TRIGGERnometry - Dan Hardy OPENS UP About Fighting, UFC Beef and Power Slap

Episode Date: March 2, 2023

SPONSORED BY: ATHLETIC GREENS. Get a free 1-year supply of Vitamin D and 5 free travel packs with your first purchase. Go to athleticgreens.com/triggernometry Dan Hardy is an English former mixed martial artist who fought in the welterweight division. He signed a contract with the UFC in 2008 and was known as “The Outlaw.” In 2010, he fought Georges St-Pierre for the UFC Welterweight Championship but lost via decision. Later in his career, he moved into commentary before a dispute with the UFC resulted in their parting ways. Hardy now commentates on MMA for his own YouTube channel, Full Reptile: https://www.youtube.com/@DanHardyFR  Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: https://www.subscribestar.com/triggernometry https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ YouTube:  @xentricapc   Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/sign-up/ Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. 00:00 Intro 01:49 Dan's Life Story 05:30 How You View Your Opponent Before a Fight 08:25 What Makes Someone Want to Become a Fighter? 12:20 The UFC’s Impact on MMA 18:42 Why It’s So Difficult for Fighters to Quit 26:43 Sponsor Message: Athletic Greens 28:15 How Big is the Psychological Element of MMA? 35:48 The Future for Jon Jones  47:30 Why Dan Left the UFC 58:15 Why is the UFC Losing Momentum? 58:44 Dan's Opinion of Power Slap 1:05:37 The Appeal of MMA 1:10:53 Dan’s Top 5 UFC fighters 1:16:27 Opinion on YouTube Fighters 1:19:08 What’s the One Thing We’re Not Talking About? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the GSP fight, like, I would make sure I paid everybody back any money I owed. If I'd borrowed a book or a CD or whatever, I'd make sure they were returned. You know, I'd make sure that everything was taken care of because that 25 minutes is my last 25 minutes. And it has to be. Because otherwise, I'm not going to compete to my potential if I'm not prepared to give everything. It's war. It can't be anything other. If you treat it like a sport, you're going to lose every time.

What do you make about slap? I'm sort of like going, wait, like, I understand people. hitting each other and being able to defend each other, but this is just people hitting each other just with no protection. Is that really a sport? What do you make of it? It's dangerous. It's very, very dangerous. But now, again, I feel like Dana feels like he's untouchable because they are ramming the power slap league down our throats. So it's aligning, basically two guys just taking free swings at one another. Like it's just, it's CTE for money. Like they're trading brain cells for cash. Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constance in Kishin.

And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people. Our terrific guest today is a former UFC title contender, MMA commentator analyst and now fellow YouTuber with his channel, a full reptile. Dan Hardy, welcome to Trigonometry. Thank you very much, guys. Thank you. May, it's so great to have you on. I'm a big fan of your analysis. I watch all your breakdowns of the UFC fights. As I said to you, this is a big thing. This is a big number of, you know, bit of a different tag for us because we're normally talking about culture and politics and stuff, but we're super excited to have you. Some of our audience won't know who you are. What's your journey through life? Like how are you here? What have you been up to? I mean, basically martial

arts all the way through. I started when I was six and I just, I never stopped. Started with Taekwondo and trained all the way through into my teens. My grandfather started when I was in my early teens, so I was able to train with him for a few years and that kind of kept me focused in those those years when you kind of wander off and start getting distracted with things. And then I did art college and then university for a couple of years doing contemporary art. And it was fun. It was a lot of time to kind of think about myself and where I wanted to go with my life. But ultimately I wanted to do martial arts.

But the UFC was a very new thing back then. And there wasn't really an option for me to be a professional in any way other than being a coach. So I kind of felt like that was my destiny. I was going to be a martial arts teacher. And then as the UFC started to grow, I started to compete in amateur events and moitai and whatever else I could find that was, you know, combat sports, basically, anything that I could get a fight, I would do it. And that led me to professional MMA. I made my pro debut in 2004. At a busy first year, I think I had 14 fights in my first year.

Wow! Yeah, I was quite busy in the early years because I always found it easier to stay in shape than get in shape. Yeah. So sometimes I go to an event and there'd be a big. spare opponents so I'd have a couple of fights on the same night, you know, just to get more experience. And I moved through the UK scene pretty quickly. Then I signed with the UFC, made my debut in 2008. I was with the UFC for, well, four, five years as a competitor, had 10 fights, managed to fight for the world title, as you said, George St. Pierre.

One of the, I mean, you fought one of the best fighters in the history of the UFC, right? And it felt like it. It was a long 25 minutes of me question. him where my life was going to go after this point, if I'm honest. He was very, very good, very slick, great, great conditioning, you know, just a very smart individual, very dedicated to his sport. It was an honour to be able to fight him. But then after that, it all kind of fell apart. I came back to London, fought the Oto Arena, got knocked out in the first round.

That was not very pleasant. It's still kind of funny to think about it. Now, you know, you desensitize yourself to it, but it was a big setback at the time because I felt like I was going to be back on the title road pretty quickly. And then I fought a giant next, Anthony Johnson, lost to him by decision, and then I just threw the next fights away, just being reckless. So I kind of felt like I'd gone four wins into my professional UFC career and then four losses, and I thought that was going to be it for me.

Unfortunately, the owner at the time, Lorenzo Fratita, said that he was going to keep me around. So I got two more fights, one than both. And then I was sidelined with a medical concern, you could say. It was an irregular heartbeat, but it was, I mean, it never caused me any problems. It stopped me competing for a number of years, which was frustrating. But it also allowed me to kind of sidestep into commentary. And that's really where I probably have found my skill, which is analysis. I loved fighting, but it was always more difficult for me than my teammates.

They were always better athletes or, you know, more dedicated, more skilled, more focused, whatever it was. And I always struggled. Whereas because I had to solve problems with my brain all the time, it kind of prepared me for a job as an analyst. So then I commentated for the UFC for a number of years, parted ways with them now due to various different political reasons. And now I've just signed a contract with a new organisation, which I'll be doing a lot of work with the PFL.

So yeah, and we're also in training camp. My wife's fighting UFC London in March. So that's keeping us busy. Got a couple of gyms up in the Midlands, lots of things going on. but all MMA focused. Yeah, yeah. And one of the things that you raise, I mean, we'll talk about all sorts of different stuff.

But one thing I always want to know when you see these guys squaring off and they're both, I'm going to knock you and no, I'm going to, and you're going, I mean, one of them probably thinks the other one is better, don't they? Like, when you're fighting George St. and Pierre, is there a bit of like you're walking into it knowing you're going to get your ass kicked a little?

Does that happen? Yes, absolutely, it does. Absolutely. Because, you know, the thing is, sometimes when you're facing someone that is, I mean, he'd been the chance. champion for a number of years. So he'd already positioned himself. He'd got, you know, good money coming into direction. He was able to set up his training camps well. He had a good team of people around him. And I mean, I just felt like I didn't have the resources or the

people around me to really be competitive. But of course, I'm not going to turn the opportunity down. So it was just about doing my best. And the reality is I'm a striker. So in the back of my head, I can always land that one shot that's going to put them away. So I did feel like at one point in the fight, I might be able to connect with something and knock him out. But he's just such a good wrestler. He's, you know, so smart. And he was very respectful of my striking, which means he didn't really let me do any of it. So it was a frustrating fight, but it was a big learning experience for me as well.

And, you know, and I guess the bigger challenge was going forward and picking up several more losses and trying to stay on track. That's the biggest problem. The biggest difficulty, I think, as a professional, because, of course, everything is about winning and you build your identity around the person that people see in the cage and if that person keeps getting their ass kicked it's you know not quite don't have the same kind of presence as you would like Dan I interviewed Dillion White a few years ago and I asked him what's the most terrifying thing for an opponent to have over you is it a devastating left hook is it combinations

is it the fact that they're just going to keep on going and he said no it's looking over to your opponent at the other corner of the ring and realizing that he's crazy. Is that true? Yeah, yeah, absolutely true. Yeah, absolutely true. And, you know, sometimes fighters are smart enough to be able to realize this advantage and create the advantage for themselves. I will always smile. I'll always smile in the corner. I'll always, you know, get punched in the face and grin at my opponent. I want them to feel like I'm crazy. I want them to feel like they can push and push and push and at no point I'm going to decide to quit. And I think that's where that's the crazy part is knowing you've got somebody in fronty that's not going to quit, you're

going to have to put them away because that's easier said than done. Sometimes you can put somebody away easier if they've already checked out of the fight themselves. If you've pushed them and you've beat them up and you've worn them out, a lot of people, a lot of people will just decide they don't want to be there anymore. And then you get the occasional crazy person that will not go away. And I tried to model myself on that person. I wasn't always, but I hope I left that lasting impression with at least some of my opponents. And Dan, And most people, like I love UFC, I love boxing, I've loved boxing since I was eight years old watching Mike Tyson. That was my era growing up.

But I never wanted to be a fighter. Most people, when you say to them, would you like to be a boxer or a UFC fighter? Even if they love the sport, they'd be like, no way. What is it that makes someone want to get in that ring and fight? I mean, I think it's just a particular character type. I think some people are warlike in their hearts and in their minds anyway. And I feel like, I mean, certainly for me, competition, fight competition is the only time that my brain just goes silent. It's the only time I am solely focused on one thing.

