The Ariel Helwani Show - UFC 322 aftermath, Dillon Danis brawl, Jake vs. Joshua official, John Kavanagh & Cesar Gomezlince in studio, Bo Nickal, Benoit Saint-Denis, Ethyn Ewing

Episode Date: November 17, 2025

Ariel Helwani begins the show with a recap of UFC 322, including Islam Makhachev’s domination of Jack Della Maddalena, the legacy comparisons between Makhachev and Khabib Nurmagomedov, who could be next for Makhachev, Dillon Danis’ brawl with the Dagestani fighters, and more (05:33).Benoit Saint-Denis joins fresh off his 16-second knockout of Beneil Dariush, breaking down the quick finish, weighing in on Makhachev’s move to welterweight, giving his prediction for the Arman Tsarukyan vs. Dan Hooker fight, and more (1:00:35).Ethyn Ewing makes his debut following a big upset win over Malcolm Wellmaker, looking back at how the short-notice opportunity came together, having to make the weight, being called to compete at Madison Square Garden, what he wants to do next, and more (1:21:31).Bo Nickal returns to discuss his bounce-back win, how he set up the highlight-reel head kick, his placement on the UFC 322 card, his post-fight speech, when he plans to fight again, and more (1:44:12).SBG head coach John Kavanagh reunites with Ariel in-studio to discuss his new venture with Upper Sports Management, the latest on Conor McGregor, the state of the gym, and more. Then, USM’s founder and CEO Cesar Gomezlince joins the conversation to talk about Michael Morales’ massive UFC 322 win, making the case for Morales to get the next welterweight title shot, and more (2:05:17).The Boys in the Back join Ariel to react to the official announcement of Jake Paul vs. Anthony Joshua, including the impact on Joshua’s legacy and whether Paul should be concerned about his health (2:58:57).Old friend Ade Oladipo stops by to further discuss Paul vs. Joshua, whether Paul stands a chance, the reaction to the fight in the UK, Conor Benn getting revenge against Chris Eubank Jr., having no interest in the trilogy, Joseph Parker’s positive test, and more (3:34:45).

Ladies and gentlemen, now, welcome to the Eria, Hawaii Show. Back in your life on this Monday, November 17, 2000. And 25, hello again, everyone. I sure hope you're doing well. Welcome back to the program. Welcome to a very special post-paper-view Monday, the second to last one, the penultimate one of 2025 coming off what I thought on paper was the best pay-per-view of the year as far as the UFC is concerned. I think it delivered. There's a lot to discuss.

You know, there are some Mondays where I'm like, I'm truth be told, I'm a bit of a recluse. I'm anti-social. You can ask my wife about this. I don't like to talk to a lot of people generally. I mean, I know everyone in the back wouldn't ever guess this because I'm such a ray of sunshine. But generally, I like to keep to myself. And so there are some days where I'm like, I'm going to have to dial it up today. I'm going to have to dig down deep.

There are some days where it feels like I have to get out of my shell. This, my friends, this is not one of those days. There are other days where I count down the minutes, the hours, until 1 p.m. Eastern. 10 in the West 6 in the UK There are other days where I'm like itching I'm itching to get the show started And I felt this way as of yesterday Because I felt like there was a lot to get into

That we don't necessarily get into Or get the chance to get into When we're doing the post shows And partially because it's 1 o'clock in the morning And we've just sat there for seven hours watching fights You're not really clear-headed But to have a day and a half or so Almost two days to digest to dissect everything

To think about everything To ruminate over everything and since then a lot of other stuff has happened as well and so I am very excited to get into things we've had some breaking news as of this morning we found out that Anthony Joshua versus Jake Paul is in fact happening

on December 19th live on Netflix eight round fight heavyweight fight there is a cap on how much AJ can weigh 245 pounds there it is the announcement this morning at 8 a.m. Eastern Time 1 o'clock lunchtime

over in the UK judgment day and yes, that's how you spell Judgment Day or judgment here in the United States. I know in Canada and the UK, it's J-U-D-G-E-M-N-T, Kasea Center. A lot to say about this. I think we're going to save a lot of the boxing talk because, of course, it was also Connor Ben

versus Chris Eubank Jr., which transpired this Saturday, this past Saturday afternoon here in the U.S. I think we're going to save the boxing talk to the back end of the show because there's a lot to get into as far as MMA is concerned and I know a lot of you want to get into the post 322 talk.

So on today's program, back into the show, I think we'll save Conor Ben, Chris Eubank, too, to that portion. We'll also save Jake versus A.J. Talk to the back end.

Prior to that, we're going to be joined by John Kavanaugh, head man over at SBG. He's gotten into some interesting MMA business type stuff. He'll be joining us in studio. I remember having John Kavanaugh in studio

the Monday after UFC 205. So here we are some nine years later, and there was a lot of similarities between that night in 2016 and this past Saturday at the Mecca. We'll get into all of that and more with Mr. John Kavanaugh at approximately 3 o'clock at 240, Bo Neckle, who had the incredible highlight reel knockout of Hidalfe Viera, head kick knockout by Bo Neckle? Who had that on their bingo card? I certainly didn't, but it was tremendous stuff, very important win for him. Spectacular whim. Afterwards, he was a little stone cold-esque flipping off the crowd. Very interesting stuff. We'll get into all of that and more with Bo Nicol, who was coming off his first pro loss. Prior to that, would be joined by Boa 240. Oh, yeah, Ethan, Ethan, Ewan,

I'm trying to go off top of my head here. Ethan Ewing, who a week ago, let's be honest, not a lot of us knew of Ethan Ewing. He was coming off an A1 combat fight. That's Uriah Faber's promotion. Want a fight there around a week ago. And then all of a sudden he gets a call on Thursday to fight Malcolm Wellmaker, Rising Star, Stud, prospect rookie of the year, two incredible knockouts in the UFC, one incredible knockout contingency series, getting all the attention.

It feels like he's put on this card to really showcase him. Massive platform, pay-per-view card, Madison Square Garden, New York City. And what does Ethan Ewing do? He does what everyone with a last name Ewing does when they compete at Madison Square Garden. He wins. He wins. Unbelievable win. We'll talk to Ethan Ewing about that at around 2.15.

We'll also talk to Benoit Saint-Denie, who had the incredible knockout of Benile Darius to kick off the pay-per-view main card at around 2 o'clock, the Pride of France. What a great guy. Great post-fight interview. Great message as well. So a massive, massive show. ESD, Ethan Ewing, John Kavanaugh studio, Bo Nickel, all the boxing talk. But of course, we must begin with UFC 322.

I'm fixing my chair here, got caught on the rug. UFC 322 has come and gone. There is a new UFC welterweight champion. His name is Islam Machachev. He is now just the 11th fighter in UFC history to win a belt in two different weight classes. Very notable. He is now just the second fighter in UFC history to win 16 fights in a row. He ties a record that was set by Anderson Silva many moons ago, a record that I think a lot of people thought no one would ever match.

And he won a 16th fight in a row, which is remarkable. He was pretty damn dominant at 155 pounds. He broke the record for most consecutive title defenses at 155 pounds, four. And now he moves up to 170 pounds. And in his first fight at 170 pounds, he not only beats Jack Della Madelena, he thoroughly, thoroughly dominates Jack Della Madelina. It was never really close. It was 50 to 45. It was a very easy 50 to 45 to score.

I don't think anyone gave Jack Della, even his biggest fan, I don't think would give him a single round in that fight. And what was most notable to me, there were a few things that stood out. Number one, he didn't just beat Jack Della. he didn't just dominate Jack Della. He broke him. I mean, go back and look at Jack. Jack leading into the fight, it was the closest that we had ever seen, in my opinion,

to like the reincarnation of Nick Diaz. That face-off on Thursday got me so hyped for this fight, the way he was standing, the way he was flexing. Jack Della is that guy. I don't think less of Jack Della on this Monday as a result of what happened on Saturday. He is that good, he is that tough. He had been, you know, on an incredible run.

He was undefeated in the UFC. He had just beaten Bilal Muhammad, won that title, fair and square back in May, got the opportunity after Shafcott got injured. We know the whole story. He's that guy. And the guy that we saw at the beginning of that fight, the guy who made the walk, the guy who was standing there as he was being introduced by Bruce Buffer, was not the same guy that we saw end of the fourth, beginning of the fifth, end of the fifth.

Even his corner, who was celebrated after the wind, over Balal back in May in Montreal coach Vickers the whole team even they were saying to him in so many words you're broken stop feeling sorry for yourself stop looking down

and his body language his face told the whole picture Islam Akachev broke him mentally and that's not to knock JDM that is to give Islam all his flowers all the credit in the world he is unbelievable he is the best pound for pound fighter in the world

it's scary to think that he's even better and more impressive at 170 than he is at 155 he completely shut out the welterweight champion in his first fight at 170 pounds he looked very comfortable with the 15 extra pounds and it was probably more by the time the fight happened and what stood out to me the most is that it felt like a massive weight had been lifted off of Islam's shoulders and I know what you're probably thinking how is that possible how is it possible that a guy who had won 15 fights in a row going into this fight who was considered by many the best fighter in the world who was considered by many the best pound for pound fighter in the world who was considered by many maybe the best lightweight in the history of the sport and we know

how great that division is and how many great fighters it has produced how could it be possible that a weight was lifted off his shoulders on Saturday that's what it appeared to me when I looked at him, he looked like he was breathing a massive sigh of relief. And my theory is, my theory is, that for as long as he was fighting at 155 pounds, he was in the shadows of his mentor, Habib Nirmag Madov, who he adores, who he loves, who he respects, whose father was his coach and mentor, you know the whole story. And now it feels like he finally feels like he is able to accomplish something outside of his shadows. I am not suggesting for a minute, for a second.

I know people get weird when you start pinning the two of them against each other. I'm not doing that. But Habib is the lightweight king. Habib willingly gave up that title. I don't think he gave up that title because he got rich, because he got famous. I think he gave up that title because his father tragically passed away, and he made a promise to his mother. He strikes me as that kind of person. He is that kind of person.

And so once he did that, he passed the baton and said, now it's your time. You're going to be the guy. And Islam took that baton, ran with it. And I think even before Saturday already surpassed his legacy and resume, I think now there's no conversation to be had. Khabib never wanted two separate weight classes, never defended the title four times, didn't have the run, didn't have the winning streak, all that. The only thing Khabib has over Islam is that he never lost.

Islam has the one loss in the UFC to Adriana Martins. if you know you know Davy Ramos a lot of people didn't get that one it's for the OGs it's for the real true hardcore but that's the one thing Habib has that he doesn't have I felt on Saturday the look on Islam's face

the demeanor the body language suggested that he now has his own legacy he now has his own thing outside of Habib's world and I don't think he was striving for that but I think he wanted that I think he wanted

that moment. I have never seen I don't think we've ever seen him smile like this. Look at this guy. Completely different human being. Look at the relief. Look at the happiness. And it was cool to see. In the back, the interviews, the interactions. Very cool to see. It was cool to see him humanized in a way

because he comes across sometimes as stoic, as unflappable, as a lot of these Russian fighters do come across this way. They're impossible to break mental. They're impossible to even bend, let alone break. He came across on Saturday in the aftermath as a guy who had just realized a dream, as a guy who, you know, like was a kid, couldn't believe his life, couldn't believe how far he's come. And that, to me, made him more likable than ever. People will now forever debate, and maybe he wins ten more in a row and there's no debate. But as of right now, people will, you know, debate, is he better than Habib?

who wins in their prime if they fight each other. I was talking to someone who's very close to them and their suggestion was like there's that big brother syndrome when they go against each other, Habib has the edge. But if there was none of that, if there's just two separate guys

with the same skill sets in their prime, that's a barbershop debate that we'll never get the answer to. It's fun to talk about. If you want my vote, I think the accomplishments, the resume, the fact that he won two belts in two different weight classes,

the winning streak, and there are no signs of slowing down, makes him above Habib. But there's no denying. Best fighter in the world. Pound for pound, number one. And there is a jockeying of position. Ilya fights again. Who knows what happens. If they fight each other, who knows what happens. But as of right now, November 17, 2025, it's that damn impressive. And yes, I do believe, as we are offering up... a lot of, you know, platitudes, compliments. I do believe the kids would call, they'd call it a little bit of, what is it, aura farming.

It definitely felt like they were trying to recreate the Connor post-205 moment. I mean, this, it was very reminiscent. Ten MSG cards later. The 10th annual UFC at MSG in November car, I mean, like this was, who could deny? And he is worthy of the moment. but it felt like they were trying to say like this is our house now

this is our promotion now we've done it that's the way it came across to me no no but it felt like they were go up there go up there take it take the second belt and what is it about these two belts you can't strip the guy and then all of a sudden have them

parade at the press conference and the faceoffs and the way ins and this stuff post fight with the two belts what is it is it now like just you know like it's just a trophy you can hold on to forever? I don't get it. Why strip them? I know why, because they want to have title fights on paper views and they just kind of hope that no one is a stickler for these things like I am. But it is a little bit annoying. He should still, for all intents of purposes, be the 155 pound

champion. And Dana said afterwards, we don't know what he's going to do. There's no, why in the world would you go back down to 55? There's no reason. You look that good at 170. There's a litany of new guys for you to fight at 170. I don't think there's any guy right now who's like a sure fire like, oh, this guy's going to be your kryptonite. And of course there's the Ilya fight, which I feel like at this point we're actually further away than ever from getting because I don't see Ilya moving up to 170 and I don't see him moving down to 155. Maybe I'm crazy, but it seems like Ilya has his things going on at 155 and there's fights against Patty and Justin Gaichi and whomever, you know, BSD looking very good right now. And now there's a new crop of guys at 170 for him to fight. And holy smokes, are there a new crop of guys for Isamachaf to fight?

Michael Morales looking incredible on Saturday, getting the big win over Sean Brady. And my heart breaks for Sean Brady. It truly does. Sean Brady should have been fighting for the belt next. If it wasn't for Islam moving up, Sean Brady is probably fighting for the belt next. But they put him in there against an absolute killer,

a superstar in the making, a guy who just looks like a freaking, I mean, he looks like a tank out there. He looks like a 205er going up against a 155er in there. Incredible win for the pride. of Ecuador and perhaps the first champion to ever come out of that country, perhaps down the line Michael Morales. Prior to that, you have Carlos Proches becoming the first man to stop Leon Edwards via strikes. Leon looked good in the first round. Submission attempts. Gets his back. Yes, Carlos seemed

a little bit unbothered by the whole situation. I mean, that picture is phenomenal. It's really a tremendous shot, and then he comes back with that left hand and just absolutely blast Leon Edwards. And now Leon has some soul searching, how quickly things change for a guy who not that long ago was the welterweight champion of the world. Now you have a guy who not that long ago was losing to Ian Gary. And so now all of the pressure goes to Ian Gary this weekend against Bilal Muhammad. Balal Mohammed, Ian Gary this weekend in Qatar just got a whole lot bigger because if Prachis and Morales would have won via a ho-hum decision, it would have been like a little like tap, tap it in for

Ian Gary. Now he's got to do something spectacular to let everyone know that he deserves the next crack. And oh, by the way, there's Shafka out there who I hear is ready to go. January, February, March, he is ready to go. Do they go to him? Or is there a Kamar Usman fight out there and it seems like

the entire Islam squad is pushing for that fight. Are they pushing for it like John Jones was pushing for the Stipe fight because they want the legacy win? Are they pushing for it because they're buddies, are they pushing for it because they're all under the same management? I don't know. But it does seem like that's what they're pushing for. And count me among those who say, I have zero interest in that fight. And it would be an absolute travesty if the

likes of Michael Morales and Carlos Prachas and Ian Gary are doing their thing. And Kumar Usman, who has one win in what, like the past four fights. And the one win is against Joaquin Buckley back in June, who wasn't even a top five fighter. If he was, he was on the fringe, top six, top five, and that's what gets you a title shot? That's a joke. 170 is arguably the most interesting weight class in the UFC right now, and that's the guy who's getting the first crack at Isam Ahatchev at 155 pounds. That's absolutely insane. 170, excuse me, not 155 pounds. Old habits die hard. But as you could see, there's a lot going on and there's a lot to discuss. And let me just say one last thing before we get to the guys and their

opinions on what transpired on Saturday. I understand that a lot of people would say, yeah, the event in the comane. By the way, shout out to Valentina Shevchenko, thoroughly dominating Zhang Wei Li, even dare I say, it was even more dominant than what Islam did, and that's how impressive it was. And I did not see this coming. I thought this

would be a very competitive fight. But after a couple years ago where, you know, the world was thinking, maybe that's it for Valentina. She's been doing this for a long time. Grasso catches her. Then there's the draw, as controversial as it was. Maybe she's just not that

good anymore. She's just too old. Too many miles on the tires. Absolutely not. As Dana White said, wait classes for a reason. Happy they made the fight, have no real problem with them making the fight. It was the most interesting fight at that moment for the two of them, but Junction 1,000% go down and challenge Mackenzie Dern and Valentina Staya at 125. And maybe we get that fight against Kayla if a few things happen. Or maybe we get that fight against Amanda one last time before they both set off into the sunset. The point is it was an amazing card leading up to the Komen in Maine, and I understand both fights went the distance. You got to see magic. You got to see dominance, greatness, and I know not everyone cares about that.

I know you just want to see knockouts and submissions and crazy moments. I do not think it is fair to Islam, just like I don't think it was fair to Hamzat to call him a boring fighter. Allow me to remind you that back in January, Isamakhav beat Hinata Moikano, via first round Darce Choke. Allow me to remind you that in June of last year, Isamachathe beat Dustin Poyer in one of the best fights of the year, in my opinion,

via fifth round, Dars Choke. Allow me to remind you that in October of 2023, he knocked out Alex Volcanovsky. And just how good is Alex because of the win and how great it was back in February of 2023. Prior to that, he beat Charles Olivera via arm triangle choke. Prior to that, he beat Bobby King Green via ground and pound. Prior to that, he Camorad.

Dan Hooker. Prior to that, he rear naked choke, Tiago Moises. Prior to that, he arm triangle choked Drew Dober. And prior to that, he beat the unanimous decision. You know who he beat? You know who he beat? You know who took him into deep waters? You know who actually tested him? Yes, of course, it was the great Davy Ramos. But you have to go all the way back to September of 2019 for that fight. So other than, other than this past weekend, the only other time in the past six years, five and a half years that he went the distance was the fight of the year against Volcanovsky

which he won by that much how is that a boring fighter I'm sorry how is that a boring fighter finish after finish after finish after finish how is that a boring fighter it's not but you know maybe Rondo was right maybe everyone is what have you done for me lately in this sport

I get it I get it it's 1 a.m the fight is going late you're getting tired and it feels like rinse and repeat but the knock should not be on Islam it's got to be on the guy who can't figure it out and just like DDP couldn't figure it out Jack couldn't figure it out

and now he has to go back to the drawing board and he's got to figure it out and Jack's not done and we'll see him and you'll be in the mix at 170 just like DDP will be in the mix at 185 but these guys are that damn good they're that damn talented they're that damn dominant and it's on to their opponents to figure them out

but to call them a boring fighter when I just listed all these fights have been finished via stoppage over the past five and a half years is simply not fair. And oh yeah, in addition to all of that, we got a brawl in the stands

at Madison Square Garden between Dylan Dennis and team Islamakhachev. Guys, how lucky are we, huh? Not yet, not yet. We'll do a breakdown of this. I want to do a proper breakdown of this moment. But we'll do it once we get, you know, the important stuff out of the way.

You know how big Saturday night was? you know what big Saturday night was? You know what big Sunday was? In Eta, Ptzee Carroll is here on a post-paper-view Monday. I don't know if he's even a lot. Is he alive? How many pints last night?

How many pints? None, none. Pure joy. Troy parrots on fire. Your demon, do you know, Troy Parrot is on fire. Your demon. Did they change the Dublin airport to Troy Parrott International?

Not yet. But let me tell you, the mood over here is incredible. It's absolutely wild how much the Irish football team when they're doing well has an impact on our collective mood here. Just walking around today, everyone's buzzing. Kids,

you know the way kids usually cycle or scooters to school? All just kicking balls on the way home. All future Troy pirates all of a sudden. It's a magical feeling. Bring on March. We're going to America, baby. Please God.

Well, I mean, let's not get crazy. Just yet there's a playoff. Listen, we'll get crazy. That's exactly what I'm going to do. Sorry, sorry. I'm ready. I'm ready here. We've got to play off in late March. Five days later, we're going to qualify for this fucking tournament.

And it's going to be one of the greatest summers of all time. It's going to be all like a tie in 90 all over again. But as Ham here, Halgerson said after this, this isn't about heroes. I'm just showing up for work, Ariel. I don't need any pets on the back. This is a team ever. Glad to be part of the team. The crack will be 25.

Actually, it will be 26 by the time it happens. I just want to let you know, this is how much I. I love you, and this is how much I support your endeavors. I woke up early to watch this match. I was texting, you know, it would be nice if the feeling was reciprocated sometimes, you know what I mean? What do you mean? Like, you once accused me about only caring about my teams and not your teams, and there I was, you know, singing the Irish national anthem in Gaelic after the big win. Everyone, I'm telling the group chat, turn it on, turn it on, and I'm getting crickets from everyone. I'm there, boots on the ground, you know, living and dying,

with a match against Hungary, of all people. Yeah, it's, uh, it was a wild experience watching that because I woke up. Obviously, we, we, I just want to my, I just want to my flowers. You, yeah, you deserve it. And listen, I'm always watching the Knicks, always watching the bills, as you know. I was tuned that up to you. You're watching the fucking Blue Jays on a Saturday night at four in the morning. It's, uh, I woke up and Elaine's gone to our mom and dad's to watch it.

Everybody's gone somewhere to watch it. So I'm just in the house by myself. Reggie's not even here. The dog's not even here. So I'm just in the house boy myself screaming at the TV. And I was like at the start. like, I'm not going to get worked up over this. I'm not going to get worked up over this.

Then I can't sit down. I'm just pacing from the kitchen back to the sitting room for the last 10 minutes of the game. And then I just scream myself hoarse when it happened. It's unbelievable. I never thought I'd see a moment like that again. And it's a beautiful, beautiful feeling. It's a beautiful game.

It's a beautiful life. There's a lot to discuss. Where's everyone else? Rick and G.C. here? Are they taking the day? Oh, hey, guys. Oh, yeah, we're laying out for you guys. What?

Whatever that combo was. I was a World Cup qualifiers. I tried to go to FS1 and it was like NHR drags and it was like, it goes past. Sometimes it goes past. Yeah, yeah. Congrats, yeah.

We're all very happy for you, man. Yeah, we're all very happy for you. Shout to Parrotter. You're Irish as well, G.C. I had my jersey on. I slept in my jersey. Guys, guys, UFC 322 is coming and gone. You guys did a phenomenal job on the watch party.

And I feel like there's many, many angles in the aftermath of it. I feel like one of the big stories is like who the hell is next and who the hell is going to because I feel like the thing is like it's not just who is next. There's no clear cut number one obviously. But it's also like who's actually going to give him a fight? Like we don't want to see five rounds of dominance every time. You want to see someone who appears to be primed to give him a challenge as as things sit here right now. And it does get a little interesting if Balal beats, you know, beats Ian this weekend because we all know, at least they told us Balal wouldn't fight Islam and

I don't know who's signing up for that fight. Who's your vote for? By the way, they is just Balal. Just for the right. Let's be 100% clear. The only person who said that is Balal. Nobody else said. No one signing up for that fight. Let's be honest. Rick, who are you voting for? Who would I like to see? Right now. Who I think is going to get it?

Who would you like to see? Shavkat Rachmanov. Shavkat Rokmanov is the one that I would like to see. Wow. I didn't expect that. I think he poses the most difficult challenge. He's a fantastic striker. He's a fantastic grappler. We've seen him in dog fights. We've seen him have to tough it out. We've seen him compromised, have to grid it out against Ian Gary. He's done everything. He's undefeated. He's going to be as big,

if not bigger than Islam. He's the one that I think poses the biggest challenge. And so I would like to see Shavkat because I think he was the one who were kind of like grooming as the future champion of this division all along until the injury part of it happened. Like he was supposed to be the guy that probably slid into the spot and was the one that Islam would potentially be coming up to face. So for me, it's shot. Despite the fact that he hasn't fought since December of last year, he's coming off. Serious knee surgery, you feel like, okay, he's the best fighter. Does he have the best chance? Yes. He has the best chance and he's the best fighter. That is what I want to see against Assamakachev. I think he's going to have challenges at 170 in a way that he did not

at 155. I don't think he had a peer at 155. I do, maybe Armin as close as you could get. But I don't think he had peers at 155. I think at 70, a lot of these challenges are going to be very interesting because he does not have that size advantage that he had at 55. He is going to be facing guys that are similar size. Jack Delamadalena is a real 170-pound guy. Islam looked good against him, but I want to see that against the Shab Khats of the world. Hell, even the Balals, even the Michael Morales is who looks to be a middleweight, I think there's going to be challenges for Islam at 170, although I expect him to pass many of those tests. he might not pass every test.

So for me, it's Shafcott. Your vote, G's he. I actually agree with Rick. I would love to see him go against Shafcott. I think he has the best chance of beating him. But just because of the injury and how long he's been out, I know that that just I don't see it being an option. I don't see Shafcott getting the next shot.

So because of the massive one on Saturday night, I'll vote Michael Morales. Pizzi. I think if Ian Gary knocks out Bilal Muhammad this weekend, it should be Ian Gary. And he knows that. He said it on your show last month. But look, from a meritocracy point,

of you, Rick is right, it should be Shavkat, but this isn't a meritocracy. It's a what have you done for me lightly sport? It's a how spectacle can, how, what spectacles can you give us in this sport? That's what the UFC brass want. And for that reason, I'd say right now in Paul position is Michael Morales. Okay, my vote is similar to yours. If Ian wins on Saturday, honestly, I hate the fact that it has to be, he has to do something spectacular. It does, though. It does because we know how this game goes. But I just think, in my opinion, like if we're talking on merit, I actually think if he wins on Saturday, and especially

if he wins via stoppage, he should be next. Shafkat Kamar Usman, Morales Pratchez. Again, though, are we talking about who we want to see or who should be next? Those are two different conversations. Who do you think is in Paul position, Rick, right now? Ian.

Ian can have the performance. So you're saying if he has this performance, I think, because he hasn't had that performance yet, Michael Morales is then in position. He hasn't knocked anyone out since the Daniel Rodriguez fight in spring 2023. That's like six straight fights. If he wins a dominant decision, GC, you don't, you don't think he deserves it? I mean, if he, if we're talking dominant, like a 50, 45 and or like a 49, 46 where

he just completely blows him out? I think it's three rounds, by the way. Yeah. Oh, oh, is it three rounds? Yeah. It is. Yeah. Fuck. Wow. I think he's got a finish man. I think it's like Islam did the JDM. I think it's like Islam did the JDM. Is that what we're saying? Like if it's a performance like that way. Yeah. No chance that happens. Where there's like no, not even a few seconds of of time where Bilal looks like he's going to win. Yeah. We just have to see what happens. I don't think the U.S. the upgrades that way. I know we're high on Michael Morales right now, but like Ian Gary has been here,

and I think he's a bigger name, and I think he is in pole position. By the way, what's wrong? What is wrong with Morales versus Pratchez? How could Pratchez get it over? Oh, I love that. I love that. Ian just beat him. We have seemingly, based if you look at social media and the MMA community, we have 10 number one contenders. It's just not possible. They have to fight.

There are going to be needs to be fights. can't be number one contender. Michael Morales, Carlos Prachis, Shavkat, all these guys need to fight if they're going to stake their claim for a title. So we need to see fights, and it can't just be everybody's next. Like, everybody is not next. You need to fight and sort it all out.

So I'm totally down to Morales. It's very annoying when a guy wins like one in a row, two in a row, and is all of a sudden saying, like, title shot, title shot. Like Usman? I mean, the Usman thing is just crazy. Yeah, but we know that's not based on merit. So that one kind of is on the side and accept it. He's the greatest way out of all time.

I can't stomach an Usman title, It's going to happen. You know what it will feel like? It will feel like they have colluded to give him one last payday on the way out. And then he'll have the fight and he'll retire. Yeah. And it will be a waste of six months. It will backlog the entire weight class.

Look, even as great as Isam was, he's still, like, Sean Brady should have been fighting for the belt after doing what he did to Leon Edwards. And now he goes all the way to the back of the queue. And who knows if he ever gets back in there because very clearly they didn't want to give him a title shot. That's what they put him in against Michael Morales, of all people, an awful, awful matchup for him. It's not, William Morales is in pole position now, though, because Brady was there in that spot? No, I think it was a spectacular win,

and he has looked spectacular, but let's be honest, he just got here. He just got here. I know he's 19 to know. He's essentially has the same resume as Shavkat Rockman. How many cards has Michael Morales headlined? Zero. Is it one? Is it zero? Is it actually zero?

I'm going to look up. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's none. Okay, so you can't tell me. me that he's in pole position. Like, the UFC can't be signing up to just go, yeah, you know what, he had that impressive knockout after a string of great fights. We're going to put, like Ian Machado, Gary. Gilbert Burns. Yeah,

okay, so he has one. That big one. He's got that one, Rick. Ian Machado Gary is a known quantity. Like, I just don't see a world where he's hopping over Ian. No matter what the performance looks like. If Ian gets it done, I expect it's going to be a name like Ian before it's Michael Morales. I think you put Carlos

against Michael and you let those two sort it out and see who's next. Carlos versus Michael is just an absolute stellar fight. Yeah, it's a badger. If that's the logic, though, why wasn't Gary given the opportunity against Bilal over JDM who would never headlined an event? Why, okay, say it again.

Why wasn't Gary, you're talking about in May? Yeah, yeah. Like, why wasn't he put in that spot? Well, if we go back, it was supposed to be JDM versus Leon. Yeah. Shafcott gets hurt. Who was supposed to,

fight because you remember it was supposed to fight um remember it was it was the april kansas city card and then and then didn't um freak it was calil versus uh jamal and then one of them got hurt and so they moved it to june and they came up with that fight on like three weeks notice they came up with gary proches on yeah remember i remember i was at duke alabama and they came up with it on a saturday because we found out that they were moving jamal versus uh they were moving Jamal versus Khalil to the end of June card it's hard to remember all the details

now but ultimately they moved JDM to May Shuff Cut gets out and they put Sean Brady in there against Leon why didn't they give it to him I don't know he was oh I know he was coming off a loss he was coming off the loss to Shuffcott in December that's why

that's fair actually because he went on and he got back in the wind column and remember he was pissed off he was definitely pissed but it was because he was coming off the loss look look what I'd be shocked if they give it to Michael Morales, like, you can sell that, you could put that highlight tape on every day and everybody's going to get excited about it. I wouldn't, I wouldn't

be shocked, like, it's the UFC and things can happen. And if Ian can't go and Michael can, like it could totally happen. But it just feels like Ian's the name on the poster and Michael is not yet. Like, he needs to do something to get there. And you say, like, you know, you wouldn't be surprised. I think that at the end of the day is what's going to happen. Like, we're just going to get a name randomly and we're all just going have to accept it. There's no telling who they're going to go. There's so many options. Headfire emoji five time

alarm emoji. It's happening. Except it's actually going to be Qamara Usman and nobody's going to react. Usman versus Islam. The fight. I will all be pissed off. All of us are given different ones. It'll be Joe. I'm going to be happy. By the way, it'll be Jones versus Stipe all over again. It'll be Jones versus Steepe.

