess where McKenzie Dern wants this fight to go. Yeah. And that is a thought that, I mean, for one thing, maybe that tells you, hey, you won't have to convince this person

to fight on the ground with you. You will be able to have that kind of a fight. if that's the kind of fight that you want. And then you'll just have to find out whether or not you're right about it being to your strengths or not. The thing with McKenzie Dern is she's such an unpredictable

fighter at this point. We've seen her sometimes show up and you go, man, McKenzie Dern, she's really making some improvements. She's rounded out the game. She looks a lot better this time. She could really turn into something. And then we've seen her show up and be like, she's taking steps backwards.

She seems like she's getting worse. And now, you know, she's put a couple of wins together and everything, but it's really hard to know what to expect from her, both in terms of just like execution, game plan, all that stuff. That's what makes this one a tough one to call for me, honestly. It's just like not only trying to figure out where the fight's going to be contested and who's got the advantage there, but just like which McKenzie Dern do you get. Yeah. It's, I just think she has a magnificent guard. like in terms of like MMA these days you don't see guard players that

you know that potent anymore where we are able to snap up submissions from that position and you're constantly active in that position but that said like is shandy roba is not like a slouch on the feed either we've seen our bus people up as you know it in the article Chuck like I think that might just stick a jab

in McKenzie Darren's face here and make it awkward as fuck like I think she can absolutely do that um we love Din Thomas I mean I knew where this was going Ben, Ben wrote a mailbag piece a few weeks about talking about, you know, the heavyweight division, the relevancy of the heavyweight division, should anything happen? Din's gone and checkmated you here with this one. Do we have the clip, Jordan, or do we have a quote?

I don't know what we have here. There has there ever been a more insignificant title fight in UFC history, asked Din Thomas, on the title fight podcast. I can't see the rest of that. It has a sign in front of it. tell me what it's called please on paper podcast on paper podcast sorry yes yes

um you know this guy's gonna be dana white's rant joke like surely not what he wants his best he saying in the lead it's hilarious that Dean keeps saying shit like this man I love it I know what was the first one was yeah they should make the trade

yeah PFL okay yes I like that Dean Thomas speaking his mind on it but I was like that it does raise a good question Okay, I don't see the fight quite like that. I don't see it as that bad. I do understand that like when somebody vacates the belt and you don't have obvious, you know, there's just not obvious people that should be like getting up there, they've been waiting forever, that that can seem more insignificant, you know.

But I remember writing an article once when Joe Soto fought, I think it was Dillishaw, right, a UFC 177. And Joe Soto, I mean, Joe Soto was nowhere within the vicinity of a title shot, but somehow he, he, got it because of the way the cart, like there was 11th hour injuries and all that stuff and he ends up on that. To me that's like a crazy insignificant like what is going on here? This doesn't even like what is this? This isn't really

even like a title fight, you know? I mean, and if you went through the course of that sort of thing, I'm sure that you could find a bunch of others. I'm just pointing out that there's been some absurd ones over the years. To me this is really like dude, there's all kinds of weird parallels too with like, you know, Abu Dhabi like you mentioned it's a it's a

jujitsu thing. Abu Dhabi and the Jiu Jitsu kind of correlations that are going there. You know, I was mentioned that Damon Maya, Damon Maya was on the first Abu Dhabi card, UFC 112, you know, and that fiasco against Anderson Silva. But I think that like when you have two people who

are like when styles make fights, but their styles are so nuanced, you know, like to me, that's fascinating. And like Ben said, there's, there's such an erratic nature to the way that Dern has fought. You don't know what you're getting. I think that, I mean, and maybe I'm the only one. This is why I wanted to write about it, though, is like, I feel like

It's a very compelling fight, if nothing else. Maybe it doesn't strike, like, maybe it's not going to move the needle in the broader world, but doesn't need to because you already have the heavyweight fight at the top here. Yeah, I mean, I definitely get what Dean Thomas is saying, because it's like anytime you take two people, neither one of whom are the champion, have been the champion, or were even really in that serious a discussion as somebody we were looking at and being like, this person has championship material, they're going to be a champ soon. You have those two people fight for a vacant title, especially while we do have a dominant champion in the division, she's just a way on other business.

And so it's kind of just like, who wants to sit in the big chair while she's gone? Yeah. When she gets back, you will probably have to get out of the chair. Understand that. But while she's gone, the two of you can decide who is the best, not even of the rest, but of the two of you who we've chosen. and that is what this is. And somebody asked in my mailbag this week, but they're like,

which is the more insignificant, you know, kind of vacant title fight in that sense? This one or Raquel Pennington versus Myra Buena Silva. And I was like, and I was just like, you know what? I forgot that that happened.

