The MMA Hour: Alexander Volkanovski, Aljamain Sterling, Miesha Tate, and more | Jan. 17, 2022

it's the mixed martial arts hour with [Music] on this monday january 17 2022 [Music] hello again everyone hope you're doing well hope you're safe and sound hope you're healthy hope you're warm a lot of snow a lot of sleet a lot of slush on the northeast if you're home because of that or because it's a very special day it's dr martin luther king jr day happy mlk junior day to all of you and hopefully we continue to live out his dreams and try to make the world a better place 2022 is going to be our year my friends it's going to be a great year for all of us doesn't matter your color your race your gender your creed it doesn't matter your faith we're all coming together and so i wish the very best to all of you if you're home on this frigid monday in most parts of the country and around the world i hope you're choosing to spend some time with all of us i gotta say i'm in a great mood on this monday y'all know why y'all know why great mood although i did promise our first guest that i would not talk about this at the top of the show so i will save that chatter for a little later on but y'all know why y'all know why hopefully he's not watching me right now anyway uh we got a great show no time to waste right off the top uh we've got later in the program we're going to be joined by the reigning defending ufc featherweight champion the one and only alex the great volkanovsky who's been all over the news over the past couple weeks who's he fighting who's he not fighting who wants to fight him who doesn't want to fight him when's he fighting all that shall be addressed with alex the great at around 4 eastern 3 30 rick's pick stay tuned for that 3 o'clock gc will check in with all of us about the weekend that was and his bets 2 30 we'll talk to michael venom page some big news regarding his next fight announced this morning two o'clock we'll talk to the reigning defending ufc bantamweight champion al james sterling he's been in the news as well kind of linked with the whole volkanovsky thing so stay tuned for that uh i'll answer some questions i'll talk about some news and then we'll uh prior to that have misha tate on to talk about her move to 125 and this fight against lauren murphy that we talked about last week before we get to our first guest of the day though a reminder that today's program is brought to you by draftkings draftking sportsbook is the official sports betting part of not only the ufc the nfl but also the mayor download the draftking sportsbook app today and use code the mma hour for a special offer when you sign up again that's code vmma hour only at draftkings and now available in the great state of new york so i'm kind of speaking very quickly here because our first guest has a flight to catch and i don't want to keep him waiting and so without further ado let us go to the zoo machine and say hello to the star of the weekend in mma the man who defied all the odds all the naysayers all the haters all the critics everyone who was just looking right past him everyone who said that oh wait oh giga should fight for the bell next everyone that said he was done after the max hallway fight the man who pulled one of the best performances out of his hat on saturday against the streaking or the then streaking guillechikate the new england cartel's own calvin keator joining us right off the bat here hello calvin how are you i'm doing great aria what an intro would it start to my monday yes great i mean look it was a fantastic win a fantastic performance and dare i say uh the the best performance out of a new englander on saturday no i didn't no i didn't say that i know i was talking about you anderson the service is a little i wouldn't say that i didn't i was just talking about the fights you know it was great it was you were great get it in get it in now man but you know i still got that that card in the back pocket i'm gonna just jump on the tampa bay bucks now oh of course you will like all of you listen i'm not i promise you i promise you i wasn't gonna get into it i mean i i do remember the text and the dms that you sent me after that monday night game but we won't get into that i know i jumped the gun and i tried to take the high road and be the classy one but man that was that was a great that was great i know bittersweet now bittersweet now um i mean fantastic man what a win what a performance you've had some big wins but considering how the last year went for you and considering all the talk about whether you'd be back and your health and all that possible that was the greatest end of your career so far you know that's what a lot of people are saying but they're always the biggest one to me you know the next one's always the biggest one because that's the one that i can impact and um and i'm just at this point man sounds cliche but i'm on to the next one you know and people always want to bring up the max fight this that and i try to explain like i don't even want to talk about the previous fight even after a win yeah like i can't do it like the conversation after a loss and it's always just you know but you take with a grain of salt you get it it is what it is i've been there before too and it's you know it's not what happens to you it's how you bounce back and uh i just focused all my efforts on the on the comeback and it all paid uh it all paid off last saturday man i was sitting in this chair on monday of last week we're talking about the fights we're talking about 145 and alex and i was talking to new york rick my guy and i was like man and i said this like 10 more times throughout the week the disrespect shown to calvin cater this week was astounding i mean people were talking what about giga i was like yo you know he has to fight a really tough guy named calvin keator you know this guy has been there before did you listen to all that not only from him but from everyone else saying gigas should be next guia should be i mean let alone what he was saying and did you use that as motivation going into the fight yeah for sure uh we we took you know all those chips um you know leading into the fight and and calling out the champion it wasn't something that i would do you know but uh now the fight coming up it's definitely just overlooking your opponent the disrespect like you said we felt that way but um didn't really want to give him any like locker material like we talked about man just take that into the fight with me and know that it's dangerous once i you know i get an opportunity they can pay for it were you confident going into the fight were you confident that it would go like that did you think it would be uh a closer like what were you feeling well we had like it was give or take like that the game plan was pretty much uh you know what you saw but it would have been nice to probably land a couple more 10 pounds he did a good job defending the takedowns later in the fight and uh i was i was glad i got the first one kind of zapped them a little bit and then i felt like the speed the power a little like those things were off but um yeah i didn't expect to just go trade with them for the next four rounds you know and uh but it worked out and um you know yeah just just glad glad it worked out the way it did but it wasn't the way it was kind of planned to be you know just to stand up and get a a striking fight with with him you know i was planning on more so trying to expose him more for um you know the mixed martial outside the rest on the the the takedown things like that but i have a habit of just getting into wars man like part of me i think just gets in that pocket and i just i'm i'm willing to trade and and uh and gig was well man man is he durable though it was a hell of a fight man what about those elbows you're throwing elbows out there like jabs i mean it's really a thing of beauty was that part of the game plan or is that just something that comes in like when you're i mean to throw that there's not a lot of people who could do that that quickly and that effortlessly with the elbows yeah we were pressuring the whole fight anytime he wasn't kind of giving me uh you know he wasn't giving me space then we were just kind of crashing in and things so um definitely my hands uh you know to save some some abuse that night it was nice to give him a little bit of a break and use the elbows my hands feel pretty good right now it's a plus and um and yeah considering the the type of fight it was i'm feeling pretty great like i said i mean that the tougher ones are sitting with the l when you're healthy yeah and then you gotta you gotta be patient for the next one and it you know it's not so much the physical pain that stuff fades um you know as long as you get the job done in the w then uh then the physical stuff will work itself out and you just heal up the next one but yeah i'm happy to come away with a win uh you know that was one for two for new england fans but uh at least we gave him something to you know wait you bring it listen i'm not talking about i don't know what you're talking about one for two i don't know you're talking about what uh what what is the i don't know what you're saying um you know you know uh you're right moving on yeah next next question as we like to say yes you did the timing i don't know if you know that you probably don't you were locked in but it was amazing like your fight started just as half time started and your fight ended just as third quarter ended it would have been perfect i mean it was great for you know first for fans of the other team it was perfect for us i just i appreciate it and i know i know i know man we deserve it i'm not gonna lie you guys listen that was 20 years man that's that's why it's good timing for the new england cartel we're trying to get that's right you know but it's uh it's a little rough for the other sports teams right now but we're still behind them you know everyone's counting them out but i'm expecting you know it's not what happens it's the bounce back that's right look i mean you are the walking embodiment of that um saw a great photo of you guys afterwards i think it was in the hospital or in the ambulance or somewhere um can you tell us about that interaction what did you guys say to each other yeah just bumping into them left and right uh leading into the fight sometimes it happens sometimes it doesn't but uh going into the hospital after uh we bumped into each other and um you know it's always easy to kind of show each other respect after you you know throw it out with each other for 25 minutes a lot of the motions are kind of settled but um yeah you know just just respect you know tough fight he's durable i hit him with some clean shots that most people i think would have you know took a knee or fell down or or you know he was he was wobbling but never really kind of dropped towards the end of the round i thought it might have had him but uh yeah credit sami held off and it has a hell of a fight so you saw him a lot throughout the week leading up to the fight towards the end just kind of bumping into him and then doing the piss testing you side i saw him out back i'm like you guys yeah you guys don't got any extra damn bathrooms back here you know awkward whatever i mean hey we're professionals man it's not it's really not the biggest deal but it's like you know what whatever uh it's just funny man then i bought the last one yeah all week i'm just kind of bumping into them but like i said man it was more just kind of all that stuff's don't even all the interviews all the crap doesn't matter it boils down to 25 minutes in the octagon and you know all the talking in the world at that point is irrelevant um i was i was looking through the the news this morning i saw this on mma junkie he did a facebook live session last night talking about the fight i just want to read you a quote and get your response if i could he said i up last night but it's all good it's the journey i'm learning from this next time i'm going to come back so much stronger i always already feel bad for my future opponent so i'm going to learn a lot from this one trust me on that also i feel like if i would fight with this guy 10 times nine i would win that would be the one i would lose and that was last night it is what it is i made mistakes and i'm paying uh for that now it's all good i'm unbreakable remember this georgians are always unbreakable this is how we fight until the effing end nine times out of ten did he say that to you in the hospital no no it's it's different when you hear people in person in interviews but i don't take it personal man it's whatever uh you know wish him a speedy recovery bounce back i told him all you can do now is uh make the next guy pay you know that's exactly what i did and you know hopefully hopefully he responds to the loss uh well it doesn't sound like um it's going that way early but hopefully you know he just understands that uh honestly he can understand whatever he wants for me it helped me to just focus on the things i can control and and focus on the comeback but not so much really the last one yeah yeah no i i mean look he's a great fighter anyone who says otherwise is lying we know in mma you can lose once and go and win four in a row and be