All of the rest of the time I'm thinking about a variety of different things. But that peace and quiet that I get when I'm in competition, and it sounds odd because it's a very chaotic environment. But I think it's because it's because it's so chaotic. I'm drawn to it because it's kind of peaceful in a way because it gives me a, a single focus. I mean, that for me was the biggest thing. And the other thing as well is, I mean, I was never much of a team sport player

because I don't like to have to rely on other people to pull their weight. I played rugby and football, and I was never very good at them, but neither of my teammates. I preferred something where the pressure's on me, the weights on my shoulders to perform. And, you know, there's an adrenaline rush to it.

It's a very, very addictive adrenaline rush. You know, like, of course, as a kid, I'd get into a few fights and growing up, going to Rock City and Nottingham, of course, you're getting a few fights there as well. And you like that adrenaline, but it's the thing that always disconnected me from that is the consequence, right? You can't get into a fight and feel like you can just let go. I always had to feel like I was holding back. And when you go into a fight and I'm standing across someone that is prepared to beat me, like their goal is to take me out. it allows me to take the pressure off myself and just go at them with full force

and that's quite a unique experience something I've not experienced in any other format or capacity because Tyson spoke about it in his documentary there's this really powerful montage where he goes, before I go into the ring I'm terrified, my hands are shaking I can't speak, I just want to run away

I don't know what to say my hands are shaking my back sweating and then I step into the ring and I become a god Do you kind of feel that The moment you cross that octagon you become a different person You tap into something else Yes, yeah absolutely

And I think it was a bit more obvious for me Because especially people that know me Away from competition You know, I'm relatively quiet I like my own space I'm not very much of a public person I don't really like to be out amongst people But then you see my character

When I'm competing in the UFC And people would assume I'm an extrovert I've got red hair come out with a bandana, you know, interacting with Bruce Buffer, you know, staring at my opponents. And that definitely is a part of who I am. But it's like I've found a facet of my personality and I've turned the volume right up on it. And that person is a maniac. And the thing is, I know that that's within me. Like I feel it sometimes when I'm on the M25 and I'm like, there's the maniac. Calm down, calm down. But in that area, in that situation, I can just, I can let it breathe. And it's quite a,

It's quite a relief to be. And of course, you know, everything that Tyson said is correct. You know, the walk out, there's this fear. You know, you're terrified. You're anxious because, of course, you know, there's the possibility of getting injured, but there's the possibility of losing. That's the thing that I was most afraid of, not performing, not stepping in there and doing everything that I knew I was capable of.

And that really was the main holdup for me. Like the fight itself is you roll the dice and you see what happens. It's interesting how, I mean, just to be very clear, because people will misrepresent this, but I was going to say how similar what you're describing is to the process of doing stand-up. And people will come up to you and go, oh, you're so brave. I mean, I think you're a lot braver. Oh, no, I would disagree. I would disagree because I know what's expected of me.

If I'm stepping into a fight, all I have to do is throw down. When you walk onto a stage, people expect you to make them laugh, and that is a very, very, very tall task. I've always thought. I've always thought to myself, like, of all the things that I would take on, because I was in bands, I've performed on stage, of course, I've hosted Q&As, etc. You know, I've been on stage in front of a decent crowd, but to have the expectation of stepping onto a stage where people are going,

all right, dude, make me laugh. That would be an immense amount of pressure that is very, very different to what I would ever experience in a fight. I admire you guys for what you do, honestly. Well, the experience is similar because before you go on, It doesn't matter how long you've been doing it, really. There's still an element of nerves, or particularly if you're in a new room or in a new venue or you're doing new material.

I mean, that's the scariest thing, really. But the process is the same. But you know, I was going to ask you because, I mean, one of the things that has obviously happened in our lifetime is mixed martial arts has gone from a niche sport that was only enjoyed and watched by people who were really, really into fighting, probably doing it themselves,

probably go into when working out at gyms. So now it's a mass sport. And am I right in saying that is basically the UFC has done that? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, the UFC of, I mean, if it wasn't for the UFC, I probably wouldn't be sitting talking to you guys now. I'd probably be teaching taekwondo in a village hall in the Midlands somewhere. You know, what the UFC did, Dana White and the Fratitas,

you know, they bought a product which was very, very risky at the time. A couple of million dollars, you know, it was a very, very chaotic thing to try and find a TV placement for. And of course, you know, things have changed dramatically. Now we have all kinds of all kinds of things that are broadcast, the silly slap fighting and, you know, team MMA, all these things would have been laughed at back in the day. Like, just to have a regulated mixed martial arts event was a,

was an alien concept to us. But because the UFC worked so hard, because they brought legitimacy to it, they brought the weight classes and the, you know, it just allowed it to breathe a little bit. It allowed it to find its foothold. And as soon as that foothold was there, it grows. It grows so quickly.

And it's still growing very, very quickly. I mean, it's very impressive. And I know you've had your issues with Dana White and maybe we'll talk about it a little bit. But I'm so impressed with what the UFC has achieved in the time that I've been paying attention. It's incredible what they've done. Another thing, I don't know if you've thought about this, but I'd be curious to ask you this question. culturally, the world is getting softer, it feels like, all the time. You know, you can't say this, you can't make this joke.

Like, people are getting very sensitive. And yet at the same time, you see this absolutely brutal fucking sport skyrocketing at the same time. And I can't help thinking there's some sort of connection between those two things. Like, the softer people are being made, the more they look for an outlet that's like raw and hardcore. Quite possibly. Quite possibly.

I do think that we are kind of separating as a species. I mean, the thing is like, you know, you could say all kinds of stuff when I was a kid. You know, people would say all kinds of things and it would just be kind of, whatever, that's how they talk, that's the language they use, etc. But now everything is looked at under a microscope. But then back in the day, even boxing was considered to be quite, oh, hang on a minute, I don't know as I want to watch boxing on mainstream TV, even though, you know, like Nigel Ben, Chris Eubank, that was our generation, right?

They were incredible. And I just don't feel like, I don't feel like boxing was ever kind of. of it never it never bridged that gap to me like you either loved boxing or you or you hated it whereas mixed martial arts people kind of dip in they're kind of intrigued because it's such a broad because it's such a broad style you know you can grapple you can wrestle you can strike it's quite unknown we have big characters that like Connor McGregor and Rhonda obviously she did did wonders for mixed martial arts but I do feel like I mean you know video games and movies

everything's desensitizing this to violence like we you know we watch movies movies now and we're just not, we don't even register what we're seeing. It's so realistic. And then, you know, obviously, like the current war that's going on, like we're watching it on social media. That's never been done before. And we're desensitized to stuff. I see things all the time that if I'd have seen it as a kid, I would have been shocked. But now it's just, it's a part of our environment. But people are far more focused on what is being said now as opposed to what's being done. And almost always what's being done is far, far worse. It's a really good point

But the thing is with UFC Is that I find it that much more brutal than boxing There are points at UFC Well I'm just like oh my word I just because it's too visceral But I never really get that with boxing Even if it's a big heavyweight match The thing is

For boxing it's quite easy to watch boxing Unless you're there If you're ringside watching two heavyweights punching one another You feel that impact like it rattles through the arena. And it's very similar to mixed martial arts. I mean, we were at an event a little while ago

and there was a, it's the only time it's ever been happened. The fight was abandoned due to the excess blood on the canvas. And it was a wild fight. Nicholas Talby against Ross Houston on Cage Warriors, and they beat the hell out of one another. The whole canvas was just a mess of blood. They couldn't even stand up because it was so slippy. And I was commentating,

and you can literally smell the blood in the air. And it's like the whole place, gets taken over. It feels like a battlefield. But then at the same time, you've got these two guys that have got a mask of blood and they're sitting on top of the cage celebrating that they've had such a good fight. So I think when you see people in those scenarios, you kind of empathize with them, but then when you see how much they love it, you kind of go, oh, okay, like, it's kind of what you do. I mean, people do all kinds of mad things to themselves now, surgeries and those kind of things. I don't think there's anything wrong with stepping in there and testing yourself against another

human being, especially when they've signed on the dotted line to do the same thing. And it is very visceral, but I also feel like it's the right environment for that. I agree with you, but the thing is, is when you see these types of fights and you, what's really interesting is then you find that you see former boxes, former UFC fighters, and they find it impossible to quit. And the moment they quit, it seems for a lot of them, their life falls apart, like Kelbrook was in the papers recently, taking cocaine. And a lot of fights

I would have done that during their career Yeah for sure But why is it Why is it that that is so addictive Why is it that it's almost impossible To leave it behind? Because I don't think anything replicates it You know like Kelbrook is a fantastic boxer