That's exactly. What does that tell you? Yes. You know, and this feels like very easily you could wind up in a situation where a year from now, a year and a half later, you know,

Zhang Wiley comes back. Whatever happens there, you could very easily be like, hey, remember when the title fight in the strawweight division was McKenzie Dern and Vierna Janderoba? You know, like, you could easily see us looking back on it. That was a bad one. Like, what was the, who was the, there was somebody who had a champion, like they won the belt, they never ended up defending it. It was a women's champion. Do you know what I'm talking about? Are you talking about the Iron Lady?

Yes. Durandumi? Germain Durandi. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe, is that the one I'm thinking of? Because there was a couple of different things back in those days. She won it when we still had a featherweight title. She won it, but then kind of immediately announced that she would not fight Chris Seibor.

And they were like, well, then forget this championship stuff. And she was a champ for like two months. But we've been dealing in some weirdness in the women's ranks for a while. There has been a couple of other ones too, but man, that Rocky Pennington one, like, that's a great shot. See, I would put this one above that just automatically. But we'll see. Like if we're talking next year and this is brought up and we're like, hey, we forgot all about that fight. I guess they were, you know, equal.

I do appreciate, though, when you see them both show up for a press conference today, everybody's getting to do their stuff. McKenzie Dern looks like she's walking the red carpet. Looks like she's headed to the VIP section at the club. And Vyner Janderoba shows up looking like the visiting ceramics professor at a liberal arts college who everybody is like, she's so cool. I want to do anything stupid in front of. of her and the two of them are standing and you're just like yeah this this is a this is a great contrast here i'm into it yeah way to set the scene um ben you were brilliant art to go up uh with a lot of the training partners of duke rufus uh man we lost last week an absolute legend

and pioneer of this sport um some great stuff in here what have you uh gathered from his close friends training partners uh since his passing last week yeah you know it was so sudden and unexpected and it's it feels like we've had a few of these in the MMA community recently and it's it just keeps coming I hope that this is the end of it because it's just you know I was at the University of Montana Grizz hockey game last Friday night and I

started to get you know texts where people like have you heard this Duke Rufus news and when you get that you know it's not probably good news you know and it was like people were telling me hey we were texting him earlier today and then And, you know, he didn't show up for something he was supposed to show up for. People went, how that's weird. And then he didn't show up to pick up his daughter where that's when people were like, well, something's wrong because otherwise he would absolutely be here.

And I think a lot of people really reeling in how sudden that loss was. And when I started to think about it and started to reach out to people I knew who at one point had Ben Rufus sport guys, there's a ton of them. You know, when you, it's the both Pettus brothers, you know, Ben Ascran, Siam Punk came through there, Tyron Woodley had been there at a time. You know, Ben Rothwell, the BKFC heavyweight champion. My personal friend retired fighter Danny Downs had started his career and had like a really influential person had been Duke Rufus for him. And I think it was also sort of tricky for some of those people because there were, we saw some people who left there with hard feelings one way or another.

You know, there, there were some people who like looked back on their time there and had some bitterness about whatever happened. They felt like maybe the light that he shunned. on them. Somebody else got later on. He decided, you know, that somebody else was the favorite after that. And so there are some guys I know who are still sitting around and we're hoping that one day, you know, me and Duke will be able to sit down and will be able to work some of this stuff out and let bygones be bygones because they did remember, especially with time, he was a really important person in their careers and in their lives. And then when something like this happens, they kind of all realize you're never going to get that chance now. That opportunity is gone. You're

never going to get to talk to him again. And I think it was some complicated feelings for some of those guys and really hit them pretty hard. But also, I think when they reflected on it, made them all kind of realize like, yeah, your career would have been different. Your life might have been different if Duke Rufus hadn't been a part of it. Absolutely. Yeah, you know, I was a great article, Ben. I had the pleasure of multiple times of going out there to Rufus sport and talking to different fighters of the Pettus, both Pettus brothers I did. I've been asking a piece back in the day out there with them

and see him punk one time I went out there when he was just getting involved and every single time Duke was like do it at the gym come over here blah blah blah I would go over there and he would always always have a big conversation with you like he'd be the last guy there and you're still talking to him I remember one time I don't remember which piece it was

but he started talking about on balk which is a movie from back of the day dude and he was so into it and I was like I got it was like the type of thing where you're like I'm going to have to go rent this film again because it'd been so long since I'd even even thought of it, you know? But he saw stuff and things like that. And like you're mentioning, man, like he kind of, it's just one of those, you talk to anybody, you know, the agents, you know, the matchmakers, anybody. And they've all, it's all facets of Duke Rufus, right? Like, they all have different stories about this guy and what he's, what he meant and what he was like to deal with.

