The Ariel Helwani Show - UFC 323 Preview: Merab's historic year, PPV era ends, Conor McGregor legal updates | The Craic

Episode Date: December 5, 2025

The Craic is back to kick off the festive season.With Petesy Carroll, Chuck Mindenhall, and Ben Fowlkes reunited, they open the show by giving their take on the recent UFC on Paramount fight card announcements (4:21).Then, the lads get into this weekend’s fights at UFC 323 and debate whether a win over Petr Yan would cement Merab Dvalishvili as fighter of the year (17:03).The flyweight division is also host to some big matchups. The trio break down former champ Henry Cejudo taking on rising prospect Payton Talbott (42:30), and the co-main event barnburner between champ Alexandre Pantoja and Joshua Van (47:25).The guys give updates on TKO’s attempt to push the Ali Revival Act through Congress (49:08).To close out the show, the crew provide updates on Conor McGregor’s legal cases (1:02:09), make their picks for this weekend’s fights (1:04:26), and answer your Super Chats (1:10:15).

Crackheads. It's Friday. That can only mean one thing. It is the crack. I am Pizzie Carroll. And we missed you last week. You know, it was that big holiday you all do over there, giving thanks. I hope you all had a wonderful time doing exactly

that. I didn't see enough images of the dinners. You know, I like to see a hefty dinner for Thanksgiving. I did not see a lot of that, unfortunately. Hopefully you can bounce back next year with more pictures of your beautiful meals. But it is the last ever, potentially, UFC pay-per-view this weekend. And we're lamenting this. I mean, it's a great card for the diehards, especially. It may not be the one to provoke much casual interest, but it is two of the best Pound for Pound for Pound for Pound for it is in the world. Marab Divalashvili and Alexandre Pantosia defending their titles while looking to defend their titles in a very, very nice card.

Here they are hitting the scales. There's the boy Marab. Cardio de Daufer. He talked to Chuck Mendenhall this weekend. And there is Piotr Jan. He's in good shape too, of course. There's Pantosia. What a guy.

Looking good. And there's the young gun. Joshua Van. Full of youth. enthusiasm but will that be enough i did say that chuck spoke to marab at the weekend i don't know if it was at the weekend to be honest uh he definitely spoke to him though and what a year it's been for him started off the year very upset as chuck's great piece um points out he was having that fight with a maga made off didn't really feel like he was the one the promotion we're pushing

forward and now we get to the end of the year and he is he is clearly the fighter of the year if he gets this thing done. Four title defenses in a year, never been done before. We had Poetan going for three last year, Usman going for three in 2021 and many others. And we'll talk about all of this today. But I am delighted that the aforementioned Chuck Mendenhall and the brilliant Ben folks are here today. Lads, how are you? Are we feeling festive? Look at those faces full of thanks. You know what I mean? That's just... Is there an Irish Thanksgiving? What do you guys do? What's We're not very thankful people We have a resentment

Week, you know? It's just We shake our Christmas It's not a day. You, motherfucker, we just point ourselves towards Great Britain and go Gough, right we The thing you've got to learn about the way we

approach though Thanksgiving in America is as soon as it's over We don't talk about it. You're bringing it up now and it feels like it happened six months ago to us We switch immediately into Christmas mode You know, the day after my kids have started on a little whiteboard I have on the refrigerator. They started the countdown to Christmas.

It's so true. Immediately after, we move on from that gratitude shit with a quickness and go right to when do the presents show up. That's America. Hobby Lobby goes right after Halloween into Christmas. You know what I'm talking about? There's no Thanksgiving. See, this is the thing. I told you guys, we're planning to get the Christmas tree this weekend.

Me and my kids are going to get it, put it up, and decorate it, and everything. everything, an event that they both look forward to and dread because they know that if I'm putting up the Christmas tree and we're decorating that thing, we're listening to the Bob Dylan Christmas album. That's a good compromise. That is just what is happening and they're going to have to deal with it. And to them, like some of these Christmas songs, to them, the only version they know is a haggard 70-year-old Bob Dylan crooning his way through them.

This is a pretty recent album, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, it's the last 20 years. Yeah, it came out like 20 years ago. I don't know about recent, but yeah, 20 years ago, probably. I'm not sure ever heard it. Oh, my God. He had one single off, I believe it was Frosty the Snowman, and it will scar you for life if you listen to it.

It will be embedded into your mind for the rest of your life, my friend. That's big old weekend here. Final pay-per-view. And Chuck, you have an article coming out about this, and we do have a whole section dedicated to this, which is meant to be later on the show. but I moved to ask you straight off the bat. There's a lot of lamentations coming from Connecticut. I mean, you know, a lot of people rejoicing in the fact that the pay-per-view era is over.

But you've made some great points in this article that's coming out today and an article you put out last week. But give us a brief rundown of some of your concerns with this new era that is upon us. I don't know if it's exactly the lamentations. Like I think that all of us would be like it's better if we don't have to figure out the illegal streams or, I mean, by the pay-per-views. You know what I mean? Like, if we don't have to pay those prices, that's probably better. My concern, okay, so I'm in the most nostalgic sense, these were always the markers, right? These numbered cards, these pay-per-views that the community kind of pulled together. It actually sort of excluded a certain part of the population, the casuals who would not spring for it. So like it became this more of its exclusive thing. And for the long time, especially when social media was first the thing before it became the cesspool that it is now. But like when it first was out, it was like this community. would come together and we'd all be commenting and high-fiving, you know, digitally across. And you'd be like, this is an amazing experience. And to see it as is happening was a big deal.

And that was kind of a roll off from the old boxing, you know, shows from the Tyson days and all that stuff. So I think that there's just a little bit of a pang, you know, of like saying like, man, I'll miss those days. And they're long gone anyway, right? Like those days are long gone. It's just now they take the price tag of it. That's a good thing. My bigger concern now is that you enter this kind of gray horizon. where there's 46, whatever they're going to do, amount of cards.

There's just constant active. There's no offseason. And you just basically, now there's no distinguishing between what is what. Now, I'm sure that they're still going to stack and have Premier cards. But they're going to probably, you know, put, they're going to disperse talent in different ways. We don't know what that looks like yet. And my biggest concern is that it just loses its kind of passion hold on what the diehards have had. And I think that that's kind of what I'm looking at.

You know, it was just, there was always this kind of valuable something to it. It was a pain in the ass to pay for it. Nobody wanted to do that. But there was something about it that brought everybody to get and they kind of kept the ship, you know, moving forward. And I don't know what it looks like in the new era when you don't have something like these flagships. I'm sure they're going to try to keep that going. But I think that there's a fear that it will kind of drone on without the offseason all that. It was just kind of drone on where you don't really distinguish cards as much anymore.

Ben, you wrote about this, the initial bookings we've got for 2026 and the reason I ask you about this is because Chuck has highlighted this in his article last week and the one that's going to come out today, I believe. The idea that we have this fleeting sense of meritocracy in the sport right now and the announcements I believe kind of sent this kind of really set at home for a lot of people like, well, are we going to be saying goodbye to the idea that the definite number one guy is fighting for a title in this new era. Yeah, these initial announcements, I think maybe we put a little bit undue weight on them just because we know we're headed into the Paramount era. We're wondering what that's going to look like, how it's going to be different,

you know, when we get rid of the pay-per-views, all that stuff. And so when you make these first few announcements and you make them at half time of a Thanksgiving Day Dallas Cowboys game, which, you know, is a pretty good opportunity for you to share in the spotlight, especially for that game. That does feel like the game where people just turn it on and leave it on. You know, they're not channel surfing during the halftime show. So, like, it's a good opportunity for the UFC to reach some of these new people. You see them rolling out these ads where they're taking advantage of paramount knowing a thing or two about the movie business

and trying to make these parallels saying, like, UFC, this is cinema? And we're going, okay, so we are moving into some sort of a new age. But then you look at the matchups you make and you go, is that new age good? though, because it does seem like some perplexing choices, especially the decision to do Alexander Volcanovsky and Diego Lopez again, you know, when that was Volcanovsky's last title fight was that one? The other one at the interim lightweight bell, where we do with Justin Gaichi and Patty Pimlet, just skipping over the number one contender, Armand Sarukian. And it kind of makes you go, why are we having these fights? Why are we bothering to rank people?