But he's never going to get an adrenaline rush Like he got walking out against Amir Khan Especially because of all the pressure that was on him for that fight So how do you go from that height of of excitement to now I'm retired. And then you're kind of drifting because you've always identified as that person that everyone sees in the ring. You take your gloves off and you put regular clothes on and you feel like a regular

person and it's difficult to adjust to that. Especially because you've got this fighter, this mentality within you, this, this, you know, warlike atmosphere that's in your own environment that you're always experiencing. You can step into a ring and be yourself but then all the rest of the time you have to kind of keep a lid on it. it. I think that can be quite difficult. People need that pressure release. And a lot of the fighters that struggle, like, we remember Frank Bruno going through really troubled times. It, like,

set up a marque in his back garden and was sleeping in a boxing ring. And it's the attachment to that environment that made him feel safe, made him feel himself. And like, I was in training camp for a fight? Was it 2012? Four weeks out from the fight, the doctors in Vegas told me I wasn't going to be able to compete unless I had a heart surgery. And straight away, I was like, I'm kind of, I've been put in a situation where I can either say no to the doctors and try and figure out who I am outside of mixed martial arts or I can walk through this surgery and try and cling to the person that I am. And my mum said, I called her outside from outside the hospital and she said to me, you would have never have stopped anyway. Like what would have stopped you? Like it would have

taken something like a health concern or literally someone saying, no, you can't. I would still fight now, if someone sent me a contract with the right opponent, I would sign it. I was supposed to box last year. I was very disappointed that I didn't get the opportunity to. But it's because I missed that adrenaline rush. I miss that feeling of being able to get in there and just kind of let my reptilian brain breathe. Well, this is the point that Rogan made when we were on his show and we were asking,

we were talking in Francis, you know, he's interested and concerned about the brain injury stuff. And you see it in rugby now, you know, former England World Cup winners who can't remember winning the medal and all of that, you know, terrible. But Rogan was like, look, for some people, like standing on top of a cage with 10,000 people screaming as they've just knocked someone out, it's worth it to them. Are you of that view as well? 100%.

100%. I mean, you know, if you ask an Olympic athlete, if they will achieve everything they want to achieve, but they'll be dead by 30, most of them will still do it. Because the goal overrides everything. And we're as fighters and we're not thinking about what we're going to feel like when we're 50. I've just turned 40. I wasn't thinking about how I would feel when I was 40 when I was 20. I wasn't even thinking I'd make it to 40 at times because I was just so focused on do or die.

And this always seems like an odd thing to say to people that maybe wouldn't have the same kind of mentality. But say before the GSP fight, I would make sure I paid everybody back any money I owed if I'd borrow. a book or a CD or whatever, I'd make sure they were returned. You know, I'd make sure that everything was taken care of because that 25 minutes is my last 25 minutes. And it has to be. And because otherwise I'm not going to compete to my potential if I'm not prepared to give everything.

Wow. Mate, that is very different to how most people think about it. I didn't drive here thinking this is the last hour of my life. I got to give this interview everything. But that's the nature of what you do, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, we see people do crazy things all the time. I mean, those flying squirrel suits and stuff, that your life could be ended in a second.

At least I have some control over what's going on, I feel. You know, I can direct the fight as long as I'm successful. And as long as I'm training hard enough, I'm going to be successful. So the buildup, I'm putting pressure on myself because I'm putting the work in. I'm investing in my time into doing the right things. But even as you're walking out, that moment right before you step into the octagon, right before you walk up the steps, you have a moment to yourself where you have a moment to yourself where you're like 10, 12, 14 weeks of training camp, I've got 15 or 25 minutes to make

it happen right now. And that's when your adrenaline spikes. And then Bruce Buffers there and he's doing the doing his job and that gets me fired up as well. And you know, you have to kind of bring yourself down a moment before the fight starts because you can be reckless. You know, you can be over-excited and reckless. And it's finding that tightrope that you can walk during the fight where you're, you're trying to be as forthright with your attack as possible, but not be too reckless. That's a real challenge. Floyd Patterson, former World Heavyweight champion, used to have a disguise in his changing room

so that if he lost, he could don the disguise and slip away and no one would notice. Do you understand that mentality as a fighter? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Because it's difficult to look somebody else in the eye if you feel like you've lost and you've not lived up to your potential. You know, going out there and giving everything you've got and losing.

I never really struggled too much with that. Of course, I never liked losing. But as long as I gave it everything I got, like GSP, I couldn't have beat that guy on that night. You know, I could have fought him 100 times, and I probably wouldn't have beaten him more than a couple of three times based on where we were skill-wise.

That was quite exciting to me because it felt like there was no pressure. All I had to do was do everything I could in the fight, and it may not have been enough. It probably wasn't going to be enough. But there was a piece that came with that, right? Like everybody before the fight said I was going to get submitted in the first round. So I'd already made peace with the fact that if I have to fight with one less limb

because he snapped it, then go ahead and snap it. People keep coming back to the arm bar that I escaped in that fight. I don't really think it was that difficult to not tap because I already decided before the fight started that I would just punch him with the other arm. It's like we are sacrificing ourselves when we go in there. And you have to be in that mentality. I don't think you can step into there and think to yourself, well, I've got to put self-preservation first

because then you're not going to open up your attack. You have to be at peace, I think, with the potential risks that you're going to take. And what about the potential risks to your opponent because there was a very famous fight between Eubank and Watson, where Watson, who was the better fighter, many people argue, came out of it brain damaged. And Eubank said in many interviews that he never hit as hard as he could after that. Was that never a concern for you of the other person?

Honestly, no. And I think maybe it sounds a little cold, but if you sign a contract to step into a cage with me, I'm going to do everything I can to put you out of there. And I'm going to do it in such a way where nobody else wants to fight me ever again. That's the intimidation factor that Tyson was talking about. And I always say it to my young fighters now, in those last five or ten seconds of the fight where you know the fight's won and you are looking for the finish be as brutal as you can be.

because the people sit in front row might be your next opponent and you want to give them that fear of God that they don't want to step in there with you. It's war. It can't be anything other. If you treat it like a sport, you're going to lose every time. You've got to treat it like it's warfare because if you don't, then you're not giving the environment

the respect, I feel like it deserves. And how big is the psychological element? Because people, I think, so often get confused because you know, you get your CM punk people type, you know, people coming to UFC, you know, talking a good game, but they don't have the physical skill set and they get destroyed. But, you know, their mentality supposedly isn't the right place. And then you get other people who mentally aren't quite there, even though physically they're

very talented. Like, how big of a deal is it managing your mentality? I mean, that was one of the things people always said about Connor McGregor. He was very good at getting under the skin of his opponents. And he was. And, you know, potentially people would argue in the Jose Alder fight, you know, Alder was so angry at him. He started rushing forward, you know, and we saw what happened.

On the other hand, you piss off Khabib. And then things go in a very different direction. Yeah, for sure. I mean, you always need the skills. You always need to put the work in and have the skills. And like, Connor definitely had the skills to beat Aldo. There's no doubt about it. But it would have been a far, far more difficult test

had he not primed Jose Aldo to be so vulnerable, right? I mean, what was that, 13 seconds? There was no way that Aldo runs onto a punch like that against anybody else. And the big difference with Connor McGregor and a lot of other people is the way that he commands that chaos. Like he walks into the octagon like it's his front room every time. And it doesn't matter who he's fighting. They're there for his benefit. And it's not the other way around.

And I feel like that can rattle people sometimes. It certainly rattled Aldo. I was, remember when he stole Aldo's belt in Dublin at the final press conference of the World Tour? I was there on the side of the stage. I knew he was going to do it. The security knew he was going to do it. They were already ready on the stairs to run on. But you could just see that Aldo was so shaken and rattled by Connor having such a big presence in the room that no matter what he did, it was going to put Aldo in the wrong mentality for the fight.

And again, Cona McGregor just commands chaotic spaces better than anybody I've ever seen. And even dealing with the pressure, you know, like the pressure that comes with being a superstar, we see people like John Jones really struggle with it, where Connor McGregor takes it in his stride. The mentality is massive, massive. And I feel like if, I mean, I've trained with some of the best guys around. And the two best fighters that I've trained with, the two by far and a long way, if I put them in the gym against GSP, I would put my money on them. They can't put it together in the cage because they start to doubt themselves and their game falls apart.

But in the gym with no cameras and no people watching, they're absolute monsters. and I always felt like that was my strength, like over some of my teammates, because they sometimes would get anxious and start to doubt themselves and kind of work themselves out of the fight before it started. I always work upon Fight Day knowing full well that I was going to win and that they were going to have to kill me to stop me. And I just, I feel like that made me kind of bulletproof a lot of the time, you know. I've only been knocked out once and I was able to laugh at it afterwards, you know,

pretty quickly because it was a silly mistake that I made. And I didn't give my opponent the credit of taking that fight from me. I gave myself the criticism of handing it over to him because I wasn't in the right mental state. Yeah. And it makes perfect sense. And we talked about Connor McGregor. I hope it's not an unfair question because, you know, you commentate on the fights and whatever. But as an outsider, as a layman, I can say this, or I can ask this question at least.

