The Ariel Helwani Show - UFC 327 Post-Fight Show: Carlos Ulberg KOs Jiri Prochazaka on one leg, new White House fight announced, more

Episode Date: April 12, 2026

Petesy Carroll and Chuck Mindenhall are joined by Ben Fowlkes to react to a wild UFC 327 card, starting with Carlos Ulberg's shocking KO of Jiri Prochazka, despite blowing out his knee (01:59). The lads also discuss Paulo Costa's upset of Azamat Murzakanov (17:58), the Fight of the Year contender between Josh Hokit and Curtis Blaydes (22:43), Cub Swanson's storybook ending (37:10), and the rest of the card (44:01). Before signing off, they touch on Gable Steveson signing with the UFC and debuting in July (45:01), Tyson Fury's Netflix win and Anthony Joshua callout (51:27), Conor Benn's lackluster showing (54:18) and results from PFL Chicago (59:53).

what an insane night of fights at USC 327. My God. Carlos Oldberg out of nowhere snatches victory from the jaws of defeat, it seemed. After blowing out his ACL, it looked like everything was going Uri's way and then a big left hook. Put him down.

A new light heavyweight champion, Carlos Oldberg. But perhaps a new problem for the UFC if Dr. Stutterer's report is correct. and he has sustained an ACL injury. We did hear from him in the post-fight interview, saying as much, well, what a card, a lot going down here. Paolo Costa with the upset win. Josh Hokit books a place on the White House card against Derek Lewis, apparently after 15 minutes of carnage against Curtis Blades. I mean, we don't need to really get into Reyes and Walker all that much, but there was lots of stuff going on.

Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua renewed talks once again. They seem to be at an impasse already. Connor Ben, a bit of an underwhelming debut. Oh yeah, and the PFL had an event. I did not see a lot of talk about that. I don't know how much we'll get into it today. Gable Stevenson, excuse me, also signing for the UFC.

I'm Pizzie Carroll. You might know me from the Ariel Hwani show or The Crack on Fridays. Ariel still off gallivanting. So I had to bring some friends along. You might know them from the crack. It is two of the greatest journalistic minds mixed martial arts has ever known.

Ben Folks and Chuck Meadowhall, boys, it is late. It is 5 a.m. And once again, I'll be relying on you heavily today. I'm so glad to see you. Chuck, how are you doing, my friend? I'm fine. It's only midnight here. And I think we're Ben's at, what is it, 10, 10 p.m. there? This is still like the prime of the night right now, right, Ben? 10.0.3 p.m. 10.0.3. Let's get this wrapped up so I can hit the club. Night is young. Well, lads, we have to start with this main event. insane finish to this fight. Ben, are you like me?

Were you like Yeri has this? This seems to be absolutely perfect. I'll tell you what. As a guy who has a fondness for Carlos Oldberg, but who had picked Yeri in the staff picks competition, I had conflicted feelings when I saw Oldberg's knee buckle and him go down because he just kind of went, well, I guess that's that. And you also, you can't help, I feel, in these moments,

then like put yourself in that position. position to imagine what would it be like to be there the first round of your title fight the thing you worked up to is the big moment for you a big jump up your first ufc title fight you're up there against yury and in the first round first couple minutes of the fight you feel your knee pop out and you go well there it is you know you could see him kind of maybe trying to test it a little bit like he didn't want to think it was as bad as it was and you could tell that's bad that thing is bad it's not just like you know getting a kick on the calf that's going to make the nerves of your foot go dead for a minute. That's a, that's a blown out knee, man. That's, you're probably going to need surgery to fix that. How do you not panic in that moment? How do you not at least get super scared and be like, well, there go my hopes of winning. Now am I hoping that something terrible doesn't happen to me?

And to stay in there, to stay composed, to stay in that fight and then win it moments later after that, that's crazy to me. That reminds me, I think, when this sport is good, there's nothing like it. Because you see a human being pushed themselves to do things that maybe they didn't think they could do or we didn't think they could do. That's the stuff that this sport can really give you. Is it sort of inspiring to watch somebody be able to do that, to find that within themselves, even in such a difficult moment? Because that's got to be super scary, man. It's scary enough to stand there across from Erie Brahaska throwing shots at your head and to do it on one knee.

and to still find a way to believe in yourself and still find a way to pull it off. It's incredible. I think that goes down as one of the most memorable performances we've seen in the UFC in a long time. Chuck, does this inject... Sorry, go ahead. No, I was just going to say, you know,

going off what Ben was saying, I mean, like being backed into a corner like that too because everybody knew, everybody knows who's watching this fight, everybody in the arena, because you can see it clearly that the leg is compromised to be backed in the corner with basically, what was it, like two minutes

or two and a half minutes to go in that in that round knowing that if it goes to the end of the round there's a good chance that the fight is over there's just a good chance that you won't be able to answer answer the bell and knowing that you know your your chance is really what what it was like you got to just go for a knockout to stay poised in that situation and you know in a fight that you've put like so much time and energy to arrive at and then to pull that off it's you you can look at those two ways, man. You know, from, from Carlos's perspective, you're going to say, like, this is an amazing show of heart.

And, like, you know, to do that and to get that knockout, it's going to be something that stays with him forever. And from Yerries, and I mean, that was a very sad post-fight interview. And, you know what, dude, like, he's a human being and he's basically admitting, like, you can't be a human being in there like that when you're trying to finish the fight. He's talking about, you know, basically having mercy on the guy and letting him off the hook.

That's going to sting him for a long time, especially considering that this, was his third fight for this, right? Like the third time he gets it, now he's in that terrain where it's going to be very, very difficult for him to get back there. Very tragic,

but I mean, like Ben was saying, it's one of those fights that you're going to think about for a long time because it has such deep stakes and dimensions to it and so much repercussion to it.

