The Ariel Helwani Show - We're back! Raja Jackson and UFC 322 reactions, Mackenzie Dern, Aljamain Sterling, Tom Lawlor, Charles Johnson, weekend recap

Episode Date: September 2, 2025

Ariel Helwani and the crew are back from vacation, so they start with a catch-up on all the things they missed, including reactions to Raja Jackson's situation, UFC 322 being announced, the combat sports weekend — Misfits, Real American Freestyle, and CJI events, Jake Paul vs. Gervonta 'Tank' Davis, UFC Shanghai, and more (15:50).Charles Johnson joins to discuss his big win in Shanghai, give a prediction for Alexandre Pantoja vs. Joshua Van, and more (02:02:26).Mackenzie Dern is next, previewing her strawweight title shot against Virna Jandiroba at UFC 321 (02:45:06).Tom Lawlor talks about his wrestling career, before tackling the Raja Jackson topic, including his own experiences in wrestling, who is to blame for the incident, and what potential repercussions to expect (03:06:46).Aljamain Sterling is the final guest of the day, breaking down his win over Brian Ortega, making his case for a title shot, and giving his stance on referee accountability (03:36:19).

Ladies and gentlemen, now, welcome to the Eri-A-Hawaii show. Back in your life on this Tuesday, September 2nd, 2000. And 25. Hello again, everyone. I sure hope you're doing well. Wow. It feels like it's been a long time since I sat in this chair saying that, saying hello to all of you in this beautiful studio. It has been a long-ass time. Two weeks to be exact since my last show. Shout out to the boys in the back. Replace me on that Wednesday following my last show. P.C. did the Thursday show. And then we all went our separate ways. A little summer break. A little summer vacation. I was in beautiful Italia. What a time. Rome. Fience, Villarigio, Cinque Tere, Forte de Marme. I mean, the amount of food that I ate, the amount of gelato, the amount of pizza, the amount of pasta, the amount of steps, 20K per day.

It was a magical time. If anyone wants to know my favorites, I'm not going to bore you with all of that. But I will, if you'd like to know, ask me on On the Nose tomorrow. Best pizza, I'll tell you. I'll tell you the best pizza. Best Afogato, the amount of Afogados that I had over the course of 10 days. was unbelievable. It was an incredible time. When with my family, came back just two days ago. Feeling refreshed, feeling re-energized, feeling like I've cleansed my soul, and so excited to be back.

There were a few times where I was like, man, I want to jump on, I want to do something, I want to say something, I want to talk, I want to react. But we all agreed we take some time. We all agreed that we'd press pause, we'd regroup and we'd come back post-labored. day on this September 2nd, revd and ready to go, as the great Dana White said, many, many moons ago. I hope you all have had a good end to your summer. If your kids are back at school today like mine are. You know, it's funny, I deal with emotions when it comes back to school because it reminds me of when I was a kid going back to school, and I was always a ball of nerves. I always dreaded it. I hated school. I wanted to go out and work like my dad. I'm like, why can't I just do that? This seems a lot more fun. And so when my kids are getting ready and I see

their sort of anxieties pop up way less than mine. I'm brought back to that. And I'm also reminded of how lucky I am because while they're going back to school and excited, but also the typical dreading and all that stuff, I come back to school after my break and I get to work with the great people back there with the boys in the back, with Andy, with Jordan,

with Frank, who isn't here, with Nick, who is replacing Frank. Frank, we love you, we miss you, and we hope that you're doing well. He'll hopefully be back tomorrow with PT, with everyone on the Uncrown team, the break reminds you of how lucky you are. The break reminds you of how blessed you are, how grateful we all are, how appreciative we all feel to have this, to be a part of your lives. Even when I'm walking around in Italy and people come up, I'm like, holy crap, this is nuts.

What a life. What a privilege. What a lucky situation we've built for ourselves here. So sometimes, while you kind of miss being in the mix, misreacting, miss the grind, miss all that stuff, it's nice to step back, look at what you've built, look at what we've done, look at what we have, and then come back, re-energized, excited, appreciative, grateful, all those things and more. And it comes at a great time because we have just celebrated the one-year anniversary of Uncrowned. So congratulations to everyone on the team, not just who do the show here,

the support staff at Yahoo, who do a tremendous job from a technical standpoint, everyone on the dot com side of things led by shaheen and all the great writers the coverage continues to be amazing uh one year incredible growth shout out to no context ariel uh posting and i still don't even know who no context ariel is believe it or not some people think it's me it's not i promise you hand on my heart i promise you uh but but posting that we had around 14 million views over the past 60 or so days very proud of that subs going up if you're watching right now and haven't sub yet just hit that button, give us a thumbs up, the little bell thing. Thumbs up to the chat.

We missed you, chat. But it's been a year and very exciting things happening over here at Yahoo Sports. Of course, we're in business with the good people of Yahoo Sports. Right before I left, actually, right before we left, but right after my last show, they announced the launch of the Yahoo Sports Network, fast channels, they say, in the business. The boys in the back got thrown into the fire. They had to deal with all these ad breaks, trivia, PT as well. They did a phenomenal job.

We've read some of your complaints. It is worth noting that I've been doing this show, some iteration of it, for the past 16 or so years, June of 2009. Never asked you to pay. Never asked you to drop, you know, money. Never been any ad breaks. and it's not going to be a thing that is going to be consistent on this program

after reading some of the stuff basically what it's going to be on this show the area Hawani show one two minute break and it won't be the trivia one two minute break little highlight reel or ads

no big deal one one when there's in studio guests we always take a break as you know you'll get another boys in the back you'll probably get two PT show I think one that's it so everyone calm yourselves

we heard you You're all lamenting the fact that there was a break here or there. We have spoiled you. We appreciate that. We are not going to ruin the sanctity of the show. The soul, the heart and soul of the show is not dying. But this is what happens when you grow, when you get these opportunities to be on the fast channels. And what they're building at Yahoo Sports, the reconstruction, the rejuvenation, the resurrection of Yahoo Sports has been something to behold.

And we're very proud to be a part of it. a big part of it, if I do say so myself. And so that is a very exciting thing that happened since we last spoke. Now, there's good news and there's bad news. You know on Tuesdays over the past year, we have played two. We would do this show, 1 to 3.30, hard out, 3.46. And then we do the Aeronade program on DeZone. I can tell you, since we last spoke, that we are no longer doing that show.

We had a one-year deal with DeZone. It was one year, or if my memory serves me correct, 38 episodes, the 38 came before the year. They chose not to renew it. That's obviously their choice. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings on how they got to that decision, but I'm actually going to listen to the boys in the back for the first time, and I'm not going to share those feelings. All I'm going to say is, I enjoyed it, and that's a shoot. That's the truth.

I loved working with Adde. I was so proud and appreciative of the team to do two shows. all from this little outfit here, two shows on Tuesday, hosted a boxing show for the first time. Thought we had some big guests, some great banters, some great content. I know they're going to introduce a new show. I do believe with our friends at the ring, and I wish them well, and I know it's going to go very well, and I'll watch it, and I'll support it as well.

And that doesn't mean it's the end of my time with DeZone. I'll be working on the Montreal show, the MVP show, coming to Montreal. September 27th, which is huge for me to get to work back home, a bit of a homecoming of sorts, and that's going to be airing on the zone. It just means it's the end of that particular program, which I'm obviously sad and bummed about because I, for the most part, enjoyed doing it, and it was fun trying to conquer a new lane, so to speak. Maybe we do our own under the uncrowned umbrella, but I think for the fans of this particular show who weren't consuming that show, who weren't a fan or fans of that show,

it's good news for you because now there's no more hard out on a Tuesday, and there's no sort of restrictions as to, you know, how long we could go and whatnot. So, you know, I'll always talk about the good and I'll always talk about the bad. Didn't want it to end after a year. Wasn't my call.

Wasn't my choice. But them's the brakes. That's the business. And it was an ancillary thing. It was a nice little menu item on all the things that we were doing here at Uncrowned. It came and went, wished them well, hope to still be a part of the family in some way, shape, or form, and Adé is still crushing it, doing his thing as recently as this weekend at

The Misfits show. So I'm sure our paths will cross in the near future. Lots to be excited about. We have some other things in the works that we'll be talking about over the next couple weeks, months or so, and I wanted to come back with a bang, and I think the next two days of shows, Tuesday, Wednesday, it will be. be myself here, and then back to your regular schedule, Boys in the Back on Thursday, PT on Friday, and on and on it goes. Today's program, I wanted to give us an extended period of time

on today's show to talk about everything that has happened since the last time we spoke. It has been two weeks. My last show was two weeks today, and the break came at a great time. I feel like I was able to step back, cleanse my soul, all those things that I mentioned at the top. but a lot has happened there was the Shanghai event there was the MSG announcement there was this Raja Jackson situation there was the crazy weekend

misfits and RAF and dirty boxing and CJI there was a lot that happened over the past two weeks or so so I wanted to give myself Boys in the Back PT all of us an extended period of time to talk about it all

share our thoughts bring you up to speed and then get into the guest so our first guest will come at 3 o'clock The first guest will be Charles Johnson, who has a tremendous story to tell him and a tremendous win in Shanghai a little over a week ago. What a, what a backstory he has, and he had a credible win over Loner Kavanaugh.

And so we'll talk to him about that first time I do believe on the program. Following that interview, we'll talk to McKenzie Dern, who we found out over the course of the last two weeks. excuse me, we'll be fighting for the vacant strawway title against our friend Virna Jean Giroba, who I look forward to having on the show in the near future as well. Why is it vacant? It's because it's official. Zhang Wei is moving up.

She had to vacate her title to fight Valentina Shevchenko, and that fight is going to take place November 15th, right here in New York City and Madison Square Garden. Comain to the other fight that was announced for that card, which of course is Jack Delamadalena defending his title against Isamachev. So you have a superfight in the main event and a super fight in the comane. What a card. Oh, by the way, you're also getting Carlos Prachis against Leon Edwards. We'll talk about that card.

Do not worry. But we'll talk to McKenzie Dern about fighting for her first UFC title on October 25th. Comain to Tom Aspinall v. Surreal Gan, who, by the way, will be meeting each other later this week in Paris. As they get set for that show this weekend, they'll be doing a press conference. I do believe on Friday, and I can't wait for that. at 4 o'clock, Filthy Tom Lawler is going to join us. Who better than him than to talk about this Roger Jackson situation because he is a former MMA fighter who became a pro wrestler?

He's also recovering from hip replacement surgery, but I thought he'd be the best guy because he lives in the middle of that Venn diagram. And so we'll talk to Filthy Tom, one of my favorites, at 4 o'clock, and 4.30 will be joined by Al Jermaine Sterling. As you can tell, no hard out on Tuesdays anymore. 4.30. We'll talk to the Funkmaster about his big win over Brian Ortega. A couple weekends ago, his future, how he's feeling. Ortega missing weight very badly. Where he goes from here, he called out Volkinovsky, all those things and more. So that's the lineup. I also tweeted

yesterday's lineup. Excuse me, I tweeted tomorrow's lineup earlier today on my ex slash Twitter machine, as we used to call it. And there's the lineup right over there. like I said, we have a lot to get to. I'm so happy to be sitting in this room again. I really did miss it. And that's the best indication that you love what you do, because by the end, you're like, I need a freaking break from all of this. And then you come back and you're like, I really missed it. I really did miss it. I was itching. I was joking. There was one time I woke up and Dana White announced the MSG card and I woke up to it because he announced at like 9 p.m. Eastern, which was the middle of the night in Italy.

and I was like, man, I need to wake up. I need to go do something right now. I need to go record. And Pizzi actually talked me off the ledge. Ptze was in Mikonos. I was in Italia. I think New York Rick was in, where were you, New York, Rick? You were in Chicago?

I was in the beautiful Midwest. Ah, look at that air, New York, Rick. Look at that air, looking like a prime 2013 New York Rick. Look at that. Looking like a UFC fit, New York Rick. We haven't seen this. Not size-wise, but definitely in terms of the haircut. I was in the Midwest.

I went to Columbus, Ohio. I went to Chicago, Illinois. I saw our good friend, Tessa Hirsch. Shout out Tessa Hirsch. And then I ended up in Western Michigan as well. So I did a little tour of the Midwest. Yeah, you're actually skipping the most impressive part of all, which is, I believe you did the show on Wednesday and drove through the night.

I did. I drove through the night. We got into Columbus at 5.30 a.m., took the kids to the Columbus Zoo. and then left that morning, went to Chicago, did a 16-hour drive on Sunday. But we're here. We're here, baby. The best was seeing both you and G.C.

reacting to the Jake Paul Tank Davis News, which broke during your show on the Wednesday. And, like, the breakout, so there's no sort of explanation as to why people are like, why the fuck does this guy have a haircut like that? It was incredible. You're talking all seriously about Tank versus Jake. incredible stuff.

G.C., what did you do during the break? Nothing. I didn't go anywhere. I actually came in here three or four times a week just to keep the reps going. Stay fresh.

Keep the vibes high? Yeah, keep the vibes high. Went to a few tennis matches? Yeah, went out to the U.S. open twice. It was great. Just relaxed. Just relax, you know. Don't have as big of a travel budget

as you guys, you know? No, listen. Well, Pizzi, I mean, Pizzi went to the most exotic locale of all. You're looking tan, Pizzi. It's more somber, man. I'm peeling. all over. If you saw on this t-shirt, it's an absolute disgrace what's happening under here.

I mean, the pictures, he was, he was sending me, the sunsets, the drinks, the meals. I mean, you were killing it. It was great. You know, you have to, you know, you have to give yourself a week like that every year, I reckon. I mean, not so bad yourself, Halwani. Yeah, beautiful places. No, my goodness. We're also. And just to say, for Rick, you know, he was still working, man, because he was, he was, he was guarding traffic for the old crack on Thursday as well. And there There was a lot to be done. So fair play to him. Yeah.

Multitasker, a Swiss Army knife. I'm in the parking lot of a hotel that I can't check into doing that stuff. And then at the zoo, trying to make it all happen. In your minivan after driving 15 hours or whatever, right after the show. Fair play. Fair play. Workhorse. Guys, on the Saturday following our last shows, it was August 23rd, I get a text, and we'll begin here,

I get a text from Rampage Jackson who happened to be in New York and asked if I wanted to meet up and do some stuff on his stream. So in case you've missed it, surely you know by now, Rampage does a lot of these sort of 24 hour or 12 hour or whatever it is, like just like super long continuous streams for a platform called Kick. And he was in New York and wanted to meet up. And I was like, ah, man, you know, it would have been fun. We could have done something. but I'm in Italy, I'm sorry. Thank God, I was not there because, I mean, thank God is maybe a little bit strong, but it was that night that the whole thing with his son at this pro wrestling event happened,

and then of course there he is on his stream reacting to it all. There's an alternate universe where I'm sitting next to him as he's reacting to all of this. And Lord knows I did not want to be a part of any of that. What was so crazy about this Raja Jackson situation who has now become a household name, And we've talked to Rampage about his son in the past, about his son wanting to be an MMA fighter and whatnot. Obviously, we talked to Rampage a million times. I woke up and I tried my best to not go on social too much, not text. I really did try my best.

And I think I was pretty successful in doing so. I was getting texts about like, what do you think of this Raja Jackson situation, like first name basis? And I was like, who the fuck is Raja Jackson? And what did I miss? And what happened with Rampage's son? and at the beginning I was like I'll check it later I'll go on YouTube

at some sort of quiet time but it just kept coming and getting bigger and getting bigger and more people and it felt like that weekend trickling into Monday Tuesday it was all anyone was talking about in not only the world of combat sports but like I don't know pop culture

it was crazy how big this story got and part of me in the moment was like man I wish we could react to it it, but also I was appreciating the fact that we had the benefit of being able to step back and just sort of like digest it all and now be able to react to it. I saw some people saying like, you're afraid to react to the, afraid of what? Like, I've never even met Raja Jackson. And I'll tell it like it is regarding Rampage.

We've had our highs and lows. I have great respect for him. I've enjoyed, you know, I've enjoyed interviewing him and getting to know him and all this stuff and our interactions. But like, I'm able to think for myself and have my own, you know, you know, you know, my own independent thoughts on the stuff that goes on. And so I have plenty of thoughts on all this and I'm looking forward to talking to everyone about it.

First things first, can I just say, these 12-hour, 14-hour, 24-hour streams, like this culture to me, I will never understand. And fast forward, perhaps, to a time in two years where I'm doing it as well, wearing one of those fucking weird lob mics that everyone holds now. I don't know how this became a thing. They clip it on their hat. They clip it on their shirt. They clip it on their pen.

it's like the microphones don't exist anymore you either have to have that one or the big fluffy one or a tiny microphone that's that's the era that we live and and trust me i have a son who's 13 another son who's 11 and i see them watch these guys and and they just walk around and they do all kinds of crazy things and rampage is doing it and apparently his son is doing it as well and i just think that this is so crazy and so dangerous because no one should be filmed for 12 straight hours no one because this isn't the truman show like we don't have the ability to filter ourselves

for that long and so stupid shit is going to happen and stuff that's going to get you in trouble and I just don't know if it's worth it and I also wonder

like where where is the fan base for this like I know kids will watch maybe highlight real versions of it but who are the people who are sitting around consuming this stuff

in my day we liked like a nice one hour documentary or a nice 30 minute interview to sit there and you see these streams with a constant chat who's watching this

but what you saw in this situation with Roger Jackson the son of Rampage Jackson who's 25 not a kid what you saw in this situation was how toxic and how dangerous these streams can be when you don't have the ability

to filter yourself and when you are so susceptible to being impacted and affected by the 24-hour stream chat culture that these people are living in

because what happened was in case you missed it and let me just say before I even go into what happened was this was an absolute shitstorm of stupidity like I watched a little bit of it and then I said

I'm not going to get into this and then I watched all of it over the past 48 or so hours all the footage all the reaction listen to everyone an absolute shitstorm of stupidity. I mean, just even calling it a shitstorm of stupidity

is being kind. And it starts with Raja himself. What he did and the way he acted was absolutely insane. He deserves anything that is going to come his way and as of now it's nothing. As of now

he hasn't been in charge, he hasn't been arrested, he hasn't been anything. And I don't know if he's going to be and far be it for me to sit here and be like, that was first degree this, and I've seen people weigh in on like what it is. I'm no fucking lawyer. I'm no fucking officer. What I know is that it was absolutely stupid what he did.

But it doesn't just start and end there. Everyone involved was involved in this shitstorm of stupidity. And every single person has some sort of level of blame. He's at the very, very top. My understanding of the situation is that this wrestler, and I love when I'm hearing people talk about these wrestlers who they had never heard of 24 hours prior, like now their household names,

this guy named A.J. Manna, the cowboy guy, invites him to this wrestling show called Knox Pro, which I guess is co-owned by the great Rikishi. Rikishi Fatu. And Reno Anaoi, who is part of that whole family, right? Like the whole tribal chief, the Samoan legacy, Duane John. Like, that's Roman Raines' last name. Joe Anaoi, I think I'm pronouncing the name correctly. Well, there's a member of the family named Reno. And, um, I think he goes by black diamond or something like that. Anyway, never heard of any of these people prior to any of this. But what happens is this wrestler named A.J. Manna invites Raja, who I guess is a part of this kick culture, this stream culture. I'm not quite sure why. I'm not sure what his claim to fame is other than the fact that he's Rampage's son. They call him an MMA fighter. He's own one.

His last fight was in 2023. He had a handful of amateur fights. I mean, far from really an active MMA fighter. but in any event and he's called there he's not called to go to this event he's not invited to go to this event

because he's you know he wants to check out a southern California indie wrestling show which had I think if I'm being kind 50 people in attendance

I mean it was as indie and as small time as it gets and now we understand why he's called to like give them some pub and to do some stuff that's why they're following him backstage and whatnot

in any event He's brought backstage, and he's meeting everyone, and he runs into this guy named Stuart Smith, aka Psycho Stu, who has been a house, you know, who's turned into this household name in the aftermath of all of this. And there's an interaction between them, and at one point, Stu does the sort of like working punch thing where he holds the head and he slams a beer can over his head. Was it full? Was it not full?

Who the hell knows? clearly Raja gets annoyed by this and clearly Stu, they've called him intoxicated who the hell knows is anyone tested? I mean like how do they know he's intoxicated but okay let's just say he is

is confused by the whole situation because you hear him say oh you're not going to sell it sell it is a pro wrestling term for you know like if I punch you if I fake punch you if I work punch you you're going to like sell it

when the rock gets a stone cold stunter and he flips like this he's selling it and so there's some confusion there. And Raja says, I ain't no bitch. I ain't bitch. What are you doing? And he's really, really pissed off. Reno gets involved and he's like, yo man, chill out, chill out. He thinks everything's a work. He thinks everything's an angle. I think that whole scene was an angle. They all knew

that there was a camera there. So, so Stu is working. I think Raja is working. I think Reno is working. I think the whole thing is an angle. They work themselves into a shoot because he's clearly mad, but they all knew that they were on camera. It wasn't like some sort of like, you know, a candid camera situation where they didn't know there was a camera on them. Here's where it gets really stupid. Number one, Stu should never have done that, obviously. If you're doing that to a non-pro wrestler, like, he should know better. But I do believe that Raja knew what he was getting himself into.

He knew that he was walking into a wrestling scene. He probably just didn't know that someone would go to that extent. All right, fine. It didn't kill him. It was dumb. he apologized, he extended his hand, it should have been done there. But everyone else, Reno, the promoters,

they all get together and they say, yo man, you'll get your lick back. We'll do an angle now. We'll do an angle out of this. You know, we'll have a payoff here. Pay off for what? There's like, I don't know how many people are watching this thing. 2,000 people, 1,000 people, 6 people.

Pay off from what? This isn't WWRWA. And you're telling a non-pro wrestler, you're telling a non-pro wrestler that he's going to get his revenge. Well, to him, what does that mean? We're giving you carte blanche to hit the guy? What does that mean, revenge? He's not a part of your wrestling company.

Did you explain to him what your definition of revenge was? Clearly not, because we didn't see that in the stream. Fast forward to this AJ Mana character backstage being like, yo man, get yours. Hit him with a receipt. And if they don't like it, I'll come and help you out. He didn't. But what does that mean?

When you're saying that to a non-pro wrestler, you're giving him the green light to just go in and do it the way he thinks it should be done, which is actually hit him? This is pro wrestling. That's not the way it works. So the whole thing was they worked themselves into this shoot. They worked themselves into this real-life situation where everything got blended together. Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. Then you have Roger Jackson sitting there just reading the chat and you see him just festering, festering, festering. and some have called back to the way his dad treats him only they know about their relationship

I know Rampage I know he could be you know someone who who riles you up I know that he could you know crack jokes and that's a father-son relationship I don't know what they're really like behind closed doors who the hell knows but you see the kid getting riled up riled up egged on egged on egg done egg done egg on to the point where he's like I'll show you guys oh I'm going to go in there and I'm going to rough him up he should have never been allowed to even be sitting there anymore once he said that he was pissed and then he was so excited to accept the offer to get his

to get revenge they should have been like no no no no no we're not doing this this is crazy this guy doesn't know how to pro wrestle he doesn't know what a work is what kind of revenge is he trying to get revenge for what for a misunderstanding but they let him sit there

and they let him sit there and fester and fester and fester and fester and no one even told him what to do they just let the guy walk in there walk into a ring and you see when he walks into the ring finally it's painful it's sad to watch him read all that stuff because you see not a kid a young man just boil over and he goes into the ring and you see Stuart Smith doesn't fight back he lets him pick him up he's a big ass guy he lets him pick him up and he slams him right on his head and that's where everything goes off

the rails and and then he lands like 20 or so punches repeated I mean it look like he was trying to kill him, and no one stops it. Finally, like some goofy-looking referee runs into the ring, and then some other people stop him, and he's doing everything in his power not to be stopped. Finally, they get a hold of him, and then someone pins stew. Like, they just keep going. This freaking indie, indie, indie, the indiest of indie promotions,

they allow someone to actually pin the guy who at that point, they don't even, like, might be dead. And you find out about all the end. injuries and the choking on the teeth and the blood and the the bone breaks and the the brain damage and all this stuff he's been released seems like he's going to make it who the hell knows but it was just one stupid action after the next and there's only one criminal action potentially and that's what raja did he pummeled a guy on a stream and then wasn't even smart enough to be like yo let's stop the stream no he keeps it going

I ain't no bitch I ain't no bitch no bitch no one's gonna do that to me he's taking phone calls about this people are cutting promos on him stop the fucking stream man

end it what are you doing you're ruining your life now I don't know why there haven't been any charges but to me like I saw people doing

all these types of breakdowns like this thing was pretty easy to digest and break down it was one stupid action after the next now you can rank him Rajas at the very top

the promoters who let him after he got slammed with the can who let him do that and didn't explain to him that, yo, what we do is not real, scripted, they're next. The AJ guy who egged him

on, he's next. Stu for kind of, you know, he deserves some level of blame, but nowhere near the top of the list. Every single person, there was no adult in that room. There was no smart person in that room.

It was embarrassing. Now, this company has lost its W.W.E. ID affiliation and who knows what the repercussions are going to be for the Jackson's, I mean, for Stuart Smith, for this AJ Mana character, for the promotion in general, are they going to continue? Who the hell knows? But every single person there acted like a complete buffoon.

It was embarrassing to watch. And there was a part of me that just couldn't believe how big this story got. Like you're seeing all these big names talk about it, break it down. And I don't know if it was just like everyone was bored. there was nothing else big going on or if it was just so shockingly dumb to watch someone do that and then to watch the sequence of events

play out on a stream in front of us from the backstage interaction to the interaction with mana to him sitting there and reading all the comments to him just waltzing in the ring and absolutely coming this close to killing a person 20 straight punches

losing control, losing his mind why he lost his mind why he lost control was he embarrassed I don't know but the idea that he was like so happy happy with getting his revenge after he was hit with the can and no one explained to him what the actual pro wrestling version of revenge is.

The fact that they allowed that to happen, all those people shouldn't be involved anymore. It's like these wrestlers get so caught up in this whole world, this carny world of work and shoot, oh, you're going to sell, you're not going to sell like, what the fuck were you guys doing? And why was it all streamed? And why did they allow him? I mean, there's just so many dumb things. But I just, as I was sitting there watching the reactions to all of this and to watching it all play out, I was like, oh, my gosh, this is really dumb. Is this why people hate pro wrestling?

Is this why people hate combat sports? Is this why people hate all the things that we talk about here? Surely this is not like a good example of it all. We know that. We know that within it. But from the outside, you're like, look at these buffoons. Look at these barbarians. look at what they're doing it was it was it was absolute lunacy

I don't know what repercussions Rajah is going to face but he is going to have to face repercussions whether it's you know via the the court of law whether it's via the police whether it's via the streets I don't fucking know but that was crazy man you incriminated yourself you filmed yourself beating the living daylights out of another man and then you you filmed yourself telling the world that you were going to do it

and then you filmed the aftermath of you justifying it. What? Absolute lunacy. And I saw some people trying to defend him and I could understand you'd be like, oh, look, he shouldn't have been hit. Two wrongs don't make a right, I'm sorry. The empty beer can doesn't mean that you almost die.

It doesn't work that way. That's just the way it works. There are different levels. That's just the way it works. Rick, what did you think of all of this? You're usually the bastion of sense and sensibilities. What did you think of all of this? First of all, I appreciate that.

I'll take that title. Exactly what you felt. Like, a heinous act, truly. Like, what went on here was unforgivable, inexcusable. There have to be consequences, right? There have to be repercussions for this. And then as far as the... I am also curious, like, curious, like, how this is going to play out legally,

what the what the fallout from all this is going to be because it seems like all we're seemingly getting is updates in terms of uh stew's health um but not necessarily anything on the rajah jackson side of it which um i'm you know wondering although you know we do get rampage every once in a while dropping little updates and talking about the situation and all those things but um don't know where this is going to go but ultimately would not be surprised if the if the repercussions if the penalty for this is very severe and like you i was also a little bit surprised by how viral this went. Certainly, I think this is shocking video once you see it, and that's probably what led to

the virality, everybody kind of sharing it and going, holy shit, did you see this? Also, I think because it was in the pro wrestling world, then there's kind of this, you know, is it real, is it fake, is it a work, is it a shoot kind of then takes hold, added to the fuel to the fire and kind of helped the virality as well. But ultimately, the end of the day, these are people's lives on the line, and it is a good reminder that even though this is quote unquote fake right this is this is the perfect example if you want to talk about like pro wrestling being quote unquote fake that like sometimes it's not sometimes it is it is more than a storyline and this person's uh life is truly impacted um but yeah

unforgivable act uh curious what the repercussions are going to be and glad that stew seems to be uh at home resting now are you surprised that nothing has happened to rica extremely surprised yeah or that we don't even hear whisperings of something proceeding or something happening, right? What is going to be the next step on his side of things? We continue to get the updates on Stu. We have not heard much of an update in terms of what is going on with Raja. Maybe this will require some kind of like, you know, legal action to be pursued before something happens.