Is he over now as a serious fighter, do you think? Or does he still have the skill set to come back and actually compete? You know, I think he's definitely got the skills. He's definitely got the skills and the mentality. And just like, you know, the likes of Jake Paul, he's got the finances around him to be able to build the perfect training camp, bring all the right people in to support him. The only downside is that he's a lightweight,

and the lightweight division is probably the most difficult division in the UFC. And the gap in Conner's game that we've seen him struggle with is still there. Like he's not going to have gained some kind of like Khabib Makhchev-style wrestling between, you know, the last time that we saw him and now. And it doesn't seem like he's been working on it at all. But you put him in there against the majority of the UFC roster, and his presence alone will rattle them. You know, like Michael Chandler, who's across the cage from him on the Ultimate Fighter,

you know, are just engaging, someone like that, they're easy pickings for Connor McGregor. Really? Yeah. You think he can stand up to Michael Chandler and... Yeah, I do. Really? Chandler's a great athlete. He moves very, very quickly.

But since he joined with the UFC, he's been a little more reckless than he was in. Yeah. Like Bellator, when he was knocking out Pitbull and Sydney Outlaw, he was like lightning. And that version is a very, very tough test for McGregor. But McGregor primes people mentally before he fights them. And the ultimate fight is perfect because you have to deal with the guy for six or eight weeks. He's going to be poking fun at Michael Chandler. He's going to get inside his head.

So by the time the fight comes, McGregor's going to Billy strut into the octagon with a big grin on his face. And Michael Chandler is going to be grinding his teeth. And just the difference in mentality is exactly what we saw from our. You know, Aldo was like, I'm going to have to go, I'm going to have to go. He felt like time was passing very slowly. He rushed in and he got caught with the perfect counter. You know, it's just the way that kind of is able to command spaces. It makes him a very different person to deal with.

It's very Ali-like. People often forget this about Ali because he's now, because he passed away, we kind of remember him as this almost saint-like figure. But when he fought, particularly Joe Frazier, the things he used to say, the mind games he used to play, A lot of the time when they stepped in the ring, Frazier said it himself. He said, I think the words, well, I want to kill that motherfucker. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And that's the perfect mindset to get your opponent in. I used to do quite a bit of trash talking, and I think it's quite a British thing anyway. Like my teammates, it's still the same at the gym this morning. I know they're murdering each other with the trash talk this morning, you know, as much as they are with their physical skills. And some people just can't deal with it. You know, I fought a guy, Marcus Davis, great fighter, really nice guy. but he just couldn't take the banter. And as soon as I'd said a couple of things

and I could see I got under his skin, straight away, I'm feeling like the fight's swaying in my direction. I can encourage him to fight a particular way. He came out first round, guns blazing. He was furious in the corner, so much more energy is being wasted. Now, this is the other thing, is like, if he spends the last three, four weeks of training camp, angry and furious at me,

he's going to wake up every day burning unnecessary energy. He's going to be releasing stress hormones, more than he would be normally in training camp. He's probably not an arrest as well as he would do normally in training camp. And then he steps in there in front of me and he sees me across the cage, grinning at him, right? And you can watch that fight back. Like his corner man, Mark Delagrotti, was saying to him,

one more round you're going to shut this kid up. It was not about beating me. It was about shutting me up. And that for me was the perfect mentality to have my opponents in. And some people don't respond. Like my next opponent, Mike Swick, he just didn't bite on anything. So I just stopped. And that made him quite uncomfortable.

Because he wanted the banter. He felt like that was the way that the fight was going to be sold. It doesn't always work. McGregor finds a way to get inside people's minds regardless of who they are. He knows how to, like, with Aldo, the line about, you know, riding into the favelas in Brazil and, you know, on a horse. It was just, it was wild stuff. But it's brilliant because Aldo's hearing it and thinking, how dare you say that about me, you know. But that wildness of character, that can be both an asset and it can be your weakness as well.

A great example of that is John Jones, who is a wild character, which means he's one of the greatest of all time. But at the same time, it's also his downfall. It is absolutely. And I think, you know, I think we have to understand that John Jones, what was he, 23 when he got the belt? Like those first few fights, because I've just recently done the breakdown for BT Sport on the Jones gown fight. coming up and you know I went back to right the beginning of his UFC career and watched each fight through and he was it makes sense why he thought he was he was untouchable because he kind of was you know that the things that he was doing to people spinning elbows from a from a single

leg against Stefan Bonner people weren't doing those kind of things think people aren't doing the same kind of things that McGregor's doing but the difference is McGregor was what 26 27 when he was doing them and John Jones was 22 23 I just feel like he wasn't he wasn't mature enough to deal with the person that he was at the time, if that makes sense. But he's still getting into trouble now. He goes to Vegas within half an hour. He's assaulted someone and the police are there. You know what I mean?

I mean, I wouldn't say it to his face, but you know what I mean? Like, he's still a wild, wild dude, which, you know, which you can understand. I mean, that's probably why he's a fighter. When is the serial gun, John Jones fight? It's a week on Saturday. A week on Saturday. I don't know if this will go out before. then.

March 5th, I think it is. Well, you're quite high on Jones in terms of that fight. And this is the first. He's going up to heavyweight, which would be interesting. But he's taking us time to build his body up, hasn't he? Is Francis and Gano versus John Jones the greatest fight the UFC never made? Yes. Yes, I think it is.

Yeah. Anyone wouldn't see that fight, wouldn't they? I mean, the only other one that. I would say, I mean, obviously, Anderson Silver GSP was a fight people always wanted, but the Tony Ferguson-Habeeb fight never happened. Of course, now people are like, I'm not bothered because we've seen Tony get beaten pretty convincingly. But when they were trying to make that fight and when it was made and then fell through several times, I feel like that was the fight that kind of got away from us.

Like, I still feel like John Jones technically is leagues ahead of Francis In Garno. The, you know, the X factor was the power in Garno's hands. and whether Jones could deal with it because, you know, we saw him get clipped with big shots against like Gustafson and he took them well, but they were light-haven. Exactly, Gustafson is not practicing. It's a different thing.

And I don't know whether this fight's the same given the fact that Cyril Gunn's not really a puncher either. You know, he kind of has the advantages that John Jones had as a light heavyweight, at heavyweight. He moves well, you know, he's very disciplined in his game. He's got a great, a high fight IQ, good decision-making.

that, in my opinion, is quite a tough test for John Jones because it would be a bit more like fighting the same character in a video game. Whereas in Garno, you know what you have to deal with within Garno. You have to stay away from that power. So I'm actually more excited for the Cyril Gamm fight, but of course I would like to have seen the Francis one. I feel like Francis, no matter where he goes,

people are going to want to watch because he's such a unique physical specimen. But Jones is a unique physical specimen with an immense amount of skill and creativity, and that's a very scary thing. Francis Ngano, I remember when he knocked out Rosenstrike and he just takes this gigantic swing, knocks him out, the guy's falling,

and by the time he's falling, he's hit him another three times on the way down. Yeah, terrifying. And, you know, the knockout over Alistair Overeem as well, where he put his head back like a Pez dispenser. Yeah. Like, you just don't see that kind of power on corked against people most of the time.

And honestly, like, you watch the Overeign fight and you think to yourself, how does he get back up after that punch? I mean, he does. It's amazing that he gets back to his feet. But there comes a point when you think to yourself, he's going to hit somebody one day and they're not going to get back up. And that's kind of, that's Franciscanaganu power. And I don't feel like there are many people in mixed martial arts or even in boxing that have got that.

Like, Deonté Wilde has got a scary power, you know, maybe comparable within Garnau. That would be a fight I'd like to see, to be honest. But it's a unique thing. But when you've got someone that's got that kind of finishing ability and then they back it up with technique, that's when they're very, very elite. And I feel like Francis is still kind of growing into that fighter.

I was a little bit surprised by how high you are in John Jones. And for me, as a complete layman, by the way, but he's probably the best fighter that I've ever seen. Yeah. Present company, accepted, obviously. But his last few fights in the light heavy way, I mean, I personally, again, complete layman, I don't know what I'm talking about, but I thought he lost the Santos fight, for example.

And the others, I mean, like Reyes was very close, in my opinion. So it's not like he was dominating everybody the way he had been, as you say, in his early 20s. But you are really, you're really positive on him at the moment. You think he's going to come back and be really, even though we haven't seen him for a few years. Yeah, I do. I do. Maybe it's a bit of wishful thinking because I'm obviously. a big fan of John Jones.

Like, just going back and watching his old fights, I'm still seeing things that I've not seen before. Clever little, like, you know, risk controls, so he's opening up opportunities to land his elbows on the ground. Really clever, really clever stuff. Very creative as well. And see, this is where Jones's last three fights, in my opinion, that was him like six out of ten.

He looked disinterested, he looked uninspired, he didn't look threatened by his opponents. He just didn't really seem to be too bad. In fact, there was an interview he did recently, and he kind of hints at the fact that I was fighting Don Reyes. You know, he'd been looking forward to fighting me since he was at high school. You know, like, Jones is, it's like, I understand the same as Anderson Silver when he fought Chris Weidman, right? Anderson Silver was the champion when Chris Wydenman turned pro. Like, I just didn't see John Jones wanting to be in those fights.

