The Ariel Helwani Show - Vince Russo, Waldo Cortes-Acosta, Alfie Davis, Winged C, McGregor x Khabib rivalry renewed, On The Nose, more

Episode Date: November 26, 2025

Ariel Helwani kicks off the final show before Thanksgiving by acknowledging the Uncrowned team, before answering your On The Nose questions, with topics including Khabib Nurmagomedov’s NFT launch, Conor McGregor and Khabib’s war of words over the NFTs, Ilia Topuria’s inactivity, Ian Machado Garry’s brash personality, and more (33:39).Wrestling legend Vince Russo stops by to promote his upcoming engagement with Juggalo Championship Wrestling, assess the current wrestling landscape for WWE, AEW, TNA and others, and tell stories from the glory days, including memories of his partnership with Vince McMahon, his beef with Eric Bischoff, and more (1:01:35).Waldo Cortes-Acosta looks back at his big win over Shamil Gaziev at UFC Qatar, including how the short-notice opportunity came about. He also touches on being the father to nine children, being fully healed after the eye-poke in his knockout win against Ante Delija, wanting to fight Curtis Blaydes or Derrick Lewis, his baseball career, and more (2:05:11).2025 PFL Lightweight Tournament Champion Aflie Davis makes his show debut, talking about how close he came to retiring before realizing his MMA dreams, his upcoming matchup with Usman Nurmagomedov, his rise through the kickboxing ranks, his friends’ viral tattoo, and more (2:33:54).Internet sensation Winged C joins the show, explaining his origins, his name, his tattoos, his love of anime, emoting, how he got onto the APFC MMA card, overcoming defeat after having his win streak snapped, his relationships with Demetrious Johnson and Death Sentence, and more (3:00:19).Ariel and The Boys return to answer more On The Nose questions and Super Chats (4:01:26).

Ladies and gentlemen, now, welcome to the Eriot-A-A-Waddy show. Back in your life on this Wednesday, November 26th, 2,000. And 25, hello again, everyone. I sure hope you're doing well. Welcome to our final show. of the week. It is Thanksgiving Eve. There is no one out there on the streets of New York. I mean, my commute was the quickest it's ever been. In fact, I had to drop my wife off. She came into town with me and I was like, this is a breeze. I mean, I'm complaining all the time about the traffic

and here you are in the car with me. It takes me 30 minutes to get to the studio. I mean, it was phenomenal. The vibes couldn't be better. It's one of my dearest friends' birthday today. Shout out to Daniel Wolf back home in Montreal. Happy Everyone's in a great mood, everyone's loving life, everyone's grateful and thankful and appreciative. I do want to say right up the top in case I forget how thankful, how grateful, how appreciative I am to have all of you in our lives on a daily basis to have the support that you have given us over the past year plus since the uncrowned era started, but really since I started from, you know, in 2007. It's been an unbelievable journey and it's important to give thanks. I'm so thankful

for the team back there. Everyone back there, Andy and Frank, Rick, Connor, of course, the great Dan who's been joining us and who's been doing such a tremendous job. Jordan, we miss you. You're not Wally Pip. He was in the substack comments saying that he was Wally Pipped. Absolutely not. That will never happen. Of course, everyone back on the social side of things, Kell and Spencer, new addition to the team Marcos as well everyone who does all the tech stuff for us the great Ben Hefner the whole team at Yahoo does such a great job Tyler shout out to Tyler

Kirsten as well Sam and John and Ryan Nicole head of sales I mean how can we forget Nicole Who am I forgetting guys I mean there's such a great team behind us Chris Hein shout out to Chris Chris Costa The Chris's how can I forget the Chris's You know as you're starting to rifle off the names Then you're like oh no I'm bound to forget someone James as well. Shout out to James. Shout out to everyone. Tyson Pedro, too. Why not? And the great Bam Bam Tai Tui Vasa, who hopefully is coming back in February on that Sydney card. The point is, if you've helped us out, we appreciate you. If you are supporting us, we appreciate you. If you're in every single day like the team back there, we appreciate you. And I appreciate you. I appreciate you. Frank, I even appreciate you.

My man. Yeah. Wow. Where did that come from? That's a new one. Is that me? That's you. Wow. Where is that from? Who me?

I was to you yesterday. That was a weird one because it was like me talking to me. Yeah. It's you with Armin yesterday. My man, Armin. My man. We had to go back into the like clean audio feed and clip that out. Love it.

Love it. That's good. I like a little surprise. I told Frank, I was like I feel like there's going to be a time where you can use that three minutes into the show. It was Devin Haney. Was it? Yeah, because you were like you're up. Oh.

The lounge, are we annoying you right now? No, I'd always make time for you. And you were like, my man. Yep, that's sort of like my passive-aggressive way of being like, I don't love this situation, but I'm appreciative that you're here nonetheless. My man. Yeah. By the way, conspicuous by his absence in that entire rant was the great Pizzi Carol.

Did you mention him? No, I didn't mention him because I lumped him in with the underground. So, of course. And lest we forget, the whole uncrowned... I mean, there's so many pillars here. The whole uncrown.com team, Shaheen Al-Shadi, Chuck Minnanhall, Ben Fokes, Petsy Carroll, Drake Riggs, Darshan, Desai, Elliot Wursell. I mean, that whole team over there is phenomenal.

And the newest member of the team, the great E. Casey Leiden. I mean, it really is a big team, by the way. How are we affording all this? What's that? Alan Murphy, great lad. Oh, my God. You know what? You gave him a whole...

freaking intro. It doesn't matter. He doesn't really listen to you. So you don't say thank you today again? No, no, no. You're right. He should have been at the top of the list. He should have been at the top of him. Thank you, Alan. You're a great person. You're a great guy. And we met you too. Gosh, we probably forgot one person and now that person feels like shit, right? Tracy. How can we forget about Tracy when she fills in? How can we forget about Josh? Big Josh. Who else? Who else, guys? We said Hefner, yeah? Of course Jerry

How can we forget about Jerry? I mean I think we've What about Ariel? Ariel Oh you know He's a jolly

Good fellow Without whom None of us would be here Guys we have a great show Dare I say The perfect type of show To head into the holiday break

Perfect type of show Why do I do that sometimes You're going to watch that Why do I do that? Screenshots are going crazy Why do I do that? Why do I do that? Why do I have to keep it? Perfect type of show. And we were commenting on this before the show, first time in a while, not first time ever, but definitely in a while, that we have four first timers on the program.

Been a while. Been a while. At 2 o'clock, a man that I have been watching on television or watching content that he produced on television for as long as I can remember since the mid-90s, former head of creative for WWF, former head of creative for WCW, former head of creative for TNA Wrestling, now a part of J.C. Dub, aka Juggalo Championship Wrestling, going to make his debut for them tomorrow

on their program entitled Lunacy on YouTube, Vinny Rood, the former WCW World Heavyweight Champion of the World, World Heavyweight Champion of the World, Vince Russo, one of the most controversial polarizing, interesting, fascinating

human beings that has ever taken part in the world of pro wrestling was a fixture. It was a big part of the attitude era, late 90s, head of creative, like I said, alongside Ed Ferreira. I mean, the guy has had an incredible life. I've met him once before, very briefly, almost 20 years ago in Orlando.

We'll talk about that. But I'm really excited to talk to him. He does a bunch of media stuff as well. And just a great character. and you know I enjoy these chats. And I think a lot of you do as well. So sit back and relax. It's going to be a lot of fun.

After that chat, we are going to be joined by, who is it? Who is it? Who is it? Waldo Cortez Acosta, who of course has become a household name in the world of MMA. He has fought five times in the year 2025, four and one coming off that incredible win over Shamil Ghaziv back in Qatar this weekend. Prior to that, was just fighting Antidellia just a couple of weeks ago, got poked in the eye, came back, knocked him out.

Now he wants to fight one more time in December, the pride of the Dominican Republic, former member of the Cincinnati Reds organization. Waldo Cortez-A-Costa, the pirate himself, going to join us for the first time on the program. After that, we'll be joined by Alfie Davis, big Arsenal supporter, and in fact that he realized that Arsenal's playing Byron Munich at the same time that he's going to be on, so he might be hating us, but NBD, NBD, I actually unearthed the DM that he sent me in 2017 to talk about him after a Bell-Tor fight. He is fighting Usmaner Magamatov for the PFL lightweight title on February 7th in Dubai.

Great story, great guy. Never met him, but about to. Looking forward to it, Alfie Davis, joining us at 3.30. And the inimitable winged C, who is a bit of a cult-like favorite on the internet. Street Beefs lost APFC on Sunday, got kicked in the head, got choked out. It was a bit of a scene. but a guy that a lot of people are excited to hear from on the program. He's got a nice little amateur record.

What is his amateur record here? I'm taking a look at it real quick. It is, I do believe, no, that's... Six and one? That's six and one. That's not bad. Actually, six and two, according to Tapology. Most recent loss, forgot about it.

Real name Malcolm Shoiler, an interesting character. Preferreds the Discord, but he's jumping on Zoom at 4 o'clock. So a real interesting, eclectic kind of day, four first timers on the program, all from different walks of life. And I am looking forward to it very much. I also, as always, look forward to a little On the Nose. And so, time not for everyone's fair to say.

It is time. It's time for all the nose. Of course, Arialhuawani. com, the place to be for all the questions. It's been a great week. We've had a who's who. I mean, yesterday it was an all-time day.

Armid Sarukian and Carlos Prachis and Devin Haini and Ben Whitaker and Shafkat Rachmanov and Yan Gary and Armin Surukian on Monday as well. We got to say goodbye to him. It's been an unbelievable week here on the program. Also exciting that Arialawani.com is back up and live right now, 20% off, working on some new designs as we speak. So please do support the orders are coming in so fast and furious. My guy, Brandon, another person who I should thank is part of the

entire uncrowned empire. Thank you so much to action. Bronson for introducing me to him. He's unbelievable. He's such a smart, hardworking guy. He got it up and running, and we're working on some new stuff right now. Ariahawaii.com, place to be for all the stuff. All right. Let us go to the questions, guys. Nemesh says, with me now being out of town for work, spending the week with you and your crew has been great. Thank you. Thank you, Mesh. I always love when people say, like, I spent the week with you or you keep me company during the workday or I go to bed to you, you know, the standing of everybody. It's like, is there a greater compliment?

Is there a greater compliment, guys? No. Oh. I like to spend the week better than not I go to bed to you, but. Yeah. I'm here for bedtime. Triple double. That'll be your slogan, Frank.

Triple double says Ian continues to promise us spectacles and delivers another average performance. He's talking about Ian Machado Gary, of course. sure he won but why promised the media that Balal won't land a punch if he stands with him I think that this is where

the disdain comes from it's so easy to dislike him after he tells us unequivocally he will knock him out and won't get touched and then proceeds to do neither does he not see that he will be plus $8 billion

against Islam let's get real do you guys think he would be that big of an underdog against Islam no I don't think I don't think he's wrong necessarily about the criticism

at the top like when you do say I'm going to knock you out or you're not and then you don't you are opening yourself to criticism and you are just putting sort of like he didn't have to say that he didn't have like a win over belal is impressive enough you don't have to put that but that's just all part of the cell and you have to deal with the consequences i don't he would obviously be an underdog but what do you think ptzee like three to one like i don't think he'd be that big of an underdog four to one i think i think i think islam be like a minus 400 or something yeah maybe but you know but it's just that's more that's

more speaks to Islam's dominance, right? Like, he's the best pound for pound fighter in the world. I think Ian's an interesting fight for him. Like, and again, this is, this is, in a way, the UFC has told us to incentivize spectacle. And I know that's always been the case, right? The guys who are knocking people out, um, get the biggest rewards. But certainly since the pandemic, there's more emphasis on it. We have contender series, which is like, if you're winning decisions, we don't care.

Um, this is a sport and he's really good at the sport. And he has an incredible IQ. I think it's his best asset, actually, his fight IQ. And that's why I think it's a really interesting fight. And in a way, you know, it's kind of become his thing, like winding people up about how he's going to do things. Like, I see people losing their minds about it. But to his point, people are tuning in, whether it's to give him shit or to celebrate him.

Like, he is a guy who is garnering a lot of you. Right? You're not indifferent towards them. It's very simple. There's pros and cons analysis for all of this. if he promises a knockout and doesn't deliver you hate him more and you're going to tune in to see him lose if he promises a knockout and gets it

he's Mystic Mac part two so there's only pros on that side of the ledger if he doesn't promise anything and he goes out and wins it doesn't help him in any regard so there's no downside to him continuing to say this I jokingly kind of dropped into the group chat that he's joining the territory of the Sean Strickland and Colby Covington

we're going to the death, I'm going to murder everybody, knockouts, knockouts, knockouts, and then, you know, grinding out decisions. But it works for him because he's, quite frankly, a heel. He is not the baby-faced character. Regardless, like, I think he's okay with that now. I think he's okay

with that. I also do think that the heat, whatever it may be, wherever it may be coming from, isn't because of this. Isn't because, like, he makes predictions and he doesn't. But even if it was, it's only upside. But I'm just saying, like, I think this got, I think this guy is right that he does kind of like get under people's skin and they want to see him.

Yes. But I think it has nothing to do with this. I think it has to do with the stuff that Pizzi has talked about, Ireland, Brazil, obviously the stuff with his wife, the way he, like, talks, the McGregor stuff. I think all that is so much more of a factor than whatever this guy is talking about. I think this is just a part of it. Yeah. It does get to a point where, like, he is talking about he's going to knock Bilal's block off and he's going to knock him out in the first round and he's going to stamp and everything. And then going into the fight, I was sitting with someone who was like,

I think I'm going to take Ian by K.O. Did you hear he was talking? I bet he wins by decision. And sure enough, he, like, he hasn't knocked anyone out in two and a half years. I was saying it to him during the interview. Like, he was saying, like, I'm going to do this, blah. And I was going to like, but that's tough guy. And he was going to like, come on, me, come on.

So it's like, I think he's leaning into it. He is leaning into it and he should. As I said, what is the downside of this? The only thing it will do is make people more angry. It's perfect. Right, because as long as he wins, it doesn't matter. If he nails it and wins the, and gets the prediction, right, everybody's going to go, Ah, Ian, he called it.

If he gets it wrong, more people are going to go, Ian, you mother effer, you keep saying you're going to knock him out and you never knock anybody out. Yes, great, perfect. It's all, Ian has played this all perfectly. He always does. He always continues to play it perfectly. He's playing the guy who doesn't know he's the heel when he's the heel. He thinks he's the baby face who's playing the heel. Perfect.

It's kind of like Kurt Engel, Sirka, 1999. I don't know if he doesn't know. Yeah, no, I think he does think he's the baby face. Yeah, I do. You think he thinks he's the baby face? I think he's kind of like, how do you guys not love me? I am clapped. I hope not.

But either way, it still works. He definitely thinks he's beloved, for sure. If I was in charge of Ian Gary's career right now, and I think we've talked about this before, I would get, like, when he did that, that seminar at SBG, I would have filmed that. I would film him walking around Dublin. I would try to set up interviews with local papers. I would try to set up interviews with the local radio stations.

Like, he needs, because if he had 50% of the backing of the Irish people, I think he would be getting the title shot. Because the Irish fans are so passionate. And they, like, remember, remember there was a guy named, oh, not Andy Lee. It was something. There was John. Irish boxer?

John Dutty, but there was another one, I mean, sort of like the Callum Walsh thing, but there was a mother effer, not Andy Lee, obviously not Andy Lee. There was another guy who was Irish, who they would bring to New York to fight in, in like the early 2000s. He sure wasn't John Dutty. John Dutty always fathered. Maybe it was John Dutty. And he wasn't that good.

Patrick's Day, yeah, yeah. My point is, so my point is, it's like, if you have that built-in connection, play it up, and for whatever reason he hasn't wanted to play it up. Only in certain moments, and I know he doesn't live there and everything like that, but if he had the Irish people backing him, I think he would be fighting for the belt. He would be next in line because they would be wanting, and I'm not even talking about the Islam thing, the Dagestan thing. I just think that it is infectious, right? It is infectious the way in which that they, you know, they support. And everyone, it's sort of like Ricky Hen and the English people and people from Manchester.

Like you want to create that, and if you have that built in, you should lean into it. And so that's what I would do if I were them. And I think that people were behind. There's just a lot of boy's remorse in Ireland from the McGregor days, you know? Yeah. There really is. And the fact that Ian constantly talks about McGregor, I think that kind of, I think people want to, like, we saw what Paul Hughes, right? Like, the biggest reaction to Paul Hughes over here was because of his interaction with McGregor.

And because people started backing him because McGregor was like, Derry's not Ireland. And that kind of brought in this tribalism with the Irish people. I think it's, since day one in the UFC, Ian's kind of aligned himself. with McGregor, and obviously McGregor is a hugely polarizing dude here. Just to put it mildly, he's a hugely polarizing dude here. And I think that's gone against him to a large extent. Okay, here's a message from Baklava. Ian is exactly what Eddie said about Devin. Sure, meaning Eddie Hearn and Devin Haney. Sure, he's a good fighter, but it ain't fun to watch. Ian could literally just stop talking about the outcomes before they happen, and he would do himself

a lot of favors. Is he trying to be unlikable? Maybe he doesn't care, but it comes off fake and disingenuous. Does anyone on the team agree, or are you all D1 Glazers? Couldn't disagree more. What advantage does Ian Machado-Garri have for being silent? That's not how this game works. If he goes out there and just has the performances, it's going to be ten times worse because everybody's going to only be saying, man, you fight to a lot of decisions. He's going to end up being belal. The fact that he goes out there and uses the mic time, a whether his predictions come true or not is how you advance in this game. It's how he keeps himself relevant in the conversations.

When he goes out there after beating Bilal Muhammad and promising a KO and fighting to another decision like we all knew he was going to and goes, it was a masterclass. It was the best that anybody's ever done. Look at what I did to him. And you can see the wrestling of Jack Della Madalena and I'm going to do better against Islam. That's the best use of your mic time. Because if you say nothing, you don't get fed. the closed mouth doesn't get fed you continue to just make the noise everybody pays attention whether

they like it don't like it these people like these two people who wrote in are clearly paying attention if he said nothing they wouldn't be saying anything and so he's doing this perfectly Ian is playing this perfectly now whether he knows he's the baby face or the heel that I think is probably the debate part of it but I don't think you can handle it better than Ian has handled it so far okay let's continue GC's LBS what is that I mean, no BS. Oh, IBS.

Why'd you make that face? Because, I mean, at first I thought he was talking about, like, your weight, and then I was like, ah, it's a capital I. UFC needs to start making some of those electric matchups that we were used to. I'm with Ariel. The fight is Armand versus Ilya. I get the hype for Ilya versus Patty, but Patty stands no chance. The line will be a heavy Armin favorite.

We need Armin versus Ilya where we don't know. what is going to happen. I hear you. I hear you, my guy. Lotion in the basket. Have you happened to see the Josh Allen versus Phil Mickelson

golf match on YouTube? Your boy, Josh, is a cheater, integrity, and question little weasel. I have no idea what you're talking about. Does anyone know

what this is about? Yangt Cheat, Yangtrian. Yeah. I don't know what he's talking about. Never heard of it. Don't know.

Mitch from Perth. Frank, your comedic timing on the drops is unreal at times. I need to know when you're hitting the perfect drop at the perfect time and you know it's fucking hilarious. Are you sitting there smiling just proud of your work or do you just sit there deadpanning it like it's just another day in the office? And Ariel, yes, go ahead. No,

go ahead. I crack myself up. Like that's, I push the button for my my sake. And then if you guys laugh along, great. If it didn't work, oh well, I'm still having a good time. Ariel, not sure if you've touched on this. But in December last year, Dana teased a fight that we'd quote, never see coming. Do you have any idea what he may have been cooking up there? No, I don't. I mean, my hypothesis at the time was the, remember shortly thereafter, the Connor, Logan Paul stuff came about? And then there was another one that I was like, oh, oh, the White House.

The White House was my hypothesis, that he was kind of like lumping it in as a fight, but like that no one would see it coming. I feel like that was it. What do you guys think? No. No idea. Henry, hey H. When do you think the UFC will start announcing?

26 fights. First PLE is less than two months away. Maybe, maybe, um, wow, something just occurred to me, Rick. I just, it just occurred to me right here and now. Speaking of all this, that I had a dream that I was talking to our old boss from ESPN last night. Okay.

Well, just because it was reported that he, Glenn Jacobs, that he left to go to power. And this just, like, it just hit me like a lightning bolt, like, wow. You want to go into the dream? Do we want to? No, just we were talking. talking about life. I hadn't talked to him since we left. You're just sitting in a chair talking life with Glenn? Yeah, that was it.

Wow. What a dream. It just occurred to me right now. Why was I dreaming about him? I'm not sure. Did you wake up happier, sadder? I was happy. I'm someone who doesn't like to, you know, I like to keep in touch. You know, I was happy. There was nothing more to it. It just occurred to me when I was thinking Paramount Plus, PLE. Maybe a little text message. See what's up. Yeah. A dream.

Hopefully in December we'll find out. We're starting to see like some fights. get announced, but yeah, there's a lot of mystery. There's a lot of mystery. G.C., please blind rank these five desserts in honor of Thanksgiving. Oh, let's go. This is from what have you done. I'm surprised, 22 minutes in, first blind rank. Yeah. Barry Cobbler. Uh, four. Baclova. Buckleva, not really a Thanksgiving. Yeah. I love it. I feel like we should have done Thanksgiving dishes. Five. Churros with Nutella dip. Okay, three. O.G. Chocolate chip cookie. Two? Pumpkin pie.

Yeah, one. That's the only Thanksgiving dessert here, though. Barry Cobbler? Eh. You show up at my house with a Barry Cobbler on Thanksgiving. I'm asking some questions. Salsa Boy. Armin, wet blanket performance equals entertaining.

Islam, wet blanket performance equals boring. Choms out wet blanket performance equals horrific. I'm not really sure what you're trying to say, other than maybe to suggest that Armin went for the finish. I think he's trying to imply like Armand gets credit for something that the other... For beating him up and finishing it in a round and a half? Yeah, like he actually subbed them. He was also not just laying on him for the time that he didn't get the submission.

Also, his sub escapes were like the most entertaining things I've ever seen in my life. All time bad take. It's like, what's the fucking... It's a casual shit. Like, you don't think there's a difference between people when they're on the ground. Like, once they're on the ground, that's the end of it. Like, it's not... It's very differing styles on the ground.

just happy we're back to hating wrestling as MMA feels like it went away for a bit now we're back to it like it's nice that's a great it feels retro it feels nice that everybody hates wrestling again also I feel like of the four of us none of us had like a major issue with Islam and Hamz performance no actually I think that we were like on the

complete opposite spectrum saying yeah chill out the dominant yeah I like Dartmouth's performance too I like them all body language expert says did you notice in the Ilya impersonation video that Ilya took an immediate step back when the guy switched his voice to Islam, Ilya was ready to strike him.

This is coming from a body language expert, too. I'll have to go back and check it out. The takes are wild here. Mimic bro about to get slapped by Iliant's up for you. Lex says, hi, Ariel. Why do you think Ilya has been a little inactive since winning the belts or the belt, not too inactive to be fair? I think all of us would love to see him more.

Do you think it's down to him wanting time or the UFC saving him for big cards? I think we all expected him on the January date. Yeah, I don't know. I thought he would be a layup on that January show, an absolute layup. Not sure what's going on. And I would love to see him fight, you know, two minimum times a year. This past year, well, 2025 will be once, right? And October of 24, he beat Max Holloway.