I'm kind of curious on how this all plays out, but I am surprised that there hasn't been an update on that front. Okay, so speaking of updates on Stu, this is the latest. they posted this yesterday on his Instagram. Stewart has been released from the hospital and is now home resting. He sustained a serious head injury. It was unconscious upon arrival at the ER. His injuries include trauma to both the upper and lower jaws,

a laceration to his upper lip, and a fracture to the maxillia bone, which unfortunately resulted in the loss of several teeth. He has a long road of recovery ahead, but he remains in good spirits despite everything he has been through. We are deeply grateful for all the love support we've received during this time. Thank you to everyone who has contributed in any way,

whether through monetary donations, food, flowers, or gifts. Your kindness means more than words can express. From the bottom of my heart, thank you with love and respect. Contessa Patterson and Stuart Smith, assuming Contessa is his partner. He is a former, former, I believe, military vet. Is he a Marine, former Marine? Definitely a former military. military vet or just a military veteran, I should say, who it had been reported, dealt with PTSD upon returning from serving and gone into pro wrestling and just kind of seems to do this to make his life better. I had never heard of him. And I think most of the people commenting on this from the world of pro wrestling hadn't heard of him. It's not the biggest

promotion despite the fact that Rikishi is involved in some way, shape, or form. He wasn't there. think he deserves any of the blame for the actions on that day. But it was just sort of like a glimpse. If you've ever watched Beyond the Mat or any of these documentaries, Louis Theroux did one. Like, indie wrestling is pretty rugged. And people got a bird's eye view at how sort of rough it is. They're all just sitting back there drinking beer. It's not something that should be, not something that should be exposed in a way if you're trying to like understand

pro wrestling it is the sort of like you know the bottom of the barrel so to speak but it also isn't the type of place where if you're doing like a celebrity angle, if you're doing a celebrity angle where jelly roll is showing up at WWSummer Slam there are people there who are going

to train him on what to do and how to do it the right way and who are going to protect him a promotion like this who's like, hey, kid off the street, and again, 25 years old, not a kid, but I'm just speaking, come here and like get your revenge and not explain to him what that actually means, there's a difference, and you saw the difference. Now, Rampage himself, in case you're wondering how he feels about all this, I've posted a couple things, but the most recent one I thought was the most telling.

He posted a very long statement on his Instagram, and I'm not going to read the whole thing. You've seen it. You can go. He's talking more about the reaction. And I know, and by the way, let's not, let's, let's call it like it is. Like, there's been a lot of, I can't even imagine the racist stuff that has been thrown his way and his son's way. One should have nothing to do with the other. Like, get that out of here. The color of his son's skin, stew's skin, like none of that should have anything to do with anything. But I'm sure it got to that. And it felt like some of the commentary that I was seeing. receiving or not receiving, reading, certainly in the comment section of some of these videos felt a little bit uncomfortable. That being said, that has nothing to do with the actions that we saw on camera. To me, what was most interesting was in the comments of this post, he's writing to people saying, I think that my son should go to jail. He's saying that. He should get punishment for his part, but everyone else should too, not trying to justify anything. Maybe you can't read.

If you can read, I agree with you, meaning in response to his son being punished, but why are people threatening my other kids over this shit? Like, I'm sure this has been a nightmare, and I'm sure it's gotten really ugly, but Rampage himself thinks that his son should be reprimanded. Now, they seem to have a very interesting relationship, and videos have been made on this. That's for them. That's their personal life. I don't think we should sit here

and dissect the relationship between Rampage and his son but that's a mess of a situation and none of us really know how we would react if we ever watched our kid almost kill a man live on some kind of stream on some sort of platform

and some are trying to say this is Rampage's fault and he abused him to the point I don't know all I know is what happened in that two hour stream and it was very dumb and once he got hit in the head with the can they should have said yo man let's do this some

other time you're clearly upset and rightfully so but let's just maybe take a breather the last thing they should have done was no no no let's turn this into something they were all trying to get over they were all trying to become famous they all saw a camera there they're not used to cameras being there whether there's six people watching a thousand people watching two thousand i don't know how many people are watching these streams and they all tried to turn it into something. What they failed to do was explain to the guy who was going into the ring that, hey, this is a work. This is scripted. You're not actually supposed to try to kill the guy. They failed to do that. What they did was they let him sit there for two hours or an hour and read comments from God knows who, 12 year old, saying, are you really going to

do it? You don't have the balls to do it. Oh yeah, I'm going to do it. Oh yeah, I'm going to do it. watch me do it oh I'm going to do it until they pull me off of him I'm going to kill this guy dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb g-c what did you think of all of this yeah I can't really add anything to what you guys said I mean it was a deplorable act

I'm honestly shocked that 10 days have gone by now and with how much video evidence there was that nothing has happened to Rajah Jackson at this point I wonder if anything happens period it would be hard to imagine that something wouldn't I don't know if there's like waivers, forms, things that can clear him of legal charges that were signed backstage or something for him to take part in this. But with all of the evidence from, I mean, the beer can at the beginning, all the way through to him having a meltdown on the side of the street hours after the incident took place. Like everything is on tape.

I mean, to the point where he's sitting ringside, threatening him saying how he's going to fuck him up, everything like that, it just feels like he incriminated himself. by the kick stream. Yeah. Oh, my God. What is up with these kick streams? Like, why... I don't know. And the fact that, like, rampage is on it, and that's how he finds out, and his first question is, like, is he going to get banned from kick? So weird. He's streaming the next few nights, and people are asking him about it, and he's getting upset about it. It's just like, maybe hold off on the kick streams

for a few days. Are people getting big money for this? What's going on? Like, why are they doing this? I mean, naturally, fans feel like they're closer to these people, right? because if you were, it's the, it's the next evolution of reality TV, right? Reality TV was supposed to be like, we're letting you into our lives, this is real. Then people started to realize there was a sheen, right? There was, there was this barrier between them in reality TV because reality TV was still kind of like artificial reality. On a live stream, you're there.

You're there with them. It's why people watch our show. Like, people want to be with us in this moment. That is the, that is that to the endth degree. They are with Raja Jackson as all this is playing out. They are with Rampage Jackson As he's learning about this It is just

Do you guys know Roger Jackson was like a figure in this world? No No What's that movie Like not the Truman Show The other one With Matthew McConaughey

Where his life is filmed Do you guys know what I'm talking about? Yes is it What's the one? That's like I never thought that we would get to this point Where people were interested In what someone was doing

In their kitchen Just to pass the time Yeah like this is something That is like passed me by I guess I'm not of this generation But that's something I'll never consume where like it's just them walking around a mall or or or at a bar or something like that but people are clearly watching it and you can see by the massive massive stars in this field

like the speeds and the kaisanauts ed tv anyone ever see ed tv it's sort of like the lower rent version of the Truman show did this reach mechonos did this story reach mecanos pizzi or were you uh were you were you were you were you saved from all of this no i mean reaction similar to you guys like like there's lads reaching out to me who have not even a cursory interest in combat sports saying look at this have you seen this like the the ways it came at me was was very strange like people again who I'm saying like never really talked to me about combat sports they've heard about this they heard that this guy is related to rampage Jackson and they're onto me about it and then you know like you're on

Instagram and X and they have that kind of search thing you know when you go into that and it's just showing your random videos I felt like for two days that's all it was seeing. It made me feel really old, honestly, like, because I'm listening to you guys talking. I thought GC was going to hit me with some info about this kick stuff because I don't know anything about it. I'm aware of the brand kick. I'm aware that people do these streams, the likes of speed and all those guys have been tremendously successful with it. But there is such a tragedy to me about this young man. Rajas, what, about 25? Is that correct, Ariel? Yeah. He's a 25-year-old man sitting there looking at his phone and I'm just just based off what you said earlier are your son's

young teens young teens probably onto him in this chat and he feels a need to react to that it's a very 20-25 thing you know it's taking us time to get our heads around it I will say like everything about it kind of sickens me everything about how he did it like the idea that he's getting revenge like this guy is allowing you to pick him up because he thinks you're in a wrestling match with him. You're not doing this. He's not trying to stop a double leg here. He's allowing you to pick him up on his shoulder and you're dumping

him on his fucking head. You know, he's out cold and then you're doing that. Like, that's, like that could be at the very highest level of assault in terms of what he did there. It's just a tragedy, an absolute tragedy. Again, I've seen the videos

with Rampage. And look, I'm a 38 year old man. Rampage an older man than I am, him in this world is very bizarre to me too. And the idea that he's reacting to these things as GC was talking about there in real time, it's just a really, really, it's a really strange thing. And it does feel like something out of a minority report, or as you're saying, Ed TV or something like that. It's like technology meets reality, entertainment meets a devastating situation. It's a lot of things. It's a lot to unpack And honestly, like we, as you said, we were going away with this book for a long time

these weeks of vacation. I just thought it was entertaining the amount of people that thought, like, you know, you woke up on Monday morning and said, lads, we aren't doing it. This Roger Jackson thing, I'm just, I'm going to take the week off, you know, unbelievable. It's shocking to me that there wasn't a single person involved in that whole room and that whole situation who was like, yo, man, this isn't a good idea. Like, who was that dude filming all of this and who just sat there and felt like, Who is that guy?

And when Raja's having a meltdown afterward as, like, he's still talking shit to the rest ofers as they're leaving. And he's like, hey, man, we need to go. We need to go. Like, we need to get out of here. It's not like, turn the camera off. Yeah, man. Turn the camera off. And then he's getting a call and it's just like, yo, man, we can't wake him up.

He's completely unconscious. And Raja's just like, my bad. Yeah, my bad. I ain't no bit. Seemed to have zero remorse for it. Just like, yeah, I'm not a bitch. I'm not going to let this guy push me around by throwing a beer can on my head and then retaliating by almost killing him. The level of stupidity that was.

that was exemplified was was was really shocking and so like i'm watching this from afar and we're not in the the mix of the show and i'm like what alternate universe are we living in where this is the top story and that people are acting this way shocking really like i don't want to make it into this whole like it's a it's a sad commentary on our society but holy shit can you imagine like watching this from another universe and being like is this what they're doing over here what the hell the idea that the camera is on this guy as he's seething reading these messages it's just bizarre like everything about it it's like someone as he was reacting someone should have called him and been like yo man don't do it get the fuck off the stream there was no yes yes don't do it

because what they're saying is revenge isn't your version of revenge you're not actually supposed to kill the guy you're not actually actually supposed to dump him on his head there's 50 people in attendance at most what are you doing the same this isn't Monday Night Raw? Get out of there. Are you out of your mind? What? Oh my God.

The whole thing, just absurd. If they wanted to turn it into an angle, after he got hit in the head with the beer can, he should have left, build it up for a few weeks saying, I'm going to get mine unused, have a match on your kickstream, and call it a day.

Not sit there and dump the guy on his head and then freaking almost kill him and have him choke on his blood and his teeth. What? Are you out of your mind? It feels like the plot of a movie. as you're like it does feel like the plot of a movie you know if you start a movie like this where this goes stream and everything goes it went about as wrong as anything has ever gone it's

yeah it's an absolute tragedy okay um is there anything else that we have to say about this i mean it was so funny to me being like going on twitter and being like you're afraid to talk about this what do you mean afraid to talk about it i'm having my fifth gelato of the day what I mean, have you had affigato over there? It's unbelievable. I went to this one place, by the way, where they, I think I sent it to you guys, they put the affigato in the cup,

and then they make, like, a little hole for it. Like here in America, they just have the ball, and then they pour, no, they made like a little hole for it, and then they pour, it was unbelievable, a little pistachios on top. That's what I was doing. Sorry. You sent it to action?

Did you send one to action? No, I didn't send it to action, but, yeah, I probably should have. He would have liked that. He would have been able to do that. My only thing to say to bring it back to this is... Okay, sorry. It's funny to transition from that to what I'm about to say.

Let's go from Jolato, which is incredibly serious subject. While the drama of this is interesting and everybody wants to hear everybody takes and all these things, there is a young man who did something horrible that is going to have to potentially pay consequences for this and to remember him. And then there's a victim of this pretty obvious crime who is now recovering at home but has gone through some health. issues as a result of this like the drama is tasty everybody wants to get a piece of it everybody wants to be involved in it but there are real like human consequences and it's very sad and it's not just like entertainment it is not just for our oh not at all and people are kind of I feel like people are picking sides on it and you know wanting like wanting to do that

do remember that there's human beings involved here and it's quite a serious and horrifying scenario 100% it it breaks by saying this I'm not condoning it just let's be very, very clear. But when he's walking afterwards with blood on his shirt saying, like, I'm not going to be someone's bitch, I'm tired of the disrespect.

It's heartbreaking. Yeah. Because he is a young man who maybe has been searching for his father's approval. Who knows the stories that people have made up? But like, the guy just did something

really, really bad in front of a lot of people and it was about to go super viral, insanely viral. And it just, it felt like you were looking at someone

who was justifying, murder. You know what I mean? Like, I'm tired of this shit. Like, it feels, I've never watched someone murder another person, thank God. But it feels like that's what someone does in that situation who just snapped. He snapped. He absolutely snapped. Why did he snap? Was it just about the beer can? Is there more there? Is there, you know, Rampage has talked about him suffering from a concussion for just a couple of days ago and sparring? Who knows? I've never met Raja. We've talked to Rampage about him a couple times, about his son getting into M.M. that's all I really knew.

I don't even know if I knew his name but it was just it's very, very the whole thing is very sad. I think it's most sad when you think

of a guy like Stuart Smith who has to deal with all this. It's sad when you think of what this guy Raja did

to ruin his life. The rest of them are just dumb. There's nothing sad about the rest of them. And somebody in this MMA community,

this fight community and Rampage Jackson that we all have a lot of affinity for is now dealing with this situation as well. There are a lot

a lot of pieces to this that are a lot more serious than the drama part and you said it perfectly like it's heartbreaking in all regards and we need to remember that and the racism is gross

but I saw a lot of it using this as like a springboard for racism is the laziest dumbest stupid as shit you could possibly do all right so that's that and I'm sure there's going to be more we'll talk to Tom Loller about it because I'm curious on his thoughts

he weighed in he was on Wrestling Observer Live but we want to talk about some of the other things that happened as well. Let's go to this past weekend. And this past weekend was super interesting, guys, because this past weekend, I know there was an event called misfits, but it felt like it was like the misfits of MMA

all having their day in the sun because there was no UFC event, but it was all these sort of like offshoots of the UFC and of MMA having their time. And it was like this like this sort of like wild and wacky weekend in the world of combat sports. And it was actually kind of fun. On Friday, you had the dirty boxing event.

they're building some momentum a lot of the fights let's be honest are squash matches but they're getting the stars over so to speak and it's a lot of the first round management guys and that's totally fine there's no rules against that

in the world of MMA you have Jarsino Rosenstrike winning their heavyweight title did you guys see the belt that he won? The belt looks like I don't even know what it is what is that belt

is it like a box here's big Jarzino bigie boy I like the ring post by the way They look like Louis Vuitton bags or something. Anyway, he won this fat-ass belt. It's like a, look at that thing.

It's interesting. It's like a briefcase with belt straps around it. It's a trunk. It's an absolute trunk. Why is the background just like neon white behind him? I don't know. But he won. Brian Battle showed up.

Brian Battle showed up and made 186. Made 186 You know The way it looks is kind of cool With the black ropes And the venues that they have it in Again these are all very much One-sided matchups

But they're They're building something There's no doubt about that John Jones is involved Platinum Perry is involved They had Shaquille O'Neal there They had Nathan Diaz there I think I saw one of the fighters

Who got knocked out Got into it with a security guy Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah Yeah they were scrapping Jason Annik John's twin brother is interviewing someone and then the guy like kind of wakes up and starts getting into a fight

with the people who are ushering him out. Was it Wicano there too? Wicano was the translator. I heard he incorrectly translated it on purpose. He might have editorialized a little bit. Anyway, that was on Friday. Then we go to Saturday and on Saturday you have

real American freestyle wrestling having their debut event. You have the Misfits event and you also have C.J.I. too. Let's start with Real American Freestyle Wrestling. Real American Freestyle Wrestling, I think, has something here. They put on a good show. They had a nice tribute to Hulk Hogan, a nice tribute to Ben Ascran.

It seemed like people had fun. It was on Fox Nation. Eric Bischoff involved, Chale involved. The thing with Chale and Tito, I thought, was a little bit weird. Tito seemed very sort of under the influence. They had a moment there, which I think was the highlight, where one of their participants, Kennedy Blades, couldn't compete. And so there all of a sudden is Holly Home, a surprise.

And what's great about this is I don't think that there are weigh-ins, so you could do surprises. And there's Holly Holmes showing up in the singlet and actually almost winning. I was talking to Chale about this afterwards. He said the best thing to happen was her not winning, because everyone would have thought it was a total work if she did. She did not win. But she actually, like, represented and held her own. It was a cool little moment. Bo Nickel won as well

gave them some legitimacy there I thought the production looked pretty cool do you guys think they're onto something here anyone into this did anyone watch it I did not watch in pro sorry amateur wrestling is not necessarily not your thing yeah it's just never going to hit

for me I don't think but that's a personal preference I can tell by GC's face he was like no didn't sign up for I don't have a Fox Nation subscription yeah need of me Damn. You're all slacking. I'm on Foxxley show on day.

I know you live on that shit. Get the red hat out. It's like jujitsu though. If you don't do it, you're not really going to watch it unless it's going to be a freak show. You know, like it's very rare. Is that true, though? Like, we just saw CJI this weekend. I feel like there's some people who might have been convinced to watch that.

Which is the only people I know that watch CGI are played jujitsu heads. Okay, so like, so I don't think any of us are like jujitsu heads per se, all the appreciate it, know of the main players. If you're sitting down and someone says, okay, R-A-F or C-J-I, which one are you picking? C-J-I, no doubt. C-J-I. Okay, interesting.

Because of the entertainment. And that's only off the fumes off the first event because the Gabby Garcia situation, all that kind of stuff. Everyone was sitting on C-J-I on the first night. Everyone was saying it was boring, a lot of stalling, a lot of pacing issues, no one going for it. What's it reduced down to in the end?

In fairness, it's the clip of Chale and Craig Jones. I don't know any other match that happened. The key is that it's in the sale, right? It's not in the product itself. It's in the fact that Craig Jones is a better promoter than whatever we've got for Real American Freestyle. He's the best promoter ever.

He's fantastic at just getting you to care about him, and then you can kind of care about C.J.I. And obviously, when you get a partner in Chale, obviously, I'll be it under bad circumstances in last minute, but when you get a partner in Chale who also knows how to capture attention, you've got something. It's in the cell. It's not necessarily in the product itself.

Could we go back to that clip? What was confusing to me was everyone said that the Chale Craig clip. Everyone said that Craig slept Chale twice with this choke, the buggy choke. I guess it happened twice. But when I was watching it, I thought Chale won. Because I thought you pinned him. The rules weren't properly explained. I think once they were explained, Chale obviously won. Yeah, because look, his shoulders are on the mat. I thought it was a clean one, two, three for Chale. Look, and what was so impressive about it was he was out, still got the win. It's like the Silva fight. You just, once you understand the rules, you

recognize that you want. You're all fucking women. Tapology has actually updated it to losing twice to Craig Jones. 30 seconds into the first round. I don't get that. They don't get it. Isn't that?

Look at the pin. Look at the pin. What are you talking about? What? Are you serious right now? What are you doing? Look at the pin. Look at the pin.

Yeah, that's weird. Shout out to Chow for getting all those sponsors on his shorts that fast. What a weekend for Chale. Chale called the R-A-F in Cleveland, got on the early morning flight to Vegas, and I think beat Craig Jones. Even the lower third, Craig Jones winner by buggy chokes. Yeah, I thought that was weird. There's no dispute. There's no debate. Undefeated still. Chale's on it. Two nights. And so, like, it was all these sort of, you know what it made me think of seeing all this and we'll get to misfits in a second?

It made me think of that statement that I made several months ago about MMA being in a recession because it was once a time where I feel like these characters would be in a B or C promotion. And yet there was no actual MMA events going on this weekend. But it was all MMA names, right? It was Biggie Boy and Brian Battle over here. It was Holly Home and Bo Nickel over here. It was Chale, to your point, PTC, and there were other guys, Andre Galvow, over here. And then Misfits, who were the biggest names talked about?

Darren Till, Luke Rockhold, Dylan Dennis, Tony Ferguson. It was all MMA people, but there were just no MMA events. What does that say about everything outside of the UFC right now? How is there no one capitalizing off of all this? And what I think is, go ahead. I was going to say, I don't know if it's an indictment necessarily on the other promotions. to me it's an indictment on the UFC and the structure of the sport,

which is that it is fantastic at building recognizable names and stars, but in order for them to make the most money they're ever going to make, they need to leave. So they get built up. The UFC machine works properly and you get these big stars,

but then they leave the promotion and that's when they get their biggest paydays. It's actually kind of a backward system. Francis Ngano needs to leave to get paid what he's worth. Mike Perry needs to leave to get paid what he's worth. Luke Rockhold needs to leave to get paid what he's worth. It's just the continuing story. I don't know if like if they go to a, a

MMA competitor that it is going to ultimately work the same way. I think it's just that the UFC machine in terms of building names and how and making people become more recognizable. It works perfectly. The pay structure part, that part's falling short. So in October of 2023, G.C. and I went to that misfits show, the prime card in Manchester. I think up until that point that was their biggest show, and I think it probably still is their biggest show in terms of viewership. I thought Saturday was their best show

because I thought on Saturday you had legitimate fighters succeeded. Everyone that they needed to win won. Certainly the top guys. I don't know some of the lower guys, the Joey Essex's of the world. I don't follow that scene like some other people do. But the top three

fights, Till versus Rockhold, Ferguson versus Sal Poppy, and then Danis versus Spencer, the guys that they needed to win one, and they were all highlight real stuff, and everyone was talking about it. And it felt like in the aftermath, PT, you remember that famous

scene in Dublin after the first show where it's like Connor and Cahal Pendred and Patty Houlihan and Norman, it felt like they had their version of that. The misfits, as some people called it, like their DX, where it's Till, Ferguson, and Danis

sitting next to Mams Taylor and Culler Sowerland. it feels like they have something and what I think is interesting about it is and I was talking to MAMS about it afterwards I was like I bet you have every single available MMA fighter or their management on the planet

hitting you up and he sort of laughed and confirmed it because this could be the fun league this could be like what Japan was 10, 15 years ago like if I'm an MMA fighter outside of the UFC right now I'm like let me go there I can have a boxing match

or like fight a nobody in MMA and get all this attention because you go there in Manchester and it's like it's a big deal. There are a lot of kids there. There are a lot of people. People can work themselves into a pretzel being like it's boxing. It's not boxing. It's a disgrace. It's not whatever it is.

It's sports entertainment. It's the sports entertainment version. It's the wrestling. It's what W.W.E. To real American freestyle to amateur wrestling, to freestyle wrestling, to Greco Rom. Whatever you want to call it, it's entertaining. And I thought on Saturday they hit a grand

slam. And who would have thought it's Darren Till, who, let's be honest, not that long ago felt like completely like fizzled out and had no place, was booked on the Netflix, Jake Paul Tyson Card and couldn't get into the country. Who would have thought this guy who was so vocal and so against the world of crossover boxing would now become almost like the poster boy and the face of it all. He is thriving more so than ever. This knockout of Luke Rockhold was nothing short of amazing. And you could say what you want about Rockhold's chin and the amount. It's

it's all fair. Till is killing it right now. Like the renaissance that he's enjoying in this wild and wacky world is amazing to watch. And what does he do? He punctuates it with a call out of Carl Frotch. And I have to say, Pizzi,

where do I sign up? Where do I sign up? Wouldn't that be something? Come on, you have to admit. It would be gigantic. like this is the thing when Till kind of stack on down this road there was a reluctance to him

you know he was kind of he had said a lot of shit about this world and then he's suddenly in it and you can tell he's kind of like what have I become I haven't seen any of that this like last week

he fully embraced it and he was perfect in every way for what misfits are trying to do every time they put a camera on him it went viral every time you know there's a press conference

what do we do what misfits press conference we're nearly getting a fight. That's what we all do. Go for it, Till. He was perfect in every way. He, he, he looked great in there. The production was excellent. I even woke up this morning. I go on the athletic, I think it was the athletic. Eddie Hearn saying, yeah, this frotch, till fight would be absolutely tremendous. And it looks great. It's not personally what, look, I like the Till fight. I'm interested in that. I'm interested to see what he's doing with this promotion. I think he's nailing it. So I'm interested in that.

level. It was great to see Tony winning. I feared the worst when that fight was made. Dennis is doing what he's there to do. He's kind of like outrage farming. He's having these meme fights, as I call them. Like this is not a contest of any, um, this is not a, this is not a fight, you know? This is a lad who's got in there to get choked out. And that's exactly what he does. I have learned nothing about Dylan Dennis from this whole thing. But you know what? it's perfect because like Dennis annoys everyone, including myself, he should take 10 more of these

fights while in the midst of it all calling out Islam and Shavkat and Hamzat because all it does is enrages people like this is a nothing fight right here. Why did that guy shoot on him? He had no one. This dude fought Dylan Dennis a black belt in jujitsu and openly admitted that he did not train in

any sort of MMA. He literally jumped into the crook of his arm. He literally went here fucking go for it. I want this over. You know, like that's a, like everybody He just wants to watch Dylan. Everyone wants to watch Dennis and go, look at this wanker. And that's what he gives them. Like, that's what it is.

And perfect. You know what I mean? Like, calling out Islam, all that kind of stuff. Like, it works for him. It's a meme fight. That's what I think Dylan Dennis is a meme fighter. And that's what that is. It's a great way of putting it.

He desperately wants to be in the UFC. Stay there. This is the perfect place for you. It's not going to go well for him. It's not going to go well for him in the UFC. So this is perfect. Yeah, because you can keep talking shit. You can keep saying you want to beat Frank.

and all that. And he's right. Like him fighting, good. Stay active, good. Take five more of these and win them all in seven seconds and just keep talking shit. That's what they should do, in my opinion. And he looks good to be honest. He looks in a better place than he's been in

a very long time. Like he looks healthy. You know, more power to him. Like, this is what they want and he's perfect for it. And every time he gets in there, he's going to be calling out Islam, all these guys. I don't think he has any intention of fighting them. He would obviously disagree with me saying that. he can't fight them

they're not signing him and even if they did sign him they wouldn't book him against them and so he's the perfect guy for this misfits brand because he acts like a misfit he wants to be a misfit

he wants to be viewed as that tough guy with the fingers and all that stuff it's perfect for him and they'll give him these nobody's they'll give him these cans to beat

in a few seconds and they'll build them up like he's some sort of Brockless by the way him versus Eddie Hall I'll tell you like Mams has this lane right now

that is being occupied by no one else MVP is not really in this business where he can put together these like freak show pride Circa 2001 fights and now he's dabbling into MMA I'm kind of curious

He's going to lose 60 pounds He's going to lose 60 pounds of my Dylan Dennis It's so good Don't forget this you know The tag team thing they've kind of been in this lane already Like this idea of we're doing stuff That's a little bit unconventional I thought it was dying

I couldn't see the path for them And now that they brought in all these MMA guys I'm like, oh, I actually kind of see... Now, let me be clear. I don't think it's for everyone. Like, I think Till, Ferguson, and Dennis are perfect for them. I don't know if, like...

I'm saying his name only because he recently left, but like, I don't know if you could throw like Chris Wydenman in there. You know what I mean? Or Anthony Smith in there. You'd be able to play the game. They're too normal.

Yes, they're too normal. You need kind of wacky dudes in there. You need Ferguson at the open workout doing like break dancing and stuff. Like, it all just kind of fits. It's not even, like, you can't even say boxing fans are going to like this. It's not. You can't say

MMA fans are going to like this. So who's it for? It's for Misfit. I don't know what's the fuck it is. It's right there in the day. It's for Misfit. Yeah, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it.

