The Ariel Helwani Show - What happens now at heavyweight? Ronda Rousey hates MMA, ‘Tank’ Davis' civil suit | The Craic

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

The Craic returns with its dynamic trio: Petesy Carroll, Chuck Mindenhall, and Ben Fowlkes.Up first, a deep dive into the future of the UFC heavyweight division following the fallout from Ciryl Gane��s eye poke against Tom Aspinall (5:20).Two fighters looking to make their mark on the division are Jon Jones and Alex Pereira. The lads discuss the two MMA stars angling for a potential superfight (26:00).Pereira’s been putting in the work for that bout, but with an unexpected training partner. The crew breaks down the viral clip of him grappling with Mark Zuckerberg (34:00).Next, the trio reacts to Gervonta 'Tank' Davis’ latest legal troubles ahead of his upcoming Netflix boxing match with Jake Paul (36:09).Another controversial headline doing the rounds is Andrew Tate’s appointment as the new Misfits Boxing CEO. Petesy and the boys unpack what it means for the future of crossover fights (41:25).To close the show, the guys react to Ronda Rousey’s recent comments about MMA fans, a take that didn’t exactly land well with the community (55:08).

Crackheads, it's Halloween, it's Friday, it's the crack baby. You know, we've had a bit of a tough week here. UFC 321 didn't go according to plan. We all had a bit of an idea of how things went. That did not happen. What you need to know now is, especially American crackheads, you need to know that it is 5pm here. Darkness has fallen on the Emerald Oil. That can only mean one thing on this day.

It means lots of kids are going to be knocking on my door and ringing my door bell, looking for sweets and the lovely lane downstairs is going to do her best to not make a scene down there. The dog goes crazy when people knock on the door. So I'm sure you're going to hear some features from the great Reggie as things unfold. here. However, we do have a show to do. We do have a lot to talk about. I mean, Tom Aspinall, what's going on there? This guy in and out of hospital all week since he's been home. We got the update from Andy earlier in the week. And things need to shake out. I mean, Volkov doesn't seem like the bona fide number one contender right now with everyone after the Jelton Almeida win.

You know, we obviously have Jones and Pereira going off in the background. And while all that's happening. Andrew Tate has been announced as the new CEO of Misfits, a bit of a weird one there, and Giovante Davis, who's fighting Jake Paul in two weeks, has got himself into more trouble, which has become a commonplace for Tank at this stage. Also, Ronda Rousey, not a big fan of MMA. If you haven't heard over the last two weeks, not a big fan of the MMA world. We've a lot to get through, as I said. I would not be able to do this by myself. So let's bring in the two very, very talented co-host of this brilliant show. First of all, Chuck Mendenhall and, oh, there they are.

Yeah, man. Chuck and Van, how are you? That is a new hat. Well, it's new to me. I mean, I've had it for a little while, but it's not as old as the franchise itself. Now, wait, wait, wait, before we get started, you said you make goody bags or what was it? Like, you said something to hand out. What do you put in these bags?

Lucky bags is what you said over text. Well, any child that gets them is lucky. You know what I mean? I thought we were dealing with something that was a thing in Ireland. The way you said it, you were like, oh, yeah, we're giving out lucky bags. Yeah, like we just know what that means, you know. Yeah, and I thought, okay, here we go. We're going to find out about another Irish thing that is going to be delightful and hilarious.

And then it turns out that maybe it's a thing that you made up. Yeah, I assume since we were talking about Kenahan that it has cocaine in. But you tell us, what is in the bag? Like, is it? It was a chase of the Kennan conversation before. Funny you've had to see the article of New Yorker. please go and check it out, but I meant like we construct our own

bag of treats. So we'll boil lots of different things and put them in a bag and then give them a collection, like a collection of different treats to the children as they knock on the door. Now when I say we, Elaine did all of that. Yeah. Nothing to do. I watched, I was there

briefly while she was doing it. I was like, yeah, they look good. All you do is just keep picking candies for yourself to eat as you're watching the process. I mean, is that not what you call a looky bag like a looky dip situation no no idea what you're talking about but i don't have lucky bags respect you for pre-preparing it in some bag thing i just go with a big bowl of candy that i will dole out according to what i think of your costume and the effort that went into it because i'm going to tell you right now if you're going to be the kid who's a little too old

for trick-or-treating and you roll up in here and you're just wearing your street clothes and you got a mask that you're not even wearing. It's like pushed up to the side of your head and you're just like, trick-or-treat, whatever. I'm going to be like, all right, I'm going to give you a fun-sized Snickers and then be on your way.

Ben, be honest. What would you give yourself? What would you give yourself if you showed up at your door right now? Me? I'm going to put on my costume later. I didn't know who we're doing that. I'll be honest.

Okay, so I'm a lobster, if you can't tell. I'm a little disappointed. I'm a little disappointed. with the claw people can see here the claw is it's it's kind of floppy i'm trying to like attach stuff to like make it a hook yeah it's because it's there's like a thumb part but the hands don't go all the way up into it and i really had a vision of myself when i bought this i was like going to a Halloween party night i'm gonna be i'm gonna be coming there i'm gonna be doing my claws somebody put a beer in my claw i'm gonna stand there with it it's gonna be hilarious uh and you know what yeah i

I'm thankfully I have some time I have some ideas I'm going to make some alterations see if I can't improve it a little bit um but uh yeah it's it's cozy I'll say that for it you know you come up with the Halloween costume in Montana you need it to be a little bit cozy otherwise you're going to be miserable all night long I'm just waiting for like some fan of Ben's to like you know be a bit late to the show click in and here he is like putting the world to write about Andrew Tate while dressed us upstairs there what are misfits thinking It's a serious business. Speaking of serious business, as you guys know, you've both written about it. You've both wrote about it this week, the Tom Aspinall situation. And we should start with the last update we got from Team Aspinall, which came from his father, Andy, his coach, head coach, a man who seems to be in and out of the hospital since they have returned home. Andy, can we have a look at the Andy Aspinall video, the last update. We got an appointment yesterday morning. with a friend of ours who is one of the doctors from the UFC

and he got us a private appointment at Cheedle Hospital to see an eye specialist yesterday he kind of basically did the same as the guy that we saw over there said it's bad it's not good but his eye is a little bit more close than it was right eye he still can't see anything said it's just grey and he's tested him on words and he just couldn't see anything his left eye 50%

He went down about four letters and then couldn't see the letters. So one's really, really blurry and one's still not working. Sometimes when your eyes hear like that, it can become displaced and stay there. And they did a few tests on that and they said it doesn't seem like that. And his vision on the eye that's the best eye, his eye wasn't following properly. So the muscles weren't working strong enough to go this way. This one just wasn't working that good at all. So we've got to have additional tests further this week.

and always is sorting the tests out for us and he's got to have a CT scan see if the bones are right but they think the bones are all right no I have spoke to Andy briefly since he gave that update and I know that Tom has undergone more tests they are waiting for results you know Ben you wrote a brilliant piece

reacting to the crazy crazy outpouring of rage it seemed at this situation particularly from people who seem to think Aspen was trying to game the system here still as we hear there can't see a lot going through it and what should have been a night like everyone we all believed it would be a coronation night for him is it one of the weirdest reactions you've seen from the fan base in a situation like this well we've seen plenty of weird reactions of ears and in some ways it's a predictable reaction right this is usually how this kind of thing goes which is part of what makes it kind of confusing for me when people act like tom aspinall gained something here that he he worked the system him to his advantage because he got poked in the eye really badly. We saw it. We saw the tip of that man's finger disappear into his eye.