And plus, you know, he was having pay issues and, you know, feeling disrespected by the UFC. So again, things that are going to kind of disconnect him from being there. And because he's so good, he can step in there at five out of ten, six out of ten and still beat the hell out of people. You know, the Gustafson fight, the first one was a very, very close fight, but only because John Jones was out partying

and not giving Gustafson the respect he deserves. But if he was fighting Francis and Garno, do you think he'd be out partying and stuff? Of course not, because he'd be terrified of the person he's facing. I think a bit of fear is important for John Jones, and I don't think we saw it in his last few fights. And I don't feel like they were,

close fights because his opponents were good enough to make them close fights. I felt like they were close because he just wasn't putting the same kind of pressure on as he normally does. Like the second Gustafson fight where he's trying to wrench his shoulders out of the sockets and, you know, takes him down, smashes him on the floor in the third round. That's a different kind of John Jones to what we've seen. And, you know, I put myself in his mentality. I've been out for three years.

I've been watching these heavyweights, like make loads of money and move their way up the rankings, know full well that they're in. not as good as me. And I'm John Jones. I'm thinking I'm going to come back with a bang. I've been out for three years, lifting and getting strong. I think he's going to come in $2.50. I think he might come in the heavier fighter out of two, to be honest.

And I think he's going to make an example of Cyril. I think that's what his intention will be. And that's a scary John Jones, because that's the kind of John Jones that will try and retire you. Like he's not, like, even his post-fight interviews in his last few fights have been odd. You know, he puts a different voice on. Like the mean John Jones that was fighting Daniel Cornier,

that's a person that I don't think anybody on the planet can be in the right mentality. But the John Jones that was like, you know, Anthony Smith, I'm so proud of you. I don't buy that John Jones for a second. I just don't feel like that's his character. He's a mean dude. He's nasty. Yeah. Right?

Like the things that he does, he's trying to, like Glover to Chera, literally trying to wrench his shoulder out of the socket. You don't see people doing that in mixed martial arts. He finds the rules. The oblique kicks. Yeah, that kick he did to the knee to, like, basically break the fore. And he has no forgiveness. If something works, he'll do it 100 more times to you until it breaks you.

We see that mentality very, very rarely in mixed martial arts, which is a shame because that's kind of where you get the best fighters. But that's why John Jones is a pioneer. And do you not think the fact that he's older now, let's be fair, he hasn't really looked after his body, he likes a drink, he likes, shall we just call them the extracurriculars? Do you think that's not made an impact on him and his physique? Honestly, no, I don't think so.

I think he's such a unique physical specimen. I mean, you look at the rest of his family. They're all, you know, footballers. And, you know, he clearly comes from good genetics, good physical stock. So he was always going to be a good athlete no matter what he did. Most athletes, when they hit the top of their game, they're always doing stuff that they shouldn't be doing. You know what I mean? And it tends to affect people.

Yeah. Yeah. We were watching the Usain Bolt documentary the day, and he broke his foot in a nightclub. like training for the Olympics like because the pressure is so great people do silly things sometimes fortunately I never like going out so I never found myself in that circumstance

but with John Jones like he's restless he's full of energy he's a superstar everywhere he goes people want to put drinks in his hand and you know taking places and he loves that throwing themselves out of him and all the rest of it yeah of course and you know and and it's difficult being a

being a professional fighter and then going out in a nightclub. Because half of the people there, because they've had a drink, half of the people there think they're your best friend. So they're arms around him, hanging on him, pulling him in different directions. Then you've got the people that fancy their chances, which, of course, he's not very often with John Jones. But it does happen. You know what I mean?

You do get those people. And it makes the environment quite difficult. And, you know, John Jones has used to being respected. If he's got someone that's drunk that's spitting his ear or dragging him around a club or whatever, I can imagine he would get irate with them. But he gets irate and he's also the most dangerous man on the planet. You know, it's a different situation, right?

And do you think the UFC did enough to keep Francis and Garner? No, absolutely not. Absolutely not. The requests that he made were the thing that's most disappointing about it is that nobody else stood by him. Because the things he was asking for would benefit the whole roster. You know, he was asking for a fighter representative in conversations that the UFC were having the executive meetings to make sure.

that the fighters are being considered. You know, these are things that, you know, people respected Mohammed Ali for, you know, standing against the Vietnam War and, you know, refusing to fight. I know, of course, that's a slight different thing. But if we look at the circumstance in mixed martial arts right now, the pay disputes, the issues with, you know, fighters at the end of their career, not having any money, not really physically being very looked after by the organization post-career, we need people to stand up and make those changes.

The Ali Act needs applying to mixed martial arts. There's no doubt about it. And Francis Ngarnu would have been one of the people that could push that through. But he would have also needed a couple of other champions. You know, he would have needed an Israel Adasanya, a Kamar Usman, or someone to stand by him against the UFC. And because he didn't, he was kind of shunned and isolated and the UFC had the power to just kind of push him to one side.

Well, I want to ask you more questions about the UFC, but there is an elephant in the room here, which is you were a UFC commentator. And then you left an acrimonious circumstances and Dana White fired some shots at you and all the rest. So what happened there? So I've been working obviously with the UFC, the UK office for a long time. And as a fighter back in 2008, it was great. You know, we had a PR team. We had a whole office in Old Street in London.

It was a fantastic environment, really growing quickly. always constantly connecting the fighters to the media and stuff. And it just felt, you know, within the time I was a fighter turned commentator, that that interest in Europe had just kind of dropped off. And my job was an ambassador for Europe. So I was trying to get the fighters connected to the media. I was trying to make sure that there was attention and promotion going on around the UFC. And I felt a lot of the time like I was working hard and there was no support in Europe.

And I had a – there was a particular person I had a disagreement with who oversawks. saw a lot of the public relations stuff. And I always felt like she wasn't particularly very good at a job. Didn't particularly like doing a job. I felt that was a big part of the problem. Not really interesting mixed martial arts, just kind of doing a job because that's the job that they do. But it was starting to get really obstructive for me.

So like BBC radio contacted the UFC office about me commentating the McGregor-Pory fight. And I was initially working for ESPN on the post-fight desk when this offer came through. It was a great offer. BBC radio, you know, broadcasting the audio for the McGregor fight was a huge deal for UFC Europe and I definitely wanted to do it. And there was one person that just kind of stood in the way of it all and didn't make the connections. And there was a point during Fight Thailand where I had a conversation with this person

and I basically called them out on not doing a very good job. And she got embarrassed is the best way me put in it. And I understand at the time why she got embarrassed because there were a lot of a couple of other colleagues there around us, but I was just so frustrated with the lack of effort coming from the UK office and the fact that we had really, really great fighters from Europe that were getting no attention at all compared to how it was in 2008, right? We want to continue growing. We want to continue the sport, you know, reaching into the mainstream and we were losing ground

very, very quickly. And that was, I was frustrated with that. I said to the person, I said, like, why are you not doing your job? Like, you know, you've got a job to do. We need you to do your job well. and you're just choosing not to do it. And I don't know what was said. I don't know what conversation was passed on to the executives in the UFC,

but it certainly wasn't the reality of the situation. I never spoke to Dana. I haven't spoken to Dana for a long time. Normally I would have got a phone call from him, but for whatever reason, I didn't hear from him at all. So I don't know what was told to the UFC. I've still never found out. I can imagine that it was, you know,

there was a scenario created that wasn't the truth. And I feel like that's kind of the situation that I was caught in. Well, the way Dana presented in one of his interviews was that you'd mistreated one of the female employees. That's how he phrased it. Yes, yeah, which is hugely insulting. If anyone knows me, they just know I'm not that kind of person. You know, of course, we're discussing before we start with talking. Well, your wife's got black eyes, right?

Yeah. Yeah. But the reality is, it's like I understand what Dana's up against because I'm getting treated like he's being treated now, but he was caught on video and that's not my responsibility. That was from sparring. Do you know what I mean? I understand that he said his punishment was how people will view him. Absolutely for sure.

But at the same time, he's a powerful man and he's got a lot of money and he's able to kind of coast past these things and throw shots at me which were false. There were lies that of course I'd never mistreated anybody. All right. Well, coming back to the UFC itself then, so we've got that out of the way so people can make their minds up about how objective you.

But there's been a lot of talk about fight to pay. And I, again, complete layman, so I'm probably talking shit, but just hear me out as just an outside observer. On the one hand, I see that most other leagues have some kind of union representation or some kind of, you know, the NBA, for example, they collectively bargain to get more money. On the other hand, the counter argument from people like Dana is, well, look, we invest in the sport and we grow it. So we have, you know, performance institutes. We are constantly trying to source new talent. We're building the entire sport, not just for the UFC, but for other promotions, because we're pushing all this stuff forward where we've built a mainstream following

for what used to be a niche product. And, you know, that's why we need the money, essentially, right? I mean, you're a former fighter and you've left the UFC, so I imagine where you land on it. But what do you make of his counter argument, essentially? There's certainly nothing we can take away from the UFC, what they've done for the sport, and the industry that they've created for all fighters, but we also can't forget that the industry wouldn't be there if it wasn't for the fighters as well. Now, the UFC are making massive, massive amounts of money, right?

And then you've got fighters that are retiring with nothing in their bank account. And it's not because they're not managing their finances very well. It's because they might fight twice a year and they might get $20,000 if they fight. Is that per fight? Per fight. Yeah. But then they've got to pay for their camp and the rest. Coaches, transport. I mean, training camps are incredibly expensive. Just, you know, travel and gym fees. You know, all fighters have to contribute to their gym. They have to pay management teams.