I got entertaining, you get to see these guys that are kind of down on their luck that need a win. Tony Ferguson gets his first win and God knows how many years. Dylan Dennis finally gets in an M. It's a win. And then there was a good scrap between Darren Till and Luke Rockhold that ended an emphatic

knockout. And everyone's a champion. Was this in early? Stopping? I love how everyone's got a belt. Bill and Danis is walking around hotels and everything with the misfits light heavyweight anime belt. I love it. It's so good.

Tony gets a belt too, and they paraded it around the city. I love it. It's incredible. Was it an early stoppage, though? 1,000% yeah. Who gives a fuck? You know what I mean? This is the sanctity of the sport. We had a guy crying in there. We had Tony's career. This is Saltpupy's

career. Don't you dare disrespect it? I have to say, when the fight started, I was like, oh, come on like, you know, we're not supposed to root, but, like, Tony, let's go, Tony. And you know what? He actually was a lot better than I thought he was going to be, right? Oh, I thought he was great. He won the fight. He was what, Rick?

What were you going to say, Rick? I thought he was losing, you know, until he wasn't. No, but he was moving. I wasn't sure. I thought he was going to go for, like, an ankle pick or something. I didn't know what to expect him all that. We found something in this, man, undefeated in boxing. We were talking, you were talking about, like, how it feels like Till kind of, like, was stalled out,

and then all of a sudden has this momentum. He literally just needed to get. in the ring and fight. We had so many of these like, Willie, won't he? Mike Perry's building up, then it never happens. And once he started fighting again, it was all good. Like he's got, what is it, three fights already here? And he's got, he's got

fights on the table. That Carl Frotch fight would be unbelievable. He just needed momentum. Do you think it happens? Probably not. Why not? The shit talkie would be great. Why not? That'd be perfect. Because I don't think Carl Frotch will take the fight. Did he have 20 million for Kyle Vroch?

So, so, so, so, Frotch retired, 11 years ago By the way Okay, Wembley might be crazy 02 easily Right? 02 easily

Yeah This is a fight that could be made I feel like this is very realistic Well I saw the promoter of the event Caller Sauerland I always have trouble with that name Wasserman boxing He was on talk sport

And he said he's going to go to Nottingham Not to watch for us After their incredible transfer window I mean unbelievable signing shout to Fair play, fair play Fair play for play Oh yeah it was too Oh yeah it was too

forget about it in the past Oh, we need to talk about the new no press conference That's for a different show That's for our soccer show Coming on the zone Wait, before we move on for misfits No, I'm not moving on Oh, okay, sorry

He's gonna go to Nottingham to try and talk He wants to make the fight Oh yeah, let's do it! He wants, I just, and then Frotch went on his YouTube channel and said he's shit, he saw him Will you be working the press over that one? Fuck, we just say

Has there ever been a better I would love, no, I want to be be, I'll be fraud, I'll be, I'll be fucking Tills manager. He doesn't need me, but I'll be his, like, his Paul Heyman. Has there ever been a better, like, casting than Ben the Bain Davis at these missions? Oh my God.

So good. The mic integrity also is unbelievable. Not just the mic. It's like, the mic, the facial expressions, the way he moves, he's like down there. Like, he is like an intrepid 1940s World War II reporter trying to get the scoop. Like, he is so good at the faceoffs,

at the presser, in the ring. he's perfect for it. He is absolutely cracks me up, genuinely. Bain absolutely love him to death. He's not the tallest guy on the planet, but I swear to God during these press conferences, it's almost like he gets down even shorter. There's times where he's coming up

to like Darren Till's belly button. I'm just like he's not actually that short. What is going on here? It makes it better. It's so good. It's so good how small facial expressions, everything. Walking with Darren Till as he's doing the Carl Frotch promo, it's so good. Great Mike integrity. The mic integrity is unbelievable

Never give it up His face when he's doing He's also like looking at him He's nervous a little bit The hair, the voice The outfit We do have to give an RIP To his run on the challenge

Oh is it over? Yeah, he got a lucked out Oh my gosh Best to our boy Bain Saw the clip It was tough man I think he'll be back I think he'll be back

For another season I was going to say I'm misfits The mechanic Warren Spencer Yeah tough Go to This is the worst game plan That has ever been submitted

In combat sports history There has never been worse. You can look at any single fight that has happened, whether it be what you'd consider a freak show, a real fight. It does not matter. Shooting, you being the boxer and shooting on Dylan Dennis, number one with a bullet, worst game plan in combat sports history. You being the boxer.

You being the boxer is some... He took on 10 guys in one night. He boxed 10 guys. Also, the best part about that was that you followed up the mechanic with Warren Spencer. Like, we don't know who that is. The mechanic, Warren Spencer, you don't need to say that. afterwards. We know who that is. The fact that he came on the show and was begging Dylan just

to stand with him for a round, and then he shoots on him. And take no, he can't even shoot. He threw his head into a guillotine. Like, he literally threw his head. The best part is, while that's happening, the announcer is literally like, why would he do this? This is going to be over so fast, and then like that, it's over. Look at that belt, though.

It's a nice looking belt. It looks good on him, man. This is good for Dylan. He just needs this. Rain Supreme over the light, heavyweight MMA division and Misfits. Yeah. Just rack up the time. You didn't think it was a good shot, Pizzi? You don't like the form? You didn't think it was a good attempt?

Well, that was a great entry into a guillotine from the guy getting guillotine. You know what I mean? Shout out to the mechanic. Hill's deal is up. First game plan ever. His deal is up with them. They got to keep him. They got to figure out.

Oh, yeah. Well, he's got right now what Mike Perry kind of had with the KFC in the league. I mean, still can. Obviously, this Jeremy Stevens fight is going to be big. But he feels like. the face of it now with KSI not being the face of it anymore it feels like they have a guy that they can go this is our guy

here and you could even do it with Dylan too like to an extent I'm Tony Dylan too yes and they have legit credentials certainly Till does he fought for the bell Tony interim champion Till feels the least Till feels like the least damage goods there right Tony is certainly like on the tail end of the career

and Dylan has kind of just been on off like there's a little bit of there's a little bit of uncertainty with Dylan with Darren you've got a guy if he shows up he will box, it will look good, and he will be great on the mic and the press conferences, too. You've got a guy you can bank on with Darren. Till versus Jake Paul, who wins?

Darren beats him, I think. I'd like to see it. Wow. I'm telling you, I'd like to see it. It would be something. Actually, I'd rather see that. Does Darren beat him? Yeah, so is this an issue.

The fact that you're questioning it, I'd like to see it. You don't think Darren could get big enough, like, with real muscle. Yeah, he wouldn't be solid. You're probably right. but I think he's a technically better hands than justers would be great

it would all be power on Jake though as a naturally bigger man is going to be hard you're right you're right but I think I think misfits are kind of they've got treasure with Till because you can do so much with him you know like he's dynamic

in that like he can really like he seems to be really really be able to box and I think as you said Ariel there's a lot more say like Jake Jake Paul's in a situation where there's not a lot to do

like we're talking with Tank Davis, things like this. Like, but Till, it feels like there's a lot. Like, there's legs to it. Like, you can get a lot of different guys in there with them. There's lots of different options. And, you know, and just spinning different plates. Like, as we were talking about Jake Paul, there's the Frotch thing. Like, it would be great for misfits to just go on that publicity tour to wind up Frotch.

If it doesn't even happen, right? Like, once they're getting on talk sports saying we're here to, you know, poke our finger in the chest of Carl Frotch, one of the greats, one of his time of pound for We think Darren Till is going to beat him. Like, that's all generating interest. So I think there's a lot to do. And I think I've just finished Mark Romondi's fantastic book on NWO. And I heard about him, you know, he's talking about Goldberg, the way they used to do with

Goldberg, just let him come in and fuck guys up. Like he was on this run of how many days he was doing this kind of thing. That's what Dylan Danes should be. Just like he's fighting the janitor this week. Every time. The mechanics. Every time. Yeah, janitors and dentists and everyone in between.

Careful. You're saying actual like... Yes, yes. Yeah, he doesn't want to get in there with Darren Stewart shows up and then it might be rough go. Have him do like the Andy Kaufman gimmick where he was calling out people

from the stands. And then Dylan acts like he did something great by beating someone who's never done. That's what I thought of. Because it riles people up. That's what I was thinking of watching it. All right, I mean, you know, respectfully to Dylan Dennis,

like if they fight him in MMA, he's a legit MMA. Like, this is a real guy. Boxing was. never the lane for Dylan Dennis. I don't think you need to give them Cupcake guys. I don't think you need to literally give them like the guy out of the stands if it's MMA. If it's MMA. Because we saw as soon as that neck was there, he got it. He could do that. Of course he could do that. A blue belt

could do that though, Rick, in all fairness. Yeah, but Dylan Dennis is very high level and not a blue belt. I'm saying you don't need to give him a schlub. He can submit legit guys. Now, can he box with them as a different story? So if you keep it MMA, I don't think you need to give them like... How legit would you be willing to say, like... Grappling credentials-wise? No, like, in a fight, in an MMA fight, Dylan Dennis.

He was undefeated. I know, yeah. But, like, who would you put them in there against? Legit guys? I don't know. You tell me. Okay. It doesn't have to be Tony. It doesn't...

Yeah, why not? Well, we're got... GFL was going to do it? Yeah. You guys think that Tony Ferguson blows the doors off Dylan Dennis? That's what you're telling me right now? No, no, I would watch it. That's what Pete's he's saying, I think.

I would watch it. I would watch it. I don't think that's the case Of course I would watch it Till versus Andrew Tate That'd be a fight I'd watch For sure Are you getting me

I'll watch it but why I'll lead him for what I mean I reported that they're close And I think he is going to fight Based on what I heard You gotta put him in there I think he fights a total bum right I was gonna say the opposite

You need him to fight He's not gonna agree Somewhat of a name No wait Till or Tate Tate is not gonna agree to fight anyone other than Who are you saying GC needs to fight a big

name. I wouldn't want to see, not a big name. I just wanted to see Tate against anyone with a name. Oh, no, no, no. You've got to put it, now him, you put it in with a guy from the stands. Dylan. Someone get Warren Spencer back on the phone. We have a fight for you, sir. Kate versus Spencer. No, they're boys. They're boys.

Oh, that's right. They're boys. So, perfect, perfect. Perfect. No. Well, let's see. Let's see where they go from here. I think that's going to be a big problem. Misfits in the UK brand, put Andrew Tait on there. I think that's going to be, well, And that's what they want.

Are you saying it's ill-advised? They're gaining some momentum. No, I think they will do it for that reason. What's the issue? You know what I mean? It's like the outrage, like the, how controversial Tate is and his brother is and they have charges there in the UK, everything like that. Like it would be, it would be very, very controversial.

It would be news night on BBC kind of stuff. That's what they want. Oh, my God. If ever there was music to their ears. They're leading segment A on BBC. Yeah. If ever there was a brand that could sustain. stain that it is misfits, no? Aren't they

kind of the thing? That's their business. That would be that, yeah, exactly. So I think it makes sense for them. Amen. Yeah, it's going to piss a lot of people off, but to your point, yeah. That's, I guess what they want. Ultimately, though, I am happy to see the Tills, the Ferguson's, these

guys have a place where they can fight and look, we can talk about should Ferguson still be fighting? Everyone has their say on that night it was good to see some of these guys have a moment in the sun and certainly everyone sort of feels for everything that Tony has been through and some of the bad luck that he's had and who would have thought that it would come under an umbrella like that. So I bet there's a ton of MMA guys who are like, let me go there.

This is the fun place. This is the place where I can have some fun and not have to deal with uniforms and tournaments and standings and all this other Mesugas with the PFL. And I wish there was a place here in America, where there was an MMA promotion that was just putting on fun fights like Strike Force or Elite XC did back in the day,

it's now misfits. And let's see how deep into MMA they get. They say they have plans. Let's see how deep they get into it. Speaking of the major leagues of MMA, let's talk about this MSG card. This was also announced. So everyone was very...

Can I just say this? They make the announcement. Dana White's going to make an announcement. They make the announcement about the announcement. And then I guess some people were mad that it came so late it was not o'clock. And it's just like, this is MSG. And I'm ignoring the main point here, but I'm sorry, this stuff still matters, posters matter, promos matter, announcements matter. This is the

same company that when apeshit, when I would announce things and would hold secret meetings and stuff like, it's Dana tired on Instagram live on a private plane after meeting with the White house about his show reading off a piece of paper with like on a scale of one to ten a negative five enthusiasm that jdm is going to welcome islam achev to the welterweight division and defend his title for the first time against Islam number one pound for pound at the world's most famous arena and just like reading it off a piece of paper no umf no excitement no nothing oh and by the way maybe the greatest fight on paper in women's MMA history

very strong case to be made Zhang Wei moving up one versus two pound for pound one versus two pound for pound Zhang Wei moving up to 125 to fight Valentina Shevchenko reading it like with no oomph

oh and by the way Leon Edwards against Carlos Proches who just came off one of the best knockouts of the year reading it like nothing no fastball the opposite of a fastball, not even a knuckle ball.

It was like a slow-pitched softball. And oh, by the way, McKenzie Dern fighting for the vacant title on October 25th. What does it say here? Abu Dhabi against Vierroba. Did that not bother anyone else? It bothers me because I remember the time in the past,

but what I just thought of now, as you were saying this, was that there was a time where Dana White had to do that, right? There was a time where Dana White and the UFC had to promote this. in the current environment all they have to do is plant the seed all they have to do is literally get it out there

and then there's enough aggregators there's enough people doing content there's enough people reacting that they do the work for them we are included in that right we are now reacting to this and it is spreading the word of it the aggregators instantaneously

have 10 different posts on it oh my god this is a banger low key bangor fight card of the year blah blah blah blah blah blah blah they don't have to do anything anymore and so Dana White knows at a certain point and the UFC knows at a certain point all they got to do is flick the switch

just flick the switch and say this fight is coming and then everybody else will do the work for them so it's such a bummer though man it sucks it sucks it totally sucks make a promo video look no one's in the bit like no one's trying to break this stuff anymore right no one's trying to beat you to the punch you can make a cool

ass promo video just drop that Dana's sitting there on a plane half asleep reading off a piece of paper is crazy to me that they think that this is the best way to do it The reading did seem a bit more egregious in this one than ones in the past. Like, he was straight up just like right off. What do we got here for you?

Definition of a super fight here, Jack Della Madelanah versus Islam-Mackachev. Yeah. I somewhat agree with you, but it's not going to change. He's committed to doing it like this. In truly practical terms, the less time they spend on this, the better for business. so they will just continue to spend less time. God, it's so much cooler when they do real promos, though. Oh, it's a thousand percent cooler.

They're capable of incredible production. Yes. And it's not like they, oh, we have to worry about someone scooping. Like, who's scooping you? No one's scooping you. No, these big fights rarely leak out anymore. MSG, man. It's MSG.

Although didn't Habib scoop him? Remember Habibu? He did kind of story. Yeah. Also, like TikTok editors are putting out better video. Yeah. Now, okay, so how do we feel about... But that's the point, right?

Those TikTok guys do the... They do the job. You do it. You get it free. Listen, it's a byproduct of their success, to your point. Like, all they have to do is just say it, and then we do the rest. But you just kind of wish there was a little more oomph because this is good shit. Care more about your own product.

Yes, this is good shit. Yeah, make a quality product, don't just only care about dollars and cents. How do you feel about Jung having to vacate? Now, we haven't heard from her, but it's now the third straight time. So clearly there's a thing here, right? Yeah, it's a thing. Haporia. Yeah.

Hated. Stupid. Champion versus champ. It's so much cooler if she was going for double champion status. I also don't think McKenzie Dern is deserving of this title shot against Fiering Jan Jiroba as well. I feel as if it's not like that card. That card, the Abu Dhabi card, doesn't need a title fight. Correct.

It has Tom versus Gunn. So like you, two weeks later is this fighter. Three weeks later, it's way cooler when it's Champ versus Champ. Once Islam Makachev got stripped, I knew that this was the future. Oh, imagine Islam versus JDM was Champ versus Champ. Yes. If anybody deserved it, it was Islam. Islam is a long-reigning champion, the pound for pound number one.

And if this guy gets stripped, then there is double champ is done. There is no more of that. They will not stomach that anymore. And that's fine. If that's their decision, I think it's stupid. I think it really hurts the whole reason we care about Jean going up is because she's the champion. The whole reason we care about Islam going to face GDM is because he's the champion and did not lose that belt. So I think it's silly.

I think it's stupid. And you talk about a promotional tool. A double champion is a quick way to build a superstar. I mean, it's obvious. They're just afraid of the leverage that it gives the double champion and they can't have that back again. Like the Connor McGregor thing that kicked off, you do not want to ever live in that world again. And that's their prerogative. That being said, what a freaking card.

Great card. Great fight. Holy shit. I mean, way better than last year's card. Last year had the weird John Jones-Stepe. It had, you know, Charles versus Chant. Like this is too I mean you can't get any better

than these two times JDM versus Islam is unbelievable Zhang versus Valentina holy shit I saw some people nitpicking oh it's not that great or they should be main event

Wait what's not that great Who cares Oh it's not MSG worthy The card? Or that Valentina versus Zhang should be main event Like they deserve Who cares man

It's incredible You're getting two incredible title fights And Praches Leon Which by the way I said it right before we left there was no way in hell that Leon was going to Brazil but I knew that they wanted to make that fight

and so that's why the fight is not happening in Brazil there was just no way in hell that he was doing it so here we are we're doing it in MSG what an opportunity for Pratchez he gets the one one he loses to Ian he gets the one win think back he loses to Ian gets you know somewhat derailed you don't know where he's going in April

comes back incredible knockout he can end the year with a win over Leon Edwards and right back in the mix at 170. In the modern U.S. activity kind of cures all. You don't really need that momentum anymore if you jump right back in there. You can get a big knockout like he did

and it's just like, oh yeah, cool, you're back. Did he leapfrog, Ian Gary in terms of the wealthy weight toilet conversation would have win over Leon? If he gets a knockout like he did in his last fight against Leon Edwards, probably. It's amazing, isn't it? Ian needs a fight.

Sean Brady needs a fight. Yeah. Leon coming back before Sean is surprising. now they could book him I mean I'm assuming they're going to book him at some point in the next couple months

he'll fight again in 2025 I would hope but yeah I mean where's Michael Morales at too oh shit yeah look at umov

versus Kayo as your best example of like in the modern UFC there is no more like this guy deserves a title shot you need to be the one who's active

you need to have the best win most recently and if you've got that you've got a good shot because if Fluffy comes out there and gets an incredible win he might jump Mavov and Kyo.

Like, you just need to be the one at the timing of when they need to fill that slot for a title opportunity. You need to be the most active and with the best win. And that's all. And Carlos Prachis hopping right back in there is smart strategy by him. Yeah, that's another fight that was announced right before we left. That was the Fluffy Hernandez versus RDR fight, October 18th in Vancouver. Speaking of Kyle, by the way, just a quick aside. Did you guys see his promo that he dropped yesterday?

I did not. Oh, my God. You would love this, Pizzi. he dropped a promo with is it Macailelli from the French national team This is Imov's promo Claude Macalette?

What did I say? What did I say? Coyos, I believe. Oh, sorry, yes. Yes, Claude, yes. Imov dropped this promo of where it's like, it's done so... Did you see it G-C? Yeah, so it's incredible. So good. Old TV of Kyle saying like he's not really French,

this guy's not really French, he's not really French, da-da-da-da, and then it's like shots of France versus Brazil soccer, and then it's Claude telling Imov like you are French do it for the country and then he's like

standing there on Chonsea I'm like this is incredible they need to steal this In the old school French national New Jersey Yeah but that team in 98 That won the World Cup That's what that was all about

There was a lot of African players in that team It kind of changed everyone's belief and what is a French person And all that kind of stuff That card is so fucking good Do you know what do you WWE have like noita champions

Yeah This is like European MMA's night of champions I was counting them earlier. There's 12 different champions from all of the kind of regional promotions that usually end up in there. So there's KSW, Bama, Cage Warriors, Octagon, FEN, M1 Global, KSW. Like, it's fucking, it's an incredible car. This is one of those things that years ago, before Contender Series, because that's the reason why this is happening, people are rushing to the UFC a lot quicker.

Like, you get an opportunity a lot quicker to get to the big dance with Contender Series, which, kind of chops the legs off the regional scene, but it does allow for these things where years ago, even like when Bama and Cage Warriors around, they were both on the same stomping ground, the UK, we'd be like, oh, fuck, I'd love to see this champion fight this champion. This card is pretty much it, and I believe that, and I've said this for a while now, France is the capital of European MMA right now. And these cards have taken on the shape of like a European card as opposed to, look, there's lots of French names on it, there's no denying that, but they kind of represent Europe a lot more than the UK cards do, which used to do that. They're very

UK-centric now, I feel like France is taking over the mantle of being that big European show and showcasing the best of what Europe has to offer. Like the very, I think Reese McKee v. Sola, like, so Ares champion v. Bama and Cage Warriors champion, Reese McKeague, that's a fucking banger. There are so many good fights in that guy. By the way, very, very well said, did you guys happen to see any of the footage from WWE in Paris this weekend? I heard it was crazy.

It's the best fucking fan base in the world, those guys. They were at the La Defonse Arena, which is about 30,000 for pro wrestling, it is some of the loudest, most insane crowds that have ever seen for pro wrestling. Like, I've never, I thought the Leon crowd last year was the Crem de la Crem. And I, and I say somewhat, you know, very biased, like, uh, it was great bias that Montreal is the best. They blew Montreal out of the water. They were insane. And, and brilliant, I think of, first of all, brilliant on TKO's part. And this is another thing that Nick Con brought to the table. Like, he understands the sports landscape. And so rather than sometimes going up against, like,

major sporting event, okay, there's no NFL. It's college football's first week. So let's do it, let's do it Sunday afternoon. So we're not going up against college football on Saturday. Most of their PLEs these days are on on Saturday. And then we'll do raw Monday afternoon, Labor Day, when everyone's kind of sitting home, getting ready to go back to school, going ready to go back to work, not do Monday up against the Bill Belichick debut on ESPN. Like they find their little nooks and crannies perfectly, that crowd was unbelievable and it was the perfect table setter for UFC coming this weekend, and the crowd is going to be unbelievable as well. By the way, also while we were away, WW getting out of the Peacock deal early, who saw

this coming, and they're going to start on ESPN as of September 20th with the new Russell-palooza pay-per-view, and highlights are now airing on SportsCenter, and it's just a wild time. Like, who predicted this? W.W. PLEs on ESPN proper, UFC headed to Paramount, top rank still doesn't have a deal.

It's crazy. I don't know how I got on this tangent. Anyway, back to this weekend. Kayo versus Imov. I think it's one of four Brazil versus France fights on the card, and they're playing it up,

which I love as well. Oh shit, I didn't realize. Yeah. They're playing it up. Maricio Huffy against BSD in the co-mate event. It's a great card. Back to MSG, though. MSG is phenomenal.

MSG is phenomenal. I love that card. I freaking love that card. And that fight card comes the day after Tank v. Jake Paul on Netflix. So what a weekend. It's like last year all over again where it was Tank versus – excuse me, Jake versus Tyson and then John versus Steepay. My favorite thing about how that whole thing rolled out

was when some reporters reported that the fight was going to happen on November 15th because it got leaked by the Netflix Turkey account but obviously for them it would be November 15th but here in America it was November 14th but they tried to hide it behind sources say anyways it's November 14th State Farm Arena Atlanta, Georgia Jake Paul versus Tank Davis

still as of now we don't really know the details we don't really know the details as far as like, okay, what weight class? What are the rules? You guys talked about it. You guys had to digest it live on the air. What do we think about this now two weeks later?

Feel exactly the same as I said. Can I just bring up one thing? Look, I'll say straight up here. I think I'm working it. I think I'm working the press conference too. So, you know, good luck to me. But this is what I was thinking. Because I understand and agree where everyone is coming from, 100%.

I even said it on the Logan Paul podcast. I said, if I have to choose between Jake versus Joshua or Jake versus Tank, I'm taking Jake versus Joshua just because they're closer in weight. They ended up going this route. Fine. If this, like, I was just saying Eddie Hall versus Dylan or we're sort of romanticizing pride where there were super fights and no weight classes and stuff. I'm not weighing in, I was just one, as I was trying to think, okay, like, why is the reaction this as opposed to that?

If this same situation gets booked for like a rise in show where it's a guy who's 200 pounds against the guy who's 135 pounds, that's what they fight at, generally, I'm sure it'll be a little bit closer, maybe 200 to 150, who, like how much bigger can tank get? Why would that be somewhat celebrated in MMA, but in boxing it isn't? Do you know what I mean, Pizzi? In MMA, like, we sort of love the freak shows, but in boxing they don't. Why do you think that is? What does that say about us in MMA? Well, we're a sick bunch of fucks. There's no doubt about that.

But I will say- You agree, right, or no? Yeah, like the idea of the MMA freak show is everybody coming together and saying, oh, we're going to watch a freak show. This is what this is. We know what this is. It is absolutely mental.

But we're going to watch here. I think where people get annoyed with Jake is like, you know, he even got me. You know what I mean? This guy is the greatest outrage farmer of all time. I saw his tweet. And I was like, Readney, you know what I mean?

And I was like, well, this is exactly what he fucking wants me to do. You know, like this is, every time I'm doing this, he's in the game of getting eyeballs. And this is ridiculous. As long as like, you know, why do I like an M.M.A freak show? Why would I watch Eddie Hall in an M.A fight against Dylan Dennis? I'll be like, this is fucking ridiculous and I have to watch it. That's the way I feel about Jake Paul and Davis. I will watch it.

It's ridiculous. You know what I mean? It's all of us. getting together to go to the circus for the evening. I think the reason why there's pushback against it when Jake does it is because Jake, and obviously tactfully, is going like, what are you talking

about? This guy's a world champion. I took out Mike Tyson, he's a world champion. And then I'm going to take out Canello and stuff like this. Like he's winding us up. He's not agreeing to the stipulation that we're all agreeing on, which is this is a freak show. This is absolutely mental. As long as we

can agree with that, we can all enjoy it collectively. But do you not think he does agree to that. Do you not think he knows what this is? No, I do, I do. Like, I think he's tactfully, as I said, I think he's tactfully saying, like, oh, I'm going to take it this real champion. Even if he's promoting it the other way, I've been very consistent

on my Jake Paul thoughts. I will really reiterate one more time. I would rather see this because it's a spectacle than him versus Ryan Borland or Andre August or chasing these like champion, quote unquote, championship dreams and boxing. I don't think he's a championship level boxer. I don't really care about that journey.

I want to see him in spectacles. Netflix is going to air Jake Paul versus Tank Davis. So to me this is You think it will do well? It will be watched. It will be watched.

Yeah, it's going to be huge. A lot of people are going to watch. I would rather see Anthony Joshua just because that has been put out there and is on the table. But I will watch this. I saw some people bringing this down on,

it was a non-fight pod. It was, I don't remember which one. And they were saying like, oh, tank's going to kill him. Tank's going to kill him because he won't be able to touch Tank and then It's kind of like the Tyson thing again though right It reminded me of that but it also reminded me of like

Oh In barbershops across the world people or at least the country People will talk about this and be like Oh tank's going to kill him because he will not get hit And then it'll be like No Jake's going to kill him because he knocks people out Because they think that he is the highest level If you don't really follow boxing and he's too

200 pounds as opposed to 135 pounds. And so I'm like, okay, maybe this is the hook. Maybe this is the brilliance. I don't know. The brilliance is that Netflix says they want it. The brilliance of all of this is Jake Paul having Netflix go, we sign off on this, we want to air it, let's do it. That's all he needs.

It doesn't matter who the opponent is because he is getting the eyeballs that he needs. Him, Nikisa, MVP, they make smart business moves. Because if you're fighting lower level guys, you're fighting on DeZone pay-per-view. Yeah, you're fighting on DeZone. Or you're just in a, in a hall in Florida, fighting a guy that nobody's ever heard of. Like, what's the benefit of that?

They aren't going to avoid that shit. No, they don't want it. Like, you're saying, like, I want to see this. Like, lots of people do. That's when Netflix are involved. You know, like, they know what they're doing. Are there safety concerns? Not for me.

