The Ariel Helwani Show - Will Sean Strickland and Eric Nicksick reconcile? No MMA fighters among 100 highest-paid athletes | The Craic

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

Petesy Carroll and Chuck Mindehall give their thoughts on the split between Sean Strickland and Eric Nicksick (4:36), on the back of the UFC middleweight claiming he would no longer have the Xtreme Couture head coach in his corner after UFC 312.While pondering wether the two would reconcile, the conversation shifts to Anthony Smith and Rampage Jackson (31:36) squashing their beef that arose from Smith’s criticism of Jaxxon Podcast’s handling of an interview they had with controversial featherweight Bryce Mitchell. The lads discuss what impact the growing number of fighter publications has on journalism and consider whether situations like this will happen more because of it.Not a single MMA fighter made Sportico's list of the 100 highest-paid athletes for 2024, so Petesy and Chuck weigh-in on whether that is a shocking revelation or completely expected (43:06) and forecast if discussions about fighter unions will likely sprout around the time of the UFC’s new broadcast deal being announced.Finally, they take a quick look at this weekend’s Apex extravaganza (54:23).Join us on the bike: avironactive.com/uncrowned

Welcome everybody! It is Valentine's Day, a time for lovers, but it is also a time to talk about mixed martial arts. Yes sir sir. It is the crack for all you beautiful crackheads every Friday. And today we have a few things to talk about. Eric Nixick, one of the most revered coaches in the world, and Sean Strickland seem to be at loggerheads. There has been a resolution to the Anthony Smith and Rampage Jackson beef. Well, no longer beef, but there's been a resolution, which is very good. And we also want to talk about Sportico's list of the top 100 earners in sport,

which does not feature a single MMA fighter. What does this mean? We're going to get into all of it later. I will be introducing my great friend and brilliant journalist, Chuck Mendenhall, shortly. But before all of that, let's have a word from our partners

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to bring an end to boring workouts. There you are. Thank you very much to our wonderful, wonderful friends at Averon. And now let's bring in the man, the hat, the man himself,

who I had to take away from a day of being a Lothario, no doubt, just to get him to speak on the show. Happy Valentine's Day, my love, Chuck Mendenhall. Yes, I will be your Valentine, Pete C. But, you know, I was promised that you were going to shave your back, I believe, on this episode.

So that's why I'm here, man. I wanted to see that. I wanted to be here for that historic moment. Well, it's funny, right? So we had it all planned. So I hired a wax artist, they like to be called, and we're all here. And next of all, we get a call from up top and they're like, you're kind of like Elvis Presley in the 60s. We can't film you from

below the waist. So anything where I'm showing more skin, it's thought to be too provocative for the audience. Look, I'll send you some selfies later. I can guarantee you that joke, but I'm sorry world. Too sexy. I'll post them on selfies later. I can guarantee you that joke, but I'm sorry, world. Too sexy. Too sexy. I'll post them on Twitter. Don't worry about it, man. We all good.

How are you, by the way? I missed you last week. We had the great Ben folks and Shane Alshadi. But Jesus, the man, the hot, it was even seen in the comments. People were like, man, the hot piece. What the hell? What the hell? It's just cold Turkey, man.

You know, you ripped me out of the show like that. And it's just like, uh, you know, you got a bunch of withdrawals and jonesing people i understand it no you guys did great i was able to i was able to catch up with the show and all that i love sometimes being able just to watch and uh and see how i might look in that position and be able to assess myself you know what i mean against these other guys so it's kind of fun i absolutely know we're coming up on one of your favorite times of the year yeah it's madness i'm gonna try absolutely know. We're coming up on one of your favorite times of the year, March Madness. I'm going to try and actually get into it this year, I think.

Are you? Like you're not staying up late enough and you're going to hang out and watch like, you know, Pacific take on, you know, Duke in the 16 versus one. I just need context. That's all I need. I need just a slight backstory.

Like the lads nearly had me in on the Four Nations tournament, the hockey tournament that's happening at the moment but you know i've spent half a year whatever it is five months staying up till five o'clock in the morning for either mma and my beloved nfl so i just had to give it a miss my buddies just it is fun p.m i will say that it is a lot of fun if you if you do pools you know if you like fill out the bracket and you see how wrong you are but the ones you're right like where you pick a 12 of fun. If you, if you do pools, you know, if you like fill out the bracket and you see how wrong you are, but the ones you're right, like where you pick a 12 or a five and you're like, I got that one. You know, you try to play smart. It is a lot of fun to do, man.

I could get into that. I'm an absolute degenerate. That sounds like my kind of thing. Um, but we are in fact a combat sports show and there was a bit of a kerfuffle we'll say between, eric nixick and sean strickland the the genesis of which was eric nixick's appearance on the ariel awani show which i found incredible i mean i will get into this now in a minute but jordan on air jordan's here with me and i believe he has some footage that will just remind and refresh the memories of the listeners in case they didn't see this all over twitter or x as they call it now in the last week.

Do you think that the criticism is warranted? Do you think that it has been fair? Yeah, of course I do. I do. I mean, we have to be real. Like it just,

it just was a very underwhelming performance and an opportunity to fight for a title. You know, there's people in this sport that never even realized that potential to ever even be an opportunity to fight for a championship. That should be enough to get you motivated to get you off the couch. So, you know, it just, it just to me was we, we didn't, we didn't perform, you know, so that's all it's on all of us. It's on me as a coaching staff, it's on John and, and you know, he, I think he needs to evaluate what he wants to do in the sport. If it's, if it's just to make money, then that's, that's great. Let us know.

You know, I want to, I want to coach world champions. So my motivations are different, you know? So I think that, you know, just, just to kind of show up and do that and, and, you know, not really back it up just to me was just kind of uninspiring all right guys keep tagging me about this whole eric thing and god damn it because i like eric he's a friend of mine and he's gonna continue to be a friend of mine will he probably be in my corner probably not we have so many great guys at extreme nate race fo we have so many savages that i would love to corner me. Well, there we go.

The lads weighing in. And before we get into this kind of the, the issue that has happened between them, like, did, did you listen to Eric Nixick during the week? And if you did, were you kind of like, wow, this is outlandish or anything when you heard it? Not really outlandish. And I, I tell you the reason why it's because you, have you eric nixick because he's a very straightforward guy man even in the i did a piece on sean strickland a feature going into the fight talked to him maybe a week 10 days i don't remember something like that before the fight before he actually was right as he landed in australia and you're asking i was asking him a lot about just the kind of outspokenness you know the things that you want to

know about like being associated to sean strickland at this time, right on the Bryce Mitchell thing, all that. And he basically was like, you know, man, he does it to himself. I try to dissociate with his stuff. I try to tell people, don't put a microphone in front of his face. He was very, very, very candid about dealing with Sean Strickland. But I think that what makes it all worth it is that he has a guy who's back into a title situation, and I think that he felt he was ready. I really think that.