Why are we doing any of this at all if we're basically just choosing people and being like, uh, that guy's kind of popular, this guy's kind of popular, let's have him fight for a belt that we grab down in the supply closet. So I think that there is a lot of sort of angst right now with people looking ahead to what that's going to be like. I think it will, like Chuck brings up a good point about how the thing that kind of makes the paper views feel special and feel big, partly it's that the UFC treats them as these are a separate thing and that's why you got to pay for them. They have bigger fights. They have better, more anticipated fights.

That's why you got to plunk down a credit card or at least go to the trouble to find in one of those illegal online streams that I hear exist. Remember when it used to be a big topic. They do, I've seen them. Remember it used to be a thing all the time where we would wait to hear the numbers about pay-per-view buys. And basically, just the entire industry relying on Dave Meltzer to give us a reliable number. and that has even stopped being a thing but that used to be the way we judge these things afterwards

to see how successful it's or it used to be how we told who was really a star and who just seems like maybe they could be a star at some point you'd look at some of those numbers I'm not a Connor Breger fights or Ronda Rousey fights or Brock Lesnar fights and you'd be like look at the huge pay-per-view numbers this person is drawing

and you're kind of losing all of that I'm not complaining about it because this is the first time in my life as a MMA fan where it seems like the price is actually going to go down at least for the short term. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see.

You know at some point, I've been saying this for a while, at some point, they're going to try the pay-per-view waters via Paramount. They're going to just see if people will go for it. And I'm saying this to you now. Everyone out there who can hear the sound of my voice, this is our opportunity. Shut it down.

They're going to do it at some point. Don't fall for it. Well, the zone would never have tried anything like that, so I don't. If you just hold off the first time they do it and you just go, nope, we put that behind us, we're not doing it anymore, they'll give up. I know. They'll give up. I thought I was having a stroke, man. Every design card that comes along, I'm like, did they not?

Like, I'm there paying like, playing for all these shit cards. I'm like, Ben brings up a good point, though. Like, you know, we used to look at those numbers. They used to mean so much to the growth of the sport, too. Like, we had to look at him as a weather vein almost like, dude, that was. one top 700,000 buys, and you'd be like, that's crazy, you know? And then the whole Dana White back of the day, if we get a million buys, I'll jump off the Mandalay Bay. I point this out all the time. He never did uphold that promise. But that was, it was such an indicative thing, right,

of the sport moving forward in this big way that we were involved in, too, because we were writing about it. It was part of our livelihoods to see it succeed. And that's another one of those weird things, right? Like, you're like, man, these things meant a lot on a lot of levels. And it was also, like Ben was pointing out, it kind of moored the UFC to be honest and it's matchmaking a little bit. You're talking about what's happening the first of 2006. If you're paying the price, like I think the intention was always, yes, we have to put the fights on the people want to see. Because on a pay-per-view model, that's who's buying the fights, right? Like, you're going to have those people are going to be paying.

And I think there was a time when the meritocracy had to stand, you know, to an extent because that's what people wanted to see. There were occasions where, you know, and everybody kind of knew this. They'd go along with or a guy came along who might trump the other dude in somewhat weird way. And you're like, okay, I can see why they'd give him the title shot. But it wasn't as egregious as kind of, all right, Diego Lopez, you're right back in there. You know, this seems almost already completely off brand from what the UFC has stood for for a long, long time. Yeah, it's a great point. And there is that sense and nostalgia.

It's almost like, as we're talking about it, and I know we kind of talked about it during the round. table this week as well, when you're bringing up all these old school pay-per-view names and everything, it kind of sends the head back to those times. But I also just think about like, when I was, when I was, when I was then pay-per-views, those early paper views, I was a kid then. And I had all my, my friends over and were underage drinking, watching this stuff, having the time of our lives, watching the sport, nobody in Ireland really knew about, right? Like, this is before McGregor is there. Like, this is, like, my brother is essentially telling us, Like, watch this guy.

He's really good. And we're like, oh, shit, this is crazy. Like, we all of our different fighters, our favorites. They might not even, you might see them fight once a year, you know? Did you go to UFC 93? Yeah, yeah. I went to that one, yeah. Remember that was like, big deal.

There's such thing as underage drinking in Ireland. I mean, listen. You know what? There's overage drinking out there, too, Ben. They've got all of it. I thought you just had to be old enough to order. That's simple. This is news.

But you do bring a good point. This, this for years has been. how I've gauged the mainstream interest in UFC paper views is does anybody I know who is kind of an MMA fan hit me up wanting to come over and watch and that's the phone call gauge yes especially because it's like they know you know hey I'm I'm getting it regardless I can expense it all that kind of stuff you know it's a tax write off for me and so they'll just go like and you know the last pay per view hit that mark where several of my friends who were just like they watch it they'll watch two or three cards a year, you know?

Or, like, when I was doing a lot of Jiu-Jitsu and, like, guys from, you know, you'd go to Jiu-Jitsu open mat on Saturday morning and people would be like, so. You watch it in the night? Yeah, you know? And, like, that's kind of how you tell. And then have another open-mouth boil the poison on, of course. Not getting a lot of calls for the Morp fight, huh? No, and see, that's, that was a good, like, kind of gauge.

Now, it seems like, Paramount's got to pick up a lot of subscribers from this in order to make it even close to a good idea to pay the UFC, the exorbit amount of money that they're paying to get this stuff. And so you've got to think that they have a vested interest to me. Like you got to make these kind of fights that people can't stand to miss. And that people will, you got to make enough of them often enough that people will kind of set and forget the subscription, that they will sign up and then they will just stick around.

We don't want them, you know, bouncing in just because they see we have a good one. Like that's not going to really work for their money. They need to have a huge influx of subscribers. And maybe that's what we're thinking here is we're going, Patty Pimlet and Justin Gachie gets some people in the door to start the year. That is exactly what we need. And once they're in, then it's a lot easier to keep them. I don't know.

But it is like, it's going to be interesting to see how much say they get and how they're able to lean on the UFC for some of this. Because that is something we heard toward the end of this ESPN deal, that the UFC was unhappy with how quickly ESPN. ESPN raised prices. ESPN was kind of unhappy with the UFC seeming at times like it wasn't trying all that hard. And we've honestly, especially, you know, we've been around long enough in the sport to have seen the UFC go through a few different broadcast partners. And there's a trend so far. Everybody starts off very enthusiastic. Everybody is best friends.

They're going straight to the moon with this deal. By the end, everybody's glad to see one another go. So it'll be interesting to see how this one plays out. it is crazy this talk of meritocracy and we have a whole section on this later on but like we're kind of going well there's better fights out there I think most people would agree in terms of meritocracy and meanwhile they're moving into the boxing space being like they're not doing this right like you know they're not making the fights you know everybody wants to see him we're like well well we'll talk about that is funny that's good timing by them right

yeah it's crazy but uh let's talk about this card coming up um Chuck I mentioned this piece you did with Marab and it's crazy how the year started and how it ended. What was it like revisiting because these two separate times you spoke to him frame probably one of the greatest years Annie Champion has had in the organization? Well, it's funny because

I went out there, I think it was January 3rd is when I visited him at his gym at syndicate in Vegas and I was expecting to be honest because every time I'd talked to him in the past, he's a very like kind of cordial, merry guy like he's like, hey, you know, that sort of thing. But this particular time, and

you know, I didn't know about the staff infection and things like that at the time. He was keeping that concealed. He was very pissed off, though. And the piece ended up being called something like that, like Marab de Valle Trio is pissed off. You know, it was something along those lines. But he just was so mad at the way things were going. He was very reluctant to be fighting on that card. He was missing all of the holidays that we celebrate.