And I remember, like, Pascal, what was his name, Kraus back in the day? and Chico came and he had so many dudes like Eric Koch remember that guy like all these early guys and it just felt like he was you know in the Midwest he made himself like the centric you know champions

haven for guys who anybody who wanted to be among them were going up to Milwaukee and I remember him using the words emotionally connected to his fighters Ariel had mentioned this where he was like in the Anthony Pezz I think it was the Charles Olivera fight where he's like you know if he loses this

I would quit coach. I don't want to keep coaching. He was so emotionally connected. He said this something very similar to me when he was dealing with Phil Brooks, see him punk. He was like, you know, man, I've known this guy for a long time. We're friends first. I knew this guy for years as a friend before I ever decided to be his coach and all this. But it meant so much. I mean, we know how that worked out. But it was a tremendous blow for him, you know, to go through that whole process and not get Phil Brooks's first win or a UFC win. And he was very, you know, he was very affected by that. And I think that that tells you a little bit about the kind of rapport he had with his guys in his gym.

He was emotionally connected to all the guys that he was bringing to the Octagon. Yeah, I also thought when, you know, and I put it in the story there, when I talked to his longtime business partner in the gym and in the local events in Milwaukee that they would promote Scott Jaffe. And he was saying how when they kind of first teamed up to open the gym and how they're going to brand it and do everything, the only rule that, Duke really set out for him was he was like, all right, you can, you know, you're the business side of this thing. I just asked that you never say no to me when I say I'd need to buy some equipment for the gym. Don't ever get cheap on that, you know? And he was just like, you know, and I asked him, was like, did it ever come up as a, some tension in the relationship? And he said, well, it made me glad that we weren't in car racing, you know, where, because he did want some

equipment from time to time, but it was, it was reasonable. We could, we could swing the cost and everything. But, you know, that told you, like, that was his priority where he was just like, this gym needs to be as best, best possible version of itself. So give me the tools that I need to do that, you know, and then we'll work from there. I certainly don't have a personal relationship with Duke or anything like that. But he did have a great personal relationship with Noel McGrath, a guy I used to do a podcast with Eurobash. And when he came to Ireland, I had no idea. You're speaking about this compassion. The level of understanding, he had of Irish history. And it turned out

when he was a kid in Milwaukee, a lot of kids from West Belfast during the Troubles used to be sent out there for the summer to give them a break from this war-torn area they were living in. Duke Gruv has made friends with all them and he started learning about Irish culture and therefore became a huge Glasgow Celtic

fan. So every time he came to Ireland, he would be wearing Glasgow Celtic tops and just trying to meet as many people affiliated with this club as possible. When he passed, I find out we have a great mutual friend in Chris Bungard, the fighter, who would send Duke Rufus to results of all the Celtic matches all the time. He had been to Celtic Park, had been brought out on the pitch at Celtic Park in Glasgow.

Just an incredible reach the guy had. And honestly, the only thing I'll say, like, when you met him, it's rare to meet someone who loves fighting that much. Like, he will talk to anyone about fighting. I had another message from a friend who said, I once sent, and he's a hobbyist, a pure hobbyist, never had a competitive fight. send Duke Rufus a video of my kicking technique and he sent me back a five minute breakdown on how I can improve it. So, um, an absolute

gent. Please go and read Ben's article on Uncrown. It is fantastic. Rest and peace, Duke Rufus. And we are back, ladies and gentlemen, and look, USC 321. It's going to be coming at you quick and fast tomorrow. You're going to wake up. You're probably going to miss a few fights. It's going to be

happening that early. But we're going to have a live watchalong GC and Rick will be doing that. And then it will be me, Chuck and Ariel O'ani for the Post-Foyd show. Lord knows, there'll be a lot to talk about coming off the back of this event in Abu Dhabi. There has been a few news items that have crossed Peter Carroll's desk in the last few days, one of which was Dana Hoyt, given Adam Cattrell the big spiel about what can we expect from Paramount. Very vague, right? We're going to be honest, let's just roll the clip and then we'll see if we can take anything away from this.

Do you think fight fans get more? Do you think what? Do you think fight fans get more events in 2020? 26? I don't know. Definitely not more events but definitely try some new things as far as scheduling goes. Okay. Regarding locations that obviously in territories that you visit, it's been great recently, especially with fight nights and the big events that we've had back in front of the fans and packed out stadiums and arenas around, are the new territories that you're looking to explore with the... Always. I mean, that's always, no matter who we're with. No matter what

network partner we're with, we're always trying to go to new places and open up, you know, and again, I've been saying for a while, too, we've got to get back to some places that we haven't met. We just went to Chicago. We hadn't been there in a long time and it was a great event. But the answer is yes. That's always yes, no matter who we're with. Yeah, it's a scheduling. It's a very loose word, I'd say. Thank God there's not more events because fuck knows. Did you say scheduling or scheduling? which where did you go with scheduling i think

okay i didn't know with the irish i'm sorry to interrupt i was like i don't know no i want to know no i'm curious we say scheduling out here i mean scheduling yeah who says schedule what was you know scheduling is how they said in uh in english right i thought you're from i was getting confused with the brennard shop thing i thought you're from uk for met there oscar losa the screening scheduling what do you think he means lots like uh he didn't say like he said that he said that he spoke for a minute, but he said things about scheduling.