Just crazy. You know what I mean? Like you get a fight like this once in a while, and you've got to kind of savor it for all that it's worth. Absolutely. Old Borg, of course,

out of city kickboxing, great scenes with him and Eugene Berman at the end of that fight there. I'm sure Eugene was thinking along the same lines as us, how is this going to do this on one leg? He somehow managed to get it done. I'm still kind of spellbound by the situation here. And I'm not trying to take away from Oldberg's win here,

but it does get me thinking, right? They, you know, Pereira moves up to heavyweight. We need a new champion in this division. You have Erie there and Carlos, two very exciting fighters, no issue there. But suddenly, and the report we got, off from Rick just before we went live there was that it looked like an ACL injury

Ulberg told Joe Rogan after the fact that he blew out his knee. We saw the video replays on the broadcast. Chuck, I can't help but wonder, like, is this another impasse for the low heavyweight division having been looking to crown a new champion to keep these belts

active? I mean, somebody should check Uncle I have like Trester drawers and see if he's got like a little voodoo doll or something that's working because something's going on. I mean, like, it's clear that, you know, a guy like him, they're not kind of, they weren't kind of expediting back into the line, but this does kind of bring up. I mean, if you're looking at a typical ACL, and I know that like doctors these days can, they can work wonders. The timetable isn't

what it used to be. Used to be like a year. And Ben knows this from playing football. Back in the day, if you had an ACL, you're out of year. I feel like they've shortened that to nine months, you know, if everything goes well. But it's still one of those things. Like nine months is a long time for now. I have no idea. And of course, we're speculating on this, but that was the first thing that when this happened, you know, once you kind of absorb like, oh, my God, he just knocked him out the one thing, a Hail Mary type situation. The next thing that crossed your mind, like, how bad is this knee injury? Because is he going to be out for a while? Because we're going to be right back into a complicated situation. This was already for a vacant title. So it's not like the linear part of

it is already sort of commoners. And then you're going to go off on an interim thing. And it starts to get very strange at that point. So it'd be interesting to see what this is. If it's an ACL though, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if that's the route the U.S. He has to go. It is a troublesome situation. That's rough though, isn't it? Like you just, you

had the champion vacate the title. So you do this fight to crown a new champion. The champion hurts himself in the win. And yet it's also such a star making moment for him. And then just have to kind of go away and have the UFC move on with

the division temporarily, what, for the sake of scheduling? That sucks. You know, that's where I wish the UFC had a little less of a hair trigger when it comes to, hey, we got to have a belt in rotation, we just pull another one out of the supply closet, let's throw it on there. This should be one of the upsides of us not having to sell paper views anymore, of us being in the Paramount Plus era, is that, hey, we went like the first four months of the year with hardly any title fights.

let us put the light heavyweight division in a little bit of sleep mode, if you will. Let's figure out what's going on there. And let's let Carlos Oldberg have a chance to see what the timetable is to return from that. You're right, Chuck. I think that it's not as bad as it once was. You've got to think we're flying him into surgery tonight,

if we can. You know, we're waking up a doctor like he's the veterinarian in heat who has to like stitch people up after the gunfight. So we're getting on. on the operating table as soon as we possibly can to try to fix this and increase the recovery time. But it also seems like you look around at the light heavyweight division right now.

You guys watch Dominic Reyes and Johnny Walker fight. Right? That barn wasn't going to burn. You know what I mean? There was a moment in that fight where Daniel Cormier started talking about a shepherd's pie that Johnny Walker's wife had made for the boys one time and how good it was.

And for me as a viewer, that might have been the highlight of the fight. Oh, man. I say that to say this. We're not exactly overwhelmed by contenders at light heavyweight right now. That's the thing.

Paulo Costa had a great night in his first fight at light heavyweight since that's your own personal problem fight. But in the process, he knocked off a undefeated number six contender in the division. He's not really putting himself in a position

where you can see Paul O'Cost after one win at Light Heavyweight, turn around fighting for a title. So you don't have so much interesting stuff that you absolutely got to move on and have some kind of a title fight. Maybe Light Heavyweight needs some time to sort itself out a little bit and let Carlos Wilberg come back from this.

I can't help but think that when you're mentioning the nine months chook and the quick recovery you can have, the first thing that popped in, into my head is Jamal Hill rushing back to get knocked out by Alex Pereira at UFC 300. And at the time, everybody was comparing his injury to Aaron Rogers, I believe it was, who had crashed out in the first game of the season for the New York Jets. Shout out Jordan.

And I also can't help but think as you went through all of the issues that the UFC have gone to to make this light heavyweight title fight, Ben, Alex Pereira's going up to fight an interim title fight against Cyril Gan. It doesn't really make sense on a grand scale as we wish it would, right? Like this feels like they're just moving too many things around to justify small things and it's kind of ending up in a bigger mess. Yeah, I mean, the thing with this sport is you can't look too far down the road because there's always weird shit that it's going to happen and completely derail all your best plans.

Right. So like you could make yourself an interim title fight and somebody could blow their knee out in training. You could just we could have a line at the the ACL surgeon's office before you know it. Like that that stuff can absolutely happen. I tend to think like let's preserve whatever title lineage we can get going whenever possible. You know, if you're looking at that the recovery is inside of a year, how often have we seen the light heavyweight title defended? You know, I mean, Alex Pereira was one of the more active champions. But when John Jones was defending it and it was It's just like, you know, you see it defended once a year, that kind of a thing.

If you could get two at a year, that's practically a breakneck pace. So I'm in favor of like, let's have a little bit more patience with it. Grab a BMF belt. You know, we must have a lot of those sitting around. If we really got to put some gold on a poster every now and then, let's do some stuff like that. I, you know, it's just, especially like such a moment like this, it almost seems to cheapen it. If you go, oh man, isn't it amazing? he won the title while he's hurt.

Anyway, he's hurt. So now somebody else has to have that title. He is stripped. He is now stripped of the toilet. He should strip him now. You obviously can't do it. I mean, I do wonder, like, for me, the thing that's going to make this such a memorable moment is not just Carlos Silver being able to pull that off. The interview from Yeri broke my heart just now.

Yeah, that was bad. You know, just because I was wondering when I was watching him, his reaction to it, where he seemed to kind of be saying, like, oh, I see, you can't really move around too much. Let's just both stand here then. Let's both stand here and let's trade. It almost was like the Yeree Pruhazka Bushido Code demanded, honor demanded that he tried to level the playing field a little bit for his opponent to keep him in the fight. And because there were a couple moments where he's kicking that other leg.

And I was thinking about, remember, I think it was Jose Aldo against the Korean zombie in their fight where the zombies. shoulder kind of went out. His, you know, he threw a punch, he missed, his shoulder went out. And Aldo clocked it immediately and was like, oh, okay, it was that one. I'm going to kick you right in that shoulder. Yes. I mean, and you, you know, and it was cruel and it was unforgiving, but it was also the

fight game. And you kind of, it was just a good reminder of like how brutal a sport this was, where it's just like, oh, you're an injured gazelle at the watering hole. We're going to eat you first. You know, as soon as you showed any sort of signs of injury or weakness, we are going to attack that injury or weakness. it's like at the very spot because we're you know we're playing a hurting game here we're fighting over a big sack of money there's there's no friends there's no mercy in that environment and

yuri it was almost like the like that's a man who you know we joke about him and his like samurai stuff he lives it man he believes that that is a big part of like the core of his being and it seemed like honor dictated that he not do that even though he kind of knew he should and it's sad to think of him sitting around in a hotel room tonight being like, I, I messed up by having too much honor in that fight. You know, I should have just gone ahead and stomped on the guy's other knee. It's just, like, what I mean, what's the closest equivalent to this? I mean, you're not going to call Yuri when you're going to put down old yellow. That's for sure, because he's not going to have the stomach for that type of thing. But, I mean, what, like, you know, what came to my mind was

remember when Rich Franklin, like, broke his, his right hand against Chuck Ladell, and you're like, oh oh this might be chuck's chance so chuck moves in and what's he do he knocks him out with his left do you remember that and i forget what you broke his forearm right because he he he yeah he broke his but he so threw his off hand and still knocked him out it was like it was like that but the difference was that that was a main event but it wasn't a title fight i was trying to think like is there i just don't know if we've seen anything unless it's just slip in my mind like where uh something that dramatic happens but to have to live with it see it's not like that the imagine if this was Yuri's first time, you know, fighting for the title, you'd probably be like he'll get back there.

