The Ariel Helwani Show - UFC 333 aftermath, Volk: Greatest Australian athlete ever?, Dominick Reyes, Lone’er Kavanagh, Tim Welch, news & notes

Episode Date: October 26, 2026

Ariel Helwani kicks off the show with a recap of his time in Las Vegas for RAF 14, including the brawl between Dillon Danis and Arman Tsarukyan and team (06:25), then reflects on the biggest UFC 333 stories, from Alexander Volkanovski’s incredible legacy, to the idea of Volkanovski fighting Justin Gaethje, the title fights to make in multiple divisions, Petr Yan winning the rubber match against Merab Dvalishvili, Sean O’Malley’s reaction to Yan’s win, major announcements for UFC 336, and more (1:13:32).Dominick Reyes is back after a big win to discuss his experience in Abu Dhabi, showing appreciation to the other great UFC 333 performances on social media, his beef with Daniel Cormier’s commentary, his recent success after overcoming career adversity, who he wants to fight next, and more (1:34:39).Lone’er Kavanagh breaks down his highlight-reel knockout at UFC 333, talking about being able to bounce back from his loss to Brandon Royval, his prediction for Joshua Van vs. Manel Kape, and more (2:04:57).Tim Welch stops by to analyze the UFC 333 co-main event and make the case for Sean O’Malley to fight Petr Yan next, also touching on Daniel Cormier only asking Yan about Song Yadong in the cage, his relationship with fans on social media, the future of Tommy McMillen, Alexander Volkanovski’s performance in the UFC 333 main event and how he’d fare against upcoming contenders, being a big fan of Payton Talbott, and more (2:19:45).Fox Sports Australia’s Niko Pajarillo makes his show debut to discuss covering UFC 333 in Abu Dhabi, Volkanovski’s place in the mainstream Australian culture, how he compares to other successful Australian athletes, his thoughts on Volkanovski taking on Gaethje, whether he believes Dana White recognized Alexander Volkov at the press conference, Quillan Salkilld’s next fight, and more (2:56:00).Ariel covers news and notes, including the latest on Canelo’s upcoming fight in Saudi Arabia, Dana White on Shakur Stevenson’s Zuffa Boxing release, and Devin Haney signing with DAZN and facing Liam Paro in December (3:28:26), before wrapping up with your Super Chats (4:01:37).

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Errawadis. On this Monday, October 26, to the... And 26, hello again, everyone. I sure hope you're doing well. It is great to be here on a lovely, lovely Monday afternoon in New York City. As you can see, look at us. Look at this. Look at this set.

Look at this amazing set. Best in the business, Connor Burke's. Best set designer in the biz. No one does it better than him. And this coming off another 5K for Connor. I say another, but I think he did a half marathon last week. He did a 5K in a Stone Cold Steve Austin outfit on Saturday. He's maugging all of us.

He's just doing 5Ks for fun. Here I am putting 5Ks on my bucket list. This guy just does it to spend 25 minutes out in the sunshine on a Saturday afternoon. It's unbelievable. The next one you're doing with me, bro. Yeah? this weekend? I'm right.

This weekend, you want to do it? No, absolutely not. But this is amazing. Love the Halloween theme set. It is Halloween on Saturday. Halloween on Saturday. What's better?

Halloween on Saturday or Halloween on Friday? Big debate. My vote's Saturday. They're both good. Friday for me. I feel like there's something fun about Friday when you're a kid. You come home from school and you go straight to doing the trick-or-treating. I feel like the older folks.

would say Saturday. Nevertheless, Friday, Saturday, best time for Halloween, so I hope you're enjoying and celebrating. It's a big week. Jordan's daughter turns one on Thursday, his wife as well. My daughter, Claire, turns 10 on Wednesday.

There's a lot going on. There's a lot to be thankful for, and I had a very busy weekend. I was at it in Las Vegas. Thursday, Friday, I want to tell you about that in a moment. First, let me tell you about today's lineup and about what we'll be talking about today.

I'm excited about today's program for multiple reasons. Mainly, we have a lot to discuss. We're not going to be talking about the Knicks not winning a game just yet in being 0 and 3. I did say that I didn't care if they went 0 in 82

as long as they won 1. So here I am. The gods are listening to us and they're never going to win again. And it's okay because we got one of these. Everything is okay. Back into the program, Nico Paharilio,

who is a Fox Sports Australia reporter, is going to be joining us. You know why I want to talk to Nico? Because Nico has been covering Australian sport and also Australian combat sports and Australian MMA for quite some time. But I put out a tweet on Saturday asking the Aussie fans

if they felt like Alex Volcanovsky, the reigning defending UFC featherweight champion, gets the love and respect that he deserves from the Australian mainstream media. And I was kind of blown away by the responses. Everyone felt very passionate about the fact that he does not and that he is in the conversation for one of the great Australian sports men or women of all time. And so I wanted to talk to someone who actually knows a thing or two about Australian sports history

and who can weigh in on this topic and let us know whether or not he is getting that respect. So NICO is going to join us to talk about that from the Australian POV. It's one thing for me to talk about it. And I will weigh in on it. But I want to actually hear from someone who's boots on the ground, so to speak. prior to that, we're going to be joined by Tim Welch, who of course is the head coach for one, Shugashon O'Malley. Is he next for a title shot? We'll get into all of that with Big Tim, the Red Hawk himself. Prior to that, Lonnie Kavanaugh is going to join us. He had a phenomenal

win at UFC 333 on Saturday in Abu Dhabi. Talk to him about his, I would say, pretty damn good year, you know, starting with earlier in the year getting the opportunity to fight Brandon Marino. I know mid-year he did not win, but I thought, represented himself very well, and he is certainly one of the more entertaining flywates out there. And then at around 2.30, Dominic Reyes, who has really turned things around. And that was kind of a theme on Saturday. And then got a little heated in the aftermath. We'll get into all of that with Big Dom.

He had a great, great win, an amazing headkick, followed up by some ground and pound. Big stuff for the former title contender and perhaps future as well. So all that and more on today's program. You see we'll be talking about Alex Wolkenovsky's legacy. You see we'll be talking about who's next for Pejorian and then some. I'm going to fix my chair here because it's bothering me a little bit. One second, one second. Just give me a moment.

Yes. All right, here we go. I feel better now. UFC 333 was on Saturday, and we're going to do a massive deep dive into that. I gave you my initial thoughts on Saturday. Also talked about the UFC 336 breaking news. We will talk about that. Josh Van versus Minnell Cap, not much to the last.

say there, but there is a lot to say about the interim welterweight title fight, that of course, being Carlos Pratchez versus Michael Morales, that's the co-main event. We're going to get into all that stuff. Do not worry. Of course, today's program brought you by our good friends over at Kalshi. We love Kalshi around these parts. Shout out to Kalshi. They are so kind to us. We love doing the watch party with them for UFC 332. There's the QR code right over

there, K-A-L-S-H-I, K-S-H-I with Kalshi are going up against other traders directly. No house setting the odds. It's just people putting their own opinions on the line. Right now, trade $25 with the code, Halwani. They'll throw in another 25 instantly. There it is. All you need to know, shout out to Kalshi. Appreciate their support very much. On Thursday morning, my friends, I went to Las Vegas. It had been about three months since we were there, of course, for International Fight Week. And the reason why I went was because I wanted to check out R.A.F. 14. Live from the Fontainebleau, the fountain blue. The Americans call it the fountain blue, but it's really the fontainebleau. Beautiful, beautiful hotel in Las Vegas. I don't know how many people are staying there. I don't know how they're doing. It's at the other end of the strip, but it's a gorgeous, gigantic property. So if you're looking for that type of stay and they're not telling me to say this, go check them out. This was RAF's first show in Las Vegas. They're 14th in just a little over a year. They launched in late August of 3,

2025. Chad Bronstein, one of the founders of the company along with Izzy Martinez, Izzy style, the longtime wrestling coach, and Eric Bischoff, Halkogan as well, the late Halkogan, Terry Balea. Chad in particular had been asking me for quite some time to come to one of the events. And I told them at the beginning of the year, by the end of 2026, I will come to an event. I promise you. And I wanted to stay true to that promise. And so we decided to go, myself, Casey and Esther, to REF 14 on Friday. We went on on Thursday. And we did some interviews on Thursday, got to speak to Armant Sarukian, got to speak to

Robbie Lawler, Dylan Danis, Bel-Amir, Jordan Burroughs, and then got to do the event, got to go to the event on Friday, and we did a behind-the-scenes uncrowned film. obviously you know that on Thursday there was a brawl at the presser and I spoke to Dylan before the presser and he kind of gave me one second don't play this just yet he kind of gave me some sort of insight as to what was going to happen I had a feeling he was going to do something but he wasn't wearing the shirt that he was wearing at the press conference he showed up

wearing the Hamza Shamaaya meme of what he would look like if he shaved his beard and the presser was actually really interesting the way he did it. Every single person who was competing on the card, I think there were 14 or so matches got to be at the press conference, but they did it in in stages. So let's say like the first five matches, the A side showed up, then the B side showed up. Then it was the next five, A side, B side, culminating in the main event, which I thought was great because everyone got to say, everyone got some questions. And by the way, the press conference room was completely full. A lot of camps and teammates and stuff, but there was a lot of media there as well. Where all this media was from,

I don't know, but it was quite well attended, and that was a bit of a theme for the two days that I was there. Anyway, in case you missed it, this is what happened at the press conference. Dylan, what shirt are you wearing? So he shows the T-shirt. He says something to someone sitting in the front. Armin gets really upset.

He tries to swear. wing at him and all hell breaks loose. A security guard was bleeding. The backdrop is falling. Chamsat was super fired up. Obviously the history between Chamsad and Dylan, they compete against each other. There was a brawl. Armand's all kind of fighter out. So I spoke to Dylan before this and then I spoke to Armin after and Armin said basically like he made fun of my friend. He called my other friend a bitch. I have to stick up for my friends. And then we got to the event on Friday And my quick takeaways, I'll give you more when our Uncrown film comes out next month. But we were there the entire day from the very beginning, like rehearsals, well before anyone entered the venue until the very end.

And my quick thoughts on it are as follows. Number one, the production was probably the most impressive part of it all. Every single athlete had their own Titan-Tron, if you will, like their own video animation, their own song. their own song. It felt very pro wrestling-esque. And obviously, Eric Bischoff is a big part of that. Everyone had their own sort of unique entrance, like own logo, Hamsanaud had a wolf. It felt big.

The venue held about 3,100 people. That was completely full. I saw some people ragging on the fact that, you know, no one attended the AMC viewings. And I don't know why they're doing that. And I don't know what the long play is. But I was there. And it was legit full.

And probably what was most impressive about it, was there were so many kids in attendance. Eight-year-olds, nine-year-olds, ten-year-olds. Wrestling is obviously a big youth sport, and you can see there were a lot of families there. So production was really impressive. The crowd was impressive. The only other sporting event that had taken place

at the Fontainebleau was power slap, but in a smaller venue, and I was told they had about 600 people there, and I don't know how much of that was papered. They showed me the Ticketmaster seating chart. It said sold out. I believe them. And 3,100 isn't.

you know, 15,000 people, but you sold out, you sold out. So fair play. The other thing is the night flew by. It started at six, it ended at nine. The matches are super quick. Three, two-minute rounds or periods, as they call them, once you understand the scoring and Ben Asperin broke it all down for me, I saw Chale there, I saw Julianna Pena. It was great. Part of the broadcast team. You actually kind of get into it. And so all these things are great, and I get it. Like the energy, it's fast-paced. Here's the problem. Here's. Here's the one negative, if I can offer one. Number one, the stuff that happened on Thursday runs counter to everything that they're trying to be.

And if you want to be in the Dill and Danna's business, I get the fact that it's going to come. But like, you can't be the youth family sport and have that kind of stuff at press conferences. Leave that for the other combat sports. And so that may mean no Dillon Dannis, but Dillon sells tickets, I would imagine to a degree. But he also generates a lot of buzz and hype. Like the viewership numbers, the social numbers on those clips were supremely. high. So they have to decide what they want to be. The bigger thing is, because he's not competing for them all the time, the bigger thing is the matchmaking. We've talked about

this, but I got to see with my own two eyes. Hamsa Chbibai steamrolled Robbie Lawler. Armand Seru Kinn steamrolled Dylan Danis. Both matches ended very quickly, and the Armand, Dylan won almost popped off at the end. They were ready for it. They had security. Armand did step on Dylan, and that did lead, you know, to a fracas building up, but they were on top of it and it was diffused rather quickly. If they can't do UFC versus UFC, which they can't, and they can't do UFC versus PFL, which I think they can't, it's, the well is going to get very dry very soon. There's only so many times you could do Hamzad versus former UFC fighter, Armand versus

former UFC fighter, Hamzad versus non-UFC fighter, non-PFL, fighter. He's going to annihilate these guys. And Armin is as well. Yes, I know he lost to Colby, but there aren't that many of those guys out there. They're either just like really old, retired, or just not on his level. And so he's coming back to go up against Neiman Gracie. Is there a lot of interest in that, I don't know. Hamsat against Colby, there's a lot of interest in. I just, they need to figure out how to make the matchmaking more balanced. To me, it's Hamzad versus wrestler from Cornell or former Olympian. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, And the community seems to think that those matches wouldn't be very fair.

So it's early days. I don't think anyone expected them to be where they're at a year plus in. I was so impressed with the production, the staff, the belief that they have in it, how welcoming they were. I mean, that's my small critique. It was really cool to see how happy the fighters were. Like all the fighters, there's no stress involved. They're happy to be there. There's not a ton of weight cutting.

There's no anxiety like there is. You know, you're about to go into a cage and fight another human being. like everyone seemed to have their guard down, really happy to be there, make some extra money, compete, test themselves. I just wonder how you get past the exhibition feeling

of those last two matches and make it feel like there are true stakes involved. True, you know, like, okay, like you have a belt, great. What does that all mean? And can you lose it? Or is it just going to be like these sort of squash matches

that are, you know, propping these guys up? Again, early days, that was my takeaway. It was very fun. I enjoyed it. and I hope you guys check out the uncrowned film that will hopefully come out end of November. The main attraction of the weekend, of course,

was UFC 33, and that happened in Abu Dhabi. And there were a few thoughts that I had after I was able to digest what transpired in Abu Dhabi. And the first one was about right now in the world of MMA and particularly in the world of UFC, and even in the world of boxing to a degree, there's a lot of frustration about a whole host of things. If it's not matchmaking, it's the belts being watered down.

And if it's not the belts being watered down, it's people getting cut who shouldn't be getting cut or them parting ways with people who should still be in the organization. And if it's not that, it's Dana White losing his touch and his interest in it all and his fastball. And if it's not that, it's them going to Saudi Arabia. And it's a lot of belly, I get it. I get it. I get it. And I will admit, we contribute to that because we have to and we're covering the sport. and that just comes with covering the sport. I acknowledge that.

But then you get Alex Volcanovsky, and you get this guy who, to me, is the closest thing that we've ever had to GSP. In terms of the way he conducts himself, the way he fights, the way he has evolved, the way he has never changed as a human being. We talk about this all the time, but there was once a time where Volk was in that,

he was in that category of guy, and you know those guys, who the UFC just didn't want to put in a title fight, because they found him to be boring, because they found him to be vanilla, he didn't have a fan base, and he had to do everything in his power just to get a title shot. Remember him flying to Edmonton just to be the backup fighter. He did, the guy, like, I remember vividly talking to him before the Chad Mendez fight. Like, what do you have to do? I'm not going to change. I'm going to be myself. I'm going to do things the right way. I am going to be get what I deserve. And in the end, he did that, and he became a champion, and he tried to become a double champion, and he came, oh, so close to that, and then he lost it all. And come on, let's be honest, three years ago, I think the vast majority of us thought that was the end for Alex Volcanovsky. He was doing his head in, as he said. He needed a fight.

He needed to take this fight on short notice. He needed to fight Islam to get another crack at him. I remember getting the notification. We were flying to Manchester for the misfits card. Alex Volcanov is replacing Charles Olivaura against Islam Machachev on 10 days notice. This is crazy. Yeah, he doesn't have to cut weight,

but he's got to go to Abu Dhabi, and it's Islam. Maybe the best in the world. At the time ends still, he gets finished. He comes back four months later, and he gets finished again. And there ain't a single person on the planet

who believed that he'd be able to figure it all out. And not only did he figure it out, not only has he allowed himself to perfectly write the end of his story, he wins the belt back, he successfully now defends the belt once, twice, beats the previously undefeated Mof Starry of Love,

who no one wanted to fight, who makes everyone look bad, who stifles everyone, who dominates everyone, and he stops him, not only does he beat him, he stops him in the second round, and then, oh, by the way, we find out he had a chest infection, he didn't want to take any medicine because he felt like that would be giving him an advantage,

even though the UFC and his team were telling him, no, it's okay. He wanted no asterisk on this. And taking some sort of Tylenol, some sort of medicine to feel better in your chest against Moussar, who in the back of his mind he probably thought, 25 minutes. We're looking at a possible 25-minute showdown here. It ended up being just a round and a half. He says, nah. Like, think about that.

You need your cardio. You need to breathe. You need your chest. You need to feel as good as possible. He says, no, I'm good. I'm not going to do it. I mean, I'm just absolutely blown away by this guy. I am blown away.

38, by the way, at 38, when historically, when you get to the back end of 35 in the lighter weight classes, you ain't winning like this. He is everything that we love about combat sports and about MMA and about the UFC. And, oh, by the way, that was one versus number two. was everything that we want out of the UFC. It was one versus two. It was the best versus the best. It was voc retaining.

It was not just doing enough, finishing him. He's one of the smartest fighters that we've ever seen. And he's right. He said this time and again. He feels the love. Who hates this guy? I remember when he was about to fight Max Holloway for the first time. Go look at the buildup to that.

Max hardly, if ever, said his name. Max did not believe he was on his level. He did not. came back won that fight came back won the next one came back won the third one people hated him after the second one remember the second one they hated him they all loved max holloway now look at him he is beloved

and he reminds me so much of gsp because he carries his country's flag with such pride with such honor with such dignity and he does everything the right way we are going to miss this guy so much when he's gone i am so impressed with alex volkenovsky i mean i don't even feel like i can properly express

the feeling that I get when I watch this guy compete, he comes out to that song. He's just, he's so Australian. He is so much fun. The cooking with Vogue stuff, it has all come together for him. He's in street fighter.

At the same time that he's about to defend his title, like, God, what a story that no one saw coming. Absolutely no one. He is going to go down as one of the greatest fighters of all time. In my opinion, he's the greatest featherweight champion

of all time. And it's between him, Jose Aldo and Max. and I would break it down that way. I would probably do him Josie Aldo Max, or him Max, Joseo. It doesn't matter. To me, I don't think there's much of a debate right anymore. Given the quality of the opposition

and the fact that he lost the belt and came back and won it and is beating the top tier talent that is coming after him, that's how I feel. But I also, and I'm not the expert at this, and that's why I want Nico, I feel like there's a strong case to be made that Alex Fokinovsky is one of the greatest Australian athletes of all time.

I'm talking about someone who dominated and competed at the highest of level on the worldwide stage. With all due respect to rugby and sports that are, you know, that are contested in that corner of the world, he's doing it on the worldwide stage. And there are people like Ian Thorpe and there are people like Rod Laver. And I know there are others as well who have done it. And I just think that he is in that conversation now. Alex the Great Volcanovsky. Alexander the Great is in that conversation. I mean, I don't think that there's any doubt that he's the greatest Australian fighter of all time.

But I think there's a question to be asked. And there's a conversation to be had that he is the greatest Australian athlete of all time. And what a story that is in its own right. What a freaking story that is. Now we could get into the whole like, okay, a gate sheet thing. retirement thing, and we will get into all of that, but this man deserves all the flowers to do that at his age against someone like Mossar with that illness, flu game for chest infection game for Volcanovsky, and to finish him like that, blown away. Nothing short of amazing.

In case you missed all the sickness stuff, here's Vogue, not even revealing it himself, by the way. it was Oscar Willis of the Mac Life who asked him about it and you could see he really doesn't want to make a big deal about it but you can hear that he's very sick. Here he is after the fight. I'm only going to ask you this because I know there's no way you'd bring it up by yourself. Can we address how sick you are this morning?

Good enough to get out there and get it done. I mean, yeah, it's all good. It's a part of the game. A part of the challenges that I like anyway, you know what I mean? Like it was funny, I started getting sick. I was like, oh, well, at least, you know, it would have been too easy if I wasn't sick, you know what? Again, I mean, no matter what hurdles are in front of me or what challenges come away, I'm at a stage in my career that this shit excites me.

Like, when I get injuries and all that and I've got to fight for them, I don't know why. It just makes a story better, but I'll save them for documentaries. This guy's a sicko, and I don't mean like he's a sickle because he was sick. He welcomes this. He gets excited about this. this? This is insane. Here he is landing back home in Australia earlier today telling the media who thankfully showed up and gave him the respect and coverage that he deserved. And it was said to me several times, like if he was a boxer, if his last name would zoo, if he was a, you know,

a track and field runner, if he was a swimmer, he'd be getting way more respect. And I agree with that sentiment. Here he is telling them he said thanks but no thanks to any type of medication before the fight. You didn't want to take medication? You didn't want to take medication? Yeah, I mean, there's a, you know, there's probably more to the, to the story that, you know, I don't, I'll hold for another day. But I mean, yeah, we had the, obviously, doctors come in and, you know, there's, there's, there's ways you can go about it, but, like, even through, obviously, you've got to be medically cleared, everything's got to go through the, you start a testing and all that sort of stuff. And there's things that you could do,

but then I'm just like, you know what, I don't want anything because, I know, I just looked at it as like, you know, people might look at that as an advantage, even though it was only so I wouldn't feel as bad and as sick, I just was like, I'm gonna be fine, don't worry about it. Like, you know, I guess that's just who I am.

So I turned it down even though the UFC and everyone was like, no, like, you're allowed to, you can do this, like why aren't you doing? I'm like, no, I don't wanna do it. So again, there's a fair bit tall, but that's just, I guess that's just who I am. So I'm glad I did because as that day went on and got closer to the fight,

you know, mentally and physically started feeling better, you know, or whatever that was all mental. But I guess that's just how I can do that, I guess. Not many people, I guess, would choose to do that. But again, I know if I looked at it as more as like, no, no, I like the idea of this being more of a challenge now, you know what I mean? I'm just weird like that. Put it this way.

My team weren't happy. My team weren't happy with me and they, you know, but I guess they're not surprised as well. Again, absolute sicko. It's absurd to do that. If you're a high-level athlete and you're about to fight someone like Mossar, who is that good, that tough, that relentless, that strong. And then you feel like that, you say no to the medication. And then you stop the guy in the second round.

You may be a Mofsar fan, you may be a Holloway fan, you may be a Jose Aldo fan, you may be a fan of Diego Lopez or any other featherweight out there. How do you not love this guy? How do you not at least respect this guy? And if you're an Australian, if you're an Australian combat fan, an Australian sports fan, how is he not one of your most beloved athletes? Now, now, now, now, no, no, no. Here I am showering Alex Volcanowski with praise and love.

There always has to be another side of the coin. And so I'll say the one thing that I don't love right now is this talk of him fighting Justin Geichi. That I'm not on board with. I cannot sit here and continue to say all good things and also talk about that component and say good things. That one I'm not on board with for two reasons. Number one, to me it goes against everything that we love about Volcanovsky. He moved up to 55. It didn't go his way.

He got another crack at 55. It didn't go his way. Alex Volkanowski is the greatest featherweight champion of all time. You had two opportunities to be a lightweight champion. I am not sitting here clamoring for Alex Volcanovsky versus Justin Gachi. I'm sitting here clamoring for Armand Sarukhin versus Justin Gajee. I'm sitting here clamoring for Ilya Teporia versus Patty Pimble. I'm sitting here clamoring for Ilya and Patty to fight the winner of Armin versus Justin.

I'm sitting here clamoring for Alex Fulkenovsky to be the fighting featherway champion that he is and to not retire, because he continues to say that he'll move up and he'll retire so he doesn't hold up the division. And that's honorable. And that's everything that we like about Vogue. But I want him to give other featherweights an opportunity to fight him. And I also want guys like Al Jain Sterling

beats Kevin Vos in less than a month, that should be the fight. If Kevin Veshaeos wins, I'm open to that. John Silva is out there. I'd like to see that. There's never been a history between Justin Gaei and Alex Volkanowski.

We saw him try to try to, to go for 155 twice. I thought he was very close to winning the first time. Second time it didn't go his way. Took it on short notice. I hardly ever think about that one. I don't want to see it. I don't want to see it because not only will...

You think the UFC, Dana continues to say that he's into it, but you think they want to vacate two more titles? So they're both going to retire and then 145 is going to be vacated, and 55 is going to be vacated, thus ruining the lineage and watering down both of those divisions. and belts, I don't like it. Here's Dana after the fight talking about it and credit to Dana. He continues to say, look,

I ain't going to say no to this guy because he's been that damn good and that damn great to deal with. So I'm not going to sit here and just dismiss it. Love that. But when push comes to shove, in my opinion, he should dismiss it. Take a look. Is that something you would be open to

for him to do, move up to lightweight and fight for that second belt? I think when you've accomplished what he's accomplished. There's not much. We're going to say no to it with him. So we'll see how, you know, see how this whole thing plays out. That's as positive and hopeful as Dana will get in those situations. Here's Alex Volcanowski talking about it. Dana White was in here a minute ago and I asked him, would they be open to you moving to lightweight and fighting Justin Gage? And they said, there's not much they can say no to you about. I mean, I'm an honest guy and I want it to be fair. So a lot of times I'm like I don't want to hold divisions up but I believe that we could do this and not hold

the division up again whether it's our our both our retirement fight and just you know put it on the line which would be cool a little bit of a super fight and 38 year olds just going at it and then just you know then we'll leave it all and let let all the young fellas that sort themselves out I'm going to ask you that that's something I would retire for so if they wanted to give me that that opportunity, I'll retire, like, you know, like a win or lose, retire, and then it's vacate. So I'm not holding the division up.

Then you're going to get the, if I win it and I vacate, right, then you've got everyone else fighting anyway. So it's, you know, that's something I would retire for. Otherwise, I'm just fighting, taking these fight as it goes. By the way, part of the reason why I don't want to see this is I don't want to see Volk retire.

Who wants to see him retire? He's not slowing down. He's looking great. He's beating younger, tougher guys. in some people's eyes, undefeated guys, why don't want to see him retire? For what? So he can potentially beat Justin or not

and then just vacate both titles? No way. Like I said, John Silva's out there. Lorone Murphy's still out there. I know he had the loss to Mossar, but prior to that, had an incredible run in the UFC. Why can't Aljo?

If Aljo beats Kevin, that should be the fight. If John Silva's next and Aljo could be after that. Why not? I don't love the idea of him moving up because those guys at 45 deserve it, but more importantly right now, the guys at 55 deserve it. Now, Armin told me on Thursday he believes Justin Gichi's going to retire. I don't believe that, meaning retire before fighting him.