Is this, do you think, Chuk, this is like the WWE thing? Scheduling? You don't know anymore. I don't know, man. I honestly don't know what he means. I'm glad, first of all, that there aren't any more, they won't be more events. I mean, that would have been alarming because aren't they already doing it?

I think that, wasn't it like 46 events in the course of a year? I mean, that means you get, what, six weekends where there's not a UFC event? So if they said there was going to be more events, that would have been problematic. But I don't know. I don't know if that means they're going to experiment with, you know, midweek type things. Or, you know, like they used to back in the day, they had some, they had some strange dates that they threw out there.

Maybe that's what he's talking about. But I'm okay with whatever they do as so long as there's no, there aren't more events. I think that's fair. We also, we have to consider the possibility that he's just saying stuff. Yes. right that that maybe he doesn't even totally know what he means i mean you see him just in some of these interviews the tone and everything like he seems kind of bored being president of the ufc at times and so if we're going to do anything different with with scheduling i would think

what we mean is we're going to go different places try to open up new markets and maybe sometimes when we're in some of these international markets if we're not worried about selling paper views we do more events that are prime time for those markets and and let other people figure it out, like kind of what we're doing this weekend. But, you know, like we've seen sometimes where it's like, all right, if we're in this place and we're going to make the Australians still wake up on Sunday morning and come on down to the arena because we've got to sell pay-per-views back home at, you know, 10 o'clock Eastern in North America, you don't really have to do that quite as much if you're not worried about selling paper views.

I would think that when it comes to stuff like that, Paramount's probably going to get to have a large say in what we do there because they're the ones paying all the money they're the ones who are going to be trying to use it to gain subscribers in order to make this not a huge economic folly for them they need to gain a lot of subscribers with this and probably fairly quickly but i i would think that that would be more what he means i the ufc seems to have settled into an approach in a lot of ways where they go hey it ain't broke everything we're doing we're making a ton of money we're the machine is rolling on really well. I don't see them messing with it too much if they don't have to and let the TV partner's not leaning on them to because they kind of have the attitude now that they have learned everything there is to know about fight promotion and we're just going to keep doing that until the money machine stops spitting out cash. Yeah, that's actually, that's so accurate. It's very depressing actually, Ben. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I prefer to think he's just saying stuff, you know. Well, you got to say something there, right? Because it's like, hey, new broadcast deal heading in

26. Big changes of foot, right? You can't be like, no, we're going to keep doing the same old shit. Like, that's a little bit of an anti-climic. We might do things like that. We might do things like that. Go back to Chicago. Yeah, that's a little bit of an anti-climactic answer. You got to be like, oh, shush, man, big stuff. People are going to, their minds are going to be blown in 2026.

Just wait. This is how we got us in trouble with the UFC 300 video. I ended up in that black and white thing where I was like, I'm not really that impressed. He's like, fuck you Irish. Have that. Well, the thing we've learned, though, about the thing we learned, especially from his video where he was. talking about how he was always right about the pandemic and everything and he would

cut aerial stuff up he will make those videos whether you actually say it and mean that or not they're not afraid to completely take it out of context and twist it to mean whatever they need at the moment so don't even worry about it the boredom thing is real as well like we saw the shock to the system he got in several interviews in that boxing junket he was on and the press conference there like when you can answer every question with like yeah it's going to be great. Like, you do, you know, you've been sitting there for three hours reeling the broadcasts and just being like, yes. Again, really great news. You probably do. You need to shake things up a bit. Locations, come on. Who's paying for it? That's, let's be real. Yeah. Um, we've had

another video, um, of Connor McGregor. Uh, I thought he was a religious man already. Uh, turns out, become a bit more religious and has a great tan, but I will say, very clear eyes for the first time in a very long time let's roll the footage do you feel that there is a connection between your journey and the spirit of bkfc in some way for sure for sure i'm not here i am not here just by chance there is a higher power god that dictates my journey and all of our journeys and i live my life by God's word and since that since around that time that you mentioned at the last event I've engaged on a spiritual journey and I'm saved I am healed and on the back of that

on the back of that the world is in for a treat the world is in for a treat my competitive spark that was once in my heart is now a roaring blaze so I'm very excited You know, I envy these men and these men up here on this dais. They're right about to make weight and they're to go in and enjoy and entertain and do what they were called to do. As am I called to do it. You know, I'm eager to get back. And right now I had to dial myself in and go inward. And that I'm very, very excited to come back my own self.