How many times did he fight in 24? Twice in 24, I believe. Yeah, Vulcan Holloway. Volcan Holloway. That was a great year. yeah I just once this year is a little disappointing was hoping that he'd start the year off and that would mean you know if you're fighting in January you're fighting at least twice a year most likely

so yeah not really sure what's going on but hopefully we get answers very soon we need two from him next year at yeah at the minimum Bob Sacramento great reference anyone know the reference the name sounds familiar but it's not coming to mind what is that It's a name, it's the name of a friend, Cosmo Kramer, mentions all the time on time. My good friend, Bob Sacramento. We never saw him. You remember this, G.C.?

Yes, yes, yes. You remember this, G.C. Hey, Ariel, with your recent Sydney Crosby interview, I'm curious, how do you approach interviewing athletes who are extremely media trained and tend to give tighter, more canned answers compared to fighters slash people in the fight business who are more open and candid? The Crosby interview require a different strategy, and did you find it more challenging than your typical combat sports interviews. I do want to let you know that there's a new function on YouTube now

where you can collaborate with people. And if you go to the bottom of our channel, we're starting to populate a couple of those. The Crosby interviews there, it says collaborations, and then my appearance on the DJ pod, the Mighty Cast, is on there as well. So it's a fun little thing. You can do it, click a button,

and now your other appearances are there. So go check that out if you haven't. Crosby interview was a lot of fun. I didn't overthink it, but I did think that if I came with like a different type of energy that he is used to when dealing with the usual NHL beatwriters and media guys that he's used to that he could open up, you know, you hit him with a couple of compliments, you tell him it's a huge honor. He views you a little bit differently. We're Canadian. We're talking about the Olympics. I'm asking him some like big picture questions.

And people told me that he enjoyed it and that he was having a good time, that he was smiling and all this stuff. So actually in the moment, I couldn't really see him, but at times I could hear his smile, which was fun. And, I mean, if you don't know, Sidney Crosby is, you know, you can make a case, like, it would be akin to interviewing LeBron James as a Canadian, as a hockey fan. Like, he's that big. He's that important. So, yeah, I mean, honestly, I would never call myself a hockey connoisseur. I listened to a bunch of interviews that he had done. He doesn't do a lot.

listen to some scrums, try to find some things that maybe like he dropped, some nuggets. By the way, no social media presence whatsoever. No Twitter, no Instagram, no nothing. So you couldn't find clues there. Pretty private guy. Keeps his personal life, very private, all that. But he seemed to be in a good mood. He was talking about the Olympics, something that he's very passionate about.

And yeah, it was great. And so with those, I just, I try to bring a different type of energy that they're used to. I'm not digging too much for news. not trying to get them in gotcha moments, but I'm trying to unearth perhaps things that they don't get to talk about or don't have an opportunity to talk about in a comfortable and sort of, you know, like just like sort of disarming way. That's my approach. Here's Mikey Z. Call me a D1 hater, but I don't see the star power in Ian Gary. He's obviously a good fighter, but there's nothing about his performance that really stands out. Eight of his last ten are decisions. And I understand

he's just being an inflated version of himself, but it comes off like he's trying too hard, and people can tell. Leon put it best, his biggest accomplishment until Balal was losing to Shafkat. Well, all right, now he's got another one. It feels like he's got shoved down our throats,

but unfortunately the guy's just the epitome of cringe. I don't believe he's been shoved down your throats. Like, you got to give the guy credit. He took a fight against Shavkat on short notice and went the distance. He took a fight against Carlos Prachis and beat him on short notice. Beat Balal. I mean, like, you can't...

Say what you will about it. him, and I'm sure you guys will agree, the guy walks to walk and talks to talk. He does not pick and choose. He does not nitpick. He does not, like, sit on his ranking, squat on his spot. You have to give him that credit. Like, he is a fighting fighter, in my opinion. And I understand he's not everyone's cup of tea. I understand the person. I get all of that stuff. But in a sport where sometimes you feel like there are certain people like, okay, you talk about like, you talk about a guy that, and I don't believe he's been pushed down our throats, and I don't believe Patty's been pushed down our throats. But you talk about a guy who's gotten a push, and I think

Patty's push has been greater. Look at the matchmaking for Patty. Look at the matchmaking for Ian. Right? Like, shall we go tit for tat with those? Look at the, look at the quality of opponents for Patty and the quality of opponents for Ian, especially as of late, like the last four, right? is anyone there? Yeah, we're here. Okay, no one's giving me anything. I keep saying, like, I'm trying to, you know what I mean? Like, does anyone disagree? No, Ian takes the tougher fights.

There's no doubt. Like, Ian, as you said, he walks it. Like, when it, these are the top guys. He's begging for the hardest fights. He wants to fight Islam Makachev, who is the best fighter in the world right now. Yeah. There's nothing else that needs to be said. They shove down your throat thing, I think, is just a confusion on the fact that he is doing the right things

of grabbing the microphone when the fight is done and screaming into it he's posting all these social videos he's being active during fight week on media day making headlines for himself

getting himself out in front of the public whether you like it or not is sort of like what we were talking about it's indifferent to him whether you love him or hate him but I don't think

he's being shoved down your throat he fights, he's active and he does the right things in front of the microphone he is being shoved down your throat so often he's because of his strength of schedule

like that's what it is that's what you think he's been shoved down your but he's just really that active. And to the Shavka point, like, about what Leon said, again, he, he's controlled the narrative there very well. You know, like about the knee injury, all this stuff. Whether you believe it or not, he has had his two cents.

He has left his imprint on that fight to the point when you think about Shavkat, you think about Ian. And you're like, that was an incredibly close fight. Whether you like him or not, that was an incredibly close fight against a guy who was bursting people. Like, that is a fact. So, first one to take him to a decision. decision. Also, we talk about the

activity, the praise. Him and Poetton, Alex Pereira, debuted on the same card, UFC 268 in November of 2021. We heap praise onto Alex Pereira for his activity. This guy is so active. He fights all the time. It's amazing when he does. Since that debut, 12

fights. Ian Gary, since that debut, 11 fights. He's almost the same amount of activity as Alex Barrera. Yeah, Pizzi and Connor just nailed the point. He is shoved down our throats. He is the one doing it. He is forcing you... I don't think the UFC is like overly pushing him. He's forcing you to pay attention.

He's taking the tough fights and he's making you pay attention. And I don't think that they're giving him favorable matchups. I don't think that they're trying to put him in spots to win. Why do we care so much about that? Why do fans give so much of a shit about like the Dana White privilege or whatever it is? Who cares? Why is that so significant and so important? Are we under the illusion that this meritocracy exists anymore?

Do we, do we, is anybody stupid enough to believe that this is how this is. It's selective. If it's one of their guys, if it's someone they like, they're all for it. If it's someone that they feel is getting this opportunity because they're getting Dana White privilege, then they're annoyed by it. It's just... It's a lack of critical thinking. Well, it's also just based on who they like. Ian Gary has also just had such a steady rise.

Yeah. Guys, all this Ian Gary talk has reminded me. No, no, he should be quiet, though. All this Ian and Gary talk, this guy should never speak into a microphone again. It'd be so smart if he just never talked again. By the way, it'll be perfect. I know he's not ever, like, I really enjoy talking to him on the show, having him on, because he just brings an energy.

Like, he brings it. And he makes the job very easy when he brings it like that. So the Ian Gary appearances, at least if I have a say, will not be stopping anytime soon. All this Ian Gary talk has reminded me of a bit of a back and forth this morning, guys, between Connor McGregor and Habibnur Magamatov. Shall we look into this? Because it does appear as though the rivalry is. is igniting, perhaps in anticipation of the big Ireland versus Dagestan rematch.

Or is it Dagestan versus Ireland? Who knows, but it is part two. Okay, so where does it start, guys? It starts... It's part, it's not part two, but go ahead. It's part five, part four. It starts, well, you know, it actually does start, it starts with Habib, one second, it starts with Habib doing a promotional thing on his Twitter that we talked about a couple

days ago where, what is it, an emoji. An NFT. An NFT on Telegram. Yeah. That is the Habib's Pupka. Here it is. And so you buy it and now you can use it in your messaging, right? I'm not sure if you can use it in your mentioning or not. It's just a digital collectible and there was only a certain amount that were for sale and they sold out very quickly. And do you know how much they were? I don't know, but I've seen the USD equivalent of all of them sold together was 4.3 million. And sold out?

It says here that it was 29,000. Okay, so according to Sportskeet MMA, Habib and Pavl Dureov launched 29,000 digital popkas on telegram, and they were sold instantly. So it was just 29,000? Yeah. That's it? Wow.

And the auction brought in over 347 million rubles, $4.3 million. from a virtual version of the iconic UFC hat. I don't know if I would call it that cultural hat that is synonymous with Habib. And the promotion for it was, let me get this right. See, now I can read the tweets, you know.

My man. Yeah. So first on November 20th, he tweeted, brother Jirov. I see you always in the gym. I think it's time you come and train with the brotherhood. The next tweet was, in sport and in life, strength comes from constant preparation and hard work that no one sees. Oh no, that's the G42A one. That was another thing. What is that one? G42A. AI? Yeah, I think it's an AI service. He's deleted the OG tweet about the telegram one. I think the way they're framing it is because the auction has ended.

Yes, because there was like a promotional thing about like the next generation or something like that or I'll pass this on. Correct. Like a teaser. Yeah. You believe that? You believe that? Go buy the NFT. Yeah.

Well, then he made a new post that the auction is. The auction has ended and all the popcas have been sold. Appreciate everyone who participated in and becoming a holder of this green exclusive digital gift, gift with value that you can share with your friends and loved ones. Thank you for trust, only on Telegram. Again, it's like, I'm not going to sit here and pretend to be an expert on what the hat represents, but like a gift with value that you could share with your friends. It's an NFT. It's a thing.

It's not like someone is gifting this to you. But all right, fine. And, okay, now it pops off. Someone writes to Connor McGregor about this. bro is legit a full-time scam artist I don't by the way I don't think he wrote to Connor Connor's just responding to this okay

Connor McGregor writes what a shame and a stain on his father's name just wow to scam fans using his father and his country's culture is just so low father's plan has now become father's scam very sad on the opposite side of this

it was great to see Islam Mack honor his own father by putting the double world titles on his shoulders and saying there's not many fathers of double world champions. Truth. I believe there's a response. He continues, there's just no way good guy, Habib used his late father's name,

as well as Dagestan's culture, to scam his fans and fire sell a bunch of digital NFTs online and then delete all the content after they were sold, leaving his fans robbed of their money. There's just no way good guy do this. Now, why would it be viewed as a scam? I don't know if it's necessarily a scam. I think the criticism may be like, oh, you're sort of monetizing this cultural symbolism,

but I don't know if anyone thinks it's a scam per se. The deleting of the previous tweets is interesting, but I guess they'll frame it as like, okay, there's no need to keep it up there, but do we really think that that's the reason why they deleted it? Yeah, I don't know if scam is the appropriate term to capture this. Maybe what I think he's trying to say is like it's in poor taste, according to him. That's what I think he's trying to say. Okay, it continues. Chabud Narragamatov responds to him, you absolute liar.

You will always try to darken my name after you got destroyed that night, but you will never achieve that. Yes, good guys don't do that. They don't create exclusive digital gifts with real-time value that you can share with your friends and family. Gifts in the shape of Pabka had that symbolizes tradition and culture of Dagestan people, traditions and culture that's slowly walking over this world, whether you like it or not, gifts that you can find exclusively on Telegram,

greatest messaging platform on the world. The beginning sounded like he wrote it, the bottom half sounded like he didn't write it, like it became a commercial. And then I do believe it continued. My count is 56 former drug addicts and my rehabilitation. rehabilitation centers in Dagestan that I treated. Come to Dagestan, Kana McGregor, they'll take care of you here. Mexico didn't help you as far as I can see. And then here's Kahn McGregor saying, and who will I be meeting there? Because it won't be you, L.O.L. You can't scam me

with your lies. You tax dodging scammer on the run. Your poor family, I pray. I pray for your constant lies, I pray, I pray, I pray, while you lie. You should just be honest because Allah knows all, oh dear. Then a bunch of hashtags. And then he posted a, this has become a new thing on Twitter right now where people are posting like where. Yes, you can see where accounts are based. But what does that mean based? Like if someone's traveling, how do you know where it's based? It'll come up with an exclamation point if it's, uh, if it's not where it's based. And so it's, he's implying there that he lives in the UAE?

Yeah. I mean, I think he spends a lot of time there. I think that was it, right? All this leads perfectly into the rematch, PT. Yeah, huge. We're all buzzing over here.

That's what I thought. We're going to get this one back. I don't know, guys. I don't know what to make of it all. Everyone buzzing over this, but it is, I mean, listen, When you're in that business of selling these types of things, as we talked about, there's a lot of it on the feed. I'm not going to lie.

I mean, I'm looking here October 24th, multi-bank underscore I.O. There's another one here for Arena 2X, whatever that is. There's another one here about, like, what is this? We're launching wash private real estate. I mean, it's every single tweet, keeping your money halal. Another one here. The arena is different. with MIFTA, like every single tweet.

Go mining booth, Bitcoin, when you're way to- Beoboo. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what to make of all of this. There's a reality that Connor McGregor is raising attention to that, like, maybe this is being mishandled, right? The brand of Habib is being mishandled. But he's calling it a scam when in reality,

Habib is introducing products in a marketplace and they can either be purchased or not purchased, right? Like these tokens, sorry, these NFTs sold at auction price and were worth whatever value they ended up being. And fans of Habib presumably bought them. So it's hard to, it's hard to navigate this. Like they may both be right, right? Habib may be right to be able to lend his name to endorse this thing and do it. And Connor McGregor may be right to be like, hey, you're mishandling your brand a little bit. Now, you know, you have to obviously consider the messenger when it comes to that.

but it's a dicey thing and it just speaks more to their personal issues and rivalry but I do think there are a lot of MMA fans who are looking at this and going like man what is Habib doing? Here's ultimately what I'd love to know

if I'm a diehard Habib fan how do I feel about this? How do I feel about this? How do I feel about the fact that and I don't know maybe you love it? Maybe you eat it up. Maybe it's big in that corner of the world

but how do you feel about the guy who comes across as being honorable and above all this stuff and not about the money and about the respect and the history and the lineage and the culture. And it seems like there's a lot of things that he is trying to sell to you. Things that come from a world that at times can be viewed as a scam, right? It's not like, hey, check out my new shoes.

We know what shoes are. Hey, check out my new Nikes. We know what that is. Everyone does that. LeBron does that. Michael Jordan does that. But these types of things sometimes get into like a bit of murkiness. And I will just say it doesn't feel on brand with who Habib

comes across as, right? I don't even know if it's the products themselves, right? Like the NFTs themselves, as much as the packaging around it, right? When you're referencing Father's plan in an attempt to sell these, that to me feels like almost too personal lines across. Now, again, this is Habib's ran to manage. If he's been consulted and says, I sign off on this, let's do this, that's, you know, ultimately the buck stops with him and that's his decision to make.

And again, I find it, you know, difficult to unpack because, As you said, you want to know how his fans feel about it. I assume that there are the 29,000 people, presumably, who bought this thing and are happy to be fans of his and happy to have it. Why would you be happy to have this? I don't know. I can't speak for that. I would not buy it, but I don't, like, some, there are clearly people who did. And so, to the tune of $4.3 million.

So it's hard to unpack, but I also understand from the outside how many people will be going like, this does not jive with the image of Habib that we had. The reality is sometimes we just have to get over this idea that we, like, whatever attributes and things we've assigned to these people, athletes in particular, are not always the reality of the situation. Sometimes it's not that. My take is, Habib, in particular, gets put on a pedestal that people idolize him. Yep. And athletes are idolized a lot, but he does get put on a pedestal, especially since I think he left. He left early. He left us wanting more.

he was perfect, he was undefeated, he was a champion, his reasons for leaving, as I talked about, felt very honest and sincere, very honorable as well to, you know, want to honor your mother's wishes, your father passes away tragically. Like, everything about that felt very pure. And now these things don't feel pure. And when you, as you said, Rick, when you are teasing announcements that have nothing to do with it. the, I saw the tease, it had nothing to do with what he was ultimately selling, and you are referencing this symbol, this headdress, your father, the history, the lineage, and then it just

ends up being this, yeah, it does feel a little bit funny as we kind of joked about a couple of days ago. It feels a little bit funny. Now, obviously, Connor's calling it scam, and there's a very personal rivalry there, and I'm not going to go that far, but it does not jive with the persona that, you know, that that we have come to sort of link Habib to, which is honorable,

pure, this, that, and the other. It doesn't jive with it. And then when you actually take a look at the social media feed, it's just a lot of it. It's a lot. I mean, there's no other way to say it. Now, of course,

you know, being controversial isn't better, but I'm just saying, for this guy, I never thought that you would look at his feed and it would just be like, real estate, AI, NFTs, all these things that are, Bitcoin, all these things that are like a little bit polarizing right now or controversial, whatever you want to say. It's, uh, it feels very transactional. It feels like the connection

is very transactional and it doesn't feel like it's as pure as, you know, we were led to believe. The only thing, I totally agree with you and I think that that's the prevalent sentiment. I think a lot of people feel that way, Connor McGregor being the most vocal one to do it and the most notable one to do it. The only thing I will say to that is, We have assigned that value, right? We are deeming, we collectively have said, Habib is pure. Habib is about this. He's ethical.

He believes in this, yada, yada, yada. Ultimately, it's for him to then either live up to that, not live up to that, do whatever he wants. He has not come out and said, I am this. And so if he falls short of that, it's for him to reckon with, but it's also our designation for him, right? It's collectively, we've kind of put him in that category. and evidence might suggest that maybe it's not that, right? Like, maybe he is more willing to change how he is represented in that regard. But it's a difficult thing because there are 29,000 people who supposedly signed up.

Yeah. This also isn't his first foray into the NFTs. He's done several of these before. Yes, but do you think that this one is drawing more criticism because of the way it was present? Yeah, I guess the father, you know what to make of it. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what to make of it. I thought the NFT bubble had burst. Yeah, that too. I mean, I honestly, I thought it burst after, you know, Till sort of. You loved the TIL. I think it was a gorilla eating a pizza or something. No, grill eating a banana. No, I'm sorry, Darren, but the bloch asser. Just like it didn't. The camel at a birthday party just wasn't what you thought it was going to be. I'm sorry, Darren. Hey, they're sponsored the UFC now, Ariel, all right? Yeah.

Okay. Hey, never forget our boy, TST. TST was all about it. He had a framed NFT in his house. He had, what was it? Wait, framed. You can't do that. Yeah, he printed it out.

Yeah, Gary Vee. Every case of book, book, of his book that you bought, you got a free NFT with it. I think it was like he had a parrot eating a strawberry or something. It was something like that. Why is it always an edible? Do we remember eating something? He's not wrong, though. Oh, yeah.

That was big. Listen, everyone was very bored. Not I. I never... They were bored apes. Listen, when we all live online... When we live digitally, and you guys come to my digital mansion, and I've got, you know, all the stuff up in my digital mansion, you guys are going to be the jealous ones.

You're not ready for this. You're not prepared for the future. Was that it on the Chabib stuff? I think we kind of covered it all. Let's see how it pans out. I think it's getting now lumped in with the Connor rivalry, but I do feel like the dissection of it and the criticism is fair. I didn't know that he deleted the previous tweet,

and I'm not buying that they deleted it because they sold out. No way. I am not buying that. I think they came to their senses and said, yeah, maybe this wasn't in the best of taste. Mr. Slowjay. Hey, Ariel, no more Jorge interviews if he's rocking with Ali. That would be disappointing.

No, no. Jorge and I still talk, all good, and he's definitely been on since. Nothing huge talk to him about right now, but no problems. would love more Ascran segments similar to as frequent as Chale. Side note, love the Big John interview, fantastic. Appreciate it. Don't want to bother Ascran too much right now, but always love talking to him. And in fact, the OG's IYK, IYK, would know that when D.C was preparing for the steep A fight, the retirement fight, Ben actually filled in a couple of times in the buildup.

Yes? It just reminded me because I saw a comment last time. Yep, yep, I saw that one, too. Okay. I did that. So what is leaning into this? Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. No, no, no, no, go ahead, Frankie.

Go ahead, go ahead. It's IYK-YK. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. That's not what he's trying to say. I-YK, if you know, if you know. That's how it goes. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, sure.

That's the original. If you know if you know, yeah. Nailed. That's it. Them's the brakes. I say that a lot. Hey, Ariel, how is it that Ali could orchestrate an Usman title shot?

What leverage does he have over the UFC to negotiate these matchups? I clearly defy common sense. I mean, you know, you scratch my back, I scratch yours. You need me to do something. I'm buddies with you. We go out. You know, he's just, he's one of the lads. That's all.

Certain managers are in better standing, and as a result, get, you know, some perks. Look, you probably want your, you want your representation to not be at odds with UFC constantly, but you want to feel like ultimately they will choose you over them, that your relationship, your business relationship means more than their business relationship with UFC. And my feeling is that his standing with UFC means more than his fighter standing with the UFC, if you get what I'm saying. And that's a conscious decision. That's a conscious choice. Again, no manager has ever been told to not have their guests on my show. No fighter has ever been told to not come on the show. One manager volunteered it in order to get in better standing.

And that's not the only thing that has been volunteered. And that just kind of gives you a little bit of a taste as to the way he maneuvers, the way he conducts himself. We had a very good relationship. He would call me incessantly. He would ask my opinion on things. The World Series of fighting, all this stuff, da-da-da-da-da-da. And then shit hits the fan or it's getting worse and worse. Hey, boss, let me do this one for you. No one's allowed. Ultimately, we live, We survive. We thrive. We're fine. And that was never asked. But that's just what it means to be kind of a house manager, as it has been discussed. And other times, they have sent him to go fix issues with other fighters who aren't clients of his because they know it's going to be favorable. So that's why. Matt Moe, up, Ariel, in your conversation with Lou Debella,

he was very vocal in his stance against women having three-minute rounds in boxing due to the potential for increased concussion rates. Lou was absolutely right in his position on this. Women are much more susceptible than men for brain injury and concussions due to anatomical differences between the two sexes. Women naturally have smaller and weaker necks than men.

They are also, or there are also, other biomechanical and hormonal differences that make them more vulnerable. My question is, oh, who is that? Was that Andy? Okay, okay, Andy, please. Oh, no, I just think it's like, continue. Okay.

And for the record, I don't think Matt is a female. My question is, after your talk with Lou and these concerns coming to light, have you changed your stance on three-minute rounds for women? I'm going to weigh in, but, Andy, do you want to weigh in? Let's hear what you have to say first. That's for you the question, no? So, well, it's for everyone. But my general take is that I was not advocating for three-minute rounds.

I just wanted to know why he was so passionately against it. I find the two-minute rounds, anatomy, biomechanics, I find the fights very fun. As you guys know, I'm a big fan of women's boxing, and more often than not, women's boxing is competed under a two-minute round rule set. I find it very fun. I find the fights very entertaining. Some of the best fights that I've seen as of late. I mean, Taylor Serrano was an incredible fight. Serrano Cruz, incredible fight.

Taylor Cameron was incredible fight. We talk about Tamtebo and all these people. Like, I genuinely enjoy wins boxing because I find it fast-paced. It comes and goes. Non-title fights are even quicker, blah, blah, blah. I just wanted to know why he cared so much, A, and B, if you're asking me if I have a strong stance, no. Like if they change it to three minute rounds, I would say, great. Let everyone compete under the same rule set.

And of course, we cover MMA in which it's five, five minute rounds in a women's title fight or three five minutes rounds for a non-title fight. It used to be three threes, five threes, strike force days, and then earlier. And then once the UFC came on board, they changed all of that and made it even. And I'm totally fine with that. And I don't see any women complaining about that. Of course, I know boxing is a little bit different. the repeated blows to the head.