The problem was, and the complexity is that the UFC would have to really, you know, play some favoritism to put him back in that spot, you know, even if they did, like right now, if they said, we're going to do an interim title, to put Yuri back into that would seem very strange to me. So that's why it's going to suck. I mean, this is, it legit could be his last chance fighting for the bell. You hope not, but it could be. And that means it will stay with him forever. I'm reminded of the film Troy, where Brad Pitt plays Achilles,

and he and Eric Bona, who is Hector, they're fighting outside the city walls. You know, they both got a shield and a spear. Yeah, you've seen it. You've seen it. And at some point, you know, Achilles winning the entire time due to being a demigod and whatnot. And, like, Hector loses his shield at some point in the fight, and Achilles throws his shield off to be like, all right, like, hey, I'm going to make it fair because I want to beat you, fair.

Now, again, demigod and whatnot. You do end up winning that one anyway. Yuri, a mere mortal. Maybe pays for that. The God's teaching him a particularly painful lesson there. But, man, that's, again, that is the kind of stuff that fight sports can give you in a way that nothing else can really give you. Like, other sports just cannot give you those kind of moments. This is always when I say, like, that, you know, this sport has plenty of things.

that'll just make you tear your hair out and wonder why you do this with your Saturday night sometimes. And then it has some stuff like this, where you go, this is the kind of human drama, the real life human drama, that you're just not getting from a hockey game. Although hockey comes closest, I would say.

Yeah. Yeah. I believe Dave Chappelle used to call us situations like this when keeping it real goes wrong. That's essentially what happened. with poor old Yuri. But Ben, you mentioned Paolo Costa and Chuck,

I've got to ask you, because you also mentioned the picks earlier on then. Every single member of the uncrowned team was on Azamat Mursa Kanoff. I also said, when this fight was announced, that Mursa Kanoff, and I quote, would splatter Paulo Costa.

Yeah. He did not. In fact, Costa was the man who got splatter... Sorry, Costa was the man who did the splattering. He head kicked Morsakanoff. Morsakhanov had to go to the hospital. Pretty impressive, Stoch.

Yeah, man. I mean, that's one of those fights. And honestly, if there weren't like a couple of other, like, crazy fights, we'd be talking about this one probably. Just given that the tables kind of turned a couple of times in this, I thought Paulo Costa was done. He was huffing in that second round. He just looked like he was, he'd had it.

It actually started to remind me of the Salt Lake City fight he had against Rockhold, where basically both guys kind of died on the vine about midway three. and then it just became like this very, you know, crazy, exhausting fight. This had that feeling, but this time it was almost like he found the reserves or something because even late second round, there was a little bit of a turning of the tables there where he, you know, ends up in the better position, but then he comes out with these high kicks and just gets it done. I mean, it's, you don't really see that kind of turnaround in a fight. Once it starts taking on a certain kind of pattern, that's usually what it keeps.

So I give him a ton of kudos, man. I did not see that coming. You mentioned the Merzacanov, like, just, you know, saying he was going to splatter him. I think I was on record, too, basically, you know, I was saying this would be the one kind of squash match on this fight card. And I didn't really understand why they put Costa into this event. I mean, in that situation, unless they were trying to kind of, you know, show them that it's a whole different game at 205 or something like that. It felt like a setup to me, but boy, did he prove me wrong. Yeah.

Yeah. You know what? The thing about Paulo Costa is that there are so much. many times where it just feels like this guy's not even taking this seriously you know and it's fun it's it's a it's a fun vibe to have around and yet you also just sort of feel like it's a lark at times for him and it's just kind of like whatever and like in this fight where you're just like okay there are there are moments in it where you're like this is what I thought would happen this is we're headed the direction that I thought we would and then he comes out for round three and he's

just like to hell with it I'm going to go right at this guy and see we can get done and you just go, man, Paulo Costa winning fights over undefeated, ranked light heavyweights in 2026. He seemed done four years ago to be able to turn that around and do something like this here. You're just like, what do you even do with this guy? And what do any of us expect out of him anymore? Because it's, it kind of seems like now you could put him in against most light heavyweights and he could lose or win any fight. He could screw it up or he could just come out of nowhere,

put together 30 good seconds and win it. It's fun, but it's a fun sort of chaos to have in the division right now. Although the timely in the sense of what we're talking about, where there just aren't a lot of contenders and now in a very murky situation at the top of the division, if Merzacana wins, obviously, like you have a pretty clear guy that you could talk about, Uncle I being up there. But like given, you know, the way this shook out, like Costa's victory seems like it's kind of like enhanced, you know, in that sense where you're like, okay, well, in a pinch, you know, he could be put into a big fight just, you know, given his name

and where he's been as a middleweight. We've seen the UFC make those kinds of exceptions before. So in a strange way, this might have been, like he might have stole the show in the way of like pole positioning in his new division. So, but I mean, I'm not, I wouldn't be. honestly, that version of him when he when he kind of shows up in that form and is able to take a fight, I've always liked him. I've always dug what he's able to do when he's like that. But what you just mentioned is what has bothered me, this kind of level of lark or disinterest where you're like, I don't know how bad he wants it all the time. So I got to see kind of more of a sustained version of this before I get too excited. He does feel like one of the most fan favorite guys in the division though, purely basic. Like his

personality and obviously is fighting still coming off a head kick KO basically, it's unbelievable. And to your point, I'm looking at the rankings here, there are a lot of interesting fights you could put him in. You know, just a lot of strikers at 205 as well, he's an interesting guy to have in a time where they are going to struggle now, especially if this injury

to Woolberg, the newly crown champion, is as bad as we are thinking. However, we can't really be speaking about someone being on a lark after that Josh Hoka fight. We have to be talking about him if we're talking about Lex. I mean, this was absolutely fucking insane.

What an insane fight that was. I mean, I couldn't believe it was happening as I was watching it. You know, you're like, is this, am I just, was my brain melted at this point?