In my opinion, even worse, though. Yeah, because instead of just screwing one guy over Tom Aspital, it's screwing over like five guys who have just been like chipping away, chipping away, chipping away. And not for nothing, he's not actually the welterweight goat, whereas Stipe has an actual case to be that. But he, I mean, he's getting close to just being the goat. Who is Camaro?

No, he's talking about Usman. I'm talking about Usman. Oh, the guy, got it, got it. The premise of why that would even happen is faulty because it's not based on anything other than Dana White saying he's the goat, but he's not actually even remotely close to being. How coincidental was that, right? All of a sudden, Dana-Oisman is the goat. And all of a sudden, Ali is over here, and you're hearing the same thing. It's like, you know, we've got some breadcrumbs.

Yes. Do you guys think that they will lean towards Ian Gary if he does something spectacular because all of a sudden... Oh, wait, wait. Oh, absolutely. Whoa, what, you don't even know what I'm going to say? Oh.

What was it going to say, PT? Well, I thought you were going to say if he does something spectacular, they're going to lean towards Ian Gary. Absolutely. No, no, because it's essentially the 2026 version of Connor Chabee. No, because it isn't.

But there's that thing. It's Ireland versus. Island versus Dagestan. We did this with we did this with what part of you as well. What the fuck is wrong with you, all right? No,

it's two different people. It's the longstanding feud. No, no one in Ireland is walking around saying, wait till we get those fucking Pakistanis. Oh. I'm so fucking angry about what happened in 2018. Come on.

Imagine a lane downstairs hearing this, like muffled through the attic. Also, yeah, that's Connor Habib from Timu. Connor Habib from Wish. What are you talking about? We just saw a brawl in the stands What did he have to do with this?

What does he and Gary have to do with this? He was in the suit shop in 2019. He said, me a fan of who's from Ireland? It's like a Russian and I get in a fight with you and going, this one's from fucking Khabib. I mean, what are you talking about? He's quasi-T. McGregor. Is he not?

Well, because he did a seminar at SBG last month? He's a disciple of Connor McGregor. Is he not? Oh, my God. BFS. Disciple. I don't know, man. He's literally saying that his old friends.

He said that the reason why you wanted to do this was because of Goddra. He's an inspiration to him. Are you working for it? Are you on the promotional reel here? I can already, this feels like what, what, who was your man? Listen, listen. Max Callowman's going to be reading this before they point. Oh, my God, Matt.

Paul Hughes and McGregor in his corner. Can you take me higher? Why did they choose Creed for that? I don't know. I don't know. I think they saw like a WWU promo circuit 2000. We're blind and see. It was so good.

I especially love. the pronunciation of Islam McClashchev Here's the thing, PT. You cannot deny that there is a connect I'm only asking the question. I'm not saying they should go this route.

But I'm not trying to play into Ireland versus Dagestan. But, but, but, you don't think, you don't think Ian's going to say like, I'm going to do this for my guy? You don't think that that's going to be a part of the thing?

This is our way of getting one back? Come on. If you don't think so, then, like, where have you been? Are you still there? Yeah, I don't know if you will. honestly like

he's chilled like the most popular guy in the world he's chilled a little bit he's been very very very very complimentary and supportive of him

I just think that it's it's a it's a promotional layup is it not for hudo like who are you promoting it to Ireland

or Irish people no no to the casual fans this is the Redux this is part two to the people part three apparently

part four it's part four no if Paul used oh made off. I thought you're talking about the ball

being part three. Part four. It's part six then. Part six. There is a connection there. Whether you want to... Part seven,

can't wait. Let's go. How do we get from three to seven? The two brawls, right, McGregor fight the brawl afterwards. Okay, fine, fine. Usman v. Paul's three.

Usman v. Paul two is four. Okay, so in conclusion, you don't think they'll play into this. Just like they weren't going to play into a dollar. Just like they weren't. If they do, I mean, I don't know what impact it will have

over here anyway. I'm not saying, impact. By the way, I'm not saying to you. I'm not saying to your country. I'm saying to the casual fan out there. Picture of them together. Back in the day, suit shop. What was it, Louis Copeland? And now here we are and I'm going to get one for it. Come on. It's a layup. What are you talking about? Is it not a layup? Actually, like, you know, it was ill-advoys with the Dolly, so they probably will. You know what I mean? It went on to sell a lot of pay-per-views, I guess. I believe you were against the Dolly Bay and the promos at that at the time. I think we all

where they use that then, so why not? Let's get Ian Gary to throw a dolly. By the way, I don't even know if I was against it. I just thought it was, I just thought there was no chance they wouldn't use it. Let's see then. Who knows? All right. Does anyone have a chance of beating this guy?

Yes. Who? Shavcott? Yeah. Michael Morales, Carlos, Carlos, Carlos, Carlos, Carlos, with the judo background is very interesting to me. Like, we don't really get to see him use it. He's massive. He's so big, yeah.

I want to see all these fights. Yes. Islam is more vulnerable at 170 than he's been at 155. I think he could accrues to infinite title defenses at 55. I don't think he had a peer there. I'm much more compelled by him at 170. I'm much more compelled. I think he's fantastic.

I'm not going to pick against him in most of these fights, but I think it's going to be competitive and I'd like to see it. I'm not taking too much away from a really bad style matchup for Jack Della Madelena. I need to see more. Did you guys notice how happy he was afterwards? He was stoked. Because usually when he wins these fights, I don't feel like he exudes that kind of happiness.

What do you think that was, G.C., you think that was just him being happy at the moment, or you think there was more to it? I don't know. I mean, he said during the post-fight interview that he's worked his entire life for these two belts, whether it was to feel like he's getting enough Habib Shadow finally.

I don't know if that's really how he operates, but I think it was the fact that he has gotten into this rarefied air, 11 people total. He's now one of them. He has the two belts, gets all the pictures and everything like that. It's an accomplishment that I feel like he's worked for decades at, and to finally achieve it is something that he thinks is very special. Also, like, learning from a guy in D.C. who had the two belts, too. They're joking backstage about it and everything. I think it just feels like a very special moment for him. Yes, there they are, having some cookies. Everyone's there.

It's almost like you get to PRJ when he does that lean back. Yeah, that's interesting. someone someone told me keep it 100 you can't be mad at Joe Davis for emceeing the the Dodgers World Series parade

and not call out your boy DC and I'll be 100% honest with you guys I spoke to DC this morning we usually chat you know on a bi-weekly basis and I was like I don't think that should be filmed everyone knows that you're his guy

everyone knows that you train like you can't erase your relationship you can't erase your past you can erase your friendship I just feel like there are moments maybe the delivering of the cookies shouldn't be filmed. Is there any arguments be made that just like there's so many cameras

around and there's nothing he can do about? Oh, I don't think he did it on purpose. Yeah, no. Like you can't walk anywhere back there without a camera in your face. But if I'm JDM, I'm like, that kind of bums me out. Like, does it matter? Does he care? Is it in the top 50 of his biggest worries on this Monday?

No. You'd like there to be some sort of, you know, separation between church and state. I'll be honest with you, though, from a broadcast standpoint, I don't think that he favors them. You know, I know some people like to say he favors the AKA guys or the Dagestanii, I actually feel like he tries very hard to keep it down the middle, but then it kind of gets washed away in these moments.

Is it a big deal? No, am I getting mad about it? No. Do I think it's the same thing as Joe Davis? No, I don't, actually. He's not even the play-by-play guy. He's the analyst that we know about his relationship. He's actually friends with these guys.

He's not an employee of their team. But I wish for his sake that that stuff wasn't filmed, you know? Yeah, he's there to analyze the fights. He's a former fighter. Everyone is, like, aware of it. Sort of, like, downplay, it would just be insincere. So I'm not, I'm not bothered by it. Yeah.

All right. Well, Islam is that guy. Number one pound for pound, everyone agree? Yeah. Yeah. I think when you go up and when... I briefly moved Marabin, and now he's right back out. I think you guys have put your pound-for-pound rankings out over at uncrown.com,

and it does appear to be unanimous. Islam number one, Ilya, number two, Marab three, Pantosia four, no issues with that top four at all, Chamsat five, Tommy Aspinol six,

Pereira seven, Vogue eight, Drikas, nine, Armand fighting this weekend tied for nine as well. No real issues. I feel like that top five is pretty concrete.

It's a pretty fucking good top five, by the way. Whatever order you put that in, incredible top five. But I feel like whatever the five order you want to put in, I feel like that's pretty.

It might be the most talented top five of all time. It's pretty fucking incredible. Not a single American here either. Not a single American in the top ten. I mean, wasn't there a time where, though, where we had like

GSP, Silva, Jones, all those guys together? Like, it's probably not. It's not 2011? Yeah, it's probably not. But it's pretty damn good. It is good. Valentina Shefchenko's number one,

pound for pound, as far as the women are concerned. Kayla Harrison, number two. Zhang Wei, number three. Correct me if I'm wrong, I believe, used to be number one. Now she's gone all the way down to number three? She was. I had her one, yeah. Chris Cyborg for Dakota, five. That's huge for the PFL. Natalia Silva, who I do believe should be next for Valentina, six, Minot seven, McKenzie eight,

Secazawa, nine, Aaron Blanchfield, who had the big revenge win over Tracy Cortez 10. After her fight, the loss, Jean was very non-committal about her future at 115 pounds, but I feel like that's the move, right? I mean, it has to be Zhang versus McKinsey Dern. Number one, there's not a lot of interesting things going on for McKenzie at 115. Zhang was so good at 115. That's the best fight to make. And then you do Natalia Silva versus Valentina. I feel like there's

no great mystery. There's no great debate as to what they're going to do with those two weight classes right now. Do you guys agree or disagree, Rick? Unless Zhang is really struggling to make weight, which I can't imagine after seeing how she looked against Valentina Shubchenko, she will be coming back for her belt at 115. Were you shocked

at how one side of that was? Yes. Yeah, me too. I expected her to be the stronger fighter in there. I expected her to have the power advantage. I expected her to be the physical one. And it was Valentina just bullying her around the cage. She never took chances. She never, she closed the distance maybe a handful of times. And every time she did, Valentina put her on the end of a punch and just stopped her from doing that. It was a masterful performance by Valentina. I was shocked at the lack of physicality from Zhang. But then when you see them clinch up, she was smaller. She was weaker and she just isn't a 125er.

Yeah, the main event, I saw a path for how it went happening just because of the grappling acumen from Islam and we've seen JDM struggle in that realm before, but this co-main event, I did not see this one coming. I thought it was going to be much closer. I thought Zhang was going to win. Yeah. Yeah, man.

Valentina pitched a shutout, blanked her. Unbelievable. Really unbelievable, especially when you consider the fact that she lost, not that long ago, fights to a draw, and a fight that I thought she actually won. She did one. That 10A was egregious. Yeah. But still, you know, you're like, okay, are you slipping? Is the mystique gone? Are the skills deteriorating all that stuff? Since then.

Dominant win over Alexa, dominant win over Mano Furo, and then this dominant win. And then there was that, I saw an interesting comment from the great Amanda Nunes, who we have not, by the way, we don't have a single fight on the books yet for 2026. And I suspect they'll come fast and fierce in due time. But, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. the perception is that it's going to be Amanda Nunes versus Kayla Harrison next. But this is from an MMA fighting Instagram post. Dana White talking about Valentina's win over Zhang Wei Li. I thought Wei Li would be much stronger

and do better in that fight than she did. Here's Amanda Nunes that's definitely her. In the comments, after I beat K.H., I'm going down to 125 and take this belt for the collection too. That's a crazy comment. Not Valentina moving up, but that's Amanda saying she's going to, gonna move down triple champ no thanks no why why why have you ever seen amanda nunes

she said what she said manna nunez cutting down to 125 yeah pass hard pass that's what she said what about valetina moving up to 135 one last time hard pass on both really i'm down with that by the way she was super close i'm down with her trying it no she was close especially not against kela harrison who's a 145 what no no what if amanda wins still not interested really he's She's 0-2 against Amanda. What do I need to say? Yeah, but a lot of time has passed. You know, people have gone on.

Really? No, pass on both. Has anyone ever done that? Has anyone ever lost two fights and then won a trilogy? Yes. Yes, it's happened before. Vandrely Silva Rampage Jackson. Oh, yes.

Very good show. There's a few. I'm down for it. I'm down for it. No. She's so good at 125. Just rack those up. Keep it going.

Do you agree to Talia Silva next? Yeah, yeah. Definitely. They put her in the spot on the broadcast. Yeah. Like when the stuff, I feel like. She's next. You know.

Okay, so if that's true, they put Usman in the spot. So, Usman next? Yes, probably. They put him in the spot? I mean... They also flashed to Carlos. I think they flashed to Carlos or somebody else. No, Michael.

I think Michael hit the town. Yeah, he was partying. So it was Carlos, by the way. I saw some footage of him at the local pub afterwards. I actually reached out to his guy. I reached out to his manager. Here he is. He's saying, title shot, tight old shot.

Look at this guy. I reached out to him about coming on the show and he's like, man, this dude ain't going to sleep for three days. He's a hard bow to wrangle after the pay-per-views. Look at this guy. Loving life. Unbelievable. I don't know who was having a better time.

Carlos or Hasbula. You guys see Hasbulla out there with our friends over at DoorDash representing with that red bag. Look at Hasbula. Just getting ragdoll by Habib in the cage. Look at the DoorDash bag security as well. Never lets that thing go right over the shoulder. or keeps that D flashing. Yeah.

I love that the hood is on. Look at him. He's kidding. Hood on. Bag almost as big as him. And never lets it go. It's a lot of food in there. Hashtag ad?

Yes. Shout out. Of course. I saw him being mobbed to the point that he had to be rushed into a car like his handler had to pick him up and just like get him into a car because he was being sworn by so many. Really? He's that big of a deal.

Oh, yeah. is a superstar. Well, speaking of superstars, guys, let's talk about the other big fight. Dylan wasn't on the card, Dylan Danis, but unfortunately it does appear as though he lost via TKO. I stole that one from someone else. Not very nice.

It wasn't a good scene. Beginning of the broadcast, there's the open. Wait, wait, wait, pause the second, pause for a second, pause for it. Beginning of the broadcast, there's the open. It's John Anick, Rogan, D.C., and all of a sudden, they're on the broadcast doing the open, and Rogan and DC are like backs turn to the cameras

and you're like what is going on and then very quickly within seconds like I'm starting to get text from people and within seconds you're seeing every angle possible you know it's in an arena with 19,000 or so people so you know it was about the pop off and it appears as though Dylan Dennis got into a melee with Dana called them the Muslim Brotherhood

all just call them team Machachev team Habib a lot of the fighters with ties to those fighters from Dagestan, who, you know, after speaking to some people, my assessment of the situation is Dylan didn't do anything on Saturday in that moment to deserve getting his ass whoop. But of course, there's years upon years upon years of trolling Instagram story posts, Instagram post, tweets, interviews stuff about him talking about them in very disrespectful ways to where you can't be shocked that any of this happened. And you had to have been, you know, I mean, you had to have known that at some point this was going to happen in

some way, shape, or form. My understanding was he bought a ticket. He was there as a fan. He was hanging out with Alex Pereira and Plino Cruz, their friends, their training partners, they train together. There's some pictures of them hanging out. He was there with, you know, with some friends as well. there's a shot of him in GSP saying hello and then surely but surely you know these people who he's talked about in some way shape or form converged and it all popped up there's this one angle here

that's almost like from the perspective of the Dagestani fighters it's the one that we were about to play that I stop here it is and you can see you know some of the familiar faces you can see the now very popular John Pork with the the backwards hat I do believe it is Chanko Abu Bakar Numarama Adov too I love this part here. He's like, yes, please hold my hat. And let's go. And it all pops off. Dylan was wearing a New York Yankees hat. Here's the one dude with the chair and it gets taken away and he just keeps going. Dylan is wearing a Yankees hat. He's wearing very big red shoes. Dylan's brother is in the mix as well, a friend or two as well. And it's just like, I don't know what it is. I don't know what the numbers are. 10 on 4, 15 on 4.

But it could have gotten a lot worse. Shout out to Madison Square Garden Security. I feel like they kept it as contained as possible. There's the one dude with the white jacket. This guy right over here gets drop kicked towards the end. I believe that's a friend of Dillon's. And then it pops off even more. But just a very, very ugly scene.

And one that I think most people predicted was going to happen at some point in time. Yeah, that's the aftermath of the drop kick. there's another there's another angle anyway ultimately Dylan gets uh carted out well I shouldn't say carted out he gets escorted out of the venue here he is the bad guy getting flipped off yelling to people ugly stuff ugly ugly stuff does look pretty cool there though in that moment he looks like stone cold Steve Austin Circa like 1999 um there's another angle I mean everyone was saying he made that comparison the stone cold one? Did he? I think he tweeted it or ID?

Don't call double D? Yeah, he retweeted it, but like, I mean, where it's Jew, he looked, he looked fucking cooler. Anyway, afterwards, Dana White blamed himself. He said that, uh, he got word that Dylan was going to be there. Um, Horamazvedal said it was going to be on site. And he was just like, you know, keep an eye on him. And then all of a sudden it pops off and he's like, oh, I know exactly what happened here. And he gets banned

for life. Deanna White, I actually thought that Dylan was banned for life already, but apparently not. Um, obviously they, they, they clearly don't want to sign him for whatever reason. They feel like he's not worthy or he's a liability or who knows what the reason is. It is a little surprising that they haven't just put him on the ultimate fighter because that would surely pop the rating, whatever it may be. But Dana White, 100% blaming Dylan for this, offered no blame towards the other side of the equation and said that he will not be allowed to attend the UFC event again, ticket bought or not, and that he's banned for the foreseeable future, if not for life. Petey, what did you make of all of this?

Just mental, you know, it's everybody seemed to know. I was not, you know this, Ariel. I was like 30 minutes later, I text. He was like, I think something's after happening with Dylan Dennis there. And you're like, yeah, no shit. Go on, go on social media. It's pretty crazy. I'm with you in terms of like, you know, play silly games, win silly prizes kind of situation. And, um, not to draw it into a thing, said we wouldn't talk about um until later on the show but kind of reminds me of the reaction this jake paul anthony joshua situation with everybody kind of going like oh my god but he could get

really hurt in there but i'm like but yeah but he's been trolling us for so long about like what he's going to do to this guy and this guy and he's going to fight canello and all that kind of stuff so you're like that's kind of what the selling point of that fight is people want to see him get messed up by anthony joshua and that's why so many people will watch i kind of see it like that with Dennis. He's been trolling these guys about their sexuality, about their religion. That stuff does not wash in their community, up in the Russian mountains there. They do not fuck around with that kind of stuff. So am I shocked that it happened? No. But it is kind of crazy, right, that Dylan has been set upon by all these dudes and we're all just kind of like shrugging

our shoulders at it, you know? I mean, here's the truth. John Pork has become, Chanko has become a, I can't tell if he really hates the name or not. I mean, I think it's working for him. if I'm being honest. It's sticking regardless. Both things are true. He hates it and it is working. Well, he was a baby phase

all week long. I think this is going to make him an even bigger baby face now, right? Getting those shots in, you just saw the slow-mo there. He's getting those shots in on Dylan. I mean,

that's something a lot of people wants to do. Banner week for John Paul. And I know he's persona non-grada, but like John Pork versus Dylan Dennis would be a fight I'd watch. I call it too, man. I know they don't.

They just banned him for life, but I'd watch Dylan Dennis versus John Port. Can I ask you a question, Rick? Is it fair to ban Dylan? No. Look, I don't know enough of the details, right? There might be something that I'm not aware of.

Yeah. If this was a brawl between two camps, like, to single out one guy, as opposed to both sides and figure out what's going on, to me feels unjust. And I... Can I tell you what it feels like to me? Can I tell you what it feels like? There's no repercussion to banning Dylan. Dylan is not tied to anyone anymore.

Let's be honest, like him and Connor, they couldn't feel further apart and even so, like, I don't think Conner's, what are you going to do? You're going to ban John Pork? You're going to ban Abu Bakar? Like, what are you going to do? There's repercussions to that, right? It's easier. It's a lot easier to just ban him. And let me be very clear. He asked for it. Like, you talk all that shit, you ask for it. Do I condone that? No. Do I think it should have happened? No. But you had to have expected. You had to have known something like that could have happened if it was just them trying to get their get back after all of those messages and all of those tweets and all of those Instagram stories, there's no, there's no justification, but

you know, it's a very volatile thing. And it's a, it's, you know, he's, he's saying some very outlandish things about them. You just had to have known. I just don't know if it was worthy of getting banned. But like, what does that even mean? I was going to say, was like, was there an issue? Did something happen there and then that prompted. My understanding was. My understanding was No, just his presence. Does this help Dylan? From a, like, he's not going to fight in the UFC, and I don't think he was to start. He's got this kind of like, he's fighting with Anthony Taylor and he's throwing coffee at KSai.

He's fighting with Anthony Taylor. He is cultivating like this stone cold thing. Like, don't get me wrong, he's not so cold Steve Austin. But he is cultivating this thing where it's like he's a bad boy. He's banned. He's doing these things with Logan Paul and his wife. Like, he kind of is doing this thing where he's outside the line. He's coloring outside the lines.

Now he's fighting in misfits. It kind of makes sense. What's the payoff? Just fighting in misfits? Well, guess what? Guess what? Like, we don't know. If he got his ass whooped, like, legit, there's a chance.

That fights in a month. That he might not fight? Yeah, I mean, he got his ass. He didn't look like at superficial damage, though, right? We saw good. I mean, like, he was getting, I don't know what was going on in front of that, in back of that barricade, but he was getting stunked on. I hope he fights.

I'm just saying, like, if. But maybe it's worth it. Maybe this, like, renegade guy persona is the, is the, is the benefit. benefit that he gets. To be quote unquote banned by the UFC is pretty outlaw. Like it is what it is. Like it might work in his favor. If you're not going to be in the

UFC, be all the way out, right? Like if you're... It just feels like the way it happened, it doesn't feel like everyone's like on Dylan Dennis's side now because of it. Yeah, he's not like a body... I think the general consensus is he got what he deserved. People aren't seeing him as a badass now. The alternative, though, is no

attention at all, right? You just don't exist. Dylan Dennis exists whether people want who admit that or not, like, he is somebody that people pay attention to. Why not ban him if you're the UFC, though? Like, if his presence causes this issue, yeah, no, no, no. It's just sort of like, yeah, they clearly want nothing to do with them.

They clearly want, you know, they don't want to promote him. They don't want to have him, even on the BJJ cards, which you would think, like, okay, let's just get a pop there. You know, they're UFC, BJJ. And so, yeah, they're in business with that camp. They're not in business with anyone from his camp, really. Alex Perr isn't, like, banging the drum to have him sign. Connor isn't banging the drum.

It's a lot easier to just be like, hey, guys, we got this, he's gone, you'll never hear from him again, and now he can try to use this to his advantage when he's doing the misfits thing. There's plenty more to discuss. Obviously, we have to talk about the Jake Paul, Anthony Joshua News, Conor Ben, Chris Eubank, which feels like it happened 10 years ago at this point because so much has happened in between. But let us get into the guests today, still to come, John Kavanaugh in studio in about an hour. Ethan Ewing, going to join us as well, Bo Neckle, but what about the start of this pay-per-view main card? Benoit Saint-Denie against Benile Darius, it did not last very long.

In fact, the official time was 16 seconds. I counted it as 14 in the moment. They gave it 16. Doesn't matter. All it took was one knocked down, a brilliant uppercut, a brilliant shot on the ground, and that was all it took for Benile Darius. And so Benoit Saint-Denie continues to roll. What a difference a year makes for him.

He's kind enough to join us live. And in direct from Paris, there he is. Benoit Saint-Denie. Bonsoire, Benoit. Thank you so much for the time and felicitation. Congratulations. Thank you, Ariel.

Nice to be here with you. Yes, it's always great to talk to you. And what a win, my friend. And I'm always curious after a fight that lasts so quickly that is such a short fight, how do you react to something like that because there's so much adrenaline,

there's so much emotion, and then it's over like that. Do you feel like you need some time to come down? And if so, what do you do to bring your energy down because there was so much buzz leading into that? Yeah, it was fast, so you take time to realize what just happened because, of course, the finish did come a kind of not an unexpected way, but very fast.

So even for the fighter, you train so hard, you know, to have a war. and in my mind it was going to be a lot of times of like trying to get each other gas out before somebody got the finish but yeah I was able to put my hands on him quickly so I'm happy with the finish and the work we did we did in the training camp and the arts paring sessions we did made it a lot easier for me to accept that it It went so fast and, yeah, and then payman. You know, you said something in the Post-Five press conference that I thought was very profound and interesting, and I wanted to ask you about it. You said that, you know, when you engage in the clinch with your opponent, that's the way that you kind of like release the animosity that you have towards them.

Can you explain what you mean by that? Because I've never heard anyone describe it quite like that. Yeah, I love those positions because. You can use all the striking arsenal without even seeing because you know where the body of your opponent is. So it's kind of a grappler style approach of the striking department. It's called, you know, the dirty boxing, the clinch. We have people like Justin Gagey who are very good at it or Charles Olivera with his tightlinch. It suits well to people who have both a good grappling and a good striking because you always know where the head of the opponent is even without seeing because your hands are on the guy's body.

So it makes it, I don't know, it makes it comfortable to unleash your full power and full arsenal of strikes on your opponent. So six fastest finish in lightweight history, fastest finish of your career, fastest finish for a French fighter. And here you are second time at Madison Square Garden, the first time a couple years ago against Matt Ferwola, 91 seconds, this time 16 seconds. What is it about New York City and Madison Square Garden that allows you to produce these incredible finishes?

I do believe I was always in a good mood, a good mind, a good mindset and well prepared when I came in New York and yeah I just this past year I have been working a lot and now the work starts to pay off you know since the ruffy fight and since after the Purple Leg fight I feel like the investment in training with the MMAS head coach is paying off and I'm getting well-rounded and a lot sharper and a lot more tactical and what I want to use to get those fights and win as quickly as possible. I know we've talked in the last couple of months about your 2025 as opposed to your 2024, but I can't get over the last six months for you, Benoit. The win in May, the win in September, the win here,

the activity but the way in which you're winning compared to the way 2024 went and I know you've talked about a coach, a new team and all this stuff but like a year ago now a year ago today, last November could you have ever imagined that the year would be so different for you? Two losses, devastating

losses in 24 and now these three incredible finishes in the span of six months is really like you're one of the comeback fighters of the year. It's just a complete 180. Even in your wildest dreams, your greatest hopes could you have ever dreamed of it going like this after the year that you had?

Yeah, I knew I would come back. I knew I would come back. I was just depressed that it will take me so long because you don't get the opportunity to fight as much as you want as many times as you want. This is not football or basketball, though you cannot prove people wrong every week. And the Dustin Poitier fight,

as I told a lot of times I had some some a lot of disrespect from my part on the lack of humility to come in a fight with the health problems and then the Moikano fight I come without coach and without tactics and during the between the first and the second round I already knew that I I was a absolute idiot and that I had a lot of changes to do because obviously I knew who to win the fight and I prove it during the second round and I just give my opponent a weapon to get my ass kicked in the first round because I didn't study him at all and yeah huge mistake like I say I'm young in this sport and

it has been putting me into being more humble, going bad at work and understanding my mistakes. Never underestimate any opponent again. Doing my work not only inside the gym, but also outside by studying them, knowing what they are good at and what I'm good at. all the exchange are going to be the one I want to have with those guys and yeah I just couldn't wait to get those fights and to be in this situation again because I feel like 2004 I lost a full year it's it's pretty easy in this sport to lose a lot of times by doing stupid mistakes very fast so

I'm blessed to be here and I'm blessed to be back on my road to the titles. I was thinking a little bit more about this and I had a feeling that you were going to say something to the effect of what you just said. But I do wonder if there's anything to the fact that, you know, your background in the military is well publicized. You're very open about it and you're very proud of your history and I want to ask you about fighting on Veterans Week. But you have experienced, you know, real tragedy, right? You've experienced war. And so I don't think that there's any amount of losses in a sport that can mentally break you considering where you come from. And do you think that that is something that differentiates you from some other fighters because of the fact that you've experienced real life and death as opposed to the sports equivalent of that. And so even if you do lose a couple in a row, you will not, maybe you'll be down, you'll bend a little bit, but you won't fully break mentally.

You think there's something to that. You're just built different. Yeah, I mean, you know, that night I had a. brother in arms coming to the fight week he lost both his legs on the mission in my speck-ops group a year after left at the exact same post I had before leaving so yeah destiny plays a huge role and like I love to say we all have only two legs and two arms this is why I don't take a lot the mental aspect

of the game too seriously because for me we are all only humans and we are only dust and to dust shall we return it's yeah it's it just enjoys the process enjoy the fights

I love to have tough fights I love to fight and this is what I'm here to do you know and I'm blessed to live this adventure with my staff my family and to have so many people having my back and this is also why I don't like like some useless debates like goats debates and stuff like that I couldn't give more shit about all this stuff I just want to fight and to get the most exciting fights possible, you know. You had mentioned your brother-in-arms.

I think you said there were two of them that were there in attendance, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. How did that happen? I know it was Veterans Week, and same thing when you fought for VOLA, and you're such a good representative for the sport and also for veterans, and it's great that, you know, you defended your country, you served for your country, but you're respected here in the United States, as you should be by everyone in attendance.

How did this come about? Did the UFC help you bring them? Did you bring them? How did this all happen? Yeah, I always dream to bring those guys in a fight with me. So the opportunity was there. I asked the UFC. I really enjoy the fact that they accepted right away.

