The Ariel Helwani Show - UFC White House: Live report, security deep dive, historical context, more | The Craic

Episode Date: June 12, 2026

The Craic is back with its usual trio of Petesy Carroll, Chuck Mindenhall, and Ben Fowlkes. This week, all roads lead to the UFC‘s White House card. On site in the nation’s capital, Chuck shares his observations ahead of attending the historic event in person (04:31). The lads then lock in their official Uncrowned picks (24:51). Security has also become a major talking point surrounding the event. Drawing on insight from former Secret Service agents, Ben breaks down how the operation could work behind the scenes (41:36). Elsewhere, Conor McGregor made headlines due to the New York Times reporting he used ”banned drugs" while recovering from his devastating leg injury. The boys give their thoughts on the revelation (01:01:36). Fellow Irish superstar Katie Taylor has officially sold out Croke Park in 30 minutes. Petesy shares the mood in Ireland ahead of the historic occasion (01:11:58). To round things out, the lads talk World Cup buzz (01:16:35) before answering your Super Chats (01:23:06).

We're nearly there, ladies and gentlemen. Very, very close, crackheads. We are two days away now. From UFC Freedom 250, UFC at the White House, whatever you want to call it, some massive fights going down. One of the most unique backdrops to a fight I think we'll ever see is going to happen on Sunday.

A lot of people feel a lot of different ways about it, of course, and we've talked about that for probably the last 11 months. It's a long, long time to be talking about an event, but we're nearly there. We're nearly ready to sink our teeth into some fantastic fistic fury on the south lawn of the White House. How crazy is this?

It's absolutely insane. But there are some delicious fights to look forward to, of course, on Sunday. We're in the midst of a World Cup, of course. The New York Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs are going out in the NBA finals. There's a lot happening. But I think for Sunday,

the world is going to be transfixed on the UFC, on the White House, on our sport, and I cannot wait to see how it goes down. And before we bring in my beautiful co-hosts, two of the greatest journalists of all time, we've got a quick message from our friends over at Kalshi. That's right. This episode is sponsored by Kalshi,

the largest prediction market in the United States. Here's what makes Kalshi different. You are not playing against a house. Kalshi is peer-to-peer trading. You buy yes or no contract on whether something, will happen and you're trading directly against other users. Think of it like buying or selling a stock. The line isn't set by some algorithm working against you.

Public opinion sets the price. Calci is C-F-T-C-approved, federally regulated, which is why it's available all across the country, including California and Texas. Download the Calci app and use code Crack, C-R-A-I-C, to get $10 when you trade $10. K-A-L-S-H-H-I. Calci. Trade what's next.

And thank you very much to our beautiful friends over at Calci. And now I can introduce my wonderful friends, Chuck Bendenhall, all the way over in Washington, D.C., and Ben, folks, who's just in his house like me. But, I mean, you know, that's okay. I mean, we're allowed to be in our house. Chuck, you're more important than us. You are... Is it the nation's capital?

It's a nation's capital, right? The nation's capital. Yeah, yeah, man. Yeah, that's where the White House is, a nation's capital. Bro. I know now, okay? I won't ask again. I want to talk about Chuck's hotel room back there.

That looks like a nice hotel room. What's going on with the expenses on this one? Because when I stay at a hotel, I'm budget conscious. I'm thinking about the big picture. Chuck is over here. Just wheeling and dealing. What's going on? You can make all that out from just seeing this bed right here?

This is about the entire room, Ben. I'm not going to lie to you. This is not a very expensive hotel. There aren't any bullet holes in the wall. walls or anything. I don't understand. That's true. That part is true. I haven't seen any. Um, so that's good. And honestly, that's all I'm looking for. If it's without bullet holes, I'm okay, staying here. It's a rope. You got a free rope in there? There's no rope. Oh, there is an iron. I take it all back. I take it all back. You tuned in from a hotel room.

I believe there was a snack counter. I don't see a snack counter on chooks. Okay. Look, that was me traveling on personal business when there was a snack count. And that is a thing. This has been an issue. When I travel with my wife sometimes and I'm tagging along while she's going to dance events and things like that. And when she picks the hotel, let me tell you, I ain't no snack counters around. When I picked the hotel, snacks. Snacks. I'm going first class or I don't go at all.

It's become a thing. We're planning a trip coming up. And I'm just like, oh, we're flying into Newark. You can fly into Newark if you want. I'm a LaGuardia, man. okay i'm just that's just the way it is and you're going to have to deal with it i'm more of a helipad man they just put me on a roof somewhere you know what i mean big time i'm chuck mendinghall hey hey hey hey hey hey we we're on bart time here chuk had to get a late checkout just so we could be on the show

with us today and give us a down loan because i've got uh i've got street cred with these people i can't do it i can't do it they won't let me chook tell us give us give us what you have seen so far since you've been in Washington, D.C. Have you seen the claw? I believe you have. And what up close and personals have you got with the, uh, the event so far? Well, so far, I've seen the claw pretty up close, but I was not able to go down and really look inside of it, you know, like some of these, uh, these other guys, but I could see enough. It's a complete obstruction.

It looks like a huge bouncy castle like in front of the, uh, you know, in front of the white house. Um, but it's, it is fairly impressive, man. And like, you know, anybody who knows you're here covering it. wants to talk about it, you know, and I feel like some people have the, the feeling that it's just like anywhere else, right? Like some people are like, what is going on these locals here, like Uber drivers and stuff like that? And some people are like, oh, this is going to be fun, you know? So it's even wildly split here. But it's been a long time since I've been out to DC.

So to see something like that is very, it's crazy, right? Near all the monuments and these Marmorial like pillars that are all over the place. And like you're going by and then you see this big structure sitting in front of, front of the White House. It's been, it's been pretty cool. But I will say that so far, I had to kind of hit the ground running. I had to come in on yesterday morning, Thursday morning, rather than Wednesday night. And I immediately went to the U.S. Department of State. And I saw them, I saw Dana sign in the, you know, whatever that is, the MOU with Marco Rubio. And that was an interesting experience. And really, that was my first up close non-political. I'm kidding, of course,

political like very political look as to like how people are seeing it I think you know what I mean like some of the local politicians and some of the you know the local fanfare out here very very strange setup over there man I know you have an article coming out about this uh I think it just went live as a matter of oh pretty yeah I'll try and get it up here before before you go but are you around MMA media or is it you know political media when you're there covering that event And what's their reaction to all of this? I believe I was the only MMA person there. I'm not kidding when I say this.

Like it was all local Washington, you know, Bloomberg and like, you know, CNN. I was like all of that. And then me who was like, you know, just a stranger in a strange land. It was very different. And it was funny to hear because they kind of shuffle you in, which was really funny because they made us ride like a service elevator up to where we're going and through the kitchen with the help and all that stuff through a kitchen. Like Goodfell's.

just like Goodfellas. But it's funny to hear the takes of media that are not MMA media and, you know, how they're talking about it. And, you know, it's clear that they haven't really paid much attention to it until they're forced to. And so there's like this, there's an automatic divide. But that, I mean, we knew that this was going to be a very bizarre thing, but to kind of see that up close and personal and hear the little jokes about cage fighting, like them referring to it as cage fighting and that being a big deal.

And, you know, there was one person who was making a joke like, so that's, that's, that's America's, uh, diplomacy is like, punching people in the face. That's our, you know, they're, they're astonished by this and like there was all these jokes going on. I mean, that sort of thing. I'm like, for MMA people, this is kind of gold, you know, so I felt like it's all, I included a little bit of that in the piece, just kind of observing the other part of the media that's covering this. That is weird. I mean, I've thought about this as we've gotten closer to this event because I kept waiting. for it to really feel like it was ramping up. And I thought, all right, fight week is when it'll happen where people start to go, all right, huge thing happening. And it was slow to happen. And then it seems like kind of all at once, the last day or two, people being like, oh, holy shit, this is actually going to happen. Isn't that weird? I saw, here's the thing that I thought was interesting. I saw a poll out, this is from a Reuters article that came out yesterday. And it was basically talking about how there aren't many people willing to profess support for this whole event and the whole idea. It says few Americans, including only a third of Republicans, approve of President Donald Trump's plan to hold mixed martial arts cage matches at the White House on Sunday to celebrate U.S. history.

Just 16% of Americans said it was appropriate for Trump to hold the ultimate fighting championship event scheduled for his 80th birthday, just a coincidence, by the way, while 46% says it was inappropriate. Was that your parentheses? That was my. Parentheses, mine. 46% said it was inappropriate and the rest didn't offer an opinion which is a big chunk of people who were like asked in this poll do you think it's appropriate to have this fight on the White House lawn and they went

I don't know and you know did they go I don't know because they hadn't heard about it because they just weren't like really aware of it because that's a big chunk of people for a poll like this to just be like yeah I don't have an opinion on this either way especially since it just sort of reminded me we've been in the bubble, right? We're hardcore in this. We've been hearing about

this for almost a literal year. They started talking about it last summer, like last July, where Trump starts to float the idea. Right. So we've been hearing about it forever. We've been fantasy matchmaking this thing forever. It's finally here. It feels to us like the eyes of the world are upon it. And yet that is actually not the case when you look at some of this poll numbers to the other people, I keep wondering, is the information that's filtering down to them just a big WTF? What is this? What is happening? It's a big part of it. You know, Rubio speculated when he was talking that over a billion people would be tuned in. Power slaps numbers. Those are power slat numbers. So I just wanted to see what you guys might have thought of that.