But still, I mean, we're talking about five minutes as opposed to two or three. So I feel like it kind of equals out. So if you're asking for my vote, I'm indifferent. If you're asking if I like two minutes, yeah, I think it's fun. If you're asking if I'd be upset if they moved to three, no, I would not be upset. That's my general stance. Andy? Yeah, I think it should be up to them.

If they feel comfortable with it and they think that they'll be okay, then take the risk, right? Like, I think it's about feeling like you can do the same as the guys and treated the same as the guys. That's the way that I see it. I'm not the one getting punched in the face. Yeah. Right? But I think why not leave it up to them? Yeah.

I mean, look, I think it gets a little bit tricky. I understand what you're saying. If, you know, everyone gets to choose before the fight, I think there should be some uniformity. It is a little bit funky, in my opinion, that MMA has gone five-fives, three-fives. and boxing is still doing two minutes and it's controversial to say three he's very passionate about it and he has his reasons

and even after the Nikisa interview on Monday he wrote to me he's like look I'm no podcaster I'm no media guy I'm just weighing in as someone who's in the business now I said yeah of course you're not and I value your opinion but also let's be honest I mean Lou has a history here

with MVP and Nikisa they took Amanda Serrano from him and made her into a much bigger star. They're in business together with Sugar Neeks. They're rival promoters, if you want to call them that.

So, like, he's not coming from a complete unbiased position, but, you know, I take that into account, and I take his opinion into account. And I think his concerns

are fair. And I just wanted to know why he was so passionate about this. Like, he's yelling at me. And I do disagree, I will say, I do disagree when he refers

to it as a civil rights movement. I think that's crazy. And I think if they are trying to maybe virtue signal, as he puts it, to try to get people on board. Like, I think that there's a lot of other things that you can do than say, like, oh, you know, let's fight for one more minute per round. Like, that's not the cause to die on.

And they seem to be very passionate about it. And quite frankly, I think they're passionate about it because Amanda is passionate about it. Like, if Amanda told them, I don't want to do this, they would not be pushing it. And so ultimately, I trust it, and I'm cool with it because The fighter is cool with it. I think if she said like, yo, guys, like, I don't think this is a good idea.

I don't want to do it. I think they would have stood down long ago and said, yeah, let's back off here. Right. To Andy's point, it just seems like it's men who are making these decisions for women or, you know, expressing their opinion. And if you're right about MVP is like, look, we're actually just, we're giving you the platform, Amanda,

if this is what you want, then we're going toe to toe with what you want to make it happen. And we'll use the strength that we have a voice and we're trying to give you a voice, that all makes sense. But I just hope I'm agreeing with Andy. I guess we'll find out. I'm looking at her. She's nodding.

No, no, no, no, what he said. I was here nodding. Sorry, you couldn't see me. I was here like, yep, yep, yep, that's what I'm getting at. No, ultimately, that's what I think. I really do think it is a cause near and dear to Amanda's heart, and that's why, like, she really dictates what they are doing from a women's boxing perspective.

I mean, I think they show her so much love and praise and respect and kind of like showcase her the same way in which they do Jake to a degree. She feels like one of the faces of MVP. And so, you know, will she live to regret it? We'll find out it. And I don't think right now that it's a movement that is going to take over women's boxing. I don't feel like it is going in that direction, but it is something that makes their, you know, their events. different and their title fights different and all that stuff and more. All right, let us move along.

We've got a bunch of other questions that we can get to back end of the program, but time now to get into our interviews. And I am so very looking forward to our first guest of the day coming on the program because I have been watching this guy from afar on television, consuming his content, whether it's content that he's a part of on the screen or that he has. helped write or produce for as long as I can remember since the mid-90s. And obviously have enjoyed it, have dissected it, have talked about it, have sat back and watched it all and consumed it all, whether it was when he was a writer, head writer for the WWF in the 90s during the attitude era,

the boom period, if you will, whether it was when he was at WCW, and I was actually a huge fan of WCW at that time, believe it or not, perhaps one of the few, whether it was when he was over at TNA wrestling as well and had a great run there, whether it was when he was the World Heavyweight Champion for that brief polarizing period. And these days, very much in the mix as far as media is concerned and has teamed up with JCW, Juggalo Championship Wrestling. He'll be making his television debut for them, or on-screen debut, I should say, on their YouTube channel tomorrow Thanksgiving night. And it seems to be something that he is very excited about. The show is entitled Lunacy, and we'll get into that. And a whole lot more with the man

known as Vinnie Rue, aka Vince Rousseau, who is kind enough to join us on this Wednesday afternoon. There he is. Hello, Vince. How are you? What is going on, Ariel? Very, very, very happy that you invited me on your show. I'm very excited that you're here. And in fact, perhaps you would be expecting me to say, nice to meet you, but we've actually met once before, Vince. Do you have any recollection of this?

Yeah, you're going to have to refresh my memory, man. I would be shocked, by the way, if you did remember this. But I'll very, very briefly tell you that in 2006, I was working in TV production. I was a young buck in the business, 24 years old, and I was working for a production company based in New York that was doing some work for Spike TV. And we had been hired to do a pre-show for SpikeTV.com ahead of a big Kurt Angle versus Samoa Joe TNA wrestling main event.

It was one of the big marquee event once TNA and Spike got together. This is my first time Universal Studios, getting to be backstage at a wrestling event. I can't believe it. I'm seeing everyone. This, to me, is like, is the forbidden door being open? Oh my God, Valhalla for a wrestling fan, unbelievable.

And Kurt Angle took a liking to me for some reason. Perhaps it was because I went to Syracuse University, graduated with a broadcast journalism degree, and Brian Goertz also went to Syracuse. And so I think he thought that perhaps he was seeing the next Brian Goertz. And he introduced me to you. We were sitting outside having lunch. And he said, hey, this is Ariel. This is my new friend. He went to Syracuse like Brian. And the only thing I remember you saying was, what do use some kind of smart mark what do you use some kind of internet fan and then that was that i was like holy and i remember calling my friend like i think vince russo just insulted me this is incredible this is 2006 by the way and so that's our our lone interaction i think this one will go a lot better

i mean come on ariel i can't kill the gimmick i'm an awful guy man i can't kill the gimmick no it was great and i am very excited to have you on and i was very excited to be there way back when let's talk about JCW. Juggalo Championship Wrestling. You're teaming up with these guys. I remember them from back in the 90s, insane clown posse, very much a part of the wrestling scene back then. Was it that relationship that led to this, or did something else happen along the way that brought you on board with what they're doing now? Yeah, absolute. Great question, because the reality is I worked with them at WWE and WCW. One of my favorite stories with ICP,

first of all, you know, Violin J, Shaggy, Too Dope, great guys. But, Haryl, the thing that really stands out is we were at the WWE and I don't know how much you know the juggalo lifestyle, but the juggaloes go everywhere that these guys go. So they were scheduled to be on Raw that night. The juggaloes are in the parking lot. throwing frisbees, having barbecues, tailgating at 12 in the afternoon. Violin J. Shaggy, Too Dope, out there with them. Everybody's having a blast.

We are ready to go on the air live. I am in the guerrilla position. I am looking for ICP. They are nowhere to be found. And I got to tell you, man, they were there all day long. They left right before the show. I actually laughed. I thought it was funny.

But these are great guys. So, I mean, I've literally known Violent J for 26 years. And so what is your connection to them now? Like, what's your role here with what they're doing with JCW? Yeah, my role right now is, you know, I'm the head writer of the show. I produce the show. I'm an on-air talent. And, man, I have to tell you, I didn't think it was possible.

Just at the point I'm out in my life and my experiences, I am having the absolute time of my life, man. I am having an absolute blast. When was the last time prior to this that you were writing television, that you were doing wrestling content the way in which you are now? Yeah, I left T&A in 2012. So it's literally been, we're going on 14 years that I've not been really involved with a wrestling promotion doing what I'm doing now. And so what is it like? Does it feel like nostalgia for you? Do you feel like you're shaking off the cobwebs? What is it like? Man, you know, Ariel, I'll never forget, man, when I go way back to the attitude era, I remember sitting there with Vince McMahon and saying to him because, you know, we had a weekly television show and I always wanted this week's show to be better than last week's show. And I remember telling Vince, Vince, I got to be honest with you, I don't know where. it comes from it just comes every week it just comes and getting right back in that saddle i got to tell you man

it just comes and i always say this ariel if you have defined characters defined three dimensional characters the show is going to write itself and it's going to be very very organic and you just let it flow and you just go with it. So for me to step back in, I just felt comfortable all over again if I'm going to be totally honest with you. I love it. Okay, there's so much that I want to ask you about.

And you mentioned TNA, and I feel like TNA as of late is enjoying a bit of a renaissance, if you will. Like, it seemed like they were like five feet under, not quite six, but it was about to be over. And now with this relationship with WWE, it seems like they're on the upswing. What do you, you are so closely linked to that organization

towards the tail end of your run. You know, you had that great run. You're getting over a million views on Spike TV to see where they're at now. Did you ever expect this? Did you ever think that they'd be around heading into 2026? Yeah, we actually had TNA up to two million viewers. I mean, that's the point that we got it up to. And like you said, you know, Spike TV, Spike wasn't a huge network. So I feel that was a great accomplishment. But again, man, you know, they hung in there for so long and that's what was important. So they hung in there long enough to make the WWE connection. And obviously that has helped them with their popularity. Why do you think WW is doing this, having this business

relationship with them? Man, listen, the WWE is global. The bigger, the better. And I think that's the way they look at it. You know, there are some people look at it that they're personally doing this against AEW. Listen, having work there, I don't believe that. I don't believe the WWE is really looking at AEW as competition. I just believe, man, they are trying to build a global empire and, you know, acquiring, you know, TNA is just part of that plan. So, okay, that's interesting. You say that you don't believe that WW views AEW as competition, yet they do actively counterprogram them. And so why do you think they do that?

I mean, it's not a coincidence, right, that they're popping up on the same days as their big shows. So why do you think they do that? I think they do that to F with them. I think they do that because they can. And there's a lot of that involved in wrestling. There's a lot of showmanship involved in wrestling. And listen, man, here's the bottom line. If they can do that, then Tony Kahn can do the same exact thing.

Wrestling games have been going on forever. You know, I remember when Nitro was beating us and we drove a tank to their building. this this wrestling wars have been going on forever but i really do believe that the picture for the wwe is just much much bigger than a ewe being competition do you think that part of the reason or i guess a byproduct of them doing this it's sort of like you know rising tide lifts all boats in those days that you're referring to around 10 or so million people were watching wrestling on a monday night six here four here seven three whatever it is and do you think that this just kind of helps everyone, or do you think that ultimately this will kill A.E.W. This will hurt them

to the point where no one is watching them. Well, it will kill you if you allow it to kill you. You know, obviously, Tony Kahn is in charge of his company. And I'm going to tell you this. And I can tell you this based on experience. If you have a good product, if you have good television, if you have good stories, if you have good characters, people are going to watch. That really is the bottom line, man. You have to have a good show. I'll never forget the most important thing Vince McMahon said to me because a lot of times today, Ariel, you'll get a weak number and here come the excuses.

This was on and that was on and this was on this. I remember Vince McMahon said to me, Vince, if it's good, they'll watch it. Period. End of the story. I don't care what's on the other channels. It means nothing to me. If you have a good product, they will watch it. Is the AEW product good in your opinion?

Ariel, I watched the first 15 months of AEW. I watched it out of the gate because I wanted to give it a shot. And after 15 months, I remember this clearly. I turned 60 years old in January, five years ago. And when I hit that point, I was like, You know what? I'm 60 now. I'm towards the tail end. I cannot waste any more of my time. And in the year and a half for 15 months that I watched AEW, they just did not hook me. And quite frankly, I stopped watching when I turned 60. I'm going on five years now where I haven't

watched the product. And again, what that comes down to is I gave them 15 months. And in that 15 months as a television viewer, they did not hook me. What did they do wrong? What were they not getting? Why were they not hooking you? Wrestling, wrestling, wrestling, wrestling, wrestling, wrestling, wrestling. I am not a wrestling guy, Ariel. I am a entertainment guy. I am a storyline guy. I am a character guy. And it was for me, and this is for me, some people love it. For me, it was just way too much wrestling for me. So you know what it's like to write a TV show on a weekly basis, sometimes multiple, right? Tony Con right now has that job.

He's the CEO. He's the headbooker. He's all that. Plus is in a very important position for an NFL team, the Jacksonville Jaguars, plus a Premier League football team, Fulham. He's got this analytics business as well. Knowing what it's like to be a head writer, are you shocked that he is able to do all of this at the same time, that he's able to have all of this?

that he's able to have all these different jobs? I'm not shocked, but the question is, is he doing it well? And what I mean by that is, listen, we've had six years to grow these numbers. Have these numbers grown in six years? That's what I'm looking at. I'm looking at the same thing with the WWE. Have these numbers grown? I understand social media.

I understand hits. I understand, you know, globally and international. I understand all that. But the bottom line is, has your television product increased over the last five years? And it hasn't. So, and I've got to tell you this, you know, Ariel, listen, it's a full-time job. There's no question about it. When I was writing just raw before Smackdown, it was 24-7.

No question about it. So the fact of the matter that Tony is doing all these things, and God bless Tony. I mean, seriously, the dude's a workhorse. But I'm here to tell you, this is a full-time job. And you are not going to have, you know, maximum audience unless you're doing this full-time. It is not a part-time job. By the way, you know, I enjoy all the wrestling content, the YouTube channels and all this stuff. And I do believe, if I'm getting this right,

you, Eric Bischoff, Jim Cornett, probably not, you know, going on a dinner date or the best of friends. But you all agree as far as your criticisms towards Tony Con and AEW. There is something to that, right? Like it seems like a lot of the old guard, if you will, and I say that with the utmost respect, all are preaching for him to make changes. Do you think he pays attention to any of you? Do you think he listens to any of this? Ariel, let me tell you basically what the problem is. And this is the problem with wrestling in general.

This is the problem with the WWE. This is the problem with AEW. They only want to hear the positive. They don't want to hear people like Vince Russo and those other people you mentioned. That's why I'm with J.CW because Violin J wanted to know, Vince, what do we have to do here? Here's the problem. Triple H and Tony Kahn are writing a wrestling show that they like. And by writing a wrestling show that they like,

they have turned the audience into a niche audience because there's only a niche audience that likes 90% wrestling. It's not about what they like. When I write for JCW, I'm not writing a Vince Rousseau show. I'm writing a show for the masses. I'm writing a show for the world. These guys are writing a show that they like. And at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what you like.

It's not about you. We all have different taste. It's subjective. You want to write a show that's going to get you as many eyeballs as possible. And what that means, Ariel, is you need to have a little bit of everything. That's what the attitude era was. We had something for everybody. By doing that, now you open up your window.

Now you allow yourself to let people come in to watch a wrestling show that would have never watched wrestling before. Tony Khan is writing a show that he loves, but it doesn't matter what he loves. What does the world want? There are millions of casual wrestling fans out there, not watching wrestling anymore. And again, I'm going to go back to JCW. That's why I'm here, because they understood that. And Violent Jay knew we've got to go above and beyond those that watch. wrestling on a weekly basis. There's an entire world out there that's not watching anymore. Okay, so to expand on that, what is your take on the current state of WW? Are you watching it unlike AEW? Are you keeping up to speed with it? I keep up to speed with it, but Ariel,

you're going to laugh because I'm about to hit my 65th birthday. Okay. And as I go into my 65th birthday, I made the decision. I am not going to sit there every Monday night and every Thursday night and watch those shows in their entirety. And you want to know why? Here's why. I consider myself a casual television viewer. They have not earned my viewing. It's that simple. It goes back to Vince McMahon. If it's good, they'll watch it. For me and my taste and what I look for, in a wrestling show, WWE and the product they're putting out right now does not interest me one iota.

I keep my finger on the pulse. I need to know what's going on because I've been podcasting for 10 years now with Rousseau's brand. So I got to know what's going on. But the days of sitting through five hours, six hours of wrestling a week, those days are over.

And so did you feel this way for the last couple of years like since Triple H took over? Because from afar, it seemed like the bloodline stuff, the Cody stuff. Like a lot of this was getting love and praise. Were you not even feeling it at that point either once he took over from Vince? Yeah, Ariel, I was not feeling it at that point because I am a writer. I am looking at this as a writer. So I am looking for characters.

I am looking for storyline. That's what I'm looking for. And man, it's been much, much, much long. than that. I can't tell you when I honestly did enjoy the WWE. And again, I want to be clear. That's my opinion. Sure, sure. This is subjective. That's the way I look at it. I'm looking for the entertainment aspect. And everything in wrestling is it's all about the match. And every storyline is, oh, I want to wrestle you because I'm better than you. Or I want to be the next champion. People are bumping into each other in the back and making matches.

that's not storytelling. I want storytelling. I want characters. And that's why I am pushing everybody to GCW man. We got a new show every Thursday night at 7 o'clock. You are going to see characters. You are going to see storylines. I hear so many people tell me, Vince, what happened when wrestling was like the attitude era? I'll tell you what happened. They went back to wrestling so people that weren't into wrestling stop watching the show this is a show jcw that once again is going to be for everybody whether you're a wrestling fan or not the roman sammy stuff that like that you didn't like that stuff when he like he turned on him and everything you didn't think that that was cinema you didn't think that that was great storytelling to be totally

honestly with you i believe that was on smackdown most of the time and i was only i was only watching Raw. You can't do that. You can't just pick one at this point. Yeah, you can. You can. Why? When it's very frustrating to sit there and watch it and know what it can be, it's very hard to watch. Because Ariel, you yourself, you just talked about one storyline. Bro, that's all fine and dandy. What about the other hour and 45 minutes in the show? Everybody should have a storyline. You can go back to the attitude era from Delo Brown. to Sunny, to everybody on that card. Everybody needs to have a story.

So, yeah, great, bro. Bloodline story is great. For 15 minutes, what am I watching the rest of the hour and 45 minutes for the rest of the night? One thing I always wondered about that, and that is very fair. Just from like an inside baseball writing a story, a TV show perspective, would you write it like, all right, let's say, let's say, Dilo, right? Dilo, much love, mid-Carter. Would you write his entire thread throughout the night and then fill in, you know, The Undertaker's thread? Or how would you break it down as to like, okay, this guy's going to be here, this guy's

going to be here, and then he's going to show up here? Would it be piece by piece or would it be like segment by segment and then you decide? Do you know what I'm saying? Like what would you Yeah, Ariel, that is a great question because there's a motive to the madness. There is a formula that works. There is a formula that never stopped working. Why they stopped using the formula, you'd have to X, Triple H, because I don't know. Here's how you set up the show, Ariel. This is how you started. You start the show with a beginning, a middle, and an end. That's where it starts. Austin and McMahon at the top of the show. Vince is laying out what is going to happen throughout the course of the next two hours.

That is your hook. Now I can't go anywhere because I know what odds Vince McMan's have laid on Austin. You revisit that in the middle of the show. At the end of the show, you pay that off with a cliffhanger. You pay that off to force them to next week. Meanwhile, you got your beginning, your middle, and your end. And you thread the story all throughout the show with backstage vignettes. you thread it you keep the sword come on ariel how many times how many times have we seen in the first

segment rock lessner shows up roman rain shows up cody shows up in the first segment then you don't see him again for the rest of the night why that doesn't make any sense they're your biggest stars you need to write the show around them and to answer your other question here's what you do Ariel, you know what your next pay-per-view is. We used to know a month in advance, believe it or not, we weren't booking on the fly. You know what the pay-per-view is. And for that four weeks of TV leading up to it, every single person who is on that pay-per-view is used in the show and represented in the show. And we're building every single angle for every match that is on the pay-per-view. review. That stuff works. But Ariel, here's the thing. You've got to be a writer to be able to

do that. No disrespect to Triple H. No disrespect to Tony Kahn. They're not television writers. Show me your credentials. Show me your degree. Show me what television shows you've written in the past. What pilots you've written, what movies? They're not writers. So what are you getting at the end of the day. You're getting a wrestling show. That's what you're getting. Did you watch WW Unreal? Yes, I did.

Yes. What did you think of the decision to expose as much as they did? And from what you saw of the writing, meetings, conversations you were there, right? You experienced it. How much of that was a work

and how much of that was a shoot that we saw? That's a great question, Ariel. And I got to tell you, I enjoyed the show, and I'll tell you why I enjoyed it because here was my mindset going in. Bro, they're going to work us.

they're in control of this show, they're going to allow you to see what they want you to see. However, here's what they didn't realize. When you're smart enough and you know the business, you're going to read between the lines and you're really going to see what's going on. And that's what I took away from it. I know what they're trying to get across, but when the guard is down, they're letting us see things that I don't think

they wanted us to see and that's what I mean I far more I'll give you a perfect example here's a perfect example Chelsea Green remember there was that episode I actually think it was episode three

because I'm a huge fan of Chelsea's there's that episode where they're putting the belt on Chelsea Chelsea's been using the same finisher for God knows how many years all of a sudden they wanted to use a different finisher

and she's turning to them and asking them why and nobody's giving her an explanation. Somebody in the business that knows, they're testing Chelsea. They're testing to see if Chelsea is going to go along with everything they say and fall in line and if Chelsea's going to be a good little student. That's what's going on. So when you really know the business, you can, Watch this. And here's another thing, Ariel, I took away that I got to be. I almost wanted to vomit in my own mouth. That creative process, you're sitting around a boardroom wearing a suit? Are you out of your mind?

I could tell you first tan, Ariel, when I wrote television with Vince McMahon, and it was me and Vince and nobody else, I would go to Vince's house. Vince would be in sweatpants. Vince's hair would not be combed. Occasionally, Vince would lift up the right leg and let one out. That's how we wrote the attitude era. Now you got 10 freaking guys sitting around a boardroom in suits and tie with Triple H scratching his beard. That's not how the creative process. That's why, you know, again, I keep going back to JCW because Violent J. He understands the creative. process. He's had this show for 26 years. He's been doing the insane cloud posse for 39 years. He's a creative guy. How do you have a creative meeting in a freaking boardroom with suits?

Is it not fair to then say like, okay, it's a multi-billion dollar business now. It has evolved. It can't always be the same. It can't be like it was in the 90s. This is just part of the growth, the evolution of the company. Yes, if it were working, without a show. shadow of a doubt if it will work. And listen, people need to understand. We're not talking about the WWE not making money. We're not talking about them not being successful as a company. I'd be an idiot if I were saying that. It's two different things. I'm talking about the creative. And I am talking about, listen, man, with all due respect to everybody, when you are doing, when you're the WWE and you're doing less than a million viewers on SmackDown, I'm sorry, Ariel, somebody needs to be

fired. I told Vince, when Vince brought me in as the head writer, I said to Vince, if I don't deliver you ratings, I expect to be fired. Because if I don't raise these ratings, I am not doing my job. If I'm not doing my job, I shouldn't have the job. When the WWW. is going under a million viewers, come on, man, something really, really wrong is going on. Can you take us inside those, like, just that picture that you just painted of you and Vincent's house, fascinating, right? What is that week like? So, so let's just say raw ends, okay? You're done, and now you have to book for the following week. What is that, that next six, seven days like? Yeah, well, I'm going to, I want to include my partner

Ed Ferrara because there was a time when it was just me and Vince, but then we brought in Ed and I really wrote a lot of this stuff. But, you know, basically here's the first thing. We make sure we watch the show back because somebody might have went into business for themselves and did something that we didn't write. And now we got to make sure it's covered. So we've got to watch the show. Once we watch the show, then we sit down and And literally from A to Z, Ed Ferrar and myself would write the entire show. From the intros to the cliffhanger at the end. Do you split it up?