Retire instead of fighting him. I don't believe that. Justin Gichi has never been that guy, and I don't know if that's mind games on Armine's part, but I do not believe that that's going to happen. I think Justin takes that fight. And I think that that's the fight to make without a question. And then the other fight to make is Ilya versus Patty. And you've got a great tournament there of four guys who are all connected to each other in some way, shape, or form. And you can't go wrong with any result, any iteration of a result.

Inserting the legend that is Volcanovsky with all the respect and love of the world makes no sense whatsoever. And so I hope that this talk, look, I know his team wants it. I know he clearly wants it. and I understand the purity of what he's saying. I'm not going to hold up the division. I'm going to retire. I don't want you to retire. None of us want you to retire.

You have shown no signs of slowing down. And so let's keep this train rolling along. Who's asking for this? If it was this fight that we were clamoring for and dying for and dreaming of, then all right, fine. No, no one was talking about this. The only reason why it's a thing is because that's the guy holding the 55 belt. If it was maybe like, I don't know, someone else that he had a history with who then moved up to 55 and now it's a chance of, no, there's none of that. There's absolutely none of that.

There's no interest on my end in seeing that. After the fight, Mof Sarajevoev went on social media. I thought he was very classy in defeat in the ring in the cage. He also tweeted this afterwards saying, al-h-h-hahmdulillah for everything. Today was in my day. Everything is written by Allah, and I accept whatever he has planned for me.

Congratulations to Volk. He was the better man today. Thank you to the UFC for giving me the opportunity to fight for the title and to all my fans. He also posted on his Instagram that he's now 0-1. I appreciate the way he's handling this. Before the fight, Dana White was asked at the pre-fight press conference, you know, this notion that Joseo put out that if Mofsar would have lost

before the fight this was talked about, he'd get cut in this new, you know, we're cutting the Farid Basharats of the world, even though there's 7 and 0. He was asked about this. Here's what Dana White had to say. After the UFC removed some of the undefeated fighters, fighters that were undefeated but got removed from the UFC, a lot of the fans in Russia got nervous that potentially maybe Molsar, who is also undefeated, could have the same fate in the future. Can you promise to all the Russian fans, can you promise that Mofsar will not be removed with the undefeated record? I can't promise anything.

But I'm glad you asked me that question. What I would like to clarify as I saw the kid on Instagram last week when I was talking about why some guys get released. or their contracts don't get renewed. I was just saying, in general, I wasn't saying, wasn't pointing him out specifically. But no, I can't promise anything. But he's in a pretty good spot right now. He's still here.

He's fighting this weekend. He's fighting for the title. I don't think you need to worry about him at all. That's good to know, because that would be insane to cut someone who was good enough to fight for the belt. And as we talked about last week, it rarely happened.

Liz Karmouche against Valentina Shiff, back in, I think, 2019. Megan Anderson's contract ran out, but his contract isn't up, and he deserves to be in the UFC. And I want to see how he comes back and learns from this.

This was his first time fighting for the belt. He was welcome back to the hotel in a very, very nice fashion, which was good to see. Look at all the people hanging out and greeting Mofsar. Good for him, and he 100% should be in the UFC.

He 100% should get a chance to build himself back up. Let's see. how he rebounds from this. Such an impressive win for Volk because he has been so dominant. Is he the most exciting fighter of all time? No. Is he a human highlight real?

No. Do I think it's going to take maybe something short of an act of God for him to get back in this picture because the UFC didn't want to give him a title shot to begin with? Maybe. But still, he should, I mean, there's no freaking way he should be released from the UFC after this. By the way, I did see this nice video of Alex Volcanovsky eating. So he's a big eater.

He loves to cook. One small issue. Look at here. He's looking for the food. He's looking for the food. He's looking for the food. Okay, he's looking for something. He wants something good.

He gets a little rap there. Here comes the issue, guys. Here comes the issue. It's coming here. He's got a wrap. All right. All good. Looks at the sandwich.

Touches the sandwich. Is Alex Volknoffsky? That guy doesn't take the sandwich. He's dropping down the goat list for now. He's damn near perfect. I have feelings about people who touch the sandwich and don't take the sandwich. No, Champ can do it. I'm eating that sandwich.

Especially when he's sick. Nah, no, no, no, no. I'll take the Volk flu. It's all good. Champ can do it. I saw him doing that. He, like, opened it. And then...

Took a peek in. He knew what he was doing. You saw how delicately he tried to touch it. He still touched it. Still touched it. I'm eating it. Just ask yourself, would Josee do? it? Would Jose ever do it?

Would Max do it? Alexander Wokinowski is a featherweight coat. Please stop. Look at this. On camera, too. Incriminated himself. His own crew! Listen, I'm not the biggest germaphobe, as you guys know. I don't know if I washed my fruit, but this is a no-go. You're sick? And you're touching it? No, thank you. Yep.

Look, he cooks a lot. There's a real chance he knew he's about to handle food. Fresh off a hand wash. That's a grab the sandwich. Throw it out, if anything. You can't leave it. Especially on camera. What do we think he saw in the sandwich? Yeah, why did he refuse it? It looked like egg salad or something.

I know, but... Which is fine. Love egg salad. Yeah. Is he the greatest featherweight of all time, right? Yes, absolutely. Okay. No doubt.

It was already in many people's minds that case, but I think after Saturday, like, it's, it has to be inarguable at this point. Because the contenders have, the resumes for the contenders are all kind of flawed. There's flaws across everybody, right? When you think about Jose, he has head-to-head loss. to Connor McGregor, Max Holloway, Alexander Volcanovsky. The names that are in this conversation, when you think about Ilya toporia, he wasn't in the division long enough to be able to have the type of resume that somebody like Volk or Jose Aldo has.

When you think about Connor McGregor, it's the same thing, right? He doesn't have the longevity. And then you think about Max and he has three head-to-head losses to Volkanowski, and Volkinovsky's longevity just continues to go and go and go. all the other cases just get weaker and weaker and you're ultimately just left looking at this guy who the blemish is hard to erase right that knockout loss to Iliotiporia

is hard to erase from your mind but I've long said like the one head to head loss is not a be all end all. I think Chris Cyborg is the best female fighter of all time she lost to Amanda Nunes. I think Volk losing to Iliotiporia is a blemish. You must factor it in but when you look at the rest of the body of work

it's unbelievable what this guy's done in featherweight. But you know what? G.C., everyone talks about the defenses, the wins. What I think is actually most impressive of Vogue is how he's been able to rebound from those back-to-back losses. Remember the guy was broken? Remember he was saying that he was like losing his head and then he got knocked out by Aalya?

And then we all thought like, okay, this is the end. He'll maybe stick around for a few. I don't want to say names, but how many champions have we seen, like, lose that first one and then fall off the cliff? And then it's gone forever. I was saying this on Saturday. His ability to become a two-time featherweight champion, now rack up two defenses since at this age of 38. Remember, he was the guy that broke the

guys 35 and over at 155 and lower or 0-29 or whatever in all their fights. He was the one that ended that. So his longevity, to do it at 38 years old against a 20 and O, Mofsar Vloy. No one was able to beat this guy until he fought Volk. And to finish him in the second round, I already thought he was the goat. His resume just keeps getting bigger and bigger. To your point, I understand, Alia Taboria knocked him out. There just was not that length of time at 145, like Rick is saying.

And the Joseato thing, he got knocked out in 13 seconds by Connor McGregor. He got finished twice by Max Holloway. I think it's Volk, and I think it's fairly clear at this point. So impressed by him, but I don't want to see him fight at 55 again. No. I've made my feelings known, Rick, agree? Oh, 100%. And not only that, we're talking all this about

Volk's legacy. Volk's legacy is not the attempts at the lightweight belt. Volk's legacy is fighting the toughest guys at the end. Volks legacy is being the guy that was there at 38 years old and still getting it done against the young hungry guys. Volks legacy is you're supposed to lose to Yari Rodriguez at that point, at that inflection point of their careers. You're supposed to lose to Ilya and you do. You're supposed to lose to Diego Lopez.

You're supposed to lose to Diego Lopez again. you're supposed to loot to Mavsar. These are the young, hungry guys that are coming for you, and the statistics of the guys over 35 are all there. You are not supposed to win these fights, and he continues to. I want to see Sterling. I want to see Vichaejos. I want to see Jean-Silva.

Give me all three of those. I would love to see Volk take this as far as he possibly can. Zero interest in Justin Gae. Hell, I'd go so far as to say, if he was to fight a lightweight, I'd rather see Max, and I'd rather see Ilya. I have no interest in Volk versus Justin Gaci. It has zero to do. I have no additional interest in it just because Justin Gaci is the champion.

I see why Volk would want it, get one more crack at that lightweight gold he couldn't capture. But it does nothing for me. Couldn't agree more. Do you see? Yeah, I'm a Volk diehard. I love the idea of Volk versus Gaiti. I love the idea of him getting a crack at 155 one more time. But it just doesn't make any sense.

There's too many rightful contenders at 155 that need an attempt at the belt. Armin Saruki and being number one. And also there's guys at 145 that I would still like to see him fight. And to your point, his legacy is 145. He has one loss in his entire career at 145, that being to I would like to see him

take this as long as he can go at first loss. We call it a day, Bon Voyage, one of the greatest to ever fight period, not just 145. I mentioned this a few weeks ago. Five of the 11 current champions became champion via not beating the previous champion.

If he did that and they had to vacate 45 and 55, then it would be seven of the 11 champions. It would be insane. This is not good for the sport. And to me, it goes against everything that he stands for, which is fighting champion, not hold people back. And I understand the way he's laying it out. But Armin deserves to fight the guy who just beat the guy.

And Al Jofi beats Kevin, deserves to be that guy. and John Silva deserves to be that guy. And Lorone Murphy, I still think, should be discussed in the conversation if he gets maybe one more and gets back on track. I don't like it at all. And I love the way Dane is handling it, by the way. Like he's giving him all the respect and love in the world, but not getting a vote from me. These are like the last two divisions that need the belts vacated. Like we just literally saw it when Ilya went up to 55 and Islam went up to 170.

We just saw this transition in this exact weight class. These two weight classes, the last thing we need is to repeat that exact same thing again. It just makes no sense in the world. It can't happen. Now, if they want to do Justin Gachey versus Alexander Volcanowski so badly, and those two love that fight so much, Justin can give up the belt. No. Let somebody else do it and just let them fight.

I don't care. I hate that even more. No, no, this is why I don't want it to happen. I want to see Armin fight Justin. I want to see who's the best guy. I'd love that. Because he beat this guy who was the best guy. No, I don't want to see anyone give up any titles.

I hate that. I don't want vacated titles. I don't want people moving up and vacating. None of that. The only way I like this is if Volk moves up and promises to come back down, but still, I don't want to see him jump over Armin. And I want I want I to fight Patty, and I want them to fight each other. The beauty of Saturday was that it wasn't just about Alex Volcanovsky.

It was also about Peter Young. And let's be honest, the same way that we thought maybe that was it for Alex Volcanowski, also at one time thought maybe, and it wasn't maybe as drastic, but there was a point where Piotr, Yan lost four of his five fights. He was on a three-fight losing streak. And again, these losses aren't like, okay, what was it? The Sterling one was controversial, the first one. That was the one that he was obviously going to win. He comes back and beats Corey Sannhagen, but then he loses the surling in the rematch for a split decision. And then he loses another split decision to Sean. I know there are some people who thought that he deserved that one, but the Marab won,

he didn't look great in that. And I know he was injured and all that stuff, but still, he got skunked by Marab. Since then, he hasn't lost. He beat Song Yadong. He beat Figurado. He beat Marcus McGee. He beats Mara. He beats Mara. He beats Maraub, gets back surgery, and then beats him again. And a, probably after the Marab fight in March of 2020, I thought, man, I remember talking about like, man, there's going to come a time where that ill-advised knee is going to haunt Pyotreryon, because I don't think he's ever going to get back there now. Three in a row, he's losing to the top guys, he's losing to the guy who became champion, he's losing to Shana Malley, like, it's going to be hard to justify putting him back in

there. Obviously, as I just said, he worked his way back up. In this fight alone, he's down two rounds to nine. If that's not symbolic of this whole damn thing, he's down two rounds to none. He figures it out. Look, on all three judges' scorecards, they got a right. He's down two rounds to none. He figures it out. What a freaking fight. Fight of the year contender. The pace, the striking, the body shots, the kicks, the takedown defense, everything. It had it all. And the right man won. Peeryon, fair and square wins that fight.

And so in the main and co-main, you have two guys who, I don't think I'm being hyperbolic when I say this, were left for dead, who we did not think would be able to build their way back up to not only a title shot, but a title victory, and then title defenses, one of them in the co-main is down two rounds to none to a guy who looked phenomenal in the early going, who was the former champion, who had a very dominant win over him, not that long, long ago, figures it out, and the other is sick and stops the undefeated or previously undefeated title contender who no one could figure out in the second round via a beautiful barrage of strikes and eventually via TKO. Oh, by the way, both these fights were number one versus number two, the very best of MMA.

It was everything that we are bell-yaking about. It was perfect. It couldn't have come at a better time. I know they didn't plan it on going this way, but it could not have come at a better time for the UFC. Just a nice little reminder as to why we love this so much. I noticed this before the Yan fight, Dana White tweeting this shot of Yan in the back,

look at him getting quote unquote wrapped. What do you notice? No wrapping of any kind on the knuckles. Look at this. another freaking sicko. Look at this freaking guy. This guy went in there against Marab Dwalisvili with his hard head. And I asked his team about it.

They said he's been doing it for the last few fights. So this is not new. I got to be honest, I never realize this. And I know some fighters have done it as well. But holy shit. 25 minutes with Marab. They went 25 minutes three times. No wrapping on the knuckles?

How do you know you're a badass when you do that? A freaking badass. Here's Peter Yan getting the Heroes Welcome as well Back at the hotel They love him over there in Abu Dhabi A beautiful Look at all these fans Man they should love him everywhere he goes

Any mixed martial arts fan What he has been able to do Is so ridiculously impressive I think it's more impressive Than what Volk is doing I understand he's doing at 38 But after he lost to Iliate Tepore He just had to wait

To get the title fight against Diego Lopez Peirre Jan had to win three straight fights just to get back to fight a guy on a 13-fight win streak as like a plus 350 underdog. He pulls off the upset there and then goes down two rounds to none and fights his way back and wins three rounds to retain the belt. It's just like, I'm like in all of this guy. My mind is actually blown at the comeback he has been able to have in his career. Both dudes, right?

And then him being down early on. I'm so happy they did the immediate title rematch, the third fight, because there was a bit of a narrative. And we talked about it as well, like, oh, did he just catch Mara, up because he was trying to make history and have four title defenses in a calendar year. I was thinking that after round two. Yeah. I mean, 100%. I've been thinking about that for the last 10 months.

And now there are no questions. Oh, by the way, he just had back surgery as well. Fuck. He's a savage, dude. He is a savage. Loved him walking out with his sons. That was so damn cool. The younger son, both of them with the backwards hat like their old man.

The younger son was so excited to be there with his dad. Like, yeah, both guys. Like, how could you not be a fan of both? of them. Ilya's probably not a huge period fan. I don't think he has a beef with him, but obviously he loves Marab. Ilya was watching on Saturday. He added it on the IG live. Here's his reaction to his friend losing. And Marab respect to him for recording himself, watching his friend lose. And Marab handled it

very well as well. He went. went online afterwards and gave Jan his Just Doe was always smiling. He's always smiling. He's always gracious. No matter what. How can you not love Marab as well? Like, he's just such a likable guy and that was a really fun fight. Is it the fight of the year

right now? My memory is all crappy. I don't think anything's going to pass. Hokeet versus Boards. If that's the contender, I don't know. I think you can make an argument of this up against Hokeet versus Blades because of the level of technique, right?

Round 2.0? The stakes. It was unreal fight. Is that the frontrunner right now? In my book, yeah, bro. Tapology usually has a good running list. Y'all got to go back and watch Okid Blades, Ben. It was great.

No, it was great, but the technique. This was way higher level. Yeah, and the stakes are high. Here's what we've got so far. This is fan rankings from Tapology. Shout out to Topology. Yeah. Blades versus Hokit.

Topperia versus Gaichi. Oh, Van versus Tyra. Great one. Gachie versus Pimblit, McMillan versus Rehiki. So now we're getting toward like stakes or not as a... This is in the discussion. I think this is up there.

Mason Jones, Axel Sola. Down 2O at this level in the discussion. So verdict updates their rankings after every event, and they have this as seven. Wow, okay. Seven best fight of the... What do they have is one? Blades Hocott is one.

McMillan, Rahiki, Mason Jones versus Axelola, Teporia, Gaichie, Van, Van Tira, Van, Van, Van, Pantojo. In the discussion. If I was voting right now... Top 10 fight of the year, no doubt. I think I would have it, actually, number one. Crazy.

But I need more time. So also crazy. And everyone including our first guest of the day in about 40 minutes, Dominic Gray's, getting on our guy, D.C. I love D.C. with all my heart. Everyone's getting on D.C. I'm not going to get into the Dominic Gray as part of it. But I was waiting for a Sean O'Malley question.

I will admit, there was a Song Yadong question. And perhaps it was because Song Yodong was in attendance. the fight to make is Sean O'Malley without question. A, Jan has a win over song, but that's fine. But B, it's the biggest fight. And also, he has a loss against him and a controversial loss. And O'Malley has looked great. And O'Malley has beat song.

There is no doubt in my mind. There's no debate whatsoever. Here's Sean O'Malley afterwards saying, Peter Yan, look, I have a win over you. I have a win over Song Yadong. He's 100% right. Here he is reacting to not being mentioned But, yeah, now, Jan said, Song Yadong, King Kong, I don't care who it is, I'm fighting anyone.

So I'm not blaming Jan for this. I'm not really blaming D.C. Maybe he was told to say because he was there. I don't know. But here's O'Malley reacting to his name not being mentioned. Yeah, Song Yudong was flown out to Abu Dhabi, and they're maybe assuming Rob was going to win. I had shit I got to do. I'm in Florida.

I'm at a prize-pix event. I couldn't make it. Tim just sent me an interesting picture. Me getting my hand raised against Peter, me getting my hand raised against Song. so that's an interesting picture but uh yeah song was out there i'm assuming he was out there in case marob won dc kind of laid

it up i'm surprised peter didn't call me out i don't know why it's the biggest fight to make and if it in his eyes like shit i called chito out after i i won the bell i'm like giving the easiest fucking fight ever not ever but give me it i'll defend i'll take it who you know i'll take whoever but if i if i could pick i'm a champ i want to fight chito so look i remember

I remember when Jan became champion and was talking about what's next. He did mention Sean. And there's no doubt in my mind he wants Sean next. So I don't think it's that big of a deal. It has to be Sean. It has to be Sean. It is such a great fight. And there's a great backstory there.

And I just laid out all the reasons why. Here's Sean training, actually, after the fight. I guess he was in Florida. It's raining out there in the middle of the night. Yeah, it does rain in Florida. Why not? Here he is. Running the streets of Florida.

Yeah. You're out there celebrating your victory. I'm trading! It's array! Respect. Sean's going to be on the show tomorrow. Tim Welch is going to be on the show today, and we'll talk to him about all that more.

He's even selling rematch merch! Guys, this has to be the fight, right? No doubt. There is no world where it shouldn't be. I almost think this not doing Sean O'Malley versus Piotrion 2 would be dumber than Gachi versus Woke at 155. I agree. To a degree, yes, I agree with that.

It's just right. I mean, it's so perfect. And it's the biggest fight. He has a one over Peter Yan, Razor Close fight. He has a one over Song Yodong this year, and he's one of the biggest stars, if not the biggest star at Bantam White.

Oh, yeah. Makes for the biggest fight. And certainly one of the biggest American stars. Not to say that that's a reason, but it's just like it's all there. We keep making the case for O'Malley. Make the case for song. You can't do it.

You can't do it. Sean O'Malley, it's a no brain. Like, it's, you're, You are actually not thinking if you say that it's anybody. Is anyone even making the case? I don't think so. It feels like just the UFC with them asking about Songyong and then them being like, oh, he's here in attendance.

But it did sound like from Sugar's video, he got invited as well. And it was going to be sort of a, if Peotryon won it was like, oh, yeah, Sugar's here. And if Marab won, Songy Dogg's here. If Marab would have won, no-brainer. Marab's song. Yep. Marab didn't win. I think we all knew that going into it as well.

Can you do a fourth? I mean, depending on how it goes? No. Oh, Yon versus Marab. I thought you meant Sugar versus Marab, another one. Rare. Even that, no, we got the rubber match. We got the rubber match.

This was the best case scenario for the UFC because it puts Sean back in there. And by the way, if Sean wins, I can see a scenario where Sean wins and they do Sean Marab again, maybe down the line. That's probably the best case because I don't know if there's a massive demand for Marab. Peter, as good as Marab. Piotr 3 was. I don't know if there's a huge demand for a Mirab, Piotr 4. Well, because he won the last two, it's hard. But the same position that

Sean O'Malley was in looking like it was over, looking like the title hopes were just kind of crushed and just biding time, Piotr-Yon emerges from the ashes like a Phoenix, becomes the champion, and it opens the pathway for him. That's Marab, rooting for Sean O'Malley now.

Marab needs Sean O'Malley to win. He gets a few wins under his belt as Marab. then he could get right back in there. It's the exact reverse scenario that just happened for Sean O'Malley to now probably get this title shot. Marab can just wait for the same thing and hope that Sean O'Malley does it. Sean O'Malley avoiding three straight losses and also getting the win over song in January? Like can't be understated how huge of a moment that was for his career.

Comeback fight of the year? I already got my. Who is the comeback foot of the year? Who's to check? Song and then Amen, the finish at the White House, the Selly. Nailed it. Incredible. Yeah.

You saw the lines doing that? Yeah, I saw them do it. That was a few weeks ago, right? Yeah, it's big time, though. I was thinking about this, again, credit to both Jan, who is a little bit younger than Volkanowski's 33, Volkanowski's 38, but just their longevity. I actually put this graphic together. Did you guys realize, like, back in 2020, Jan champion, Volk champion, Abu Dhabi. here they are 20, look at this.

I saw this. I had no idea. Yeah. Did you guys see this? I had no idea. Look at that. Volk with the hair. I'm not very good at the Photoshop, so tell me if like my framing is off.

But I love this. I love this guys. I like the impact font with the black outline. You did good. Thank you. The fades on each individual picture is. Yes. I can read the font better.

Okay. I didn't know if you guys would notice that. In reality, this is G. In reality, this is G. and it was freaking swagger jacked by the people at Paramount. Do we have the Paramount one? I don't know. That would be up to you.

Is it just this? Wait, which one was that? Did they actually steal? That was the Connor one. We don't have the Paramount one? Yeah, we need the Paramount one. Yeah, we need the Paramount.

No, we do. It's this. I'm talking word for word, bar for bar, like three hours later. Was the only difference that they like put a spot shadow? We need time stamps. We need time stamps. I got timestamps. I got time stamps.

Yeah, what is that? Honestly, can I be honest? I saw the Paramount one first. And I was like, man, a bit of a weird move on GC's part. Crazy. The algorithm fed me the Paramount one first. I saw GSI. I'm watching all the highlights.

You don't get, you don't have notifications on from Connor post? I have zero notifications for anything. Bro, they got bigger impact than me. I saw this first. I was like, wow, I got to have a talk with GC. Oh, here it is. Wow. Here it is.

Yeah. I mean, like, I'm talking. I'm dropping. Is it the same pick? I'm talking word for word. They added a little highlight on the guys and like they added their own little framing. Let me get the time. They did the outline.

They did the outline. 11.50 p.m. for UFC on Paramount. Okay. Eastern? That's Eastern time. 11.50 p.m. Yep, yeah, yeah. Roll G.C. 825 p.m. Wow. So three and a half hours. Oh, yeah. So they had to see it, and then they had to cook it up and, you know, add their own thing to it.

Oh, man. Is there any chance? I'm talking. Word for word. Far for four. You did the head out line and that's it. Wow. They swagger jacked you. Yo, same picks, too. They didn't even find other picks. No.

pick the same. I think they probably took your pick. They probably took your pick. And then what they did was they just took off the top. They took off the top of the. Yeah, but they got the thing there where like the heads are over. No, you know what they did? They cropped it. They slid it up. No, they had to have because they got rid of the font. Either way. You can AI that out. Did they zoom it? By the way, did they zoom in on the picks a little bit to get rid of your font? No. To edit out your font. So you see how they cut it off. No, you can still see it's rough in the same bottom. Yeah, you're right. But. But, but, But as a former MMA social admin, this is just poor form. Now, I understand the thought process, which is you look for something

that's performing well. Jesus getting a little love, getting a little engagement, and then you go, oh, this is a good idea. But no hat tip, no changing it up at all, just like ripping the exact same thing.

It's a dicey game by Parano. I saw the picture and I was like, no, fuck. Are you pissed? Nah, nah, I don't really, look, happens, the memes especially get ripped all the time over on IG. I mean, on IG it got like 16,000 likes.

Which one did better? I'm saying yours or theirs? Oh, theirs did better, but they got bigger reach, bro. Wait, wait, which did 16,000 likes? Mine did 16,000 likes. On IG, on IG. Oh, what about on Twitter? On Twitter it did like 1.1.

I don't know what theirs did. Did they post it on both as well? Oh, yeah, bro. Oh, yeah, they got to get them likes. Nasty work. Yeah, they did 21K on IG. At the end of the day, Appreciate the love, you know, that means whoever their social media manager,

diehard follower, you know, sees what we got going on over here. Fan of the show. Fan of the show. Well, we are fans of Lonnie Kavanaugh as well. Lonnie Kavanaugh had the big first round win over Ramazan Tamirav. We're going to talk to Lonnie at about 3 p.m. So stay tuned for that. What a year for him gets the short-notice fight against Brandon Moreno.

By the way, I don't know if it's going to be a fight of the year, but the fight against Brandon Royval was very fun back in July. didn't go his way and then gets to win over Temirov on Saturday. Alexander Volkov, what a month for him. Comes on this show, and I'm not saying that we put him in the spotlight, so to speak, but I don't think a lot of people were expecting that type of fun at a Volkov, talking about Josh Hokit, talking about the state of the division, the title shot, shows up to the press conference on Thursday, asks Dana White a question,

and look, I saw a lot of people, by now you've probably seen the clip. Has everyone seen the clip? We've all seen the clip. Let's just, for the sake of this conversation, can we show them the clip? Here's the clip from the press conference. Alexander Volkov in the crowd asking Dana White a question. Questions for Mr. Dana. I'm just starting in the U.S.E.C.

So I have a few professional fighters. So what should I do to become? UC champion. How many fights do you have? Like 20 in the UC and 21 total. You have 21 fights? Yeah, what's your... 51 total and 20 in UC. How old are you? I'm like 38. How old? 328. 28? Yeah, I was gonna say you're not 28. No. So what are you looking for? What do you How can we help you? I want to be here I want to become a U.S.

He thought I didn't know. He's trying to help you out over here. Oh, sir. Do I help him? What's going to know? So yeah. I want to become a U.S. Chairman. So what should I do to get a title show? Talk to Sean and Mick.

Okay, thanks. All right. Alexander, welcome. Good to see you. Welcome. I have a... Hey, brother. I have advice for you. Go to three years, Dagestan.