The other thing that affected us massively was the sponsorships being taken off the table. So when I first joined the UFC, you could bring your own shorts. You had to supply two pairs of shorts. You had to show them what sponsors you had in case there were any conflicting sponsors with the UFC's main sponsors. But otherwise, you were able to represent the companies that you were. you wanted. We had the banners behind us in the corners. We had all of our sponsors on the banners and stuff. That was all taken away. So say when I fought Joyce St Pierre, my purse was $22,000 for that, right? And I'm fighting in a world title fight on a pay-per-view. What, six million people watching, something like that? This was quite a long time ago,

it was, to be fair. And there were different dollars too. Absolutely. But even so, the money that I should have made then based on what was being made off the fight, even if the fighters were being paid that today. Like Paddy Pimlet's high up on the UFC cards in London, but he's still getting paid the same as what people were getting paid 10 years ago. It's embarrassing that he's not progressed through. And that money's going somewhere. All the sponsors were taken away from the fighters.

So say Vito Belfort was sponsored by Sky, he got $2 million a year or something from them. That was taken away straight away. So then a lot of revenue dries up for fighters. And then, of course, the UFC then bring their own sponsors in. So now crypto paid the UFC 175 million and the fighters get none of that, right? Or the Reebok deal. Like, I would have got $15,000 off tap out or $2,000 off Reebok if my time had been different. And you're talking five or ten years difference.

So surely things should get better. Things were good and they got worse because the UFC drew them back into their own pockets. The first thing, we had relatively free sponsorship market. Then there was a tax that was brought in. So if you wanted to sponsor a UFC fighter, it was somewhere between $50,000 and $100,000 for your company to pay to the UFC. So that money then didn't go to the fighters.

So then if you've got 100 companies that's then reduced down to 10 companies that can afford the $100,000 to the UFC, and then $100,000 of their budget's already gone to the UFC and they've got pennies left to pay the fighters. So we kind of went through the money being taken off the table and then the UFC purse is not increasing. The money's being made in massive amounts and it's not being fed back into the grassroots of the sport.

And the guys that are retiring now are the guys that are going to open gyms and train the next generation of fighters. We're training at GB top team for my wife's training camp. Brad Pickett, it's an awesome gym. But it's the only one in the country that's like. it and it still was was a lot of money to set up and Brad didn't have all the money to set it up himself. We need this money to come back to come back to the fighters so we can keep

growing the industry. But at the moment it's got to the stage where now all of the creams being scraped off the top into a few accounts and everybody else is making the money for the few people that are benefiting, which ultimately is the situation in most industries, right? Across the world it's the same service. But it sounds like you feel that, you know, the UFC's in the a monopolistic position and it's taken advantage of that? 100%. You've got to remember.

When I was coming through, I had the options of fighting on UFC, on Elite XC, Strikeforce, Dream, Pride, Bodog, there were loads and loads of events that were options for us. But then WEC, eventually the UFC buys up all of these organisations. So they buy Elite XC, they buy Strike Force, they buy Pride. So then basically, you've not got all your boutique coffee shops and you've not got your you have several different strong brands. You've got one brand that charged three or four times the amount for the same cup of coffee and you've got no other options to go anywhere else.

So do you want to fight for the UFC and get paid $20,000? Or do you want to go and fight for the show down the road and get 500 plus ticket sales? There was just no option. You either sign with the UFC or you're not a professional MMA fighter. And that was kind of how it was monopolized. And that was during my time as a UFC fighter as well. they were being investigated by the FBI for not monopolizing the industry and stuff. And we were told as fighters, don't speak to anybody.

Don't speak to anybody about this monopolization of the sport because they knew they were doing it. It was a very, very clever mechanism to slowly squeeze out the competition. Pride was awesome. It was a massive Japanese event. They bought it for $30 million. They brought all the fighters over and then the fighters are at the whim of whatever UFC wants to pay them. They monopolize the sport so there's no other options to go anywhere else. I can't negotiate like I could if I was a free agent in boxing.

I could go, well, I could go Eddie Hearn or I could go Frank Warren or I could speak to DeZone or whatever. I've got options, but with the UFC, you can't. If you want to be the best in the world, you have to sign with the UFC because there are no other options. Now, obviously, with the PFL coming through the industries in another stage where it's growing, money's coming back into the sport. That's probably because the UFC are losing a bit of momentum, I think.

Why are they losing momentum? him. I think a big part of it, I mean, Dana is the driving force behind it. And he's kind of, taking his eyes off the prize to me. You know, like the UFC is constantly promoting the power slap league. He's forgetting the main event fighters' names. Like, he forgot McIchev's name twice in the build-up to UFC 284. How can you do that if you're the promoter? I feel like he's lost interest in it. And I feel like now, because he feels like he's untouchable, he's just going to ride it till the wheels fall off and make as much money as he can. What do you make about Slap?

Because I'm a big fan of the UFC. I think I understand what you're saying. But at the same time, I can see the incredible job Dana's done to build it up to what it is and build a sport. I'd love to interview him. We were going to interview him the last time he was in London. And if we get a chance, I'll put some of these questions to him as well, the points that you're making. But when I look at Slap, again, casual, don't know what I'm talking about. I'm sort of like going, wait, like, I understand people hitting each other and being able to

defend each other, but this is just people hitting each other just with no protection. Is that really a sport? What do you make of it? It's dangerous. It's very, very dangerous. Now, I went through the years where the UFC, where mixed martial arts wasn't accepted. So I had a lot of people telling me that I shouldn't be doing what I was doing because they didn't understand it.

So I'm trying not to project my opinions onto PowerSlapp as a thing in itself. My main issue with it is that it's so closely tied to the UFC. Like we fought for years and years. When I fought GSP, it was 2010. It wasn't that long ago. Most of my interview questions were about MMA. Why should it be a legitimate sport? I had people throwing the words cop fighting at me and stuff.

I'm like, I am a professional athlete. I train all day every day. I am working on my skill set. I'm working on my physical conditioning, my sport psychology. I don't drink. I'm dedicated in my diet. And you're treating me like I'm a thug. it's not fair because I was dedicated to a sport, but then so much time's passed.

And I guess in a way it reflects how strong the UFC brand is, that now they can stick power slap on the side of it and don't feel like they're doing damage to the sport. If you'd have done that in 2010, it would have completely invalidated the UFC as a brand because people were still on the fence about it. But now, again, I feel like Dana feels like he's untouchable because they are ramming the power slap league down our throats. unfollow Dana and the UFC on Instagram because I'm sick of seeing it popping up. I go on FightPass because I'm researching fights and it's there on the front page.

So it's aligning basically two guys just taking free swings at one another. Like it's just, it's CTE for money. Like they're trading brain cells for cash. And they're only offering you a couple of thousand dollars to do it anyway. It's not like it's not like it's going to change your life. I mean, change your life for the negative, of course. You're drinking out, you know, eating soup for the rest of your life doing that kind of stuff. It misses the point of combat sports.

It's not a sport because there's not a competitiveness to it. It's the person that can get up after taking full power slaps. That in my eyes is ridiculous. The art of martial arts is the attack and the defense. You don't get scored defense in mixed martial arts scoring criteria because the defense is the reward in itself, right? You keep your hands up. You don't get punched in the face.

Well done you, right? The idea of power slap is that you stand there and you take a shot. you know it's coming. That's just free CTE for everybody involved. And because it's bolted onto the UFC now, so tightly, all the way through their social media and their online presence and everything, if something happens to one of those people, of course it gets reflected badly on the UFC.

But I just don't feel like they care anymore, and that's the problem I have with it. Dan, so who are these people taking part in power slaps? Because it comes up on my phone, and like I say, I really enjoy UFC, huge boxing fan, and I'm, it's just, I don't like it. I'm not sure how many people who watch UFC or boxing would be into that. Well, I mean, if you look at the comments on the UFC social media, anytime Dana or the UFC posts something, literally every single one of the comments

with thousands of likes, stop showing us this, we don't want to see it. Of course, there's a market for it, but there's a market for everything, unfortunately. these days. If you put two people in vehicles and got you to drive with one another in... That'd be fucking popular, I tell you. The direction we're going, right? We watched Idiocracy last night. I'm watching that movie thinking to myself, we are moving into this time in our lives where people are just so stupid. Their appetite for things is awful. I just feel like something terrible is going to happen at some point. And it disappoints me to see the likes of Forrest Griffin that was a big player in solidifying the U.S.

as a brand, catching these dudes as they're falling on the floor. And who are these guys, like you said? They're probably guys that if they're not doing this, they're doing another job that they hate. So they might as well get a bit of fame and a bit of fortune and maybe, you know, a couple of trips to Vegas and what's a slap around the face to a guy that doesn't care much about his life anyway? I just can't get into the mentality of it. I really struggle to understand it. Yeah. It's, to me, it's something that I, the only people would be into it is if you have a gratuitous love of watching people getting hurt, that to me is the only real upshot of that sport

because there's no real skill involved in it. No, none at all. None at all. I mean, you literally stand and wait to receive the shot. But the thing is, like, this is where we are, I suppose, degrading a little bit as a species, because there is an appetite for that. You know, like this hunt sabotages going on up and down the country at weekends

because people are still trying a fox hunt. Come on, come on, you know what I mean? Like taking pleasure in something else's pain is an odd and sick mentality, I think. When I'm watching martial arts, I'm not going, oh, man, that's a bad elbow. Get him again, get him again with that. I'm appreciating the elbow as a striking weapon,

but I'm also appreciating the guy on the bottom trying to defend that elbow and what he's trying to do to get out of it. If you turn mixed martial arts into power slap and you've got two people to walk into the center of the cage and just take one shot after the next at one another with no defense. That would never have become a legitimate sport back in 1995 or 2005 or whatever. Do you think this is where TikTok meets combat sports?