So they had two nights at the hotel for two with two VAP tickets which they had a great experience at and yeah I just took care of a couple of stuff myself as well and we were able to make it work and I couldn't be more happy

to have those guys in attendance with me because those guys are the real heroes you know of our world it's amazing and your speech afterwards was really nice even the care that you had for benille as well very nice to see your you're a class act could I ask in the main event the former lightweight champion isamahatchev looked incredible against a welterweight a true welterweight were you surprised at how dominant he looked I mean I was not surprised but I do believe it's a guy you you can do any mistakes with him especially as a

tactical aspect of the fight and I believe in the second round he started defending the takedowns and then he had attacked an Araigoshi a judo throw and he almost completed it but he

instead of going away with it he tried to fulfill 100% the move when he ended up being a hinder macachev and those small mistakes

you cannot do them against Islam because yeah he looked great and as always with guys of his team they come with the perfect tactic to adapt to their opponent on the feet and

on the wrestling and on the ground department and he was able not to have as much dominance as people who have loved to because it's not very violent when you have a guy that has not enough

march of victory to take risk to have a huge grand and pound of submission attempts. Instead of that, he has just been keeping Magdalena on his back, on getting him tired, which is the first option you get when you are at the same level, I feel on the ground as the guy,

but you are having the top position, though you have a better position, or you are able to keep it, and to get the guy tired under you so he did a great job Islam did a great job, great tactic and yeah I don't know if he will come back

to lightweight I would love to because obviously he is a real champ of our division and he's the guy you want to face if you want to become the lightweight champion and I don't know but yeah he is a real tactician of the game

he's a real, very well-rounded veteran and he has a great team around him and, yeah, they are putting on dominance in MMA since a long time. I'm sure you'll be interested in the Armand Syruki and Dan Hooker fight this weekend. Who do you think wins that fight? Very interesting fight

and I do believe Armand has more weapons to get the job done but if violence speaks for hooker he could make it but like he did to Gamrod but it will be a tough job for for Hooker but he can make it also but Armand has a couple as a bigger arsenal I feel so these guys like Gamrod who you've been going back and forth with Hooker

Gaetia I feel like these are one of the guys who you should be fighting next I know you asked for the title shot or the BMF maybe we're a couple away from that but you might as well shoot your shot realistically who do you think you get next man as I say I'm blessed and honor to be in this division and any fight inside the top five

will be a huge fight a lot of names are on my list anybody they will give me I will fight him I'm a soldier as though if I get an opportunity quickly and it's a huge name I will take it but my absolute goal is to get that BMF on that lightweight belt

two huge titles for one division and I believe it's as a privilege and to be in this tough division to have those two belts on the line inside one division. So yeah, I couldn't be more happy to be in my position and I cannot wait to see

which opportunity I will get and as always I will come to serve. I love it. By the way, I noticed afterwards you said that you were going to go to a French restaurant after the fight. How's the French fruit in New York? How do you compare it to back home?

Yeah, I feel you have a strong French population in New York New York is a very international town and yeah I was invited by two French restaurants on one guy that has a French coffee franchise and yeah it was nice very nice

a little bit of my country in the US but of course I I love you burgers and I did my job by having a couple of them after the fight as well. I love it. And I also noticed

you got a bunch of French questions at the presser from different people. So are you getting more coverage back home? Are you starting to notice? I mean, you're already a superstar, but it was nice to hear some local media at the event as well. People that I would imagine

traveled from France to cover you. Yes, since the legalization in 2020 and the first UFC in Paris in 2020, MMA has been growing in France and as I said I would be honored to be able to bring the first belt back to France and to defend it in the Accor Arena in Paris

it's my ultimate goal to make this achievement and yeah I cannot wait to do whatever it takes to fight whoever the UFC will give me to get that opportunity and to show I'm worthy of it. You're well on your way, my friend. Congratulations, again, incredible win.

Very impressive, as always, and so happy for your success as of late. You've proven that even if you stumble a couple times, you can get back up, dust yourself off, and have great success. So, again, felicitation, well done. And thank you for coming on. I know you just came back home,

so I appreciate you giving us a few minutes tonight. Thank you, Ayal. Cheers. Always a pleasure. There he is. Benoit, Saint-Denie. Kind enough to join. us on a Monday evening in in Paris the god of war I mean think about where he was this time last year

this time last year he was sitting on back-to-back losses two pretty tough losses the moikano fight the DP fight the Dustin Porre fight and now he's sitting on a three-fight winning streak and a winning streak by the way that has happened in the course of six months like over the course of six months, this guy has beaten Kyle Preppelike, that was a short-notice fight, of course, then Mauricio Huffi, and then Benile Daryush, all via stoppage. Second round, arm triangle, second round, face crank, and then first round knockout on Saturday. And yes, not that long ago against Matt Favola, he won in New York just two years ago.

Same time frame, and that time, 91 seconds, this time, you know, 16 seconds. definitely a force to be reckoned with once again at 155 pounds. There were a lot of great stories on Saturday that evolved transpired in front of us. Obviously Islam becoming a double champion, Valentina doing her thing, God of War, Benoit Saint-Denis, the emergence of Michael Morales, Carlos Pratchez's massive win. Bo Nicol will talk to him. I don't know if there was a better story and perhaps a more unexpected story than the one that transpired between Ethan U. and Malcolm Wellmaker. A week ago, we had Malcolm Walmaker on the show six days ago.

At that time, we thought he was fighting Cody Haddon. And it seemed like everything was being built around him having this, you know, unbelievable star-making performance on Saturday. He's 2-0 in the UFC, two incredible knockouts, the right hooks, the right-hook contender series, former pipe. I mean, just everything you want in a potential superstar, he has it. He's got it all. And he still has it all, by the way, despite what happened.

But it just seemed like everything was kind of building for him to have a showcase fight and showcase win. We find out on Thursday, Hatton out, he injured his foot as he's cutting weight, and they signed someone named Ethan Ewing, who had just fought on November 8th in Uriah Faber's A1 combat promotion, wins their interim bantamweight title, and he's taking a fight on 48 hours notice, essentially, against Malcolm Wellmaker. Well, you think, like, hey, great job, way to step up, way to take your opportunity. Way to seize the moment. It'll be a nice moment. It'll be, you know, a good old college try. Well, Maker wins. You get signed.

Everyone's happy. Well, Ethan Ewing did not get the memo, and he goes out there, and he beats Malcolm Wellmaker via decision. And it's an unbelievable, inspiring performance. And now everyone knows who he is, and everyone's talking about him. Dana White's singing his praises. And I would imagine his life has changed for the better. Let's talk to Ethan Ewing about an insane week right here now in the program.

Hello, Ethan. How are you? Nice to meet you and congratulations. I'm fantastic. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Can I ask you a question a week ago, November 10th, what are you doing on a Monday a week ago? Your two days removed from your win and your eye of Faber's A1 combat, what are you doing on this Monday afternoon exactly seven days ago? Well, I guess the better judgment of all my coaches and management and even my brother, I was eating some good food. I was relaxing, I was taking it in, you know. I just came off a big win, first round, got the title. So I was taking a little bit of time, taking that day, especially to just enjoy myself and to relax.

When you got that win, when you won that interim belt, like I said on November 8th, did you think that was your ticket to the UFC? Did you think that your next fight would be in the UFC? I certainly contemplated it. I talked about it a lot with people. I put it out there in the universe Of course I was skeptical But I really hope that it would be

Actually in the back of my mind In some place in my mind I certainly thought it could be And by the way This fight was eight days prior It was actually on November 7th Just for the record So I don't want to screw it up

But eight days So on the Friday of last week That's when you fought on November 7th In the main event of that A1 combat show And so it's Monday You're eating good You're chilling Tuesday, Wednesday.

What happens on Thursday? Can we get into this day? Because it's one of the best stories in recent memory. What happens? How does the first, you know, the first invitation to join this card come your way? Hey, I said an alarm. I set two alarms.

One was for 820. One was for 8.30. I was woken up around 9.30 to my phone buzzing. Actually, I think my wife woke me up because she had gotten some phone calls at that point. and everybody and their mother our family friends my sister my dad my coach the management everybody was blowing me up and uh i called my dad first i believe because that's who had called my wife and then he was he was fired up ready to go and hey these guys are calling you you better

talk to coach right now let's get this thing going and at first i was like shut up stop playing around you know and uh lo and behold i called those guys they said there's an operative opportunity. There's a possibility. So the first thing I did was put on my gear. I went down to the gym, it's right down the street. And I started cutting weight. I started getting a sweat going. I went through the practice to do that. We were still kind of waiting. We had some doubts. Went back and forth. I went to the sauna. And then it came down to a question of what medicals need to get done. And so they said, yeah, get these medicals done. And we're booking your flights and all this stuff so yeah it was it was incredible man i woke up to such a big

surprise how much do you weigh when you wake up on that thursday uh i said this before but it's confidential uh information why is that we're trying to give you we're trying to give you props here i know i'm i'm being funny but uh i was 157 that morning okay 157 and you had to make 146 right because this became a featherweight fight yeah that's what uh it went back and forth 140, 145, and they said 145 wasn't a problem and to me, hey, let's do it. I love that. So, yeah,

I had to cut a little bit of weight, but at this point, I'm pretty good at it. Obviously, this is a dream come true, but in the back of your mind, are you thinking, like, holy crap, like, am I going to be able to make this on essentially a day's notice? Because the weigh-ins are the next day. Right. No, I mean,

140 would have been a push, but I was full of food. I was full of water. It wasn't like I, you know, I'd come off my camp where I was very strict. There's two months, maybe a little bit more than that, where the diet's perfect, the calories, the carbohydrates, the fats, everything's very calculated. And so I had that two months, and when I do that, you know, it's necessary for me to get down to that 135. When Thursday morning they called me and I saw 157, I was like, that's not exactly where I'd like it to be, but I'm full of food. full of water. So I know that as I go and I cut the weight, I sweat it out that it'll be a little bit easier to lose that weight. Now here's the thing. You live in California, right, in

L.A.? In the L.A. area? Yeah, I live in Orange County. Orange County. Okay. So you got to get to New York. What time is your flight on Thursday? We flew out at 11 o'clock at night. 11 p.m., so essentially a red eye. Yeah, a red eye. Okay. What time do you land in New York on Friday morning. So we got to, we touched down to like 6.30-ish. This is crazy, man. This is crazy. The wands are at nine, right? Yeah. New York traffic, like I said, I worked, I work in L.A. I'm a safety professional. You know, I have a safety company, so it's actually funny that Malcolm comes from that

construction background. I know all about those guys, but yeah, I thought L.A. traffic was bad, man. New York was bumper to bumper. The driving there is crazy. it's insane so 630 we got there I didn't get to the to the hotel so after 8 o'clock I ran up there I checked my weight and then I was on the official scale immediately it was it was go go go from the moment we touched down it's unbelievable I mean I've been covering the UFC for a long time of this sport I don't remember a story quite like this one in the UFC you hear it on the regional scene but not quite in the UFC when you when you get to the hotel you check your weight how much do you weigh at that point I was 145 point four point six I was on weight okay yeah because that morning I woke up I cut like 11 12 pounds and then I didn't eat or drink anything the whole day

I drove all throughout LA getting medicals done I jumped on that plane my mouth is dry the whole day I was a little shrunk up but I knew I had I had cut that weight and was ready to go coming next day so by the time you step on the scale like you haven't really trained or anything like that are you even thinking of Malcolm are you even game planning

are you talking to your coaches are you watching video on the plane you know man it's it's so crazy how life works and how everything just works in general there's been a couple instances where there was talks of possibly the ufc calling me up and malcolm was always on that card in my mind i just i just knew they were giving me a big name like that if that was the opportunity that arose and no i didn't i didn't really game plan at all you know we watched a little bit of his videos there's not much out there besides his older stuff. I knew that big right hand was coming.

I knew that's what he had. I knew he's a large individual. He's very big and very strong for the weight class. So, you know, being patient was kind of really the only game plan I had. Southpaw Orthodox, it doesn't matter to me. I've prepared for both. I've worked very intensely in both, you know, I'm in preparation for both styles and stances. so I just knew that big right hand was coming.

I knew that was his moneymaker. I knew he could throw that hook from the left as well. And other than that, man, being patient was what I needed to do. You know, one thing, when someone's making their UFC debut, especially on a stage like this, Madison Square, I believe, first time in New York, right? Oh, yeah. So it's like all this stuff, you don't even have time to get nervous, right? And maybe that's a gift.

You don't even have time to overthink it. but like by the time the ceremonial weigh-ins are happening Dana White's standing next to you you're facing off there's a crowd of people you're in the big apple of all places literally like 36 hours prior you're sleeping in on a Thursday just thinking that you know you're enjoying this A1 combat win at any point are you like holy shit how did this all happen how did I get here this before the fight now like do you have any time to even process any of this

a very short amount of time it was very quick it was up and down emotions and roller coasters, and, you know, I do a pretty good job when it comes to handling a lot all at once. That's how I live my life. Like I said, I work as a safety professional in L.A. I leave the house at 5 a.m. I get back from work. I go straight to boxing and I go straight to grappling. The days I have available, I'll spar in the mornings and I'll train all day. So, yeah, I got a baby boy on the way. I just, I juggle so many different things. all the time that I'm used to it at this point. But, of course, you know, people call it nerves.

I call it energy. It's really all about how you control it and what you create out of it. So the energy was there. Man, sitting in the back in that UFC locker room with all my gear and all the fighters that I watched on the TV that I've seen many times perform on the stage to be there, to be at Madison Square Garden. Getting ready to walk out was insane. as soon as they put my highlights on the screen though

I already knew that's where I belong but it settled in I walked out to my song and when I touched that UFC canvas man I just all the weight shed off me it was almost like I recall it like I was becoming animalistic I was turning into this monster you know this persona

and so there was tons of energy I think it was a blessing to not sit and think about it for two months but um i said yes before they even told me who it was and then once i said yes they said malcolm wellmaker's the guy and i was like of course it is you know who who better so it's a whirlwind lots of emotions lots of energy but um yeah i i've been uh battle tested and i've been preparing for this for a long time and your post fight interview was tremendous as well. The sword is deadliest in calm hands.

Were you coming up with this stuff after a 15-minute fight of Madison Square Garden, your UFC debut, you went on 48 hours notice? And is this just part of who you are? Have you been, like, do you subscribe to this? And where does that originate? Where does that line come from? Oh, yeah.

I'm a warrior through and through. Like I said, I've been battle tested, and I've been prepared. And that preparation, everybody sees what happened at Madison Square Garden, and that's the big, astounding moment. but I live my life this way. I sacrifice everything to it.

Like I said, I do this. I work all day. I train all night. I do my strength and conditioning. I go and I box all day. And then I hit my 15 minutes to jump up straight and my push-ups, my sit-ups, my sprints, my whatever is required of me that day. You know, my wife is nine months pregnant.

So maybe I go pick up the groceries. I'm starving. I haven't eaten yet. I've trained all day. That's a beautiful picture. Yes, well done. Well done. And then, you know, I'm,

I'm starving. I'm tired. My knees hurt. I drop the stuff off. I put my running shoes on and I go and I hit the track. I hit the streets because I know if I sit around and I wait, then I may not do it. So, of course, I subscribe to this fully. This is what I wanted to. This is what I am. This is what I do. We still got you. Okay. Sorry. I'm trying to turn that off real quick. No problem. Yeah, so exactly. This is who I am. I'm a warrior. I've been made for this. I've been bred for

this and I it's constantly on my mind quotes from the greatest individuals you know you have your Bruce Lee's Mike Tyson has said some amazing things you have your warriors of times long ago um these are the things that run through my mind all the time like that is always is always fresh on it it was it was incredible incredible post-fight interview after the fight I believe you spoke to Dana White face-to-face what was that like that was awesome. I got to go and see the room where all the people were. I got to shake hands and save my hellos, talk to the boss man directly. It was surreal. It was super awesome. What do he say to you? Well, at the Wayans, actually, you know, he told me, hey, this is the first time

I'm hearing about this story. He's like, wow, congratulations, man. That's awesome. So to get props sitting out on stage for the first time in front of a UFC crowd was cool and then he said similar things wow that was that was amazing your performance is awesome um you know and and after i had gone and i i had won he just gave me my props and he told me that you know he's going to take care of me so um yeah everything is just so cool man yeah this whole mom everything is awesome i can't imagine you're about to become a dad right your first child right Yep. Surreal stuff. You mentioned your day job. Are you going to stay with the day job? That's who was actually calling me. My boss was giving me a call. You know, I'm going to stay with it for a little bit. I need to get things more solidified, but no, I'm moving parts so that this could be everything I do.

Sure. It was interesting when you said that you work in, you said safety, so you know about like the pipe fitters and whatnot. When you say, that are you suggesting like they're troublemakers you got to make sure those guys are are on the straight and narrow what do you mean by that when you say you know about those guys uh you know there's a lot of troublemakers in uh in the construction industry there's a lot of personalities i'm not saying anything about malcolm because he's such a end of dude i just want to put that out there but yeah i know i know those tough those rough neck kind of guys i know the the tough personalities they give you a hard time and uh i do a lot of uh mitigating and controlling that in what I do. So I think that gave me a one-up going into all this.

What would you say about Malcolm after this? Because, you know, when someone gets a lot of buzz, a lot of hype, and then they stumble, people want to say, ah, this guy was it never was, jump off the bandwagon, all this stuff. Do you think that he is who we thought he was and that he'll just get back on track here? Hey, I've fought a lot of individuals in my time, and Malcolm is legitimate. it. All the fraud check stuff is ridiculous. I think that takes away from what I went out and did out there as well because he's a very talented individual. Like I said, he's very big and he's very strong for that weight class. And he has certainly cemented a great name for himself. So I think

I think from the very beginning, he was very cool, very cordial, very respectful. So I had to be thankful to him for that. I think that, you know, maybe, I think everybody overlooked me. I think with the hype around Malcolm that everybody overlooked me. So, um, that's, that's pretty much it. I think he's a great guy. All respect to him. Do you think he overlooked you or do you think he just didn't have time to prepare

for you? Like you were the great unknown and you caught him. Maybe there's a little bit of both. Sure, sure. Like I said, I think everybody, um, you know, know you i stayed away from the instagram comments but uh you could see a lot of people were were thinking i was a lamb to the slaughter and i knew that wasn't the case like i said i've known that i belong on the stage for a long time and it was just my time to go out there and show people

a lot of jokes i know you were asked about this afterwards about uh a ewing competing at madison square garden it just so happens patrick ewing uh who i'm sure you've heard of now is my favorite athlete of all time. That's my guy. I even have a toy of him back here. This is how big of a loser I am, Ethan. I have a toy of Patrick Ewing right here. Show it to Ethan right here. This is my Patrick Ewing doll that I have right here. That's how much I love the Ewing's. Be honest with me. Had you ever heard of Patrick Ewing before Saturday? Yeah. Of course I've heard of him. I'm not a big sports guy. This is what I do. If I put on a sports event, it's the UFC. It's MMA. It's combat. It's one of those things. So of course I know who he is. Would I be able to tell you any of his

accolades or tell you what he did in game six or whatever? No, but I know who he is. Did you look up at the rafters? Your name is up there. Did you happen to see his name up there in the rafters? Your name as well. Ewing 33? Not in that moment, no. Maybe I'll have to see some more pictures of that. There was in the crowd and I did take in how large the stadium was it felt like it was meant to be ewing's in madison square garden they are synonymous what did you think of new york overall i know you were there in and out because you're back home now right yes yeah sitting in my house new york was it was very cool um i think partially because i had to do such a good job of not letting the moment be bigger than it was i think that kind

of dimmed down everything but uh the night before my flight i went out and i sat in time square I looked at all the lights. I took in the crowd and the ambiance, and it was cool, man. It was very cool. It was everything I thought it would be. Man, that just gave me chills. I can't imagine, like, going the night before your UFC debut, and you're getting it, you know, like a day prior, you're back home.

Even being home now, does it feel like all this was a dream? Like, you just left, you went, you won, everyone knows you now, and now you're just back in the same spot. Is it hard to comprehend now? I can imagine. uh yeah it still doesn't feel real but when uh when joe rogan followed me this morning and i got bruce buffer's number last night or yesterday at the airport uh now it feels real wow you made it all big time so yeah it's uh you know i just this is just the beginning though so

there's a lot of preparation there's a lot more to come with all this by the way what did bruce say to you i saw him say something to you as you were leaving the cage uh he just congratulated me And just, you know, because I actually had spoke with him when we landed in New York. He was on the same flight as myself and my team. And so he gave me props there for taking the fight on short notice. And then after, same thing, just congratulated me, said how awesome it was to not only take it on short notice, but to go out and get that win. So he's a very cool guy. By the way, a lot of talk about your tapology picture.

is is this really you this picture that's being passed around on the internet this guy is that you and when is that from that's a handsome young man right there it is uh that's uh i remember why it was either for topology or for one of the amateur events they told me they needed a picture with the white background so i went out and i uh i snapped a photo man by the way you're the name uh Ethan the way it's spelled very unique why is that how did that come about uh so my my family is all like that i'm the oldest of eight wow um there's a lot of names but everybody's got that why in it so uh why is that thought they wanted to do something unique okay and in their thought process that's that's what they came up with

we need to we need to have something special and unique for these guys are you having a boy or girl i'm having a baby boy any chance you'll call him patrick uh my wife picked out a name already so i'd have another fight coming up if i wanted to change you no you don't want that smoke you don't want that smoke exactly i don't well enjoy everything man what a freaking story unbelievable to watch it just unfold as the fight was going on you fought brilliantly uh i think the world of malcolm and you went out there in juan fair and square and and the judges got a right there's always a concern that maybe they're going to lean towards the superstar, the fixture, they did not do that, and props you for taking the fight, for

making weight, for fighting the way in which you did, and for having this sort of composure about it. It's really, really impressive. Again, congratulations. Thanks for coming on, and good luck, of course, with the upcoming birth. I can't imagine how exciting all this is for you and your family, so enjoy it all. Well, cool. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you having me on here, and I will, man. Just one step at a time. Thank you. All the best, you, Ethan. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you. Ewing, who is now 1 in the UFC, an unbelievable story that unfolded in just the span of a couple of days. I thought, you know, he said

he feels like now it's real because Joe Rogan followed him and Bruce Buffer gave him his number. I thought he was going to say like he's on this show too, but I guess I guess we didn't reach that point, Frank, yet in terms of like making it, you know what I mean? I hear you. I mean, I just thought like who's, you know, who's to check, right? Who is to check? Yeah. to check back sometimes i just like to hear like turning on lights and stuff back here come on what are we doing getting ready for in studio okay i'm sorry wow i'm not allowed to talk to you

uh just that's why i was slow on the uh on the draw there wow okay all right sorry just making excuses well that was one of uh many good stories from saturday uh we've talked about several of them bsd Ethan ewing much more to come but very excited to talk to our next guest not that long ago, he was on the program coming off his first pro loss, and as is usually the case in this sport, you lose once, especially when there's a lot of hype and buzz surrounding you, everyone's kicking you while you're down. Everyone's saying, ah, this is an indictment, you were, never was, all this stuff and more, and the way in which he handled it, of course, he has been on big stages before, and things didn't go his way, and he was able to, you know,

dust himself off. More often than not, they did. But obviously, in life, not if anything's perfect. And it seemed like all of that prepared him for this moment because he showed up on Saturday back at Madison Square Garden and that he's fought there before as well. And he freaking pulled off a headkick knockout, which I don't think a lot of people saw coming, at least a lot of people who weren't a part of his team, a beautiful, vicious knockout win over Hidalfa Vieero, thus shutting up everyone, at least for now. We're talking about Bo Nicol, victorious on Saturday, tremendous bounce back win for him. He's kind enough to join us right here and now in the program there he is hello beau good to talk to you again congratulations

this has to feel good right i mean this has to feel good i feel like i feel like of all your wins this one has to be the sweetest yeah i mean definitely um it was nice to be able to uh just get back in there and compete i felt like i just had a bad taste in my mouth and uh yeah feels good um you know was able to put on a really solid performance um been able to watch the film back a few times and still some adjustments to be made but yeah all good here's the thing like you you're such a pro and and you've been in the spotlight for so long you rarely slip i feel like when like even you coming on after but i feel like in that moment with the adrenaline so high and the flipping off of the people in the post we finally got to see you kind of like say like you know what f all of you

for booing me last year for doubting me i think it was nice i think it was nice to see do you regret any of that no no not at all I feel like it was fitting. I was just being myself, and really it was just the fact that it's been so mixed and there's all of a sudden booze, and then 10 seconds later there's cheers, and I get it. These people want to be entertained and see blood and stuff, but I just kind of wanted to say, screw you guys, because, you know, it's just like we're human beings out here trying to do our best, and I'm trying to perform, and it's just a lot of emotion, but yeah, it was very,

genuine. By the way, is that the actual Penn State wrestling team behind you? Yep, it is. Let's see where they're at. Oh. Crazy. Back on the mats? No days off? Yeah, I just paused my workout for you, Ariel. Oh, big deal, so I had to stop working out. Well, can you get a day off? I mean, I figured Monday

after a big fight like that, no days off? I got Sunday off. What do you mean? Seriously, you're back training like fully, like 100%? You're back with these guys? Yeah, I got my shoes on. I just stopped my workout. Oh, my God. Well, I'm sorry that you had to do that,

and I won't keep you very long. But that's unbelievable. Like, you don't think your body needs a rest? You know, take it a little light, but I feel good. My fight camp, everything was good, all healthy, finished the fight healthy, so straight back to work. Did you guys plan for, like, obviously, I know you said in the post fight, you've worked on head kicks, Mike Brown, all that stuff,

but did you see something in him where you thought there was an open? there? Or was that instinctual? Because we just never seen that from you before. Yeah. I mean, we saw it a few times fail in my first couple of fights. You know, I mean, slipping and falling on my butt. But I just kept practicing it, kept working on it. And, I mean, I hit it a lot in training. So I felt like it's just one of my tools that I'm able to use. So that's just a weapon that I have in the arsenal and finally able to showcase it. What does that feel like when you connect like that and he goes down the way and which he did. Can you describe that feeling? Man, it felt like I just hit him really hard. And,

you know, I kind of started to move forward towards him and I knew there didn't need to be a follow up. But to be honest, you know, for me, it's a little sad. It's like, dang, you know, I don't like hurting people. It's not the most fun part of my job, but it is a part of it. And it's what we signed up for. So, you know, it's just the reality. the situation. And yeah, I'm grateful that I was able to go on that there and put on a performance. And again, it's not my favorite part of what I do, but it was definitely a rush. Okay, so that's really interesting that you bring up the sadness, because I saw your post-fight interview with Aaron Bronstetter in the back,

and you talked about this too. You've got a little emotional, your post-fight presser. And I feel like that's a really interesting thing for a fighter to mention repeatedly. if you feel sadness hurting someone and you have to hurt your opponent in order to continue and to win, how do you deal with those emotions? Because I feel like the desire to want to hurt your opponent is only going to get greater as the fights get bigger and yet clearly you're somewhat bothered by it and conflicted. So how are you going to deal with this? Well, I think that the reason that I love fighting, I love the hard work, the discipline,

commitment, the character building, and the strategy. and all that it takes to be a great fighter. I'm just not like a really bloodthirsty person. And so, you know, I guess I see like another human being across from me. And that's sad, but that's just reality. It's the same, you know, I'm a big hunter, as you know. And the worst part about hunting for me is actually killing the animal. I don't really enjoy that part.

But everything else about it, I love. And I just think that, again, it's part of my job and career and passion. And anybody that has one of those, there's parts of it that you don't love. And, you know, there's not anything, I don't think, in life that you're going to love every single little thing about it. But it's the parts that I do love that keep me coming back and keep me excited and just keep me motivated. So, you know, I just focus on those things, on the good things. And I guess that's life. That's the real world.

you know it's not all it's not all sunshine and rainbows out here so i'm uh just i think fighting is a microcosm for that you don't think they'll ever be a time where you're like i've had enough of this i don't want to hurt people anymore a time a premature time like not when you're 45 but like when you're in your early 30s um no i don't think so because all the things that i love about fighting um those are still there and those outweigh the negatives to me and it's so enjoyable. You know, I love going in to training and I love going in to the gym. As you can see, I'm here now just trying to work and get better and improve. And it's really all I know. It's what I've been doing since five years old. And it's the thing that I've been most excited about and that I've enjoyed the most. So, you know, I just want to keep doing that until, you know, until my mind changes. And I don't want to do it anymore. The way in which he was out, it looked like it was prolonged from our vantage point. You're in there. You're the one that did it. And he's stiff. How are you? are you reacting to that and is it hard to fully enjoy the moment when you see him out like

this? Yeah, a little bit. I think that in the moment, everybody in the cage, big Dan, the ref and other guys, they were kind of keeping me more calm. I was asking him, like, is he good? And they were like, yeah, he's all right. They kind of just kept me updated. So, you know, I felt like it just happened so fast like you know and then all of a sudden i was just happy to see him up and responding to everyone um but yeah it was definitely a little a little scary to be honest i mean it's not uh again it's not my favorite part of what i do you had so much success early on in your mma career and then you had the rdr fight do you feel like you've enjoyed this victory especially the aftermath the sunday the monday because that was taken away from you for a little bit you feel like

you have a greater appreciation for it now um you know i've never been a guy to really like hang my hat on a win or um you know of course i i enjoy it and it's fun to win but it's not the most fun part for me um i i i like winning i'm motivated by it but uh i enjoy all the the process and everything that goes into it and i just the it's almost like a letdown because it happens so fast and then all of a sudden it's over so i feel like uh I just want to get back in here and get to work. I had, you know, my dad and my wife and a couple people were like, hey, just take the day off and, you know, don't go in.

And I was like, no, I'm going to go in. I just, I want to be in here. And I like it. And I promised them I wouldn't go too hard. So, yeah. A lot was made of the fact that you were on the main card, then off the main card. And you said all the right things as per usual. But I am wondering, now that it's over, did you use that as motivation?

I think that I'm easily motivated. So I use everything and anything for motivation. It could be something like that or something big or something, anything. For me, I think that I'm always searching for things to motivate me and push me and make me want to perform the best of my ability. So whatever that is, I'll take it. But to answer your question, yeah, definitely used it as motivation. By the way, can I just ask because I hope you don't mind.

I texted you about it and you said you didn't, was I really the first one to tell you about this? Yeah, I didn't know. Wow. Did that bother you? That you told me? Well, I don't know if you got, I just figured you knew and got the heads up or something like I didn't think that I would be the one to tell you.