And you can't deny that that's going to have some effect on your vision. And then people wanted to be like, okay, he was losing the fight, which first of all, we weren't even through the first round yet. And it wasn't like he was getting absolutely wrecked. It was a close fight. It was a close round. He got bloodied up a little bit, but he didn't seem like he was really feeling the effects of that too badly.

he still seemed like he was very much in the fight. And he's watched this sport long enough, just like the rest of us. He knows what's going to happen. If somebody says, I got poked in the eye, I can't see, I'm bringing the fight to an end by saying that I can't see. He knew that people are going to be jerks to him about it, that they're going to blame him and not the guy who poked him in the eye. We've all seen that enough times that you know that's always how it goes.

That's one of the reasons why it's so effective to cheat in this sport is because as soon as you do it, the pressure is on the guy who was fouled to say, I'm okay and to get the fight restarted. And this one, you could see it. Everybody was basically trying to get him to say, I can see, let's restart to fight. And when he was even saying stuff early on, like, hey, I can't see. They're like, I'm going to kind of pretend he didn't say that because that would bring it into the fight. You know, everybody wants to see the fight restarted. And when you're the guy who's like, no, I'm not fighting like this, this, I'm too compromised like this. You know people are going to get mad at you. So what did he gain? He got.

people mad at him. He knew people were going to get mad at him. Maybe we should just assume that that's because he realized he was at such a disadvantage. Like the part of the conversation I can't stand is people looking at it and being like, could he have continued? Well, sure. He could have continued. He could have had that eye completely blinded and he could have continued. He could have had both eyes blinded. You could continue fighting with zero vision. It would be incredibly dumb, especially in that circumstance to continue fighting like that. It's pointless to even ask yourself like could he have continued, he's telling you he is compromised by a foul to the point where his odds of winning the fight just went way, way down, his odds of getting seriously

hurt by Sterlgan went way up. Being able to seize a pretty important factor in a prize fight. And you have, the reaction from fans is one thing. The reaction from fighters is the thing that really gets me. Because you have a lot of these people, even people who have been in similar situations, like Al Jermain Sterling, who still catches shit from fans for taking that illie to knee from Peter Jan and taking the DQ win in a title fight. And he knows he still catches ship for that. And he's going to even come out. And it's like you can get these MMA fighters where if you ask them, hey, if you were

losing the first round and you got poked in the eye and you saw an opportunity to get out of there, would you take it? And they would tell you 100% never. I would never do that. And yet they are all so willing to believe that any other MMA fighter would. That I can't quite understand. That's crazy. Chuck, you actually had a great piece

out speaking the two legendary iPokies, we could call them Mitrione and Stevens. I mean, what have you gained from speaking to these guys? I actually sent Mitrione to Ariel in the afternoon out of that because I remember that Travis Brown fight where his eye

seemed like it was nine months pregnant in the aftermath. It was bad. Tell me, what did these lads say to it in terms of aspirational situation? Well, Ben kind of outlined a lot of what Matt Mitrione was basically saying at the time too like you got to realize at the time they're looking at it like

i'm expected to go in there and keep fighting right like people want me to uh this would be anticlimatic if i don't go in there man betrione basically didn't know his options he knew he had five minutes but he kind of was like well i'm supposed to continue you know i'm supposed to go out there he said that you know it was it was very blurry and then he was seeing two of them which is a little bit different right it doesn't sound as severe in the end as what maybe aspinone was going through where basically he has no vision in one eye and he's got uh compromised vision in the other eye but he did continue and one of the things he you know he he's able to look back and he's like i would have done exactly what tom aspinall did if i could do it again because this

happened to be the last this is a huge fight for him is the last ufc fight he gets ousted and then goes to bellator after this um he would have done the exact same thing and you know he sees it from all angles he's like it's only smart even if tom like so if tom's compromised at all and he's like iffy and on the fence well you should all air to the side of like well we'll just do this again when I'm not compromised because he was pointing out that one of the things we hadn't seen was just the depth perception of like takedowns and things like that where you know he's going to be using these things and how affected that would be as the fight went on and you know given that that was the case also if this was calculated which I don't think it was like if it was calculated

at all though you would go through these thoughts as well into that scenario but the truth of the matter is it's when you get into a situation where and this is talking about the Jeremy Stevens thing, too, because I was there in that fight of me. That was Rodriguez, right? Yeah, against Yarra Rodriguez. And Yarra Rodriguez was, this was like his coronation. He's back in Mexico. The fans are crazy. Like, as he comes out,

it was like one of these, you know, big moments for him. 15 seconds in first exchange, poked in the eye, and now he pokes Stevens in the eye, and Stevens is walking around very similar. The big difference was the people in the arena that night had paid. So the anticlimatic nature of them leaving without any

kind of resolution, and in fact, feeling like they got robbed in this scenario was understandable, but in the situation of this other one, right, like with gone and Aspinall, it's a pay-per-view, which then brings everybody into the fray that paid for this event and gets nothing from it, you know, no kind of resolution. It's a bad scenario, but everybody knows. It's not like in the NBA of all of a sudden they're like, hey, guys, 15 seconds in, something happens, we're done. They would reimburse you because that's not supposed to happen.

Part of the fight game, you know, is there's an element of this kind of thing. qualifications you were at your cage side um when the blades fight went down and aspinall hurt his knee about 15 seconds and wasn't able to continue it's an unfortunate thing but you dude i when you have the visual evidence just going back to bringing it all back to ben's point when you have the evidence you can see the eye the fingers going into the eye like that i don't know how you can question the guy it's just what it is he would have been stupid to continue in that fight well yeah and also the how little criticism the guy who pokes him always gets, right? Like, Cyril Gaon had his fingers all the way out, had his fingers, you could see his

fingers, go to both eyes. He bowling balled this man. He three stooges this man. And still somehow it's Tom Aspinall who comes in for the criticism when it's Cyril Gaon who commits the fight ending foul. And I definitely don't think gone meant to do that. I think that, you know, his reaction afterwards, you could tell he was just like, well, crap, this is, you know, I, there goes my chance, maybe. Who knows if I'm going to get it back. But I do. But I, you know, he's, you know, he's, you know, do think that we get into a weird spot with a sport with unintentional fouls and we need to sort of I really do think we need to examine that because if you're poking people in the eye I don't know if we need to get too caught up in your motivations. I don't know if we need to know

what was in your heart at the moment that your fingers went into his eyes. It's a foul. It's a serious foul that can really affect the fight. We shouldn't even get into a conversation about it. All that we should do is look at the replay confirmed did you poke the guy in the eye? or not. And if you did, then there's a point deduction, maybe two points deduction, as soon as we see that you did that, if a fight is able to continue. If the fight can't continue after that, then you should take a DQ loss because you did the thing, the illegal thing that caused this fight to be over. I don't know why we want to get into this thing where if we don't think that you really did it with malice of forethought, then we don't want to see any sort of consequences. That's why we

continue to have this because, like, why wouldn't you poke your opponent in the eye? Now we're going in there in a UFC fight, knowing everything we know, your odds of winning a fight if you poke somebody in the eye in the first round, we've seen this statistically, they go up.

