The Ryen Russillo Podcast - (Not) Hiring Mark Jackson. Plus Jon Anik on Fight Island and Khabib vs. Gaethje.

Episode Date: October 23, 2020

Russillo shares his thoughts on why it's not all that shocking that Mark Jackson was not tapped for an NBA head coaching position this offseason (2:00). He's then joined by the UFC's Jon Anik to discuss the scene on Fight Island in Abu Dhabi, UFC 254: Khabib vs. Gaethje; and updates on Conor McGregor, Jon Jones, and more (13:00). Finally Russillo answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (45:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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book um which actually he's been out for like over a year. And I'm going to give you the love and also the podcast a little love, but I think it's the fourth author that we've had on that's book went to number one on Amazon and went to number one, not just like it went number one in his category for like all four. So that's really, I mean, that's you guys liking the interviews and wanting to read those books. And trust me, like the authors that we've had on, I've never done, I've had to do it with radio because you'll get like a book sent to you.

And then you're like, hey, you got to do seven minutes with this guy. But normally the ones we're doing are just books that I've read on my own and then deciding to do it. So it's worked out. That's been great. And then obviously Trevor Moet, who's just a different cat. And I'll admit when I first started reading about him and the stuff, I was like, uh, you know, one of these guys, and then I've hung out with him and if he's good enough for Nick Saban, that he's good enough for us, I think is the way we should do it. But we'll get back to kind of

just me. Um, you know, some of you guys, again, are sending really serious stuff to me and I don't know how I feel about that. And I've had a few married friends say, why are you giving any advice whatsoever on marriages? I'm like, well, you know, I'm not, it's not trying to do math in China. Okay. I am aware of people that are married and struggling. I do not pretend to know what it's like every single day, but I know that I had parents and they were married technically. So there you go.

I mean, I'm not, it's not a completely foreign concept. So hopefully you're good with that. Okay, this week's Open, though, is about Mark Jackson. Because we are now to the point where the head coaching gigs are almost gone. And Stan Van Gundy gets the gig in New Orleans. And I don't think the Detroit run is a positive for Stan whatsoever. I don't know how you frame the Miami run considering he's basically replaced because Shaq was like enough of this guy. And then they went on, win a title. So maybe that happens with

Stan. Maybe it's unfair, but I was, I'll admit surprised about the Pelicans thing. I would, at this point, I don't know what the price is for Jeff. Um, I don't know if it's cheaper for Stan cheaper for Stan because I think there was some interest in Stan or excuse me, when Jeff Van Gundy back before. But I don't know if Dell Demps is eventually going to go ahead and hire him. And Dell is no longer running the Pelicans. We know it's David Griffin. And maybe the Stan thing completely works out or maybe it turns into something where I don't know. It feels like wherever he goes, there turns into like a bit of a tune-out phase with him. And I'm worried about Zion, Brandon Ingram.

I don't know if Lonzo's really a core guy at this point. Jackson Hayes, whatever. I mean, JJ's there. Is that enough of a veteran presence with Drew Holiday if Drew's even on the roster? So the Stan hiring did surprise me a bit. I guess I'm probably a little more biased towards Jeff, but the anti-Jeff argument is like, hey, how long can this guy go without coaching? But my argument would be, had you ever heard, like, do you listen to him on the broadcast? Do you realize how in tune to every little thing is

that's going on here? And so Mark Jackson doesn't have a job again. And remember, he was fired now six years ago by the Golden state warriors. But when it comes down to Mark Jackson, there are a lot of things that are brought up. Um, and really, I think it comes down to this. You are either informed or uninformed. If you are informed, you understand why Mark Jackson doesn't have a job. If you were uninformed, you were screaming all sorts of accusations for why Mark doesn't have a job. So let's review Mark Jackson, three years, golden state warriors. And he went, um, just over 500. Mark Jackson, three years, Golden State Warriors, and he went just over 500. That first year was pretty rough record-wise, but if you look at what he did on the whole, going from 23 wins to 51 wins, that's basically the hardest leap to make, that 20 and 30 win team. They improved by

24 wins from his first year to his second year. So he was there for three years. The last year was 51-31. He went 121-109. They beat the Nuggets, which was the analytic darling of the 2012-13 season. And then they lost in the first round to the Clippers in that Game 7 series. Remember, Bogut was hurt. They didn't have him.

That series was obviously very close. Once in seven games, they could have maybe gotten him in his second round. But he gets fired. I had known he, the Golden State Warriors definitely want to go to another direction

basically that entire season. And there are organizations that will not want to fire coaches even though they want to fire him or they're like, can we really fire a guy after he just won 51 games and has led to this improvement?

Because Mark did a couple really positive things. That team played very tough defense and, you know, coaches probably get too much blame or too much credit on the development of the players. because Mark did a couple of really positive things. That team played very tough defense, and coaches probably get too much blame or too much credit on the development of the players. I just think there's certain players that are stars that are just going to be stars. I could be coaching them, and they'd be stars.

So that sounds like an anti-Mark thing. If you're very pro-Mark, you would say, hey, what would these guys be without Mark? Well, they'd probably still be six shooters. Clay learned how to dribble more. Steph saw the court a little bit better. I mean, there's a player argument there where Draymond Green had told me,

and he's made this public. He's like, dude, Mark had me playing small forward. I would have been out of the league and not gotten rookie extensions. Curry was off the ball, and Jarrett Jack was running the offense. Was that the best thing to do? Well, at the time, a lot of teams

were kind of doing that kind of stuff, and Steph numbers were insane. Harrison Barnes, they would run him sometimes in these lineups where you're like, are you asking Harrison Barnes to carry this team offensively? So there were a lot of issues the front office had with Mark's approach to this, even though record wise, you're like 51 and 31. Are they really going to fire him? Because I think there were some concerns. Can we really go ahead and do this? And they do. And then they win an NBA championship. So even though you deserve a lot of credit from going from the 20 wins to 47 to 51 wins, because I really think that's the hard path. That's that

really hard franchise improvement thing to emulate. But then as soon as you leave, you go from losing the first round to winning an NBA title. That's almost too much improvement because then you're like, wait a minute, I want to give this guy credit, but what the hell just happened? And so it does get back to relationships. Joe Lac Lake up after Mark was let go, had a bunch of quotes. Um, this was one of them that I found quote, part of it was that he couldn't get along with anybody else in the organization. And look, he did a great job. I'll always compliment him in many respects, but you can't have 200 people in the organization, not like you. Okay. Um, and he said, when I say the organization as a whole, I don't just

mean the team and just 15 players that are involved in the coaching staff. I mean everybody. There's 200 employees here. So we look at the organization going forward and the kind of coach we want and not just the performance or everything else. All these factors matter. We took all of that into account. So we have the player part of it. We have the owner part of it. We knew the front office didn't like him when one of the assistants was busted for recording Jackson in that into account. So we have the player part of it. We have the owner part of it. We knew the front office didn't like him when one of the assistants was busted for recording Jackson in meetings to then play for the front office, which again, that actually becomes a pro Mark Jackson part of it. The Mark Jackson staff was not good enough. The ownership and front office told him repeatedly,

the staff is good enough. Mark said, we have the best staff going. He and Scalabrini apparently got into it and Scalabrini was reassigned. The front office didn't like that part of it. So we have the players. We have the staff. We have the ownership. We have the front office. Let's also talk about some of the other stuff that's just, let's face it, weird. Jackson is a man of faith.