No, I've never had like conversations about my card placement on the cards with anybody at the UFC. So I've always found out second hand. and that's how it's been my whole career. So even for my first fight, I never knew where I was going to be, and they never say anything to me. So it's just like, you know,

you kind of figure it out, fight week. But yeah, that's how it's always been. Okay. I also saw on your Instagram, you said a lot less weight to cut this time. What was the difference? And is there more to that? Yeah, you know,

the weight cut was much better this time. so yeah I don't really want to get into it but this time everything went smooth it was it was great and it was the easiest weight cut of my entire career I feel like I did a lot of work adjusting my body composition this past you know five six months and it helped a lot I'm sorry for for asking a follow up but what do you mean when you say you don't want to get into it it sounds like there's more to it and I'm not quite sure what they're like what do you what is what is like the story behind the story if i can ask in a different way oh it's just it was you know things happen in uh as a fighter and um you know this uh weight cut and fight week was just

much easier for me so you know i enjoyed it and had fun the whole time and the weight came off very quickly very easily and it was it was no no issues no worries um it's just every weight cuts different some are are tougher some are easier and this one was a really good one Okay, okay, fair enough. I think I understand what you're trying to say. I did see Ilya to pour you on his Instagram give you a shout out, and I wasn't sure what the connection was there. Do you know, Ilya, are you friends with him? Have you trained with him? Yeah, we're friends. I've never trained with him, but I would love to at some point. He's a guy that I've spent some time with, you know, hung out together, watched, been to a couple

fights together and I started watching Ilya I mean early in his career probably like his first fight with Yusuf Zalal I think that was maybe his first fight in the UFC so you know I was a fan of him for a long time before he became a massive star I mean I think I even posted a picture of him saying future champion and this was like way early in his career before he had any big fights but I've always seen that in him and he's an absolute star he's obviously he's obviously shown that now. After the MSG experience last year, the Paul Craig fight, some of the backlash, the loss in May, do you view the sport differently? Do you view the way you want to present yourself differently? Do you not pay attention to people as much or fans as much? How did you

change as a result of these two fights? I've changed so much. You know, I've changed a lot. I think kind of getting to what you were alluding to, I definitely have shifted my mindset as far as how I think people should perceive me is something I'm not really worried about at all. It's going to take care of itself. I guess coming from my background in wrestling, and I've said this before, but pretty much everyone loved me. They just, like, you know, wanted to watch me, wanted to support me. Of course, the Penn State fans, but even fans from rival schools, they always, you know,

after every match I wrestled, would come up and tell me that they love watching me, compete. You know, I'd go into Ohio State or Oklahoma State or whatever, and it would be a hundred kids lined up wearing, you know, red or orange or black and yellow or whatever, and they all asking me for autographs. So, you know, I always felt like a lot of love and support from the community that I was in. And I guess I just expected that going into MMA, which was probably, you know, a mistake on my part. And so I just feel like I don't really care how people perceive me as much. and it's just not as important to me, I guess, because I don't have that expectation anymore.

You can see how fickle it all is as well. I'll let you go in a second. We'll round third here. How quickly do you want to return? I would love to get back in there quickly. I haven't really thought about it or talked about it too much, but right now it's just deciding if I want to wait until June, get on the White House card, or get a fight in between now and then.

And so, you know, some thinking and some prayer to decide what's best, and we'll go from there. Is there a name that comes to mind? Now that we're getting closer to White House and you got this win, what's the ideal scenario if you are, in fact, just going to save yourself for that? I don't know. Really, whoever the UFC gives me, I feel like I'm not really too concerned with trying to pick fights or pick matchups or whatever. After the Derrida fight, I feel like, you know, going into the Derridae fight, I feel like, you know,

going into the Derrida fight, I probably threw like a dozen names at the UFC, and none of them really worked for whatever reason. And then after that, I'm like, I'm just not going to do that anymore. Just whoever they say, I'm just going to fight him. So that's kind of where I'm at. What about this Baisangor, Susser Kayaev? Yeah, I mean, I think he's pretty tough. He's got a lot of skills. I wasn't really super impressed with his performance in his last flight. I think that, you know, he was getting touched up a lot. I think the brakes did him really well. But it could definitely be. be a fight that happens in the future and I'd be down for it but we'll see next up r a f

thanksgiving weekend sir yes sir yeah got a couple r a f events going on um the you know through the end of 2026 and then there's going to be a ton of events or excuse me to the end of 2025 and there's going to be a ton of events in 26 so i'll either be commentating or competing in pretty much every event that the raf hosts and yeah that's what's next love it congrats both thanks so much for doing this, especially during practice. I really appreciate it. I'm really, really happy for you. Tremendous stuff.

Well done. And way to give everyone the one or two-finger salute. That was incredible stuff. Well done. Thanks, Bo. Thanks, Ariel. Appreciate you. There he is.

The great Bo, Nickel. Getting off the mats to speak to us. Appreciate that very much. Minch. Great win. First time, by the way, in Hidalvo Vieero's career that he's knocked out. And what a knockout it was. the Mike Brown special, as he called it,

a head kick knockout in the third round. I mean, what were the odds? What were the odds if you put a, I don't know, a fiver? What do they call it? I think it was plus 1,200, Boe Nickel round three. Oh, you actually know. Now, is that just Boe Nickel via anything, or Boe Nickel via knockout?

That was Boe Nickel Round 3. It was like plus 1,200. Do you think you could get Boe Nickel via knockout round 3, and would that be even higher? Probably, right? The more specific you go? Absolutely to both. uh i could actually tell you if you get me yeah what is it what is this shirt that you're wearing over

there who we rocked oh yeah the full violence process oh that's a nice one nightmare with the is that a new is that for this fight week nah i've had this one for a while okay came with a complimentary pack of six does it really no i wish oh my god that'd be incredible it costs like 25 bucks in new york so i wish it did marlpros really oh yeah man they're taxing us they're taxing us smokers out of it's unbelievable it's unbelievable the disrespect and that's pre that's that's that's that's pre mustache Carlos Precius I do believe

yeah legend I need an updated shirt for the mustache What's going on here Bo Nickel by Kio in round three Actually not that much more Plus 1,700 Okay

But that's more than plus 200 No plus 1200 was bow Oh okay sorry sorry Wow geez okay wow wow Well shout out to Shout out to Big Bo big one for him everyone calling him out afterwards well on his way obviously obviously there's a lot of talk about him fighting on the White House card obviously there's a lot of interest

and I think the big question is does he wait does he wait or does he get one in I don't know if he fights in like February or something like that You know, at this point, unless he gets a quick one in January, that's a massive turnaround. I mean, like, that's a quick turnaround. That's a quick turnaround to fight in January, February, and there's another quick turnaround to fight in June. Stay active, though. Yeah.

Boy, if you get hurt or something, you know, like, you headkick. He seems to be in pretty good shape. It gets immediately back into the gym. Back on the mats. Back in Happy Valley on. on Monday as well. Yeah, I know. It's crazy. It says he needed a day off, and he got that on Sunday, but you have to think he was traveling yesterday. Yeah. No days off for Big Bo. No, no days off for Big Bo. Amazing stuff. Amazing stuff. Great win. By the way, earlier, in a couple of seconds, we're going to be

joined by John Kavanaugh in the studio, but earlier we were talking about the Dylan Danis situation. Dana White did talk about the Danis situation and did give his thoughts on it all. And so wanted to play that to give it full context. Here's what Dana White had to say about the Dylan Dennis situation. I blamed myself for that actually. They came back and told me right before I walked out for the main card that Dylan Danis was here and he was moving around sitting in fighter seats and not sitting in his own seat that he had. He had a ticket. And they said, do you want us to throw him out of here? And I said, he has a ticket. And I said, yeah. And, you know, they told me They said, Masvidal said he's going to fuck him up on site.

And I said, well, where's Mazvedal sitting? He said, well, he's six or seven rows away from Mazvedal. I said, well, if the guy has a ticket, let him sit in his seat and let him do what he's doing and keep an eye on him. It never even crossed my mind as stupid as this could be that the entire Muslim Brotherhood was here tonight in the first five rows for Islam. And as soon as it broke out, I was over on the other side and I go, fuck. I know exactly what that is I knew it and yeah

you will never see Dylan Dannis at a UFC fight ever again It's tough It's tough Cudy it's tough when you hear that I was reading tweets As they were coming in I was reading tweets

You know people are Recapping what he's saying And he said the entire Muslim Brotherhood And you're like wait What is there in like an actual group And I think he's just sort of joking That there's a lot of people who are on team Islam, team

Habib, in the front row. And yeah, I mean, I guess it remains to be seen as to whether or not you know, like, what's what's the call? What's the call here? Like, did he incite it? Did he not incite it? What's going to happen

with him? Does he get a chance to give his side of the story? I think the way we broke it down was pretty fair. There's no real ties to anyone else. It's a lot easier to just say, we're getting rid of this guy. He's insulted you. He's incited all of this.

And no harm, no foul, as opposed to trying to get rid of some of the other guys, including someone that they seem to be very high on. We have to reconfigure a few things in the studio here. We're going to take a quick break. Be back in a second with John Kavanaugh in studio. So don't go anyone or my friends. A lot more to get to.

Alexander Ussick has even vacated his WBO title. All kinds of craziness. No, no, no, no. Let's go to a break. And then we're going to come back in a matter of seconds, all right? Don't go anywhere. John Kavanaugh joining us

in a matter of seconds in studio. All right, that was my conversation with Shale P from last Monday, tremendous stuff from the bad guy. Still to come, we have to get into the whole Jake Paul Anthony Joshua news, Alexander Usik,

vacating his title, his WBO title, so that probably means that Fabio Wardley will get promoted to undisputed WBO champion or official WBO champion. Oh, by the way,

Joseph Parker testing positive for cocaine, it comes out at the end of last week, which was an absolute shocker. A guy by the name of Connor Ben beat Chris Eubank Jr. at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday, exacting revenge, which was incredible scenes and could not have been any more different than their first fight back in April. And so there is much to discuss there, a lot from the world of boxing, a little bit bit more from the world of mixed martial arts. But it's always a great pleasure when we get to pick the brain from one of the greatest coaches of all time. Haven't had a chance to talk to him

in person or just in general in quite some time. And so without further ado, let us say hello to the headman over at SBG Ireland. My old friend, the one and only coach John Kavanaugh. There he is. Hello, sir. How are you? It's great to see you. How are you? Very good, please, please. Please have a seat. Thank you so much. Good to see you again. Great to be here. Coach, in the new, yes, you've never been to this one. You're at the last one. Yeah, I've been in, I think.

You've been to a bunch of them, yes, yes, yes. You keep going to further south. Okay, I thought you were going to say like we keep downgrading. No, no, no, no, no. The way you're pointing there is amazing. Thank you, thank you, appreciate that. By the way, congratulations, I don't know. Troy Parrott.

Are you familiar with Troy Parrott? Hattrick, Irish football, yesterday, World Cup. I saw they change the name of the Dublin airport to Troy Parrot. Really? It's a joke, but the Twitter account did do it. He scored a hatcherick yesterday, gets hungry. It's funny, like, I'm not a football fan. No, about, I think it was close to 10 years ago.

I gave a talk in his school. Wow. And, you know, a bunch of kids. I don't know, maybe he was at it. That's incredible. So you know who he is. Oh, yeah, now that you're saying it. You're not a football fan, Irish football?

No. I like Gaelic football, but not, not a soccer. What about this? This is Schleader? Oh, there you go. Is this a Schleader? Is this a Schleiter? Schlitter.

Schlitter. Yeah. Someone gave this to me at the, at the, what is it, the Black Forgeon? When I was there two years ago, and I like, I like, I like, like, like, it's like a stress ball for me. Yes, I like, what is this? This is a Gaelic football. So that's hurling. Hurling.

So there you're, there you have a weapon. Yes, yes, yes. Yes, yes. Okay, screwed that up. What brings you to New York? No fighters on the card this past weekend? No, no, it's in, sort of becoming the tradition in here this weekend. That's right.

That's right. That's right. That's right. And New York is our favorite city, so we came by and I was very lucky. I got hooked up a ticket, went to the show. It's been a great weekend. and also an opportunity for me to meet my new boss in my new position.

Which will we get into in a moment? Super kind to bring me in, to have a little chat. By the way, I didn't see a lot of the brawl footage on Saturday. I didn't see you in there. Were you, uh, no, I was in the corner. You were in the, okay. That's a crazy scene. I hope you had nothing to do with any of that.

No, I was up in the bleach or so. He probably could have used your help there, Dylan, poor Dylan. Yeah, yeah, good, yeah. It will never die that stuff, huh? No, no, it doesn't seem to. want to go away yeah I guess he doesn't want to go away either that's right that's right okay were you there for the entire card yeah yeah pretty much could I just ask what did you think of Islam amazing amazing did you expect that no I thought I thought

I'd have a harder time holding him down like Jack has proven to be really good at getting scrambles going but to just shoot him out like that you know one take down then just pin maybe not the most fan friendly style fighting but I really appreciate it I I love grappling. So I just thought it was incredible to be able to do that against somebody so good. Going up a weight class, you know. And it's a big jump. You know, 45 to 55 is, you know, it's 10 pounds.

But you're going 55 to 70, it's 15. Huge. It's big. So I was actually out with Jack last night. And like he's a big unit, you know, as a big man. But he was, he said himself. He was kind of shocked. I just, how's he handling it?

You know. Bumped. It's, it's, nothing he says going to make it feel any better. but um he seemed deflated yeah yeah and even last night he was obviously still down on the but you know his wife is there as kids and he'll pick himself up and go again i'm sure was that your first time as a spectator at msg or had you been before um yeah first time at spectator i did i did obviously connor's fight there and then mac won't fought there think about betty gunner nelson did he maybe fight there i was just wondering like certain my first time going as a fan

yeah so you like you were there main event and now to be a fan is that weird for you is it strange to be in attendance you know what it's like in the back i don't know if you're like replaying moments definitely definitely you know you still they cut to the back room they're getting the hand wrapped and you know like what it's like at that moment a bit of a warm up you know the big breath that they start doing their walk so it's it's i still feel myself getting you know a little bit of jitters and a lot of nothing to do with it but um it was nice to be able to just enjoy the fights as old memories coming back right Oh, wow, yeah, some incredible times here, huh? I couldn't help it feel like when Islam,

and I don't know if they were doing it on purpose or not, but when Islam got on the cage with the two belts, it looked like the exact same picture, right? Yeah. Like we even put them side by side, and it was 10 events later. It's the 10th annual UFC at MSG in November. Wow.

It's a double champion from when Connor did it. Yeah. And it looked like a carbon copy. I don't know if that struck you in the moment. Yeah, I know that you say that. We were definitely, yeah. I mean, look at this. Does that not look like the same shot? Oh, wow.

It's literally the same shot. Top of the cage, the two belts. Amazing. Just different belts. Different belts, yeah, the new style now. Some good nights there. Good nights there indeed. Okay, so you mentioned your new boss.

Yes. What is this? What is this? What are we talking about? So upper sports management is an MMA management team. And Caesar, I kind of know him from events and some other stuff. And he reached out to me about running the, European branch of the company.

And I've never kind of managed, per se. Professionally, I look after plenty of my guys, but this is my first time. So I said, yep, I'll give it a go. But what I really wanted to do and what I pitched to him was an idea on how we could give novice pros, the number one thing that they need, which is very hard to get at the start. And that's fights, fight offers, opportunities. So what we've done is we've created a website that any pro, any novice pro can go to it, novice or not, they can upload a profile for free, there's no charge. And then on the other side, let's say you're a promoter and you're running a show in Germany and you're struggling to get somebody to face your 55er,

you go onto the site, you will search by region, go to Germany, mail, 170, and the list of guys in that area that are available to fight is there. One click, send them a fight offer. And we help, you know, make that happen, small book and fee. And that's it. Wow. You know, so using technology to get fighters connected with promoters at the moment it's done you know i actually kind of did this to solve this problem for myself because at the moment you've got a guy who's training is butt off in the gym and he's gone months and he's asking his coach you know any chance of fight and he's like well i'm trying now we're just cutting out that middleman so we just can connect them directly they upload their profile and then you know i was look i was asking grok there there's about 40 or 50 shows

every weekend around the world at this stage. And it's only going up. So that's between four or five hundred fights, thousand fighters every weekend going out. And I just know from having done this for long and speaking to our coaches, the most difficult thing to do is to get novice pros to first few fights.

In boxing, it's an absolute nightmare. Like I've heard of stories back home where novice pros have to pay a couple of thousand to get their first professional boxing belt. We don't have that in MMA. But it is very hard. And when people think of MMA managers, the thinking of like someone who's already in the UFC

and they need to, you know, renegotiating a big deal. But let's go right back to where someone's 0-1-0 or 1-0. And he's in the smallest gym that maybe the coach doesn't have, you know, great networking. He's not in something like ATT or he's in one of the other 100,000 gyms that's around the world. So this is a way that he can get himself out there. We'll do our best to flood his inbox offers.

He chooses to fights him and his coach that think that makes sense to him. There's no contract. They're not, you know, stuck with it or anything they can just come in and now as they see as he see fit as time goes on and now the guy's 10 and oh and he's getting ready to maybe go for ufc or pfl and if they wish we can take on a more comprehensive management but at the moment i'm really excited about it we've been we've been testing it's working well we've had quite a few fighters sign up already so there's any fighter out there who is training away and is struggling to get opportunities

uppersportsmanagement.com go there upload your profile it's no charge All that's going to come of it is you'll get some fight offers, and then it's up to you. You picked them or not. But I think it's a cool way to help novice pros get going, get started. Okay, so taking a step back for a moment, because it's a big jump from doing what you were doing to now this. So he reaches, Caesar reaches out, and Caesar's going to join us in a moment as well. Caesar Linz, is that the correct way of pronouncing his last name? You know, I think it's cool on me, but I know he's Caesar Linz on Instagram.

We'll have to find it out. But I've known him for quite some time with the likes of Michael Morales and others. How does it happen to where he's like, hey, John, you want to do this? And how long does it take for you to say, like, yeah, I would like to do this? Because I would imagine you're fairly busy as is already. Yeah. Yeah. No, I am.

And it was, I wanted to do it because I've, like I said, I've kind of done it as an amateur, if you will, for a lot of my guys anyway. So I kind of wanted to learn more about it. and the guys in upper sports have been great and, you know, just the legal side of things and how to conduct yourself. So I'm kind of learning that side of business. So it's sort of like learning a new skill.

It's always somewhat interesting to expand on the book. If I'm being honest, my real idea was to try to get this website on that we can, because I've got, you know, I've got a few guys, let's say, in PFL, Kieran Clark, Derek Kelly, these guys are like 10 in 0, 10 and 1. They're fine. You know, Caesar kind of look after them, and he can help with negotiating their next contract. But the ones I'm struggling with are the guys that are O and O, or 1&O,

and you're dealing with the European shows, and sometimes they may want to put them on, sometimes they won't. This is a way of getting in front of every show. So, you know, if you're a promoter, and you might have your top few fights already booked, but the undercard, you have your local ticket seller and you need somebody 170. What do you do?

You start ringing around different managers, ringing around different gyms. Now you just go to one site, mail, 170, whatever region you're in here's your three guys that are available send them an offer it bang you know it's kind of like with my other business

mma.m.a. Inc we connected millions of fans with hundreds of thousands of gyms and with this we're connecting fighters with promoters and I think it's kind of like now the way we use booking.com or Uber this will become just an obvious way of solving the problem

on both ends. Fighters are looking for more opportunities promoters are struggling to fill fight cards this will go in the middle so what's in it for you guys because you say there's no charge right? Yeah so there's no charge to list there's no charge for promoters to go on and then there's a 5% fee on

the purse. Okay. And it's just a one-off fee like I said when the fight's over you can stay on the website if you want you can go out if you want but you're not signing any kind of long-term deal. We're up or sports even time because there's not really any point in a pro who's two and one having a manager like

you know what's what's it's no sponsorship deals at that stage your career you're you know you're plenty of fights away before you go for something big you're if you're in Germany you're going to be fighting on the local scene there until you get to a certain stage so this is kind of a way of having a manager but on a much lower rate you know and it's a manager who's working all the time because your profile is there for any promoter to look for you know they're especially around Europe just because you're training and working out of Germany and there's a show on in Spain the promoter in Spain can search all of Europe and

say, oh, it's only a hundred euros to fly this guy in. So I just think, I know for my own sake, and I know from speaking to other coaches, it kind of solves a big problem of getting your novice pros some fight offers that we struggle to get them. You know, then when they get up to a certain level, that's when it's easier and the kind of more experienced guys can work with Hunter or, you know, Mike Hogan, whoever to deal with to get them onto the big show. And so how do I, how do I stick out?

Like, let's say I'm O and O. Yeah. I upload, like, am I uploading highlights? What will make you sign me as a promoter being like, oh, this is an appropriate guy for my card when you're just a name on a website? So let's say, let's say, like when people run a show, I keep saying Germany, but you know, you run the show, whatever, any city, you probably have a local gym you work with and there's a few good ticket sellers, you know, you know, let's not think you have CFL,

I'm talking. You're talking Octagon, those guys, KSW, KSW, Cage Warriors. Yeah. Yeah. So they have their, maybe they have their main and co-main don't, but But you still have another 10 or 12 fights to put on. And out of one gym, the guy says, look, I have a 2-0, 170 guy. If you can get me somebody with a similar record, let's make the match.

I go on the site. I search for 170 in that region. Three guys come up, one is 6-1, one is 1-0, and the other goes 2-0. I send them to the other team. You know, hey, coach, which of these guys would you think is a fair matchup? This guy, boom, 2-0 guy. Okay. We shoot him an offer.

if it all makes sense, handshake, contract, fight, move on to the next one. Would you say this is European base for now? So that was the original idea was I was doing this for Europe, but I can see it's going to be global soon. You know, we sort of live in a village now, you know, globally. But that was the idea originally because you have a lot of promotions around Europe. And, you know, obviously a lot of small countries dotted together.

And sometimes it can be difficult for Octagon. if they're running a show in Czech, and they don't know that there's a French guy who's one of the know that would be a perfect matchup for one of their undercard guys. Here's how they can look for European-based fighters, get guys have a similar record, you know, just to fill those undercard spots

until the guys get up to the stage where they're headlining an Octagon event or maybe moving on to UFC or PFO or whatever. So I saw the announcement when you linked up with upper management, upper sports management, and it sort of categorized you as like, you know, the European-based guy for them, right? Because I know Caesar is more Latin America.

Yes. Are you representing fighters as well? Yeah. So how is that working? So that was originally why I was brought on, you know, just to seek talent around Europe, those guys that are kind of knocking on the door of the big shows. I sort of went down the rabbit hole with this idea, and that's all I've been doing, working with web developer for the last couple of months.

We're ready to launch now, and you know, you're very kind to bring us on here. I now will kind of go back and start doing that as well. So I will be looking for guys that are looking to join the team and get the full management services that over sports provide. And because the website thing will kind of self-run once it's up and going, you know, it's kind of light touch for us. We just have a big database of fighters, promoters create their own page. They connect.

We're kind of in the background. Okay. Just helped them, you know, get paid and stuff like that. But other than that, it's sort of just ticking away in the background. If we have a couple of thousand fighters on that and a few start getting to the stage of where, you know, this guy's 10 and 0 with nine stoppages, we can reach out and say, hey, do you want to come on board now with the full management package with upper sports? And with that, you know, a lot more time with Caesar and Chama and the guys will start knocking on the doors of the, whether it's UFC or PFL and getting you those big paydays. But at the lower level, like I said, it's very light touch. We don't really have to, it took a while to get it going.

There's a lot of work that had to be done to get it to the stage of being able to announce it now. But after that, it will sort of just, you know, like I said, you know, like Uber is just a nap use just to get a taxi. It just connects people who want to travel with people who have cars. And this is going to connect fighters with promoters almost directly. And, you know, the fighter's free to move around any promotions he wants, work around any manager he wants. But I think if they're with us in the early stages, do you see what we do a good job. and he's just a great guy and you know that's really was one of the reasons because originally when he called me about the job offer he was actually asked me for advice on

who would i think would be good to do it around europe he wasn't even talking about me and i just liked some of the things he was saying and we're about a half an hour into the conversation and then we kind of almost penny dropped for both i kind of went hey why don't i give it a go i'll try for six months if you don't think i'm doing a good job will you know fire me me, I don't be, I won't take it personally. And ever since then, I've hit it off at him, I deal with channel a lot. We get on really well. So I'm having a phone with it.

So between this and MMA Inc., which used to be Train Alta, which used to be Wept-Whorrier. Are we still M-M-A ink now? M-M-A ink. Okay. M-M-A on the New York Stock Exchange. Amazing. And SBG, how are you doing all this? I'm lucky that like for the gym especially I have a you know Nate the Great his mother

okay Sarah Kelly she runs the gym for me takes a hell of a lot of the workload off me it has been pretty hectic with MMA. inc you know since we got listed and and I do a lot of like pitch calls with with Nick to different you know different investment groups so that that can take up a bit of time um like I said with this it's I haven't really started you know I've not been like managing any of the fighters yet because I've been working on the the sort of novice pro idea. Yeah, and then obviously big fight team, about 50 fighters,

and it looks like the other fella might be up in June. So it's a tactic, but... Have you had to take a bit of a step back from coaching at all as a result of all those? Well, I'm very lucky that my other guy that runs a team with me, Dave Roach, he's been absolutely incredible and he's really helped with doing a lot

of the international fights. So I still will go, maybe, there's probably once a month, I'm somewhere, but he's every, you know, like what I used to do with basically every weekend you're just living out of a suitcase whereas he does a lot of that now and there's just a kind of a handful of guys that I will travel with so was that a conscious decision on your part yeah I did I hired him pretty much when

when Connell was born I didn't want to be that guy that didn't see his kids right right right so he's being he's being fantastic and it just means I have basically my weekends are more or less free you know probably one weekend out of a month I'll be I'll be out of show but I didn't want to you know kind of blink and suddenly Connell's 10, you know, so it's giving me some free time to be able to. Well, soon he'll be able to upload some stuff. Your son will be able to upload some stuff on the website because I saw him with the, the Ghee on there.

Yes, yes, yes. How old is he now? He's five. Look at this young man, looking just like his old man there. Look at this. Yeah. Looks fantastic. Yeah.

No, he's... What's he doing, Jiu-Jitsu? So he does jiu-tzu and we don't call the Thai boxing, but he's learning some punches and kicks. But, yeah, he's obsessed with the gym now. I didn't want to, you know, he doesn't be that dad, you know, like him down. So I was always very kind of light-touch, do you want to come down? And first few times, no, no, and then I'll go down and watch. And now it's like every day, I always pick him up from school.

It's like, is it a gym today? And, you know, because we go Monday, Wednesday on Friday. And if it's a Tuesday, I'd be like, no, not today. And he's like, ah. But I think the number one reason he likes going is that the coach, after the session, they do this game called a helicopter. You stand in the middle of Matt with a jiu-jitsu belt and you, you know, like a helicopter.

All the kids have to run across. he will try and clip their ankle. And Connell is obsessed with this game. You know, that's his big thing is that if he's going to play helicopter today. And then as soon as we get home from the gym, it's like in the hallway and he hands me a belt, the helicopter go. Wow. So he has to jump over it.

Yeah, you know, you're kind of spinning it like the, you know, the rotor of a helicopter. And he's to get from one side of the room to the other and get over it. It's actually pretty cool. Like, and even in the last couple of months, is like his, you know, a bit of coordination, being able to jump, you know, there's a few little skills. involved and being able to do that. He's so competitive about it. It's just...

Do you think... I know it's five. I know he's very young, but do you think we're moving down the path where he falls in your footsteps? He does love it, and he is picking it up, but, you know,

I would say, even though Patrick's only one and a half, he has, like... He's like, it just hits everybody. He gets a bit... He's sort of... He gets frustrated because he can't communicate.

And I don't know. I don't know. you saw, but I put the video, he's like, he's on a punch bag, and then he just grabs it and starts like headbutting it. I'm like, that's probably going to be like. How's your wife feel about this? You know, she's all for it. Okay. She loves to see them training. She knows what, you know, martial arts does for her. Right, right, right. And it's a great outlet and it's no harm and being able to protect yourself. If it does get to the stage of a month of the fight, you know, I probably will put a lot of pressure on them to stay amateur. And if he does want to go pro,

He'll have to go through hell, you know. He'll have to be very well prepared going in there. I'm just imagining now, looking at him being hit, it would be tough to watch. I can't imagine. I mean, it's one thing when you love one of your fighters, but when it's your actual son, who wants to go through this. Okay, let's bring in Caesar. Shall we bring him in? I've talked to Caesar a lot.

I've bothered him a lot. The boys will bring him in here in a second via WhatsApp. But I don't think we've ever actually formally met. There he is. How are you, sir? Wow. Nice to meet you, Caesar. Have we met in person before?

Not in person. Not in person. Nice to meet you, my friend. How are you? Welcome. You're a person from Mexico. Oh, thank you. Wow, wow, wow.

They're going to drink it in one shot these guys in the back. Thank you. Five years aged. Wow. That's the good stuff. Much of the best. Did I say that right? Yes, perfect.

Okay, and how do you pronounce your last name? Gomez Linz. Gomez Linz. Okay, I wanted to make sure. And try to come, maybe if you want to scooch coach right over there, to Okay, yes. I hope that's okay guys. Hello everyone. Nice to meet you in person. Congrats on all your success. You've been in the MMA game for the last few years now. I think we first met maybe when you were working with Yair. Yes. Is that possible? How many how many fighters are now part of

upper sports management? So we have like in general like 70 something fighters. I have eight guys in the UFC. We started doing this probably like around 2019. Okay. And why did you get into this? So my family has always loved the sport, and I always wanted to help out to grow the Mexican fighters, get them to the big leagues. And we've been doing great, and there was a time where we didn't have guys in the UFC. We started getting them there, and then we wanted to go global. Once we conquered Mexico and Latin America, we wanted to go global, and that's when we called John, and we felt like he was the guy for the job. Okay, so you're based in Mexico? We're based in Mexico.

And so initially you were focused on more of the Mexican-Latin American fighters, right? And so when do you make the decision that now you want to start branching out, that eventually leads to you reaching out to John? So we started just in Mexico, and then when everything was doing good, we said, like, why stay just in Mexico? Let's go to Latin America. And after that, I think, like, it was, like, the goal to make this, not just a Mexican and Latin management firm, just like expand.

Okay. And it's been great. So of those 70 fighters now that you represent, how many are from outside of that region? I don't have like the specific number, but we have like from all over Mexico, all over Latin America. We have a lot of good talent in Mexico. We work with a fighting league called Lux Fight League, which we used to like grow the fighters and make sure they have the opportunities to do what they, lops so we can like take them into the next stage which is like big leagues pfl ufc all over the world

what is so what is the ultimate goal now like so europe obviously with john other parts of the world right other regions where do you want upper management to be where upper sports manager what is the ultimate goal here my goal is to make upper upper sports management not just another management firm but the management firm i want to change the sport we have like a more human way to approach the fighters. I feel like a lot of management firms treat them more like if it were like product and we try to do it like in the human way.

Like help them not just inside the cage, just like explain like how to grow outside of the cage as well, like make them like businessman, shows them the way. And I feel like as long as you're changing their lives, like everything is going to be beneficial for everyone. The fighters that you have now in the UFC, who are they? So I work with Manuel Tor.

Doris, Daniel Sel Hoover, Jasmine Horegi, Michael Morales, Hesuz Aguilar, like, and right now we got like three guys that fought in contender, Ramiro, one of the Luna twins, and Searcher, so we're doing very good. So this was a big weekend for you guys. It's a big weekend. It was always a goal of mine to close a fight in the biggest stage, which is the Madison Square Garden. So what was it like for you to have one of your fighters compete and win like that on such a big stage?

There you are. Look at you over there. Yes, with Michael. It was great. He said before the fight, I was like, what do you reckon? You know, this is a real big test. And he said, first round knockout. Really?