I think Tank is a capable enough boxer to protect himself there. This is where, like, it transit. Mike Tyson, I had much more concerns about the tank. Is Tank probably going to get knocked out? Yeah, like, it's pretty likely the size. I don't think so. How?

How could he not? I don't know what's going to happen. I think it was fought with the intensity of the Toyson fight. Oh, no. Oh, so you think he catches him? So you think he's going to carry Tank. I don't think these are exhibition fights. Oh, interesting.

So high level in his prime. Oh, interesting. I think that'd be bad for Tank's brand. I think that'd be pretty catastrophic. I think that's what exactly what will happen. Oh, wow. Okay. You're saying Jake Paul decision.

That's interesting. Man, I don't think Tank wants to... Yeah, I don't think Tank wants to that. His only loss is to Jake Paul? But he's saying, I don't think it'll get put on his... I don't think it's going to be an official box. But only loss, like any loss, period. Like, he has no losses.

He has one draw. And I think, by the way, that's part of the reason why the boxing community doesn't like this is because the Roach rematch. The plan was always you beat Roach and then you fight Jake over the summertime. And then the Roach thing, happened and it screwed everything up. And so Roach is upset. And rightfully so, he was going to get paid a shitload of money.

And maybe he still gets it. There he is saying he's ducking. And so if you're a boxing fan, you're like, there's a great fight right there. We're like, we finally have you in some sort of rivalry. Like, go, take that fight. He doesn't take the fight. He takes the Jake Paul fight.

But I don't think he's going to be okay with the idea of him losing to Jake Paul. Certainly not in his prime. Is there a chance that he, by the way, being the year, remember, he said, I'm done in 2025. Is there a chance that he takes him? this fight and then disappears, I also have a hard time believing that. I have a hard time believing that. I have a hard time believing that, but I don't think he's going to

want to have a hell. It's great negotiation tactic, though, right? Like, oh, I'm finished. Come and get me. Tyson Fury has done this 14,000 times. Yeah. Zipuri's been retired more times than anybody in history. He's not going to want Jake to beat him. And I don't think he's going to allow that. Yeah, maybe this is it. Maybe this is the hook. What the hell is going to happen? It's the hook every time. It's definitely the hook. It's a massive name in Jake.

Jake Paul, massive name in Giovante Davis, and this whole massive size differential is going to get people to watch. Are there odds, by the way? He's so big, though. It is kind of ridiculous. It is ridiculous. But, like, that's why it's fucking... So was fighting 58-year-old Mike Tyson.

It was also ridiculous. Like, that is the fucking market, buddy. Like, that's what he's going for here. And then we're going to be like, oh, watch out. Someone might get fucked up. Then they'll go the distance. and that's what's going to happen. I said this on the show.

Ahead of the Mike Tyson fight, I was going to bet Jake by K.O., but you, on the crack, said he's going to carry Mike Tyson and convince me, and I didn't. You may have done it again. I know you're doubting me, Rick. No, now I believe you, but you may have convinced me out of it. I just don't...

Tank, unlike Mike Tyson, has so much to lose by doing that. It would look so bad if he had Jake Paul just like pitter-re. pattering with them. Yeah, but like, um, I think,

I think it will only be remembered until he fights again. I've located odds. Oh, tell me. Oh, I'm actually, I'm actually, I actually want to, I want you ought to guess them.

Legit, legit place? Legit place? It's an offshore book, but you can place a wager right now. But we've heard, we've heard of this place. Oh, of course.

Okay. Jake Paul, minus 140. 3-3-5. Jake Paul minus 350 for Rick. What did you say, Pizzi? Minus 140,

like Paul. Okay. Jake Paul. Jake Paul. I'll say Tank Davis minus 150. Boy, though, I have an investment

opportunity for Rick and Matese. Javante Davis, minus 400, Jake Paul plus $1.50. Minus 400? This guy is an incredible boxer. See, that's why I picked him as the favorite, but I didn't think it would be that big. No, no.

Minus 400 is crazy. I get that he's an incredible boxer. He is half the size of Jake Paul. He is a literal. He's a literal. Half. You cut Jake Paul in half and you've got Tank Davis. How? How can this man this small beat? I don't see it. I just don't see a bat to victory. In a legitimate fight, it makes no sense. I will be all over that. I assure you. Is he four for four? He's four or something, right? That'd be generous, I bet. He's a, he's a we lad. Yeah. Is he actually five foot four? How can he even punch Jake Paul's face is what I'm wondering?

Thick a meal, baby. This is he has to. This is going to look crazy. Does he have to get on a six one? on a ladder to reach Jake Paul Look that You guys are crazy Jake Paul It's also a crazy thing

It was kind of a crazy of both By the way I feel like he's He's giving himself some extra I don't know The Frederick M. Brown

on getting images Oh my dear Oh my gosh What a fucking Right here right now If they were to legitimately fight You're backing

Tank Davis in a fight with Jake Paul, legitimately bought. I didn't say that. No, I'm asking you. They're not going to, it's going to be an exhibition. Like, stop like, Ariel, you picked it. You picked it. No, this is how to get you.

I really don't know. I really don't know. I don't know. We mean get you. They've already got us. We're going to be watching. Can I tell you what I'm most fascinated? What else is on this card?

Because it's not just going to be this one. And Netflix wants something big, right? They'll need the queen of boxing to save them. They'll need the greatest. Oh, Katie. You think Katie's on it? Well, it worked the last one. Work the goddamn.

charm. That'd be great. Katie versus Amanda 4? No. Why not? I'm sure of work at this stage. I can't go back to that well. I am curious.

Chantelle Cameron. Yeah, Shantel Cameron 3. Oh, against Katie. In Atlanta? Fucking yeah. I mean. By the way, G.C., you go?

Fucking yeah. You didn't even talk about the Atlanta component. Am I going back to back? What's back to back to? Go on Friday in Atlanta. Catch a flight back to New York and go to MSG. Well, we all remember you were on the first flight to Atlanta to see walking Buckley against Kamar Usman, surely you'll be at State Farm.

Will, oh, never mind, never mind. Whoa, what? I was going to say, will we have prior engagements for the Friday night? This is the crazy thing. Yeah. It's good news, bad news for the people, yeah. We were going to do a live show on the Friday night. Yeah, I forgot the math process that one in real time.

We even had a venue booked and all. Fuck, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'm not coming to New York. Remember I was saying Newark, we're not doing it for Newark, we're going to do it. We had everything. And they picked the date. I'm sorry, everyone.

Maybe next year? No, we'll, I don't know. ATL one-man show? Should I do it an ATL? ATL one-man show, Halwani with a mic on stage, that's it? My mom and dad have good network connection. You can do it from the crib. Should I do a kick stream from there?

Just walk around the streets? 12-hour, baby. Would be watching. Also, are we certain we're kick people and not Twitch people? Oh, right. Is it, so it's Twitch, it's KIC. Jordan dropped in the metrics, and it seems like KIC has the highest payout

in terms of these things. So that's why you potentially want to go with them, so. All right, well, let's talk, guys, if you're open. We're now on FAST, so we might as well go on KIC as well. Speaking of which, I do have to pause for station identification. Not yet. Don't hit the button just yet. Two hours commercial free.

Where else but here? I did want to bring up just a couple other things. Shanghai has come and gone. We're going to talk to, we're going to talk to, obviously, Al Jermaine Sterling. We all agree. Brian Ertaker. How many times have I said Brian Ertagan needs to stay at 155? Never.

Why does he keep coming back to 45? I don't understand it. He looked awful, missed weight, horribly lost five rounds to none. It's time. Because I think he's still a very good fighter. But he's killing himself making this weight. And so let's see where he goes from here. Who would have thought Johnny Walker with the win over?

for Ming Yang Zhang, fake love touch and all, goes for the takedown, this guy. Just when you think he's done, he goes in there. I mean, if there was ever a fight where it was like served up for him to lose and we're trying to make our next star in Shanghai, it was this fight, and he goes in there and stops the guy.

Shocking. I actually watch this on the train, and there's his bro. I watched this on the train to Florence. It was a great time. I was having a great time on the Trent Italia, the high speed train. I was like, what a life.

We get to do this, not have to react to it. Holy shit. Johnny Walker, still alive. Had the little weird, like, three-pronged little thing, you know, in the extra adapter is very strange. But anyway. By the way, speaking of Florence, I wanted to give a big shout out to our friends at Champion over there. I went to one of their flagship stores. Friend of the program, Lorenzo, let me know where it was.

Went there. They couldn't have been nicer. My kids got really cool sweatshirts. and they put these patches on, and then he has another store right next door to the Duomo, and it's called Game 7, and you would think that you're in a sports store in the middle of New York City.

Like 20 years ago, last time I was in Italy, to walk into a store and see all this NBA stuff, you would never see that. It would only be, you know, soccer jerseys. The amount of, like, American type of sports gear really blew me away. Of course, my son got an Italian back, Basketball jersey, custom jersey with Dante Divencenzzo's name on the back, which I was very proud of.

Dante was supposed to be on the Italian team for a Eurobasket, but then got hurt. But anyway, it was very cool. And so shout out to Lorenzo, shout out to Game 7. Shout out to the Champion stores. If you're ever in Florence, go check them out. Great, great stores, great stuff, very high quality. And Champion is huge over there. I told them I was friends with Big Tom.

They said who? No, I'm kidding. They said, oh, the heavyweight champion? I said, yeah, the man himself. And so, yeah, I just wanted to give them a shout at as well because I was very impressed. I was very, very impressed. Have you been watching the Eurobasket guys?

Anyone? Yeah, I haven't. Okay. It's been great. Slovenia was shocked early on. Luca had a triple double. There's been some surprises. Israel's three and one just clinched their spot

in the Sweet Sixteen beating Belgium earlier today. Beat France a couple of days ago, which was quite the shock. Everyone very upset about that. Denny Avdia, the man. Anyway, I've enjoyed it. You could watch it on DeZone. What about your guy, Fabian Edwards, Pizzi?

Three years almost, oh, Pizzi's gone. What happened to him? Bathroom break? Fabian Edwards, three years, essentially to the date of his brother's head kick knockout of one Kamar Usman Fabian Edwards head kicks

Dalton Rosta wins the PFL middleweight tournament and it was so spectacular that my first thought was holy shit this is spectacular holy shit it's sort of like his brother

and oh man if I'm Johnny Eblen I might actually get leapfrogged here which by the way I did predict before this that they would go immediate rematch with Paul Hughes and Usman well not immediate but you get the point

make the fight after Coachman was telling us it wasn't going to happen, and that they would not do it for this one, where they would give the tournament winner the title fight. Fabian's probably going to get that title fight against Costel Van Stenis. It's a great story. I mean, it's unbelievable. Also, the fact that it was essentially three years to the day, depending on how you look at the time zones. I know a lot of other people were even more excited about the hard launch. You guys saw that, right?

I saw that. I did. Oh, Dakota. Rasta? Yeah. The first couple of BFL. What'd you think about the hard lodge, G.C.? Elton Dichita. It's crazy kids.

What'd you call him? What'd you call it? Dalton Dichita. And the matching suits, the Barbie and Ken. Oh, my God. You can tell how excited G.C. is about it. Yeah. Why are you so, why are you no selling it?

What do you want me to do? Like, fucking out. Okay, cool. She's got a boyfriend. All right. It was, I was thinking, of our guy fat. He's got a girlfriend, too. He shout out to Thad. Also our guy Jake. Don't forget, man. 22 World Championships. He shot his shot and got rejected.

In the stands, right? In the stands, after she'd want to fight. Asht him to go eat. She's stiff-armed him. So I'm praying for my boys right now. Yeah. Birthday, bro, Thad Gene, and my guy, Jake. Oh, that's right. That's right. Yeah, yeah. Good for Dalton, though, you know. That was a tough loss. Yes, yes. The loss was tough. The knockout, yes. The knockout, yes. It was tough. A head kick thing is crazy. Three days of the year. Three days.

Yeah. Well, it was technically, I think if like the time, I think it was. I love how you're getting into my new show of the time zones and the specificity of when this took place. It's pretty fucking close, man. Like, we're good. I think it was like two years, 364 to be exact. That is so much less cool than 365 just because also there had to been a leap year in there at some point. So 365 count it.

Sure. Sure. Oh, that's a good point. Actually, was there? I think the last leap year was 20, mm-hmm, 24. Yeah, 24 would have been a little bit. Yeah, yeah. I remember the leap year, I remember Joseph Benavides and Davis and Figuero fighting on February 29th of 2020.

Wow. What's so funny? What's so funny? Nothing. What? You can't, welcome back, Pizzi. I was trying to set you up to talk about Fabian Edwards and you left me high and dry. Yeah, no, I'd have to have a piss.

What do you want me to do? For a damn, listen. They say technical difficulties. I'm just going to do it was my ass I'm just going on what you said Okay I'm just going what you said Fabian Edwards

Can we just say Tell tell us Nearly didn't get into this fucking tournament Do you remember they told them We were doing our draft Oh that's right He's not fighting

Yes He's not fighting I rang him He's like I'm going down to be Ma's restaurant I'm going to get stuck into A load of fucking jerk chicken

Fuck this Blah blah blah hour later You're actually fighting The Light Heavyweight Champion in your first fight So he immediately gets back in

Get on the treadmill goes, goes in and KOs and KSanganoi. Oh yeah. Gets into this next phase. He meets Dalton Rosa and Dalton Rosa was giving him

all kinds of shit in the building up to this fight to the point where if you go back and watch the clips, Fabian can't fucking believe the shit that this guy's talking to him. Like he's in disbelief. He's like taking his headphones off

going like, what the fuck is going on here? To every European, and I've said this on the crack as well, to every European person who was looking at these exchanges, Dalton looked like the dude that plays the captain of the football team and is a bit of a bully in every American coming-of-age drama we've ever seen over here. So it was absolutely bizarre to watch. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, K.O.

What a guy. Like, this is a long time. These fucking brothers, can we make a film about these lads? Yeah. Like, this is absolutely incredible. The situation that they were in before they found mixed martial arts completely turning their lives around to the point where they are beacons of hope for the kids in Birmingham.

They put in a lot of work as well, speaking to kids and showing them the way forward. Leon, headkick world champion. Now Fabian head kick tournament world champion. Absolutely amazing. And look, he's got history of Kostlow-Ventzina's as well. They fought before to a split decision. That's a very tasty rematch for the European scene.

I think Eblen's being jilted a little bit by it, but fucking hell. Those Edwards brothers, someone signed me up for the Hollywood biopic. it would be absolutely unbelievable. It was beautiful to see them embrace afterwards as well. They're fucking legends, the two of them. Love those fucking guys. Fabian embracing Leon three years ago

and now Leon doing the same for his brother, having his moment, finally, getting a big moment as he has been somewhat in his brother's shadows. By the way, what about your man, Kiefer Crosby and Mark Goddard? What do you think of this?

There's beef. There's beef. There's beef, yes. To put him oddly. Whose cider are you on? I was out son of myself, and I was like, fucking Kiefer is angry. Yeah. Woof.

A lot of people weighing in. Someone left the comment on Goddard's page here. God, I liked it. And then Kiefer responded. Disliked it. Disliked it, yes. Oh, no. Am I sore loser?

Oh, my gosh. What do you think? Bad words right there. And there's a lot of bad words. Well, here's the thing. Kiefer, like, you know, that was a must win fight for him. It's an incredibly emotional experience. Dreamed about being in the UFC his whole life.

It was one of those moments. You know, he got caught with an illegal shot. And Goddard asked him, are you ready to go? He says, yes. So they started it up again. You know, I understand Keeper's frustration. Like, the people who are getting onto him are being like, you should have played the game more, mate, you know?

Pretended you were a bit dizzier than you were or whatever. But I don't think Goddard's doing anything wrong. here either like obviously the illegal shot is the is the is the bad situation if he doesn't fight at this point he probably gets a DQ win and but obviously he doesn't want to go out like that and it's just a just a tough situation for for everyone involved like I completely get the frustration that Kiefer has and but luckily for him like he has a huge fan base in Ireland like we've said this before and people paid a lot of money to go and see him fighting Bellator for all those years like he was one of the big guys selling all the

tickets out there. I think if he wants to go again, even in something like a misfit situation, he could be great there. He knows how to sell a fight. But I understand the frustration, and I think in that spot Goddard's in, you have to make these seconds and, you know, these split-second decisions. It's a

horrible, horrible situation. It's the hardest job in the industry. You're just going to catch flack the whole time. So it's a rough situation for everyone. We've covered a lot of ground in these first two hours. There's more ground to cover. more news and notes.

We're going to be joined by our guests now. Now we have a little break as far as the discussion. It's so great to be back, right? Is it not great to be back, guys? It feels good to be back. We've got new cameras in here. We've got all kinds of new trinkets. We're going to be joined by Charles Johnson,

who had a massive win on that Shanghai card. After that, Mackenzie Duren, after that, Tom Lawler, after that Al Jermaine Sterling. And then we'll wrap it up with some other news and notes. For now, though, a quick, quick, two-minute break. grab a drink, grab a snack, pausing now for station identification. I always wanted to say that.

They say that on the baseball games. This is for our friends over on the Fast Channel, the Yahoo Sports Network Fast Channel. We return with Charles Johnson right after this. Back in your life, finally. We have a lot to talk about. I didn't care about a big fight or money. I cared about the heavyweight title.

That's all I've ever been bothered about. Join us for the entire first round live on Yahoo Sports. is the biggest shock of the draft. Super Bowl 59 on Radio Row with Jaden Daniels. So you're on a spot like that. Here with a first time Olympian, Stefan Curry. You and LeBron's relationship has had to a ball.

You can see blood on the other side but still have the utmost respect for who you're playing against. You know alerts on your phone. On Katie's thinking about leaving. Where is this coming from? Coach Prime. Dion Sanders. They don't put a gold jacket on your back and you don't know what you're doing.

The head coach, the Los Angeles Chargers, Jim Harba. It's like being around greatness. How does that feel when you? you hear that. Shador's a future. You know, you was the first one like I ever hear say that like, that's why. I'm thankful. And they're going to be here for a long time. Now

to a fun part of today's program. Like, I literally went to college with Chris Paul. Like, he's still in the NBA. He could not hit another home run all year and be a great seat. Yes, correct. I got to make an admission first. Oh, God. I grew up a Boston Red Sox. I knew that. You know, I used

to hate you. I've got to a point. where I can smell you guys. And I think winning with the Buccaneers put him in a completely different level. He has greatest resume of any quarterback in football history. They have a chance to get to the Eastern Conference Finals and winning. The realist in me says that ain't happening at all. I don't want to treat you like a regular journalist because I feel like me in UFO. Yes, no, I appreciate it.

I would put Travis Hunter in that same category as those two players. The difference between he and Romo Dunzee, Travis Hunter is just a special, special athlete. I actually think this is a smart decision. by them. This is what we're going to bring in. This is who we are. This is the style that we're doing. And it was a long, beautiful conversation. What a fun interview, Nate. Hey, thanks, coach. You know, like, I'll talk. How after talking to people for so long? This is my life. Okay. I could do this for eight hours. Got it. Wow.

There you have it. The brand new Yahoo Sports Network. See, that wasn't so bad, right? That wasn't so bad. We've listened. We've upgraded. We've adapted. We appreciate all your support very much. Coming up, Al Jermaine Sterling, Tom Loller, McKenzie Dern, but first, first guest of the day, first guest in year two. Yeah, year two. This is officially year two. Amazing. Had a massive win over in Shanghai, an incredible win, incredible finish. A lot to get into with the man they call energy, not energy, energy, Charles Johnson.

He's kind enough to join us. He is the pride of St. Louis, and he'll be joining us for the very first time on this year program after his big win over in Shanghai. loner Kavanaugh. Charles, my man. Congratulations. How are you? Good, brother. How you doing? I'm doing great. What a victory. What a time? What a look you have? By the way, if I'm just looking at you with the hat here, I think you have a full head of hair. What's going on up top? Can I see what's happening? You already know what's going on. What's happening? What is that? What is that? What is that? What is that? No, this is just a me thing, man. The skullet was birthed in Thailand. It just came to be from happenstance

And it's here to stay right now Can I see how it looks right now It looks like your head But we're hair in the back Why don't you want to show us? Yeah, there it is It's legendary, man It's legendary

So you birthed that in Thailand Yeah, man When I got to Thailand I cut all my hair off And I was taking like a razor To my head And back of my head start getting irritated a lot from doing that.

So then I just let the back kind of grow for a little bit. And then I'm into like triangles and stuff like that. So I start putting it into a triangle initially. And then it just started letting it grow after a while. And it just is what it is. You even have the merch. The hat says, Skullet Gang. Yeah, yeah.

That's the pirate crew right there, baby. I love it. Why are you at the triangles? What's up with triangles? I don't know, man. I just, I feel like you need three points of contact when you're doing Jiu-Jitsu. There's a lot of three with three that, like, make something like indestructible, I feel like. So I just always been drawn to the pyramids, always drawn to it.

Wow. I think it has a lot of meaning to it. Okay, well, I love that. Very deep. I got my three P's I go by, prayer, positivity, and perseverance. You know, it's just, I don't know, it's just something that I'm. I've been vobbing with for a long time now. The three P's, where did you get that from?

How did you develop that? So when I went to school, I was going to Division I school, running cross-country and track on scholarship, full scholarship. And after my first year, I lost my scholarship because I failed a science class and I trying to, being stubborn, I tried to take it the second semester with the same study habits and I failed it twice right so when I got back to school in my sophomore year I didn't realize I was shorter credit and when I got to campus a week early for practice they told me to go to financial aid office and then come to find out I had lost my scholarship because I was short one

credit and that kind of like started this journey with MMA really because my sophomore year of college I lost my scholarship. I couldn't run track from being the best freshman in the conference to not being able to run my sophomore year with high hopes. And then I had to figure out where I was going to live, had to get a job. So I had to get some things to keep me in place, you know, keep my mind on what the task was to be in school and finish school.

And I came up with the three-piece, put them on my walls, and just had to build some inner strength and some goals around myself to keep me focused on what the task was. Wow. Prior to that, any martial arts background? Yes, so when I was about the year before I got to high school, I started wrestling. So if you would say, yes, any martial arts background,

it was like high school wrestling, but it was like one summer before high school, And then I wrestled all throughout high school. And I was a, I wrestled in the largest class in Missouri. And I made it to state every year, but my freshman year, but my senior year was the only year that I was able to garner all state honors, which is top eight in the state. So, so why do you go from track to MMA? Like, what's the thought process there? How do you say, okay, this is what I should do now that I'm in this pickle?

It just happened, man. And after that second year, after my sophomore year, I went back home to reevaluate some things. And I call him my brother, but my boy who I wrestled with in high school had been fighting for a while. He had won some amateur belts on the Midwest scene and had about 30-something fights. And he was set to fight on a show called Blue Cornel Battles in Kansas City. And another guy on the car was fighting at 135. and his opponent fell out and he was 3-0

and I trained with my brother for like a week and then he told me about the fight because like you want to fight and then I was like I don't know man let me talk to my dad because my dad trained me my whole life and at the time he was wanting me

to transfer to Morgan State and run Division 1 and so I was like man let me talk to my dad and then I called him back an hour later I was like yeah I do it fuck it so I took a fight with no MMA experience

just training with him in his mom's basement for a week, and I went out there, and I beat the guy. He was, like, a stand-up fighter. I took him down every round and beat him up. And, like, I have been in fights, but I'd never been in no MMA fight. So I kind of had an idea, but I was out there, like, Bruce Lee, trying to throw both hands spinning and shit. But after he hit me once, I was like, yeah, fuck all the striking.

I mean, I just started wrestling, so the rest was history. I won every round, and then I was hooked because being a cross-country athlete, and a wrestler nothing had ever made me that tired before and after the first round i was couldn't like really punch i was so tired breathing hard and these were like three minute rounds amateur i was like man this is crazy so uh i was hooked that's what hooked me the the exhaustion from a three round amateur fight well you've come a long way since you had an incredible 2024 it seemed like you were knocking on contender status door and then you lose in 2025 earlier this year And so how are you feeling going into this fight in Shanghai?

How's your confidence? What are you thinking? You're trying to get back on track. You have a chip on your shoulder. What's going on in your mind? I don't know what you're talking about. I'm six and all in my last six fights, so I don't know what you're talking about. Okay, I like that.

I went into Shanghai, and Shanghai, I was just ready. I was just excited. I got to fight in China. I always wanted to go there, and I got to fight another undefeated prospect, take his shine and I knew it was going to be a tough fight but from seeing a couple of his fights in the UFC it didn't seem like he carried the same mystique about him when he stepped up the level of competition he looked really talented really skillful but the mystique was gone like I saw him go three rounds twice and I knew the type of fighter he would be obviously he has

the potential to get better each fight but also he's been fighting a lot longer than I have so I don't think he's going to look too much different as opposed to me like i look different every other fight so for it i think i'm harder to match up for it and these guys who've been fighting their entire life and you kind of know what you're going to get once you get see a few fights of them so um saying hi was just like it was a blessing because um it put me right back in the conversation for where i should be anyway um based off of my last six fights and um i'm excited about what's to come So the fight on March 1st, you're viewing that as a win? I mean, do pop for illegal substances, something less than a month after I fight.

And I don't know the whole story behind that, what it was. I don't really care what it was. But, yeah, I don't view that as a loss. I view a guy who went out there through big shots and ran for the last 10 minutes of the fight. and yeah man that's fair if you look at the track record of the guys I fought and look how that fight was fought

and then you really match me according to the championship level if that's a five-round fight I finish that guy much like many of these other guys so I don't put as much weight until these three-round fights because I don't think you see the full potential of championship caliber

misch martial artist I reported after your fight and this was from your manager Brian Butler that you were for lack of a better word, kind of in a tough spot and I didn't really know how to feel about this and so I wanted him to ask you if it was okay to put this out because it's somewhat personal

regarding your financial situation heading into the fight. Do you feel comfortable talking about it because it just made the victory feel that much bigger and more important that you did it with that kind of pressure on your shoulder and I understand that you're getting ready to welcome a new baby into this world as well so probably a lot going on in your mind.

Yeah, I didn't like the headlines but at the same time it is what it is. is this is what it is and uh um i wasn't too comfortable with it but it's just i mean uh yeah my bank account hit the red uh before the fight uh that's a reality that fans don't get to see um you can be in the UFC fighting killers and uh still wonder if you're going to have enough to pay the bills the next week sometimes uh that's not a complaint i'm not upset with anything that's just what it was And that kind of shows you and gives you a window into the risk that us fighters take in this business with everything that comes with it outside of actually fighting. And so we sacrificed for glory long before we see the check.

And it's kind of like that wrestler mentality too. But luckily I'm in a position in my career now where I go out there and handle business the way I did. I don't really have to think about it too much more. And you got a bonus. Yeah. So you're all good. Did you become a dad yet? Not yet.

Babies do any day now. Wow. My wife's a champ when it comes to this, man. She carries it really well. You wouldn't know until she turns to the side. But the baby's sitting low, and that belly's getting bigger and bigger. So any day now. First one?

Second. Second. We have Gia. Gia has been at most of my fights since she was born two years ago. And funny story, she met Dana before I did. She went to his suite in the Apex, and he was hanging with him when she was about, probably about eight, 10 months, I think it was so at that time, 10 months or 12 months. I think she was a year maybe.

But, yeah. That's incredible. He's known throughout the UFC brass. They know her when they see her. Was it hard to be in China, were you worried that, you know, know maybe she you know she has to go to the hospital early this is on your mind right that's a long ways away of course of course but my wife's a trooper and uh she understands she understands what what the task is at hand so um yeah she when i had fought cody durden april 29th of

2023, Gia was due on May 13th, and she came May 8th. So it was very similar, so we had faith. Thank God, thank God. It all worked out, and obviously wishing you guys the best. That's a very, very exciting time. Almost as impressive as the knockout win was the freaking post-fight interview, man. I mean, you were, that was unbelievable. Where did you learn to speak like that?

in China. While you were there, you learned all that after a fight. You were able to talk like that. Like, Aljo said, like, one line. He said one word, I think, in his post-fight. You had a whole conversation with the crowd. Yeah, man. So I like doing that.