The Georgian holidays were just about to go off as the fight was happening. Like January 19th, he was fighting on the 18th. And he was just not in a good mood. And so, like, if you, if you've talked to him before, if you ask him a single question, he'll, he'll sometimes rant for 10 minutes, 15 minutes. You're like, I have no idea how I'm going to cut that up into any kind of bite size, like, quote to use. But he, he did that several times. And it was always geared toward, you know, just kind of feeling disrespected by his opponent, a little bit by the OCO. They didn't really admit that, but just the fact that, you know, we were respecting Umar's Ramadan. Uh, like, I'm not fighting a Ramadan. While, meanwhile, he's missing everything that's going on in his life, uh, to make this fight happen. So, I was like, I should book in this by talking to him, because now here he is. He's going for a record fourth defense, which seems highly unlikely if you go back to that first conversation. He was able to navigate all of that win.

He later revealed, like, obviously he was at the staff, all the, all the things that were going on, and B, as dominant as he is. And this time, I wasn't sure what to expect when I brought out of that, but now he kind of laughs about it. And it was kind of like a, you know, a feel good movie in the end because he's like, oh, we all survived. And now I'm going for the record. Isn't this all great?

I love fighting. You know, that sort of thing. So it was. It was kind of fun to do this, knowing that you talked to him at the very beginning, and he's here now. But, dude, he's in a good space. It looked like his weight cut was on point, and he's got a great chance now of doing what he set out to do. The weight cut is one thing I admit I wondered about because making that weight four times in a year, that is the kind of thing that could catch up with you. You know, normally, we've seen guys go through this before where they have a really busy year.

Remember when Donald Seroni, I think it was maybe his first year in the UFC had to come over from the WEC. And I think he fought five times that year. Five times he did. And he lost to Nate Diaz at the end of the year. And the audio we heard from his corner from the Jackson Winklejohn corner is them being like, he's flat. He's just fought too much this year, you know, and it's catching up to him. And it's like that can happen. Of all the people it seems least likely to happen to, Marab is probably at the top of that.

He might not want to spar five rounds before. this one though, you know, on the day of. I mean, that's just something he could avoid. I mean, if you told me he's still going to go out there, fight like Marab for five full rounds, show about the after party, spin kicking in jeans, I'll believe you, you know, like doing some Chuck Norris ax and jeans

shit. But one of the things I really like, I wrote about this a little bit this week, one of the things I really like about him going for this record is how it seems to fit so perfectly with what we know of them as a person and as a fighter. He's the guy

just can never sit still. He's always moving. He's always going. And it feels fitting that like, yeah, of course this guy who fights like a damn windup toy where you just set to point him in the right direction and there he goes, of course he's going to be the guy to set the record for the most titled fights in a year. Of course he's going to be the guy who just is doing this nonstop because that is very much what we see of him in between the bells inside the cage.

So like, of course he's going to. book his time as champion that way. It just makes sense. I do, though, still wonder, like, especially at his age, you know, getting up there a little bit into the 30s, making that weight over and over and over again, it could always surprise you. Your body might show up not feeling its best. Maybe Marab could still get it done that way, though, you know, especially in this man. I think he has all the effects. I don't think he ever intended to do this. Like, he kind of now points out, like, yeah, I wanted to fight four times. I'm not sure that you actually look at a calendar year at least the first time through. But it was interesting in this conversation I

just had with them was I was like, so what about how would you even have an encore? Like obviously you're going to want time. It's like, you know, I'd like to fight in March and then June and then two more time after that, you know? And I'm like, so you want to fight four more time? And that's where I'm like, okay, that seems kind of unrealistic to me. Yeah. It's, it's a huge feat. And am I crazy to think that we made a bigger deal out of Powhatans last year, kind of matching that three, because we've had three, quite a few times we had, I have it here in front of me, we have Frank Shamrock in 1998, Tito Ortiz, 2001, Chuck LaDelle, 2006, Demetrius Johnson, 2013, Matt Hughes, 2002, Usman, 21, and then, of course, Poetan's always stood out. Like, that

always felt to me like a big one. But, I mean, the Poetan one, you guys tell me what you think. I mean, to me, it was more the escalation of the moment because it was UFC 300, right, was the first one that he did that year. And because the UFC needed something big and he could fit that role, it felt so big because he jumped in. He does it. Remember, the follow-up was UFC 303. It's supposed to be Connor McGregor. It doesn't end up being with a broken. So he shows up with a toe of his own that's mangled or whatever. And like he still does it. And I felt like the escalation of those types of events where he's stepping in in the biggest possible lights and coming through. And then I think the next one was in Salt Lake City, right? But he gets all finishes. It felt

like this huge year of escalation for him where he went from like a star to a superstar and he was doing it in the most magnificent fashion. If you look at it from a from the magnitude standpoint of that, you'd be like, okay, that's still the biggest year probably we've seen from a champion. But if you're looking at it and the other thing with Marab is I think this is only the second is no, this is he's had two where he, this will be the second one where he is not the main event. What is that? I love it. How did I do that? I want to do that again. I don't know. They're the only one who can do these magical things. Wow, that's for you guys.

He shouldn't have that power. Chuck should not have that power. This is only the second time. So he'll have two fights where he's the main event and two where he's not. Like so it just to give you the magnitude, right? Like if you kind of balance those out, like where the magnitude is he's not really that kind of draw. So it feels a little less, even though his accomplishment is probably more. Yeah, I think some of that too, those you think is just that for so long, the light heavyweight division has

been the glamour division for the UFC. Yeah. That's been the one that gets the most attention, brings in the most viewers. So when you have a light heavyweight champ who's putting people away has an exciting fighting style that everybody, whether you're a hardcore or casual, can understand and appreciate. And like you said, Chuck, there was that narrative of him basically stepping up to help out the UFC when they needed something.

They needed somebody to show up on these fight cards and bring a little bit of star power. And he was doing that for them over and over again. And it even goes backwards to the Madison Square Garden card. Remember because he stepped in for John Jones and Miocchich were supposed to be on that original card. So he kind of did it three times in a row if you kind of go back. That's why it felt like such an escalation at the time. Yeah. I think one of the differences is that when you really look at it, Marab is fighting over and over again just saying, hey, bring me the whoever you think is the toughest in the division right now.

Is it Umar? Is it Peter Yan who's making to come back? Is it Sean O'Mout? Like, just give him whoever and he's going to go out there. do Marab stuff. And this is the thing, I remember years before Marab was thought of as a top title contender and it was in Australia and I was talking to Ray Longo and those guys, Ray Longo and Matt Serra were telling me, hey, Marab is going to be our next guy.

Marab is coming up. And Ray Longo said, it was the easiest guy in the world when it came to game planning for opponents. He was like, he's just going to go out there and do his stuff, man. Like you don't have to come up with a game plan for Marab that's Taylor. to any one opponent. He's going to do the same thing he does every time and dare them to stop it. And so far, nobody's been able to do it. I asked him about that, by the way. I said, do you even bother the game plan in this piece? I just wrote. And he's like, I mean, he kind of treated it like

a frivolous thing, right? Like, it's not a real thing. Is it kind of with like Josie Aldo, you know, and oh, they are Maui first. I kind of had a, you know, but it was like that. He's like, otherwise, I just, you know, I'm going to do what I'm going to do. It's interesting, lads. the two most recent three title defences Usman and Poetan they lost their next fight after that Poetan lost to Hecolaev