Right. You should kick your choice. 74% or something? That came from Lauren Murphy when she said she attended a judging and refereeing course and they claimed in that that 74% of the time

if you poke your opponent in the eye in the first round you go on to win. And that's not that hard to believe, like why wouldn't she do it? That's what I was going to say you should pick them in the groin and grab the fence and all of that.

The only time I can remember seeing somebody disqualified was back in the Pride days when Gilbert Ivel just repeatedly kept sticking his thumb and Don Fry's eye. But in UFC fights, I don't think anyone's ever been disqualified, right? I don't know if they have. Yeah. Yeah. And it's when you know that that's the, it's the foul that has the most likelihood of affecting your opponent in a way that will make it more likely for you to win. and it's also the foul that you're you can kind of get away with at least one you know they'll tell you to put your fingers back in and then the fight will continue you you very rarely see a point deduction even for the first time it's tough in the sense that like what you don't want is a precedent where somebody gets poked in the eye and they know they can get out of it with a deal like you know what i'm saying like where it kind of goes the opposite way now i don't know how that would play out because we've never instituted this but you can see a scenario then where that could be a real accusation somebody's poked in the eye they're like i can't continue you know right do can you see people doing that? Can you imagine, like, especially knowing what we know of

MMA fighters. Can you, because they, they would know, like, yeah, you'll get your win money, maybe. Like, you'll, it'll short term, it might work out for you, okay. But they know you're going to take a ton of shit from the fans, especially if they think that you're gaming the system at all. It's not going to be a good move for you long term. Like, I think we worry about that as a possibility way more so than it, the likelihood would suggest we should. It's, it's interesting the way this is all,

like, I agree with everything you're saying in terms of, like, the optics of this, or at least the loudest voices on social media. You know, given Aspinall shit, Gann was about to win. Oh, he was so much better. This guy lost two total boys. Look how well he was doing against Aspinall. It's, like, it's weird, it's a weird reaction. But it also, it will sell a rematch way more than the first one could have been.

Like, I mean, this new thing where look at Tom, look at how these guys saying, like, look how he faces adversity. Like, he quit, um, despite the. I'm seeing this massive two fingers in his eyes. That's the kind of thing people are saying. Gan, he was just about to win. It adds to the idea of a rematch. Would you say so, Chuck?

Like, I mean, it makes it a lot more appealing than the first go-round. Oh, yeah, because I feel like the whole narrative. And we kind of tried to guard ourselves against this, too, because we're like, oh, you know, this is Aspinall's fight, man. You know, Gan has been in these spots before. Aspinall is supposed to go through them. It's high expectations, all this. That was kind of the narrative.

just to get to the broader picture of all the different possibilities with if Aspinall gets through. Now you have a guy who presents, I think, he gave enough evidence of a good fight that you're like, now you have a lot of doubt in the situation. I think that that's kind of what was missing from the first time through. So the rematch will be a lot bigger in that sense. And obviously, like, and I know we'll probably touch on this at some point, it kind of opens the door for other scenarios to go ahead and take place. You know what I mean?

But I do think that if there was a moment in this heavyweight division where you're like, you know, this just feels like a stand in fight until we get to the fights that we want. It no longer has that feel. It feels like this is a necessary fight. And I think a lot more people will be glued to it. It is good, right, Ben, that we're not going in with the bottom line on Gan being like, this guy fought for a title two times before and lost both. I feel like that will be at the back of our minds, whereas the first time around was at the very forefront.

Yeah, in terms of marketing, there's a lot you could do with this. one if you're the UFC. All you need is for Tom to show up, give an interview in which he says, you know, Cyril Ghan nearly took the sight in my eye from me and I take that personally and boom, you're off and running, you know, and you're right that I think that one of the reasons people reacted the way they did is because we expected this to be such a bulldoze job for Tom Aspinall, that he was just going to go out there, either going to knock Cyril Gahn out in the first round or he's going to take him down, exploit his complete lack of grappling that we've seen in prior fights, and beat him up there.

And we saw, you know, he tried for a take down. Gone did a good job shutting it down. Gone bloodied him up, was having some success at range in the striking game. And it was closer to even than I think we are acting like in the aftermath just because we expected it to be so one-sided that if it is all even and competitive, it looks like a win for the other guy. And even there's the blood, right? Like just gives you a sense of something else, you know?

Yeah, the visual there of the blood. Yeah. And so, like, I think that that's one of the reasons people are acting like that. It does give the rematch more interest and a little more doubt. Plus, if we're honest with ourselves, and we look around it, what's going on elsewhere in the heavyweight division. It's not as if there are a whole lot of other options right now for the heavyweight title fight. Look, what do you, you know, you probably were making that, that Jelton Almeda, Alexander Volkov fight thinking like, well, hey, Jelton Almeida, he's on the come up. If he can go in there and he can win one, then, you know, he looks like the next guy in line.

challenge for the title but now you look down that division and it looks like a wasteland you know you might as well do aspinel gone too yeah it's it's horrible like i mean that's the thing like this was meant to be a showcase for the division they're lucky this happened with aspan one again because if it didn't we'd be going well i guess it's volkov the guy he beat in the first round three years ago um volkov and almeda had a horrific fight like nobody nobody no it was it was shot like did not even jiu-jitsu or wrestling guys, nobody was watching that going. Still waiting for Almeida

to throw a punch. I'm still waiting. Man, it's fucked. And then Walter Walter Walker had the heel hook against a debutante, Louis Sutherland. That was like the biggest highlight package they'll get outside of the pox from that night. And then you had Hamdi, the Egyptian wrestler,

and Chris Barnett. I don't know if you guys were around early enough to see this one, but fucking hell. Again, 50... I saw Chris Barnett's whole ass in this one, by the way. It always helps. That was the best part of the fight. But this is the thing that they do with heavyweights. It's so bizarre.

And they did it with Boudet as well. Hamdi wins the fight and the UFC just days later cut him straight away. And you're like, what are we doing with this division? Does anyone have a fucking, any clue what's going on here? As well as that, a guy people are really excited about, Anta de Leisure, is fighting this weekend against Waldo Acosta, Walda Cortez Acosta, I got it right this time, Ben. And Tom has already said I'm not going to fight him. He's my best mate.

In fact, I'll give up the belt if he gets to title contention. Surely the UFC, Ben, are hoping Waldo gets a win this weekend against Antideleisure. You know, I don't know if you've noticed this over time, but there's something about Dana White that kind of, I don't want to say he likes those kinds of situations where a guy says, I won't fight this guy. But he cannot resist wading into that conversation. And it's like he takes some kind of joy in breaking.

their will and making them do those kinds of fights. Like he's always kind of been like that. I remember, you probably remember this, Chuck, back when Roshad Evans and Keith Sardine were stablemates at Greg Jackson's. And I remember this moment at a post-fight press conference after UFC where, you know, Rashad was on the way up in the division and somebody mentioned like, hey, you and Keith Chardine, you guys are both looking like, you know, you might be on a collision course here. How's that going to work?

And Rashad said, we won't fight each other. We've already discussed this before. We won't fight each other. And Dana White broke in and interrupted him and he said, You'll fight him if that's the fight I make. Yeah. And Rashad said, no, I won't. And Dana said, yes, you will.

