The Ariel Helwani Show - UFC fighter pay problem brewing? Michael 'Venom' Page joins the show, On The Nose, more | The Boys in the Back

Episode Date: February 24, 2026

The Boys in the Back kick off the show with some recent news and notes, including UFC 327 fight announcements (04:25), growing beef between Khamzat Chimaev and Sean Strickland (10:40), Robert Whittaker moving to light heavyweight (16:44), and more. Next, they discuss the recent wave of UFC fighters discussing their pay, on the heels of Zuffa Boxing signing Conor Benn to a reported $15 million deal (34:15) and check in on the latest UFC rankings (1:04:01). After answering a few On The Nose questions (1:14:11), the Boys are joined by Michael 'Venom' Page to talk about his upcoming Total Kombat show, his UFC career, his interests outside the cage, and more (1:37:58). The show closes with more of your On The Nose questions (2:12:19) and Super Chats (2:53:06).

but boys in the back but boys boys boys boys boys what is good we are back in studio we trudged through the blizzard it ain't stopping us today and we made it into uncrowned studios for the final Tuesday boys in the back

during this Olympic period aerial can confirm got on his fight this morning so as long as all goes according to planned next week we'll we will be back to your regularly scheduled programming. I am one-third of the boys in the back. Connor Burke, I mean, as always.

EP Jackman, baby, New York EP. Good to be back. You say trudge. Are you alluding to a little bit of trudging through a frozen puddle? Okay, so last night I was, I left my house to go to the bodega, you know, grab, you know, a little sweet treat. Had a little hankering after dinner. wore some, you know, duck boots, bean boots, whatever you want to call them, rubber boots. You know, you can just plow through the snow and those.

You could do anything. As I was leaving, my roommate was like, I don't think you need those. I was like, I definitely need them. Was going through slop. And I was just like, yeah, I need to. Thank God I had it. This is a great call. This is a great call.

I was like, you know what? Just a quick walk over to the subway. Be all good. No worries. And then, you know, get out of the subway. And then I'm in the office. It's not a problem at all. Get down to the subway.

It says it's like 17 minutes away. I was like, you know, snow, delays, all good. We're still going to get there. Sit there for five or six minutes, 17 minutes. 17 minutes. I was like, hmm, doesn't seem to be getting any closer. I was like, you know what? I'm just going to call an Uber.

You know, easy. Bridges are back open, everything like that. Uber parks, you know, like a block away. I go to jump in as I'm getting in. Don't got the boots on. Got the old ass Nike Air Force is on. And splash down. right in a puddle of ice.

The second I get in the car, sock is just soaked with freezing cold water. I'm like, yeah, should have worn the boots. So yeah, literally trudged in here. Literally trudged in here. It was,

yeah, as I sat there, I was with the Uber driver. I was like, man, it's tough. How's the wetness condition feeling right now? It's gotten better.

It's gotten better. There was one point where I was getting a little shiver going. I was like, is this the hypothermia setting it? Has it been? begun? They're like, is it, is it going to take over? I can still feel the difference between the feet, though. So, yeah, I mean, we're powering through it. Some people are saying this is

my flu game, but, you know, I'm not saying that. Some people are saying that. So, yeah, we... James DeHuno? How you doing, Frank? Yeah, I'm doing great, man. Thanks, right. I know you're happy to be back in the studio. You got the drops back. Absolutely. I am so happy to have his back. You said on Slack, you were like, hell or high water. I'm in that studio tomorrow. I can't deal with this quick time recording bullshit. I can't do any of that. It was like, couldn't get you guys to record locally. Couldn't team view into computers without getting a bullshit response.

Couldn't wait for Zoom to finish processing. It was just fuck it. Like, it was worth coming in. I don't think I responded to you at all to your Slack message. No, so it could get you to respond to the Slack message? Yeah, I'm sorry about that, man. Like, as soon as we were off, I jumped off. Rick was like, it looks like I'm doing my ponytail or something.

And you can explain it. I don't want to talk to you anymore. I just want to click around the computer and do it needs to get done. There was a lot of, like, faulty messaging. There was a lot of Frank saying it's supposed to be those fighting words. Then we're looking at the same screen because he's team viewered into my screen and showing that it's actually not what he said. But he doesn't want to take accountability for that. That's okay.

That's okay. It was just, I don't even know what the hell is a porn hub. I didn't know that existed. I was just hard. Yeah. He was on my work computer and found that. I was just heartened to get the obviously I'm going to be late text because now I know we're. We're back.

Like, that's the Frank morning special. I was like, okay, we're back. We're back. Frank sends the warning shot. I don't say anything. Yeah.

I whisper to myself, I'll get there when I get there, which is what happened. All right, at the back end of the show, we'll have Michael Venom Page to talk about a big event going down in Liverpool this weekend,

Total Combat 3 that he's involved with. Also, fight announcement, him versus Sam Patterson at UFC London, and a whole slew of other things. We'll talk to MVP later on. Plus, on the nose, your questions,

insert. Before we do any of that, let's get into some news and notes from around the world of combat sports. We got some announcements for UFC 327. We got one of the title fights this past weekend, Joshua Van going to be taking on Tatsuro Tiro. Well, it looks like we've got some other fights joining it as well. Josh Hokit. Oh, you talk about the push at heavyweight. Yeah. The incredible Hulk gets his opportunity against the top five fighter in Curtis Blades. I kind of feel surprised by this one. Like this is a pretty big jump for him. This is an opportunity for him to stake a claim into the top five of the division. Somebody at one of my former colleagues at ESPN texted me when this first came out and was like,

yo, what the hell is going on? And I just put a question mark because I don't feel like this is that crazy of a jump if I'm being honest. And then I went on Twitter and started seeing some of the sentiment. You're now reinforcing that. It seems like people are like concerned that this is like a huge step up for Josh Hokka or like Curtis Blades, hey, he's a top five guy. I don't know if I feel that way about this fight. Okay, so I guess what we have to do is just remind ourselves that it's heavyweight. It's heavyweight. One, two fights? Sure. You're going into the top five. Cunev, you're making your debut in the top 10 and then you're going to get another top 10 fighter despite losing. I guess it's just when they think they have something at heavyweight, let's just push it.

100%. I saw someone tweet like, man, I guess there's just no slow builds at heavyweight anymore, but what would be a slow build for Josh Hockett? I mean, when we were doing the exercise, when we were talking about Gable Steeveson, we had Peece on and we were talking about like, I want to see him get somebody in like the top 15, top 10. I'm like, this is the jump. Like there are no guys.

You can't really like not make this leap. And so from what I've seen from Josh Hokeet in terms of the skill set, this fight kind of makes sense to me. I'm not as surprised. But I guess it's the ranking. It's the, it's the, it's the, feeling, what's the word I'm looking for? We've known Curtis Blades and he's been in our lives for so long, right?

He's been a stalwart of that heavyweight division for such a long time. He's been through multiple generations of heavyweight, right? The Francis Ingan, who has come and gone out of the UFC. Derek Lewis is still kicking, but Curtis Blades is like a remnant of a heavyweight division that has passed, right? A Kane Velasquez era like heavyweight division. And so. Josh Hogan was on contender series. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Josh Hokit just got here and Curtis Blades we've had years and years and years of experience with and have known, but skill for skill where Curtis Blades is in his career, I get it and feel like, to be honest, Josh Hokit should be a favorite in this fight. Wow. I wonder if we have odds

right now. I bet Curtis will be a favorite, but the momentum is all on the side of Hokit. Wow, Hoket is the New Yorkerick Dog of the Week, eh? We'll see. We'll see when fight time comes. No, we don't have any. the odds, yeah. But when you consider that Curtis Blades is a very powerful

striker, I didn't know we were going to go into a full breakdown. Let me make this quick. When you consider that Curtis Blades is a powerful striker, but his bread and butter is the wrestling, right? Even in the fight with Jolton on Meda, where Jolton was controlling him, he's able to reverse it using his wrestling and then turn the tables, I think Hoke gets the younger,

more athletic, better guy. Like, I just think the wrestling is going to be there for him. I guess we're going to find out. You believe in the new generation in heavyweight. If we consider, well, Certainly there's one that I believe is named Emil Stevenson. Hokeet beats Curtis Blades and then he gets a quick turnaround Gable Steevson at the White House. It's the top five heavyweight.

I don't know if you want to do that to Hoke it. You just gave him the push just to feed him to Gable? Some other fights. We got Osama Mersakana puts his undefeated record on the line against Paulo Costa. That's a tough matchup for Paulo Costa. It's a tough matchup, but it's the type of matchup that Paulo Costa needs, right? Like, if he's, like, the Luke Rockhold fight, right? That's, you get a high profile fight and it gets Paulo Costa's name back in here.

Against Merzikana, you got a very dangerous opponent, but it's a guy that people like really respect and think highly of. If you can get a win here, you climb back in. It feels like every time Costa has some momentum, he kind of disappears for too long, and then everybody's like, where the fuck is Paulo Costa? If he can get a win here, I think he successfully, again, put himself back. into like, okay, Paulo Costa's back position, but I don't think it's going to be an easy one. Yeah, taking Mersikanov, though, would be wildly impressive with the run that he's been on. It just feels like very different points in their career. We also got Randy Brown versus Kevin Holland.

It feels like, I saw someone tweet this. It feels like this fight has happened before, but I know it hasn't. Well, it's mostly because they've stepped in there against everybody else, right? It's like, these are two guys who are known for just being game. Next man up, whoever the opponent is, I mean, especially Kevin Holland, no doubt, like, one of the most active guys we've ever had. But they fought everybody and now they finally are fighting each other. We also get Dominic Reyes versus

Johnny Walker. That feels like a fight that's just going to be a car crash. It feels like or it feels like the one that you're like, oh, minus 800 for the fight doesn't go to the distance. There's value there. 29, 28 Walker. 29, 28? Great. And you're winner by split

decision. And then you look at the stats and it's like 13 total strikes throughout the entire fight. And then one last one. Kyle Dawkins, we'll be taking on Vicente Luca. Nice test for Dawkins, man. He's looked great since his return to UFC. Obviously, we had him in studio. It feels like he's turned a whole new leaf in his fighting career. So a big name, you know, not exactly at the highest point of his career, but a big name for Kyle Dawkes. I was just talking about Paulo Costa versus Luke Rockhold. This feels like that, not to that extent, right?

Luke Rockhold is a former champion, but to the extent that this is a name people know. And so if you get this win and you have this name on your resume, it really means something if you're Kyle Dawkins. So I like that fight a lot. Yeah, I'm in for it. UFC 327 coming together. I imagine where you get one more title fight for the main event on that one, but it's shaping up to be a nice pay-per-view for Miami. Not a bad card. Love Van versus Tyra, so we'll see.

It wasn't officially announced, but we are getting some shit-talking, some pot stirring among two title contenders at 185 and the champion. Hamzaa Chimayev and Sean Strickland going back and forth on Twitter. Sean Strickland saying, keep running, you Chechen, whore. I know the score. You know the score. And Hamzad Shemai responds.

See you soon, my boy. Before we get into the third member of the Trium Brit, what do you make of all the like training talk that's coming out? I saw an interview with Eric Nixik yesterday where he was basically like that type of stuff should stay in the room. You see Hamzot on the Jackson podcast where he's like, in the training room I was dummying him and his training partners like, yeah, I was dummying him too. what do you make of all this? Like Strickland's saying there, you know the score is interesting to me because the stories I've heard so far are Hamzat saying he was throwing him around. Now Strickland's like you actually know what happened. Yeah, I mean, we'll never know. Both these guys are such high level athletes as well. Like I think they're, unless one of them knocked the other one out, I think they're not going to admit to have lost in the training sessions. And you can always just fall back on it was training. So I mean, we need to see it in the octagon. Does that, does that enhance?

to fight at all for you? Does that matter? Do you go, man, they've actually felt each other before. They've grappled. They've... Nah, this wasn't like Horhe and Colby where it's like brothers turned into enemies. That's fair. They just trained together at one point. But either way, I'm intrigued by the fight. Hamzat's saying, I'll see you soon. Does that mean anything to you? No. Oh, okay. All right. When it comes to Hamzaa Chamaev, if there is not an official announcement, a poster with Hamzat's face, on it? I can't even think about it. I mean, he says see you soon. He also said on Friday, three days ago, four days ago, he was like 205. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to 205.

Nobody, as this, anybody who watches this show can tell you, nobody loves Hamzot more than me, been predicting him to be a champion forever, had him as my breakout fighter of the year prediction. I just can't get excited about a Hamzot fight until the ink is dried on the paper. Like, it is impossible. Is there any chance that when he said, 205, he wasn't referring to the light heavyweight division of USA and he was actually referring to interstate 205 in California and he was just taking a road trip on the San Joaquin Valley. What is there a 205 area code? Is that a location? What is it? 205 area code. I feel like there is. This could be, we could be figuring out. Yeah,

it's 205 is Alabama. Oh. Maybe Hamzaa Chamae have spent some time in Tuscaloosa, training in the... He's fighting Deont-Wailder? Oh, we may have just cracked the code there. Oh shit. Hamza Shemaya versus Deiote Wilder Zufa Boxing 6 taking place in July. We've just read the tea leaves perfectly. So yeah, we'll see what happens there. Nassadine Imov, the other title contender getting involved with this one.

He was asked about Sean Strickland and who he would, if, who is next for him if the UFC calls tomorrow? and he says with the hate I have in my heart, of course it will be Sean Strickland. I hate him. I don't like the way he speaks. I don't like the way he thinks. I will leave him dead inside the cage. He told this too, MMA fighting.

There's some feisty words from Nashtonimov. That is, he does not seem to be too fond of the former champion. He definitely doesn't like Sean Strickland. They fought before. They fought before for 25 minutes. Went to a decision. Sean Strickland won it. He didn't kill him.

Most interesting to me is the subtext of that, which is typically you hear somebody go, Sean Strickland, I don't give a fuck about strong Strickland. I'm fighting for the title next. Him opening the door and acknowledging Sean Strickland to me makes me feel like maybe he's not getting the right feedback from the UFC in terms of, hey, you're next to the title and you're fighting for the title no matter what. and he's trying to maybe knock off a contender or at least like

aim in that direction so that the Sean Strickland like his next hype kind of dies down and it's more like hey we might want to see Imov I'm you know I'm just trying to interpret this

but in his position typically you see the guy say I don't give a shit about Sean Strickland I'm the contender Sean Strickland could get in line blah blah blah but he seems to hate him you know that's that's a strong word

but he seems to hate him we'll leave him dead inside the cage leaving him dead it was his last loss now it was a weird you mentioned that that Sean Strickland one but it was

sort of a weird matchup it was made on short notice it was at 205 instead of 185 that was that time in 2022 2023 where Sean Strickland main evented back to back cards he did cannoneer into

Imov so it was sort of a weird fight imov at a different point in his career so it feels like he wants to get one back and is that the one where he was getting into it where Chris Curtis

who was cornering and he's like yelling at him through the case age, then they end up fighting. Yeah, and then they fought the next one, and that one ended in a no contest. It's like a weird era. Weird era. Would you be surprised if Sean Strickland versus Nasserdin is next?

And what do we do with Hamzot? Well, is Hamsat ready to fight? He keeps talking about fighting. Is he actually fighting? I don't know. Like, we said it all day yesterday. I have no idea what to do with Hamsd's from Lai. Something is not smelling right to me.

And I don't know what it is, but something is not. The idea that Nassardine hasn't already gotten a shot, The idea that now, when asked about it, Nassardine is like F. Sean Strickland, something is not lining up here. Well, all we can do is wait and see. Middleweight division. When did Drix and Hamzaff fight? August.

When did Nassardine last fight? Paris, what was the date? So he's fought more recently than Hobbs out. That's been a minute, though. It perfectly lined up. Yeah, it's been about six months. They both perfectly lined up. Something's off, and I don't know quite what the holdup is, but something's off to me.

This past Saturday we saw Sean Strickland use his defensive grappling to find success against Anthony Fluffy Hernandez. Obviously, that's going to be part of the game plan if he does fight Hamzaa Chameh. Robert Whitaker, who was a former opponent of Hamza At Chamev as well, spoke on what we could see in terms of the difference between Fluffy and Chimayev if Strickland has to fight him. Yeah, so Robert Wittaker had his jaw broken and his teeth, push, push, back into his tongue, says that it'll be a different battle for Sean Strick than if he ends up getting that fight. Hamza might be at the moment, like, the number one pound for pound people talking about him, the experience of feeling him and grappling with him guy.

Like he might, like, when Daniel Kormier gets lifted like a baby and he's like, I've never felt anything like that. When Robert Wittaker is like laughing about these levels are not the same, he might be the number one like if you've if you've trained with him you know what the fuck is about to happen even ddp you yeah you can shit on like it being a boring performance but like ddp had no answer for it it was no it was 25 minutes of domination there was it was one way traffic the whole way so like even in a boring performance he's still putting on domination uh robert wittaker continued that conversation with dennis from submission radio uh and had this to say about his next fight all right so the former

champ moves up to 205, 35, two losses in a row. I'll be it against Tom Zatchamayev and Rainier to Ritter, and that fight was very close. It looked like he might get him out of there in the third round, I believe it was. But yeah, Robert Whitaker, up to 205, your thoughts on it. It makes sense. Like, you know, I was talking about how Curtis Blades has been around forever. Robert Whitaker has been around forever, and not only has he been around forever, he's fought at the championship level, having been the champion himself, forever, right? Like this guy, we're we're talking Michael Bisbing, you know, title era. Like this, this guy has been around forever at that specific weight class and fought everybody.

There's nothing more to kind of achieve. If he doesn't believe that he can get back in the mix, right? Like the, the Homsop fight is probably the fight where it's like, okay, if I can beat Hamzot, I'm back in the mix and I can go for a title again. Then you lose to Rainier to Ritter and it's like, how do you even conceive of getting back? Like, he could be in there. He could compete with top middle weights. I'm confident for a very long time still to come.

He's just so disciplined. He's so good at fighting. But I don't blame him for going, this feels like kind of the end of the road here. Let me try something new. It seemed like he wasn't even 100% sure that everything's going to go his way at 205, right? He seemed to be very open to the idea of like,

let me try it, see how it goes. I feel like I can do it healthier and compete. I'm okay. Let's just see him try it. Made his debut in the UFC in 2012 as a well, Walter with now, 2026, still in the organization. He's going to be small.

Yeah, light heavy? Yeah. He's going to be very small, but I mean, sometimes that's an advantage of the speed, maybe he has the technique and we'll see. But I like the idea. I like where he's going.

Some other fight rumors circling, Carlos Prochess addressing the potential of his next fight. Who's it going to be against? He made the Instagram post of like, you know, you're waiting on the contract. He says, people are just speculating. I just want to fight, man.

Obviously, my main goal is Jack Della Madelena, a guy that takes me to the belt. But we're open to possibilities. This, in reference to the potential of him fighting Connor McGregor, and, you know, we saw McGregor tweet last week talking about, it's going to be a no name for me, guys, and I don't give a fuck. He says, it's a no name up for me, possibly, folks. And as you know, I do not give a fuck. I accept, send the contract, lads, Connor McGregor's deal.

people started speculating that Prachas could be the quote unquote no name and so when asked about it that was his response like he's addressing it directly I think that's the right response like Connor McGregor is a potential windfall pipe dream I would kill to have it

but he can't focus on the idea of like I'll tell you what the last position you want to be in is the Michael Chandler position right your career gets put on hold because all you're doing is waiting for Connor McGregor to come back and you can have that fight. Carlos Prochis doesn't seem like that type of guy who can wait for that opportunity. He's got to keep fighting.