Like, where has this come from? First of all, I thought he was finished in the first round. I thought he had nearly finished Curtis Blades and then towards the end of the round,

Curtis Blades just starts letting his hands go. and Hocke is doing this thing where he's getting hit and it's like it almost looks like he's rocking but I think he's using that as a way to lure blades in let's not forget the amount of kind of showmanship will call it his own unique brand of showmanship he's been delivering all week

we can see the image here of him flipping the board which he did about 19 times during this fight gets the win deserved the win I was struggling he was struggling I saw Chuck mention it that he said he'd never seen a guy who seemed like he was getting too exhaustive lost to flip the bird.

Those last, the last couple birds did not have a ton of, a ton of tweet in them, you know? Yeah, it's just, it's, but it's a huge leap, right? Like, I honestly thought, this was way too much.

He's biting off way more than you can chew. He hasn't fought, I couldn't, I can't name the guys off the top of my head that he's fought in the UFC right now. I believe one of them is called Enzel. I'm not too sure about that. But this is a huge step up against Curtis Blades.

Blades has been around, he's been a perennial, contender for the guts of a decade. And Hocats after going in there and becoming one of the most talked about guys from this card. It's pretty incredible considering where the appetite for him was in the lead-up to this

fight, despite being one of the most talked about people on this card, it was not for very positive reasons, but I feel like people are coming away kind of rejoicing in the fact that there's a heavyweight making a lot of noise who seems to want to be active based on the fact that Dana White has announced that he's going to be fighting Derek Lewis because Donald Trump wanted him to.

I mean, he brought out a different side of blades, right? Like that's, that in itself, you're like, wow, we had to, like, look at this, this version of blades that we never knew existed. That alone is like something that just like a new coat of paint or something on that division. I honestly was a little bit surprised that Blades was, I mean, he was getting pieced out. I thought there'd be a speed advantage for Hokit. Like, I thought that would exist. I just thought Blades would be able to wrestle a little more, maybe put the fight

where he wanted a little more, and then just kind of pour it on them at some point in ways that you just, you know, you just get offense. That's, I mean, and he did do that to an extent, but it just was not sustainable. But dude, watching that first round, that pace, the way that they were going at each other, you're like, this fight will be,

they'll be, if it goes to the second round, they're not going to be able to throw punches. For them to find the reserves to keep going for 15 minutes is like almost like nothing. You ever see the end of 2001 of Space Odyssey when it's like the guy's like, you know, zooming through deep parts of space and you're like, where is it going?

Where is it all going? It ends up in like some white room. Have you seen that the end of that movie? Of course. Of course. Okay. So it's like, that's what it felt like. It had that weird feeling of like,

we're in places we've never seen before. Like these guys are still going at it at like such a crazy pace. I just, I was astonished. I mean, the first round, all of us are like, dude,

this is nuts. But for us to say that in a heavyweight fight at the end of the third round because they were still doing that is insane. Yeah, and you know, D.C. said something where I thought it was actually an astute moment of commentary was he was like, it looks like Curtis Blades is refusing to go down out of ego, like out of spite basically where he was just like, no, this dude. It seemed that way. I'm not. Yeah, because there he was taking some shots, man. It's like a butcher's block.

Yeah. He was the very picture of what you imagine when you hear the phrase beaten to a pulp. Yes. That's what it was. It's like bloody hamburger for his face. And he still was just taking those shots. Yeah. And just like would not go away because he was just like, I cannot abide this guy knocking me out.

And yet at the same time, you're just like, Josh Hokit might get so exhausted. He just falls over at some point. he also you could hear Greg Jackson in his his his kindly way trying to tell him what I want you to do is to throw four straight punches and then and then get out of the way man like move your head get out of the way because he is just there to be hit he's standing there and he's throwing and he's just sort of looking at Curtis Blades afterwards like okay your turn and that's the thing I would think man you better not fight Derek Lewis like that you go out there the thing is though You know, you say, like, this is a big jump up. You could imagine I'm doing this Curtis Blades. I don't know if you looked at the staff picks too closely. There is at least one staff member who picked Hokit in this fight. No, I know.

Wow. I saw that. And it did see that. And it's because just like what we've seen from Curtis Blaze, that last fight from Curtis Blades, he does seem to be on the decline. You know, he had this time where he was the guy who only lost to the very best. And it doesn't seem like he's that same guy anymore. It's just like it seems like he slowed down a little too much.

He's a little too hitable at this point. And the wrestling isn't saving him the way that it used to. So I do think that this is the most beatable version of Curtis Blades that Josh Hockett got to fight. At the same time, it was so hard to know what to make of Josh Hogan. Because like you said, Petsy, it's like, yeah, you did look like you were going out there beating up Uber drivers, but you were beating them up. You know, like it's, we don't. know what to make of this guy just yet. I think one thing that we definitely learned is that he's, you know, he's got some toughness.

He's got some heart and some grit in him because a lot of people in that first round, when you pour it all on this guy and he's still there and he's coming back after you, a lot of people crumble there because it's just like he, he sort of hit a wall in terms of like cardiovascular fitness and he had to push through it. If you had told me yesterday, these two guys were going to go all three. three rounds, I'd have been like, well, that's going to be a boring decision win for Chris Blades. Never did I think it's going to be like one of the best fights of the year so far. Yeah, man, let me ask you guys this because I went into this and I was sort of like,

you know, I was talking to Luke Thomas and we were basically, you know, the schick's already kind of kind of old, hocus, not even out of the gate and you're already kind of like, ah, it's kind of tired, whatever. After this fight week and now after watching him, does he change that a little bit? I felt like he, like, if anything, I saw him a different light and I was like, all right, all right, I'm willing to kind of see what this dude can do. Yeah. Well, I think he makes people care about fights at heavyweight and that is something that the

UFC cannot buy at the moment. You know, there was so many people that wanted to watch Hoke get his ass kick tonight, but he puts on a performance like that, which is very unique. We do not see this as heavy, heavyweight, an exciting fight over three rounds. He didn't seem to go away. there's going to be a lot of back and forth between him and whoever you put him against no matter how cringe-worthy it is

people are going to watch it, it's going to do a lot of traffic online I completely thought he was out of touch when everything he was saying, out of time, you know, it just felt like five years too late and here I'm going, well shit, I'm glad he's here. You know, I'm sure the UFC are thinking the same thing. Yeah. And he remembered his whole poem at the end after all that.

That's impressive, right? That was impressive. I have to say that was impressive. Are you guys surprised, though? It's like that fight, the way it played out, was like he was in three car crashes, one per round, you know? And then they're like, hey, he's going to fight at the White House card next month. Is that surprise you guys at all?