Hence silence. That followed after that. And then, you know, we've seen some of those instances come up where I get it when there's nothing else that makes sense. One and two guys, they're both at the same gym and they got to fight each other. And we say to them, hey, please work it out between the two of you. But this is what you guys are here for. Like, I understand the logic of that. There have been times where the UFC is kind of.

have gone out of their way to try to make fights between teammates just to sort of prove like you can't tell us no if we say that's the fight you're going to you're going to do then you're going to do it i don't know i think that this fight especially this weekend it seems like it's a shame that it's on this fight card which is so there's going to be a ton of fans that don't even know there's a ufc this week they might turn on ESPN plus just to see what's on and be like oh crap there's a UFC uh and this is one that actually is important for the division one of the few fights on this car that is important for its division and so i'm interested to see what happens there i don't think the uc looks at it like we need to have not anti deletia win

because tom aspinall won't fight him i think they go if he wins we'll start putting that pressure on remember like miss remember also like the uh it was a cost check fitch and uh swick and all those guys yeah and he took i remember there were a lot of questions because all those dudes were very uh they were very kind of high up in the same spot and there were questions i remember as you bring this up like Dana just constantly handling those types of questions with the same kind of attitude like hey do you want if you want to be the best in your division going to beat the best in a division they'll fight if they have to type thing yeah he's a great guy yeah that's that's that's the main thing that i've about dana and would you believe um two lads who are moving to well

john jones returning to heavyweight Alex pareda hoping for a move to heavyweight it's where there wasn't even a fucking fight on last weekend I mean the way these guys posted about this thing If there wasn't a massive screenshot of Tom Aspel holding his eye in the background, you would not have a clue that Alex Panera was watching that. There he is. The emojis cryptically pointing to Poetan v. Bones at house. That's beige, but we won't get into that. And then we had John Jones, Alex.

Now, this has just happened, right? So Tom is in the ring holding his eye at this point. He knew this is coming, though. This is what Johnny puts out, Alex, I'd be down to bring the highest skill level to the White House. I appreciate the respect you showed. Let's dance. And guess what, guys, he hasn't stopped there. And I don't know if we have the horse showing up at dirty boxing last night.

Oh, there, look it, with the eye patch. Yeah, with the eye patch. I thought this was AI. Dude, when I saw this, I was like, what the book is going on here? There is John Jones showing up to dirty boxing last night. All the stars were out, as the great Norm MacDonald would say. And then we also have. I don't know if you saw this interview,

but it's a tough 15 seconds of watching as John Jones speaks to the Schmo about his aspirations. Can't wait to see you compete the White House. Can't wait to see it. I know. I really hope it happens. Dana, bro, please, bro, please.

I'm training. I feel great. I'm healthy. And I'd be so honored to represent our country and do what I do best. You think the beers are flowing out there in Nashville? I was just wondering what happened when he rode that horse back off into the street lights at the end of the evening. Do we go home, go back to the hotel glass of milk straight to bed or what?

You know, this just makes me remember, though, remember when we were all getting on John Jones's case being like, he got the heavyweight title, why aren't you going to defend it against Tom Ash, and all this stuff. And he kept basically being like, you nobs don't understand the high level chess I'm playing here. master negotiator, John Jones, continuing to monetize this amazing brand that he has built. And what happened was you demanded a high, high number for what it would take to get you to fight Tom Aspinall. The U.S.C. got the Saudis to chip in and say, all right, we'll give you that number. You said, actually, never mind, no thanks, gave up the belt without a fight. Oh, I didn't think you'd come up with that shit. Walked away. Months later, turn around and be like,

I want back in and now you're in a position where you don't have a title and you are begging for a spot on this fight card. How did you do that to yourself? You had a great negotiating position in which you could have made so much money

and now you're probably not going to make that Saudi money when you are begging for a spot on the fight card and the UFC is in a position to be like, we don't know. I've never seen Jones is the kind of guy who goes in for much self-reflection been. Like, you know what I mean?

Like, he's one of those guys who, you know, he just operates and then the next day it's a clean slate. He just goes about his business again and says what he's going to say. He kind of has to though, you know, like if you're going to be John Jones, it's probably the only way to live.

It's just to be like, oh, fuck that. Shit happened again last night. What are we having for breakfast? Let that one behind us. Put that whole episode behind us. Let's move on. It's, uh, I spoke to Andy Aspel. I know he spoke about this last week.

Like he was, he had a, like I thought it was a fine position to have to be like, why are they making Jones and Pereira? Like my son's the champion. Like why can't we somehow make one of these guys fight my son? Obviously, as you mentioned earlier, Chuck, this does open the door for this. Like the Landon strip has cleared as far as I'm concerned.

They can just simply say, we have unfinished business with Gann. Surely that adds to Jones and Poetan's quest here to fight at the White House. I wanted to know if Aspinall had won, right? Like it just comes out of the fight. Would they have been able to put, him aside because we had this whole discussion you're like you know it would be glaring right like for them to be like okay aspinall you're now undisputed heavyweight champion we're just going to push

you aside while we put these other two guys that you would love to fight against each other but now that that has cleared and i mean i would be shocked if they didn't kind of do this now you know at this point just because if you're going to get john jones and your guarantee is maybe for one more fight you might as well do this fight because you you don't want him to be like win a championship beat Tom Aspinall and then he just forfeits the belt or whatever it is. If he can't be trusted, you don't want him to have the belt. But at this case, it's kind of a one-off. And if Alex goes in and beats him, fine.

If he loses, you know, Alex can go back down to 205. You know, it's just kind of one of those situations where it's about as big of a fight a loosey-goosey matchmaking you can do, right? Like, it's probably one of the biggest fights that we've seen since, I don't even know. But that would be the type of fight that would be in the top five, right, like that we've ever seen. So I feel like it does, if they want to do that fight, the red carpet is out to make that fight now. It's, um, I feel like we're going to go back to the same situation though, Ben. I think, I think we've said before, and not that I want your picks here, but I think, you know, Jones is a very

good chance of, of winning a fight against Pereira. Like, he is a very strong chance given his grappling background, and given Pereira's lack of grappling. I don't think Jones has thought about that, though. I think he's up for any challenge. But, this particular one just happens to be in front of him right this is the thing

right like this is the thing Chuck because if he fucking goes and fights Pereira and he wins we're just right back

into the same bullshit then like we're right back to is John going to fight Tom and then it's like would you expect him if he beats

Pereira if he watched that fight and he has a lower um lower opinion of Tom's ability would you expect

him to fight Tom if he wins the Perera fight you know i i never really believed that john jones thought he would lose to tom aspinall i i just even if everybody else thought that i don't think john jones would think that i just i don't think that that's ever entered his mind so i don't think it was a matter of him being like oh tom aspinall's too good and i won't do it i do think that target selection has been very important to him

in especially the last years of his career like it's why he was so set on having that steep fight because he wanted the name on his resume even if at that point steepe was effectively retired already hadn't fought a long time was well into his 40s and so it that seems like what he has in mind the thing that is weird to me is so john jones left a light heavyweight division went up to heavyweight and again if you'll recall the reason he went up to heavyweight is because he wanted to make that big money that dionte wilder kind of money and then only to have it offered eventually and him to turn it down. So he relinquished the light heavyweight title.