I don't question anyone's faith. I just say to you, leave me alone, and I'll do my thing. That's the way I've always operated. And I know that it rubs some people the wrong way when he was a head coach, but also would find time to get to LA whenever he had a convenient off day to go ahead and do that. It's tough to tell a man of faith, Hey, you know what? Don't be that interested in God. That's, that's an almost impossible conversation. But if I was at ESPN or anywhere and said, Hey, you know what? I can't watch football this weekend because I have this higher calling.

Eventually at work, they'd be like, Hey, you know what, man? This is all part of the job, being available to be around. This is a very difficult and tough thing to navigate as I'm not even 100% comfortable doing it. But I'd have to say as an employer at the time being frustrated by it, it actually makes a little bit of sense. And I think there's other things that just bum people out. When Curry had his ankle issues, he was brought up and it was kind of a playful thing where Curry's brought up, they put the holy oil on his ankle and it was Jackson's wife at the time. And Pete Jackson was like, look, he's like, he had chronic ankle problems and now he doesn't. So you figure it out. That's one of those things where people are like, wait, what? Um, Jackson also had some issues

off the court where he was caught up in extortion deal. And I'm not even really getting on his case for that because I think a lot of things happen to people that are public figures that goes on in normal people's lives, but the public figure becomes the object of jokes on and on and on. He also said when asked about Jason Collins availability years ago, he said, not in my locker room. So it came off as if he was a homophobe because there's kind of evidence that he is. And then when he was asked to clear that up, he said, look, I know Chase, I know his family and I'm praying for them right now. Hey man, save your fucking prayers.

Okay. Like that's the kind of stuff that just doesn't play no matter who you are. And I think the most important part of all of this, because I guess I'm still maybe a little surprised that he doesn't have a job because other people have been on TV and not been great on TV. I've looked at other coaches that haven't had great runs and there've been plenty of people that have gotten second chances, by the way, both black and white. So when I see people outraged that he's been blackballed or as Shannon Sharp said, whiteballed or Kendrick Perkins recently just saying like all of these things that it just going off

on the idea that Mark Jackson doesn't have a job. It really feels like, okay, are you informed? And, but yet you've made up your mind and decided not to change your mind or are you uninformed? And I think so many people scream about this or like, oh wait, that's right. You know, maybe there are moments you had just now listening to this where you're like, oh, that's right. I have nothing personal against Mark Jackson. He's one of my favorite college basketball players of all time, all time. You guys know how huge of a St. John's fan I am. And I actually was, you know, as a little kid being like, dude, I can't believe he's going this late in the draft. Like he's going to be awesome. And he was awesome in the Knicks. I felt so vindicated. I was like, man, I could

work for a team right one day. I loved Mark Jackson and I was right. But when I listened to him on the broadcast of Van Gundy, I think him being on the broadcast of Van Gundy hurts his chances of getting a job. Because if I was worth a half a billion dollars or more and had the opportunity to own a team or owned a team right now, and I'd go, Van Gundy's on all of these little things. Like, hey, look at how they line up Anthony Davis on free throws. They already have him on the other side of the court so he can seal for a deep pass against a smaller defender. Will there be an adjustment? Hey, what's going on with this substitution? Hey, this rule's actually wrong. Why are they doing it this way? Jeff Van Gundy will say, hey, Jason Tatum, something's wrong

with him, and he's the first to point it out. It happens multiple times every single broadcast. Jeff Van Gundy is easily the best NBA analyst in the game right now. Mark doesn't do any of those things, and I don't know if that's just him not being comfortable in that role, but he's a coach, he's a former player, and he doesn't do any of those things. He'll say, hey, this guy's not just a great scorer, he's a great individual, he's a great human being.

Okay. So-and-so doesn't get enough credit for his shooting. Okay. And everything is results-based. If the shot goes in, it was a great shot. If the shot doesn't go in, hey, that's the guy that-based. If the shot goes in, it was a great shot. If the shot doesn't go in, hey, that's the guy

that shouldn't be taking the shot. It's very, it's very minimal depth. And when you have people that make these decisions, you're almost, instead of looking

at the resume in Golden State, which is on its surface a good resume, you'd say, hey, yeah, what, like six years? Like, let's give this guy a shot. Young team, gunner to play defense, that's hard to do.

But I think being next to Jeff, when Jeff runs circles around him on the broadcast, it might remind people and go, wait, why is this one guy way better at talking about the game than the other guy? So I think the best thing Mark could do would not be on the broadcast with Jeff and who knows that might happen. So I just think the more we look at it and Hey man, trust me, this is not white guy decides to push back on racism segment. Cause I've probably done with those for the rest of my life. I'm saying specific to this one because the NCAA numbers are atrocious. The ADs, the head coaching, the diversity that we have in the pro sports league

still is not what it needs to be. I'm not pushing back on any of those things, but when it comes specific to Mark Jackson, there are the informed and the uninformed. And hopefully if you've resisted this, you're more informed now. UFC 254, Nurmagomedov, Gaethje John Anik, live from Abu Dhabi The W Hotel Walking distance to Fight Island Joins us now on the podcast How was that place? I've always wondered about visiting it

I imagine now it's certainly more restricted But give me a breakdown of visiting That part of the world Well, I know you appreciate first-class service and it's always a treat for me to chop it up with my old buddy, but dude, the hospitality and the world-class nature of the customer service here

is like nothing I've experienced in the world. And I've been traveling with the UFC for nine years. I've been to Brazil 27 times. I've been all over the world in all sorts of different climates and hotels. I don't think it just has to do with this COVID-19 climate. I think this is the way they treat large groups in general. Everything is to the nines. I had the best seafood meal of my life last night. And,

you know, my poor wife hasn't been to a restaurant since February. Here I am, eating these five-star dinners and everything else. But obviously, as you know, the UFC was first and got way ahead of this. And they've made some mistakes along the way. But, you know, it's good to be here. Obviously, the first time I came here a few months ago, I had a false positive, which was a little dicey. But four negative COVID tests and ready to call these fights here in about 48 hours. I hate to ask another stupid question before I get to the important ones. But shopping there, I imagine it's the worst place to buy high-end stuff because everything's so expensive.