I was like, you're serious. You don't think it's going with it? He said, no, I'll be quick. Bang. It was very impressive. Incredible. Yeah. There are some of the highlights right there.

What was that like for you to see one of your own do that to a tremendous fighter in Sean Brady? It was great. I feel like it's going to be very close for. us to get the belt soon. I feel this was like the great way to cement what we're trying to do right now. It's just like we didn't come here to win. We wanted to make a statement and the statement was made. I feel like Michael has really become a superstar like in the in the Spider-Man outfit throughout the week and just like the way he conducts himself, the way he looks, the way he was at the press conference with the jacket and then he takes it off like he looks like a star and it sounds

to me like in Ecuador he's really becoming a huge star. I understand the Ecuador football team invited him tomorrow because they're in New Jersey, right? So, like, this is great validation for him. How big is he getting over in Latin America and in particular Ecuador? He's huge. He's a rock star in Latin America. Everyone loves him. The way he fights, he's

a stut. Like, not every fighter delivers like he does. So the fact that he came to the Madison Square Garden and just knocked out Brady was something great. Yeah, he looks like a stud. Also, he looks like he's a light heavyweight in there with a lightweight.

yeah I think style wise and the way he moves he I think he could give Islam a really good test okay how would you break that down coach Mike and by the way move the mic sorry a little bit closer to there yeah we had to pull here let me help you let me help you it's a it's a little DIY here you go don't be shy familiar how would you break that down because I think a lot of people are saying with his judo background and with his size he could be the guy actually sees were saying that he has really good grappling it's just so we haven't seen it he doesn't have to use it and obviously his motor

was very high-level judo player itself. But size-wise and range-wise, there's just something about him that made it look like Brady couldn't even begin a shot. You know, he's kind of crouched down, pushing. He's very rangy. Obviously, he hits really, really hard, so I think that would be a very interesting one.

I love the relationship with him and his mother, like seeing his mother at the Apex shows and then seeing her in Madison Square Garden all the way there they found her. It's beautiful to see someone come. And how did you first? link up with Michael how did you first meet him and and where does he come like could you tell us about his background yes so I start working with Michael

thanks to his coach which is Raul Arvisu we are like working together with the entram gym it's like an alliance we made in Mexico to like grow this we have like the same goals which is to grow the sport and do big things so it was just a matter of time for us to like start working together the entram gym is the gym in Tijuana where they have like most of the guys in the UFC Okay You know, it's interesting because not that long ago Mexico was synonymous with boxing

Even Lucha Libre, not so much MMA So how did you get into all of this? How did you become such a big fan To where you want to actually work in this business? I always love the sport I grew up training you know like Taekwanda, a little bit of boxing I train right now

Muay And I love striking So Mexican, you know They're born with stones in their hands everyone wants to to throw hands so i always wanted to do my part and just like get them somewhere i started working with fighters and just helping them and i mean wow the rest is history you're enjoying it i'm enjoying it i i love the fight game i love to be in the bands i mean it's a most fun job in the world right uh you've been around some managers john in your day

yeah what's the difference in caesar and some of the others yeah well you definitely get that sense from that he's doing this number one because it's fun and he enjoys it he loves working with fighters and that just came across so strongly when we were we were chatting like I said how the offer came about is he kind of was looking for some advice and maybe there's someone based in Europe and just the way he was talking and the way I was talking and suddenly was like why not me why don't I give it a go so I've had a lot of fun so far working in and I'm I'm looking for any you know when I came to him with this idea with the website he was fully supporting it right from the start is like, oh, that's a great idea to get the novice pros getting gone.

And then, you know, so it's been, it's easy. So John told us about this website. Why were you interested in it? Because initially that wasn't why you were reaching out, but it sounds like he kind of pitched you on it. Why was this an idea that you like? Well, it's very innovative. No one is doing that. And I was talking with John the other day and he's telling me like he's got this crazy idea,

a little bit like, like Uber. Yeah. So we're like, why don't we give it a go? we want to be like the first ones like be doing things that no one is doing and we're going to be changing lives helping the fighters out and I feel like I told John like when you came into upper like you have a voice here so if you feel like that's the way we trust you 100% I think we're going to be doing great things together if you think that's the way let's go when you first got into this did you talk to some of the fighters or did you look at some of

the other managers and did you learn about some things that you want to do what you didn't want to do what's working, what's not working, to develop the way you want to treat the fighters. So I see these other managers and I try to take a look at what they're doing and I try to do my stuff like my own way because there's some things that I don't like that is going on in the fight team. Like what? Tell us. You know, a lot of managers just get like, let's say, short notices and just like see the fighters as products. Like I want to send you here, maybe you get beat up, but we charge our percentage and this and that. And I don't live

of the fight game. Like, I do this genuinely out of love. I want to, like, really change the game. I'm here for history. I want to be known as one of the greatest managers in MMA. So, that was my goal, and that's what we're doing. One issue that I sometimes have with managers is that

I feel like some managers, some care more about their relationship with the UFC than their relationship with the fighters. So ultimately, as long as they're in good standing with the UFC, they're happy about that and they'll do whatever to keep that relationship strong and you know if there's a few casualties along the way with the fighters so be it there a dime a dozen I feel like that's the sentiment do you understand what I'm

talking about you're shaking your head so so how do we how do you because ultimately I was talking to one fighter who told me like I don't want my manager to be best friends with the UFC I want the UFC to respect them but it's good sometimes when there's some friction because that means he's fighting on my behalf yes so how do you balance the two Well, I think you always have to put your fighter first because, I mean, if he's not doing things correctly, if he's not fighting properly, the UFC is not going to give them opportunities, but you just have to make sure, like, everything, we try to be as transparent as we can show them the way, like, sometimes for a fighter, if they do things properly, the UFC sees that in them and they help them out or whatever, but I just like, well, you're always looking for your fighter, making sure he's all right and taking care of. I feel like if you do that, it's just going to be easy to work with. And so now with the rise of MMA and in particular in Latin America, are you starting to feel that maybe it's not quite at the level of boxing,

but it's getting closer in terms of what young kids want to do, the way it's being talked about, covered in Mexico and around the region? Yes, like I really feel like everyone is putting an eye on Mexico right now and Latin Americans these last couple of years, what they made with the sphere, with Notche UFC, all those events. which I'm very grateful because whenever there's something in Mexico, let's say a fight in Mexico City or even in Noche, the UFC always puts us on the map.

Like, they always call opera when they need some good Latin Americans. So it's good, it's fun. How's the PI? Have you been to the PI in Mexico? The PI is good. I mean, it got burned like... Oh, that's right. Yeah, it got burned like four months ago.

Is it not open? It's not open yet. They're turning up another gym. But they're doing great things for the athletes. They're like really helping them out. And they're investing a lot. in what's Latin American talent. Okay.

You know, John, you mentioned earlier about like the amount of events a weekend and then per month and then per year. But I feel at least in North America like the amount of regional shows has diminished post-COVID.

Yeah. And so how would you describe it in Europe right now? Yeah. So Europe has so many more. Yeah. Seems to have so many more shows than the states. I don't know whether at the lower end

it's very difficult for promoters here with athletic commissions and everything. It's a little bit freer in Europe. You think that's it? Could be. I think like the baseline fee for trying to run, you know, a local MMA show here. It's probably in the tens of thousands by the time you get licenses and all that. Whereas in Europe, you could just run a show this weekend if you want.

There's not really, you know, much to be done there. But Europe right now, you know, I've always sent you some of the clips from like Octagon. They've 50 or 60,000 people come into every show. So, KSW, you know, kind of, it's sort of Polish only, but again, 40, 50,000. Well, FC coming out of Spain now, they're, they're able to put on a show every other week. Oh, that's the one with Ilya involved. Yes, yes. It's involved in it.

Obviously, Cage Warriors being around forever. But I would say the European scene at the moment is really, really buzzing. You've got multiple organizations that are all selling between 20 and 40,000 tickets every time you run an event. Crazy. And it's very, as well, when you go. to one of those shows, it's a different feel than coming to a show over here in terms of the audience. It's families. You know, they almost treat it like tailgating before the fight. You know, the family comes along, they hang out in the car park. And then that evening, it's

man, dad, two kids, you know, it's when the camera goes around the crowd on Octagon, for example, or even where I'll see as well, it's, it has a very different feel than, you know, here it's kind of young, young men, you know, just bleed. it's still the same what's interesting to me is I've talked to some fans who say like they have friends

obviously they're fans of the show or whatever but like in in those regions whether it's like Czech Republic Germany Poland there are people who are KSW

Octagon fans who don't know anything about the UFC like those stars are bigger correct that's crazy yeah and like we hardly

never talk it could happen that's legit yeah wow yeah yeah it feels like for a European up and comer there are more opportunities right now than if you were an up and comer in the States. Like here there's like

yeah, there's a couple on the northeast. There's a couple on the west coast, but there's not much. I always kind of wondered how kind of Americans got, it's kind of the idea of the site. Like, you know, how are they going to get the first 10 fights? It's one thing if you're a, you know, I know Boeh Nichols on here, your star like came from wrestling and you get recruited by one of the big teams, fine. They'll, they'll, but if you're just training in a local MMA gym and Ohio or something like, how does that coach get you on to those early? Yeah. those early cards. It's, it's, it's not easy. Whereas in Europe, you know, there's literally a bunch of shows happening every weekend in multiple cities across Europe. And, you know,

once you're in Europe, it's a couple hundred euros to fly anywhere. So it's, it's, it can make economic sense for promoters to bring guys in from all over Europe. But the, the fan base that I really feel at the moment, it's just skyrocketing. Okay, so Caesar, let's see, let's do a little practice here, okay? My name is Hunter Campbell. Yes. And I'm trying to decide who's next for Islam. why is your guy the guy who should be next Michael Morales? I mean he finished in the first round in an amazing fashion and he's got everything like if you guys want to conquer Latin America have like a Latin fighter

as a champion I feel like he has he checks everything he's fun he's muscular he finishes that's what is important like most champions that the UFC wants they need to be finishing them fights like these guys are So, I don't know, like, between, there's, like, a lot of fun in the wheelchair with division right now. I think, like, the guy that should be next would be Morales, obviously. We have to see what's going to happen this weekend with Mohammed and Gary. And, I mean, practice as well, but I feel like the man that should be next would be Michael.

Also undefeated. Yeah, I mean, he's undefeated. What else would you want in a champion? Right. It's kind of a nice story, you know, his mom. I'll start him off, and she's always at the show. It's a bit of a hole to spin, and he brings an entire country with him. You know, he's the number one guy in his country.

I do wonder, though, if Ian wins this weekend, especially via, like, dominant fat, you know, knockout or something, I wonder if they give it to him because he's been on a role, and they do Carlos versus Michael. Would you be okay with that? Would you think that's fair? Well, we would have to sit down with the team and see what they want, but, I mean, that would be a very fun fight as well. And I'm very close with Ian. He just did a seminar, I think, at SPG. It was nice to see him back, like, you know, in Ireland.

Yeah, no, every time he's in Ireland, he always drops in, and we said, wait, when I pass on some of the knowledge. And what I thought was cool was it was a great seminar, obviously. But he sat on the mats for two hours afterwards with a Q&A with 60, 70 people, you know, some of them are just starting the journey and really good insights. He's a super smart guy, really good insights on what got him through some losses, what, you know, how he kind of navigated that scene to get from, stage wars to USC and so on.

So, yeah, always very fond of... It would be great to see him get an opportunity to fight in Ireland. I don't know if he's past that point now. I know the UFC hasn't been back, but to see him have that connection with the country. I know he doesn't live there, so maybe it's not viewed as the same, but it would be nice to see the Irish get behind him like they have the others, right? Yeah, it would be awesome. We have avoided, we've been

talking for about 50 minutes now. I haven't asked you a single question about Mr. Gregor. Perfect. But you did allude him, so you opened the door ever so slight, but I part of it. It's marked it. Is this happening? What's going on? What could you tell us? I could tell us on our end, we're 100% in. You know, he's, he's absolutely, he's asked me to basically lay out a program between now and June of how we'll ramp up her training. He's in, he's showing up again. He's back in the gym most mornings early. Wow. And yeah, he's just, he's having fun with it. But he's, you know, I got a bunch of messages after the show on Saturday night. He wants to fight everybody. Yeah. But certainly, he wants to get, he wants to get on that cards. So how it works from a management point of view, that's between them.

Sure, sure, sure. So I don't really get involved in that. But from a trainer point of view, he's already tasked me with putting together, you know, a team of suitable trainer partners, we'll do something in the gym, somebody in his house. So he's fully locked in that we're going to be making the walk in, what is it, six, seven months? Yeah. So you believe it. Like I said, if it's Connor's choice, he's in.

I don't know how it will work with the UFC. I don't know. Sure, sure, sure. That will go. But you sense, like, a motivation. I was like, I mean, the last one we were so freaking close until he clipped Tristan on the elbow. So look, we just got to get back there again. I think, you know, Chandler's made, he's not being quiet about wanting to be that guy.

I think, I think the matchup makes sense. I think it would be a fun one. You like it? That would be okay. You know, I think, I think with the, I think they kind of a bit of a spark between them, you know, they've done some stuff together before. I think it'd be a fun fight week, you know, press conference, all of that, style wise you know that that kind of shorter stocky wrestler he's faced a few of those in his day

and uh yeah i'm i'm i'm in the mindset that that's what we're doing so we're already beginning or training okay and we tend to overanaly everything that he does the fact that he hasn't been on social media i kind of view as a good thing right no distractions yeah not getting to like i'm not saying anything that he hasn't already said himself but he had a bit of a kind of a spiritual awakening a bit of a journey and he's a bit of a different vibe with him okay at this stage and like a lot of times he comes to the gym is he's bringing the family are coming down it's a bit of a you know it's a family day out but uh yeah it'll be interesting to see how it goes and could i ask um he did talk about when he had the injury he said like

there was a bit of like um like a mental lapse like i i let my guard i the way he describes the injury is interesting because he says well from your perspective what wrong there one thing we always did was his partners would always wear um elbow pads You know, because he chose a lot of those kicks to the belly. And if you're blocking it with your elbow. And the day that we were there, the UFC crew was in, you know, they were filming them. And we had a sparse laid out with the great Tristan from Canada, great wrestler. And between talking with John and the UFC crew and Connor getting ready,

I just forgot to put the elbow pads onto this. So the round's already going. And I was like, ah, it'll be okay, just this one time. I saw go in It happened in like we're doing a five rounders Like let's say it was round Probably actually round two He did it and in between rounds

He was like really because we do these like simulation fights Every week and we treat it like it's a fight You know so he's sitting in the corner and he it's just always like not want the camera crew to hear He just leans and goes my foot's broke And I'm like okay Connor we're not actually in a fight now So let's just stop and he goes no no no I have to finish it But I'm just letting you know I was like you know maybe you know

can't quite tell if your foot's broke without an x-ray. So I just hoped it was a bruise. He went out, finished the three more rounds. Oh, geez. And then one of his memes, you know, me foot was a balloon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It did blow up then, you know, as he kind of, fighters will know that when you're in the height of sparring,

you have all those nice pain-killing hormones rushing to your body. It's that night when you start calming down, then suddenly it's trobing, and then you sent me pictures of it. And it was like, oh, man, I can't believe it. Like, that was one of the last spires, everything of being going so well. So that's, that's, um, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll jump on that grenade. That was me. I should have had the pads on them. But, um, we will be 100% this time.

We will, no mistakes. And that was like three weeks out, right? Yeah, yeah. It was just when we were sort of getting ready to travel. Where was that car? It was in the States. Vegas, yeah, yeah. So we were kind of, you know, getting everything ready to travel and start winding down.

Um, the spar itself went really well. Tristan's, um, he's a little bit similar to, um, um, um, um, to Chandler kind of size bill wise and some of the things we were working were really good you know it's just one of those ones everything was going really well until it wasn't but um hey these things happen for a reason maybe and uh now we have that hopefully that same fight lined up and to do it on the u.s's birthday in the white house and still you still have to think like is this really yes yes yes yes what's better i don't think it gets apparently like the warm up room is the oval office like so it warm

up there walk across the lawn and fight in front of um you know it'd be crazy what a life and it's such a historic card i feel like once in a lifetime experience like what happened like in the sphere like these cars that you don't want to miss of course so who who could be the best man to be there but connor mcgregor have you met him uh once in miami okay how was that it's such a nice guy yeah yeah like him i mean we're already part of the team yes yes yes yes if you don't want me asking How old are you? 29. Wow.

Yes. A young buck. I know. I feel like the youngest one to ever do it in the MMA sport. You're pretty damn young, yeah. And you started, so six years ago, so you were like 23. Yes. Jeez, Louise.

It's fun. You like it? I've been doing everything that I wanted to, like, being able to close fights in Mexico, the sphere, Madison Square Gardens. I'm accomplishing all my goals, so I'm enjoying the process, and I feel like we're changing the sport, so it's always good. And again, thank you very much for this very nice gift. Correct me from wrong.

I think your family is involved in this world, right? We make them as Cali in Waxaca. Okay. We help a lot of communities. And we do a lot for the people. We actually have an MMA gym for the community in Waxaca where we take the kids out of the streets, give them opportunities, show them the way, like, don't do drugs, don't do, I mean, like, do things properly.

Yes. So do you work in this business too? Yes. Okay, so you have many different hats. I'm a businessman, a young businessman, not only in MMA. Which do you like better? It's always fun to be in the MMA game. It's fun, right?

The rush. When you see your people going and fighting the wins, the losses, I mean, we're with them through thick and thin. Yeah. I have heard, I've never managed or coached anyone, but I've heard that the losses, they impact you more than the wins. Right? So I feel like when someone loses, it opens their eyes, like, who is really with you in the good times and in the bad times? I mean, we don't like losing, right? But sometimes it happens.

It's a fight game. We cannot control it. But it shows you who is there with you. You felt that. I saw you feel that. I saw like the look on your face. I know there's some saying there is like, don't pay too much attention who's there during the wins, but look closely who's there when there's a loss. Everyone is congratulating you when you win.

But sometimes the phone doesn't have one message when you lose. Just sucks, but it is what it is. Yeah, perhaps someone like Jack is feeling that today, right? Like he's the king of the world a few months ago. And it seems like he's a really good team around him. Like I was at that there, what do you want to call it, after party last night. But it was in a little Aussie bar, actually not far from here. And they had a section to themselves.

And it was like a lot of like family, you know, their kids running around. And, you know, Tim Simpson is his manager. And he was like pointing out all that these guys went to school. together, you know, and a bunch of them have traveled to every fight since the Contender Series. They're very like tight crew. Amazing. And his brother is, I think, does most of

the coaching, if I'm not really. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's kind of cool to see like someone from Perth, from a gym there going on to become a world champion. You know, we lost it, but if you can get it back, it's, I like to see like when it's a small gym that can do that,

you know, you've got the mega gyms out there. It's hard for us to kind of compete the resources as they have. So to see like a small gym being able to get somebody just with grit and skill and technique and be able to get all the way to the top, it's, it's, I find it very inspiring and I know speaking other coaches, it's, you sometimes feel like, how can we ever compete with those mega gyms? But sometimes that happens.

It's possible. It is possible. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys are proving it. You know, it's a global sport as well. There's no real other sport where it's an Australian guy finding a Dagestani guy, you know, there's just fighters everywhere. Yeah.

In New York. You know, you have a. American football is just, you know, it's American or my own sport, hurling. It's just an Ireland, but MNA, truly a global sport. Yeah, it's actually, I think the only sport where it's like you can come to New York, the main event is Dagestani against, against an Australian. Comain is a Chinese fighter against someone from Kyrgyzstan. And like, in boxing, you kind of have to book based on the region, right?

You can't go to the three arena with a card like that, you know what I mean? You have to have Katie on theirs, and that's what I love about the UFC and particular that you can go to any it's the brand and people know what it is um so yeah i absolutely love that by the way uh the goal now for for you guys you've you've you've linked up with john are you trying to link up with other people in other regions or are you set now what is the goal now eventually we're going to keep growing with what we're doing with john we're going to take over europe and then maybe link up with some other guys be taking over the world that's a plan we're not here to take part yeah we're here to take over i've heard this i've heard this america anyone in america

or do you not need help there? Yeah, we have a team here in America. Okay. Yeah. So we were fully set like here in America, Mexico, and now Europe. Amazing. Islam or Habib? Who wins?

Islam? Islam? Wow, you didn't even... Oh, I've always thought this. Islam is such a great fighter. I feel like Habib is like the goat, but I feel like Islam has that wrestling and the better striking. Like with all due respect, Habib did...

Great things, but I think Islam is surpassing him. Agree? Yeah. Okay. It's a fun debate. It's one that we'll never quite know the answer to. Obviously, obviously they train together. My understanding from people who train with them is like,

Habib has like the big brother thing over him. Yes. And he'll always have that. But if they were not connected, I would, the matchup would be so fascinating. We'll never see it. But I think my personal opinion is that Islam has surpassed Habib in terms of resume credentials, the second belt, the 16 in a row. and maybe the skills are a little bit more refined.

That's no knock on Habib, but I feel like we didn't quite see the full evolution. He cut it a little bit short, and Islam kind of took the baton. Yeah. And perhaps next, it'll be Michael against Islam. Yeah.

Hopefully. How does he win? How does that fight go? Knock it. That's fast. You've got to be confident in your guys, right? I love it. I love it.

Well, again, the website is uppersportsmanagement.com. Yeah, and I just would say, for any pro fighter out there, why wouldn't you upload your profile? All it's going to result in is you're getting more opportunities, more fight offers, no charge. Why wouldn't you do it?

Uppersportsmanagement.com, that's where you upload everything. What do you need to upload, by the way? Do you need like a resume? Do you need something? Yeah, there's a form there. Okay, it's pretty easy. Topology, the usual things. We verify that it's you.

That's not somebody pretend to be something else. So it's a short, painless process. Get on there, get gone. promoters start going there if you're looking to fill your card let's go incredible well congratulations thank you good luck great to have you in studio great to meet you for the first time thanks for your help having some of the fighters i'm trying to get michael on on the show in studio here we're trying to arrange i understand he's very busy he's in demand uh but while he's in town it would be a good opportunity if not no problem he often here to new york do if anything i'll we can just hook it up no problem

i appreciate that thank you again for this enjoy uh my guys are probably going to finish it in one sitting but you know that's the best of the best you're not going to find a better mescal really yes what makes it so special i mean it's from you guys is there something i'm not a connoisseur so should i be looking for something or you'll just enjoy enjoy okay i cannot give like a lot of details right now because we're going to take like another hour okay no problem no problem thank you so much uh good luck to you guys congratulations and appreciate you coming in thank you so Thank you so much. If there's anything we can do to help, please do let us know.

Caesar and the great John Kavanaugh here, great to have them in. We'll take a quick break. Much more to come. We've got to talk about Anthony Joshua, Jake Paul. Wow. We're just talking about crazy. Who wins that one, by the way? It has to be Anthony.

God. Jake Paul. Now, we'll, we'll see. We'll take the temperature of everyone. That wasn't joking. I know, I got that. I got that. I got that.

We'll take a break. We'll be right back right after this. Okay, back on the program. A great day so far. Much more to get to. Thank you to Caesar and John Cesar. Thank you for coming in. Good luck to them.

Great to pick their brain when it comes to the world of MMA business. But we do have some boxing business to discuss because we woke up this morning, my friends. We woke up this morning to the news that it is in fact happening on the 19th of December, 2025, live on Netflix, no pay-per-view, just a subscription required. I believe 300 or so million subscribers all across the world.

It's Jake versus Joshua, as they're dubbing it, Judgment Day, a professional heavyweight bout, eight rounds, 10-ounce gloves, Jake Paul versus Anthony Freakin' Joshua, Kasea Center, Miami, Florida, professional bout, I repeat, no exhibition, None of that meshugas. The only stipulation, if you will, is that it has been revealed via MVP in their press release that Joshua cannot weigh more than 245 pounds. Now, the last time Joshua weighed under 245 pounds was his fight against Alexander Usik,

his second fight against Alexander Usig back in August of 2022. Since then, wins over the likes of Germain Franklin, Robert Hellenius, Otto Valene, Francis and Ganu. And the last time we saw Anthony Joshua fight was back in September of 2024, Wembley Stadium, the fight against Daniel Dubois, the fight in which he lost via knockout in the fifth round. One of the great experiences of my life to be there in person. And who would have thought a year and a half later, less than a year and a half later, his return would be against one Jake Paul.

Now, how did we get here? Of course, we know that Jake Paul was supposed to fight Tank Davis this past weekend. He was supposed to fight Tank Davis on Friday. About two weeks or so ago, that fight was canceled after multiple incidents popped up regarding Tank Davis, a lawsuit, domestic violence, allegations, assault, all this stuff and more. Yes, he had a history, but finally MVP and Netflix decided to pull the plug. Now, some people said it was due to poor ticket sales. Whatever the case may be, they pulled the plug.

They didn't want to be in business with them anymore. They didn't want to go through with the fight. And so they said, we're not doing it. as they were saying that in the immediate aftermath of it all they did in fact say we are going to try to salvage this Netflix opportunity

we're not going to let this go into 2026 we're not going to let this drag out we want to get the fighters on this card an opportunity to fight by the end of the year there's a lot of MVP fighters on the card obviously there were some pbc fighters as well but there were the likes of alicia bomb

Gartner and sugar neeks that were on the card that they wanted to keep on the card in order to get them fights, get them opportunities, and whatnot. And so they were talking to multiple people, and it did, in fact, seem like Anthony Joshua was a possibility. They had talked about Anthony Joshua in the summertime, and then the plan was laid out that they would fight tank first, and then they would fight Joshua. Jake was saying, I'll fight the smaller guy, then fight the bigger guy.

Obviously, it was revealed that a reach-out occurred to. see if Francis Angano was interested. He made it very clear that he was not interested. Nate Diaz said that, you know, he was interested by all accounts, and I know that was bandied about. It seemed like of all the possible, Terence Crawford's name was mentioned, Ryan Garcia's name was mentioned. It did seem like of all the possibilities, the one that seemed like the biggest long shot was Anthony Joshua. But then mid-last week, the ring reports that this fight is being close to finalized. Eddie Hearn says that it's a little premature, although as we talked about on the show, when

he said that, hey, you know, I don't think, I don't think he's that crazy. I don't think Jake's that crazy. It felt like there was a little promotional twist to it all, and you wouldn't talk that talk if this wasn't a real thing. And as the week went on, as we were getting to Ben Eubank, too, it did seem like this was dominating the talk. It did seem like a lot of people in the UK were very interested. Then we get to the broadcast, and Eddie and Turkey Alice Shake are talking about,

hey, we've got a big plan for AJ. He's going to fight in February or so. Then he's going to fight back into the year. He's going to come back. He'll have a tune-up fight. Oh, by the way, there might be another fight, and there might be a fury fight down the line. There's all this stuff. And then it was also revealed that he was planning, Joshua was.

He was planning to fight in December, perhaps in Africa, against a less than a less or known opponent, just like a tune-up fight, a 10-rounder, just to shake off the cobwebs, just to, you know, shake off the rust, and that would set him up for the big, for the big Tyson Fury fight. When they were talking on the broadcast about February, when they were talking about two fights next year, like, all right, is he going to take another fight? Well, we find out this morning that he is, in fact, going to take this fight, and this has, I mean, this has sparked all kinds of talk.

Everyone in the boxing world, everyone in the combat sports world, and obviously in the UK, it's a gigantic deal because Anthony Joshua is one of the biggest stars and sportsmen to come out of the UK in the past 15 or so years. Of course, Olympic gold medalist, two-time unified champion. His last fight was for the belt at Wembley. Still one of the biggest stars in the UK. And now he is coming back to fight Jake Paul of all people. Who would have thought?

Not that long ago, Anthony's critical of Tyson Fury fighting Francis and Ghanu. Now two of his last three fights will be against Francis and Jake Paul of all people. people. This is a massive leap from, you know, the fights of yesterday year where he was fighting, you know, the likes of Usik and Dubois being in the Tyson Fury mix. Now, a lot of people have said, well, if he doesn't knock him out the way in which he knocked out Francis and Ganu, he's a sham, this is a sham, this is all rigged. A lot of people say, if Jake wins, this is a sham, this is rigged. A lot of people said, if he goes the distance with Jake, this is a sham, this is all rigged. Some people are saying even before it was finalized. Gareth on our our show, although he folded quite quickly when he was face to face with Eddie at the open workouts. I saw that on IFL TV, I do believe, saying that his legacy is already, already in question as a result of taking this fight. Now, I'm surprised that people like Gareth say this, look, this may not be your cup of tea. You can, you can say, I want to see Anthony Joshua fight other heavy weights. I want to see him fight the likes of, I don't know, Joseph Parker.

I want to see him fight Marmacholi, I want to see him fight Kabayel, I want to see him fight Jee Lezang, I want to see him fight Hergevich, I want to see him fight, Tyson Fury, Dubois again, and the list goes on and on. The heavyweight division hasn't been this interesting in quite some time, surely there's someone for him to fight. You can say that, and I would say, yeah, I get it, I get it. But to suggest that his legacy is being ruined by just taking this fight is absolute nonsense. Lest we forget, in 1976, the heavyweight champion of the world and the most famous, boxer on the planet was a man named Muhammad Ali. He went to Japan to fight in a mixed rules bout against a pro wrestling legend named Antonio Inoki. We're not going to get into the whole

history of the bout, but did that ruin his legacy? Did anyone hold that against them? Has anyone thought lesser of him because of that? In 1975, a year prior, a man by the name of George Foreman coming off the loss to Muhammad Ali. We have the poster somewhere. Where is it? Right over there. George Foreman, Muhammad Ali, 15-round fight. The Rumble in the Jungle in Africa. I realize that I'm pointing at something that you cannot see. But trust me, that fight happened in 1975. He lost that fight.

He was devastated. His next appearance in a ring was at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, where he fought five jobbers. On the same night. Not at the same time, but on the same night he fought five different people. And you could go on and on with the likes of Jack Johnson, even going back to that, where boxers, whether they took paydays, the bags, whatever you want to say, they had fun little freak show fights, fun little circus fights, whatever you want to call any of this, prize fighters are and prize fighters will do prize fighter like things. This is no different. And so let's be very

clear. If you feel like, you feel like, you know, hey, I'm an AJ fan, I'd rather him fight top tier guys, that's fair. That is 100% fair. If you feel like he is ruining, his legacy by taking his fight, that is not fair. That is absolutely not fair because it has happened, time and again, and guess what, he isn't the heavyweight champion of the world. He's not even close to being the heavyweight champion of the world right now. He is nowhere near that discussion at the moment. At the moment coming off a knockout loss, he is nowhere near that discussion. So that can't be the knock on him. And now the big question is how the fight goes, because it does feel in some ways they're damned if they do, they're damned if they don't. If Jake

somehow pulls off a Francis and Ghanu-like performance and goes the distance but loses, everyone will shit on it. Anything other than an Anthony Joshua second round knockout is going to spark all this nonsense. And I say it's nonsense

because I believe it's nonsense. Again, we've seen this with the Isaac Delgarian situation. I don't believe for a second that the UFC has anything to do with fixing fights. There's way too much at stake. As the great Dana White once said, you know where you go, if you fix fights? Do you know where you go?