Now he's going to fight the light heavyweight champ, but probably what, at heavyweight? And if he beats him, then what? He's not the light heavyweight champ, but the light heavyweight champ also doesn't feel like the light heavyweight champ. It kind of introduces a little bit of chaos there. And I don't know, I don't know to what extent the UFC actually would be worried about that, how much they really care about how that would look, how much they would factor in if they thought, hey, there's an opportunity to make one huge fight, we'll worry about

the fallout on Sunday morning, I don't know. But that would create a weird situation all the way around. I'm so glad you brought this up, Ben, because that is a question people have. People, a lot of people have said to me, oh, if they make the Pereira fight with John Jones, like, what will happen to Light Heavyweight? Luckily, we got the answer today. Please roll the footage, Andy, the new Light Heavyweight King is in waiting after Mark Zucker, Borg shared a story of them training with Alex Brerner. This is domination. Oh, look at this.

Oh, my Lord. I mean, John Jones. Look how quick he just got outside. It's like BJ Penn. Straight to mount. Straight to mount. It gets half guard back. Looking for you, buddy, because you're about to get fucked.

Oh, look at this scrambling. The guillotine was there. Not even going to take it. Not even going to take it. Go on. Get back up, you pathetic mess. Jeez. There it is.

Ben, you know, you're no strangers than mats. That man's been training. 10-odd years, seems legit to me. This is like when you're, you know, you're wrestling with your kids or something, you want them to feel good. I'll tell you what, a thing that I've done that my daughters can get out of a rear naked choke at kind of any time because I've taught them the steps to go through. And, you know, they're not exactly crushing it, technique-wise.

But, hey, if I put you in the show, if you do the right things in the right order, then I'll let you go to reinforce like, okay, you remember the lessons you did. That's kind of what we're doing here. To me, it's always like, if you're Mark Zuckerberg, how are you not a little embarrassed to have this guy clearly just sort of like, hey, good job, buddy, like treating you like a make a wish kid and allowing you to feel good to feel like you that you actually know what you're doing when in reality he could just mop the mats with you if he actually wanted to. Like, you must know that, right? There can't be an amount of money that makes you lose that much perspective. like how do you how do you not feel like especially you get on the mats i don't know i've been in the situation before where especially grappling with really like high level guys guys even that

are that are pro fighters where i've got it on the mats with them and you can tell that they're taking it easy on you and you're like all right i don't i don't want you to exactly smash me either but this feels shitty because you know and especially like if you were out there like posting the video of it and everything i would be like all right are we just messing around around here and treat me like your little cousin that you know you want me to feel good or what? I don't want to like I'm not trying to be gollable but I have seen things

like this I mean like the the Kotorov when he did that to Shama yes you guys remember that like I if I didn't see that yeah if I didn't see that I wouldn't maybe believe this but I have seen it and I've seen Action Jackson actually one day in New Jersey standing against Pereira and had major success on the feet

you wouldn't expect that but I will say that Pereira's he plays the game very well doesn't he? Oh my God. He is fantastic. With that, we, again, we, we have to pay these guys. I mean, you think that lobster suit, you think these things pay for themselves? That's Taylor Made, baby. 2999. We're going to hit this outbreak and we'll be back to discuss Tank Davis, his latest issues, and Andrew Tate as the new Misfit CEO. So much fun to be had here on the show. See you in a few minutes. Crackheads, we're back. Thank you for waiting those two

precious minutes while we shoved our faces full of escargo and caviar to prepare herself for this next segment of the show. And it's quite a sweet we've put together here for the next 22 minutes. Mr. Devon to Tank Davis has a fight coming up on November 14th with Jake Paul. And there was a lot of questions about this guy before this fight was made. He has quite a checkered past. And once again, now two weeks before this fight is set to happen, it seems he's in trouble again. I'm reading for Ben. Ben's article on Uncrowned, a civil lawsuit filed in Miami Day County this weekend accuses the WBA lightweight champion of battery aggravated, aggravated battery, false imprisonment

kidnapping, an intentional infliction of emotional distress according to a report from ESPN. I believe we just had it up on the screen. Ladd's, this is pretty much the worst situation Netflix could have asked for two weeks out from this fight, Ben. It's not all that surprising, but what do you think they're thinking now? up in their Netflix towers at this point. Yeah, especially because it seemed like Netflix's thinking getting into the boxing stuff was, hey, we want to have fun, but also like the kind of silly sort of fun.

Like doing real legit boxing seems like it'll only get you so many viewers doing the kind of crazy crossover where there's like a weird hook that makes people go, well, I got to see this. That gets you the really big numbers. That seems to be what they learned from doing Tyson. Paul. And then you do this one, it already was seeming like it was not going to get anywhere near the interest. Because for one thing, people looked at it visually and were like, all right, it does seem ridiculous to have two people this size. You're trying to sell me on the idea like, hey, how would a really great boxer do against an okay boxer if he had to give up this much heightened weight? And I don't know if that really motivates people. You know, the boxing hardcores

don't love it. They think it's ridiculous. The regular sports fans, regular Netflix viewers probably don't necessarily know who Tank Davis is all that much. Tank Davis is showing up to all the media obligations for this looking like he was doing community service. He didn't seem too motivated at any point to really sell anybody on it. And then this happens. And I've got to think Netflix is over there going like, did we maybe get into a business we didn't totally understand when it comes to boxing? Because to us, to those of us in the fight sports world, You tell us, hey, one of these guys in an upcoming fight might actually be a domestic abuser piece of shit. We go, yeah, we've been there before, brother. Yeah. We've had this conversation and had to have this showdown with our own consciences plenty of times before. And maybe for Netflix, this is kind of new territory where they're going, like, man, this is not what you want to hear two weeks out from the thing? I'm wondering if Netflix is looking around in the contracts and being like, is there an out clause in here?

if one of them should happen to be accused of domestic violence, and especially given his past, you would have to say credibly accused because it seems like he's accused of doing exactly the kind of thing we've seen him do on video before. That's right. See, that's the thing. That's a pattern, right?

Like, the pattern of it is really what, for it to kind of rear up, like, what is it, like two weeks out from this fight is problematic. But I always wonder if at some point people dissociate in a way that they didn't, used to, you know, it was like if anybody, nobody would want any of these headlines. They would not want to be associated or have anything to do with something of this nature, right? Because remember even like Kobe Bryant back in the day when he got busted out in Vail or he was accused of sexual assault.

And I remember McDonald's immediately, like it was like McDonald's Nike. They kind of were like, this is Kobe Bryant, by the way, like Kobe Bryant. And they're dissociating with him. They're like dropping him from endorsement deals. I remember Richard Mendenhall, the running back, where. it was happening where like his response like Haynes and some of those some of those brands like that were dropping him just for making a tweet about Osama bin Laden like a conspiracy there you did you there was a there was a

point in time where big companies especially like Netflix who's like getting into the game in a big way and you don't want to set a precedent you know and in these ways that they would just be like no we're not this is off like you would take them damage as it is and you're like I'm not we're not associating this but the problem with like boxing and tank davis is he's continuously getting by with it like and this is just kind of lots of people in the space right now they're in trouble a lot we sweep it under the rug we just watch their next fight and it'd be very interesting like i hope in a strange way just to restore like some kind of faith in the in in people's better judgments and taste that maybe there

is a repercussion waiting for it maybe they don't want to do this because at some point it is ridiculous right like this is two weeks out of a fight like you mentioned ben nobody like it feels like it's just arriving with a with a major thud anyway i don't know why you would why you'd want to do this and i i i can't help but think like you don't want to set a bad precedent as low as the barrier of entry is for combat sports i'm not sure i'd want to be dealing with this if you're trying to carve out an identity within that yeah it's look it's actually a great point like kind of the the time's kind of situation um you know this whole thing being more accepted for some reason it feels in this day and age than it ever has been.