I'll say either option is pretty good. Connor McGregor turns him into a star, puts him on a massive platform. It kind of feels like a favorable fight just because we don't know where Connor McGregor's at. He hasn't fought in almost five years. And Carlos Prochis has just been knocking everybody out. Or it's the former champion Jack Delamadel, Adelaena, and you get closer to getting a title shot of your own. And either way, you're prepping for primarily. a striker, right? You know that Connor McGregor

and JDM, neither of those guys is coming in and shooting double legs on you. So you call out JDM, you train for JDS, and if you get that call where they go, guess what? It's your lucky day, Carlos, you're fighting at the White House and we want you to fight McGregor, you sign up and you do the exact same thing you were going to do

or plan to do to Jack Delamadelan. Could he walk to the octagon with a cigarette because it'll be outside? I'm all going to say, put it out and then get into the octagon. If UFC brings in an official tobacco sponsor ahead of... The official cigarette of the ultimate fighting championship. This fight club brought to you by Marlboro Red.

Brought to you by Camel. Camel crush. Add your menthol when you want to. Yeah, so we'll see what happens with Carlos Prochia. Everybody at 170, I'm very intrigued to see who they get booked in their next fight. Some signings got done. and it involves some former UFC champions. Maratha Valsh Fili is heading to Raff. Gets his own wrestling match, April 18th on Fox Nation at Raff 08.

We don't know who he's going to be wrestling against yet, but Raff continues this pipeline of fairly big name UFC athletes and getting them to come over and wrestle. It makes all the sense in the world from the... And we've gone back and forth on this, right? Like, I've long thought they might be underserving the true wrestling fans and over-serving a little bit of the MMA audience, but they continue to lean into the MMA audience,

which makes me think that maybe this is working for them, right? The conversion is happening. Colby Covington, Luke Rockhold, Bonniko, Armin Saruky, and Marab Davalishvili. They're bringing in names that we recognize from this world. We also got Al Jermaine Sterling. Joel Romero. Y'Orero.

Al-Germaine Sterling going to be going up against Benson Henderson. Benson and Aljo. Look at Aljo, leaning into it, shaving the mustache. Do we think he looks like this now, or is this from when he did this back in the day. I think he's when he did that back in the day. That one's going to actually be taking place this Saturday at 9 p.m. on Fox Nation in Tempe, Arizona at Mullet Arena.

All this, though, will it get you to watch? No. It was just the Boe versus YOL? That was the one for me. And then it got canceled, and I was like, all right, I don't know. We don't care! You watching Frank? I want to know what Mollett Arena is.

Isn't that in Tempe? It has to be an old arena that they've changed the name of. I don't recognize him. When's Armin's next RAF match? Is it the Saturday? No, it can't be, right? That might get me to tune in.

Against that guy who offers the G-Up. When is that? It is. It is, yeah, Georgio Puaulus. Raph-06? Maybe I'll watch. I'm in. If Armin is going to fight that guy,

wrestle that guy, and Aljo versus Benson, maybe I'll watch that. I'm going to have it on my side TV during UFC Mexico City. The thing is, and this applies to a lot of sports, not just RAF, by the way.

This is not a RAF-specific thing, but the, The footage is on Twitter in two seconds. Right, so you're not going to miss out on anything? Yeah, do I want to sit through a wrestling broadcast, you know, the entire thing, or do I just want to get served the highlight? We want to make sure you get the most of your Fox Nation subscriptions. Yeah. Frankie, can I get the user and pass for this Saturday for the Armand match?

Done and done. Yeah, it's going to be great. I can't wait for it. All right, I'll watch. You know what? Are you watching? Yeah, yeah, I'm definitely watching. All right, I'm watching.

I didn't know the Armin was. You down, Frank? Come over to the crib and we'll set up. We'll do remote. I know you love remote shows. I think I'm actually tied down on Saturday. Sorry, guys. Classic, you're always tied down these days, man.

What was the last time we went to fight together? Federal fucking prison. A couple other announcements. Yesterday, as we were wrapping up the show, we got the announcement that Floyd Mayweather will be taking on Manny Packyow in a rematch in September in the sphere. So when I read that tweet yesterday on the show,

it was just like, oh yeah, like it's looking like they're going to do Floyd versus Manny 2 in September. and like they're potentially talking about the sphere. Like an hour after we get off the air, Netflix is tweeting out September 19th at the sphere on Netflix, Floyd Mayweather 2 versus Manny Packia.

Yep. Sorry. Floyd Mayweather versus Manny Packia. He is also Floyd Mayweather 2 because he's junior. Who's the second Floyd Mayweather? No, he is. He's the son. I feel like I just did the thing

that the UFC broadcast always does where it's just like, Alexander Volkanowski versus Islammachiev 2. but they put the two at the end of the name where it's like on each side of the broadcast bar. Either way this is pretty crazy. Like, it's going to do huge numbers on

on Netflix. This is the most purchase pay-per-view. Don't talk about Netflix numbers. People are going to come for you if you say that. Yeah, we've been getting killed there. People are going to come for you if you say that. I like not being in the big chat. I don't like all the smoke. Everyone, the comments are not very positive. It doesn't matter what we fucking say.

It's going to be huge on Netflix. It's the most viewed pay-per-view of all time in boxing. It is number one, right? Am I crazy? I think it's like 4.6 million dollars. It might even be over five. I mean, either way, dude, they did huge business. Manny Pack, yeah, we just saw fight for the WBC belt. Floyd Maynard, whether you know he's going to come in shape.

It's not the best boxing match in the world. I understand that. I know that they're old. I understand that as well. But there's stakes attached to it. Floyd Mayweather could lose his O. And, like, I sit through prelims of boxing cards and UFC cards all the time.

Of course I'm going to watch this. via topology, which is unofficial because paperviews are not really always like the accurate numbers. Some of these are like piecemeal reported and things like this. But according to that, Mayweather Packia was 4.6 million paper views. That's insane. Mayweather McGregor was 4.3. Damn, you know, Mayweather kind of knows how to sell pay reviews, huh? That guy knows how to get attention and do business.

Mayweather knows what he's doing with this here. What do you think number three is? Number three is, uh, Floyd Mayweather versus Canello Alvarez That's number five Number three is also Floyd Mayweather Yeah

I mean Floyd Mayweather is like the fucking king of pay-per-view King He's four in the top five I don't know three De La Jolla and Mayweather I was damn I was gonna guess De La Jolla Jolla. I think you know what the four slot is

Out of the not There's one non-Mayweather boxing fight that is a top five pay-per-view is it Mike Tyson? No, not boxing. Oh, oh, oh, Habib versus Connor. 2.4? 2.4?

Yeah, yeah, I've looked at that. By the way, so Mayweather, four of the top five, right? Yep. Connor McGregor. Two of the top five. Two of the top five. Then number six, seven, and eight. I mean, 257 against Porriere two.

not second Porreier but the second Porreier fight You know it's not Porriet too A second Poria has entered the organization Glenn right Glenn is the one U of C202 against Diaz two And then 264 Porre versus McGregor 3

So Connor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather Are basically the entire business Up and then they paired up to do a boxing match To do the second biggest ever Yeah and who knows how many people actually watched that I was in college I legal streamed it Yeah fuck infinite it. Yeah, so I'm going to watch. It's not like I have it circled on my calendar, but like people will watch, people will tune in. And I'm curious to see how it looks. Like, I think they're going to be around the same skill level if they both come in healthy. And I really think it is, it is significant that Floyd Meather is putting the L on the line.

100%. And you touched on the most important thing, and you also highlighted it yesterday. Same age, same skill. Like, that's the key. It's not because like, man, Mike Tyson's so old. It's because Mike Tyson's old and Jake Paul is 20 years younger. Like it's not, or whatever it was, probably more than that, I don't even remember 30 years younger. It's about, is it fair? Is it even? Is it, is it, there's, how do you make the competitive balance the most even? I think Manny and Floyd at this stage is in their life, at this age, at this, you know, perceived decline, that makes it fair and exciting. So I'm in on Mayweather McGregor, too. Mayweather, Paciow, too. I'd be in on Mayweather McGregor, too at this point, honestly. Maybe that's next. Yeah, I don't think they're both in their prime. I don't think they're the best

boxers on the planet, but I'm still going to tune in. Also, it's in the sphere. It's going to be crazy. It's on Netflix. It's going to be wild. It's going to be an event worth tuning in for. I can get it for free. It's going to be great. A boxing match was announced officially now. You know, there's been rumors and speculations. Naoya N.O.A. N.O.A.N.A.A.N.A.A.N.O.

will be taking on Junto Nakatani. May 2nd at the Tokyo Dome. Brought to you by the Ring for the Undisputed Super Bantam weight title. This is two of the best boxes on the planet. This I cannot wait for. I'm very curious, you know, it's sometimes tough to watch the NOAA-N-A-Wa fights because

it's like a Tuesday. It's like 7 a.m. here, yeah, 7 a.m. on a Tuesday. Yep. But this is, this is massive. This is big as you can get for Japanese boxing. The Tokyo Dome holds 55,000. I won't be shocked at all if they sell it out. And Oia-N-O-A pound-for-pound top three, in arguably, in my opinion.

This is a fantastic fight. Yeah, and I mean, it's two top pound-for-pound guys. And the fact that they can do this in Japan, I mean, this is what we've been kind of like craving or trying to steer in the direction of when it comes to the UFC, right? We've been kind of like circling around the idea of like, could we get Tyra in Japan? Now Horaguchi's on the rise. Can we get Tyra versus Horaguchi in Japan? They are effectively on the boxing side doing the Japan versus Japan in the Tokyo Dome. It's going to be massive.

Two of the top guys in the world right now. can the UFC follow suit is going to be an interesting thing. If Tyra can capture the belt off van and you have like Horaguchi versus Tyra headlining a massive show in Japan, that would be our version. That would be our MMA equivalent. Yeah, and even if it's not at the Tokyo, though, it's at the Satama Super Arena or whatever, like a 20,000 seat arena would be, it would be big business. It looks like May 2nd is a Saturday.

Yep. But it looks like the card's going to start around 3 a.m. here. So I imagine that main event will be like 8 or 9? Yeah. Wake up? 4 7 or whatever. Wake up? cup of coffee and two of the biggest stars in Japanese boxing, I'm down.

I'll tell you what, even if you don't see it live, which I have not for the last couple, Inouye is a guy you go back and watch. Like, Inouye is a guy that you go out of your way to then watch that film. He's just absolutely incredible. I have Terrence Crawford as the number one pound for pound. Now that Terrence is retired, it is now an Inouye, Usik, who knows what's even going on with Usik type of conversation, Shakur Stevenson, those guys. in a way is must watch television.

Even if you're not seeing it, even if you're not waking up at the crack of dawn to watch it, you must go back and watch in a way. He is can't miss right now. Yeah, he's fantastic. Speaking of boxing, Zufa boxing, obviously making a splash last week

with the signing of Connor Ben. You know, one fight, eight figure deal, you know, maybe not for the biggest star in boxing. You're starting to see some disgruntled fighters and everything like that.

We want to play a few close for you, but let's start by going back to last month. Eddie Hearns sat right there. after the Jai Opataya signing and had this to say on the potential ramifications in terms of fighter pay between boxing and UFC. Jai Opataya will be making a lot more money than Paddy Pimlet and Justin Gafi made at the weekend. Like that, if that doesn't ruffle the feathers of the UFC roster, like you said, maybe nothing ever will. So it seems like some feathers are starting to get ruffled. Sean O'Malley, you know, obviously UFC superstar was on his podcast yesterday, the Bro Malley Show.

And he addressed the Conner Ben signing. Take a listen to what he had to say. That doesn't mean it's true. I don't know. It could very well be true. I can't imagine it being true. Zufa boxing. It's like they're paying out. I don't even know who Connor Ben is. I don't know. He's like supposedly a pretty big name in boxing. I've never heard. I never heard of him. Yeah, they really paid this Ben John. Ms. Ben Johns. Connor. Connor Ben. Connor Ben.

Connor Ben. And they really, Ben Jones used to be a USFACTER. They really paid him $15 million. It's like, I wouldn't blame you for going to box. Yeah, it's crazy how you just put in so much work in the UFC, put it so much work in the of C, build this name, create this character, be this per star. You know, and it's like, I'm not making fucking $15 million a fight. Yeah.

But it is, it's also a business. If they think that's a good business move and that guy's going to bring in money, it's like, I get it. take anything personal in business. Business is business. All right. I'm laughing because the dude all the way on the right is sitting on his phone the entire clip while he's on camera and then at the end of it he hits us. He just hits us with a, like, what do you think he's thinking right there? Shona Malley's like having an existential crisis and oh boy on the end is just like, I think he's scrolling his Twitter and he's, yeah, maybe he's on the golf now app booking a tea time or

something like that. He's got the, he's got the Frat Star fit on right there. Yeah, but it's some irony, though. I mean, he's sitting on a throne. You know, 15 million, it's a good business deal. I did also just want to clarify. He said Ben Johns is a former UFC fighter. Ben Johns is considered one of the greatest pickleball players, and we know he owns the pickle dojo, so just a little crossing of the wires there for old Sean O'Malley. Yeah, so I mean, you can tell he's frustrated. At one point, he's talking about, like, I don't even know if it's true. It's more than likely true. Like, the transparency with how much people are getting paid in boxing is much more clear than what people are getting paid in

UFC and him being like, I don't even know who this is. It can't be true. I don't even know who that is. That is an indictment on the UFC as opposed to boxing, that a guy that you've never even heard of is getting a $15 million deal for one fight with this organization? Yeah, absolutely. And we have Chris Mannix, a long-time sports media guy covers the NBA, also covers boxing. A trusted name in sports media. Yeah, for sure. reported it as 15 million, right? He was the one who came out and reported that it was a one-fight deal and it was 15 million. And so we at least have a baseline number, right?

You know, he's reporting that. I trust his word on that. Some people are, you know, going around and speculating and doing whatever. Suffice it to say it's a very big deal. And the number 15 is the one that's floating around and what Sean O'Malley is reacting to. I want to go back to the Eddie Hearn clip, which is him saying, Jayapataya, who is not even Connor, even Connor, Ben in terms of notoriety, right?

When we're talking about Jayapitaya, he's a very local to his scene guy that real boxing fans know about, but he is not even remotely close to the level of O'Connor Ben, who is massive in the UK, but had these fights with Chris Eubank that put him on another level of entertainment or notoriety and is talking about fights with like the Ryan Garcia's of the world. He is even a level above that. So you have to imagine, if you are a UFC fight, like Sean O'Malley to start to do that calculus.

And we talked about this yesterday a little bit, but now we're hearing more and more and more fighters come out and just wonder what the hell is going on. If you're offering this guy that much to box, and I made this example yesterday, if Iliad Tuporia is like, yeah, I could fight Islam Makachev, or I could fight this guy, but why don't you put me in there with Callum Walsh and pay me whatever he's making?

Why don't you pay me whatever Conor Ben is making, and I'll fight Callum Walsh for you? there is going to, I feel like there's starting to be a tide turning. I do feel like Eddie Hearn said the phrase ruffle feathers. I do feel like now the feathers are starting to get ruffled and it's interesting to see what some of the

feedback has been. I don't imagine that the UFC is going to have too hard a time shutting it down because ultimately these are still MMA fighters. They are not boxers. Even the most successful ones. Connor McGregor, one boxing fight. Francis and Ghanu, two boxing fights. And one of them was he shocked

the world and then the next one he got knocked out cold and it hasn't been back in the ring since. Every time somebody talks about these boxing fights or does it. Or for example, Mike Perry, boxes Jake Paul, Jorge Mosvidal, boxes Nate Diaz. Most of the time, these are not the starts of like boxing careers. We don't see guys launching into boxing careers. At the end of the day, these are still MMA fighters. And the economy and MMA is still exactly what it is.

There is no number two promotion that can make the UFC have to come more out of pocket. But I do wonder if guys start to go, hey, these boxing purses are out of control. Let me either box for you or how do we make it any bit closer? I just also, to your point about Jayapathia, he's also, the direct comparison was he's going to be making more than Patty Pimbley and Justin Gagee who headlined the first paramount card, paper, not a paper view, but a numbered event, sellout crowd in front of 20,000 people. Chiaebatia is fighting in the apex. Yep. And he's nowhere near as big of a star. I understand that social media is is not everything.

Yeah. Like Chia Pita has like 230,000 followers on Instagram. And our boy, Andrew Feldman, made this graphic up because he saw the Sean O'Malley video. He was comparing the two between Sean O'Malley and Connor Ben. And he ran the numbers. On social media, IG to IG, Sean O'Malley has doubled. 4.8 million. Connor Ben has 2.4 million X.

890K. X for Connor Ben, 190. B, A K. YouTube for Shauna Malle, one million subs, YouTube for Conradwin, 29K subs. Yeah. Like the, I understand that social media is not everything where you fight matters, you know, draws matter, who's actually tuning into the fight. A lot of boxing fans are older. They might not be active on social media like that.

But it is a pretty glaring difference in terms of engagement on social media and like actual star power on these apps. If you showed anybody outside of the UK, a picketka. of those two guys, you would get 10x the number of people recognizing Sean O'Malley, if not more. You might get 50x, right? It is just not even a competition in terms of who's a bigger global name. And you hear Sean O'Malley talk about it in this clip. I'm over here grinding, working super hard to build up my profile and be the biggest name that I could possibly be. And I'm getting, he didn't have a percentage. He didn't necessarily say how much he's making.

Let's just throw a random number out there. I am not saying this is how much Sean O'Malley makes. but one-tenth of what Connor Ben is getting for that fight, that's got to be demoralizing if you're a USC fighter, to think that you're, is Sean O'Malley not at the, like, would you say that this is a fair assessment? Sean O'Malley is at the top of the MMA game. Yeah. Right?

He's at the top. Like, it doesn't get- He's been a champion. He's one of, yeah, I can't do the math off the top of my head, but like one of the 15 biggest stars in the UFC right now. He's a headliner by any measure. He's the big name. He's one of the most recognizable faces.

He's at the top of the game. and he's not even sniffing what Connor Ben is potentially getting for this one fight, right? Reportedly getting for this one fight. That has to be demoralizing. And if I'm another top level fighter, I have to be wondering, you know, what is my actual value? Is there a world where I can move to boxing? Like, I assume it's his brother. It's called the Bro Malley Show.

I think that middle guy was his brother. I think he looks like him. Who's to check? He goes, he goes, yeah, maybe you move to boxing. And I'm like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. if you're a striker like Sean O'Malley or you're Alex Pereira, I would be like, hey, I know you got me under USC contract, but can I get under that Zufa boxing deal? I want some of this pie.