Federal fucking prison. That's right. One more time now. Where do you go if you fix fights? Federal fucking prison. No one's doing it in the UFC. No one's doing it at TKO. And no one's doing it at MVP or any other boxing promotion. Top tier. Top tier right now.

Jake is a very rich man. Nikisa is a very rich man. Why the hell would they do that? Why would they do that? No one's doing that. I'm sorry. No one is fixing a fight. It's not worth it.

Just don't make the fight. You'd be better off just fighting the Julio Cesar Chavez juniors of the world than if you try to fix a fight with Anthony Joshua on Netflix in front of millions of people. It makes no sense. It makes absolutely no sense. And call me naive, and you may say that I'm biased this and that just for the record. I am hosting the press conference on Friday just for the record.

I don't get a cent from MVP. I don't take as much as a freaking Uber from them. I'm being hired by Netflix and the production company who produces is it named Ever Wonder, you can look them up, and I'm very grateful and thankful to be a part of a big event like this. I don't take a cent. I don't take a cue, a cent, anything. And I've turned down opportunities. They wanted me to host, you know, the, the Mike Tyson face-to-face with Jake, the Katie Taylor, Mandusarano, two face-to-face. I said no, because I would have had to got paid by them or do it for free. Didn't want to do the latter, so I said no. And then

they got the rapper guy with Mace, Cameron, I think to do. Was a Cameron? They got someone to do it. Some rapper was doing it, and, you know, their rules are different than my rules, and that's all well and good. But I don't think a single person, now, some people are like, oh, they're going to do a friendly little dance. And I think they say that because of how the Tyson fight went, I think that was a very, very different situation. And personally, I didn't like the fact that it looked like Jake took it easy on him. From a sporting standpoint, from a humanity standpoint, yeah, I didn't want to see Tyson get hit

more at 57. And so him bowing at the end and all that time, we were like, oh, there was a, the fix was in. No, Tyson was never winning that fight. A 57 year old doesn't beat someone, even a novice who's Jake's age, late 20s, just doesn't happen. I will say this, and you could go

back and look at it. I was on Logan Paul's show in late August. They asked me when both fights were being discussed, which one do you like more? I said I like the Joshua fight. And by the way, at the time, I had a feeling the tank fight was the one that was being made. I was just telling it like it is. Of those two fights, I like the Joshua fight more. And so I'm happy

that we are getting the Joshua fight, and I hope we get it after all this. And I just think it's crazy, fascinating theater. I don't know what's going to transpire. And if I'm just a casual Joshua fan, and I'm asking myself, what am I more interested in, a gigantic mega event like this on Netflix, or, you know, fighting just like an unknown guy, on an unknown card, yeah, this is kind of wild. This is kind of crazy. I don't think for a second that he would agree to take part in anything that wasn't above board. And I can't believe that we are actually here talking about this.

But I think it's wild stuff. The takes are wild. Jake's saying, yes, it's real. And you know how, and here's Anthony saying he's local man. And you know how you know you got to tip your cap to the guy for his, His large Cahonies, when your biggest rivals, when your biggest haters are giving you props? Yeah, I mean, there it is. Yeah, fair enough, Jake, from KSI.

Meaning like, respect. Guys, what do you make of this? Rick, what do you make of this? Love the fight. Love the spectacle of it. This is what I want to see out of Jake Paul. as far as Anthony Joshua, like, respectfully, to everybody that's out there that's complaining, what is this legacy that he has to protect? I'm not understanding what they're exactly upset about

because I get the sense that if he was to compete against somebody else, right? Like, you're talking about you don't want to see Anthony Joshua versus XYZ fighter, like an Otto Valene maybe, like a Robert Hellenius, like a Germaine Franklin, like what did those do for his legacy? What are these fights that are out there other than Tyson Fury that everybody is demanding Anthony Joshua take. I'm not understanding what the alternative is. I'm not understanding what these people are so upset about that he's foregoing instead of this and what he's damaging his legacy with. Because I guarantee if he went out there and lost to one of those other fighters, they'd be the first ones lining up to call him trash to say he never was, to say that he can't rise up to the

moment, that he's a mental midget and all these other things that you hear, every time Anthony Joshua loses. So I really don't understand what this legacy is that he has to protect, this sanctimonious thing that must be, that he must,

it's nonsense. Can I tell you the truth? I think that people, this is my honest take. I think that people in the boxing world feel like they have to have this take in order to like safe face in order to preserve whatever street credit

they may have in the industry. If you say anything other than this is a farce, This is ruining his legacy. This is a joke. Boxing is dead. This is why boxing is in trouble. This is why this, that, and the other.

That's just the safe take. As opposed to being like, yeah, I mean, he's a prize fighter. He's only got so many fights left. If he goes out there and fights this guy and starches him in 30 seconds, like he just made what? We don't know what the number is. I know the 50 number is being thrown around, even if it's 10, even if it's 20. If it's 15. If it's double digit millions, it's pretty damn good.

If it's one million. I'm not seeing this take anywhere. You're not? Oh, it's all over. Oh, shit. The UK press everywhere. Oh, my God. This is an insane garbage take.

He's competing in his own sport of boxing. He's getting an easy payday against a guy that's undersized and underskilled against them. And it's going to take, what, six weeks of his life from ink drying on the contract to him walking out of the ring? Like we're talking about a blip in time. And he can still fight the Tyson Furies. He can still fight everyone after this. What is this ruining his legacy? my god

go on the UK sites go on the UK YouTube channels go on talk sport all these places I mean they are losing their mind I'd prefer not to because opinions are just meaningless just like they are to Anthony Joshua

so sanctimonious does not care he is getting a massive payday to fight his easiest opponent in how long ever ever by a million miles he might be getting the most amount of money ever for this we don't again we don't know

but it's tough here money least least skilled opponent in a way easiest transaction of all time. On Netflix, in front of hundreds of millions of people. And if he is able to knock out Jake Paul, like a lot of people think he's going to be able to do, he will be put over on massive levels. In a way, and yeah, there it is. Back in 2017, look at Anthony Joshua Unified Champion and look at Jake Paul. And everyone loves to do that. I mean, it was eight

years ago, but yes, it is insane. He himself does it, the Disney kid. He plays it up when he 100%, 100%. I mean, you could do it with like an NBA rookie who like posterizes LeBron eight years ago there in fourth grade and, you know, it's great to do that. But in a way, I view it as the same as Mayweather-Megger. It's completely different than Mayweather-Mogreger, but what did we say as far as like the thinking? It's like, most amount of money for easiest opponent, right? Yes. And it's the prize freaking fighting business. And they will get rid of you as quickly as they idolized you. And Anthony is at the very end he's maybe got one two fights left one two years left why the hell would he not take this

now there were a lot of hurdles i mean number one you see him giving props to diszone he's a disowned fighter yeah so you know that there were hurdles there ryan garcia got shut down as oscar de la hoya said because he's a disown fighter right there's the relationship with turkey which you know obviously that had to be figured out and the plans that they had for him that had to be figured out with this derail it all that stuff and more. But I don't begrudge him. I don't think less of him. I don't think he ruins anything.

I think it's insane that you could say that even before the fight. If you want to say it after the fight, like, yeah, I can't believe you got knocked out by Jake Paul. I think less of you now, sure. Does it take anything away from the Klichko fight? Does it take anything away from the comeback recently? I mean, none of it. It's absolutely nonsense. And it's just like hot take bullshit artist nonsense.

I return. If he does get knocked out by Jake Paul, that's different. It's a different convo. No, no, no. This is, like, right now, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, legacy, but you can't, you can't take away what he did, like, he's an Olympic gold medalist. But, of course. What are these things that he could be doing instead?

That's what I, I, I return to this. Like, he was going to fight on a disowned card against, against nobody. Literally, what are we, for one-fifth the price? But, you know, you have to have this take. Here's the one thing that I think is a fair criticism, not a fair, a fair debate or a fair discussion to have. if you're in Akisa and Jake and his team, are you making, like, you could die in the ring. Let's be real, you could die in the ring.

Are you making a huge mistake? I mean, the safety is a legitimate thing. Look what he did. I will never forget that Francis fight. I will never forget being there and looking at Francis and Gandhi, who had never been rocked, knocked down or knocked out out cold, like cold,

and was not moving for what seemed like an eternity ultimately was like a minute. that is a scary that's Francis freaking Inganu who weighs around the same size like what is Jake going to weigh at best 220 at best

that's not as real walking around weight you know here they have them listed as 200 they have they have Anthony listed at 252 which is what he weighed for the Dubois fight a guy with 25 knockouts 28 pro wins

it's a question to ask but Jake Paul is not in the business of asking these questions right he just fought a 60 year old Mike Tyson he was about to fight 135 pound tank davis i don't know that his side of the equation is the one to be asking like is this too dangerous when he's been on the other side of the is this too dangerous in one fight that happened and one fight that was about to happen so i don't know that they make that calculation or care i'd also point to the fact that while francis singano was a big man

jake paul has more boxing fights than francis and ghanu does so if we're going to do like oh he's inexperience yeah paul's a boxer okay so i've never supposed to i've never supposed to to that because I don't like what people would call Francis a debutante or Connor a debutante. They're fighters and fighters have made the walk. It's just I can't get the picture

of Francis getting knocked out out of my brain and then thinking like, holy shit how is Jake going to survive this? If Anthony is motivated and switched on, this is dangerous shit. Yeah, and that's the best thing that you've got for people to tune on Netflix. Oh, this is a great selling point.

This is a great selling point. Jake Paul saying that I'm taking on Goliath is absolutely correct. He has not a chance in hell to win this fight. Anthony Joshua is going to sleep him, and that's the best thing that you could sell this on if you're Jake Paul. Is he going to get

the love and respect now? No. Of course not. Not. Because he's going to get folded. He's going to get colded. Okay, no, here's the thing. If he goes the distance like Francis did, do you think he gets any credit? It's just like it was rigged. If he does, yeah, I mean, the rigged delegations will be loud. I mean,

I've seen everyone if it goes past two, this fight was fixed it won't it's it's nothing more than than a farce that was scripted uh j carried him the whole way that's what they'll say we won't have to worry about any of this anthony joshua is going to sleep jake paul do you think do you think anthony goes in there because look i don't think there was any type of agreement between jake and mike tyson to like hey i'm going to take it easy but at some point it was very clear he was taking it easy so yes and and over time it sort of seems to feel like Floyd was carrying it Connor for a little bit, right?

So, right, no? I feel more in the Logan fight than in the Connor fight that Floyd was like letting it go longer than he thought. I don't feel like he carried Connor too much. Okay, whatever the case is, do you think there's a chance that Anthony, no?

You think he goes in there? He's going to do the same thing that he did to Francis and Gano, which is take his head off. The seriousness with which he took the Francis and Gano fight makes me believe he will do the same for this one. No chance. By the way, I love love the idea of brilliant mastermind Ben Davison

breaking down Jake Paul fights right now you know what I mean? Like this guy him and that team they're like you know they're like They must be looking their fucking chops. All right guys tonight we're going to watch the Jake Paul one of your favorite fights the Ryan Borland fight

Oh yeah shut out. I mean it's a quick one but we're breaking this shit down. Andre August tape baby crunch that. No they're going to pull up the Tommy Fury tape and I imagine they're going to find one or two holes in his game. Yeah. I want to return to something that you were touching on. Shit, now I forgot it. I wanted to circle back to something.

What did I want to circle back to? Let's circle back to you circling back. The cell on this fight, you're saying that the boxing community has to say this for the honor of boxing. You don't. You can take the approach Eddie Hearn has taken to the Francis and Ghanaian fight and we'll take to this fight and it's a perfectly reasonable take, which is this is a farce. This is an absolute farce of a fight.

Anthony Joshua is a top-level boxing man, and Jake Paul is a Disney kid. And Anthony Joshua is going to take his head off, and we're going to move on to the next thing. You can take that approach, and it has no reflection on Anthony Joshua's legacy. It has no reflection on the sport of boxing. This is a side quest. This is a completely different thing. Jake Paul operates in a completely different world that exists on Netflix to headline fights. And when Anthony Joshua has dispatched of Jake Paul, when he's removed his head from his body,

he's going to fight Tyson Fury and we're going to move on with our lives and nobody's going to be upset about it. It's going to be fantastic. And that's the tact you have to take. Anthony Joshua has to come in like the destroyer and I'm fairly confident he will, but we don't have to pretend that this is the same thing, right?

Jake Paul doesn't exist in the same world that the Jermaine Franklin's and Hellenius's and all these other guys that he's going to face to do, even a Francis and gone into a certain degree because of what he was able to do against Tyson Fury. He exists outside that. Anthony Joshua is entering that world for one night and then he's going to come right back and we're going to do something else it's fine

we don't have to get up in arms it's no indictment on boxing but you know that they feel this way but why what what is the motivation for what uh i think i think i think people don't want to give him credit for dedicating his life to this for building mbp you're talking about yeah yeah yeah yeah oh yeah oh you're talking about anthony i on either side why do we have to pretend this is the circus and that's absolutely fine anthony Joshua, one night only, in the circus. And he's going to do exactly what he's supposed to do. He's going to be the lion.

He's going to be the lion at the circus, and he's going to eat Jake Paul. And then the next at the end of the calendar year, maybe he steps in there with Tyson Fury and does it to him too. We don't have to pretend that these things are always equivalent. We don't have to pretend that every single spectacle is the same as the highest

level boxing match. If this was Alexander Usik, I have a different take on it, right? I don't think that that's the right fight. But we don't have to pretend that. Yeah, because he's the champion of the world and all this stuff. Yeah. He's not holding up anything.

I'm intrigued. I'm high. The same people would be the first ones to shit on Anthony Joshua and probably were the first ones to shit on Anthony Joshua when he stumbled against Andy Ruiz and when he stumbled against Usik and when he's crying in the ring. Like there is no legacy that this guy has. It is not a sterling legacy that needs to be protected. And I'm so over it.

I will just add this. something that we've said before, because you'll see people, you'll see especially MMA fans say, like, this is why I don't watch boxing, this is why boxing sucks, this is why boxing's in the gutter, all this stuff for more. I don't know if you guys know this, but there is an unbelievable card happening this Saturday in Riyadh. Like, it's maybe, it's one of the, people have said this about other cards, like, I would make a very strong case of all the Riyadh cards so far, a card that has David Benavides, Bam Rodriguez, Brian Norman

Devin Haney Like this card is outstanding Are you gonna watch it Are you interested in it Like if you care so much About the sanctity of boxing Surely you would watch a fight card like this Surely you would be interested

In names like Bam Rodriguez And David Benavides And Devin Haney Like surely you care You don't care And so don't care About what this means For the sport of boxing

And don't use that as the excuse as to why you're not into it or not. You can't wrap your head around the fact that someone who was as successful as Jake, who was as rich as Jake, is able to create this own path for himself. And the reason why he's able to create this path for himself is because he has given fighters

like Nate Diaz, like Anderson Silva, like Ben Ascran, like Tyrone Woodley, like Nate Robinson, and now like the likes of Anthony Joshua, he has made it financially viable for them to make the walk. And the reason why he's able to make it financially viable is because he himself is a

and he is himself as someone that Netflix wants to be in business with. This is now Netflix's fourth foray to boxing. Three of them are MVP cards, and this will be the second involving Jake himself. Like, that's why. And so he has created this for himself, and people can't wrap their head around it. And they don't want to give him that credit. But I don't know how now you don't give him the credit of at least stepping in there. Even Data White himself was giving him credit at the press.

her. I don't think we have that sound, but Dana himself was like, yeah, I'll watch that one. And by the way, part of the appeal is, I want to see him get his ass what. That was the entire appeal for Dana. But by the way, that's fine. Yes, people are going to watch because of that. You cannot help yourself. Once you see this face

off and he's five inches taller than him and he's going to have 20, 30 pounds on him and then obviously the experience and how he finishes his opponents, you will not be able to help yourself to just turn on Netflix and see whether or not Jake Paul gets knocked out on December 19th. Jake Paul would be smart to start making this

into like a funeral, promoting it like watch me get killed by Anthony Joshua. That's fucking illegal. Everybody's going to tune in for this. By the way, need I remind people, Conello Alvarez, whose legacy is far superior to that of Anthony Joshua is one of the

greatest fighters of all time, one of the greatest fighters of our generation, was moments away from signing up for this Jake Paul fight too. We need to just get in line with the idea that this is reality. We can't just keep denying it forever. Yeah, 100%. And by the way, in 2025, he was ready to sign to fight Canelo.

He was ready to fight tank. He was ready. And the tank one, I'm not as, I'm not giving him as much credit for it. I'm just saying. To fight a 35 or it doesn't take the stones that it takes to fight Anthony Joshua and Canello. What's the tweet from Chuck? I'd have to double check, but Jake Paul might be the only fighter to go from a 57-year-old Mike Tyson to Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.

to trying to fight Tank Davis to Anthony Joshua after a fight with Mike Perry, no? I mean, it's an absurd it's an absurd path. It really is. And it's great. It's unbelievable.

This card this weekend, Benavita's Yard, Norman Haney, Abdullah Mason, I forgot about it. I knew I was forgetting someone. 19 and Ogan, Sam Noakes, 17 and O. Bam Rodriguez against Fernando Martinez.

Vito Milniacki. Shout out to New Jersey. I didn't realize he was on this card. And shout out to Brian Norman, Georgia. Hell yeah. This is an unbelievable. Look at this card. By the way, there's like a bunch of top rank guys here.

Not a great sign for the state of top rank. But I mean, the top one, two, three, four, five, six fights are amazing. Are absolutely amazing. None of you watching this. None of you. None of the people that are complaining about, oh, the sanctity of boxing and all this nonsense. None of you watching it. Now, I can't wait to see, man, I can't wait to see the face off, the state.

air down. Yeah. Do you guys think this sells better than Tank? Yeah. Than Tank? Yeah.

No question. Well, here's the thing. Tank Davis in America is a bigger star than Anthony Joshua. I don't mean selling like in terms of people watching, but this is happening

in Miami. Nobody wanted that fight. Globally. Nobody wanted that fight. Globally, Anthony Joshua is bigger and also the draw now is not

Jake Paul is fighting a tiny 135 or Jake Paul is now fighting a giant heavyweight. So I'm saying in Miami when I was saying sell. Oh, you're saying like Tickets-wise? Yeah.

I think it probably sells up. Yeah. Jake Paul, even with Tank Davis, Jake Paul was the A side of that. And he, his funeral is going to be... You think this is the end? Because you've always been the one

who's subscribed to, like, the losses don't matter to him. If Anthony Joshua does him like he did it, Francis Inganu, it's going to be hard to sell a Jake Paul fight again. That's all I'll say. Losing to Tommy Fury by decision is like, uh, whatever.

I've never, I've never thought that Jake Paul stepped in there with a guy who was going to just obliterate him and so yeah this could be the end. This could be the one. If he gets folded, eyes rolled back in the head scary scenes. If he gets meaned, it's going to be

pretty rough. Man. Until maybe Connor McGregor is a free agent and then if he lands those punches that he landed on Francis. Yeah, Jake's so on asleep. He dropped him multiple times and then put him out. Now the Francis one was scary dude. The last one where he's

He's like folded over and his leg bent all weird and he was out completely cold. And like you said, this is a dude that had not, he was known for having an insane chin. And then to get done like that is terrifying. I think Anthony Joshua, I think it's like 25 of his 28 wins or by knockout. Yeah. He doesn't go to decision often. And with a guy that he has such a massive size advantage over, power advantage over, skill advantage over, experience advantage over, you have to think that the

same fate is in store for Jake Paul Is this crossing over like Will your friends text you about this Thousand percent they already have This morning I woke up to several group But are the text like Is this real or is he going to lose? Like is it like

I don't know what to make of this Or is it like oh I'm hyped I need to watch this Everyone is going to watch it A couple people where like It's such a farce Jake Paul puts these on He's going to get carried to a decision XYZ the Dorman test.

He was like, I think Jake Paul has a wish for an early trade. He's in? He's in? Okay. He'll be watching, yeah, for sure. That's the thing that everyone's going to be watching. How can you not? There's no pay-per-view barrier.

It's just Netflix. You turn it on December 19. You know, maybe at the holidays. Yeah. By the way, what a 24 hours for the crossover boxing world the following day, Andrew Tate making his Misfits debut.

What draws more? Yeah. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess Jake Paul Anthony Joshua on Netflix. It's going to do a smidge more. Not in the Andy household. She's a big Chase the Moore fan. Stan, dare I say. Actually, Misfits released a statement talking about Dylan Danis.

Oh, really? Wow. Speaking of Misfit, finally, altercation at UFC 32 between Dylan Dennis and members of Isamahach of steam, misfits boxing can confirm that Dylan remains welcome at all misfits events. It's big news. I thought they were going to say, like, he can't fight because he got concussed or something.

I thought he was just going to be out of the fight and they didn't have business with him. Oh, interesting. Interesting, interesting, interesting. Okay, so what a 24 hours that's going to be. The big Anthony Taylor versus Dylan Dennis fights. My friends, you know, every so often, every so often when we're doing on the nose

and, you know, listening to the people online, YouTube chat, every so often. and I'll get a message. It'll either be like, whatever happened to you, Anade, what happened to that show, we took it for granted,

we miss it, what happened to you guys, you were here today, gone tomorrow, what happened? We were just getting rolling. And we'll get the message and we addressed it.

We addressed it. One year deal, these things happen. Were there other factors involved? Were there other forces at play? Who's to check? As the great Bob Aram once said so famously. Who's to check?

That's right, Bob. I mean, who is to check? I mean, really, who knows? But on a day like today, on a day like today, I've sent them several messages over the past few months, crickets. But on a day like today, I had to send several, even more, because I don't know, a bigger Anthony Joshua fan.

Of course, it was a huge weekend, saw him presenting, as they say, doing a marvelous job over at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium over the last few days, presenting for the UBank Ben rematch. And then, of course, we wake up to this news, it dropped it around lunchtime in the UK and I was like I got to take the temperature

of the biggest AJ fan that I know and so when you talk about those hardcore UK boxing fans who are being all sanctimonious who are saying ah it's a farce the legacy is ruined I mean I wonder I don't know I have not heard anything I've not listened to anything but I'm sure he has many thoughts

and so we called upon our old friend Ade Oladivo yeah Yeah. There he is. I know that music. I know that. There. Oh, this warms my heart. The undisputed global. How did that make you feel hearing that? I haven't heard that music in months. I did not plan on that. Dude, it hurt me. Yeah. It hurt me. I honestly, genuinely, I was like, no, this is quite painful because I get those messages as well. Like, what's going on? Especially when something crazy happens in the boxing world. Okay, look, Ariel and Adde. Come on. You guys, we need you,

hear what you guys are going to say about it. So, um. Well, here. we are. It's great to be on again. Yeah, you're right, because quite a lot's happened. And by the way, I know you've had a crazy day, right? I mean, earlier today, you were, you were hosting a presser, the Moses Atama fight, and then you had some work stuff. You had your day job, talk sport. So I was hitting you up and I appreciate you squeezing us in. You must be knackard, as they say. I am knackard, but this news, like, what's happened, not just with AJ, Fabio Wardley, become a little champion. Yeah, yeah. So much has happened that I've got so much energy. I'm ready to go. I mean, I can stay on this for an hour if you want. We can run back.

We can do whatever you want. Yeah, parting shot and all. We've got everything lined up. Let's get it to Islamahachaps when, no, I'm kidding. Okay, here it is. I know nothing about your opinion on this. Okay, I've been doing the show. I haven't been online.

I've seen nothing. Anthony Joshua, Jake Paul, December 19th, Netflix, eight rounds, heavyweight, 10 ounce gloves, 245 pound weight limit for AJ. Add his thoughts. I'm not mad at it. I'm not mad at all. My reason I was against it from the very beginning was like, well, one second,

AJ would just finish this off in a minute, which I still think he can and probably will do. I think AJ can walk over and just destroy Jake Paul. I'm never going to be mad as the president of the AJ fan club for AJ to go and make 30 million fighting Jake Paul. Never going to be mad at it at all. There are a lot of British fight fans that are upset. And I'm like, what are you upset about? I thought you guys were saying AJ was done after Dubois

like he should retire all of a sudden he's like okay I want to quit knock against this guy called the problem child in America and you're mad at me why I want to fight Tyson Fury and that's all I've ever wanted to do if he doesn't want to fight I'll do what I want to do

AJ has literally carried boxing on his back in this country for a decade like he put people in stadiums when no one was doing it he put people in Soldat arenas when no one was doing it he literally brought

sponsors to the sport of boxing when sponsors wanting nothing to do of the sport and he just wants to kind of deviate for one fight and everyone's losing their minds. Everyone needs to chill out a little bit. Honestly, chill out. This is a couple of rounds and then as he said, he'll get back to the zone and continue that train ride to another world title shot. I'm not mad at AJ fighting Jake Vortle. I appreciate the take. I appreciate how sensible you are and you're referring to people losing. So what is the temperature like overall? I know. you can't speak for everyone, but what are people saying back home? Are they mad at it? Are they mad at him for taking this? Oh, it's a disgrace. Legacy is damaged forever. I'm like, why is his

legacy damaged? I'm like, boxing doesn't pause because AJ wants to have a fight. Like, boxing's in a good space at the moment. We've got a fantastic car coming up on the weekend. We've got more great cards coming up. Like, what's the issue? Like, AJ isn't just boxing. Like, you know, if AJ fights, it doesn't mean boxing's on hold. Like, boxing will continue. But yeah, I think The biggest takeaway is that his legacy is over. His legacy will be damaged. And you know, I agree if he gets knocked out or if he loses or if it goes past four or five rounds. But I don't agree with the legacy being damaged because he wants to take on Jake Paul.

I mean, I know it's slightly different, but let's not forget Tyson Fury was the world champion when he kind of put the sport on pause, at least the heavyweight sport on paws, to fight in Gardner. AJ's not that. AJ's a guy coming off a loss. He's just about a top 10 heavyweight right now. coming to the end of his career and someone's put a check in front of him with so many numbers I can't count them

to say have a fight against a YouTuber who would not take that every single fighter maybe minus Ngarnu fighting right now would take that fight every single one of them and if they're saying they wouldn't they're lying and by the way I mean you talk about Tyson Fury

let's let's talk about a guy named Muhammad Ali 1976 he's the heavyweight champion of the world he fights a pro wrestler in a real fight A mixed rules fight in Japan named Antonio Anoki. Did that ruin his legacy? The match ended in the draw. George Foreman coming off the Rumble in the Jungle,

his next fight was against five blokes in Toronto, Maple Leaf Gardens, five total jobbers. That was his next time in the ring. And so like this idea that, and we could go back to Jack Johnson, I talked about these other examples earlier, this idea that he is ruining his legacy by taking this fight. Correct me if I'm wrong. I heard Eddie allude to this.

Wasn't the plan for him to fight in Africa against a total nobody just as like a tune-up fight in December? Why, and that was for way less money, not on Netflix, probably a DeZone card, no one would have watched it, at least here in America. Why would you take that fight over this fight? It's just, it's complete lunacy to give him shit for taking this fight in what is a pro bout, a heavyweight bout, like, why wouldn't you do it? I don't understand. That's right, right? Like, wasn't that the plan for him to fight in December?

Yeah, there was a lot of talk about AJ going on a fight card in Ghana, December 20th, so not too far away. A day apart from this, and as you say, it was going to be against the guy, top hundred. So maybe someone that we've never known, AJ would have blown him out the water, and people have said, what was the point in that? At least now, for all you Jake Paul haters that want to see Jake Paul get chinned, here you go. Here you go. AJ is going to fight him.

And for everyone that's kind of said, oh, Jake Paul fights MMA guys that are past their best, and Jake Paul fights guys that are too small. Jake Paul fights guys that are too old. Well, this is almost Jake Paul giving everyone the middle finger, say, well, one second. And now fighting a guy bigger than me, unified everyone at the champion of the world, Still, I think, with something left to offer, the real boxing scene, take that. And this is AJ saying, guys, guys, one second. I am going to fight potentially in February or March.

Let me just have this one, and then we're back to business. I honestly, I can't understand the anger. I almost feel like with AJ. There's always been anger, regardless of what AJ does, there's anger. So I knew as soon as this was announced, it was going to be met with people saying it's a disgrace, ruining the legacy, blah, blah, blah. Just because people like to get AJ's Quebec. anything. I am not mad at AJ doing this. Yeah, I understand actually, and this is a bit of a detour,

Jude Bellingham getting a lot of shit over in the UK right now. And it does seem to be like a UK media thing where like the top dog gets a lot of crap for whatever reason when they give really no reason to deserve any of that crap. You mention Francis Inganu. What do you think he's thinking right now? Because I am on the record saying I was surprised he turned it down. This felt like a layup for Francis, a great way to get back in there. Do you think he is feeling like oh man maybe maybe I should have taken that if the guy who beat me is taking in saying it's good enough for him maybe I should have taken it yes the biggest bag fumble ever like I mean like I believe franc would have beaten Jake Paul um and look I don't think France is the greatest boxer

but we I think we all saw against Tyson Fury he can box and Jake Paul would have been significantly smaller I'm surprised that Francis turned it down I think it just makes sense and look I don't know what number Francis were looking for in terms of a check, but it still would have been as big as the Fury or the AJ fight. So, yeah, I think Francis is messed up. I think Francis maybe thought he wants a proper boxing match and that he would get stick not for, you know, for fighting Jake and not fighting a proper boxer. And now he's thinking, damn, AJ's taking it. So I think he's messed up a little bit. But who knows? It's something that he could revisit, but I almost feel that once this comes across your desk, there's no way you don't sort of take it.

This is no way. We're focusing on the haters. Anyone in the boxing community actually saying, you know what, Jake, respect. We didn't think you would do this. We didn't think you had this in use. Anyone giving him props for taking this fight? I think they will,

but I think for now it's more a case of let's just, for a more shade at AJ. It almost seems way more AJ hate, and then I think people will calm down and think one second, Jake's actually saying he wants to fight Anthony Joshua and he's doing it. Like Jake called out AJ

and we all laughed about four or five months ago. Remember him saying it, like, I want to fight AJ. And we all kind of like, is this guy crazy? And he's doing it. I asked the question today, is Jake the biggest name in boxing? And someone laughed. And I was like, no, no, seriously. This is a guy that was, I don't know, a few minutes away from fighting Canelo.