Yeah. I mean, that's a lot to go, especially because it's like, there's no way this soon after a fight like that. Like when they come to you and be like, hey, what do you say? Mid-June, do you think you'll be ready to fight Derek Lewis? You can say yes in that moment. There's no way you're. really know yet if that's a good answer or not because you know you're going to wake up tomorrow

you're going to feel rough and it's going to take a little while like even fights like this like you talk to fighters about how how bad their body feels even after a win when you've gone you know three rounds and three rounds of a lot of punching just your hands you're not going to be able to do much with your hands for the next week or so here they're going to be so you're going to be swollen and sore after all that hitting the cement block of Curtis Blades's head as much as he did. And so to know for sure like, oh, yeah, two months from now, I'll be good to go. You don't know that. You really don't.

You're hoping and you're also probably just feeling like career wise, opportunity wise, I can't say no. I don't want to be the guy who turned down this fight. The president asked for it. You know what I mean? What are he meant to say? He's standing there. He wants you to fight. You're wearing an America bandana.

I mean, yeah. I mean, there's, there is a reasonable point to be made that the president had other pretty pressing issues. He might have been more concerned about tonight, whether than getting Josh Oket on the White House guard. But I guess that's a conversation for another day. It just seems like, yeah, it's a gamble. I'm sure it's a calculated gamble. But you're going to go in there against Derek Lewis, who if you fight Derek Lewis the right way,

as we've seen recently, you can beat Derek Lewis right now. You know? Hocke's not going to fight him the right way. That's the thing, though. That's the thing is that there is a very wrong way to fight Derek Lewis, and it seems like Josh Hocke could be convinced to attempt that way. Funny you should say the wrong way to fight someone, because it seems that Dominic Reyes and Johnny Walker both picked the wrong way to defeat someone.

It was so bad. It was so bad. And I was going to go, the card's been so good. And now this is on. And you kind of, look, when you see Johnny Walker on a card

against the guy who's knocked out people before, you kind of go, you know, I believe it was you said this before, Ben, like he just kind of gets knocked out weird. You know? Yeah.

He has a pack for... He's going to get hit on the chin and he's going to look like the inflatable guy outside the car wash as he falls down. Like, that's what you're thinking is going to happen. Exactly.

Instead, it's like the whole fight. was both these guys being like, I don't know, I don't want to get too close because the other guy might be able to hit me. And he just kept waiting for it to kick up a notch. You kept being like,

all right, they're kind of feeling out the range, Dominic Reyes, especially, yeah, it is because you're just, especially with Dominic Reyes, you were like,

you're doing well, man. You're like, when you go in, you do some stuff, you're able to do what you want to do. You're able to throw that straight left and, and clip him with it. Let's see if we can go ahead

and do that a little more. and he just, he never seemed like to find that sense of urgency about it. Neither one of them did. They both seemed like, I'd rather stay out here out of harm's way. And you got just one, like one of those fights that makes you look at the light, heavyweight division and be like, I remember when this used to be the glamour division of the U.S. That was feeling a million years ago. It reminded me a little bit of the fight that we just saw with MVP and Patterson, like in the sense like, yeah, neither guy is really that willing to. engage. You know what I mean? And you're like, okay, well, if nobody's going to engage, we're going

to get 15 minutes of this. And that's why that crowd could sense that and starts, you know, chanting that what would they say? Like, this is boring? It was a funny chant. Yeah. This fights or something, is it? Yeah, I think they were saying this fight is boring. I think they're saying, this is boring. This is boring, which is just they're like, we don't even, we can't even be trouble to come up with like a snappy chant. We're just straight up telling you. That's why it's funny. Yeah, but I mean, and once that, once that, once that, once that, we're just, we're just, we're was going on. It didn't it feel like, oh, we're getting 15 minutes of this.

I did not expect anything to happen at that point. You know, neither of them wanted to win that fight. They were standing there waiting for the, they're just like, I don't actually fucking care. And then like, you know, both could have won it because who the fuck was even counting at that stage, you know? And they lifted someone's arm. You can't see Johnny Wilking.

I was like, well, fuck it, you know. Maybe. I did. I did mark down on my grocery list, though, the ingredients for the Shepard's pie I'm going to make. I'm going to make that tomorrow night. I had a good idea during that fight.

I also loved that he called it an Irish pie because I was just like, I see what you're getting at. You know? Like, I understand. And like,

because yeah, you start describing a shepherd's pie you had one time. And I'm going, who doesn't love a shepherd's pie? Especially. I was thinking about it. I would love one right now.

There's, you look at DC and you're like, there's a guy who would appreciate a hearty shepherd's pie. Yeah. But also once we've, that was round one. And we're,

already in reminiscing about good meals we've had territory. That's rough. Ben, Ben, I've got to ask you something. What did you think of Joe Rogan's, you know, very cool, cold reception of President Trump when he came over there? Like that seemed like he was sticking to his guns, didn't it? A little bit. What did he call himself politically homeless these days?

Didn't exactly seem like he was torn on the whole thing there. It seemed like, you know, it also, though, seems like, isn't that one of the things that you can kind of glean from when he does interviews is sort of like whoever's right in front of him he is Juerogen is kind of suggestible you know like he'll be convinced

once they're gone maybe he'll have a different opinion but in the moment but you know at least we'll let somebody else go over there and try to sort out war in Iran Donald Trump and his kids are going to show up and uh taking the UFC

that's right well who else would have made Hogue of V Lewis mate You know what I mean? We wouldn't be talking about this right now. It's true. Get the man the credit. Come on. Look, we had a great moment again.

On the back of Ki-A's in Seattle, we have Cobb Swanson, returning tonight in Miami, and what a beauty, man. You want to talk about a dumb pick. A dumb pick. I was a lone idiot who went the other way. You went to date the train on this? I did, like an idiot. And I went back and forth on this.

I sold myself on it in the end. I'm like, you know what? He's 42 years old. We don't get nice things. Stop. Landwehr's going to pull this. I was thinking of that David Oman fight, like where he just wouldn't die.

He came back. And I was like, I just, I think he's going to survive it. And then he's going to pull it out in the end, that type of thing. What an idiot. I got to say,

I was surprised at Nate Landwer's strategy or, you know, at least what we got to see. Did you see a strategy there? Yeah. Well, that guy, I would think if I were in Nate Landler's corner,

I'd be like, hey, man, get in his face. Go out. out there. Don't let him decide where and when we have these exchanges. Like you've got to go in there and you've got to blitz this dude, put him on the back foot. Because if you stand back there and let Cubs Swanson find his rhythm and get a chance to work, he can still do that, man.

He is sharp. He looks sharp as hell in this one. And that's not Nate Landwer's game. He does not do well when he does that. And especially against like Cubs Swanson, like that you're giving him the best chance he can have in that fight. by sort of hanging back and waiting for him to decide what to do. That's just not how I would have gone about it. And yet also I could see maybe Nate Landwehr is feeling a little gun shy after some of the stuff that he's gotten himself into more recently.