The disconnect for me, though, is like, aren't more people going to watch Sean O'Malley versus Peotryon, too, as opposed to a Sean O'Malley versus King Callum Walsh and boxing? By a lot. Like, by a lot. And it's going to drive more viewership, more revenue, more everything. So why would the purse be that much bigger? just because it's boxing? Yes, the economics of boxing because there's competition

because of the fact that there's two reasons. One is promotionally, boxers get a larger percentage of the revenue. So just baseline level, when you're matrim, when you're top rank, when you're MVP, when you're one of these promoters, the boxers,

the top of the bill, right? We're not necessarily talking about the undercard fighters, but the top of the bill gets a much larger percentage of all the revenue generated by the fight. UFC gets very small percentage of the revenue generated by the fight. Also, there's competition for the boxers. Connor Ben is only getting $15 million because Matrum would have to offer Conor Ben some high sum of money that probably is still significantly more than what Patty Pimbled or Justin Gichi were fighting for at that first pay-per-view. Connor Ben's value, it's not like, let me put it this way, it's not like Connor Ben became a $15 million man overnight.

Certainly Zufa had to overpay to get him, but Connor Ben was worth multiple millions of dollars more than any top UFC fighter last week, two weeks ago. It is not even close what happens in boxing. When you look at the purses of Canelo Alvarez, when you look at the purses of Terrence Crawford, when you look at the purses of Tyson Fury, when you look at the purses of Francis and Ghanu, who has left the UFC, he's made more in that one fight than throughout his entire career at the UFC. it is not even relatively close. It is not even remotely close. If you go on Connor Ben's Instagram, I'll post in January, the caption,

Life looks different from this time last year, and it's him and his driveway with a Lamborghini and a Rolls-Royce. For sure. Oh, for sure it is. And that, by the way, was a write-off from Chris, uh,

U-Bank Jr., missing weight. He's posting pictures with, with Ferraris and him on, on private jets. Like he's living this lavish lifestyle. Another one. Now he's with a red Ferrari

and another, a different Rolls-Royce. Like, I don't know, I don't know where he's getting all these cars from, but the dude's got a garage full of sports cars. And like, it's just, he lives the life of a superstar athlete. And we don't always see that in the UFC. I mean, Sean O'Malley might be one of the best examples of one that does. He's got the pink and green Lamborghini. You know, you got Ilya with the red carpet and the two belts and everything like that.

But it's like very few and far between. The only one who I could conceivably guess is living like a boxer, is Connor McGregor. That's the only one. But the Connor Ben equivalent to UFC is not living like Connor Ben the box. Not even in the realm. Not even close.

Another fighter, former fighter, Demetrius Johnson, wait in and on his YouTube channel. Take a listen. Fifteen million dollars for one fight, it's crazy because what's going to happen after this fight, right? Is the $15 million worth having Connor been?

It's the first time I've heard of him from what everybody tells me He's a very good boxer, but is Hamzaa Shemai make it $15 million? Is Iladiporio make it $15 million? Maraub, Devalis Philly, make it $15. We don't know because those numbers are always hidden. But I truly believe it's a flex from Dana White paying Connerbin $15 million. So Demetri Johnson kind of saying like, Dana White's flexing on him.

On the boxing side to just be like, yo, Zufo boxing's here. As I said, it's not a flex. It's what is required at the top level of boxing, or not even the top level, right? We're talking about Connor Ben, who isn't a world champion, right? He is near the top level, but he is not the top level. He is not the Ussick, Fury, Crawford, Canelo level guy. He's not the Deont de Wilder headlined a million pay-per-view shows. And he's making that.

But that's what's required. His matchroom deal was probably for a significant amount of money. especially those Chris Eubank fights. And so it's actually not like flexing. It's actually just what the marketplace mandates. It's what the marketplace dictates in boxing. He's asking, is Iliate Taboria, is Marab de Vallechevili, Alex Pereira? I forget who else you mentioned.

Are these guys making $15 million? I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't make half of that in their entire careers, especially like Alex Pereira, definitely. I can say with 100% confidence none of those guys are making $15 million for one fight. No, definitely not that. But have they even totaled that? I would guess no. I would guess that most of them have it. We played this clip yesterday, but Sean Strickton, who's a former champion as well,

you know, Sean O'Malley, too, Demetri's Johnson, all these guys, former champion upper echelon of the UFC. These guys have seen pay-per-view points, they've headlined cards, they've been in main events. He spoke about fighter pay in the UFC. The UFC is the most, as far as the pay scale, there is no. You compare it to any other sporting event, the UFC is the most fucked up. But you compare it to, like, pay versus athletes versus what they're making,

there is no argument there. It is like, it's not fair. It's predatory. There is no argument there. Now, we're a bunch of fucking idiots. You take our clothes off and go fight for fucking, you know, short our lives for this. So, like, do we deserve better? I don't fucking know.

I'm just telling you that, like, there's no argument here. The UFC is not a, it's predatory. So it feels like we're seeing more and more fighters come out and be like, you know, this pay is not what it's all cracked up to be. It feels like we need more. And now you're getting this injection of Zufa boxing. And we're going to be seeing the numbers that these guys are making. And it feels like feathers are going to get ruffled, as Eddie Hearn said.

We may see the numbers. I think Connor Ben is a unique example because there's so many boxing reporters. There's knowledge of what he probably was making at a certain point previously. There's knowledge of what he made for certain fights. I do wonder though as the Ali Revival Act gets passed through and all of a sudden the UFC is able to operate the UBO

I don't know that once these guys are under contract that there's going to be numbers coming out and then you can kind of close the door on oh you don't have to worry about what the boxers are making it feels like that whole Ali Revival Act was a bit strategic almost but the interesting thing is

they have the backing of Sela. They have 60% investment from Saudi Arabia. And so the money that they have at their disposal is play money, right? Like when we're talking about what Turkey, Saudi Arabia are spending on boxing, the number is infinite, right? There is no limit. There's never been a situation where we're like, do we think Saudi Arabia can afford to put on this fight?

Turkey wasn't making these fights because he was getting discounts. Yeah, exactly. Because he was overpaying for everything. And it essentially left the fighters of like, how can I say no to this? Of course I'm going to do it. And so now UFC benefits from that, right? 15 million to Connor Ben is nothing. 15 million to Connor Ben is pocket change for them.

They get a big time signing. It gets people talking about them. It gets people talking about it and they get to put it on a huge card. The economy is very interesting to me in terms of that and what's going to change. What I am left wondering, harkens back to what Eddie Hearn said in January to Ariel and harkens back to what Eddie Hearn said earlier this week when he was talking about Tom Aspinall. Oh yeah, take a listen to that.

How do you think UFC fighters will be feeling seeing the figures? Sick as a dog. Sick as a dog. Yeah. I mean, if you're a UFC fighter, you're looking at this Zuffa going, what the fuck? I'm being absolutely ripped off here. I'm generating more revenue than these guys, and I'm getting a temp for the money. But listen, there's no loyalty in that game.

Look at Aspinall. I mean, he gets his eyes gouged out, and he just gets humiliated by UFC, and basically told everyone he's a liar and he's a pussy. You know what I mean? This is a cutthroat business, but everyone's different. It's all right there. Like, the argument is as clear as day. In terms of the economics, it's simple.

The math is very simple. I make you more money than Connor Ben is going to make you. Why am I getting paid one to, and he uses the fraction one-tenth. Again, we don't know the specifics of what the UFC fighters are getting paid by design. I make you ten times more money and I'm getting one-tenth to pay. Justify this to me. Explain this to me.

and he talks about Tom Aspinall, and I think that's a very important point to remember, which is if I'm Sean O'Malley, and it's the first time I've seen a million dollar check, I'm probably happy as a clam. I've probably like, geez, I never thought my life would go this way. I was just a kid from Colorado, Montana. I'm just a kid from Montana.

I never thought I'd see a number like this. Now I'm buying a Ferrari. Now I got this compound. I'm happy as can be. But what happens when five fights later, you're still making that amount or just a little bit more and then somebody's coming in

who does one-tenth the gate that you do and is making 15 million. Then it starts to change, right? It's not new anymore. It's not the honeymoon period. It's not my first million. It's my fifth million.

But this guy just got 15 million after he walked in the door. That becomes harder to swallow. When you're Tom Aspinall and you spent the last two months getting absolutely shit on by the fans and your own promoter and Dana White,

it becomes a little bit harder to come back and go, how much am I fighting for? And I have to endure this abuse. When you're not on top, it's a lot harder to swallow some of this. When you're Sean Strickland and you've been the company man and the company rewards you with what? With that paycheck and you hear about this guy doing it for boxing and we didn't play the full Sean, the full Sean Strickland clip. But in that clip, he says, what happens if I say no? I'll tell you what happens. They're going to replace me with a guy who makes five and five from the contender series, right? He knows what the, what the game is and the UFC has that game on lock. And so the fighters don't have a ton of leverage to be

able to say, like, I think they are starting to pay attention to these boxing purses, but I don't think they have much of a mechanism to capitalize on it. And how many are going to really push against it? Is it only going to be those top level guys, the champions and everything like that that have already, you know, established themselves in the career? Are the lower guys who are coming up, who become those eventual superstars? Are they just going to ignore and be like, I got to do what I got to do to get to the top and I'll worry about it then. Let me ask you a question that I think summarizes this quite well. You're saying how many people will push back, right? And maybe the non-superstars push back. And for how long? Even if there's a superstar who pushes back, how many people in the

UFC roster right now could walk into Dana White's office, talk to Hunter Campbell, get the hold of an executive, and say, if you don't pay me the $15 million that Connor Ben is fighting, I'm not going to fight. And how many people will walk in that door say that and actually get what they want? Connor McGregor? I don't even think Connor McGregor. Because Connor McGregor is on the tail end of his career at this point, right? How many UFC fights does Connor McGregor realistically have left? On the contract, it's two. I'm not sure we even see one.

So that's, so if I'm the UFC and I'm doing the math on that, the calculus on that, he's probably somebody I could let walk out the door because the price tag is going to be so high. Now, granted, I'm now passing up a big business opportunity because he could make me a lot of money, but then I'm getting into that game, that game that Rhonda Rousey talked about in the clip that we played yesterday, where if you set the precedent that I'm paying Connor McGregor this,

now you've got to think about paying everybody this, and they've just done this with Connor Ben. I don't think there's a fighter on the roster right now that can walk into the office and demand that pay and get it. I don't think there's one. Yeah, I mean, there's no competition. Where are you going to go? Where are you going?

What are you going to do as opposed to this? You could go to boxing, somebody going to offer you that much money to box? Maybe that's where Connor McGregor has the leverage, right? Because he's probably the one name that could go over to boxing and get that type of money, right? Francis Ngano got it, but he's a rare specimen and it was just that perfect storm of the Tyson Fury fight. There is not a lot of bargaining power in the UFC right now. Sean O'Malley, God love him. I don't think he could walk into that room and say it. So that's what I'm saying. We're talking about there's always another next man up. Those guys that are in the next man up situations

are never going to push back because they don't have any other options. And this is their big opportunity, right? Yeah. If I'm that guy who Sean O'Malley is holding out because he wants this amount of money and they do what Sean Strickland said and they just fill him in with the next guy up, that guy, this is the biggest payday of his life. He's been fighting his whole career for this. He's been grinding in the UFC to get to that point.

And now he's finally there. And he's going to take that opportunity and run with it. Then five fights from now when he's getting one-tenth of what Connor Ben is getting, then what? do you want then then do they get to start to have the unrest but when they speak up that number of fights later guess what there's another guy who is in your position and they're right there i i compare it to a place we used to work at four letters you know we all know it uh and i would talk to college students they'd be like oh i'm dying to work there i'd be like you know it's it's a

good experience to have but like be be cautious you know it isn't the best work environment they're going to work you like a dog and everything ignored every single time yeah it's like no no got to go work there got to go work there got to go work there it's exciting. It's fun. It's what you've been, if you're a young MMA fighter, it's the UFC is the place you want to be and need to be, right? That is it. And for those guys, it, the economics all makes sense. For those guys, I actually think the UFC does a much better job at taking care of the middle tier and the lower tier than boxing does. Boxing guys on the low end of stuff or even in the middle of stuff

are kind of discarded. They're paid way, way, way lower rates. They're not valued. They're not kind of made into these properties. You know, Sean O'Malley and Demetrius Johnson are talking about never hearing of Connor Ben. You've definitely never heard of the seventh fight down on a boxing card, whereas in the UFC, that might be somebody who's kind of like a name that people recognize. I think the UFC does a great job taking care of the middle. The biggest difference between the UFC and the other sports is what the top end gets.

The star power. The stars of football are making infinitely more. The stars of baseball are making infinitely more. The stars of boxing are making infinitely more. The stars of basketball. Like, there's an Instagram account right now that all they do is just pick random NBA players. And they're just like, oh, like, you're feeling good about yourself, man? Yes.

By the way, you'd need to work 887 straight years making 300K a year to match Bismak, Bizmack Biombo's career earnings. And it's just like, if you had saved 10K a day since the start, like since the dawn of time, you would not make Lewald Dang's contract. like shit like that. Yeah. It's, it is, it is disheartening. It is crazy. It seems like the fighters are at least starting to recognize it. I don't know how much recourse they have, right?

That's a, a thousand percent. And as a fan, you want these guys to make more money because when there is more money made by the stars of this sport, there is more opportunity for guys to come in and be fantastic and be new champions.

It's, it's this motivational factor of, I want to be a UFC champion because it's going to be life-changing money for me like I see over in boxing. And it just raises the sport up. And also, these guys are putting their lives on the line for your entertainment. So you want them to be taken care of.

Yeah. And people, I get the sense from fans that they're kind of sick of hearing of some of this shit. Of course. Because they sign the contract. They know what they were getting into. 100%. And there's a reality to that, too, right? And I've been in that position before where I'm like, why do we keep talking about

fighter pay if the fighters don't care? Feels like fighters are starting to care a little bit. It feels like the fighters are starting to care. And that's the important thing. And it's about the transparency and the information, right? they now have they haven't had this information before now they have in their hands zoufa as an organization uh sorry tkho as an organization zufa isn't really an organization or it might exist but it doesn't exist in this form tk o as an organization has issued an eight figure

deal to a fighter whether it be boxer or mma fighter and i don't have an eight figure deal how do i get an eight figure deal that's that's very powerful information for the fighters to have now whether can wield that, whether they can actually use that and get what they want, remains to be seen. I would be very skeptical of that as I kind of laid out with my example that I don't think there's anybody who can walk into that office and get it. But at least it's something, right? At least there's some ammunition for these fighters to look at this or even in antitrust hearings and other things to be like, honestly, we haven't even talked about this. I'm just putting this together now. If I'm doing this antitrust thing, there's two pieces of pending litigation coming up.

That's probably some good info for me to have too. When we're talking about depressing the MMA market, the talent pool, the base of how these contractors are getting paid, they clearly have the money. It's not a money thing. They've got the money to be able to pay these fighters more because they're spending $15 million on Connor Ben. I say all that to say, it's important. It's relevant. All we are talking about is something that should benefit the fighters and motivate them to get more money. I'm not interested in a UFC's evil. They don't do this.

I've said this many, many times. They run their business very well. And if I was in their position and I was able to run the business the same way, I would do it exactly the same way. I am not arguing against them running the business the best possible way they can and enhancing their bottom line. But as a fighter who is in the organization, I would want more. Okay, ultimately, it comes down to the end. You just said you admire the way that they run their business. They're here to make as much money as possible.

They're here to make shareholders happy, to make Paramount happy. They're not beholden to the fan to put on the best fights anymore, the best cards. We don't even have pay-per-view at this point. Do you think anything changes or we just keep running business as usual? I think there might be an engagement. increase in contract amounts for the top level guys, but not super significantly. And I think that because they're going to, nobody has real, no big fighter who really was selling a lot of pay-per-views has fought yet to the point that they go, like, Alex Olkenovsky is

not a huge pay-per-view draw. Patty Plumby and Justin Gachie, certainly are not. I don't think anybody's fought yet that it's been like, holy shit, I'm really giving up a lot of money to not be fighting on pay-per-view anymore. As that starts to happen, I think the noise of, hey, boys, that pay-per-view's gone, you got to up my contract, and Connor McGregor fighting at the White House would definitely be an example of that. That will start to, like, come up more. That will start to, you know, get more volume in conjunction with the idea of these guys

are getting paid more on the boxing side. Those two things combined makes me think that they will have the foresight and the thought to be like, okay, we're going to pay you more, just enough to make them happy and then move on. Yeah, I think we'll get an increase slightly for the top level guys to where like they're happy. It'll be under the table. We won't really know about it. It'll be like, oh, we'll never know. Dana and them took care of us and that'll be that. I mean, I think to create massive change and we say it to a blue in the face and it's never going to happen, you say one guy can't go into that office.

If 20 top level dudes went into the office and was like, yeah, man, not fighting until something changes. That's the only way, but I don't see that happening. No. It's to an individual sport. sport moves fast too i think ultimately this is just gonna this is gonna fade into the background at some point zufo make a couple signings we won't find out the amount that it's for i mean you have to imagine if you're in the exec the sea suites of zufa boxing and you see the reaction from finding out about this this number for connor ben you want to keep it under wraps as much as hush for the next one listen man we're gonna give you 17 mil but that last two is to shut the fuck up about how much we're paying you We're going to give you $3 million now.

And then there's going to be a check that comes later and you're going to like it. Conradman pulled up to the apex to like do like the whole like promotional videos and everything like that. And like he was walking past like O'Day Osborne. Oh no. 10K. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just like, what's up, might?

Yeah. It's like I make a thousand X what you. And everybody in that room had the same reaction as O'Malley and Demetrius was like, who fucks that guy? Who is that? On there, dude. Is this guy Brazilian? What's going on? Yeah, is this a new fighter?

Is this a new fighter? Yeah, it is a new fighter, but he boxes. Yeah, he actually, all of you in this room combined, combine your last three fights, and he makes more in one fight. Combine your last three fights and he makes 10-A. Yeah. If that. Speaking of the UFC and, you know, decisions that go on, we continue to get the rankings here, the media-led rankings. You know, shout out to KTWV out in Hawaii and the public.

Library of Anchorage, Alaska. The Hawaii continued. I don't know who the fuck these voters are. Every time we shit on rankings, there's no one that comes out and is like, I defend my rankings. Like in college football, there's the A people, and you know every single voter and you have access to what their top 25 was. They have to answer for this.

This is just like, you know, the Boys and Girls Club of Missoula, Missouri. It's just like, who was voting on these? Anyway, we got an update to the rankings this past week. And a big shakeup at heavywood. Oh, yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah. After the Sergei Spivak, Ante Delia fight, Delia down to 10, Spievac up to six. Riz van Coonje, falls one.

Who's that at eight? Oh, sorry, who's that tied at eight? Derek Lewis coming off his jab knockout loss to Waldo Cortez-Aosta jumps up three spots. Marcine Tibera, two spots. You know, obviously it's too tough to call it to tie there between Lewis and Tibera. Victor Vitore Petrino enters the ranking. despite not fighting, McParkin up two. Talasin Tashara, who just won, was Taitoivasa

ranked at the time? He was, like, low in the rankings, right? Yeah, tie officially out. But what was he ranked when he fought? Like 13 or something? So Talasin Tashara, who beats ranked Taitui Vasa, goes up one spot. Derek Lewis, who loses, is up three spots? Make it make sense a little bit.