Okay, that actually, that did annoy me. They, and it annoying me not for the reasons. that you think, right? Because it's annoying, I think that you go out there and you say, we're expecting over a billion. Well, shit, if we're just expecting stuff, why stop at a billion? Why not 10 billion, man? Why not every man, woman and a child on the planet of the earth, plus the population of some other planets are going to tune in to watch this. Like, we're just saying stuff, right? And that I get, we're doing, you know, the entire Trump administration, they love hyperbole, love to just like hype stuff up that fits very well with a fight promoters mentality, which is always every fight is the biggest one ever. The next one is going to be

bigger than that. That all, I guess, is to be expected. But to me, when I hear them come out and be like, no, this entire thing is on Paramount Plus, the entire thing. It's exclusive to Paramount Plus. That tells me you're not trying for a billion. You're not trying for a huge record setting audience. You're trying for Paramount Plus subscriptions. That's what you're trying for. Because it's like if you were trying for the biggest possible audience, it'd be on CBS and Paramount. You know, you put it on every possible platform you could to try to get as many eyes as possible. I also went and looked at what is on CBS on Sunday nights. Oh, good. I was just about to ask.

It was just because I was like, hey, maybe they got something big, right? Maybe they got something they couldn't move it. Reruns. It's reruns. It's they got an episode of Marshalls, the spinoff from Yellowstone, but it's an old episode that debuted last month. Then they got an episode of Tracker, a new show, but it's still a rerun. then another episode of Marshalls.

Also a rerunt, Landman. Some Paramount Plus stuff beats you don't get a twisted. Get your subscription if you really want to slamming. Go with Ben. But you're not even doing anything with CBS that night. You're not, like you're not busy.

You've got like a live golf event earlier in the day. This is live sports. Hang on. So there's no, there's no fights on CBS. No, does not seem that way. It's all Paramount Plus.

But, yeah, that's, that was that not the whole, like from, right, from an outside of America perspective, the only possible way they could have,

you know, in theory, when you look at the subscription numbers on Paramount Plus versus Netflix, and the idea that we're all talking about that 17 million, the only way that could have happened, based on my conversations with American people, was if the fights were on CBS.

Is that incorrect? I mean, Paramount Plus has 79 million subscribers from last we heard. So if every single one of them watched it, you do a really good number that falls still, you know, well, well short of a billion, but not every one of them going to watch it. You are going to pick up some subscribers, I'm sure, but it really does tell you that, like we talked about when we were discussing that Hollywood Reporter article,

all the quotes we heard from TKO executives, from Paramount executives, it really seemed to suggest their focus is on what this event can do for Paramount and not what this event can do for the UFC, its popularity, its visibility. that that seems like a real missed opportunity to me because I know obviously you align yourself with with Trump this heavily there's going to be backlash to it there's going to be people who don't like it it's going to be people who normally would watch your stuff who probably won't watch this one just because they can't stand it but you are you were in a good position here to pick up some curiosity viewers the people who just heard that this was happening and they're like this is weird I got to see what this is like and maybe some of those people become your fans maybe some of those people just got that they like that they like you know like this sport. You had an opportunity there and to instead turn it around and make it so that we're just going after the short money. We're just looking for subscribers that we can pick up on the night. That to me is a disappointment. And it just says like, okay, so we're not thinking about growth of this sport. We're not thinking about like using this. As much as they said, like this is a long term opportunity. They're not really treating it that way. And that I think is frustrating, especially if you're going to then turn around talking about how you think you're going to get a Billy. Paramount is like the set. ranked streaming service. You know? Yeah.

Like, you're not doing. It is for now, Ben. Wait a little. Wait till one day. The numbers come in. Wait, the numbers come in. So Chuck, Chuck, tell me, tell me, right.

So the next two days are fairly packed in terms of media schedule. What, what are you, what are you planning to do? What can you do? And do you know where you'll be stationed during the fights? Well, the UFC hasn't been as accommodating as I was hoping. Now, I'm giving them some. I blame Ben. I blame Ben for that.

That's all me. They do, they do have like, you know, like a huge amount of media here. And obviously this is like legacy media that expands so many different, uh, you know, so many different realms. It's like even just going to radio, I wanted to go there because they're, they have a radio row, which is very Super Bowl or like Connor versus Mayweather. I was like, I wanted to go there having, uh, seen that type of thing and just kind to get the temperature of that, be like, what is this compared to the others? But I can't go in there because, uh, they said that it's full. Um, so it's either I'm going to try to

crash that party or I won't be allowed in there, Peezy. So it's like, this is the kind of things I'm these are the kinds of things I'm running into out here. Um, but I'm definitely going to be checking out, uh, the press conference, which is at the Lincoln Memorial and this, you know, as much as we're talking about, you know, the octagon on the West lawn and, and attitudes toward that and the polls that Ben is mentioning, this is the one that I most like, you know, you, we most want to see the reaction of like, because you're now at the Lincoln Memorial where so many historic things have taken place and there's such a reverence to this place and that, you know, you see the pictures of them setting,

it all up. And it just, this, this to me is, if you're talking about like something being defiled, this seems like the event that, uh, really? A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I think so. I mean, I, I've heard more people talk about the Lincoln Memorial than I have about the lawn, to be honest. How about you? I mean, Ben, has that been accurate? I mean, I feel like a lot of people are concerned about that. Well, when I saw the, that lawsuit that they tried to file to try to try to preemptively stop this thing. And one of the things I saw no to either in the lawsuit or it was a quote in in some story in response to loss to somebody was like,

these are the images that will be in U.S. history textbooks when people look back on this administration, perhaps saying we can't believe the crazy shit that went on, it will be a press conference of Josh Hokit standing up there doing his bit in front of the Lincoln Memorial, where Richard Nixon was once confronted by Vietnam protesters in the middle of the night, and now we're out here and we're selling a fight, basically.

and that that would be held up as a visual shorthand, like an immediate symbol of sort of the corruption of the administration, but also like their willingness to just do whatever, even if it broke all norms and like sense of like historical perspective. And so like I do think that as a visual will be pretty strong. And I will like that's the kind of thing that I'm talking about where I'm like, how many people are going to sort of brown in to awareness of this and kind of go, wait a minute. I remember hearing a headline or something, but there's been a lot in the news. You could be forgiven if your attention was taken in other directions and you forgot about the UFC event on the White House lawn. And then you start to see some of that and you go, wait a minute,

are we just doing like crass commercialism at historic U.S. political sites like that? Is that what we're doing now? Like, I think that that will be kind of shocking to some people. It'll also be, I'll be very interested to hear Chuck's take on it. I was furious too, Chuck. Like, for one thing, when, Like, did you have to go, uh, did the credentialing process get more stringent than usual? It wasn't just like, here's a headshot of me.

You guys know who the hell I am giving my credential. They had you fill out in advance, um, you know, some paperwork before this event even happened. And then we all had to go to the hotel Washington. And this is the check in the basically the hub for people. And they, you know, they retake your picture. They go through that process. And then this, the particular credentials, I guess are different. I mean, like there are some that get you.

into any of these pre-event activities that we're talking about. And then there are some obviously that have, you know, they have access to the lawn and things like that more so than the general, the general press credential. So it has been vetted in me, but there was a, when I went in there, it was, which was yesterday, there was, there was a pretty big line. It was like 20 people and I didn't recognize a single person. You know, normally if you go into that situation, you know most of the people.

This was, it's just a completely different setup for this thing. I want to find out, like, honestly, one of the questions I have is, like, how many people are credentialed in general for this event, you know, like media turnout? Because they've talked about that as an unprecedented number as well. So, and separating fact from fiction, like, I knew it would, would be coming the, you know, that would be part of this process. It's just trying to figure out because I don't know how many people, like, of the people who are like more of the political bin or like they're, you know, Washington. I don't care if they, I mean, I don't know if they care the Dana White. Like, we're nitpicking over like, they didn't even know each other. Donald Trump didn't play a role into, you know, these early UFCs and all that.

If he did, it was just this small role. It wasn't like this major. I just don't get the sense that they care. Like just in general conversations, that part of it, they just don't care about, which I was like, wow, you guys are browbeaten with these signs of like, you know, just being told and having to accept that narrative. Very different than we're used to, man. Do you know where you be?

What are the town's law bartenders saying, by the way? What's that? What are the bartenders of Washington, D.C. saying it's important. That might be later tonight, Ben. You look for my piece tomorrow. We'll see what they have to say. It's an important piece of journalism. Every time you're on the road.

You want the truth. That's where you go. Tell me, joke. Where do you believe you'll be stationed or does that come at a later time where you'll find out during the fights themselves? I'm in the media center. And as far as I know, it's, I think it's at the JW Hotel. I honestly don't really know that for a fact because it's there's a lot of information like going

around lots of different schedules and all this stuff. But from what I understand, that's where it's supposed to be. I even asked that when I checked in at the hotel, the Washington and they, they're like, I don't know. I'm not sure where that's at. You know, and I'm like, okay, great. So it's one of those situations. I'm sure that it is all like laid out, but the communication has been a little, it's been

a little lacking, I think, so far. Do you think that's by design? Do you think that there's a... Maybe. Well, I mean, we didn't even know, like, when do we find out that it's going to be exclusively on Paramount Plus? I feel like there's a... Yeah.