right back in there three in a row two in a row i do have a hot take for you calvin um you know all this talk about volkonovsky it seems like you know it's gonna be korean zombie but volkanovsky was supposed to fight who next max holloway who you know who was your last loss to max hall i actually feel like you would have a very strong case on this monday to be next in line for a title shot more so than korean zombie i mean if you look at your last few fights in zombies last few fights and you didn't say a word of that you didn't say a word of that leading into the fight you didn't say a word of it leading out of the fight and i think that says a lot about you you know what i'm saying because you could sit here right now and be like yo put my resume of the last few fights up to you know up against zombies yours is actually just as impressive if not more impressive your loan loss is to the guy who was supposed to fight for the belt to a lot of people think is the uncrowned champ you know what i'm saying i know exactly what you're saying man a lot of a lot of these guys think you know they can cut the line with their mouths rather than earn it earning it with their fights you know and um that's not my style i i i rather talk less about it go out and prove it and um because that's the only thing that really matters man go out and earn your title shots i know guys like max does like uh you know volvo and rc they want contenders they they they can see through the um you know more than the casual other people that that are chiming in but um all i'm trying to do is prove that i'm i'm the number one contender and uh fight anybody that i have to in order to to go and get these big opportunities man like the maxes and the alices and um yeah great checkpoint i'm happy to be in this top five division with these guys and um and yeah like i i don't i don't like not as post fight i'm down to talk about prior man it just seems like uh um you know uh mismanaged focus you know i mean yeah you can't really control the fight with the champ you have a fight with me kind of overlooking me and i definitely took that personally as they said uh i i love the idea of if obviously you know they go in the direction of volkanovsky zombie i love the idea of you versus ortega or you versus yay rodriguez next do you like those and if so do you have a preference i don't really for i don't care for really any of them honestly whatever one gets me uh the biggest opportunities biggest pays rinse and repeat all of them they're all tough guys they all present problems you know you got to go in and put together a game plan and um they're all they're all the same to me in a sense you know give or take they're all tough they all present problems but um yeah as far as that that main event uh title fight i know champ uh um crown champ max always next in line but um you know should he he not be recovered by the time uh the fight happens or or situation makes sense i know zombie wasn't planning on on you know kind of jumping the line at what was he for or something like that so uh crazy things have happened but i'll be ready to go just in case uh you know i know things are in shambles a little bit right now so all i can do is focus on being ready as possible should i get that call but either way i'm excited to see the division moving again i know for a year or two ago it was kind of stuck and and mud a little bit and at least we're seeing some fights happening and um it's exciting time to be part of the featherweight division i told you i'd let you go at 10 15 vegas time so i shall let you go just a very quick thing uh perfect world when do you want to return like springish april something like that april may yeah i don't need any i don't need any help missing this flight yeah pretty good job but uh yeah i'm just i'm healthy like i said just uh getting back uh i'll be ready to go when something that makes sense to present itself you know i stay in the gym um just nothing else to do but get back to work right now man i'm not i'm not uh i'm not satisfied so uh back to work and ready for the next big opportunity all right uh go get your flight man thank you for doing this i really appreciate it congrats on the win and uh congrats on shutting a lot of people up thank you bro i appreciate you all right there he is calvin kater joining us kind enough to join us before he flies out and heads off to new england and you'll recall uh we had him on around the time that the bills were gonna play the patriots on monday night football uh he rubbed it in we then went to new england beat them i didn't say anything because i knew the playoffs were coming and i made him a promise i wouldn't rub it in but you know how we're feeling on this victory monday one of the all-time great sporting events that i've ever witnessed and i don't wanna you know i'm not gonna be that guy like coach mcdermott says humble and hungry okay you gotta be humble and hungry job's not done shout out to the late great kobe bryant member of our staff is a is a patriots fan joe so i don't want to rub it in i don't want to be insufferable but you have to understand 20 years of beatdowns you know brings out some emotions uh and that was just i mean something special the mica hyde interception i mean josh allen more touchdowns and incompletions i mean one of the all-time great performances in the history of sports if i'm being honest i'm not trying to be too hyperbolic here but in the intro i mean i just in the history of sports it's just one of the all-time great uh sporting events of my lifetime at least i don't know about your lifetime my lifetime you know we've got a big comeback uh you know big revenge game on um on sunday so we'll see uh you know we'll see how that plays out sunday 6 30. you'll know where i'll be a little revenge for now though let us move along to our next guest um i can't promise that this topic won't come up throughout the show i just want to let you all know be prepared all you patriots fans in your feelings i come in peace i just i can't help it sometimes okay i love you guys i respect you guys we're all friends kumbaya my lord kumbaya but it just it comes out uh big news last week we found out that misha tate going down to 125 and she had been teasing this hinting at it for quite some time so i said you know what we need to talk to cupcake tate about this so without further ado let's go to the zoo machine and now say hello to misha tay we're keeping things rolling here this morning hello misha how are you hi i'm good happy monday happy monday to you too and thank you for joining us i know you have your show coming up at 2 p.m eastern on sirius xm throwing it down with renee and misha i still feel like it should be misha and renee if i'm being honest a side you know oh thank you i mean a compliment i'm going to put it in is great though so it's you know playing second fiddle to her is no no offense she's she's fantastic she's got a great sense of humor so i'm a lot of times i find myself trying to keep up with her on the radio i must i must say i'm a massive renee fan i'm just trying to stir the pot here a little bit uh and she's a canadian sister so i'm a big fan of hers and yours so big news is this happening 125 is this a real thing you going down yes that is my intention i have made the commitment to go down to 125. why well a few reasons i think i automatically assumed that 135 was always my weight class because that's all there ever was when i got into strikeforce it was only 135 and 145 and uh when i got into the ufc it was only 135 and by the time 125 came around i was just so enveloped at 135 trying to win that title and the rivalry obviously with rhonda and then you know i did win it with against holly but as the sport has evolved i've just very rarely ever had a reach advantage i've rarely had a height advantage and i started thinking about things like you know josie aldo dropping weight classes you know there's been a a a lot of different instances um henry cejudo you know what he did he did it was a two-way class yet but even valentina shafshanko you know she was she was uh a great a great fighter at 135 but she was never dominant and um i've just seen it now a lot of times where i think that that might be my my true weight class if i'm being honest i think that i could actually have some physical advantages in that weight class that i i rarely have at 135 uh i don't feel like there's a strength discrepancy at 135 but i can only imagine fighting women that are built to be 10 pounds smaller could lend itself to to really showing my greatness as opposed to fighting these goliaths you know where i just feel like i feel like i've got to give it a shot right i've got to give it a shot uh was there something in particular about that fight against caitlyn vieira that made you think all right it's time to do this she was very long in her reach she was you know she had a really long yeah she had a really long reach so that was certainly something that factored in she felt really tall and just big inside there absolutely um again i don't feel like it was a strength thing i don't feel like that's a fight that i couldn't have won i didn't i didn't win it and i still think that looking back on it i'm kind of kicking myself for for not being more aggressive and more wrestling heavy but um it wasn't just that fight in particular this is just a a career move that i think could be more promising for for becoming a champion and um you know another reason although i know i'm a little bit of ways from a bit away from getting a potential title shot but uh with julie being crowned the champion at 135 also i would just prefer if we could be champions at the same time together and uh pacific northwest takeover yes i like that as well um do you also feel regardless of juliana's status is there a part of you that feels like the road to the championship because there just aren't a ton of big names at 125 and also valentina has beaten all the contenders i mean i think her next opponent might be tyla santos who's like eight or nine at this point just because she's beating everyone else it's just a little shorter to get a title shot at 125 as opposed to 35. it is and i can absolutely always go back up to 135. so i feel like this is kind of a no harm no foul it's something that would bother me if i didn't pursue it because it's been on my mind for a while i've really been weighing out all of the options and seeing some of the women who were meant to be at 125 once they once they went down and were really shining i think valentina would be the best case to draw that that kind of scenario um maybe 125 was always where i was meant to be i mean if i if if i'm being honest with you um my first fight back with marion renault the morning of the fight so after making 136 or i think i weighed in at 135 actually uh i only got back up to 139 pounds so i'm not putting on the size and the weight uh and it's but you know it's by design i don't want to have large weight cuts however that was a non-existent weight cut wow there i didn't even cut weights super easy so so it's just that i think that my frame and my build and everything that uh could come together really well for me at 125. now um you know in life uh we are obviously told the you know the the gentlemen are told not never to ask a woman about her weight but we are talking about the way cl is fighting is different right different rules could i ask like right now ish like when you're not in camp what do you walk around at low low 140s okay so this shouldn't be too bad for you right i mean are you dreading it how do you feel no i don't think so i don't think it's going to be too bad for me it's just a matter of being diligent and just changing a bit of the program design i don't want to have a big weight cut but i'm okay with having a weight cut and the you know the last camp i was a little bit bigger just a couple pounds we had put on some muscle um i had a very small easy weight cut i think the weight cut will be you know slightly more intense but um i just need to focus on getting body mass down to a reasonable area to cut but i don't think i'm very far off from that i know a lot of 125 pound women who sit right at about 140 pounds that's about average for a 125 pound female outside of camp and that's where i sit also so i think that maybe maybe this might be the right move i hope was there any part of you in addition to you know her length and all that that in retrospect felt you know because we were talking hey you win this fight you could be next for amanda all that stuff was there any part of you that uh maybe looked past caitlyn in retrospect honestly i knew that caitlyn some great things that she she could bring to the fight i don't feel like i looked past her because i always know in the moment you know and i'm only i'm never going to change that i'm always going to have my short mid and long term goals and i think that's okay it would be ridiculous to say i'm not gonna fight i'm already looking at valentina you know what i mean like whoever that i end up fighting at 125 i mean the long-term goal is that so i'm always going to have that long-term goal and i don't think that anyone should be faulted for that and i don't think that um i look past her at all no not