This is a guy that Ucic said I wants to fight. But Turbib said everyone wants to fight Jake Paul. Like, Jake Paul right now, I mean, this fight says Jake Paul versus AJ. I've never seen AJ B side since he turned pro. It's blowing my mind. I mean, it's small things that no one should. really care about, but I just thought one second, it says Jake Paul versus AJ. This is a Jake Paul show, not an AJ show. I've never seen it ever. By the way, what's with the judgment

spelling? You guys are really hung up on this. I've seen so many tweets about it. What is it? What's going on? That's how we spell it here in America. We, we, that's how we spell. It's sort of like color. You spell color C-O-L-U-R. In America, it's L-O-R. Oh, is that it? Talk about sanctimony. golly. I've seen more tweets on the spelling of judgment than the validity of this fight. It's absurd. By the way, what do you think? What do you think? What do you think about as far as the actual fight? Like, is there any chance here that this goes not what? Is there? Seriously, I don't know. I don't know what the hell to make of it. What do you think? You think he starches him in two? What if he says

I want to carry him? Starches him in one. You think so? Yeah. And this is this goes back to the AJ sort of ruining his legacy. If this goes beyond three or four, then there is maybe like, okay, what's going on with AJ here? What's going on with AJ? Sorry, what's happening? Because this is a two-time unified heavyweight champion of the world who is going to be outweighing Jake Paul by 20 or 30 pounds,

who, unless he's fighting the very, very elite in the heavyweight division destroys everyone else. This shouldn't go beyond a couple of rounds. I would be astounded. I'm not joking, astounded, if this goes beyond a round. Like, I beg Nikisa to be there. I let Nikisa, please, I need to see this up person.

Up close. Like, AJ can't go beyond a couple of rounds here. Special edition, Ariel and Adi. This is it, man. One night only. One night only. You get it, right? You get it live and free for one night.

But no, no, AJ should destroy him. This is 10-ounce gloves. It's three-minute rounds. This is AJ's will-house. And Jake wouldn't afford anyone this powerful, this fresh, this powerful, this big, and someone that hits that hard. Like someone was telling me the other day that, oh, Jake could just cover up. I'm like, do you think he's not going to feel it on his elbows and he's, like, unless AJ

kind of plays around and spars, that's the only way this goes deep. If AJ takes this like he's fighting a Dubois or an Ingarnu, this, look what he did to Ingarnu. Yeah, no. This could go early very quick. I love the idea. I was talking about this earlier. I love the idea of Ben Davison and Lee Wiley breaking down.

Jake Paul footage right now like those two scientists being like all right let's look at the Ryan Boylan tape let's see what

we can see here you know what I mean because they took the Francis to their credit and it worked they took the Francis fight so seriously and you saw

what it translated into I expect nothing less from team AJ so all of it is so fascinating to me the only sort of thing

I'm wondering it's the only thing I mean AJ should win he should win in devastating fashion is he fit

like that's the thing right he's coming off surgery is he fit has he been training we know Jake's been training, this fights in essentially a month. Is there any concern there about his fitness? There is a little, but AJ is one of those heavyweights. He's not on Martin

Bacoli. He's one of those heavy weights that lives the life. I've never seen A.J. out of shape. I mean, obviously, there's a difference between being in fighting shape and just being in shape, but I've never seen him out of shape. And if there was this talk about A.J. having a fight in December anyway, whether it be on the Inouye card or this Garner card, surely preparation for that would have already started. So I think he's in some form of shape. The 245s may be interesting because he's not been that weight since he thought Ussick the second time round.

But I thought he looked fantastic on that night. So I think it's actually a mistake saying come in light because that means AJ's having to get in super shape as opposed to just be what you want. And AJ coming out of, I don't know, 270 and being a bit ploddy. I think AJ coming in at 245 is, I think, the best AJ. I've always said that AJ carries too much muscles. So I think Jake and his team might have got this wrong.

Rather than say AJ come in and be whatever you want, asking AJ to actually get into shape, I think could be very, very dangerous for Jake Paul. Okay, that's interesting because I've seen people point to that being like, ah, rehydration, it's like Ben Eubank, look how Eubank looked, this is silly, he hasn't weighed 245 or less than since 2022, the USIC rematch. You actually think this is a miscalculation.

That's really interesting. Yeah, I just think he looks incredible for me at 245. I've always said that AJ sometimes comes in a bit too heavy and he almost looks a bit leggy in the latter rounds because his legs are too big and he's carrying too much excess muscle. I think that the Robert Diaz that had AJ for Usik, I think that's the best shape I've ever seen AJ in.

And I thought he looked really good and he slowed down in the latter rounds because Usik was just too Usik, if you like, on that day. I think AJ around 245, 240, I think it's just special. I think because then you get speed which Jake might have over AJ right now because Jake's a bit lighter but you also get power

so I think speed and power AJ I think could still compete with any heavyweight in the world How do you think this affects the plans for 2026 was watching the broadcast on Saturday and again tremendous job by you and everyone and Turkey was on there talking about we have big plans for AJ two fights February later in the year

alluding to the Tyson fight that we all want to see do you think this changes anything no nothing at all i really don't and i hope i'm not sounding too disrespectful to jake pool but in my eyes if jake paul was over here jake paul would probably be like a southern area level fighter so maybe just around english level or below a j should be able to blow that kind of fighter out of the water in a couple of rounds and then you have another fight in a couple of months time in february so this should be nothing for a j and if it is something for a j then i guess i come on the show and we have a bigger conversation about where AJ is.

But where I think AJ still is, this should be merely a speed bump onto serious stuff in February. That's what it should be. But that's why we're all going to tune in because you're right. I mean, if Jake Paul closed his eyes and throws that right hand, then he's going to be 220 pounds. And I mean, Tyron Woodley and everyone says he can hit like a truck. If he lands one, boy.

Yeah, I saw some dude on Twitter was like, I can't wait to see you spin the narrative that if Jake lands one on AJ's weak chin, let's be very clear. I don't think AJ has a weak chin. I think he's proven that, like, what happened against Andy Ruiz was something when you get hit by Daniel Wood, something. I don't think Jake has that power, so I'm not going to spin that narrative, but I don't know what happens in a fight. I don't know who tweaks this. I don't know who's going the distance.

No one thought Francis would go the distance. I'm intrigued. And, again, I'm way more intrigued than this fight than I was Anthony fighting some no-name jobber in Ghana. The intrigue in that fight was just Anthony going back home, right? Anthony going back to Africa. There was no other intrigue. And I am curious about whether or not Jake can ruin any plans. Could you imagine if the reason we don't get Anthony Joshua versus Tyson Furious

because of Jake fall? I know it's a long shot, but we have now put ourselves in that position where it seems like we've never been closer and he could ruin all of it. And you'd have to think he'd relish the opportunity to ruin all of that. Oh, my God. Honestly, if that happened, It's not, like, it's, like, don't wrong, there are times in the last three hours, three, four hours where I've, it's come to my head, like, what if he just lands one? Like, even if AJ's legs just wobble for a second, like, what does that mean?

But, but surely that that can't happen. But there is intrigue there, because all of a sudden, Jake, as you say, is fighting a live dog. He's not fighting someone that's five foot five and he outweighs by 100 pounds. He's not fighting someone that was in a wheelchair four or five months prior to their fighting Mike Tyson. he's fighting a real live, big, strong heavyweight and he deserves so many props. Like my intrigue for this, and it's not just because AJ is overhearing, he's a Brit,

for this compared to Giovante, Jake, it's through the roof. I wasn't that interested in Giovante, Jake, about that Giovante did nothing for me at the press conference. He didn't sell it at all, it was boring. I was like, this is all Jake. This is, like, this is not capturing my attention. This, I mean, dude, I mean, I've never ever gotten to Nikisa.

And I was like, Nikita, please. I said, I will carry the spit bucket just to be there in some way, shape, or form. But I am so intrigued by this only because Jake has balls of an elephant and because my my boy, AJ, just has to get this done early, has to get this done early. And ultimately, if the likes of KSI are giving you props, if you're Jake, you have to like your biggest hater, your biggest rival KSI on Twitter saying, yeah, fair enough, Jake. I mean, like, that kind of, that kind of says it all. I want to ask you about Ben Eubank

Ubank looked lethargic, he looked listless he had no pop it could have been scored a shutout that one judge Latham who had it like tied going into the ninth I mean absolutely absurd it was all Eubank

it was the moment that he had been dreaming of that his father had been dreaming of it was nothing like the first fight in terms of the drama and the entertainment what the hell happened was this just too soon for Eubank to come back at 160 pounds How the hell did we go from that performance in April to this performance on Saturday,

which was so disappointing? You said it, Ariel, too soon. Yeah. Honestly, too soon. He went life and death in April. And so he did the weight cut in April, went life and death in April, and then had that rehydration cap in April. You can't do that again seven months later, especially not at 36.

There's a reason why all the top dogs in the world, the older top dogs, only fight once a year. and they don't have the wars that Chris Eubank Jr. had seven months ago. There's a reason why Crawford only fights once a year at 38, Usset, once year at 39, but turbid once year at 40. You can't fight like that and do it once every six or seven months. The body just won't heal. Physically, he looked great, but it was almost like a Ferrari with no engine. There was just nothing there.

And maybe father time has just got to him. Maybe, I mean, it always catches up to someone on fight. Look at Leon Edwards, I mean, to go UFC. the other day. Surprise me. Maybe it just gets you and it just got to Chris Eubank Jr. on the night. But I also don't know how much to sort of give, I'm

struggling with how much credit I need to give Connor Ben. Yeah. But making Eubank look old as opposed to Eubank just looking old. Because the narrative after the fight is well, Eubank was this, Eubank was that. Ben was pretty good. Ben, Ben, Ben looked really ferocious and bigger and stronger this time.

And he made the old man look old. So I think it's a bit of both. But Even there, look at that, the way he's standing. Yeah, he's sunken in, yeah. Oh, is it like, the activity, though, was just way less. The activity was less. And so, yes, I agree with you. It's unfair to Ben because it feels like we're taking something away and we're focusing

too much on Eubank, but just he looked lethargic. It didn't seem like he had the same pop and the same, the same determination to just bite down. And when even, even I remember at one point, Tony Bellew is being interviewed and he's like, oh, yeah, yeah, he's got him right where he wants him. He's going to pick it up. And I was like, I don't see this happening. I mean, credit to Tony, like he's the man.

But I was like, where is, when is this going to happen? Because I saw nothing, no signs that would suggest this was going to happen. And so it was just a little disappointing. And it does, it does, to a degree, make you wish like, oh, you kind of wish that they left it at that one. But I'm happy for Connor. He's been so, you know, he's been through so much. You see how he wears his heart on his sleeve. I do believe deep down, he's a really good guy.

I know a lot of people want to vilify him. And I hope, and I wonder how you feel about this. I hope this is it. I don't want to see another one. And he was the first to say, we're done, right? We're done. Yeah, we're done.

Okay, thank you. Like, we, like, like, I could have given that a shout out. Like, there were a few moments where you bank looked good, but the idea of giving it a shout out and then people even talking about a trilogy, I'm like, are you crazy? Are you mad? But, you know, what's crazy for me is like, he walks out with 50 cent. Yeah.

And he looks the part on the stage. I'm like, whoa. And then even when, look at this. So you can't see anything here. Like his face isn't giving anything away. And I'm like, okay, he's ready. But he did nothing from the very first round. And that's what kind of blew my mind.

It wasn't like when a guy's kind of going out and father time gets you, you kind of have like two or three rounds where you give your all. He did nothing from the first round. I'm like, did he know something? I spoke to his manager just before the fight, literally just before the fight. And he said, watch this. Like you watch how good he looks. So I'm like, were you lying to me as well?

Like, or did it just happen on the night where under the bright lights, it just went? And maybe that's just what happened. And that's, you know, a story as old as anything in boxing where on the night, you just can't find it. And if that's the case, then he should really consider retiring. Forget a trilogy, like retire from the sport. You've made, we're hearing 20 million for those two fights. Is that not enough to say, I'm done? Is that not enough?

Does he want to go out like that? because if he dare goes to 168 there's guys like Crawford Hamza Shiraz Callum Simpson like no yeah I felt like if he won this fight or if it was a close one and he lost

he'd be in play for the Canello fight because of Canello's relationship with Turkey and his relationship now and I feel like there's no interest in that whatsoever and no interest in seeing him fight those kinds of guys and at the post-fight presser he did sort of he was a little bit short with everyone and he did sort of allude to the fact that

there was something wrong this training camp, but he didn't want to go too far in. Who the hell knows? On the flip side, the big story is, what does this mean for Connor Ben? Is he fighting the likes of Mario Barrios, who he's talked about? Is he fighting the likes of Devin Haney? Is he fighting the winner of Haney Norman? Is he fighting at 47? At 54? How far does he go down? It sounds like 47. Ryan Garcia as well. Roli Romero, who would you like to see him fight and at what way class? He's got to get his ass down to 47 because those boys at 54? Oh my Lord. Yeah. It's It's deep waters.

And that's not discredit in Connor Ben. I think he's a good fighter, but there are great fighters. I mean, you only have to look at Ortiz and boots. We're not even champions in that division. That's what's waiting for you at 54. So he has to make 47 if he can because those boys are just too big. They're far too big for him. Far too big, far too good right now.

Whereas I look at Roli Romero, I look at Mario Barrios, I look at Ryan Garcia. And I see routes to victory for Conner Ben. I really do. There's Lewis Crocker over here, who's the IBF champion, potentially. That's an in-house fight. I mean, there are actually fun fights that make a lot of money for Connor. He's now a superstar. Like, he got the crowd.

The majority of the crowd in the Tottenham Hospital Stadium were he's fans. I'd say about 70-30 split. So he's got the crowd now. He's a superstar. And I feel like he just needs to leave this Eubank thing behind, and it has to be a Rola Romero or Barrios next if he can make one four-seven. And it's a big if because he's put on 20 pounds of muscle now. There's no fat on that boy and that's muscle's not easy to get rid of.

I should know, trust me. Yeah, no, no, I've heard. By the way, hot take, the first Eubank walkout infinitely better than the second, even with 50 cent didn't appear. 50. He was hardly even singing. He was saying like every fifth word. Like the first one, there was something in the YouTube comments. I remember where someone said like the first one was for his dad.

you remember when he came out to three different songs the first was for his dad the second was for him the third was for his brother who passed away it was it felt like there was meaning there was spirituality behind it this was a nice moment it was cool but what's the connection to him 50 cent and the U banks there is no connection and I loved how

I loved how Connor addressed it in the post like what did you think when you saw 50 he's like what's 50s going to do well how's he going to help him you know like what's he going to do he probably just met him he probably had no idea who he was with all due respect I don't know it didn't feel the same And also, you know, senior rolling up with the same jacket was a little disappointing.

I think it was the same one, right? Did you notice that? It really upset me. It really upset me. Honestly, because I don't know where I was, but they came out of the car and I was like, oh, that's the same jacket. I initially, I said that someone, I'm going to have the same jacket. Like, surely someone, oh, it just kind of, as soon as I saw that, I was like, you know, and it just doesn't have the same impact that they did the first time run.

That's why I guess we all said they should have left it. There. And you're right. I mean, unless 50 cents is good friend, ultimately, you just paid someone to turn up and walk you to the ring and they've gone, you've gone, everyone's gone their separate ways. So it was a bit weird. And I'm with you. I actually really liked Ben's walkout. I really liked Conner Ben's walk out. I liked it as well. I thought that was good. Yeah. I thought that was nice. And again, it was him and his father that moment. And I wanted it to be a con, sorry, Kristen, his father moment, but senior kind of got left behind because of 50 cent. But I'm not, I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. not going to lie, I enjoyed it, but you're right. I always feel like when rappers walk out singers, I think I said this about Clarissa and she got upset, it's just, it's the worst thing ever. It's clunky. Yeah. Yeah, they're never really rapping. They're miming. They churn in, as you say, chime in for every minute. Yeah. It doesn't work for me. No, but Connor, Connor is a superstar and I'm really curious to see what he does next. Last thing, and then I'll let you go. I know it's been a long day. This news that came out in the midst of our show today

that Alexander Usoc has vacated the WBO title. And so has it happened yet? Has Wardley become the official champion? Because he was the interim champion due to the win. Here it is. Here's the announcement from the WBA announcing that Usoc has relinquished the WBO heavyweight championship.

WBO announced today that has received formal communication from team Ouxedek. After a thoughtful consideration, Usoc has elected to relinquish. So they haven't said anything, it appears, regarding Wardley, we suspect that's the next shoe. do you think he did this?

I have no idea. Honestly, I wonder if he just looks at Fabio and just thinks that there's no interest, doesn't like the fight. Not that he's fearful. I don't think Alexander is fearful of any man. But I think he just thinks it's not a big fight. It doesn't do anything for his legacy to fight Fabio Wardley. I think he would have fought Joseph Parker.

If it was Joseph Parker that won, I think that's a fight that maybe because they're almost from the same era, if you like, and they've just avoided each other. So maybe that would have been a fight he would have taken. And I do feel like the WBO do put pressure on fighters to make a decision. Are you going to fight or are you going to vacate? And he's probably just said, you know, don't put pressure on me. I'll just vacate. Like, you can't tell me what to do.

I've given you so much sanctioning fees. I can decide what I want to do at this stage in my life. And here, take your belt back. And I think he's almost just done that. I actually feel sorry a bit for Fabio. Some people might say what? But I don't know fighters like winning world titles like this. Remember when Devin Haney won it like this and they kept on calling him the email

champ for years. I just don't think fight it. They want to win it in the ring. So Fabio will be happy, considering where he's come from, white-collar boxer to this. It's an incredible story. It's a movie.

But I think he would have preferred, oh, there you go, and then there it is. I think he would have preferred to win it in the ring. But regardless, him being a world champion is incredible.

Oh, my God. Incredible. It blows my mind. And I would never have predicted he would have got a British level. So here we are, Fabio World Champion. stunning it's incredible feat you know what also blows my mind well first of all i just want to say

uh i still maintain it was an awful stoppage i don't like the stoppage at all and i think joseph deserved more of a fighting chance but it blows my mind that joseph would test positive for cocaine dude on the day of the fight what is up with that now he has come out and put out a statement saying that there is more to adhere it is i want to address today's news before my recent fight i took a voluntary test and now have been informed that a return in adverse result the this came as a real surprise to me. I did not take any prohibited substance. I do not use PEDs and do not support their use. I'm cooperating fully with the process now underway and I'm confident the investigation will clear my name. And then he thanks everyone. And he says when the

investigation is complete, I will speak openly and answer questions. That has come out that the substance was cocaine. And I know back in the day Joseph had had some demons, but he was nowhere near those demons these days and like for that to happen on fight day is is a shocking thing i feel i don't know may call me a joseph guy i'm open with my respect and admiration for him i feel like there's more to this story i'm not i'm not ready to to vilify the man i pray and hope there's more to the story because there probably isn't a boxer aside from a j who i like and adore more than joseph parker so when i see that news it kind of gut wrenching like i pray there's more to it but there's most times there isn't and and and so I'm hoping that I'm wrong I'm hoping that

no there is just an obvious reason as to why this has come up like oh okay fine thank god and you know I'm actually been waiting for him to come on your show I'm thinking I know Ariel's reached out to him and I've been literally like you know refreshing my page like surely I'm going to see this thing of a Joseph Parker's on today because those type of things the what we just read out is normally sort of written by a lawyer as you know it's like okay this is is how we need to construct it. I don't know that's Joseph Parker's words. I almost want to hear him say it.

And I will then make my judgment from listening to him talk to you as opposed to a statement being released. But yes, it's awful news because if he is found guilty, it's a two-year ban. And Joseph's, what, 34, 33, 33, so that's probably that. So this is a big issue. And so hopefully, again, there's just an obvious reason as to why there is cocaine. in his system on the night of a Fabia Wardley fight. Yeah, I mean, if it was done on purpose, then obviously that speaks to where he was at,

and it's a scary thought for him to do that. But yes, I have, in fact, reached out to him, and he said that in due time he will come on, but they're waiting for the process to play out, and I certainly understand that as well. Adi, this has been a lot of fun. Now time for everyone's favorite segment of the week. It is, no, I'm kidding. I've got nothing. No, please.

No, no, they can't get a link in the back. No. You haven't got anything? Remember that music? This is hard. I can't take it. I can't take. I'm still invoicing for this.

I'm going to send us on an invoice. Get your lighters. You know what? We do have one. We do have one. It's actually we're going to go back to New York City this past weekend. Yeah. The fight everyone's talking about.

The brawl at the mecca. Oh my God. Is this guy, does this guy have a problem? Like, is he okay? Which one? Bill and Dennis. Listen, he did a lot to, I think, warrant this. But on the night, as you can see here, I love when Abu Bakar takes off the hat.

I don't know if he actually warranted that in the moment. You know what I mean? Like, he said a lot. He's done a lot. This is great. Ah, chair. Yeah, we'll take that away from you. Yeah.

Just a mess. Just an absolute. I love him. I love him. Like, how this guy has stayed. Like, he's so relevant still. It's incredible. That's actually incredible.

Yeah, well, you can see it. Who is he there actually watching? Who is he there supporting? He was there. I know he's somewhat friendly with Hidalfa Viera. I think he wanted to be at a UFC event. Alex Perra was there. He wants to be where the, you know, where the action is happening.

And maybe he was looking for trouble as well, but now he's been banned. And I guess the next time we'll see him is against Anthony Taylor. And you were involved in that. Are you going to be at that one? No, I don't think. I don't think so. I'm not sure. Yeah, that's actually a good fight

because that's an MMA fight, right? Yeah, it is an M.A. I mean, good. That should be quite interesting. You know, this is something. I mean, maybe any coffee involved in that one or that was the one, right? That was the one you were at, right?

Well, yeah, that's the one where they, yeah, the way, oh my God, yes, years ago where Anthony Taylor's punched it. You didn't put two two together. I know, sorry, it's been a long day. It has been a long day. It has been a long day. Much love. This is so great.

Thanks for making some time. We still love you here, all right? Despite the fact that you left. that you left us high and dry for greener pastures. We're still here doing our thing. A little engine that could. The number one unbiased platform in all of combat sports. And you're always welcome.

You're always welcome. Agreed. Thank you, Aday. Great job this weekend. Thank you very much. The great Adelaideo, check out his YouTube channel. Does a great job there is his podcast as well

and all the work over on the zone. All right, we covered a lot there. Some super chats to get to Frankie. What do we got? What do you have? What do you have? Still one or two? Oh, love it.

By the way, can I just say shout it to the real MVP, Andy, for that party show. I had nothing. And then she got on my, oh, yeah. Well, good. Yeah, thank you, Andy. Appreciate it. What else?

What else? Zeeke also says, Big fat slice of humble pie for Hawaiian crew. And by the way, wasn't that nice to reconnect with our old friend? When that music hit, I got the feels, you know? Shout out to Frank for that one. Shout at to Frank. It was like a waking a sleeper soldier hearing that,

especially when they're already being dark. Dark out? Like a, like a, like a Phoenix rising from, yes, being dark because we had a good stretch of time during this. Actually, you know what? The first episode, I think, was the, oh, this is crazy, actually. The first episode was the Tuesday after Jake Tyson, so it would have been tomorrow. Wow. That is actually.

What a celebration. You know what? Fitting. It's funny how the fight gods bring us together. But anyway, that was nice. Thank you for the music. Humble Pie. What's the Humble Pie about?

Is it about? What is it about? It's hashtag and new, so... Oh, about JDM? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Humble pie for me who has been saying Islam's going to walk through him.

Well, maybe not you. I think that was to me, right? No, and crew. I mean... I just love when people say, like, I'm anti-Dagostani fighter. I'm anti-Muslim fighter. Like, I don't say a single thing about him, about Hamza, this and that. But, like, you'll say something...

I don't know what it is. I don't even know. Who is to check? Yeah, who is to check, really. You'll say something, and they'll be like, the Jew, the J-O-O, I mean, like they just expose their hatred and their vitriol towards my people. But that's okay. We rise above it.

We rise above it. What else, Frankie? What else? People forget, man. Not since Randy had a two-division champ won their second title via unanimous decision. Islam landed 30 significant strikes in five rounds, zero significant in round five. Not since Randy had a two-division champ on their second title. He's saying Islam was a lot of five.

boring, basically. Okay, great. What about the last eight fights? I mean, there's like the, the Dustin fight was unbelievable. The Moikano fight, he walked through him. Yeah. He is not boring. The Charles Olivera fight was exciting. Both the Volcanovsky, the Wokonovsky, was

fight of the year and then the second time he hit kick, chaotic him. Like, stop with this, he's a boring fighter because of one fight, man. He did what he had to do, got the job done, and now he's a two-division world champion. And by the way, that's just... Stop, stop being apologists. Islam, Hamzat, the two most boring fighters in the sport.

Say it here proudly with your chest. I will say, I don't know if you're being serious. No, of course I'm not being serious. Oh, I don't know. It's the thing ever. But here's the thing also, like, Jack's really good. And do you remember there was one period where Habib was like, no more striking? Like, you, there's no reason to stand and trade with this guy because you're that damn good at taking him down.

He seemed compromised. The calf seemed injured. And he did what he had to do to win. Well, what was it also? When Hamzat, he looked at Armin or something, he was like, I think I can strike with. this guy, should I do it? And I was like, nah. No. Just go straight to the wrestling man, you're winning. You're about to become a champion.

I'll never say to you, like, I enjoyed that more than I don't know. Pick up. Ilya knocking everybody out, Alex Pereer, knocking everybody up. Or even a war. Even a war. I don't know. Of course not. It's not the most exciting fight style, but like it comes with the game. You just have to

accept that. It didn't help that it's coming off almost a carbon copy of it in the co-main event, a completely one-way traffic loaded with control time, but like sometimes you get stinkers. It's, it's okay. It happens in football. It happens in baseball, basketball. Every sport is going to have boring moments. Ours are only 25 minutes. You sit through a shitty NFL game. It's four hours. And then there's a big difference between that was not an exciting fight and you are not an exciting fighter. Islam Makachev, Hamza Tchamai, who have built their

careers on finishing people. And now it's just like, oh, they're boring. They had one decision. Ah, man, they suck. They stink. Thousand a bit. Boring a shit. Boring fight, not. It's like yesterday. Like, I know you guys were locked in. Like, the Grey Cup wasn't great, but there's been other Great Cups that were great. For sure. What's the Great Cup again? Stop.

On the flip side, that Bill's game was great. That was a great win. That was a great win. And it was an exciting game. A little too up and down for my liking. It was a slug fest. I actually don't know what the Grey Cup is. Serious.

CFL champion. Did you lock in? The Rough Riders, right? We used to work with a guy named Corporate Jake who said that, like, one of his guilty pleasures was to bet on the Grey Cup. because, like, he knew nothing and the high stakes. By the way, shout out to MGK. MGK was great in the halftime show.

Did anyone catch that? Huh? I swear. I don't know why he was playing the halftime show. He has nothing to do with Canada. Usually, they'll have, like, Chenaya Twain, our lady's peers.

But MGK. And by the way, no one gave me the memo that MGK is like a full-on pop star now. Like, he's not like Mr. Rapper guy anymore. Did you know that? Yeah.

He's got, like, bleached hair, and he's playing the guitar. I don't know. I actually, I dug it. Am I crazy? He is from Ohio. He's not a hundred percent. He has no connections to Canada whatsoever. So yesterday you got up, you watched Irish National Football and Hungary. It was a great game. Then you watched the Grey Cup. Yes. Then you also had the bills on. Bills. And the best part was I did a million

other things. Like the beauty, I actually had to watch the bills with one earpiece in. Oh, Joshua Lange. My daughter had a dance recital thing. How'd you do? It was pretty good. Wow. That's it. No, all the other dads were like, the dads came up to me. They're like, can't believe you're here.

Aren't the bills playing? I'm like, yeah, yeah. What do you think I'm listening to right now? Right, right. But when I asked you how it went, you're like, oh, she was amazing. She was amazing. Yay, you know.

She danced. She danced. She did her thing. She did her thing. She did her thing. We got some boys. It was a great time. And yeah, then I, the best part about the Grey Cup was my kids' commentary,

especially for the trophy presentation. they were shitting like they were like this is the worst I was like man guys world champion Saskatchew they're like what do you mean World champions? I was just like kind of egging them on trying to tell them how big of a deal this was and then I was like I can't believe this

Bill's lose Knicks lose J's lose Montreal loses I can never win I can never they're like I've never heard you even say the Montreal Alouettes before I'm like yeah yeah trust me I'm a diehard fan I'm telling them about Tracy Hamm and Tommy Frazier back in the day and Pringle back in the day and all this

they're so American my kids now. I tried to explain to them. They have 100% Canadian blood in their bodies, but they felt very much above the CFL Gray Cup, which disappointed me a little bit. What channel is it on? It was actually on CBS Sports Network. Just that game.

You know, there used to be, like, it used to be on ESPN 2 or on Plus later. That's an Ocho if I've ever heard it. Just that game. Like, that was the only game. Earlier, I had to find, I had to find other ways to watch the past. Anyway, what else we got? What else we got?

Morales versus Shafcott, someone's O has got to go. Oh, yeah, that's right. 19 and O. Yeah, what is Shafkat at? Are they both 19 and O? Serious. Yeah. Wow, that would probably be the only time 2190 fighters ever fight in the UFC.

I think if Ian wins, Ian Islam, this is what I would like. Ian Islam, Shafkat, Usman, meaning Camaro, and then Morales versus Prachas. I feel like what is going... I feel like we are... What's that? No, keep going.

I feel like we are moving towards Camaro versus Islam and then like Ian versus maybe Morales and then maybe Usman versus Pratt. I don't know. I feel like we're getting nothing like what I just said because I never went a million years

would have thought it would have been Brady versus Morales. So... Not only are they both 19 and 0, they're both 7 and 0 in the UFC as well. That's crazy. And I think they both have three ranked wins. What if Camaro Usman

beats Islam Makhachev? Is that the funniest timeline? That'd be fucking crazy. I did see as we talking about timelines a tweet. Like, if Islam doesn't move up, Sean Brady actually probably gets the title shot against JDM and that is a very good stylistic matchup for him.

Could have been champion. Instead, Islam moves up against Michael Morales. What about this timeline? If Shafkat doesn't get hurt, JDM fights Leon, Shafkat fights Balal. Maybe we're talking about Shafkat fighting Islam at MSG, and maybe Shafkat's beating Islam. That is the timeline that I would have predicted. And then we're getting Islam versus Ilia,

because Islam moves down now. Now I feel like we're not getting Islam versus Islam. Although it does feel like Dana's warming up to it. Like he talks about it a lot, you know, like with Torturo and other people. I don't, I will. Top Tororo? Torturo. We need to sit down Top Toro and Tortoro.

Who's Top Toro? Breaking bed. Ilya. Illi Taptoro. Ily Taptoro. Who said that? McCracker. Oh.