I mean, it's all kind of like this. It's very weird. It's very weird that way. Are you disappointed with that chuk? Because, like, obviously this is a big event. You are like a legend of the coverage of this sport and you've made your way to Washington. And they won't let you on Radio Row. You don't know where you're going to be sitting really during the points themselves.

Is it a bit of a... more for you? How easy they forget, Pizzi, you know, like doing the heavy lifting. I never forget. I will never forget. Yeah, the ringer would have never talked about the sport if I, if I didn't. It's right. Kind of force it in and how easily they forget us.

Yeah, you'd be unemployed. So like, uh, you know, but sure, there's a little bit of that because I don't know, but we have to wait and see because I don't know, they keep saying limited seats and everything's so vague. Well, limited seats. Just kind of push you away and all this stuff. But, you know, come fight night when we find out exactly who was credentialed under the West lawn and all that stuff, then maybe I'll have my gripes. But there's a possibility that there's very few people on that lawn when it comes down to it.

In terms of media. In terms of the media, anyway. Yeah. Is this, like, I think this be easy, like, is this the most unique I don't know I that you've ever covered? Definitely. I mean, I was at the sphere card and I mean, that's just a venue though, right? Everything else was pretty much normal. Like you have, you might have had a few gockers and, you know, from,

outside world kind of coming in like what's this about but generally speaking that was still a very mhm a centric thing this one feels to me very different like it it almost feels like there it's incidental that there's an mma card attached to this like that there's actual fighters and all that stuff so far i haven't really even come into contact with you know just the general fight game public like you know the managers the coaches stuff you run into them all the time but so far that has not even happened um maybe that changes over the next couple days but this is very very different setup than the I mean, hasn't that been the feel for the last couple weeks where I keep waiting for the focus to shift to the fighters more? And so far, the only way I've seen it happen is

this beef between Ilya Tuporia and Justin Gagy as it starts to get a little more personal. Those guys have honestly done more to sell the actual fighting on this card than anybody else, including the UFC. Just that that angle popping up pretty organically, it seems, that has been one of the few things that has brought attention to the individual. individual fighters. In the negative way, there's been Josh Hokit trying to do a bit that's just not landing at all and making the mistake of acknowledging that the bit is not landing and just sort of being like, well, nobody's liking this.

I'm going to do it anyway. You know, those few moments, those are kind of the only thing I've seen that get people paying attention to the fighters. Every other regard, the thing that feels a little gross to me about it is that it just feels like the fighters are hired help. It feels like they might as well be done. It feels like they're a wedding band or something where, hey, we're having this event. We need to have some entertainment.

That's sort of what we're doing. So true. But you guys aren't the point. The point is us. The point is. And this is the thing I came up when I was doing my story talking to some historians for a little like going to point this out. Dude. Yeah.

Because so many people were making this comparison are these gladiator games for the entertainment of the emperor on his birthday. And talking to them and there's a lot of differences. There's not a one-to-one comparison, obviously, but one of the things that Patrick Wyman pointed out to me was basically that this is a essentially a celebration of elites for other elites that happens to have a public consumption angle. It's basically like showing off, hey, we can do this big event on the White House.

All these VIPs are going to be invited. You guys can watch too if you're willing to pay the subscription price for Paramount Plus, but it doesn't feel at least so far, are like the fighters are the focus at all. And that would be really disappointing to me if I was one of those fighters. We got guys fighting for titles out here and they just, they feel like an afterthought. Yeah.

You will. Chuck, I know you are, you have only a certain amount of time with us. Do you have time to go through your picks with us for this event or, okay. Yes, I'm sorry.

I got time. And, um, you know, let's just have a look at the table there. I believe is that, who's that up the top again now again? It's, oh, geez,

I can't see that. does. It's Ben, folks. I can see it. I see it just fine. Maybe I don't want to see it. In second place, Chuck Mendenhall chasing it up there and third. Then it's Pizzi Carol. Then it's Mysterious Frank. Drake Riggs. She and Al Shady. And at the very bottom there, Connor Brooks, mind you, only two, two positive picks away from myself. And we're all on Teporia. The two people on Ghana are Benfokes, interestingly, Drake Riggs. All on Almali. all on Hokit, all but one of us on, on Hoofy.

Yeah, Drake Riggs has gone for Chandler. Interesting. All of us on Nickel. And here, I'm actually quite excited about this. A few people, I thought I was being bold by picking Garcia because I was inspired by his performance on the Ariel O'Wani interview. And yeah, it's kind of split. We've got folks has gone for Lopez.

Chuk has gone for Lopez. I have gone for Garcia. Very, very interesting, boys. I went back and forth on that one. I got to be honest. That was the hardest one to pick for me. That one has my pick for fight of the night. Like the most competitive and like some of the best action,

I think you're likely to, yeah, you very well have that one being the best, most exciting fight in the night. Oh, look at this, Calci has got some news for us here, boys. Here are the people trading here on Calci. Garcia 42% against Lopez 48. Was it, I'm like crazy? It's narrowing, though.

You see it narrowing. Yeah, it is narrowing. It was a lot worse. You can see it out earlier to the left-hand side of this picture here. Like, it felt a lot further out early on, but I think Garcia is a savage, man. He is a violent, violent dude. I think a lot of what you see there in that graph is Diego Lopez has more name recognition with more people and that he, you know, when he looks good, he looks really, really good.

And when you see him against, you know, it's like, okay, he couldn't figure out Alexander Volcanowski, but he's some pretty good company there. You know, it's not exactly a knock on the guy. But I, the one to me, I'm surprised that I was one of only two people to pick gone. I don't, I think that that one is a lot tougher to pick than maybe we assume. We love Alex Pereira, everybody in this morning. He's very excited about Alex Pereira. Look at that market, boys.

That's, that has, that is right there. That is 50, 50 right now. Am I seeing that right? It is, isn't it? My God. I mean, I could absolutely see Alex Pereer going out there and win it, but I could also see Cyril gone knocking him out or something. And when we all go, well, hey, yeah, he's never fought a heavyweight.

We have these weight clashes for a reason. I can see this too. He's been knocked out before. He's never dealt with heavyweight power before. Plus, didn't Cyril Gahn look pretty good in that Tom Aspinol fight up until the eye poke stopped it. Plus, stylistic matchup-wise, isn't this exactly the kind of fighter gone would like to go against? He doesn't want to go up against anybody who might take him down. But these are the kinds of matchups he tends to do well.

And I could absolutely see it either way. But that's one where. I just kind of went, you know what? One of these guys I've seen him at heavyweight and the other one I haven't. If it happens, Ben, only a couple of us can say like, hey, we tried to tell you, right? A couple of us could do that. I'm in Washington. I could start to obscure the facts around here a little bit.

I was actually wrong. Connor Borks is going for Dawkins. He is the solo going for Mr. Dawkins against Bonnickle. He's trying to make a move here. He wants a bunch of upsets so that he can make his move up to the standings. I would love to know what method of business. victory he sees for Docus in this fight. Punching.

Qualification. But it is interesting. Going back to the Pereira thing, I spoke to a guy who fought Cyril again earlier this week and he was kind of, obviously he's never fought Pereira. John Jones? Was it John Jones? Listen, I can't. I can't say.

John told me not to say anything. It's John John John. It's not John John John. But he was saying like, he is so fast, you know? And if you're in there with him for like 25 minutes, and you can't, you can't hit him. And let's not forget, and Ganu did not knock this guy out. You know, like Alex Pereira is coming up from 205, was the middleweight champion, and Ganu couldn't knock this dude out, Tom Aspinall couldn't knock this dude out.

He does something really, really well. He is so elusive and big at the same time. And when he needs it, he can hit very hard. Now, he did get chin checked by Taito I Vasa in France. Very briefly. There was this moment where we're like, I cannot believe this. might happen. Of course, it did not happen. But Pereira has put on so much weight. You know, like he is, what did he come in at? 258 for the, he is going to feel so different in there than he

usually feels. I know he had a feel so different to himself as well, right? I mean, putting him on all that weight is basically putting yourself into a new body and this is going to be your first time fighting in that new body. And so that I don't, I really often don't like it when you see a guy who shows up and He has a completely different physique that he doesn't necessarily know how poor. Remember when John Jones became a power lifter there for a while? And, you know, he still won. But remember we had the hot mic moment after, what was it the, was it the, was it the Ovent St. Prue fight maybe where afterwards we could hear his corner being like the power lifting

was a mistake, you know, like, it's just like, that's right. It's tough when you show up and like your own physique is a way different. And I could see thinking, all right, I need to bulk up to be able to go in there and deal with a heavyweight size, but that sometimes backfires on people. Yeah, it's, it's a lot, like, and the fact that Gan is so used to go in those 25 minutes and so used to just be standing up evading people for that long and Pereira having to be using this new output with such a heavier body, it is definitely interesting. And I heard Rick saying it yesterday and boys in the back, like, I was very confident of Pereira at the start of the week. As the week goes on,

I find myself having conversation with myself, like, oh, this would go pretty badly, actually. this could go very wrong for Pereira. And usually when we're setting someone up for these historical moments, that's when it tends to happen. Yeah, that is true. Is Hokit the biggest, like, the clearest win for you guys on this card? Like, I feel like that could be an annihilation. The question for me is how does he go about fighting Derek Lewis?