whatsoever i mean i i definitely thought i was focused on that fight i know i was focused on that fight at that time i think what ended up happening is that um the coroner was very chill and i stayed very chill the whole fight i kind of didn't get that feedback of like hey now's the time to go and you know it's it's just tough it was it was a tough dynamic it was a learning situation i look at that fight as a bit of a sophomore slump if it was of any fight that i was going to lose in my comeback that was the fight to lose and it was close i mean it really came down to one round um that's i lost one round more than you know she did the last three rounds to one although i disagree with round one of all the rounds i really thought that round one was my round um i ended up on top i had any of the clinch control this i even had the striking count i feel like i was more aggressive it wasn't like a like a landslide by any means but you know marginally i thought i won the round in each area marginally um but all three judges scored that round against me so that was really interesting but um regardless i didn't walk away with the win i did never put my foot on the gas pedal the other thing is that my conditioning is so good that i've never experienced this before where i don't feel tired i don't feel the level of exhaustion that i would recognize in my other fights that would tell me this is the time that you've got to go you know when you start feeling that that point of tired sometimes you've got to put a little more so that you can get it to a place where you could rest if you needed to or you've got you've just got to push beyond that wall i never even hit that so i'm kicking myself for it because i know i had so much more to offer and that's the worst feeling worse than a loss is to know that you didn't put everything out there and i didn't realize that five rounds had gone by i mean it just kind of flew by and i was like wait a minute we're done and what can i say you know i i made a mistake and i'm gonna correct that will you change anything in the corner for for the next one i believe that i will have eric nixik back into the corner um he wasn't a part of this corner for a couple reasons one i needed a body i needed somebody my size and um maida my training partner she spoke portuguese which i felt like was important so um and johnny was important to be in there and then obviously rick is but the the hard part about rick is being remote you know he's not here all the time and so there was a little bit of uh miscommunications in the corner and it wasn't anybody you know there's no fingers to be pointed nobody did anything malicious so we didn't think bad it's just that it's difficult to orchestrate a camp when you know one of your coaches is not able to be here the majority of the time so i i need somebody who can be hands-on who can tell me you know that's there every day that sees my work that can communicate what i need to do so i think that eric bringing him back into the corner is something that i'm probably going to look to do by the way why did you need someone who spoke portuguese um because i thought it was important to know what they were telling her in the corner interesting okay and and so was she relaying that info to you she was relaying it to the corner however it didn't get relayed in the messaging so that was a little bit of a disappointment as well but it's it's hard you know this is a hard job to do um i think if i had known that they were scolding her for shooting i definitely think that could have changed things a little bit as well i wasn't aware of that and i wasn't aware that they were just trying to time the right hand you know these are things that when you're in the apex if somebody was speaking english i would be hearing it too you know what i mean but not knowing those things so i didn't i wasn't aware of that during the fight um yeah it probably could have changed things a little bit for me you like the lauren murphy matchup if that's the fight that's next i do i like that a lot um you know i i have not been officially uh scheduled about so i don't know who it'll be for sure but if it's somebody in the top five i'll be really excited the way that i would i mean it could definitely be lauren and if i fought lauren murphy you know it took valentina four rounds to take her out um i've got three i would i would i think it would make a pretty good case she just fought for the title right so yeah that would be a good one and i'm a major fan of lauren i love her to death she's just awesome and a great fighter so that would be a very fun fight is there any chance it's not lauren is that possible i haven't signed a bad agreement okay absolutely all right so i i have not even been presented about agreement so i don't know for sure but um yeah there's definitely definitely a chance it's not lauren do you like the idea of fighting in may i do i think that's perfect timing for me i think we're on schedule to to make 126 by may um i probably could have even done it a little bit sooner but i think may 14th is a good date for me uh there was some back and forth with aspen it didn't seem like you really considered that right to stick around at 135 to settle whatever issues there were between you guys that wasn't something really top of mind uh no it just it wasn't very interesting i just want to know that she's on par to make 135 i um it's not personal for me it's i don't really i don't have a vendetta against aspen lad i just call it like it is and the truth hurts sometimes and it defends people and that's how i see it so i understand that it probably ruffled her feathers it wasn't probably what she wanted to hear about not you know about manipulating the weight on the scale and things like that but yeah if i come back to 135 and if she can consistently make it it's not a fight that i'm avoiding um i think she's a great fighter um and we'll see what happens but i it from my humble opinion i think that 145 is probably a more well-suited weight class for her anyways so i think we're a ways off from that but no not not not a fight that i'm avoiding just not a fight that i'm interested until i know i'm not wasting my time and you know ariel you're a parent you're a busy man i mean could you imagine if you went and did all this preparation and work and then all of a sudden whatever that opportunity was was just off through no fault of your own i don't want to take that risk so you know someone else can can do it irene irene yeah she i think she agreed to take that fight so i hope that it works out i hope that aspen can make the way um yeah i don't wish her any ill will were you surprised i know you have a relationship with her you know very well but juliana beating amanda one of the biggest upsets that we've ever seen were you surprised when that happened or were you really confident of course there's an element of surprise amanda seemed almost unstoppable at the time however i was the one person advocating saying julie has a path to victory here you guys i mean yes amanda is deadly and if she hits anybody they can go down and she does it really well so yes this is this is a challenge for her however you know julie is not someone to be intimidated by all of the other hype and all of the other things you know at the end of the day julie breaks it down very simply she's just another woman and i love that approach um julie had the right mentality and she had the tools to beat it and that's another thing that i said was we haven't seen somebody take amanda to the ground and in a really long time and put or put her in compromising positions in a really long time and i knew julie was the person to be able to do that so i was really happy really happy for her it seems like no one's giving her any kind of respect going into a potential rematch like everyone thinks like oh of course amanda slipped and she'll write the wrong oh and beat her they're crazy i think she wins the rematch i don't think her yes absolutely i i'm she just has a no quit no give up mentality and and now that the seed of doubt has been planted in amanda's mind that's probably where um i see the biggest change going and that's not a that's that's you know not going to favor amanda by the way historically when a champion has a belt loses it and they run it back right away right so in this case amanda fighting historically that person who had the belt i think nine times out of ten loses if you look at the history of the ufc there is something to be said for maybe getting another fight building your confidence back up and then fighting that person that beat you right exactly yes yeah it makes sense because once someone dethrones you it's just such a big tumble and then you've gotta try to fix all fix the things and and the the mental shift that happens in all of that i can only imagine it's very challenging to try to get right back up there and fight the person who just figured out how to unlock pandora's box you know i mean like how do you how do you come up with something that they haven't seen if you don't have time to develop or maybe try it on someone someone else you know i wanted to ask you this before i let you go uh because you i know you have your show to do so last week we had kevin holland on the show um and he's fighting alex oliveira cowboy oliveira he announced this news via his only fans uh you can probably guess where i'm going with this and you have taken on the entire only fans community misha holy smokes because i guess you made a comment and then everyone came after you fighters i think adult films like everyone came after you it was like left and right i saw you trying to fight off everyone like in the cartoons when all the bad guys what happened here and do you want to what what pissed them off so much and do you want to clarify any stance of yours towards going the only fan's route yes first of all this was not a public statement although i understand whatever i say on the internet even if it is just a comment back to a fan on my youtube channel not something i've met publicly that yes it can be taken out of context and the media can take and do what they want i would like to note that none of the headlines actually quoted me they only used one word that i used um but i have been getting a lot of comments and even to the point where i feel like it's like harassing me like leave me alone i i don't want to have an only fans i don't want to do that because i feel like in my position people are already recall calling for my retirement they're already writing me off you know and i've worked so hard for so long being a pioneer of this sport that i will do everything that i can to be taken as serious as i can and this is my personal this is not a reflection of how anyone else chooses to lead their life or if they feel good about doing only fans then great do it i i have no problem with women going out there men going out there whoever wants to get on only fans do it but for me i don't want to be perceived as someone who is is fighting as a secondary you know or getting attention for fighting as a secondary i don't want only fans to be the reason that people uh are interested in me so that's just how i choose i'm engaged i'm a mother of two and i let one fan kind of piss me off and and because it was accumulating of people a star only fans retired doing only fans you're tired doing only fans and i'm like guys i'm not desperate for that you know i want to fight i don't i don't need money and that's kind of where my where the clarification goes for that it's like i'm not i wouldn't just go and sell my cell phone only fans for just money i don't need money and i'm not doing this for money i'm i'm okay guys like i'm okay and the word choice i used was wrong and i'm very sorry if it offended anybody who hasn't only fans because it certainly was not my intention i was not targeting anybody and i think uh look i love kendra lust i've i i'm just a big supporter of any we don't get to say women but in people in general but i'm such a big supporter and proponent of women doing whatever they want yeah well long live america like i love the fact that we can have the choices and i completely support it i'm just afraid that for my personal journey people would judge me and look at me like oh she just came back to fighting and now she's just going to sell her you know making only fans like and it's just not where i want to go as you know as the mom of two and as a as a fiance so that's i hope clarifies where i was coming from you know i support anybody doing whatever it is that makes them happy but on my personal journey i would just appreciate it if the fans would stop asking me to do that that is very fair i would say the naive person in me would say there's probably a compliment in there when they're telling you to do that right when they're saying hey like no one's no one's coming to me to ask me to start and only fans if i'm being honest so there's a compliment in there but the fact that you were i understand that they were offended by the word desperate and it sounds like you regret using that word but the fact that anything like this idea that someone sli the one thing and i guess people could call it cancel this whatever this idea that you can slip up once in a