Like, I doubt that there's deals on stuff, correct? Yeah, no, the prices are inexorbitant. And Dubai's not far from here, and they don't get any cheaper over there. So absolutely, I haven't done much shopping while I've been here, but it's pretty strict, man. Like, I know you like to get out and you like to work out. Like, I have a loop that I can go, but it's very strict. You got to wear your mask. You got to be on the right side of the street. And I have no problem telling you to go back where you came from, so to speak. As somebody who likes watches, I swear, I feel like Dubai is just a doozer

rolling around with Rolex Patek. And you're like, are you allowed outside if you don't have one of those? But I can't imagine, like, while I'm in Dubai, like, I remember when I had no money and you and I would look you allowed outside if you don't have one of those? But I can't imagine like while I'm in Dubai, like I remember I had no money and you and I would look at fancy watches in Las Vegas. Like, I mean, I was broker than you were, I think, unfortunately, just because you're smarter than I am from not back then, from every day since.

But we'd look at like fancy watches and I'd say something to the guy, I'd be like, well, you know, if these tables are right, and I probably was asking you for 20 bucks later that day. But whenever I see some of the footage from Dubai, just dudes are rolling with every possible watch combination you can think of. I'm like, you know what?

I probably, if I ever end up there, I'd probably just deal with my normal guy. Then just be like, hey, while I'm in Dubai, let me pay twice as much for something else. All right, let's talk fights. Okay, because you know, Nurmagomedov is interesting for a bunch of different reasons.

I want to start with him on this side. He is the clear favorite. I think that line is almost too much. But again, you're the gambling guy. This is your world, as you'll be calling it. You talk to him. What's he like right now?

He's had both an incredible run and a horrible year personally. Yeah, this has been the most challenging year of his personal and professional life. If your listeners and viewers don't know the story, his father, Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov, not unlike your dad, just a central force and figure in his life. And friend doesn't even begin to describe it. Coach doesn't even begin to describe it. Not only did Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov build seven or eight fighters literally from scratch, seven, eight years old into bona fide UFC fighters and contenders, but he's been Khabib's best friend. So to lose him in this climate is something that

Khabib has had to overcome. That being said, I think he might be the mentally toughest athlete that I have ever been around. I do think if he was forced to come back sooner, right, three months ago, he wouldn't be in as clear a headspace as he is in right now. But he is very much a matter-of-fact guy who is like, dude, like in his sort of improving English, he's like, what am I supposed to do? Like he's not coming back, so do you want me to live on or do you want me to mope for you guys all week? So he's been very thoughtful with us. coming back. So do you want me to live on or do you want me to vote for you guys all week? So

he's been very thoughtful with us. I asked him if he and his dad ever had any conversations about Justin Gaethje as a future opponent. And because I was trying to figure out a creative way to ask him about his father. And he said they didn't talk about Gaethje, but not necessarily as a future opponent for Khabib. But the number one reason Khabib is here is because he believes Gaethje is the toughest challenge and he wants to bolster his legacy, and he loves to compete. There's so many Khabib questions that I have, and as you bring up his father, I was reading about DC, your partner, Daniel Cormier, also one of the legends of this game, and honestly, somebody who I feel like the more I get to know him through you or through watching him or the love that his his teammates the American Kickboxing Academy those people like

these people love him to the point now where I've recently like sort of felt guilt rooting for Jones as passionately as I have in the past because I haven't run into anybody that like doesn't like Cormier and they talk about picking up Khabib from the airport and he was so hungry they brought him to McDonald's this is the first thing he did when he got to the states ate McDonald's and then all they did was make fun of him and call him Eddie Munster and make fun of him and then he the only way Khabib learned and as I tried several different pronunciations of his first name the only way he learned how to speak English was, was by talking shit. They were like, he didn't really know how to talk other than everybody talks shit to him.

So his English was like, just talking shit back. And I, I don't know that like when he was going at it with Connor, it was, um, I give big cat a lot of credit for this. Cause he made an excellent point on it. Cause we were talking about it and he was like, I just Big Cat a lot of credit for this because he made an excellent point on it because we were talking about it. And he was like, I just don't think a B gets it. I don't think that he understands. Like, it's just the opponent is going to talk shit

and say bad stuff about you. And then here's this kid, this Russian kid that grows up with this singular purpose. His father, Cormier mentions, when he came to train, tried to grapple with Cormier. And Cormier is like he was actually like trying to win and I'm one of the greatest heavyweights in the history of the game so like are you kidding what are you doing so I think there's a part of this where I actually respect

and appreciate it's not the 28 and 0 it's not him knocking Connor down it's that the more I'm learning about him and I'm certainly way behind you guys that are in it all the time, the more that I'm like, this is what, these are the kinds of people that we're supposed to like that despite that he's a global superstar, he's still coachable. He, he doesn't care about the bullshit and he's able to kind of turn the page in a way that I think a lot of us would have a hard time dealing with the tragedies dealt with where he's like, let's go fight. Like, that's what I'm here to do. And sometimes we make it more complicated than that. Yeah, no, I think you set it up well. He is the ultimate sportsman, right?

Sportsmanship could be his middle name. And I think we're always in an interesting juxtaposition in mixed martial arts because I'm not a lifelong martial artist, but I know martial arts well enough to know that it is rooted in respect and burying any hatchet after competition and all of those things. Yet here we are in fight sport where you're punching each other in the face, you're defending your face, not a rim. And oftentimes to build up a fight and to maximize your payday, you got to talk shit,

right? And that is obviously not something that Habib is inherently comfortable doing. But if you watch footage, and he's posted a lot of this footage leading up to this fight of the way he embraces his opponents after he sort of unceremoniously suffocates and mauls them half to death, right? He is so gracious and so thoughtful. I keep coming back to that word. I mean, we have so many Brazilian fighters who have learned English. Not that many Russian fighters have mastered English the way he has. And it's not so much in his articulation. But Ryan, when I'm asking him a question, he is staring a hole through me. And there is not a single word that I could utter that he would not understand. And I just think there's an intellectual aptitude that sort of touches on everything in his life and allows him

to be physically and mentally and emotionally tougher than so many of these guys. And he's just excited to get in the cage and have them lock the door and prove that this guy that Justin Gaethje, that everybody's putting on a pedestal and calling a live underdog is just another guy. Okay. So let's talk Gaethje because last time, well,

not last time, but I'd had you on, you know, I've had, you know, a few times now when we were doing kind of this, like, who's the toughest guy you've ever seen? You mentioned Gaethje.

This is over a year ago that you mentioned him. We see the Ferguson fight where I think it showed maturity and it also showed that Ferguson is made of non-human parts because that fight, I mean, there's so many fighters that I see lose that I end up walking away from the fight going, I like this guy even more

after he lost and that Ferguson loss is certainly one of those. So just take this any direction that you think is important for the listener here, because other than the praise you have for Gaethje, we realize the opponent here isn't a joke here. Right. Well, Tony Ferguson had put together one of the most illustrious lightweight winning streaks in UFC history. He was the first fighter at 155 pounds, which is ubiquitously regarded as the best division in MMA. Tony was the first guy to put5 pounds, which is ubiquitously regarded as the best division in MMA. Tony was the first guy to put a double-digit UFC winning streak at lightweight on paper. And Justin Gaethje silenced that noise and took all of that hype and then some in dominating and eventually finishing Tony Ferguson.