And honestly, it kind of feeds into the next topic, which is Andrew Tate being announced as the new Misfits CEO. Why did these two always paired? I felt it was a Connor in there somewhere. It's like all these people are always paired together in there. Yeah. I mean, like I don't, I don't think this shocked anyone, right? I think we've been talking about this.

We kind of expected Tate to be announced on Misfits. I asked Eddie Heron, I think it was three weeks. when was it three or four weeks ago in belfast like you know could you imagine if you tried to do this like you you tried to promote andrew tate the shit you'd get and he was like well it's not boxing they can get away with shit like this oh he just it's called misfits i guess so it's like right but i i do wonder too i mean i don't know exactly what the current perception of andrew tate is in the u.k oh it's terrible it's great um but misfits the misfits brand up until this point has been oh we're kind of screwing around

And having a good time. Like, we, we'll have some real boxing matches in a way, you know, but we'll also have a guy who runs a shop and he's on Instagram. And so he's on TikTok, and we'll have that guy fight, even though he doesn't fight and doesn't know how. And I'll show up just in a prime bottle, you know, like that. Right. You know, we have a four-man heavyweight tag team match. We're doing kind of silly stuff. And it's just, it's toe in the line between actual serious boxing competition and just a for fun sports energy.

kind of show. But then when you do this, it starts to feel not so fun anymore. It starts to make people go, wait a minute, what is this? And I really wonder what they think the play is here, what the appeal is because the, if you watch this announcement, the whole announcement thing was weird. It's very pro wrestling. It's like, you know, we had a board meeting and we named Andrew Tate, our new CEO. And it feels like there ought to be quotes around all those words, you know, you're just like, eh, Okay. Like, it kind of feels like it has a vibe like we're making him general manager of raw. You know, like it's not, it doesn't seem like we're really making him a executive within a company. I don't know. It also seems like, are you playing into the controversy angle? You know people hate Andrew Tate. And so you think, hey, maybe people will want to watch in the hopes that he gets the shit beaten out of them.

That is one of the promises this sport can offer that other sports and other venues in life do not. But it also seems like they're sort of playing it as, hey, we think Andrew Tate has an audience that he will bring. And I'm curious, like, what they think, who they think the viewers end up being for this. Because I think that they, if they're thinking that it's all just like controversy equals attention equals views, I don't know if it's going to be, I don't know if it's going to shake out that way. if they think Andrew Tate still has like this sort of right-wing alt-right men's rights misogynistic viewership and they'll go wherever he goes, I guess I have to take your word that those people are out there. You know, the point that my good friend Chad Dundas made on the co-made event podcast recently was,

you know, with other areas, other fighters where they're great fighters and we wish they wouldn't have such problematic personal lives. It feels like we kind of have to work around them because they're so. good. But this is one, we don't have to do any of this. Right. There's nothing that there's nobody out there being like, we have to see Andrew Tate in this fight. No, we don't have to do any of this. This is absolutely a choice. It's completely avoidable. And that's what makes it, I think, where people are going to go, I don't know, misfits. It was fun before. And now it's starting to seem a little icky. Like, can you imagine, like, back in the day, if they're like,

Charles Manson is going to be fighting it. Yeah. It's just like, well, he's got, it brings views, you know, people know who Charles Manson is, you know? But it's just, uh, it's gross. But I think you nailed it. The thing that bothers me is there's no real reason to do it. Um, if you're, if you're a fight fan, I mean, I guess that element exists like, I want to see him get his ass kick, but I don't really get the sense that that's what's in play. It's more that, especially because we're not sending him into a fight that it looks like he's a land. Exactly. Yeah, no, exactly. So that's the, the kind of blows

that out of the water. And he does have like a combat background, right? Like he was kickboxing. Oh, he's really like he was a, I didn't pay any attention to him back in the day But I know that like Oh yes K.A like it wasn't it wasn't exactly glory You know So the record was not quite as good either as I mean I really enjoyed the way they phrased it

And the Sherrodog one you know because they run the fight finder They're experts of figuring out which fights actually happened Which ones we can confirm And it's like he says his record is like 76 and 9 Or something like that and they're like We can confirm 24 and 8 Which tells you something like you know It's always people think they have

50 more wins than they did in the record does but only one more loss he hasn't been his trustworthy with all of the stuff like a lot of the stuff I feel like he's kind of like but it's just it is it is a bizarre it's such a bizarre thing man um it's just you know you used to not want to be it's the same thing you just used to not want to be associated with this and I feel like somehow we've we've scrambled these bearings like you mentioned ben I think that the crazy thing is it I was under the impression and the misfits events I've watched that they were just like, yeah, we're having a bit of fun, we're mixing it up, we're doing this thing, but this is something else. You know, this takes it a field and I just, to me, it just feels like an ugly thing. There are people out there alive right now, very much alive who are affected by this man, you know, in big ways, traumatic ways, the ways of, you know, that's, it's just a crazy thing to celebrate or to put him in, you know, in any form. It's just it doesn't feel right.

He's got, I mean, he's got like, right, like he's got a rest warrant. He was not accused of sexual assault in like three different rights by human trafficking, just the worst shit. And like he, when he got out of house arrest in Romania and in February, came to the U.S. By the way, Dana White, very eager to greet him and his brother and be like, hey, welcome back to America boys, you know. So that he wasn't put off by it. The very next month he was again accused of physical and sexual abuse in California in a civil suit. That's one month later after getting out of the house arrest. I don't even if you're one of these people.

I came around then too, right? Like they were they were after the, he had gone to the US and everything like that. I think it came out while he was in the US. It's even if you're one of these people who somehow thinks that they're that false rape accusations are just prevalent all over the place, keeps happening to the same guy. Right. Keeps happening. And it's also a guy where he has come out and told you in interviews. He said, I'm absolutely. a misogynist. That's a quote from him. He said, I am a realist and to be a realist means

that you are a sexist. He has said women are, quote, inherently lazy. So it's a guy telling you, I hate women and I think that they should be abused by me. And then he gets accused of abusing women. How do you still tell yourself like, it's just the system out to get him, man? Like, no, it's a classic, she said he also said situation. I don't understand, especially I don't know what ma'am's Taylor's life is like as the promoter and, you know, co-president of Miss Fitzbocking, but somewhere in his life, there must be women he cares about. Does he go home after a decision like this and have people being like, so do you think I'm inherently lazy for being a woman?

Do you, like, you're down with this guy? Like, I don't know what you say to people when you get on board with that. Are you just saying like, hey, it's good for the business? Because first of all, I don't know if it is. But second of all, is that where you're at? anything for a buck with misfits boxing? Because I feel like there are other directions you could go there. Maybe CEO is,

maybe CEO stands for a constant ethical offender or something like that. Wow. This is why you're Chuck Mindenhall. Thanks. That's right off the top of the head, but. Just a note on the idea that we might see this guy fold it up, you know, the threat of combat sports. Wait, who's this cat? He's fighting this television personality.

There you go. There you go. No offense. Andy, producer Andy is a big fan of Chase DeMore. She knows him from his work on

the reality show. Too hot to handle, as she told me before. Very good looking man. And there you go. Perfect match. I text, and I won't say who this is,

some of you will deduce who it is. I sent to a guy who texts me many weeks ago. Two weeks ago, he's like, Andrew Tate's going to fight this guy. And I text him, is this guy good?