non-offensive way like you did not use any derogatory term racist term anything like that and now and you were i saw you getting harassed about this it's just yeah it ruins the social media experience for everyone so i think you've explained yourself quite well and i'm sorry that you thank you so much yeah and i do sincerely apologize if it hurt like annie i did not want to hurt anyone's feelings or make them feel bad for having only fans like you want to have one go for it i support it 100 but please you guys stop asking that of me because it's not the direction i want to go i want to pursue fighting and i appreciate we can all have our individual choice so let me have mine yes amen and you've launched a youtube channel as well where you kind of first put out this 125 135 thing what what is what is the uh the url or they just search for misha tate that pops up yes yeah do you just search for me should i say it it'll pop up and um yeah oh gosh if i even know the exact url i don't know you guys are gonna find it it's not difficult to find it's all over my instagram if you want to i appreciate you guys supporting that um do try to put out news and unique content that you're not gonna find anywhere else um so thank you for that and and tune in to our radio show siriusxm throwing down with renee and misha's coming up right after this show actually right after this so i will let you go uh thank you as always for making time for us misha good luck with the move down to 125 and yes do check out thrown down with either renee and misha or misha and renee whichever way you want to go uh on siriusxm at uh 2pm eastern appreciate you very much misha all the best appreciate it thank you talk to you soon there she is the one and only misha tate uh yes officially moving down to 125. interesting uh to hear what she had to say there about uh lauren murphy about that not being a hundred percent just yet it has been uh widely reported everywhere so you know she said very good chance it could be lauren and uh she hasn't gone to the bout agreement yet but uh that would be you know i think an appropriate fight for her flyweight debut and and yes there aren't a ton of options right now for valentina shivchenko at 125 just because she's beaten everyone i think the santos fight makes a lot of sense but she's beaten andraj she's beating true cake in kagan one is a really interesting situation because she just won again on saturday but she's a free agent she's kind of in that weird yushinokami john fitch territory of many moons ago where she's really good she's beating the majority of the fighters in the top 10 that she faces but she lost to the champion and i don't think there's a huge demand just given her style to see her fight for the belt again or to fight in a number one contender fight and so i'm really curious to see what the ufc does with caitlyn chukaygan like they could send a message here that which they've sent in the past but with fitch and okami it was after a loss they were just released so i'm curious like right now as far as the ufc official rankings are concerned she's second uh what what a interesting statement that would be if they don't resign her and she seemed to feel 50 50 in the post fight that she'd get a new contract from the ufc what's interesting is obviously in the pfl there's no 125 she could go to bellator they have a 125 pound division um not a ton of names at 125 but there is an option there for her but it's just really interesting when you have these weight classes where there's a really dominant champion she's beating everyone there and you have to go all the way down to you know like number eight i see right now santos is number five but i think they just you know slowly but surely move her up because the title shot is coming misha tate goes in there and beats lauren murphy you would think maybe one more and they might feel compelled to do that misha tate versus valentina shivchenko fight so thank you very much to misha looking forward to that um in around 17 or so minutes we're going to be joined by al jermaine sterling after that michael venom page later on in the program alex volkanovski i can't wait to talk to alex volkonovsky about the last two weeks in his life going from agreeing somewhat to fight max holloway then finding out 48 hours later that max holloway is out then this whole thing about you know are you fighting this guy everyone's coming after him giga is coming after him so who does coming after him yair is saying put me in there emmett saying put me in there of course we end up with the zombie the one guy who really didn't complain campaign all that much so i'm really curious to see how he feels about everything and like i said last week on this show what did i say last week on this show in fact i do think we have the clip what did i say speaking to new york rick last week about the whole giga cater thing we have that clip could we run that clip because i saw some people say prove to me where you said this like i need to go and be your personal tv guide your personal google machine and i need to go find the clip for you no i said it 9 000 times last week here's the clip of me reminding you all not to count out calvin kate it's not announced it's still close it's pretty damn good it's close but look if if giga puts on that you know i mean i think by saturday you think it'll be done before then all right at least last i heard i mean i haven't checked my phone and stuff like that i'll also say that it has been disrespectful to calvin keator like people are just talking like this fight isn't even happening well fair fair for sure but i think from the perspective what about gigas i'm like you do know he's fighting someone like you could say why not wait for guillotine but i i've heard people just say like what about you like yo he's fighting captain fighting keeper he's fighting calvin cater what did i say to all of you stop disrespecting this man did you guys forget how good max holloway is did you forget just how good he is did you forget that it's not that bad to lose to him and yes i know it was one-sided and yes i know he took a lot of shots and yes i know he was never really in that fight all of a sudden you guys are pretending like you know calvin cater is freaking iron mike sharp okay if you get the reference he's freaking barry horowitz out there now i will say this i think a lot of the talk from giga's social media wasn't coming from giga especially the stuff about me so i like giga a lot i would you know say to him that he's going to bounce back and he's going to be right back in there and he's going to be a top contender at 145 he's supremely talented guy so don't fall into that whole mess of the social media and the trash talk and all that stuff but i would say a lot of people were just pretending like calvin wasn't going to be there and saying what about giga what about giga what about giga and what i said there was okay you can maybe talk about it on sunday or monday after the fight but talking about it last week is just a crazy thing calvin keator's really good he's really good and as what i was saying to him one second here let me pull this up i was saying to calvin this so i'm by the way for the record i'm totally fine with the korean zombie fight i think it's fun there's a history there i'm totally fine zombies what let's go last four fights so dating back to 2018 win over hannah to moycano tko win over frankie edgar tko decision loss to brian ortega unanimous decision over dan ige i think it's a fine resume to have going into that you want to compare it to calvin calvin's last four fights ko of jeremy stevens decision over ige lost to holloway beat giga it's very close like if there's anyone here who actually might have a case to be upset it's actually calvin keator the one guy who hasn't brought any of this up the one guy who didn't open his mouth last week and rightfully so because he was coming off the loss going into that fight but i think that's super interesting now in the end you know zombie will get it and i have no problem with that and i think a fight between calvin cater and brian ortega rodriguez makes a hell of a lot of sense now i would lean towards ortega if only because ortega's last fight was in september and yair's last fight was in what december what was that december right was that december like early december so no no sorry uh it was after the msg card so midish november early to mid-november so he took you know a ton of shots in that fight and i think he's probably gonna need a little more time than ortega who fought two months prior uh so i'm leaning towards that but either one of those to me are the no-brainer now the one guy that doesn't get talked about enough is josh emmett and he figures to be in that mix as well and we still don't know how long max holloway is going to be out for it could be a month it could be six months his situation is still very much up in the air so i think they're making the right call i think everyone needs to chill volkanovsky zombies a fun fight stylistically i i can't see any scenario that it's a boring fight you got cater back and there's a lesson to be learned here for everyone don't look past your opponent i mean misha was talking about titles don't look past your opponent not in this game not with how talented these fighters are now the henry sahudo situation is super interesting wow that is a really interesting situation and i love what i'm hearing from henry it's about time we get this henry the gimmick wasn't working for the last two years i was listening to henry do a bunch of interviews a bunch of clips he takes off the crown and he's shooting from the hip and you could tell he's annoyed you could tell he's perturbed you can tell he's emotional again i said it last week his frustrations were misplaced misdirected he was calling volkanovsky x y and z volkanovsky's not the guy who didn't give you the title shot in fact and we'll ask him i think volkanovsky would be into that fight because of the uniqueness and the historical angle to it all the ufc never called him they never made the offer and i think again not trying to be a broken record here but i think the lesson that henry is learning and a lot of other fighters should learn don't retire out of the blue in the heat of the moment on the ufc don't leave them high and dry now you can bring up gsp all you want you can't compare the draw that was gsp to the draw that is henry sudo that's just i mean that's just as unbiased and factual as it can get pull up the numbers the gates the pay-per-views and put them aside side-by-side i mean there's no comparison there and so yes conor will get special treatment george will get special treatment draws get special treatment stars get special treatment that's just the way it goes not only in fighting but in all sports and all walks of life and so you can't bring that up but this notion that like i heard dana on saturday say like isn't he retired well yeah i mean guys do retire and come back but the fact that he keeps bringing that up something that happened almost two years ago now may will be two years shows you just how annoyed they were that was a big deal for them that that fight remember that fight card that was the first fight card back may 9th i think 2020 2020 pandemic all eyes on the ufc huge buy rate co-main event cruz cejudo and then what's one of the big stories coming out of it cejudo retiring on the spot left them high and dry they don't like that now i don't regret everyone is allowed to retire everyone's allowed to do whatever the hell they want everyone can retire whenever they should be able to retire but they are allowed to feel a certain way about it now what's going to be interesting is how long left on that contract because every contract at some point has a term has an ending so we're now two years in did he sign a new deal before that fight does he have a year left because at some point he has to say like hey guys you got to give me a fight i want to come back unless he's just saying i'm only coming back for a volkanovsky which i would advise would be misguided the ufc has done these special things in the past they will do these special things in the past but a they weren't happy with what he did and b he just doesn't have that cop but i would say to henry this is nice this is refreshing it's nice to see this henry back this is the henry that we first fell in love with that we were first drawn to the gimmick is fun but every gimmick needs to evolve over time uh we've been using the same one for two and a half years three years and so it was really i was like wow i miss this henry now he has to be careful and i think he'll ultimately be fine you know he's got the right management he's got the right people representing him i think he'll ultimately be fine but he's going into some interesting dicey dicey territory there he's talking about the hall of fame and some frustrations and the fighters and their place and the companies i mean interesting stuff but again like i said last week i would be down to see that fight i think alex would be down to see that fight i think most people ultimately would be down to see that fight if there was ever time to make that fight it was now because there was no other rightful number one contender