Do you say like you take this angle? No, no, no. We start from the beginning like we're writing a movie. Okay, okay. We start from the beginning and we go all the way through. But like I said, beginning, middle, end, thread that throughout. Okay, that's done. number one. Okay, these guys are on the pay-per-view. On the pay-per-view, we've got DX against the

Legion of Doom. How are they covered this week? And here's the difference, too, Ariel. As you get closer and closer to that pay-per-view, you've got to keep raising the stakes. What happens in the WWE now is they run in place. I always compare it to the gerbil in the wheel. They may have a match book for the pay-per-view, but it doesn't crescendo leading up to the pay-per-view. They do the exact same spot week after week after week. That is not a build. You've got to build this over four weeks, so by the time you get to the big show, the people

can't wait to see that match. And like I said, Triple H, listen, man, 20-time world champion, great wrestler. I worked with the guy, never had an issue with them, ever. You're not a writer, man. You're not a writer. And unless you know how to write a television show, it's going to become very, very, very repetitive. So you speak with such passion and experience. Obviously, that period was tremendous.

Why did it not work, say, in WCW? That same mindset. Why did it not replicate in WCW? Well, it was. I mean, there's no question about it because it's the same thing that happened at JCW. You can't walk in on day one and change everything. It doesn't work that way. Nothing will make sense.

So what you have to do, and literally this is at least three months, you've got to start breaking down the old foundation, and you've got to start building your own. That's what you've got to do. And that takes a little bit of time. We were doing that in WCW. Listen, I would not say this unless there's numbers to back it up. When you look at the first three months that Ed and myself or in WCW, the first three months, the numbers were going up.

We were building the foundation. And then, as it happens a lot in professional wrestling, politics raise their ugly head, people get worked. And the next thing you know, how we're going to change up the way we're doing things. And I was like, you know what? The numbers are going up. I've done exactly what I said I was going to do. I'm not interested in your new way of doing things. So I think I'll go home for a while, which I did.

And then, of course, they called me back. But by the time they called me back, we had already lost that audience that we built up the first three months. And at that point, I just knew it was over. Do you regret, in retrospect, you regret leaving WWE in the 90s, in the late 90s, to head? I've heard you tell the story that, you know, you told Vince that writing the second show, Vince McMahon, that is, it was getting to and he said you've now made enough money.

You can have a nanny. You can hire a nanny. You can have someone to take care of your kids. In retrospect, not to say that you agreed with that response from your boss, but you regret leaving when things were going so well over there. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I would make the same decision today, you don't put work before my family.

You don't put your company before my family. And you know what? By doing that and all the hell that I went through, I've got three kids that are now old enough to understand, oh my God, dad walked away at the pinnacle of his career because we came first. I am not prouder than anything else in my life than that. Okay, well said. Did you ever think that we'd be living in a time where Vince McMahon is alive

and the WWE is still running and thriving in some people's minds and as big as it is, and he's not involved? Did you ever think that we'd see this day? Yeah, absolutely not. I mean, I think we all thought we were going to walk into Vince's office and his head was going to be on his desk and he was going to be dead. absolutely not i mean the turn of events in the last five years or so i i could have never thought that something like this would go down absolutely not knowing him like you do or did um and by the way

when's the last time you did speak to him uh man the last time we had an email exchange god was probably i don't know maybe eight years ago and and it didn't it didn't go too well what was it about It was about, he wanted to, he was entertaining the fact of bringing me back because the numbers were going down again. So he was entertaining the idea of bringing me back. And he kind of wanted me to audition for the job. And I'm like, I, no, Vince, I think you kind of know what I can do. I think you've seen what I could do. I'm not, I'm not jumping through hoops.

you can continue going on down the road, you're going down. Wow. So this is like 2017 or so. Yeah, yeah, before all the stuff went down. Sure, sure. Probably about eight years ago or so. Were you shocked that he reached out? Actually, I think I reached out.

I got to tell you, Ariel, this is what happens with me with wrestling all the time. I watch it. And for me, it gets so bad. It's like, I got to do something about it. Like, I cannot stand here and watch this. anymore and that's what what on on several occasions caused me to reach out so i actually reached out but he he did get back to me immediately okay and and you would have considered it yes yes yes until the the uh the audition idea was uh was presented here he when he wanted me to like

watch the shows a month and and give him my feedback so my you know i came back with okay, I have no problem. And what are you paying me for that month? And he hit me with, hey you, you should be thrilled to have this kind of opportunity. And I'm like, Vince, I'm not a kid just out of college.

I'm not working for free. I'm not watching the shows. If you want to compensate me, no problem. But the days of me doing anything for free are long gone. And Ariel, I'll be honest. He got pretty nasty with me.

And the last email was really nasty. He was hitting me below the belt. Oh, my. And I didn't even answer it. I'm like, okay. And I didn't even answer it. Like personal insults? Yeah, personal insults.

Yeah. Knowing him like you do, how much do you think it's killing him that he is not a part of WWA? Oh, killing him. Killing him. Absolutely. This is who this man is. You know, there was nothing else.

in Vince's life, but the WWE, people, people don't believe me when I tell them this. Ariel, he never watched the competition. He had no idea who was in ECW. He never watched WCCW. I'll never forget when he brought Austin in. And I sat down with him and he was giving me direction on Steve Austin. And he said to me, Vince, Steve Austin is to be the ringmaster and he's never to say a word. I knew he never saw Austin.

And I knew he had no idea who stunning Steve Austin was. And I had to sit there and say, Vince, are you, like, Steve Austin can talk, Vince. It was WW24-7, period. That's all it was. I can't imagine, Ariel, I honestly can't. I can't imagine what the man is going through right now. I really can't. When you look back at that era and the attitude era and everyone looks back at, it was such, you know, reverence

and nostalgia, what do you consider the absolute apex? Is there an angle, a moment, a match, an episode that you consider the absolute high mark of that period? I have to tell you this. And this is where we can really look at where was wrestling and where is wrestling. And Ariel, you know, we were in a situation where it was 24-7. That's why I said, Tony Kahn, God bless you, man. is a full-time job. You can't be flying off to Jacksonville and Fulham. This is a full-time job.

So, Ariel, we were so wrapped up in the show on a daily basis. You never stopped and smelt the roses. A lot of people ask me, Vince, when you finally broke the 83 weeks, what was that like? And I'm like, it was like another show. There's another show to write next week. We never stopped to smell the roses. And Ariel, I'll never forget. I was able to get like one day off. And on that one day, my kids were very young. And I took them to Universal Studios. And it's in the summer and there's a sea of people.

And now I'm outside and I'm looking. I swear to you, every fourth person had an Austin 316 shirt on. Wow. And I saw this. And that's when. it hit me like holy shit like wow like that's when it hit me and here's why i bring this up do we ever see wrestling shirts out in public anymore i i cannot tell you the last time i saw one wrestling shirt worn in public bro that tells you everything that tells you everything

because i remember that vividly and then of course you talk about NWO and where those shirts were, you have to look for a wrestling shirt today to find one. It is a good point. It's a good point, no doubt. Is it true, Vince? And by the way, I'm enjoying this so much and I really appreciate the passion and you taking this trip down memory lane with us and also plugging tomorrow, J.C.W. Lunacy on YouTube, your debut, I believe, at 7 p.m. at 7 p.m. tomorrow.

Eastern. Yep. I was in attendance in Montreal for the screw job. I'm from Montreal. I was in the rafters as a fan, 1997. I'm 15 years old. I love Brett. He was my guy. Is it true that it was your idea to capitalize on the black eye and do that interview with Jim Ross? Because to me, that's the real turning point. It could have just been a moment that everyone tried to forget. But the turning point is Mr. McMahon, Brett, screwed Brett, that line. That's the ultimate heel line. Was that your idea? Twofold, Ariel, because I don't take credit for things that weren't mine. But I remember this. It's the next day. Vince McMahon is walking around with a black eye. Okay? So we go in the production meeting. We have our regular production meeting.

Then everybody leaves and only the key people are in there. And it was probably me, Vince, probably Shane, you know, Pritcher, Jim Ross, you know, Patterson. Briscoe, Kevin Dunn, there was maybe eight people in there. Ariel, they're all trying to sweep this under the rug like it never happened. And I'm sitting back and I'm listening to this and I finally said, guys, Vince McMahon is walking around with a black eye. Do you understand the volume of this? Something like this will probably never, ever, ever happen again.

in the history of wrestling. And Ariel, I always remember, man, when you got Vince's attention, you knew that look. You knew that look. And as I was saying, no, this is the story. I could see his look. And I knew he's right. And to his credit, Vince went to the TV studio when we got back. Vince laid out that interview.

Vince's line was, I didn't screw Brett Hart, Brett Hart screwed Brett Hart. But yes, they were waiting to go on with business as usual. Wow. And I was like, guys, there will never, ever, ever be another opportunity like this in the history of the business. Austin versus McMahon aside, because I think everyone probably thinks that that's the best angle of that period.

What is your personal favorite? What's the one that you're most proud of? Yeah, my favorite. is when Rock joined the corporation only because we were laying out that story for three months and we were dropping little crumbs and we were telling hints and nobody was getting it. And here's my favorite story, Ariel. This is what I mean when you've got to build. You can't do this.

You've got to keep building next level. So we were the week before we knew that Rock was going to join the corporation. So Ed Ferrar and myself, we wrote the show, and we come up with the idea of rock dropping the elbow on Vince. Because, again, we know where we're going, but we really want to throw people off. So I'll never forget, I was so torn with that. And I'm like, oh, my God, Ed, like, that'll kill it. Like, rock dropping the people's elbow on Vince. And Ed Ferraro looked at me and said, Vince.

it's an elbow. But when you think about that, Ariel, that's what I mean about characters. It was just an elbow. But the way the Rock sold the elbow and delivered the elbow, he even had the writer convinced that he was killing the guy. So that, because there was a lot of storytelling in Rock joining the Corp. So that will always be my favorite.

Do you still have a relationship with Ed? You know what? It's tough for me because Ed and I were in everything together. And Ed's really the only one that can back everything up. But Ed really doesn't want to have anything to do with wrestling anymore. And he's been out of the limelight for a very, very long time. And I respect that. And that's why I don't never ask him to do anything.

But yeah, him and I still keep in touch because, again, man, it was a team and he was a big part of my success. You've done a lot of interviews talking about your past and how you got to become the head of creative for WWF. You're running the video store. You write the letter to Linda McMahon. You start, you know, writing for the magazine and all that stuff. And I don't want you to go over all of that. But I'm just wondering, if you never write that letter or if she never responds to you, what do you think becomes of your life. Who do you think you become? You obviously aren't running this video store because video stores became obsolete. What do you think happens to you if she never actually reads your letter? That is a great question because if it were up to me as soon as I graduated from college,

I would have headed right for Hollywood. I would have planted myself in the middle of Hollywood as a writer and I know I would have gotten some work because of my work ethic. The situation was I got married right out of college at 22 years old. So all of that had to. change. I do believe, though, Ariel, that somehow, some way I would have been writing something because I really do believe that that's what I was meant to do. Okay. Outside of wrestling, just TV, movie, something like that. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. The number one question that I was asked when I mentioned to people that you were coming on, I don't know if you can guess this, is ask him about Jim Cornett, ask him about the beef with Jim Cornett,

the feud with Jim Cornett. What's going on between you? you and Jim Corday. You are both killing it online. You have YouTube channels. You've got podcasts. You've got all this stuff. And yet it doesn't seem like you are the best of pals. What's the issue there? It's a couple of things, Ariel. First of all, let me make one thing perfectly clear. I don't have any beef with Jim Cornett. I don't have any hatred for Jim Cornett. If I am going to be honest with you, and I'm a New Yorker, to me, Jim Cornett is a goof. to me, Jim Cornett has always been a goof. So a goof is not going to upset me.

Here's what happened, Ariel. It's real easy and it's twofold. Number one, how did the hatred start? It's real simple. Vince McMahon chose me over Jim Cornett. Years later, Dixie Carter chose me over Jim Cornett. Rather than Jim Cornett look himself in the mirror and say, wait a minute, why Russo? Why didn't they choose me? What do I need to work on? What do I need to

approve on? Rather than him do that, it was my fault. It was my fault that they chose me of him. It had nothing to do with him. It was my fault. Now you add to that, I have become part of Jim Cornett's schick. You know, his cult of Cornett, whatever it is, they expect Cornett to rip on every single thing I do and to cut promos on me and to call me a Yankee and a shit stain, he's made it part of his act. But I got to tell you, man, here's what Jim doesn't understand. And Jim, if you're listening or somebody will smarten you up to this, please continue to do this. Of course, when it got out of me writing for GCW, Jim Cornett had a picnic. And I saw a 90,000 views or whatever it was. And listen, I publicly said, Jim, thank you. Thank you very, very much

for letting people know I am now writing and working for JCW. I appreciate the press. I appreciate the publicity. And obviously, we know with every show that I write, he's going to be the first one to rip it apart. Great. I hope you continue to do it. You got a great following. the more people you can let know about JCW, the better. But to be perfectly clear, Ariel, I do not have a hateful bone in my body whatsoever for Jim Cornett. If you saw him in a hallway, in a hotel, convention, whatever, you shake his hand and say hello? Ariel, I have offered to have public debates with Jim Cornett and Eric Bischoff, both of them. these guys will not get in front of me.

Listen, man, this is the way I look at it. And again, I'm a New Yorker. If I, if, if, if I think somebody is a liar and every word out of their mouth is a lie, and I can get them face to face and expose them, bro, I am going to be all over that. I am going to be all. But yet these guys have claimed for 25 years, every word out of my mouth is a lie. So I have said, no problem. let's debate. I even said to Cornette, Jim, let's do it online. We'll have a debate. All the money

goes to cauliflower alley. I don't want a penny. Give all the money. Nope. They refute. They'll talk about me behind my back. They'll cut promos behind my back one on one in the same room. I'm still waiting for that to happen. Who do you dislike more? Eric or Jim? Well, Jim's a goof, so we can't help himself. Let's be out. I, Listen, Ariel, if there is one person I don't like in the wrestling business, and there is only one person I don't like, and it's Eric Bishaw. Eric and I are oil and water. We are complete opposites.

We never got along. Eric, Eric made the decision from day one. I am going to be a dick to Vince Russo, and he has been a dick to Vince Russo, and quite frankly, out of everybody I've ever worked with, he is the only one that I can honestly say, I do not like that guy. Was that off the jump or in the early days of you were jump? Off the jump.

Day one. Off the jump. Day one. Do you think it was because you were enemies and now forced to work together? Why do you think that was? Come on. Let's look at the facts.

He's on this 83 week run. Vince McMahon, brings in some Yahoo, Vince Rousseau, that nobody ever heard of. In a matter of time, the 83 weeks are over. The WWF is drumming WCW. Eric Bischoff is now out of a job. And I'm the one that they now bring in creatively at WCW. Bro, I get it.

I totally get it. But my God, bro, for what is this? 1999 for the next 26 years to be spewing venom at me. Bro, honestly, I'm going to be 65, Ariel. I think Eric's 70. Bro, you're 70 years old and still cutting promos on me. Come on, man. Let it go.

Speaking of long-term booking and storytelling, one that has been a constant this year is the John Sina final year. last time is now culminating with this tournament final, December 13th, his final match. How do you feel like the story surrounding Sina's final year and final match has gone this year? I see you shaking your head. There were a lot of people that coached me about coming here. Here's what they kept saying.

Vince, you got to be positive. Vince, you got to be positive. Because if you're not positive, they're going to say you're bitter. That's what you always get. You're bitter. No, I'm not bitter. I'm telling the truth. But Ariel is asking me these questions, man.

Well, I'm dying to know your, I don't know. I don't know. I'm dying to know your answer. It's been horrible. Listen, there are two guys I never got to work with that I would have given anything to work with. Two guys, Bray Wyatt, who was an absolute genius. Thank God, man. I at least DM'd with Bray Wyatt a couple of times, and I'll never forget that. Number two, John Cena. This guy is a pros, pro.

I never got to work with him. Ariel, here's what happened and everything goes back to they're not writers. Okay? Obviously, they had the story with the Rock. They had the story with Sina turning heel. If you watch Unreal,

there was a time when everybody was on the same page. Rock was on the same page. We had the scene of Rock cutting the promo to Hunter and giving them this and all that. We're all on the same page. Behind the scenes, something went terribly wrong and I really believe Rock got his ideas shot down a couple of times going back to the WrestleMania before and I honestly believe Rock said you know what

F it I'm out of here you guys can stay here and bury yourself I really believe that's what happened now here's the problem area and as a writer you know this shit's going to happen. People are going to get hurt. Contracts are going to expire. People are going to be suspended. You always have to change plans. It's part of writing and wrestling. So there was some kind of a falling out. Okay. Now we've got to pivot. And we got to pivot to plan B. That's all. Rocks out. We got to make an adjustment. That's where the problem lies. They were not able to pivot to a plan B. So now we've got arguably one of the faces of Mount Rushmore who gives them a year notice, a year notice. Guys, this is going to be my last year. And this

is the fair well. And again, what does that come down to? You don't know how to write a show. You're not qualified how to write a show because in my humble opinion, John Sina deserved a lot better than this. I wish I could have written that story for John Sina. Given who's available right now, who do you think should face him in his final match? Well, I would hope this, Ariel, because again, you know, somebody please answer this for me. when they had Brock Lesnar come in and destroy John Sina, we know this is Sina's farewell tour. We know it.

So now Brock Lesnar destroys him. One thing, Ariel, I'm always giving the WWE the benefit of the doubt. I'm always giving them the benefit of the doubt. So rather than me say, what are you guys doing? You're out of your mind. I said, you know what? They're going to come back to this. this is going to be Sina's last match

and Sina is going to wind up getting the revenge and beating Lesnar on his way out. I honestly believe that. Now obviously that's not happening. So my question is what was the point of Brock Lesnar destroying John Sina on his way out in the last year of his career.

What was the point of that? That's the only question I ask. Because if you're not going to bring it back to that, then you buried Sina. Sina never got a comeback from that. You absolutely buried him if you're not going to come back to it. Should he win his final match? Well, listen, obviously he's not.

I mean, you know, Dominic's the guy that they're going with. My question is, are they really going to be John Siener in his last two matches out the door? That's my question. I think it's a given in San Diego against Dominic Mysterio. He's got to return the favor and give that belt back. I think that's a gimmick. He's not going to retire with the intercontinental title. But now the question is, are they going to beat him in that tournament before then?

And again, Ariel, when I talk about bad booking, bro, John Sina put Austin Theory over. Where's Austin Theory? John Cena put Austin Theory over. This is what I'm talking about. And Ariel, I just want to say it. That's why I went to JCW. That's why I went there because, Ariel, I worked with Violin J for four days. and I have to say this because I want everybody to notice.

I hadn't seen Jay in 26 years. I worked with him for four days. Violent Jay, out of everybody I ever worked with, is the closest to a Vince McMahon. Without a shadow of a doubt. This guy is a genius. This show, what was created 26 years ago, and nobody knows about it.

And let me tell you, Ariel, how I know he's a genius. When you are creative, you are not detail-orientated. You're not because your mind is out here. You're always thinking outside of the box. You need somebody else to dot the eyes and cross the T's. That's where Ed and I worked so well together. Ed was a detail guy. I sat there and I watched Violin J for four days.

This guy did both. And this was unbelievable to me because whether people want to believe it or not, Vince McMahon was really not a creative genius. The genius of Vince McMahon was he could see things that nobody else could see. And what he used to call that all the time is the nuances. Vince would see the nuances that nobody else saw. And if I wrote a script that was a nine, Vince would tweak a nuance here, a nuance there.

Now the show was a 10. But you give Vince McMahon a blank piece of paper. Vince McMahon cannot write you a wrestling show. And that's why when I saw the creative genius of a violent Jay, I was like, man, this is the guy I want to work with. there's no politics, there's no BS. This is a guy that knows we need to expand this and bring it to the world once again, and that's exactly what we're doing. Well, round third, on a positive note, I know you're a big San Francisco Giants guy. I'm a Blue Jays guy. We were this close to winning

the World Series. No big deal. That's a whole different discussion for a different day, Vince. And I'll tell you why. Off air, remember to ask me why the Blue Jays lost, and I will tell you. Okay. I look forward to that. J.C.W. Aside, I know you're very excited 7 p.m. Thursday Thanksgiving. You're with the family, the return of Vince Russo. It's great family watching. I presume there it is over on psychopathic records, their YouTube channel. What do you like about WW right now? Or pro wrestling.

JCW. Asa, because I know you're very excited about that, but to end on a positive note, if you will. Ariel, you keep getting me in trouble. What is this is so positive. Nothing? Not one thing? I'll tell you who I like. I'll tell you. you are like and and it's really seriously it's embarrassing it's embarrassing because the best guy in professional wrestling today is not a wrestler that's embarrassing who's that logan paul is a star a star unbelievable you talk about the it factor this guy reeks of it and the fact of how long he's been doing this and how good he is, listen, man, that should

challenge every professional wrestler out there. And, you know, here's another thing. And again, you know, Ariel, I ask for questions. I ask questions. When I don't understand, I ask questions. Who in God's name did Drew McIntyre piss off? Oh my God. Bro, this guy is a bona fide movie star. This guy can work. He looks the part. He can cut a promo. This guy is it. How do you beat him time after time, after time? But I'll tell you what it is. Ariel, some of these performers, they get the bulletproof. They get the bulletproof label. What that means is no matter what you do, no matter how many times you beat this guy, he's going to stay over. He's going to keep himself over. I think he's got that label.

I think Chelsea Green has that label. And that is the kiss of death in wrestling. Because Drew McIntyre, without a shadow of a doubt, should definitely be one of the top three guys in that company. By the way, I have to be honest, I thought when you were saying, isn't a pro wrestler my favorite thing, I thought you were going to say Paul Heyman.

Next, listen, Ariel stops. You're setting me up now. You don't like Paul? You're not a Paul. Paul, Hey, man guy? Now you're setting up. I love Paul. Yeah, go-go-go-c-ch-ch-choo.

Okay. Biggest regret. Biggest regret of your career. Ever getting in the wrestling business. Wow. Really? Absolutely. Would not do it again.

You wish you never sent that letter to Linda? Wish I never sent the letter to Linda. Wow. This is your life. This is your career. Took years off my life. But the cherry is on top of the Sunday at the end of my career. And this is a God sent to me.

J.C.W. is a godsend to talent. The people walking behind the scenes. This is a God send for me. There's been a lot of really bad experiences. Listen, man, Hulk Hogan sued me for cutting a promo on a wrestling character in the middle of the ring. Okay. Ariel, I've gone through a lot. I've been the butt of people's jokes for 30 years because I didn't pay my dues. and I wasn't the guy that was selling programs at wrestling shows when I was five years old. So that has always been held against me. I would not make the same decision again to get in the wrestling business, but I am so happy to be going off on a high note with J.CW, man. I really am.

This is a blessing for me. This has been an absolute blast. Thank you so much, Vince. What a pleasure. Truly, I really appreciate the hour. The Patreon is patreon.com slash Russo TWC. You've got a YouTube channel as well as you, as you mentioned, the brand is over there. And I know you're kind of moving away from the YouTube and going on to the Patreon a little bit more as well, right?

You've got the JCW YouTube channel, the psychopathic records that we just talked about right over there. That's tomorrow 7 p.m. Eastern Thanksgiving night, the debut of Vince Rousseau with Juggalo Championship Wrestling. And you're killing it, my friend. So thank you so much. I appreciate it. Great to have you on. Love picking your brain. Could have gone another two hours, if I'm being honest.

but we'll save it for another time. And Ariel, thank you for the heat that you brought me the day before Thanksgiving. Thank you, my friend. I appreciate it. Thank you, Vince. All the best. There he is. The inimitable Vince Russo, what a guy, what energy, what energy.