Like, I met my wife in Thailand, right? So I was there in 2020 right before COVID, and I was there for about 20 months. And that's where me and my wife met. That's when I really experienced a culture and a different language full time, like all the time and uh i really embraced it and since then everywhere i traveled try to learn a little bit at least the greetings hello goodbye and the thank you's right um just little thing so

i was in china for about nine days and every day i tried to learn a new word and incorporated into conversation when i went to the pi um hello goodbye thank you good morning um how are you and i'm well So I learned those. And then about three days before the fight is when I constructed the post-fight speech with my coach. He was like, you know, Wei Lee said this. I think it would be cool if you said it to the fans as well in Chinese. And I say, yeah, that would be dope. I want to do that because actually I seen Wei Lee a couple days at the PI

and I was saying stuff to her. She was responding and she told me what to say. Wow. So I would just bounce some different stuff off different people. every time I've seen them at the PI throughout the week. And then they'll tell me, oh, you have the dialogue, like the pronunciation is like this. They don't know what you say. It has a sound like this.

So they helped me out a lot. And I still didn't do that great the second half of that. But the first half was on point. It was peak. So I was happy about that. And so how does the PI, by the way, compare to the one in Vegas? How is it in general? And how does it compare to the one in Vegas?

Vegas is amazing. But the one in China is way better. Really? A lot bigger, higher ceilings. It's in a huge warehouse and it's so much space. And basically the PI in China is tailor-made for all those guys going through a road to UFC and everything. They have like meal plans. You go through the locker room.

They got lockers. They have like the coaches set up their training. They have like a weight regimen, a training regimen or everything set up for these guys to be successful. So it's like their home. team gym it's like their team gym and it's a it's amazing to see like i go in there i see them practicing running a full practice and they're doing jiu jitsu and i'm like man their jiu jizu is looking good i didn't think it was that good you know and uh man they're working so it's it was an amazing facility from top to bottom on the strength of conditioning area PT cafe everything it was nice man

And ours in Vegas has a lot to the back side of it where it's like a lot of business stuff going on there. And then the front side is where the fighters are. The workout area was much larger in China. Okay. And I really liked it, man. It was a nice facility. By the way, speaking of training, is it true that you're training with my guy Gabe Davis,

formerly of the Buffalo Bills, potentially future Buffalo Bill? Is that true? That's my dog, man. Yo, my dog, man. One of the greatest games in Bill's history, four touchdowns against the Kansas City Chiefs. You remember that? How do you know him?

He's been rocking this same hat. He's been rocking it like every workout, everywhere you go. People ask him about it. He rocking with me, man, that's my guy. And we're doing something special out here. He just left, he left town, and you should be hearing an announcement from him soon about what he'll be playing soon.

Okay. Yeah, I'm excited for him, man. He's been putting in a lot of work. So you guys trained together? Yeah, a couple days ago, we were just doing strict to conditioning, and we haven't trained him. We had our first workout together. I've, like, done pads with him and things like that.

So basically, I got his little brother into MMA. His little brother had some serious injuries with football. He was playing defensive end in college. and he was kind of in this point where he didn't know what he wanted to do. And probably about more than half a year ago, I started going to the Draft Academy, which is where Gabe does all his recovery, his facility. And I met them and then kind of like persuaded his brother to come to Fusion Excel

where I train at. And the rest is history. He's been showing up all the time. He trains with my multi-coach full-time. And, like, he wants to pursue this with everything he's got. And he's, like, 24, I think. So he's got time. And, yeah, so, like, me taking him under my wing.

Gabe, really appreciate that. And then just me being me. Like, we just genuinely, like, rock the same way. Because I'm there all the time, working my butt off, doing my stricic conditioning and PT. So he's seeing me. so he respects it. By the way, we were in the midst of our show,

but apparently just a couple hours ago, Adam Schaefter reported that he is going to sign with the bills and we'll be on the practice squad and then return to play. So there we go. Gave back on. Is that official? That's from Adam Schaefter. So, I mean, you know who he is, right?

He's one of the top reporters. Yeah, is that official? I don't know. You tell me, is it? I don't know, man. I got to wait to see if it's official. All right, fine. I'm about trying to get you.

I know it. I know, but I don't want to leak nothing. No, no, no. I'm not trying to get you. I'm excited. That's my guy. I'll never forget that game. Four touchdowns against the Chiefs should have had the winning touchdown as well. That's a beautiful thing. By the way, on your way to Shanghai, is it true that you were flying there and then had to go back because someone was smoking on the flight? No, so we had an elder Asian gentleman on the lane, and he suffered from dementia, I'm told. Oh. And so he was having an episode on the plane. So about an hour in, they make an announcement over the plane. Passengers, please be aware that someone was smoking in the bathroom.

There are no, smoking is not allowed on the plane, blah, blah, blah. And then a little bit later, one of the flight attendants walked up to me, said, hey, we may need your help because I told him who I was when I got. got on the plane because I was trying to switch some seats up. I was sitting in a comfort in a nice spot, but I was trying to move up for the flight. But it was kind of too late at that point. But then they were trying to see what they could do for me. But then when they found out what I do, later on in the flight, when this was going on with him,

he was like kind of being aggressive towards his wife pushing. And he was, like, he smoked in the bathroom. And like his whole thing was, I think he was just trying to smoke, right? And then they say he was trying to get off the plane. And so they end up cuffing this poor old man. Damn. And sitting them down. And then they were like two hour, like an hour later, they were like, oh, we're sorry.

We will be returning to L.A. There's a medical emergency on the plane. I'm like, what the fuck? So by the time we get back to L.A., the dude's been chill, sleep for like two, three hours, bro. Like, bro, we could have been insane eye by now, man. Damn. Yeah, so it was about four and a half hours

over the ocean, turned back around to L.A., get to L.A., got to wait a couple hours for new flight attendants before we fly back out. They got to refuel the plane, clean the plane. Oh, my God. Then put us back on the plane, and then fly back to Shire.

So it was a, it was a... Look, my coach say, man, And if something, if it ain't wrong, it ain't going right, you know, with us. Because it's always something. My first fight back with the hell of fame, our flight got delayed. We missed our second flight. And then we had to stay over the night in Chicago. I had nothing with me because all my bags went with another plane.

I had to cut weight in a trash bag. So, you know, like, it's been something throughout my whole career. Like, where is something going on? So, like, at this point, it's just like, all right, if it's just normal. It's like this supposed to happen. Damn. In a trash bag. Did you make weight?

Hell yeah, I never miss weight on that. No, I know, I know. It was just like, yeah. I'm a professional, babe. That's right, that's right. Former LFA champ as well. And so now you're right back in this.

That's right. And a win, by the way, in the UFC over Josh Van, who's fighting for the UFC title, we presume at some point in the near future, maybe later this year. By the way, who do you like in that fight? Josh or Pantosia? It depends. If Josh can keep the fight in the center, he has a good chance.

If Pantosia can bully him to the cage, then is Pantosia's world. You know, Pantosia does a good job at walking through stuff, being extremely durable, taking punches, and just throwing whatever he wants at you to grab you, put you on the ground. So in my experience, when I fought Joshua, when you shoot from space, even if you put strikes in front, front of him he had really good hips and he has a low center of gravity so it's all going to be about if pantosia can get the mat the fight to the mat and um or get his hip and just take his back and control him for a while i think joshua opposes a significant risk because he has he's has that low batters box he's going to be very box oriented and he's going to be a sprawling broad fight that's all the fight he needs to fight.

He's not going to take risk like Ercig did and try to wrestle with him. I don't think he's going to take those type of risk. I think he has a very good chance at just outpointing him and beating him up if he can survive the rough part of the first two rounds and not get his back taken. How far away are you from this conversation,

in your opinion, after the win? One fight. One fight. Who gets you there? Nobody's doing what I'm doing that flyweight, Whereas maybe Manel cop, but I haven't seen him one punch knocking anyone out. It's usually a volume and angles, a lot of volume. But I don't see anybody hitting people one time and they're going to sleep and get knocked down and finished.

So we know your fortune changes fast in this weight class. And the reason Figurato shot to the bell because he was knocking people out, right? You kind of leapfraud people when you can put people out. So if I can continue doing what I'm doing, I've knocked down every one of my last opponents. I've heard them and had moments to finish the fight in each one. So for me, it's just about continuing to do what I'm doing. And they'll eventually see what they want to do. And I think I'll make a strong case for myself.

you there in your opinion well brandon merino or uh roy val again i for him in lFA or um one of those four guys you know at the top that's been there uh just anybody who's so you just you ask i was just offered um the dude who plays in the office and he didn't accept because he he's getting married, so... The dude who plays in the office, you mean... Yeah, so... Steve Corel? No, Steve Urseg?

Yeah, so... That's understandable. When would that be? It was MSG, bro. Oh. So, we'll see if... But everybody else is booked and hurt, so I think I'm going to miss out on an opportunity.

That would have been amazing. What about Tim Elliott coming off the big win? Bro, I will literally fight anyone. I don't care. I don't care who they put in there with me. I honestly don't care. It's MSG, bro. Are they still going to try to get you someone for MSG?

Because that's such a big opportunity. I think Mick is trying, but he's kind of caught up with guys that are hurt or unavailable, you know? You were in? You wanted the fight. You were down. Yeah, it was done. Like, it was just, we were just waiting on his answer. It was practically going to be a, it was, the fight was going to be made.

It was, and who says no to MSGs? I was like, yeah, I'm going to fight, Steve. Cool. But we had to wait on him to respond because he's, it's a different time zone, right? I'm sure that's what it, and it took a couple days. And then when we got hit back, he's getting married. So for me, I said, I asked my wife, I was like, bet, if I pushed the wedding back, even though we was planning for like a year or two, would you be?

mad. I say I'm fighting the MSG, but she understands the assignment. That's the whole point. My wife understands the assignment. The wedding is something for us to celebrate, you know, and MSG is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I feel like fighting there. And no guarantee you're going to get booked there ever as a fighter in the UFC. It's such a huge card.

So for me, I'm praying it still happens, you know, and we're just going to put out that good positive energy. and we'll see what happens. What did she say, by the way, when you asked her that question? Her initial reaction was... But then she thought about it, she was like, yeah, no, mind.

We could push it back as... It depends on how many people we invite it because people plan around things. But a lot of her family in Sweden and they have time to, like, take time off and stuff like that, so we would have figured it out. Well, I hope you get that. My wife's a trooper, bro.

Yeah, respect, yeah. Of course, she said, Of course she said yes, like, come on now. Respect, respect. And at some point, you know, we saw DP walk out with Little Wayne. At some point, we have to get the Nelly Charles Johnson walk out, right? Actually, I just met with him in Vegas. I saw him in Vegas and talked with him for like five minutes.

And he had a concert after the fight week, right? Yeah. And we talked. And I was like, bro, you got to, if I, if they have a, another show at St. Louis of Kansas City or whatever, bro. We got to get you to one of my fights, man. Like, you got to get you out there. You got to show up.

You got to show up for the city. I know you've been showing up for 20 years, but I'm saying for me, and it would be different. It'd be iconic for the, like, people will go crazy. They love it. He was like, all right, all right. And, you know, so hopefully I can connect with him and his team, and it makes sense because he's still a busy man, man. He's still working.

He's still scheduled. So it would have to line up correctly with his schedule. but I think we can make it happen, honestly. I honestly do think we can make it happen. I would love to see that. I mean, he's in a legend, an absolute legend. MMA fan? Is he a fight fan?

I don't think he's, I don't think he's, like, too much aware, but it's all about knowing somebody with this sport, you know? Like, most people who wasn't M&A fans became an MMA fan overnight because somebody they knew or knew of, you know, and watch them, and like, now they catch it every show every other week. Then they catch it every week. Now they're MMA fans. And so that's how it starts.

That is true. Well, keep doing your thing, my man. Congratulations on the win. Very, very impressive win. Great backstory. Easy to root for. By the way, do you know the other Charles Johnson? I always think of the former Florida Marlins catcher.

Do you know him? No idea who that guy is. Okay, well, he's not important. He's an old-timer. Your time is now. His time was in the 90s. You're killing it and very happy for you. And also good luck, most importantly, to your wife, to the baby.

I hope everything goes smoothly and everyone's healthy and safe and you can enjoy that time and hopefully we'll see you here in New York in a few months' time. Thank you, Charles. Appreciate it. Yes, sir.

That'd be dope. You're the man. There he is. Charles Energy Johnson. A big win for him. His boy, Gabe Davis, maybe joining the bills, also trains with the likes of Phil Rowe

doing big things in the flyweight division currently ranked number 13. on a five-in-one run, but he says he's won his last six in a row. And who the hell am I to disagree with Mr. Johnson? Former LFA flyway champion as well. In a matter of moments, we'll be joined by McKenzie Dern, who'll be fighting for the vacant strawweight title

on October 25th, UFC 321, Eddie Hatterina, Abu Dhabi, fighting the number one ranked Vierna Janjiroba, who was sort of waiting in the wings. She was one ring. Was she either going to fight Zhang Wei Lee next or was she going to fight for the vacant title? Well, she found out while Dana White was on his Instagram live on the flight home, we're about to take off following his meeting at the White House, which by the way, he said White House show is on.

So I've always believed that. I've always thought that that was going to happen. When they said it the first time when the president himself said it, I had a feeling that they weren't just talking. And so as of now, we are still 10 months away. it looks like it's happening, but he did announce that Virna Janjuroba is going to fight

for the vacant strawweight title and the co-main of UFC 321 against one McKenzie Duren. McKenzie Duren getting an opportunity to fight for her first UFC title. She's won her last two in a row. Win over Lupi Godinez in August of last year,

and then in January of this past year, defeating Amanda Hebas via third round submission with just four seconds less. in the third round, won a performance bonus as well. So this is a big opportunity for someone who has been in the game now for quite some time. Her MMA debut almost 10 years ago, amazingly, July of 2016. It feels like it was yesterday. It feels like it was yesterday.

It's unbelievable. Had those issues making weight. Remember all those catch weights and all that stuff? But has really found her form as of late. And so that will be the color. domain underneath the Tom Aspinall versus Surreal Gun title fight. Speaking of the heavyweight division, by the way, right before we went on air, did get word from John Jones' team that it appears as though he is in the clear.

This is the statement that I received. John Jones charges drop by prosecution. There's the uncrowned story. John Jones misdemeanor charges drop for the latest run-in with Albuquerque Police. The prosecution has dismissed all charges against John Jones after a thorough review of the Albuquerque Police Department's case. The dismissal paperwork states, after further investigation, the state has reason to believe the defendant's alibi defense is credible, end quote. John's attorney Christopher A. Dodd of Fairburg Dodd LSC said in response to the dismissal, we have been fully vindicated. From the very beginning, we explained that a woman made a false allegation

against John in an effort to avoid being arrested for a DWI. And unfortunately, the police accepted that claim without properly weighing the facts. Once the relevant documents were finally disclosed by the police department, John's cell phone records made it undeniably clear that he was nowhere near the scene of the crash, we are grateful that the district attorney's office took the time to conduct a full and fair review of this case, which ultimately confirmed John's innocence. At the same time, it is deeply troubling that such critical evidence was disregarded forcing John to endure this ordeal unnecessarily. Our investigation into how this occurred remains ongoing. So there you go. All charges against John Jones dismissed. So,

So I would say that's good news for John Jones, as he continues to hint that he wants to be on the White House card. And perhaps this opens the door to him being on that card. This is all very fresh. Dana White said there was, what do you say, like a billion to one shot of him being on the card? He also said that the Jones-Aspinall fight was 100% happening in 2025. So who knows? I don't know. He's not so good with the numbers.

Yeah, the math is weird. But I would say that's good news for John. it's not it's one less thing cleared from holding him back at least exactly good yes uh gable steveson his uh his teammate is going to be making his lFA debut first reported on the boys in the back yes by somebody who called in and didn't give their name we have no idea who to credit that's how sources work that's how sources work uh not only his lFA debut but his mMA debut as well uh he has drawn the ire of one craig jones he was supposed to compete

against craig on the cj i two card the second night the main event he pulled out. Craig says all kinds of things. Who knows? But he took a lot of heat. I did reach out to Gable and Craig to get their side of the story. Let's see if they come on. Craig posted a bunch of

stuff, wasn't very happy with him. Gordon Ryan weighing in. Gordon doesn't like Craig. There's a lot of drama, by the way, in the Jiu-Jitsu world. Did you guys notice that? A lot of drama. Yeah, there is. All kinds of madness. But Craig's trying to do this thing. I do wonder if this will make Craig say like, you know what, it was a good two-year run, but I'm done with all this.

Well, in his opening remarks at CJI, too, he was like talking about how great it's been so far. So, you know, he seems to be having, he's found something here. Yeah. He seems stressed there for a moment. Well, yeah, I mean, this was a thing that I think people were going to tune in for, and then Gable ruined it. Yeah. The thing is, if he's about to, I was always a little bit, I was always surprised that Gable was doing it. for this reason

Gable Steven is an Olympic gold medalist he then went over to WWE it didn't work out he then went over to the NFL it didn't work out

his next thing was going to be going up against a jujitsu black belt veteran legend whatever you want to call Craig Jones

in a match that he's never with a rule set that he's never competed in that was going to be his next thing and then he was

going to go over to MMA Once he signed the LFA deal and once he decided that he was going to go to MMA, I was like, what's the upside here? Why put yourself in this position? And so I wasn't necessarily shocked. I don't know ultimately the reason. Like he hasn't weighed in on it. So if it's an injury, it's an injury.

But if it's an injury, then how is he able to fight in, you know, I think it's like 14, 13 days, whatever it is. Something didn't add up there. you know what I mean yeah so a conspiracy theorist could have some ideas on on how this all played out what's the conspiracy well

Craig Jones has a beef with the UFC you think the UFC got involved yeah Greg Jones you would think that after his LFA debut Gable Steveson much like Boehickle and others before him would kind of find their way to the UFC it would behoove him to not

promote Craig Jones's uh jujitsu thing and you go from there does seem like a perfect dana white contender series guy i mean he's not had a single mma fight so maybe a little bit soon if i'm like a pf i try to snatch this guy up i don't know if it's possible but these are the kinds of guys that pf like when he fights in lFA and anywhere else people are going to watch and we're going to talk about it and so it's news they have to try to get to him early or misfits you know either or misfits uh gable versus dylan Danes? That would be insane.

Water we're doing here. No, that's true. That's true. So anyway, Gable, the reason I went from, well, I went from Tom to John to Gable, the heavyweight through line there. See what I'm saying? While we have some time, shout out to our guy, Oban Elliott. He's got his next booking September 28th in Perth.

up against Jonathan McAuliffe. There you go. 28th in Perth, 27th here in America. The Welsh gangster is back, baby. Comeback season. S-ZN. Yeah, you know yourself, Oban Elliott, it's ready to go. We believe in you, Omar.

Wait, did I say Omar? Oban. I was looking at Umar Namaga Madov versus Mario Batista, UFC 321. That too was officially announced. That's an interesting one. That's a big one at 135. Huge one. Mario getting the push coming off the big win over Apache mix.

That Abu Dhabi card coming together, slowly but surely as we round out the ESPN era. Armin Terukian posted a soon message, what that means. Is it going to be Armand versus Ilya? I kind of feel like, I don't even know what to feel because I think that Armin versus Ilya is. is the rightful fight to make, if that makes sense. But I can almost see them doing like Ilya versus Patty on the first Paramount card or first Paramount numbered card. But anyway, anytime Armin post something of him eating, I can't help it feel mesmerized by it all.

But it's good to, I mean, he's going to go maybe the whole year without fighting once. That's crazy. Speaking of teases, Josh Van, also tweeting something that would imply he's got some news. there you have it big josh that feels like december paperview written all over it it does but is it main event probably not you think volk versus lorone that makes sense volon josh pantosia there you go booked that's how the last ESPN pay-view comes to an end i fuck so that by the way

not for nothing you know close your ears if you if you're part of the ufc's washed community the two October pay-per-views and then the MSG and then if that's the last one is not a bad

stretch of pay-per-views. You know what I mean? Also, I know they're not pay-reviews but the

fight nights are not bad either. Mixed in between there. Vancouver, Rio. Right.

The Noce one coming up. Paris. Paris. That's right. It's not bad. UFC announcing that they're

going back to Salt Lake City next year doing the whole TKO takeover thing. There you have it. Friday Night's

Macdowns. It's You have C numbered event. It's interesting that they put that. Why? Just instead of like pay-per-view. Obviously, pay-reviews are dead. Yeah.

I guess that's going to be the official name on it. Yeah. What's all the commotion back there? Oh, you know, we're just dealing with something. A lot of moving parts. Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. Haven't heard much from Drichus Duplessi since the loss, but he did post something on Instagram, which seemed to imply that, uh,

He's in good spirits, post-loss. I've seen a bunch of interviews from his coach, but not much from him. Do we have the Instagram? Jerkus? Yeah, standby. Okay. Stand-by for station identification. There it is.

Oh, gosh. The text is, it's been just over a week, and I've spent some time with my family and friends, those closest to me, who will be with me, win or lose. I embrace this loss with open arms, because believe me, as much as I hate losing, it's as much a part of life as part of our game, and I believe it's necessary in my pursuit of greatness. Without the bitter, the sweet wouldn't be as sweet. Make no mistake, I'm not a good loser, because a good loser becomes a frequent one. I am, however, an avid learner of the arts and of life itself. This loss has exploded a desire in me that will have the consequence

of an onslaught bigger than the original domination, my return to glory and pursuit of greatness will be unimaginable for the average-minded. It's not a bad line, by the way. I've absolutely no excuses for my performance. I was beaten by a better fighter on the night. Congratulations to my opponent. And thank you for the honor of sharing the Octagon with you.

Thank you for all the love and support from fans all over the world and my sponsors that I've always and will in the future play a critical role in my success. And sincerely thank you to all those. who enjoyed to see me fall because I'll return the favor like I always have. I believe in the plan of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for he knows best and I can't wait to see what he has planned for me going forward. How about that? It's not a bad statement. I like that middle

part there. I always love when they thank the haters. That's always, it always feels very sinister. Thank you. Thank you for inspiring me, you, you haters. Thank you for inspiring me to come back stronger and shove it down your throat. Anyway, let's move on to our next guest, as we said, getting a chance to fight for her very first UFC title goes down October 25th, UFC 321. Abu Dhabi, vacant UFC strawweight title. It's Viernaz Janjiroba against Mackenzie Dern, the aforementioned McKenzie Dern. Kind enough to join us right here. And now on the program, there she is.

Hello, McKenzie. Hey, area, how are you? Where are you coming from? training oh my gosh well thank you for squeezing us in we appreciate it and hope you're doing well

congratulations on getting this opportunity when did you find out that you were fighting for the belt so they were kind of talking about the interim belt they had said an interim belt and that was like maybe I don't know

three weeks ago four weeks ago they were talking about it but they weren't sure if they were going to do it and then like okay they're going to do it but wait until they announced it and then I found out my Instagram that it was going to be

for the actual belt when Dana announced it so I texted like Tiki I'm like wait is it the real bell or the interim belt is like oh it's the real bell so yeah that was just like very recent the like the change

not that the entering ball but of course we were happy with the entering belt but still it's still bell and it would be like the next step to getting you know the belt but the fact that it's for the real belt definitely

put the extra happiness and gratefulness on it. Yes. So you found out like all of us at the same time? Yes. Wow. That is wild. And what was your reaction? I mean, it's a lot more prestigious to be the actual champion.

Yeah, I mean, I was super happy. Everything is the same, you know, five rounds, the same opponent, the same place, you know? But, yeah, I was super happy. and just like, yeah, I got to, I can't miss this opportunity. This is the first time I'm going to fighting for the belt. You know, it's against someone who I beat before, but who after I beat her went on and had like this amazing role run and feed all the girls that beat me the way I wish I would have beaten them, you know,

just like taking the ground and like submitted or just basically dominated, you know? So it was five years ago. And yeah, I'm super excited. I think this is a great matchup. And I mean, I know Wayley, if she ever, when she wants to come back down, she'll fight forever out about that, you know? So interim or the bell, I still think it makes sense.

And, yeah, I'm just really grateful for the opportunity and I'm going to make the most of it for sure. Are you surprised Wayley vacated the title? No, I'm not surprised. I mean, I think, like, depending on how her fight with Valentin would be, if it would be anything like Alexa, in Valentina, they could do, like, a trilogy, you know, and all the stuff. So I think it's just kind of, you know, it just makes sense, you know, not to put the division on hold.

And she was so dominant in the Strawway division, you know what I mean? It's just like everyone that they were throwing at her, she was just beating. So, I mean, I think even if she wants to come back after the one fight with Valentina, I think that it would make sense. But, I mean, I figured maybe she'd want to have two belts, you know, But I think depending how her fight goes with Valentina, she might want to have like a trilogy or something like that. I was talking before you joined us that it's almost going to be 10 years

since your MMA debut, which is crazy how quickly time has gone. Your debut was in July of 2016. And I'm wondering, considering you were so successful in the world of Jiu-Jitsu, was this always a part of your plan? Was this always a goal of yours to become a UFC champion? Or is it something that you were just kind of thinking, like let me just see how far this can take me and if it does take me to this spot,

great, but if not, no big deal because I've already had so much success in another world. How did you view the title when you got into this? No, I wasn't even thinking about the title when I went into Tome Bay. I just wanted, like I said,

the UFC, they signed me before I had even done any fighting in MMA at all, before LFA, before Legacy. So they said, they signed me like with the developmental plan and they said, try it out, see if you like it, if you do want to stay in it, you know, I'm signed already with them.

If not, no problem will, you can stop and then go back to Jiu-Jitsu, whatever I want to do. So I went into it like, oh, round around there, everyone was just like, yeah, you should do it, you know, you're really good at Jitsu, and you can go into, like, movies and this and that. And, like, I had just won, at 2015, I won all my major titles in Jitza, Blackbell, 2016, so it was kind of just like, see how I do if I like it. And then if anything, I was like 23, 24, I'll come back right now. I think I was playing too, that I can come back to Jiu-Soo, but I started growing. I think actually my fight with Bina was one of the first fights when I, like, kind of

realized, and I thought, like, okay, I think I have it in me, you know, because I broke my nose, and it was kind of just like we stayed all three rounds striking, and, you know, she was way more experience than me, just by, like, she had way more fights and he picked and all that kind of stuff. So that's kind of like, I was like, okay, I think I really want to get better at striking and I want to, like, take this serious. Like, no, I took it serious, but I started, I started growing into seeing myself as a champion. I started fighting girls that ended up fighting for the belt, you know, or like, young,

just like these amazing strikers and seeing, like, how I was handling them and seeing like, hey, okay, I think I can be like a champion, a world champion in a different sport, you know? So that mindset of a champion started ruin to me. It wasn't something that I was just, like, you know, like I said, my dad was against me, doing in a name. It's never like a thing that, you know, I've never imagined me to even like MMA. So for me to be here, a blackbell in Jiu-Situ, like, completely raw with striking and even wrestling and stuff like that. And to be basically like a blackbell in MMA now, because in my opinion, if you're fighting for the belt, you know, that's like the best

of the best in M&A, you know, you don't need the best striker or the best wrestler, the best jitza, but it's just you need to be the best that sport, you know, which is, and that's, everything can change, strategy, athletic, everything. So we know about the jujitsu success, the MMA success, but what about this poker success? I see you on these celebrity things. What's going on over here? Are you some sort of stud poker player?

No, I mean, the same thing. I mean, maybe one day I'll get there, but yeah, I just started out playing Blake Wayne and Hayes Pollard there, the owner, the creators of this amazing celebrity poker event where they get like NBA stars, UFC fighters, YouTubers, just tons of different

amazing, like, characters, you know, and put us all together. And then most of us, you know how to play when we started, you know? So, but actually, like, when we started seeing each other at more and more events, you can tell all of us, like, even, like, the YouTubers or the comedians and everything,

we've all been, like, trying to get better and better. So I got a couple sponsors with poker now. I competed out, like, the W. Sophie, like, the one in Vegas. I was like two months. So I just like kind of, it's like so, it's so good to just get your mind in a competitive and you have to read people without getting punched in the face. You know, it's something you can do for like the rest of your life hit you want to.

So it's, it's really good. I'm like, I've gotten some good results, but I have way more to, to learn and just get better at. But yeah, it's so much fun. We saw you, Paolo, Colby, Aljo of the four of you who did best? Oh, bohashina, Paolo. Really? Yeah. I've been to a final table with Colby before.