Because there's the way people will want you to fight Derek Lewis, the kind of fight you know people want to see out of you at the White House on this big stage after the Curtis Blades. fight and then there's what would be smart for Hokit against Derek Lewis and those are not the same things and so I do wonder if you stand there and try to give people what they want that's the best chance Derek Lewis has I also wonder with Derek Lewis especially at this point in his career you never know if he'll just get to a point in the fight if things aren't going his way if he'll just sort of get that look on his face where he's like I want to go home I would rather be elsewhere you know he's he's done that he has and there's been a couple of times where he's done it

where he's faking it too, like against bulldog, where he's like, I'm done. And then he like blasts you with a big shot at the end. But I mean, honestly, his biggest thing is if Hokit doesn't protect himself a little better, it's not impossible to imagine where he just, you know, Hocke just takes a shot that downs him. I mean, if he goes in there too aggressive or too reckless, I mean, that could be his downfall in this fight.

It's also Lewis gets up so quickly when he's taken down. You know, I know he probably hasn't been dealing with the standard of athlete of Hockey it is, but he does tend to just cumbersomely get back to his feet somehow when he's taken down. And I just like, imagine this, this is like, he just keeps standing up against Hoka and Hocke doesn't want to exchange. For all of its bluster, it could actually turn into one of those heavyway fights that Ben folks often references on this, this show, the ones where you lose the will to live when you realize, we're entering the second round. And I don't see a finish coming out. Yeah. That's, that's what I like to call the other kind of heavy.

weight fight. There's there's the fun kind that ends inside of one round and then there's the other kind. Josh Hokit was in the rarest of heavyweight fights, the kind that goes to the distance but is still somehow fun. And I, but I do wonder how the pressure of people wanting to see him repeat that, especially the pressure of this moment could affect how he chooses to fight Derek Lewis. Because there's also one thing, we've seen guys before in some of these big kind of fights when they're really riding a high and a momentum. and they have a great game plan coming in. They worked with it on their coaches.

Hey, we talked about this in the back. We know what we're going to do. And then you get in there, you get under the lights, you start to feel it. And that game plan goes right out the window and you start doing the thing you can do just to entertain people or give people what you think they want. And Derek Lewis is the kind of guy that could go terribly against. Should we be worried, Chook, about Drake Riggs picking Michael Chandler here. Like the pick king, the king of the picks, Drake Riggs. Can we do a wellness check?

Like Chandler against Hoofey. I mean, I was speaking about annihilations. Maybe I got ahead of myself. I think this is, well, there we go. Same here. Only 18% of people on Calshare trade for Chandler. My God. Well, Chandler, he has the one victory against Tony Ferguson at the time was already kind of

willing his down swing. And that was what? Four years ago. So it's like, I mean, if you kind of do this math, you're like, I feel bad for Chandler because, you know, like things were supposed to go different for him down the stretch. and here he is now going up against this young. What is he, 28 years old?

The dude was like, just a marauder in there. I mean, he's going in there against this guy. I'm like, this is not the get well fight that you want, right? This is not a good matchup in my mind. He's still calling O'Connor McGregor. I saw the headlines this week. I'm like, dude, you are fighting someone else, mate. And he's fucking terrifying.

I'm telling you right now, one of these days, if any of us are still alive, you'll go to Michael Chandler's funeral. somebody will get up there and read a, you know, a eulogy and they'll say, and he did ask me to say, he will still fight Connor McGregor right now. Where's the Irishman? Get him in here. I want him right now. Like, he's never going to get that up. At this point, at this point, I just wonder how in on the bit is he?

Is he aware that this is a, too? I wish he was, man. You know, I really fucking wish he was in on the bit. I don't think he is. Chuck, we have two more, if you can stay with it. Anyone else surprised that no one has gone for Amin Zahabi because I think that's a closer fight than people think it is. Like, every one of us is making us.

Yeah, I thought somebody would pick him for sure. Of course, I didn't pick him. I should point that out. I myself did not pick him. But I don't know. It seems Taylor made in a strange way, though, for O'Malley here, right? Like Zohabia got clipped a couple times and his last fights dropped. And I'm like, I don't think he comes back from that type of thing

if he gets truly in trouble against O'Malley, who likes, to strike. I mean, I just, I feel like maybe he's, it's a little bit like geared towards O'Malley here and, you know, stand up and that will favor him, I think. Yeah. I mean, I do think you're right, Pt C, that it is closer than people are acting like it is. But I think, O'Malley's a big fight performer. He's a big sort of moment guy. Plus, even if I thought that Zahabi was going to win, I'm not going to pick against hell in his own, Sean O'Malley. Yeah, that's fair. Chuck, before you go, To Puri, obviously in a massive spot here. The lads brought up a good point yesterday that it almost feels like he surpassed Pereira

in terms of the draw, in terms of the stardom ahead of this card, and maybe that's lending itself. Maybe that's borrowed from the fact he's having this back and forth that Ben referenced earlier with Justin Gagey. I feel like, as much as I commend them for doing that, Ben, as you did,

I do feel like they're just kind of juicing it up a bit. I don't really feel like these guys really give a fuck that much. but it is a talking point. It is a sale. You don't think Chopin is out there. I'm going to knock you out in front of your country and I'm going to go over and talk to your dad. Like that's, if Justin gets you didn't care of like walking in the park kind of deal.

If he didn't care before that, he cares now, especially that he's created that image for him like, your, your father and nation will watch you get put to sleep. You don't want that. That's embarrassing, bro. You imagine, like, Ilya is kind of shuffling over towards his father and there's Justin, like, crawl. along the comments going, no, you'll leave my dad alone. It is weird, though, that the thing he says he's going to say to Justin's father is, who's the short one now? Bro, you'll still be the same height.

I don't, you, I mean, I love I'll eat to poor. I think he's a beautiful martial artist and everything, but you are actually short in the world, bro. Like that's, and it's not going to make any taller. I think you will be Justin Gaichi, but you're still going to be the exact same height afterwards. So I don't know if that's what we want to focus on. And we still got, like, time because it's being a Sunday show.

like he still might ratchet it up. And the great thing about him is he has backed everything up so far. Yeah. Like every time he says he's going to do this, he does it. That's why he, if he emerges as like a bigger start, it's going to because he did the same thing where he drew it in, said he was going to do it. And then he does it in some dramatic way. And they're like, okay, this dude just keeps doing this against, you know what I mean?

Like that that's going to be the distinguishing factor. He seems to, he's, you mentioned him being short, but his stature seems to grow by fight night. It always seems like by the time it gets there, it feels like a big deal. That's what Custamato used to say about. Once he puts on the little hat, he gets way bigger. You know, Custamato used to say that the journalists, when they used to come and watch Mike Tyson Sparron, they used to walk in and they'd be like, where's the heavyweight? And they'd like, point at this 5'4 10 guy in the ring. And they'd be like, well, he's very small.

And Cuss would say to them, oh, don't worry, he expands. That's kind of like, that's kind of like how I feel about Elliot. That is true. Do you see him becoming the, like, the main man? Like, if he's not already, like, do you see this? is him hitting a new stratosphere if all goes according to plan here on uh on the south lawn chuk i've been real torn on this because i'm one of those guys who's like we call him a star but we've also seen what a real star looks like i don't know if he'll ever be that i just it's one of those

things that i'm like maybe it's just an unfair bar but i do think that in terms of where we're at in the ufc if you can and we we we'll find out in a few weeks right with like where connor stands in this whole thing but i think he's got a chance to be the guy for now like the guy who will pay attention to in Liddell's Day or something like that or George St. Pierre, like it would be more in that strata, but I think he's, I think he can do that because, if he's not there already, only because of what I said,

I feel like he rises to the moment, the escalation, he seems to handle it, he seems tailor made for a spotlight, and he puts on his best performances, this would certainly be just given the setup of this, if he goes in there and does it and makes it look easy, I mean, in this environment, like this kind of thing, I think that that's going to go over pretty big. Well, Chuck, you've given us way more time than we said we wanted.

We love you very much. I've got my housekeepers here. All right. We'll be there in a minute. I'm looking forward to everything you're going to do over there, even if you don't get the access we think you deserve. But thanks so much for joining us, my friend. Of course, fellas. Be reading you all week.

All the best. All right. See you guys. Ah, now it's just back to me and Benjamin. Are you Chris and Benjamin, folks? Yeah, we don't need to talk about it, but yeah. Well, let's not. It's a, it's a powerful name.

All right, Peter. Yeah. That's just fine. That's fine. Well, my mom calls me Petey. Okay. Elaine will call me. You're a grown man.

You're a grown man. Yeah. Um, and everyone else calls me Petey. You know what I mean? Why is it that your missus won't accept your nickname? You know, she met me, my name was everyone called me Petey. And then just as soon as the commitment gets going. Peter. You know what I mean?

What is that? She has to set aside. She has to show people that she has a different relationship with you than the rest of them. They can call you pizza. I don't look at it to create a different nickname. It's not about you. It's very much not about you. It's a signal to the world. Oh, Jesus. I didn't think of it on those terms. Then you have one thing that everybody has been talking about in fact, and even Chuk kind of mentioned there, is the security of this event. The many hoops people have to jump through to get here. The fact that we will have the President of the United States, which you point out in your, in your latest article for uncrowned, this man had an attempt on his life seven weeks ago. You have, I don't know how you did this.