Usman lost to Leon Edwards Ben was bringing up the point of you know you are redlining your body at this stage if you are cutting away four times for a title fight this guy seems very comfortable doing that but I did think it was very interesting listen to Sean O'Malley who's a huge you know Marab lover at this stage

despite him crushing his dreams twice you know a big fan of his work he made a good point that we are seeing marab strike a lot more in these fights he's get it's getting good to him his hands you know we we saw him nearly stopped sandhagen in the second round recently there is a fear that this is the last fucking guy you want to stand in the pocket with a bantamway peter yan a guy who has concussive power in his hands all the way back from his acesb days granted we haven't seen a lot of it recently but ben do you have that kind of fear here like you're the one who kind of highlighted this four way cuts in one year to one thirty five is this a sleepy sleeper kind of

dangerous fight from her up you know i think that it's dangerous on a few different levels just because i think that when when purion's on his game he's a tough guy he he throws a lot of different stuff at people and has a lot of like kind of tricky entries and and he's he's good at being able to assert his kind of style of fight in a way that you don't totally see it coming until it's too late. The thing is, can he get on offense against Maran? That's a tough thing to do. Marab

really seizes the initiative, and as Jack Dempsey's coach and trainer used to say about him, it ain't like football because he never gives you the ball. He's always just on offense. He's always coming at you. He's always forcing you to deal with what he's doing. I think that's the tough part for anybody

against Maraub, and it's going to be the tough part for Peerion, especially because it's like when he can get going, when he can get coming forward, using his throws, using his, his tricky little entries and everything like that, he gives people a lot of problems, but he just wasn't able really to do that against Marab. And, you know, he's put together a good win streak. But you look at the people he's beaten, nobody's like Marab remotely of those people. You know, and you could argue there's nobody like Marab in the U.S.C. But especially the people he's fought recently and has looked really good against, nobody has anything like the Marab style. And And so it's hard to say you've seen anything from him that makes you think that this fight would go differently unless you put a lot of stock in him saying, you know, I was basically fighting with one good hand last time or you put a lot of stock in Marab maybe draining himself too much with this year and all the weight cuts and all the fights. I asked Marab, you know, does he think that this version of Yon is more dangerous? And he's like, and I was like, what is he, what is he done? He's got a couple take down tricks.

he goes, you know, he beat Marcus McGee and he beat Davis and Figurado and he kind of goes down the list and this is how he answers the question. He's like, he serves to be here, you know? I'm like, that's not what I asked you. I'm like, I asked you, like, what is it? So I don't think he believes

that there's anything that's new in terms of what he brings is a threat. And I remember, wasn't it like a record 49 submission or not submission? Take down attempts like he tried he tried to take him down like just constantly in that fight. I think he got 11 of them.

And it was almost seven minutes of cage time, like control time where he was basically doing what Marab does. I just think that he believes he can do that again, you know? I think that he's like, he won't be able to stop my onslaught. And that it's like it's up to everybody. When you have a guy who's a big puncher, there's always that factor, right? Where you're like, well, if he catches him, if he's able to hurt him at some point, then it probably changes things. But if he's not able to do that, it's hard to imagine. that he's, like, developed a defense

that's going to prevent Marab from winning that fight over the course of 25 minutes. Yeah, I mean, especially if you look at recent fights, if anybody seems to have gotten better in some key aspects of the game since then, I'd argue it's Marab. He's gotten more comfortable with the striking and he's gotten more opportunistic

about going for submissions. It's, I've never seen someone weaponized take down attempts. That's not takedowns. Take down attempts, like Marab does. It's a good point. It's all part of this scramble he puts guys in. I have to defend it

because if I don't I'm going to get taken down but fucking defend and it's exhausting and somehow this guy isn't getting tired from takedown attempts that fail you know like

you look at it especially in the heavier weight classes right we have seen guys fall apart from one stuff take down at the start of a round later in the fight third round

Rudolfo Vieira sorry that's Reggie just weighing in there if you can hear that in the background but you see guys they get stuffed and suddenly it's like All of the gasses left them.

Whereas this guy is just constantly doing it for 25 minutes. I've never seen anything like it. So one of you guys take over there so we can mute and let the dog do his thing here. I was just going to say that, you know, talking to Corey Sanhagen, there was a, you know, it's basically he's kind of echoing what we're talking about. He's like, well, we're going to have to like be offensive here. I have to figure out how to land offense on this guy. I think he was more looking like when the inevitable is happening, when it starts to get into a scramble,

I need to do something within that to kind of. leave my mark. I got to reverse something. I've got to land something within this. And we saw the fight. I think he tried. It's just easier said than done. I think when you, when you're in there with him and you can see it's just this constant tumult. Like you're just trying to stay upright. A lot of times you have both of your arms just trying to, you know, try to stay off of the canvas. It's just he put you in such vulnerable positions so often that it's very, very difficult to get off on him. Yeah, because especially like anytime you're spending the entire fight just trying to not have something bad happen to you.

There's just not that many opportunities for you to do anything. And I think the thing that makes Marab different than a lot of takedown first kind of fighters is that you go out there and you tell yourself, I got to shut down some of these takedowns. Like I'm probably going to get a takedown. I got to get back up, but I've got to stop some takedowns. And he goes in there kind of thinking like, sure, you're going to stop some takedowns.

But we're going to be playing that game for as long as I want us to do it. And he's not particularly concerned if you, you do get up he's he thinks you're going to wear yourself out getting up and getting taken back down sometimes immediately more than i'm going to wear myself out and that is that's got to be psychologically difficult i've always said about fighting marab is that there there can be no genuine hope that he's going to slow down or that he's going to get tired when you were like growing up like didn't you like you'd be a bigger kid or whatever and you'd be like roughhousing with them and they just constantly keep trying to wrestle you like and then you're like it's so

exhausting to not get wrestled to the ground or like to you know to just keep standing up or keep getting away from that like imagine 49 times in the course of 25 minutes like putting up with that it's just i also think it's mentally exhausting george st pierre used to talk about this that the person who is more likely to get tired in the fight is not necessarily the person who's in worst cardiovascular condition it's the person who is being forced to do something they don't want to do it's the person who's been forced into the other person's kind of fight that if you feel like you're always dancing to the tune that this guy's playing. You never get to decide what the pace looks like, where we're fighting,

how the fight's unfolding. You don't get a say in that at all. You're just playing catch up the entire time. You're going to get exhausted physically and mentally. And that, I think, as much as anything, how Marab wears people out. Lads, I've got to ask. I think consensus, everyone is seeing Marab as the fighter of the year at this stage. If he does this, especially it's just a cherry on top.

Do you guys have anyone close, like that you think is in a debate with Marab right now for a fighter of the year? Like, I mean, who would you put in there? I mean, off the top of my head, I don't, I can't think of anybody. Do you have somebody? Islam, Islam, because he's stepped up away class. Maybe Ilya, he's only fought once because he stepped away class, but nobody based on. I don't think it matches what Marab's door. No, I don't.

Ben? Yeah. I mean, it's really hard to beat a guy who. sets a new record like this just for sheer activity in one year, you know? Like, this kind of the thing that is unthinkable, even booking this many title fights in a year seemed unthinkable, much less winning them all, you know? So it's hard for me to choose anybody over him. And even like the UFC genuinely, like, they don't want to facilitate this many title fights

for guys every year. Like you always hear the likes of Aspinall before, obviously the, the Ipoch situation unraveled but he was like, I'd love to fight four times in a year. You're like, you're not going to me. Like, that there's no way that the UFC are going to lay it out that you fight four times in a year. It's just they have to space them out, you know, put the belts on for marketing purposes for different cards. So it's, it's unbelievable in that sense, too. Another guy who was venturing to do great things is Pantosia.

And, you know, it's like the Usman thing with GSP at this stage, isn't it? Like, it's this constant thing where every time he fights where we're suddenly going. It is. It is like that now. to DJ, but I mean, honestly, how close do you have them, sure, to DJ at this day? It's tough for me, man, because he, I think we pointed this out in our roundtable. Demetrius was there for so long. Now, you could make the argument, like, he wasn't fighting the caliber of fighters, right, of, like, maybe with Pantosia.

But he was there for so long, and I always think, like, what Benz alluded to, so, like, to not, you have to guard against complacency at some point, too. Like, you got to guard against just, you know, thinking that you're the man over the course of that time. He was always able to just keep meeting the challenges, pretty much the whole way through. Pantosia, obviously, is, I love him. The reason I love Pantosia, the reason you start to give him a little bit more of a, I don't know, some kind of special glance is because he's, he doesn't, he has no self, like, self-preservation. Like, he's not trying to preserve that. He goes in there with the same mentality, which is to wreck the guy coming for his belt.

He goes in there to wreck a guy. And I think that that you do not see many champions, especially as they kind of get deep into it where they've had a few defenses and now you get into kind of more a historic accord like people are talking about you a little bit differently. Fight that way. But he continues to fight that way.