And sort of that Ferguson-Gaethje fight was hard for me to watch as somebody who was covered a boxing death because that's how boxers die, right? Is that you stand on your feet, you take perpetual damage, you're too tough for your own good, you know, and the brain swells and never recovers. So when Khabib suggests that Tony Ferguson may never be the same, I'm not sure that he's too far off. I think it's going to be really hard for Tony to now turn the page. But obviously the focus this week is Justin Gaethje. Best thing that ever happened to Justin, he was 20 and 0 after winning his UFC debut, came into the UFC as a major champion from another organization, had defended the belt five times. He was credentialed, but hadn't the strength of schedule that was going to get him the big fights. Then he lost two in a row in the UFC. And that's what turned the corner.

He went from being a guy whose goal was to be the most exciting fighter in MMA, and then the goal shifted. He wanted to be the very best. And in Trevor Whitman, he has arguably the best striking coach in the game, their best friends, in addition to being teacher and, you know, pupil. And they just made a few tweaks. But the buzzword coming out of the Gaethje camp all week has been focus, right? They feel like if they're focused for 25 minutes, they have the best lightweight in the world. You know, it's never I out of Gaethje. It's always we talking about his team. And I also think too, when your dad works in the copper mines for 37 years, right? So much has been made of Khabib and Abdulmanap and rightfully so. But Justin Gaethje's father, Ray, flew over here with me. The Ferguson fight was the first time Ray Gaethje had ever missed a

fight. When you work in the copper mines for 37 years, and that's the male role model in your life, Justin learned a lot from Ray. But the number one thing he probably learned was, dude, I don't want to be in the copper mines. You know, I got to find a way out of the copper mines. And man, has he found a way out. Says as soon as the fight begins this weekend, his mom will be able to retire. Because it stands to reason, if we do a big enough number on pay-per-view, this is a seven-figure payday for Justin Gaethje. And again, I'm really just excited to see what he can do with the opportunity because I think skill set-wise, he's got as good a chance as any lightweight on the roster to do the unthinkable. Shout out James Taylor. So when I listen to you talk about Gaethje,

I mean, one of the craziest parts of this is that, I mean, this is an all-American wrestler, and already he has mentioned, like, I want nothing to do with getting on the ground with Khabib, because it makes sense. I mean, anybody that sees the way Khabib has dominated his opponents, and Gaethje's like, look, if you want to go to the center of the ring that's fine but he's like once we're out to the the walls here of the octagon like i already know that's not where i want to be and the fact that you know

his stand-up certainly against ferguson i think some of the knocks on gaethje were that his stand-up was so good that you know he was always out of control and looking to just murder dudes um and yet here's a match-up where you would think with his wrestling background, he would feel confident. And yet it's just another level with who he's going against. Well, and it's not Greco Roman wrestling. It's not freestyle wrestling. It's mixed martial arts wrestling.

And as great as Justin Gaethje was collegially and Ryan, he was known as a great defensive wrestler in college, right? In theory, in this matchup, that should be another feather in his cap. But Khabib, almost every interview we sit down with him, he says MMA wrestling in terms of the application and just the little nuances, wrist control, it's just a totally different type of wrestling. I do believe if this fight is contested on a napkin in the center of the octagon, it is Justin Gaethje's fight to lose. There's no doubt about it. But I do believe even in a limited sample size in the UFC for Gaethje, I think he is the lightweight best equipped to get up and maximize those transitional opportunities to get the F up

and get back to his feet. The biggest issue you hear from previous Khabib victims, and they talk about this leading up to the fight, they say, I can't simulate the guy in training necessarily until I feel him in the octagon. I don't know how strong he is. And most of these guys who fight at 155 pounds say he feels like a 205 pound light heavyweight and they just can't move him. They feel like his feet are in concrete and they just simply can't get out from underneath this man. I think Gaethje is going to be able to do that. The question is, how many times will he have to do that? But I don't know. I think he's got all the skills to get it done. I mean, I hesitate because I'm on the call to sit here and tell you he's a live underdog, but I will agree with what you said off the top. I think if

you see Gaethje in that plus 270, plus 280 range, he should be plus plus 210 plus 220 with respect to Khabib by the way can I follow up on you covering a fight where the boxer died when was it uh it was Lavander Johnson in 2005 and you know there were people in the media section screaming at the referee to stop the fight but sometimes as I mentioned these fighters are too tough for their own good so Lavander Johnson at the end this is back this is back when you're still in boston and we were working again we used to go out there for the fights but you i obviously was now out of the picture i've been let go um so you guys were still doing your thing because you had the boxing show and all that right right still struggling you uh you left us high and dry your star was shining

bright and so levander johnson at the end of fight, he goes to the locker room under his own power, and then he slipped into a coma and eventually passed on. And when you see the problem with boxing, and there are a lot of reasons why I'm not the boxing fan I used to be, but it's that just perpetual damage. It's like, hey, man, we'll give you a concussion, but you know what? If you can get back up in eight or ten seconds, you can come get another one and more bleeding on your brain.

In our sport, and I know the UFC cuts my check, but there has never been a death in the 27, almost 28 year history of the UFC. There has never been a serious injury. And part of that, at least in terms of the brain trauma, is because more often than not, once you get a concussion in MMA, the fight's over and you're probably not going to get another one. It's a gross generalization in some respects, but it really has sort of bared out that way. And that Ferguson fight scared the hell out of me calling it, if I'm being honest. By the way, are we looking at a Georges St-Pierre match here with Habib? I know he said, look, he's going to come down to 155. I'm not fighting him at 170 and

I think the anti Habib people would say oh you know here we go again with this guy but like look if he's 29 and 0 and on the run that he's on I mean he kind of can call the shots and like look this might have been a fight I'm not trying to say like GSP is let me be respectful because we know who we're talking about here but this is about a decade after we would want to see him fight, uh, to be fair. And so there's, you know,

fighting doesn't have to be everybody at their peak fighting. A lot of times it's like, who's going to sell the fight. And that would sell a fight because of the interest level. But I just don't know how realistic any of this stuff is. So what do you think? Right. Right.