just waiting in the wings once max was forced to withdraw i don't see anyone really campaigning against it but you you see i mean like we know dana by now you know when he is annoyed you know when he is holding on to a grudge or feeling a certain way you know when he's not going to look like they could bend the rules they could do whatever they want and they could spin it whichever way they want i mean they could sit here and make a very good case for connor to fight oliveira next and everyone would eat it up and watch it there's no rhyme or reason there's no third party it's the wild west and so i get it cejudo probably feels like hey man two division champion olympic gold medalist let me cut the line and historically we have seen people cut the line conor didn't have a fight at 1 55 george didn't have a fight at 185 and everyone loved those fights but i think he's finding out that you can't leave him high and dry and you know he's just not that draw and that sucks i think if he came back on the show the draw you know the would rise a little bit but you know what can we say this one come on i mean kind of last time he was on you know i helped him with the bella twins and now look wow al joe healer he's here early is that what i'm reading that's cool um so anyway yeah yeah no problem if he's here you could bring him on so interesting times at 1 35 uh interesting times at 1 45 of course we've got the heavyweight title on the line uh it is pay-per-view fight week ufc 270 125 title on the line brandon moreno davis figueretto of course the big one francine ghana surreal gun i heard dana say on saturday in the post fight press conference no mention of uh phil's past on saturday in the post-white frescon so i was i was looking for but no mention but i did hear him say something like this is this is you know a promoter's dream vince couldn't even script this yes the former training partners uh you know cyril from france uh francis moved to france now they split up i mean like the whole backstory is great for the heavyweight title he didn't mention this part but the contract as well makes it supremely interesting right if francis loses on saturday he can walk away as a free agent if he wins he'll have to stay till the end of the year but he's already saying like i ain't fighting unless i get a new deal so i'm either sitting out now that could get dicey as well um you know with the champions clause and the extending of the contract but they believe and they they've said that they have looked over the contract in-house and independently that come december 31st 2022 regardless of how many fights he's had this year regardless of everything else they believe that they are free agents they believe that they can move on come december 31st 2020 2022 that would be insane that's never happened before that would be that would be ric flair showing up with the nwa title that would be alundra blaise aka medusa showing up on nitro with the wwf belt you get my point so there is so much at stake here and the one thing i would say or i'd say a few things about the fight surreal ghan is a tremendous fighter and his sort of lesser fair attitude about everything and not really being involved in the feud is going to serve him very well it's almost like he's oblivious to it all and i know part of that is you know what he's saying in the public of course he knows what's going on and of course he wants to win for his team and his head coach but i think he's handling it very well he's young he's supremely talented he's relatively still new to the game he's supremely athletic i mean this is a great fighter who's going to be around for a very long time jon jones doesn't want to fight sir again that's not a great matchup now what's super interesting about this is historically when we see situations like this where it feels like someone isn't just preparing to fight an opponent there's a lot on his mind or her mind there's a lot on their shoulders it doesn't bode well when it feels like you're fighting everyone the machine the system the promotion the fans uh the coach the the promoter every if you're the media if it feels like you're fighting too many people it doesn't seem to bode well i mean i remember when we saw tony ferguson return against charles oliveira felt like he was fighting everyone and we've seen countless examples of this it does not bode well and so i hope for francis to say clear mind full heart can't lose steal praise from friday night lights but you know what i'm saying he can't go in there feeling like he is fighting the ufc he can't go in there feeling like he is fighting for all the frustrations of the past what is it nine months ten months he can't go in there feeling like he has to you know hit a home run because he needs to get that big contract in fact i would say that probably that mindset probably hurt giga in this fight on saturday all the talk about title shot let me go in there let me knock this guy's head off let me hit a grand slam and look what happened didn't work out francis needs to go in there calm cool and collected and everything else will take care of itself on the back end of that fight if he wins if he wins he has a tremendous amount of leverage a tremendous amount of power he will hopefully get what he wants and i would also argue if he loses i still foresee a scenario where he stays there's still a lot he loses a surreal god there i mean and especially depending on how he loses if it's a decision or something like that there's a lot of value in francis and ganu there is still a ton of value in francis inganu so francis will be fine of course everything will be different if he wins he's supposed to lose his francis will be fine this isn't the end of he's not fighting for his career he's not fighting for any of that type of stuff but he is fighting for leverage he is fighting for that big payday and you just hope that he is not fighting everyone on saturday he is not fighting the man the promoter the media because historically more often than not it does not bode well when you've got all that going on in your mind all that on your shoulders all that frustration fascinating fight rarely have we seen these fights in ufc history former training partners now foes you know we always were asking about the josh koscheck john fitch fight back in the day that's when they were teammates rory mcdonald george st pierre that's when they were teammates of course the one that never happened which is somewhat of a shame tj dillashaw and uriah faber never came to fruition it's very rare to see this especially at this level right especially at the very top for the heavyweight championship and golly let's hope we get more than one heavyweight title fight in 2022 it has been a long long time i mean the last time we got one was what three years ago four years ago when dc fought stipe in july and then he fought derek lewis and that one kind of came together really quickly it's been a long time since we've had more than one heavyweight title fight in a calendar year and so hopefully we're getting this fight you know january 22nd we'll uh we'll get a second one at some point and hell maybe a third one that would be fun as well i can't wait for that fight i can't wait for the figuredo uh versus moreno fight i thought um i thought it was interesting to hear dana say on saturday that you know they're not in charge of the pay-per-view price hike did feel a little bit like you know the old reebok excuse you know like reebok's the one that won't let arjun buller come out with the turban of course but he is right about something i mean they they obviou i would be very surprised if they don't have some kind of say in all this but he is right about this espn did buy the rights exclusively to the pay-per-views here in america and so ultimately they can do whatever they want can they sell it for thirty dollars as opposed to 75 i mean i suppose but remember the fighters get a cut of the pay-per-view at least the champions so their cut would be affected that's why it's not as simple as hey they could do it whatever they want and we're going to do whatever we want like it no there's a great relationship there they weren't blindsided by this so a bit of a passing of the book it's not the best pay-per-view on paper and i've seen some fans complain about that i saw a crazy stat here from mike bond let me pull this up which was i thought very telling [Music] of the pay-per-view is mike bond of mma junkie ufc 270 has eight fighters set to make their ufc debut the most on a pay-per-view slash numbered card since ufc 180 in november of 2014. remember that one that was in mexico there were a lot of tough fighters on that one the eight debuts are most for a ufc show overall since ufc fight night 157 in august of 2019 which also had eight eight debuts on a pay-per-view is a lot there are some good names here and some familiar names kay hansen matt fravola trevin giles adolfo vieira cody stamen nurmagomedov michelle pejeda but yes it is it is lacking then of course there's the ilia taporia fight which was probably the third most interesting fight on the card uh because he is an absolute stud undefeated 11-0 coming off that knockout of ryan hall prior to that knockout of damon jackson he was supposed to fight mozar evloave evloev withdrew but it seems like we're going to get charles jourdain in there the canadian air jordan and he is coming off a decision win over andre ewell back in december so to me card like this two massive title fights at the top the trilogy figuerado moreno really curious to see how figuerado looks in this fight how the weight cut goes i saw the picture of him which i posted on twitter he looks absolutely shredded he looks incredible holy smokes he looks shredded and then moreno in his first title defense so that's big and then the main event is tremendous like i know the 75 sucks it's not great and especially you've got izzy and whitaker you got izzy and whitaker in three weeks it's not even like a full month later right february 12 22 to 29 29 yeah that's three weeks later that's a lot to ask of your fan base in addition to plus in addition to the zone um if you're a boxing fan right in addition to showtime cable if you want to watch any of this stuff as well it's a lot i get it i get it i would say though those two title fights at the top are tremendous that is that is big time stuff and i've seen some people say like hey you know they're not promoting francis and they're not promoting this card to hurt france's pay-per-view points and all this stuff i i don't really see much difference to be honest like this is just the way it goes it goes week to week unless there's a big gap unless there's a long layoff it's pretty much week to week you're not going to hear a ton about it i mean you'll see some tweets here and there but you're not going to see anything out of the norm again remember the pay-per-view is already sold so it's on espn to go out there and so maybe this you know this evening monday night football there's the weird playoff game first time ever cards and rams i'm assuming you'll see some commercials that would make sense if i were them i would do a quick spot during half time how many people are going to be watching that so we'll see before comple the promotion really starts monday no one's buying pay-per-views early no one's buying them on tuesday but you know everyone's buying them on saturday maybe friday no one's buying it on thursday or wednesday but the promotion starts today for this right coming off a relatively thin car promotion starts today let's see what they do between now and and saturday let's see if they promote surreal more than francis i would say tonight's football game monday night football espn abc cards rams first one in history the numbers are going to be through the roof let's see how much attention is paid to that fight and let's see if it's weighted more towards cyril than francis it shall be telling for now though let us move along to our next guest and say hello to the reigning defending ufc bantamweight champion so we thought it was going to go down in march it's now going down april 9th it's al jamaine sterling who of course is going up against his good friend and uh of course bitter rival purely on here's al joe funk master himself oh there he is wow look at those guns dang shred it you don't make them like this anymore no they don't make them like this anymore look at you uh well thank you for joining us as always how we feeling how we i mean we we look good it looks like you are in tremendous shape it looks like you could fight this weekend al joe you're shredded i don't even want to show you the abs i'm not going to show you the abs i don't want to do that to the viewers no you can i'm ready to go man we're pg over here i'm telling you that much i saw that video that you posted of you doing like the the guitar thing you were looking shredded when you posted that whenever that was like a week ago or so yeah yeah when they announced that the uh fight was going to be pushed back um i was i'm in great shape right now man and it's unfortunate once again the fight gets pushed back and i have to take my foot off the gas the same way when we had the first fight for december 12th that yon pulled out for three weeks