I was looking at this and I was like, like, how many fucking people does this guy have on his phone book, just casually call up some Secret Service members and ask them what scale of security detail will be on the White House outlaw? Talk me through this article. How did you, well, I don't know if you're allowed, tell me how you got to these people, but how did you, how long did it take you to get in touch with these people? It took a little while, but you know what? One thing I've learned as a journalist is that you never know. If you reach out and you ask, people might be more willing to talk than you think. And you go around, you collect some names, people who seem like they might know something about it. And then a lot of times they're

more willing to talk, especially one of the things that's surprising when you get used to being a journalist in fight sports where seemingly no one wants to talk to you even when they have to. Even when somebody is making them talk to you, a lot of times when they actually sit down to talk, you're like, oh, they'd rather cut off a toe than have this conversation right now. And so you're just and trying to get useful stuff out of them. Other people, actually, as it turns out, do enjoy talking about their areas of expertise and the areas that they have experience in. And so once you get them on the phone, you know, it's not that hard.

And if you just, one of my favorite things being a journalistist in general is that you never know what you're going to end up learning, that you didn't think would ever come up in your normal course of business. And if you just kind of keep an open time and stay curious, then you might hear some stuff. And I love like just learning different people's worlds and different things that they know and talking to especially like former secret service agent, former, you know, special forces people about this. One of the things I came away surprised by a little bit is that when I first heard the idea for this event, where I was just like, you're telling me, and this is before the most recent attempt on the president, but it was like there had already been several. We were already engaged in a war with Iran, which I remember at the time, people were like, oh, don't worry, it'll be over by the time we get to this. It's not over.

No matter what we get told every day, it's almost over, but as of now, not over. All this stuff, tensions are highs, a lot going on. And you're going to have the president of the United States sit outside on his lawn for a period of, at least a couple hours you would have to think at a pre-announced date that gives anybody who might be looking to do something lots of time to prepare and plan and I was like that seems risky man like that especially with tensions as high as they are that seems trick we've just been

told we need to spend a hundred billion dollars or whatever it is on a ballroom that's like a billion but still we need to spend all this money on a ballroom because of security concerns and then you're going to go sit out on the white house lawn it seemed like man and the The Secret Service has got to be pretty nervous about that. And then when I talked to these people, they were like, you know, honestly, this is the one place where they probably feel the best about doing it. They're probably not that worried about the outdoor nature of it as long as it's at the White House. If you were doing it at Yankee Stadium, then, you know, you need to go in well in advance. You need to map out all your security plans.

But if you're doing it at the White House, that's the area they know best. That's where they work every single day. that's, as one guy pointed out, the most controlled airspace in the country is over the White House. And so that's the area that is essentially their home field. They feel pretty good there. And as when I brought up, well, hey, this has been known for a long time, you know exactly when and where he's going to be. And they says, well, the president's whereabouts are not usually much of a mystery. People generally know where the president is.

So that they didn't seem concerned about. But the thing that obviously is the big concern and is going to be the big concern for just sort of any big outdoor event from now until the foreseeable future is drones and all kinds of different drones. Like the agricultural drones. Yeah. Well, what they referred to first as nuisance drones, which just somebody putting a drone up there, just seeing what they can see with it, seeing if they can disrupt the event and just out of curiosity and chaos trying to do something. But then also, yeah, this guy pointed up all these stolen agricultural drones that had 40-gallon tanks that were stolen in New Jersey pretty recently. And they got them back. But he's like, you know, imagine what you could do.

If you had 15 agricultural drones that could carry 40-gallon payload tanks and what you could put in there, the kind of damage you could cause if all you wanted to do was just wreak havoc. And that kind of stuff, you realize, okay, that is a concern. They have to be constantly monitoring the skies. They have to be on top of all of that. but also just that you're doing this event at the White House and then across the street, you've got all these people at the ellipse where there's going to be a huge crowd you think there. So it's just a massive humanity. And then on the other place, a much smaller crowd that you really are tightly controlling the access to, but also a lot of VIPs, a lot of,

you know, what somebody would regard as high value targets. So there's a lot of pressure and stress on them for sure. But also, if they have to do it anywhere, they probably feel most comfortable doing it at the White House. And as one of them pointed out, he's like, isn't it better for everybody else if they do it at the White House? Because you saw what had to happen for Trump to go to a game at Madison Square Garden earlier this week. They closed off an entire section of Midtown so that you could go do it. You're closing off streets for the motorcade to get there and get it out. You're snarling traffic.

You're creating a lot of inconvenience for everybody. You had to cancel watch parties outside the arena. A lot of like headaches for the people around there. whereas if you stay in home at the White House, I'm sure there's some Washington, D.C. residents who are still like, we don't love it when all these people are coming to town and it creates a traffic situation. But it's less disruptive than it would be if you left the White House to go somewhere else for this. Yeah, it's a great point.

And that couple with the elite politics piece, you read them, and it kind of does bring home the point that it doesn't feel like it's for us. You know, as you've said before, like this doesn't feel like it's for the diehard MMA fan, the UFC fan that's been there since the start. waiting for it to get to this magical peak moment, it just doesn't, the fact that it's on the way, like, look, listen to Chuck, like, Chuck's not going to, it doesn't sound like Chuck's going to have a view of the fights.

Like, that's pretty crazy in itself, right? Or am I being a bit too touchy about that? Yeah, no, I mean, it's not as if it's the only time the UFC has done this where media will be put in a place that they're essentially watching it on TV. The differences that usually you're watching it on TV somewhere where they will bring the fighters to you after the fights so that you can talk to them. So you still are getting like a media angle out of it. I wonder if that will be the case here.

If they have you at like an offsite hotel, it also then becomes, okay, so I came in for the event week stuff for the pre-fight stuff. Who knows where we do a press conference. Maybe they'll do it at whatever the hotel is where they have people. So I don't know. I do think that there's still some interesting stuff that you can get out of it, but it is a very different viewing experience. I also think that it's worth noting. I mean, the one of the big things that we paid attention to beforehand is this being an outdoor event and we don't, there's just so many variables that go in to an outdoor event, you know, where we don't know

exactly what the weather's going to be. I'm sure that the U.C. Data White has said, hey, we're going no matter what. If there's lightning, we'll take a lightning delay. You know, you look at that thing. You're covered for some rain unless it starts blowing in sideways. Lightning could definitely be a problem with something like that. You essentially created a giant lightning rod maybe. But yeah, it could be, it could be disruptive weather-wise. We've heard dinner white talk about the bugs and just all the different stuff that can go on. And I worked on a story that should be out here pretty soon about outdoor events.

And one of the things that brought up to mine was fan man. Do you remember fan man? No, you're going to have to refresh my memory. You don't know. You might be a youngster. You don't remember. In the 90s, I believe it was 1990. In 1993, Vanda Holyfield and Riddick Bo fought for the heavyweight title at Caesar's Palace at an outdoor.

Oh, this guy come down from the fucking, he came down? Yeah, okay. He parachuted down with a big fan motor on his back to like guide him and just in the early in the seventh round just sort of landed like on the edge of the ring, got his parachute hung up in the lights and then got yanked down and was beaten pretty badly by Riddick Bow's entourage and some security guards and stuff. And that same guy, like that was his thing for a little while. Like the, I think it was only a few months later. He, he did the same thing without landing, but like above an NFL playoff game. And then right after that, he did it at an F.A. Cup match in England. And then right after that, he was arrested for that one in England.

And right after that, he landed on the roof of Buckingham Palace. God, that. And was banned for life from the United Kingdom, could never again return. And also it's like when you kind of look into his story, he died 2002. You kind of look into his story and you're like, why was he doing this? What was the motivation? Yeah. And the motivation just entirely seemed to be because he could to see if he could to get people to look at him to like just show that like, yeah, you've got these carefully planned events, but I could still disrupt them by doing something like this.

And so it's like something to think about when you're doing this event, you plan for all these kind of variables. you're thinking about terrorist attacks, you're thinking about assassination attempts. And you also on top of that. If a guy tried to do that, Ben, if a guy tried to do that at this White House event, I don't think he's alive by the time he hits the ground. I don't think he is either,

not taking that chance that he's just right. If anyone's thinking about it, this is me and Ben telling you, don't do it. It's a bad idea. Very, very tight with the airspace there, as we've pointed out, do not do that.

Very bad idea. I also talked to a few people about who have promoted outdoor events before. And one of my favorites to talk to here on this one was Monty Cox, who, you know, he managed so many fighters in the early days of the UFC. Managed a lot of those militantage guys. And he also promoted a lot of fights in Iowa and in the Midwest. And he did quite a few outdoor events. And he was talking about, you know, you may not know this Beetsy, but in Iowa, even in the summertime, you're dealing with some unpredictable weather conditions, a thunderstorm, a bad one.

Is that way Slipnot are so upset all the time? That's probably it. Yeah. Yeah. This is unpredictable weather. But like rain and stuff could always be an issue. It always could roll in and mess things up for you. And he had a couple situations that he had to deal with.

My favorite one he said was he was promoting one at a casino in Wisconsin. And it was starting to rain before the main event. And it's starting to get slippery out there. You know, people don't realize, because they see you play soccer in the rain. They see you play football in the rain. As soon as it starts to rain at a fight on that canvas, it's going to get so slippery. And it's going to change what is even possible to do in a fight. The entire fight just becomes a mess very quickly.