I saw them training, too, a couple months back when I was out there, and you could see their rapport. It's very clear that they have a rapport. They care about each other. I know that Eric really likes Sean Strickland. He he likes him as a human being which is harder to do you know uh like we like we've talked about like he's a he's a hard person to kind of love on these levels but sean has kind of nurtured him in the gym and all that stuff and i think that when you go into a situation like that high hopes all those things and you stay holstered you just whatever like he mentioned

predictable use that word a zero threat to do anything in that fight not making uh dracus sweated at all you know all those things you could see how that would might seem like an act of betrayal um in some way like just the the pact that the coach has with his fighter going into that situation people are wondering like hey should he have been talking about it in public? But I think if you follow Eric Nixick, you kind of know, don't we want this? We want transparency, man. We're journalists. We're guys who ask questions and you want honest answers.

You know what I mean? You want guys who are going to tell you the truth. And I think that's who Eric Nixick is, man. He's not, I don't think he's one to sugarcoat it. don't think he's a yes man some of these guys want yes men in their corners some of these guys want to be associated to people who are raw you know raw raw raw and um i'm sure you know eric can do that you know he can do that but he also tells the truth he's very interested in telling you how he feels so i think when you look at all that i wasn't surprised it just felt like eric

nixick i did worry i i guess i did wonder about how this would be perceived by sean and the public which we've kind of watched unfold all week yeah yeah absolutely i'm look i agree with what you're saying about uh nixick in terms of the how he talks about strict and usually i would go as far as saying like he has been one of his great defenders when when everyone has been you know there's been moments where sean said something controversial nixick always stands by his guy he's always like look this is the situation sean sometimes says stuff like this there's more to him than this this kind of stuff but it does strike me as ironic that a guy who was all about say it how it is you know i'm gonna give you the the unfiltered truth here like i'm like none of these other guys will

tell you how it is his coach his coach kind of says how he feels about the situation and yeah you can't try on the thin skin right after you wore the thick skin right like you're supposed to be it's one way or the other you can't be thin skin thin skin right after you wore the thick skin, right? Like you're supposed to be, it's one way or the other. You can't be thin skinned after like the truth turns on you that way. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what I was trying to think. And I was like, um, surely Strickland is the last guy who should complain about this.

Like when, when he is faced with criticism for the words he puts out, he always kind of said, I'm just going to say how it is. Nick sick has not gone to a level that sean would go to when he usually receives that criticism but alas here we are we're used to being in the fight game where i think any associates for coaches especially coaches who want to kind of make their names become a um you know commodity for other fighters to come and um and train with them and all that stuff they want to associate with champions or guys who are in that space, right? Because it's very difficult to be in that space. It's actually sort of refreshing in a weird way because we've seen it the opposite a lot,

like the kind of yes-men that actually stand in corners quite often. And I think when you get doses of the truth, why do we follow this game at all? Because you find out the truth, right? Two guys go in there to fight each other. They both say the best of the truth. Why do we follow this game at all? Because you find out the truth, right? Two guys go in there to fight each other. They both say the best of the world. Well, this is the contest to find out who's right, who's telling the truth in the situation. I love it when the truth is told, man. I find it refreshing. I think that guys like it's sort of a throwback to the old days. Not that there weren't liars and charlatans back in the old

days but they you did have plenty of guy you know there were plenty of people who told you exactly how it was there you know you go back to like you know custom auto like those type of guys they weren't sugarcoating it for their fighters you know what I mean they loved them they cared I think Eric Nixick actually

has deep affinity for Sean Strickland I think he really cares about him. This isn't him throwing him under the bus. You know what I mean? This is him telling it like he's seeing it. Maybe he's trying to light a fire. He knows the mentality of Sean Strickland better than the rest of us. But the bottom line is, if it doesn't happen, you could tell that he was resolved to be like,

maybe he does need to go another direction. There's nothing wrong with that, man. I spoke to two coaches about this after a kind of after strict and put out the video um and i won't name who they were but i just wanted to get their insight on this situation as in do you how do you feel about nixic saying this first of all you know being my being my main question and they both gave me the same answer and I thought it was really interesting that they were like fighters feel like they own their fight like obviously right they're the person in their fighting but what they don't realize is that the coach when this criticism coming in about a performance where

someone wouldn't go that's also levied at a. Like they are not simply criticizing Sean Strickland. They're criticizing the whole mechanism around his voice, the game plan, everything like that. So as both these guys said to me, they were like, so when you are hearing that criticism, you aren't just going, oh, poor Sean, you're going, this is aimed at me. I like, I am to blame for this because I feel a part of this. Everything he does in there is an extension of what we do in the gym. So from that point of view, they said he absolutely was in the right to go on this show and, you

know, give his side of what has turned into be, you know, there was, there was a bit of a pile on after that fight in terms of we've seen guys not compete well. And I don't think they got the same flack Sean Strickland did because I think he's so there was a bit of a pile on after that fight in terms of we've seen guys not compete well and i don't think they got the same flack sean strickland did because i think he's so outspoken and he's a big personality and he rubs a lot of people the wrong way but what they said to me was nixick had every right to go on that show and defend his corner and give his take about how the fight went because he owns he he is part of this fight as well um and for that reason you know when he's scrutinized

as well you know what i mean like he's scrutinized the same way so yeah and especially like um ariel dean thomas did a great interview with ariel earlier in the week looking back on it all and he was the guy who said on the on the post fight show he was kind of saying like sean strickland isn't that guy and i felt nixick defended him in that situation where he's like on the night, he isn't that guy, but he, but he absolutely is that guy. I think the, the hurt hurt came from the, the conversation where the, the statement where he said, I want to train world champions and I don't want to train guys who are just doing this for money.

Um, I would say that was the thing that probably rubbed up Strickland the wrong way. Would you? I mean, again, he's being, he's being truthful and he has guys, you know, obviously Francis Ngannou is one of his charges. And I did a piece on that too. And I kind of opened the whole piece about Sean, like about, uh, not Sean Strickland, um, Francis being in his corner in that fight against gone with his knee all you know mangled and everything and nix it coming in be like dude you've been through a lot worse than this in your life you know go out there right now you've you've done this before you're going to do it right now and i mean that

sort of stuff is very inspiring right like but that's what a coach is supposed to do he's supposed to he's supposed to speak to you on multiple levels you know and i just felt like he i think he was majorly disappointed that he couldn't get through i think the fact that that sean went out there and just couldn't seem to find or even show i guess what he was kind of pointing out the care enough right like the care the kind of care enough to like um to demonstrate that they're gonna you know do something in this fight i think that was majorly disappointing. I'm with you, man.