So if nothing else, he's the most admirable in that sense because he goes out there with the same sense of hunger that he's always had or that he's the guy coming for it, which is completely bizarre when you're the guy who's the bullseye at that point. And where do you have him in the old Floyd greatest of all time.

It's tough to beat Demetius Johnson for me. Still, I mean, I'm not saying Pantosia can't get there, but I do think that in terms of just like all around technical mastery, Demetrius Johnson is still one of the best fighters we've ever seen as just an all around. Like, when you're trying to game plan for a guy like that, you're looking at it on paper, that's the kind of guy that makes you come away and go like, well, shit, maybe one of the lights from the overhead trussle fall hit him on the head, you know, like, that's, that's kind of the best chance we, you got to slip on a banana peel or something because what else can you do to the guy? And Pantosia, like, like Chuck said, he brings an excitement in how aggressive he is, especially how aggressive he is trying to take guys back and look for that, that rear naked choke finish. That also creates some opportunities. So when you look at him, you at least go, it's possible. I can see how somebody could turn his aggression against him. Makes him a little bit more exciting to watch in, in the sense, both that. he's going out there, seems like he is hell-bent on a finish in a lot of these fights,

but also the fact that he always seems like, you know, he could wobble on the tightrope a little bit. He might fall off one of these times. It creates a little more interest than here goes Demetrius Johnson. He's just going to go out here and dominate again, you know? Yeah. But maybe this is just the old school head in me, but still when I think back to Demetius Johnson made this division, you know, he basically created it as the house that DJ built. You've got to go a long way to top that. Demetrius always struck me, too, as like a guy,

because he's a gamer in real life, he loves gaming and all this, but he always struck me as he was seeing himself as a, like that he's controlling himself with a, you know, and then afterwards he'd be like, yeah, I caught him with the flying, whatever, you know, it's like, he would tell you something like that. And it would just be like, it was watching himself from afar. It's such a weird, he had such a weird run.

I wish he, I just felt like it, at that time in the UFC, and, you know, he was, he wasn't, he's, if he was as outspoken as it is now, then, and if social media was kind of, of what it was. It is now then. It would have been a whole different story for that guy. Yeah, I mean, he was inventing new submissions, but also ones that, you know, it wasn't like the Vaughn flute choke where it kind of enters the general usage. Right. Nobody else could physically do it. It's fine for him to do this kind of stuff, but it's not going to become

a common submission because who else can throw a guy up in the air and then get into an arm bar before he lands. Like, it's just not something that most people are physically capable of. But you're right. He also seemed like just so mentally strong. I always think about that. right he had with John Dodson, where Dodson kicked him in the groin. Herb Dean went to step in and pause it. And DeBeecher was like, nope, nope, get out of the way. And then you can, you can hear him say to Dodson right after that, no breaks. Like, if you were hoping that kicking me in the balls would at least get you a moment breather, you were wrong.

Because I am not going to give you even that space. And you could see it just kind of just break Dodson mentally. Yeah, going for the old Derek Lewis, kick him in the balls, poke him in the other. whatever you have to do it's get a break amazing um lads it seems like and i have to say seems like because you know he retired before and we had a bit of a well maybe i'll be back and triple c henry se hoodo he's doing it again he looked fairly rough on the scales there jordan said to me as i were coming on i went to have a look it's a tough l cut as you get later in life it gets it gets harder again he is fighting patent talbot and you

And, you know, Chuck, in the roundtable, you were kind of mentioned, like, this is like the old wrestling, the pro wrestling rub, you know. Put him on the ice floor. Give him a kick. Yeah, putting the guy over. But, I don't know. It's, um, am I crazy to think that we don't give Suhudo enough respect in some ways? And because this cringe-worthy kind of character thing came to the forefront, we kind of pushed away these. Amazing. Accomplishments that not so many people have, right? Islam

Michael Shev became the 11th person to be a double champion. Of course, we have the Olympic gold medal on top of that. Do you have that feeling at all with Suu, or is this just me? Yeah, it didn't. It never felt like he got. I mean, also, they played up his credentials, you know, the Olympic credentials quite a bit. And that is something that with other athletes we've seen where it becomes such a bigger deal to their story. I thought it was always a big deal to his story. But it never seemed like he got the kind of, I don't know what it is. like it never seemed like he got the credit because if other guys if there's a guy like we mentioned maybe a in the in the 205 division who had these credentials and had done that we'd really be talking about this guy in a bigger way but he never really got there in my mind um and i i do think it's in part because he was the cringe guy right like he was he was doing videos he was doing all this stuff and there was just this active kind of like i don't want to i don't even want to acknowledge this guy i don't even want to like talk about this guy but it's hard to take a away from what he was able to accomplish, man. I mean, the division itself, you know, the flyweight

division may not exist if he doesn't have that moment. If he doesn't go through and win it, like they were trying to phase it out. And if you kind of look at like some people kind of owe him a debt for these, for some of that type of thing. If you go back and kind of look at it, he should mean more to it. I don't even feel like the UFC has got, has really gave him the kind of shine that he probably should have gotten over the course of time. But I always felt like you come back. This feels like the strangest terms for him. Because how old is he now? He's like he's in his 40s, right? Like 40 something low 40s. Wow. I thought he was late 30. Maybe I'm wrong. It could be. It's 38. Oh, he's 38. Okay. But still, okay. So, but I thought he'd be coming back

way earlier than this. He's 47. But like, no, he's a, no, but he's going against this young kid. And I guess that's the glaring aspect of it, right? It's like, you get this, they get this guy in the round table we were talking about this. I'm like, this is kind of the one of those ones. If you're going to make Peyton Talbot, if you're going to kind of put him into a space right away, have him go through a guy who has some juice on that level, at least as a double champ, you know, and all the things that he's done, you know, you're going to give him out of juice. My bigger concern for Peyton, for Peyton Talbot is, now what are you going to do? Because if you get by an old guy and you're just able to do it because the dude's old,

you're going to be now going against monsters. And we saw it one year ago, not even one year ago, you know, Barcelos put him on his back continuously and just kind of showed him that there was a long way to go. So it's kind of a weird, like if you win and you go into that kind of stratosphere of really good fighters, I'm not sure Peyton's ready for that yet. Yeah, that's what I wondered too, especially when I saw the odds on this one and I went, all right, I see why people look at it and they go, this is, you know, old lion versus young lion. We know how this usually goes in fight sports. And it also seems like mentally and otherwise, Suhudo has felt like his heart wasn't totally in it lately.

You know, I remember talking to him before the Song Yidong fight. He seemed way more interested in talking to me about various real estate ventures he had lined up than he was in talking about this fight. And it's like, man, I understand it. You know, you get to that age, you're 38. You're looking to what's going to be your future and it's probably not going to be professional fighting. And, but if you get to that point where the thing that gets you really fired up is the

duplexes you have about to come on the market and you're fighting these guys where they're 20-something years old and their hearts on fire for this and it's the only thing that they live for that's when you should get out and I think that if anything I think that that song you'd probably should have showed him that in a couple ways because you go in there

against this young guy who's he's hungrier than you are, he wants it more than you do and then you also get poked in the eye and are reminded oh yeah bad stuff can happen to you in the sport not just like that you won't be physically up for it and you might get beat up in a way that gives you lasting health problems, but weird stuff can happen. A finger goes in your eye and your eye doesn't work

right, you know? And if you are not all the way in this, then you probably shouldn't be in it at all. Now, for Peyton Talbot, though, I've, I also thought about that Barcellos fight because that showed a huge weakness and it just happens to be one of Henry's strengths. And so you think if Henry goes in there and is able to fight smart and able to exploit that, how much could Peyton Talbot have closed that gap since then, you know, like almost a year ago? It's wrestling is one of those gaps that's, I think, the hardest to close in a short amount of time. So I will be curious to see how that aspect of it plays out. But as for the question about if Henry ever got the credit, I think that history will

maybe be kinder to him than we are in the moment. I think this comeback, the whole comeback thing did not help him legacy-wise because he just, it has seemed uninspired. He just seems like that it was always a mistake. If he had walked away on top and stayed away, I think that in retrospect, we would have been like, damn, that guy really was one of the best combat sports athletes of all time, won an Olympic gold medal, won UFC titles in two divisions, beat some goats in Demetrius Johnson and Dominic Cruz. You know, got to give that guy his respect. When he came back and was

just kind of a shadow of himself during this comeback, that hurt the perception a little bit. But I feel as time goes on, people forget the lows and they remember the highs, you know, so give a time and maybe he'll get that respect. Unless he keeps being a cringy all over his podcast and stuff like that. Then he may never, he's going to do that. He's going to do that.