And I enjoyed that very much. Again, it's one of those where, if you would have told 1997, 1998, even 2001, Ariel, who's going to the fan access shows and taking pictures with the likes of Edge and Christian, And if Vince Russo would be on my show, how would you react? I would be pretty damn excited. And I think that lived up to it. We'd love to have Jim on in the future as well and love having these chats. Hope you guys enjoyed that as much as I did.

All right, let's move along. Yeah. Did you enjoy that, Frank? Absolutely. What a setup, by the way. Terrific. Got the audio, the mic. Got the thing around the RE20.

It was great. One of the big stories, one of the great stories of 2025 has been the emergence of Salsa Boy, the pride of the Dominican Republic fighting five times in the year 2025, four in one, twice in November alone had the fight against Antidellia where he gets poked in the eye. He comes back, he knocks him out. And then, of course, on 48 hours notice, he flies to Qatar to fight Shemil Gaziv and knocks him out as well. And you're like, what? You landed on Friday morning.

You made weight. Obviously, you're a heavyweight. Okay, fine. But you look to be in great shape. and you go out there after that long journey and you win, and now you say you want to fight on either December 6, December 13th, next show, why not?

It's a great honor to be joined by Waldo Cortez Acosta. He is kind enough to join us right here now. Hello, my friend. How are you? Thank you. Thank you, oh, yeah. How are you? It's great. Como estes?

Bien, very, very, here in my house. Okay, so it's so nice to have you here and congratulations. Have you been able to come down from the past week. Like this time last week, my friend, you weren't even fighting in Qatar. So can you tell us,

when did you get the phone call and did you say yes right away? Okay. The first time in the Dominican Republic, Tuesday and the Dominican Republic have a call for the NICU for my baby. Supposed to be a guide on release on Wednesday the last week.

Why me come back here to Arizona same Wednesday like at 3, 4, 4 p.m. I go immediately to go to see my baby to the NICU is supposed to be released the same day. When we go to the NICU, I see the baby having a whole

tooth back in the nose to the eating. I ask him in the nurse, hey, what happened with a baby is having a tool supposed to be got a release today? And he said, no, have a complication today. The baby needed put a tool bag and everything. I needed like a one week more. And being attention was eating, drinking, and everything because the baby have a little complication. In the same time, I got a cold on my coach. My coach called me

like a 5.30 seat almost like that. And he told me, hey, you want a fight in Qatar? You have a fire in Qatar, supposed to be. For real? I asked him, you joking, no? No, for real. I told him, give me five minutes. Let me talk to my wife about that decision right now because I have a little complicated situation now. I talk to my wife. My wife, he says, hey, you go to the Negro Republic. You're not doing nothing bad in there. You're not drinking. You know, you're not over. You're in very chaired right now. got to the fight and got a win for us and I called him back I saw him right away hey call my training partner

Tarrell Fortuna told him to go to the gym I go over there right now do a sparring and see if they came ready for the go to Qatar and fighting for this guy I go over there to the gym

I do it like a three round first for the With all my friends, I do it like a three paths with my coach. I see me good. I'm waiting to my training partner. I do it like a three round, almost a round, four rounds, I think. When I do everything good, I told my call, my goal asking me like three times, hey, you're ready for FIFA in Qatar for sure?

Like three times he asked me. Well, the last third time they asked me, I'm ready. He called the USC, hey, I'm ready and go. and right there, he told me you have a three hours for being ready pack everything to go to Qatar

the same day. Wow. That is very... By the way, when was your baby born? What date? Him born in August 8. Okay, and he's been in the NICU since then. And the big NICU

that's them. Congratulations. What is wrong right now and how is he doing now? You know, the baby is born with the syndrome and down my wife

had a complication like I have a placenta crita before have like almost die in the in the surgery too for the baby the baby are born too little

and born like a 27 weeks the baby is breeding good, everything like that for the you know need a time for the like take it to the home

because it's too little but are they complicated for the baby now is like a hingo like a have a capacity to eating by yourself. Wow. And how is your wife doing now?

Oh, my wife is very good now. I'm like every time excited to see the baby every day. Excited for the very emotional. It was happening with me the last week in these couple months. It's crazy. But it's being in the home right now and it's still cooking for me right now. Okay. And is this your first?

child? No, this is my number nine child. Number nine? This is my number six for me. My blood for is like a number nine

in their family. You adopted or your wife had children? No, my wife had three children separated. Okay, wow. Separating the other marriage. How old is the oldest?

The older 16, the other one turned 15 this year, December. The other one turned already 14, October 18. The other one is like night. The other one, no, the other one is 10, 11. Other one, night. My girl, like, four years old. The twins are like a two year, one month. And the baby and the Niki, now I have like almost three months.

Wow. Do they all live with you? Same house? No, no. No, no. I live with my three babies, the twins and the girl, and the oldest of my wife right now. And I wait into the baby coming to home. Okay.

And do you think you're done now? I mean, nine kids is a lot to take care of. Do you think that's it? Yeah, yeah. I think I'm done for now because my wife, I would like, I take, you know, the placenta Crida cover, whole thing. Okay. You know, the placenta cover the utero and go to the blood,

it take her all, aromatic, everything, and that. Okay. So, you know, it's interesting. You said that your baby boy was born in August, right? Yeah. Yeah. Girl, excuse me. My apologies.

Baby girl was born in August. And God bless her, and I hope that everything goes well for her and that she's able to get out of the NICU in very short order. your video froze, can you still hear me? Waldo, can you hear me? Can you see me? Yeah, I should hear you. Okay.

Yeah, I'll hear you. You have fought three times since August. You have been very active, and prior to that, you fought in June. So dealing with this, which I'm sure has brought stress and a bit of fear, and you've been so active. How have you been able to balance your athletic career and everything happening? in that side of things, with also the personal stuff

that you're dealing with as well. How has that been? Yeah, the more hard part is why me go to China. When we go to China, the same time my wife go inside to the hospital, right? This is the more hard part

in this career that happened to me. But after that, everything my wife is pushing me too much you know and everybody around me my coaches my my attitude every time that me presented for every time the mid training is very more more better as possible every time every situation that happened to me every time it's like it pushing me more to to do something better because i know i know i know how like a chance to the, like, something like that put it down, you know? Mm-hmm.

You hear me? I hear you, yeah. Yeah, I'm the person that everything bad happening to me is pushing me up every time. Okay. By the way, were you there for your child's birth, or did you miss it because you were in China? Um, no, no. I there because when my wife

go inside the hospital he passed like one week and two days for the birthday baby supposedly I'm coming here the same day they came over here after they coming to China my wife I will release the hospital

but the same day my my wife get hurt and get it bled out I need to go I go to the hospital right away And this we asked, my wife, concerned the baby. What was so impressive to me about this past weekend, you landed Friday morning, right?

And then you had to go on the scale, and then you fought the next day. Were you tired? Were you jet lagged after such a long flight? How long were you in the air for? Oh, think about it. I get out Tuesday, Wednesday, sits in the morning, the Dominican Republic. To Arizona, it's like nine hours. After that, be like four hours in Arizona.

See the baby, got the notice that me have a five. Got all the flight to New York, five hours. Calculated, it's like 14 hours. Plus the time they go to the New York to the Qatar, almost 31 hours of flight. Jeez, Louise. So when you landed, were you not exhausted? No, I know. because my my mentality

already is to go to fire. I know I don't have it like a think of, try to think about it how process happened to me before they go to land. The land I know my weight a little bit over. I told my coach, hey, I need to go

straight to the to the bascula, to the scale to see my way because I know it be swollen a little bit and be over a little bit. I pass like almost two pound, two pound and a half, but I caught in like a 20, 20 minute

and come back, make it the way, everything perfect, after that. And what's also incredible is just three weeks prior, you fought against antidellia, and we know about the eye poke, and then you eventually, subsequently knocking him out. How is your eye feeling now? Are you fully healed?

Yeah, I'm fully healed right now. I can see it. You, I don't know, people can see it right now, or have a little line to my eyes, like a pass-through. Yeah. This is one of the problems, but everything good right now. Everything, I'm 100% and they're ready for the next fight. How long did it take for you to feel like you were back to 100%?

How long did it take to heal? Like almost one week and two days. Okay. Yeah. That was such a weird situation because you got the poke, and then I thought that they had waited. the fight off, and they brought the guys into the cage to check you out, and then they restarted it. How do you feel about the way that whole situation was handled?

Obviously, you were happy that you got the knockout, but did you feel like there was some confusion? Were you surprised that they restarted it? No, I'm not surprised it. I'm a little confused. Why is it happening a little moment in there? Because why is they, until the Lidja, go to the hand corner, and try, like, a celebrator, and the whole crowd. for him, go to for him. It celebrated too.

I told the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, supposed to win, what, what a hand do that? And the hand, this one made me more mad. The hand, like, a celebrate it after the hand do it. What is the hand do? And for, in, for, and punching me almost 11 times after the, the happening, the point me that day. Okay.

And now you've really played this up now with the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, the, uh, the pirate eye patch and all this stuff. Why are you doing all of this? What's the reason behind it? The reason behind it, because I have a poke of the eye, the first one. I knock them out. I have a like a rule revolution, like a new me, you know, as it happening.

And they call them, throw the message to the champion. Why is they no try, like a dual rematch or something like that? because it happened like almost one month and something for him. I don't see him in the cameras and he talked about it about the rematch. Sure, sure. So do you feel like the way in which he reacted was, what do you think? What was your reaction to the way that all went down? Because as you know, eye pokes can be dealt with differently, right?

Deeper. But it does feel like you're maybe trying to dig at him a little bit. Yes, yes. My eyeball, I have a bleeding in my own eyes. I have a blood coming out in my eye. And I remember I told the referee, I like a 20% of something, but I don't see nothing in there. I try like a fight number one. But for him, I don't know. I think the hanging, I have a puck and more in the right can, can the left, I think. Because I have two, both the eyes, supposed to in both eye, but have more one, D.E. the other one, but hang out of the other one side.

I understand. How far away do you think you are from that discussion? Because I saw, by the way, how do you say it in Spanish? Felicidad. Felicidad? You're now number five, right? Felicitations. Thank you.

You're now number five in the heavyweight division. Look at this. Waldo Cortez-A Costa, number five. What were you ranked at the beginning of the year, Waldo? I rank in the beginning the year like number 14, I think Okay, look at you, you're number five So how far away do you think you are

from the champion at the top? How many more fights? I think one more fight, I think, can get him. Who do you think makes most sense? I don't know, I think about it like a courtesy play, but I don't know, maybe I want to fight with Curtis play.

But I don't know, maybe you're pushing me for the, um, the beast, what's the name? Derek Lewis. Derrick Lewis. That's fun. Yeah. This would be fun for me. Why Curtis Blades more? Why do you want Curtis Blades?

Because Curtis Blades, you know, is a thing, like, fighting with a tongue espino. And they have like a, um, um, supposedly like a, um, two, two, five, a halber, one problem, one for the knee, and the assana, I spin a wing, like a knock him out of him. I think the hand pushing me like I be the next opportunity, can get an opportunity to regard to the title. Okay. And you think you win that fight and then you get title shot? Probably, yeah. Yeah.

And who do you think wins? Tom Aspinall or Cyril Gun? They're probably going to do a rematch. Who do you think wins? I don't know. I think the Tongue Espinna's a little warrior about sit again, see again, and this fight is looking amazing, looking more other level, can get Spina's sped.

And I see that guy connected like a very good. And I see that Tongue Espinna like a tasted blow too early in the round. I think for that reason, it hang like a pusher, like a try and no final more after the pocket eye. So you think that if they meet again, you think Surreal wins? Yeah, I think yeah Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow Okay, Cyril Gun

So he'll be the champion that you'll face Or are you hoping, oh, did we lose him? We might have lost. Okay, we'll get him back. Salsa Boy. By the way, I wanted to ask, is G.C. there? Is there anything you want to say to him? Should I tag?

No, you're sure? Yeah. I mean, I feel like... I support from back here. No, you don't want to say like, hey, like, you know, I'm on board. or he knows I'm on board he retweeted my tweet

he retweeted my tweet that said we are taking over the heavyweight the video okay all right me and him in the cage all right I just want to make sure that's right you were the ref right for that fight that's right that's right that's right I don't need to glaze I support from afar you're not a D1 glazer

no one would ever accuse you of I got a D1 Glaze you're not here no no no I get it I get it Waldo Cortez Acosta going to join us in a matter of seconds or rejoin us because I have a couple other questions. Fascinating guy. I didn't realize that he was going through so much from a personal standpoint. Our old friend, Mr. Hokit, has been saying that he'd like to fight him. Josh Hokit

saying that he'd add another zero and I'll fight him tomorrow, meaning if they add a zero to the contract, I can fight him tomorrow. By the way, not for nothing. Cortez-A-Costa with the abs there at the way-ins after all that flying. You guys let me know when he's back. Hopefully his phone didn't die. I hope we don't have to do this again with like the Armin thing. I was going to be I mean we're going to have to do a Thanksgiving special this, that and the other would not be good

oh is he back? Hello, hello Waldo Oh, sorry, sorry and I have like a lot of phone. No problem, no problem. How like I fight my kids have the phone and they call the mom and me

at the same time. I'll let you go in a second but what about Josh Hokka? Do you see he said he wanted to fight you? This guy Josh who had a big win he said add another zero and I'll fight him tomorrow. He wants to fight him.

you on either December 6th or December 13th. Oh, this is an incredible hook. This is a, well, John John. Yeah, he trained with him a little bit. He trained with him a little bit. Big guy, he does funny interviews, like Chale Sunnan. Okay, it'll be good, but I need a, like, hang on the USA, fighting a couple times.

Sure, sure. He's new, he's new, I got you. Yeah, probably interesting. by the way are you going to fight one more time this year do you think you're going to fight December 6 or 13th oh I don't care what what you see however for me I can fight the seats and the third thing I'll be ready for both so for the for both those shows you know anything yet any offers yet any possibility um I don't offer job but I think maybe it's possible but

I think it's confirmed maybe have something for the January in 24. Ooh, okay, big show. Yeah, we'll be a show. Against who? Against who, Waldo. I think maybe Dere Lewis or something. Oh, I like it. I like it, Waldo.

I like it. You like that? I like it. I love it. Okay, okay. Waldo, I have to say I have a lot of love for Dominicanos. I love Dominicanos. You know why?

Because I love baseball and my favorite players are always Dominican. Moisesalu, Felipe Alu, Pedro Martinez, Vladimir Guerrero. And now Vladimir Guerrero Jr. You know Vladimir Guerrero Jr.?

Yeah, I love this guy. I love with this guy. Amazing guys. And you're from Dominican and you used to play baseball, right? You were a part of the Cincinnati Reds. That's you. Yeah, this is me.

Amazing. Pitcher? Yeah, pitch it. So what happened? What happened? Oh, um... They happen in that situation with me have released the Cincinnati

because I have a seizure, I haven't told me young. But after that, I go to recover to Dominican Republic. I have one friend, the pictures, too. Hen have a, I think, problem for the him marriage or the hen girlfriend, something like that. And I try to, like, animated him for the big happening or something like that.

and they have a situation in there, can my mom have a, and in the hospital too, like, have a delicate situation at that time. And talking share about my mom. The human here

and I have a feeling like it's disrespectful and I go back and fighting with him and the smatch of the head. Oh my. Almost killing him for the one punch.

The right hand, the same thing. I said that he got excuses to him, excuses to the team, but the team really led to release me and give me free to the other teams. Wow. And that was it? No more baseball after that? No, wait a minute.

After that, I passed like four months in the home training. The Japanese people tried like a... sign of the picture the same. I told it like a 94, 95 miles still. They were at recover in that time. I have a situation with my Ed's wife go for me over there, have an appointment in the consul I remember,

and they have opportunity. Got a signer to the Japan or coming here to the United States. And I decided to come in here to the United States. Okay. And did you have any background in fighting? Did you do martial arts or anything like that? No, I don't have nothing at all.

I training everything after the me finish the babybo over here. Well, I'm great. It's like my heart. I have a very hard, the little kid, because I'm fighting a lot in the street. And I know scared anybody, anyone. This is me. And so who introduces you to MMA after all of this? Well, me coming here to the United States, I passed like almost three, four, five months.

Not doing nothing, I'm getting bigger. I got like almost 280 pounds. I decided to go to the gym. I try to do something because I play football first, and I know getting good because I know speaking well. And that time, I don't understand the play and everything. I get a little upset. I retired for like a four months. I do only like, so I got to work and cook you for the kids, be paying attention to the house

because I know how I work in that time. I got a decision to go to the one gym. You say USC gym in that time like in 2014-15. I go to there. The people see me bigger and everything faster, but I know how I like a tainee for the throw punches, not at all. I decided to do it started like a grappling Jiu-Jitsu I started with this one I found the one

caused the boxing in there and they told me hey you'll be learning botting in one year like you start breathing with

throw punches and everything like that and the the guy no expect that after three months I started like evolution

and totally you know and the grappling and the and the fight and the and the

striven One of those coaches who told me, hey, I haven't won't fight in the MMA, and a couple of months, you want to join it? He said, yeah, for sure sure, I want to fight for that reason. I try training. I'm not training for early for B, look nice or something like that. I want to fight. And then I got it a fight. My first and amateur, I passed like almost 30 seconds.

And that fight, I knocked him out the guy. And the whole fight is, whole fights, I'd be like, I knock him out everybody in the, and the, and the, in the amateur with my right hand. Incredible, and you're doing it now as well. You know, it's crazy, you had the fighting guitar, and I'm sure you remember this, it was such a quick fight. Actually, the referee in that fighting guitar, he also, he works on our show, and he's a big fan of yours.

You know this guy? He's big, big fan of yours. You know this guy here? This guy, this guy from the, for, oh. God damn. Yo, I was talking to Rick, and I did not realize you were tossing him. me, and he got out. Oh, fuck.

I tried to. What the I literally, I did not hear you tossing to me. I had no idea what was happening. Oh my God. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. What the Waldo? We have the guy.

Wait, where is it? I know. I know. I know. Turn your phone. Your phone. Your phone is upside, sideways. Yes, yes, yes. There it is. This guy, you know this guy. I revved your fight on Saturday, well. He's the referee.

Wait a minute, no, no, no, no, no. This is the guy, you know the guy. Yeah? Yeah, I see the guy. I get it very friendly to him. But look at more skinny in the fight. A little skinny ear. Why you get frustrated?

Now, because... Now, why are you frustrated with the referee in the fight? This guy? No, I know for Australia. I'm not the referee. He looks like him. He looks like. No, no, no, I know, but it's looking a little like.

Yes. I look just like him. I'm the president of Salsa Boy Nation. He loves you. He loves you. Big fan, big fan, big fan. And by the way, in New York, you spend time in New York? Yeah, I spent time in New York because I have it like my mom, my dad, and my sister go over there to

see my fight in New Jersey. Where can we get Manju? Manju. Where can we... Mangu? Mango. Mango. Where do we get Mango? Mango, you can get in the old restaurant, the Dominican Republic

in the Bronx? In the Bronx. In the boogie down. Okay. I love it. We're going to go. Yes, I love it. Salsa boy. You're the man. Congratulations on all your success. Thank you for coming on. Continued success. Hopefully we see you soon and then hopefully 2026 title shot salsa boy thank you sir all the best you thank you so much

there he is waldo cortez accosta man i tried to get kind of there and i failed miserably well the internet i mean you've set me up beautifully with uh and then it goes eerie and now this he's sitting there and he's like actually i think for a second i was just like i i didn't know what to do because i was on camera and my mic was on but i wanted to look at andy be like please god cut away No, no, no, that was the, that was the plan. In retrospect, in retrospect, what we should have done. I'm not frustrated. Is that the, yeah, it's a little skinny. That neck of his, I wanted to ring at the pencil neck geek.

We should have had the side by side of the actual ref putting his arm up, but I was afraid you would have seen them getting that ready, and you would have been, you would have been skeptical of what was transpiring. So I left it at that. And then, of course, we get the freaking the shot of death when the phone dies and it's like triple boxed. Yes. Oh, my God. Well, it was worth a shot.

And what a great guy. What a great story. Did I know about a lot of that? Okay, let's move along. Still to come, four o'clock, my friends. Wing C is going to join us to talk about his devastating loss at APFC. We'll answer some more questions.

And we shall call it a week here over at Uncrowned HQ. It is Thanksgiving, after all. But very excited to talk to our next guest. His name, well, the nickname is the Axeman, Alfie Ronald Davis, who is 25 and 1 in mixed martial arts. Had a great record in Beltor between 2017 and 24, 8-1 and 1, but he has really come into his own this past year, 2025, in the PFL lightweight tournament. In fact, he was considered an underdog, I do believe, in every single one of his fights in the tournament. But in the end, he ended up winning, he ended up winning the tournament, and he ended up punching his ticket to a massive fight against Usman or Magamatov. You may recall, Usman essentially calling him out after he beat Paul Hughes in October saying, who's this good-looking guy?

Who's this good-looking guy? Tell him he's next. And, of course, he was talking about Alfie Davis, who is kind enough to join us on this one. Wednesday evening. There he is. Hello, Alfie. How are you? Hello. How are you, buddy? You're good? I'm doing great, and I do want to apologize to you off the top. I didn't realize when we book this that your beloved Arsenal is playing right now in Champions League against Bayern Munich, so I apologize for taking you away from that. Yeah, yeah, that's all right, buddy. Don't mind. I'll catch up a bit after. Okay, fair enough. I did happen to stumble upon when I posted that you

were going to be on, a message that you sent me in 2017, Alfie. Do you remember this? You sent me a message in 2017 saying, hi, Ariel, was wondering if you could share my CAO from Bellator 179 this Friday. I was a swing bout and was at the very end of the night. The production team messed up and packed away all the cameras so I didn't get any professional video of the fight. How about that? You've come a long way since then, Alfie, eight years. I know, yeah. To be honest, that's still arguably my best knockout and arguably one of the best knockouts ever in MMA. It was a beautiful back kick K-O. I basically hit a spitting and hook kick and then went back kick. I've not really seen many knockouts like that in MMA. I have got mobile footage. So you weren't able to get

the professional footage like they weren't rolling any cameras? No, they packed away the cameras. That is crazy. It was, yeah, obviously I was well upset, but yeah, it's spoken about it. It's all worked out. When you consider that and how long the journey has been, your pro debut 2014, amateur debut 2013, you have been at this for quite some time, and I know a lifelong journey in martial arts to see how the year has culminated for you with that belt, with the tournament championship, with Usman calling you out and that fight on the books for 2026, February 7 to be exact. How are you processing all of this?

Yeah, I mean, as you said, it's been a long time coming, but, This year has been, yeah, unbelievable, to be honest with you. It's been life-changing, not just terms of my career and winning a world title and now fighting for another world title, but just financially. This is kind of what I dreamed about when I started MMA. I was like, yeah, in a few years' time, I'm going to be earning decent amount of money and be a world champion, but it just took me like 10, I think probably 12 years to do it. But the dream's still there.

Was there ever a period where you thought it would have? turn out this way, that it wouldn't culminate with all of this and that you would have to do something else? Yeah, 100%. I mean, even as last year, I lost a bout to a guy called Mansour the Nui. I was very close to retiring, and then I got offered this tournament, and I was all right, this is my last ditch saloon, and yeah, change a few things up, really focused on what I was doing weak, and then, yeah, I was the underdog in every single fight for the tournament, but I don't I think they knew the Joga had of how well I've been training and what had changed and, yeah, come out and won every single fight. Wow, that's unbelievable. You were close to retiring. How close?