I forget. There ain't no fucking way that he knew who he was. There ain't no way. And you had the stands come out in the comments be like, oh, he was, no fucking way. Volcanovsky saved his ass. You look at the body language. You look at the questions.

You look at the face, the facial expression. He had no idea. Now, I want to give him this benefit of the doubt. When you're standing there and the lights are in front of you, It is often hard. I remember one time I was hosting the Jake Paul Mike Tyson Fight Week Presser. I don't know if you guys remember this. Remember Tony Bellew showed up with an old man and he asked a question?

And he asked the question. And then it took me a second. I was like, is that Tony Bellew? It takes a second. But there ain't no way early on before Volk told him the first time, not the second time, that he knew who Volkov was. Whatever. We all know he's checked out. We all know he doesn't pay attention.

We all know he couldn't, you know, he couldn't pinpoint the vast majority of the fighters in a lineup. Not the point. I loved it from Volkov because he was not at the presser. It was just the main and co-main for whatever reason. I don't know why they decided not to have, you know, at least the top four fights. Usually they do. But fine, two title fights, all good. Who cares?

He did what he had to do before. He got a lot of people talking about his fight. And then he gets the solid win. I thought a very solid win. Almost got the sub. And then gets on the microphone and again says, hey, what do I have to do? And then walks off. Volkov title shot are we right?

Now, Tom Aspinall has to be next, so I don't know how this is all going to work out. But if Aspinall isn't next, could we get Volkov at least to New York City? Can we please get him to New York City for that fight? Come on now. Volkov is great. I loved it. You guys don't think that Dana knew who he was, right? No.

No, no, definitely not. But like you, in the best of circumstances, Dana White's kind of a little bit out of it. But then looking up into the crowd. it's dark, he might not see him. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he has at least awareness of who Alexander Volkov is, but in that first moment, no chance in hell. Zero. No.

But Volk saw him. Yeah, Volk saw him. Yeah, Volkanovsky did. Folks sitting there saw him. I couldn't believe how many people were just like, it was a joke, you morons. Are you kidding me? Of course he knows who he is. It's like, I'm not so sure that he knew who that was.

Zero chance. He obviously knows who Volkov is. He's been on the roster. That was his 20th fight. He's one of the top five heavyweight team. knows who he is, but in that moment, he did not recognize him, no shot. The other issue is that he literally right before he asked Danny a question,

he was asking Alexander Volcanovsky a question. So he was there for like three minutes before he asked Dana a question. That's a good point. What can we do for you, sir? Yeah, the sir makes it very incriminating. Very incriminating. You can tell he breaks, he starts laughing when he comes to the realization of who he is. There's no smirk, there's no playfulness, whatever.

Who cares? Volkov needs a big fight next. He's a great personality. It took him a while to come out of his shell, but I freaking loved it. I loved everything he did last week. Aaron Pico looked amazing. Wait. Wait. You said big fight. It's title fight, no? As long as Tom Aspinall remains on the sidelines. That's the title fight. Tom Aspinall. No, I mean, we don't know when he's going to be bad. We can't account for Tom Aspinon. It doesn't exist right now. Well, I'm just saying if Aspinall is cleared come January, he's next. Of course. I just said. If Aspinol is cleared, he's next. Do we have any indication, Aspinall's correct? He said January.

He's only going in January. But this fight is happening in November. They're not going to book the title fight a month later. I'm just saying if Aspinol is next, excuse me, if Aspinol is cleared, he is next. If he doesn't get cleared or needs more time and we see what happens when they need someone to defend the belt, then I think it should be Volkov. Aaron Pico looked amazing. When Aaron Pico looks amazing, he looks amazing. and he looked amazing against Lossini Keta.

I don't know. Look, he lost to Lerone Murphy. He's nowhere near the top seven or eight. But if he's looking like that against someone like Keda who looked very good in his last fight, he's going to be a force. And I still don't feel like we've seen Aaron in his final form.

He learnt the sport on the fly. He's incredibly gifted. He's talented. He's always in tremendous shape. He did talk about people sort of squatting on the ranking. Al Jermaine Sterling is not that guy Arnold Allen is not that guy Who is he talking about at 145 who is squatting on the ranking

Like if you look at the top The top dudes at 145 Volkov is the champ Does Mofsar squat? No Does Diego Lopez squat? No and he's gone anyway Laurel Murphy No

He couldn't get a title shot if he like freaking sold his kidney. John Silva? I don't think so. I mean, he took a fight against Delgado. Arnold Allen, Pat Sabatini, Pavel Andrusca, Yusuf Zalal, Kevin Vasejos,

who's squatting? You know, the difference between the meta and media at 145 is crazy. Pat Sabatini and Pavel and Druska. Yeah, you're right. I was looking at the meta. Okay. Yeah, you're Rodriguez?

Yeah. He's squatting. Well, is he squatting or is he just always injured? He's always hurt. Yeah. Always hurt. Arnold? Like, what?

Zalal, Vasejo, Steve Garcia, Pico 11. Who's squatting? I get the idea. This happens all the time. It usually happens at like 170, 155, 2 degree. I don't think it's happening at 45, to be honest. He did say in the post-fight press conference,

he specifically named Chequette Al Jermaine Sterling. I'll just fight in Kevin Vichos who's like eight spots back. He said that Aljo did not want to fight him because he was ranked too low, which I can understand. from Pico's perspective, like, I'm going to be upset about that. But if he's then fighting Kevin Vichaios, it just means he picked a better option, right? He picked a higher-level fight or a more intriguing fight or a fight that he thinks he's going to win. He's not squatting.

He's picking a very dangerous opponent. So even that, you can't call squatting. But he did in the Post-Ii Press Conference go Al Jermaine Sterling and use that as, like, the springboard for it. But I'm not seeing that. I just see, like, look, truth be told, you don't want to fight the Kevin Vichajos is. You don't want to fight the Aaron Picos. Those are very dangerous fights to take. I understand why guys would not be jumping at the opportunity.

And so it's going to be hard for Pico to forget a fight. But I'm not seeing a lot of guys who are just like sitting there and doing nothing. As we said, not in that way class. In other weight classes, yes. But not in that one. And look, he's won a couple now in a row here. He's looked very good. He did lose his debut in devastating fashion.

So just keep at it. That was a great win for him. A beautiful win. Great celebration as well. Dominic Reyes had a great win. Another guy, I talked about this being a, theme. I mean, who thought Dominic Reyes, what was it, four in a row at one point?

Yeah, it was four in a row. And then a bunch of cancellations. Now all of a sudden he's won two in a row. He's won five of his last six. Gets to win over a Merzikhanov, who's now lost two in a row, a great head kick and then finished him off, and then super fired up afterwards about our boy DC.

Warranted? I don't know, man. He's going hard. He's starting this new show, the commentary booth, where he's going to like critique the booth's performances every week. That's the whole premise. Yeah, yeah, where he literally just shits on their calls. Does he say this on his YouTube channel?

We have a clip of this, yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We got the trailer for it that he released today. He already has a trailer for this show. Yeah, we're going to need a new camera, but yeah. All right, let's take a look. The commentary scorecard, here it is. They critique us every week.

Now the booth is under review. I'm Dominic Reyes, and this is the commentary scorecard. Oh, my. Good calls get crazy. credit, bad calls get called out, and when they make it sound easy, I'll explain what they're missing. Welcome to the commentary scorecard. Oh dear. Yeah, he was going back and forth with DC, not very happy with him. So we'll talk to him about all that when we have him on, hopefully, in about 19 minutes time. But a great story, because again, there was a time where I thought

he would be lamenting that quote-unquote loss to John Jones, which I still maintain was not a loss for years and years and years and years and here he is on a bit of a roll again at 205 pounds. He was a slight underdog, by the way, going into that fight. Abdul Rahman Yachiev

got the first round win over Nikita Krilov. Abus Bakomadov! Come on ride that train. Come on ride the bus, baby. And here we come. I think we're five and one in our last six.

Your boy. We! We. Yes. And he was a, channeling he was channeling Nathan

Diaz. He was channeling old Nathan with the flex. Look at this. Amazing.

Side by side look at these two. He's nothing but pure entertainment, baby. He's great. You caught him

at, uh, no, I guess it's not October Fest anymore, but I was going to say Dusseldorf's very own. Grant Dawson

with the win. Colby thickness with the win over Asaf Chopporov. So Danny Rubenstein telling us that Asoff was one of his best.

Damn, bro. Whoa, what? Listen, I said it before. This guy's coming on the show because Danny told me this is his biggest prospect. He lost to Colby. I'm sorry.

But can we be fair? That was scored incorrectly. You think I said to one. Chopperov won the first round. Well, yeah, especially the fact that the losing scorecard was thickness round one, which I just don't know how you could score that for him. You could easily argue two three, Kobe thickness. And that round three was very close. But, yeah, to Dan Lethaby, I believe it was.

had round one for Kobe David Lettabee, I think. David Lettabee. Yeah. Anyway, not exactly the debut that we thought Colby was a big time underdog plus 460. Told them we would take their owes,

flew out to Abu Dhabi to prove it. Australia 2, Russia Zero. Kobe Thickness sent me a DM in 2020 being like, yo man, I can't wait to be on your show. Sent me another one yesterday being like, is it time? Come on. I swear. It's got to be time?

Oh, yeah. Wednesday. Yay. Let's go. I love one. I see that stuff. I saw the message. I was like,

oh shit, I missed this one six years ago. It is time, Colby. Abu Bakar Vajiev gets to win. Did I pronounce that correctly? Abu Bakar Vagaya. Vagayev, excuse me.

Jacob Malkoon was his opponent. Daniel Santos gets to win. Cody Steele with a very impressive win. He looked nice. Very impressive in the first round. And Yasmin Lucindo with the unanimous decision win. So there you have it.

There's UFC 333. More to come, of course, with the guests. But during the card, they announced UFC 313, Oh boy, do I have a lot to say about this. UFC 336, January 30th, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Main event, Joshua Vanne against Manel Cap for the UFC Flyway title.

No controversy here. No, no, there's nothing. We knew this was going to be the fight. Everyone knew it was going to be the fight. These two have been talking about diapers and babies and all kinds of stuff, tities, everything. They talk about these guys. It's very weird between these two, but I can't wait to see the fight. I love it.

Here's Manel after the fight got announced on. on social media saying this, you better spend time working on that defense kid or ask the UFC to let you wear a helmet. You have my permission because I'm coming to do some serious damage to that peahead. Josh says, shut your ass up. Make wait and show up.

I better not hear another toe injury BS again. So these two are going to be great. The presser is going to be great. I can't wait for it. But then they announce the co-main event. And it is Carlos Prachas fighting in Toronto, but he's not fighting Islamachia for the undisputed title.

He's fighting Michael Morales. for the interim title. Now, here's the thing. I have many thoughts about this. I saw you guys reacting to it in real time. If you recall, after Carlos Prachas beat Michael Morales, excuse me, beat Jack Della Madalena in May, and we knew Islam was fighting Ian Machado Gary in August,

I said that I wanted to see Carlos fight Michael, maybe even on that Philadelphia card, it didn't happen. That was the fight that I wanted to see back then. But as time went on and Islam beats Ian, and Islam tells us he wants to fight quickly, it had to be Carlos next, because I thought the strength of his wins was way more impressive,

and Michael needed one or two more, and his last fight was in November. And so we were told that they were trying to book Islam versus Carlos in Toronto. And all signs pointed to that, and even the information that we received after the fact has confirmed that. On Friday, I see that AG fight reports

that fights not happening in Toronto anymore, and then I confirmed it as well. And what I was told was it didn't work for Islam. That date didn't work for Islam. All right. And so I was wondering what they do with Carlos. Are they going to keep Carlos on ice till post Ramadan? What are they going to do with Michael Morales at this point?

And so they make this fight. Obviously, on paper, I love the fight. It's a freaking amazing fight. It's an incredible number one contender fight. I'm happy that they're getting a chance to fight for the belt because when you fight for the belt, you get perks. You get a different type of pay. hey, you're in a different type of structure, bracket, whatever, that's great.

But if we're being honest, it's total bullshit that there's an interim title fight on the line. And it's bullshit for two reasons. Number one, Islam's last fight was in August. This is happening in January. That's five months later. What the hell are we doing? There is no need for an interim title fight. No need whatsoever.

Other than they're mad at Islam for not taking this fight. All right. Do I think he really cares? No. I don't think Islam should be scolded for not wanting to fight five months later. And I think Islam has every right to be annoyed about an interim title fight. He doesn't seem all that annoyed, if I'm being honest. But if he is, he has every right to be.

There are other fighters, Carlos Ulberg is an example, who last fought in April, in April, four months before, who then tore his ACL and there's no sign of him coming back, and they haven't done an interim. But this goes back to the Valentina and Natalia Silva thing and bumping up Cyril Gan and all the other weird decisions that they make. If they need something now, if they're dead set on something happening, they're going to change their own rules and make it all that much more confusing for everyone.

So there was no need for an interim. I'm happy that there's an interim because they're getting, I know this may sound confusing, but please, like, There's no need for the interim. I'm happy they're getting the interim only because they get the perks of being a champion. This is a great fight,

but it should have been Carlos Pratchez versus Islam. That's what it should have been because that's what Islam told us he wanted. That's the issue that I have here with Islam. I don't have an issue with Islam

not coming back in five months. The only issue I have is he told us that's what he wanted. And now he's flip-flopping because after the fight in August, this is what he said to us about when he wanted to come back and fight again.

Are you looking to be able to fight two times next year after Ramadan? Bro, we have to fight before Ramadan, 100%. Before Ramadan, okay. You're shooting for January. Of course. January, end of the year, I have to fight. Even the end of this year? Yeah, because I'm not like 20-somethings.

I'm 34 years old and I have to fight soon as possible because I'm not cut much weight. I don't have like any big injuries, just have to maybe double check my nose. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. And before this fight also, I give my approval to fight in White House.

It's a long story why I'm not there, but I told beginning of the summer, I want to fight. I call Ali, I call everybody, I want to fight. But it's not something I chose and I make, you know. So what changed? January end of the year. What changed? Did he get injured? Doesn't seem like it, because this is what he said yesterday about why he is not.

fighting in January. He speaks, well, no, no, let's go to the clip that was posted yesterday. He's speaking in Russian. There's subtitles, and so I will speak at the same time. We can play the clip. Here he is. Is this? I'm a few questions about your career. Is January real or just a rumor? So this was posted yesterday, but came, was done before. Just the month, is your fight book? Yes, Prachis and Morales will fight. Determine who is a true worthy contender. And I'll fight the winner. you think about that. It's good. Makes it more interesting, right? Yeah, more

interesting. They offer me a fight with Prachas, who recently lost the Ian Garry, someone I beat, and if I beat him, Morales would already be next in line, who's not fighting and waiting for a title shot. Just let them fight and we will figure out who's the real challenger.

Come on, man. Carlos Prachas just beat Jack Del and Madelena. Prior to that, Carlos Pratchez beat Leon Edwards. He didn't just lose to Ian and Gary. People lose, they come back, they build themselves up. That was the fight to make. So again, I know I'm all over the map here, and I know this could be misconstrued. There should not be an interim title because he just fought at this point two months ago. By the time the fight happens, it will be five months. He fought two months ago. There is no world where there should be an interim title when you fought two months ago, number one. Number two, I'm happy that there's an interim title because they're getting the perks. That's just because I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm,

I'm a lover of the fighters and I want them to get paid more. It is annoying that it's not Carlos Pratchez versus Isam-Mahatchew because that's the fight that they wanted to make. And he told us that he wanted to fight in either December or January. And now he's trying to say, I don't want to fight Carlos Prachas because he lost the Ian Garry two years ago. None of it makes sense. After the fight got announced, or excuse me, right before the fight got announced, Isam tried to get ahead of it and let the world know what was coming. Are you fighting Carlos in January?

This is before the announcement. Carlos Morales, January, too much contenders. We have to know who is better and who deserve. Get out of here. What about you? What does that have to do? So then pick someone else. What does that have to do with you fighting in December or January?

Then Carlos Pratchez writes on Instagram, I've been working for my dream to be a champion at 17 years old, and now you postponed it. I'm number one. I knocked out two former champions while Morales only beat Sean Brady. You told UFC you won't be ready to fight in three months. Bro, you don't drink, you don't smoke, you don't party, and can't prepare for a fight in three months. Let me show you how it's done.

January 30th, I'll knock out Michael Morales, and then I'll come back to retire you. Fajiao? Probably a bad word. Islam then replies on X to Pratchez. I just beat the guy who chased you around the octagon for five rounds. Yeah, two years ago, two plus years ago. Shut up and go train.

You're not on my level. you soon. Hashtag maybe. Whack. Ali chimes in. Love when Ali chimes in. Like he has anything to do with any of this. Couldn't save his guy Farid from getting cut from the UFC. If you're a contender, Islam is the champion and maybe the greatest fighter of his generation. Talk less because he'll make you look bad. None of you add to his legacy. He fights for passion, love of the sport, and the fans. So then don't be the champion. If none of, if being in Carl's Parchas doesn't add add to his legacy or Michael Mariles, then what are we doing here? He's doing it just for the fans. Morales then chimes in

You called me a coward But you needed 10 months to get ready to fight me Bro, I don't make excuses I wait for my moment And take whatever opportunity comes my way Now shut your mouth and quit smoking Because trust me you're going to need those lungs All kinds of drama

Dana White of course at the post-fight press conference Was asked about all of this Here's what he had to say Oh Islam, you know On average Islam fights like once a year And he was slated for January And then said I don't want to fight until after Ramadan and you just you can't hold up divisions like this.

You got to keep moving and this fight makes sense. Did he give a reason why? Because he had already said he wanted to fight before Ramadan, right? And then he just changed his mind. No, no reason. Seems to me like he's a little annoyed, if I'm being honest, even that one-year comment. Paulo Costa, by the way, who wants that interim title fight, but ain't going to get it with one fight left on his deal, posted this. Carlos Selberg over a year, UFC should do an interim light heavyweight belt.

Nope, Islamahatcha fought two months ago. He can't find January. Let's make a welterweight. None of it makes sense. By the way, let's go back to, let's go back to Islam versus Charles October 2022. That's when he won the vacant lightweight title. His next fight was in February of 2023. So that's not a year, in all fairness.

His next fight was in October of 2023, so that's eight months. His next fight was in June of 2024, which would be eight months. His next fight was in January of 25, which would be seven months. His next fight, November of 25, which is 10 months. Next one, August, which is 10 months. And so that's why, to be honest, so I bring this up to say once a year is not exactly fair. But when he said that he was going to come back December, January after fighting in August and looking like that, I was like, there ain't no way. I didn't believe it. And I'm pretty sure I said it

on the show. I would be shocked if he comes back that quickly. I just don't understand the logic of instituting an interim belt when he just fought two months ago, unless you know that he's not coming back for a hell of a long time. All it does is devalue the belts more. And if I'm being on is the thing that annoys me the most is his reasoning. You told us back in August, you're going to come back, and now you're saying there's too much contenders. Nothing changed. Carlos hasn't fought since. Michael hasn't fought since. They haven't lost since. They haven't won since. What changed since the time that you were sitting there? If you knew you were, did you sit back and look at the rankings and be like, I had nothing interesting here? I don't get it. I really don't

get it. So I know I'm kind of all over the map on this one, but the institution or the introduction, say of the interim belt is annoying and his explanation is annoying. I guess the bottom line is it should be Carlos versus Slam, January 30th in Toronto. But I am happy we're getting Carlos versus Michael just from a fan standpoint. Like that's an incredible fight. Yeah. I agree with what you guys said when you saw it. It's an incredible fight.

But the whole thing is just annoying. Or just do Michael versus Carlos five rounds, no title. Why can't that be a fight? Why can't that be a fight that happened? So I'm totally okay with that, but if we're going to make this annoying, at least they could get the perks of being champion. Do you know what I mean? It makes the belts so. Of course.

Belts are useless now. But that's the one thing that I'm not going to get annoyed about because at least they're benefiting from it. But Carlos got screwed here. How much are they benefiting from it? I know there's a benefit. It used to be a real benefit when you actually shared and participated in pay-per-view points. Now you don't even get that. Are you getting paid extra?

How much extra? I'm sure there's a benefit. I get it. I understand. but like the belts have no meaning anymore the belts are completely devalued like Natalia Silva versus Wong Tong

is not a title fight I'm sorry it's just not and neither is this it's an embarrassment how much by the way Cyril Gan versus Alex Pereer is not a title fight either it's just a it's just what about Islam saying I'm going to come back and then being like

there's too many contenders oh I'm not defending any of that like that's whack as hell you should have just not said anything If anything, just say that you weren't going to be ready before Ramadan, so he's got to push it to her after. Hey guys, historically, I need eight months, and the way this plays out with me fighting in August, it falls exactly during Ramadan, so I'll see you in June. What's wrong with that? No one would have bad at an eye. No.

That's just the cost of doing business with Islam. We get it. We understand it. We respect it. We've all moved on from it. But you told us at the presser, you're coming back December and January, and now you're telling us there's too many contenders. What changed? Well, what's weirder is the reporting saying that it was leaning toward that, right? Because then that indicates some level of interest from the Islam side. Something changed then even from there, which is more fascinating. Because if it was never a thing, then it was never a thing. But it sounds like the talks were ongoing and leaning toward that. So it's like what changed after that, right?

It's not like he sat back and was just like, hey, maybe I'll be there, maybe I won't. Seems like he was aiming toward that date. What happened? What happened in the time since? or just be quiet. You don't need to say anything. Just be quiet and we'll find out when you're ready to fight. But I'll be honest, I'm less mad about the Islam part.

It was silly. It was a bad explanation. Then I am about just this continued shitting on UFC belts. Can we acknowledge it's a great matchup? It's a phenomenal match. I want to see this fight more than I wanted to see Carlos versus Islam. Same. I'm totally honest.

And I'm just viewing the interim belt as a de facto number one contender. So you're not annoyed that Carlos is not getting the opportunity to fight Islam? Earn it. I think he earned it. He'll earn it in January. I don't think that's fair. I actually going back to everything.

I didn't mind Michael Morales getting the title shot. Over him. It's an unbelievable number one contender fight. It's an unbelievable. I need to understand this. Why is it not fair? Everybody can't be guaranteed a title shot all the time. Morales can't be guaranteed one.

Ian couldn't have been guaranteed one back then. Every guy, every time they win, it's like guaranteed. No, I don't agree with that. but the UFC agreed with the notion that Carlos was next because they tried to book the fight. And now he ain't. Yeah, so that sucks. So I feel for him.

But no, listen, that's why I feel like it's hard to give my full black, there aren't black and white thoughts on this one because I love the fight. The interim is annoying, but I like that they're getting an interim. And I am not mad at Islam for not coming back, you know,

five months and two months after he fought, but I am mad that he told us he's coming back and now he's giving us some fauccaque to reason. You understand? You're all twisted up. They're all twisted up. By the way, I'm aligned with you on every single one of those. I agree with you on every single one.

I'm fairly unbothered by the interim title. I just don't, I just don't view it as a real thing. It's just a number one title contender. That's the fucking problem. They're always going to do this, though. As long as the BMF don't exist, you're always going to get the interim. They're always going to do it. Who cares, though?

And I don't like it. Who gives this shit? The fire is the exact same. Shut the fuck up and watch the house. Shut the fuck up and watch the fight. And this fight is going to be phenomenal. It is. And on the night, we're going to love it.

And it's going to determine the real number one contender and all that stuff. But you do have to admit. It is a little... I was excited. I was excited at Islam coming back before Ramadan. And I was excited about Carlos versus Islam. I like that fight. Fourth interim belt this year?

Natalia Silva Wang Tong. Alex Pereira is... No, Natalia Silva is undisputed. Oh, that was undisputed. Oh, right. I actually fucked that up. Oh, yeah. That's even worse.

I mean, it might as well be an interim belt. It is an interim belt. But fight is a fight, you know, business. Should it have been for the vacant title? Should they have stripped them? No, no, no, no, no. Can you imagine? I can.

He fought two months ago. They're useless. These titles mean nothing. You know what? And then you're 100% right because they had like, they had set their sights on this fight or at least Carlos being in Toronto. And that's, there's no need. Do you know what I mean?

Like, it should only be interim or vacant. if a year has passed. The guy just fought. So why is it interim? Unless they know something we don't, and they're telling us something that we don't know about, there are so many other weight classes and belts that haven't been defended yet. I mean, look at Bantamweight.

Kayla was out since June of last year. June. And now we're finally getting it, but there were no talks of interest because there was no need for that. Once they feel like they, we need something here, we need to fill this hole, fill this. Okay, now we're going to do it. It's crazy. It's absolutely crazy.

It's frustrating because all it's doing is devaluing all the belts. In a perfect world, if we're not living in a world where guys are getting perks if they're, if they're champions and everyone's getting good pay and all this stuff. Yeah, this should be a number one contender fight. Co-made event. Five rounds if you want. Absolutely let the winner fight arm Islamach. But do you think that the undisputed belt is devalued by this? Like, do you think what Piotr-Yan and what Volkanowski were defending on Saturday is devalued by this? Or it's just the BMF, the vacant, the interim, the like, we need to plug a hole type belt, are the ones being devalued? Yeah, not everything.

It's just in those particular weight classes. Also, you know what's annoying about this one? Sometimes I get it. You know, we talked about, oh, they need a title fight to main event. This one already has a very good title fight. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's not like they need it.

It's not like they, it's like you have. 332 needed a title fight. Okay, fine, fine, fine, even though we already argued about this. And as excited as I am for Michael Morales, Carlos Brochester? I think I'm more excited for Josh Vanelkoff. So you... Really? It's a great fight, but this to me is like, fine. They're both just... This is fireworks on 4th of July. Like, this is legit? These legit might be the best two fights that, like, I'm most excited for it. Yeah, look, if I'm a Toronto fan, like, I'm not complaining that much. Seeing Islam, and also you have the feeling right now, like, is Islam at 170 beatable, right?

Like, okay, he beat Jack Della, did Ian figure something out? Can this version of Carlos who just beat Jack? There was just so much intrigue. Yo, but whoever wins this fight, and I bet it is going to be by finish because of how chaotic there and how much power they have,

whoever wins this fight will be that much scarier of a boogeyman to take on Islam out. Fair, fair. And by the way, if Islam didn't say he was coming back December of January, I would have been like, oh, yeah, this is perfect.

The interim thing is bizarre as well. I could be wrong on this. I feel like every time we're seeing the post-fight pressure with this on, he's like, I'm fighting again soon. Oh, is that a thing? I need to do some research, but I feel like we've heard him say that before, and then it's just like, here he is 10 months later. Okay, I don't remember that.

I'm not getting too mad about. I don't know what I'm more annoyed about. I love the fight. We going to T-Dah, bro? That's the real question. The six? I'm there. I'm going to call Aubrey and ask him if he's got seats for us.

By the way, happy birthday to Aubrey. 40. You see the Backstreet boys showed up? My guy. In a twist, he asked me to send him a video congratulating him on getting to 40. You know what I'm talking about, right? Hobby?