It's the interesting thing about the Parcellus thing, two times South American wrestling champion. Not quite the same resume as Olympic gold medalist. Henry Seudo, you'd just imagine if he can get in those hips, it's a nightmare. Look, we don't see him do that as much as he used to. Sometimes we'd see him put on the single. there and it was a sight of behold like honestly he's absolutely unbelievable but the body

does not want you wrestling at 38 i can assure you that the knees the back everything's going no when you get down you're trying to explode in but uh i agree with and he's and you know you said he's tall like you in the um in the round table you're like he's a tall striker yeah so inri suhudo if he's not going to do that that's a that's a bad recipe you know what i mean that is bad like you if you're not trying to get him this kid's here Like that height, you know, being shorter as a wrestler is actually an advantage of shorter distance to the hips, but of course Peyton's going to love punching down on him. It's a brilliant, it's a brilliant matchable. I'm really looking forward to it. We should speak about Joshua Van because he's in another kind of situation here against the elder statesman and Pantoja, who's looking better than ever.

I do feel, Ben, that it's just a bit too soon for Josh Van coming in against pants in the shape that he's been in lately. Yeah, I mean, I think that it's a good for. fight. It's the right fight to make at this time. And it's an exciting matchup. I think that, you know, there's probably no way you don't get a fun fight out of this pairing. But it is, you know, being a fighter that young, you could see it on the scales. You mentioned it, P.C. Like, we see everybody get up there, all these like grizzled veterans of the sport and Joshua vet. Yeah, he's excited to be here, man. This is all still kind of new and a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of youthful vigor. But you're going up there against a version of Pantosia's

kind of at the top of his game right now it's it's a tough ask you know i'll be impressed you know and we've seen some guys have like you know we saw steve ursag have a surprising degree of success against pantosa so like it can happen he was definitely rushed into his type of shorts yeah and then and it didn't benefit him very much in the long term but uh we'll see how it plays out for joshavan you know what i love though about a man is like because he he fought brandon royville i'm like what was it it was like a few weeks in those because he just had fought and so like

he kind of sprang into this this moment where he's like like, okay, now I'm going to go for the champ. It's probably too much too soon. But I do look at that Royvo fight and you're like, man, this was a dude who had such a chip on a shoulder, Royval. Like, everybody thinks he's going to go through me. I'm willing to die before I'd lose to this kid, right? And he goes in there. And so he tries to kill him. But it's like one of those things that it went back and forth. It was a beautiful fight. That's got to still be up there as one of the fights of the year, just the back and forth of what they went through. But if it showed you anything it was also that van's resolve was way higher than we understood you know what i mean like

for a kid that age like he was not going to lose either it was i love that sort of thing when neither guy will give an inch and they just kind of stand in there and they both have moments again and again and again and you're like how are they doing this you know as the fight goes on if you think about that and the thing we said earlier you know about pantosia just kind of um throwing caution in the wind and just being a savage in there that's a recipe for a very good fight yeah I absolutely agree. Just reckless abandon of youthfulness in there. Like when you're just like, I don't fucking care.

You know, I'm here. Yeah. These guys don't really look at it like, well, where am I going to be in 10 years time? It's like right now, I have this opportunity, you know? Nobody's thinking about how it's going to feel in the morning, you know? Yeah, yeah, exactly. We had a congressional hearing yesterday regarding the Ali Revival Act.

We've seen a full PR offensive, to be fair, from the UFC. I'm seeing Nick Khan all over the gap. is not a podcast that is parallel with the UFC that he did not appear on this week and he is a very good salesman he is talking about all the abuses of boxing which there are many there is absolutely no doubt about that and we also had lawrence epstein at this congressional hearing speaking about the wonders that this revival act will bring through and andy foster who has been speaking a lot about um the great things that this will bring through and it was good to see Ilhan Oman pushing one back towards Epstein though, which I felt was brilliant questions

considering the class action suits that the UFC are still passing through at the moment and the questions that remain about the discovery documents in those cases. I believe we have a clip of this here. What minimum share of event revenues can you commit today that boxers could receive under Sufa boxing league? Yeah, first let me just address, you know, sort of the lawsuit. I which is part of your question. We did settle the lawsuit. It was 10 years of litigation. We made a business decision to settle it.

But I want to be clear, there was no finding of any liability or anything along those lines. As far as committing to any percentage today, obviously can't do that. We're starting a new business. If this legislation is passed, we're going to be starting a new business. And it's going to be a start of business.

OK, well, then let me ask you this. UFC is being sued again, not only with more claims of wage suppression, but also new allegations of You possibly withholding a substantial amount of evidence that was crucial to the UFC's bit for force their antitrust claims into arbitration. With all these lawsuits, I'm having hard time seeing why any of the fighters would ever be able to trust that they will be paid fairly in the system. So Mr. Epstein, what would you tell the many boxers who are worried about being tracked in

a long-coercive contract or how will you make sure that the economic freedom of boxers will not be taken away under this model that you're advocating for? What I would tell them is they're going to have a choice. What's very clear from this legislation is that the existing OLLI Act is not going to change at all. We're adding new provisions that we've talked about the unified boxing organizations or UBOs. There's going to be a choice for athletes to make.

I don't see how choice is a bad thing. If our system is not providing the economic opportunities for athletes, they can avail themselves to the existing system. But the problem we've got is the current state of boxing is just a disaster. I've got to say, it's pretty refreshing seeing this kind of stuff being scrutinized because I had a feeling the way people were talking about this, that due to the UFC's many and strong political relationships, that this will just go straight through the Congress straight it through the Senate and then it would be there. If nothing else, it is good to see people like Ilhan Oman kind of putting this to

Epstein, right, Ben? Yeah, I was very impressed with the specificity of Ilan Omar's questions on this. Like, she seemed like she had clearly done some homework on it and knew what she was talking about, which anybody who's watched any kind of congressional hearings in the past that involved the UFC or combat sports or anything, it's stunning at times how little they seem to know about the thing that they are supposed to be talking about. And it makes you wonder, is this always how it is in Congress? And I just don't know because I don't know those other things that they're talking about. But she really was on top of it and asked the important

questions, I thought, you know, especially about like what kind of percentage of the money are the fighters going to get? And, hey, didn't you just go to court over this kind of stuff? And aren't you still in court over another matter over this kind of stuff? And maybe it's not going well when you do have to go to court. And it is at this point where we are in America and in the culture at large, anytime you see all the power players are lining up behind one thing, all the big business interests are lining up behind one thing, it's hard not to feel cynically defeated in advance, just be like, they always seem to get what they want because they have all the money to spend to push it through. What reason do we have to think that they won't be able to do

that here. They seem to have, they seem to have just like built in this prior consent. Like some of the stages of this seemed like we are just going through the motions as a charade to pretend that there is actual oversight to it. Say one thing, if all the people making money off of keeping the fighters below 20% revenue share in the UFC, if they're all in favor of doing this in boxing, it's not because they're concerned about the fighters. That should be obvious. I know a lot of people have trouble with this, a lot of people, for some weird reason when it comes to combat sports, people seem way more willing to line up to back up the owners over the athletes in a way that they don't do in other sports. But come on, you think

about it, why they're going to all this trouble. It's not because they're so concerned about boxers. It's not because they're so concerned about the state of boxing. It's because they see an opportunity here where they have all the political leverage that they can change the rules to benefit themselves. They can write their own custom legislation to benefit themselves, which is exactly what they've done here. And you mentioned Con kind of making the rounds

and you watch somebody like Pat McAfee who's just like, man, we've needed this for a long time and like, this is great. What you guys are doing is God's work and like stuff like that? No idea what he's talking about. No, I know. I'm like, oh my God. It's as bad as though you're saying about like the hearings themselves