If I'm not mistaken, I think Roy Jones jr. And Mike Tyson might actually get in a boxing ring later this year. Right. So Tyson was training. He's training near my house and somebody invited me. And then I didn't get like the full invite. Cause it was the,

do you want to come watch Tyson train? And that's like saying like, you know, are you serious? Like that's, I guess like asking if I want to write a season of madman, like, yeah yeah like done and then it didn't happen and then all my buddies by the way like what you would love it's probably

happened to you too the clips of tyson in five second bursts look insane and my buddies are like dude i think he's going to be good you'd be like do you forget how the sport works right you don't just like you don't just get to win fight like i granted when we grew up five seconds was good enough for tyson and a lot of these fights but like give me a break like it's right now it's a different level totally different beast and uh i don't know how many rounds that fight is scheduled for necessarily but uh roy jones jr is going to try to extend that fight you can be sure but the george st pierre thing is interesting right and you talk about khabib and some people say his style is not all that aesthetically pleasing. George St. Pierre had to deal with that for a while, but GSP made the takedown a thing of beauty. I mean, I remember being at UFC 100, and every time he would pick

Tiago Alves up and sort of dump him down. So there is a way to make wrestling and grappling very much pleasing to the audience. I think Khabib certainly has his naysayers when it comes to that. My issue though. Well, look, I don't think it's knocking at saying it's not as exciting to watch. Like it just, I mean, no doubt about it. And most of those people still buy his pay-per-views thankfully. But I guess for me, it's about a guy who hasn't been an active competitor cutting the queue. They let George St. Pierre, the longstanding welterweight champion after a three-year retirement, come back and fight Michael Bisping for the 185-pound title. And I thought it was very nice of the promotion to do that. It was an honor for me to get a chance to call George's fight, of course. But this is our best division, 155 pounds. There are plenty

of contenders who are worthy of championship opportunities right now. So certainly if Khabib wants that fight to try to go 30-0 and if George has an appetite for that fight, even if they meet at a catchweight, I'd be okay with it. But again, the UFC fan in me just likes a meritocracy, and I like to see Khabib as the long-reigning lightweight champion challenge the true, in his prime, number one lightweight contender. We're talking UFC. We have to talk McGregender. We're talking to UFC.

We have to talk with Gregor. We know that he chimed in with that weird video of him praising his own illegal kick while he was on his back. And Khabib had top control. And it was actually, I was like, oh, wow, that is illegal. And then he was like, this is a thing of beauty. This should be legal. We know he loves the attention.

So he was going to chime in here. And let's face it, too. I mean, he's facing another legal sexual assault allegation. I'm never comfortable in saying, hey, this guy's the worst because of this. Or then at the other extreme saying, oh, he's fine. Nothing bad. Like, I don't know. I don't want to admonish unless I know.

I don't defend really strongly unless I know. But we know that he's a fighter. And I also think there's so many anti-Conor people out there. And look, it makes sense for good reason that I think it's a little exaggerated in how bad this run has been for him as far as a professional fighter considering the challenges that he's taken on. So where are you at with Conor right now? Where is the UFC with him?

And what can we expect in the future? So it looks like January 23rd, if everything stays the way it is right now, he will headline a pay-per-view against Dustin Poirier in what is a rematch of a fight that took place in 2014. Now they fought the first time at Featherweight, right? This fight needs to happen at 155 pounds so it can be a true lightweight title eliminator. Conor McGregor, as we sit here today, Ryan, most people believe that his best UFC division was going to be 155 pounds, right? He's fought Nate Diaz at 70. He fought Donald Cerrone at 70. He started as a featherweight, but most people felt like 55 was his wheelhouse, okay? We're seven years into his UFC career he has one UFC lightweight win one over Eddie Alvarez for

the UFC title so I always thought Conor would want to build this lightweight legacy and he would want to fight Dustin at 55 to prove without a shadow of doubt that he right now is the number one lightweight contender lost in all of his transgressions and the allegations and everything else he's so good right like there's so many anti-Conor people because his profile is through the roof. There's a lot of anti-Khabib people because he got all of that Conor shine and then some, but people lose sight of just how talented Conor McGregor is. And there's jujitsu skills, there's defensive wrestling skills, but he's one of the most pinpoint strikers in UFC history. We've talked before the distance management. You should hear

the way his fellow fighters talk about his ability on the feet. He's truly an all-time great, but his body of work in MMA doesn't necessarily support that, right? Yes, he was the first simultaneous two-division champion. He didn't defend either belt. Some champions say, I'm not the champ until I defend it, right? So I'm looking for Conor McGregor to do, and granted, COVID-19 climate, I understand, but to do what he said he was going to do, have a Conor McGregor fighting season, be active, bolster his MMA legacy,

so that when he is feet up in retirement, you know, he can enjoy sort of the scalps that he can add to his resume. Because right now, his UFC resume feels very incomplete to me. Yeah, whenever I see, like, losing against Nurmagomedov, most people thought that was going to happen, especially based on styles.

But Conor, at that point, was kind of like a tough guy to go against. I mean, the Nate Diaz fights were incredible. He avenges the loss. And now people are trying to act like he's washed and i i go i can always here's here's where people expose themselves so you don't like him you think he's on the back side of things that's fine and again he's given you plenty of reasons to not like him although the floyd thing exposes two things if you're pro floyd and you're anti-connor because of connor's personality then you just don't like connor and you like floyd because floyd has given

us plenty of evidence to feel maybe this isn't the greatest guy to be a roommate with. But when people then go like, well, look at his he lost to Diaz, he lost to Nurmagomedov, he lost to Floyd. I'm like, wait, wait, wait.

That's like holding preseason losses against a football coach. If you're like, oh, this guy was fired and he's gone 6 and 14 this season and you'd be like wait a minute what like the preseason so i don't know man i obviously am biased because i just enjoy him being the fighter and that's where i am with a lot of the guys that are in the public eye like i don't there's a standard that is i probably have a lower standard for what i think people are and i just go like with john jones is another one there's a standard that is, I probably have a lower standard for what I think people are. And I just go like with John Jones is another one. There's a million reasons why I could just bail on John Jones.

I can't figure out what the hell his deal is on Twitter. Part of me is almost admiring the fact that he's just turned the page on his own bullshit where he's ready to go with anybody and call everybody else out because he's like, look, what am I going to do? Not live my life. And as we know, like Jones keeps tweeting it at Adesanya. So where are we at with this story now? Because he's tweeting far more than anything else. So I'm sure a lot of your audience knows that he vacated the light heavyweight title, which was put on the line in September. And Jan Bohovic is now the 205 pound champion.

You know, he doesn't want to fight Jan Bohovic. He doesn't have an appetite for that fight or that challenge. I think a lot of people forgot Boho which does have the title by the way go ahead that's right I'm here to remind you right he's Polish if you're curious so but so for John Jones he announced that he was moving up to heavyweight and I think part of that is because our heavyweight champion right now Steve Imiocic is a 235 pound man if Francis Ngannou was the UFC heavyweight champion that would not have been the time for Jon Jones to announce that he is moving up to heavyweight. But now that Israel Adesanya is 20 and up, has twice successfully defended his middleweight title, and is all the

rage and on the cover of the video game, that seems to be on paper, without Conor or Khabib, the biggest singular fight that we can make right now, Jon Jones versus Israel Adesanya. The big issue is that Izzy doesn't struggle at all to make 185 pounds. So at what weight are these two men fighting? And most people believe it would be light heavyweight, at least force Jon to cut down a little bit. And I just think for Adesanya, again, he's one of these guys who wants to fight the number one contenders in his division. And certainly if they want to make it worth his while, he'll fight Jon Jones at any point in time. I would also add, if you're Jon Jones, you better fight Adesanya soon.