He got second and I got six. Bohashina, Paolo, he took me out, which sucked this time because he was right next to me. But at our initial table, that was nine. There were nine people at each table. Four of the people went to the final table at the end of the event. So the final table was nine. So half of our table was half of the final table. So we had a really tough table.

And that's what poker's about, you know. You have some bad hits sometimes that you didn't. Paulo Beavis was like a six and a seven. I had like a pair of aces. I was like, what the heck? Why would you play with it? But, you know, it is what it is. You know, at least the UFC fighters, they went pretty far.

Algeman went far. Paul went far. Kobe went far. Nice. But next time I'm running itself. I love it. By the way, did you happen to check out the CGI event this weekend? No.

No, I was with the poker event and everything like that. I saw, like, the results. I saw Sarah Galvon. I was actually just training with Sarah Galbo, who's the daughter of my best friend, Ajalika Galvon, and Andre Galvon. And she did an amazing fight. I saw Greg with Chauceau on it.

So that was, like, really crazy. And then just kind of like the teams, I saw, like, basically the highlights and stuff like that. But I wasn't able to go and watch and everything. There was some debate. I'm just curious your take, because some people said the quintet format led to not a lot of activity and maybe some stalling. UFC is getting into it now. There's a war between Craig and UFC.

Is all this good for Jiu-Jitsu to have all this chatter around the sport? It feels like it's getting a lot more attention than maybe five, six years ago. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think any type of competition or marketing or any way that people, try things and see like hey this doesn't get a lot of you know submissions and end of the day I mean people want money so if they can bring money in for jihitsu and you know people are going to get paid by getting submissions you know not just like winning stalling I think even in like MMA too you know you can see the fighters that will win things like just by stalling the whole

time and maybe they get far or maybe they'll you know even win like a title or something but you know I don't think it's going to be like a Charlize de Bronx who has like, I don't know, the most bonus from bonuses in like the UFC basically because of how many, you know, just that style of like trying to finish and stuff like that. You know, so I think just anything, any type of organization, the competitors, you know, that's always good. You know, just something that's evolving all the time and it never stops. Every new position that comes out, there's always a new defense that comes out. and then they've come with a new position to defend that defense, and then it just keeps going and going and keep going. Will you compete in UFC B, BJJ?

I don't know. They pay me enough. Yeah. I want to. I definitely would like that to be my contract, you know, just to keep me, you know. I just trained Jitsu now in San Diego with Andres. So for my upcoming fight against Bina, who's Agrippler, too, you know.

So definitely my Jiu-Jitsu against, you know, the girls that are 100% Jiu-Zo. competitive, it's like a little bit rusty, you know, and I've definitely liked to have those events at UFC, um, digit to be able to like, just keep me on point, you know, keep me at least not rusty with my digit two. You know, going into your first title fight against someone that you beat, even though it's five years ago and she's much improved, that has to give you incredible confidence, right? Usually you don't go into a title fight against someone you've already fought and certainly

already beat, it has to feel a little bit different, right? You're probably anxious. You're probably have some sort of nerves. There's probably some sort of like, you know, I don't know, anxiety going into a fight like this, but, and it's such a big deal for you, but you know her to a degree. Oh, yeah. First stress, it's really important that you've never fought before and you, there's like in the back in your head, like, do you think I can do it, you know? Like, there's no doubt in my mind that I can't do it, you know? But like, I have, like, in my mind, I know, I know I know I can do it because it's been done before. So the only question is if I can do it again and, you know,

Craig, get better, focus on me getting better. And I know for sure she's going to bring new stuff. Her team is going to bring new stuff to the table. So you just got to be prepared for that in fighting, you know, basically a different burn out, you know, although we both know that our strengths are grappling, but we're both totally different fighters. You know, I was watching my fight with her last time. And I was like, man, I was so, like, petite.

You know, I just like didn't really have any money. muscles and I was just kind of like very like very girly girl and you know I'm way more athletic now and just kind of was able to grow the muscle and like get a way more mature athletic body to be able to fight for the championship now you know what I mean so definitely in her too I mean I think she just had I think she's had a lot of good fight IQ with the fights and I think my whole thing my whole journey and the UFC has been like a lot of emotion and um kind of going to like battles that I didn't need to but um at the same time I know I've been through a lot more battles than she has you know so I think I'm really hard to break um and I think yeah if she's

gonna beat me I think you would have to be something like knock me out or something in me I mean I think like she would probably try and like you know maybe steal the rounds you know maybe get a takedown and then just like the rounds and kind of maybe a little bit stalling more stalling tactic too but yeah i just i'm i'm training to beer like in all the areas you know like physically mentally emotionally technically technically strategically striking grappling wrestling everywhere because i feel like that's what you need to do to be a champion that is true i also feel like there's something maybe a symbolic something beautiful about the fact that it's happening in abu dhabi uh given your your your bad

background title fight in Abu Dhabi you've had success in ADCC you know what I mean did you think of that yeah no for sure definitely I mean I won I won my world title which was like a belt when I beat Gabi Garcia in Abu Dhabi which was April 25th in 2015 and I'm fighting in 2025 so 10th like on October 25th in Abu Dhabi so I think that that means something yes and by the way are you are you training horses as well now yeah i'm learning how to jump i'm doing like english writing you know we bought a horse yeah that's apollo shout out yeah paolo he's such a good boy he's like he's not a perfectionist at nothing but he's six and he's good at he he knows how to do a little bit of everything you know so he's a good boy and i i used

to do western writing i used to do like barrel racing and stuff like that so um but the whole like english writing came from moa she wanted to do that So I've been doing lessons with her So yeah We've been high phone But our biggest thing is just like We'll go and take him out And it's just kind of like my time with Moa

And we'll, you know Listen to music and we'll just go And we'll be a vibe It's just a vibe You know, he's such a good boy Where does he live In your backyard? He's, no

He's like five minutes from my house He's on a question center You know There's like stables and stuff Man So the jihitsu, the poker Or the MMA, the equestrian surfing as well?

Surfing? Any surfing? No. No, not recently. Not recently. I mean, I love surfing. I love, like, the competitions. And Moa, Moa just won her first surf competition. Wow. She got first place. Yeah, so super happy for her. Just, she's really excited about that. But, yeah, I haven't really been in the water.

I've been just training a lot. How old is she? She's six. Six, and she just won her first surfing competition. How do they judge these six-year-olds in the surfing competitions? Well, she'd be like a 10-year-old and a 12-year-old. Wow. It's just like standing up and just like keeping the balance on the wave

and how far they go on the wave, you know. Like if they go all the way to the shallow end and if they're able to do any kind of like movement on the wave, you know, like a little bounce, you know, or like a side. So that's kind of how they ring it. You know, they count the points on those little things. Is she starting to train as well to, like, to really show interest in what you're doing, or is it a little too soon?

Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, like, she had the first week of school last week. Then she wanted to, they had to take, like, three objects that represent herself, and she wanted to take my UFC glove to represent her fighting career. Incredible. So, yeah, she's feeling like a fighter right now. She, like, put it on. And she's like, let me see if it fits me and everything.

She was really, she's really like it. Is she going to be at the title fight? I don't know. I got to see if her dad will let me take her. Right now, he's saying he doesn't want to let me take her. Oh, no. We'll see. We'll try and figure that out.

Why not? Why not? No, he just doesn't want me to take her because he doesn't, says that I don't let him take him to all his surf competitions. Oh. I'm like, but I can't miss school. They're still school. And anyway, it's just, I mean, it's a title fight, you know, and Moly's, like, always been at my fight.

She'll go, like, Friday and come back on Sunday, Winston Vegas and stuff like that, you know. But Abu Dhabi, it's like, she was there at my last fighting in Abu Dhabi for two weeks, but I was during summer vacation, you know, so I had the vacation. But this is just how it's, it's just to be difficult, you know, you know how it is. I get it. Or maybe you don't know. No, I understand. I understand. I understand.

I totally understand. Your dad will be there. My dad will be there. Look at my dad. Oh, there he is. The legend. What's that, my man? Bomija.

Bonija. What's that? Yeah. Wow. What a cameo. That's incredible. So he will be there, yes. For sure.

He will be there. We'll get there early. We'll get there a couple weeks early just to get training. I'll probably get some, a little bit training with Pimpo. Alan Pimpo is in Chimai'Ev's corner. They live out, he lives out there. So the grass. playing part, it's a part, just to, you know, get the last adjustments for fighting

Vietnam. So it'll be good. Okay, can I ask, before I let you go, can I ask the legendary Megaton? What does he think of his daughter fighting for a UFC title? After all these years, my friend, what do you think of your daughter, how far she's come? Oh, man, you know, I think this kind of shot coming the right time, man, you know. She's been, you know, walking hard for this. we're looking, you know, for this, you know, opportunity and the opportunity happening, and we go take, man. You know, UFC 321, this will be have a new champion. So wait, her name is Mackenzie Dern.

Are you proud of her? Oh, proud, way proud, much proud, more than proud. I don't know. Right? I love it. I love it. Well, good luck to you. Good luck to both of you.

good luck, McKenzie. Thank you so much for the time. Very happy for you. And looking forward to the fight in October. All the best. Thank you, very all. All the best for you. Thanks for having me.

All right. We'll talk to you soon. There she is. The great McKenzie during fighting at UFC 321, October 25th, 20 major gold medals from grappling competitions, including ADCC, World Nogee, Pan Am, Euro, Brazilian, Asian, World Cup, ranked fifth in the Strawaway Division, a career wins via submission

in case you're wondering most sub wins in UFC women's strawweight history joint second for most stoppages in UFC strawweight history and second most fight night bonuses in UFC women's strawweight history

seven two behind the leader Jessica Andrudge I believe she's well on our way who's the favor going into that one I refrained from playing the clip of what G.C. said earlier in the show I didn't want to do that

I thought about throwing to the clip Do we have the clip? No, I'm not sure. Do we have the clip? No, we don't have the clip. I thought about maybe just throwing it to you to replay the clip. Oh, you wanted me to just say the clip again?

Well, I just thought I mean, you could just say it. It's tough. You know, she's two-fye winning streak. What are the odds? Let me see here. Three and three in her last six? Yeah, no, but one of them didn't count. Four and four or last?

UFC 821. No odds here. Is it still best fight odds? Is that the spot? They do have Tuporia Patty Pimlet odds. Not, man, I'm not going to lie. Best Fight odds has not been the spot for a millennia now. Oh, jeez.

I've been telling you forever. Fight Odds. What is it? Fight odds. Been telling you that for as long as I can. Really? Since way, like, way back box. The I.O.

kind of, oh, what is this page? This is a mess. I can't figure this out. Actually, once you get used to this, you'll go back to best-fight odds and realize that is the mess. Really? Yeah.

I can't even find 321. Where's 321? I already found it. But we don't have odds. No odds? Who do you think should be the favorite? Vierna. Oh, I'm going to tell you.

Clip that off. Let's play it for McKinsey. All right, let's move along to our next guest. I said at the top of the show, perfect guy, perfect guy to talk about this crazy Raja Jackson situation, because former UFC fighter, MMA fighter,

and now pro wrestler. He knows the world. He knows everything. He knows what goes on. Backstage, indie shows, non-indy shows, all this stuff. It was the perfect that middle part.

This is the guy right here. And he's kind enough to join us following recent hip replacement surgery. He's your friend in mind, the one and only, filthy Tom Lawler on the program. Is he doing well? Are you okay, Tom?

How's recovery? you going. Yes. I mean, all things considered, I'm doing pretty good. I am two weeks out to the day from a total hip replacement surgery. The doctor said that I probably waited about a year or too long. Oh, my. And for anybody who saw me trying to go out there and wrestle over the past few months, I mean, it was pretty apparent that something was wrong. And, you know, I just treated the wrong things over the past 18 months and it never got better. And, you know, I found myself with extreme arthritis at the age of 42 that required a full hip replacement. But, you know, almost immediately I could stand up straight. I could lay down on my back flat, which I haven't been able to do for over a

year. So, you know, I was happy with that. And recovery seems to be going well. It's just really slow and boring, to be honest. I feel like I could do so much more, but I guess that's part of the battle is doing the recovery properly instead of at my own pace. Will you be able to resume your wrestling career? Yeah, I mean, I think there's a number of people who have had hip replacement and gone back to wrestle. Can I? Yes. I mean, will I? That remains to be seen. I mean, to be really honest with you over the past few years. The juice that I've gotten hasn't been worth to squeeze. And you know, when you're left in a situation like I have been over the past 18 months or so, it puts things in a little bit of different perspective. So I'm sure you'll see me in the ring

again. No wrestler ever really retires. They just stop taking bookings. But I don't know if you'll see it as any sort of full-time gig for me. By the way, last time we spoke was about the whole class action lawsuit, the settlement and all that stuff. Just curious, have you received your money yet? That, to my knowledge, unless something has changed, begins on September 30th. Okay. So I haven't received anything, but, you know, that could always change. But from what I understand, September 30th, they initially had said third quarter, 2025, and well, I think that's the last day of the third quarter. So in order to keep up, keep their word. I guess you could say, it has to be done then.

But yeah, I expect September 30th. I don't understand exactly how much I'm going to get yet. I don't know what the payout schedule is. So, hey, we'll see. Okay, so it won't be all in one shot. I don't believe so. Okay. I think they actually have 18 months themselves.

They have a time period, if I remember correctly, from the day that I was at the court proceedings. I believe they have somewhere around 18 months or something to pay it out. I mean, from what I understand, to the UFC, all that money's an escrow, right? It's already been paid. It just has to be divided out to the fighters. Okay. I think some of that hold up is, you know, they had a certain, certain timeframe in which

fighters could claim and dispute their earnings report. and you know that only ended i think in like july so then they have to go back and you know look at look at all those documents and come to a come to a ruling on exactly how much everybody's going to get so i mean it's paperwork and stuff that needs to be done but you know i mean i'm sure there's a lot of fighters in my boat who are hoping to get some money sooner than later and for me i don't know if it could come at a better time yeah no and and that's why i was asking i know i'm going on a completely different direction here, but just while we're on the topic, I'm sure you saw Hanato Moikano's stance on not taking the money. What did you think of that?

I mean, Class A bonehead move. Just take the money. I mean, the UFC's paying it out already. I believe that they, you know, even told the fighters like, look, we're giving that money up. Hey, if he's going to make that back in the long run by, you know, standing his ground and, you know, standing on his morals, then, you know, so be, I'm happy for him if that makes him happy. But, I mean, the UFC wasn't, you know, they're not looking out for everybody. You've got to take what you can get. You know, your kids don't eat on morals and legacy always. Yes. And do you stand to gain from the other, the other lawsuits that are currently pending, or do those not affect you?

No, they don't affect me. Okay. Whatsoever. I don't think Phil Davis was talking about me when he was talking about that top-level competition that he can't fight, so. All right. Well, your breakdown of all of that was great, and we appreciated it very much. The reason I wanted to have you on was to talk about this Roger Jackson situation.

I know you've weighed in on social media, also on Wrestling Observer Live. now that you've had a week or so to digest it, what did you, okay, let me ask you this first things first because it seems to be the most, the most newsy item coming out of this as we sit here a week later. The fact that nothing has happened to Raja, the fact that there's been no arrest, criminal charges, or anything, does that surprise you? I mean, as an independent professional wrestler, when you think about it, absolutely not. I mean, there's, yeah, there's things that go, am I surprised that he has been

picked up? No. And I think part of that is where it took place. I mean, pro wrestling, even today in 2025, and especially, you know, really on the independent level, is lawless to a certain degree. And I mean, we've seen, I mean, there's receipts when it comes to this, but the company itself, Knox Pro was, you know, trying to handle this kind of in-house. So, no, I'm not surprised that Roger Jackson hasn't been picked up. at this point do you expect anything to happen no no i mean it may be a civil lawsuit uh coming out of psycho stew uh but i mean it's already been a week i don't know what evidence they're trying to gather we saw it cut and dry i mean there's an hour 45 plus minute long

video detailing the entire thing i mean this is unprecedented in many ways that we have the crime that was committed on video and nothing's been done. Did you know Psycho Stu before all of this? No, I don't know. I don't know Psycho Stu at all. I wasn't aware of him prior to this. I don't know him after this. And to be quite honest, I mean, Psycho Stew doesn't deserve what happened to him under any circumstances.

He does not deserve to be attacked after the fact and hit with 21 unanswered blows. Psycho stew doesn't deserve to spend time in the hospital after choking on his own teeth and blood in front of the crowd. But at the same time, Psycho Stew shouldn't have put his hands on Rajat Jackson. Psycho stew shouldn't have been in the back drinking and then acting, you know, quite frankly, just odd to somebody that he doesn't know whatsoever. There's no winner in this situation, whether it's Rajah

Jackson, whether it's Psycho Stu, obviously, whether it's AJ Mana, whether it's Rakeshi, whether it's the other owners of Knox Pro. There's not one person that came out of the situation rampage. There's not one person that came out of the situation

looking better than they did going in. And I mean, it's just a tragedy on so many levels. I mean, Rajah Jackson may have ruined his life as far as, you know, being a celebrity or being in the public eye goes, obviously Psycho Sue, facing major, major health repercussions because of this. And, you know, A.J. Mana, another guy involved, sounds like he lost his job. So, yeah, a lot of losers come around in that situation.

Yeah. And I think some people want there to be like a black and white winner category, loser category. I just think there's just like multiple levels of idiots in all of this. Obviously what Raja did was the worst, even though he was reacting to something else. My feeling, you're in this world. So I wanted to ask you, based on like how you saw it all play out backstage, Raja Jackson isn't just showing up to some indie show with 50 people in attendance just because he's a fan of pro wrestling. Like they tried to make something because they knew he had a stream and there was a camera right there. And the whole thing obviously went off the rail.

when what I don't understand is when the owner and the promoters are coming up to him and saying like, yo, you could get yours, he clearly isn't speaking the same language as them. He thinks, you know, getting his payback means like beating the crap out of the guy. They're thinking of a pro wrestling angle. What is wrong with these people? Are they just completely entrenched in the world of pro wrestling where they think everything is one big work? That's the part that I couldn't understand. Like they're clearly not speaking the same language and they let the guy just go in there and beat the crap out of their own guy.

Yeah, I mean, the owners and the people backstage made it a point afterwards, A.J. Mana made it a point to point out that, hey, this guy, Raja Jackson, he's not a worker. You know, Psycho Stu, you can't go up. And you can't go up and just hit somebody in the hand or in the head with a beer can. You know, even if the can was empty, he didn't go up. People said Psycho Stu walked up and put his hand on the side of his head and hit it. That's not what happened. Psychostook took the can and he hit it on the side of his head and neck and crushed it with that same hand to give the effect. He doesn't know Rajah Jackson. You know what I mean? You can't, you shouldn't be going up and doing that. And then everybody steps in and they go, well, hey, you can't do that. Like, he's not a worker. And then they speak to him as if he is a worker.

The owner, he said, you can go back in there. We'll make a thing out of it. You can go back in there and you can fuck them up. You know? And that's when Rajajat Jackson goes, oh, wait a minute. You mean, I can go back in there. I can get mine back on them. And that seems to kind of, you know, calm them down a little bit.

But at the same token, then Rajat Jackson goes up and he says, oh, it's all good. It's okay. I understand now. Well, clearly either you didn't understand or you're lying about that. And a lot of the blame not only needs to go on Roger Jackson, but the people running the show. And I think one of the things that's, you know, everybody wants to point a finger, but there's not been one person that has taken any shred of responsibility for what happened on any level. You know, the owners of Knox Pro, unless I'm, you know, unless I've missed something, you know, they did put out a statement. but they haven't taken responsibility.

Rampage seems not to want to take responsibility for it. Rajah Jackson has said nothing. So it's just, it's terrible on so many levels. And, you know, for the people at Knox Pro, I'm sure there's plenty of fantastic people, as there are at every independent pro wrestling show that goes on. There's people who are doing this, you know, to try to reach their dream of being in the WWE, AEW,

make a life out of this. There's people who are using it as an escape, which kind of sounds like what psycho stew was doing. And, you know, Knox Pro lost its WWID designation. It was one of, I believe, five schools in the country that had this WWID designation where, hey, if you want to learn how to work up the talent ladder and get to the pinnacle of this sport, of this profession, this is one of the places you go to and after seeing it on video after obviously what Rajah Jackson did they had that pulled

so there's people at Knox Pro who are you know who are going to feel the repercussions of this forever in their careers who had nothing to do with it had you ever heard of Knox Pro before this yeah yeah I had heard of it

are they respected yeah I mean I had never heard anything remotely like this you know what I mean people will take a look at the video and I'm one of them you know you take a look at it and you go like hey it looks like they're changing like a chop shop in the back but hey that's just the way it goes in independent pro wrestling some of the venues you end up at like for instance the Ukrainian center yeah in LA which GCW runs all the time people love going there to watch shows there's no locker room in the back it doesn't look too different than that but you know that's not what, at the end of the day, what makes or breaks the show, you know. But it was just an overall bad look for everybody involved. When you tweeted, hey, pro wresters, like, be careful who you trust. And it was that clip of AJ speaking to Raja. What did you mean by that?

Hmm. Nobody has your back. You know what I mean? Whether you think it's your best friends in the business, whether you think it's a guy that you have beef with, whether it's the promoters. you know pro wrestling is a thankless thankless endeavor and at the end of the day you're on your own were you talking about a j there or were you talking about rajah or someone else i i mean speaking from my heart speaking from uh myself that was just a general statement you know it just so happened that as i was watching that uh the kick stream because it was such big news you know i saw that clip and it stood out to me because that is exactly the thing that you hope one of your fellow wrestlers in the locker room

would not do that is the biggest faux pa that's one of the biggest um like insults to professional wrestling is to tell somebody else to harm somebody else physically that is the whole reason for the sport. If you want to fight somebody, go be an MMA fighter. You know what I mean? The entire reason for professional wrestling is so that you can present the fight but take care of the other person and to see somebody else in the locker room tell an outsider in a lot of ways, even though it's his friend, tell an outsider to go after one of the boys in the locker room. And granted, AJ Mana after the fact said that he was in character during that video. I've watched the video unless I miss something. I don't know when the switch goes on and off with that guy, but I perceived it to be somebody telling Raja Jackson to go after Psycho Stew.

And when it's somebody who's a member of the fellow locker room, what are the wrestlers, Ariel, what's the number one word that they call each other? The boys. The boys, brother. a brother I wouldn't do that to my worst enemy you know

maybe my worst enemy you're 100% right like and there's the other term like working themselves into a shoot it's like they're trying to hide behind the characters who knows what's real what's not it seems like they were all very excited

that there was a camera there and this was their chance to make an angle and it went terribly terribly wrong at this point is there any chance Any chance? Because I've been asked this 100 times

and I don't know the answer and so you're the expert. Is there any chance? I'm almost ashamed that I'm asking it. No. Okay, okay. You know what I was going to say, right? Yeah, no, no.

You nailed it right in the head. They worked themselves into a shoot. You know, whatever idea of kind of a work shoot, like, oh, let's use this idea from the stream now that people have seen this interaction between Stu and Raja. what transpired afterwards, unless there's large portions of video that we are not privy to that we have not seen. It was just handled in such a negligent manner with nobody, nobody in charge.

And, you know, the outcome was what it was. It was an untrained guy who doesn't understand professional wrestling, who's in way over his head, who was being badgered, you know, egged on, humiliated by people on his kickstream. He even had his own father was calling him, asking him if he's hugging on a gay cowboy at the show. This all just, you know, festered and boiled and built up until we saw him go in there and unleashed on psycho stew. I mean, you could see it building as time went by. And I don't, I mean, I've watched this video, multiple times, I don't see an instance in which they give Rajah Jackson any sort of clue as to what

he's supposed to do. They ask him what his music's going to be. He actually gets up and goes to somebody to find out when he's supposed to go in there. And they send a guy that says, hey, I'll tap you on the shoulder to send you in there. But there's no other direction besides that other than at the beginning when I believe it's Black Pearl says, hey, go in there and fuck him up. What a disaster. What an absolute disaster. Can I ask, what do you think of the way Rampage has handled this? I mean, it's tough because I can only imagine if my son or, you know, somebody that I had brought up, somebody I love, somebody I care about, did something so blatant. You know, Rampage, obviously, people always bring up now the statement that he made.

You know, he has a college fund set aside for a couple of his children. Then he has bail money set aside for Rajah Jackson. And, I mean, you have to imagine that that's tongue in cheek, but there's something behind it. And the fact that Rampage continuously seemed like one of his biggest worries was this kickstream. Is Raja going to lose his ability to be on kick? Is he getting banned? you know, I've got to think that Rampage, you know, feels responsibility for even getting him on that kickstream. Obviously, he's trying to help his son out as much as he can.

And, you know, I'm sure he feels a ton of guilt. Even if you look in the comments of some of the things that he says, he agrees. He thinks Raja Jackson needs to do some jail time. So, I mean, I feel for Rampage in a way, but I mean, somebody has to step up and take responsibility at some point. As an aside, I did notice you say that RAF, real American freestyle wrestling was better than

CJI. It was sort of like it was like an offshoot weekend of MMA with dirty boxing on Friday misfits on Saturday, RAF, CJI. Am I wrong? Am I wrong about this? No, what 1,792

views? What the hell? That's pathetic. Bro. I got over, I got like 50, 5,000 followers. That's all that that tweet got. Maybe. I put up, you can put up an AI of Zoe Dubois getting slapped on, on power slap. And it gets way more than that.

I think we, I think we took that screen grab right when you posted it, like within the first 10 seconds, okay? Why? Tell us why? Why did you like RAF more than CJI? Did you watch RIF? I did not watch it live. I was out of the country, but I did see a lot of the clips. I loved the Holly home spot

Bo was great I really enjoyed it and I feel like they are on to something Yeah I think one of the things that everybody was kind of worried about going into it was that it was going to be kind of a clown show

You know and they kept a lot of the pro wrestling aspects to a minimum Eric Bischoff did go out there and cut a promo about beating Monday Night Raw for 83 weeks with Nitro

in front of the Cleveland crowd in 2025, which seemed kind of out of place. The Tito Ortiz and Chal Sondon face-off, while, you know, it is kind of two old-timers. It is very pro- Wrestling in its vibe. It's not taking away from some of the other wrestlers. It's not like they're throwing Chale in there against, I don't know, Craig Jones in the main event or something, you know.

He's going to take on somebody else that's at that same level. There's a little bit of a story. and Tito, I mean, anytime you can get Tito Ortiz on the microphone nowadays, you're going to get sound clips galore. So even though that was, you know, insulting to a portion of the audience, I enjoyed it. And one of the smartest things I think they did was set up matchups for Real American Freestyle Wrestling too. They would have title matches, but not just title matches and weight classes. They would also have contender matches, you know, either afterwards or later on in the show or prior to the title matches themselves.

It seemed like they constantly had a direction they were going in. Kyle Dake wins his match. They bring up, you know, maybe him wrestling Jordan Burroughs in the future. Wyatt Hendrickson wins in the main event. And they bring out, you know, the man who was basically in Wyatt Hendrickson's shoes before Wyatt Hendrickson was and before Gable was with Mason Paris. And they had a face-to-face. So I just thought the production was really good.

it was not insulting, which was my biggest concern going in, and the action really delivered. We do have an update on the tweet, by the way. So in fairness to you, I wanted to show this was the original that we posted 1792, and the update is, what, why is it still say August? I thought maybe there was an editor. or something. Anyway, we'll move.

By the way, what about that Paris crowd for WWE this past weekend? That was incredible, right? Hey, how can you not

get fired up for Seamus and Rusev making the absolute snot out of each other? I'd give it 4.75 stars, but I love that. It's still fantastic.

Come on, Logan versus John Cena, you had to have loved that. Hey, you know, everybody, not everybody, I shouldn't say everybody,

but a lot of people like to hate on Logan Paul, and when you see how talented he is in the ring, as a professional wrestler, I have a hard time hating on that guy. John Sina always going to be one of the greatest of all time. For my estimation, I think he's the greatest of all time in the WWE at this point. Wow. Always a big fan of watching John Sina, even as a heel.

Greatest of all time. I'm still not sure if I could go that far. Is the WWE? Nah. Stone Cold Rock. I mean, he has the longevity. I didn't say he's better than Jumbo Saruta. He has the longevity.

He has the longevity and he put in the time and he was an incredible ambassador, but I still put Hogan, I put Rock, I put Austin ahead of him. Hey, that's fine? Yeah, that's okay. That's quite a Mount Rushmore right there. That is a, by the way, is A.J. coming back?