And the reply, two words, was famously terrible. That's how we were... Wow. So I believe he has some kind of belt. So I guess Tate's going to fight for a belt. But I think this will be, particularly in the UK, and I'll keep you guys abreast of it,

because to answer your earlier question, Ben, he is one of the most controversial figures in the UK in general. I think everybody saw the reaction to that adolescence show, which was huge on Netflix. And it's also like a thing, you'll see, like, Channel 4 and BBC. see these do these documentaries about like going into schools and talking to young men about like are they being influenced by this trying to counteract it like so it's a big story and misfits being a UK company I feel like it's going to be on news night and things like that like big big shows like primetime news shows but again if the idea is this controversy will feed the views maybe

that is what they're looking it's just such a it's such a backward situation and it's really hard to But I do think the whole CEO bullshit that that story, which is obviously bullshit, like, oh, he taking KSI left down and now Andrettes the CEO. Oh, my God. I do think that might be an effort to protect KSI because that guy is in mainstream spaces in the UK. I mean, Prime is a mainstream thing. He is music videos that are in the charts over here. Like lots of kids look up to this guy. He sells out stadiums for the side men football games, all this charity stuff. I can't imagine this is a good move for a guy like that to be coinciding, it seems, with

Andrew Tate. So that's my opinion on that. What do you, like, is there a massive interest in this in the, the US as well? Like, this guy is like, like, I mean, do you guys encounter this guy in everyday life in terms of the US? Like, you know, you have, you have teenage kids. Like, is this guy, like, a massive quantity in their worlds? No, I don't think so.

I mean, I think that it to the extent that people hear about him, if you're not already in the camp, if you're not already a fan somehow, I think it's always negative when people hear about him. It's a way to make sure you, if you want to make sure you never get any matches on a dating app, go ahead and put on there as a man that you're a big Andrew Tate fan, you know, that'll do it. Like, that's kind of the reputation that he brings along with him. And so that's why it was a little confusing to me to see the way that they were presenting us in this announcement. I was like, are you going for rage bait here? Are you trying to get people? Because we've seen it in the fight game before where one of the most reliable ways

to get viewership for a thing is to get somebody, get a pairing, get some sort of dynamic where people are like, I really want to see this person hurt. And if you're telling me there's a chance to do that, then I will tune in for that. That can work on people, but it also didn't feel like that's exactly what they were thinking here. It seemed like they thought like, all right, the controversy will be good for some attention, but also like this guy will bring a viewership with him. And I just don't know to what extent that is still a case and to like at what cost does it stop being worth it to you to do something like that. Maybe it's just like a, you know, a response to the council culture, which was such a big deal of the last few years. Maybe it's just the extreme response the other way.

Like, sometimes you wonder if our society just does that, you know, we're going to do it because we're so mad at, you know, everything that went on. We're going to just do what we want. Like, the other, because I mean, honestly, it's inexplicable on other levels. Like, if you just try to rationalize it compared, like, with context of everything that's happened before it in terms of sporting events and you wouldn't find any answers, you know? Yeah. Is it, man? Like, is it grown, man? Who followed this guy?

Like, I always, in my head, it was teenagers. Like I always had in my head like it's it's as like obviously kids a lot more of their worlds are online compared to like when we were growing up right like we were outdoor children and how kids are like very much online and stuff I thought like that's where he kind of it's just it would be like I've never met a dude at my age who's like yo I see Tate's new video I'll be like what the fuck you know what I mean I just never have met that guy you know maybe I don't know Maybe you run in certain circles Pizzi, that's what I think You're a rat Pizzi I'm going to put it on the walls at Dublin That I'm hanging around it all the time God damn it fucking lefties Pizzie Carol you rat

I'm scraping across your house I'm marking that somewhere whenever I visit I've already cleaned that off the wall That is not there anymore Therefore it is not true Listen we could stay here all day And talk about Tank Davis and Andrew Tate But we need to get onto Ronda Rousey

But first Some happy stuff But first, go ahead and enjoy this ad break. We'll be back to speak about Rousey, who again, hates MMA by everything that she is saying lately. Enjoy. We promised you some Ronda Rousey chat. And we've had quite a bit of Ronda Rousey chat.

One thing that's constant with Ronda Rousey is the fact that she seems to hate the sport that loved her so much. And particularly us fucking dickheads, the MMA media. Let's have a listen to what she told, Great. I'm one of the greatest interviews of all the time. Bear Crozier. M.A. fans and media are the most,

what have you done for us lately crowd of any sport. Like, you look at W.W.E., and they have such a reverence for their legends. And at M.MA, it's like the second that you're not on top, you're not shit, and you never wear shit. Chuck Ladell, when he's on top, oh, my God, he's the best, he's the best,

he's the second that he loses. Oh, Chuck Ladell ain't shit. He never was shit. Rampage Jackson. Oh, my God. He's the next Mike Tyson. He's so good. great. Second he loses, oh, Rampaging shit, he never was shit. Yeah. GSP. Oh, he loses. He's not shit. He never was shit.

I think the only reason that why M.A fans have their lips so firmly planted at the base of Kabeb's cock is because he retired before he reaches his limit. And if he ever, if he kept fighting until he reached his limit, everybody would be like, oh, Khabibing shit, he never was shit. And they're like that with everybody. She's a well-adjusted

person. Name one person. Brock, bragging shit, you never wish it. Name one past champion. that has that the kind of respect that the current champions do. It's really sad because I think it encourages people to try and get out while they're peaking and taking all of that equity with them instead of passing it on to whoever's next to take up the mantle. I wanted to retire undefeated because I was so afraid of like, oh, everything that I accomplished is going to be nothing if I ever lose.

So I have to retire and defeated. Do you think Bert was like, wait, wait, what were we saying about the Habib thing again? let's go back to that really listen I know you have something coming out about this Chuck but what do you have to say

for yourself what do you have to say for what you did to Ronda Rosie I still think you know I pointed this out I did write a column about the switches up

right now on crown but it never you see her to remove I think of nine years now right and you would hope in some level

that she would finally kind of understand like maybe I should have handled the situation better back in the day when she lost right Like this would have been the bare minimum was her to just show up and say, you know, man, maybe I handled myself poorly and I could, you know, whatever it is.

But this would have gone a long way toward the goodwill of her fan base than returning some love back to her. But she never did that. She just went on a 13 month almost like power sulk where she just kind of disappeared and she treated everybody. She treated everybody with, she treated her fan base with the same. And she really pushed everybody out. And even when she came back, she came back under the circumstance of basically saying, I won't do any press ahead of this fight with Amanda Nunes. And it was just a horrible look, man.

I mean, I still think to this day, in all of the combat world that I've paid attention to and anything, I've looked at this, the worst look I think I've seen from somebody who've lost the fight. Like, I just think she handled it more poorly than anybody ever has in our sport. And that feeds into the resentment. And especially as she continuously shows up nine years later. still puts it on the fan base itself. She holds resentment toward the fan base itself when all they wanted, I think, was her to be the champion that she purported to be when everything was on top.

It was just one of those things where I'm like, I feel like she's toned deaf to what actually happened. And so I wrote about that in a column today, but it was a little disheartening because there's a part of me that's like, dude, she should get her rightful place. There was a, there was a moment in time. She changed the sport. It was such a boom era, 2012 to 2015. She should get her due, but she doesn't do herself.

any favors by talking like that. Yeah. I think, you know, when I saw these comments, I was like, she's not a hundred percent wrong. She's making some decent points, but she also, she then takes some turns from those points where you go, well, I can't follow you down there. Right. Because the claim that, hey, MMA does not do a good job of remembering and honoring its own history.