where you're like, dude, what is going on, you know? And they're just not, the idea that they're getting in Zufab, and getting in to better the sport, you know, and this is their sole mission, is to get in there and make it coherent again, make it better, make the best fight the best. You present this, this is not what they're doing. This is, that's nothing to do. I mean, it has something maybe to do it. Maybe they feel like they can improve it, but this is not why they're in the game. Ben, you pointed this out, like, they're in the game because they want to steer it in the exact way that they did with their business, that she was bringing up in these clips, like the business

that they've already had. And that's to make money. money. And so it's a funny thing to kind of, you know, to know the bottom line of what's happening and to watch it play out. But I will say, I think it was Luke Thomas who was, because he was the one doing kind of blow per blow. Just saying like, you know, one side seemed like it was very prepared for all of this. And the other side didn't seem prepared. And Epstein was on the side that was prepared. They were prepared for whatever they were going to get there. Yeah. It's just, you know, not that I have this extensive, these extensive relationships with a lot of people, people in boxing, but I do know a few people in boxing. Boxers and trainers, none of them

have said to me, like, this is great. You know, the way, the way these people are talking at the congressional hearing, like, it's where everyone was like, oh, we need this. Oh, my God, boxing neither is this so much. Please come. Please come and save this sport. It is absolutely fucked. And everything, like, I can remember speaking to Mick Conlon. And Mick Conlon, an Olympic, he's the first Irish man to win a world championship at amateur level in 2000. he went to the Olympic Games. He famously gave the double burs to the judges when he was robbed against the Russian, which later

was proved to be a fixed fight. He is an icon over here. And he was speaking to me about it very early on, like when this was coming out and he was like, mate, I've never been a world champion at a professional level of boxing. But I earned more money than Francis and Gano did for any UFC fight when I fought

Lee Woods and Nottingham. Like, why would I then go to the UFC, knowing that they had the baddest man on the planet, and he made less money than I did for contesting a world title fight. And look, there's endless list of these people and maybe we'll all be wrong.

Maybe this is fantastic and a UFC style league is exactly what the sport needed, but man, there is a lot. Well, the ones who won't complain about it are going to be the ones, you know, like the guys who, they don't have to participate. The guys who've already made it, they've made tons of money, these people will eventually be pushed

out in very soon because a lot of them are pretty long in the tooth. A lot of the boxers that we know won't be around. You're really talking about the next fold right of the next generation of boxers this is who it directs directly affects this is who guys are going to have a cap they don't and the way it's being presented is hey your health care is going to be a lot better when you get here and you know what I mean it's like you're going to you're going to the the minimum of pay you're going to like that a lot better than you would have gotten a minimum paid when

you started your career otherwise I mean that it's it's all aimed at the new the new crop and that might be to some extent a fair argument the minimum will increase but It's always been the case in the UFC that it's not the guys making 10 and 10 on the prelims who are underpaid. Those guys might, in fact, be overpaid because the UFC is just using them as card fillers. They are warm bodies until they prove themselves otherwise. They are penny stocks, as Lorenzo Fertito once described them. And we're waiting to see if they'll pay off. It's the guys at the top who are being underpaid because those are the guys that are bringing in the viewers, bringing in the eyeballs and the money.

And those guys are getting a laughably low share of the revenue. And I agree that most of those boxers, maybe they won't even realize the degree to which they're getting screwed because they won't feel it as I was at this level and I came down here. They will not be aware that I started at this level and if I had done it 15 years earlier, I would have got here in my earnings. And instead, the power brokers in the sport kind of colluded to stop me from being able to do that. They won't really notice what they've missed. And so maybe they won't feel it as much. the same way, you know, you can tell UFC fighters all you want the way that they're being exploited and taken advantage of.

And a lot of them don't get it until it's kind of too late, until they're late in their career. They, they, you know, you have a, you know, you have a early contract six fights, whatever it is and you're like, okay, it caps out at like 48 and 48, you know. Then the next one, because they were so successful is like 100 and 100 or like, so they think that that's a huge leap, right? Like this, it's the conditioning of the way you're brought up. And I feel like if that's what that's. basically what's being put in play here with boxing and if guys aren't if you're if a top boxer in 10

years isn't comparing himself to like canello you know if he's instead he's comparing himself to other boxers of his day it's going to be very different it's only that those guys exist right now that make tons and tons like because that's why we we get all over the ufc is because we can compare it to boxing we can compare it to the old boxing model eventually that goes away this is it's a long play to take over that sport because eventually you're not going to compare to Canelo anymore. You're going to be comparing to another guy who's getting a million or whatever it is.

And that's where you feel like, oh, I'm making a million. That's pretty good. You know? Yeah. You're right, though. It doesn't seem like anybody in boxing has been saying, please our saviors at Dufa, come over here and fix this stuff. Because boxing, honestly, in so many ways,

seems like it's doing better now than it has at any point in the last 20 years. Yeah. And it just feels like you have more interesting. fights more of the bigger fights seem to happen i mean a lot of that might be the the the oil money propping it up but it doesn't seem like it's in desperate need of saving and i also you know the ones who i'm surprised have not mounted more of a like cogent and coordinated defense are the other boxing promoters because these people they're they're lining up over here and it's like there's a there's a seems to be a complacency from the existing boxing promoters those guys are

coming to drink your milkshake man that's what they are coming to do and i would be a lot more concerned than you guys seem to be. They all just hate each to their so much. Yeah, I know. That's true, though. They don't know how to

they'll coordinate this kind of boxing V, whatever the hell this is. We should put up our great executive producer, Eric Jackman had a fantastic post about this from Nick Kahn's interview at Zupa Boxing. What we're looking to do, everything

the alley act has already said the same. We'll have our own ranking system. The champion will fight. The number one good dead. just like in the UFC and there you have it. Eric Jackman, the champion will fight the number one contender just like in the UFC and the fights we were speaking

about earlier, Gage v. Pimblis and Volcanoz v. Lopez, too. Fantastic times. Before we move on to our finale of the pay-per-view picks and I believe Drake Riggs cannot be catched. He's gone. He is the king of the paper-view picks. It's going to take something special,

especially for Ben. We'll get to this shortly before then. We do have some legal updates for Connor McGregor. Two different cases we should highlight. I see a lot of people confusing these two online. The woman who alleged Connor McGregor sexually assaulted her during an NBA game

has dropped her lawsuit against the Irish UFC star. The lawsuit claims that McGregor 37 took the one by the hand and led her to the men's toilets where he alleged assault occurred after they met at the courtside club inside Cassia Centre. The former two-time UFC champion has consistently refused the allegations stemming from the Miami Heat basketball match

two and a half years ago. So that one, he was due to answer those charges on December 12th and been dismissed now. The person who had the allegations against him had revoked them. And as far as the Nikita Han case, we know that the Court of Appeal did not rejected his appeal

in August and the Supreme Court now have rejected his appeal as well. That is the end of the legal road for Connor McGregor with regards to Nikita Han case with the biggest story in Ireland last year without a doubt and yeah that is the end of that one so two different cases reaching conclusions this weekend

this week should I say for Connor McGregor now before we did find God though I don't know if you guys have been paying attention to his Twitter it's so it's an interesting one actually it seems like God found Connor because Jesus walked down marble steps and crowned him like that means that would say to me that

Why is there marble in heaven? Well, they have taste, bet. You know what I mean? Yeah. Have you been to the Vatican? I mean, a lot of marble there. Not going to be tawdry concrete. I'll tell you that right now.

Coming down. Steps made of clouds or something. I don't know. Yeah. It does say something about the life you're living, though, when people can get confused about, like, wait, which sexual assault allegation was this against you? Which one was denied? Which one did the court say, no? We think you did that shit?

Like, yeah, that tells you something. I think, yeah, I think that's all. I think that's all by the way of essay cases for the now, for McGregor. So that's, that's positive. They save all of this stuff, it seems, for the Friday show, don't they? Like, every time these things come down. So next week we'll have something new to talk about with that. Ma'am, this year, like this whole year has been finding out something at like 5 p.m.