Because as you've seen, not only is he not getting worse, he is getting exponentially better every time we see him. And I think that's a scary proposition for Jon Jones. I just think there's so many layers to his game each and every time we see him. And I think that's a scary proposition for Jon Jones. I just think there's so many layers to his game each and every time we see him. But we'll see. I think that if you're of the mentality that you have to strike when the iron is hot in combat sports, then I think 2021

we will see Jones and Adesanya. The thing with Israel, too, is that Bones talks to him like he's 13 years old and he's 31 he's older than you would think but he's absolutely especially with his last fight we were like I wonder how this is gonna go and you're like well yeah there you go I mean this guy is it feels like hitting kind of his ceiling uh although I still think Jones ceiling is you were the first person I ever heard point out was like no jones is going to be the greatest of all time like he's really that good and i was uh i was like all right you know whatever and then when you see him at his absolute best you're like

jesus like even when jones sucks he's like way better than everybody else like that's how i don't know that he sucked in a lot of fights but i've just seen him be in control in a way that it kind of reminds me when luke rockhold fought bisping and luke was almost like oh this is stupid why am i even here like early on like luke lost that fight i thought because he just was like yeah all right i'm just gonna kick your ass and then it was like oh that hurt oh my like that hurt too jones jones has fought like that at times but never lost um at least that's i don't know i don't know if that makes any sense to you no it does and he has come close to losing when he had a less than optimal training camp for alexander gustafson in 2013 he nearly lost his belt and was very under trained

and yet yeah that's right yeah such a mental toughness though to john i'm just telling you man uh i don't know how foul the language can be but but he is a mother. He's a motherfucker, man. I'm telling you, he is willing to embrace those dark places. You know, Justin Gaethje is the captain of team willing to go to those dark places, right? The places that maybe you would go to as an athlete that I wouldn't even, right? Those places where in the gym, right? Like just living in those dark places. And that's what I like about Jon Jones. Not only skill for skill, is he the best fighter that I've ever seen,

but he's got the ticker, man. Like he's got the heart too. And that has obviously been something that has helped his success. You know, that's helped him on this championship run. But the sport is better when Jon Jones is in it. Absolutely. And he still has prime years left.

And what upsets me the most is when i see nine month pockets rip off the calendar and guys like john and connor don't compete you know you don't get that time back you really don't you brought up in ghanu who as he's as he's peaked here um and look he lost his deep eight early on you know like it's it's not trying to double check that that was uh, we're almost three years from that. It was January 18. And Stipe...

Like, I can't tell if I like him when he's big or if I like him when he's thinner. Because, I mean, both sides of it... I don't know. I mean, you feel free to answer that one there. But Nganou feels like this is inevitable now with his growth inside the octagon the last couple of years.

And it's a really good point, too. Because if he ends up with it, then Jones trying to take that on like sign me up but that's got to be way too much i would think yeah well and respect to the consensus greatest ufc heavyweight of all time steepay miyachich when you say if in ghanu wins the belt to me it really feels like you went this is an event that's what it feels like and it feels disrespectful to stipe but i just i mean in ghanu's now like we were talking about with israel it's just you can see the levels with guys francis and ghanu would be the betting favorite against any man in the world right now in a combat sports setting i mean maybe you could find some giant

that could overwhelm him but he'll be favored against Jon Jones. He'll be favored against Stipe, despite being totally dominated the first time around. Ngannou's a completely different fighter than he was when he fought Stipe Miocic. And yet, as painful as that Stipe loss was for him, he still didn't get finished, right? He still was able to survive those 25 minutes of hell. Now he's got takedown defense. Now he's been working with a world-class striking coach in Vegas that he's really developed a great one-two punch with. Francis Ngannou is going to be the UFC heavyweight champion. He is just very frustrated with the schedule and the calendar right now. And it was tough, right? Stipe and DC had to clean up their trilogy. And Daniel didn't

do three straight fights against Stipe. He did have the Derrick Lewis fight, but Stipe literally fought once a year for three years, and he fought DC every summer. So Francis Ngannou's next. It's just a matter of when Stipe wants to make that fight happen. Okay, before we go, a little story time. You're traveling with these guys. You're around them all the time. Do they have any respect for you?

I hope they have respect for you. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's amazing how much, uh, how much marijuana some of these guys are able to consume and still fight like absolute warriors. But, uh, that has been part of it for me is getting to know a lot of these different athletes and to get to know them in a social context. Right. Because a lot of people think I'm just a fucking robot wearing a suit. And if they're not listening to my podcast,

I'm a completely different guy, obviously, off the air. You're a very buttoned-up guy professionally. Very buttoned-up. I try to inject my personality, but Dana White's my boss, right? So there is some caution there. And I try to walk right up to that line without crossing it. But I have developed a pretty good friendship with Justin Gaethje. And he was so excited to be like the first athlete back and

then to do what he did against Tony Ferguson. He was jumping out of his skin at that hotel in Jacksonville. And I will just tell you that when he walked out of our fighter meeting, I sort of followed him out of the room and I tried to build all these guys up. But I said to Justin, I was like, let's go, Justin. And he turns around, pauses and looks at me and he's like, USA. And I just got chills head to toe, you know, because a lot of these guys, because this is such a global sport, go look at the history of American men in the UFC. The USA, America has dominated in the UFC. And a lot of these guys take representing the stars and stripes, especially in this

climate when we seem to be a target of the world. A lot of people take representing america very seriously and my patriotism certainly comes out when i see gaethje because he he's going in there as an american wanting to represent for this country and i like that all right yeah a little little red dawn there for the kids the original red dawn uh that is john annick what do we need to promote here other than ufc 254 by this saturday only do we need to promote here other than UFC 254 by the Saturday? The only thing we need to promote is that if you were on the West Coast in Manhattan Beach, California, this pay-per-view hits at 11 a.m. Pacific.

It's catered to the Abu Dhabi market. So this is an 11 a.m. Pacific, 2 p.m. Eastern pay-per-view starts. So don't sleep on it. Not much on the college football slate. We need your money, UFC 254. All right, We're on it, man. Thank you. As always, you know, your success makes me as happy as anyone in this industry. You deserve it as much as anyone. So thank you. Thanks buddy. Always a pleasure. You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am

liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Okay, life advice. You know how it works. Lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. I hope you guys enjoyed getting that with Trevor last week. I know he had a lot of fun last week. Actually, we just did a couple days ago. Okay, we got a couple here. This one's a little different. Title, Living Girlfriend Won't Flush the Toilet. Don't worry, we're not going to start getting gross with these as we maybe

find more and more lanes to try to help guys with. Pretty standard. I kind of knew where this was going to go. Hey, Ryan, I'm 35. Younger millennial girlfriend. Recently moved in. So what does that to go. Hey, Ryan, I'm 35 younger millennial girlfriend recently moved in. So what does that mean? What's Hey, can we, uh, let's just double check millennial age here again. Cause it's, it goes older than you think. Yeah.