I can't. I can't make it make sense because we also got an update to the welterweight rankings. Obviously, big win for Rios Medi. She debuts at number 12. Unfortunately, Daniel Rodriguez, we're not really sure where he's at these days. He drops down to 15. But Kobe Covington has found his way up to 13th in the welterweight rankings. He has not fought period since December of.

2024, 437 days ago. He has not won a fight in the UFC since March of 2022, 1,452 days ago. I'm pretty positive he has zero ranked wins at the current juncture as well. Hmm.

But he finds himself at number 13 in the rankings. Where's Shavkat? No. Out. Get him out. Get Shavkat Rokmanov out of the rankings as soon as possible. Now was that the UFC that got him out? That got him out or was that?

The way they do it is like sometimes a guy becomes ineligible. They just say like we're removing him. Like remember, Chale was very upset that John Jones got taken out. He kept like harping on that. And then, you know, some guys get to stay in. Like you just mentioned that the long period of inactivity and the long period of not winning fights for Kobe Covington and somehow he's still kind of there.

I don't know, man. Does anybody care about rankings anymore? I said get rid of them and No, when, yes. You need them to have order of division, but Do we? Was it the guy at CFMU 93.3 that wanted Shopcott out of the rankings? Is that who was? He wrote a letter, he launched a petition. He's like,

we can't have this guy in our fucking rankings. CFMU 93.3 is a Canadian radio station in Hamilton, Ontario. I mean, listen, it might be a very important MMA, media member. Was it the Top Turtle podcast that moved? Top Toro? Top Turtle podcast. Top Turtle? That moved Kobe Thompson

up to up to 13. Was it the Burbank leader that had Derek Lewis at number eight? I asked these questions. Who's to check? Okay. The Burbank leader is your only source for news about Burbank? In Burbank,

California. I don't want to get the internet mad at me again and rehash an old thing. No, those fighting words. Do you, do we actually need rankings? I genuinely ask you. I'm in the corner of we don't. If they were taken seriously. But it's not.

As you're not. How many people after the win was like, Strawn Strickland needs to be fighting Hamza and not Nasoridianian. Yeah. Like, do we care about rankings anymore? There is no relevance. There is no, like, it doesn't actually guide anything. It is not how we make our decisions about who fights who next.

Who gives a shit? Like, we don't need rankings. We know where these guys fall. The UFC, by the way, I know this feels like, you know, ancient history. The UFC got by fine without rankings before. Like there were no rankings for a while, and the UFC was fine. Well, I did want to just get to one last one. Oh.

As you say, we don't need them. We don't. We got an update to the flyweight rankings. Big main event this weekend, Brandon Moreno, Loner Kavanaugh. Loner Kavanaugh, who was ranked 15th after a loss. Now on the week of gets pulled from the ranking. Joseph Morales. And Joseph Morales gets put into the 15th spot.

Was this the voters at the Cherokee Scout, the local news and information source for Cherokee County, North Carolina? Is that who removed Loner Kavanaugh from the rankings? Was that it? It actually is like, it's like something out of curb your enthusiasm, looking at who decides the rankings of the UFC. I mean, I'm not even shitting you. Look at the website for the Cherokee Scout.

Like this looks like a website from like 1998. No disrespect for the Cherokee. Listen, that just means they're an OG and they're. got a lot of MMA knowledge, all right? Let's go to the sports page.

Loner Kavanaugh removed from U.S. U.S. No, I'm just kidding. Oh, shit. You got me there. They have not posted a sports article

since January 8th, 2025. That feels like it's an up-to-date news source. Boy, it's getting harder for me to defend,

but I actually, you know, as I said, I want to throw away the rankings altogether anyway. They haven't posted an article period in a week. But they vote.

There's just nothing going on. But they vote. What are area do they right now Cherokee County North Carolina

I mean who knows maybe Cherokee County don't got no sports going to yeah it's like I think we need rankings

but they just don't matter I guess see this is why I don't think we need rankings seriously if the people who are voting for them

I don't think these people really are I don't think the U.S. just makes it up I do not think someone from the

fucking Cherokee Scout they can't even get an article up is submitting UFC rankings every week so who's doing it then

the UFC I don't know the UFC is doing this is the conspiracy? Like seriously, what is MMA soldier? I don't know I'm not kidding. It's like it's like an episode of curb your enthusiasm.

The rankings panel is compromised of media members from the following outlets MMA odds breaker CFMU 933 the Ontario radio station Fight News, yeah, Fight Network, Gazeta Esportiva I know that site

The Cherokee Scout Don't know it. The Burbank leader No. MMA weekly Yes KIOZ 105.3 Why the fuck are they getting radio stations Vladusport.com

No Wrestling Observer Yes of course Top Turtle podcast No top turtle MMA fight coverage No Boxo Mondial

Yes Camora.SE Yes MMA soldier No MMMA NYT Yes

Swedish They're sick. Blood and sweat. No. Inside fighting radio. I think. Yeah, I mean... Not inside boxing live.

The live is gone. Inside boxing. Shout out to Dan and Chris. We launched a boxing show this week. Yeah, it's rough. It's in rough shape. No doubt. But this is, again, I think this helps my point, which is...

If these are the people voting, who the fuck cares? Like, what does it matter if those outlets decided that this guy's number 13 and this guy's number two and this guy's number who the fuck cares? Watch them fight and if you think they're a good contender, rank of number one. If you think they're the second best

contender, rank of number two, who gives a shit? I really don't care at this point. There is no meritocracy in the UFC. There has not been for a very long time. We sit here and complain about Mobb Saur and Lerone not getting a title shot. I think we'd be complaining less. Truly, I truly believe people would be complaining less

if there wasn't a number next to their name. If we didn't go, man, Lorone is really number one or number two or whatever you want to say, I think people would have less of a problem with the Diego Lopez thing. Now, granted, that was a rematch that necessarily didn't need to happen, especially that fast. But, like, I don't think anybody's going to be mad if Sean Strickland gets a shot over Nassardine Immovob. And we shouldn't have to be like, well, technically, he was ranked lower. And actually, the rankings are the most important thing. Like, they're not.

They're just not. Who gives a flying fog? The thing is they use it as a promotional tool. Sure they do, but they could also use a $15 million contract as a promotional tool in the other direction, and nobody gives a fuck. But it's easier to keep the Top Turtle podcast on the payroll with the rankings. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what you do. They're going to keep them.

They're the promotional tool. But didn't Dana White say something? Yes. The meta rankings. Where are those? You got the meta apex. Why don't we have the meta rankings? I got to talk to somebody at meta.

What's going on? Let's just do it. Right next door. Yeah, they're here. They're in the same building. they should recreate the meta apex in their building here truly though what did happen to that

Dana was very like gung-ho about that he's like we're going to get this done soon what happened hurry up John what happened to that fight that's going to blow your fucking mind you're not going to know what's going to happen yeah Spain Africa a lot of things that don't end up happening all right before we get to Michael venom page of 230

let's get to some of your questions and on the nose. Boy, it's last time you got to hear that one. Maybe one more time. All right, are we going around Robin again? Yeah, let's do it. All right, what's up?

This is from Ryder Sklar. Okay. What's up, B-I-T-B? If Huanians listening, I want him to know silver shines just as bright as gold. Go USA hockey. Next time, don't cheat and curling. Yeah.

This is not for me. This is for you guys. Canada did win candidate didn't win golden curling, men's curling I believe. What do you got? Matt from SLC says G.C. Blind rank these five uncrowned

bad beats. Okay, I love it. GBR curling gold. Yeah, yeah, that was fucking brutal. If you know, you know, I've been riding with GBR curling the entire Olympics. What can I say? We shocked the world by sneaking into the playoffs at the end. We make it the final, big upset win in the semis.

And then we're leading. We're leading, going into the ninth end. We're going to have hammer in the 10th, and we completely grumble. We completely crumple. Yeah, it was devastating. Rough. I'd say that's two.

That's two. Errol Spence, actually, this has to be wrong. He wrote Errol Spence defeating Terrence Crawford. He met Terence Crawford defeating Arrow Spence. Yeah, that one is four, just because real ones know. Earl Spence, Great White. was fighting on Shark Week, so he should have won,

but Theran Scrofford is too good, all-time great. Rick taking Algeman Sterling over Sean O'Malley? Yeah, especially just because Algemein Sterling was like a minus 240 in that fight, and then an ending like that,

I'll go three. I mean, he was hurt, you know. Hamza Chameh, inside the distance, versus Drick is two plus C. I'll go five just because, like, I know he dominated him the whole fight,

but there was never a moment where I was like, oh my God, this is it. This is it. Last one. It's got to be my one. Ariel Hohani taking Robert Whitaker over Hamzat Shemayo. That's not a bad beat. That's a bad prediction.

Yeah. He hammered the drum on that one. He beat it to death. Yeah, that one did not work out. Frankie, what you got? Frankie, what do you got? Jake Suppley says, What's up, boys?

Question about Connor's next potential fight. We see he wants the White House fight a lot, and we still don't know if it's replacing International Fight Week, But if it's not, could the UFC just put Ilya, maybe Kayla, and another belt on the White House? Then Connor headlining the next Vegas pay-per-view in July. There's no such thing as paper-view. This way, the UFC doesn't lose out on that huge gate that Connor would bring,

especially paying him that large sum. Thanks, boys. And shout out to the Bronx. The Bronx Charles Olberra or the Bronx? Shout out, no Bronx. I'm still not in the clearer. D-O. Oh, okay.

So that's D-Brons. I know. focusing on Frank's difficulty at the end there, but that was a long paragraph for Frank not to have a single skip or stutter. Hey, Jordan. I'm proud of you. Fuck you. Wow.

You know what? I'm not seeing the compliments. Fuck you. Yeah, it says it right here. It's in the question? Yeah. First I have beef. First I have beef with Pizzi.

Now it's Frank. I actually see it. He continues in a second paragraph. When Jordan ultimately tries to shit on you, tell him to fuck off. Fuck you. Yeah. I don't hate the idea of Connor not fighting at the White House, but if I'm Connor, I want to fight at the White House.

So if they can make it worth his while, and to his point, right, you might be able to recoup some additional money for that, not from there is no pay-per-view anymore, right? So you're not putting it on a paper-view. But what you might be able to do is have a massive gate, right? If you do Connor McGregor's next fight at an arena and sell massive, massively high ticket sales,

then you can recoup at least some of that purse. Whereas at the White House, obviously, they're not charging the White House for attendance. That would be the only thing for me. But if I'm Connor McGregor, am I getting as excited for anything other than the White House? Probably not. Probably not.

Hey, guys. Can someone blind-rank these Korean things? I'm going to leave this to Frankie. He loves K-Town. You ready? Oh, yeah. Yeah, okay. K-pop.

That's a five. Wow. Whoa. Am I blind-ranking these? Korean barbecue. Well, we can't react, Frank? Korean barbecue number one. Yeah.

Okay, wow. Please don't put some three on those. North. Nah, Korean zombie. Korean zombie number two. Um, nice. Korean basketball league? Yeah, we'll put that at four.

I think I like this list a lot. And then Korean John, the guy that tweets during the fights and shows up on the air. Absolutely a three. Yeah, I think you nailed it. No, K-pop was too low. I also think zombie, I, I think I'd go zombie barbecue,

pop, John basketball. What's the last time you had barbecue? You can't enjoy Korean zombie without having Korean barbecue before him.

I made some ribs recently. That was my last time was not Korean barbecue? You just asked me straight up the last time I had barbecue period.

Oh, did I? Words are hard. Words are hard. What do you got, Rick? Maverick asks us, what's up guys? Working as a project

manager, I once had to go out of town just before a project was about to start. I did what I could before I left to make sure there were no issues for our install team. Even so, I was really stressed while I was gone and kept checking in with the foreman to make sure everything was going smoothly, parentheses, and it always was. My wife told me everything was going great, even with me gone, was a sign of great leadership. That's how I feel about the BITB.

The team has learned so much from Ariel and we're able to keep the ship sailing without its captain. Great job, Ariel and the boys. Much love to you all for the entertainment. So, my question, but thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. I appreciate it a lot, man. Alrio, like, opening is a heart to us yesterday, like, really meant a lot to me, too.

Yeah, we appreciate the opportunity. I know you guys miss Ariel. He'll be back on Monday. Hopefully, we've been able to provide some entertainment during this time. And yeah. Who me? I'm looking forward to being back in the back. I haven't been in that chair in a while.

I'm looking forward to it. We use it to proper feet up these days. Nice, nice, man. I need to get a new one anyway. Go ahead. I need to get a new one anyway. I'm thinking Herman Miller. We got kind of, you know, the standard stock.

The Herman Miller doesn't go that tall. No, you can buy Herman Miller Stools. Come on, bro. Have some respect. My back's been hurting. Hasn't been hurting sitting in this chair. This one's pretty nice. Adam says, is it time to get Dana a meta earpiece for the press conferences?

He is regularly struggling to hear questions and asking someone close to on to repeat the question. I think he does it for effect. Yeah. It's like, what did he just say? Did he just say what I think he said? It's one of my favorite things that Dana during the press conference and he hits that. What? He looks off.

Off camera. He's asking for Lenna. Sorry, what is it? Buckley. UFC, Buckley? Yeah, you're going to have to ask him about that thing. You're going to have to ask him about that. What was that?

Huh? Oh, the licking. Can I? Federal fucking prison. Wait for it. It's a great point. Can I say? I think it's actually more intentional than that, which is he's stalling.

He doesn't have an immediate answer. So he's like, let me think about what I'm saying. What's that? Lenet? Help me? What do you got? He stalls on that, but it's just... This is like beating up babies.

Beating up babies. Yeah, notice how like... That blows off the cuff. Can we get a triple cut all three times he said it? Just beating up babies, beating up babies, beating up babies. He actually said it four times. Oh, he said it four times now. To Frank's point, he never has a problem hearing when it's like, what do you think of

Eddie Hearn saying this? I'm killing, I'm beating up babies. Like, it's never like, ha? Huh? It's only, it's only on like, what do you? Like, Tom Aspinall had something to say about you shitting on him, huh? What do you think of Eddie? Eating up babies.

Ariel Salami ass. G.C. G.C. Blind rank, these fast foods, please. Okay. Are you ready? Oh, fuck, yeah. I used to love fast food. Burger King. Four, Whopper's great.

Chicken prize elite. Sneaky good onion rings. Hershey pie is also amazing. I agree with all your assessments, sir. Those are words? KFC. KFC. there's better fried chicken out there.

McDonald's. McDonald's, too, just because it's such a classic. McDowbles, McChicons. I'm a sucker for a Big Mac. Some of the best fries. If the shake, if the ice cream machine's working, their McFlurries are unbelievable. Oreo McFlurry, extra Oreos, you know, slip the guy at one or two. Yeah.

Ice cream machine is never working, though. I know. I know. Did I already give up my five? Yeah. The KFC. Fuck. Subway is five, but three, I guess.

I mean, Sweet onion chicken... You saved the one, right, for the last one? Yeah, Sweet onion chicken terriaki is elite, but like, man, Subway's just bullshit. There's too many stores for them to be able to have inequality. Number one. Tesco meal deal. Yeah, well. Now, not actually...

I don't feel like that's fast food, though. Yeah. That fits more in, like, the convenience store, kind of like... Yeah, it's super okay. Tesco meal deals are super okay. It's like what you... It's like what you get from, like, an airport, like to go. It's like a ham sandwich in like a candy bar.

Yeah. Does he get fair? Slava P says, Question for Rick. Usually when Ariel wants to disclose something private that may lead to beef, you advise against. Yes. But a few months ago,

you really wanted Ariel to name names in response to the European journalist DMing him about the UK media being unfair to Joshua. Why the change? And what are your values? That's going to take a minute. That's funny. Thanks, Slava P. shout out Slava P

Take my answer off here Is he done yet? He's done Good question I was joking On the time that I was like Name names I knew he wasn't going to name name

So I was joking about that But Every time That Ariel is going to engage with somebody on this From The highest profile person to the lowest I'm never I never advised to do it

But most of the time He lands in the right spot But yeah That was me joking. I actually knew he would never name names and didn't want him to name names. Chris Rem says, Boniorno, BITB. Kudos for holding down the fort.

I'm here for the crumbling of Dana's Empire with match room waging war MVP showcasing MMA and fighters taking issue with the huge boxing pay packets. My question, if one UFC star were to catalyst a sort of fighters' union, who'd you think it'd be and why? If God forbid Aspinall can't fight again, I'd love to be him. a man, mountain like him,

it'd be as easy as beating up babies. Beating up babies. Much love, Chris. Who's the one? I don't know. Is there one? You would need many to go with you. But

for the same reason they don't now, nobody's going with you. Right? Like, who's the one? I don't know. I honestly could not answer this. What if James Tihuna came back to certified? Now we're talking, but he's not. You would need dozens and dozens of fighters.

You would need to threaten their product. You can't be one. I don't know if you know what, what was this one called? MMAFA? MMAFA? I don't know. Hold on. What was the name?

MMAFA. There was one, not MMAFA. What was, uh, George St. Pierre. Cowboy Soroni Association. What was the name of this? We're literally beating up babies. Thank you, Frank. Okay.

At the time when this union conversation was like the top of the news cycle was the thing that everybody was talking about, a few fighters got together for something called the Mixed Martial Arts Athletic Association. It was in this picture, I'm looking at Cowboy. Cowboy Soroni George St. Pierre, T.J. Deloshaugh, Tim Kennedy, and Kane Velazquez. That's a lot of, like, relevant fighters at the time that this was happening.

So this is 20, fuck, this article doesn't have a date on it. So that's unfortunate. But this was sometime in the, in the, 2016. So this is 2016. 10 years ago. That wasn't enough, right?

Top-name guys getting together like this wasn't enough. It's going to require such a hurt. I honestly think it's going to take, it's going to take somebody who's not a fighter to do it. And the reason I say that is you're going to need somebody who's not motivated by collecting their own check, right? If I'm one of these fighters or if I'm Connor McGregor or if I'm a top name fighter, why do I give a shit what the guy at the bottom of the thing gets paid? Now, the answer to that question is because future generations will benefit from it if you do that and then everybody at the bottom will get more

and the people at the top will get more too. But if you're not thinking about future generations, if you don't care about what happens to the fighters in the future, there's no motivation to do it. What I think is somebody from the outside who is very persuasive, who can really like sell them this story and explain to them why it's so important

that somebody take a stand and do this is able to convince them, then maybe you can rally the troops, then maybe you can figure out a way to do it. But I just don't think it will come from inside the house. I just don't think a fighter is going to be like, eh, who cares about my personal standing with it? Because truth be told, if you do that, the UFC could just cut you, right?

Like, there's no motivation for them to keep you on the roster. They could just go, we don't really need this problem. See you later. Even to the biggest star. So it's a very tricky situation. They've established a, you know, a business that is hard to penetrate and it's hard for the fighters to get together and align on this. because they're all motivated by their own self-interest. I'm with you.

I'm with you, man. A great take on it. Frank, did you read any question? Yes, I am. Cosmo Kramer says, Good afternoon, boyos. Just a quick question from me. Why do you think your comment section

and live chat and your videos are the most negative in all of the sport? Magnitude of concurrent viewers, original takes on people of power, Frank being a sarcastic son of a bitch on a daily basis? Thanks for the time. It's definitely the Frank. Yeah, I don't know, but it is fucking negative all the time.