Yeah, very close. I was looking at different jobs. I was research and if I should go study. Yeah, it was very close. I mean, I didn't have it fully in mind because I still enjoyed the training, but it was nearly there. What do you think you would have done, ultimately, if you did, in fact, decide to retire? What'd you be doing now? I still don't know. I still don't know what I'll do now, yeah. I mean, I've always thought that I'd coach or, I don't know, but I quite like the idea of a job where it's like nine to five and you finish because, like, yeah, being a full-time

athlete and constantly thinking about your next fight, it's just you're always on the ball. I'm always watching MMA. Like, every single weekend, I think my wife's upset with me. I'll be trying to watch the next fight or a fight that's been on. Every night I get in, she'll want to watch something on the TV. I'm there on my phone, like watching fights from before or watching like kickboxing fights. So it just takes over your life. Sure.

Yeah, I love it. But equally, I kind of like the idea of when it's done to just switch off. Do you think you are close to being done? Is it possible you have this fight with Usman, you win that belt, and then you ride off into the sunset? or have you found a newfound love for the sport and now aren't thinking about retirement anymore? Yeah, now I'm sort of in a different place. I mean, I get to do what I love because I love it.

I mean, before it was mainly to do financially. I was 32 years of age. I didn't really have any money. I earned a bit of money coaching, but I really had some lifelong goals that I wanted to achieve. And financially, I weren't going to be able to do it. So I was going to try to get a more higher paying job. But since I won the tournament, and I mean, it's good money.

So I've earned some decent money that I can be stable on for the next few years. And then there's more money to be had. You know, I'm a prize fighter. And Usman Huja Nikobolikov is going to get it, so I can get some more money. And then I'll take out the rest of the PFL division. You just mentioned your opponent's name, and you mentioned it the way in which you say it online. Why do you call him that? His name, obviously, is Usmender Magamatov.

call him something different. Why? Yeah, he quite likes a nutshot, you know. He quite likes a bollock shot. So I call him Usman, who do you nick a bollicoff? I think he probably nicked it off Paul Hughes or some of his other opponents. So I've got to make sure I'll get a nice good cut so he does nick my bollick too. Just curious, since you are a connoisseur, I thought Paul may have won the first. I thought the second was very close.

I'm totally okay with the 48-47 for Usman. I thought the 50 to 45 was completely absurd. How did you score those two bouts? I think, again, I've been studying quite a bit. I think the first fight, Paul Hughes definitely did win. I mean, especially with the new scoring system and how damage his score, I think Paul did the more damage

and Usman was looking for a way out. In saying that, the second bout, I think that Usman adapted quite well. And I think just from his control time on the back and sort of his grappling element, And I think he did win, but I think he lost the first. So, yeah, that was just my take, couldn't it? When he won the second, Usman, and actually mentioned you in the cage,

were you expecting that or were you surprised by that? I was half expected it because I was a tournament champ. And I beat his teammate, you know, like some people were calling me the Daggy Killer because I go after the Dagestanis. But I thought I thought I'd get something. There was a few other names in the hat, but they haven't really done me. much in PFL. So I was definitely in the frontrunner. I didn't

expect him to call me this handsome guy though. And originally the fight was due to be on Valentine's Day. I don't know if you knew that. It's recently changed. Wow, wow, wow. Yeah, I know he's got some hold over the judges, but I didn't think he was going to try and schedule the fight to be on Valentine's Day as well after calling me

handsome. But you never know. He never know what's going on in people's head, you know? Okay, I like it. I like it. So what do you make of that? Do you think that there is something to the to the notion that he gets some home cooking when fighting over there in the Middle East it's hard to say I don't want to blame on the judges but what we'll say home crowd advantage is real in all sports so especially of like he hits a kick and the crowd goes rah I think judges can be affected by this you know especially I remember in the first

ball he was fight he had his backers knee and him and there was loud shouts for these like knees that weren't doing any damage so I think that can sway the judges I wouldn't say that the judges are like in on it and there's corruption because ultimately I think they're American or other nationalities but I do think home crowd advantage is real um so yeah but I have a few fans traveling over and they're quite loud so hopefully they'll make some noise for me and yeah we'll see what cooks on the night obviously he comes from a great family a great team do you consider him as good or could be as good as the likes of Habib and Islam and those guys at the very tight. I think he's definitely got a really nice skill set. I mean, he's, he's well-rounded

in every aspect. What I will say is that Khabib and Islam have got this wrestling pedigree and this just ability to control people that. I don't think even any of the Dagestanis I've seen being able to do it. So like even in the recent U.S.C. events, you're seeing some of the Dagestanis being proved to be human. Obviously, I beat a Dagestani, and there's this aura about them that they're unbeatable, which I actually think the same. second generation, unfortunately, haven't got it. I do think that Khabib and Islam are amazing athletes, and they'd be really hard to kill. But I think Usman, he hasn't quite got that. But what he has got is a good variety in his skill set. So it's definitely something I have to prepare

for. But in terms of that Dagestani wrestling and that skill, I don't think he's got it. Some fighters say afterwards or some fighters say from afar that they get intimidated by the Dagestani presence aura, as you put it, and that's part of their undoing. How do you not get sucked into that? How do you not fall for that trap come February, come fight week? You're doing the face-offs. They're a stoic bunch. They're an intimidating bunch. They have a presence.

How do you not fall for that? I mean, the good news is that I beat his teammate last time. So that's definitely some more confidence. but also I've competed in martial arts for years I've competed internationally a lot and he just realized that people are human and no matter where they're from and who they've had behind them

it's them in the cage and how many hours have they put in what have they done in the gym what practices have they done how have they fought about their practice are they smart training are they over training all these aspects I think over the years of me being obsessed with a sport

I've come to perfect especially in the last year I've really come to my stride And I don't know that he's definitely had that perfection just yet. I think he's got the ability to be there. As I said, I think he's got an amazing skill set. But I don't think he's there yet. And that's what I'm willing to prove in February.

Speaking of that journey, I mean, we've seen some photos of you as a youngster competing in kickboxing. Like super young. I think this is kickboxing. Let me know if not. Or perhaps this is some sort of sport karate. What is this? And how did you get into martial arts way back when? Yeah, it is kitboxing, but kickboxing's like an umbrella term for basically the style that obviously there's many styles within kitboxing, but I competed in a style called light continuous, which is kind of poorly named because it's never really light, but it's just Matt kitboxing.

I also competed in points fighting, which is some styles that you'll see like Wonderboy Thompson, Michael Page, they've crossed over into MMA well, but then I was be within the same competition. but then fighting in light continuous, which have some similarities to Taekwondo also. And I got into that. Basically, when I was younger, I used to watch a John Claude Van Dam films. Oh, yeah. I'll be going around the house, like, closing cupboards and practicing the kicks. And then my mom just said one day, you need to get out of the house and do this. So, yeah, there was a magazine back there in Enfield called Everyone's a Winner.

I still remember the page. And I was like, right, I'm starting this up. And then, yeah, from there on, I never gave up. You know, it's interesting. I'm looking at you holding that belt and you are getting this title shot in large part because you won that tournament and won that belt. As you know, PFL doing away with the tournaments come 2026. How do you feel about that?

I really like the tournament structure to you on Zulu. I like the idea of a season and having the fights back to back. I mean, I'm quite lucky that I don't take a lot of damage. fights and I rarely get injured. I don't want to jinx myself, but I'm, I'm, and also in kickboxing world, I used to fight tournaments all the time, so I really enjoyed it. But equally, I understand from a marketing standpoint, it can be confusing with the different titles and all of that. But I still wear this belt proudly because when I feet, when I beat Rabadanov, he was actually ranked higher than Nugged Menoff in a lot of places. So I think I'm the real champ, really.

and he should be fighting me for the belt. I love that you say that you hold it proudly and that you are proud of it. I do believe you have fought once in KSW, right? And you lost somewhat of a controversial split decision on the night. True or false, you were presented with a trophy after that fight, and because you were so disgusted with the judges, you actually put the trophy in the toilet.

Did you not? That actually was amazing. that was my former coach that did that but I did get the blame for it and it went quite viral on Polish media so yeah I saw I saw went along with it but yeah no that was my formal coach that did it he uh yeah he didn't he didn't like losing as well why'd you let him do that that's your trophy not his yeah to be honest if you I did I did say that I was leaving the coach I may have even thrown the trophy or like just left it in the changing room and then I think that picture he took.

But I remember them holding my wages for a while for that. So I was quite upset at the time because I thought, oh, no, I'm not going to get paid because of this. But, yeah, I would like to claim that it was me, but it wasn't me. I was definitely upset from losing, but it wasn't me. My understanding is that trophy still exists. Would you like it back? It depends if they've cleaned it.

Yeah. That's a toilet. I mean, and also as a second place trophy, when you got a belt like this, I mean, to be honest, and also, I had over 150 trophies for my kickboxing days, and when I moved into my house, I, yeah, basically got rid of them because they were just collecting dust. So as long as I've got the belt, and then I'm going to have another belt on here, where I'll beat Hoognecobolokov. I think that that'll be good enough for me and just defend them a bunch. What did you do with the trophies? Like, when you say you got rid of them, you threw them out, you sold them?

Yeah, I collect, I've still got some medals. competed in the worlds and got silver medals. So I kept that. I actually kept my, I had a British, nice British title, Wacko one. I kept that and then a K-1 one that I had as well. So I've got a few belts, but the over 150 that I had, I had to fry them out. There were like, I still had some trophies from when I played football as an eight-year-old. Wow. I don't know if that'd be good to show it to everyone. You know, it's a part of the journey. I get it. You mentioned,

your former coach, and you mentioned earlier in the chat that, you know, new team and perhaps a new perspective helped change. Correct me if I'm wrong, you were with London shoot fighters, but now I do believe that you are being coached by the great Brad Pickett, right, with his team over there? Yeah. Why'd you do that? Why'd you make that switch? Well, actually, I initially started with Brad and a guy called Mickey Pappas. when I first started my career I had my first four professional fights under them

and there wasn't much of a team back then and London shoot were making big waves I also knew Michael Page because we fought each other in a kitboxing belt from years before and I thought yeah I'm going to transition over so I transitioned over I had some good times there some great coaching

but ultimately I felt the style of coaching I was receiving at shoot fires wasn't for me at this stage of my career. They were, especially the head coach is very autocratic in his approach, whereas I felt like as I got older, I needed more of a democratic style of coaching, and Brad's like, he's like your mate, but your coach, you know, so we get along very well, and yeah, and he just helped me so much since moving there, not just in terms of, like, stylistically, but also just as a person and, yeah, helping me to perform under the lights, really.

I have great respect and admiration for One Punch Brad Pickett, one of the legends of the game, Great Britain Top Team. I know he's doing great things over there, so I love to see that you're with them. I'm sort of beating around the bush here, Alfie. The main thing that we haven't talked about that we must talk about is your mate who got the tattoo of you on his calf, I do believe. And we've had a little bit of fun with this because not only did he include you on the tattoo, he kept Don Davis on there, which to me is a very interesting choice.

your reaction when you found out about this? And could you tell us about who this individual is who got the tattoo? Yeah, that's George's. We went nursery together. We grew up together, man. So we're like, yeah, we're basically brothers. I mean, he was just, I love him for it.

He's just so proud of, you know, we grew up together through many trials and tribulations. And he was as happy as me when I won the belt, you know. So, yeah, he decided you want to get. tattoo. I mean, I wouldn't say that. I wasn't, like, when I was, I was definitely surprised when it happened. But yeah, he's just a great mate. And then, yeah, Don Davis was in the photo, but it's actually quite applicable because we both got the same second name and we're both Don's. So there's like, he's got two Don's on his leg, you know. That is, I mean, I'd like to think I have some good

friends as well. I don't think any of them are getting my greatest achievement, at least to date, tattooed on their leg, that prominently. Like, that is, that is. That is. That is. That is. next level friendship right there well you haven't won a pf all world title buddy no i haven't i clearly have not maybe if you do it might come out the woodwork golly that is um i mean have you done anything in return for this great gesture like how do you even repay someone with you know with that like that kind of honor yeah i mean yeah we've had many good times to give off but he's actually the pfl done me a favor to be fair because they're he's getting uh vip treatment so the next fight he's getting VIP. He's getting flown

out there. He's getting all expenses paid for, mainly for getting Don Davis started on him. I love it. I think because I was on there as well. Brilliant move. And shout out to the PFL for doing that. I think he deserves it for life, if I'm being 100% honest. I think he once actually was a cornerman of yours, right? Yeah. So he

become my bucket boy. I mean, he's not a training by any means, but I thought out in Wichita. And he was one the only friend, he's my only friend that flew out there for it. And I was going to get him a ticket to the event. And then I thought, actually, I've got, he was allowed three quartermen. So he might as well come in there. What we'll say, he's quite loud. So I was quite worried about him saying the wrong thing or trying to coach me. So I had to make sure that he definitely wasn't going to coach me. And then when we got past that barrier, he was, yeah, good to have

in the corner. Ultimately, when I won, he put me on his shoulders. And yeah, it was quite a emotional time. I love that. I love that. You appear to be a blessed man. You have so much going for you right now with the tournament belt around your shoulder there. You've got the big fight coming up, the success that you've had as of late. Great friend as well. I would say what to me makes you seem like the richest man in the world was the scene that I saw when you landed and your wife and two children were there waiting for you. Can you describe what this moment is like as you are coming home as tournament champion? It gives me chills just looking at it. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's nothing greater than that, you know,

like this is all for fun, you know, like fighting and stuff, but having children and, yeah, they don't even know I fight, to be honest with you. I always say I'm going to work. If I ever get a black eye, I say a fell over. Eventually I will tell them, but they're still quite young, so I'm just trying not to expose them too early. But, yeah, then running towards me, it was more the time away, you know, when I have a week away and then they run towards me,

That's what got me very emotional. But maybe when they're older, they might be proud of the fact that their dad's done something like this. But even way, I'm not too bothered. But it's just, yeah, it's lovely to have kids and a beautiful wife like that. Are you going to encourage them to follow down the same martial arts path that you went down? I think for a self-defense aspect, yes. I think some Brazilian jihitsu, maybe some kickboxing. But as for competition, I'm not sure.

I think I need to leave that up to them, you know. It takes quite a personality to get in the cage and fight. I don't think it's for everyone. I don't think, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I have reasons for doing it, like maybe some reasons that I could get over, but I don't know if I want my children to go through the life of being a fighter. I mean, there's definitely some highs with it, but there's some also lows, you know, and there's definitely easier careers and easier sports, you know.

So if they can become a professional football player or, I don't know, professional tennis and not get brain damaged and punching the head, then I'll definitely opt for that. But in terms of self-defense, I think in this day and age is required. I definitely think all children should really be doing some jiu-jitsu and a bit of boxing at least. I agree. Love everything that you just said. Congratulations on all your success. Great to finally meet you. Great to finally have you on the program.

Congrats on a tremendous 2025. Good luck in your preparation for the big Usbander-Magamato fight. Again, it goes down February 7th in Dubai. Two title fights on that card. They just announced Dakota Ditchava on the card as well. So it looks like this new era starting off with a bang. And it's 1-1 at halftime. So we didn't take up too much of your time.

Okay, all right. Yeah, I'll get back on it. Yeah, and hopefully. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me on, buddy. I've been a fan for a while. So I'm glad that I've finally made it. You certainly have, and you have for quite some time.

Thank you so much, Alfie. All the best to you and looking forward to the next chat. Yeah, thank you. Take care. There he is. Alfie Davis, kind enough to join us, The Axeman. We didn't get into it, but the reason why he is known as the Axeman is because he actually landed an axe kick in a fight many, many moons ago.

I think we might have it. Here it is. You see MMA. Here's Alfie. You're about to see him land a tremendous axe kick now. Bang. Fucking out. I mean, Oban, you nailed it, my friend.

And that is, I mean, that's Booker T-esque. The man's got some style, a fun matchup. And it's going to be interesting because a guy like Alfie is a byproduct of the tournament. And now we're, I'm curious to see how this fight goes. I'm into it. I like the backstory. I like his vibe. I like everything about him.

I'm a proponent of moving away from the tournament. He maybe doesn't get this opportunity if he doesn't win the tournament and go on that run. And so let's see how people. PFL deals with this, this new era. I think the new era is going to be a net positive, but the Alfie Davis type of tournament winners that are going to emerge from the shadows aren't going to be at their disposal. So let's see how they build up new contenders and new stars. One more guess, my friends, before we say goodbye to the guest, but we'll still answer some more questions, so have no fear. His name is Malcolm Schuyler. I do,

hope that I'm pronouncing that last name correctly. Six and two amateur record, if I'm being 100% honest, we don't typically have amateur fighters with no pro fights on their resume on the program. I did happen to see that this young man nicknamed Wing C competed on the APFC card on Sunday in Albuquerque. And obviously there was a lot of attention on this card because Gable Steven was competing in his second pro-MMA bout on the night. He fought in the main event and was obviously very successful and victorious. We've spoken about him a lot this week. But Wing C. A.K. Malcolm

was very entertaining and that led me down a deep dive into who this man is and what his background is. And perhaps I was exposed to him and saw that he was doing a lot of stuff with Demetrius Johnson, who obviously I have a ton of respect for and they've even done some training before and he's had some street beef competitions as well in case you're unfamiliar with his work. Here's a quick little snippet just to wet the appetite if we have just any type of highlight.

Yeah, there he is. There's Winksey doing his thing. He comes out with wings, a little dancing, a little styling, a little profiling, Very entertaining, moving, and grooving. I do believe it is pronounced Skyler. So I apologize for that. Look at that, one punch knockout.

So a very interesting and entertaining and fascinating fellow, look at that. A little Booker T, a little spinneroo-rooney, dare I say. Wanted to learn more about this young man. And so without further ado, let us say hello to Malcolm Skyler, who is kind of to join us, a.k.a. Wing C. There he is. Seems you recognize my aura. Nice to meet you, Ariel. You butchered my name.

I am sorry. I don't even go by my government name. The real name's Wing C. And that's all you should know. How are you? Is that, buddy? I'm awesome I just took a crappy loss but it's more to the storyline

so I just have to train harder No I get it I get it and I love I love the setup I love the wings I love the vibe What does it say on your Billy the bully over there Just what does that say

Lust demon? I was trying to yeah It's my lust demon Because young men struggle with it And I hate it and so it pumps me up when I'm training but I don't know how to mirror my footage because I got a bunch of funny stuff written off on that board

but you can't even read it no I can do not talk about the 14th amendment what's the 14th amendment it's the not it's the 19th oh damn it what is the 19th amendment it's it was our biggest blunder it's when we allowed them to vote who

the women oh dear our biggest blunder chat everything's gone wrong since then you don't believe that do you

come on Ariel come on by the way welcome to Zoom I know you're not a big fan of Zoom you were a big proponent for doing this on Discord I'm a fan of Discord I don't really like the Chinese servers

Okay, I understand. I understand. Why do they call you Wing C? Oh, that's a good question. Back in the sixth grade, it was divinely revealed to me. It was actually when Instagram first came out. Wow. And I was deciding a username, and I made a normal one for the public servers, and I made Malcolm 656. But then, I needed something to talk about anime because it was still ostracized back then. So I made Winged SyndiQuil, and that was my first ever gamer tag, first ever internet alias, but I shortened it to Wing C, and I've been Winged C ever since. And it's also symbolic. Why symbolic?

Because I have a problem with authority. You probably can tell in my clips that you did a deep dive on. Sure. But wings, they're the freest thing out there, baby. and no one's going to be able to tie me down. No celestial dragons, no parents. I'm in my mom's basement right now. But I just have a real big problem with conforming to rules

set by people. Were you always like this even as a kid? Yeah. Dropped out of school, by the way. How old were you when you dropped out? 17. Okay. So what were you in?

Like 12th grade? I was a junior. I was a little bit old for my grade. I think it was junior or sophomore year. I kind of forget. The story line has changed so much. Sure. Do you walk around with the wings? Yeah, I have a smaller set of wings, but this one's only for you, Ariel. I appreciate it. No, they're extravagant. But like, you go out and about, you go to a restaurant, you're out with your friends, you walk around like this? Yeah. Should I? What's it called? Should I show up to my girlfriend's Thanksgiving and Wings, too? I don't know. How do her parents feel about that?

I don't know. It's the first time I'm meeting them, and they don't even know I have a head tattoo yet. So I guess we'll find out. Do you have a head tattoo? Oh, you haven't done your research, Ariel. Come on now. Bad boy. I have, but sometimes I ask questions that I know the answers to. I just want to see you show to us. Oh my dear I've burned I've burned the boats on normal life

Stardom's the only career path for me now Is that a real tattoo? Chat, come on Would I just have this painted on my head? It kind of looks like it's painted to be honest Uh-uh Seriously like rub it Like do like a little smudge

Wow When did you get that? I got it a couple months ago now. It was in 2025. And the voices in my head, they were yapping. And I couldn't stop them. And my coworker was like, no, bro, do not get it. I was telling them about it.

I'm like, no, dude, God's calling me to it. I need it, chat. And so I ended up getting it. And then a couple of things started happening. And now I'm on your show. So I guess it was all part of the divine plan. Sure. And how long did that take? Took around like seven hours the first pass.

It was kind of painful, but it wasn't that bad. The most painful one was, ready? Yes. Oh, dear. Oh, wow. That one. That one hurt a lot. It's a little Peyton Talbot-esque with the circle on your stomach. Oh, great, bro. Oh, my goodness. I knew people were going to say. I remember when I first saw Peyton Talbot, I texted him. There was a DM.

producer the DM when we make clips of this because we both got the tattoo at the same time we both got the circle tattoo at the same time i texted him i'm like bro when did you um when did you get that he's like uh six months ago and i just got mine like four months ago in like 20 23 so like we got it within like three months of each other in i think in the year of like 20 20 no either in 2024 or 2023. And I just knew people were going to say that I was copying his swag, but I think I had the idea

first. Yeah, I was going to ask you if you thought that he was maybe swaggerjacking you. Yeah, I think he is. I want to fight him, though. Even though we're not the same way, I think it'd be a pretty cool main character clash. Do you consider yourself

a main character or an NPC? Come on now. What NPC dresses like me? Yeah, that's right. That's right. What does the head tattoo represent? The tattoos? Well, no, the head one. Let's start with the head one. What does it represent? The head one is styled after an angelic halo because I believe in the one true king of the world, the king of all kings. Jesus Christ. And I wanted to be similar to like an angel because when I created Wingsie, I thought that angel, I thought that angel, wings were dope. So I wanted it to be symbolic of that. And I just wanted to put some symbols

on it. So I put like this, I spent some time designing it. And I ended up with this like diamond-esque shaped thing. Okay. And then what is the, what is the circle represent? By the way, are you wearing pajama pants? Yeah. I was planning on getting naked for you. You want to see it now? No, no, I'm good. I'm good. Okay. Now you've got the whole get-up. Yeah, because that's more consistent, I think, with what you're wearing. Max, I just wanted to get naked on stream. I appreciate that. What is the circle?

My butt cheek wings? What does the circle represent on your stomach? Ooh, that's a lot of lore. So I'm going to, have you ever seen bleach, Ariel? Like the product? No. The anime. Oh, no, I don't watch anime.

Oh, my goodness, bro. All right, I'll enlighten you Okay, thank you So bleach is made by Tete Kubo Amazing, amazing show It's part of the big three of the best anime Kind of in existence, not objectively, but just the most popular

And this is reminiscent of a hollow circle And hollows were an enemy in bleach That were like spirits in a sense And they were spiritual enemies That were given this circle Because they were changed down to earth And then you have people like Soul Reapers, which were the people that would go and like help them attain heaven and by slashing off their chain, which usually there was a chain that would follow their hollow circle that would chain them down to the earth. And this chain was like a metaphysical chain.