He's gone inward. How do you feel about that joke? I mean, it is, I think the big takeaway there, Tizi, is what you said about him being clear-eyed. It does seem to me, at least like he's going to remember saying this stuff in the morning. So that's a bonus, I think. But if God has always been in control of this man's career, he was asleep at the wheel for a large portion of, a large portion of the last few years. I don't know.

Of all the wrinkles I thought that he'd come back with as he's nearing, I guess, whatever this is going to be. This wasn't, I did not have this one on my bingo card here. Well, we've seen this before from other celebrities who have in the wake of a lot of credible sexual assault allegations have been like, but I'm healed now. I mean, Russell Brand is out there. baptizing people in the river immediately and so sells amulets as well hey well there you go a more cynical

man might see this as a refuge of the scoundrel kind of situation if he says you know it's a genuine spiritual journey and awakening that he's been on and that it's been good for him then then i'm happy for him good i'm glad there's something about the affected speech of it all that kind of gives the air of somebody who wants you to believe that he has undergone like a spiritual transformation and these that that part is a little weird it also seems like the kind of thing where say hey my sins are washed clean so therefore you guys can stop bringing it up that you know you want to believe if it's if it's helpful to him as good then it's genuine that hey good whatever helps you whatever helps you live a better life and not be a terror to those around you

then that's a net positive i would say my own personal take on it is we'll see yeah we will see, won't we? Yeah. Yeah, like, he's referencing, like, when you saw me those weeks ago, it was just, like, three weeks ago, you know, he's talking about he was, where Ariel and the BKFC documentary, the case he did, absolutely tremendous by the way. Go and watch that. It's, everybody's watching it by the way. All of my friends are onto me about it. Incredible stuff, but when I was looking at McGregor and that, I was like, man, he's had a few, to say the least, you know, to say the very least he had had a few that day. And it is the most sober he's looked in a very long time, which is promising because,

You know, it was becoming quite regular where he was going to press conferences. He was showing up at events and you were like, yep, definitely had a few again. And look, I'm known to have a few myself. There's no heroes here. But different levels, I would say. So look, promising thing that he appears to be sober, I guess. But I still think it's a, I saw a lot of people sharing this like, oh, well, he's definitely going to fight now. And I'm like, mate, like, it is a long way off that.

And three weeks is a very short amount of time. He has to get through a fight camp. I'd say it is more promising based on that 10 minute press conference he had. But yeah, we will have to wait and see. If anything, if he even came close to some sincerity there, kind of like, you know, having this kind of phomo or whatever he said. Where he's like, the guys over here are getting ready to fight. I'm not getting to fight.

That felt a little sincere at least. Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah. So, I mean, I haven't seen the sincere version of him in a long time where he's saying something that you know he means. And I believe that, like, I haven't known the guy from way back, I haven't spoke to him about 10 years, but he, he loved fighting and really loved that and was absolutely, it absorbed every minute of his life. He was just transfixed by fighting. So he always thought that was real. I never thought for a second that the guy did not want to fight. It's getting to a fight. That's what I think his real problem is. Getting and having that discipline to stay on course for eight, like I think it has to be more than eight weeks now. I was talking to a lot of retired pros about this in terms of, like, how far he's, how much he's taken off and how, what would a camp look like if he was going to get back in? One of the guys, and I fought at a very similar level to Connor, I don't want to give away who it was, but he was like, I would need a six-month camp to get ready for an eight-week camp. Like, he's like, my life is so different.

Like, I would need so much. And he's like, can he do that with all the legal stuff happening with all, you know, there's a lot of shit going on in Connor McGregor's life right now. can he actually deal with that like that is my concern more than anything yeah i've heard uh fighters say this and phrase it this way and it's a thing that i have thought of before in my own life where they're like you get to a certain point you got to get in shape to get in shape yes and that i think might be where he's at and that would be the part because it's the the hard long drudgery of a training camp staying focused and staying discipline and especially doing that when you don't have to financially and every other way

you don't have to do it at all you could just decide like oh right screw it never mind and to see if he's able to do all that I'll be surprised I'll put it that way that's just your buddy

like how much can it take is we see like the breaks have happened a number of times with his body it's just your buddy will give in eventually unfortunately but who knows Apache Mix had a bit of a situation with the French MMA people.

So last year in May, he fought someone. And they're trying to ban him now for marijuana use. And I got to say, I did not see the marijuana use initially. And I was like, is this explaining all of these performances we've seen in the UFC? Turns out I was

completely wrong. But I believe we have the topology did a big old, a big old thread. I'm going to try and give you the spark notes of it because it is furiously long. I received notice of a failed drug test for athlete Pachi Mix related to is May,