Cap. Yeah, Hobby Graham. Yeah. Great. We're welcome. Do we have our first guest? Okay. Guys, we got a lot more show and a lot more news and notes. We'll talk about Vulcan Australia

and his legacy as well. Tim Welch is going to join us Lonnie Kavanaugh are going to join us, but one of the big winners on Saturday in Abu Dhabi was Dominic Reyes, had a tremendous win over Azamut Mirzikanov. He brought the heat in the cage. He's bringing the heat out of the cage as well. He's kind enough to join us right here.

And now the Devastator on this Monday afternoon, Monday morning still over in California. Hello, Dom. How are you? What's up, Ariel? I'm doing good, man. I'm ready for the heat. I got my hands up because I feel like you're still in fighting mode.

So I don't know if I'm in your cross-exam. hairs, but I'm taking it as, you know, the fact that you're here is that we're cool, right? Because I don't want the dumb smoke. All right. That's good, man. I don't want to give you the smoke, man. Okay. You're well prepared.

You're well, research, so you're not going to get the smoke. Oh, thank God. Thank God. First of all, congratulations on the wind. How was your time out in Abu Dhabi, first things first? Honestly, it was awesome, man. Last time I was there, I was kind of a prisoner, so it wasn't that fun during Fight Island. So this time I was able to actually go around and be free and be meeting the locals and met some really cool people.

I got to golf at night over there, which was really cool. Yeah, it was an amazing fight week. Everything went literally exactly according to plan. And here I am. By the way, I'm not much of a golfer myself, but isn't it hard to golf at night? Or is it just like one of those where you're like hitting balls? No, so this course, like, you know, in classic Abu Dhabi fashion, the whole course is, lit up. Wow. Wow. Yeah, beautiful, beautiful, perfect manicured grass. I mean, it was a really good time.

Have you ever golfed that night before? Never. That was like a bucket list thing for me. So that was really cool. Amazing. All right. And then obviously the result was great. Considering, you know, what some people had to say about your last fight, the Johnny Walker fight, did you feel any type of sense of urgency, some kind of pressure to be like, okay, let me put an exclamation point on this performance so no one can say anything about this one? No. Every fight's its own thing, man. You fight your fight, how it goes, and that's it.

There's really no sense in trying to, like, rewrite the past or change your style. Just fight your fight. It's its own universe, every fight. So I know what I'm capable of. I go out there, and if I hit you in the right spot, it's going to be over for you kind of, you know. So, yeah. You mentioned the last time being in Abu Dhabi. I think the last time you were there was when you fought for the belt, right?

Yes, I fought Yon for the belt. Obviously, the world is completely different and the restrictions are different, but did that bring back any emotions, feelings? Like, okay, let me write this wrong. Yeah, so that one was kind of like, you know, let's rewrite this. Let's have a completely different experience. Let's have a better experience this time. You know, let's enjoy it.

You know, let's make the most of this. I don't know how much longer I'm going to fight, so let's go to this foreign country and have a good time. When you say that, you don't know how much longer you're going to fight. Is that because you're thinking about it? Well, I'm 36 years old, and I have five fights left on my contract. You don't know what's going to happen. I was in a situation where I got blood clots,

and I could have been done any second. So I'm at the point where I'm just embracing everything and really appreciating everything. that Johnny Walker fight that I referenced what was your takeaway from that fight like what did you feel was the story of the fight as the same as when I fought that night you know it was a I fighting extremely dangerous guy

I'm also extremely dangerous he was extremely he was very hesitant he didn't enter very much we both were feigning a lot I was entering as much as I could but yeah the ball never really got rolling as you would say

But it was, I controlled the center of the whole fight. I invited him to enter the whole fight. I didn't cut him off on purpose to give him opportunities to enter, and he still didn't enter. And that's just how it goes sometimes. You know, we both fought our fight that night. And then our next fights, we both get knockouts in the first round. So, you know, we're both extremely dangerous. And sometimes you get two guys that are that dangerous together, and it doesn't go as plan.

and then people get mad about it. And honestly, I don't really care. You land the head kick and then you slipped. What are you thinking in that moment? Well, I landed and I slipped and I looked him in the eyes. And he was looking at me, but he wasn't looking at me. So, like, I was like, oh, he's hurt. I have like 10 seconds until he gets his whereabouts.

So I got up and just went for it. And that you did. You finished him. You stopped him. You were fired up. It was, I mean, one of your better stoppages, especially the head kick landing the way in which it did. Still, still no bonus. I think it's been a minute.

Man, I don't even know what to do anymore. Like, what boy could I do? You know, I'm not mad, though. Volk keeps taking my bonuses and that's fine. You know, he's a legend. He's doing some crazy stuff up there for those title fights. So do your thing, Volk, you got it, bro. Yeah, I saw actually on Twitter, like, you were kind of like, you were kind of like,

live tweeting the rest of the card and giving love to Vogue and Jan as well. Yeah, yeah. Almost like you read this and you're like, oh man, this guy actually fought on the card. You're not just a fan. What compelled you in that moment to shower these guys with love and praise as they were doing great things that night? I mean, I'm in there too. I'm a real, I'm a human being, right?

I'm not a bot. I'm going to say what's on my heart. You know, I'm genuinely happy for these people. You know, when I'm out there, you know, it's nice to have other people, other fighters that appreciate my work. and are happy for me as well, you know. I've been around just as long as all these guys, so it's like we're,

we root for each other and we respect each other, you know? And then we get to the DC stuff. You were unhappy with DC. You know, I went back and watched the post-fight interview. It seemed like you guys were totally cool. He had his arm around you. He gave you props. You seemed happy to see him, you know,

whatever that means, like there was no sort of tension. When do you come to the realization that, you know, you didn't like what he said, Did you go home and watch it or at the hotel? Well, yeah, I watched the fight at the airport. And then I was like, dude, why are you talking about, man? He was so off base on so many different things. It was like, dude, you didn't do any research.

And now you're just like kind of talking, man. Like if you watch my YouTube, my channel, I just started the commentary scorecard. I break it down exactly what it is. I'm not really going to get into it right now because it's a bunch of different talking points that I have actual facts. Right. So I'm not just talking, you know, It's this exact moment in this part of the broadcast. He said this and it was off base, you know, like, so that's what bothered me.

It was like, dude, it's just the fact that you're ill-prepared, you know, and you have a tendency to be a little biased. You look at all the other sports in the world, football, baseball, basketball, extremely professional, extremely prepared, and ready to go. And it's color commentary. It's not just talking about meat pies during the fight, you know? So it's like, yeah, it's just me. The whole thing is just me holding them accountable.

So the only people in the whole Octagon, the whole UFC that are never held accountable is the announcers. So it's timed. That's all I have to say. Has this been bothering you for a while? No. I mean, no. Yes and no. But I've watched fights my whole life and I hear them say some outlandish things.

And I'm like, you're just going to get away with that. You know, nobody's ever going to check them on that. ever. But we do something in the cage or we or something happens and everybody's talking about it and writing about it and you know, so I'm like, hey, how about we put the pressure back on the media, back on the commentary to be good at, be great at what you do, not just good. So yeah, if you start if you start slacking off too, Ariel, I'm coming at YouTube, bro. Well, and I know by the way, we just, we just plug your YouTube channel and this, the show that you're doing. So I'm not trying to take away from that. But just for the sake of this conversation, can ask,

What bothered you the most about what he had to say? It wasn't one thing. Okay. It was a culmination of things. It was throughout, it just kept getting worse. I'm like, bro, what? Talking about Azamat's a natural orthodox, and he's fighting South Paul for this fight.

And I'm like, bro, he's a South ball. Like, what? Talking. I don't have the talking points right here right now, but I've a... Yeah. Go to my YouTube. Okay. I just want to ask about one thing. D.C. did tweet, this is what pissed him off. Paramount Plus edits their replays into highlights. His quotes. Everybody had wrote this kid off.

He went on a bit of a losing streak. Was not fighting well. He came back and started knocking people out, putting himself right back with the best guys in the world. Is he right about that? Is he right that this is what pissed you off? No. No. That's one of the points because he said he's coming right back. And fighting top, top-ranked guys again. And my comment to that was in the video was, I've been fighting top-ranked guys the whole time. I never stopped. But that wasn't the thing that made me mad.

Like I said, it was a culmination of things. People, it's funny because people like to think they know what I'm thinking, and they have no idea. That's why I broke it all down by my YouTube. I got you. And is this something that you would like to bury the hatchet with him on? Like, would you be interested? I have no.

Yeah, I have no problem. problem, man. I just want him to do better. It's bottom line, do better. It's not, I'm not like mad in attacking him. It's, hey, we need to do better. Overall, this is like a whole thing now. It's, it's not you directly, only you. It's like, everybody in the, in the podcast booth needs to be on notice now that they need to actually show up and do their research and be ready to go. Because if not, Dom's YouTube channel is right there and I'm going to be calling you out. That's all it is. But I did see you say that he's a, he's a, he's a hate. right like he's a lot initially i was upset because i heard so much of it and i was just coming off

my win and i was like what dude why you just yeah the the whole fight initially in the fight it was they were just talking about azama and how great he is and how amazing he is didn't see anything good about me like other than i came back from my losing streak and then i knocked him out and that was it there was no color commentary on what was actually happening on the fight in terms of Dom's moving well in the outside. He's saving him up with leg kicks. You know, Asimat's, you know, susceptible to leg kick. Da-da-da.

No, they were just talking about Azama and how great he is and all these wonderful things. And just, it was a one-sided commentary until I knocked him out. Permission to push back on one thing? Yeah, go for it. So the tweet where you wrote, sick of being the nice guy while these clowns flat out disrespect and marginalized what I've done in the sport, these so-called quote-unquote experts. And when I read that initially, like, if you would say that about me, I'd be like,

yeah, you know, you could say, ah, he didn't fight, right? This is Daniel Cormier, one of the greatest fighters of all time two division champion. That's nothing to do with his commentary. But I mean, like, you know, fighter doesn't automatically make you an expert in striking. Doesn't automatically make you an expert in movement, right? That, you still have to be good at your job. That's the funny thing about this. People think because he's double champ, all these things, that he automatically knows everything about everything.

No, you got to continue to grow and learn and get better. Not just everybody already give you a pass that you know everything about everything. That's not how the world works, man. There's constantly things to learn. And by the way, I'm not here trying to defend him. I didn't even talk to him about it. No, but usually you're just, you're playing devil's advocate, which is fine. And that's why I'm saying, I just want to give you a chance to explain because usually, as you know, people will say that about us.

Of course. He's never fought. what does he know? But you don't often hear it about a Hall of Famer. So I wanted to know where you were coming from. Yeah. And then whatever. Like to that point, what, yeah. He's, he was a great fighter. And I'm not saying he wasn't a great fighter. I'm seeing as a commentator, he slacks off because he lives off of his double champ status in my opinion. And it seems, and it seems like he doesn't do the research. He seems like he doesn't do the work because he's double champ Daniel Kornmey. Do you think he's biased in favor of the Russian fighters?

Yes. Based on previous commentary that you've seen, not just this fight. Oh, many, many fights. Not just my fight, many fights. I mean, I may have to find him one day to defend this point, but I mean, it's been years and years of him being biased. I don't think that's going to happen, right? Of what? You say you may have to fight him. No, I said I may have to go back and find the... Oh, sorry, sorry.

I misunderstood. Sorry, I was like, no, no, no. That's not going to happen. No, I said, you may have to go back and find the place. Gotcha. Yeah. But that's like... Did you see John Jones weigh in on this?

No. Someone tweeted, John, Ray is speaking down on you go, which I didn't really see, by the way, but this is just fans stirring the pot. But anyway, he said, send this to him. I'm giving him a virtual hug. I hope one day you heal from such a defeat. Close but no cigars. Sweat more past that.

onto the next generation. I don't even know what he's talking about. I guess... That's nothing to do with any of this. No, I know, but this was in the middle of all of this. And I guess he still thinks that you're fixating on him, but I don't get that impression. So I just wanted to know if you had seen that

and if you felt some sort of way about it. No, I haven't seen it, and I've had, like, what, 10 fights since that? Yeah. To me, you know, we were talking about Marab and Jan and how... Yon's win and then Vogue's win. One of the great stories from those two fights is that, like,

there was a time where people left those guys for dead after, after, you know, Vogue lost twice in a row. Now look at him. Yeah, that's the MMA media, man. That's how you guys do. That's how it goes. Like, that's, I've been in this game forever, dude, 10 years. Like, it's the same.

You have one bad performance in your wash. You beat somebody that was knocked out in the past. They had a crack chin. You don't have a great fight. Oh, he's, he's. he's done, retire. You lose one fight to a champion. Oh, no, you're horrible.

Like, bro, it's a joke. Is that the MMA? The only thing that matters, that's the only thing that matters is your people and your family and what you got going on and your team and what you believe in yourself and your God. Everything else is complete bullshit. I couldn't agree more with that last point as far as what matters to you. But is that the MMA media or are those the fans in comments and who, because like, I've never said that. And the fans. You didn't say that.

Okay. So you not just, I'm not saying you. Sure, but I'm a part of it. So you are part of it, but a lot of the media, right, they'll like to just clickbait headlines. I was like the biggest thing for like three or four years, just ridiculous headlines. And then fans just run with it. Like this is, yeah, man, just clickbait headlines. And then we got kids that have like hit puberty yesterday thinking they're tough. And then that's the fan base.

and then now the UFC is like, oh, all these fans are, you know, this is our fan base, and then now they have weight, and then now they have some sort of power because this many clicks or this many comments. It's all, it's all bull crap.

I agree with all of that, by the way. It's a little bit disheartening to see who gets access or who has a voice, whatever, but I don't want you to pay attention to that, and the reason why I brought this up is only because your story is incredible because you went on that losing streak.

You had the devastating loss and now look at you. You put yourself back in a position to be what I think it's five of your last six, two in a row now, prior to that you had the winning streak. It's an amazing story.

So all I was trying to say there was just like Peirion and just like Volk, your theme, the theme of your career is pretty damn inspiring as well because there was a time where there were some people writing you off. Absolutely. And you're right.

And sorry about the little hostilities, but I have to defend myself. I love this. I have to speak from my heart, right? And I have to just say what I need to say. So there's, you know, so I feel like I'm a very misunderstood fighter, right? And then a lot of people, because I don't speak a lot, I don't do a lot of interviews, they like to just pile on me and just continue to just tear me down or say what they're going to say about me.

You know, and I have my nieces and nephews reading these things and everybody's just talking mad shit about me daily. So I'm going to defend myself a bit here. Is this something you've been holding on to for a while? I mean, since the John fight, I've just been getting trash for doing nothing wrong other than fighting with all my heart. Was there ever a point where you thought you wouldn't get back to this position? When I had the blood clots, I didn't even know if I would be able to walk or again or live. So, yeah, that was, yeah. If I didn't, once I put fighting as like, you know, it's something I get to do and it's not my everything.

everything got better. Do you feel like you appreciate it all now more? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I appreciate the actual sport and going and fighting and the staff of the UFC and the moments and the fans that have been with me since the beginning who aren't just these fairweather fans and stuff. That's all super awesome, man.

What the world we're living in is just a bunch of clowns, bro. As a result of that, where you know everyone is fickle, or a lot of people are fickle, do you not get too high after when or too low? Like, do you feel like you're more, all right, it's on to the next, more business-like? Yeah, because I'm also very aware it's like, what have you done for me lately? And then what's next. Yeah. No matter what, you could be Volk, you could be John, you could be whoever, you could be GSB,

but it's always what's next, you know? So just enjoy your time you have, enjoy these moments, you know, ride the wave and have fun. And just take them as they come. Well, speaking of that, you mentioned Palo Costa, you mentioned Khalil Roundtree. If you had a say, who would be next? I don't know anymore, man. I went back and actually looked at it because I didn't really look at it before. I kind of did, but I didn't.

Who knows, man, it could be Anklev next, you know? It could be some crazy stuff happens and I get a title shot next. You know, I don't know. But I'm up there. You know, I'm top five now, so anything is possible for me. I have unlimited possibility. So I'm very excited about that. Keep working and God will put the path in front of me.

Speaking of that title shot scenario, like Palo Kost has been very upset about not getting a shot and that, you know, Alberg got hurt in April and there's no sign of him coming back and there's no interim, but they're doing interim for 170 in a vacant title fight at women's flyweight and heavyweight. How do you feel about how the top of the division is being handled? I'm sorry, man.

I don't really have a... comment on it. I haven't really looked at it much. I've just been like, I gotta beat this guy and whatever's next is next. Things have a really funny way working themselves out in the UFC, to be honest with you, man. Do you feel like it could fall in your favor here? Like things could break? Yeah, I mean, who knows? You know, either that or, you know, fight anyone ahead of me and then be next. Well, we'll see. Before it's all said and done, would you like a chance, speaking of writing the wrong, like one more crack? I still think till this day, Dom, you know, I've said this a gazillion times.

You won that fight, and it's a great travesty that you cannot say that, you know, you beat John on that day, even though I think anyone watching with a pair of, you know, eyes that can see pretty well and, you know, a good IQ of the sport would know. Do you feel like you need to write that wrong, fight for the belt at least one more time? Yeah, man. I think I get the belt and then, yeah, that's it. done. The journey's over. Is that the motivation? I just need to touch the top of the rock, you know? Okay. That's it. Um, and then obviously I'd love to get into the Hall of Fame and those kinds of things, but we'll see, you know. Is that the motivation? Is that the main motivation at

this point? Well, the main motivation is for my son and my family, you know, to support them. Because the higher you go up, you know, the more you get paid. So that's really the main motivation. How old is your son now? Uh, 10 months. How's that going? Oh, it's the best, best thing ever. There's nearly nothing better that's ever happened in my life. So, man, so blessed. It's crazy. So you're undefeated as a dad.

Yeah, hey, there we go. There it is. There it is. Hey, look at them. Oh, I was in my Hall of Fame ceremony at Stony Brook. Congratulations on that. Thank you, man. I was such a huge accomplishment.

Were you expecting this? No, not at all. They called me, and I was like, wow. This is awesome. And then I was in the middle of camp, so it was like a nice boost to go over there and see everybody and get filled with that spirit and then come back and finish the mission. So do you think it'll be one of those things? You touch the top of the rock and then you walk away. You wouldn't do that, right?

Well, we'll see, man. I'd like to defend once to be a true champion, at least minimum. Yeah. Yeah. In your mind, how many away are you? One. One away. number one contender fight

and then it's back in the title picture yeah you've seen any of the palo costa belly aching lately he's upset no I don't you can't tell me you haven't seen it Dom you're on Twitter with all the stuff

you're clearly on Twitter so true story I installed Twitter for that one night and then deleted it oh really yeah I don't have Twitter I only had it for that night you need to get some stuff off your chest now I have it just for the YouTube thing

okay I don't, I'm honest, I stay away from, I don't follow any news media, nothing, nothing, nothing. I don't, I don't even like seeing fight news. I don't, I'm not interested in it, man. Why? It's all poisonous. It's poisonous, man. It's not good.

It's not good. You think it's toxic? It's very toxic. Okay. So after the fight, you watch the fight, you then say, man, F this commentary. Let me download this thing on my phone, and that's when you tweeted all that. Yep. And then you deleted it.

Yep. Okay. Do you regret doing that? But there's only one thing that I would say, you know, I did come off a little hard on Daniel, and I'm sorry for that, you know, on them low IQ and things like that. And I was a heat of the moment, and I do apologize for that. The other things, I stand by what I said, but I'm sorry for attacking you directly, truly. Okay.

I think that's very kind. I think he would appreciate that. So you don't regret doing it, maybe just those. particular words you would rather take back? Yeah, yeah. Just my initial heat was a little hot, you know, and that's, that's, that's not my character. That's not really who I am. I was just in the moment. And, uh, yeah, other than that, I stand by what I said. You got to be more prepared, my guy. Okay. It seemed like you wanted to, like, have a chat with you privately. Yeah. He did. Um, but, you know, I didn't. Oh, maybe down, maybe down the line.

Yeah, for sure. For sure. But like I've never seen Daniel outside of the cage ever or outside around the octagon. So like I'm not a guy that's like around. You know, it's kind of crazy. Yeah. Or maybe. Yeah, I mean the the Johnny Walker fight, he worked that one, right? Yeah. Yeah. So you're usually on the number. He was telling people that they could, oh, you could turn it off. You know, it's a boring fight. You took Kate a boo. Oh, okay. So there was stuff in that fight as well that you didn't like.

Oh, yeah. And other fights of other people, too, that I don't like. You know, he was doing the same thing in the Curtis Blades fight, you know, just boring. Like, bro. So you want us to just get knocked out for your entertainment instead of just being color commentary and being professional about it and trying to help us out and talk us up and be like, yeah, actually this is very dangerous for both of them. That's why they're both being hesitant, not all these guys are just boring. turn it off. You know, that's not cool.

Okay, he said that. He said turn it off. I don't remember. I don't know if he said turn it off exactly, but I'm, I need to be, okay, I'll be more precise next time. No, no, it's all good. I just wanted to make sure,

because that would surprise me because he works for the UFC and I would... He didn't say turn it off, of course not. But he said it's okay to boo this. Okay. Things like that is not okay. Who is your favorite? We're talking about ones you don't like.

Who do you like? Oh, well, I like them all. I like DC too. I think he's extremely well-spoken, man. he's got a silver tongue. You know, it gets fans in there. I think he's good at, he's really good at what he does. He just needs to do better.

That's it. I think Dom Cruz is the best. I think Anik is really, really good. I like Paul Fielder a lot. Laura Sanko is amazing, right? Everybody, they're all really good. But it's just like you could do better and you don't have to just like, just don't be biased, man, and be really.

and then realize these are our lives. You can't just say things really, nilly about us out here, you know? Like, that's all I'm saying. I'm just saying be more professional. Be the best. Be the best. That's all. Or as best as you can be.

Exactly. The best you could do. Yeah, I saw you tweet to, but a conscious effort, not like a halfway effort or like, oh, I'm doing my best, but then you're not doing research. You know? I saw you tweet to Dominic, something to the effect of like Dominic was

right? What did you mean by that? About D.C. not doing research. And they had that thing about, you know. I thought it was about your fight. The exact same thing. I thought he was breaking down your fight. I thought you were talking about that. No, I'm talking about the exact same thing. Dom came out of him about two years ago or whatever it was. It's this exact same thing. He's still the same thing.

That's all. Okay. When do you want to return? Oh, man. I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. I'm already getting offers. So we'll see. It could be soon. It could be later. Okay, I don't know. I got an offer right when I got backstage.

I was like, oh, come on, guys. Let me just drink this Sprite first. Oh, my God. Just a minute. Was it a good offer? Yeah, like, at least a minute. Oh, it's a very interesting offer. You know, I think that's why they came in with me right away.

They're like this. And I'm like, oh, I don't know, man. Can you tell us who it is? I can't, man, I can. Did we mention his name? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Is it Paolo Costa?

It's top five, and it's not Palo. Because Palo is, he's digging himself a real deep hole right now, I think. Yeah. Roundtree. No comment. Okay. I'm not going to say anything. Okay, sorry, sorry. Well, okay, so maybe we'll see you sooner than later.

Yeah, yeah. You haven't decided. I haven't decided because I still have to get MRIs and stuff, you know, like, kind of messed up my foot, my knee. So we'll see. In the fight? In the fight or before the fight? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

In the fight. With the kick? And then, yeah. Damn. Yeah. You know, all or nothing. Was that flight home annoying with that? Oh, dude.

You gotta love being on a plane with your foot swelling like a freaking balloon. Yeah. He's just feel your heartbeat in it. That's always fun. Oh. How long is that flight from Abu Dhabi? 16. 16.

Not straight, though, right? Straight. 16 straight, L.A. to Abu Dhabi. You can go straight. Wow. I didn't know you could go direct. Yeah. It's cool, but not cool.

Yes. Yes, yes, I understand that. Well, enjoy the victory. Congratulations. I urge everyone to check out the YouTube channel. Check it out, guys. First episode up? Yep.

I don't want to be on there, right? No, man, like I said, you take pride in being great at what you do, man. I really respect that. There it is. I really do. He's squint. I want to see you in D.C. Barry the Hatchet.

I would like to, too, man. I don't like having beef with anything. I don't really feel like I have beef with him. I'm just telling him to be better. And he's, I did come off a little hot and I did apologize for that. But it's just mainly just saying be better, man. That's it. Much respect, Dom.

Congratulations. Great victory. Appreciate you coming on after the long flight. Thanks, guys. All right. Great day. You too. Take care.

Enjoy. There he is. Dominic Reyes. The Devastator, big win. Very impressive. And I feel like we got somewhere there. I feel like we advanced a little bit. I feel good about what we did there.

So good. Yeah, I think so. By the way, the so good thing is catching on. I don't know. I keep getting it from people, left and right. I noticed, yeah. Yeah. You noticed that?

I've noticed that I'm hearing it everywhere now. People are starting to say it. Actually, when I was sitting with Armin on Thursday, he said it to me, and I, like, popped internally. He said so good. I was like, there is Armin. I didn't tell him that, but. Anyway, still to come, we're going to talk to Tim Welch.

we're going to talk about Alexander Volcanovsky's coverage in Australia, a lot more to come, more news and notes, your super chats, all that, and more. But I wanted to have our next guest on because he had a phenomenal win. There were a string of great performances on Saturday. Unlike Dominic Grace, he did get a performance of the night bonus, and it was very well deserved. He defeated Ramazan Temirov in the very first round via TKO with a blistering finish. I mean, holy smokes, the way in which he put him away, the speed, the power, the ferocity. It had everything. A tremendous win for Lonnie Kavanaugh. He's kind enough to join us right here now, and I think he's still over in the UAE at this time. Hello, Lonnie. How are you? I'm good, thank you. Thank you for having me. Congratulations on the winner. Are you still there? I am, I am. I got to buy in the background.

Must be nice over there. Is you taking some time off? Yeah, it should have a little bit, rest up, and then straight back to it. How are you feeling after that one? Yeah, I feel good. I feel good. No big injuries, nothing like that. It's just a bit of recovery time now, you know. Lonnie, I was blown away by that finishing. I mean, look at these shots right here. I think you have like 1% body fat on you.

Like the speed, the ferocity, the power, the killer instinct, the sequence, the bra—it had everything. How many times have you watched that finishing sequence there? I've watched it a couple times. To be honestly, I don't like watching too many of my fights back too many times. but yeah I watched a couple but man that was a thing of beauty how can you not love that

how can you not want to rewatch that I wouldn't blame you if you said you watched it 150 times no no got 150 so why did it look so good tell us what you were looking for and how you actually put it into action on Saturday were you were you thinking it was going to end like that

you just seem to be just on a whole other level yeah you know that again I've said it before I have the best team in the world you know and we studied the opponent. Well, and he's a scary opponent, you know, I mean, he's got some big shots coming with his puncher. He's likes to come forward a lot,

and it was just about being patient and waiting for the right opportunity. And I believe that, you know, I'm dangerous as well, and I could have got to get the finish, you know? First finish in the UFC, first finish since Contender Series a little over two years ago. Do you feel any sort of way about that, or relief just to get that finish out of the way, especially in such an emphatic way?