When you talk about the scrutiny, because I don't know how the story goes if Nick Sick doesn't say, would we be talking like, dude, what was that game plan? Would we be talking about that on Friday and throwing Nick Sick under the bus? Probably not, but I think that it does reflect

on the coach when their fighter can't. Their fighter doesn't show up and they don't appear ready, you know, for that challenge. So there's a lot to this type of thing, man. And even guys like, you know, Eugene Barrowman, right, like was basically in talking about Israel Adesanya. He was like, you know, man, he kind of expressed disinterest and kind of being around him when it was like the lifestyle had gotten to the point um where things were getting altered he wasn't getting the same israel at a senya i think didn't cavanaugh kind of have this talk too about even

you know mcgregor like i think there's points when guys you know they they are able to tell that the hunger is probably not there and I think the bigger issue for this fight camp was that he believed it was. I think he thought that his guy was ready to go right or wrong. And unfortunately, that's not the way it worked. It was a little bit different. But therefore, I really appreciated him telling the truth about it. Yeah, I do feel like, um,

you're right in what you're saying in terms of like, you look at boxing and you'll hear coaches being incredibly critical. And it's because I feel like, I don't, I don't want to say this in terms of a knock on MMA, but the coaching position in MMA is not as strict as it seems in other sports. Like, right. Like, right.

Like, you know, premier league, they're interviewing the manager straight after the game. They'll throw players under the bus. No problem. If they didn't play well, I understand fighting is a different thing.

Same as NFL. Who are they interviewing at halftime at the end? Like, you know, the coaches are prevalent people. And the idea is the book stops with them. I do feel like you mentioned cabinet. He definitely has said things in the past where he did an interview with the great Paul Kimmage over here, one of the greatest Irish sports writers ever.

And he kind of said, you know, well, if this was, this was after the Habib loss and he was kind of saying, well, look, if he's just going to fight people like Donald Cerrone and we're not doing this for real, similar to what Nixick said. Yeah. Like, I don't know how interested I'd be. Of course, his next fight was Donald Cerrone and John Cavanaugh was in his corner. But I mean, you're right in that Eugene Berman and Nixick from his football background and bringing this different influence in, like, that's what we

like about these guys. We feel like they're ruling this thing with an iron fist and we just don't see a lot of it. Right. Like, it's just not a common thing. We always feel like the fighters can move on and, you know, like, you know, just say, all right, I an iron fist and we just don't see a lot of it right like it's just not a common thing we always feel like the fighters can move on and you know like you know just say all right i can just go over here and train here instead whereas nixick and and and bearman on their examples of this

like they feel like they're really running a team you know i agree and if you if you've been into coutures there's a lot of professionals in there man i mean that's a big crew that they're operating so it's a lot different you know it's not the days of you know team quest where there's just this professional team of like eight dudes ten dudes you know what i mean and that's kind of the core of the core of the whole thing like these these gyms are just packed with amateurs and uh you know people who are fighting in lfa and whatever like just whatever promoter promotions a lot of ufc people the times have changed it's interesting too like i you know i was trying to think you know you go back and you're like has in mma how often does this kind of thing happen and i was it's funny because we always joke about the lad dumont fight i was at

the apex but the weird one of the weird parts about that uh that i remember like because it was just so obvious was lad if you recall was having a similar problem like she was not pulling the she wasn't pulling the trigger so she's going out there and just getting pieced up and each time she'd go to her corner and the guy in her corner would be like what the hell are you doing like just lose his mind yeah he was losing his mind and you could hear him because i was sitting here it's it's a quiet room you could hear him saying this stuff and i remember thinking like dude this is a horrible look like you know this guy's basically berating her in front of the whole room um you wonder if it's going to become more of a thing like i don't know like i feel like we do

we do hear this type of thing sometimes guys who are very you know over the top with it um but it could be like what was it the dude kova the the you know the um the female fighter like slapped her like whatever corner yeah yeah there's been like there's weird tension obviously there should be there should be you know there should be tension it should be a thing of respect and um you wonder if you'll see more of it because it's just, you know, there's zeroing in on those corners and everything else these days. Um, it'd be interesting to see kind of, if we see more of this kind of thing as time goes on. I saw GC give an update yesterday on boys in the back. Fantastic show as always.

Um, he said that Nick six IG account was down. Like he had taken off lying or whatever and i i that strikes me as like i know uh people are younger me might see this a different way but you know nixick is a guy who's around our age like i'd say he was just like you know what i'm just turning this off for a week i'm letting this thing this this madness i'm getting all these strickland fans on my comments i'm just going to save myself the mental warfare of wanting to comment back to all these people and i'm just skipping out but the the resolution that strickland kind of quickly reeled off at the start of that video we put out was um you know he's my friend um he will remain

my friend he just won't be in my corner i'll get other guys to do that and you've been in that gym i think that's a very utopia like a utopian vision of what can happen here and i'm sure like it can happen in some cases it's just that i'm sure you know and eric is the main coach he's going around barking the instructions you know and that's an important position like i've seen schisms in gyms like this like where it's like this guy i'm gonna go with this guy and we're gonna start it really doesn't help the general atmosphere in cytokine so i'm just wondering like having been there do you think that's even possible that they could do something like that i think that they'll attempt it and i think that they'll you know i think that it probably happens for the next fight whatever

whatever he ends up doing he'll have you know race fo or somebody um some variation of the guys over there but i don't know about the long-term idea of that i just too many egos man you know it's like there's a lot of egos involved in fighting i i like i said eric is a very straightforward guy but everybody has an ego in this game man you know what i mean like you you and it's it's how do you want to um it's necessary yeah it's not it you want to... It's necessary. It is. It's necessary. It's necessary to be a fierce competitor at the highest levels. And this goes for gym owners and everything else

because there are lots of places within Vegas alone to go train. I think that you got to kind of have that, man. But long-term, no. I don't think so. I know Sean is not like some greenhorn who's just kind of starting out. So I don't think so and i and you know i know sean is not like uh some you know greenhorn who's just kind of starting out so i don't know how much time he has left in the fight

game either so it may not end up mattering on some uh major level but i could see if he continues on for a while i could see that uh i could see a bigger split happening here yeah um we were talking about this uh yesterday and we were talking about kind of we're throwing we're going back and forth on historic examples we could remember of this and it's it's similar but not the same but yeah we had the the lopez one where fernan lopez came out like a good bit after that first Stipe fight in Ghanouad. And he was like, Dana was right. His ego is out of control.