2004, Belator fight against Magomed Magamethov in Paris. Mix originally won the fight via split decision. The French MMA Federation, a federation that is a legal authority over MMI fights in France has communicated that the loss that due to a failed test, Mix's

win is being overturned from a win to a loss. This is not the first reverse to a loss we were received from the French MMA Federation, but it is the most prominent. Tapology does not topology does not overturning wins to losses in such circumstances that's a mistake they have there the approach we are accustomed to in mMA is for wins to be overturned to no contest and so yeah that's basically the situation here they've said they're they're putting it to a loss topology not following that protocol it feels a bit much ado about nothing after all of that and we did hear what patchy had to say i believe jordan if that's correct do we have something from yeah don't let them go confuse you. I ain't a fucking pedd cheat and I work my ass off to be where I'm at. We ain't done. The road looks rocky after some losses, even non-existent at times, but a kid like me from

Angola, raised by my adopted mother of four of food stamps and no car can make it through the storm. I know we all can. Stay with me, please, as these next moments will be iconic. Not a great time for this to happen, I would say, for Apache, right? But it is, it is misleading to be putting out these headlines that are just like drug test issue for you know, overture. Because that's like if somebody were like Pizzie Carroll having legal issues and hot water

with the law and you find out he got pulled over for speeding. You know, like especially this honestly, when I saw this and I looked into it and I was like, oh, marijuana. We're talking about marijuana. It reminded me of the insane days when people's wins would get taken away from them over marijuana.

Or Diaz, right? Yeah. I mean, the Nick Diaz, the, the, the Nick Diaz, Takenori Gomi fight is the greatest no contest of all time because Nick DeS goes out there as a great performance and wins and then the Nevada commission is like no he had marijuana in his system now that one I remember they did at one point

try to say like he had so much marijuana in his system you know but still that was insane that we were doing that for as long as we did especially knowing that does not have performance enhancing capability it stays in your system for a long long time after it is active in your system and if anything don't we want

professional fighters to get home after a long hard day of the gym and, you know, hit the bong and watch cartoons rather than pop pills and go out to the club. You know, that's just better for everyone. It's better for society to have those guys stoned at home playing Xbox. So it's crazy to me that even that we're in the year 2025 even talking about this stuff. And also the way the commission here seems to have handled it. There's credit to tapology for being like, we have, we have seen your request. We have denied it. We're keeping. when that one has a win, moving on. That's funny, man.

You know, going back to that mega meta fight, though, like, I did suspect the evil hands of marijuana. I got to say, like, if you go watch that fight. Right. I don't want to speak to someone walking down the street. Like, I mean, what are these guys doing? Like, they're in a fighter person? How is this a performance announcer?

I'm going to scale this fence and fucking run home. I'll tell you what, I've been in plenty of jiu-jitsu gyms where everybody's ghee smelled like weed. So, like, they're out there doing it. Trust me. Yeah. Yeah, I know a few of those guys myself. Lads, we're going to take another break,

but we will be back to explore any super chats that you may have sent our way. Maybe you haven't. I don't know. We will find out in two minutes. I wonder if, like, those football shows, like, are playing. And, like, we're going to a break, and it just cuts to me shouting all types of obscenities. I'm just upset that we don't hear them talking more about the Montana Grizzlies who are undefeated leading the big sky conference and this i got a bone to pick with sacramento state

president dr luke woods who i talked to i interviewed him for my story about combat you and their whole program over there at sacramento state you know he's a he's a fun guy to talk to he's a mover and a shaker a young guy for university president out there doing stuff so i appreciate it but he gets he gets on esPN radio ahead of tonight's a rare friday night game where sack state the hornets they host the undefeated montana Grizzlies and he went out there on ESPN radio and he said, oh, the, the Montana pandas are coming to town. We're not worried about them.

They haven't even played anybody this year. Now, fair enough, strength of schedule, maybe is not the strongest argument that the Grizzlies have had, but nobody's been able to beat them yet. They got the win over Idaho. They got with North Dakota. They're doing okay. You don't want to fire up the Montana Grizzlies. I can see that.

I can see that bad. Don't poke his sleeping grizzly. It's like... Dr. Luke Woods isn't going to be down there on the field when the grizzlies roll into Sacramento. It's going to have to be the players where his mouth is writing checks that he expects their butts to cash. And I tell you what, I heard from my good friend Chad done this this week that the Grizzlies went ahead and put up the pirate flag in the locker room this week. The pirate flag, you guys, which kind of means we don't really care about you guys going to class so much this week. what we care about is winning this damn

Goosebugs. So, I'm ready. You're getting a phone call to nobody. You're getting a phone call. They're going to be fired up after what Dr. Luke would said. And I'll tell you what, if they, if Bobby Howe head coach of the Montana Grizzlies gets the chance to run the score up on you after this, he will do it.

He will be out there going for two. Don't, don't sleep on it, man. The Grizzlies are going to come in fired up. So I hope the Hornets and all 2,000 people they get at their home games are ready for it. I love it, man. Yeah, baby. Fuck those people. And by the way,

Nico Mutano, somebody just reminded me on Twitter. Remember I was trying to think of those. Nico Matano, she had that whole thing. Floyd my jump. Yes, exactly. We've seen some fiascos in our day. Anyway, that's who I was trying to come up with earlier.