Yeah, a lot of negativity. Thanks, Frank. We're literally beating up babies, seeding up babies. This is like beating up babies. Despite us spreading positivity, yeah, a lot of negativity. It does the heart good, though. It does the heart good. It's nice and humbling.

As a genuine answer to this question, do you guys not feel like the internet in general is more negative? Yeah, yeah. I think the internet in general is just more negative. I mean, let's go to yesterday's. I think there's a lot of bad actors now where there weren't as many before, right? The loudest voices in the room on the internet now are the nasty, negative, miserable people, right? The positive people, like, when we hear the voicemails or we have the people super chatting in, they're so positive, they're locked in, they're part of our community. We have people on the voicemails revealing to the,

world that like they've lost loved ones and talking about struggling and going through that. That's the type of shit that like you can't really ask for anything more. That's a community that we've built that we love that is part of our meat like our non blood related family. Like we have built something. And those people are not going to be sending us 100 messages a day saying, I hope you fucking die. But there is somebody out there who feels that way and is writing that because they're

miserable in their own life. I feel like this is just a product of 2026. Like there are so many. people out there for that. There also are a ton of positive messages as well. Yeah. Like the negative, like to your point, the negative comments mean nothing to me. I don't, I don't hold the weight of any opinion of someone who's going to negatively slander someone on YouTube. I would never do that. And none of my friends would ever do that. No one I would ever be friends with would do that. So yeah, I just, it doesn't really bother me or, or us as a team period. So it is, it is what it is.

But there are some good ones every once in a while. Yesterday, these guys are clowns, 17 upboats on that. Let's see, I absolutely hate GC not wanting to debate with Rick. Broges Folds. Yeah, we better for sure. Yeah. Rick being a gooner is two on the nose.

What's that in reference to? I don't know. Sean Strickton, can we pay someone to get NYR to stop saying pounding him out? Maybe that's why they thought I was a gooner. All right. Sucker Free says, what do you guys? Question for G.C.

Blind rank these fighters who you most want to teach your future child English. Okay, all right, bet. One being most qualified. Five being least wanted. Nate Diaz. Three. Max Holloway. Two.

Mike Perry. Four. Sean Strickton. Five. Teeth for a T. Clint or 10? No, it says. You just got Tito for Tito for number one.

Your strategy of holding the last one spot for them has always been effective. You got killed here. I think people are starting to catch on to it. Aaron Moran says, hey, boys, I'm Aaron from Ireland. I'm currently in the hospital recovering from foot reconstruction surgery. So your shows have been a great distraction. My question is, what's the best Irish slang you've picked up from Pizzi? And do you use it in everyday life now?

30 million for the kitchen scrap That's number one for sure I say it all the time If I bump someone when I'm in the kitchen I'll be like uh oh We're gonna get paid 30 million for the kitchen crap There was a moment in time After he said that

Where I was walking around my house Just being like Tarty million Tarty for a kitchen scrap Yeah Yeah right What's the crack lads Is great

Sometimes I'll walk in on my friends And just be like What's the crack lads And they're like What the fuck are you talking about dude Um What else? Fair play. I use fair play a lot now. That's in my vernacular, a good amount.

You know, fair play, that. Yeah, it's all great. I'm hoping to pick up. No problem, me, yeah? He's already dead. He's already dead. Yeah, I'm hoping to pick up on all of it when I go out to Ireland. I'm hoping to just have it. Have it all. Ready to go. Foodie Lof. Hi, boys. Was tickled to see my plea to evacuate in your facilities gain that type of traction. I'd be remiss if I didn't express a multitude of gratitude to fellow but sufferer Connor for shining a light on such a plight and reading the entry.

Something in New York City Elite Ariel, with his business class flights and $1,000 sushi meals never a million years would ever do. Now for the update. Sadly, my boss, who was poisoned by the Costco shrimp, has tragically passed. She didn't succumb to the food poisoning, however, the circumstances are mysterious, and there's currently an ongoing police investigation. Secondly, out of pure desperation, I ran up to the Yahoo floor and begged to be let in under the guise of wanting a quote-unquote tour, after which I was dragged out by security and subsequently shit my pants waiting for a bathroom to open at McDonald's. I'd once again like to thank anyone who paid any mind to my story, even though it did end in tragedy.

I just feel like with all this, you could have just gone home, man. You just could have gone home and picking it down. The bathrooms here are quite nice, especially if you get the luxury suite. He mentioned, Ariel. Ariel only goes to the luxury suite, which you have to have key card access to, which I do have. Just, you know, it's a solo dolo,

and a lot of the times it's taken just because of the, you know, level of bathroom you're using there. It's sought after, highly sought after, shower, hair dryer. You know, so you probably tried to get into that one. Custom soaps and lotions. Yeah, I mean, you have to make it through,

you have to make it past OG security downstairs. You have to make it past front desk. You have to make it in, into main Yahoo office, then you have to make it into the corridor that holds the secret bathroom. Have to make it past

the mail room who's another level of security that's five levels. And then you have to keycard into the bathroom. That's six levels of security. And then you have to key card out. And then key card out. And then also when you lock it,

it's the big red sign that says, taken. It's a dream. Yeah, it's great. It's great. I'm going to ask this one because I've seen it all three weeks

that we've been doing this. Okay, let's rip it. And I guess it's just time. Bonyak says, hi, boys in the back. Is it me or does anyone else get really annoyed watching the ring card girls, carelessly, obliviously, and frankly, disrespectfully, dropping the round sign on the floor before the start of rounds? Often for it to topple over and land on the floor.

But they have no awareness of the fact that as they are too busy blowing kisses and making love heart signs at the camera, it really grinds my gears, pick up your mess. No, I think it's probably just part of the job to just like kind of dump it. Someone else is going to pick it up. I would rather see the little thing than I'd rather see the heart. Then I'd rather see the- I'm also pulling the John Anick every time beforehand.

I'm always like, I'm always like, shout out to Red De La Cruz. The action gets underway here in the first round. Justin Thunder Liger in the chat does make a good point. Why the fuck does G.C. care about a hairdryer. Fair play. Fair play. Sometimes the beard Gets a little too

Sopping wet Worship This one was for me But I already read it So it's a blind ranking So you guys are gonna have to do it All right BITB

GC The Pizza Hut lamp behind you Yesterday was hard I need one of those now Yes that was the star Of the show Thank you for showing appreciation

I've had that for a while In the apartment Thought it was gonna be a conversation piece Thought it was gonna be a statement piece Everyone who comes over Is just like Yeah fucking cool lamp You Weirdo

It doesn't go with anything else in your apartment All right I'll rank them GC Blind rank these four classic cell phones. Got it. LGMV2. I don't even know what that is, so I'm going to go four. Blackberry. Two. I believe I actually grew up on an NV2. Yeah, what is it? It was like a normal, just square, tiny screen, and then you would open it up to a full keyboard. Wasn't that called a sidekick? No, I think sidekick was a slider. But it's the same concept, right? Keyboard inside. What did I say for two was Blackberry, like a palm? Yeah.

It was Blackberry. It was four. LG chocolate. Five. There's only four of them. Chocolate was shit. You slid up. Yeah, it was just the four.

No, there's only four of them. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, this is your Mount Rushmore of classic supplements. LG chocolate was like you slid it up. I remember. I had a chocolate. You have a proper number one. What is it?

Motor roller razor. Yeah, Razors number one. Triple platinum. Early 2000. If you had a razor in middle school, you were fucking in. You were the elite of the elite. I was holding number one for either sidekick or razor. Those are the two best.

I can look back on Motorola razor ads from like 2006 and get like a high off of it because I wanted it so bad. Ultimately, never got one. Didn't get an iPhone until college. Didn't get a cell phone until 10th grade. I had a selling junior high, sixth grade maybe, something like that. It was a razor and then just kept up getting up from there. All right. pin in the questions because we will now head out to the UK. We are joined by Michael Venom

Page. Michael, thanks so much for joining the show, man. We really appreciate the time. No worries, man. No worries. How are you guys doing? Yeah, we're doing good, brother. Where are we at here? Oh, oh, nice, man. Nice. I like the background. The walls for a second kind of confused, man. I thought we were in like a bathroom stall or something like that. It looks good though, man. Thanks so much for joining us. This weekend we got Total Combat 3 going down in Liverpool, just announced you can watch it on ITVX in the UK. Exciting stuff for you, man. Why should the people be tuning in this weekend?

Man, like, it's finally I've got a place that I can direct people to that is going to showcase more of what I do, where I come from. So, and that is, if that's not reason enough, because, you know, I'm known for my explosive, you know, very, it's a very unique style within the MMA space, but imagine going to a place where everybody is fighting exactly like that. There's spin kicks, axe kicks, there's sweeps, there's, you know, high, you know, high flying, punching, just everything that I represent in MMA, but in total combat. So, yeah, you have to tune in and just you'll see for yourself, you'll get the bugger soon,

as soon as you tune in and watch the first fight. Going off that, I've always found it interesting that a lot of the fans, as soon as the fight hits the ground in MMA, they're booing, they're complaining about it, they don't really have the grappling or jiu-jitsu knowledge, and a lot of the most popular fighters are stand-up fighters. Why do you think, like, pure striking leagues, kickboxing in particular, haven't really taken off to this point if that fan base who hates it when it goes to the ground had an avenue to watch this before? I think he's mad at me. No, I think we just lost him. No, I know. We lost him. Yeah, I think he's just frozen.

We'll see if he gets the internet back or we'll work to get him back here. Nice crib for Michael Vitton Pace. Yeah, shut out. Someone in the chat said, I'll work him asylum. Shut out. Why? I don't know. I think I also did him.

I did them dirty with the bathroom things. The way the box was got it. It looked like a, yeah, I got that. I got that. The color, too. It's the color. You know, I feel bad. I feel bad.

All right. We'll effort on getting MVP back here. I don't know how we watch it in the U.S. I was going to ask him that. Yeah. The ITVX in UK is where you're going to be able to watch it. But stand-up affair, it's kind of like akin to like a UK karate combat. Yeah, as I was trying to ask him, I really love kickboxing.

I was working with Glory for a long time. Stars like Israel, Asanya and Alex Perr, stars you know from M. We're fighting in these leagues. Rico Verhoven, right? a name that's on the tip of everybody's tongue now, now that he retired from kickboxing. There's an avenue for the guys who don't want to watch grappling to watch these sports, but they've never really been able to pick up traction.

So I'm curious, like, what MVP thinks of that just because he is one of those guys that, like, it always would have made sense if he's just striking, you know? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I wonder if this is something. Like, we know, like, he's got the UFC career, and we're going to ask him about that as well. I wonder if this is something that he would ever compete in himself. 100%. Yeah.

Yeah, it feels like something that could be exciting for him. We'll continue to work to try and get MVP back here. There's still several questions to be asked. You know, I've always wondered with what Ariel does in the meantime when, you know, we're chilling in the back, we're efforting, and he's like, what's going on back there, guys? This is one of those where Ariel would be like, update me, update me. Like, he'd be aggressively typing, so I'm just going to wait until we hear from on-air Jordan or Andy. I'm going to wait as well.

Yep. We got them back. We got them back. We've got them back, Michael. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry. Apologies. No worries.

I'm going to keep this version of the question shorter, Michael. If in MMA, there's a lot of times where the fight goes to the ground and the fans start booing instantaneously. Why do you think that the pure striking sports, the kickboxing and others haven't really taken off yet? And what is your promotion doing to make that happen? I think it's in the, I guess, the. of the striking, because like you say, the UK is interesting one, the UK is a bit more of a striking country. So I'm surprised that there hasn't been a show,

but I feel like it needed to be the right show, something that brings something slightly different and has the right team to push it forward. The guys that I'm working with are guys that I used to compete against. We are all athletes. We're all, we all understand the frustrations, of being an athlete and we're trying to fix and course correct those things, as well as our style just being a very entertaining style to watch anyway.

So that in itself will help with the viewership of people tuning in and just straight away being wild with what they see, but then also the actual promotion, the guys behind the promotion and what we're doing to push and make it bigger and better is the right team right now. We mentioned the ITVX deal over in the UK. How can people in the States watch it? In the state, to be fair, to be fair, I think we had a channel. I need to confirm.

It's just that we've been working by ITV. There's in so much going on. But I need to confirm about how the guys in the States can watch it. I'm not sure off the top of my head. I did see you guys have a YouTube channel and you guys streamed the first two, this being Total Combat 3. so potentially the people here in the States So potentially it'll be the YouTube channel again

But I just want to make sure Because we're now working with the ITV It's difficult when you're working with a big brand So in terms of what you can and can't do But the likelihoodness is It's probably going to be on the YouTube channel So people can still from outside of the UK Tune and see the exciting fights

Can you speak to any of the details of how the ITV deal team came together and what that means for like how you're going to be able to expand and grow the awareness for this product? It's a difficult. It was an interesting one. Again, it's just about connections. But I've spoken to and worked with a few guys in the ITV space. Same with some of my partners.

We had a conversation initially about it. They were happy to at least do one event, which was our last event. And we did that numbers wise. did really, really well. And they were happy with it. So we just continued conversations from there. And they were like, okay, let's do like a few more shows, a bit more of a package deal. And then again, see how it goes.

See how the fans respond to it, the support that we get. And then, you know, it's a big deal for us being so young. But it's a great partnership to have so early. I'm just looking forward to proving what I know this thing is, this monster is, and then, you know, just going on to just continue growing at and expanding. Let's go over to your fighting career. You got a match up against Sam Patterson at UFC London.

When you posted the announcement, you put the shrug emoji, you've seen you in some interviews kind of being like, yeah, it confused me with the matchmaking. We didn't really understand it when we were solo. We were like, that's a bit of a weird one. How did this one come to be? The easiest thing to say is I've been asking for a lot of different fighters, not really getting the responses. And it was kind of not panicking, but more kind of like with a bit more urgency when I'm speaking to the UFC.

Like, well, what's going on? Like, you know, who am I going to be fighting? And we had a few back and forth and we just kind of pushed a ton of names over. Like names that we didn't really consider before because it wasn't an attack like that. the high level names, but we're just kind of like, which one of these type of guys are you looking for? Because it doesn't seem to, the names that we're sending over doesn't seem to be getting any responses.

And then again, it was just a lot of waiting time. And then Sam, I guess, stepped up to the plate and wanted to fight. But yeah, it's an unusual one. Either way, I'm excited to just be back in the cage. I'm glad I got a fight. I'm glad I didn't miss out on the opportunity. to fight back in the UK because I think a lot of people wanted me to be there.

And I'm excited to just put on a show. So it's, for me, it's slightly weird one, but, you know, I'm going to go and do what I do best, put on an amazing show and then, you know, hopefully progress to a bigger name again after that. Yeah, and obviously I think a lot of fans are excited to see you back as well. Were those names Welterweight names? Because obviously returning to Walter Wade

after a little bit of a stint at middleweight, is this like the division that you want to be in? Is this where you're hoping to after the Sam Patterson fight advance and continue and chase toward a title? Is it middleweight? Are you open to all the different options? Like where does this fight put you if you're successful? The whole game, even when I took us the first fight, Rashara Bullitt was very spare at a moment, opportunistic. Oh, look, he's calling out my friend.

Let me go and intervene and see if he bites. he did, we took the fight. I felt stylistically it was a good fight for me, even though it had to go up, I had to go up a way to do so. But that was supposed to be a one-off. Then I was like, okay, let me get back to the World to Weight. Again, I wasn't really hearing that much traction from the World to Weight Division in terms of people excited to fight me. So, you know, I asked to, you know, I'm happy to stay if the fight's right, I'm happy to do another middleweight fight, another middle-weight fight came about. I said exactly the same thing. I was like, I still want to go back to World to and but we also did send names at middleweight we were just I was just eager to just get a fight

it had nothing to do with who by a certain point it was just like just give me somebody I just want to I want to be it's difficult in the gym to push your body and and mentally kind of lock in in the gym when you don't have a target at the end of it so I was just really wanting to push just to have a name and then again we're here we're here now so um for me i'm excited just because i have someone to work towards uh it's it means just how i train in the gym is is so much it's it's it's way more different mentally um and how i can push myself so yeah i'm excited but yeah the process has just been i want to be at well to wait because i feel like that's a better weight for me but again

I'm also I'm just about exciting fights if there is an exciting fight for me to have I'll do it anywhere I think you know your reaction the fans reaction paints the picture of it seems like the UFC is not on the same page with you right

like I think we all know your status your entertainment value why do you think they are not giving you those specific names those fights at the moment is it timing is it something else like why do you think that you're not in position to take those names and you are fighting Sam Patterson? In all honesty, I couldn't answer that. I'd be the wrong person to ask because I feel like I'm in the same position as everybody else kind of questioning why this is even happening

this way. So could only guess, but it'd probably be a bad guess. So I'm not sure. Either way, this is where I'm at the moment. This is the cars that have been laid in front of me. So I've just got to go. I just got to work to get big knockouts, try and impress, try and put myself in a position to demand what I really want. I wanted to ask you with your ties to the UK.

Some of the biggest news last week was Connor Ben signing with Zupa boxing. What was your reaction when you saw him going over and the price tag attached with it? I feel like everyone's trying to get me in trouble here yeah yeah it's not something that I'm happy about

so what I would say is when the announcement of the paramount you know big money partnership came people was asking me you know like you know how do you know excited about this and my answer was

well what does that mean for the fighters until we understand how that how that's going to translate to the fighters there's nothing to really be excited about and then you know I heard about the the if you want to call it an increase

in a bonus structure and like this is why I wasn't bothered to be excited initially because for me that doesn't do enough. Comparatively to the amount of money that they've just brought in for themselves. And then to see, you know, obviously, you know, Dana White's getting easy. He's always been quite excited about going into the kind of the boxing world and kind of doing other things like the, you know, the slap fighting and all that kind of stuff.

But then to see it and how quickly he values people away from, how highly he values people away from a sport that kind of built his reputation. It's just upsetting, to be fair, as disappointing more than anything. That's probably all I'll say on that. Yeah, and that's totally fair. And please, we don't want to get you in trouble. But I do just think, you know, in this current environment and in this atmosphere, we're now starting to see other fighters react to it, right?

Earlier in this show, we actually played Sean O'Malley kind of reacting to it. And the idea that now there's like this price tag out there, um that is floating do you feel like maybe there's an opportunity to get some of that you know you mentioned saying i'm going to sit back and wait and see what this means for the fighters does this give you some kind of leverage or opportunity to say hey i think my worth is this i i don't think so and the reason i don't think so it gives us something to complain about but in all honesty i think if you couldn't see the value of your fighters prior to this and then you slap a price tag on, I love Conabend, but he's nowhere near the best in his field.

I think he's a great fighter. I love watching. He's an exciting fighter, but he's not the best in his field in terms of his weight division and so on and so forth. He's still got yet to prove. He's got a lot to prove still within the boxing world, and you slap that price tag on him. I understand leverage in terms of his position at the moment. Again, maybe it's because of the competition with Eddie Hearn. He's got a bit of, you know, back and forth with him. So it could could be, you know, he overlooked that side, but if you couldn't see the value of your fighters prior to this, and I've been saying this for a long time, I feel like we have deserved more. I hate hearing stories of fighters, get into what is the pinnacle of your career in terms of the UFC

and still being broke. It just shouldn't exist. Unless you're just completely terrible with money, It just shouldn't exist that you're struggling from fight to fight. And it just shouldn't be a thing. I feel like in any other sport, when you get to the pinnacle, there's a lot of other things that are settled in your life, you know, at least for the period that you're competing at. So, yeah, like I said, it's just disappointing to still be here. This is something that people have complained about for a long time.