It doesn't take that much rain. And it was starting to rain a little bit. And he said he went back and he told his main event fighters, okay, look, I'll let you guys go for one round if you want to and see if you can get a knockout, get a submission and it'll count. But we're going to call it after one round if nobody has won and we'll say it's a no contest because it's just, it's just getting bad out there. But then he was worried about how he was going to sell it to the crowd because they came here

to see this main event. They've been sitting in what is rain already waiting to see this main event and you're going to go out there and tell him. And so he said the way he did it was by manipulating them a little bit. He went out and told the crowd, look, I talked to the athletic commission. They say it's unsafe to continue. And the people start booing. And he's like, it was bullshit. There was no athletic commission. We were at a casino in Wisconsin, like, you know, in the 90s. Nobody's telling you what you can or can't do. You can do anything. And he said, you know what? But then I went and I told the fighters what the athletic commission said. And they said, that's bullshit. We're fighting.

and you know huge huge crowd pop they love it they eat it up they're like yeah let's go and so then the guys come out and fight for a round neither one of them knocks the other guy out or submits him so money calls it after a round and says all right it's getting too bad out here he's like by then the crowd wasn't too mad

because they felt like they'd gotten something that they weren't supposed to get plus they themselves were getting kind of sick of sitting in the rain and so they were ready to go inside and it worked it worked on everybody man that could be a disaster does that app is it the rule on the rock, the Hawaiian events back in the day when that rained out and like the cage is

nearly tilting and the guys are just slipping. Every time someone tries to throw a big punch, the weight that they're putting, the leg that they're putting all their weight and just skites across the floor. It's, it's, it looks like two drunk dudes fighting when you throw water in the mix. No, and I talked to Rich Scha, because he was involved in promoting some events at Hawaii and then did some of those Bellator events that they did at NASCAR races and stuff, but they did them out in not only outside, like this is one thing the UFC will have going for it is theirs will mostly take place in the evening. So it should be starting to cool off by then.

The heat shouldn't be such an issue. But when you're, they were doing theirs out there in the sun and the canvas is heating up to the point where like it's hurting the bottoms of your feet to walk around on it. And they had to walk around keep pouring water on the canvas, keep it cool. But he was also talking about, you know, promoting those events in Hawaii and you'd wake up some,

the morning of the event and it's raining, you know, it'll rain a little bit every day in Hawaii. You never know what you're, you're dealing with. And he was just like, you know, back then though, when you're young and you just want to do something that hasn't been done, you just want to put on a show. It's way easier to focus on all the reasons to do it and not the reasons not to do it. And it's, it tells you something, though, about how Dana White was, I don't say pressured, but motivated to do this one when Trump asked him to just because he would never do an outdoor event otherwise if he didn't have to.

Anytime it's come up where somebody would be like, how about this? How about this stadium? You could do a big show here and he doesn't want to do it because he doesn't want to do outdoor events. The fact that he's willing to break his own policy against outdoor events for this one kind of tells you something. Yeah. It's, it's, there's so many variables that are at play here that, uh, we'll all be looking out for on Sunday. The most historic sporting event of all time is how they build that. Do you see the greatest show owner? The greatest show owner.

That's what Donald Trump said. That is historic could mean a lot of things, you know. It's not necessarily good. every time I've heard this mentioned on like a different like like not in the MMA orbit like to your point at the start of the show it's kind of like a punchline it's always a gag and I noticed you wrote for your substack this week because I started feeling this way and I saw the article pop up again and I was like oh yeah I'm there now where you're like you're starting to become defensive of the sport yeah like no matter how you feel about

the Whitehouse adventure like this is becoming like oh of course that's the sport you know that blah, blah, blah. Like, look at this. This is, of course, this shit's bored. And you're like, hang on a second, you motherfucker. Yeah. Okay? Like, we didn't say this stuff.

We know this world. We've been in it for years and years and years. We can make fun of our drunk uncle. You can't make fun of our drunk uncle. You don't even know. But you're right that that I, as we get closer, it's storing up. Like, I feel like every day. You feel like, so it's me being like, oh, fuck this and fuck.

And I'm like, all right, man. But, you know, you, you, you, you, you get closer. to love this too, dickhead? You know, like, what happened to you? You know what I mean? I'm getting very, I've had a few fights today. I'm not going to like you. It made me wonder if the reaction and just sort of the phrasing of some of those

reactions would have been different if it had been a boxing match. If he said, okay, they're having a boxing match at the White House. I still think it would have been. No. I don't, I don't believe so. So this is the force of what's going. Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. Sorry.

You think, you think FDR during the Depression is out here being like, we need, we need to make sure the banks can't close and keep your money. And also, let's see if we can get Joe Lewis in here or something and get him to put on it. But like the, the, I wonder if like if people would have been able to say like it's a boxing match. They still wouldn't have loved it a lot of people. They still would have felt that it was crass or it was not the place for doing that. But boxing is in their their minds as like a historic sport that's been around forever and that is sort of revered. even if it's not their own personal thing,

it doesn't feel as like people seem to have a trashy association with the UFC. Like, oh, these are just guys fighting in the parking lot of a Buffalo Wild Wings because they're drunk or something, you know, and I don't know if they would have had that same association if it had been a boxing match. But you're right. Like when you hear people sort of dismiss it that way because it's like, oh, of course you're doing this dumb sport in,

for this dumb event. And you're just like, hold on a second. Yeah. This is a great sport when it's great. Isn't it crazy that like that's where we were like two decades ago and the journey like that we've been on. And look, the sport was in nowhere near as popular as it. It was not going to these arenas.

It was not the topic of conversations and barbershops around the world, which this event will be. And somehow we're back there, but at this pinnacle as well in terms of exposure you'd imagine. Isn't that crazy? Like how, like 10 years ago the whole drive of the company was to. to make it line up with the NFL and everything. And I think it did to some extent, kind of give it some level of prestige or general acceptance.

And now suddenly we're back there, even though this is a huge event. Like, you know, this is going to be a massive deal. It's kind of crazy to me. You know what I mean? It is kind of crazy. But I also think that one of the parts we kind of can't separate from this.

When I was talking to Patrick Wyman, I talked to also like a historian who specializes in, the history of Roman gladiators and him kind of talking about the parallels of this had of that. But Pat Wyman pointed out, this was not necessarily where the UFC had to go. This wasn't inevitable. They made some choices along the way to get to right here. And they made some choices around 2016 and then again around 2020, where they chose to ally stronger and stronger with Donald Trump. And that's how you end up here. It's how no other president is going to even get this idea. carry off this idea. The things people say about Trump that he'll just say, why don't we do this? And it doesn't matter if it's never been done or there's a bunch of people saying there's a million good

reasons why he shouldn't. If he gets it in his head, he'll do it. And I think that you see that it has the ability to pull off something like this. It also has the ability to do other very destructive things. But I think that the tricky thing for the UFC is that you have very clearly, visually evident to absolutely everybody, whether they know anything else about your sport or your company or not, you've chosen a side. And you've chosen aside in what is a deeply polarizing political moment in America and one where more and more, there's more people on the other side. And that's not going to, that association is going to stick to you. And the UFC really tried for many years not to do anything like this. They didn't want, they'd give money to anybody. They'd give money to Harry Reid. They'd

give money to Democrats in the State House in New York, if that's what it took to grease the wheels and get MMA regulated there, they did not have a political association. They were, their, their, their, their, their only motivation was the UFC with self-interest, like, let's push this sport. And now they've changed from that. Now they're, they're, they're very clearly in the Donald Trump camp. And that's inevitably going to piss off to people who aren't. And that is part that's probably going to follow you around for a while after this event. that is the that is the big concern all right there's no doubt about that we will have so much to say about this event in the aftermath of course there will be watch along so we'll be post shows all of that good stuff there's still a lot of shit just to happen in terms of press conference way in everything like that but we do have to move on there is other things that are happening including the new york times putting out an article about connor mcgregor confirming that he used banned substances after his horrific leg break in 2021 and i i shared this out and the reaction from the MMA community is like, yeah, yeah, we knew that. And we did. Like,

McGregor in his exchange with Anthony Smith, while this was going on, pretty much admittedly, is like, this is all above board, all this stuff. But it's very interesting listening to the doctor in this case, Neela Trash, I believe his name is a celebrity doctor with the Rams and Dodgers, I believe, has done celebrities, surgeries, all this kind of stuff. Like him just kind of being very transparent about like, oh, he couldn't do this, so I had to send these guys, so he'd get this serious gear. I feel like I'mma fans have kind of brushed it on the carpet to be honest, but like this is a massive

spot to be talking about the biggest star in the history of the sport ahead of what they're calling the biggest event in the history of sports. If nothing else, like that feels to me like a pretty big moment for them. Did you read this first of all, Ben? And what jumped out to you if you did?

Well, one of the things that jumped out to me was just the reporting wise, this is a tricky one. This is tricky to get because you have to essentially get people who are on the inside to tell you about a guy's medical treatments, which they probably shouldn't be doing and they know they shouldn't be doing. I did think it was interesting. Audie Atar, Connor McGregor's manager had his statement in this, said, you know, it was an unconscionable like breach of medical privacy that people are telling you this, which also doesn't sound like, no, that's not true. We didn't do any of that. So, you know, but I gamble had a similar line, I believe, in the article. But, but I also see like, I mean, it's kind of like when Barry Bonds got caught, you could be like, how dare they get into this man's private medical his, but you're like, yeah, you kind of do forfeit the right when you are seen as being like cheating. Now, the difference is with Conn McGregor, he was doing this while not competing.