I've got two messages saying things about God, since we had that conversation about Connor. But do we have any super? Oh, yes, go and watch that. Is that what we're doing here? Go and watch Ariel's documentary that he, did with Casey on BKFC there's Connor in his previous life as an ungodly man he is uh he's recorded doing an interview there and it's actually brilliant of so many of my old school

mma fans they've clicked back in all of a sudden they're like holy shit this is what i've wanted i was like i can't do a show every week well don't bury the lead we got we got casey lyden out here on the team now we got the goat the goat yeah casey lyden out here making actual goddamn films. Mr. Fanny Pack. Mr. Fanny Peck. They don't get any better than that in the videographer game, especially in this sport. So, man, you get that guy on the team. You got to highlight his work for sure. They've already done the fight circus one as well. That's going to be wild.

Like, I cannot wait. They had the fight circus event in, uh, in Las Vegas. Yeah. Yeah. So that's going to be absolutely mental. I think that's out next month. I cannot wait to see it. Really looking forward to seeing what happened in the, uh, the lube boxing match that they had. I was an alternate Didn't get the call With this one Sitting there covered in lube With your gloves on

Just whip me in Do we have any superchets Mr. Honor Jordan Where's the guitar riff? We don't get the music We need the music Yeah, we don't hear it That sucks

We need to hear the music Jordan Okay Can we do it again? No There we go Don't deny us that It's a shot of adrenaline. Is that being Florida Timberman?

Is that what that name means? F.L. Timberman? I think so. Yeah. Florida Timberman. 1.89. Thanks very much, mate. I don't know what that number two crown thing means.

Jordan, can you explain that to me? I don't know. No, okay. You're getting real distracted by all the other stuff. I think you're supposed to focus on the question there. Would you all want MMA in the election? Olympics. A lot of people have tried to make this happen. I'm off of the closest and they were trying to get sport accord. They were trying to get the IOC on board and everything like that. For me,

it's a no. I don't want this sport to be that official. You know, the Reebok kits, that was enough for me. I, you know, it's been, I mean, have boxing the Olympics. Like, I, that's true. I think that's true. I wouldn't be opposed to it as long as people understand what you'd be getting. Like, look at boxing in the Olympics. looks at like, first of all, who's in it, what it actually looks like, how it compares to what the professional version of the sport looks like. They're very different. It's not going to be, you know, we're going to see Charles Oliver out there for Brazil, you know, taking on Ilya to Poria for Spain. It's not going to be that. And as long as people understand that that's the version that you would get, you would get amateurs in a bunch of protective gear going out there

doing kind of a different version of the sport. And like, sure, I don't, I don't see any reason why it should be kept out of the Olympics that there's like an appetite for it. But just to understand that it's not going to be like a great World Cup kind of style tournament of worldwide champions. Not to mention it's like it's already kind of an Olympic setup in general as is. I mean, the globe's best fighters are fighting each other and, you know, making an amateur ranks thing doesn't make any sense. I don't know.

I've never really been sold on it. We get this question probably once every couple of years, you know, where people want to know about this and it's, it's never been something I really cared to see. we even give them a gold medal we just put it on a belt that they can win a real true it's also like you need government recognition

for a mixed martial arts as a sport for it to be an Olympic sport and that's very like that is very difficult like I mean Ireland has started trying to start trying to get MMA recognition in 2016 we're in 2025 and it still hasn't happened same in the UK

Sweden is one of the rare countries that actually made it happen and they were very aggressive about making happen I remember going to cover the UFC's event in Stockholm there many years ago and talking to the guys, you know, the Swedes love a federation. Oh, they, they love to create a federation for damn near everything. And so they were really into it and everything. And at the time, I could see the argument people were making where like they wanted, they thought the recognition that comes with being the Olympics will help

establish you as like, yes, we are a mainstream sport. This is for real. This is not just some weirdo niche bullshit of people kicking each other in the nuts. Like, this is, this is a for real sport. I kind of feel like we're already there, you know? I don't know if MMA really needs that kind of recognition, I suppose, to just thinking like, it'd be kind of cool. Yeah, yeah, that's fair. Anything else there? J-Town? Did Din Thomas forgot Steppe v. Jones happened. Jose Valencia, with a fair point. I mean, it is a good point. At least there, you had former champions, one in another division, one is a former heavyweight champion fighting like at least you had that kind of going for you even if you know steep

was sort of three quarters retired by then what and john jones really handpicked it but at least you had that that gave that one far more legitimacy uh than then you know what i am looking forward to between beer and january but mackenzie turn i actually watched it back recently and i can remember afterwards we're kind of like yeah john jones did great like that watched it again i think it was a bit over enthusiastic about john John Jones's performance. He was looking at a little bit in moments here there. I mean, he's still John Zones.