Is it A.J. and Punk? You know, actually confirmed earlier today, according to Brian Alvarez, yes, at Russell Palooza, it's going to be CM Punk and A.J. Lee taken on Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch. Crazy. What a time we're living in, right, Tom? I mean, ESPN covering WWE like this, the PLEs on ESPN, UFC going to Paramount Plus, billions of dollars, zero percent of those dollars going to the fighters. I mean, what a time, right, Tom? I'm still stuck on WWE and UFC being the same company. I mean, would I have imagined that? Never in my life would I have imagined that a WWE Hall of Famer would be the president, that there would be a UFC card being scheduled to take place at the White House. I mean, I was on UFC 100, and I couldn't believe that that was taking place.

So to still see it going, what, 16 years later and the heights that it's reached, hell, I'm an owner. I own part of the company. That's true. It's a good point. No, for guys like you and I who were fighting the good fight that, you know, wrestling is okay and you could be a wrestling fan and an MMA fan, of course, you took it much further and you actually competed in both, it is still very much a weird thing, seeing the two hand in hand these days. Ariel, I remember the days when I would come on this show and you would kayfab me. You'd kayfab everybody.

You'd kayfab everybody, the world. And you would say, no, not a pro wrestling fan anymore. Oh, yeah, that's right. I did have that period Look at me now Yeah Look at me now I'm watching everything

TNA AEW Everyone's killing it You gotta start watching Some Schengen What's that Or maybe some Turkish oil wrestling Is that big these days

All of it Wow You do all this now You watch all of it You cover it I just had a hip replacement buddy I got some free

On my head Tremendous stuff And you had a couple of viral tweets Don't feel down about the 1,000. I saw your 2 million views and your 1.8 million views and stuff like that. So you're killing it as an influencer, reporter, media personality. Life's pretty good.

Message board troll. Yeah, all those things, all those things. I was hoping that they would show some of those to boost your ego, but apparently we can't locate those. But I saw them. I saw them. I definitely saw them. If they can pull up some of my old Microsoft paint drawings. Oh, yeah.

Great MMA moments in history from the underground. That would be fantastic. I remember those. Look, fine, in those. That's a whole other time period that a lot of fans these days have no idea what we're talking about, but I know exactly what you're talking about. Great times. Good, because, I mean, everybody would be canceled from 20 years ago,

no matter what you're doing. Well, thank you, Tom. Get well soon. Appreciate the insight. Tremendous stuff. And people want more Tom Luller. They can go. How often are you on there?

I am one of the co-hosts now with Brian Alvarez, along with Lance Storm on Wrestling Observer Live Monday, Wednesday. And then usually one of the other days is my beat for the week. And you can find me on Twitter at Filthy Tom Lawler, on Instagram at Filthy Tom Waller, on LinkedIn at Filthy Tom Waller. You're the man. Thank you, Tom. All the best, too. Appreciate it. There he is. The great filthy Tom. Great insight into the Roger Jackson situation and perhaps somewhat surprising saying he doesn't expect anything to happen at this point. Like,

they just wanted to all go away. What a world. What a time. The tweet that he had that went viral was him talking about them pinning stew after he had just been pummeled. Someone coming in there and pinning Stu, getting his spot in. What a weird situation that all is. In any event, let us move along and talk to one of the big winners from a couple weekends ago in Shanghai. No need for a lengthy introduction. Former UFC bantamweight champion, current UFC featherweight contender man who just defeated the one and only Brian Ortega not in a featherweight fight technically. Technically, I think it was

153 pounds, if my memory serves me, correct? Yeah, 153, but he did beat him 5-0, 5-0, meaning 50 to 45 on all three judges scorecards. It was a 5-round co-main event underneath the Johnny Walker, Ming Yang-Jang fight back on August 23rd, the fateful day of August 23rd just before the now infamous

kickstream came and went. He is now two and one as a featherweight in this current run and picking up a big win just a little less than two weeks ago. He's the one and only the funkmaster, Al Jermaine Sterling. Kind enough to join us on this Tuesday afternoon. Hello, sir. How are you?

I'm doing well. Ariel, how are you? What's going on over there? What's happening? Is that just a cool arm sleeve or is that? No, I actually got to turn off your show on my kick. I'm hearing you twice. Oh, no. That's funny. I was watching a show the whole time, so. Oh, thank you. Appreciate that. What do you think about Roger Jackson? I know you don't always listen to my other weekly scraps. Bro. What are you talking about? I've given you props all the time for the weekly scraps. We love the scraps around here. That's not the same thing. Props and listening is too. Listening props. subscribing, all those things. No, this is from the spinning back tricep. Oh, gosh. Don't do that.

If you want, you hit with the point of the elbow. This was, yeah, I thought it was a cool thing to do. And it backfired. Now I'm crippled for a little bit. Surgery? No, it's a great too. I think grade two is like a sliding scale of like, I think they say 20% and 99% torn.

And grade 3 is like just completely off the bone. So not completely off the bone. And they said just PT five weeks and then see how it heals and recovers. So that's just what I'm doing right now. Okay. Well, get well soon. Great dominant win.

By the way, shout out to Funk Carp. What is that? Is that Zin? What is that? It's a Zio. Their flavors just taste better. Okay. Is it the same thing?

Same thing. Okay. You stick it in there? Yeah, I like to feel like I'm rotting a wave and just going through my day and not having any like negative effects on my body, you know, so it's cool. Yeah, we still got some of the funk, by the way. Ah, which, did I give it away or you only have the age? What do we got? Let me ask the guys, what do we have back there, guys?

I have the age. This is the, yeah, that's the edge. Take a shot. Take a shot. No, ma'am. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. drinking on the job.

We're doing it. Yeah. Smooth. He's doing it too. Wait, is anything coming out there? It's empty. That's all right. I'll drink for you, Aljo.

I got it. Don't worry about it. He's got you. There we go. This one's not empty. Cheers. Oh, yeah. Look at that.

I'm driving home, by the way. Oh, yeah, nice. By the way, what's up with this hair? What's going on? My hair? Yeah. Yeah, it looks crazy, right? Yeah, it does look crazy.

When did this guy What did she happen? Is that white? I wanted her to do it Not so long So that when the braids Like after a while Like it gets a little bit messy

You get the ingrown hair Yeah It just grows away from the scalp This like new hair growing in And then this way I could take it out The fish braes that she did And they kind of have it like A Waka Flaka thing

Yeah Would have been cool But then she made it a little too long How long are we going here? How long am I going? Yeah. I don't know. Is this the beginning?

Is that a real... We were debating if that's a real picture. Is that a real picture? That's a real picture. It looks hilarious. I look like a pop, rock star, K-pop. Yeah, dude, yeah.

You kind of look like a mini Rashad Evans right now. With green here. Yeah. Why'd you go with green, by the way? the Jamaican colors okay yeah you know I'm kind of like black and you know

sure I wear gold so I just thought you know the green tie it all in yeah I know it makes sense it makes sense I said that to Hunter by the way what he was like by the way what's it with the green hair and I say you know I'm kind of like black you know the Jamaican colors he was like I don't think there's a question if you're black or not

I thought that was pretty cool I brought one of the rum bottles for him because he's also like a rum connoisseur like myself so he got to try we had a little taste and he actually really enjoyed it which is cool you know look at you look how far you've come with the brass now you're hanging out and having rum together

you're practically BFF what can I say sometimes it's good it's good okay can I go back to Shanghai and the point where you find out he's going to miss weight by a large amount how how laid in the process

do you find out? Oh, sorry. Is my audio messed up? I don't know if you can... No, you sound perfect to me. Are we messed up to you? I got the headphones in, but you're like still coming out

the laptop and not coming out through my ears. It sounds like you're coming through the headphones. Oh, okay, good. Yeah, so the morning of Brian and I both go down the elevator, I come out one, he comes up the other,

and of course it's like, I forget what time we both started. Maybe 7.30 we both got down there, and then I look behind me. It's Brian. We both make eye contact. And I can see he's looking like death. I'm looking like death.

And we just have like this agreement of like, yeah, this sucks for both of us. So I'm thinking, okay, things are good. He's going to actually make weight this time. And I get to the back. I check two pounds. I get started. After maybe 45 minutes, I'm like, I lose a pound and a half maybe or an hour. So I only have about half a pound left.

I go back and I check and then as soon as I get in I'm probably like three, four minutes into the sauna session again in the blanket. Tiki walks in with Mick and yeah, they're just like, yeah, Brian's going to the hospital. Oh. And I'm just, I'm like, well, what does that mean? Like, are we fighting still? Is to fight off? Am I fighting somebody else? Just trying to figure out the whole nine. And thankfully, you know, they did the right thing. They made it work. and they hooked it up, man. They really took care of me, which I'm super happy about. Like, win or lose, it wouldn't have affected my pay rate.

I would have gotten the same thing no matter what, so I'm very, very fortunate and blessed for that. But I'm still happy that I still got to fight Brian. I think this might have been the first time that a fighter has gone to the hospital and was able to come back and compete. And the main thing was they wanted to make sure the weight discrepancy wasn't too big

so that the fight can still go on. I don't know. In the morning of, I thought he maybe had anywhere from three to five pounds. And I know that's not easy with not that much time left in terms of when the weigh-ins would start. Yeah. I mean, it was kind of a roller coaster of emotions because I was starting to get aggravated. I was irritated. Obviously, I'm, yeah, I'm up 10 pounds, but it is still extremely hard for me to get down to 145. And I really have no idea in hell how I made 135 for so long. I obviously got bigger but it's just very

it's very very difficult man I'm just so lean I don't have a lot of fat to lose so it's a pain in the ass so as you're making the way and you hear this news and your brain is just scrambling with all these different thoughts and I said it before like I don't even think he's going to make it to the fight

and I was just preparing myself mentally in case there was like some backup that was going to jump in and I'm glad the fight still went on because that's why I wanted to fight when I first came down to the division I wanted to fight the guy who's the highest ranked. It could have been him. It could have been a Lerone Murphy.

It could have been Pico. It could have been whoever it was. That's the highest rank. I just want to get as close to the title as possible by beating the highest ranked guy. And, you know, unfortunately, I didn't get that. I got Calvin Cater instead. Brian got to fight Diego Lopez,

and he still couldn't finish him, even after the whole weight thing. And, you know, I just wanted a fair shot to fight someone to get into the top five and make a claim to run for the top five. and make a claim to run for the title again, you know? I don't think it's an unfair ask. If you want to talk about fight styles,

that's a completely different conversation. But in terms of getting back to a tight shot, you beat the next best guy, you should theoretically be the next guy in line. So that was a thought process in fighting like somewhat of a friend, you know? Obviously his relationship is not like mine and Marab's, but he's a super chill dude.

We fought together in the same car, cut weight together before I trained with him one time. But in a position like this, is like, yo, what am I supposed to do? I'm friends with more than half

the division in the top 15 because I was abandon weight my whole career. Now my featherweight like something's got to give. I'm going to have to fight a couple of you guys.

It's just the way everything is going to have to shake out, you know? At this point, would you agree he needs to go up to 55 and stay there for the foreseeable future?

Like, I was surprised that he came, I was surprised the Lopez fight was at 45, and then I was surprised that he came back against you at 45. it did not look good on the scale.

Yeah, I could understand that. It didn't look good at all. And I was, I know I seen him look like death before, and then he comes back, and guys still can't put him away. So it's one of those things that almost feels like he's, and I'm not saying this is what he's doing. This is just like a thought process. I'm like, what if he's just making it look like he's really, really dead,

like all of us, but way worse? And then he comes up the next day, and then he beats guys. Like he beat, yeah, yeah, Rodriguez, not too long ago. and you know he had a tough weight cut the same thing rolled his ankle before the fight he's getting crushed in the first round comes back and gets a finish in the third you know and this is the same guy people are saying his wash he doesn't win fights anymore he needs to call it a career i'm like i don't know if you guys are watching the fights or take is still a dog and i think he's still competitive um and he doesn't quit and i think that's the thing a fight's not

five minutes it's 25 minutes 15 minutes and i think for that i think he still has a lot left in the tank, especially if he goes up to 55, me coming up was the best thing I ever did. I wish I did it sooner. And, you know, whatever. I think he would find a lot of success if he were to go up to 55 as well. Overall, I mean, you had to deal with the injury, and I want to ask you about Herb in a second, but overall, to do that over five rounds against someone like him, were you happy with the performance?

Yeah, very happy with the performance. If you watched the fight, every time I was fainting and level-changing, in the first and second round, there was not one bite on that whatsoever. He was sitting on that waiting for it the whole time for me to utilize my game, which is to push my wrestling and go for my head outside single, which I always do. That's like my best takedown that I have. Of course, I could chain wrestle, but that's my best takedown attack on my entries. And he has a really good guillotine choke.

So what better way than to pressure the wrestler and to force him into a bad position so that he gives you exactly what you want, you know? So I thought I did really well in terms of the game plan, which was to strike. The same game plan it was supposed to be what Mossar, but then instincts took over. And the takedowns were just so easy. It was just like, well, I might as well just wrestle the guy. I'm already here. We're going to do work for this takedown, just let him up.

In hindsight, I probably should have did that in some of those positions and would take away his reversals. You know, just going back, analyzing the fight, trying to understand what you could do better to improve as a fighter, fighter IQ. and in this, you know, we stayed heavy and then I forced him to shoot because now he's behind and he needs to make the adjustment and then I start attacking the neck. And then when I transitioned to the back, I almost had the back, he did a good job utilizing his jiu-jitsu. But overall, in terms of performance, everything we worked on in training, myself, Marab, Matthias, Shane, JP, John Powell, all these guys that have been working with Dennis

Bazukia, you couldn't have asked for a better display of, preparation. And I think for me, I'm very, very content and happy with that. Would I like to have gotten a finish? Would I have liked to have grappled? Yes, for both those things. But when you have a guy who's not trying to do that, then it's like, what are you supposed to do? You know, so I want to say all in all, it was a great performance in my opinion. My best friend, Sean O'Malley, even thought it was a good performance, you know? You guys are boys now? He DM'd you? Yeah, he DM me. And some people thought I was taking a slight at it. I was like, I'm not taking a slide on it. I was like, but he responds to me and I just liked it

at the time I had like a hundred messages more than 100 messages and like I'm supposed to take my time out to like it's not like he's Wyman or Ally Quinto or Marab sent him you know it's it's why am I going out of my way to make sure I respond to him right then and right there I thought it was cool I appreciate the

acknowledgement and it shows that he's a fan in the sport he watches you know because that was a really early fight card right yeah but he had positive things to say I even saw him today at the PI And we talked about a little bit. I came in. I actually said something to him first.

Like, hey, what's up, dude? And we shook hands, whatever. He has a guy fighting in a contendent series, as do we. And, yeah, it's a cool, cool conversation. We're talking about the tricep, the spinning elbow. I was like, make sure you don't spin with the triceps, spin with the elbow. But all in all, great conversation. Cool, dude.

I would love to send him a bottle of my rum. I got no animosity against the guy, you know? But if people want to make drama out of something, And it's like every interview I do, the main talking point is to talk about O'Malley because they know it gets clicks. Because I'm going to be honest. I'm always going to give my honest opinion. And whether you like it or you don't, don't hate me for my honesty. If you don't like what I got to say, okay, cool.

I'm not putting it on a show. I'm not trying to pretend to do anything. So it is what it is. By the way, you brought them up, not me, just for the record. No, no, no, I know. I'm just saying, in general, I get a lot of flack for that. But the ones who understand is like, dude, I'm doing an interview. This is what people are going to ask because.

They want to rile me up. I'm like, I'm not going to get riled up, but I'm going to speak on how I feel. I might joke about it and have a laugh, but I'm human. I think if I didn't have the reactions I have, it shows that I don't give a shit. I don't give a shit in a sense like that ship has sailed and gone, but I care in terms of like how I feel and the way I compete. You ask me about any of my fights. I'm going to tell you why I felt I want, why I felt I lost, what I felt I could have done better, what I felt I did good. And I think any true competitors is like that.

And if you don't, if you don't have that competitive boning you, you probably shouldn't be doing what you're doing. By the way, why was this fight five rounds? I think they wanted it. I think they wanted five rounds because they thought based on maybe tape that they would get me in the later rounds, which was a good strategy. But you also have to look at the fact that I am now at 45. So the gas tank issues that I were having in championship rounds at 135 are no longer the same. You know, yeah, I'm older now. but I was literally

how do I say this while people getting their panties in a bunch me and Marabwe were like Siamese twins of just being energized bunnies when I was a smaller 135er but as I got older it got more difficult I became more dense

the weight cuts started to weigh on me and I just don't I don't compete the same in the later rounds as I do in the beginning of the fight so oh no it was a great strategy but it was a pointless thing you know it's in hindsight right so now it's like well we didn't need to do that for five rounds for if we knew the fight

was going to be like this it's kind of like well what was the point of doing the five rounds but he did catch me in the fifth round right so it makes that for a little bit of excitement other than that I was opposed to it because it was just like why we find extra work

for not getting a title shot at the end of this there's no upside and no extra pay right 40% more work. Yeah. He wants to do 40% more work for no reason. It doesn't make sense.

I think five round fights should just be pay-per-view main events, fight night main events, and very clear number one contender fights, but they don't make very clear number one contender fights anymore because they don't want to, you know, back themselves into that corner. So I was, because we obviously know Vogue is probably going to fight. Well, I know that this fight was booked before the Laron thing,

but even not, you know, Mova's going to fight. Who? Lorone That's a thing That's not a thing You don't think so There's still one more Big fight at 45 to be

To be settled And I think once that Settles between Gene Silva and Diego Lopez I do think Gene is going to win But if Lopez for some reason wins I think it makes things very interesting But if Silva wins

It also makes things very interesting And I think it's not so clear cut I think it just really depends On what the UFC wants And I also think Volcanowski should have some say, especially if this might be his last fight. Okay, so,

but Vogue did tweet, see you in December. I get, if Diego wins, then I think it has to be Lerone. If John Silva wins, it makes it a little bit more interesting, and then there's the Mofstar thing. But you're out there DMing with Vogue, right? So you got the insight, and you're drinking, oh, it's Aljo. That's

the one. Did you DM with Vogue about this? Message me. Yeah. I said he'll put my name in the hat. Yeah. Okay, so you're next. I mean I hope I'm next Hunter told me to my face I'm not next Oh wait was this before the bottle of rum or after Um before

I got from the next day But two days later But um I understand why But I also understand why Volcanowski would probably rather fight me Over one of these guys who are still kind of building their name You know I think it's a more

It's a better accolade fight for him versus fighting someone who's just, okay, just an undefeated prospect. So who do you think deserves that? A potential standpoint. It's kind of like the whole John Jones thing. I'm not saying it's like John Jones. I think he'll fight the next guy

because he's still competing. But I think there's a conversation to be had that's probably for him. I'm not a power puncher, right? There's less risk, high reward in terms of the name value. He gets a better scalp if he were to win. I think there's more

upside for a fight with myself versus a Lorone Murphy in my personal opinion Can you book the top of the division for me? Who's Volk fighting next? Lorone, Al Jermaine Sterling we know Diego and John are doing their thing how does this all play out

over the next few months? I think Volcanowski versus Sterling I think you have Lorone Murphy versus Jean Silva Okay, so you think Gene wins? I skipped. I messed it up. Well, you're saying Silva's going to be Diego.

That's what I think. And it's not because I have any dislike for the guy. I just think, I just think, I just think Silva's just, he's more fluid on the feet, you know? Diego's like, I got to plant my feet, look for my power shots, and then he gets tired very, very quickly. So what does that look like in five rounds? I just think it's, it's Silva's fight to lose. Of course, Diego hits really, really hard, so there's a great opportunity. A good chance. You can always clip somebody. You know, I've gotten clipped after winning, what, 23 minutes of a fight and then get clipped.

You know, so it can happen. But that's what I think. I think Lopez comes up short, and I think maybe Lopez fights y'allier. I know there's some history there, too. Arnold Allen, we don't know what the hell he's doing. What about, what about Moussaar? He's playing with Zalao. so what about moussar right there number one oh he's injured nobody knows how long he's

going to be out yeah that's the only thing i if you in a perfect world that made sense based on merit i would give it to mouser but of course he had that one fight he was supposed to take the other guy took the risk and now he kind of puts himself ahead of you by default and i understand his his bandwagoner fans um they're going to be like i i just just hate Dagestanians. He's not from Dagestan. That's one. Can we stop saying that? And two, there's no slight against Mossar.

Mossar beat me by the judges. But I think he's done enough to earn a shot. Yeah, Lorraine Murphy had a spectacular knockout, but also over who? A guy who had a lot of hype since his wrestling days in high school? I mean, that's not throwing shade.

I'm speaking facts. I'm not I mean, correct me if I'm wrong You tell me Well, I think if you're comparing the two resumes Actually, Lerone's is equal To Mofsar because they have the same amount of wins Lerone is way more

Yeah, yeah He's like, he's 9-0 and Mofsar is 9-0 in the UFC Who has the better wins? Well, that's the thing But who has the better wins? A, but who has more fights and has been more active since Mofsar's win

over Diego Lopez two years ago Lerone has something like six fights like you can't just sit on these wins No, that's 100% fair and that's why I said if it was a perfect world he would have gotten the shot already but because he's

like constantly injured or something happening where he can't fight I can understand why Lerone would be ahead of him so I'm not disregarding that at all I'm just talking straight up on merit in terms of who has done what to date. The same thing, like, I don't know.

I don't want it to sound like I'm complaining. I just really think I've done enough in the sport. You can talk about the DQ win. Okay, yes, that was the first time that's ever happened in history. I redeemed myself three times over. I go up a weight class. I'm now in the top five again.

I just don't think these things could be ignored and denied. I think I have a very solid argument of why I should be the next guy in line. And I got a pretty damn good rum company that I am the founder of and put a lot of my hard-on money into. So I'm doing a lot, man. I'm wearing all these hats.

I'm still performing at a high level. 36 years old. I'm not getting any younger. Why not just don't me in there with the other 36-year-old and have the battle of the unks? You're no unk, man. How old are you?

34? 33? 36. I'm 36. You ain't no unc, man. Come on. But I appreciate you saying that. Well, what about Herb? Herb's an unk.

What do you think of Herb? Uncle Herb needs to, dude, when I talk about someone coming in the back room and giving a fighter's rule meeting and having almost like the most dismissive attitude and just like not wanting to even be there to even do the meeting, it's just, that's a red flag. And I think it just kind of signals that maybe you're not having as much fun doing this as you used to. Maybe the popularity and you feel like you're too big for the sport. And then to always want to get so involved in a fight. I've never seen someone get hurt and Herb yells at them to engage in a fight when he's right there seeing that the person just got hurt. And then when you hurt the other guy, he says absolutely nothing when the other guy is doing

the same exact thing for literally 34 seconds. And I've counted this to make sure I'm not being biased. And I don't know, man. I get a takedown. Brian ties up my arms and almost like that. this rubber guard position and he's yelling at me to work and I said something to him in the middle of the fight. I'm like, well, tell him to open up his guard. Like, what am I supposed to do? If you are a former fighter, how are you not understanding these positions? And like, if you're

going to say something to me, say something to him too. Like, obviously he wants to fight to stand up. So I understand Brian what he's doing. But you can't fault me when I can't get my arm out. and then what, I was supposed to just make a mistake. I'm like, the action falls and the responsibility falls on both guys, especially the guy who's in a defensive position and not looking to improve his position. How do you fault the offensive guy who went for the takedown, got the takedown, and is now in a position where the other guy is stalling him out, and it looks like we're the bad guys that's on top,

because it's not a Hamzad versus DDP situation where Hamzat's in a dominant position where he could land big strikes. I can understand that. But that's not what this was. when I get hurt and I get clipped with a right hand for me to circle for 20 seconds and then you to yell at me and tell me you need a gauging and stop the fight and it's like I'm warning you was like well what do you expect me to do I'm still striking I'm just not going to sit and point at the ground like a max Holloway when I'm still having the spins

and trying to clear my head I think if anything it shows fight IQ how many guys we see they get cracked and they do this yeah yeah and then what happens they get sent to the gulags. I am not sure to be that guy. I got enough highlights of me losing. Two is enough. One is an early stop. It's still my opinion. But two is enough. I don't need any more seeing my face getting planted onto the canvas. Like, I'm good on that. And again, this is just me being honest. I don't need that. I think I've done more than enough and my fair share of having people being happy that want to see me lose. Go watch those highlights. We don't need to see new ones. We got enough for the ages. That's my opinion. Did you talk to him after?

Brian? No, I didn't get it. Brian or Herb? No, Herb. No, no. And it's the same thing like Mark Goddard. Mark Goddard's never wrong. Herb Dean's never wrong. Even when Herb Dean let Trinaldo kill what was it, Jai Herbert, when essentially Dan Hardy pretty much got fired based on that interaction because he's letting him cover up, protecting his neck and posting one hand turning away. And Herb's still letting this guy get pummeled. C.B. Dalloway, when he's on the ground, Herb is watching. watching him, what was it, like 40 unanswered shots, him in the fetal position, he goes belly down and covers his head, puts on his headphones. I'm ashy, bro. No, you look great. No, you look great. You look great. Compared to the sleeve, it's not ashy at all. Yeah, but there's just so many questionable decisions. Don't get me wrong. It's a tough job. You have to make split the second decisions. But as a former fighter, a guy who's standing on top of the action, some of those. calls, there is no excuse for it whatsoever and it's just negligence or, you know, I don't want to try to defame the guy or anything like that. But I think there should be something that should be looked at and there should be some type of concern from the commission wondering how these guys are still in these prominent positions of calling these big fights where they're making

multiple mistakes and there's no, there's no accountability. We're the only ones who have accountability, us and the coaches. Oh, the coaches, he's not training you right. You're not doing enough of X, Y, and Z. Oh, you suck now. You should be doing this and change your camp. Everybody else, they can mess up, and there's no accountability from a referee standpoint, from a judging standpoint, a commission standpoint, we're the only ones who get the short end of the stick every single time. And it's annoying. I think all these fighters would agree with me. And I think the fans, if they had any type of empathy for the fighters and understanding one bad decision,

we lose half our paycheck. I think that should be understandable. If anyone else is out there working hard and if someone could come out who has no idea what they're doing, well, let me not say no idea, but they're making terrible decisions and calls and making audibles for how you have to approach to fight now because they're so involved, they'll be pissed too, man.

You know? And I understand we're human. but there should be accountability there should be reviews there should be suspensions why are we the only ones who gets suspended and why are these guys going down and do public interviews and standing

down doubling and tripling down on their stances I'm never wrong I have a photographic memory I cannot be wrong what are we talking about well what drives me nuts is that sometimes there's these controversial moments like the Jason Herzog one from a few months ago

or excuse me weeks ago and ultimately like you guys will have to do interviews about it press conferences and sometimes it's hard to get to like they don't speak and they just kind of you know they just kind of like scurry off into the night and then a couple weeks later

we're on to the next controversy and so you have to answer for it UFC Dana will be asked about it had nothing to do with him really your coaches will do interviews about it and so the heat is on you guys and I feel like the judges number one the judges are like

they're faceless names and then the refs never have to really take any sort of heat or any sort of accountability, answer, anything, put out a statement, nothing. Like there's nothing, no one requiring them to say anything. And that, to me, is extremely frustrating. By the way, when you were talking about all that, it made me think, did you get any sort of insight into what's going to happen next year with the new TV deal, the bonuses, the pay?

I know you asked those questions. What do we got? What do we know as far as everything going up? What did the brass tell you? No, I try not to get involved in the fireplace. stuff anymore. I've done my time in the sun, client, and I've been burned a couple of times, and

I'm happy where I'm making enough money that I can provide for myself, my family. Like I said, I funded this rum company. I'm over $300,000 in, you know? We're finally starting to do some fundraising for this. Hopefully that launches this

month, later this month, where people can invest in it, and there'll be a small percentage owner of the company, and we can really help scale this thing. I'm not Connor McGregor. I don't make Conner McGregor money. I don't make Floyd Mayweather money, you know, but I'm happy. I'm content with my life. I'm very appreciative of being able to compete still, even at this early, this later age in my life. You know, I got signed at 24 and 2014. So to still be here and doing all this, I'm super fortunate and blessed. Do I think

fighter pay should go up, especially what is such a substantial deal? Yes, I think Dana has touched on that. One thing, the bonuses have been the same since almost the very beginning in the new modern day era of MMA. It's been $50,000 and inflation has been inflating since God knows how long, right? So it's only, the only thing I can do is be optimistic that the company will, I don't say do the right thing because it almost sounds like I'm like, I just hope they do right by the fighters, man. That's the best way I could put it and give these guys a fight and chance to try to make a career for themselves. And if they're good enough, they're good enough. If they're not, they're not. I understand not everyone's going to be

holding a hefty price tag. But when you're in the premier organization, I do think it would be nice if we didn't have to supplement our income doing something else. I'm doing this because I love this project. I drink in training camp, as I've said multiple times, in moderation. And yeah, you know, So hopefully there's a trickle-down effect. I think maybe even if they two or three times X the current pay rate of what everyone is getting, I just think that's substantial amount of money. It should be enough to still be under what they paid percentage-wise these previous years. That's what I think, based on the numbers.