And so he wasn't actually in that sense cheating anybody. He wasn't going in there to fight somebody while using this stuff. Now, the other part of it is we all watched him get bigger. You know, you were recovering from a broken leg. And yet suddenly your delts are popping out and we're going, that has nothing to do with your leg, my man. That is something else. Do you remember around the roadhouse thing? Yeah.

How big he fucking got. Like he was like, it was mental. He looked swat. Like he was all the time. It looked like he was screaming the PEDs out of his body every time he opened his mouth, man. He was ready to. explode. The interesting part to me is this sort of like philosophical conversation they're having at some point in this article where the McGregor camp, doctors, the UFC itself even, like some of those comments from like Jeff Novitsky being like, hey, if a guy is recovering from a really serious injury that could affect the rest of his life, not to mention the rest of his career, maybe we shouldn't be holding him to the most stringent in competition guidelines. Maybe he should be allowed to use different stuff. It's going to. It's going to. It's going to. You should be holding him to the most stringent in competition guidelines. Maybe he should be allowed to use different stuff. It's going to help him recover. And theoretically, I would say I agree with that to some extent.

You know, like, hey, maybe we don't need to be watching it quite so closely if the guy is just trying to make sure he can walk right again. And, and there's something to that that is resonating with me. And yet at the same time, there's people in that article, other, like other doctors who are like, I don't know of any steroids that help a broken bone. That's what you were treating, right? Is that you broke your leg. What? what of these banned substances has been proven to help the recovery from that and how. And so that is the thing. It's like they asked the doctor at some point about it and he was just saying like he said, hey, I'm using a scientific approach with this stuff. And they said, okay, what show us the study or whatever that shows these banned substances

and how they help heal a broken leg. And he did not provide any specifics on that. And that I think is interesting. Because in general, do I agree like, yeah, you might. You might ought to get some leeway when you're not even thinking about competing. You're just thinking about recovering. Yeah, that makes some kind of sense to be as long as that's available to everybody. That's also the other tricky thing is it's like does one, does this guy who's a superstar and has a bunch of money and all and has celebrity doctors at his disposal, does he get one treatment?

And when Corey Hill broke his leg in the UFC, we're just sending you to the emergency room and you figure it out yourself from there. Like everybody needs to have that same ability, that same access. The other interesting thing was them tying this to split with Usada. It seemed like Usada was definitely tried to suggest that that was behind the split at the time. And then the UFC called them scumbags for suggesting that that might have been part of the split. Completely ruling it out, of course, when they called them scumbags were like, oh, well, that's the end of that. Didn't know there were scumbags. The other thing where I kind of just shook my head and said, that ain't that.

just so MMA of us is that, like you said, the MMA crowd's reaction to this report was, yeah, so what? We kind of knew he was doing that. We didn't really care. He didn't really fight. So it's not like it affected anybody. So what?

And then this doctor who was named in this right, and this doctor, he is a celebrity doctor. There was a profile of him in the New Yorker not that long ago. He seems like a fascinating person with an interesting life. But he's already been told, okay, the Dodgers. want to talk to you. You're the team doctor for the Dodgers and for the LA Rams, you know, Major League Baseball.

I want to hear from you. Maybe the NFL is going to end up wanting to hear for you and the Rams are going to, and it's like, wouldn't it just be so MMA if the only person to suffer any sort of consequences for their involvement in this is the doctor who made the mistake of treating an MMA fighter? The fighter himself, the UFC, none of those people going to face any sort of consequences because we're just used to that in this sport. We're used to crazy shit like that.

The doctor is the one who might come. away being like, I should have never, ever even picked up the phone when these people called me. Absolutely. To your point earlier, it does kind of, the question from me, the broader questions are about level playing field. You know, when everyone rushing to defend, McGregor, you're like, exactly like you said with Hill, like, he braces his leg, what happens? Is there this kind of defense if that happens for everyone? I know they laugh at me often at the Ariel O'Anne show when I say, like, remember this is a sport, and they go, no. I don't think it is anymore, PISA, but I'm like, but the illusion of sport needs to be there.

Like, we need to have two people competing on a supposed level playing field. And when you kind of see the people rushing to defend McGregor in this situation, you do have those questions. Like, would this be the case if this was another guy and that are not well-known guy? No, I got to know Corey Hill pretty well. Corey Hill died a few years ago, but he he dealt with nerve damage in his leg for the rest of his life because of that barely nasty leg break. He basically had the same leg break Anderson Silva did.

And, you know, he got like the standard of medical care that you or I would be able to get if like we broke our legs. And but it wasn't the Con and McGregor standard of care where the celebrity doctor is going to help you out and then send you to, to special scientists to get you on some of that good, good. So yeah, the level playing field conversation, especially because if I'm another fighter, fighters get injured all the time. If I tore my rotator cuff or something, you know, I had some kind of. injury that took me out for a while and I saw this story, I'd be going, wait, why wasn't anybody helping me get on some of this stuff? Why didn't anybody tell me I could get out of the testing pool for a little while? I could do whatever I needed to do to feel like I recovered and got healthy again. And then I can get back in. You know, you just want everybody to have access

to the same information and the same ability to do this stuff. Ultimately, it doesn't affect them within the sport at all, does it? No, I mean, at this point, I think the, in the MMA world, in general, the sports world in general, I think we all feel pretty differently about doping stuff these days. Plus, it's not like Connor McGregor had a squeaky clean image before. Like, this is one of the least, uh, least like, uh, repugnant things he's ever been accused of doing. This is just like, hey, you know, you do what you got to do, buddy, you know, like this is, people can look at it and be like, yeah, he wasn't really hurting anybody. He was, he wasn't fighting on this. And even if he was, I don't think a whole lot of people are as precious about the idea that we all have to go in there for pure sports sake.

It's not like where, you know, you're a baseball star and there's a little kid in the stands looking at you with tears in his eyes going, say it ain't so. This is, you know, this is a professional fighting and we already had reason to think that this was not a guy who felt that the rules applied to him. So I don't think that he really suffers from it. And it also wasn't like we were looking at him and being like, the thing we remember Connor McGregor now for is being a big star, not necessarily like the greatest fighter. We've seen the limits of him as a fighter. It's the stardom thing that still resonates.

And to your point about Anderson Silva, like, I think he popped because he was taking something for his leg. Yeah. I fully believe that. I've always believed that. And we felt understanding of that at the time. I feel like it's an asterisk nearly, honestly, you know? I really do.

Yeah. I mean, when that came out, when it came out that he failed to the test, I don't think people were going, your whole legacy is tainted Anderson Silva. I think we went, would have been better if you hadn't failed a test for this, but also we get it. You're an aging fighter coming back from a horrible injury. We could understand it. Even if it didn't scientifically help you,

we could understand how you might have thought you needed something extra to come back from that. Like I felt like we had a little bit of sympathy for that, that, you know, we would not have had if it was, like when it was Alistair Overeem who suddenly showed up and was like, I'm a heavyweight now and a walking action figure. And we went, bro, we know what you're doing. Listen, I don't know. That horse meat. He said it was horse meat, dude.

Apparently a lot of protein within the equestrian beef or whatever it is. Before we go, Katie Taylor has sold out Crow Pack in 30 minutes, 82,000 tickets gone. I'm not surprised at all Did you get me one? I, do you know what? I told you I want to go. Come on.

I mean, I thought you'd be on the credential list for God's sake. Do you know how many people text me after the fucking sales stop? Like, you know, there's that window you're in the queue. And they all just like, I've interviewed Katie Taylor twice on video,

which doesn't help in this regard. They think you're best friends then. They're just at least 20 people. So what are we going to do about the tickets? What are we going to do about? I'm like, what the fuck do you mean? Can you get tickets? Oh, of the 82,000 seats that just sold out in front of your fucking eyes, do I have any tickets?

What is wrong with you? Absolutely insane. It's going to be a crazy event, dude. There's Nikisa Badarian. Record setting this will be the most tickets sold to a woman's headline combat sports event, surpassing Rondevi home in Melbourne. Congrats to Queen Katie Taylor and Matron Boxing. Women boxing wins again.

I thought that was a nice touch from Nikisa. Obviously, this is an Eddie Hearn event. Eddie Hearn has done the hard miles. There has been a bit of history between them. Famously, Eddie Hearn was not going to be allowed to step up on the podium after Katie Taylor's second win over Amanda Serrano. So Brian Peters obviously very involved in that as well. And yeah, I mean, a nice bit of business.

Katie Taylor getting our hero's moment. And I honestly, I just can't wait to see it, dude. Yeah. I've never thought I'd see someone fight at this venue. And there's also, I feel like there's a bit of one-upmanship there for Eddie Heron over Dana Boy who teased this during McGregor's pump so many times we're going to do Crow Park we're going to do all this shit well Katie got it done

and I'm still coming even though I didn't get a ticket and you can get a media pass obviously Ben Hey if they want to give me a credential I feel like this is you sold me on it you not only did you talk about last week you were sending in the group chat you were sending me and Chuck videos from Croke Park and I was just like you know what that does seem like something you'd like to therefore. So, especially you talk about like, you're just glad to see somebody finally fighting in

this venue. Me too. Because now I am forced to admit that it might actually exist in this world. Not until he gets there on the night will he fully accept. Okay, it's a fucking stadium. And you know, Katie Taylor was asked about this and it kind of, it's funny to me like, I go to America, I look at your stadiums and they're absolutely unreal. Like you guys won't look at Crow Park and go, wow, because you have fucking spaceships in the middle of every major city is Avnau. I was just kind of like,

what will be the American take on this place? It's full of history, of course, and it's like, it's, as I've said before on this show, like it's a monument to Irish culture, basically.