I think millennials are like 32 or something. It's like the max. No, I, I don't. Yeah. What years of millennials born? Yeah. 81. So my, my sister might yeah see that's what i'm trying to say is like it's older than you think and so then the other one is 96 so after

24 so basically what you're saying when you say my millennial girlfriend she could be almost 40 dude and that doesn't sound right and you're 35 so everybody throwing out millennials like again they get a lot of crap student loans i've been on this before but again they steal everybody else's content in ways that older people never did younger dudes just don't care who did this you know not you um just meme thieves left and right i'm surprised somebody hasn't come up with a podcast called A Few Good Memes, just for the title. Okay, all right, back to our guy here.

His younger millennial girlfriend, who I assume is not almost 40, she's mostly added a nice touch to the house, including many plants. Women are way better at plants than we are. She brought mid-century modern furniture with her, etc. Next time, include a picture of mid-century modern furniture,

by the way. She's also encouraged more environmental conservation efforts, a lot less paper plates. Yeah, okay, dude. Stop with the paper plates at this point. A lot more reusable Q-tips. Those I don't have a lot of experience with. No, I think they're the the like this

they look like a phillips head screw and they just sort of i don't know phillips or flat either would work okay by the way when it comes to screws and bits and different things we have too many options i guess part of his like bathroom stalls in colleges you couldn't just have a flathead or a phillips head screw because guys would just take them apart. I mean, hell, they take them apart now anyway, but it's the two dots, but there's just far, I didn't understand like why anybody said, Hey, we have like seven different ways you can undo a screw. Let's come up with an eight. That's just something I was thinking about the other day. So I'm glad I could share that with you. All right. So this guy's down with the less paper

plates, paper straws, the Q-tips, the mid century modern furniture. He says most most of these changes were not difficult and I was on board with. My issue is that she doesn't like to flush the toilet to save water. I routinely go to use either of my two bathrooms, must be nice. And I open the lid to a bowl full of stinky day old urine. I'm not sure if her smells worse than mine, but I've never let mine marinate for 24 hours to find out. Wow, this got really gross. I've been dealing with this as best I could the other out. Wow, this got really gross. I've been dealing with this as best as I could the other day. Oh, no. I don't.

I'm not. Kyle, what are we doing? You're picking some real PG-13 material here the other day. All right, guys. I just don't want to be the gross podcast. This is important.

We'll just ride. Yeah, we got to ride it out, though. All right, so you guys know where this is going. I thought it was kind of sucked and let's fix it. But now we're dealing with a whole nother challenge. I think you guys can figure it out. So my man says he almost threw up in his mouth a little bit. Oh, he did throw up in his mouth just a little though.

That put me over the edge and I knew I need to seek your advice. How can I get my girlfriend to start flushing the toilet or am i being an asshole for flushing every time i go all right dude i don't the first one i could kind of understand i mean not everybody can be a chris long on the water front um and i've even had moments where you know as you get older in the middle of the night you're like cool it's nothing nothing better than when you're older and you're like oh oh, now I have to go to the bathroom. Like, I don't, we're not like a Joe Theismann stage here, but it just happens guys. It just happens. Especially when you're just, you know, just ready to attack the day and enthusiasm

unknown to mankind. So the not flushing there, like it's happened, you know, it's happened where you're like, oh, and I, I know I'm kind of like bigger on the water thing after i did a bunch of the water boy stuff with long's foundation where i was like maybe i should conserve more water like having the water running while you're brushing your teeth is a waste of water like it could get up to like a gallon i mean that's ridiculous and then i started reading more about water conservation and they were like all of that's almost minimal and then it really comes down to farming and i was like oh all right but anyway i don't even know if that's accurate or not but i read it was a zag saying all the little things you're doing to conserve water don't mean anything because it really all comes down to farming

yeah so i you know that doesn't mean hey now run your faucets like crazy and take super long showers because it's iowa's fault but you get my point so i was i was with you like look that'll happen sometimes i mean look i didn't remember one time I did it and I had a perfect excuse for you here. I think I used an upstairs bathroom in my old house in Connecticut and then I went away for a week and I came back and luckily it was just me. But yeah, I mean, it smells like there's a body rotting into, you know, bleach, like breaking bad style. And you're like, Oh my God, what's going on? And it actually messed up. Um, it likes kind of stain the toilet so i was like hey here you go here's your out tell her it'll stain because of

the like over time it will stay in the toilet and it's irreparable and you don't want to have that happen problem solved start flushing the toilet but this is just disrespectful this is fucking disgusting and i don't know if this can be solved so that's you know you could do you're just gonna have to say, Go ahead, Kyle. No, I'm worried. I was about to cut you off because I'm worried where your advice is going to go, but people want to hear from you.

I was just going to say you could threaten to be like, listen, if this is that big of an issue, I'm just going to start randomly flushing the toilet to make up for all the flushes you're not. And then maybe it's like, hey, could you just flush when you use the bathroom? Otherwise, every time I pass it, I'm going to start flushing the toilet.

You don't even have to. You could just say you're going to, and it might actually, the bigger picture for her might kick in to save more water. She could actually flush when she goes. I didn't expect that was good. I thought you were going to combat it in a different way. Okay. I see what you're saying. Yeah. That's pretty juvenile. How about you just flush the toilet? I don't, you're going to, this is going to have to be like almost a one-on-one intervention. Like I always feel like whenever you have to really try to get somebody's attention, you have to talk to them in a way that's different.

So however you interact with your girlfriend, however you have disagreements, the way to try to get somebody to really pay attention to you is you have to approach them with a cadence, with a body positioning you have to approach it in a way that she's not used to seeing you have a dialogue with her so that registers with a little bit i'd love to think that any girl that you know you're this close with and living girlfriend and you want to marry and you're excited about it i mean look everybody's got got some stuff but uh this is i don't envy this at all, man. And if she pushes back on it, uh, you know, she's like, sorry, this is my decision. Like, Hey water to

actually maybe just forward her that article about Iowa that I read and tell her it's tell her it's really not. Yeah. It's not solving that many problems. Okay. Let's get out of that. Isn't somebody a bummed out 20-something trying to think about a career? In these times, you don't want to bring your immune system down by having the bathroom having all that bacteria in it. Yeah. No, that sucks. These trying times.

Okay. We got another one here. This one is a topic near and dear to my heart. All right, I've got a friend of mine who I've known for over 30 years. We met in second grade and we were both now 41. Shout out to just missing that millennial tag. Generally speaking, I don't give

him or any of my buddies fashion or grooming advice unless they ask me. Sometimes I want to but I try to hold it in. A friend of mine is a disaster when it comes to his appearance. A few years back, we went out to a club and he was wearing sandals and a Spider-Man t-shirt. I said, really?

That's what you chose to wear, but whatever. What can you do? Actually, I just point him to Abbott Kinney in the future. It'll fit right in. Okay. But recently he's been going bald.

No big deal. I have a lot of guy friends. I know who are bald or going bald were at that age. I don't know if I like this guy writing the email. All right. To me, you have two choices. Either one, you get a conservative haircut, very short and neat, maybe a goatee as well. What is this guy? Middle reliever. It's a little heavy. Um, Or two, you just shave your head. You know, there's a third option, and you could shut the fuck up. All right.