Even like, you know, you like, so Francis in Garnu, you know, being the heavyweight champion in the world and broke borrowing money from a friend of his, Usman, you know, who was obviously kind enough to, you know, gift him some money and help him out in, in diet times. But why was he even in that situation is the question for me? So again, the only thing I can say is just disappointing. So more than anything. Yeah. And it seems like you mentioned Francis Inganu that the economics of this are more shifted toward the boxing side of things, right? We hear about Connor Ben getting these big paydays. We also hear about the top level boxers getting these bigger paydays.

I mean, you talked about being open to big opportunities. Is there a world where Michael Venom page shifts into the Zufa boxing sphere? Would that be beneficial potentially? Well, price tag wise, it sounds like it's more beneficial for me to go and do boxing. But that's the, that's what I mean. Like, it's sad that you're in a position where you get to do what you love, you know, what we're passionate about. but it's damn it is hard physically, mentally, spiritually to be doing it.

And it would be nice to at least have a financial benefit for yourself, your family and everybody around. But the game has kind of set you in a position where you get to a place where you enjoy it. And then now you have to go and do something that you might not enjoy, but it's not what brings you the most joy. So you're at your pinnacle. And now you're thinking about having to be it. to go somewhere else.

Yes, I'm always excited. You know, I was boxing before when I was at, when I was at Bell at Tor. And yes, I, you know, I love to compete in anything. I was competing in bare-knuckle. I competed in, obviously, the freestyle kickboxing. I'd go and do a kickboxing. I'd love combat.

But what I am passionate about is mixed martial arts. There's a different kind of love for it. So it's a shame that, you know, you can't really achieve what you want to. Financially speaking purely from being, great at your your passion in this particular field. And I feel like it's probably one of very few fields that that's the case. You speak about your passion, you know, we've seen you, obviously in the ring, fighting, you've done different martial arts, you know, we've seen you in bare-knuckle,

everything like that. But we've also seen you doing DJing. We've seen you involved in film as well. I saw some pictures of you and Jasonamoa. And you'll correct me if I'm wrong, Esho, is that the name of the restaurant? So, Ixhell. Ikshell. Egg shell,

Ixhell. Okay, and now do you own this place? What is your steak in this restaurant? I'm an investor in the local space. We're just about to open, I think, September time, around that kind of time, in Dubai as well. So we're going to have another branch over there. We're looking at a few other spaces in like the prime spots of London. But if you guys are ever over here, please, you have to.

The foods, and I'm biasedly speaking, the food is amazing. So the vibe is great. I was deep on the website. The website's beautiful. I was looking at the menu. I love getting to try new restaurants. So I was like, man, how did MVP get involved in this? Like, do you just love food?

Is that how this was born? I definitely love food. But something that I'm also passionate about is just kind of entrepreneurship. And I guess, I guess, again, being in the field that I am, you kind of have to set yourself up in other ways. And you kind of be smart about it. even like the film space is kind of another passion for myself. And with my, you know, a good friend, Kishan Lakhani, he's, we've set up this company. We've done two short films.

We're doing a documentary on myself in terms of starting from when I signed to the UFC and then my journey. but our first film has already been nominated for a Beverly Hills Festival as well so if I'm doing something we aim to do it well and again when you guys get a chance to go to the restaurant you understand what I mean as well from that point so yeah I feel like that's just another part of me

I love creating things I'm a creative person this is why I like walkouts you know it's not just about the fight it's about the creating the whole picture and that's just another thing that I'm passionate about outside of trying to kick people in the face. All right, we take the restaurant invite very seriously. We do a show here called Fight Feast where we go around and try restaurants like either tied to a fighter's culture or where the card is taking place.

So if we find ourselves in London, we're going to eat shell and we're absolutely going to fall out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Now, seriously, though, it's a great vibe. It's Mexican food, but there's very few Mexican restaurants that do well over here. So it's a great space You go in there You do feel like you've

You've been just Warped to LUM And it gives you that vibe We did a partnership With multiple people But obviously you saw the one With Jason Mamar He came down with his brand

Of vodka We've got tequila brands We've done it with multiple people And it's just It's a great vibe in there Definitely you know When you get there Please

You're more and welcome, man. Thank you, thank you. And congratulations on the nomination that you mentioned as well. I was saying before the show when we were thinking about this and knowing that we were going to interview that you're a bit of a renaissance man and you have all these different businesses and you said you're into entrepreneurship. What advice would you give other fighters?

You mentioned that this might be the path for other fighters because of the financial situation when it comes to the sport. What advice would you give to some of these up-and-coming fighters who look to you and say, look at MVP, he's doing all these things to set themselves up for the future? I think it's important to kind of find out what you're good at outside of fighting, but also find out what you're bad at and partner with the right people, you know, people that you trust, the right people that can also help balance that side because I can't do all of this by myself.

I love bringing people together. That's another thing I love to do. but I in learning how to create the world I know where I'm weak and there's certain aspects of different businesses I'm like yeah I but me by myself

I couldn't do that I'm excited to do that and I got great ideas towards it but I need to find someone that can actually help help me execute those things so yeah partnering with the right people is important but also just figuring out what else you're passionate about and just putting a little bit of time into that

as well because again this is hard. You have to be focused with the sport that we're in. You have to be focused on the sport, but just give yourself a little stopping points to put a little bit of time and energy into something else. And like I said, find some people that you can also can help you and put a little bit more time than you can kind of dedicate to as well. So just finding the right people because I think it's people that will build empires. It's not just one person. It's always there's always a collective of people. So that's important.

Great advice, man. Last one before we let you go, I know you're a United fan. How are we feeling about this season? Top four right now, another big win yesterday. Yeah, it was a big win, but it's a bit shaky.

And something that I actually said is Carrick has looked great against attacking teams. When we came up against a more defensive team and the likes of West Ham, they basically parked the bus. I even said before I was talking to a family member, I was literally saying how is he going to,

is he going to make any adjustments to work around teams that I just sat back? And I feel like he's struggling a little bit against teams that are sitting back, which is why we, you know, we only got a draw, which is still great, he didn't lose, but he got a draw against West Ham. And again, it was a shaky win. CESCO, I think, is super talented, a bit under, I think underestimated at the moment. and still has a long way to go.

It's just how his runs that he makes, the position that he puts himself in, I felt even when Amarin was there, he was doing everything right, but the system didn't allow people to find him as well. And obviously now, Carrick being there, he's adjusted a few things. It's allowing him,

I know he's coming off the bench, but it's allowing him for players to get the ball to him a bit more regularly, and you see what he's doing with that. He still can be a bit more of a clinical finish, because even in that game, he probably could have put the game to bed right at the last. He had another opportunity in front of goal that he missed. But overall, he, dangerous. The team's doing better.

But I'm not super excited yet. I think that we still have a lot more people to bring in. But the fact, if we can just get top four and get, you know, get extra funding in, I think, you know, would be great. And I do believe Carrick can do that. God, I love the breakdown. You could be a soccer analyst after your career. You mentioned the West Ham draw. Do you know the kid who's been growing his hair out and like it needs to be five straight wins?

He was about to cut it and then they get the draw, dude. I felt so bad because everyone was like he's guaranteed he's going to be cutting his hair. Yeah. And all the teams that you've just beaten on that crazy run that you just went on and then it's the West Ham that has you on stuck and they're at the, they're fighting for relegation at the moment. So it's, yeah. But again, that's the excitement of the Premier League. It's so unpredictable right now. I wouldn't even say Arsenal being at the top of the table are the obvious best team.

Like in terms of how they're playing at the moment, they're doing really, really, really well. But it's just anybody can beat anybody at the moment. And it makes it for that's why I feel like it's the most exciting league in the world. The Premier League is insane. It's just like a top seven team versus it being just the obvious top two, which is like how it is in most in most leagues. But yeah, it also makes it a very painful time when you're when you're supported a team. Yeah, it's the best man. Thanks so much for joining us.

We really appreciate total combat three this weekend, Liverpool. You can watch it in the UK on ITVX in the US. Still working on a TV deal, potentially YouTube. Really exciting stuff, though. thanks so much for joining us, Michael Lennon. Good luck next month against Sam Patterson. Thank you so much, guys. Pleasure to speaking to you guys.

Thanks again, man. Take care. Nice one. See you. Man. Such an intelligent fighter. It's nice to hear from him speak on these things. He obviously speaks carefully, but you can tell he puts the thought into it.

Yeah, and what's unique about him compared to some other fighters is he understands the game within the game, right? Like, he understands he talks about wanting to do the complete package. right, from the walkout to the this, everything that he thinks about or everything that he pushes to do is carefully curated, carefully thought out.

And so when he's thinking about his career, I can understand why he's frustrated, right? He's four and one in the UFC, I think, is the number. Yeah. And you would think, wow, like MVP, exciting fighter was a big signing from Bellator. He should be fighting the top guys. And then you get the Sam Patterson matchup

after you've been asking for other fighters. You could understand when somebody who thinks of the game so logically, analytically, understands the chess pieces on the board is frustrated by that situation. But as we kind of also talked about with him in the interview, he's got so many things going on. He's got all these other avenues. He is setting himself up for a career outside of fighting.

So to the point that, like, if these things are not going right in the way that he hopes, and, you know, I do hope it does go that way for him, he has these other things, these passions that he can fall back on. He's running a promotion. He's got a restaurant. He's got the media company. award nominated document a film i forget if it was a documentary or not but yeah thoughtful guy understands the game within the game and i'm as baffled as he is you know about the the current

position but he he seems to be understanding of his position and knowing that i've got sam patterson in front of me and i need to show out and then i'll deal with the consequences of that later right the the the result of that is the most important thing and then i can kind of go from there Yeah, and it was interesting to hear him say how, like, man, we, we asked for welterweight names, we even asked for middleweight names, and we ultimately ended up with Sam Patterson. So we wish him the best of luck next month at UFC London. We appreciate him taking the time to join us and a lot of interesting stuff to stay on the Conner Bend fighter pay stuff as well. Let's answer a couple more questions. Wait, before we move on to some on the nose questions. Okay. Jordan dropped into the slack an article from awful announcing who is like a sports media aggregate.

like they actually that's disrespectful they give more coverage than that they're not just an aggregator they're a sports media entity that cover sports does their own interviews does all kinds of things one of the things they do best though is aggregate some of the interviews

from sports media so that's a better framing of it I'm a follower of awful announcing I read it all the time Max Kellerman they have an article here summarizing some of Max Kellerman's thoughts that he gave on the Game Over podcast that he hosts with Rich Paul for the

ringer about Eddie Hearn, about boxing. There's some interesting stuff in here. I want to read a a few of the little quotes from here. They have been going at, they, I assume being like De La Jolla, Eddie Hearn. They have been going at Zufa and mentioning me by name. They have been going after Zufa and talking wild about me. You can't talk wild on Monday and be crying on Tuesday. You can't be talking about how on Monday, these guys suck and they're nothing and I'm so much better. And on Tuesday, crying about a loss throughout broadcast history or even media history, whenever there has been an expansion, boxing has expanded with it. So he's essentially saying, you guys can't be coming after my neck and coming after Zufa boxing and then being like,

woe is me. Which, listen, fair enough by Max Kellerman there. He goes on to continue. But the status quo is not good for boxing or boxing fans. Here's the new game. He's essentially saying Zufa boxing is the new game, right? Like they're the new game in town. And guys like Eddie Hearn or Aska de La Jolla who are flailing and insulting Dana White and Nick Khan, I don't know why you'd be, or sorry, I don't know why you'd pick those two to have a fight with. And me.

Me either. You really don't want it. What they haven't understood is the game is already over. The game's over, he's saying. It's done. It's already cook. Zufo Boxing is here. Done.

You're done. They just don't know it. Game over. And my best advice to them would be, don't talk wild on a Monday and literally cry on a Tuesday when you take a loss. What you should be doing is literally minding your business. So Max coming out hot. Max says the babies have been beaten. They're beat to death already.

It's over. Like this is it. The game is up and Zufa boxing is taken over and everybody else lost. I don't know that I necessarily agree. with Max's thoughts here, but I do think it's interesting that now the battle lines are drawn, right? It's everybody on the Zufa boxing side and everybody else on the old guard boxing side is going to have to kind of take them on. And Max Kellerman came out swinging. He didn't like that. People talking nasty about him. Brandon Conte is the writer here. Makes a disappointment. Hearn would probably argue that Ben literally was his business.

And that's why he took it so personally. He did say mind your business. And since joining Zufa, Kellerman has been accused of being. being a shill for the Saudi-backed company after previously being known for his honest and unbiased commentary on the sport. That's what he is referring to when he says, talking wild. Yeah. And Ariel had made that point. He was like, Max was one of my favorite guys to hear talk about it, and now he's just doing advertisements. Yeah, he's heavily biased, and it comes through in almost everything that he does for the promotion. Man. Now you got commentary. There's a lot of, there's a lot of guys, there's a lot of powerful

people involved in this. There's a lot of people who can speak. very well, right? Like Max Kellerman, whether you agree with his opinions or not, is somebody who can really form thoughts and put them together well. Naturally, you know, we've talked about it at length. Eddie Hearn is somebody who can do the same, right? There's a lot of verbal jabs that Eddie Hearn can throw. He's good at the back and forth, the tip for tat. And so I'm interested to see how this all plays out. I think it's going to be a lot of fun as we see. I think it's going to be a lot of fun with Zufa boxing's entry into this sport. Oh, it's definitely going to be fun in boxing. And it's going to be even more fun if the fights are matching it. If it makes it high drama, you know,

just gets more eyes on the sport and the fights match it, it could be fantastic for boxing. Now we go to Boise. Yeah, yeah, let's go back. Now, it's on the nose with the boys. Jacob Pacheco says, hey, chuds in the back. I would love y'all's input on how the hell we can fix the heavyweight mess. Do we have to start injecting venom symbiote into every heavyweight? MMA on point made a great video on this subject, and I would love for you guys to watch give your thoughts on it too. Shout to him on May on Point. A great YouTube channel.

Just wanted to know how we can fix what once was a great division. Love you guys. Love you too, Jacob. Need more competition. You need higher level guys. I already said it. That's just what it comes down to. Rick's going to, the gable glazing. There's one man. He's going to give you one man to save it all. There's one man who can save it all.

Now, granted, Tom Aspinall could also save it. But his timeline is TBD. Gable Steveson picks up a big win over Hugo Luzama. he's ready. The UFC's been on the phone with him. He's been on the phone with UFC. Dana White, Hunter Campbell. It's time.

White House debut, Gable Steven, make heavyweight great again. Make heavyweight great again. Gable Steven, debut at the White House. Let him fight for the title by the end of the year. That's it. It's that easy. You need a long-reigning champion

or you need very competitive content. Yeah. That's the two options. You need a guy who, who's just dominating and running through everyone and people just want to see him just beat the brakes off everyone or you need like constant change

because there's so many good contenders coming in. I think the former is their most likely option. Oh, this is fitting. Chris H. Why is it so hard for the chat and Twitter to understand Rick's Gable take? The heavyweight division sucks.

It's really bad. We are acting like this is the Manhattan Project. Let the kid fight in the UFC and let's give the division juice. I don't want to watch Spivek against some bum again. I mean, oh, this is Chris in Boston, aka 24-inch dubs. Shout out to 24-inchubs. Shout out to 24-inchubs.

Come on. It's simple. It's very simple. Frank, you want one? Yeah, why not? First time asking a question on the boys in the back. My question is, how do you guys, hold on. Question is, never going to beat the allegations.

I honestly cannot read. I understand that. Question is, I know you guys hate the uniforms and want the fighters wearing their own unique uniforms, but as a business, if you were wearing a suite, wouldn't you agree that if a company, it's also this fucking sentence. No, I'm assuming that suit. If we're wearing a suit, right? It says sweet.

I know, I know, but. Wouldn't you agree that if a company offers you and the company millions to wear their uniform at the end of the day, it's a business decision? No question. My next question is for New York, Rick. Mr. Rick, who do you think you are? All right. All right, let's answer the second one first.

Who do you think you are? I'm the fucking man. That's who I. Wow. Number one, the problem is in the framing, which is he says, if you're getting millions of dollars for wearing the suit, that's the problem. The fighters are not getting millions of dollars for wearing the suit. If they were getting millions of dollars for wearing the uniform, that's fine. Now we don't have to have a conversation, right?

Aaron Judge plays for the Yankees. He wears a uniform. I don't have a problem with it. the difference is those fighters are not making Aaron Judge money, right? So them wearing the uniform used to be in the old days an opportunity for them to make more money because they used to be able to put their own sponsors on it. And that was a way of offsetting, hey, even if the UFC's not paying me that much, I can put my own sponsorships on here.

And now I'm making more income and my overall salary is up, even though the UFC's costs are still remaining lower. It was a system that worked. Now the UFC is saying, okay, we're going to insert. institute these policies, you're not going to be able to wear this, that, this, that, this, that, and that, and we're only going to pay you fractions of what that deal is worth. That's the problem. If they were truly getting millions of dollars to wear it, no, I don't have to have that conversation. That's fine. Aaron Judge is also part of a team. It's a team uniform. This is a sport that needs individuality.

Well, they would argue your team UFC. I'll get the fuck out of here. You need individuality. You need that presence to give yourself something to stand out. Sean O'Malley does it by dyeing his hair, different colors before fight and having this big eccentric personality. You know, fighters in the past, Chuck Liddell with the Iceman shorts. Like you use it as a way to separate yourself from other fighters. You become iconic with certain pairs of shorts. Pat, a Yankees fan popped big for just Aaron Judge being mentioned on the show.

Shout out, shout to the Yankees. Yankees first game on Netflix. Did I see that somewhere? Oh, is that true? I didn't know that. Fucking out. Wow. Wow.

Yankees first game on Netflix. That's big. Big Moni. Shout out to the Monaster. Hello, boys. If you won the lottery tonight and money was not an issue tomorrow, aside from starting your own mailman fighting promotion. For sure, that's what I would do.

Of course. There wouldn't be signs. I wouldn't tell anyone that I won the lottery, but there would be signs. Mailman Fight League debuts on Spike TV. Oh, what was that? I also bought Spike TV. What are three things each of you would do or buy? Thanks and go bills.

Why don't we each say one? Frank, what would you go with? I'm going to leave it to you guys to answer to this one. What would you do with unlimited money? I'm going to leave it to you guys to answer this one. Yeah, I just thought maybe he didn't, he wasn't listening, so he wanted him out. As you're re-explaining it to me, Jordan starts talking to it. Literally look over to frank and say you weren't paying attention, were you?

He was not, but you didn't distracted him from when we re-explained it. I'm buying like a fucking sick car that's worth like 40% of what it was worth one, as soon as I drive it off the lot. I'm buying a sick car for sure. I am buying shit and that's going into my bank account and investments. Wow, bank account investments. Cool, man. Take your investments to the grave, bro. I'm buying a real life model-sized working operational R2D2.