It could have been some type of regret. It could have been some type of depression that kept them chained to the earth and not able to ascend to heaven. and I just really liked the metaphorical like the metaphorical artistic portrayal of not being able to go to that next life because something is tying you down that you didn't do in your past life so much so that I chose to put it on my body

because I think we as people can relate to that extensively we all do things we all have free will yet we choose to do freaking nothing with it we're all born and I hate it and what's the what's the cross represents the uh the cross is uh it's just how much i felt that even though i wanted to be an anime character the one who gives me my storyline is jesus christ and god and i had to have some type of christian symbolism on my being as an anime character so that way my story could be heard even in the heavens so you're you're 24 right

yeah do you think at some point do you think at some point when you're like maybe as old as I am that you may regret some of these tattoos especially the one that is so prominent on your face come on now wangsy never regrets this decision okay I do I do not the tattoos they'll only be part of my story

now drinking chocolate milk when I have like a week left in Wayans I will regret that decision but tattoos never I think they'll be cool they'll be like There'll be some, like, young bulls that I'll see my tattoos. Maybe I might be a little bit more saggy, but I'm still going to be working out. And they'll be like, yo, what was that? Respect, yeah.

And then I'll tell them, and I'll sit down like Jariah, and I'll be like, let me tell you the tale of Jariah, the gallant. But it'll just be the tale of Wingsie. And then I'll just tell them the coolest story ever. When you mentioned the chocolate milk, I thought we had something in common because I don't like to have fruit after dinner, so I always regret that when I have it. Yeah. Why are you putting it back on?

I guess we're a little bit similar. Why are you putting the thing back on your head? It's part of my main character costume. I need to maintain brand identity. Winksey always shows up in the do-rag and the headphones because I'm always listening to music. What do you like to listen to? Oh, let me show you. But I had this question the other day in my comments.

And if I could define the Winksey playlist, it's a... Anime openings, white girl music, Shakira songs, J-pop and K-pop, and then funk music. Okay. That's what I really like. And I just binge-watch anime edits and I listen to the songs. But I listen to everything. I don't discriminate what music I listen to. Have you seen K-pop Demon Hunters?

Oh! Of course I have, Jack! Okay. Now you're talking. Now you're starting to get up well. I think that's the only anime film that I've ever seen. It's amazing. Did you see my walkout to it?

Oh, yeah. You killed it. Oh, yeah. Dude, Israel-Oad of Slaid it. He recognized my aura as well. He did. Can I ask, how did you get into martial arts? The voices in my head were telling me to conquer the world.

So I figured I'd start with MMA or do terrorism. And it did a coin flip and it went to MMA. Okay. And when was that? That was in 2022 when I was crying in my bed because I felt worthless. Okay, wow, and then you got into the street beef scene? Yes, sir. And how did that career go?

Oh, I can show you. Wow, there you go. Okay, here it is. Read that. Street Beef record, 22 and 1. Read it again. 22, there's a big, why is there a big, like, space in between the dash? Is it 22, 2 and 1?

What's going on over there? Yeah, 22-2-1. Sorry, my black marker got dried out, so I had to start using the blue and red, and it doesn't really show up as good. Okay, okay. And then Ami Records 6-2 and 1. The big question is, when are you going to go pro? Seems like that might be on. It seems like it might be time for my storyline to go pro. I just want to fight whenever. And whatever, I've been fighting immature for a while because I can get the most fights. So, maybe this year. I don't know. maybe it's my time to enter the world stage

how did you get on the APFC card that felt like a big deal fight pass that felt like a coming out party I rizzed up mighty oh mighty got you on there he saw my aura and he stuck his arm out for me W Mighty he's also filming a documentary

about it too so stay tuned for that chat well it was a big opportunity unfortunately it didn't go your way how do you feel about what transpired Sunday night I wasn't too fond of how that went, but I guess the author of the storyline

needed a defeat for me just to make me stronger. I saw a nice moment with Demetrius consoling you in the back. That had to have felt good. Wasn't that awesome? That was straight out of an anime. Yeah, look at this. I mean, he's showing you, you're distraught in this moment, right?

You seem broken. I yeah man it's beyond the theatrics there was people there that believed in me and it's it's crushing me even like on the way back from the airport I'm like crying looking at these edits because these people all over the world believe in my journey and they're supporting me they're commenting the nicest things guys are saying that like I'm like the sunned They, they, they, that I inspire them. And even the fan, some guy drove six hours to watch me fight. That's, like, that's probably the coolest thing about the internet is that I have connection with people like that. And I just hope that I can be grateful for them in the wait. Huh? I, dude, it's, you know, this, like, famous switch, like, happened in, like, under a year. so it's so

there's no words there is no words for me to explain how grateful I am to the author of the storyline and how my gratitude for the people that support me it's I'm gonna kiss him I'm just got

that's what I'm gonna do to that I'm too kissed bro that's how I feel and wing C fans are the funniest people out there too some of them maybe what's it called putting like red crosses on their child I'm like, I'm going to love, I'm going to kiss you, bro.

I love you so much. Wing C fans better statistically than John Jones fans. You know, it was interesting in that, in that exchange, you alluded to something that you just brought up here. You said, to a degree, I'm paraphrasing, like, perhaps if you weren't famous, if you weren't caught up in the fame, things would have gone differently. Do you think it got your head? Do you think it affected you? Definitely. You know, people saying, oh, you're the goat, you're this.

It kind of boosts my ego in a way that I really don't need it to. I have holes. I have problems and I lost. But it did. It went straight to my head. How do you stop this from happening again? How do you come back down to Earth, not be a mark for your own gimmick, as they say in the biz? It gets stronger.

I challenge everyone. I rise And I push past my limits I guess we'll figure it out along the way Who do you train with A couple feathers I train out of Jiu-Jitsu 1 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania

But I might need to acquire some new training partners to help me work on my skills because I need a training arc like the films like the animas do you think that

it would be do you think it would behoove you to move to Washington and train under Sensei Demetrius feels like that's the real arc moving to Washington's kind of hard why

I like PA I want to turn Pennsylvania because we're such a deadly state for wrestling into the new Dagestan okay okay two three We're all fragmented.

Our MMA scene is kind of fucking weak, and I don't fuck with it. So I want to unite all of them. I want to make us the strongest MMA state in the U.S. so that everybody comes to PA so that way we can destroy Dagestan, and Christian warriors become cool again. Okay. I'm tired of those Dagestani's winning. And which weight class are you competing at right now?

Victim weight, aka 133. but I'm going to start going down to flyweight when I go pro. Oh, dear. Because I'm kind of light. I even fought at 1.45. I just want to fight. Okay. How do you make money?

How do you earn money? You're an amateur. You don't get paid to fight, right? Oh, I rob homeless men on the street. I extort money from politicians, you know, the works. No, seriously, because you said your colleague, you told them about your head tattoo. And so, like, where was this? Oh, that was when I used to work.

for a job. Oh, the Jsler. I didn't mean to use it online. No, it's all good. What was that job? I was a lifeguard. Oh. Lifeguard and I was a security guard.

I was part-time because I used to be in the trades and I used to do big boy jobs, but they didn't allow me to train too well because I'd be missing practices. So I went and I did some lifeguarding and some security guarding. I was in the words of great death sentence. I was an enforcer at multiple different locations. Death sentence used to be an enforcer at a pizza shop, fun fact. Okay, wow, I didn't know pizza shops needed enforcers. I met death sentence recently.

Have you ever fought him? No, he's my master, Ariel. Come on. Death sentence? I thought that DJ was your master. Before, it's death sentence. Okay, I'll show you the hierarchy. Okay, tell me.

We got Death sentence, then we got Mighty Mouse, then we got the rest of you side characters down here. There's no way in hell. Death Sentence is... How is death sentence above Mighty Mouse? There's no chance. This is part of the problem. Because he's the goat!

He's the ruler of all warriors. Come on now, Ariel! You ever opened a book? He's like M.MA Shakespeare. You're right. I saw him at Fight Circus. He's awesome. Yeah.

What does this move that you're doing here, the gyrating? It's emoting. Okay. That way when they clip this, I look cool, and I or farm at all times. Oh, I see. This is like when I'm like picking the characters on Fortnite. this is you just like waiting to get tagged in. Facts.

I don't think they do that. They don't really like, oh, they kind of, they have, they have an idle animation, but it's more of like a. What would your dance be? Fighting characters are more like. They moved the whole time, like in Street Fighter a second. Yes. Oh, I get it now. I get it.

I get it. What would your thing be? Like, what would your dance be? Like the. Probably, uh, if I had more space, I'd show you, but the aura from my move would be too intense. So I'll just do this bounce instead. I feel you. Are you really in your mom's basement?

I neglect to answer that question. Fair enough. Fair enough. Are you familiar with a guy by the name of no-nonsense Keith Peterson? Yeah. I kind of kicked him. Yeah, I think you drew his ire. That's typically how it goes.

I'm a bit of a polarizing character. So what happened here? Let's see this clip. Let's watch the clip. Okay, let's watch it. Here you are walking in. And then you almost kick Keith Peterson, and he was pissed. What is he saying to you here?

He's like, calm down. He's like, you need to chill out. He didn't mess with the aura. Did you win that fight? Of course, baby. Okay, so it wasn't one of the losses. Yeah. Winksey's had a couple of feathers be lost.

And what about that entrance when you jump off the cage? Where'd you come up with that? The voices in my head told me to do it, Ariel. These voices, you keep mentioning them. You're like a young Randy Orton. I hear voices in my head. They talk to me. You know that guy?

Yeah, you're going to need a lot more auditude for that because that was crap. Okay. Well, are you the same guy? Like, is it the same thing? What are these voices? By the way, these wings, not as elaborate as the ones that you're wearing now. Yeah, those are my other wings. I actually like those a lot more, but I wish I had a little bit.

These ones are just, they're a little bit. week. I'm losing some feathers on these. They need a little bit of maintenance. That APFC, like... I usually keep these here. The APFC climb up there. It seemed like you struggled just a little bit. Yeah. It was a little bit taller than I thought. I had to extend my wings even bigger to get up there. Okay. I'm just sort of taking in all the aura right now.

Yeah, I know. It's a little bit of an experience. It's hard to get used to. It seems like you're handling the loss well. Like you're not, I thought maybe you'd be a little bit down, depressed, in your feelings. Don't worry, Chad. I am very depressed. Oh, okay. So this is all just a front.

This is a mask. A performance. It's part of me. But I'm having a lot of trouble bringing it out right now. Okay. There was a lot of stuff that went wrong and it wasn't supposed to go wrong. Like what? Come on now.

We saw the clip. Replay the clip of me getting kicked in the face. Oh, I don't know if we're allowed to. Do we have the ability to be the ability to be? Yeah, it's because they're going to ding us. They're going to ding us. No. Yeah.

Well, the man, they'll come after us. It's not even out on YouTube yet. It's on my IG. Yeah, I know. So what happened? What happened? You got kicked in the head and then you got choked. This is what happened, bro.

Oh, why were you doing that? Were you feeling yourself? A guillotine around my neck. And then I didn't even, I was kind of stunned. So, like, I was like kind of wrestling. Like, you know how when you get, have you ever been kicked in the face, Ariel? Sure, sure. Yeah. When, and

it like, it like stuns you. Yeah. Yeah, my brain wasn't really working. I didn't get out to the side for the guillotine defense. Character development is not fun. But I ended up losing a couple of feathers that match. That happens to everyone like DJ told you.

Yeah. I guess it does. Can I ask you a question? Are you ever at a character? Are you ever just like chill? No. This is me. This is you 24-7? Maybe I talk a little bit more.

Maybe I talk a little bit more with an inflection. But this is literally me. I do hear. I hear Malcolm come out a little bit at times. Oh, he's dead. Only wings he remains. How does your girlfriend feel about this? well we're gonna i mean she loves it she loves a chat you want to see a picture of her sure why do you

why do you keep calling me chat i'm just one guy oh jeer that's not your girl she's so beautiful that's not your girlfriend do you really have a girlfriend of course chat come on now why would wings he lie to you i don't know uh you're probably watching this right now she probably is laughing her head off that i just showed that picture what's her name winged gf okay yeah that makes sense does she compete as well? No, she doesn't. But she might undergo a training arc because if she doesn't, I'm going to leave her. Okay. And when do you think your next fight will be? Probably in the next year. I need to work on my defense. Oh, wow. So you're going to take a whole year off? Yeah. Are you afraid? No, no, no, not a whole year. Hold up. Oh. He gets depressed if he doesn't fight within like two months.

Okay. Next year as in 2026. Okay. Right, right, right. I think you should go to like Japan or something. I feel like you need, like, that type of... So, Minasan, yorkoso, both to our wing see this. Yadoshkinna. How do you... Oh, I want to meet...

I want to go to Japan. How do you think they'll feel about you there? Because there's a lot of, like, calmness and respect. How do you think the martial arts community would feel about you there? Well, I've been watching reels of, like, Risen and some MMA promotions in Japan,

and they're not, like, respect... I love their production. They'll be like, Dona back at catching you. They're like getting each other's face. What's the dude's name? Mitsudu Asakura, his promotion. Oh, I see the clips, bro.

They're so funny. They like have a bunch of people walk in and sit on chairs. And then they all just start like talking shit to each other. And it's the best thing ever. If you guys have some free time, go look it up. All right. It's entertaining. For real.

No, I think that you can have a nice little run over there. Frank, any questions for Wing C? Anything you want to ask, Wink C? we've got mysterious frank standing by I really appreciate you asking me yeah I don't I don't have any questions any anime questions for you Ariel oh okay what do I anime nothing no

let me check my notes okay what's your type in women well I am spoken for who is to check yeah who is to check Bob what has become of all of us at this point who is to check I like them

Jewish you know I'm I'm Jewish how do you feel about that depends on what you think of the celestial dragons I feel pretty good about them you know your man J.C. was a Jew oh yeah

that's awesome okay any other questions yes I got a couple more what's your favorite anime my favorite anime that is a good question I really liked Who's the one

The Charzard You know the one? Charzard This interview is done Why? I can't believe He disrespected me like that Why, why, why?

Is that not anime? Come on! Let's Here you, my goodness. Oh, my area, your aura You're fumbling. Minus a thousand would you say? Charzard is a Pokemon

from the anime Yes, sir. The Charzard itself is not an anime. Well, it looks like you need to do more research. Or a negative 1,000. Yeah, for real. What else you go?

Want to see me dance? Sure. All right. Let me put on a song for you. Okay, well, will we get dinged for this? Who's to check? I think we'll find out. Here we are.

This is how you'd like to head into Thanksgiving, right? Nice little wholesome chat. This is now I'm going to show up to Thanksgiving. Let's hear it. Oh, yeah. here we go oh oh yes

stunning bum I'm forward to be I'm going up up it's our moment gonna be gonna be stronger that's how I'm gonna enter Thanksgiving

I love it exactly how I'm gonna walk in the door Are you a big Thanksgiving guy I don't really eat too much I really only drink chocolate milk, but I guess it's all right. Okay. Well, I do want to wish you a happy Thanksgiving. You're definitely not an MPC. I take that back. Thank you. Seems you recognize my work for real now. Dare I say you're a ZPC? ZPC? Yeah. What kind of crackhead terminology is that?

You don't know about the ZPC? Not really. Seems like I'm a little bit hipper than you thought. imagine using hip in 2025 chat ridicule him damn why why can't you say hip cool bro come on that's like mo that's like gen x terminology well we use

hobby lane mechanism and 6 7 yeah that stuff 6 7 is kind of the boomers are using 6 7 though yes it got played out right you got ex-nade yeah it's kind of old now by the way you're 24 you're you're not an

demo. I know. I'm not Gen Alpha. No. I'm just chronically online, so I see everything. Yeah, do you think, like, what's your screen time? To be able to understand my language, you're going to need a minimum of seven hour screen time. Okay. It's kind of a hard thing

to achieve. Frank, any final thoughts? Thanks for stopping. Bye. I want you to look up with I want you to look up with Z.P. is and get back to us, all right? I need you to watch an animate chat. Okay. I'm going to recommend

you one. So, One Punch Man, season one only, because season three sucks. Go watch One Punch Man. And it's only 12 episodes. I promise you, you'll enjoy it and you'll be like, all right, Wingsie kind of was on to something. Also,

I just wanted to say, Ariel, seriously, I'm so glad that you recovered from Ligma. I know it's like a hard thing that people like try to get over but it's it's so great to see you're healthy and a well again yeah no i appreciate that and i'm i'm happy you've recovered from the head kick and the and the guillotine uh all the best to you my friend god bless on your journey uh you think i'm going to fall for your tricks come on bro i'm hipper than that uh all the best you're a little bit more hip than i thought yeah hey uh god bless happy thanksgiving to you and the family i hope it goes well with your girlfriend's parents and uh

Let's see you on that journey. I can't wait till you turn pro. Let us know. Keep us posted, all right. All the best of you. There he is, everyone. Wing C. Wing C.

Yeah, there he is. What a guy. What a character. You know, I asked the boys, I asked them, should we have Wing C on? Is he the kind of guy that we should end the Thanksgiving week of programming with? They all said no. I said yes.

And quite frankly, I'm happy with the decision. did you have a question no please stop does anyone know what ZPC is no okay perfect do you know what ZPC is I made it up but I feel okay I thought so no no no the chat knows chat actually knows

chat knows chat knows chat knows chat does chat do you know what ZPC is zero population count what does PC stand for NPC Yeah, but what does MPC stand for? NPC is non-playable character. He's literally that guy.

He's the guy walking around. Now, it's up to him to graduate. He's like the guy that you're walking around, and, you know, you... I'm going to say he's the kind of guy that treats all of us like we're MPCs because he's the main character in his own world. I enjoy it. Oh, my daughter's calling me right now. Do you think she was watching that? I think she saw Wing C and she was inspired.

You have to pick up. Do I? Yes, that's the rule. Here it is. Hi, Clare Z. I'm live on the air right now. How are you? Good. I was just talking to Wing C. Are you familiar with him? No, I'm not familiar with Wing C.

He's, some might say an NPC, some might say he's the main character. I say he's a ZPC. What's a ZPC? You're not as hip as I thought. Wait, what Zeezy? He's a little... Anyway, Claire, what do you think? Marab Dawalyshvili or Joshua Van? Joshua Van.

I screwed up. They're actually not fighting each other. It's Marab Duolishvili or Piotr Yan. Pure Jan. Wow. Alex Pantosha or Joshua Van? Joshua Van. So there's an accusation as of late that you're only picking the second person that I mention.

No, that's not happening. Well, you just did it three times. All right. Well, is there anything that I can help? you with, or can I call you back? I can call you back. All right. Bye-bye.

Bye. There she is, everyone. Claire Halwani, one half of the Clariel show. What a one-two punch that was, right? For sure. Two dogs as well. Yeah, seriously. The ZPC thing.

Yeah. You keep going back to that, zesty playable character? You said it, not me. You said it, not me. I mean, it was a little. There was some zest to it. Was there not? Yeah.

We're going to need to put a stuff. side by side you doing the shoulder thing and him doing the wing thing. I should have asked him. It can be like a street fighter one versus two. I think I would characterize it more as like theatrical than...

Do you guys think that that was really his girlfriend in the picture? Do you think it was just like a fake picture? No, I think it's probably his girlfriend. Definitely is not. Is he like one of those furry types? No, I don't think. You know, like the ones that dress up as animals?

No, no, no, no. We know what it is. Sure, man. Yeah, yeah, we're away. He didn't really show anything. related to furries that would make me... I mean, he's dressed as a bird, essentially. But that's not furry.

Frank? He's got wings. I'm with you, Ariel. You act like an animal? Yeah, what is that? Is that really women voting? I mean, he's playing a character. I wanted Andy to come out of the street and slap him. I wanted Andy to come out of the screen and slap him in the face.

You did feel that the Malcolm breakthrough fairly often. You could tell, right? It's hard to keep the character up for 30 minutes. When you were like, how long the tattoo Tuesday. He's like, oh, like seven hours or something. Yeah, exactly. Can I share a personal anecdote? Please, please, please, please. So on Saturday, I went to the Japan Society, which is right over by the United Nations. How cultured of you. They did a screening of one of my favorite

anime from 30 years ago. They brought the director out, and he did a whole introduction, and, you know, the vibes were good. Everybody was having a good time. And then I see this shit. I'm like, no wonder people like dog on anime. Like, it's supposed to be. Whoa, man. What's with the shit, bro. I mean, that's just how I feel. You didn't enjoy that? I mean, it's a cool character, but, like, what's respect that there is an art form to it, and it's not all just, like, poking fun on it. I actually don't think that he's poking fun.

I just think that he's, you know. I get it, zesty. She's just, you know, he's into it. How dare you? The one thing that I do worry about, in all honesty, there one thing that I do worry about this generation. I was actually reading an article about it this morning saying that, like, kids shouldn't have access to phones, pre-13, all this stuff, and you guys know how I feel about it.

I do feel like so much of it is just like their brains are forming different than, the ones who are growing up online with phones, with devices, I don't think human beings will ever be the same. Can I ask you? And I'm not suggesting that there weren't characters back in the 50s, 60s, 70s. But I'm just saying, I think a lot of this is formed through the Internet, social media. I mean, like, he's talking to me, and he keeps referencing the chat. Like, I think he can't even, like, unwire his brain like that.

Now, do you think there was a time where your parents had you listening to rock and roll and watching pro wrestling and thought your brain is also being developed differently? I know for a fact that I used to watch pro wrestling, and my dad would get mad at me and say, like, this is stupid. And so I get that. But maybe I'm wrong. I don't think I spoke in a different language. Maybe I'm wrong. Definitely did. Definitely did. All right, fine.

Definitely were not speaking the same way for parents. Okay, but here's the thing. Didn't get a headband tattoo? I did not, A. But it does feel, and I'm experiencing it as a father now of a 13-year-old, 11-year-old, and 9-year-old. I see every, like, as much as that was prevalent, as much as we were influenced and affected by it, we weren't walking out on the street looking at it. It wasn't there.

You had to go home and sit in front of the TV at a certain time to watch the thing that you wanted to watch. And you got it for 30 minutes a week and that was it. There was no other way. Now you can binge things. Now you can watch things. Now you have access to things 24-7. It can't be healthy. It can't be good for you.

There's no way. That feels like a commentary more, though, on social media and this constant in 24-7 news cycle is eroding our society more so than like kids. Because it's fucking us up too. I was talking about this this morning. I'm addicted. We're all addicted in some way, shape, or form. But here's the thing, we're adults, and I think we do have the ability to cut it off

when we absolutely need to cut it off. Kids don't. And I think that it is, it is, now we're getting to like a whole deeper discussion going off of this, but I think it is, it is morphing their brain for the worse. I think it is making them socially, not inept, that would be tough, that would be a tough thing to say, but it is not allowing the

brain to evolve and mature the way in which it should. It's almost like a poison. And I feel like it is unhealthy to be that connected, to look at a screen, to be influenced by all this stuff, to speak in this language, to have all this stuff in your mind. Not to mention, by the way, when you're 13, 14, 15, 16, and now all of a sudden you're feeling self-conscious. Now all of a sudden you're questioning yourself, you're trying to be liked, you're trying to have friends, you're seeing other friends do things, and you're feeling left out and you're feeling down and you're starting to question yourself, or you're starting to see other people who don't look like you, who look better, and now you're starting to compare yourself in your body type and all

these things that kids go through since, you know, man was created, now it's in your face because I look at it too, and I'm like, oh man, those people are on vacation. Lucky them. Oh man, that guy's got, you know, a pretty sick house. Lucky him. You know what I mean? Like we're always constantly judging and comparing and things like that. And I don't think any of this is healthy. I agree with all of that. And I'm only playing devil's advocate. But I think these things were always true. Right. I think there was always this type of thing. Now, granted, it is more in your face. But also, like, who are we to decide that? Like, ultimately, society is going to go in one direction or another. Like, we're parents. We can stop them from doing that. But then. amongst their peers, are they going to be influenced, regardless of kind of what we do? This is going to happen. This is just going to happen. There is an inevitability.