Yeah, Definitely. I felt like it was long overdue, you know, and I'm glad to get the win with that finish. Was that something you were thinking about a lot? Yeah, yeah. I'm always looking for finishes. Do you know what I mean? I'm always going in there trying to finish them, and I've fought some tough guys, and they've been hard to finish, you know. But I feel like it was overdue and it was this one, this was the one, you know. So what an interesting year for you, the short-notice fight against Brennan Moreno, then the war with Brandon Royville

and then this one, I'm wondering, after the high of beating Moreno on short notice, especially in Mexico City, and then being on that Connor McGregor card and all the attention, but it not going your way, how did you react in the aftermath of the July fight? How did it affect you? Obviously, losing is never nice,

but as cliches it sounds, you learn the most when you lose. And like I said, I've got all good support system around me that like obviously it sucked at the time but we learn from it and then we're going to continue to learn from it until the day our entire you know and we took away a lot from that from that from that regard can i ask what did you learn a lot of it was like decision-making just making just making like the right decisions like um over the wrong decisions at the right time and uh and

you only get that from experience you know and find someone like roy barb who's been in there so many times he has that experience so learning from his experience and learning what's like being in there with someone that has so much XP yeah we learn a lot from him did it affect your confidence at all

um I would like to think not because I'd like to think you know I'm always trying to get better at every fight anyway and I feel like it pushed me in the gym to a whole new level you know coming back from that fight So I wouldn't say it affects my confidence

But it was nice It was relieving when I got the win this weekend Yeah I bet Temirov had never been stopped via TKO Has a submission loss but never TKO Was that something you were aware of And something that you were sort of eyeing I was yeah

Yeah and he was on a massive fight Windstrike as well Yeah But he has like however many first round finishes himself You know he's a scary dude You are a scary dude as well and on the same night, they announced that there's going to be a title fight

in January, Joshua Vannan and Manel Cap. Just curious, what's your take on that one? Who do you think wins and why? To know, as a fan, it's going to be an exciting one to watch. They're both high-level strikers. They both, you know, got their striking in different ways. You know, Josh Van likes to come forward,

he likes to apply pressure, shows that he's got dog. I mean, Kay has got that finishing power. So I think I'll be, as a fan, it'll be an interesting one to watch. Are you leaning in the direction? You can't really better against Josh Van anymore. Do you know what I mean? He proved himself against Pontoya twice.

So maybe towards Van. Were you surprised he did that to Pentosia? Yeah, the way he did it, I was surprised. I thought it was a phenomenal fight and he was just able, he had an answer for everything that Pentosier threw him. I mean, he was, I've been blown away with what he's done. His output as well is amazing. He's very fun to watch.

And the fly weights are so fun. That's been one of the big stories, I think, of 2026. There isn't a flyweight fight on every car, but every time there is a flyweight fight, it seems to deliver. Do you have any sort of take on this, the evolution of the fly weights? It feels like at one point, you know, they were teetering, whether they would stay, the division would stay in the UFC. Some fans would mock the smaller guys.

Now you guys are all action, all entertainment. You never let us down as viewers. Why do you think it's all coming together for the flywights? I'm going to be biased. I'm going to say the flyweight division is the most exciting division there is right now. I think a big reason for that is you've got like the old versus new almost because you've got like the guys that have the experience, that have the XP, and then you've got the young guys coming in trying to show them that we belong here, you know.

So I feel like it gives that good balance between it and it puts us against each other a little bit more. I know it's just been one win since the rival. fight, but in your mind, how close are you to that conversation with the likes of Joshua Vanham and Malcab? I'd like to think I'm not far off. I've had three fights this year, and, you know, I managed to

get either performance of the night or fight of the night for each one. Obviously, Roybal beat me fair and square, but I heard he's injured right now, so I feel like I, you know, I'm next in line, I'd like to think. Okay. You think there's a chance that your next fight is for the belt?

I'd like to think so. For me, I'm going to have to listen to what Jose says, my manager. Yeah. You know, whatever he goes. Same on my team. So, yeah, we'll have to find out from there. But not too far off. No, I'd like to think I'm close.

By the way, you've benefited quite well from these bonuses getting increased, right? Three in 2026, now that they're 100K, must be nice. I'm not complaining. Definitely not complaining. You don't strike me as the type that's going to blow it all in one shot. You seem a little bit more measured. Do you have big plans for some of this money? Yeah, you know, I try not to spend all the money all at one go.

Trying to, you know, invest. Can't fight forever. So I invest in properties and stuff like that. But other than that, I'm just going to keep doing the same stuff, you know. I did see some of your comments after the fight, and you talked about how it's amazing that, you know, half of your fights, professional fights have been in the UFC and you can't believe this is your life.

do you find yourself at times pinching yourself that you're getting to share the stage with the likes of Alex Volcanov and Jan Marab and all these great fighters like it seems like you have a lot of gratitude a lot of appreciation for where you are in life yeah 100% there's some moments I step back and I'm like

how have I got here? Do you know what I mean? And I'm just very grateful for for every opportunity that has come my way and you know yeah it's hard to put it to words like how grateful I am for every moment

of my fight career. You know, the ups and the downs. Did you always believe you'd get here, or are there moments where you thought you might not? No, you always got back to yourself. So I'd always like to think that I'd get here. It's just the fact that I've done it this quickly and in this way, you know, fighting on a...

Fighting Mexico City, short notes against Brandon Marino, fighting on a Ponno McGregor on the card, fighting on another big card. Again, with two, you know, titles, title fights. It's just spinning. you know.

Yeah. And I did, I did hear you say that your plan was to become champion within two years of being in the UFC. I don't know if it's quite going to work out that way. Should we change it to three years maybe? Maybe three years we do it. Yeah, go. We'll change it to three years.

Okay. Yeah. Are you disappointed that it doesn't look like, did that mean something to you? Or was that just something you said at the time? No, it was just something I said at the time. And it was a goal, you know, I think it's always good to have a goal to change towards. But I'm happy with three years as well. A big thing of being a fighter is you have to sort of promote yourself.

This is part of the game, sports entertainment, all that. I did notice on Instagram, I do believe, you didn't post a single thing about this fight. And that is very rare for a UFC fighter fighting on a main card of a numbered event. Why is that? Yeah, I get in trouble for this. I'm just not very good at posting. I forget to post. I like, you know, I was trying not to be on my phone too much.

And then I always say that I'm going to post it and just forget. I don't do it on purpose. It's just because, yeah, I forget. But I'm working on it. I'm working on it. I'm going to post more. That's one thing I've set myself. So your management team, I would imagine, saying, like, you got to, you got to pump this up a little bit more?

You got to be more active? Yeah, everyone. Management team, coaches, friends, mom, everyone. Oh, my. Even your mom's telling you. Yeah. Yeah, it's bad. What's your average screen time?

It changes, especially, like, towards a fight. like four hours something like that okay that's I mean is that a lot or a little is before the fight a lot or does it go down it goes down okay so four yeah I thought you were gonna hit me with like a 45 minutes no no no no I want my phone a little bit more than that

okay so now you have no excuse if you would have hit us with the 45 I'd have been like hey guys he doesn't have time to be posting on Instagram like all you other losers no idea that I did on time I'm just about it you know what mine is I'm embarrassed. What is it?

It's like 11-12. Yeah, see, that's not that. I'm not on my phone a lot compared to you. This is a problem. No, I'm embarrassed. I'm ashamed of myself. But it is your job as well, though. To a degree, to a degree.

I mean, there's a lot of wasting time, you know, scrolling and whatnot, and you're out there looking like you do. How much, do you know what your body fat is? I have no clue. It's insane. Oh, thank you. I saw every single muscle when you were,

I saw it all. It's crazy. Oh, thank you, thank you. I'll tell you. Did you enjoy your time there in Abu Dhabi? Yeah, I loved it. I think Abu Dhabi is a really nice place. I put it very laid back, you know, which is quite nice, especially on Fight Week.

So how about everything, like a slower pace. So I love it out here, man. And by the way, shout out to the Ninja Shit Only merch store. Yes. Actually, my producer in the back was saying he really likes that LK hat over there. He thinks it's nice, but everything is nice over there. So you're getting the stuff out there. Yeah, we're trying to.

We're trying. We've got a YouTube channel as well, so make sure you subscribe to the YouTube channel. Oh, yes. Yeah, so you're just trying to. I'm going to be honest to you guys. I don't do anything towards any of this. So I have a very good team that runs it, which I'm very grateful for, because otherwise none of it would happen. Well, it's good to have a good team. It's good to have people putting your stuff out there, marketing you. It is a part of the game. And as you know, sometimes the UFC looks at these things, right? and they determine who they give big opportunities to. So I think they're giving you good advice,

but it has to come naturally, right? There was once a time, by the way, where people said Alex Volcanovsky was too vanilla, too boring, and now look at him, he's absolutely beloved. There was once a time where he had to like beg to even be put in the title fight picture, and he's come a long way.

So there's certainly been a lot of fighters, but the one thing that he always said, and he said it even this week, that I really respect, he says he always stayed true to himself. He never did things to try. to get people to like him and it seems like you're cut from the same cloth. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, well, congratulations. Well done. Great performance.

Appreciate you joining us late over there. Thank you very much, Lonnie. And looking forward to the next one from you. Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it a lot. All the best. There he is. Lonnie Kavanaugh, tremendous win for him on Saturday. What a performance. He looked great. And yeah, he's on some kind of run. He's won two of three this year. He was 9-0, lost Charles Johnson in August of 2025 that was in Shanghai. And certainly, I think looking at the rankings, where's my rankings page here? Do we go to the media? The media one is better, right? Right now, he's six. Horaguchi's up there. That'd be fun. Tyra. Royval's there. Manel, Pantosia.

Him versus Pantosia would be fun as well. So let's see where he goes from here. Still to come more on Alex Volcanowski's coverage and his play. I put out that tweet on Saturday. Do the Aussie fans think that he is getting the love, the respect, the coverage, the attention that he deserves? Nico Paharilio. Screwed that up. What is it? What is it?

Wait, let me get it right. Let me get it right. It's a doozy of a name. Paharilio. Nico Paharilio of Fox Sports Australia is going to be joining us. I'll get it right by the time he joins us. But I wanted to talk to our next guest, the great Tim Welch, Mr. Red Hawk, himself about what he saw on Saturday in the co-main event and also in the main event.

I mean, he's a brilliant mind, got the great YouTube channel. We all love him very much. And in fact, I thought he would say no about coming on because he asked me to come on his show a couple of times. And the schedule didn't work. But he is such a man. He is such a great guy that he is kind enough to join us for a few minutes to talk about it all.

So he didn't hold the grudge. And I appreciate that very much from Tim Welch. He is here? Yes. Is he here? Yes, there he is. Hello, Tim. How are you?

Hey, Ariel, doing pretty good, brother. How are you doing? You didn't hold the grudge. Thank you, Tim. Yeah, zero percent. I mean, I know your schedule, and it matches up with a schedule. I usually shoot my show, so no grudges at all, and this worked out perfect. We could do a collab one day where we're both streaming on each other's channels. I would love that. What did that be fun? Thanks, did you cut your hair?

I got a little snip. I got a little Lloyd Christmas going on up here. Yeah, they've been trimming me up. I've been trying to keep it tight. Okay. I like that. How's everything going? Everything's going good. I mean, the gym, the gym is crushing. The pickle dojo is a little slow. We're trying to get rid of that dump. It's been fun and we have a good time, but we just have too much going on. Shug and I are 50-50 on it, and we got too much going on. So we're trying to potentially get rid of it. But other than that, everything's going good. The team's winning a lot. Everyone's healthy. And I had a fresh baby, and the baby's 11 weeks old,

and he's healthy. So I can't complain. I'm very thankful. Congratulations. First one? First baby. Wow. How's that doing? Like, how's that treating you? How's that going?

How are you adapting? How's everyone feeling? God, it's been the coolest thing in the world because I thought, because I'm such a busy person and I thought a lot of the baby stuff would be kind of a pain in the butt, but you just want to do it. You want to help. And seeing this little human that me and my girl produced has been the most magical thing. And then Shug's got his little kids and we're.

on the same properties, so we're going to be able to raise them together. And it's been, I can't be more grateful. And boy or girl? It's a little boy. Okay. Wow. I know, you know, this is the natural question, and it's hard to predict, but would you like for him to get in the business? Do you want him? Do you have, do you have, like, grand visions and dreams of him falling in your footsteps, or you'd rather not? Gosh, I have no clue. I just want to make sure he when he comes into the gym he's having fun especially until at least 10 11 12 when we get more serious i want his main focus when we come into the gym we're having fun but it will be required that he becomes a black belt and jiu jitsu at least and if he wants to fight i'd rather him not

but if he wants to then we'll try to help him as much as possible okay and are you hoping for more are you happy with one gosh my girl she's a professional barrel racer so she she has her passion She's very passionate about that. And everyone says once you have two, it's a whole different world. So I would be happy with one, but also he's growing so fast and getting big so quick. I can see how people get addicted to it. Wow, professional bow racer. Where does she compete?

All over the place. She had to take a little break now because of the baby. But yeah, she competes all over. Oh my gosh. I didn't know that you could be a professional on that. Is there money in that? Yeah. There's big money in it, especially once you make.

it to the NFR and you make it to the big leagues. There's big money in it, but it's also a very expensive sport. But again, I'm just thankful she has a passion. I have my passion. So it works out good. Did you meet on the circuit or did you meet elsewhere? How did you get a professional barrel racer? We met in Montana. We met in Montana in college. Okay. Oh, wow. So you're like a long-time sweethearts. 16 years. Oh my gosh. Okay. Well, congratulations to both of you. This is amazing. obviously wanted to get your thoughts on what transpired on Saturday, several questions regarding that. First of all, did the comane, because obviously you had, I'm sure, like a very strong interest in what transpired there, did the co-main play out as you thought it was going to play out?

That was one of the most epic things I think I've ever seen in my life. Like Peter Yon giving up the first two rounds, and I was thinking after that second round, I'm like, that is a more spastic pace than I've ever seen. and Marab fight with. He usually fights with a spastic pace, but he's usually backing up the first minute and half, backing up the first two minutes. He usually gets to your waist behind you and he's able to, not really stall, but, I mean, knee the thighs for a good minute and half and give you a break. Peter Jan did not give him a break. Made sure he was pressing him the whole time and to give up the first two rounds and see Peter Jan win third, fourth, and fifth. That was one of the

most fucking sick things I've ever seen in my life. What was impressive about what Marab was doing in the first two rounds. When you say give up, it sounds to me like he willingly gave it up, but that's not really what happened, right? Give up. Did I say give up? When you say, no, give up the first two rounds. Like, that means like, almost like, I'm going to, I'm going to, like, let you win these so that I can come back and, freaking smoke you in the last street. Like, what do you mean when you say, like, he gave up the first two rounds? Well, he just, I think he knew he was down the first two rounds. I think his

corners knew he was down the first two rounds. Marab is such a big, dense, strong, explosive guy and he's bouncing. He's not just standing there plotting forward. He's bouncing. And when he springs, he springs into a right hand and he springs into a shot. And I think Peter Jan noticed, like, his energy is so high. And for a 25 minute fight, he's going to pucker out. And what was just the most impressive thing to me is just Peter Jan just trusting his takedown defense so much, not trying to run away, not trying to like, he didn't even care if Marab got in on his legs. He was okay with Marab getting in a single leg or a high crotch and limp leg and out. And then, just making him pay after.

Peter Yon is, in my opinion, is one of the most scary MMA fighters there's ever been. Wow. Wow, that's high praise. Why? Yes. Because he'll beat your ass in the clinch. He's good on top.

He's a master of boxing in the open. And he's just a little terminator. He's not scared of anyone. And when you go in a fight with Peter Yon, you're going to come out hurt for sure. And for him to be able to do that for five rounds, I mean, that was one of the sickest things I've ever seen. seen, like I said. And fair to say, you scored a three, two for him, right?

Yes. I just see Aljo Aiden, but that's his guy. And, you know, I think most people had a three, two, right? Yeah, I think most people had it three, two. I mean, there was a couple spots in that third round where it really swayed toward Peter Yon, I thought, and the refs did it right. The refs were, were basing on damage, and Peter Yon was doing the damage. Before the fight, who had you predicted would win?

It was such a coin flip for me. me. I don't think anybody could have predicted that fight. I was thinking whoever, whoever got through a hard fight camp and whoever was the most healthy is going to win on that night. It made me nervous the surgery that Peter Yon had. So I didn't know. I didn't know. I don't think anybody knew. When you had a trilogy that went lopsided on both fights, I don't think anybody knew. And after the first two rounds, I was like, oh, God, if Marab can keep up that pace for five rounds, he's a fucking absolute freak of nature. But Peter Yon, not scared of him, knew he could stalk him down,

knew he could attack his body, didn't give him really any respect, and it was just an absolute masterpiece by Peter Yon. The body shots, man, just watching them, they hurt. Like, I don't know. And Marab just keeps on going. He's unbelievable. He's one of the toughest, toughest human beings out there, for sure.

Would it be fair to say you were rooting for Peirion because, you know, there's the story there with Shuga and would be easier to get a title shot, given the history? 100%. 100%. We were really, really hoping Peter Jan would win so we could run that back. So you watched the post-flight interview and song gets mentioned, but not your guy. What are you thinking? I don't know. I'm curious. I was going to hopefully have DC on my show today or tomorrow and ask him and ask him what he thought about that.

Because if you look at it, if you look back this year, Sugar has his hand raised in a unanimous decision versus Song Yadong. and then UFC 299, Peter Yon has his hand raised against Song Yadong. So I'm curious if someone was in in Daniel Kormier's ear because Song was there, but I don't think that was the case.

I think DC was pushing for Song because maybe he's deep down. There's something that kind of rubs him, Shug rubs him the wrong way, I think maybe. You feel that way, really? Is it because of past commentary? Yeah, past little comments, and they just kind of just,

I don't know, we're going to get down to the bottom it when I talk to him. So I'm curious, and I could be totally wrong. I could be totally wrong with that. But it's always seemed like DC has a little something against sugar and he doesn't like seeing him win. Wow, everyone's mad at DC. Dominic Reyes is very mad at him too.

That's not an easy job. Being a commentary, it's going to be impossible for someone to not be mad at you. I don't know if it's warranted, to be honest. What do you mean warranted? I don't know if the hate is warranted. He's one of the greatest furtors of all time. He's not some Jemoke who's just talking about fights.

You know, you could say like, you know, maybe he's not well research on this and that. He's Dana freaking Cormier. He's a two, you know, he's a two division champion. He's an Olympian, all that stuff. When he says something, it means something, if you think he's biased, look, I will say this, and I would say to him as well, I don't think he should be calling fights for his teammates or guys that he coaches. There's a bias there.

There has to be a bias. He's a human being. But otherwise, I've never noticed the Sean O'Malley thing, but you guys would pay attention more than me. And I certainly never noticed the Dominic Reyes thing. And again, we could be wrong. And you're right, he is an absolute legend in the sport. But he is, he does, he likes the wrestling and he favors the wrestling a lot. And I think he thought that first fight was Shug, Peter Yon won because of the takers. Okay. Okay. So interesting. Yeah. To me, this is a no-brainer. Like, it's the easiest fight to make. Sean has a win over him. Sean has won two amazing fights this year. He has a win over song. Yan has a win over song. It's like it doesn't make any sense. And I honestly feel like Jan wants this as well. Before they, book this fight with Marab, Jan was the one saying like, I want sugar and all that stuff.

So this feels like a layup. Do you get worried that they're going to go in the direction of song? I don't get worried. I don't get worried. The UFC knows what they're doing. They know what the biggest fight is and they know how sweet of a fight this is going to be.

And if you want to see a song in Peter fight, go watch your UFC 299 fight. It wasn't the most exciting thing. It was still a sick fight. But I was more surprised that Peter Jan wasn't calling for the sugar rematch, more. And if there was paper viewpoints involved, I'm sure he would have been calling for it a lot more. But now that there's not, he sees Song Yidong as an orthodox boxer who will stand there and sit in the

park with him. And he thinks of Shug, and he remembers how Shug made him feel in that cage. He couldn't, he couldn't track Shug down. It was hard for him to track Shook down. That was the first time Peter's shot that many times in a fight ever in his career, I'm pretty sure. And I think Peter Yon remembers how that felt. So again, it's a, it's a scary thing. thing because it's like this is one of my best friends yeah i'm his coach but being locked in the cage with peter yon for five rounds is is a scary thing but i do think should poses a lot of problems for him so you think deep down peter actually wants song over sugar even though sugar is the bigger fight because he doesn't benefit from that anymore because of no pay-per-viewpoints he prefers song

i i think so which is surprising because i mean we we went to abu-dabie and got this hand raised against Peter Jan. So I was more expecting him to be like, I want that back. I want to beat that pink little poodle or whatever he called him. I want to beat his ass again. But he wasn't.

He was saying, I think Song maybe deserves it more. And he was never saying, I want Sugar Show next, not once. Does it bother you when people say that Sean didn't win that fight? It doesn't bother me.

No matter what, they said Sean didn't win the Yadong fight too. They say, it doesn't bother me. They're going to always, always have something to say. And people are pissed off that he fought Zahabi last.

And we didn't have any choice. Me and Shug met in the office and said, hey, whoever they offer us, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity at the White House, whoever they offer us, we're going to say yes to. And they come to us

with a guy on a six-fight win streak. And so he said yes, and people are pissed off about that. But it's like, we literally had no control in that. Who's pissed off about that? I love that fight. I mean, just the people that hate Shug,

the people that hate Shug. Oh, yeah. Stupid Twitter comments, right? Yeah. Can I ask, after he lost the second fight to Marab, June of last year, takes the rest of the year off, comes back in January, as his coach and friend, were you worried that the two straight title loss would change him, would break him, that he wouldn't be the same, that you wouldn't be in the position that you are now? I mean, a lot of things had to happen for it to break this way. Now, here you are in, I think, pole position to fight for the belt again, were you worried that it wouldn't

play out this way? I mean, there's always that worry. There's always that doubt, and especially when you have someone who's so confident like Shug and then his confidence gets knocked down like that for any fighter i've seen so many fighters in the last 15 20 years lose a fight lose their confidence lose their swag be demoralized not love the sport anymore because there's so much pressure they know what can happen when you go in there now and then not only that but then they offer a song y dong after two losses they offer a song yadong who's one of the scariest guys in the vision explosive orthodox boxer who can grapple also. I was like, God, like, they're not doing us no favors.

They're not doing us any favors given us song yodong. So I was very, very stressed. There was a lot of nights I was like, fuck. But at the end of the day, it's like I, you always have to remind yourself, you have to just focus on what you can control. That's it, especially in fighting, your mind can wander all over the place. There's thousands of things that you can drive yourself fucking crazy. But if you can just focus on what you can control, that's all you can do.

It's great insight and you're 100% right. I am wondering if there was any part of you that wondered if you wanted to try to climb them. You climb the mountain once. It's such a grind to get back there. Were you worried that he would just be like, man, I got a lot of great things in my life. I don't want to do this anymore. Not too bad.

He's such a competitive kid and he knows the potential he has. He has such a high ceiling and he knows the potential. And he just, I wasn't worried. about that. He's never been like, God, I'm just over it. Sometimes when you get into these long five-round fight camps back-to-back-to-back, you're like, fuck, I'm so over this. But he's hungry. He's more hungry than he's ever been, and he's fired up for this Peter Yon fight. So I'm excited to. Yeah, no, I would love to see, especially a five-round fight with the stakes being so high. And I think you're going to get it, to be honest. Just curious, a couple weeks ago, we did see

Peyton Talbot win. And initially, Peyton won nothing to do with Deshawn comparison. and being asked about him, but now he's pushing for the fight. Your thoughts after, things have changed since then because now, you know, Yan wins and all that. But when you heard this, were you intrigued by it, Peyton versus Sean? Oh, yeah. I mean, we've both been fans of Peyton Talbot. His fighting style is so sick. He's so composed in there.

He enjoys to be in there. He controls his range so good. He's a special, he's definitely a special fighter. And I think he would just be beautiful if Sean beats Peter Yan that Peyton Talbot fights for the title. Oh, already. That's it. That's it. Everyone wants to see it so bad and everyone says he's ducking him so bad. If Sean can get through Peter Yan, let's book it. Peyton Talbot versus Sugar

Show, Bantamoy title. Oh my days. That would be huge. What a fight. It would. Marquis. Are you impressed with him? I am. I am impressed with him. I remember messaging him back in the day when he had all the hype and then Hawny Barcellos kind of beat him up a little bit. I messaged him like, just keep your head up, keep on the grind, just trying to keep his spirits up. Because that's a hard spot to be in when they're pushing you so hard, and then you get beat like that. I remember messaging back in the day, hey, if you ever want to come train with us, you're more than welcome,

but keep your head up and stay on the grind. Wow, what compelled you to do that? That's not your guy and a potential future opponent. Why did you do that? I mean, you feel for these guys when they have so much attention and so much like hype, and then they lose a fight, that can really, like I said, demoralize people and they never come back the same. I didn't want to see that with him. So I definitely think that fight's going to happen.

Did it remind you a little bit of your guy? A little bit. I mean a little bit, but not too bad. You never know these guys, but Peyton Talbot, he seems like he loves the sport. He's obsessed with the sport and he really enjoys being in there. So I figured he'd come back stronger. I feel like some people are trying to discredit Peyton and be like, ah, you know, you're beating these older champs.

They're not that, you know, Sehudo, Figurado. You're not buying into this. I'm not buying into it at all Because no matter what No matter who you beat There's going to be someone Like if Shug's fought John Jones

And he beat him And he beat him People would be like Yeah but John hasn't fought for a while John Jones hasn't fought for a while He's been out of it No matter what No matter what

They're gonna say something So I mean it's important Just not to not really care But it's hard not to care Because sometimes I save all these receipts Sometimes and it's so petty of me But even when Tommy Guns fight And everyone says Marwan Rarhiki's going to fucking smoke him.

I'm saving. Then there was too many. At one point there was too many of them. And then I deleted all my receipts. I'm like, I can't be putting my energy towards that. Where do you save them? Either I screenshot them.

I screenshot them or I click the little save button on Instagram or X. Then I stopped doing it. I'm like, there's just so fucking many that I'm going to stop doing it. And it's always these little rats, too. It's never anybody that we would respect in real life ever. Isn't it amazing that we put. any sort of stock into this.

You would, like, if this person walked up to on the street and said this, you'd be like, who the fuck are you? And you would keep it moving. But for some reason, when you read it, it hits different. Yeah. And it's hard being in like a, growing up in a wrestling room, in the martial arts room. Like, you come in the room and respect, like, there's a lot of respect. And if you don't have respect, then you're going to get beat up and you're going to get beat

respect into you. So when you go out and then you see online, everyone has this voice and they say all this stuff. I'm like, God, it drives me crazy. but I just, I'm getting better at not letting it affect me at all. But what about Tommy Gunn, man? This guy is something else. I got to say, as far as superstars are concerned,

there may not be a more accessible and easier guy to book on the show than Sean O'Malley. There may not be a harder person to get on the show than Tommy McMillan. He will respond, you know this because I bother you. He will respond to me four weeks later, be like, oh, man, sorry, when do you need me? I'm like, tomorrow doesn't reply. I'm like, there's no way. I was on my phone. You have to be on your phone right now.