before the fight he pulls he pulls out for personal reasons whatever that means i'll let the viewers let their imaginations run well because i don't know what that means he had his visa that ufc told me he was injured he wasn't injured because he was working out and he sent me a video on instagram a voice note pretty much saying he wants to fight with me but we can't fight right right right now i don't know what the hell that means so unless he's on the the extra supplements i don't know that good old acai um it's just it's just annoying to have to get into shape and then have to figure out a way to pull it back the right way and time it right so that you're not over training or you don't get bumps and bruises here and there so that you can have a good training camp you know so here we are again april 9th so you were told march 5th right initially you were so and what was the reason that you were given as to why it got moved to april 9th i was told that he wasn't vaccinated this is what i was told for real so then i go out and i say this and then young he decides to chime in and listen i respect his stance on the vaccination thing like it should be your choice no one should be telling us to get mandates that we have to do this with our bodies or have to do this with our kids that's just absurd this is a free country you're supposed to have freedom of choice and the doctors are supposed to give you all the education that you should know to make an educated decision decision on whether or not you want to do that so if that was really the case i respect the stance but at the same time i knew he was going to be vaccinated a month later so i knew that didn't really make a lot of sense so i only said what was told to me and he said he is vaccinated so i i don't know i don't really care i just would have liked to have fought here in in vegas that would have been a lot nicer but jacksonville florida vegas his backyard my backyard i don't really give a i just want to get my hands on this guy and shut this man up and all these stupid clown emojis i can't wait to turn the world upside down on his head it's going to be it's going to be a pretty day for myself and i'm gonna be so petty so petty i would be surprised i mean i can't imagine everyone who's fighting in vegas is vaccinated um i would i would be surprised i think at least 50 of us aren't right you know so at least it doesn't make any sense it's not a it doesn't the reason it didn't make any sense to me i think they just want to keep both title fights together which is fine just tell us that like don't tell us he's not vaccinated and i say it and he's like no i am vaccinated what are you talking about i'm like i don't know now uh of course another friend of yours sean o'malley came out as like hey the reason why they moved it is because they couldn't headline on their own how do you feel about those comments uh o'malley's gonna do what molly does which is just talk you know he talks a big game but we we come to find out that he's a lot of talk a lot of bark and no bite you know the last time he he tried to bite off more than he can chew what happened he he did the broke leg dance you know so i i i don't i don't know what he's on and again like i know that was a kick that could have never had had that impact but it did and guess what you had your shot and you blew it we all get opportunities you had an opportunity you blew it so if you want to say piva is the guy that should give everyone more hype around him again i don't know man like the uc didn't give me those opportunities to fight taylor made matchups when i came up i fought my third ufc fight i fought a guy who was ranked six in the world and taken mizugaki and ever since then i have not left the ufc's top ten in the ufc's top ten of ranked contenders and uh guys that were were within the top ten and top five so amalie if you want to keep talking like this step up to the plate and fight somebody i don't want to say good but fight someone that's a contender a real contender you know what i mean so we can see how how good he really is i mean ricky simone's been calling him out rob's been calling him out a lot of guys been calling him out kelleher has been calling him out fight somebody bro fight somebody uh did you i don't know you your management say like hey why don't we just stay on this card like put put us in the main or put us you know if they want to go with colby and jorge put us in the co-main and uh that way we don't have to extend this drama and this rivalry another month was that brought up at all no not not to me at least and i i wouldn't have had a problem with that i i do think a molly had a point in in possibly saying that maybe we probably couldn't headline a card by ourselves but that's not on us that's on the ufc to put together a fight card that was worthy of customers wanting to pay a 70 price tag to pay for i think that's pretty black and white you can't just rely on one fight to be the main fight for i i mean i don't know a lot of people who's gonna pay 70 just to watch one fight i i usually when i pay 75 when you watch 75 by the way got just 65. yeah so i want to watch good fights i don't want to just watch one fight like when it comes to boxing they just have canelo versus whoever yeah i'm paying to pretty much see canelo right but that's a big price tag to pay to just to see one fight and i can't you can't justify doing that for that and doing that for this so it's got to be a little bit more to the to to the metrics it can't just be one person i'm pretty sure if it was just sean o'malley and a bunch of other guys that are up and coming not really any type of notoriety people aren't paying 75 to watch sean o'malley fight either so i don't know what the hell he's talking about in that regards if the ufc puts together a great card with top 10 fights and matchups that means something people are going to pay you know so it doesn't matter who's really headlining the ufc is the ufc if it's a good fight card people are going to pay to tune in to watch it and uh that would have been cool to stay here in march but i i like being on the car with volkanovsky and whoever else is going to be i think is korean zombie right now so i think that's going to be a good card regardless how's the neck how are we feeling the arms is everything 100 dude i'm a one if if they had just given me a little bit more time earlier we could have possibly been on this card this weekend you know so wow it is a little frustrating um i was hoping to make that one-year anniversary to pretty much the same way i did with the pedro munoz fight to the corey sanhagen fight when i had my wrist surgery i had two procedures on my wrist for that torn ligament and uh dr robert watkins unit did a great job with the neck and um gave me back to 100 on the ufc pi team and i i feel good i i feel like we finally did things the right way we took our time we let the body heal up from a neurological standpoint and we're good to go i did four rounds of sparring the other day that felt really good did three rounds on a saturday at the ufc pies cage and i want to say probably the fifth kick or fourth kick that i threw i fell on my ass in the acting on same exact canvas i'm like what a coincidence and as i get taken down well i didn't get taken i fell and i go this cage is trash trash it's so annoying like you don't you throw a head kick you just like look like someone just pulled the rug from underneath your feet but um what's wrong i got some things to make a couple adjustments for that going forward and um hopefully we don't have too much of that going into this rematch cause i'm very kick heavy and i think most people know that um but other than that i feel good man the cardio condition is on point the mental is on point i just can't wait to just shut everybody up how do you uh how do you combat that because we have seen some slippage as of late how do you combat that um there's some things you could put on your feet okay give you a little bit more traction uh sometimes the ufc staff or whatever when you're pouring or the commission when you're pouring water in the octagon if you pour too much they tend to take a towel to dry it up even though it's gonna dry regardless right um so i like to pour it spread it out liberally on the canvas so that whenever we're going if i'm circling around the perimeter i could step my foot in that little not i don't say puddle but that little wet spot to kind of get a little bit more traction on your feet because it's not like it's not like a basketball court where you're trying to hit like quick crossovers juke moves and things like that this is like being able to stop on a dime and pivot so if you're throwing a head kick and you're sliding you lose with the inertia you lose your footing if you're going for a takedown and you start to tp and try to drive your shoulder into someone's chest your feet slide underneath you the decals do help a little bit that was one of the things we we found out at the pi we tested a couple things and um that that's going to be one of the things that we look for make sure that we have the decal under our feet so that we can get a little bit more friction so that we can pin the guy there like we do in the cage and in the cages that we train in the canvas is just different so we're able to really set our feet and once we pin you there it's really really hard to get off the cage and i can literally keep people there for an entire round if i want to you know so um i'm just excited man there's a lot of takeaways from the first fight but the first fight is not gonna be nothing like the second and i think if people will remember my last performances before that um before my academy award-winning performance march 6 of last year uh people could remember that i'm still a top contender in this division and i didn't get here by accident i didn't get i didn't have to beat uriah faber to get a vacant to fight for a vacant title against a guy who's coming off of a loss you know the ufc doesn't make sense sometimes but it's their company they're going to do what they want to do um when i fought corey sandhagen everyone was saying that should have been for the undisputed title because we were the two highest ranked guys coming off of the two highest-ranked wins in the division not fighting people coming off the losses and instead they gave it to the popularity contest for jan and jose aldo so it is what it is i think people are starting to see that san hagan is a real deal even though he's had some tough losses they see jan is a real deal as well and it's no there's no like um what would you call it um there's no coincidence that it's not luck that we all got to where we're supposed to be you know because i think um the cream is always gonna rise to the top you know so and and i think that's pretty much where we're at so i i do know that jan's a good he's a great competitor but at the end of the day man this is a fist fight we're talking about and two guys are gonna go in there one guy's gonna come out the winner and that guy is gonna be me how tired are you of of thinking about this guy and it's not just like it has to be exhausting right because it's not just talking about him thinking about him the fans i mean the the the instagram the comment like is this isn't that part of the motivation here to just kind of move on from your life with this guy at some point you have to move on right this is we're talk like once you beat you beat san hagen in june of 2020 and then he won in july of 2020 right that's when it's been almost now we are going to approach two years by the time this fight happens in april right three months shy of two years of you guys like like this and everything has obviously elevated in the last year it's got to be exhausting right oh 100 it's not exhausted in in the sense of like like the fight match up like that fight's always going to be good yawn versus sterling is always going to be a good fight yon versus san hagen and myself versus san hagan it's always going to be a fun fight it's exhausting with all the talk because we can't compete against each other we've been delayed so many times he's delayed the fight the very first time and then we had to fight the guy's a he gives me a golden ticket to get a chance to redo it here we are um i got rushed back into a fight to accept the fight um no one put a gun to my head yes but i wasn't in quite a position to say no i'm not ready yet because they were under the impression that i could take a training camp but the doctor said i should have waited till after october to start a training camp not fight in october you know so i i cut my rehab short had to pull out of the fight um i know they had the obligations to abu dhabi to give him two title fights so they made the interim title fight and i'm all for everybody getting paid i love that jan is actually going to get pay-per-view points i'm so happy for him in that regards i think all fighters should be getting paid you know so it's cool that we both get to share the pay-per-view points you know so that's cool um being an interim champ he gets pay-per-view points myself being a champ uh and undisputed champ undefeated never lost the round i get pay-per-view points as well um so i'm just i'm just ready to