And then it just disintegrates the relationship. Like it's Eric Nixick in the corner. Then, you know, it's Dewey Cooper. Like he is, um, Lopez is no longer there. Right. And we also had a Winkle John and again, a different situation. I'm not saying it's like for like, he comes out after Jones,

the rest in 2021. He essentially says like, he's not coming back in this gym. I think a month later, Jones comes out and he says whatever he has to say about Winkle John. And Winkle John, even anyway, Winkle John,

no longer in Jones's corner. Um, I always wonder about that dynamic and it's something that haven't really delved into,. I always wonder about that dynamic, and it's something that I haven't really delved into. But I have talked to Brandon Gibson in the aftermath. He was still very loyal to John, and he was cornering him in that last fight. But you're like, how does the dynamic work over there?

It would be interesting to kind of see how they divvy that up. And you even see it like... I mean, I feel like there's this juggling aspect of egos and stuff anyway like when you look at something like marab right as marab's in a weird situation he's kind of got like a spiritual mentor and ray ray longo who he still uses it's almost like a comfort toy like his teddy bear or something like he brings him in he's still there and i'm not saying that ray doesn't still give him practical advice in the fight but obviously john wood is the coach now and you're like how do they you know how do they kind of do this stuff these dynamics are very

interesting yeah it is going to be a balance act do you think they're like something that the lads were talking about yesterday and i i tend to agree was um there's more than meets the eye here like this this isn't simply this fight happens nixic reacts this way and sean says i'm done do you feel like maybe it was the fight week in in the story maybe they were at loggerheads a lot of this happens with a lot of fight camps on fight week the way cut everything like travel man they were they were like what is that 20 hours you know each way whatever it's like you catch these guys i'm sure it's very tiring you know what i mean like you come back from this whole situation who knows who knows uh like if they're just operating

on fumes you know when they get back to talk about it yeah i i do i do have a feeling it's built up and we also have to remember it is very raw right now like you're in a like fighters after they lose it's a horrible situation like it's uh as i said earlier about the ownership idea like there's no way sean strickland is thinking about this like oh this is my loss as well as extreme coutures like it's a very isolating situation you're in there naked fighting another man essentially like of course he's going like this is all me um you know emotions running high is is there any way that we could see a resolution when when you know they get calmer you know in the next week or so i think so man because like i was mentioning i think that eric has a d that was one of the points of the

pieces when i was talking to him like a weeks back was about this, their relationship. You could tell, man, that he's got a very deep respect, almost a paternal feeling a little bit. Because if you looked at the way he was talking, he's like, I think that Sean has suffered a lot of abandonment issues in his life and we won't do that. Which makes us talking about the Friday after the fight, them kind of splitting all the stranger, right? Because they're having this conversation. The narrative was actually like, hey, we're a safe haven.

He can keep coming here. I believe that they mean that. That's authentic. I think that really comes down to he wants to know that Sean is committed to giving it his all. That he really wants to be fighting. That he wants to be in those positions. That sort of thing. I think that really comes down to, he wants to know that Sean is committed to like giving it his all, that he really wants to be fighting, that he wants to be in those positions, you know,

that sort of thing. I think it really does come down to that, but I think it's for a human being and just their friendship and all that stuff. I think it stays intact. And who do you think comes off looking the worst of the situation? Because like, I have a very strong feeling obviously,

but when I'm on, like I saw initial posts on Crown right coming out and I even noticed some off looking the worst of the situation because like i have a very strong feeling obviously but when i'm on like i saw initial posts on crown right coming out and i even noticed some professional fighters from europe underneath saying oh i'm sure he'd take his percentage and and this kind of stuff underneath and obviously sean is a big fan base but for me it's it's like nixic i love that stuff as a media guy i'm seeing that interview I'm like this is great this raw honesty this is fantastic so maybe I'm biased in some ways what do you think I I'd like to think that neither one of them actually looks horrible in the situation to be honest I'm like to me it's like you know it's it's a natural dissension you know you got two

dudes who like have ideas of what was going on there. And it's just a natural... I guess people's problem is that it was spoken out loud in an interview versus behind closed doors. But we don't know how often they've had to talk. And you just don't know the extenuating circumstances with it. To get to your question, I don't think either one of them really looks bad here you know it's like the fact the fight itself looked bad like i think that as a pay-per-view there's always this kind of notion like hey man we got to make sure this is worth it right like this is our decision we're putting our disposable income whatever it is we're buying this event you always want to feel like it was worth it when you get a kind of patterned situation where you're like he ain't coming out man like he's not going to there's

nothing going to change from what we're seeing here this is going to be a five round fight facsimile of the first round all the way through right like that's kind of your feeling on it you know it's gonna it's gonna upset people you know yeah i don't think i don't think that anybody looks bad and i mean honestly eric nixick i know he's probably like oh man what is what is happening because there's so much chatter about it but dude generally speaking we've seen most coaches that would be like they would never do that because of the percentage they don't want to dissociate with a guy who actually earns them money you know they don't want to do that so i guy who actually earns them money. They don't want to do that. So I give him kudos in that sense.

Yeah, absolutely. Go into your head. Is Eric Nixick in Sean Strickland's corner the next time he fights? I'm going to say no. Although, I mean, Strickland being such a volatile character and also who really does fluctuate emotions in a single day, can feel one way, go to the gym, where he comes back, he's a different person.

He talks about this stuff all the time. If anybody's going to reconcile, it's going to be Sean Strickland. And I think he would have to kind of have that conversation with Nick Sick and they could work it out. It could happen, but I'm going to say no just because it is so public at this point. You know what I mean? have that conversation with Nick sick and they could work it out. It could happen, but I'm going to say no, just because it is so public at this point. You know what I mean? That,

um, it would, it would, it would be a little strange if they, if it, you know, Oh, we buried the hatchet.