But I do think, you know, I wrote about this in my takeaways column afterwards. Like, book in a retirement fight like this is harder than people think because you don't want to do the thing where you just feed the old guy to a young guy because you'll make us sad. and you'll make us angry. We don't, no one wants to see it, especially for a guy who's as beloved as Cubs Swanson.

Like it's, it's amazing that Cubs Swanson's been in this sport for as long as he had. And you guys know this. Nobody has anything bad to say about him, which that's true of almost nobody in this sport who has been at it

for as long as he has. You know, like he's basically been a pro fighter for essentially like two thirds of the UFC's entire existence. And that is, there's so many different evolutions that have happened in MMA over there.

that time, you've lived through so many different eras of this sport and to still be able to come out in the UFC and look that good and be a relevant fighter at that point is amazing. And it's also like you don't want to just throw the guy a squash match in his retirement fight because he might win it and decide like, I still feel pretty good. That's what you know. He looks so good tonight that that did cross my mind. I was like, how did you go out when you're like, oh, man, I'm feeling it because he wasn't even putting his hands up. It was like once he started kind of getting into rhythm,

he's like, I can just, I can just tee off on this dude. That's what he did, right? And like, when the fight is that easy, it's almost like the same thing with Michael Kiesa recently in the Seattle fight with Nico. Like, they had such an easy night that I'm sure that there will be a, man, am I quitting too soon? You know, there's going to be that thing because that's how all fighters think in the end. But I'm going to take Cub at his, uh, at face value just because, you know, he had his kids in there. And I know his wife was, in all that stuff. It feels like he's ready to turn the page.

But dude, that was, in terms of retirement fight, so that was one of the better ones just to be able to go in there and still look like you have it on that level. Yeah. Well, and I saw him a clip of him talking to reporters backstage afterwards where he was like, no, I am done. This stuff hurts. Fighting hurts.

I believe. And especially, you know, I did that story last year where we kind of just like told the entire story of his career through the injuries and stuff he had suffered. He had been through some rough ones. That's right. And so, like, he, he came by that feeling honestly.

You know, he knows that this sport hurts. He's really been through it. And the, it's a good reminder, I think. The legacy that he leaves behind, it's not, you know, that he was a UFC champion. It's not that he went out there and won them all. But it's that, like, he always carried himself and fought in this way that everybody respected him. everybody knew like Cub Swanson is an honorable respectable guy nobody has anything bad to say about him there's no like trail of

bitterness and anger toward him everybody just saw the way he went about his business or it's just like that's the way to do it and to end on that note and to see the kind of love that he's gotten from fans from media and for fellow fighters like I hope that's our reminders of some fighters like yeah hey you know it'd be great to be Habib and to never lose a fight that's gonna be the reality for almost no one. And so if you can't do that, the part that you can control better is what kind of human being you are.

It is interesting to see who the UFC books these guys against in their last fight when they know it's going to be the last fight. For instance, you know, if it's somebody like Cub who I think the UFC likes, it's Nate Landware, but like with Nate Diaz, you know, it's going to be Shemai of. And back of the day, like, Couture, they had a lot of problems with. He goes against Leota Machita, you know. Like sometimes that kill you off on your last fight. And at least with these guys, they were, like, I'm talking about Michael Kiesa, too.

At least they seem to have been like, all right, let's give them a fight they should win. You know, like, let's give them a fight that's a good matchup for them. Well, you know, and that is something that Michael Kiesa talked about when I talked to him after his retirement fight, where he was like, you know, he was comparing it with some other guys in the way that they've gone out. And he was like, I had the advantage of getting to fight my last couple years sort of outside the rankings. just because I wasn't a top guy. Like I wasn't, you know, if you're still like the number five ranked guy and you're earning huge money and you're an ex-champion every time you go out there,

he's like, they're not going to give you any easy fights. And I, you know, didn't get easy fights, but also they were like, the value of trying to get somebody else a win off Michael Kiesa and his last fight is not really there. It's a great point. It works better if it's a feel-good moment where he goes out there. And you just, you can't control who wins or loses, but at least put him in a fight stylistically

that is going to be fun and that is going to feel reasonable and fair. And I think that's what they tried to do with Cub Swanson here as they looked around there like, who's going to go out there, plant their feet and throw with Cub Swanson? And Nate Landware is a good choice for that. Yeah, yeah, he looked great on all the best in your tournament, Coe Swanson. There was a lot of action on the undercard of course.

Aaron Pico wins the battle of Bellatorians. when he faced Patricio Pitbull, Kevin Holland beat Randy Brown, Gamroth submitted Esteban Rivitz very, very quickly. Tatiana Suarez did a very similar job on Lupida Godinez, Mark El Medeiros, and Chris Padilla, originally a win for Padilla, and my option to pick him as my extra fighter, I feel they should give me the win,

because he clearly won. There is no way that this should have been a majority draw. It's an absolute disgrace. Medeiros did not deserve to come away. anything as far as I'm concerned. Am I saying that because I picked Padilla? Yeah, I am. Give me a fucking brag.

Thank you. Vicente Lucke gets a dash choke win over Kelvin Gesslam. Another big underdog with a big, big win. Charles Radke got things started with a win over Francisco Prado. I just wanted to run through those very quickly before I ask these two gentlemen about a big signing for the UFC Gable Stephson, Blue, Blue, Blue Chip prospect. We did a, Casey did a brilliant documentary. about him on the Young Crown Network.

You can go and look at that now. John Jones in his corner. He appeared with John Jones on the broadcast today. He will be making his debut at International Fight Week, July 11th, the card that everyone seems to think that McGregor would be targeting should he return. Big, big deal, big, big prospect. We're in need of stars at heavyweight. Chuck, are you excited and who, if you have any ideas, would you match him against?

man I am excited because although I will say this like Stevenson was signed to the WWE right like he never even made one appearance so sometimes I'm like it still feels very like wait and see on this I know the U.S. Yeah I think that you know once you're kind of announced at the UFC this is really happening but I'm just throwing it out there that we've been through some excitement with this guy before but dude like we went from having a heavyweight division that you know might been the worst we've ever seen it to a couple of, you know, you know, things that happened tonight that you're like, all right, well, wait a minute,

maybe there's some things that are starting to happen that will make it fun again. I think getting Stevenson's own and Hokit kind of going in there and having that fight was a big deal. I honestly, like, in the Bow-Nichols sense, I wouldn't mind just seeing him go against some guy, you know, who's not even, I know that the top 15 is in exactly a star-studded place, but if it's somebody in that space, it should be, you know, the, 15th through 13th type of guy I think he should start slow because it is heavyweight

it is heavy weight I don't want to see him go in there and take some big punch by a guy and then that's kind of deflates the whole thing I'd rather see him get a little bit slower build and because people are going to pay attention just on his name alone right he's the A side of whatever the matchup's going to be I would build

them slow yeah yeah I mean that's the thing is when you look at heavyweight not just in the UFC but across MMA, it's like you have two different divisions essentially. You have like the top, you know, five to eight people in the UFC. And really when you get down to it, like the top three people who really seem to matter. And then you have everybody else. You have like a bunch of guys who,

you know, get cut from a community college football team or a bunch of guys who just don't care to diet down to 205. You know, you just there's, and that's, and that's, That's kind of what makes it hard to tell what to make of Gable so far. Because you see him in some of these fights and you're just like the size, the speed and the agility and the power. See a big guy move like that. You go, this dude should come in and take over. But then again, he is fighting the Uber drivers, essentially. He's fighting a bunch of fights where we went and we found him somebody to beat the crap out of and he did it.

and when you bring him into the UFC it's sort of like do you want to just drop him right in the deep end right away and find out like we essentially did to Brock Lesnar when he came in and we were just like, all right, give him Frank Mear, you know, like throwing somebody like that right off the bat.