By the way, by the way, what level of lottery are we talking here? Like, when you get the $2 million lottery, it's kind of like, eh. Powerball, billies. All right. I would buy a yacht. You're buying a yacht? Spend more money on the stereo system I would put into the yacht. Okay.

That I did on the yacht itself. Actually, with the operational life-size R2D2 replica, I'm also hiring a guy to walk around in a Chewbac outfit 24-7 with me. And he's got to be 7-6? Yep. I don't want to... Yow Ming and a Chubbacah... So, do you money is excuses to...

I don't want to... To ball out? To ball out with the storm. I was going to say, I don't want to beat... respectful but I feel like some of this is frivolous You know what?

You're like, who? How big of a lottery are we talking about? It's fucking money. Real lightsaber, too. That actually cuts. It's a laser. It's an actual laser.

The Kyber crystal and everything. Yeah, it's going to be sick. Did you ever do that, Frank? Do what? The Kyber Crystal, they have that at the Disney Park. No, it's like, what do you think the lightsaber is real?

No, well, kind of. They have, at the Disney parks, they have the thing you can like pick your Khyber crystal, you put it in, you make the actual lightsaber. That's like a thing that people, I see people on TikTok like, like, yeah, yeah, people are

crying that the fact that they got chosen to actually do it, because I think it's not like everybody can do it. I took my email, maybe I was. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, in all honestly, are you guys? Are you guys? Yeah. I enjoy it. I'm not accessible.

I ain't no Time Trek fan. Like, an R2D2 is so iconic. Like, if I'm rolling around with that, people would be like, yo, that guy's fucking sick. And Chewbacca. Is that Chewbacca? Yeah, Chewy. It is.

I mean, you're on a close basis of them. It's just Chewy. Chewy, is that you? It's not Chewbacca, is that you? Yeah, I know. What's up, Chewy? How you doing, bro? Sometimes I like to briefly check the chat, you know, see if anybody's got any good ideas.

During the MVP interview when I was asking about the restaurant, I accidentally looked at the chat. And someone was like, G.C. Ask him about the bathrooms at the restaurant for Frank. People do want to know. Yeah. In all honesty, though, I, I would get I would like get like a sick kitchen

a house with a sick kitchen fully staffed? No, no, no, no, I want to cook for myself. Can I tell you two random things that I've been thinking about? Yes, as you're typing out. I just have to say these things because they're in my head

and I keep forgetting to say one of them. The other one is unrelated and I could have said anytime. First one, I got Project Hill Mary on reserve from the library. Hey! What?

There's so many fucking people that had in me in the queue. I don't know when I'm ever going to get to read this thing. Work right by the biggest bookstores? Nah, I got a library. Bro, it's a fucking $12 book.

Buy a paperback. I'm a library supporter. Come through for me. Nassau a library system. Second thing, this is my take. Okay. And I've been thinking long and hard about this.

I feel like it's a perfect analogy. MMA is in its load management. The UFC, let's not make it MMA. UFC is in its load management era. Okay. UFs, and Ariel has always said this, right? UFC is much, and you know what made me think of this take again

was when I said the Yankees are a team and UFC is the team. Ariel has always said that, right? UFC is much more akin to a franchise than it is to the entire league, right? Because in the entire league of NFL or NBA MLB, you've got all these different owners who have their own stake and have their own motivations and they're working together

to create this thing. But within the team, there's only one ownership group, right? It's this one owner and they decide what happens on that team. Same thing applies to the UFC, right? There's TKO and then there's the UFC management and that determines what happens on this team.

When you think about the NBA in particular, right? This load management thing that's become so popular in sports, all the fighter, I mean, all the athletes, resting, right? It's like, I don't know when I'm going to see Kauai Leonard if I buy a ticket. He might be resting. He might be playing. It's kind of shitty. The product is hurt. There's too many

games, right? All these things are exactly the same problems that the UFC is facing, right? How many times am I going to watch the biggest stars fight? Is Hamzaa Shamaa going to fight or am I just buying a ticket to buy UFC because it's UFC? When is the next time I'm going to see Ilya? Also, to be a fan of this thing, there's way too many games. In the NBA, there's an 82 game schedule. I can't handle all this. There's way too many games. They're so meaningless.

How many apex fight nights do we say that about? I was thinking about this and everything that was talking about mainstream sports, particularly the NBA, when it comes to this load management and the new era of that sport, I was like, these are the same fucking problems that the UFC has. Now,

problem is kind of in quotes, right, because they're making more money than they've ever had. But the fan sentiment, to me, feels exactly the same way as it feels of the NBA, which is like, this product is watered down. There's too many. There's too much in the marketplace. We need less fight nights.

And I don't know when I'm going to see my favorite players because it's like they could be fighting. They could not be fighting. They're so few stars. It's the same kind of thing. All right. Let's keep the comparison. Yeah.

I just want to introduce the new segment. Thoughts from New York. Listen, that was a fucking good one right there. I don't mind that. I was actually thinking of a comparison when I was watching the Daytona 500 and it's more of a fear comparison. Okay. NASCAR back in the early 2000s was massive.

They were selling out 100,000 seat stadiums on a weekly basis. Like it was huge. 100K. 100K people, yeah. Oh, yeah. Like Bristol. Some of these stadiums have had to downsize. Like I went to Dover last year and now it only holds like 60K.

You used to hold like, you got to remember. It's a massive track. Like Talladega holds like 140,000 people or something. And they were selling these people up crazy though. They used to do insane numbers. They had a short track in Bristol that was like 110,000 people that would go there. selling it out. Now they don't sell out any of these places.

The viewership is down like crazy. Yeah, some of these places have downsized. Like, NASCAR is, the golden age of NASCAR is over. Yeah. And it ain't coming back. It kind of seems like it went hand in hand when they lost the tobacco cigarette sponsorship. You're fucking right. When it went from the Winston Cup to the Sprint Nextel Cup.

But that's not even true. Because with guys like Jimmy Johnson was like sponsored by Lowe's and Kyle Bush was sponsored by Skittles and M&Ms. Now, bro, now you watch one. And it's like, dude, I was watching the Daytona 500 and there's like a Tootsie's Panama City Beach, Florida. Oh, my God. What is Chumba Casino? Tyler Reddick is on Michael Jordan's team, and he's sponsored by Chumba Casino.

And Kyle Bush is sponsored by, like, jalapeno, lemon pepper, nicotine pouches. And you're just like, what the fuck even are these companies? Like, it's like a fucking Ricky Stenhouse is Chef Boyardee. And you're like a blue chip sponsor, chef fucking boyardee. We're getting way too deep into the weeds here. This used to be MMS. The golden age of NASCAR is behind us. there's a worry for me

because I don't think it's ever going to come back it's not like it's not like the NFL it doesn't have to stay it wasn't down and now it's not gonna go I don't think it's ever

going to come back up my concern is like we keep saying like well they don't fucking care because they're just gonna keep making money hand over fist hand over fist if the product just keeps

declining and fans just keep tuning out what's to stop it from 20 years from now it being like man no one really watches it anymore now they're going to half sold out arenas

but do you feel like NASCAR was like this though like it kind of levels right it's not a continuous drive. Sure, sure. Because if you're still selling 60 or whatever you're selling, there is a baseline.

But it levels to a point where it's just like, man, there was a golden age and it's past us. I do remember watching the SportsCenter, and they used to do those like, did you know or fun fact? Yeah, yeah. And at one point in like the mid-2000s, NASCAR was the fastest growing sport in America. Hmm, sounds familiar.

Yeah, sounds like something else. I watch a lot. What? Name names. No, we don't do that. Somebody criticized me for that earlier. Keep my fucking name out. I do think that will happen.

I do think we're at a peak right now in MMA. I truly do. I don't think this can continue to go. I also think Paramount overpaid for the UFC rights if I was doing that deal. You know, and Dina White always says like, what the fuck do these idiots know about the business? He's probably right. I probably don't know shit. That feels like an overpay because I don't know that the next competitor was even remotely close to paying that.

I do feel like we're at the peak right now. They're putting on the most shows with the least quality for the most money. money, one of those things is going to have to change. And I think it's going to be that the money is going to go down. And the quality is probably going to stay static. And then we're going to see that sync. Okay. I mean, like, think about it during the Fox deal.

You had like the true golden age with Conradar in 2016. Of course, the sport is exploding. The fights were the best they've ever been by a million miles. It was the heyday right now as we see it. Then they get the ESPN deal and you continue to get new fans. And then you have COVID, which creates a whole new onslaught of fans. but now like how many have grown, how much has the sport grown since like the 2022

to now in terms of fan density and how many people are tuning in now? What's the thing for Paramount? Money-wise, a lot. That's what I'm saying. They're making entertainment-wise, a ton of money. Not a lot, if any. It went down in my opinion.

I'm sure NASCAR was the same way. Yeah. Can I actually like blow your mind for a minute here? Yeah, please. These are the top 20 most attended NASCAR races ever. Number 20, the 2006 Samsung song Radio Shack 500.

Yes. Texas Motor Speedway. 189,000. That's number 20. In attendance. That's number 20. Yeah. So like indie Motor Speedway is the biggest stadium by far.

They hold the top seven. Important question though. Yeah. What is a NASCAR ticket price? Are we talking like... Affordable. It's affordable. Yeah.

Okay. So that's a big difference though. I went last year and it was like 90 bucks. All right. I guess maybe that's comparable to the UFC, right? 19. What's like a nosebleed in the UFC? Fucking like, dude, for UFC Atlanta, I paid $2.20 for no.

Oh, shit, all right. Okay. Number one. Yeah. Ninety-94 brickyard 400. Is it a million? What the fuck is it? 350,000.

Holy shit. Jeff Gordon. 50,000 people. Jeff Gordon was your winner. That is crazy shit. Even non, like Daytona in 2005, 200,000 in attendance. So these speedways still exist, but they've scaled down, basically? No, not all.

of them. Some of them are still that big. I would imagine there was over, there was over Daytona 2026. I would imagine this was six figures for sure. As you can tell, I'm a huge NASCAR fan. I know all about 150,000 in Daytona this year. God. But that's their Super Bowl. Yeah. Like Bristol is not getting that anymore. It is crazy the number of people they can get. But yeah, the scaling on the pricing has to be way different because there's no way people are paying that much of a premium to get there. I don't know I'm not saying that that's what's going to happen But I just do like

We got to call her last week about Tiger Woods And how like there hasn't been a recreation Of a star of that level Like Connor McGregor was the star of Tiger Woods level Will we see a recreation? We just don't know there hasn't been one in PGA And I was just thinking about NASCAR I'm not saying that that's what's going to happen

But sometimes niche sports Like they feel like they're blowing up And then they see a slow decline All I want to say is when people start running with that UFC is in its load management era it originated here that's all I ask that's all I ask when you use my

analogy and it's perfect I was going to say when they cut these and then post them on Twitter and like people are quote tweeting in like biggest fucking dipshits on earth who lets them get in front of a microphone NASCAR and UFC are you stupid it's it's very kind of you to include yourself in that

as you know like I get the I skirted the one last week the one that went mega viral. The Ronda. I guess I wasn't in that one. People are like, this ass clown piece of shit. I'm like scrolling in and I just see it get quote to it and people being like, I hope this guy fucking dies on the way home.

I'm just like, yeah, it was very kind of you, but I accept my position in this ecosystem. I think this is a good one though. I think it is perfectly accurate to say, like the NBA product, which is making a lot of money,

but I think is the worst. it's ever been. The regular season is shit. I've been to three regular seasons games this year, and at all of them. I look at who I'm with, and I'm just like, it kind of feels like we're watching a pickup game. It's shit. Every game I've been to has been like 163 to 158.

Those Apex Fight Nights, got to tell you, they're pickup games. Bro. Their pickup games. Leads me nothing. Like, it's just like, bro. What are we doing here? Yeah. Stevie B.

To all the members of the staff, do you ever find yourself internally and silently referencing the show in the real world? For example, if your partner asks, if you have any milk, do you ever think, who's the check? We've seen examples of people doing this, and no one ever knows what they're talking about because we're a, you know, we're a bit of a niche program here. The biggest one that I've been doing lately is when someone says something to me, like news, exciting, whatever. I say under my breath, I'm just like, oh, wow, congrats. And then they're always like, what did you say? I'm like, yeah, it's cute.

What the fuck? Oh, welcome, yes. Oh, well, congrats. Armist Ruki, and obviously responding to Ariel Hawani. That's a bullshit. Filling him in that. He was a U.S. citizen, right? He was a U.S. citizen.

No one ever knows what I'm talking about. They think I'm a weird over being like, oh, well, congrats. That's it.com. That's it.com. I've been trying to force into my vernacular. It just doesn't. And that's a bullshit. That's a bullshit.

That's a bullshit. That's a dot com. I ran into a doorway the other day, and I popped out with a, my wife was like, are you just doing drops now at all times? So Tracy, you recognize the drop? Absolutely. Oh, my God.

What do you say when you run into a fucking doorway? Like, I give her a hard time about it all the time. If I see her running into a door, I'm like, you're two steps away from a retirement home. Wow. That's mean. Is it mean? Yeah, a little bit. Look, as her partner, that's what you have to do.

You've got to keep an eye out for the signs, right? Yeah. Nice. I find myself trying new foods, and I hit one of the, oh. Oh. Oh. Wow, you had the cadence perfectly. We need to find the OG of that,

because I swear to God, it was to something so stupid. He was, like, texting on his phone. He looks up at where reacting to something. He looks on his phone, and it's like something like someone eating like a bowl of soup, and he's like, oh, look at that. Whoa.

Oh, was it dancing? Is that what it was? He was dancing? Oh. Was Armand dancing? This is a deep, deep reference. What his kid thought he was dancing with his play? It's like,

Mama and dad are they doing it. I got it. Easy, easy, easy there. Yeah, that's a bullshit. Oh, congrats. That's a bullshit. That's a bullshit. Do you think Ariel always talks about

Fred Norris, like going to the tape deck thing and playing the drops and stuff, do you think there are other shows that there are drops or this like viral. Like I feel like Frank has created something here. Dude, there's nothing. There's nothing that brings me greater joy than when like Ariel says, you see a comment and it's a drop.

Yeah. We're literally beating up babies. Beating up babies. Yeah, it's the best. I feel like absolutely kills it. What was the Genesis? Was it Jasmine Jazz DeViscius? Yes, my claim because I did it.

Yeah, exactly. It has to be it. The one that I will claim. Wait, did you play that? He kept pronouncing it. And you just dropped it. Did he know or did you just? Oh, that's fucking great.

That's great. That's great. But the next one that my favorite is the, who me? Okay. This is actually the only one that I try to claim because I told Frank, as soon as it happened, I texted him. And I was like, you have to get that as a drop. because I was sitting in my living room that was when it was Turkey, Alexander Usick, and Tyson Fury in an impromptu Saturday show.

I get a call from Hawaii at like 11 a.m. on a Saturday. He's like, hey man, we got to do a show for Turkey, Tyson, and Alexander Hussein. I'm like, oh, what the fuck? And then I'm sitting there watching it, and Alexander Usick's coach is saying something. And then Ariel's like, who me? Yeah, and he seemed very upset. He was upset. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Something that made no sense, and I literally audibly see. said in my living room. I was like fuck, oh not you, dude. Am I right or wrong on the memory on this? Did I not suggest the oh wow, congrats? Was I not like we should do that? No, that was in shitty

quality. No, that was Rick. That was, that was Frank. That was Frank and I was Frank and on the woke from page. And when you said it, I was like, wait, what the fuck was it? I just needed to hear it enough time. I think you guys were out getting pizzas. Yeah. You guys hate it. It's fine.

Quality shit Great point My man I demanded that one My man It's still one of my favorites He eats it Which is what makes me love it

Well you know because he was frustrated when it happened Yeah Yeah so he was like It's frustrated every time I play it My man It's the best It's the best The drops are amazing

There's so many good ones Who the fuck is we That's a great one Adam Hutchinson Connor blind rank these locations To attend a potential USC fight night event I feel like we got to. Five of them.

Five of them. The event center at muckle shoot casino resort. All right, so that means we're not at, like a UFC event. That means we're probably at a muckle fight. Muckleshoe fight. I'll go three. Smack Metal. Casey Center in Des Moines, Iowa, home of the 2005 Tony Hawk Boom Boom Huck Jam.

Was it the Casey Center? That's what you're saying. No, dude, it was Wells Fargo Arena, home of the 2005 Boom Boom Huck Jam. Let's see. Yeah, it was Wells Fargo Did it update to the Casey Center? Let's find out It was a beautiful arena

Um, Des Moines is I forgot we even went First ever event at Wells Fargo Arena Was? Boom boom hook jump Fuck yeah I gotta wear that I'm boom boom hug jam shirt more

I'm gonna wear that on Thursday Hold me to a chat Um I'm going with four Des Moines was I'll just put it like this I'm not going back to Des Moines No disrespect to Des Moines

Is Casey Center Wells Fargo Did it used to be that? Wells Fargo Arena, Des Moines. Yes. Casey's Center. Wow. What is Casey's?

A gas station? That flows way better. 4.5 on 5300 reviews. Not bad. Oh, until June of 2025. Yeah, it was definitely Los Fargo Arena, bro. I remember it. Yeah, so now it's Casey's Center.

Casey's is a convenience store. Shout out. It fits perfectly with Des Moines. Okay. Three Arena, Tree Arena in Dublin. Ooh. Fuck. I'm gonna go one. I'm gonna go one. That would be unbelievable. 30 million for the kitchen scrap.

To go to the three arena in Dublin. SaskTel, Saskatel arena for UFC Saskatchewan's return. Ooh. No, sorry. Saskatoon's return. Because I believe, isn't that, wasn't that Max Charles won? Wasn't that in Saskatoon? What is Saskatel Arena? That's probably the name of like a local bank. Sports complex. Hockey. hockey arena 15K okay so yeah

okay hold on hold on I need to confirm whether SASTel Center is an arena located in Saskatoon Saskatchewan yeah and the first one was in was at the Saskatel Center in Saskatoon Saskatchewan Saskatchewan Canada Let me just get a

Why is he thinking that you have an association with this one? I think he's just going random The actual one I am associated with is Nova Scotia I'm begging for UFC to go back to Nova Scotia Lest we forget Lewis Brown back in the day Holy shit the Sasquette the Saskdale, Sasktail Center looks abysmal. It looks like an office building in the middle of nowhere.

I'm looking at some, some indoor. Office building in the middle of nowhere, yeah? God, this looks, this looks tough, man. I'm going five for the Saskal Center. No disrespect to Saskatchett one, but it just doesn't roll off the time. We're having a lot of trouble with that. I was going to say it doesn't roll off the time. Both of us are just a Sasktail Center and Saskatoon Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan.

Saskatchewans or art? I feel like Frank right now. Okay. Last one, you mentioned an office building in a random location. The warehouse in the desert. That's too,

because I'd actually love to go to an Apex Fight Night. I think it'd be really fun. I think we should go at some point this year. I think if there's a random enough matchup, who the fuck is we? Do we go support Brady? Do we bring an Averon?