Do you see what I mean? Because in 40 seconds, you watch someone get slapped on the floor and then pass out or whatever, and then you move on to the next one. Yeah, and that is, it is that 15 second attention span. isn't it? You probably remember when the you've been tangoed adverts came out and they had to ban them because kids were walking up to one another and tangoing each other at school. And as kids were like, oh, this is a bit of fun. I've seen it on TV, slap. Like people were genuinely getting hurt doing that at school. I remember a couple of kids had to go to the hospital getting slapped unconscious.

Like, sucker slaps. We see that on social media all the time now. We're just moving in a direction that I feel like we should be a bit more conscious of. And I don't. feel like power slap is helping in any way. All right. Well, we've slagged off the UFC and Dana White enough. He's still one of my dream guests and I'd love to talk to him about this stuff because I have a fantastic conversation with him. He's a very, very interesting individual.

I really respect them a lot in what he's achieved. But this is probably going to come up in one of his press conferences and we're all going to be in the firing line. You know, one of the things I think makes MMA incredibly exciting. And this is actually something that Dana has talked about, which is you never know what the outcome is going to be. If you watch Manu play Stevenage, it can be exciting, but generally speaking

man you're going to, man you're going to be 4-0 and there's going to be a bit of a boring game. But look at I mean, and this is a British fighter who's a champion in the UFC now, Leon Edwards, right? Fighting Kamara Usman, who again as an outsider was much

better on the night and probably is a better fighter, some people would argue. Five rounds, Leon is struggling, most of them. He's still doing great. I mean, he's fighting and doing great, but by round five, you're going, look, I mean, you've done a really good job. You've done your best, maybe, but

Kamar Usman is the true champion, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then one kick, and he's champion. Just like that. That, I think, is the thing that makes it so exciting is you just don't know who's going to win. And like you said, you had a punch his chance against

GSP, who, again, you thought was a better fighter than you. Yeah, for sure. He absolutely was. He was a better fighter than Matt Serra, but Matt Serra landed that punch, you know, that opportunity. Yeah. It is a very, very chaotic sport, very crazy sport to try and predict. My predictions for fights are so terrible. Just generally, I've realized that over the past few years doing the Picks podcast and stuff.

It is, like I kind of, what I realize is I always tied with the underdog and I kind of get drawn into a possible narrative, like John Jones coming back as the greatest heavyweight of all time. I'm fully on board with that narrative and I feel like it could possibly happen. But it also might not. like Cyril Gamm might come out and take him down and pin him from top position being a big strong heavyweight that's improved

his ground game since the Francis and Garnu fight and he might dominate on the floor and that would be a huge surprise just as it was a surprise when Francis Ngarno came out and did it to Cyril people didn't expect him to do it like you can never predict what's going to happen in mixed martial arts and be 100% certain anybody that bets on it I think he's crazy

because it just seems like an easy way of throwing money out of the window to me because you just literally never know what's going to happen It's one of the reasons why he's exciting, of course, is the unpredictability. But you also got to remember, your analogy with Manchester United, it's the same with boxing, right? If you see Canelo fight, the majority of the time, you expect him to beat them fairly soundly and probably stop them. And if we look at what's most likely going to happen, well, he's either going to knock him out, he's going to stop him on cuts, or he's going to beat him by decision. That's three options.

In mixed martial arts, how many options are there? You could get caught with a flying knee just as you can get caught with the flying arm bar. You can get taken down and hit with an elbow, you can get taken down and submitted. You can get kicked in the head, you can get choked out. There are so many ways to lose in mixed martial arts that it's difficult to predict how someone's going to win. And that for me is why it's so exciting. And we also don't know what's going on in people's training camps. Like what has John Jones been doing for three years?

You know, has he been working really, really hard on his leg locks? You might come back as a leglock specialist, but he's kept it quite tight to his chest and not told anybody. I love the fact that mixed martial arts is so open-ended when it comes to the fights. And I accept the fact that I'm going to have a good idea of what I think might happen and be completely proven wrong when it comes to Saturday night. It's exciting. And you mentioned the sort of rooting for the underdog. And again, as an outsider, I keep saying, but I just don't want to be able to think that I'm

like, I think I know what I'm talking about. But watching the Volcanowski fight recently. And I was talking to Rogan about this because he did this fight companion. and they all certain Volcanovsky'd won. And I was like, I think most people thought he'd won because he was the underdog and they wanted him to win. If you looked at objectively, I think it was a very close fight actually that, what's his face?

Makachev, Islam, I wouldn't say that to his face either. Islamakachev actually probably edged for me. But it's that excitement, isn't it, of like rooting for the underdog, hoping that he can win as well. Absolutely. And, you know, I, agree, I feel like Makachev won the fight. And I feel like Volcanovsky knew that Makachiev won as well. In his post-fight interview, you know, he mentioned about the fact

that he left it too late. I feel like now Volkanovsky knows that he can beat Macchchev if he gets the rematch. But I feel like he felt beaten on the night. I feel like Makachev had done enough to beat him. He didn't feel beaten up, but he was defeated. There's no doubt about it in my eyes. But I do think in the rematch, Volkanovsky is going to have a lot more confidence based on that first fight. And I do think it would be a different performance. Is it going to be a rematch? I think so.

I think so. And I think because obviously Joe Rogan's got such a huge voice in the sport, the fact that he said he thought Volk won. And then the fact that Volt came out afterwards and was like, yeah, I won three rounds, no doubt. Like, just creating that narrative gets you a bit closer to the opportunity. And for sure, I think he'll get his opportunity again. Dan, top five fighters.

Who are they and why? Oh, in just mixed martial arts? In just mixed martial arts. So we can do boxing as well. Let's just stick to mix martial arts for the moment, and then we can do boxing afterwards. We've got to put John Jones up there. I'm very much feeling like he might be the greatest talent that we've seen in the sport so far. Connor McGregor, you have to say just purely because of how he took command of the divisions that he was in.

He changed the sport for the benefit of everybody. And, I mean, the composure that he showed in high-pressure situations where he really shouldn't win was unlike anybody else I've ever seen. After that, I mean, Josie Aldo is always one of my favorites. You know, you look back at his fights when he was in the WEC before he came over, became UFC champion, he was just spectacular. Every single range, Jose Aldo is fantastic at. And again, you know, if he fought McGregor a couple more times, I feel like he'd have probably beaten him a couple of times.

But the circumstance of that first fight was so perfect for McGregor that Aldo was over-extended. But it takes away from the fact that Aldo is probably one of the best fighters that we've ever seen. Demetrius Johnson as well, you know, another fighter. After that it's difficult because there are lots of fighters that have had a big impact on the sport, but maybe not have been the best fighters. Randy Couture had such a massive impact. BJ Penn had a massive impact, but you put them in mixed martial arts now and we can see how far behind they are.

Even with GSP, you know, GSP was great for 2010. When he came back and fought Bisping, you know, he was a great version of himself. but I feel like fighters are better now. I do just generally. I feel like there are wrestlers that can deal with GSP now and I feel like he's striking was not necessarily where it needs to be

to compete in mixed martial arts today. So it's important to recognize the fighters that were great in the time that they were great. Not she didn't mention Anderson Silver. You know, Anderson was always one of my favorites. I learned so much from him but I always felt like Anderson was a, he was a kickboxer in mixed martial arts.

art. And I know he had that triangle over Chelson, which I still watch back and squint my eyes at it sometimes. Anderson was great, but I never felt like he hit that well-roundedness that I would like to have seen from one of the all-time grades. John Jones can do it everywhere. You know, Valentina Shevchenko can fight you anywhere. She's incredible. You know what I mean? And that, for me, that's what I'm looking for. And I do to an extent shelve the personal stuff as well. Am I looking for a model human being? I'm not. If I am, I'm not looking at John Jones.

But if I'm looking at the best talent that we've ever seen in mixed martial arts, I can't think of anyone that comes close to him. Kabib. See, this is where I get loads of heat in the comments. Kabib was amazing at wrestling, but I never saw him really stepped too much outside of what he was very, very good at.

Like, his striking was all right. It was effective at times, but it was effective because his wrestling was so good, right? Like the shot that he landed on McGregor, the overhand, McGregor wouldn't be expecting the takedown. So it's circumstantial, right? And the other thing as well is, like, you look at the, like, I think John Jones's last, what, 12 fights have all been world title fights. Like, Khabib didn't defend his belt too many times. And it's probably

the right thing to do because the likes of Charles Olivera coming through could have quite easily been, you know, been the person to catch him. I feel like Macchair's probably going to do the same thing, right? He's probably going to defend his belt once, maybe move up to World to Wait and fight there once and then retire. I like the fighters that stick around. long enough to experience their defeats. Well, speaking of getting hate in the comments, I had a very controversial thought the other day, which was, is it possible that Makachev is actually better than Habib?