There's no way you're not seeing this. And I think there is a way because I think he's just probably all over the place. Is he like this all the time? Have you ever seen two guys who are that? I'm sure Sean is like very prompt. Like he's showing up everywhere. Tommy seems to be the complete opposite. Yeah.

I mean, he's in a different spot than Sean in his life. He's a single guy, has a lot of money. Sean's got a family and kids and stuff. But I mean, you're not the only one. I had Joe Rogan's people emailing. last week saying, hey, we're trying to get a hold of Tommy and we're trying to get him down here. And I'm just like, I'll do my best I can. I'll shoot him a text.

Wow. Or Joe Rogan. Yeah, I know. I know. I understand that. As far as like showing up to practice and being prompt and on time and all that, how is he? He's good about that. When it comes game time, when it comes time to get in shape and get ready for a fight,

he's here 20, 30 minutes early, warming up his body, getting his mind right for practice. Okay. Do you get worried that there's too much going on, that there's too much partying and all this stuff? Right now, I don't. He's fought three times this year, and he's been very dialed the whole year on improving his skills. And even before that, he's been dialed. So right now, he's enjoying his life a little bit. He's making serious, serious money, probably more money now than any UFC fighter after their third fight.

Wow. Probably ever. Wow. Really? He's in that bracket. He's in that bracket. actually insane and I've never seen something like it. More than sugar?

I mean, after a third fight, way more. Wow. Third fight, way more. Yes. So he's enjoying himself. He's enjoying himself. He knows what he needs to do.

He's a smart kid. So he'll be back in the room soon. What about the fire fights that he gets in? Like, did you get worried about that? Yeah, I do get worried about that. I do get worried about that, but that's just the way the kid fights and that's where he thrives in the fire. If we're up to you, up to you,

who does he fight next? I mean, gosh, the UFC again knows what they're doing. They know the type of star they have on their hands. Tom's 28, and I wouldn't mind, I wouldn't mind climbing into the top 15 a little bit. Climbing in the top 15, taking our time and climbing our way up. So it could be someone like, what have we got here, number 15, we got Jamal Emmer's.

I'm not familiar with the Joe Anderson Brito kid. So, I mean, there's tons of options for Tom. Any fight he gets into, it's going to be a sweet fight. But fair to say, you want a rank guy? I wouldn't mind that. I wouldn't mind that, but also I wouldn't mind him just still just fighting non-ranked guys and just still stacking the cheddar. When your brand deals are as big as his, it's like, let him stack, maybe.

When does he fight for a belt? Because, you know, when UFC gets excited about someone, they could put him in that spot. You think like this time next year he's in that title picture or that's too soon? I mean, definitely possible. We get two fights in a row with him, two more fights in a row, get a couple finishes. I wouldn't be surprised if he gets a top three fight for sure. Wow. Going back to Saturday, you've been in the sport for a long time, you've watched it, you're a student, you're a professor, you're everything.

What Volcanovsky is doing at 38 after losing those back-to-back fights, coming back, now beating Mossar the way in which he did, we find out he's sick, he's got a chest infection. What do you think of Alex Volkanovsky? Guy, it's just like those special, special dudes that are going to show up. They're going to perform no matter what. And Volcanovsky being open about the mental battles and the struggles he was having after those losses. And to come back and he's multi, multi-millionaire. So for him to come back and make the weight cut again, that's the thing that impresses me most.

And I think that's the thing that Strickland's dealing with the most. These guys, when they make all this money, they get offered these fights. It's like, now I got to cut 50 pounds. I got to cut 50 pounds and I don't have to. And my knee hurts and my back hurts and everything hurts. And I got to cut 50 pounds to go fight this guy that not a lot of people know of. But Volkinovsky is just one of those special, special dudes, one of the greats for sure. You picked him to win, right?

Yes, yes. He wants to move up. Go ahead, go ahead. I didn't think that he'd come out and put the pressure on and get a finish like that. That was the last thing I thought. but he came out and got Movesar's grill and it looked like after about the sixth minute of that fight

did that end in the second round? Yeah, yeah. After like the fifth sixth minute, it looked like Movesar was like actually breaking and I don't think Movesar in the room has many guys getting on top of him and taking him down and being on top of them in half guard and I do think those wrestlers

that are so dominant and so used to being on top you put them on their back and they have to work hard and it zaps their end. energy putting him in those unfamiliar places. Like a guy like Mozart doesn't spend a lot of time on his back developing a good half guard or developing a good guard.

And Volcanovsky put him there and I think that really zapped his energy. You know Aljo. You think if Aljo beats Kevin Vichaeos, I know it's a big ass, do you think he can beat Volcanovsky? I'm so curious to when Aljo watches that fight

what goes through his mind. Like, oh shit. Like Mozart couldn't even get close to taking Volk down. You wonder. You wonder. But again, Aljo is one of those guys, a great champion, a competitor. I don't know if he, I don't know what he thinks.

What he thinks? Does he really think he's going to take down Volk and take him down and take his back and put a body triangle with him? I'm pretty sure they've trained before. So he might have a little more inside info than we do. But that's a tough fight for Aljo. But again, Aljo's a beast also. How do you think he does if he moves up to 55? Man, I think he does.

I don't know. I don't know, but again, you see Volcanovsky how short he is, how short his arms are, and then he goes and beats Max Holloway. He beats Max Holloway two fights in a row, 25 minutes. I think he does good with anybody. You think he beat Justin Geichy?

Oh, God, that's a brutal one. I mean, on any given day, I think he could. There's ways he can win for sure. No, no, of course. But I would like for him to stay at 45 and fight those guys, and Gachi fights Armand Truckeon. At 45, at 45, okay, Volcanowski,

you got Diego Lopez sitting in number two, he moves up to 55, you got Learon Murphy, you got Aljo at number four, and you got Gene Silva at number five. So you'd rather see him fight Aljo at number four or Gene at five? Silva next, and then if Aljo wins, he's after.

That would be sweet. I like that. I just, I don't like depriving guys of the opportunity to fight for the belt, and I think Armand deserves to finally fight for the belt. Yeah, I think you're right. But I also think I don't, I just don't know if Volk's going to want to do that weight cut. When you're 38 years old now and you're getting a little bit older, the weight cut is really what stands in the way, I think.

By the way, you're watching this RAF stuff? You like it? Real American freestyle? Yeah, and they've been reaching out, they've been reaching out to me for Shug and Tommy for some super interesting matches. So hopefully we can put them together. Oh, really? Yeah

Sugar versus who I don't want to I would love for them to announce that Okay If it happens They're gonna have to spend some serious cheddar For it to make it happen But it'll be

It'll be good Okay Last thing You said Jan's a terrifying dude When he's on top He's one of the very best Your mind is all Like are you

The moment that fight is over Are you already starting to think Like how we beat this version of him Does your mind Even though you don't even know Like date If you're getting the fight All that stuff

if I still maintain you will. Are the wheels turning already? Yeah, 100%. Are already thinking about who to bring in for sparring partners, how to structure the camp, because it'll probably be five months out. I don't know how healthy Peter Yan is, but it'll probably be five months away,

four months away for that fight. But yes, definitely already kind of game planning for it in my mind. Shout to the YouTube channel. Shout to everything you guys are doing. You're doing big things, Tim. Always appreciate the time. Urge everyone to check it out. I'm sure if you're watching this,

you already watch this stuff, sugar stuff, all that stuff and more. I know you had a busy day. So thanks for jumping on, talking to us. Appreciate you very much. And I owe you one.

I owe you another one, all right? So put it like the I owe you, put it in the box. There's the YouTube channel, by the way. Hell yes. Thanks a lot, Ariel.

Thanks for having me on, brother. You're the man. Thank you, Tim. All the best. Okay, bye. Tim Welch. Kind enough to join us to talk about everything going on with his guys.

Tommy McMillan, Tommy Gunn, Sean O'Malley. Sean O'Malley, going to be joining us tomorrow on the program. By the way, tomorrow on the program, it's a great one. Sean O'Malley joining us, can't wait for that. Dakota Ditcheva and John Kavanaugh joining us as well. Not to be confused with Lonnie Kavanaugh. So that would be tomorrow on the program. Still to come, Nico Paharillo, who works for Fox Sports Australia. We're going to talk to him about the lack of respect that Alex Volcanofsky receives. He's going to be joining us in about 12 minutes time. I just saw this. Patty the Badi. Patty the Badi, at the Ballant door? Oh my days. I got to be honest, I thought this was a Photoshop at first. Does it not look fake? It looks like someone... Like some AI shit.

It looks like someone just dropped him in there. Even his feet on the red carpet doesn't look real. I don't know. Does that a mark for them to stand at the white tape? Yeah, I presume. It's just... It's a little silly to leave it there, though.

Yeah. Can't confirm saw a video. He is in attendance. Rented tux or own tux? Rented for sure. You think so? Oh, yeah, no doubt. Why is he own one?

He fluctuates and way too much to own one. He'd have to own a number of them because he never knows when he might need it in terms of bike camps and stuff. It's a big spot for him. Who's winning the Ballandior? Yeah, yeah. Dior.

It's Christian Dior. Ballondor. Oh, I thought it was sponsored by Christian Dior. Is it? And it was just Christian Dior balloon. Who's a... Hurricane. That's 77%.

Whoa! According to who, Kalshi? That's the only person I asked. Shout out. When do they announce? Later today, I guess. Within the hour, I mean, it's already probably, where is it even happening? No one knows, actually.

No one knows anything. Who's to check? For those that don't know, the Ballon Door is for the best soccer player in Europe, right? Not worldwide. Oh, I thought it was worldwide. No, because it's UEFA. Nah, no, no, no. What?

It's worldwide. No, it's not. No, it's not. Are you sure? Oh, yeah. This year's ceremony at the London Palladium. Messy when he's playing for Barcelona. Yeah, but he still qualifies. No, he also won after Barcelona.

Yeah, when he played for a freaking, who do you play for? Yes, G? Yeah, also in Europe. No, this is, it's a worldwide. Wait, so you could be playing for the freaking Atlanta, what are they called? Dream? Well, we got a big one tonight. Yeah, yeah.

But Atlanta United. You could be an MLS player and win the Ball and Door? I'm almost positive. You could be playing for Bayern Munich? I think your sons are eligible if they play in a FIFA competition. Wait. Can someone who plays in... Global Award, bro. Why can't I think of a continent outside of Europe right now?

Well, there's South America? South America, thank you. There's also Australia's there. Africa. It's actually Oceania, I think. No, I know, but I was trying to think of a top... Yes, technically any player can win the Ballandoah, regardless of where they play is the rules of love footballers based outside of Europe to be eligible.

Wow. How about that? What was the last time? delegated. Well, we don't got to worry about the Ballandierre. Yeah. Fucking hell.

Can't even beat freaking Ipswich. Fucking out. Can players outside of, oh, a Yahoo Sports article. Can players outside of Europe win the Ballandore or how France football

award eligibility works? You want to know who the last won? Yes, yes, yes. Playing in America. Lionel Messi. He won last year. Uh, 2023 on Inter Miami.

What? That's crazy. Yeah, bro. Don't sleep. Yeah, no, but it wasn't be, it was, he had, he got onto Inter-Miamy, but it wasn't because of what he did on Inter-Miamy.

Because that's when he joined Inter-Miamy. Beaudy. Beholdy, I thought that was a pretty special season down there in the, 305. All right, all right. It's actually perfect that we're talking about this as we're about to have a conversation about mainstream global sport,

just showing that we know absolutely nothing about all of this stuff. Big game tonight for the dream. Is it true that they don't have a location for game six? It's actually been settled. Oh, it has? Yep, Thursday, State Farm Arena. Prime time.

Oh, yeah. So someone got bumped? It's at 9.30, man. Wait, so are the Hawks going earlier? That's 9.30 a.m. Pacific. It's going to be taking place at 12.30 p.m. at State Farm Arena. A little lunch special. You're shitting me.

Yeah, they'll be selling two-for-one Sammy's chip combo. No, no, no. The WMBA Finals game six is going to be happening at 1230 on a Thursday? B.M. Wow. That's fucking illegal. The disrespect. Why couldn't they have done the regular season

NBA game earlier? Stakes are a little different. You tell Adam Silver that. Andre Dickens, Atlanta mayor, has written a doctor's note for all employees

in Atlanta. Get out of jail, free card, you can skip work, go support the dream. Shout out. What's the score right now? I'm thinking of.

Two, two. Two, two. could be a clincher. Could be a WMBA finals clincher happening while people are eating their Chipoli breedables. Yeah, it's unfortunate that we're going to be live on the air because it could be a very emotional moment for me watching the Atlanta Dream finally get the race.

You'll be like me going, ah! Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you... I'll have to take my pants off like you as well. Yes. Yeah, pants are immediately coming off if the Atlanta Dream hoist the trophy on Thursday.

We got to make sure, Frank. has the music ready to go in case it happens. Hit it, Frank. Go on. Are you also making a deal with the devil? They win it all. You don't care if they go 04. I don't even know how many games are in the WMBA season. Never win another game again. Shut the franchise down. That's it.

They win this? I feel the same. We'll trade the dream for a third NHL franchise. Hell yeah. Oh, this one. I got a lot. I got a lot of comments about it. You can see here now, Angel Reese. Oh, there it is. You know, I didn't even notice it there.

Look to my right. I didn't even notice it. Angel to angel, angel, Angel McCartrey, Angel Reese. It's become such a part of my life. And the thumbtack is still there. What did we call the thumbtack again? A pushpin. You're really worried about the integrity of the old thumbtack.

It's hanging on literally like it's like you... Once it goes into the rafters, it doesn't come down. The banner is like 0.3 ounces. I know, I know. But emotionally it's very, very... Oh, my God. Look at that. It's a beautiful thing. Anyway, gents, more news and notes to come, but I'm very excited to talk to our next guest

because there I am Saturday. I'm digesting everything that is going on post-UFC-33. And I'm just like thinking about Alex Volcanofsky and the journey that this guy's been on and the title defenses before the Ilya loss and, you know, obviously getting so close to beating Islam and then taking that fight on short notice and then the Ilya loss and then coming back and then winning the belt again, and now the title defense is then being the guy to beat Mofstar the first guy. And I'm like, fuck, this guy is an absolute legend.

And then you find out he's sick and every 38, all the stuff that we talked about at the beginning of the show. And then I started thinking to myself, like, does this guy get the love and respect that he deserves back home in Australia? I remember when GSP was champion in Canada, and I think he might be the closest thing to GSP, in terms of their demeanor

and the way they represent their country and all that stuff. And I remember, like, Canadian media, like, there was a point, you know, Was it Wayne Gretzky-esque? No, Dana tried to make that into a thing, but he was getting covered quite regularly and I thought got the respect that he's driven. Everyone knows GSP. I'm not from Australia. And so I asked the people online and I said, hey, if you're an Aussie fan, like, can you weigh in on this for me? Does he get that coverage? Do people treat him like a true global star? Or does he get like the 30-second mention at the end of a sports broadcast? And it got a tremendous amount of replies. A lot of people weighed in. And the vast majority. majority of them said no. And they said it was a travesty. They said it was unfortunate. They said he doesn't get the respect that it's taking them too long. It's because of MMA. If he was a boxer, he would get more. If he was a track and field star, he'd get more. If he was a rugby star, more, swimmer, more. But he doesn't get the respect. And I think that there's a case to be made,

and I'm not an Australian sports expert, but I think there's a case to be made that he's one of the greatest Australian athletes of all time. When you consider his resume, when you consider his global dominance, consider that he's fought them all, not just in the country, but all over the world, I think there's a case to be made. But what the hell do I know? And so I wanted to have Nico Paharillo of Fox Sports Australia, who's been covering him, who was in Abu Dhabi, who does a great job of covering mixed martial arts and other sports as well to give us some perspective on this. He's kind enough to join us very early in the morning over in Australia right here and now. There he is. Hello, Nico. How are you? Very, very well, Ariel. Thanks so much for having me.

It's still a little bit jet lagged, but I think I'll be right. Okay, yeah. So for you, it's probably it's evening time, although it's early in the morning over there on Tuesday, right? That's right. It's just before 7 a.m. Oh, my dear. Bright and early.

A lot earlier than I'd like to be up. But this is good because it can kind of allow me to refresh myself and I guess reset the jet lag a little bit. It's funny, I was on the same flight as Volk and his whole team coming back from Abu Dhabi, and I came straight back. I took a nap on that couch as soon as I got. back home. But Volk I saw did do some Australian media. He went straight to an opportunity. So he never stops hustling, which puts me to shame a little bit. He is a beast. And anytime I have someone in

Australia or New Zealand on the program, I always feel compelled to apologize for having them come on so early in the morning over there. So I'll say the same to you. I apologize, but appreciate you coming on. First of all, what was the like out there in Abu Dhabi covering someone like Alex, you know, one of your own on the grandest of stages? What was the experience like? it was absolutely unbelievable Ariel and I think it sort of broke a little bit of a curse because we'd been there a few times in the last few years I guess covering the first one was UFC 294 that we went over folk versus Islam and that was obviously a very devastating result the year after that we went there for Ilya versus Max and in the co-main event our guy Robert

Whitaker sadly got got choked out by Hamza so we're a bit like oh geez is it third times the charm here. And thankfully it was a dominant performance from Volk and just an electric atmosphere in the arena. The first time in a while that I'd heard Volk, not booed necessarily, but not be the fan favorite there. So much support behind Mov's Sire of Loy of understandably. But yeah, the champ showed what he does best. Did you have any sort of inclination that he was sick going into the fight? Was this a common thing among people on the ground? Yeah, definitely. So we interviewed him. We did an interview with Dana at the ceremonial

Wayans and we also spoke to Volk as kind of like a, okay, last word Godspeed, my friend, kind of thing and yeah, he definitely sounded a bit crook but I didn't know if it was that if it was just, he was maybe a bit under the weather or like, you know, he hadn't been sleeping very well or you know, you know,

how like sometimes their sleep schedules are a little bit out of whack come fight week. But yeah, I definitely had a bit of an inclination. I didn't want to touch on it, you know, especially on air. I didn't want sort of reveal to the world, hey, are you sick right now? But yeah, after the fight, I was able to ask him. And yeah, he confirmed that. And it's obviously since become a pretty massive story that he's had quite a severe flu, refused medication, I believe, going into it. And we're still

able to show out. Yeah, we played the clip of him talking to the press upon landing about how his team and the UFC wanted him to take medication. And he was like, nope, I don't want to do it. When you hear this from the guy, are you surprised knowing him like you do? I don't think so. No, I think it's just the kind of guy that he is. The fact that, you know, and Volcker's often spoke about it, and I suppose we'll go into how he's regarded in Australia in just a moment, but Volk sort of regarded as this knockabout bloke from the south coast of New South Wales. Like he's not, he often speaks about the fact that, you know, he hasn't come from one of these big gyms in America, you know, he hasn't had the backing of, you know, this enormous financial institution or this massive machine. He's just like a guy that kind of goes about his thing and, you know, Going into a fight, you know, feeling a little under the weather or having a flu or whatever it is and refusing medication is just like, you know, the man was a concreter for years before he started fighting professionally. So it doesn't surprise me at all, but, you know, Vox a tough guy, mate.

And I think all of Australia knows that. So it doesn't surprise me in the slightest now. Okay, so let us get into that, because that was the jumping off point for all of this. As I said, I put out this tweet and I was kind of blown away by the response because the vast majority of the people. And I know I'm talking to MMA fans who might feel some sort of way. They're like, no, he doesn't get the respect he deserves. So you work for Fox Sports. You don't just cover

MMA. You cover boxing, rugby, I believe Formula One as well. So you're covering all kinds of real manly sports out there. If I would ask you, does Alex Volcanowski, as one of the country's greatest exports, does he get the respect that he deserves from the mainstream

media, not just the, you know, I'm not talking about the MMA media or even the sports media. Like, do they recognize that this man is doing what he is doing on the grandest of stages around the world. Does he get that respect? Yes, but I would say he's had to work exceptionally hard for it. I often have this conversation with friends and MMA fans from all around the world. And it seems to be sort of a global issue, right? The UFC is so massive, so massive globally. It's this juggernaut that can't be stopped, whereas I don't know that it's number one in any particular country, though. Obviously,

in the States, you guys have the NBA, you guys have the NFL. Here we've got rugby league and cricket, you know, in all across Europe. It's football or soccer, as people like to call it. But so it's sort of hard to crack into the mainstream, but I'd like to show you this, Ariel. This is today's edition of the Daily Telegraph here in Sydney. Volk at home in Goat Paddock, written by the great Brendan Bradford. So here he is being compared to some of the grades of Australian sport. Don Bradman, Kathy Freeman, Shane Warren, to name a few.

and I'd actually like to read a little bit of Brendan's article here. So it says Volcanowski understands that mixed martial arts and the UFC isn't everybody's cup of tea and that it's unlikely to rival the footy codes or cricket for prominence, reverence and around the clock coverage. And then he interviewed Volk at that media day that I mentioned earlier. And Volk actually himself goes on to say, if my sport was this massive mainstream sport, these talks probably would have happened a lot earlier. He says that I understand it. there's going to be people who don't know the sport and aren't going to put me in any top

10 lists and I get that. They talk about Olympians or rugby league players because they're on their minds every day. But even then, I'm still trying to represent them as well. So Volk is a very proud Aussie and it doesn't seem to bother him that much. But that's sort of the first time I'd ever heard Volk talk like that, like, you know, except that any time that he's asked, mate, are you the greatest featherweight of all time? Or where do you sit with regard to, you know, the pantheon of sporting greats across the globe? He's always like, well, that's not up to me to decide.

That's up to you guys. And sort of the first time I've heard him say that, yeah, you know what? I'm happy with that. And these conversations probably would have happened a bit earlier had my sport been a little bit more popular. So I think he's had to work really, really hard to etch himself in history and to put himself amongst the greats in Australian sport. And I think it certainly helps the groundswell of support that he's had from the people,

I think has been the driving factor in this. Because, you know, traditional media, you have to remember, the UFC is, what, you know, 30-odd years old, right? Compared to, you know, long-established sports like rugby league or AFL or cricket, you know, who have over 100 years on the UFC, it's astonishing to see how far this sport has come. And I think that's literally just, one, the support of the people, but also the work of, you know, like I said, a concreter from south of Sydney who's been able to, been able to forge this incredible legacy. and no credit should be taken away from Volcan what he's been able to do. But I think people are starting to wake up. And, you know, big splashes like that in the paper are testament to that. I don't think that would have happened years and years ago.

But here we are, an amazing article from Brendan there and a big splash in the papers. By the way, that particular writer, Brendan, is this someone who doesn't usually cover combat sports? Is it a big deal that he's talking about, Alex? So Brendan is very multifaceted. He's the primary combat sports writer at News Corp, I would say. But in addition to that, he's covered rugby league. His whole career, he's covered tennis. And you can't really get away with just covering one sport here,

particularly a fringe sport like mixed martial arts. So Brendan, while he's a multi-code journalist, he's certainly in the know when it comes to these things. Okay. One thing that I saw a lot of people write was that if he was a boxer, he would be getting a hell of a lot more love and credit and coverage. If his last name would zoo, he would have a statue built for him already. That's what some people said.

And I'm not referring to Tim. I'm of course talking about his father, Costa. So do you agree with that sentiment? And if so, why? Is it just because boxing has been around longer? I think it's literally just that. I think boxing's been around longer. And I think the people in power who, you know, basically who are able to

set the agenda, I guess, when it comes to splashes, when it comes to column space, when it comes to time and, you know, air time in the 6 o'clock news, I think because they are probably more experienced and they've been around for a lot longer, boxing has had time to grow and has had time to foster itself here in Australia and around the world, right? And UFC is sort of regarded and mixed martial arts is regarded as a young man's game, a young man's sport, something that the kids watch. And it's certainly, I think, you know, it's enjoying, I guess, a period of, it's not quite a takeover yet, I would say, but I think it's certainly becoming more popular than many other sports. You know, the comparison with the zoo surname, I think it's a fair criticism, but also I don't

see why both sports can't coexist. And I guess, you know, if we're talking about building Volcker statue, I think that should have happened a long time ago. But I think we give both love, especially as the primary broadcaster. So at Fox Sports, we broadcast. We have an exclusivity deal with No Limit Boxing and the Zoo Brothers and, of course, the UFC as well. And I'd like to think that the coverage we give both of them is relatively balanced. And I'm not trying to pit them against each other, by the way. You know we love all forms of combat here, but I did think that that was an interesting sentiment from a lot of the people. Do you feel, you know, from the better, late than ever department, do you feel like he is finally getting

that love and you feel like maybe it will it will sort of trickle into his his post-retirement life. Sometimes people appreciate you a little bit more when you're gone, so to speak, and I don't mean gone as far as like gone from life. I just mean like stop doing your thing and everyone's like, holy crap, that guy was really damn good. It feels to me like the tide is turning in his favor and he's finally getting that respect, but you're there. So tell me, am I right or wrong? I think you're right. I think after his career, Volk will be looked back on fondly, but I think I don't know how much bigger Alex Volkinovsky can get. Let me put it that way. I think that he's doing like these skits and these sponsorship deals with bookmakers. He's basically everywhere that you'd

expect him to be. And I think if you look at something like, you know, social media and how it is dominated, of course, by a lot of younger people, yeah, he's collaborating with all these comedians and doing a great job on there and his cooking shows, unbelievable. But the fact that he is getting mentions on the six o'clock news, the fact that he is in big splashes like this, This would never have happened a decade ago. So I think it's testament to how hard he's worked, and I think it's unbelievable how far he's come. And it's interesting with the coverage,

and you mentioned the Zoo brothers earlier, with the UFC, they are so good, I guess, at promoting themselves, and they're able to, this PR machine that they've been able to develop is so, so impressive. You know, I think the criticism of the coverage of Tim Zoo and no limit boxing and stuff. I think it's mainly because we have to sort of do that ourselves. We have to sort of build those guys by ourselves,

whereas the UFC has so many resources to build these other guys. So I kind of feel like it's as balanced as it can be, and I think we've built these guys to as big as they can be, particularly Bob. Just for context, I was looking up different sites, typing in greatest Australian athletes of all time. And the list change based on who's writing it, But three, you know, I think consistent names that kept coming up were Sir Donald Bradman, Ian Thorpe, Rod Laver.

I'll be honest, very familiar with Ian Thorpe, very familiar with Laver. I never heard of Don Bradman before. And that's probably because cricket isn't a big deal here in North America. A, do you agree, are those the top three? Or would you, and I know I'm putting you on the spot here, but who would be your top three, if not those three? Yeah, that is a very difficult question. Let me start off with talking about Sir Donald Bradman.