That is true. Absolutely. And, and, but part of that is because, like, the UFC as a promoter, see. the money is to be made on the next fight. The next fight is always the biggest one. The next event is always the biggest one. Some of these past champions, you know, we'll honor them if we have time and if we're on good terms with them. But there's not as much of a percentage for them in the past.

The money is in the future. And that's part of it. And the churn rate among fans, how many fans, you know, watch the sport for a while and then dripped away for one reason or the other. And so you've got a lot of new fans who maybe don't know the history. That's part of it, too. but also when she starts name of where she's like name me one former champion who is treated with the reverence of the current champs and I was just like uh gsp like she mentioned her she was like gsg he lost he lost it wasn't shit and it was like well first of all he lost to matt sarah and the huge shocking upset came back avenged the loss and then didn't lose again and then you know Anderson Silva there's somebody where it's just like had a high high peak that fell off it pretty sharply toward the end, made us a little sad at times, but especially now that

his MMA career is over and he's moved on firmly to big time boxing bouts, we can kind of see it all in its totality. People have a ton of respect for Anderson Silva. There's a lot of fighters also who even weren't at that level, at high peak level, who weren't the guys who won them all, who won some, lost them, and our beloved Robbie Lawler, Nick Diaz, Matt Brown, these kind of guys where it was just like you embodied a certain sort of like attitude and ethos that people could get behind. They enjoyed that even when you lost. And I think one of the things that she's missing here, and you would expect her to get it more as a person who spent some time in pro wrestling, is what fans are getting out of fight sports isn't just we're here to watch people

get knocked out. It isn't just like, I want my person to win and the other person to lose. There's an inspiration that people take from fight sports because it's so dangerous. and difficult because it's so hard, we are seeing somebody push themselves to these limits and we're seeing how they deal with crushing disappointment at times. And we can take inspiration and lessons in our own lives from that. That's one of the things people like, whether they realize it, whether they admit it or not,

that is one of the things people like about this sport. And when it came time for her to be on that side of it, as you said, Chuck, she handled it extremely poorly. One of the enduring images is Ronda Rousey walking through the airport with a pillow pushed over her face, you know, just kind of trying to run from it. it instead of dealing with it. And when you see you're making these comments now,

it just feels like you're still running from it. You never quite turned around and faced up to it and you don't want to. And people are going to judge you for that, especially when you were on top and you, you know, you had a lot of swagger. You're telling everybody how you're the greatest. You had a lot of shit to say about everybody else.

As soon as you tumble off that top, yeah, people are going to take the opportunity to be like, aha, you weren't not so great now, are you? That's part of it. That's just built into the game.

Especially because her top was a history. historic top. There was no comparison, right? Like, she was the Trojan horse that brought women's MMA to the UFC. And everybody still, to this day, I feel like she gets tons of credit. You'll see the younger fighters. I saw Rhonda do it back in the day and I'm doing it. So where she was at, it just required. I mean, honestly, she was perfectly suited for that station when it was all positive. She would handle it. Like people said, she could knock on me with, she was going to deny, you know, she was going to be like, yeah, I could, you know, all of these things. She handled all of the positive as it happened as well as you possibly could and enhance it and everything else you needed

something from her in the loss like in the Muhammad Ali sense of it's not how many times you get knocked down it's how many times you get up sense right like that you're you needed something from her rather than her just being pissed off at the fan base like that didn't make any sense so it I feel like she made her own bed in that sense like a lot of times when she's complaining now I'm like, well, Rhonda, you did not help yourself. You put yourself in this position. Yeah. It's, uh, look, I think both of you guys sound like do nothing bitches of him being completely

honest. I think she's, I've always admitted that, you know, but like even like you're talking about how big she was and I think you have this in your piece. The Beyonce moment, like where Beyonce has that like on loop who are saying like the do nothing bitch quote and then she's playing like a massive stadium. It was absolutely out of control. It was insane. Um, I do.

feel as though, you know, people talking about who are returning to MMA, I don't see that at all. I think she's going to box in one of these silly fights. That's what I think is going to happen here. All of the videos of a horse silly, like, like, sparring. Yeah, we're seeing the old Mayweather hands going again. I would fully believe, like, I just, I just don't. I could see her beating Andrew Tate, put her on the cup of a ring.

I mean, I've watched the shit out of it. I'm sure Andrew Tate would be very happy with that situation, too. Given his disdain for the females of the world. Um, but yeah, it does feel like, I know she has a book out though, like, I feel like we're going to see her back in combat sports. Like you don't do this many interviews talking over and over again. Like, obviously she's a legend of the sport, but it just seems very direct to me. I just feel like, why would you do all this if you weren't going to compete again? Or is she just that full of resentment, would you say? Well, I mean, I think that she got that book to sell, right? Like, so I think that's one of the reasons to, like a motivation to show up in some of these interviews and. generate some headlines is, you know, to say some inflammatory things. And she's pretty good at that. That comes very naturally to her. I really hope she doesn't compete in any combat sports again.

Because when she talks about it, she seems like she definitely doesn't love it. She definitely doesn't feel like she really, really wants to compete. She keeps saying she doesn't need the money. So why would you do it? Also, all that stuff that she said to us about all the brain trauma she endured and the effects that it was having on her, if that was something you were dealing with and really not that long ago, then you probably shouldn't fight ever again. You should probably make it a priority to never get hit in the head again because that stuff seems pretty serious. So if that was true, then I really hope she doesn't fight.

Yeah. I don't think she'd want to. I honestly don't think she'd do it. You know, some people like, the thrill of whatever it is they get from the, from fighting is why they come back, you know, being without it. She just, she struck me in the, especially ahead of that, Amanda is like, just the idea of losing again was way too much for her. Like, so for her to come back and risk losing again, you know, and putting herself in that situation, I just can't imagine she would do that.

No, it's actually a really solid point as well. And before we leave you, we mustn't forget that the superchats need to happen. Oh, yeah. Yeah, let's look. Just ripping off a little lick there on the guitar. Do we have any superchats? Oh, show me the way. on air jordan oh honor is that the on air jordan is it really back on vacay caribbean is lovely

yeah oh fair play he's got to get his 28 weeks of vacation time in each year you know get plenty of sleep fella get plenty of sleep and also i don't know if the caribbean is lovely right now i don't know i don't know if that's true Jordan Maybe a bad time to be there. You know, I'd take it over Ireland. I'm not going to like to you. But, um, lads, that's all we got. Enjoy the apex card this weekend, guys.

There seems to be lots of thrills and spills that we will have to entangle before. Who's the main event, Pizzi? Yeah, that's right. It is. Oh, it's Garcia V. Onana, I believe. All right. Yeah, come on. Come on.

Um, I know. Listen, I tell you this before. You don't think I'm hardcore, but somehow my body just rejects sleeping on Saturday nights. It's like, go on, turn it on, go on, sit down. You've conditioned yourself. Yeah. It's fucking disgusting. Now Sundays, too, right? You're pretty late on Sundays. I love the football. Bills, Chiefs, this weekend's

going to be amazing. And listen, enjoy your trick-or-treat, enjoy Halloween, go on with a scary movie, turn off all the lights, light of fire. Have a great time. We love his very much. See you next week. Thank you.