We're all good now. So gun to my head, I'd say no. I'm saying yes. Really? I think for the exact reason you just said, I think one of the most endearing things that Sean Strickland does is comes out like hand

and hat you know i probably went too far there you know he does say that he goes fuck you guys you fucking dickheads i i suppose i was kind of wrong there like i kind of i i don't think he feels he's wrong to react this way um but i think when he considers the whole situation what he's done with nixick what nixick's done at extreme couture and he considers the whole situation what he's done with nixick what nixick's done at extreme couture and as you said earlier the message he's trying to send here is to actually pull greatness out of sean strickland that's not to yeah he cares um yeah it's not to push him down i think strickland takes a break he obviously had the nose break he has a few things to deal with i'd say by the time he's back in about six to nine months time,

Nick six in the corner and it's water. It's also just, he's in such a crazy position, right? Like not to break off on a tangent, but it's like you lose that fight. The second time you lose to the champion. Now you're in a vulnerable position.

And I know Ariel was kind of pointing this out, you know, the Joseph Benavidez territory you're behind the eight ball, man. Like now, now you have to circumstantially hope that things shift at the top for you to even be

considered, and I'm not sure that he has delivered the kind of fights that would even expedite a return. I don't know if he can be taken seriously at this point as a contender. He's got work to do to get back into that space so it'll be interesting on many

levels not just the coaching but just in terms of sean strickland the fighter the guy who's the contender where he'll be and how long it will take him if he can to get back into that space yeah yeah um we did see some reconciliation though yesterday chuck we were we're very concerned about anthony smith and rampage jackson on each of their podcasts yes it's the same man and i had to rub my head i was like oh let's go on each of their individual pod podcasts um they kind of started a bit of beef it was all surrounding this bryce mitchell situation how the interview was conducted on the jackson podcast with rampage and i believe that his host is Bear. You know, there was a lot of talk about this in general.

Bryce Mitchell comes on the show. By all accounts, they have paid for Bryce Mitchell to be there. And then they kind of lambast him for, obviously, very controversial comments he made regarding Adolf Hitler, which is a ridiculous sentence to say out loud still i mean what the fuck is going on but um they kind of saw him down dress him down um anthony smith said he didn't like it rampage came back he was saying you know i better not see anthony smith but it's been resolved jordan jordan says this is a nothing burger of a clip but i want to play it jordan

i want to play it so that so the community can rest after hearing all of this talk and boys people like a good nothing burger i have a taste for one give me he doesn't even have it in the folder look he's like i deleted that son of a bitch he's going into recently deleted he actually wasn't mad about the bryce mitchell stuff that was mad about what's't mad about the Bryce Mitchell stuff. That's not what he's mad about. What's he mad about? I said, I mean, he thought I was rehashing the making fun of me part, which I really wasn't. I wasn't trying to rehash that. I think Rampage and I, in this situation,

had a little bit of a misunderstanding. I thought he was mad about the Bryce Mitchell stuff, so I was just blown away. I was like, what the – I went out of my way to make sure that he didn't catch catch a he wasn't mad about the things i said about price he's fine with the with the criticism there um he was mad because he thought i was rehashing uh that he had made fun of me at one point in time and that he that i insinuated that he brings people on to make fun of them and you know maybe i could have been a little more careful when i was talking about that. That wasn't my point. Um, I never want any heat with, with rampage.

Uh, I told him yesterday and I told him today and I've said it to his face and I've said it a hundred times on, on multiple different platforms. Rampage was, and is my favorite fighter. So rampage, rampage and I are good. I'm in the spirit of Valentine's day. Jordan, how did you not think that clip? That was so informative. What are you talking about? I mean, that was really important.

Little hearts going up. How'd they do that? There it is. Oh, look at you. That at all is the emoji genius. This is unbelievable. But yeah, so we've obviously seen it resolved i think everyone's happy to see it resolved got very heated out of nowhere but it's a broader question i think new

york rick um said this recently he was talking to us and he was kind of talking about new media like this idea of new media spawning these um beefs online and it struck me as i was kind of looking at this over the week and I was kind of like, is it the inverse of influencer boxing? I'm not, I'm not taking a shot. Like, uh, like the fighters have now realized like there's revenue streams available to them through, through, uh, productions like podcasts and things like that. And more power to them go after it.

But is it, is it literally the flip of that where guys with podcasts and had currency on youtube took themselves to the ring to to blow themselves up now we see fighters going to the production room and again no offense lads right no offense i mean it's just it's kind of rampant in other sports too right like nba players nfl players um it's a very different world, man. As a writer, it's a strange thing to come to grips with because for the longest time, you were the conduit in terms of going to pry open somebody's life. Especially in the biography sense or if you're trying to do a profile, you're the one bringing and shining light onto somebody's personality. These days, everybody's their own publication, or they can be to the best of their extent. They cough up charms quicker than you can care to even know about them. It's a different kind of world, and I think we're going to see more and more of this

until podcasts, for whatever reason, start to dip out. They're no longer the thing. But I think you're going to see dip out they're no longer the thing but i think you're going to see a lot more of this type of thing in this particular instance i mean this is kind of like the brendan shob yes against many people yeah he's got a lot of feathers and then you realize hey that's pretty good those numbers i mean the bryce mitchell thing is stupid and crazy and um asinine whatever word you want to use as it was i mean people are talking about we're still talking about it right now you're still talking about the reason these

we're talking about these guys because they were talking about it and there's misinterpretations and it becomes almost like a game of telephone and these situations the misunderstandings like by the end uh it loses some of its meaning but i i think that we got to get used to this dude i think it's i think we're got to get used to this, dude. I think we're going to see a lot more of this. And the evolution of this has been, over the last maybe 10 years, it's just kind of the useful idiot.

I've mentioned this a lot of times. It really made me angry. Media turning into useful idiots, meaning he said, she said, and every single thing that they were doing, grabbing whatever. Because if you're a smart fighter, you're just planting the narrative as you go because you know that a media will run like the media will run with it this is the next layer now you know um and it's just it's a little weird man you know what i mean i'm always like

should they be should it even be a story i don't know but it's because everything is a talking point now and we're here talking about it it's like uh i think it's here to stay you know yeah it's definitely for like quick reports and things like this quick stings like um you know 200 300 400 word pieces these these kind of things are great but i thought it was interesting what you said about like you know the idea of you being the conduit before and how it may be a switch with all these people being their own publications does that demand more from you as a feature writer do you think like say when you went and did that great paint and tablet piece

he's a a guy who gc would describe as chronically online right that's how he describes himself but you know he's a lot of stuff online there's a lot of stuff on there out paint and tablet but you still managed to bring you know something we didn't know about a lot of stuff online. There's a lot of stuff on there, paint and tablet, but you still managed to bring, you know, something we didn't know about, a lot we didn't know about this guy into that piece. Is it more of a challenge when guys like this are so public? I think it may, it forces you to dig deeper

into a more nuanced type of piece. And it's kind of fun because in a strange way, because of what we're talking about, it has forced your hand to be a more observant writer to understand motivations better to see through bullshit better like all that sort of thing like you got to uh you got to go in there with a certain kind of you know awareness of who this person is in the public persona perception that they've created right and now you're writing it from a different area you're just writing it from a whole different era. It's not to fill in,

but it's not to shed light necessarily on who is this person, but to kind of shed light on the motivations of who they are and what they're thinking, what goes into what they're doing out there. And that type of piece, that's what I was thinking.