He can still do brilliant stuff. He was looking a little unkish in the way he was moving around at points. And I say that as a fellow who looks pretty goddamn on-oogish when I'm out there doing so. I'm in the Unc Zone. Without a doubt. Yeah, I don't know. It just reminded me of like, actually, when my uncles used to play soccer with me and they were really good at soccer and I was five. And I was like, I can't really.

And he's like, yeah, I got the fuck over there. Yeah. That's what it reminds me of. Do we have anything else, Jordan? Oh, shit. Ace Boogie, 499, the big dog. Is Asmel v. Gan the most of the UFC has been invested in a fight outcome since McGregor v. Mendez?

Can you think of any other matchup on that level? That's an interesting one. Well, they really wanted to see Francis Ngano get beat in that last one. They were pretty invested in that. And, you know, to the point where Francis and Gano's manager was like, I was getting texts from 702 numbers that I didn't have saved on my phone being like, Yeah, it's all about to come crashing down tomorrow. So, like, that one, they were invested sort of against one guy. But at this point, like, I think the UFC is kind of less invested than we are.

We, the MMA fans and media and stuff. We want to see the heavyweight title kind of legitimized here and get back on a strong footing, which would kind of have to come from a Tom Aspinall win. The UFC, I think, is at this point where they're like, look, the money machine's going to keep turning out dollar bills regardless of who wins. I don't think that they much worry about who wins these fights anymore at all. We just need to keep putting fights in the machine, essentially, is what happening, right? Like, whoever. Do you think they care, Chuck?

Do you think they care? In this particular one, maybe a little bit. But I know what you're saying, like, in general, I don't think that it has the same. Back then, it meant everything for McGregor to get through that fight. I know what he's talking about, but, like, now there might be a little bit of that, only in the sense that gone, the perception is, you know, that he's a second place kind of guy, like he's already lost a couple it's just you're dealing with uh you're dealing with something different with him in the head of that division than you would with aspinall which then opens up

all possibility right so i feel like there's probably a little bit that they want aspinall to win that fight oh we have one more lads we thought we're out of town there's more superchairs here hammer paris a great name if that is your real name that is fucking awesome i believe they are australian dollars and we have 7.99 of them is ufc legally obligated to to offer a certain amount of fights. That says flights. I think you're mean fights to the champions. If Tom says he wants to fight three more times,

do they have to oblige? I think they have, like that used to be something Dana White said. We offer you three fights a year. We know the champions don't fight three times a year. Well, these days, I think most USC contracts are we are contractually obligated

to at least offer you a fight every six months. And I don't know that the champions might have different clauses and different guys could have different clauses. But that was kind of the state. standard way a lot of the UFC contracts were structured was we have to at least offer you one or in breach of contract. And offer you could mean a lot of different things. You know, we could offer you one that we know you don't want to do. And if you say no, then a lot of the contract language would allow them to extend the contract another six months and just say, all right, well, hey, we did our thing. But like, if Tom Aspinall was like, I want to get these next three fights in in the next year and a half, and I don't care who it is, anybody you got to offer them up there. then if he has that same language and contractually the UFC would have to do it. Damn.

Yeah. It's interesting. Mara Rob has five fights a year and his, like five defenses a year. He's set up. There's also the problem, though, that if the UFC were to fall in breach of contract with you in that way,

then they'd be like, take us to court. Let's sort it out that way. And that never goes well for fighters and it's always the thing a promoter relies on is like, we got lawyers and we don't mind being tied up in court battles for years. Do you have years? of your career to waste in court?

Do you have a lot of money to spend on lawyers to hope that eventually you get out of your contract by the time it's no longer good for you? That's why we see so few fighters actually manage to challenge it. It's also, you might have noticed

we're looking around at a time when we're looking at the very little legislation that exists to say what you can and can't do contractually with fighters and the UFC's parent company has been like, we would like to change that, please. Go ahead and just change it the way we want.

And everybody lines up to say, Yes, sir, whatever you want. So not a great time to be challenging contracts in court. It's almost like these contracts, like, they're not good for the athletes. It could be better. They could be better. Right, lads, that's all we've got for you. Thank you to my fantastic co-host, Ben, folks, and Chuck Menon,

the two most legendary writers in the history of our sport. We have lots to give you over this weekend. So please come back tomorrow. We have the watch along with G.C. and Rick, which is always a hoot. And then we will have the Post-Foy show with Chuck Men, And me and Ariel Hohani. It's going to be fantastic. We'll be talking all kinds of shit.

And then we're going to do it all again next week again. We love you all very much. Have a wonderful weekend. Enjoy the fights. I'm Pizzi Carroll. They were bent folks in Chuck Mendenhall. On our Jordans here as well and Oscar Losef. We love you all.

Mwha.