Couldn't agree more. Two to three is nothing as far as multiplying it. But that's for us, that's everything, yes. Yeah, I mean for them. chief of what I'm getting. That's, that's almost me making, that's me making chant money of what I was making before losing the belt, you know? So that would put me in a really good spot again. And again, I'm smart with my money. I can't say the same for every single fighter. I just hope they have the right people in the air doing the right things by them. But you should have an

investment account. You should be looking at SEPT IRAs. You should be looking at all the Roths or the traditions if you don't make enough money yet. You should be looking at all these different vehicles to invest in mutual funds. What's the other one? ETFs. Somewhere where you can put your money little by little and as you grow and make bigger paychecks, you get a new contract, you can increase those investments.

And then when you're done, you have your life insurance and you'll be set, man. You'll be able to take care of your family. You'll be able to take care of everybody. You'll have your retirement fund, tax free at that. And whatever you figure out to do after fighting, you know, life is always going to life and um i you know i just wish these guys the best you know i that's i really can't say anything else that's that's really it uh over the weekend r a f real american freestyle wrestling any chance we see a funkmaster in there going back to your roots we saw bow nickel holly home did you catch

that i missed it but man i would have i would love to take part in it i just had so much going on. Even if CGI, I got to go for like an hour and a half to the first day and then I couldn't make it the second day. I'm just getting back from travel. So it's like you get on this emotional high, the climax to the fight. And then once it's over, you come crashing down and you're like just tired for days, at least for me. And just trying to heal up. I had so much swelling in my arm. People slapping me. Great freaking fight, blah, blah, blah. And I'm just like, ow. But hopefully in the future, you know, I like doing these side quest missions. You know, I've done Polaris, I've done, what was the other one, Cage Fury, I would like to compete more.

I've done karate combat, and hopefully the UFC brings, I know they said they're not trying to have fighters anymore, but I would like to do the fight pass invitation as well. Oh, yes, yes. Anything to make money, anything to compete, anything where I can have fun and just kind of get back to the roots. And that's what it's all about for me. By the way, I'm seeing this tweet from a little while ago from Lorraine Murphy. He was, I don't know, reading our minds. I think it should be me versus Vogue and Mosa versus the winner of Silva and Lopez

for the number one contender spot. If I win, I will love to defend it in the UK in March. That's cool. You know, props to Lerone. He's got an amazing story. Yeah, man, I'm not a hater, man. I just talk facts

whenever available, but I still think my win over Ortega is a much more notable win name value-wise than someone who's literally just came to the show and hasn't done anything

really in the sport I don't even think he was even a Belator champion I mean you correct me from wrong it's not like a pit bull situation right? No

so what do we even what do we yeah it was a cool knockout shit I think it's more the winning streak also without the trice up the winning streak too is impressive

I know only recently is he getting love but you know nine in a row in the UFC I think is impressive but I understand where you're coming from 100%

I did want to ask you before I let you go, your boy Marab, in a little over a month against Corey Sanhagen, you know him well. How will this affect how you'll be able to help him, A, and B, what's the level of confidence going into this one? I would say level of confidence is definitely really high still, even without me being able to help out as much as the fight gets closer. I think he's got enough work with me during my training camp going into that fight camp before we got announced.

And I think he's got enough training partners over at Seneca MMA where he has good guys who can try to give him those looks as best as they can. Maybe not as much on the ground to get like both in a sparring session, but at least separate and still getting the looks of knowing what's the right thing to do and how to address to certain situations. With that said, still super confident. I'm going to, I plan to still corner him the day before my wedding. And I'm super excited about it.

It's going to be a crazy weekend just because of that. We got a lot of people coming here to Vegas from all over, especially in New York. And the day before your wedding, is the wedding in Vegas? The wedding is in Vegas. I should know this, but I never got the save the date. I was going to send you one. I was going to give you Piotrion's invitation, but I knew you weren't going to come. Wow.

I'd at least send a gift. I mean, I'm the best type of guest to invite because I'll just send the gift, and you don't have to pay for the food or anything, you know? All right. I'll send you something. I'll say you the link. Yo, yo, it's the day before your wedding? Yeah, it's crazy, right? How does your fiancé feel about this? Like, Quinto, Wyden. Wow.

Some of the other local guys, it's going to be great, man. Marab, hopefully, you know, he's not banged up and he can make it out still. But, you know, I don't know if I should talk about this or not. But I thought he was just saying his cheek and tongue, he was going to give me half his bonus. He actually gave me half his bonus, which to me is crazy. Wow. So I almost feel like I need to put it in a side. side for when his wedding comes and I could just give it right back to him because I was like

I had a lot of money he actually he just sent it to you you didn't expect it and it just showed up no he gave me it he gave me it he gave me it when I was leaving the PI and I was like brother please please don't tell me this I think it is and I opened it was exactly what I thought it was like oh my goodness wow no I wasn't expecting that you said it I didn't think I told everyone you were saying a cheek and tongue just like how appreciative you were of me helping you and giving you the looks, but I didn't expect him to actually do that. It just goes to show what type of guy he is, you know, man of his word. He actually had a bet with somebody for me to beat Pio de Jan in the rematch, and they put

up $50,000, Maraup put it up to, and this guy still hasn't paid Maraup, some Russian dude. I wish I knew his name so I could put him on blast. That guy sucks. But, yeah. What a friend. Unbelievable. By the way, how does your fiancé feel about you cornering the night before your wedding? No, I told him I still will

We talked about it like briefly As I'm like brother, this is not even a question It's here in Vegas I don't got to go anywhere There's a lot of doubt I would think that I should be healed up In the next two weeks to start training again Hopefully at a high level

I can actually move it now I could almost straighten it All the way So it's good It's coming along All right Well get well soon A lot of exciting things

Big win Your buddy's fighting Defending his belt against a guy that you obviously have a history with. You're getting married the next day. Funk Harbor, white. The boys are saying they're jonesing for the white one, by the way. They've heard you talk about it, but we haven't had a chance to try.

That's what they're telling me. They're writing in the chat, so. It's like a real Caribbean staple. So if you ever had like Ray and Nephew or Rumbar, you know exactly what I'm talking about in terms of the smell. I'd make sure it wasn't as strong because I want the American and European consumers, everyone around the world. Because I plan on taking this thing global, man. I really do. And I want it to not be super strong where it's off-putting to some people.

I want people to be able to enjoy it. Still have the natural notes and the kick of a traditional Jamaican rum. But this is a blend of different Jamaican rum distilleries. So I didn't want a white label. So now doing it this way, we kind of get the best of both worlds. And we kind of were able to concoct our own blend of it and have the same similarities, but a different tasting profile. that you don't lose anything.

And the fact that it's no additives, no preservatives, gluten-free, no food coloring, I think that's the home run, especially if you drink and you want to be somewhat health-conscious about it. I know people are going to say it doesn't go hand-in-hand, but if you want to drink responsibly and also drink something that's not going to be bad for you outside of you shouldn't drink,

I think this is a great alternative. And it's just a great product, man. I'm super passionate about it. I love it. I enjoy it. Marab had some with me after. my fight. I should actually post the video. We were in the back room and we did a toast of chairs and everybody drank. So it was cool. I'm sure it's going to be flowing on the 5th of

October. Yes, it will. And by the way, shout out on the, you, I saw you speaking a little bit of the native language in your post-fight interview. Well done. Oh, thank you. It wasn't quite Charles Johnson who had like a whole conversation, but you know. Chinese. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You saw that. I couldn't want up that. There was no way. It was unbelievable. Hi-Hau, and gumbai, gumbe, gumbe, which is like cheers. That's all I know. Yeah, awesome. It was impressive after a five-round fight.

Thanks, man. Get well soon. Appreciate the time, as always, and good luck next month. Thank you, Ariel. There he is, the one and only. The Funkmaster, Al Jermaine Sterling. Always great to have him on and appreciate his insights very much. He doesn't hold back.

You got to give him that. A couple of things before we go. And I just want to note, for all the fans of the program, it is a Tuesday. It's 518. In an alternate universe, we're doing a show on a different platform. Sound, no sound, not sure, TBD, but still, this is the beauty. You see? You see what I'm trying to say? This is called turning a negative into a positive. Anyone feel me? Silver lining? Anyway, John Jones posted this statement on his social media moments ago. I want to begin by thanking the district attorney's office for carefully reviewing the facts and ultimately vindicating me completely. I have always believed in the importance of truth and fairness. And I'm grateful that the evidence spoke for itself.

The simple fact is this. I was never there. I never even left my house that night. And all the evidence proved that. In this case, there was a rush to judgment before any real evidence was gathered. I understand that. in the court of public opinion, the allegations may have seen believable, especially given my past mistakes. But by the time these claims were made public, I had just retired from competition

and that moment was stolen for me by someone who made false accusations to avoid a DWI and any real accountability. I sincerely hope that this individual is held responsible by Albuquerque's law enforcement. They not only disrupted my retirement, but also made our police department appear negligent in the process. It is deeply troubling that in today's world a single fall accusation could take so much away from someone before any evidence is even considered. So that is John Jones's statement on a situation that seems to be resolved, come and gone. I did see this from Nolan King saying that Marina Morose has been suspended one year by the UFC anti-doping after testing positive for meldonium, which she had previously been suspended.

been subscribed by a physician but failed to disclose she'll be eligible to return July 17, 2026. The suspensions are few and far between these days, but that is one that has come through the wire. And also, I did see, you know, P.C. Carroll was on the program earlier talking about how the event in Paris this weekend is sort of like a night of champions. Well, you can add another one to the list because Cage Warriors champion, Harry Hardwick, is officially stepping in for Foresiam at UFC Paris. This Saturday. Today. Per the promotion, there it is. He's facing Cal Fernandez, first reported by P-H-R-E. How about that? Harry Hardwick. Another champ. How many champs total? A lot.

Before we go, did want to answer some of our super chats. I think I'm going to read them this time because Frank's not here. Frank, we love you and miss too dearly. Nick doing a great job. Frank might be... Who the fuck is we? Yeah. Wow.

Extended that vacate. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. First day back, two weeks off. Not enough. Love you, Frank. This is from Bugi...

I don't know. The name is cut off. Bucci Alpaca. Okay, Bougie Alpaca. Shout out. Ariel, I recently got into wrestling history and I've been watching Dark Side of the Ring.

Any thoughts about having Jim Cornett on to talk about wrestling? He seems like a good interview. I'm a huge. huge, huge fan of the Jim Cornett podcast. I would love to have him on. That would be incredible. People have asked me. I don't know if he does interviews with other people. I know he does like the dark side stuff, but I don't know if he goes on other pods. But I would love, I am very excited to say that on Monday, the great Maven Huffman's going to be joining us in studio. I'm so excited. I don't know who's more excited. Me or Rick about this one, because he kind of

got me on. I've been on that Maven trick. Yeah, it's so good. Hey guys, Maven here. Oh, I love it. I love it. I love it so much. He's just perfect. He's found his medium. Oh my God. Incredibly well. He's going to be joining us in studio. So if you're a fan of the wrestling interviews, that's one to look out for. Shout out to Rick G. Morphica. Yo, what did y'all miss most while you were away? I missed the camaraderie, the friendship. Lunch. Lunch. The lunch chats? Or just lunch in general? Yeah, it comes with the lunch. Yeah The banter

Yeah The banter lunch is Good stuff What table we're gonna pick You're right, right There's always a bit of a discussion It's exciting stuff The two for Tuesdays

Are we Do we have to bullshit here and lie Or can we just say We didn't miss anything And we're That's possible Yeah no It's good

I mean it was it was a well timed Well earned Well deserved time off I was happy to be gone And now I'm happy to be back That's it You didn't miss anything

no I was fucking doing can I tell you what I definitely didn't miss was booking guess I was like yeah it's Sunday you didn't miss any of it I don't have to book no I I miss I miss this you know what I miss I miss like the three four hours where you can't think about anything other than this because it's being locked into us like yeah yeah

but let me tell you you know prancing around Tuscany it ain't bad yeah oh I miss I miss doing this because I'm on my sixth affigata And I'm like, you know what I miss? Yeah, fuck out of here. I miss the YouTube chat. This is why we don't have to lie. I'm just sitting in a dark room for six hours.

Yeah. Oh, I had... They didn't miss shit, but I'm happy to be back. I had like a Napoli-style pizza. The fluffy crust. Oh, I was thinking of the fight feast that could be had. Napoli-style deep dish for Rick. Oh, yeah.

There was a lot of pizza. There was a lot of pizza. This is from Ruben Salazar 4-071. New York, Rick, looks like Alcaraz with the buzz. Vamo. Shut up. Shout out. That's a good comparison. He's on to the semis. What's up with USA tennis? Seems to be struggling right now, no?

Fritzie's got Novak tonight to try to punch a ticket to the semis. You know what I'm a big fan of? Who's that? Jessica Pagula. Oh, yeah, of course, Bill's. I thought you were going to say FAA. Your boys in the quarters. Bill's Mafia. Yeah, I know. He's always wrapping the bills. Canadian mafia, you know? She's doing well, right? She's still in it?

She's on to the semis as well, yeah. Hell yeah. Love it. She's nice. I was actually, you know, it was great because we got to watch a lot of the tennis at night because it was, you know, because the time difference. You know, I was in Europe. It was a time difference. Oh, I hadn't heard. The guy dating Trinity Rodman.

Yeah, Ben Shelton. So my wife is a huge fan of tennis, not watching tennis, playing tennis. She used to be a teacher. She's been playing in her life. She doesn't really watch it, but if I put it on, she'll get very excited because it's always sports that she doesn't like on basketball, football, soccer, fight sports. So Shelton was playing

the game that he lost, and she was just blown away by his erratic play. And she was doing a whole breakdown of what he was doing wrong and all this stuff. It was interesting. Well, worth noting he lost because he got injured. Did he get injured? Oh, yeah, against Manorino?

Yeah, that's how he got bounced. He hit an incredible winner and then, like, injured his shoulder. Oh. Did they talk a quit? Well, you You know, I had to watch it in, in Italian. Oh, yeah, dude, his shoulder. Really? The shoulder was cooked. Yeah, that's how he got knocked out.

Oh, I missed that. Look at this erratic play. Oh, yeah, he's a blown fucking shoulder. He was swinging and he couldn't follow through because his shoulder was so fucking. She was shitting all over him. I'm like, you're being a little hard. If you watch on the American broadcast in slow motion, he's like grabbing his head. No, they didn't show that part.

Yeah. His dad was like, I was like, you're being a little bit. Wait, but didn't it go? Didn't it go to the end? or did he actually tap out? It was about to start a fifth set and his dad was like, not quit, bro. Wow.

Okay, well, we miss that part. Anyway, Sammy J6 Z3S says, welcome back, guys, after a well-deserved time off. Thank you. Did you miss us? Sometimes you know what they say. Distance makes the heart grow fonder. By the way, before it looked like it was about to storm

and now it looked beautiful again. I don't know what happened. Did you notice that? No. Richard Hall 4657 As the UFC moves into the Paramount era Do you think we'll start to see stadium shows Say four years similar to WWB big four

Dana doesn't like it But WVE's crushing it with those Big Allegiance Stadium show coming up on September 13th That's Zoufa boxing by the way Does the UFC have four events that could fill a stadium I don't think they could do that per year That doesn't feel right to it The UFC brand can fill a stadium

Yes Four per year Drop the price down in touch You definitely could Maybe not four, but they could definitely do two. No, no, no. Well, the question was four. He said maybe. Say four a year. He says, do you think they could start to? I don't think they have four. I literally said, do they have four?

The brand. The brand. The brand is so hot. They could go to these markets. Four? Do you think? Are there four fights that could fill us? Four was the example. I asked the question. It's not the example. I literally said four. I am asking for four. They do not have four. Is the MSG card selling out in that life? No, it's not. By the way, MetLife is 80K for UFC.

Okay, by the way, did anyone go to Oasis at MetLife? But I saw the tickets for dropping in price. I wish I went. Back to this question. Okay, let's say 2026, right? Ilya versus Patty in Spain won. Tom versus you at Wembley? Yes.

Oh, in Wembley? Yes. Come on, yes. He's selling out Wembley. Okay. Or even Tottenham. It's 60-something. Yeah. I think you're selling it on either of them just because... All right. Now what else? You've gone to the two locations with the stars from those locations. Now what?

Islam versus whomever in Russia? Okay. St. Petersburg or something. All right. We're in? All right. So you got two. Yeah. Whoa. Two. Oh, the USC's going to Russia next year.

I don't know how big the stadiums are in... Do they have stadiums in Abu Dhabi? like comes out over there? They have to have a stadium. This is a failing extra project. Okay, you don't think Vogue can do in Australia a stadium show?

Depends who the opponent is maybe? Like a Marvel Stadium, like 56. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't think of Vogue? Easy, easy. Easy worth for Vogue. Throw a couple more. Throw Jack Della on there?

Easyware. Throw Jack Della on there? You're underestimating how bad people want to be shows, man. I don't know about that. And then go to, where did the rainbows play, University of Hawaii? Throw Max on.

Oh, Aloha. Oh, we're doing the low. The Oahuas Stadium? Yeah, there you go. You don't even want to go to Hawaii because they won't pay a site fee, but we're doing a Loloja van in Brazil. I think you're going to say Myanmar. Yeah, now you're talking. Do they have the infrastructure?

I don't know. Eddie, I'm down. I'm there if they do that. He said the girl hit him up, the celebrity. This is Jankosaurus, Dylan versus all the mailmen, make it happen. Oh, the guys from the show from the boys in the back. Oh, we can facilitate that. Misfits, give us a call.

No, we. I want it on our promotion. I don't want to do it for Misfits. We have a pipeline. We'll do a crossover. You guys are the contender series. You know man, Fight League leads to Mitzvitz contract. Give us a call.

We got this in the books. We'll take it. Eric Hamidi. Hello, crew, Ariel. I'm the one who asked about MMA media a few weeks ago. I heard what you said about new writers, and I decided to start a substack under my name. The journey begins.

All the best, y'all. Congrats. Good luck. Go check him out. Eric Hameedy. and speaking of substack area hawwanda

substack.com is the place to drop your questions for tomorrow. I'll tell you about tomorrow in a moment. Nini Hirdi says UFC fight past

ESPN actually real logic? There is smoke to the fire. Man, they've just been able to like cut everything into so many pieces sell this off, sell that off

like TKO I mean, sell this, sell this, sell this, sell this, sell this. ESPN's looking for these things. They've got their new platform. FightPass is kind of just like a thing. I always felt like FightPass was being built to be sold,

just like the WWE network. So, yeah, it feels like a thing. And what a twist that would be, right? UFC leaves ESPN, but ESPN gets FightPass? Wow. What are they getting FightPass for? Well, first of all. It feels like the library.

Library International, you know, like Brazil is on Fight Pass. I don't know. So ESPN is doing international rights deals I don't know Okay, what about Like some of these other smaller promotions You get all that No

Don't you get like the LFA's of the world and all that I feel like the library is the only real value there Yeah, is the library that Is the UFC library? Is it is the UFC library as valuable Is the WWE library? I don't think so It's probably pretty valuable

WWE fans love to go back And watch WrestleMania 10 The only reason if I pass this for Americans at this point is for the library. No, LFA, Cage Fury, all that stuff. How's the viewership on those? I think there's more people watching those than watching old, like, UFC 112. Hey, let me sit back and watch UFC 123. I would doubt that.

I would probably not assume that, but also under ESPN's shepherding, I imagine it's more valuable. You think so? Yeah. I just want to see them do more like original programming. Who do it? Well, right now on this current version, on this current version of FightPass,

like Docs, things like that, though, but it seemed like nobody kind of wanted it. We get major fight announcements from the Jet on an IG live. We're not getting docs. Come on. Hey, how about Mighty Zan saying, Missed you, G.C., shout out.

Oh, shout out. Missed you too, Mighty Zan. You specifically. Hey, appreciate you, bro. Shout out to, how did he pronounce it? Anton Vans? Was that? Yeah, Frank said it.

Really fucking blew that, huh? Anton Vans. Auntie Vans. Auntie Vans. Antivans. Yes, like Auntie DeLelly. Lots of great long-form reads on Uncrown lately. Yes.

Shout out. Thank you. It's because he wrote one. I bet it's no coincidence that it's because he wrote one. A great one that came out last week entitled, Akaraba versus the Gracies, the dizzying inside story of MMA's oldest blood feud, 25 years later. Tremendous stuff. I'm going to confirm.

It was quite a good. Drake Riggs was a good one up. Yeah, Drake Riggs was a great one on Husseemar, Paul Harris. Yes. You, G.C., you just thought he was being kind and shouting out on Crown, right? Yeah. Yeah. I figured.

That's not anti-van style. I need to go brush up on my long form on Crown. Yeah, man, we're crushing it. Ben had a great story recently and amazing he's been doing a great job with the old school boxing stuff so yes please

uncrown.com your place for all things combat sports and is there number one by the way unbiased combat sports now more than ever speaking of which Daniel

in dumbabs messed that up no more Aranade he asks yes I did talk about that at the top of the show. Our loss is your gain, because now, you know, here we are, 530 on a Tuesday. But yes, one year, not renewed.

Them's the breaks. That's show business. It was a great run. Still much love to everyone over there and I hope to do more stuff, but I believe they have a new program that's coming out. And we continue. It doesn't change what we're doing over here. And finally, Shawnee 719, more watched.

Ooh, this is a great question. question. Guys, this is a great way to end the show. What will be watched by more people? Canello v. Crawford, Jake Paul versus Giovante Davis. Canelo versus Crawford. You think so? Yeah, I think so, too. What do you think Kennello Crawford gets? Every boxing fan is going to watch that fight. Every single one. There's not one out there that will not watch that fight. Do you think it dwarfs it? I don't know about dwarfs, but the more I think about it, the more competent I am that

that's going to get more viewers. Canello is massive. Crawford is massive. Every boxing fan will break into the mainstream as well. Mike Tyson breaks into the mainstream? No, Mike Tyson breaks into the mainstream. Tank Davis does not. He's a boxing fan's boxer. What do you think about the level of promotion heading into Crin? Like, do you feel the buzz right now? No, not yet, but it will build next week. Maybe not the buzz, but like I see a lot of advertisements for it on on YouTube. I've seen advertisements around the street here. It feels like they're pumping out some advertisement. I feel like it's going to get bigger next week.

The reality about the biggest boxing fights and this one as well, they don't need that kind of like Carnival Barker promotion because as I said, every boxing fan is going to show up. It doesn't need the like spectacle, pomp circumstance that you might need for like MMA in certain capacities. You put Canello and Crawford in a ring together. Every single boxing fan and others will also tune in. It's going to be massive. Yeah, and they have the UFC promotion of the WWW. promotion, the YouTube channels. My kids...

Netflix is massive for a fight like that. Throw that on a tile anywhere on that fucking platform and it's golden. It is going to be interesting to see it. I guess they will make it public. They did make the other two public. By the way, my kids asked me... What public? Like the numbers.

Oh, like after? Yeah. I saw something recently about Netflix probably trying to like reduce the number of times they do that, so we'll see. But I mean, if it's a massive, massive number I bet they will. My kids ask me by the way, why you have a pack of cigarettes on the wall next to you, G.C. I wasn't quite sure what to tell them. They were trying to take them home. Yeah. Slanderous. Why do I have it? It's

for Carlos Proaches. Could I have the Marlboro Reds? Yeah. What about Paul Costa posting like a behind the scenes? Love that. I love the way he like took my kids in. Like he yeah. It was almost like the Pope like bringing in a kid like he was blessing them. Yes. And for the record, he did send me a video of him doing Shabbat, like legit praying. I don't know why you were so skeptical of that. He seemed very sincere. He seems so ridiculous. I know he seems sincere, but I'm with you, Ariel.

It's crazy. It's crazy. Every time you think he's bullshitting, like he just He just... He's just actually an incredibly sincere on his guy. Yes. He sends me a DM video, and it's him singing the songs. It's him singing the songs. In fact...

Okay. Time out. You, Paolo, Shabbat Yeah Video Fight Feet Fight Fees Whatever we brand it

That has to fucking happen You know Oh and we do like All like old school Like we have the mutzabal soup The Chala Yeah I'm gonna give a shout

It to my friend Yaniv And also Olga Rubin Who do a podcast Over in Israel And they said This is the name This is what the name of the thing should be

Secret Jews Oh that's fucking great Holy shit This sells itself Yes. This is incredible. He's a secret Jew.

It's all there. By the way, you should DM him that or text him that. Trade market? No, so he prints the T-shirts. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's brilliant. Wow, that is great. Jens, tomorrow is a banger of a program.

Tell me. On the nose, as per, Chil P. Sunnan, to talk about his whirlwind of a weekend, going from R.A.F. to C.J.I. and everything in between. The great Deonté Wilder, the Bronze bomber himself, the great soldier of God. No, son of God. Andre Ward, S-O-G, just like

you all. Alex Pereira in studio with Plinyo and the one and only Luke Rockhold joining us in his first conversation post Darant Hill knockout. Never doubt your instincts. It is, in fact, soldier of God for Andre Ward as well.

He's soldier and son? No, soldier of God. No, no, no. He's the son of God. And And Yuel is the soldier of God. No, no. He's S-O-G, but it's Son of God. I'm pretty sure he's the soldier of God. Yeah, he's a soldier of God. I'm going to rip a quick Google search here.

No, son of... Son of God feels kind of crazy, right? He's a soldier of God. Wait, they're both soldiers of God? No, son of God. S-O-G. Yeah, but it's Soldier of God. I've seen Son of God as well.

No, he's Son of God. He's Son of God. Soldier of God. Soldier of God is Y'L. There's only one soldier. No, no, hold on. Okay, Andre Ward, aka Son of God. This must be a change at some point. No, no, no, a.k.a. Son of God. Yeah, there it is.

A.k.a. standing for also known as. There is. A.k.a. or, what is it? I.e. There you have it. Andre Ward slash nicknames. Well, it's going to be an incredible day. It's time to go. Hardout 539. What a quick four hours and 40 minutes. It did go by fast. Went by fast. I thought so, too. I can't tell if you're joking or not.

We covered a lot, guys. Are you happy to have us back in the chat? Give us a thumbs up. Thumbs up in the chat. Are you happy to have us back? Thumbs up. Also, roll call. Where are you joining us from?

Oh, I love a good roll call. Roll calls are fun. Roll calls are fun. But then it reaches a threshold at some point where people just start bullshitting. You think they're making places up? I think everyone's real at first, and then people are like, the moon. Oh, I always see legit places. I know, I know.

It just, it goes real for like nice, like five or six minutes and then it hits. And then it's jokes. People don't take anything. Yeah, thumbs up. Thumbs up to the chat. Love you guys. Missed you guys. Really, we did miss you guys.

What are we at? What do we add in terms of, um, Jesus. That's a crazy thing that I just saw. I'm not going to talk about that. Well, can I talk? So I have the. What is it? Okay, so I need to know now.

I have the YouTube. Yeah. But it's like squish. screen is squished oh shout out to oh pittsburgh i thought it was plattsburgh and you know where it says like right under like we're back the name stick with me here guys look at the thing it says c perks right under do you see that and then it has like the thumbs up thumbs up 621 it says edit video i don't know if you could see maybe because i'm on the back end well for me it says c perks and then instead of analyze it just says something gotcha no it just says adle yeah

I thought you were on the old area of Hawaiian.com. And now Rufus, yeah, I got it. McKenzie, Aljo, Tom, Charles. Thank you. Thanks to them. We're back. See you tomorrow.