Kind of crazy to think back on that now, isn't it? Yeah. I really did throw him into a fire right away. And I don't think that they really want to do that here. I get the sense they'd want to do something a little slower but it's also like remember what we did with Greg Hardy where you're essentially going out there trying to find people who Greg Hardy can beat and not even nail him that.

Even when that was the only thing you were trying to do, you couldn't do it very reliably. So I mean, I think that he's going to be a much better prospect than Greg Hardy. My first thought when I saw this news that he had signed with the UFC is I was like, man, you didn't want to wait and see maybe what MVP MMA might might cook up for you because they seem like they right yeah they've seemed like maybe that give you a whole bunch of money to come in one night fight somebody on Netflix get paid increase your star power because what we don't see very often these days in the UFC is a free agent signing of somebody who can actually drive their own price up a little bit normally we see people who they're coming in off the contender series or they're coming in you know to fill a gap in an existing fight

card and they get one of these sort of take it or leave at entry level deals. And he should get more than that. He should get a lot more than that just because he already has a name. He's already somebody like, how often do we even see it now where it's like big news. The UFC has signed this guy. There's almost none of that anymore. It's always just sort of like this guy made his way through the pipeline to this point and you don't know who he is. Like to sign a guy who we already know who he is, that's rare. Hopefully he was able to leverage that and get a really good deal out of it. But the amount they're paying him

might also dictate how quickly they want to throw them in there and get some return on the investment. He would have been a classic Scott Coker signing, right? Like from back in the day, like when he was signing all those wrestlers. It would have been like that would have been his big get from Bellator days. Absolutely. Speaking of heavyweights, Toys and Fury, his fifth retirement has come and gone.

He is back. He has won a fight against, I think it's legitimately his fifth retirement as well. He beat MacMood off tonight at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London. Not a lot of winning happening there of late for Tottenham Hotspur, of course. But looking really, really good. As far as I'm concerned, you know, I kind of, I expected a bit of a dip from Toysent tonight. I think he lost two of the rounds and not by much. And I think he moved very well.

Obviously, AJ seeded by the ring. And immediately, when you see these two guys in the same room, It's going to happen. It's going to happen. This is great. Of course, Tyson immediately, you know, says to AJ, you know, say you'll fight me now. He says he'll fight him now. Then all of the interviews afterwards are like Eddie Heron, like, well, we need a fight before we fight Tyson and we're immediately back where we've been for the last fucking 15 years. And believe me, I completely sympathize with the fact that Anthony Joshua has had a horrific accident and lost two people very close to him to him. And it's a horrific situation. But I really, really feel like we are getting very close to a time when these two cannot fight. And you just got to strike while the orange's heart. You've got to make it while they're both ready and willing. Am I crazy, Chuck? Or do you think that?

Yeah. I mean, it's set up, you know, and set up to happen. Am I like, Turkey Al a shake on that telecast. Didn't he not just say, hey, we have a big announcement coming tonight? Is he just speaking out of turn at this point? Because he did this with the UFC. He loves to speak out of turn. He loves to say stuff like that.

And he wanted AJ in and AJ wouldn't move. AJ was like, no, I'm sitting down. I'm not taking his moment. I'm going to sit right here. And so every, you could tell everyone was awkwardly shifting

because AJ has not done what probably has been requested of him. So very, very strange stuff. Sorry, I caught his off there, boys. No,

the thing about saying, like, I understand why, like with everything he's gone through recently, you'd be like, uh, we might not be ready to jump right into that. But also, there's no interest really in, in much else for him right now. Go ahead and do that fight, make a whole bunch of money. And at this point in his career, it's like if you go in there and you fight him and you lose, so what? You know, you might as well go in there and try it now.

Now's the, the only opportunity you're going to get. And if you miss this window to fight Tyson Fury, then what do you do? You know, there's not that much stuff out there for you at this point. You might as well take this chance now. And it's like, especially I understand saying like, hey, you know, bad car accident, you know, the physical and emotional trauma to come out of that. But it's not like that stuff's not going to be real for you getting into a training camp for somebody else. You know, that's going to be something you work through regardless. So you might as well be working through it for a whole bunch of money.

How many times is Fury going to retire? Like I feel like the John Jones, you know, he's at the event tonight. And they were talking to him and he's like, no, I'm more. of the coach now I'm not a fighter again so like he's back to retire how many times we go through that with these guys I think who's to check who's to check is who's to check is right there but there's uh I saw two competing clips out today one of John Jones being like yeah I'm done John Jones the fighter is done and another one of just being like yeah I'm doing the stem cells I'm feeling good you know and just like so like I'll say that's not like John to contradict himself Ben I don't

know what this is about. Reminds me of the news that I watch every day these days. Two contradicting reports. I'm like, I don't know what the fucking. The same day. Yeah, at least, at least when Tyson Fury comes out of retirement, he comes out of retirement, he fights. You know, I'll give him that. Like, as long as, like, he's not just like saying he's unretired and then never showing up and fighting. Like, he'll get in there and do it. And then he will retire again. I love how now he's, he's wielding it as a threat. He's basically just being like, fight me or I'll get fat and I'll retire again. Don't think that's, won't do it. And we're like, we're like, he will do it. It's, uh, it's obviously this,

this was the main event of, this is the main event, but in the chief support, it was Connor Ben's 15 million pound debut or whatever it was, because it was meant to be with Zouva box. And it happens on the ring card. He fights Regis pro gray, a blown up Regis pro greer. Yeah. Sorry. Rougaroo. He, he looks really bad weighing in for this for you. And he wants to get lower right he wants to go down to 147 i believe this was 150 pro gray's only fought there once before kind of gives them competitive few rounds and all of the talk afterwards i've been kind of listening to the reaction be albeit albeit like from from a lot of match room affiliated people they're kind of saying you know you're talking about connor ben beating one of these 147 pound champions

reid's pro rome retired after this fight he was like i'm not i'm not doing this anymore and a lot of people we're saying beforehand, like he is finished. I can tell you, his legs looked really bad in this fight. From the word, from the very first exchange, his knees seemed to be buckling. He looked like an older fighter. The speed was gone. He had to kind of use more tact than

explosivity, anything like this. But Connor Ben couldn't put him away. I guess my question to you, Ben, is like, is this very underwhelming considering the media storm that surround him leaving Eddie Hearn, getting paid 15 million, running, becoming

the scourge of UFC stars for a number of days. Did this fall flat? Yeah, I mean, the problem with creating such a media storm around the signing and the money behind it and everything is that then everybody is going to turn right around in that very next fight look at you and be like, am I watching a $15 million fighter right now? Yes. Am I watching it? You know, everybody is going to view it through that lens, especially because it's like, they paid you all that money to come in here for one fight on this car.