move on to the next chapter of my career i want to take out pedian in spectacular fashion move on to tj uh needleshaw take him out then take on the king of rio take him out and just continue to build my legacy and uh i think that's where i'm at right now you know it's just been a long time coming i i've worked so hard i've been in the ufc since 2014 in february you know i like i said my third ufc fight i've been fighting nothing but ranked guys ever since then i haven't gone backwards so no one can ever discredit anything i've done and you look at all my fights leading up to the belt i never dropped a round i haven't dropped around yan has actually dropped rounds before you know so i i know what it is people can say whatever they want because they've seen that fight i know the reasons for that for why i perform that way and it's one little one little twist and everything's back in order and then we can finally figure out who's really the king of the division and just move on i saw you uh training with thug nasty bryce mitchell now i have two questions about that number one first time that you guys trained together no no remember he came out to new york and he stayed with us at ally quinta's house really and uh when was that yeah he was like hunting down some raccoons some long island raccoons and i never really understood him back then i was like this cat is strange man we don't do that type of around here that's not what we do wait wait when was this and did you guys film that i mean bryce mitchell on long island shooting raccoons feels like incredible content well we didn't film him shooting raccoons but i don't know if that would be actually okay to post but but i think that was back in 2016 2015 for sure because i had just moved in with allie quinto as i had just bought mizugaki so about 2016 because he wasn't in the ufc yet okay so that was a couple years ago uh myself mariah we all got to train with him and he was really good back then undefeated um he's still on the feeder right if i'm not mistaken yeah yeah that's what i thought and um that nasty is good man we had some good drilling sessions i posted some content with us training and yeah i didn't want to post too much but i want to give people like a sneak peek preview of like just like the type of way i like to train and um i think it's been very beneficial for me because that's kind of what has helped me progress as fast as it has because i feel like i take a lot from the thai style of fighting and sparring because they spar very very light whereas more so touch sparring as opposed to really trying to take each other out some guys man they play rock and soccer robots in there and i'm not about that that's i want to have longevity and that's why i think i was able to even withstand those type of strikes from yon in that third and fourth round because i i'm in great shape and i haven't taken that many shots to the head so i don't want to use up too many of those but um training with bryce was really good we got to get some a couple of live grappling rounds in that was fun very very competitive and some good scrambles i think people would have enjoyed and uh it was cool just chopping it up with him catching up and talking some real estate and some things like that too uh did you happen to check out his uh his rap skills by any chance i only heard that one song that you posted yeah and then i got i listened to that one not bad right darker soul was really good arkansas is tremendous but i mean the kids got skills right you could see from the one song yeah yeah it was weird because people were like some people were giving them praise and some people was kind of throwing shade like oh he's not that good i'm like come on so what is good what is good rap yeah because i i guess i don't know what good rap is if you got a good flow you actually make some sense and there's some consistency in like what you're talking about i think it's good i mean not everyone's gonna be like kendrick lamar and j cole you know what i mean but uh i think i mean for what it is rap these this day in history i think it's pretty damn good in comparison to what we've heard in the past you know so um i think he i think he might give willie a run for his i think he might get willie around for his money well you're not you're not a big uh t-wood fan i i thought i thought i saw i'm a big team i think he gives him the song that you're saying do we have the song from his uh instagram the one that you sang while holding the belt as a guitar was kind of like i'll beat your ass it was like a remake yeah yeah yeah yeah right you know i didn't realize that until afterwards someone said the last time someone sung that song you know the the streak they went on i thought that was i was like huh but someone else's uh fortunes is not going to be my own you know sure i don't let that dictate my own my own life [Laughter] it is amazing honestly i i really do uh i really do think that he's good i really do think that he has skills like no one would have thought bryce mitchell could sing like that um i also saw you in georgia uh you posted some of the stuff from there could we take a quick look at this because i saw you getting down with your bad self we have that clip of aljo and georgia dancing i mean i have to say yeah here it is look at you guys go we're showing it right now mean wow what a scene this is over there you got i see you on the horse you got the animals there they love you over there in georgia not the state the country the republic of georgia is a great place man we had a great time rob showed us around he had he gave us pretty much a hero's welcoming um he's like the president over there man no matter where we went guaranteed everyone's stopping taking pictures with him great dude his people love him his village is great uh we went to his house and was i feel like there was like 50 people there and non-stop drinking wine and i had to tell him like bro you can't have us going to do these seminars and training with these with the students and having us drinking wine before and then the wine after and then wine in the morning like because he doesn't drink so al and i were like dude this is too much like i'm not recovering because we're not sleeping but outside of that man he made us do so much in such a short amount of time it was great like i was like inspired to to want to explore long island more because of that i'm like man i feel like i haven't really seen long island because look how much of the country i've seen in such a short amount of time versus i've lived in long island my entire life i could only tell you about a couple of things in a couple of places so that that kind of gave a little motivation to start getting out more and doing some more outdoorsy things and sightseeing that type of stuff will you go back to long island for this camp or is it all going to be in uh in vegas so so now that the camp was the fight was moved back again an extra four weeks i had to kind of make another adjustment because i had planned out how many weeks i was going to be in vegas and then finishing up in long island and coming back to vegas but now i'm actually going home this weekend and then coming back to vegas for two weeks and then gonna kind of jump start things again and then go back to long island finish up and then make the flight down to jacksonville florida okay is that where it's looking like it's gonna happen that's that's what i was told um i'm actually really excited about going there i've never fought in florida before i mostly fought in like new new york as an amateur um new hampshire pennsylvania new jersey and obviously vegas kansas city so this is gonna be cool california it's gonna be cool to get down to somewhere else and um april night the weather should be great too so yeah maybe get a couple of beach workouts while we're trying to lose weight for the fights or some stuff like that so um i'm excited to get out there and and meet the people of jacksonville her is a great city so i'm looking forward to it is there any chance that you get to fight in your home state before your career is over or is that dream is that dream dead uh i i don't know and at this point honestly the amount of the kind of the i'm not one into superstitions but the luck that our fighters have had is crazy i'm kind of like it's crazy i'm kind of like huh yeah it's it's wild so it's like do i really care to fight in new york i mean i would love to because the ambiance would be unreal be memorable but if i was a superstitious person i'd like no no way no way can i fight there you know but it would be cool to have like everyone i know to come out and uh make a short drive down from upstate new york coaches family teammates and stuff um and obviously it's the it's the mecca you know so not the fight capital like las vegas but it's the mecca it's the big apple you know there's a lot of places a lot of people's the melting pot you know it would be great to have at least one fight there before my career is all said and done and uh who knows when that's gonna be but you know i don't plan to fight until i'm 40 you know so hopefully they figure it out and it's what i was told from the commission is literally the doctor coming in and making one change in the rule book the medical rule book and i'm good to go and a couple other fighters will be good to go as well so hopefully they can figure that out man because we can make some good money together okay so you said you're not going to go till 40. uh right now we are 32 turning 33 in july so realistically when do you want to go like in a perfect world i'm getting old man i had originally said when i first started mma i thought i was going to be a champ by like 24 and then i was going to retire at 32. wow and yeah and now hearing i'm 32 i'm like yeah i'm not done yet yeah i feel like i got so much more left in the tank i got so much more i want to do and getting my neck fixed it gave me like a fresh lease on my athletic career like i feel like all the things that i was talking about in terms of the pain and things that i was walking around with it's all gone now so i almost feel like i could do it even longer if i really really wanted to but it gets to a point where you compete so much i've been competing since 10th grade in high school as a wrestler cutting weight week after week in college i mean now i'm not doing it as much i don't know what that year is going to be but at some point i would like to start a family and i would like to be able to make sure i can spend time with my family and uh it would be cool to obviously be an athlete while i have kids so that they can enjoy that that limelight um aura so to speak but if i think if i do the right thing and and win the fights that i should win um especially this one you know winning this fight i think is going to make me in terms of a a draw a superstar whatever word you want to use adjective to describe it i think it's going to put me over that hump in a very big way and um i think the kids would benefit from just that you know so it's all about what i do in the future and we can control our future the same thing with like even like calvin kato like i wrote him off as well but at the end of the day like i said it's a fist fight man anything can happen when you get in there and people that try to set things in stone like nothing can happen like every dog has a day every squirrel finds is not and um i truly think just on paper if you look on just paper alone i think my stats are better than peter yan's and i like my chances with that with a little bit of hard work some good opportunity april 9th it's gonna be uh it's gonna be a good night for myself by the way this may be a little inside but i i remember um they posted a picture i think it was the espn mma account posted a picture of you guys when the fight was first reported and you didn't have the belt and everyone got mad about that and then i looked on my waist it was on your waist but i looked on getty and because i think you were rushed to the hospital like you didn't get that photo shoot that you guys get after the fight right like you don't have those official photos with the belt does that bother you ariel i would not have taken a i would not have done a photo shoot after that fight right no i know but you know what i'm talking about right like you guys go to the back and you take photos you win the bell whatever you have a big win those pictures don't exist so like the only picture of you with the belt around your waist is the one where like it looks like you're in pain like where he's he's raising your hand i i just pretty much crying yeah yeah okay i didn't want to say like it looked like you were emotional but i i didn't i didn't know if that bothers you because i saw people getting mad on your behalf people had your back like hey where's the belt where's the belt so i i was wondering how you thought about that or how you felt about that yeah so even like before during fight week we take our photos and going into the title fight which i just found out about obviously in the last fight they make us take pictures before the fight with the bell just in case you win kind of thing um so i think they've been using some of those pictures um but yeah after the fight i i had that that