When did he say that? On one of his like betting streams when he was like, there's like a whole highlight tape where he's doing the blackjack. He's doing the blackjack and then he's doing the shadow box and then he's cracking open forged Irish stouts and people are asking about him and he's like, Ily, Ily tap Turo. I didn't know that. Oh, yeah. Viral. By the way, speaking of Ilya, great tweet from him in the immediate aftermath. So wherever he was, you know that he was watching and he did not.

mince words. Jack needs an entire camp dedicated just to wrestling. What a disappointment of a champion. You should go to Georgia to learn something. And I think he meant the country. Islam, you need something you can't train. Emotion. You're the most boring thing in this game.

Every day I'm more certain I put you to sleep. Is that the biggest fight now? Is that bigger than Jones versus Pereira? No. Feels like we're getting that. It'd be massive. First of all, the engagement on that tweet is insane. 12.5. any Ake likes. Second of all,

I actually think he was talking about the state. I think he meant. Oh, okay. Jack, you should go down to Atlanta, bro. My bet. Get some wrestling chops. My bet. What else, Frankie? What else? Sat next to John Martin at 322. Super humble guy, didn't mention he was CEO, just that he worked at PFL. Told him it's great, but hate how I can't watch it.

He said they're working on it. Any updates? Confused about the deal with ICE. First of all. Man, I fucking hate how I can't watch that shit. Wait, wait, first of all, and he's talking to the CEO. Imagine you just sit there and you're like, oh, I saw you on the Hawani show. Like, you know, no, no, he didn't know. So how would he have figured it out?

He said he worked at PFL. I know, but how would he have figured it out now? I think he knew. I think he knew. No, no, no, go back to that. No, and he just didn't glaze him. I think he did, yeah, I think he said like, oh, you work at PFL and just didn't want to out him. He didn't mention that he's saying, okay, my bad, my bad, you're right.

Point is that, I mean, you have to be a hardcore fan, and what an experience that must have been for this guy. the vice deal is strictly for pfl africa and pfl mena which is middle east north africa so they have these regional things and so there's two more there's like the finals of the africa one and then the finals of the manna coming up in december and then they'll have i think 10 events in 26 it's just for that so you know how people were complaining about the app or you couldn't watch it this and that they figured out the europe one um because that was on ESPN and the Leon one is going to be on ESPN and the Leon one is going to be on ESPN, although it's not technically being branded as a PFL Europe. Anyway, so nothing to be confused there. They have one year left on their ESPN deal. Their deal is up at the

end of 26. This is one of the stories to watch. Next year, look at what's happened to Top Rank. There aren't a lot of suitors out there for combat sports. As hot as combat sports may be, there just aren't a lot of suitors right now. Top Rank doesn't have a deal. Golden Boy's deal with DeZone is up at the end of this year as well. No update on that. Matchroom's deal with DeZone is up at the end of next year. Even for the longest time, speaking of combat sports, TNA was talking to us about, hey, we're close to signing a deal. And as of now, no deal, there's starting to be some reports

that they have a deal with AMC of all people. And so I'm really curious to see what they come up with because I don't think for as hot as combat sports may be, for whatever reason, there just isn't as many suitors. So let's see, let's see. But there's one year left with ESPN. Is combat sports hot or is UFC and WWE hot? it's a very good point

I mean let's call it what it is like they're hot TKO is hot TKO is hot TKO's on fire is combat sports hot yeah it's a good point that's a very good point

what else Frankie are we really going to ignore that your welterweight king beat three 45ers and now you're trying to call the pound for pound

possibly goat Micano Dustin Volt call me a hiter yes you are a fucking yeah you are putting Dustin in the 145 category it's funny

crazy for you years and then Volku is one of the pound for pound best ever I'm not ready to call him the goat just yet because I don't think he has enough title defenses and I think that's a pressure cooker but two belts 16 in a row

four title defenses at lightweight now this one like he is entering that conversation there's no doubt about it let's go down the list John Jones better or is Islam better than John Jones greater rather well you know I feel weird about the Jones thing because of the PEDs all right we'll move on

George I still I still give it to George Same Who's after that Anderson Selva? Who do you even DJ?

DJ Jhabib people will bring up Habib but I don't think that that's I've got him in that combo

He's in the top five He's possibly three It's like John and George are the names that you have to aim for He's in a conversation with them on the resume that he's got right now

If he gets like three or four title defenses at welterweight against this crop of welterweights it's going to start to become undeniable. John has one heavyweight title win and one heavyweight title defense. George has one middleweight title win and no defenses. If Islam does anything at Walterweight, if he does two title defenses, it's massive for the legacy.

It's massive for the legacy. Like he is up there. And the thing is, like, anyone can lose, anyone can get caught, but there's no, like, kryptonite around the corner. Like, he could do this for a while, it seems like. And he's not, you see him after the fight. You see how he looked, not a scratch on his face. I will imagine, yeah, I mean, it was just complete domination.

There was, there was zero moments for Jack Della throughout that 25 minutes. I would imagine, and until he loses, he's going to be a favorite in all these matchups as well. Shavkat's been off for a bit, but man, that dude's a bad boy. Yeah, he's fucking nasty. Shavcott is a bad boy. I don't think this is going to be a cakewalk for Islam. Maybe he does? What else, Frankie?

What else? Real quick, the guy who talked to John Martin said that he Googled him after the fight to find out he was a CEO. Oh, so he didn't know. But how did he do that? What did he say? John PFL. Yeah. I'll keep you abreast. John Martin's CEO.

Ace Boogie says, man, that was a brutal card. Not just with who lost, but how? Exciting, but pretty heartbreaking too. The game is the game. Okay, so I thought you were going to say like it was boring because I didn't think it was boring at all. But yes, like, my heart breaks for Sean Brady. My heart breaks for Leon Edwards.

It's a cruel game. Darius getting starched like that. It's like a Hidalpho Vieira getting starch like that. It is a very, very cruel game. There's no doubt about that. And it's just amazing. Like not that long ago, Carlos Prachas is losing to Ian Gary.

Fast forward. And now he's on fire. Brady is figuring out, like, what went wrong. If Ian loses next week, he's now surpassed him. Like, it's just, it's an amazing thing. thing. We didn't really go through the results, but mainly main car talk plus Bo Nicol, Gregory

Rodriguez got the unanimous decision win over Roman Coppilov, Blanchfield with the rear naked choke win, impressive. The finish was amazing, the way she set it up, and locked it in was impressive trapping the arm against Tracy Cortez, Ethan Ewing, Malcolm Wellmaker, we've discussed. Kyle Dawkes, shout out to him. He'll be in studio on Wednesday. An amazing win, and just seems like a great guy, great story with his pregnant wife in attendance. All he needed was 50 seconds against Gerald Mershart. I can't think of Gerald Mershart without thinking of action saying his name. That Kyle Dawkes, Gerald Mershart fight.

He was right. It was a banger. It definitely produced some great magic. Pat Sabatini with unanimous decision win against Chippe-Mariskel, his other favorite, which didn't end up being the curtain jerker, by the way. Yeah, they got word and they altered it, which was a little bullshit. They threw off the whole mojo. Frank's favorite, Fatima Klein, with a big win.

over Angela Hill. We're talking to Islam goat status. Frank is pushing a heavy Fatima Klein Guote status agenda lately. She knows ball, man. I like it. I like it. I respect it.

Bison Gore, Souser Kayaev, with the right hook knockout against Eric Monica. There's a lot of people who are like, ah, he's a nothing, he's a never was. Yeah. How about Souser Kive?

I was seeing like in the first two rounds like, oh, this guy is not that impressive. Who knows? Maybe it was just the algorithm. That's more fair. It tastes Camillo. He's got a long way to go, man. He cut off a bone-nickle, I don't know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, fuck. He got the win as well, Mattis Camilo. It was a great card. Yeah, the last two fights weren't, weren't. The last two fights were tough because it was back-to-back. Yeah, and it was dominant. And it was dominant, yeah.

What else, Frankie? What else? Do you think Silvest streak is better than Islam's? Oof, that is an amazing question. What? I'm going to look back at Silvas right now. Yeah, what an amazing question. You know, one thing that,

is weird about the Islam streak is that it starts coming off a knockout loss which is always a little bit strange and Anderson's streak started with his first fight in the UFC, the win over Chris Lieben. So it's Leban. It's comparable.

Very quickly, very quickly. Hit for tat, tit for tat, okay? No, you can't do it like that. Why, why, why? It can't be in the order because if somebody fought better ones later or worse, like you can't do it like that. Nah, can't do it in the order. Just write it down. All right, no, no, no, no, you go tit on Anderson Silva.

I'll give you an equivalent name. No, no, no, no, we go one for one. Yeah, one for one. Yes, but we have to write down. No, not first one first one. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, I'll go tat. But here's the thing, write down who gets the point? I hate that.

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll keep it. Hold on, hold on, let me get that. Who are you doing? Who are you doing? I'm going to keep the scoreboard right here. Okay, you're doing the scoreboard. I'm doing Islam, I'm doing Islam. Okay, wait, here's the thing.

all do Anderson, you do Islam Nick side Rick, no, you rate the points Yeah, yeah, I got the points I got the points, I don't even want to do this shit No, no, no, no, no, no, I got this, I got this This is the worst, okay, go first, go first, go first Chris Wade

Oh, you're doing Islam, I'm doing Anderson, Chris Leibon Leibon, obviously Okay, so you're putting down the points? Yeah, one point for Silva I don't want to, but no, no, I got the points, God damn it All right, right, go ahead Uh, Nick Lentz Rich Franklin

Obviously Silva Anderson, for the belt. 2-0 silver. Yeah, yeah. Go ahead. This is bullshit. Glacin Tebow. Travis Luter. Anderson.

Luter, yeah. Okay. Cajon Johnson. Nate Marquart. Anderson. Again, obviously. All right, here we go. Armand Syrucian.

Rich Franklin. Rematch. Syrucian short notice. That's for Islam. What? Rich Franklin. Short notice. He already killed him and sent him to the shadow realm.

Oh, I don't agree with this. But fine, you're trying to balance it. I get it. Rick's judging Jerry, Rick Scherett for tat. Okay. All-timer. People will never be able to forget this one. Annals of History. Davy Ramos. Okay, so this is, okay, I thought, yeah, um... Yeah, obviously, Silverson. Dan Henderson. Yeah, Silver. I mean, it's...

Okay, we're at 5'1 right now, Silver. Okay. Yeah. Drew Dover. James Urban. Now, moving up to one, to two of five. Stop. Moving up to two of five. 20 pounds. All right. Tiago Moises. Patrick Cote. This is a 50. 50-50 ball.

No, a Cote title fight, Pride of Montreal. Okay, Silva gets that one. Let's give it a Silva. Dan Hooker. Talis Letchis. Yeah, that's Islam. Hmm, interesting. All right.

King Green. Hooker on like two weeks notice, pandemic hooker. Remember that? King Green, Forrest Griffin. One of the all-time great performances. I'm going to take Andrew on that one, Anderson on that one. Because Forrest was still Forrest. Yeah.

All right. 7-3, we are now starting Islam's title on. Charles Oliveira. Damien Maya. Oh, that's Islam. I don't know. Yeah, that's Islam. That's crazy.

Okay, okay. Alexander Volcanowski. Chal Sannan. Islam. Oh, does it come back now? It's 7 of I right now. Alexander Volcanowski. Vitor Belfort.

Yes,lam. Wow, this is crazy. Justin Porier? You should know Kami. Islam. Wow. Okay, Anato Moikano. Chielsenan.

Rematch. I think this goes Anderson. Yeah, that's it. Okay, what are we at? What are we at? We're at 8 to 7. Wow. Jack Della Madelana.

Stefan Bonner. Islam. Wow. 8. That is crazy. That is great. They're very compromised. That's not the way you do it.

That's a fair. I think that's actually very fair. That's not how you do it, though. Yes. I actually think that was a great exercise. If we're being honest, that back half of Islam is more ahead of Silva than Silva's first half was ahead of Islam. Also, Islam streak, not over yet.

I know 16 to 16, but streak's not over. Once you start hitting. Justin, Volk, that territory, like Anderson didn't have those names. Charles, Charles Volk, Volk, Dustin is crazy four-fight run. To be fair, though, that was a lot of fun, by the beginning of Silva, when it's like Lieben, Franklin, Luder, Marquart, Franklin, Hendo,

that's also filth. Like Silva was... All right, let's do GSP. No, I'm kidding. No, let's not. That was fun. That's fun. Okay, what else, Frankie?

What else? Why do you keep calling them John Pork, by the way, it's good. Oh, thanks. I don't know. By the way, can I be honest? I don't know where the John Pork thing started. Okay. This all starts with DJ and Islam doing a video blog together,

and Islam is introducing him to Demetrius Johnson. His nickname is Chonko, real name Magamad Zabayukanov. Zaynukov. Zaynukov. Who is to check? Chonko is the nickname. Islam goes over to DJ and he's just like, this is my guy, Chonko.

And, like, the way that he says it with the accent, it kind of sounds like he's saying John Pork. Like, he's like, Chong Pooh, and, like, it sounds like he says Chaun Pork. Now, people edit in the meme of the John Pork, which is the guy that wears the face filter that makes him look like a pig, and it's like John Pork is calling. And so people edited that, and Internet ran with it, and now there's no, there's no stopping. I didn't realize it was an actual person named John Pork. there is an internet character of a guy who wears the pig face filter and posts on his

Instagram and his name is John Pork so there's John Pork memes and so yeah the the OG video is him saying the Chonko thing and then someone edits in the like FaceTime sound in the picture of yeah here's John Pork this is John okay I'm looking at another John pork on on on Instagram John dot pork and like it actually looks this John Pork no Look, he actually looks like a real dude with a pigs now. Yes. Like, more real than that guy. It's evolved into that.

Yeah, this John Port. This is OG. So, like, if you scroll all the way down, which you can because he doesn't have many, many posts, it's OG, like, 3D looking. Now it's, now he's become actual. It's kind of creepy. John Pork, it's, it's quite creepy. So, yeah. And, yeah, I mean, that is very creepy.

And, and do you think that Chonko doesn't like the fact that people call him John Pork? Hates it. I think he despises it. Oh. I think it's gotten incredibly old for him, but it's also giving him star power. Like, it has to be so old at this point. People just bothering him because his nickname is John Pork. This is the thing in MMA, though.

People will beat this to death. As an example, Austin Vanderford, you know, Mr. Van Zandt. I actually think he didn't mind that one. That's just a one. There's a million examples out there where it's like that's probably annoying after a bit. but it's the thing that gets you the notoriety he said after the Dana White Contender series he said I am not John Pork

I am Chonko John Pork is like this cartoon pig but that is not me I hope people don't get confused oh my God don't call me that and then Islam has come out and been like yo guys it's Chonko

don't call him John Pork and so like I don't think he likes it but it's giving him star power like he said it at the press code where he says chankle like that You could see... He says it really fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's in the Islam accent. Yeah, it sounds like John Pork. I'm happy Islam came out of his shell this week because I feel like we got to see a different side of him. And maybe it was because of the lack of weight cutting. Who knows? What else, Frankie? What else?

How many bow nickel work days does each person on the team complete within five years? I think I'm 0.3 work days, but I'm trying my best. Is that because, like, first of all, it's nickel with a... Is that because, like, he's back at work? I don't understand. I think it's saying he works really hard, right? like how much effort can you give compared to a bone-nickel workday? Okay.

How many light bulbs? Who's to check? Is it like that other one? Chris Padilla was like, how many joints does it affect you if you run 10 miles? Yeah, it's like that. What else, Frankie? After BSD and Islam streak, Dustin Porea sure looks good. He does.

He does. I feel like Dustin is itching for a fight. I don't know about you guys. He's sitting there looking jacked and he's going like this. He's got those new teeth in and everything. I feel like he's like revved and ready to go. He's looking fantastic. Are the teeth affecting his speech?

Yes. I don't know. I'm not going to. I don't know what you're talking about. What else, Frankie? What else? Dana was asked about less apex cards in 26 and 27 and says he's only... This was funny.

No, I was just, please keep going. Sorry. Thank you. And says he's only been home 10 days out of the year. He hardly ever shows up to those. Pathetic. It was weird because, you know, he was in the Middle East. and he did that thing in re-ed,

and then I think he went to guitar, and who knows if he's going back to guitar because they have the show. But it's like, we're not asking about your personal schedule here. Like, you want me? Like, he doesn't even go to every card. It was such a weird response.

I've been on the road, like the entire year, I've been home for 10 days. Yeah, and what does that have to do? That's fucking illegal. I'm looking into the reporter's soul, too, and you're like, you don't want me to ever be home, sir?

Yeah. You don't want me to go home? No one asked you guys to have a 43 fight schedule, by the way. no one asked for any of this you guys did it because you made a lot of money off of it it was such a weird i don't know it was such a weird thing because it's like you know this thing kind of runs without you too what about what about uh even you and kind of saying like when he's at the way he's like i just heard about this story just shows like the thing is happening with adam did you guys catch that

when he said he was waiting to do the face off at the ceremonials dana goes up to him saying like i just heard about what you've been through so like that means that like in the the trenches as they're trying to make this happen, he has nothing to do with any of it, which only backs what I've been saying for so long, which is like, this company is being run by Hunter Campbell. And obviously, there's other people too. And there's, there's, you know, the legal and fight ops and all that. But, like, he is so far removed from all of this. So far removed. And when you see him do those interviews, he did this one interview where someone was asking him, like, best fighter to never win a belt and all this stuff. And I felt

like all his answers felt very disconnected. Does anyone on the planet say that Donald Soron is the best fighter to never win a belt. He's not even in that conversation, I feel like. No. I feel like there's Gustafson and there's, um, there's Kenny Florian and there's, uh, Joseph Benavides, those guys. Like, Soroni, how many times does Soroni even fight for the belt? Did he even fight for the belt?

I don't even think he ever, did he fight the RDA? Did I make that up? Seroni didn't fight for a belt. He fought RDA on the Fox card. Yeah, for the lightweight title. That's the only one. 2015, 10 years ago, actually. I got to admit, I don't usually pull like that.

Yeah, that was a good. That was a good shot. Yeah, it was a Rolando. Said that, Ariel? It felt like you were reading it. No. Oh, yeah, he fought him on the Fox. Oh, yeah, December 2015. Insane card.

Unlocking something. It's Michael Johnson against Nate Diaz. Valentina Shefchenko made her debut on that card. Shout out. Wow. And Kamar Usman beat Leon Edwards on the prelim. Wow. Yeah.

But yes, to your point, that's a take that you would have if you stopped watching MMA in like... 10 years ago. Yeah. Which he did. Yeah. What else, Frank? What else? Please create a line.

Separate YouTube video. where you criticize things such as fact-checking Dana. Everyone would appreciate it. Besides that, love the show. Oh, so this is actually a criticism. Yeah. Oh, I thought he was going to say, like, we want deep dives. I will say that the chat at the time said,

speak for yourself, bud. Okay. You know who else made their debut on that card? I know, I know, I know, I know. John Pork. No, no, no, no, no. So Leon Falkomero, Valetina. There is, there's, I know this.

Of course I know this. Well, you think we did get a picture If you didn't see the Dana-Wi Contender series Picture of John Pork, him fighting Just in case if people don't know what he looks like Oh, yeah, exactly There he is, John. Who made the debut, Ariel?

Is that a real body? By the way, by the way, my hands are here, I'm not looking. Is that a real, that's not a real body, right? Yeah, yeah, it is. Oh, who's body is it? John Pork. No, no, no. Francis?

Not Francis, right? Francis? No, no, no, no. Brother, I'm going back to the debut. It was. No, no, don't try to bail out of this one. No, I'm going back to the debut question. I'm going to a photo show.

I'm not that good a photo show. Francis made his debut, yeah. Oh. Curtain Jerker. Yes. Against? Oh, it was a nobody. He had the long braids.

I don't remember. Luis Enrique Barbosa. Yeah, that's right. Rosal Overeaux. By the way, it's a sick card. Look at it. Like, those were the Fox cards back in the day. Nate Diaz, Michael Johnson.

how is their overreamed junior to Santos Cut the crazy promo, that's the one You're taking everything I worked for Yeah What else, Frankie, what else? Predicted 5, 6 fights correctly I'm Ben versus UBain Jr. 2 card Including a win for Ben

Shout out Congrats Sammy Love you Sammy Well done Sam Crazy Jack Catterall knockout On the Comain Scary stuff What else Frankie?

What else? Rough Riders grade cup champs 2025 Sorry Ariel I'm happy for the good people Saskatchewan they were lit last night I saw it, Regina was on fire. That video you said it didn't look like it.

Regina. You didn't know that? What are you talking about? I thought it was Regina. No, it's Regina, Saskatchewan. Get your mind out of the gutter. Yes. It's Regina.

Saskatoon. These are great people. I didn't know they were partying down in the Jaina? Great state. Are they from Uranus? Great province. Is the rematch of Holloway Oliva. This is Satuan rematch.

happening in it should be it uh it looked like a small family gathering so I don't know about on fire it was on fire I love how there was like yeah like a hundred twenty seven people

in your section first time in 12 years rough riders like a wedding first time in 12 years how about them rough riders wow 12 years what a drought

first time in 12 years that they play in the great cup and by the way there's only nine teams in the whole league so you know that's why do they even do this yo CFL is great it's a great product

nine teams their slogan used to be radically Canadian. That was her slogan back in the 90s. I can't believe your kids aren't into it. Yeah, it's tough. It is tough to get them on board. What else, Frankie? What else? Speaking of MMA managers, who was the easiest to get along with or to even book a fighter for the show? I'm personal. A Tim guy myself. Oh, Tim is the man. Easy. Lloyd Pearson, very easy. The ones that I don't like, and I'm not even talking about the ones that don't let their fighters, there's only one, obviously. By the way, Shack. Shout out to Ali, you see the car wash at the end of fights. Like there's the Fox Sports guy, there's the Full Send guy, there's the BT guys, or now TNT.

I've never, I've never seen a manager go through the car wash doing all those interviews in front of the, you know, the step and repeat. And yet somehow this guy is doing interviews, then he's doing submission radio. Like, he's doing everything. It's, you've never seen anyone want more attention who's supposed to be in the shadows. It's wild. So the other managers, Lloyd Pearson, Jason House, Ed Cap is his guy, and he's incredible at his job from a PR standpoint. I have great appreciation for people who actually, like, you ask them a question, they will go find out if someone's available and then actually follow through and come back to you because there's some people that you ask and you know you're going to have to ask 10 times. Tim is great

Abe is great I'm probably missing Eric could probably think of some others as well Danny Rubenstein is fantastic Danny Rubenstein of course thank you again I'm probably missing I mean the vast majority these days are pretty damn good to deal with

I would say some of the worst ones are like the PR people that just don't respond to you and you have to ask them 15 times but for the most part pretty good what else Frankie what else Bo was sick for that already artifact

you can even hear it in his voice when he came into the post RDR lost interview he's just too humble to bring it up as an excuse, respect Yeah, that was maybe it I guess I guess that's what he'll get sick on it

Yeah, I guess that's what he was referring to With the weight cutting So shout out What else, Frankie? What else? Imagine Dana hugging a fighter The way Eddie hugged been Eddie hugged, oh right I mean, he can't do that necessarily

Because like he's The way the whole promotion is set up is completely different, but it would be a weird look if he did that. He is positioned more as, like, commissioner than Eddie, who is teamed up with a fighter, who is then fighting another fighter who's represented by another promoter and all that. So not necessarily fair, but, yeah, I get it. He was more like that when Chuck Liddell fought in Japan. I was just about to say, like, that would be Chuck.

Yeah, yeah, against the rampage. What else, Frankie? What else? Over under, fights before Islam retires? two and a half now over right over for sure yeah I'm going over as well

but I wouldn't be shocked if it's not that much over I feel I mean like four more fights okay all right that's fair what else Frankie what else and lastly

they're gonna open the door for Usman sorry like I feel like this was all part of the plan like move up to 170 that Usman comes in meaning Usman Armaghamedov and then he takes the baton I don't know if he's as good

to be honest but I feel like that's like Khabi believe Islam takes it then he moves up to 170. He reigned supreme Usman, then John Pork. And then John Pork. What else? What else? Are we sure? Yeah. Oh, stop it. I'm not allowed to have another thought. Jesus.

What kind of operation is this? What else? What else? If Eric is so confident of a Joshua win, is he willing to state here and now that he will retire immediately from the aerial home show with Jake wins? No, we're not. Wow. We can't support these stipulations. And why not? Here's how it works, though. There needs to be something on the line for me, right?

There's no, you haven't given me an incentive. You haven't given me something to win if I, if I am successful, right? If Anthony Joshua does defeat Jake Paul in the way that I believe he will, you haven't provided me any upside. Right, like right now you're just upside. It's just downside, so there's no reason for. Tight-ass cheeks, the whole fight being like, oh, I'm going to lose my job. So, no.

But if, look, if you want to slack me, a slack me, like he works here. Wow, wow. If you want to in on the internal message Maybe he has a point If you want to shoot me an email And offer something up We can talk about it If he quits his job

We can talk about it I wonder Three last quick things guys Some breaking news Ryan Bader Oh shit Yeah Smashing Machine 2

Out of his Rise in New Year's Eve fight With Alexander Sold Datkin He posted this On Social media a few of the injuries below

near complete detachment of the public or the pubic plate and recta... What? Is this real? No, it's not. Of the... The pubic plate and rectus abducted full thickness tear into the connectus. Clude tracking left side

partial tear of the pubic plate. What is the injury? Pretty gnarly injury last week. It was trying everything... Seems like it's in the groin to abs. region like he that is not he pulled something in the in that region well speedy recovery that is who hasn't that is real yeah that is real um you see

pubic bone and wrecked this ad doctor and you're like is this a i mean i didn't know i didn't know it's a totally normal name uh hey by the way guys shout out to billy underscore t on x formerly known as twitter

who back in september of two thousand and 21 tweeted this. AJ is one more loss away from fighting Jake Paul. He's taking a bow. In the end... Wait, but what was Anthony's record since then? In the end, he didn't fight anyone.

This is his first fight since. Is that legit? Yeah, that... Oh, no, sorry, 2021. Whoops. This is absolutely. No, I was thinking 2024. Infinite times.

Yeah. Okay, well, we're... By the way, by the way, that makes... I was actually thinking September 24. That makes this even more ridiculous. That he tweeted this. This is like... It is ridiculous.

But he has lost twice since. He lost the next fight and did not fight Jake Paul. So no, it's not ridiculous. It's nonsense. But by the way, this is Jake coming off the Tyrone Woodley fight. Yeah, I'm with you. It's crazy. That's insane.

Yeah, it's crazy. Yes, the first one. It is literally disproven by the fact that he lost his next fight and didn't even remotely come close to fighting Jake Paul. It's like giving somebody credit for something that didn't remotely even come true. I think it's a pretty good shout. No, it's not a good shout. I'm with you, age. I mean, like, he lost the next fight. He's one loss

away from fighting Jake Paul. He literally lost. Oh, stop it. He literally lost the next. One last thing, bro. Well, one last thing, yeah, yeah, where's your tweet? One last thing from our friends over at La Suir, I just saw this. The combined winning streaks for Islamachev

51 and 0 Okay, 51 and O in his title fights for Ilya 4 and 1. Is that possible? Wait, wait. Oh, the opponents that he fought in the title fights. Yes.

51-0. Okay. What? Streaks? So, so Charles was 11 and 0. Jack was 18. 18 and and... Volk was what?

Volk was 22 and 0. Is that possible? Volk was on a 22-fight win streak? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. He had that first loss at like Wilterweight back in the day. That's 51 and O.

Yeah. Volk was 0 in 1. Uh-huh. Max was 3 and 0. Charles was 1 and 0. Okay. Yeah, I see what you're saying. I mean, it's kind of ridiculous,

but it's kind of crazy. Yeah, I mean, it is absolutely ridiculous that he ended Charles Olivera, JDM, and Volk's double-digit win streaks in all of those fights. And he has a chance if he fight Michael Morales to take his O. Yeah. If he fought Chavcott, he could potentially take his O. If he fought it.

he could potentially take his, though. So, yeah, there's a lot of legacy to finding fights left for Islam Maka Show. There's your goat. You're still doing the math? What is the disgust on Rick's face? I thought his internet throws, bro. What section of the show is this where it's like

we're pointing out five and 50 guys? Stupid-ass tweets. What section of the show it is? Stupid-ass tweets? Why are we still on the fucking record? And then these records about the, there's a lot to get to. There's a lot to get to. Hey, guys, guys, tomorrow on the show, it's an all-timer.

I mean, just when you think we can't top it, tomorrow in studio the best pound for pound female in the world as far as mMA is concerned the bullet aka valentina shepchenko in studio breaking news frank frank i thought you were going to save the team of fun so i'm very excited about that on the nose tomorrow arahawani dot substack.com is the place where you can send in your questions and here's some other breaking news for all of you one more time frankie one more time I cannot believe that I'm actually saying this in the year 2025 November of 2025 to be exact

but tomorrow live and in living color in studio right here in this very studio tomorrow one on one the rematch that everyone thought would never happen the rematch that everyone thought would never come to fruition and I'm very thankful and grateful

and I'm very much looking forward to it and I have no doubt it's going to be great myself and the founder of all elite wrestling Tony Kahn in studio one-on-one it is actually happening our first in studio or chat and our first since our chat from several years ago back in 2022

I am looking forward to it that is your show tomorrow buckle up sheesh three years since last TK talk the only one too yeah oban shout out to oban

wow all right it's time to go is there anything else we need to get to who's to check yeah maybe there's a few more

tweets is there is there a cap on how many times we're allowed to use that one I feel like we've done with it well we have a nice little arsenal of things who's to check

shut up booze yeah we've got so many yeah yeah what else A fucking name of your mouth. I use that one a bunch. This is truly the moment I have been waiting for.

People comment this a lot on social now. I love it. A lot of people like them. Peace and love. By the way, congratulations with UFC on their big deal with Polly Market. I believe Yahoo also would a big deal with them as well. By the way, we need to do a deep dive. Just like you guys gave me a deep dive into John Pork, we need to do a deep dive into Nick O'Neill.

Who? Who the fuck is Nick O'Neill? Nick O'Neill's the Camel guy. Oh, the guy, oh. I saw him doing a co-lab with Josh Emmett. He's everywhere on my timeline. This is ridiculous. We're five hours deep, and you're calling for videos during the credit.

The last half hour of this show has been off the fucking ground. I don't know. Josh Emmett pulls up. Look at the zoom in on his face here. Right here, right here. The zoom in right here. Yeah. I love this guy.

I don't know if there's, I don't know what the research is going to reveal much. I think this is it. You are in a small minority. I want him in studio. Nick O'Neill, you're, no, we do care. Be careful, because he's going to take you up on this and we're going to have a Nick O'Neillian.

Honeyberg work? This one will work too. Thank you, John Kavanaugh. Thank you, Cisarland. Thank you, Bo Nicol. Ben West St. Deney, Ethan, Ethan Young. Thanks to Adia Lido, as well. Back tomorrow.

Same time, bye, so same time.