I was like, he's never going to talk about himself as a seeker, you know, but he is. He's a seeker. So you're sort of like, all right, well, how do we kind of like abstractly start to form this piece based on that information and can I confirm it? You know, and we did. Like, that was kind of the beauty of a thing

like that. So I think it's just going to be more nuanced and you know what I mean? Like, they can't report on themselves in the truest sense a lot of times because they can't see themselves because the ego is always there right you're always there so i think sometimes you still gotta you still gotta go in there and do that kind of piece on certain guys you know it's kind of like so a feature like you know you could start like it would nearly stand alone like back in the day like uh gatorleys going like this like you could start like it would nearly stand alone like back in the day like uh

gator lee's guy like this like you could have never heard about some of the the subjects of his writing and you would learn about them from this but when you were a specific mma writer and you're writing about these guys who are already very public it's like starting two chapters into a book right right you you are like these guys already know all this stuff i do not need to go down this line with them let's take them in a different lane. 100%, man. And I think that that is the challenge for all of us now, if you're trying to stay relevant writing in this game,

because even the Francis Ngannou piece that we ran, right when we started, right when we launched Uncrowned, we ran that piece, and it was... I'm like, dude, everybody knows. If you followed the fight game at all, everybody knows this guy's story. But you gotta almost evolve it, right?

How is he dealing now with his own story? It's not so much that these people who think you gotta add biographical detail into pieces and put your audience to sleep, it's all different now, man. You cannot do that. You gotta take for granted that people kind of know certain things about the fighter already you know and i think that that's that's what will

make it musical in the end is if you go in there and say like okay we're all on this we all kind of know this person is this even dominant cruz who was retired like it's hard to write about dominant cruz because we've written about dominant cruz and he's been all over the place himself so to find um the way into some kind of insight into who he is right now is the challenge right like so that was kind of the thing with francis and gano too i actually remember that piece as well because at the top of it you kind of run through really quickly like let's get this out of the way right we know he had to cross channels on dodgy boats all this like you listed it so quickly so you're like great let's get to what because you can look up that information there are way more there are pieces dedicated to it

there was a great espn article about it it's like you know that part of the process now is that it's available if you really want to know more about it you can find all about it right it's you don't need to rehash that's the first thing you don't want to do is like the rehash information yeah but how does it affect them how is it affecting them you know like in this stand like where he's at now that's kind of where you're at you know well we look forward to the eric nixick and sean strickland article i'm sure that's on the way already making them phone calls eric's gonna be like stop calling me i think i've called him like multiple times just sitting on crown i'm like talking to him like multiple times just in uncrowned i'm like talking to because he's great he is actually a very good soundbite yeah yeah and just before we

move on with that that would be my one fear that it would take away from a guy who's become one of the most revered personalities because of the way he is like i would hate for the the the backlash from this and yeah as i mentioned earlier, the OIG stuff and stuff like that, hopefully that's just him going like, I'm not, I'm not actually playing this game. Like, I hope he continues with his podcast. He continues with his appearance because he's

made the sport better. Like for his personality, his openness, that, that has made the sport richer for him doing that, I think. Yeah. A hundred percent. And, uh, that is what you just mentioned, I think is when you're asking me off the top, like, what did I think?

Are you surprised? And all that? I think the biggest thing that I thought was, I hope this doesn't start to muzzle Eric Nixick. That was the first thing I thought, please don't let this be the moment where he's like, you know, I should really stop talking. Cause that would suck. Let me circle back to you on that one. Yeah. We're going to circle back in a couple of weeks.

Uh, Scott Coker. It was like a stock quote. You could just plug it in. Um, I wanted to talk to you about this Sportico, um, top 100 earners list. Uh, I, I should say, uh, I got this. I saw this because MMA mania tweeted out. I sent you the tweet there yesterday. Basically it is telling us that MMA does not feature in the top 100 earners

in sport there is six boxers and we have a graphic here actually here's the top 10 uh the lovely on air jordan has given us and you'll see their number three is tyson fury with a salary of 140 million seven of which was uh sorry 147 seven of which was endorsements I also have the information Here on the other boxers, Usykster at 7 of course 120 million, 2 million Endorsements, Canelo Alvarez At 20th, 65 million 8 million in endorsements

Joshua, 50 million 10 million in endorsements Jake Paul, I'm sure that will make A lot of boxers sick, 38 million 10 million in endorsements. And then Inouye is there as well at 81, which I'll get into this in a minute, but 35 million in salary and 7 million endorsements, 42 million. So that's the, like, as far as combat sports, right,

that's the lowest entry is Inouye, who, when we talk about, in a way it's like, this guy has yet to break into us, you know, he's yet to, you know, and he's already there. He's fought here a handful of times. Nobody even knew who he was then. You know, nobody was paying attention when he was fighting in Carson, California. You know what I'm saying?

Nobody knew who the kid was then. And obviously like he is, he's balsa to stock immensely. He's in all kinds of super fight talks and stuff like that but he hasn't had any of them really and he's there at 81 that's the one that would rankle me you know yeah we know we know that we should say like we know that mcgregor has featured on these in the past i think he topped the forbes list um in i can't was it 2021 um and i think that well i think but yeah something like that

he had sold proper 12 i think around the same time and i think that was the the bulk of the investment but shocked that there's no mma in there chuck would be my first question shocked is a strong word no i wouldn't go as far as say shock but it is telling isn't it like it's just it's one of those things that you think man i know that like ariel's pointing this out too we're in a moment a transitional moment where the next stars you know boxing's in a good place we've been talking about this a lot boxing obviously like the saudi money is changing that game uh it's coming into MMA too. But it's like MMA is just

we don't have guys like McGregor or Ronda Rousey right this second. What you have is an Ilya Toporia or you have Makhachev. Alex Pereira would be maybe the closest. Maybe that's the best example. Alex Pereira would be the guy that you'd be like,