This is not, I feel like we got it from me. Into the Brady Fight Night? And wow, we're in the crowd on the Averon. Ozzy Jack says, hello boys. How do you think the press conference

of Gina Ronda will go with Ariel hosting? Is there any potential heat from them towards Ariel from their past issues? I don't know,

but I'm interested to find out. That's another like interesting angle of the whole thing. But those fighting words. Do, by the way, someone in the chat said

we're struggling with sacks. The boys are struggling with sacks. Saskatoon. Saskatchewan. Fantastic question. I'm very interested. to find out. Are we going to get a Rowdy? Just like

we got an iron? Oh, he's in the introduction. Rowdy! Ronda! Rousy! No, that feels more like Dana introducing Connor, right? Like the fucking... Rating! One of my

greatest tweets of all time. How's the weather outside, Dana? Raining! Did that one do numbers? Yeah. Big numbers. Defending 155 pound This is like fat Dana too

His heads as big as a basketball Pink is all get out All time All time man That's what he had a love for the game Who's got one? You got any more? You got any more?

Just sound it out Yeah You got this I've seen this one a couple of time Mac Mucca says Why are people so quick To devalue our sports best fighters We all do it

but I've seen so many miraculous comebacks I've had to tell myself to stop. Fluffy could still be jammed. Justin Gaitchie has a real chance to beat Alia. I'd give Holloway a good chance and a rematch against Alia as well. Heck, I actually think Yeri could actually beat Alex Breyer in a trilogy.

These guys are special. So rarely is the path to the title so smooth. It's a great point. He's 100% right. As soon as somebody loses, people are like, that guy's shit. It's a very weird thing that happens in MMA. One of my famous examples, of it. I say famous like this is fucking like worldwide shit. But on the show in the

MMA hour days, everybody used to say Michael Bisbing will never be a champion. He's going to be the greatest to never win a title. And I was like, he's somebody who's willing to fill in on short notice at the drop of a hat. He's somebody who's always going to be in a great fight. He can fight. He's a top level guy. He's going to be around for a long time. Don't count him out. And then obviously, you know, we know the head. history. He steps in on short notice. He fights Luke Rockold. He beats him. But this guy's 100% right. As soon as somebody loses, it's like Fluffy lost, he lost us on Shreckland after this long win streak. He'll never be a champion again. Why? Why not? What makes you say that? Like,

there's so much time. It's a sport where the fans are so fickle. I don't know if it's because you're watching when a guy loses. It's typically a guy getting beat up that you're watching. I don't know if it's that or just how long it takes to get the road corrected. But yeah, man, And I'm guilty of it a lot as well. The fickleness of this sport is, it moves quickly. Yeah, it's bizarre, but I would like to see the opposite. I would like to see when fighters lose much more supportive. Like, back in the day, it used to be like, you'll get them next time, champ.

And now it's just like, fuck you, you suck. I hate you. It speaks to what we were talking about earlier with just like the overall negativity. All right. I got one more. All right. Hit us. Last one.

Question for Rick. Have you ever thought about doing some sort of YouTube? movie review channel. Always really enjoy your insights of movies and whatnot and also any recommendations of any new horror thriller movies. There hasn't been a good one out, but I did just see a trailer for, and maybe Frank knows what this is.

That's actually, I have to tell you this real quick. Backrooms? Did you see the trailer for this? That one looks sick. Are you familiar with backrooms though? No, that's what I was going to ask you. Do you know about, like, it's a creepy pasta, right? Essentially, yeah. So it's the idea of just like liminal spaces, like, but backrooms itself, like if you deep dive on it, it's supposed to be like an alternate reality where it basically is just a bunch of empty cubicles

and you're walking around an office. But some people really let their imagination take hold. Wasn't it a specific creepy pasta that people found? Right, but it has been, what's the word? It's propagated and changed. I guess we've become focalry at this point, right? But there's not a lot of new horror right now. Um, there's some trailers for some good ones upcoming.

I'm trying to look at... I was telling my barber the other day. I'm like, have you seen it follows? He's like, nah, I never got a chance to watch that. I was like, oh, they're making a sequel called They Follow. It was like, what does it have like a blue-haired liberal chick in it? Wow. Got them.

Got them. Well, you find yours movies I'm looking forward to. Probably Tell Mary, for sure. Can't wait to see that one. Can't wait to read that book. Odyssey this summer. Dune 3. still coming out this year?

Yep, yep, yep. Toy Story 5. Don't sleep on it. Avengers. This ain't horror? This is shit. Are you watching the new Sonic, Frankie? I know you're big on this.

Absolutely. That's not until next year. But yeah, man. Yeah, I can't wait. Devil We're proud of two. You're going to go see it, Frankie? Oh, absolutely. I'm not kidding.

I actually liked the first one, man. We were singing the song together the other day. What song? The intro song. Mama-mea. Beautiful girl. Yeah, Banger. cast, a banger movie. I didn't know they were coming out

with a second one. I felt like an old ass man. I was sitting on the couch and I was watching the Today Show drinking a cup of coffee and a commercial. That is old man shit. A newspaper with you too. That's Mac. In my fucking recliner. And then a commercial for devil's Devil's Ware's Prada 2 came on and I was like,

what the hell's this? Huh? I didn't know this was coming out. Dad joke. Yeah, my roommate was like, yeah, no shit. You stupid fuck. It's like, they're bringing back the entire class. Okay, grandpa. Time for your apples sauce. I was like, huh? They're making a second one. Speaking of Meryl Streep, recently watched Mamma Mia. You guys are Abba fans?

No. I'm not, but... It's Abba. What? It's not, though, right? It's just a look on the street. It's short for Abelies. Shots of Pierce Bronson, James Bond.

Brozman. I thought it was pretty good. Shots of Pierce, Brosden, James Bond, legend. The biggest takeaway? Yeah. This guy was like the epitome of, like, handsome masculinity. He was fucking James Bond. Yes.

Completely normal teeth. Now everyone... Oh, they got the... Veneered up. Everyone's got fake teeth now. No one can go without getting the fake teeth. It's the Hollywood thing. And the fight game.

Everybody in the fight game. Influencer game. Everyone's got fake teeth. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's... Not starting a movie channel. Not my lane. Do love movies, though.

Love talking about movies. The one that I'm looking forward to the most that I was passing around the trailer, and I feel like Frank would like this, there's a film coming out called Undertone on March 13th, and it's about a podcast host getting sent like terrifying recordings. Oh, I saw that.

I saw it. That is what I'm fucking looking forward to. And that's... I'm seeing, I'm seeing like a lot of, a lot of like, I don't know if it's just marketing tweets, but people being like, I saw a screening for this and like, I thought I was going to have a heart attack last 10 minutes. I thought I was going to shit my pants. That's the one.

Yo, sneaky. What? It would be real back in the game? Hoppers, the new Pixar movie, where the woman turns into a beaver, and then she has to, like, get back into her body. Let's see. It looks fantastic. I've seen a bunch of trailers for it. It actually looks like it could be a funny Pixar movie.

You're not a Pixar guy. He's a huge Pixar. You were fucking screaming the praises. You were in here banging the drum for Zootopia 2 best picture. You were like, Oscars! Oscars! You know what? That's it.

Pound-Pixel movie is this Thursday. Frankie, another one, Super Mario Galaxy movie, come up. We gotta go see that. I'm actually running through it right now. 24 stars deep. The movie. No, no, no, the game. Solid.

What else is coming out? You, me, and Tuscany? That feels like a Jordan one. Jordan's actually watching a screener right now. Oh, is that the one where the girl goes to Tuscany says she's engaged to the grandson, and he's actually not there? Yep. Yep.

I just want to mention something, by the way. You know, yes, I love Zootopia, too, but I don't just pick, like, anything really-nilly. the highest grossing Hollywood animated film of all time. Sure. You know, best picture, I don't know. I mean, best actress. It means anything to you, Rick.

You shit all over Lord of the Rings. That's true. That's very true. They win Oscars? Also, I know Andy. That's unfortunate. Andy has been fucking dying to see this. It doesn't come out for a few more months.

It doesn't come out for a few more months. Is the new, uh, what's his name? Hugh Jackman movie, the sheep detectives. And he's been talking about that one nonstop. She honestly since we saw the commercials, has not stopped talking about it. I saw that and I was like Is this real?

It looks so good man Is this real? It's real. It's Hugh Jackman with a bunch of sheep. This looks like a fucking S&L sketch. So I actually started I was like this is probably actually very funny

But also Have the Mighty fallen? Like what's going on? Okay, all right, all right, all right. First things first. Bella Ramsey also in it. Brian Cranston is the voice of the main sheep. So like it actually could be a sneaky banger.

There is no Mighty has fallen with Hugh Jackman. Real ones know? Who's seen movie 43? Anybody? I've seen it. You have to go watch that movie. No, you don't.

Complete absurdity. Yes, the fuck you do. MMA fans would love movie 43. Hugh Jackman is, it's a, it's like a, what's a parody? It's a spoof. No, it's a parody, but it's like, it's cut up in different pieces. Yeah, yeah. It's like a, what's the word?

Yeah. No, it's not a mockumentary, but it's like, what's it like, what's REC or DHS? Anthology. And it's an anthology. It's a bunch of different scenes. It's like sketches. Sketches is. is a perfect way to put it.

For room. Hugh Jackman is in a sketch where he goes on a date with a woman and he has a ball sack on his neck. And like he gets the soup on it and gets cold in the restaurant. And no one acknowledges it and it's ridiculous. So like sheep detective is is not any lower than ball sack on the neck for movie 43. For sure. And no thing was his peak. Movie 43 is also the most stacked movie cast of all time.

Kate Winslet is in this, Halliberry Berry. Chris Pratt is in it Terrence Howard Elizabeth Banks Gerard Butler Like every Is it just Calvin? I mean just based on this Yo Jared Dudley's in it

Shout out Jared Dudley Who is Chris Pratt with Anna Anna Farris? Yeah he gets shit on my air Ferris like it's it's such a ridiculous movie if you have Julianne Moore Everybody is in this It's so bad

Remember when like movie stars used to just do bad movies for the paycheck Like it was just a thing What was the name of like do that. Look at all the Marvel shit. No, stop that. Stop that. Stop that. You said it. You said Madam Webb was shit. That was shit, but

Okay. And do you think they did that for the artistic integrity? Like, I'm talking more like, what was the, when they had the string of holiday ones where it's like, it's Valentine's Day. It's, no, not love actually. Cones. No, no, I know what you're talking about. They had New Year's Eve and they had

Valentine's Day. This. It's the same premise. This era. Valentine's Day was everyone's in it. Yeah. You should not that bad of movie, George Lopez, Ashton Coucher. How could it be good? It's not that bad. The

Movie 43 cast is actually insane. Emma Stone. It's better than this Valentine's Day that I'm looking at right in. By the way, Jessica Alba in that one. Yeah, yeah, she's the main love interest. She breaks Ashton Cushar's heart.

Sin City. Anne Hathaway's in Valentine's today? Shout out Gary Marshall. Gary Marshall knows how to turn him out, you know? Bro, the the insane budgets for these movies. So yeah, anyway. Movies.

They're coming out. Movies are great. Movies are great. Connor recently watched Predator. In a word. Mother's Day. Yo. Biceps. These are Gary Marshall's last three films. Motherfuckers got pipes in that movie, man. When they do the arm wrestling handshake, it's so good. And then, yeah,

none of them wear sleeves the entire time. Gary Marshall, rest in peace, dies in 2016. These are Gary Marshall's last three films. Oh, God. Mother's Day? New Year's Eve. Valentine's Day. Mother's Day. Let's just pick the holiday.

We'll have 100 fucking movie stars in it, and we just go. We just go. We did it with historical events. Like we had Titanic, Pearl Harbor. Who's in Mother's Day? Those are a good movie. Yeah, I didn't even know Mother's Day was one. That's a great one.

Jennifer Aniston, Kate Hudson, Julia Roberts, Jason Siddakis. What the fuck? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Motherfuckers were... I think we need it. These paychecks must have been insane. Oh, yeah, for sure.

Dog shit movies for a big. price tag and it's kind of like feel good. I've watched Valentine's Day a couple times. What? Yeah, on Valentine's Day. That's the point of it. There's replayability with it. But this is not the same as Love actually. Love actually is a different tier than this. Oh yes. Love actually is elite. Trying to get

on the heels of it. It's doing that, yes. For sure. For sure. All right, I think that'll just about do it for us. No, we got more. We got. Final Tuesday program officially in the books. Super Chats. I forget them every fucking day. Didn't a bunch of people sign up for Interstellar as like a gag? Zufa overpaid to get Connor Ben.

He is a good boxer, top 10 guy, but he is not worth 15 mil in the boxing world. I'm not even certain he's a top 10 guy in all of boxing. No, he's probably not, but boxing price tags are different. Yeah, of course. I think he's somewhere in this range. Think about Terence Crawford just retired. Obviously, I understand pound for pound great. One of the greatest boxers that we've ever seen.

The price tag that people are offering to lure him back, they're just like, oh yeah, you're really retired? And he's just like, yeah. And they're like, what about if you get $100 million? And they're saying that seriously. Yeah. A hundred million for a fight. Yep. No, boxing is way different.

I think most MMA fans are not understanding or used to what the price tags are and why somebody like Francis and Gano. Like the whole conversation when Francis and Gano was making his decision was like, what an idiot? He left the UFC. They offered him what? And it's like, dude, you don't know. even fucking know what he's about to make in the boxing world. Now, granted, he's got his two boxing fights in. I wonder if he'll ever box again.

But the money he made there is generational wealth compared to what he was going to make in MMA. And then he also got the PFL deal to couple with it. Boxing money is way different. Boxing money is way different. The estimated reports of Floyd Medweather for Manny Pachio, and I understand that's one of the original or this upcoming one projected. The original.

The real one, yeah. approximately 220 to 260 million for Mayweather. The only difference there with Mayweather, and this is an important note the same way it is with Jake Paul, he is also the promoter, right? Yeah. And so in addition to just his purse, which is very, very high,

he also pays himself on the gate, on the promotion, on the blah, blah, blah, yada. Mani Pack, Yale reported 130 to 130 to $130 million in your bank. It's fucking insane. Yeah, so boxing money is different. And that's what year was that? 2016. 2016.

So we're now 10 years later than that. Connor Ben's worth a lot of money. Conor Ben is worth what people will pay for. The correct read on that is not, Connor Ben is not worth $15 million. The correct read on that is worth $30 million. That's the correct analysis

when you're doing that kind of calculation. It's not that. It's the opposite of that, which is Alex Pereira, Ilya, Elia Toporia, Isam Makachev should be getting paid five times what they're getting paid. getting paid if not more.

One UFC fighter don't have leverage, but at the UFC fighters unite to speak up, it can make a difference on the long term. Yes, but how is it going to happen. It's not several. It's dozens. You need dozens. They have 700 fighters on the roster. You need dozens of power players to be like, I ain't fighting until it change.

Yeah. Beaslebe says, love y'all. Love you too, buddy. The thing with Zufa, they are not playing. Turkey is pain. They are paid by Turkey is paying. They are paid by Turkey to promote. Dana said that at the beginning, it's not our money.

That's right. The Hamzok glaze is crazy when all he did was hugged DDP for 25 minutes with zero submission attempts. What do you mean the Hamzog glaze is crazy? We're saying that he is a fantastic fighter, which he is. He's one of the most exciting fighters on the roster. He had one boring performance. Like, even go back to the other decisions that he's been in, the Gilbert Burns fight was a war. The Kamarer Usman fight was a great fight over 15 minutes, and he finishes everyone else in the first round.

Like, broke Robert Whitaker's face. Literally pushed Robert Whitaker, a former champion's teeth back into his mouth. Like, what is with the glaze? What is with the hate? Why do you all hate these fighters after one bad performance? I don't understand it. And bad, where he dominated the champion for 25. three the champion. Yeah, man.

Like, you don't fucking like Hamzad, don't watch his next fight, man. Like, I don't understand. Weird energy. That was the last one. Uh, yeah. I mean, when it comes to like the, the turkey is, is paying for it. Yeah, he's the facilitator, but like, still, they're choosing to spend it on on Connor Ben, and I understand that Turkey is

boxing aligned, but like, they essentially have unlimited money, and like, this is how they're... By the way, that's no different than any other organization. There's very few that are not backed by some kind of funding, right? Like, it's not coming out of Dana White's pockets the same way it's not coming out of Adam Silver's pockets, the same way it's not coming out of the GM's pockets. Like, there's always money backing it.

There's, like, that is money that's given to Zufa to spend on what they will. And so they're deciding and probably in conjunction with Turkey to spend it this way. But that doesn't mean that the money is not the same as money that anybody else is spending, right? If Turkey decided tomorrow to instead invest that money with Matchroom and Eddie Hearn, then Eddie Hearn has the access to that power. It's no different than anybody else. It doesn't give them some kind of like ability to do something that anybody else couldn't. You have to have those power players, though.

That's the difference. And they do. 60% investment in Zufa boxing, they're going to be powerful. And everybody on this show from myself to Connor to Ariel to Pizzi has acknowledged, knowledge, like, I don't think people know the Zufa thing that's coming their way, and you hear Eddie Hearn talking about, I think, I think this week was an eye opener. I think this week was an eye opener. And Max Kellerman is already calling the game over in some quotes that we read today. This is going to be a rough battle for everybody else. Yeah, they have the backing of Turkey Al-Sheek,

and then Nick Con and Dana White and all of Tadio. And Ari Emanuel. And Ari Emanuel. These, these, these are men who are not familiar with failing. They are familiar with massive success. in their life and now there are points where they have opportunities to do so again. Yeah, they are a player in this boxing space. There is no doubt. Someone in the chat does mention on that when we were saying Floyd and Pacio and he was like the guy on the undercard is, you know, getting paid 2K. I said that earlier. That is our point.

Like we agree, UFC, the middle guys, the lower guys is like they are taking care of those guys better than boxing. Yeah. Boxing at the top end, you want to see the stars. That's right. get paid. All right, that's all the Super Chats. C-TMMA 808 in the chat keeps saying, this is two days in a row, I paid $10 for a Super Chat.

What is going on? What did you say, CTMMA 808? What'd you say, bro? Okay, can we find it? Type it in the chat, bro. Wait, but is it not? Can we not? Hold on. Let's see it. Let's see it. Found it. This is the biggest news. Dana White says that U.S.C. will work with

Alex Pereiro on whatever he wants to do next. John Jones versus Alex is the main event at the UFC White House, bookmark this place. Okay. All right. There it is. It's been bookmarked. Thank you for the $10, by the way, as well.

Sorry if we missed it yesterday. Yeah. I don't know if that's true, but it's been bookmarked. Alex Pereira is in a position where he should be treated that way, right? Like, he has done enough for the company that he should get to call a shot. I hope it's at heavyweight, and that'd be a lot of fun. All right. Brang you anything else?

That's going to do it for us, baby. That is it for the final Tuesday edition of The Boys in the Back. We are back to our regularly scheduled programming starting next Monday. We still got tomorrow. Classic interviews with Halwani. That'll be out on the channel at 1 p.m. Eastern. Make sure to watch that. Some very good ones that he goes back through and sort of explains what was going on at those times.

We're back on Thursday. Crack on Friday. And then Monday, the big dog back in the chair. Can't wait for it. Appreciate you watching. We'll see you on Thursday. world.