kind of feels like they're going to put you in a situation to be successful. Like that's what they're going to look for for you. And so when you go in there and, you know, you don't look like much, you don't really blow anybody's hair back with the effort in that, then people are going to be like they overpaid for this guy. This guy isn't worth it, you know. I mean, good for him for getting that payday. And especially if you can get that payday on a one-fight deal

and then turn around afterwards and be like, who would like to negotiate? that's how you ought to do it. I can't hate on him at all for that. But he also didn't exactly come out of that where you're looking at it and being like, well, somebody ought to pay him $25 million for the next one. Well, that's what's weird about it. It's like the precedent of like,

oh, it made $15 million for this. What is it supposed to get for this next one? But if, you know, we're sitting here. We're talking about juxtaposition. A guy just left the Sport Cup's Swans and 42 years old. I don't know how many fights he had. Was it 46, 47 fights, something like that?

26 in the UFC anyway. I know that much that was 20. So like all those fights, what, how close do you think he came to $15 million? I mean, I don't think he's within binocular range of that, you know?

I don't think that he made that anywhere near that in the course of his career. So that's, I mean, it is like, it's a glaring thing that way, right? Especially he was telling, when I did the story about,

you know, all his injuries and everything, he was telling me about the days early on in his career where he was like, I had to borrow money from people to go get my hand fixed. You know, just like, stuff like that, where I was I was taking fights hurt just so I could get the health insurance from the promoter so that I could claim I heard it in the fight and get surgery afterwards.

That was what he was dealing with. So it was a long, long way from his debut at WEC, like 26, I think it was. He said he told me he got $3,000. That was his show money. Against Jose Aldo, he got $5,000. I mean, so if you're just looking at those, if you're just like, yeah, if you're just looking at a, those type of thing, yeah. The flying knee.

That's for five grand, you know. Before taxes. Before taxes. Before taxes. It was worth, the $5,000 went further back then. It was true. Inflation of like $8,500 now. I mean, yeah.

It's wild, though. It's just wild to contemplate on the same day. You know, you get, you watch the UFC. You see a guy like him and you see, you see Ben in his $15 million performance. It makes you think about that, you know. Yeah, yeah, no, it's, it's weird. And honestly, to both of your points, it did feel as though they were propping up progray for a KO, you know, everything. Like, short notice camp, everything.

Like this guy was known to be on the way out and then make him fight much heavier than he's being against a guy who last fought at 160, you know, and it just didn't come off. It didn't come off. And you've got to remember, he's pretty much fighting a home. home there, Conor Ben. And the crowd, I thought he'd get a big boo when he had this villain kind of atmosphere going because of the matchroom thing. The crowd seemed more disinterested than anything else, which is even worse. That's the worst thing to have. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, I was hoping he'd lean into this bad boy thing. But he's gone the other way, to be honest, all his pre-fight interviews have been kind of trying to reimagine himself as, you know, a different

kind of guy. Whereas I thought he kind of, he'd play into. the idea of everybody hates me oh yeah i got paid whatever the foot like kind of do a may weather thing didn't really go for it nobody seemed to really be overawed by him and again the performance hasn't seemed to do much either i'm looking forward to seeing what they'll do next with him i have a very serious question i want to ask you guys either of you can answer did either of you know that a pfl event was on tonight no bullshit like pfl chicago happened tonight i had it on my ipad and all i could think while I'm trying to keep an eye on the fights and watch the UFC is, why the fuck? Why would you do this?

At the same time, the UFC event is on. You know you're not the co-leader. You know this isn't going to happen. Why in the name of Christ would you do this? Is that too severe? I only know because I got the emails. I get the press. Shout out Laura Mac.

Yeah. And you're just kind of like, oh, okay. did not know that that was going on. And also just like wondering like, I do wonder like who's the live audience for that? Did not seem to be many. Because it's like if you were a fight fan, if you're a big enough fight fan that you want to go watch the PFL,

then you're probably also interested at least in what's happening in the UFC that night. And so. You'd imagine so, right? Yeah. that's a tough sell you know that's Petezie how was it why

I had it on mute like you know I'm just watching it because I'm like I'm going to have to mention that this happened tonight I was like how can you I watched

Anthony Pedes got fairly routed there in the in the main event against Mitchell McKee Rufian Stutz lost to a man called Cavaloff

um yeah it was you know it was a card and it was on and I was just who gives it shit there

we go. Thank you. Dana, who has just been in my ear there, we obviously need to move on from this horrific subject, but please, PFL. We're worried about your future. Let's not do this on the same night as a UFC pay-per-view, okay? Yeah. Would you call it Knockout Derby?

What was your name for it? Knockout World. Knockout World. Knockout World, yes. Knockout World, Chicago? Yeah. I would have tuned in for that. Knockout World. Not PFL. Yeah. Now you get a bunch of split majority decisions and everybody

knockout world sucks. All you can do is kind of, you know, try to entice the masses. But listen, we've done a lot of things here today. We came on, we spoke to you wonderful people about UFC 327, Tyson Fury, Connor Ben, PFL Chicago, how can we forget?

If this is not enough for you, beautiful MMA enthusiasts, Royzen has just started. Go and get the pay-per-view. It's happening in Japan. It's a fantastic event. We're not going to come back after Reisen, okay? We're not going to do that.

This is all we've gotten us today. Please come back on Monday. Ariel Hwani will be back. The full schedule is back. The boys in the back who you saw earlier, they'll also be back. Frank is back. Andy's back.

Don't know if Jordan's back yet. Vacation. Who's to check? No. No. Okay. He's on a 63rd vacation. Josh, it's Josh.

I'm rambling again. Okay. Can we play the music? I need to get out of here. I'm losing my mind. Thank you so much. everybody. No super chats. No super chats. Doesn't seem to be any super chats.

Thank you, Ben. And the spirit of Josh. Very much. Thank you, Chuck and Ben. Thank you, Andy and Frank. Thank you, everybody.