he should be on that list. Surely he should be on that list because of the year he had, which is just absurd. But it's not surprising he's not on that list because it's not like we look at him as a Forbes type of guy. You don't really think about like, oh man, he's commanding this insane amount of money. It's just we haven't seen him and through that light and i just because i he's definitely making good money but it's not boxing good money you know so it's just it's a very strange thing but i would be very mad if i was like an alex perera or if i'm these guys who like you know i bet you could almost point to, I didn't look at, I didn't look closely. Maybe you looked at this list closely, but you could probably find examples

from just about every major sport. Dana White says he's not competing with MMA organizations. He's competing with the NBA. He's competing with the NFL, right? Like this is straight out of the horse's mouth. If that's the case, you should have some people on there the people who exemplify your sport and transcend it you know should be on this list because that's the comparison right now we're talking about the comparison of athletes and through salaries and what they're earning and stuff to not have any mma representation is telling to me yeah i mean this list is to your point yoke this list there is a there is a fair amount of Premier League football players, I mean, sorry, European football players on the, as in soccer players on the list. But, I mean, looking at the baseball guys here, Otani, Yamamoto, Scherzer, Judge, Verlander, Altuve, Trout, DeGrom, Seager, Cole, Rendon, basketball. You look at Rendon or you look at some of these guys

and you say, do we have an equivalent in MMA? Yes, we do. There are guys that are that good. That's where it gets really sticky. You're like, come on, man. Especially with the TV deal coming up and everything. Here's the thing.

This will give you a great equivalence because it's your team. The, the lowest ranked basketball player on this top 100 list is 98. And I know you love this guy. It's Michael Porter Jr. Yeah. Of the Denver Nuggets. So who would be MMA's equivalent of that?

Like, you know, and I'm not trying to diss Michael Porter Jr. No, I'm just kidding. That's pretty wild that he even made it. That's their third star. That's the Nuggets' third star. It's behind Murray and Jokic.

So that's... I mean, he's a max deal. But my point is, if you're competing with the NBA, let's make sure we're competing with the NBA. Yes. Daniel Jones, the last ranked American footballer in there at the Minnesota Vikings, obviously just traded there. A lot of golfers in here as well.

Bryson DeChambeau, the lowest ranked golfer in terms of earnings on the list. Football, NFL, you got Mahomes in there? Oh, of course. I mean, he's number 19. Dak Prescott's probably got like the kicker over there, Budker, whatever his name is. He's probably on there.

He probably do, dude. There's a lot of quarterbacks though. A lot of quarterbacks. And you got some Formula One drivers and the boxers, as we said. You know, you mentioned how Pereira would feel. Do you think a middling MMA fighter, like a guy two fights into his UFC career,

will look at that and go, geez, that's interesting that, you know, this deal is coming into his UFC career. We'll look at that and go, geez, that's, that's interesting that, you know, this, this deal is coming up at the end of the year that we all forecast to be worth billions. That Dana White has said is going to be absolutely gigantic. If you ask anyone that's working for any of these broadcast channels,

how much are they going to make? They're going to make a shitload because they're a sporting entity that's available. Um, how would you feel in that situation? You're just starting your mma journey and you're like oh none of us on there oh man let's make this variation of this question so often but i think you'd have certain middling guys who it would definitely raise a red flag you'd be like

hey man you know what's the you know what what is the capacity or what is the ceiling? Shouldn't it be crazy? Like for us here, like to be, um, putting our bodies on the line and, um, and truly one of the most demanding of all the sports we're talking about. I mean, this is a ridiculous sport that requires you to be mentally and physically in a peak situation that, you know, every time you get in there and to perform, you know, it's, if I'm a middling guy and I'm making that run, if I'm hungry and I'm doing it, I'd be thinking about this. Right now, they've got entry-level fighters browbeaten by the fact that they're making it to the UFC.

Oh, I'm in the UFC. Everybody's kind of had these entry-level contracts. That's just where we are. They're not thinking in terms of you know, man, if we all kind of came together, we could have a piece of this pie or a bigger piece of this pie. I don't know what would... These are the moments when these things come around and they're so highly publicized and so brought, drug through and boasted when these things come around and they're so highly publicized and so like brought you know drug through and and boasted upon by the the biggest players this you know the owners and

everything else dana white like these numbers will be happily bandied about but the fighters themselves don't seem to understand that collective you know the collective bargaining is kind of how you do this like in the end like because the other leagues have done this, that's where fighters themselves need to kind of come together. But we've had this conversation for years and you still get the, thank you, Uncle Dana, I appreciate it, I want that bonus at the end. And that's kind of what they're looking for. They're just looking for bonuses and things like that. Not understanding the larger picture, I guess. Yeah, I mean you you brought up collective

i was going to mention the u-word uh because it is something that comes up it comes up so uh often right when these deals happen i feel like the amount of money everyone is like well i cannot believe that they've got this amount of money. We've seen it before. And then everyone, it turns to how much of this will the fighters get? And then it turns into the union conversation. And then we all talk about these guys need to unionize. And I can remember at one point with the ESPN deal, did a few fighters turn on the media? Like you guys should be doing something about this. And we're like, we can't, we cannot do anything.

You know, it's going to be big though right the end of the year that talk is going to ramp up again for sure you know it's so it's going to ramp up and then you just have this settlement you know and i mean it's just these types of things that kind of raise the idea of the kinds of money you know that run this league you, where it's at and it's valued, and just the profit margins and everything else and just kind of everything that's going on.

I think that it should speak to everybody because it's going to be a big story. It's a big story and it will only be bigger as this thing, as they get down. I don't know the whole situation in terms. i heard that like the ufc's uh you know the um exclusive negotiating windows are they're gonna let that

expire i don't really fully i haven't really followed everything that's going on but i feel like it's going to be you know sort of unprecedented but just given where we're at and where the ufc is at those those letters themselves sell out every building. They don't even announce sometimes headliners anymore. They don't have to. It's just a crazy thing, isn't it? This league has changed over the course of the last 10 years into something closer to the WWE in that sense.

Just really big business. Yeah, you mentioned WWE. I can't help but think about the Vince McMahon documentary that Simmons and the boys at the ringer put out. Shout out David Shoemaker. Yeah, that was great. I loved it.

I'm not a huge wrestling fan, so I loved it. Every episode, I was bent into it. But that union conversation and how they dealt with that at the time. I know, man. You feel it's coming you feel like a few lads are gonna put some word out and then next of all it's gonna be like he is no longer on the roster just don't have it don't have it spearheaded by bjorn rebney right so you're saying jesse the body ventura is the bjorn rebney yes that's what i'm saying. That makes sense. Um, just a few moments left here, Chuck, uh, big fight, big, big fight in Las Vegas this weekend.