Because he is more rounded. His striking is really good. And like you say, Khabib was able to strike with people because everyone was terrified of getting taken down. They had to worry about that so much. Whereas Makachev has both. He has incredible wrestling and. he can strike and we saw that with Volkanowski, didn't we?

Yeah. I think Machachev is definitely the Mark II version of Khabib. And honestly, I feel like that was, I feel like that was Father's plan. You know, they talk about Abdomen Ap's plan. I always feel like he saw Makachev as being the, you know, the second comment of Khabib. Hebib served the purpose of establishing that team being dominant in the lightweight division, remaining undefeated, which of course in mixed martial arts is very difficult. Again, if People stay around for long enough, though. They don't keep that undefeated record because there's always somebody in mixed martial arts that can beat you. And I feel like Khabib did the right work to get that team's presence in the sport to a point where Makachev can then step in and take over as the better version.

And I do feel like he is the better version for sure, certainly in the striking rangers. He's a very, very strong Southpour. He's got a great left kick. We've seen his boxing improved in the Olivera fight as well. I see big improvements from Makachev. But again, a controversial opinion, the reason why Makachchev's striking his good is because he's got a loss on his record by knockout.

If he did not got knocked out earlier in his UFC career, he wouldn't have taken the time to really refine his striking like he did. My wrestling wouldn't have improved, had I not been taken down and dominate on the floor so many times, right? You react to the stimulus that you get. So when defeated fighters, they never really reach their full potential because they never explore their full potential in my opinion.

And what do you make of this, the YouTube fighter, shall we say? Because there's a lot of people, you know, the boxing purists, the fight purists, a lot of boxers who get really upset at it. Because they're like, well, I've trained all my life. I'm brilliant at what I do. I don't get a tenth of the money. I don't get nearly any of the acclaim. This isn't fair?

Got to learn from it, haven't you? you've got to learn from it. Like there's clearly something like Jake Paul was clearly doing something right, right? He's built an audience, his audience have attached themselves to him, they're along for his journey. They're not bothered whether he's a boxer. He could be an American football player or a downhill skier or whatever he wanted. The people that are following him are there for his journey. That's what he did, right?

He connected to an audience and allowed them to understand the life that he's living. So any boxers, any people that are complaining about it, are not. understanding the research that he's done for them. Like, make self-available to the fans. That's ultimately why he's making good money is because he's taking people along on the journey with him. And he's had these people that have grown up since he was on the Disney Channel, right?

So they've been on his journey all the way along. He just so happens to be a boxer now. They don't care whether he's a boxer or not. The boxing community care whether he's a boxer or not. But why? Because he's making loads of money. A proposal for you, mate, when we get to a million sites. Why don't you fight that?

I was going to say, I can get that Jake Paul fight, man, but you know what? There's a lot of people in comedy who would love to see that. It's funny because actually this is the situation quite often in comedy as well, but you've got comedians who are grinding away on the circuit for years and years and years, and they're very good at what they do, stand up. And then they see some guy, you know, Mo Gilligan is a good example. There's someone who just did stuff online and now he's massive, and they're like, oh, he's not a real comedian.

You go, he's got a million followers, and you're playing the dog and duck on a Thursday night to 20 people. What the fuck are you talking about? You know, Dan, it's been an absolute fascinating conversation. Thanks so much for coming on. Big fan of your breakdowns, particularly on full reptile. Because as you say, you don't always get the predictions right. But I actually think this is why UFC commentary and analysis or MMA commentary and analysis, I should say, is such a big niche now and it's growing. And you are doing it and you are doing it.

And a bunch of other people are doing it. Because for the layman, we don't understand a lot of what, you know, once it hits the ground, you're like, oh, okay. What's he doing there? But explaining the mechanics of the sport and why people are doing certain things is invaluable. So I'm a big fan of yours, big fan of your channel. Thank you so much for coming on. Before we let you go, as you know, we always finish with the same question, which is what's the one thing we're not talking about as a society that we really should be?

That is a good question to finish on. We're not talking enough about the people that are taking advantage of us as a society, ultimately. Like there are a few people online, but YouTube censorship is terrible right now. Online censorship is terrible right now, no matter what social media platform you're on. There's a small number of people taking advantage of the vast majority of the Earth's population. And we just, we don't talk about it. We don't seem to talk about it. We try and talk about it and then we get shut down. And there's a lot of, I wish I had a better word, but fuckery is the only one I can think of. In politics, in business, in every industry. There are a few people that are taking advantage of everybody.

And we just don't say anything. We just don't say anything because it's the same within the UFC. If you say something, you get your media credentials taken away, you get your opportunities taken away. If you speak out about the UFC, you get your opportunity. You know what I mean? It's like these mechanisms to shut people down. And everybody is acting like they've already been shut down before they've even spoken. We need to start speaking out against the corruption that we're seeing in our world.

I feel like that's not being talked about enough. It's present on a daily basis in my eyes. And it's people try and ignore it and just get on with their lives. And we can't. Can you give us more detail? Like, who are you talking about? Well, I mean, obviously you have a lot of people that, you know, that follow your podcast due to the political stuff that you talk about.

I mean, you know, you look at the PPE scandal that's going on at the moment. You know, I follow one of my favorite YouTube is he's Dr. John Campbell. If you don't listen to him, everybody should listen to him. The things that he's uncovering on a daily basis, like, people are lying to us. People are lying to us. And slowly killing us off as well. in lots of different ways, whether it's pollution or global warming or medicine or whatever.

You know what I mean? Like, I feel like the pandemic was a big, like that was a big wake-up call, I think, for a lot of people. Absolutely. But it's like you're being told stuff and you're going, well, three years ago you said that was, mask don't work. Now they work all of a sudden? Absolutely. And when did that happen?

Right. And then we go from celebrating the NHS and thanking their hard work and their diligence and their dedication to their job. And then the media then start to turn us against them. because they're striking because the NHS is under attack. The NHS is definitely under attack. It's being defunded so they can sell it off and privatise it, and that's going to affect every single one of us.

The NHS kept my ground alive for many, many years. And I've travelled all around the world. I've lived in the US. I've lived without free healthcare. It's not a world that we want to live in. We don't want to live in a country that charges people when they're sick. You're not sick, you're a customer. And that's a terrifying circumstance to put people in.

Cost of living crisis is a terrible phrase. Awful phrase. The cost of living. We're trapped in a framework right now that we are not even aware of struggling to get out of it and not enough people are talking about it in my eyes. Dan, thank you so much for coming on the show. It was an absolute pleasure.

If people want to find you online, if they want to see your work, where is the best place to do that? Well, YouTube, you can just search my name, Dan Hardy, or I'm on social media, Dan Hardy, MMA, Instagram and Twitter and wherever else. I'm always under the same name. And everyone should check out Full Reptile your YouTube channel as well. Before we let you go, your better half is here. We talked about all the bruises on her face and stuff, but she's about to fight in the UFC here in London, isn't she?

Tell us about her because she's, I think, first up on the card so people can check her out early in the night. Yeah, well, Veronica Macedo is what people will know her as, but a new name is now. Veronica Hardy, we got marriages before Christmas. So this is the first fight back after three years out. She's been working through some injuries and she's tip-top and strong right now and she's going into UFC London, March 18th. So we're very, very excited for her. Very different for me to be going to UFC London and not think somebody's going to punch me in the face.

A bit more pressure to be on the outside watching somebody trying to punch her. But she's very well prepared and I'm excited for her. And is it, as a man, is it a bit weird to see your woman like fighting and getting punched in the face. Is there a part... She's obviously a professional fighter and you knew that. But is there like a weird thing going on there? Is that difficult?

Because you've got, I imagine, got protective instincts. You want to... That's what you're supposed to do, right? Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. It's weird watching sparring sometimes because I do want to get in there and kind of kind of help out sometimes. You know, two on one's a bit unfair.

But it is weird. It's more strange. The reactions I get from other people as we're walking down the street, if she has got a black eye or, you know, a bruise or whatever. whatever, because people obviously immediately assume that I'm responsible for it. And, you know, she's sparring hard with good fighters at the moment.

So you're going to get bumps and bruises and stuff. And that's a new challenge for me. Because for me, it was always, I'm fighting, I've got bruises on my face, so people don't really question it. Or I'm with my friends and they're all fighters and they're all male and no one really questions it, you know. But a female fighter, they do get different interactions with the public, you could say. Well, Dan, thanks so much for coming on. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Everyone should check out your YouTube channel for Repter and find you on all the socials. Thank you. We'll ask you a couple of questions from our locals in a second that only they will get to see. But for now, thank you. Thank you for watching and listening. We'll see you very soon with another brilliant episode.

Won't be quite like this, but we'll be as equally brilliant. And take care and see you soon. And for those of you who like your Triggeronor and Treat, on the Go, it's also available as a podcast. Take care and see you soon, guys. For someone who's never followed MMA or the UFC, what would you say would be a good intro to see if you're interested in it?