So I think he is, you know, if you can use the word consensus, he is the consensus greatest Australian athlete of all time. And I think there is an argument to be made, and I might sound silly to our viewers across the pond and everywhere else in the world. There is an argument to be made that Don Bradman is the greatest athlete of all time, period. When you look at all that he achieved, so his career spanned the 1920s and the 1930s and the 1940s as well

in cricket. And his batting average has never been replicated anywhere else. So just for context, right? In test cricket, if you're batting average, if you're getting 50 runs or more per game,

that is exceptional. That is elite. So the top five, and I think I had it down here somewhere. Yeah, the top five go something like 60.7, 60.8, 60 point something,

and then the next one, Adam Vodges, I believe. believe is 61. He managed to crack 61. Donald Bradman's batting average is 99.94. There is nobody else in the history of cricket that has ever come close or will ever come close. And, you know, there have been theories as to why this happened in, you know, the great, you know, it was obviously during the Great Depression and World War II took place, you know, around that time as well. But there, I think there was a study done in the mid-90s, in fact, that statistically compared the deeds of Bradman compared with, you know, what Michael Jordan was able to achieve,

like his scoring record, and Wayne Gretzky, who you mentioned a little earlier, and found that it's not only a domination, but just a complete annihilation of any competition in any sport ever. So it's very difficult, and I know it's difficult when you go back 100 years and you're comparing athletes from different errors. But I would say for, you know, for me to say that anybody's better than Sir Donald Bradman, and I'm not even a real like massive cricket aficionado, but I just know that that's sacrilege, because you grow up in school hearing these stories and he's the guy that keeps coming up. So I'll say that on Bradman first. With regard to the others, I would say like you mentioned, so you mentioned

Rod Laver, and what he was able to do, I think he's the only tennis player in the history, in both men's and women's tennis, who's been able to win the calendar, the grandstander, the a grand slam in a calendar year twice. I think he did it in 1962 and then again in 1969. So he broke that record and he still holds it. And the other one that comes to mind is somebody named Kathy Freeman, who of course won the 100 meters at home at the Sydney Olympics in the year 2000. She lit the torch and I think it's something like 60% of the entire country watched that on telly. I was, what, five years old and even I remember watching it. It was just this crazy moment that united what was around the time, a pretty pretty

politically divided country if it isn't politically divided now. But I would say, yeah, those three would probably be the biggest for me. And as much as I love Volk, it's sort of, I would probably put him up there. I would definitely put him up there. Is he top 10? To say, say again, sorry? Is he top 10? Yes, yes, easily. Absolutely. Valk is, I would say, top five. But it's, oh, wow. I didn't see him top five on all the other ways. It's like when you're comparing, like, one, you're comparing team sports. And also you're comparing errors, like I mentioned before. it's so difficult to say that Volk is a better athlete than Donald Bradman. Like how am I going to say that?

Sure, no. And I don't want you to say that. I just wonder if when the story is told he would get that recognition because sometimes it's like, ah, Cage Fighter, who the hell is this guy? But, you know, like I said, I don't think any of us here on the show know who Don Bradman is, and that's not taking away anything from him. I mean, the way you laid it out, it's supremely impressive. And I know cricket is pretty much popular all over the world except for in North America.

So our opinion doesn't mean much. But to me, when I look at what this man has done on a global scale, fighting all comers from all over the world, like he is truly a global superstar. He could walk down the streets of New York and people know who he is. And I think there's something to be said for that as well, as opposed to maybe someone who's doing big things over an Australian is just big in, let's say, rugby league or something like that. And so that's why I wanted to know, is this guy getting the respect that he deserves in the coverage that he deserves back home in Australia? Yeah, I totally agree with that. And you look at, and that's the reason I didn't mention any AFL players or any rugby league players there, because, you know, the reality is they're very much, they're popular in this part of the world,

but maybe not so much in Europe or Africa or South America or any other continent. But I think the fact that, I know I say this all the time, like, Bolt could walk down the street in Tokyo. He could walk down the street in London, in Paris, you know, you name it. And he'd get recognized. And I think that that speaks volumes as to how he's been. able to transcend the sport and how he's been able to relate to such a wide variety of fans and just, I think people in general, right? People love Volk for who he is as a bloke. And I definitely think that he's been able to achieve greatness despite the odds being stacked against him.

I love that. I'm happy to hear that. And I think it's going to, I think it's going to only increase with a few fights left. We weighed in on what could be next for him. I love the guy. I love everything about him. I love the way he handles himself. represents himself in the country. I don't want to see him fight Justin Gachi. I want to see him stay at 145. How about you? Why not? Okay, well, first of all, to me, it goes against everything that makes him great if he takes an opportunity away from Armantirukian. Armantirukian should be next, and if he fights Justin Gachi, he is not next. I hate the idea of him retiring in his next fight. He's talking about, okay, I'll retire. I'm like, no, no, no, don't retire. You're doing great. I don't want

see you go. So if that's the thing that's going to make you go, no thank you. We've seen him try to go for the belt that won 55 twice. I know against a different guy, but still it didn't go his way. So he had that opportunity, and I'm not saying he doesn't deserve it again. But to me, there's enough guys, there's enough of a log jam at 55. I don't want to see those guys get deprived of that opportunity. And I don't want to see him retire. And I'd love to see him stay at 45 and just fight an Al Jermaine Sterling or a John Silver or Kevin Vichahos. Why not? All fantastic points. I think for us here in Australia, We'd love to see him chase glory.

I think for all the reasons that we outlined earlier, seeing Alex Volcanovsky get another crack at 155 pounds and finally get that double champ status that he so desperately craved for all those years would just be like this immense sporting achievement. And you want to talk about the greatest Australian athletes of all time. If he does that area, I don't know that there's any argument anymore. I mean, there's going to be an argument.

Bradman will always be brought up. But I think if he's able to do that, you know, I think very selfishly of a... us and admittedly it is selfish. We'd love to see him go up to 155 pounds and challenge for the title. The MMA purist in me says, yeah, Amman deserves it and has deserved it for a long time now. You know, even around the time before Dan Hooker and Qatar, I was saying that, you know, this is crazy. But, you know, whatever the UFC does, you know, I'm sure it will be incredible, but I think for me, and we interviewed Al Jermaine Sterling over in Abu Dhabi.

And yeah, needless to say, he's very keen. He's got to fight Kevin Villiersho who's, of course, you know, on an absolute tear at the moment, who's, you know, five places below him. I don't know if it's exactly fair on Al Jermaine Sterling. I don't know if it'd be fair on Arm and Sirukian, but shit, I want to see that fight, Ariel. I really want to see him fight Justin Gaichi. Do you want to see him make history and get that second belt,

or do you really want to see him fight Justin Gaichi? Do you know what I mean? Like, is it something about the matchup, or is it something about the stakes? Nothing to do with the matchup, all to do with the stakes. It's all to do with this narrative and him building this story and this legacy, like, how else could you more perfectly close out a career, right?

By going up and two legends of the sport who have both spoken about retiring, you know, Justin Gage, you were saying, I might retire if I don't get the title shot, and you eventually got it at UFC Freedom 250. But, like, imagine if those two ended, like, what have been both legendary careers in one finals, you know, they're both veterans, but in one final,

like this grand finale between the two of them, would just be the most epic thing ever. And like, you know, talking to Dana, he often says that, you know, he's in this, he's in the business of creating holy shit moments. That would be the ultimate holy shit moment, would it not? Yeah. No, I mean, it would be big, but I don't want to see him retire. And so that means, what, six months he's going to retire or seven months whenever that

fight would happen? By the way, speaking of talking to Dana, you did speak to him before the fight, as you said, and you did ask him about the Alexander Volkov moment. He said to you, he knew all along. Come on, my man. do you believe him? Ariel, Alexander Volkov has been in the UFC for a decade now. Yes.

How is Dana not going to know that that's Alexander Volkov? Maybe it's one of those things where, okay, yeah, he's standing a bit far away and he can't see him very clearly and whatnot. Mate, Dana's a decent actor. And then Volko on over to him and saying, man, that's Alexander Volkov twice. I thought it was very funny. Okay, so you believe him. You think he was playing along the whole time. I believe.

Okay, what's your argument then? My argument is I read his body language and I looked at him and he very clearly did not recognize him. He very clearly. And then Volk did tell him twice. That's a good wingman. And then you could tell his demeanor change and he's like, oh, a little bit of a smirk. It kicked in and he realized he was being watched and he realized how bad it looked. And then he tried to save it.

I don't believe. Listen, as I said earlier, I'm not trying to be an ahole here. When you're up there and the lights are in your face, it is hard to see who's in the crowd. But he did not recognize him. He maybe didn't understand what he was saying. and he was a little bit lost and Volcanovsky helped him out and maybe he's going to get us

a lightweight title shot as a result of that maybe that's why Dana's being so nice to him. Yeah, possibly. You know, who knows? You're probably right. Like, you know, with the lights on his face and, you know, he's probably not speaking as clearly as he could have.

There was a moment because I was sitting there going, I turned to my executive producer, Nick Lockyer, and I was like, mate, I wonder if, is he, he's just joking, right? Surely he knows. So he casts a bit of doubt in my mind, too. But I don't know. I just find it hard to believe right.

You promote a bloke for 10 years. Like, you know, they know each other very well, obviously. He said he'd look after him after the Cyril Garne fight and whatnot. How'd that work out? I don't know. I find it hard to believe, but I get what you're saying. UFC back in your neck of the woods in February, I feel like that's going to be the Quill and Sal-Killed show. If you were booking him, who's he fighting?

Gee, it's very difficult, right? We're having this discussion while we were over there. And there are so many different options, you know, I think an option that came up for us, which wouldn't happen. like we were all saying that, wouldn't it be mad to see a Quillen versus Patty Pimlet type fight? That would be absolutely huge. I doubt that that's the direction that they're going to go in.

But, I mean, there are so many contenders at 55, but Quillen has really inserted himself. He's done a really good job to it. Insert himself into this conversation. And it's difficult to see where they go next. You know, it was a big win over Mattouch Gamorot that he had. And the ball is certainly in his court. I just wonder, yeah, I don't know what they do with them next.

What do you reckon? Man, I don't think he's going to get that. one, if I'm being honest, because if it's going to be Armin against Justin, then I would like to see it be Patty versus Ilya. I love the idea, by the way. I love the idea, and I would sign up for it. I'm going to pull up the rankings here real quick if I could, oh, here they are. All right, let's see, 155. Let's see, let's see. I was thinking, I love the Max idea, but I don't think Max is going to do it. I love the, I don't mind the BSD idea, even though he's coming off of a long. loss. In the media rankings, he's ranked 6th, and so there's only Patty, Max, Charles,

Armin, and Ilya. So it has to be someone about, I don't mind the Saladin Parnaz idea, but I don't think that's going to happen so soon. I think this time next year, we're talking about him in the title picture, and I don't think that's much of a hot take. I'm blown away by it. No, I don't think it's a hot take either. And I think, yeah, so BSD was the other name that came up for us. Loser of BMF maybe in December. Like that could be enough as well. Right? Yeah, yeah, that's the issue, right? But, you know, depending on how that fight ends,

if it's, you know, one of those first round stoppages that, you know, Charles is able to sink up or whatever happens in that fight. But I think BSD is probably the most, I'd say the most logical answer there. And, yeah, I think Quillan, if he continues on this trajectory, there's no reason that he can't be in the title picture even earlier than a year from now.

I think what he's been able to do, not only inside the octagon, but, you know, to create this character for himself outside the octagon as well with the cigars and going to the casino and whatnot. I think he's done well to build that for himself and credit this groundswell of support from not only here, but I think he's pretty well-loved everywhere he goes, right?

That's not just an Ozzy thing. Like, he's well-loved in the States, isn't he? For sure, 100%. He's not quite Alex Volcanozky level just yet, but he's well on his way. By the way, if you were ranking them, Andrew Bogot above Volk or below him? I'm kidding, by the way.

I was kidding about that. Right, I thought you would be serious. No, no, no. I was just trying to flex my... I didn't want to be insulting to me. there. Belvedova, NBA champion, above? No, I'm kidding. Tremendous stuff, Nico. Thank you very much. If people want to see more of your coverage, where can they do so? The main event YouTube channel is where all of our stuff goes. But yeah, anywhere across Fox League and, yeah, boxing, UFC,

main event is where to go. Appreciate your time, especially so early in the morning over there. Great coverage, great stuff all week. Always appreciate what you guys do with the guys. And I love how you have them in studio and you have them to other fighters, the coverage is great. So please keep it up to you and the team. Great insight. We appreciate you very much. And you should know you have a lot of big fans on the program. When I asked them who we should have on to talk about this, it was a unanimous pick from GC and Rick to have you on. So they're big D1 glazers of you and they appreciate your work very much. No, I really, really appreciate that, Ariel. And credit to you as well for everything that you built. I mean, you've set the platform for all of us, uh, Jonos, who aspire to do what you do.

So, you know, thanks for everything that you've done. Thanks for having me on. And thanks. Well done to GC, by the way, for putting together that set. It looks unreal. He is. He is one of a kind. He is the Alex Volcanovsky of set design.

So shout out to him as well. Nico, all the best to you. Thanks for coming on. Appreciate you. Thank you, boys. Appreciate it. Nico Paharillo of, no, I screwed that up. Paharilio.

I'll get it. I'll get it. You know, I wanted to ask him where his last name is from. It's tough. You know, you just spoke to him, right? Yeah, no, I wanted to ask. Can you ask him real quick? I believe he's Filipino.

Ah, Paharilio. It sounds like, what would that be? Would that be a Portuguese last name? No. Excuse me, I'm getting offended now. Whereabouts? But you guys did say he would be the guy to have on. He's the guy.

And he was great. Yeah. Bogot, Delavadova. Listen, I didn't appreciate the Maddie D. Slander, if I'm being honest. We love Delvedova around these parts. Danny Rick? NBA champion, Matthew Delovedova.

put some Ben Simmons? Respect on his name. Ben Simm? I should have asked about Ben Simmons. Kyrie Irving. Yeah, I think

Kyrie was born. He was born there. But I mean, he's a jersey. It's going to be great when we make our debut down in Australia. Oh my God.

I remember going Australia. I went to Sydney for the first time UFC 127, 2010, February, we've talked about this. And I will admit, so that's 2010.

Like, this show started in June of 2009, this was February of 2010. It was not even, what, what is that? Eight months? I was blown away by the fandom there. It was the first time where I was like, holy shit. This is crazy.

The fans are amazing in Australia. And especially, like, we're not on at a normal tie-knows podcast. You can watch whenever you want, but I would love to go there. I would love to go to Sydney. Sydney, London. Tokyo for a rising card. Tokyo. Oh, gosh, that would be great.

Germany for an octagon. I've never been to Germany. Germany for an octagon car would be great. They need to get the double hitter, Octagon on Friday. Avis Magamadov main event on Saturday. Oh, my God. You know, you're talking to you. Okay, here's the promise.

If Abis fights for the belt in Germany, we have to be there. If Abis main events in Germany, I will be there. We have to be there. Belt or no belt. If they give them an Euros-Medi situation, we will be there. By the way, he kind of deserves it at this point. I wonder how big of a deal he is over there. Because you see how big the sport is in Germany,

so you'd have to imagine one of their own would be a big deal. Anyway, shout out to Nico, Paharilio of Fox Sports Australia. He does a great job, and I appreciate his insight very much. And so it was nice to get a sort of, you know, as we say, boots on the ground perspective, Australian perspective. We can weigh in on this topic all the time. But I love to hear from the locals. And I love to hear about the write-up in the newspaper.

Even the mention of the 6 o'clock news. I feel like these things aren't as big of a deal here. Like when PT talks about it, the newspaper write-ups and the, it's just different. Maybe because the country's a lot. What's going on? How many people live in Australia? It's because it's singular, right? They have few athletes that are representing.

There are much more Americans that just are in this sport. And I bet you see, what you do see, I think, is more of like the local state or the local city publicizing. Like, you know, whenever the Long Island guys win, Nassau does, you know, an Al Jemaine Sterling Day, you see much more on a local level, but from a national perspective, from a country perspective, because Alex is so, like, singular, because guys like George APR are so singular, it feels so much more amplified. Because Ilya is so singular, it feels much more amplified. But here we get it more like state, city, local, as opposed to that larger, like, national

coverage. 28 million people live in Australia compared to how many in the U.S? $330 million? 343, according to Google. So I was pulling that out of my ass. Yeah, yeah.

No, no. It's a big... And also, there's so many different sports leagues and athletes here. Sir Donald Bradman, 99.9% batting average? He's like the Ted Williams

of cricket. I don't know what that means in terms of 99.9. So I looked it up. It's not a percentage. It's like how many runs you score per out. So, like, if you score 100 runs

before you make an out in cricket, your average is 100. Is it like whip? Yeah, sure. Let's go with that. You're right there. You're not on that? Didn't have time to get the mute in.

No, no. No. Cricket, I'm blind to. I don't know what the fuck is. I don't know. They're running back and forth. They're holding the bat. It's lasting like 4,000 innings.

Yeah. Do they do innings? They catch that ball. What is it called? I think they do innings. Oh, it's an inning? It's called an inning, yeah. They do in crickets?

That's what I'm told, yeah. I'm fairly certain that's correct, yeah. Anyway, let's stay on the global train here. You may have heard that the Canelo Alvarez fight is still on in Riyadh. In fact, Canello has touched down in Riyadh. We'll get to that in a moment. But everyone's been talking about the UFC TKO in the Middle East. WW Crown Jewel happening next weekend, November 7th.

Ari Emanuel was on Fox News late last week and was asked about this somewhat surprisingly. Here's what he had to say. WWE's Crown Jewel is in Riyadh, November 7th. State right now is warning Americans that U.S. businesses could be targets. Is that show going to go on? Right now, everything's still set this weekend coming up Abu Dhabi, we have a UFC fight. We have in the middle of November a freeze art show. So, so far, so good. Nothing's been canceled.

I mean, are you getting briefings from the government? Is there a scenario where you pull it? Yeah, we have a whole team kind of working on this and kind of win. And if that doesn't happen where we can move it, it's a daily monitoring. Okay, so there you go. They're monitoring it on a daily basis. We continue to get reports about non-essential government officials should leave. I have confirmed, and I was told this by several people, the airport in Riyadh is closed. There's also a slap event, I think, on November 5th happening over there. And I was told that the production staff that is slated to work, they will be flying into Bahrain, unless things change with the airport and the closure,

they'll be flying into Bahrain and then have to drive five hours on a bus from Bahrain to Riyadh, which is a long flight, regardless, like anywhere in the U.S. to Riyadh is 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 hours, and then you've got to get on a coach bus, I'm sure, top of the line, and then you've got to drive through the desert to Riyadh.

So sorry. The flight to Bahrain is long, and then you've got to drive to Rio. Anyway, it's crazy. It's absolutely crazy to have to do this. But the show goes on. Canelo Alvarez has touched down. Here's Canelo, by the way, touching down. And also, Alexander Usik is there.

I love the video of them. Everyone's good. Everyone's happy. The great Mexico versus the World Event happening in Riyadh. Lots of media there, by the way. any Mexican media I did see this clip of Canelo very happy to be in Riyadh, let's hear it

I love to be here in Riyadh and I'm excited to fight on Saturday so I'm being a world champion again let's go Alamu'llayah I'm here he's excellent

hello hello please tell everyone you're here and everything's okay so everyone's all right Dana White was asked about holding events overseas amid the security concerns. Here's what he had to say.

50% of people came from outside of the UAE. Right. We had this event here. It was incredible. There's other sporting events going on. What can you tell those people because of the security situation in the region about conducting their events?

I can tell you, never have I been over here where I felt unsafe and felt that my staff were unsafe. everything here has done so professionally. And I mean, during COVID, we had the only real bubble that existed in the world. Not just here in the world. You know, when you watch the news, the news is so full of shit.

You know, every time I've come here, anywhere in the Middle East, I've had nothing but a good experience. And I can't, listen, I can't tell other sporting events what to do. that that that's that's their business we go we go when we have a when we have a deal we have a contract we have a you know a date we'll be there when we have a deal when we have a contract when there's money to be made forget about our employees safety we will be there no matter what just once i would love for him to be like we understand we understand that there's concerns we understand there's families that are worried. We are doing everything. We have the greatest security. We've got contingency plans. We've got X, Y, Z, just what, as opposed to just being like, we got a

contract, we're going. And then completely missing the point being like, yeah, when we were here in 2020, it was great. There wasn't a war happening there. The airport wasn't getting bombed. What are you talking about? That's like being like, yeah, you know, I went to Bondi Beach once, and it was amazing. It was heaven on earth. Oh yeah, a bunch of people died and were shot in December of last year. Yeah, when I was there, it was great. You know, the one time that I went to this place, someone comes up to me, like, I was robbed when I was in such and such country. Yeah, well, when I was there, it was great. So things change. Situations change. Times change. Places get bombed. Man, my uncle died in the World Trade Center. Oh, really?

because when I was at the World Trade Center in 1999, everything was fine. Weird. Really? Can't say enough good things about it. It was a great experience. We went on a tour. What are you talking about? What is that?

It's absolutely absurd. And I'm getting this from people who are affiliated. Just care. Can you show us that you care? Can you show us that you're worried for us? It's not about the contract. It's about things changing. No one's asking you to break a contract or break a contract.

deal, we understand, but things have changed. When the government is saying, hey, unless you're essential, you should probably leave. What about us? Who, you know, we're not multi, multi, millionaires, billionaires. What about us? There was a funny moment where one of the reporters asked Dana White about the Saturday coverage, by the way, they haven't even announced it yet. It's happening December 5th. They haven't even announced a single fight. The Izzy fight, the Ian Gary fight. They haven't announced any of it. And someone asked him if this card was going to be as good as the Qatar card. It was a great exchange.

Here's what he had to say. Is it going to be great as Qatar's card? It's going to be just as great as Qatar's card. All the cards are great. When's the last time we had a bad card? I mean, there's a couple of cards that missed out. Like when it comes out, bulled out of his fight versus Whitaker in Saudi. Well, this shit happens.

I'm talking about the cards, the fights. when is the last bad fight card we had? I mean, to be honest, the last Saudi card didn't like show up that much. Okay. Oh, that's your opinion, sir. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Have a nice night. Thank you. Who's got another question? He literally asks the guy, when's the last bad one? And the guy references a card that happened in, I believe he's talking about the July 25th card. the Magamette Ancalaev versus Bogdan Gouskov. Pretty uneventful main event, eventually won by Ancalaia,

but I think most people would say it wasn't the best. I'm not trying to get on Uncle Live's YouTube channel here as he breaks down commentators. But, you know, there were some okay performances. There have been, you know, not every fight card is going to be a total banger. And so I just love the idea of being like, all right, tell me when's last one. He actually pulls one out of his back pocket. He's like, yeah, that's your opinion.

Go fuck yourself in so many words. can't take any type of criticism, any type of like pushing back. Holy shit. Could you imagine? He was asked about Shakur getting released and the spin job was incredible. He decided, out of the kindness of his heart, to release him because it just wasn't quite going the way they wanted it to go out. Tremendous spin job. They wanted to sign him.

They figured out three months later that it wasn't going to work out. And so they decided to release him. Take a look. It's amazing. Can you tell us what happened then? I offered him his release. I offered him the release. Was that because he was being difficult to work with?

Why would you offer him the release? Listen, man, I think that everybody's involved. They're happy with where we're at with it. I have nothing bad to say about him or his team, but I offered him the release and they accepted. We've seen guys like John Jones, Strickland, Paula Costa asked for their release from the UFC in the past. Amazing question.

What's different about this one than those guys in that situation? Well, we never even did one fight with the guy. We were in business with him for a couple months. Insane response. Did you try to book fights? Like the Haney fight was obviously what everyone was talking about. Listen, I'm not going to get into any of that shot. I'm not going to say anything negatively about him.

Or we try to do this or we try to do that. We got to a position where we both agreed we were cool with the release. Insane response. Incredible follow-up. There are guys in your other organization in the UFC that want to be released. Why don't you release them when they ask to be released? Well, we never had a fight with him. Who gives a shit?

You signed him. You signed him. There's no difference. There's absolutely no difference. In fact, the guys who have been with you who are now saying, you know what, enough is enough, we've reached the end of the road, those guys probably deserve the release more than the guy who hasn't even fought for you yet who just signed. You just signed them three months ago. We're supposed to believe that you guys couldn't figure it out and you came up with the idea to release them. that's what we're supposed to believe

and if in fact that is the truth what does that say about the state of Zufa boxing that you signed him couldn't figure out what to do with him and then decided to release him three months later what does that say about the company

it would make a hell of a lot more sense his ego won't allow him to do this a hell of a lot more sense if you say you know what he came to us he was frustrated he hated the deal he doesn't want to fight

who he wanted to fight he doesn't want to he asked for the release I said there's the door. That would make more sense than being like, you know what, we offered him his release, and because he's never fought for us before, it's not that big of a deal. What? If you're Sean Strickland hearing that, you're banging your head on the wall. If you're Powell Costa, who's being held hostage at this point, it's been six plus months since his last

fight. They're turning people around. The guy that he beat, just fought on Saturday, and got beat. Why isn't Costa in those fights? Because he's, he, you know, he's just fought on Saturday. Because he's he turned down a 10-day notice fight against Magulamon-Khalyev because they wanted to kill him on the way out? Eddie Hearn was asked about all of this. He's been talking a lot about it. Here's what he told the zone. But it doesn't matter how long they're going to go on for because they have not got a clue, not a clue about boxing. He has to sit there at the end of the year and go, hands up, it's been an absolute monstrosity, a disaster. But they won't do it. They'll go, it's been a really good start. You know, it's gone, it's gone much better than I thought it would do. Really? You're a

and stuff at a sport, mate. That's the reality. So humble yourself, do your work, study, get better, improve, come back, because we've enjoyed it. I've loved it. I've loved this year. I've never been so popular. This guy is making me look like a mixture of the patron saint of boxing and James fucking Bond. So please Zuffer, don't go anywhere, because I've got a lot of that to do. Eddie's on a heater right now. He's loving all of this, and I'm curious how they're going to respond. As of right now, not another American show scheduled for this year. The Shakur spin is wild. I've tried to get Chouin on.

He's not talking. Eddie has a theory that Connor Ben's not going to fight for them again. I don't know how that's going to play up, but maybe they'll offer him his release as well. And I'm sure that will go over well. The guy who started all of this, who got the $15 million, who essentially initiated this avalanche,

all these headaches, and then they're going to release him too. Here's what Eddie had to say about Connor Ben. Then you get sparked in a round, or two rounds, sorry, or whatever it was, and then you are out. Right now, Connor Ben is at the bottom of the pile when it comes with Dana White waking up in the morning, or Nick Kahn. He will have a comeback fight in his contract for quite a lot of money. So all they will do is they will give him comeback fights that he will not accept. And then they'll tell him, well, if you want, well, maybe less money, you can fight Carlos Adamis. The day Connor Ben fights Carlos Adams for the world middleweight title, it's just never going to happen.

So he'll either retire, have a big argument with Zuffer, or fight Chris Eubank Jr. But Ubank Jr. will hold him by the nuts and say, if you want to fight me, here's the deal something. But Zuffer, they don't give a fuck. They'll just look at the contract and go, how much we're not paying that? Like, these are the fights you can have. Connor will say, I'm not fighting it. My opinion, that's what happened. All right, give us Connor with Dana, Eubank with Hearn, and let us be on our way.

That's the one. He's setting it up. That's the one everyone wants. That's the storyline everyone wants. Do I think we get it? Right now I lean towards no, but that would be the one. The long-rumored Devin-Haney-Zone deal was finally announced. They had a great rollout for this.