It's the UFC apex apex. Everyone's pay apex. Everyone's favorite. Yeah, they do it in Ireland. Apex. I love an old apex event. Um, Jared cannon air and Gregory Rodriguez on top of the card. The one everyone's asking for, um, a fight.

I'm really looking forward to. Calvin Cater and Yusuf Zalal in the co-main event. That should be good. Yeah, I wrote a piece with Zalal

and I thought it's only gone up while we started here. I was shitting my pants, bro. The night Yusuf Zalal ran the gauntlet to earn his USC return. Check it out.

Really, you know, this filled me with nostalgia when he was telling this story to me. His last appearance under a banner that wasn't the UFC just before he got this comeback was a one-night tournament

in Denver, Colorado where he had to fight the first round in boxing, the second round in kickboxing, and the third round in an MMA fight. And the reason why he did it was because dustin jacobi had won it like two years before i got an opportunity to fight in contender series so he went and did it there was only one boxer on the card as the lal was ranked one the boxer was ranked eight so in his first fight that night he had to fight an

actual boxer in a boxing match it was listening to it and I was like Me and Shook need to go to one of these events in Colorado Yeah yeah that's what that whole piece is about I love it already So much energy this guy And just an incredible story Comes into the UFC I think he won Three on the bounce when he came in

In 2020 or 2021 He lost three and then he drew against blackshear they cut him he goes back to this regional season colorado as i was saying wins that tournament that night then he's like oh this will be great meanwhile the matchmakers are kind of like oh we kind of are giving new guys a chance we don't really want to see it he goes for a tough tryout he gets selected as an alternate on the tough tryout so he's like what what do i have to do 24 hours after that he gets a phone call and they're like hey will you fight billy quarantillo on like a couple of weeks notice and it's all been going well since there like he

had one of the best 2024s last year three finishes his last one against jack shore big fight against calvin cater i am looking forward to that that's what the writer does, I mean put everything in perspective for guys like this, right? Like that's a really great story. Yeah, probably just no point in actually reading the article Don't read it, we're just cliff noting it for you Do you any other intriguing fights

I mean, I wanted to talk to, I didn't end up panning out, but I was going to talk to Edmund Shabazzian, only in the sense like I don't know how you feel about him, and I know he's gone through a lot of losses now, but there's still like this, there's always this crazy thing, like these precipitous

drop-offs from almost like stardom or wherever you would put him, at least contendership, like right, like he was in this moment, and I remember him at MSG winning a big fight and things like that like it's just i i always find those types of stories really interesting because i i feel like if he loses this fight it's probably for his roster spot it very well could be like

if he loses his fight he's only 27 years old and to be in that situation that's crazy you're just kind of entering what should be your peak it's's a very unique situation he's in, man. That's so crazy that he's only 27. Obviously, I remember him showing up and he's, you know, he's with Tard Verdean, right? Tard Verdean, yeah. And everyone's like, this is gonna, he's gonna be the, he's the new Rousey kind of thing. Yeah, he's the next thing there, right? That's the, took the baton essentially. Yeah.

27 though, like Paul Hughes is 27 and it feels like his career just began you know it is part of that too part of what the intrigue to me there is just in a larger sense as a writer you know like you think about edmund you're like did he just get thrown in too soon you know with yeah and sometimes that happens man these guys get aged in dog years sometimes very early and then they just can't you know what what should be their normal or their peak years become something like their desperation years to keep it rolling. It's just, uh, trajectories like that are very fascinating to me. Yeah. And like, it's such an accurate thing you're saying, like a lot of people don't see the

importance of matchmakers and particularly on regional scenes because you need a slow and steady build. You need to be taking on a little bit better competition every time. We've seen careers where guys outside of the UFC are taught to be really great. The promoter recognizes really great. So just feed some cans so we can, you know,

keep on selling off this. But by the time he gets actually challenged, um, things don't go their way. That's a, I hope you get to write that piece, man. There is, there's some interesting stories here. Bon fees. Obviously I've got,

mate, I'm looking at three bad picks in a row for the boys in the back. So if I don't get my shit together, I am in for them one day. See, I don't have to participate in that, in that particular thing that you guys are doing, but you know,

on our pay-per-view picks, I just continue to roll pizza. I don't know if you're paying any attention to this. You're so kind of pissed, man. Oh, my God. I think about ways to beat you. When that thing comes out, I'm like, how can I get one? How can I get one?

I thought I was in for it on this last one. But still, there was a draw that kind of threw like a monkey wrench into the whole thing. I don't know how they're scoring that. Do we have like that extra one? Like, so is it, but if you look at when we started it, I think now I'm 20, I am 23, two and one. Something like that, which is pretty crazy, man. You see, you put your picks publicly once in, like you replied to all, instead of just replying to, to Shaheen, which we're meant to do so we can block our takes. And I started countering, counterpicking you.

I was like, well, maybe this fight could go this way. I just want you guys to see. I'm trying to tip you off. I'm like, make money, boys. Here's what you do. You and GC are at the top, right? You and GC are at the top of this league at the moment. Yeah, he kind of, he didn't have a great go this last time.

Well, it was like a media. It was like two and two versus three and one for me. i i should be because they started it again at 2025 but now i'm alone i'm alone on the on the northern end there you know by myself looking i start i start every year mma was with shit and with the first thing to go under now which we know from our old show my pick so there's this award you can win in um in england it's like best emerging artist at the the mercury awards back in the day and it would always go to like the hottest talent in music but as soon as they got it they would just fall off a cliff so yeah this is this is now the curse of pz's breakout fighter of the year i

officially have a curse so i need to to, I need to stop the rot this weekend, my friends. Before we go, in the interest of Valentine's Day, we saw, we put up a lovely post we saw earlier today. I believe on air,

Jordan has it there from one, Merab Devilishvili. Look at this. Look at this lovely snuggle he's having with Sean O'Malley. Happy Valentine's Day. That's what that was about.

It didn't even occur to me. I saw that come through and I just went right by. I didn't even understand. Well, look, lads. I hope everyone, all the crackheads out there, are having a day full of love. And if not, it doesn't really matter, guys. Just once you're happy

in your heart, who gives a fuck? Let's be honest. A pleasure as always to have Chuck Mendenhall on the show. Thank you to On Air Jordan. Thank you to Oscar Loseff. Thank you to all the crackheads, baby. We love you. And we will see you again on Monday.

Lots of love. Mwah!