After thinking we're going to do like a weigh-in recap and being like, oh, no. Well, he's, yeah, no, he has been civilly charged for the sexual assaultful woman. Let's do a live show on that one. one, I guess. So, yeah, let's hope the God stuff will work out for Connor. I mean, any step towards a better crimeless situation would be good for him. I'd imagine you're interested in what you're saying midway through there. Yeah, you know, paperview picks. Let's go. Let's see that table. Oh, my God. All right. We, we can see that Riggs has won it, okay? He has won the goddamn thing. And, you know, I'm pissed off by my own position here. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I,

did embrace Ben folks's strategy at some point I've been like, I just need to make some bold calls to try and move up. My goal was the podium and we can see the podium there. There's a certain had a gentleman there in third place. Chuck Menlo up there, but you and G.C.

neck and neck for that silver. You cannot get rigs just based on how the picks have worked out. Mysterious Frank above myself and our fearless editorial leader, Shaheen Al Shadi. And yeah, Jackman. And then we have Ben down the very end. Ben, you know, how good would it feel to to see Peter Carroll at the end

at the end of this week if I just somehow ended up on that bottom? I think that that would make you more happy, you know, than anything else. If it wasn't just, you know, you getting off the bottom vote, it was in fact me now on the thought. You know, the thing about my picks this week that I want to say is, it's like you're, yeah, you're down a goal in the last two minutes. Hey, pull the goalie. See what you can, what you can do. It doesn't hurt anymore to lose by two goals than it does to lose by one goal. You might as well take a swing, see if you can get out of there. I wasn't going to do it by just going straight chalk, by just following everybody else's pick.

So I had to make some daring choices that I knew other people were unlikely to make. Is it going to work out for me? I mean, it almost never works out to pull the goalie either, but you got to try it. You got to try. You got to give yourself a chance, and that's what I'm doing. I mean, I appreciate too that you got Blohovich and Gustav is a draw. I mean, that's hard to pick something like that. So good job on that.

We'll see. I'm just looking to see if there's no way that Riggs can be caught. You didn't employ similar tactics, Chuck, where you're like, what Riggs pick? Why did we overlap on our picks? Because that's what, that's why we can't catch him, right? We should have, next year we should have a sixth pick where it's like, you know, there's just a random undercard fight where you can, because then that can be a little bit harder. You know, it's a variable there.

based on what I've seen from these Parlay Boys, you know, over on the other show, which we won't name on here. Boys like, they'd be going with the like the minus 3,000, you know, every time. That would be in their bonus slot. No, I mean, it'd have to be a fight. Like, you'd pick a fight. Like,

it's a specific fight. You don't just pick any random fight. Like, you just, one fight that we all have to choose. Like, the best, the best fight on the pre-limb. The most even fight. Yeah, okay. The most even odds. Because there's got to be something there where guys like Ben, you know, can still have a little bit of chance.

Personally, I think that there ought to be an element to this, uh, where whoever can do the most pushups, I guess that's a couple of points at the end of the year. It's like I'm out. Well, I'm last again. Oh my God. Um, well, look, lads, we are looking forward to seeing how this will all go. There will be the infamous watchalong on Saturday with G.C. and New York, Rick. And there will be the post-fight show myself and Chuck Menonhall and the great

Ariel Hwani. Ben, folks would be doing that usual thing, you know, where he gets the lads over and then he starts buss out a column even though he's 10 beers deep. I think it's fantastic. I wish I had those powers. So light beers. Light beers. And it doesn't even phase me. Yo, do you know what? I was going to ask you guys, what are these light beers I keep hearing being advertised and they sound like something at a Star Trek. And they're like, have one of these and they own 95 calories or something. They have a really weird name on them. Do you know what I'm talking about? Are you talking about Michelob Ultros or something? Yes. What the fuck is that? We've had those for a long, long time, man. I don't

I don't tell you about those. I mean, I remember, like, being in college and having to explain to my roommate's girlfriend that I know you're trying to watch your carbs, but it doesn't really work if you drink eight of them, you know? Well, if you're going to drink that as opposed to A. Guinness, it probably does. Sure. Well, okay, that's fair. Is that the thing about Loit Bears? Like, we, there's a gap there. There's a culture gap here.

We don't do the Loit beers. I mean, is that what it's about, like, just being able to slam as many as possible? That seems to be the case. light bears. The blue lights, I was like, if you're going out there on the lake on a summer day or you're tailgating before a college football game, it's going to get messy. If you don't, if you don't think ahead, you know, have a couple crisp, cool Miller lights, uh, just enough to have a good time, not enough to go to jail, you know.

Going to the, the, the tight row bottle of nearly going to jail is not what drinking is all about. Now we're getting into some cultural differences. I mean, that's the part I enjoy more than I think. Jordan, you're back and it's been fabulous. I mean, such a seamless return, probably still intoxicated from the amount of, like, you know, the abuses that man's body's been through for the, for the month that he was in a beta. I can only imagine.

I heard that if he stayed on a vacation any longer, doctor said they were going to have to come up with a version of Narcan for my ties. That's just what I heard. It's just what I heard. There's a lot of rumors going around this New York office. about what Jordan got up to mine. It's absolutely insane. But... Of course, yes.

We know Natty Light. You'd never know, man. This is a seamless shit going out there. Tell me this, Jordan. Do we have any superchats? There it is. Happy holidays, my wonderful crackers. I like to ask random questions.

But what do you all think is next for Robert Whitaker-Rer? P.S. Reggie, shut your damn mouth now. He said it not me, Reggie. It's calling you out. I don't hear Carl barking. Carl's a well-behaved dog over there in Montana. Carl's a naphours. Such a good dog.

Do you know, Carl, I see Carl, like, frolicking through the snow, and he just dug. He douged so well, man. And the boy dog just doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. He's, like, lying in a full double bed, most of them. Someone feed me, you know? It makes me feel bad, then. They both got good vibes. we'll say that. Yes, they do. They do. Sorry, what was the question? What's next for Robert Whitaker?

You know, like, whenever I hear him talk about going up to 205 or anything like that, that's when I go, please don't. Please don't do that. Such a leap, man. It's a huge leap. He's not like, he's a small middleweight. Yeah, he's not a big middleweight to begin with. I don't think that's the answer. I can see how you get into this kind of situation where you kind of go, damn, what am I going to do here other than just fight who, like, they're going to try to slot you into a gatekeeper role and no, fighter wants to be there. I don't know, man. I don't know what is next for him, but I hope that we don't end up getting into a situation with Robert Whitaker is just, you know, fighting just a fight to keep going to the ballpark and keep getting paid, as they say in Bull Durham. I hope that if we're going to keep fighting at this point, it's to do something meaningful to have some kind of fun fights that you see guys get into toward the back end of their

career because I like him. He's a nice guy. You want to see good things happen for him, but you don't want to see him just go out there and being used as a stepping stone. I've been given communication from Jordan and he's clearly drunk because I don't know what this means. It says, tell me if you, oh, hey, there we go.

Six-pick idea, Dawn from Al-Shadi. This is what it meant. You got yourself a deal, myth. I mean, so this guy just, he can make new rules now. Like, what the fuck is this, Ben? I carry a certain amount of, you know, gravity when I make the, they uh i do i do like that though right like we could add that just adds a dimension to it it won't be like if we can't catch drake it's because a lot of the fights we're all going to pick the same i

feel like that sixth one will kind of give us a chance here it's a great one it's a great idea and just to say me and i'll shaddy neck and neck going into this final week and do we have the exact same picks the only pick we have differing is him going with triple c and me going with the young blood you've made a terrible choice i'll shaddy you are going down but it was a pleasure dueling with you sir um i like the idea too um listen we'll be back next week it's not over yet this is just a final pay-per-view the chuk might write another column about this i mean i haven't seen this upset in a very long time it's unbelievable that's kind of the job you know we got to do it you know oh there's my music thank you so

much everybody have a lovely day i hope you enjoy the weekend we'll have lots of shit over the weekend come and enjoy it with us okay Goodbye, everyone.