They changed the DeZone logo on social media to D-E-V-N. They had this amazing video package for him. No fight officially announced at the time. It's a whole D-Bo thing. But things have now changed because our good friend Darshan has reported that Devin Haney versus Liam Paro is happening December 19th in San Francisco. It will be a WBO-I-BF, Walterway Title Unification. about and it will be at the chase center. So he's back at the chase center. He beat Regis

Progray there a couple of years ago. Liam Paro, another Australian fighter, a friend of the program. And so there you go. And hopefully that will be on DeZone and not DeZone pay-per-view, but who the hell knows? Richard and Hitchens is trying to get a fight against Kishon Davis. Here's Mr. Hitchens weighing in. Kishan outpriced himself to fight me. Like I said, I've been agreed to the fight going on two months. I was wondering what was the holdup, but he was asking for six million to fight me. And mind you, boy never even made more than a mill in boxing. Fight off, son a clown, debass, I don't know. The boxing negotiations on social media get a little tiresome. Speaking of Darshan, he did write this regarding Noa Inouye and Bam Rodriguez. That would be

one of the biggest fights that can happen in 2007, a massive super fight. Golly, please give it to me. Nowe-Inouye's agent, John Lewis, has said that he is working with Matchroom to finalize a deal for Naoya Inouye to face Jesse Bam Rodriguez in Tokyo in March. Oh, that would be incredible.

Robert Garcia last week was one of the very few who was sounding the alarm about having to go to Riyadh. Well, he has now talked a little bit more about that scheduled trip. By the way, this event happening in five days time. Here's new sound from Robert Garcia. Look, look, I said right now they are no longer on that car. This was back and forth,

this and that. You know, I got a call from an attorney that's already there. And he told me, look, Robert, we get at least two alerts on our phones every day about missiles. It's happening. So obviously, that was already a good reason to say, why would we risk ourselves going out? there, you know, without being safe and, you know, flying into a different country, driving five to six hours to get to the location where the festival will be. It's already looking for trouble. We always said, but look, where's our flights? We haven't got our flights. This was going on Friday and Saturday when I was over there in San Antonio. But since we didn't get anything, I was also thinking, if they want us to fly out Sunday night, that means

it's already Monday over there. I'm a trainer, and I look at my fighters, you know, and if they want us to fly up Sunday night, you know, it's Monday over there, so it's one day travel. So we're going to end up getting there Tuesday. That means we have Wednesday and Thursday to get used to the time change and cut weight.

Yep. Who does that, you know, on a world title fight? You know, we can go on a Sunday, get there Tuesday to fight Saturday. It's unbelievable. It's impossible. But that's when I called Rick as a rich. Even if they wanted to fly out Sunday, it's impossible.

It's ridiculous for me to reach my father just because they're forcing us or trying to say that's the only option we have. We made that decision that we just couldn't go. Not just because of what's going on with the missiles and all that. But also the time difference, man, in the travel. Appreciate Robert talking about all this. His guy Delgado is scheduled to fight on the card. It sounds like that's not. not going to happen. So let us see. It's going to be interesting. And again, it's not just about

this one event. November 5th, there's the slap event, and that's TKO people, and then it's WWE Crown Jewel, and then there's the event of Qatar, and then there's the other Saudi Arabia event on December 5th, which has yet to be announced, but that is the plan. I wonder, is Dana going to stay there the whole time? Probably not. Maybe. We'll see. Give me a fucking break. Nico mentioned talk, Nico, uh, Nico believed Dana on the Volkov thing. That was, I think he landed where we did. Yeah, you think so? Which is like he's believing that maybe he didn't recognize him.

He's giving him the benefit of the doubt. He's giving the benefit of the doubt. All right, let's see the conversation where Nico asks Dana about that interaction with Volkov. Can you clarify that you knew that it was Alexander Volkov asking the question? I absolutely knew. It was freaking Volkanowski out so bad. He asked me twice. He's like, you know that's Volkov.

I said, yeah. Yeah, Matt. I thought he was doing something. type of a stick. Yeah. And I was waiting for the punchline or, I didn't, you know, there was nothing. It was very odd. Even my staff thought I didn't know.

Yeah. Yeah, I wonder why. I wonder why. I'm waiting for the punchline for his stick over there. What was that, G. I was just going to say the same thing. Oh, yeah, okay. Waiting for the punchline.

Yeah. Weird, man. I didn't get that one. Can I tell you something that's never happened in my entire life? Yes. Nobody has ever said to me. when I'm standing next to somebody that I know and recognize

hey you know who that is right nobody's ever said that to me in my entire life a group of people a staff anybody who are my colleagues have never gone yo do you know who that is while I'm standing next to somebody he's such a good actor that he fooled Volcanowski thinking that he didn't know who he was

as if this wouldn't track with like the recent of course behavior we've had him right from see from Dana White like I mean it's all the silver stuff with the Wang Tong getting the resumes mixed up. It feels like it's a weekly gaffe from him.

What could have given them that impression, you know? What could have possibly? Surely he knows who Fareed Basharad is now. He did say when he was asked about the parting of ways, like, look, there's more to the story. Fareed pushed back. And now he's like, no, no, no. I wasn't talking about him. I was just talking in generalities, which is an even crazier thing to say.

What I said at the time last week was, if something did happen, tell us. so that we don't speculate and you don't assassinate this guy's character. Now he's saying, no, none of that happened. I have no problem with the guy. I was just talking in general. Why the fuck you bring it up? How does that make sense? Oh, I don't want to be in business with this guy because, you know, sometimes when you fire someone,

they're kind of not good to work with. They're shady characters. Oh, this guy you just fired, he's a shady character. No, no, no. I'm just saying in general when you fire someone. What? It gives me a headache. Anyway, here's what he had to say.

Regarding the release, he said he did nothing wrong. Yeah, so I talked about that at the press conference the other day. When I was talking to the media that night and I was saying reasons that you could not get resigned, I wasn't saying that about him. I was just saying, they were asking me, you know, why didn't he get re-signed? And, you know, and I said, well, it's happened before. There's lots of reasons why guys don't get re-signed. I wasn't talking about him specifically.

Okay. So I actually saw his video on, how? On my Instagram. I thought the algorithm. I thought he blocked it all. I didn't mean to do that to that kid. And I saw you, it said something like, you know,

if you're not going to re-sign me, don't try to hurt my career. Fair. And in no way, shape, or form. Did I try to do that? I have no problems with him whatsoever, personally or professionally. and, you know, I'm sure with his record and what he's got going on, he'll get re-signed somewhere.

So there's no chance that he will be re-signed by the UFC in the next future? Would he be resigned with the UFC in the near future at some point? I wouldn't see the near future. I mean, we just let him go. But I'm not saying it's not a possibility that he could come back to the UFC. I don't understand why he couldn't have just said, hey, we weren't the biggest fans of his fighting style. Didn't see a future here, didn't see a big demand. We decided it was best to part ways.

That whole other stuff about there's got to be more to the story. Oh, by the way, there isn't more to the story. It's absolutely insane. Ily Tupori was doing that IG live, and I guess people were commenting on his eyes. Since the Justin Gichi fight, whatever, here's what Ilya has to say about his eyes. The eyes, the eyes never lie, exactly. Look at the eyes of the best. All right, there you go.

are good. Dana White, teasing a unique event coming to the Middle East. What's he talking about? Is he talking about, honestly, I don't know. I was going to say

the Pyramids of Giza, but they've done that one before. They did it back in May. Anyway, here's what he had to say about that. But I've been telling you guys, we're working on an event right now that will be very

unique and people from all over the world and want to come see. I already started to see renderings of what we could possibly do before I flew to Abu Dhabi, and I look forward to announce on that soon. This was an answer to a question about doing big things in the Middle East, so it seems Middle East specific, but let's see, they are going to Dallas, so get excited, Dallas. January 16th, they announced that one.

Unclear if that's the first event of 2027, but it's usually, they usually take a week or two off, so that arena is a great one, and they've had some big events there. So shout out to the good people of Big D. Is it the Big D or just Big D? I'm not sure. Who's to check? Okay. Joaquin Buckley says he's going to retire after his next fight.

Is this true? He said this on his stream. Let's see what he has to say. What up, y'all? I'm going to just be quick with it. Yeah, that fight right there, it was devastated, and it really affected my family, right? Listen to my grandmother's feet and listen to her prayer for me

over the phone and really being upset and her telling me, you know, to retire and to really kind of get away from fighting and, you know, it took a lot for me to listen and digest it. But, you know, I took some time. I slept on it and I prayed about it and I realized that my grandmother's right, you know. But with that being said, I just told her to just to pray for me and allow me to grace the Attegha just one more time and have the strength to step out of her one more time because I can't leave on the loss, you know. And with me already having 18 fights within the organization within six years, I'm already knowing, man, I'm a workhorse, right?

So really, you know, I got to really save myself, right, from any more mileage or any more damage. But like I said, this is the last one. But we're going to make our last one, the best one. Do we believe this? I was just looking up. How old is Joaquin Buckley? I don't think he's that old.

Joaquin Buckley is 32. He's been... Fighting professionally since 2014. I mean, maybe. It's three in a row now. But I don't think so. Me, I mean, either. I think especially if he wins.

He'll be back. Can I give you guys a hot take? Absolutely. A lot of them would do better. If I don't see any more of these like 24-hour stream things on my timeline in my life, I would be the happiest band in the world. I mean, you don't want to see Bobby Green crash in his vehicle? I don't think that's a hot take.

What is going on? What is happening? Bad news for you, though. I think they're just going on. Did you see this video? Oh, yeah. What is going on? I mean, it's so uncomfortable.

And then, like, the whole, like, the aftermath of it? What, this is, this is dangerous. Anyway, please. In, like, a separate person, I can't watch anything with Adrian Bruner. Broner. What is happening? I don't even, that was on his stream, right? That one, or no?

Yeah. I don't know. Who's it was. No, the Buckley thing. Oh. He does it, too. I don't know. I don't know.

That's why I thought. of it. If it wasn't, I apologize, but I'm just, I'm tired of all the, the always on 24-7, making content. It's just leading to problems. So I don't know, maybe that's what that was. I'm not sure, but I don't think you should retire. I don't think anyone's calling for him to retire, but maybe his family wants him to or his heart's not in it. Who knows? Dana Way was asked about Dylan Dennis. We talked about Dylan earlier, asked him about, look, I think Dylan does have a point, by the way, when he's like, why am I the one that got banned when I got jumped? Now, he does make a lot of, you know, issues and trouble,

but he does have a good point in this particular regard. The difference is they're in business with a lot of those guys, and they're not in business with you, so it's easier to ban you than them. Anyway, Dana was asked about all this. Here's what he had to say. What happens is, in my experience, every time Dylan Dana shows up somewhere, there's a fight that breaks out. So after the last one, it's just, we don't,

need that aggravation here. So there you go. I don't think he's getting unbanned anytime soon, especially not after the shenanigans of this past weekend as well. Do we have a Ballandore winner, guys? Not yet. I did see a little notification

for my son asking for permission to download DeZone. And I was like, oh, what? You want to watch that Oshackie Foster win? I thought he just wanted to watch the Knicks on his phone. That's true. I tried to find it yesterday. It was very hard. What was it for? Football?

Yeah, of course. He probably looked up, Ballandor. That's where it's streaming. Anyway, speaking of footy, Armist Rookian was at El Classico yesterday. airing in, not primetime, it was like 4 p.m. on ABC. I loved it. Here he is.

Not as familiar with the other gentleman in the picture. Hello, hello, I'm good. How are you? Tyler the creator? Tyler Kolek? T.K. TTC. Who's this?

Okay. Yeah. Golf, Tother the Creator's brand. Exciting stuff for Armin. Golf, as in like a... Look at Armin, looking... What's golf? Like a golf?

Spotify on the thing. That's just the name of like Tile the Creator's brand. But is... Ah, I know that guy. What's up with the dude above him? Just sort of mean mugging the camera there. You see this. Locked in on the game, bro.

Oh, the guy looking directly at the camera. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's pissed. Why? They're mugging him? he's like why you taking a photo of me bro I think he's getting mugged

that's what I thought Hello hello how are you Guys Best news of the weekend Without a doubt Like a Phoenix Rising from the Mother F in Ashes Guys

Please Tell them Show them We're going to Blom Buenos Aires, baby. Yes, there it is. The weight is over. The global fight league is here.

A new era in MMA begins December 18th in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It's the Miami Monsters versus the Buenos Aires gouchos. 20 fighters, two teams, one historic night. History starts here. All those haters, all those doubters that said, end of 2026 plus minus, no chance. you got to say now, huh? All of that said, over. They proved us wrong.

All of that said, over under. What do you got to say now? I mean, obviously, this is not my fault. The Miami Monsters anchored by, you know, led by, you know, James Tehuno. The star power on the Miami Monsters is unmistakable. Buenos Aires Gauchos stacked as well.

I mean, you just from top to bottom, you go, what's your favorite matchup? What's your favorite matchup? Two. And then, of course, they're three. Third guy is also great. Yossi them, though. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, some banger matchups. Some absolute bangers on that one. Do we actually even know? No. No, we don't know a single fighter. What? I thought it was just going to carry over.

All we have confirmed so far is that they had a team in Buenos Aires. Carry over. It's all new teams, bro. Oh, carry over like the roster from before? Oh, fuck no. Yeah, the gauchers want to think. Did you even have these logos before? No.

Oh, these are new as well. All right. None of this was in that In the original I thought there was an LA Phantoms in the first regime? Remember there was like bulldogs and spiders Wasn't that the team that

Holly Home got drafted by? Or am I? No. It was just Dubai, Los Angeles, London, Miami, South Paulo, and New York. Yeah, Good news, everybody.

Yes, please. Very good news. Tell me, tell me. I'm looking at the Instagram post, which is different than the ex post that we have. Okay. The bottom of the Instagram caption.

team roster reveals start Monday October 26 Oh fuck that's today At what time? Didn't say Stay tuned no Okay

We have an update GFL Do you post anything? No updates at the moment Stock still at seven cents From the other night GFL Judges at the end of the year

Yeah Listen It's only fair Shakurita GFL Oh my God Could you imagine it's only fair The draft was January of last year

Almost exactly two years later We get our first event Hell yeah Wait some of these teams do Why are you saying this like it's actually gonna happen? There are fighters assigned to teams I know where who Orlin Moriahs was on the Miami Monsters

Okay I told you this No you didn't It's like Jim When With the draft And Den is on the London Bullies Wait By the way? This is like new.

Yeah, yeah. This has been happening. Listen, they've been working in the dark, all right? No, they haven't. They make an announcement when they fucking turn the lights on at the office. When you guys are on mocking, they're working in the shadows. What London team are you even talking about, Jordan? Don't worry about it. Bullies, bro.

Don't worry about it, bro. No, that doesn't exist. You want stalking them? I know a guy. It's from 13 weeks ago. Also, you mentioned this. The only two announcements are Jamie Edendon. and Marlon Marlon Mariah.

And so, then don't say they haven't made announcements. And they were announced July 19th, July 24th, and they have not announced anything. They're working on it, all right? Rome wasn't built in a day. Fuck, man. Do we have any super chats, Frankie? Here we go now. Sugar, Jan Talbot, Murrow.

I thought he was doing like a four-way here, but there would be an X in between Yan and Talbot. Sugar, Jan, Talbot, Marab? I don't know if they do Talbot, Marab. to be honest. Because then what happens if Jan wins and Marab wins? Now you've just killed off a contender with the guy who lost two in a row,

so I don't see it happening. One of Mofsars' cornermen ran around the cage when he was getting ground and pounded by Volk. I posted on G.C.'s most recent ex post. Can you expound upon what sort of displaying action his team should get for breaking the rules?

Did you see this clip? Yeah, I'm looking at it right now. It does look like a guy from Mosear's corner as he was getting landed on, sprints over to the other side. What? As I'm watching the ground and pound right now. On the platform.

A guy runs over, like right as it's about to finish, he's in like a white tea with Evlov on the back and he's like slamming the thing. He's right next to Volk's team. What? I don't know if this is Volk's team or if this is like... Can you drop it in the slack? Yeah, yeah, I got you.

I know we can't play it, right? Because it's UFC footage, but I just want to see for myself. what's going on here okay so can you bring this up okay here's a clip it seems to have been taken by someone in the crowd folks hitting him with the ground

and pound finishing sequences lefts and rights oh I see okay so someone on on Movers team runs around I thought he ran like on the platform like where the cameraman stand but it's actually he runs around now is he running to throw in the

towel. I was just going to say, is there any chance he was looking to get it called? So, based on where he's going, it seems like he's running to Moffsar, not necessarily the ref. He runs past the ref. You see where he ends up? He starts, like, slamming the thing, and he's looking right at Moffsar. I don't know, and it seems like someone walks him back. Who the hell knows? Nothing's going to happen.

Yeah, nothing was. I mean, Usmander Makamato jumped the cage and did the whole, like, it's much to do about nothing. There was no impact on the first. fight here. Let's let's move on. All right, fine, fine, fine. Back to super chats we go. The Russian translator did an excellent job translating Dana White's, who gives the shit, if you want to add a who gives the shit in Russian to the drops. By the way, that guy's great. He's amazing. Remind me his name again? He's got the beard, baldhead. He's been on the show. James Tudon? No. Sergei. Sergey. He's amazing.

Agorni. He's the Fabiano of Russian translators. Even Vulcan himself was giving him props. He gave a real long answer and then... He's great for the bald beard, Brian. Yeah. Back to him. Hey, Ariel, I hope you weren't too busy at Raff Friday to see the beatdown Jason Tatum put on your New York Knicks. Yeah, whatever.

I mean, game two, I saw Mitch try to box out one of his own Celtics players. I'm not too worried. Yo. Oh. Could you go to that camera two? Camera two for a second? Nah, I'm not worried. Yeah, yeah, know yourself.

You know yourself. Speaking of Mitch, what's up with him? He like AIed one of his friends. to be a model. He's a different type of cat. He's a different type of cat. Wish him the best. No hard feelings.

We'll be just fine. Everyone's getting their licks in right now. We'll be just fine. There was almost a moment in game one for Mitch that he got hurt and people were like, oh my God, 40 out for the year. Mitch like rolled his ankle early, but he came back. That always happens. Listen, we'll be just fine, you know, championship hangover.

Seahawks had it as well. Big win for them yesterday. Everyone knows you went the title in game three of an 82 game season. We'll be just fine. I will admit. yesterday's performance was actually the worst of the bunch, in my opinion, against a banged-up magic team at home. You've got to win that game, plus you've got some tough ones coming up to Troy next.

But not too hard. NBA regular season is preseason. It doesn't matter. It's useless. I said it myself, O and 82. I sick by it. If they really go 0 and 82, I got to be honest. What did you say?

I said, I don't care if they go 0 in 82, give me the championship. I said this back in June. Oh, that the following year. they go. Yeah. They don't care less. But the losses don't mean as much. No.

If this was 24, 25, 23, 25, I'd be like, oh my God. We're done. We're never going to win. It's like, eh, whatever. Also, it's not like they were, like, flying out of the gate last year either. Like, relax. I'm just saying every loss when you've never seen your team win, you're like, it's never going to happen.

Now it's just like, yeah. Whatever. No big deal. Why are we limiting the discussion to Volk being the greatest featherweight or Australian fighter. He's now my Mount Rushmore. Am I wrong? No, you're not. I don't love the, where is he at. Like, let's just wait for the career to end, to be honest. Because it was once a time where people said it about B.J. Pen again, about Fjordor, about a bunch of people. Let's just wait. But yeah, it's, it's totally fair. Props to New York, Rick, for being such a natural

on the crack. Yes. Said in, but. Yeah, I know. I'll take it. My man. Rick, duty making her debut. Yeah. Ben was great. Ben was great hosting. shout out to Pizzi. Shout out to Ptze. Yeah, just shout out to what's going on. We love Ptze. We love Ptze. Seems like Raff has horrible security

with these brawls. I understand personal issues, draw money, but there's a certain point where it becomes trashy. To be honest, they actually did a great job. Like, I was right there. I was standing right next to all of them during that match. The thing is, they told Hamza

that he couldn't stay for the Armand match. And then he tried to be right where the corner, you get two cornermen, and he wanted to stay. They said no, they walked him. He stayed. He came back. And then everyone was there.

And then match ends, Armand steps on Dylan, and everyone ran. And they defute, like, Izzy was there. He was like, Izzy was Dion Dawkins out there. They were blocking.

That thing could have popped off and it wouldn't have been good, but they actually did a great job of diffusing it. Now, Thursday, not so much. I just wonder, like, how much longer can Dylan do this? He has one thing left, right?

He has one thing left. He still has the undefearing did MMA record, and he had the Perry fight, and it fell through. I don't want to see him in Raf. He's not a wrestler. I want to see him either do grappling or MMA. That's it. I don't want to see him do anything but grappling or MMA.

Submission grappling, you mean, right? Submission, yeah. BJJ. Yes, BJJ. Put him in UFC, BJJ. I don't care. I'll never do that. I know.

But, like, I don't want to see him box. I don't want to see him wrestle. He's not that guy. And so he shows up in Vegas, and he's like, yeah, Mike Tyson here. I'm the Mike Tyson. And I'm like, Dylan, we all know how this is going to play out.

And it's only hurting your brand. Now, I know money is money. But MMA, I'm still interested. Let's see. Same. BJJ, most interested. Now the BJJ is a thing and there's a league. Great.

Boxing, wrestling, no more. No thank you. MMA almost. And MMAs for me, yeah. For sure. 100%. But, you know, we haven't seen him do jiu-jitsu in years at this point.

Shout out Connor with the word-for-word, bar for bar soldier boy line iconic you know that one yeah soja boy up in a no wine an anie why nanie why they know

With the interview Drake Drake Then he plays the song Oh He stole my whole flow Oh yes Breakfast Club

Not true though Drake Stole soldier boys flow That's your boy That's your man Oh my God He couldn't even shine his shoes. I mean, that's like saying freaking...

Word for word, bar for bar. I don't know. Who's it like saying? Temirov thinks Jan stole his flow? I don't know. We got lost a lot. Different weight glasses. I was trying to do.

Volk. Okay, so I always get confused with the greater than and less than. This has plagued me ever since I was a kid. Okay. Greater than Don Bradman. Wow. Gary Ablett, Andrew Gaze. Andrew Gaze.

legendary Australian basketball player if you know you know, I definitely know Andrew Gaze. When the sport was just getting really global and the U.S. would play, Andrew Gaze was a legend. He would shoot threes like a madman. But yeah, sure. I'm down with that. Don Bradman walks down the streets of New York

City. Does anyone know he is? Nope. No. Very good chance he's no longer with us, but point remains. Yeah, he died about 25 years ago at the age of 92. It's tough. Don Bradman walks down the streets of New York City. People have a lot to say. I'm just saying.

Okay. Back in his prime. Okay, but walks around the streets of places that have cricket, I mean, probably legend. I mean, the motherfucker's prime was in 1934. He was literally biblical aged. Okay, okay. So, Don Brad, okay, England, right? England loves cricket.

Yeah. You think Donnie Brad's? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yo. I think he might be great for Australian cricket, not global cricket. No, I think you're underestimating. He's he flown to Edmonton to make weight just to be the backup fighter, huh?

Come on now. Hold on. What some damn respect on Vogue's name. There's a couple cricketers that have like, yeah, Verrat Koli, 274 million followers, bro. Frickett is ridiculous. Where's he from? Where's he from? India.

Okay. It's different ballgame out there. Different. Truly. Jones, GSP, Mighty Mouse, Volk. I'm replacing Anderson. Wow. Wow. By the way, we like to talk about like the clean Mount Rushmore. I mean, we definitely have a legit contender for that clean Mount Rushmore.

GSP, DC, DJ, Volk, Habib, who am I missing? That's pretty good. That's a pretty good top five right there. Yeah. As far as the clean ones, like that I've never popped. No positive tests. Right, right. I like the way you said that, by the way.

Preface to that. All right, well, thank you to everyone for the super chats. I think that's it, right? Wow. We did it. We did it, guys. Tomorrow on the program, John Kavanaugh, Dakota Ditcheva, Sean O'Malley. I tweeted something earlier today.

I asked people, what is something in combat sports that you love? A story, a fighter, a thing. What's something that you really love in combat sports right now? I got some good replies. Oh, I read them tomorrow. Oh, nice. Oh.

No, no, no. I didn't know you're going to read them now. No, no, no, no, I wanted to save it for tomorrow. I wanted to let it, you know, yeah. But a lot of good people. Some people didn't quite understand the assignment. Like, I got a few, uh, Connum McGregor when he beat Chad Mendez. No, I mean right now.

I got my answer immediately. I'm so happy about one thing. At the moment, really? The highway division. Oh, yeah. Way Division. Flyweight division. Automatic.

Can I, I'm just going to throw one out that is not like a, but a friend of the program, Mike Goldfarb, who produces the Yahoo Sports Daily, mentioned this. I don't think it qualifies as something he loves. But it did make me say, hmm, he said, the UFC and FBI teaming up to train agents in hand-to-hand combat while the FBI also investigates the Dalgarian fight seems like a conflict of interest and no one seems to care. Never really thought of that, by the way. That's what I love in combat sports.

I didn't really think of that, by the way. But whatever. We know they're working in cahoots. I mean, they went up to Alex Hernandez and said, you know, let's see your phone, bro. The shakedown. Yes. Let's see your phone. Can you also show me how to do that double leg?

Yeah. What was the thing that he called signal something else? Single or so he's like, show me the apps. What apps you got? Anyway, we're out of time. It's been a great day. It's time to go. Look at this set.

Are we dressing up tomorrow, Wednesday? What are we doing, guys? What's the plan? Thursday, cost us. Definitely. Oh, Thursday. Okay. It seems like Thursday is sort of like the fun day around here.

It's the closest day to Halloween. I can't dress up. So, so wait. So wait. If Halloween fell on a Tuesday or Wednesday, you'd come dressed up? Absolutely. It's whatever day is closest. And so far we've gotten Thursday Halloween, Friday last year, and now Saturday.

That's a bunch of y'alloo does like a celebration on Thursday. Oh. It's always the last day. Wait, what's the celebration? A Halloween party? Yeah. Is it actually a home? What are you talking about?

There's a Halloween party here on Thursday? Bro. Every time. Did you not go to the bathroom today? It was on the facts. Every year. Every year, every year. Every year, huh?

Every year. We've only been here two fucking years. You're going? You coming? No, I'm not coming. In your costume? Not a leap year, so we will also be wearing costumes next year on Thursday. You probably won't be here.

No, I won't be here. Can't wear it on November 1st. No, that's true. But you could wear it on the, what would, the 28th? Just to be inclusive. It is hard. We'll be wearing it on the 20.

Frank, you're wearing a costume? I'm actually wearing one this year. Wow. Dressing up, bro. Are you wearing one? On what? Thursday? No, Wednesday.

You said 28. No, Saturday. To me, there's only one Halloween. It's October 31st, right? Everyone stop shot shit. We're still working on it. We're workshopping it. We're actually going to see Michael Jackson,

MJ on Broadway on Friday. So we're all going to dress up as MJ different stages in his life. Legit. Jackson 5. MJ. Go or not. There's bad

to be careful. Be careful. Holly Culkin, MJ is. That early. That's never like a branch. Yeah, yeah. Know yourself.

Thanks all I guess. Thanks to you. Thanks to that. Back to our state. I'm going to say, this is a piece of out of here.