What I do think will ultimately happen at the end of the road is we will go back offline. I think online will become such a toxic, putrid place that it already kind of is. It will go so far in that direction that people will disconnect. And we're starting to see that, right? We see people like taking breaks from social media and doing these things. to reset themselves, I think that will be extended. And I think it's cyclical. You know, it all kind of

happens that way. But I don't buy, by the way, like Motorola Razors? Can you buy like non-people carry Yes. You can buy them. Do they sell them or they're kind of like bootleggy? It's retro. It's a retro thing. I'm pretty sure you can still buy flip phones through.

You can buy them. I know somebody with one. You can definitely get one. Yeah. And it's like... My grandpa still has a flip phone. Okay. No, because I was actually talking about this this this morning with my wife, I was like, maybe the answer is a flip phone first. I don't know how that would be. But here's what happens when you do that. You do that and then

now they're doing the comparison thing that you're afraid of, right? Now they're looking around and saying this person has this, I don't have this. The more you resist this type of thing, I do feel like it makes them seek it. Brick breaker instead of social media. Yeah.

Brick breaker's great. Yeah. Snake. It's all addictive. It is, but that's like, that's game boy stuff. I'm just kidding. Oh, okay. It's scary, man. Honestly, it is scary to have kids growing up in this environment, in this world. And listen, we're on the internet.

So I'm not trying to shun the internet. But again, I'd like to think that we are a little bit more mature and able to say, you know, okay, no more. Enough is enough. But you see how much it affects you. And I think that this young man who is entertaining and talented and all this stuff is affected a lot by this environment. and, you know, you see the head tattoo, there's got to be a point at some point where you think that maybe that wasn't the best idea, right?

I think this is, I agree with what you're saying. I think it's more a cultural thing than it is a technology thing. Yeah, but, yeah, or is it you're trying to get a head tattoo to pop the comments? Maybe. And six months later, it's not popping the comments anymore, you know, when you're reactive.

Try six months later. But our parents and our grandparents would have said the same thing about any tattoo, right? They would have been like, oh, you got a tattoo? No, no, it's a head tattoo. He literally got a head back, a tutel around his... By the way, is there any question that it's not real, or is that... No, no, it's real.

It's real. Wow, that is wild. Possibly, yeah. Possible. Like, I'm not suggesting that I want my children to do this, but I am suggesting that at a certain point, you're fighting a change that's coming that you can't really fight. There's also an argument to make that. Like, he isn't a child.

He is 24 years old. Yeah, he's a man. No. What? No, no, I'm saying. I was going to say, no, you are right. but he acts like a child. Yes, he was acting like he was 16.

Exactly. So that's what that's... Referring to the chat every other... Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. No, that's why I was like... I actually quickly looked at his topology and I said, oh, wow, he's 24. I thought initially maybe like 18, 19.

We actually have a guy on the team who is younger than that. Young than 24? Yeah, Dan. Who me? Dan, what do you think of Wink C? Hold on, he's getting on. Okay, let's hear this.

Honestly, he's like the type of guy that me and my friends would make fun of him, the Xbox party. Okay. That's like exactly what I had thought of at first. But yeah, crazy character. I don't know. I was dumbfounded back here. And I do want to...

One more thing. That actually made me think of this. As we're doing like Parent Corner over here. Yeah, this is fun. Bill Simmons. Shout up, Ben. Consider that Dan, who's around the same age, right, said that, right? Like, he's somebody that are my friends and I don't identify with.

Are you also looking to examples like Wing C who are the most public, loud, and obvious, while your kids, people of Dan's age, are not necessarily leaning in this direction, right? Are we looking at the most, like, bright and, and, you know, flagrant examples of something that you're looking at and going, I don't necessarily want my kids to kind of follow that example. Yeah. Meanwhile, the majority are actually not even, like, moving in that direction. It's, it's difficult time. I will say this. I will say this without, like, I sort of hang around. And now it's different. It, it's, it's, it's, it's, it changes as the kids get older, and I enjoy being around my kids so much and their friends,

but I feel so far removed from the way their brain works. And I know that's a byproduct of getting older and the times and all that stuff, and I'm an unka. You're washed on. I put the unc in on crown, okay? I put the unk in on ground. But the point is, I don't think we were sort of like this, and maybe this is exactly the moment that I become that guy and I think a lot

I am genuinely worried about what social media and phones are doing to kids I'm genuinely worried about it I see I always go back to this I went to a butt mitzvah and you know I had to go to a lot of those

as a kid bar butt mitzvah and you were forced at an awkward age as a 13 year old like you're forced to talk to friends you're forced to talk to girls you're forced to dance you're forced to be interactive right and I would see

as I went to a lot of these now as I've gotten older and kids of friends that were friends with, the parents and all that. And instead of doing that, they're just sitting off to the corner looking at their phone. There is no push to be social. There is no push to have interactions with other human beings. There's no push. It is very easy to sit back and talk on the phone.

I also see, I wasn't talking to people the way my kids talk to people via text. I wasn't talking to them when I was their age. sixth grade, seventh grade. But it's easy to talk to someone via text, right? It's easy to interact via text because you could just write things. You could just do things. And they were doing it a couple years ago via their iPad and stuff like that. Like all these things.

Again, not trying to make this into a parent thing. I don't even know how we got on this. No, no. I want to keep going. Because wait, wait, wait. I wanted to say before we move too far down, I wanted to publicly thank Dan. Dan has done such a great job. And we brought him on here.

And he's done such an amazing job filling in for Jordan as. Jordan was doing his thing. So thank you, Dan. You're an extended part of the family. You've done a tremendous job, filling in, filling up some big, big shoes, and you didn't miss a beat. So thank you very much for all the hard work, my man. There he is. There's Dan.

Great, great job, my man. And we will ride again with the Seton Hall pirate. All right, Rick, what else you want to say? I got some questions I got to answer. No, no, but important. Oh, Jesus. Important to say. Why is G.C.

struggling so much. They learn from... They learn from us. How are we supposed to tell the kids to get off your phone when we're on our phones? You're 100% right. I am trying to be very cognizant.

This is a societal problem. It's not a kid problem. I'm trying not to look at my phone in bed in the car, whatever. I can sense. I can feel the eyes judging, looking. I'm telling my kids to get off the iPad. I'm on my phone playing fucking magic. I can't.

I can't do it. Let's start a challenge. We all got to publicly post our screen times every week. Okay, I would love that, and I'm 100% in. But I have a problem with screen time. I have a problem with the way screen time is tabulated. Can I tell you why?

Oh, he's putting up generational numbers. That's fucking illegal. No, I'll tell you why. Every time I go to the office, right, my commute is like 45 minutes to an hour, right? And I'll use Google Maps, right? That counts as an hour. And that hour then gets added to everything else. That's not fair.

All right. It breaks it down by app. So we'll subtract your Google Maps time. But there's a lot of things. Like, if I don't close out of my email right now, they'll count email. Stuff. If you actually look at the breakdown, because I've looked at my number and I'm like, there's no way. There's no way.

And I look and it's like, oh, four hours Google Maps. Like, no, you can't count that on that day that I went on a long drive. I don't know you way home yet? No, it goes by the track. There's like road closures, things like that. We can subtract the Google Maps. The other apps. I'm in.

We're subject to the same things. Yeah, we have e-mail, too. They'll tick up the same. Why are you shaming screen time? I think that I'm... Because it's a plague, Frankie. Do you know what I'm at? I'm embarrassed by my number.

But I don't think my number is accurate. Mine is going to be higher, so there's nothing... No, mine is higher for sure. Just tell us what your number is. Let's find out. I know what my number is because it pops up every week. Just tell us. As a slap in the face.

All right, you go. It's usually... Mm-hmm. In the 11 range. I'm 1141. Yeah, we're in the... I saw my six, and I was like, Jesus, I'm not doing great. Yeah, it's bad.

I'm 1141. It's bad. But again, I'm watching YouTube to prepare for the show. Like, I watched a two-hour Vince Russo interview last night. Watched it. I had in my pocket. I'm listening. That counts as two hours.

Yes. That's not fair. What? That's not fair. What are you at? Two hours in 58 minutes. Yeah, I mean, that's great. Goof for you.

But I, like, that's the length of the Vince Russo. It's not fair. Anyway, Steven Segalsegall's Sensei, a couple more. Here's how the future will play out for Salsa Boy. Salsa Boy beats a can of beans in December and surpasses Volkov as number one contender. Cyril G.Ragan hurts his finger while poking heavy bag. Salsa Boy steps in. Salsa Boy steps in heavy bag. Sousa Boy is early 26. Rematch with Aspon at the White House.

Rinse a repeat for Salsaboy gets on the mic, rips a promo of the year calling out John Jones. Salsaboy lands the first ever flying twister. Takes John's goat status. Pereira steps up to fight M. G.C., finally places a bet on Salsaboy to win. Selsaboy gets brutally knocked down and retires in the cage. Southmore against drafted by the Blue J. Strikes out more batters than the Roger Club is 97 winning the championship for Toronto. That would be quite the arc, as Mr. Winksey would say.

By the way, how many times have you actually bet against them? All five times this year? Every single fight. Wow. Including the last one? No, I said I wouldn't bet against him on this one. Out of respect for him taking five fights and flying to Qatar on two days notice. And then if he won, I would become president of...

And now, here you are. Yeah, now I'm actually talking to the guy. Now I lead a nation, Salsa, Salsa Nation. Blessed Express. Hello, Ariel and crew. Ariel, I hope you answer my question. It'll be my first one on the air. Here we are.

On the episode of Uncrowned, when you had Chuck and Pizzi and discussed each other's journalism backgrounds, how would you deal with a source that is close to a fighter's team and gave you the okay to report some news and a fighter wants you to tell them the source because they feel betrayed by someone on their team and did not want, no, you don't do it. you just don't do it can't do it can't be going around breaking people's trust sorry man and the thing i've been put in this situation before and the thing i always say is if you told me something in confidence would you want me to break your trust and that usually gets the job done uh john chena dear ariel and crew no question just lots of admiration and gratefulness

you guys are awesome somehow each show better than the next love all the chemistry the last 20 minutes of yesterday's show, had me dying of laughter. I'll be supporting with a scorecard shirt and a who me water bottle. God bless and happy Thanksgiving to all the crew. How about that? What even was the last 20 minutes of yesterday's episode? Who knows? Who's to check?

Is he talking about Monday or yesterday? Drum Coda, Ariel and Gang, what is your dream for UFC fighter PRJ rotation? Only caveat is that needs to be set of rivals. It needs to be a set of rivals. For example, Diaz and Masvidol or Connor and Nate. Ultimately, I went with Cheeto Vera, Sugar, Sean, Yuri, and Alex. Oh, interesting. So you're saying it has to be two sets of rivals.

I think Nate and Connor would be fun. Alex and Izzy? Or are they not rivals anymore? Yeah, they're boys now, I feel like. Yuri and Magomed? mine and hall's hat lights what's up lads i speak for everyone here when i say we need an infrequent special episode revisit of classic boys banter moments on the age show essentially you guys all revisiting and reliving classic moments and opening up some of the end jokes to be

to the unenointed i'm thinking 30 million for the kitchen scrap james tehuna ariel pooh stories gc sleeping ptc quarterback meme i and many others watch this show primarily for you boys chopping it up and belly laughing we all love your energy peace and love peace and love hit it frankie peace and love peace and love mind and all huh did I say that

yeah it's fucking tough isn't it reading reading is hard okay no because that's what I call them remember you and I we can oh okay um bright and sunny hey big fan of the show but why you got to do the ESPN thumbnail spoilers on YouTube wake up early Sunday morning to settle into the Islam JDM fight card and glance down

to see a notification for your YouTube to tell me There's a new post show, but it's literally titled Islam Christian. I'm sorry, bud. I'm sorry. Okay, we're not going to cater to your fucking sleep schedule. Okay, this is absurd. It's one thing when it's ESPN, like the place that you are going to watch it, the news ain't going to be like, hmm.

Is someone sleeping over in freaking Amsterdam? Sorry, bud. Who was it that was asking for ESPN to not just do clips? Was it Sean? Oh, Steveo. Steve did that. Yeah, yeah. Is Tom Aspinall okay from Rachel?

What a nice, thoughtful question. We have not heard from Tom in a minute, but hopefully we will soon. Your mom goes to college. A.H., I apologize. I said you were not answering questions directly enough, but honestly, the questions recently have been brutal. Blind ranking being asked 50 times. Two questions. Is there any chance of having a moderator again?

No. I'm enjoying you. James Tihuno? G.C. Blind rank the following. Wait, sorry. Was this from the same person? No, no. Okay.

The person said, blind rankings are brutal. No. Blind rank the following. Thanksgiving parade. What? What's the category? Just blind rank events on or around Thanksgiving. Oh, fuck.

Thanksgiving parade. NFL football. One. Black Friday shopping. Five. Thanksgiving dinner with family. Three. That low.

No, I already took the two and the one. I know, I know. Blackout Wednesday. What's Blackout Wednesday? Oh, four. That's tonight. Yeah, but what is that? You're supposed to be in your hometown. You meet up with all your boys from college, high school. You know, people you haven't seen in years, and you get hammered at the bar,

and then you wake up super hungover the next morning. You go do your turkey trot, puke at the end of it, start drinking football, yeah. Wait, is this why you never want to do the Wednesday show? You know, man, you know, who's to say? Who's to check? Who's to check? Wait, but that was a pretty good ranking. I feel like one through five.

That's pretty good. Yeah, yeah, I liked it. Yeah, I haven't partaken in Blackout Wednesday in a few years. I mean, the night is young. You guys might have to do some libations after? Yeah, let me go hang out with my college friends. My friends from high school, man, for sure. Here's Ahmed, guys.

This one is for G.C. We in the Middle East fans are very upset with G.C. Because every time the UFC comes to the Middle East, he don't try any Arabic kitchen slash food at fight fees. It's a good call. It's not a bad shot It's not a bad shot When can we get one?

What do we want? Arabic food? Yeah, you got to go Tell me the menu Oh, bro Just come To my parents' house They'll kill you with the Arabic food

What do we try one time, Frankie Lebanese food? Oh, the best That's what I grew up on For which? For which? This was before fight fees For 280

Islam versus Charles Yeah, no We owe the Middle East A fight feast Hell yeah G.C., this is from Worship, please blind rank these four 2025 Thanksgiving dinner conversations. Okay, yeah.

One being the most uncomfortable slash the worst. All right. Being asked about your relationship status by grandma or aunt. Ah, four, that's not uncomfortable. Listening to the families say how much they hate Patrick Mahomes and the chiefs in general. Three. The typical uncle going on about politics. Yeah, there's one.

Definitely frank in that. Oh, yeah. later having that same uncle who doesn't know much about MMA try to have a conversation with you about the White House card and how it will be the best event of our lifetime that's too for sure

that's a pretty good that's great Helge wants to know when we could get a audio only live stream on Spotify I don't know what that is he also asks I don't care about the Tuesday

versus Wednesday but the jumping back and forth is a bit weird no he's referring to on the nose I just, you know, when it feels appropriate, it feels appropriate. You know, what's the difference, keeping you on your toes? Just a couple more here. Gorgonzola-crusted gout.

G.C. and New York, Rick, how often do you guys get recognized in public? Gorgonzola encrusted gout is insane. That's the worst. That's not that often. That's weird word. happens, it happens sporadically and at the most random times. Like the other day I was like running to catch a train and the, and the subway door closed. And like, when it closed, the guy on the other side of the glass, like started beating on the glass who was also running the train. He's like,

oh, G.C. What's up? I was like, oh, what's up, man? Sucks for you. Yeah, I was at like a bagel shop one time. And I was like in sweatpants and a hoodie. And I was talking to my friend that I was with. And some guy was like, hey, I don't mean to bother you. You're on Hawani show? Yeah. It's super, super random times. I love it. Very sporadically.

Rick? Same thing. Drew says, I listen every second of every show, every single day. Where and when did Ariel get this Yahoo button? Well, enjoy hearing it now. Frank, please do us all favor and take it away from Ariel as he clearly has no self-control. Happy Thanksgiving from a Canadian. And the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree, because I'm not.

What these guys don't know is your kids were in the room. They were playing with the button until the wee hours of the night. Actually, the CEO of Yahoo, Mr. Jim Lanzone, our fearless leader, gave it to me, and it's one of the great gifts that I've ever received. Keep my fucking name out of your mouth. I feel like the moderation to, like, what I've done is pretty good. Here's two more for you. De Mour Isma Ghalov says, hey, guys, happy almost Thanksgiving.

When you meet someone for the first time, what do you say you do for work? I presume Ariel says he's a combat sports journalist, and Frank doesn't ever meet new people, so the question is probably irrelevant. I don't say that. I think probably the first thing that comes to mind is journalists. Definitely not. I'm trying to, like, you know, show people that I'm more,

Olympics, journalists, oh, what do you do? Host, this, you know, that type of thing. Work in media. Have a podcast. uncrowned HQ you know that type of thing last one Matt Berkeley this is for

Frank L. Mysteriozo have you ever listened to Les Special use that French accent on the first word Ariel Le Speciard No they are mainly on the

jam band circuit but bring the metal element that is usually missed in the genre I think you'd enjoy them T.S. Adme on Live Journal Oh,

I can do that. What does the name mean? Does it have a... The special means the special. No. I could figure that out. But I did it. Frank, do we have any super chats before we go?

Yeah, right. We do. Super Jets. Danny Wrightson, come on. Strickland made Ian famous hot take. Every interview, Ian is Ian's number one, D. Glazer. Who's Ian? Ian Michelle O'Brien.

Oh, Strickland made Ian famous. Why? What's the Strickland? Who's to check? Yeah, who knows? Well, thanks, bud. What else? Thoughts on Jim Cornett and want him on the show?

Would love Jim on the show. He does a great job with the pod. Always appreciate when he does a breakdown of our content. I mean, the Vince one was great. Enjoyed that very much. Enjoy all the chats. Always fun when they're in studio, but he had a great connection, so that was good as well. Would love.

I think he does a phenomenal job. He cracks me up. At times, he's a little ornery, as they say, but it's great fun. Yeah, one time, I saw him from afar at a wrestling event when I was at No Mercy 2000 in Albany, New York, but I have never really had a conversation with him. So I would very much love to have him on.

What else? Vince, if you are successful in elevating more eyeballs to J.C.W. To the point, a television deal presents itself. what happens to that edgy content that fans like me have been missing? Does that now get watered down because of TV execs? Yeah, who knows? I mean, the times they have changed, obviously this is a question for Vince, but, you know, they're streaming, there's all kinds of things.

So even the ratings are different. The way people consume media is different as we've just discussed at length. So who knows? Seems like he's happy. Seems like he's enjoying it. It seems like he's happy to not be a part of the politics. and all that stuff. Wish him well.

One of the great characters in the sport. Love him or hate him. And let's see where it goes from there. What else, Frank? Team sense of humor ranked. PT number one, GC2, Frank three, Jordan, four, Rick five, Ariel six. That would be six being the best.

That's one way to look at it. That's crazy. That's crazy. By the way, me below Jordan is insane. And Rick? No chance. But six is the best. Okay, fine.

What else, Frankie? Wait, what the fuck's that supposed to mean? Why me and Jordan in particular? I was going with the two top guys ahead of me. I don't care. I'm not here for my sense of humor. Shavkat's translator translates in Russian. However, Shafkut replies in a different language.

Uzbek? Oh. Can you ask why this is the case? Call them up. If I missed my chance, please ask next year when he's on. Was that some shade at the end? To be honest, I didn't know that. Did anyone else know that?

I had no idea. Yeah. If this is true, I had no idea. Okay. That is interesting, though, if true, if true. What else, Frankie? What else? Connor beefing with Kibb or Ali, D.C. sending shots at John Jones. We're still back, maybe.

Yeah, apparently DC wrote something, apparently, about Jones being in Chechnya and not at home for thinking. Who knows, who knows. But yes. Feels like 20. By the way, as I've been saying, 2026 could be 2016 all over again. Throw Rhonda into the mix, come back. It's all coming together.

Has D.C. confirmed or denied? the whole grappling thing that Jones mentioned? No, I haven't asked him. Interesting. What would he be confirming or deny? I guess that it was an offer, yeah. Wait, he said it, there was an offer?

Jones said there was an offer, yeah. Oh, shit. Yeah, yeah. He said absolutely, and like implying that the other cap wasn't interested. Oh, what else, Frankie? What else? Habib has had multiple pump and dump

crypto coins. Oh, what else, Frankie? What else? G.C., slick Rick. I'm spoke of a spliff in this wing C guy. Got me wondering what dimensions weren't. Needed a boys in the back breakdown of this guy. Surprised a motion.

Perhaps on tomorrow's pound for pound. Yeah. Yeah, we'll do pound for pound wing C. Who's to check? Pound for pound wing C moments. Yes. I can only imagine smoking a spliff and turning this on. It's a wing Cee.

What dimension are we? Wow, that's pretty good. How dare you? What else, Frankie? What else? And then lastly, wing seeing championship run starts. Let's fucking go chat. Yeah, people seem to like the winged one.

I do appreciate these super chats. One last thing. There appears to be a report from Alvaro Colmenero, who is a journalist. I'm trying to see if it says where he's from, but I do not see. And he has reported that Ilya may not make a story. may not make his return until spring 2026. The quote is, things have changed a lot. There have been private situations and you're going to be very surprised by what's

going to happen in the lightweight division. I can confirm that I'll fight in January. February, I doubt it very much. If you ask my opinion, I think Ilya will fight in the spring. So let us see. I think we're going to get a conclusion to this. I think we will get a conclusion to this in the very near future. We'll get some sort of conclusion to the state of the lightweight division. Let us see, let us see.

But yes, as I said, remember I said this on Saturday. I want to see him versus Patty January 24th. Then I came here on Monday and said, it ain't looking like him versus Patty. It ain't looking like he's fighting in January. So now let's see Armand versus him. And he's talking about moving up and all this stuff. So let's see how it all plays out. One last thing before we go, my friends.

Mazel Tov is in order to the Porier's. Dustin and Jolie Porier have welcomed a new baby boy. Wow, look at that. A brand new baby boy to this world. Well done. And dare I say, Yahoo to them for their incredible bundle of joy. That's a beautiful gift. Great parents are ready to their sweet pee.

And we wish them all the best. Hope everyone is feeling good, healthy, strong, happy. And what a way to head into the holiday season with a new addition to the family. All right, friends, it is time to go. If you do celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope it's a happy, healthy, enjoyable, merry one. If you don't, I hope it's a great Thursday for you and yours. If you're a football fan, NFL football fan, who lives outside of the U.S., you probably love Thanksgiving as I did as a kid because that means that there was NFL football

during the day and we'd run home during our lunch break, watch a few minutes, and then run back. If you are someone who happens to be living in the United States and for whatever reason, can't celebrate, maybe you're working, maybe you have, you know, a situation that is not allowing you to be with family and friends, I hope that you can find some happiness, some some camaraderie. I hope that you can find something that will put you in a good mood, great spirits.

Perhaps you could fire up an old episode of the program. We've been putting out a lot of good stuff or just watch something that puts you in a happy place. Brighter days are ahead. You're not alone. There's good times coming.

We're all going to be in a great place. The Messiah is coming in 2026, I'm told. Yeah. James Tujano? And of course we shall be back on Monday. Not too much as far as combat sports is concerned. There is the big

Ben Whitaker fight on Saturday. Very little MMA action. Just go to Kaposa's feed. I'm sure he'll find something great happening in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka Fighting Championships 67. For us, though, that's it. No BITB on Thursday. No crack on Friday. Back on Monday.

Same time, so say peace. I'm out of here. Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you.