Either looks fine to me. The one thing I don't think you should do is grow the side and back hair out super long and comb it over. My buddy has done this. It's not quite as bad as Trump. Try not to get political on the podcast. But it's getting there. He's also mostly gray now with a gray beard and looks like a homeless person.

Okay. Last week, I finally broke down and said something to him after seeing a Facebook picture where he looked like someone you see on the freeway. I said, bro, you're going bald. It's not the end of the world, but please shave your head.

Just do it. Shave the head and at least trim the beard. Now he's pissed off at me and worse yet, will not admit that he's going bald. Not sure what I should do going forward. Was a mistake to say something to him. Just want your take. All right. He's clearly your lifelong buddy. And actually I'm giving you shit because I remember what it was like for me when I first started losing my hair. And there's like this denial phase where I think even when I started getting the bald spot, a buddy was like, Whoa, wait a minute. Are you getting thin back there? And he was like examining me like it was junior high dissecting

a frog. And he's like, I don't know, man, it's like getting a little thin. And I even said in the past, like I remember having a hairdresser who hairdresser, uh, well, whatever. I got my haircut at a fancy place when I had it. And I was like, Hey, am I thinning out back there? What's going on? And she was like, no, no, you're fine. You're fine. Lied. And then the first time I actually saw like a picture with a little bit of light where I could actually see like the development of a bald spot or just thinning, thinning hair back there at the top. I was like, Oh my God. Oh my God. It's happening. Like, why the fuck is this happening to me? Why is it going to happen to me? Like, I want to be on TV. This sucks. This is the worst. Girls are going to hate me. You know, um, I looked, I had one friend who I think literally got engaged and married to the woman he's engaged to because he was like, I'm losing my hair and there's no way I'll do this well if I break up with her and then have less hair in the future. So you have to understand like hair guys, like you think comb overs are terrible. You're not the one losing your hair. Like it's really tough. It sucks.

It bummed me out. It wasn't like ruining my day. It wasn't something I woke up with and said, oh my God, like, I don't want to leave my bedroom. Like eventually, you know, you get up, go to work and do your shit, but it sucked. I hated it. I hated it. Uh, now I guess I'm fine with it, but it took me a long time to get to that point of just going, all right, I'm going to shave my head. And yeah, you know what? When I finally shaved it, I was like, all right, I'm good. And I'm also lucky that, you know, I'm six, two. I'm lucky that I'm in decent shape. I'm, you know, I'm lucky that I don't have

a lumpy, weird alien head. So that part of it works. I'm, I'm lucky that it's not like a full blown horseshoe where there's still enough on the sides and on the top. So I, I lucked out in, it sucks that I lost my hair, but I lucked out on the rest of the parts of like getting away with what I could possibly cobble together the rest of the way. Right. But what the hair guys don't understand about the bald guys is that all the shit you're saying to us, like we have internalized this. We've done the mirror angles a thousand times. We've asked for friends or we've not asked to look because we're afraid of getting the answer. We tried the foams. Okay. Fucking math on the foams doesn't work folks. You know, I told you about the Propecia thing where I went and I was like, Hey, I'm thinking

about getting into MMA. And while I'm here, can I get some Propecia? Can you fix my shoulder and give me a prescription? And they were like, no and no. I was like, all right, cool doc. Thanks. That was like the first time I'd had insurance in years ago. I thought insurance was supposed to be awesome. Like what happened? I got the wrong guy, you know? And he was like, no, no, thanks. He's like, all right, blood pressure's the wrong guys you know and he was like no no thanks he's like all right blood pressure's good see you later i was like so that's a no on anything i was like you know can i get an mri on the shoulder like i'm afraid it's like the shoulder's gonna get ripped out of the socket he's like yeah i don't care whatever and i was like propitia and he's like no bad side effects not doing it don't believe in it i was like okay well i believe that i may never have sex again could be a side effect here if this hair loss continues to happen. So he didn't like that response.

I just, I can't emphasize enough that when you give losing his hair guy a hard time, he's already done it to himself a million times over. So it enrages us that are losing their hair. And I've talked about the Scott thing. Like Scott would look and it would get a little bit more thin and he'd start looking up at the top and he'd start. And he wanted, he was rooting against my hair. He was rooting for it to continue to go bald because he was bald and he wanted me to go bald too. And I just mentally wasn't ready because there'd be angles.

I'd go, Hey, I look fine there. I look good there. And then the celebrity basketball game happened. And I guess JB and, uh, I don't forget who else was on the call and made fun of my fucking hair for the entire fourth quarter. And my buddies were like, dude, this is really bad. Like, are you going to want to fight John Barry? I was like, maybe.

I don't know. I mean, again, but it's my hair. So what am I supposed to do? I came back to thousands of tweets saying you're the ugliest human being ever. Wow. But no one did an article on it. So no one cared. I just, I just, you're going to have to like, let him be on his own timeline.

And it's clear when he goes to the club, you know what? If he wants to wear a Spider-Man shirt and have a comb over and a homeless beard and go out and talk to, I don't know if he sounds like he's probably married or whatever. Respect it. Respect that he doesn't give a shit. It's not your hair. Like, yes, you are right. You are right, man.

your hair. Like, yes, you are right. You are right, man. But there are times when there is no advice to give because he's already played this through probably, or he's so, he's so not aware of himself. Well, clearly if he's doing the comb over thing, he realizes he's losing his hair, but I'm, I'm to the point in my life where I'm, it's like, I respect smokers. Sometimes I see a guy outside of work firing, firing one away. I'm like, look at that guy. He's still smoking outside at work. That's amazing. I think if this guy wants to go to a club with a terrible comb over sandals and a Spider-Man shirt, you let him have it. Maybe he's happy. Maybe he loves it. Maybe he went out that night and was like, I look awesome. This is great. We should do this more often. Or maybe right now he's like, God, you know, the one thing that sucks about coronavirus is I can't go to clubs anymore.

Maybe that's how he thinks. So that is a personal rant. And yeah, I wish I had shaved my head earlier, but I just wasn't ready. And until I was ready, I wasn't going to do it. And for a lot of guys losing their hair, they're just not ready because it's really hard to go, okay, now I'm going to be bald for the rest of my life. Because when we look in the mirror, especially if we're taller and it's just in the back, we're like, man, I look awesome. Because when we look in the mirror, especially if we're taller and it's just in the back, we're like, man, I look awesome. Until a jib camera decides to drop down from the heavens in the middle of a radio show to expose your bald spot to a massive audience on ESPN2 because the producer thinks it looks cool. Which again, wasn't one of my favorite radio TV shows I ever did when the jib decided to zoom in on the back of my head. And you're sitting there on TV, national TV going, are we seriously doing this right now? And I'm just being embarrassed in front of everybody.

That was a good, that was a good show. All right. That's the podcast. Please rate, review and subscribe as much as possible. We will talk to you on Monday for a football recap. Thank you. you