That's what it was built for. That's what it still is. But are people going to be really underwhelmed after hearing about this for like 15 years and just rock up and be like, yeah, this is the big old piece of concrete there. I do like the idea that you,

the picture you've kind of painted as a stadium that's just in the middle of a neighborhood because that is one thing we don't do we used to do that like and there are still some of those old stadiums that are around there like fenway park in boston where you're just sort of plunk down in the middle of stuff when you're walking around the city you can see it it's also though not as far as like capacity everything like not one of those huge cathedral kind of stadiums that we have built for for college football and things like that and i i think there's a charm in doing it that way especially it'll be a novelty like for somebody like me to go because it's otherwise you It's like you go to a city, you go to Seattle or something and you're just sort of like, all right, I'm going to go see a Mariners game, go see a Seahawks game or something. I went to see the Winter Classic out there in Seattle a few years ago. And you're like, here I am in Seattle. There the stadium is outside the city, basically. Like it's a long trek to get out there.

And it's just sort of like in the middle of a district that is just sort of built up around, you know, stadium traffic that doesn't effectively exist any other time of year. So I think that there is a certain like old world charm to just be like, look at this. It's not huge, but we built it right here, right smack in the middle of our lives. I'd like to experience that. Well, Jesus, I'm even more excited for it now. Are you excited for the World Cup? I mean, you're a soccer fan.

Super excited. Super excited. U.S. and Paraguay tonight. I've already got plans with my friends meet up down there at the watering hole. Nice. We got to win this one. Man, I was talking about this with some friends this week, talking about it with my CME co-host, Chad, this week about how 1994 we had the World Cup here. And I was like 14, and I remember here and all the time, it was just like, this is going to be a turning point for the way Americans regard soccer.

There were articles in magazines. It's back when magazine still existed. You'd read about it and it'd be like explaining soccer to you, explaining the rules because they know Americans don't really know. And just, hey, this is going to be a point where Americans realize how huge soccer is. Our team is going to start to get good after that. We're going to start to put more resources into it.

And now here we are, like 30 years later, and we're still wildly mediocre at soccer. We're still not very good. And I feel like Americans have been hearing for so many years, like, don't worry, we're going to catch up. We're going to catch up, you guys. And then we won't be laughing stock anymore. and we haven't caught up at all.

Every indication I've heard from people who are experts on this say, don't expect this to be the year we catch up. That if we could make it as far as the quarterfinals, that would be kind of a miracle. But like right now, we just got to focus on making it out of the group stage. And it's Americans aren't used to that PC. We're used to go in the Olympics and winning a bunch of shit.

We take it for granted. And so we have this sport. The world loves this sport. Everybody else is better at it than us. and we just get so damn frustrated by it. We're just so confused. Not Ireland. That didn't make it there, though.

The biggest fucking, the more teams than ever before, but not us. No, no. No, no. Little twist of the knife. Little twist of the knife that we, the biggest world. Cabo Verde is there. You know? Ireland has some of the countries, honestly.

Some of them aren't even countries. They aren't even independent. it. Yeah, it's fucked. I love the World Cup. 94 is special World Cup for me because it was the first one I was kind of aware of because it was only like three for Italian 90, which in hindsight

I love to watch too, but 94 I can remember being there, my little green jersey. The hydration was a massive issue for the teams back then because they didn't have these hydration breaks, which was imposed for this World Cup. People very upset about them. You've lost the sanctity of the game. This is just an excuse for an advertisement break, which I do believe.

is true. But in 94, the Irish players were so sunburnt and dehydrated and there was not allotted water breaks. So they came up with this idea, Ben, that the manager, Jack Charlton, and this was a very famous team in Ireland, he would fill bags of water and just fucking throw them at the players while they're running past. So you can see this like 70 year old man just throwing bags like these sealed bags of water and just exploding off people's heads as they're running past. That's him doing them a favor? apparently well that's what he was trying to i mean jack wouldn't have been thought of as a of a scientific man to be fair um also an incredible scene was john aldrich trying to get on the pitch he was subbed on and the third official wouldn't bring him on and there's just this amazing bit of footage of uh john aldridge who's a scouser he has a liverpool actually plays for ireland just fucking the third official i'll go let me on the fucking pitch and i was like jesus christ i did not know soccer players

got down like that but man fucking love the World Cup. I'm very very excited so Ariel's team playing today and then everybody else's team America one thing I will say host nation I think America I wouldn't be surprised they're still there still hanging around

semi-final and then after that it's like everyone's so broken up everyone's not used to these conditions the US boys could do something man I'm just saying well we don't want to get our hopes up too high as far as us as the host nation And we've bollocksed it up a little bit already, as you might say.

But the thing that gives me hope for this country is when I see stuff like Lawrence, Kansas, rallying behind the Algerian team. And I don't know if it was one of the university bands out there in Kansas, learned the Algerian national anthem, play it for them when their team was coming out to practice. And that's the kind of stuff where it's just like, okay, we as individually as Americans, our institutions and our institutions and our. Apparathuses do seem like they are rotting from within. That is concerning in a lot of ways. But individually as Americans, we can still show up and show out for people and be welcoming. And we can still remember that we are ourselves, a nation of immigrants, and we can welcome those from without. That does bring me joy.

That and also seeing all the Scots descend on Boston. Oh, my God. That is very enjoyable for me. The Scots and the Irish usually form a Celtic wall like, when we qualify for the same. And if Ireland aren't there, Scotland will support us, and so we'll support Scotland for this one.

But another cool thing, and that Kansas, I don't know if it was some kind of official who was speaking, it's gone viral all over the place. I've seen this guy everywhere, and everyone's like, look at how fucking cool this is. One last thing to be aware of is,

the Netherlands have a tradition. When they play in the World Cup, the bus shows up and the fucking crowd come behind the bus. They walk to the arena behind the bus. So I can't remember what city they're playing in. They had to just ring someone and be like, yeah, you're going to have to close this street.

And they're like, absolutely not. What do you mean? He's like, listen, it's just better for you if you close the street. You're going to close the street one way or another. Yeah, we're going to have 20,000 people dressed in orange losing their fucking minds walking behind us. And they're an amazing crowd. That's what it's all about.

All these cultures coming together, this beautiful game, these beautiful people. I fucking love it. And we can talk about it more after Sunday, of course. We need to have the big. hoopla for the skirmish on the south lawn and look up ben there can't wait are you fun like now we can just enjoy it right ben like we can just enjoy it now you know what the once the cage door closes this is uh the you know the best sports in the world it's everything else around it that sometimes makes it hard to just turn your brain off and enjoy that but i am looking forward to these fights

you do have a lot of good fights on this lineup a lot of ones where i could see them go in a bunch of different ways and we should get some good action from it. And, you know, the UFC lightweight title going up for grabs Ilya Teporia might grow of several inches with a victory over Justin Gator, such as my understanding. Exponse. That's true. Andy, before we go, do we have any super chats?

They still love us. Love the show. Enjoy the weekend, fellas from the Gator 117. We love you too, Gator. We will enjoy the weekend. Thank you. La Mancha MMA, $2. Praying for Belfast

sucks what happened to Stephen. Belfast, in case you don't know, for those who might be uninformed, there was a guy videotape beheading a man in the middle of the street. What? He's kicked off. He didn't get beheaded,

but he was attempting to behead him. But now it's kicked off all these anti-immigrant stuff all over the towns and they're burning people out of their homes and everything like that. It's very old. ugly. And Mick Conlin was talking about it online just like, what the fuck is going on up there? Very, very bad. Obviously, terrible that a man was nearly beheaded in the street, but fucking poor reaction.

So thank you for that La Mancha, MMA. Yeah. Give it a little Belfast of Google there. Thank you, Andy. Um, well, that's it, Ben. We've been through it. We had Ben, we had... I did not expect to end the show on that. No, this is our first time hearing about this. And this is a weird way to end the show. Yeah, it is. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a. is really weird and the footage is really fucked up. It's, um, yeah, it's kicking off. I, I, I'm basically just seeing it through online, but it's the first time, and I'll tell you, it was a bit troubling because it's the first time I've seen Sky News, which is our, like,

I don't know what your biggest news is, like, Fox or CNN or whatever. It's the first time I've seen, like, just a permanent aerial view of Belfast for a very long time. And just seeing fires pop up around Belfast, like, oh my God. the amount of, like, trauma you have from seeing that growing up with the troubles and everything. You're like, fucking hell. Like, this is, this is not good. But, um, yeah, go on X. There's a lot of people, a lot of people fully in favor of it, of course.

So who the fuck am I to say anything? You know what I mean? But, um, the people I've spoke to in Belfast said it's, it's fucking scary. Um, so yeah, I hope it, I hope it gets stopped. And obviously I hope people don't get beheaded either. Well, you know what I mean? Sunday, baby. At the White House.

We are going to do. post show there's going to be a watch along and the world cup is on let's pick ourselves up ladies and gentlemen because i love you very much and i love ben folks i love andy i love oscar losep i love chuck mennith and i love you all too crackheads we will see you next week enjoy the fights