night's a big blur for me man that's probably the only thing that really rubs me wrong when people say like i was faking like dude you can't fake memories like you know what i mean like i i don't remember a lot of the stuff that happened so it's just like that's the only thing that really really like irks me and then i have to kind of remind myself like these people are just freaking there's just there's just crazy people out there and they know it all you know so at the end of the day we all know those type of people and usually no one likes them you know so um yeah but other than that i i would never had taken up normally you do a victory lap you go in the bag after you win you go to the back you take pictures you know not a lot of people would know about this because you know we actually do it and um when you go back there you get to enjoy the moment fruits of your labor you go there take pictures with yourself um for with your teammates if you want to i've done this multiple times with rob ally quinta chris weidman um all the guys from the team type of thing so after that fight even if i wasn't as in bad shape as i was and i wasn't going to the hospital there was no way you were going to get me to to take pictures with the belt after that type of performance you know um at the end of the day like i said before man the fight with cory sanhanken and i should have been for the belt to begin with so i always viewed myself as a champion i always said i i was defending my belt against peorian so um the fight went the way he did and now we get to do it again and that's really it and perfect scenario this fight happens april 9th and then it seems like tj is the guy that you would want do you think you should fight someone else in between now and then no i i would like to fight tj you know he's one of the guys like a dominick cruz who's been around forever everyone knows who he is he's one of the i want to say the grandfathers of the division um he made the division what it is him himself uh i fought brown he thought brown was the second guy to beat brown outside of tj then you have um dominic cruz who was the guy outside of uriah faber um but dominic cruz was the guy for 135 and then coming into ufc 135 so he's the most winningest guy including his wc wins um that's the guy i'm i'm chasing in terms of legacy and and cementing my names on the all-time wins list uh but i i would love to fight tj and it's just kind of a joke like the whole usada thing man it's kind of laughable because it wasn't even usada that caught tj it was the athletic commission the new york athletic commission what are we paying usada to do is this just like a front to just kind of like remove all liabilities like say hey man we we're third part this is the third party that we pay to test our guys we have no accountability for this because i don't get it it doesn't make any sense to me because i'm like all these guys in these other countries i don't think they're being tested as much as we're being tested and i do think and people could people could tell me i'm crazy i've watched icarus i i've always had my suspicions about things this sport was kind of founded on like being prideful of yeah i'm jack i'm a monster look at the back of the days i like what people used to look like the sean sharks the the i you know i don't want to disparage anyone's name but we we gotta know who's who the the belfords we know what's up so to me to try to tell me and convince me that people aren't still doing stuff if usada can't catch tj dosha who actually been outed by cody garber in a press conference and usada doesn't think huh maybe we should look into this because garbrandt said he was the one showing people at the gym how to do it nothing happened after that but the athletic state of of new york catches tj dill show so what what are they doing seriously what are they doing and i don't think anyone is going to test from the usada pool over in in these other countries the way that they're testing us like in in the united states you pop somebody you papa john jones and you pop everybody else you're like almost like a hero like you get the little badge of honor it's like cool that you caught that guy but these other guys from these other countries when they're not being caught like do you think they're really trying to catch their guy like they're people who is pretty much like they're they're they're like treated like royalty they have the red carpet treatment like those smaller countries and russia's not a small country i'm just saying like those smaller countries they're they just looked at differently it's perceived different like sports is like the ultimate thing for them like when they win the olympics when it's so prideful it's it's so fascinating how different like they're treated when it comes to sports the the life of sports compared to the united states like we're kind of like spoiled we have all these other things it's a great country but we have all these other things so we don't really treat it the way like these other countries do they're rewarded like they are like god sent when they win the olympics type of thing so when you have these athletes who are in the top of their sport you think these guys are really trying to pop their guys i don't think so i mean people could tell me you have no evidence what come on man really really do i need to have evidence like we had evidence with tj he still didn't get caught until years later i know tj has been cheating pretty much since the beginning of his ufc career it is what it is people are cheating still and whatever man we've been competing against guys like this and we just gotta beat their asses anyway you know so at the end of the day you can't teach heart and i think i think cheating is just compensating for your mental weakness and you're not mentally tough enough to to go through that grind without those things you know so it is what it is man mark hunt does bring up that that was a rant that was around i appreciate it actually it bothers me man it sure does bother me because you should do jail time for doing steroids or epo or any type of like that in the ufc in combat sports in general you can literally rearrange someone's career their livelihood doing this contact sport man this is not like playing basketball we're not shooting hoops we're not hitting a baseball into the into the crowd you know what i'm talking about you know so we're of course we're dealing with life-changing events when you step into that octagon and people will say the ones that are stupid are gonna say well no one put a gun to your head and told you to do this what how is that how is that a logical comeback to justify those actions like what mark hunt brings up a good point we had him on last week where he's like why why are the results coming out after the fight what's the point right what's the point yeah what's the point right just want to choke somebody like for like how often are you tested i just i just got tested once i feel like i haven't been tested in like months that's how i feel i could i would have to go back and look i feel like i just got tested last week because i posted a video of it um a picture of it with my band-aid on my arm all right um they did they finally did blood and uh urine they don't usually do outside i'm just like sorry they don't usually do blood only if they're testing i guess steroids i don't know okay i mean they don't do blood often it's usually urine and i don't know like even listening to that joe rogan podcast with that guy from derek dirk something more plates more dates or something like that dude it's fascinating like all the stuff that i don't even know about and he's talking about all these benchmarks and things like that how people could be cheating in these um micro dosing i'm like dude it's it's crazy and there's he's saying that people have doctors that they pay to help them schedule everything the right way i'm just like yo i believe it man yeah i believe it it's it's i don't know we're not we're not lance armstrong we're not riding a bike bro we're in a freaking fist fight and if you can be a little bit more aggressive you can be a little bit more on point a little bit more dialed in that's a that's a more dangerous person in in my eyes you know so that should be jail time bro jail time it should be jail time that's just up bro you did you mentioned something uh about yan you you think that he's on like you said you don't know you know you made the you know for me i look at him the same way i look at tj i would not be surprised i would not be surprised and when you hear when you hear rumors it it is what it is like i said we're just smoked this fire man you know so um i said that about tj years ago and it comes out years later that i was right and again i'm not trying to put dirt on yon's name but there's a lot of guys within the ufc that i've competed with competed against and uh like i said i just wouldn't be surprised man nothing nothing surprises me anymore it's just you just kind of learn how to become numb to it and just kind of deal with it like people say well why are you bitching about it was like why why not about it you're still cheating i'm still gonna make it known that i know you i know you're probably cheating and regardless i'm still going to get in there with you and i still think i'm going to beat your ass that's that's really it april 9th i always love when you come on because you have such a great setup aljo you've got the camera you've got the microphone you got i mean your setup is more pro than mine over there i mean you've got the belt you've got everything you've got the backdrop though bro yeah i got the picture although i mean were you right uh i don't know if i'm supposed to say this but were you writing something before did was there something that i was supposed to prompt you or was that for something else i had a little i had a little um yeah i didn't know i don't want to get off my chest well when i asked you about bryce i thought that was like the opening of the door but you didn't take the door so uh what do you have to what do you want to share this is just for the fans across the world you know it's going down in fact in florida on april 9th tune in to an end don't you dare think to miss this fight the funk master this time showing y'all no mercy he'll be singing like hat away baby don't hurt me what is love friendly snub shiota we ain't touching no gloves when i'm done with you you'll be wishing to be in the heavens above wow was that was i don't know if that was about was that about yan or was that about bryce mitchell i feel like that was a subtle sort of call out of bryce mitchell brian kelleher what do you want listen man all these all these fake rappers that's right ufc can get it that's right we need to do a ufc battle rap we need to do you keller her woodley uh uh thug nasty i don't know who else nah no no snuff to bryce no stuff killer ella heard and i actually used to rap make rap songs back in the day when we were training partners absolutely new york yeah yeah back at the bomb squad days that's old school vintage stuff though but i actually just wrote that before the show i was like i actually want to write something for this for my call out i appreciate it i appreciate are you going to do you going to do like an album or something is this something you want to do as well or you would love that way i mean i listen i think the fans will love it if i'm being honest i think they would really appreciate it i do want to do one song like one actual really good song before i'm done being a fighter while i still have like the attention you know what i mean sure so um that was always been a dream of mine to be a rapper or nfl player or nba player obviously i wasn't big enough to do those other sports so i defaulted to wrestling now i'm a fighter and i still always want to be kind of a like a rapper kind of thing but i don't know a couple features you know 100 000 for a feature hit me up okay slide in the dms i'm sure you have a lot of nice people sliding in your dms a lot of very sane fans i'm sure it's all very uh respectful and cordial right i mean they're the worst fans you do lean into it i mean i see you speaking in russian and stuff like you do yeah i mean you're definitely leaning into it these days i mean this alone is definitely leaning into it so i feel like you can handle it pretty well yeah you know what it's fascinating because it it's so silly that people think that i actually like they know i didn't even post any pictures after the fight and it was so quick how quick it was to change and from jan's fake ass apology saying that he was sorry for what he did he intentionally meant to do that he's a piece of kind of person man and uh he's a let's call it what it is he he meant to do that he gave a fake-ass apology to kind of safe face oh i'm sorry i hope he's okay and as soon as someone posted a picture of me at my house with my friends in my own personal private space he went and flipped the script and started saying i was faking whatever and then people started saying the same i'm like i guess that's that's how we do things you know so once people weren't even listening to what was going on i was like you guess what i do have the belt guess what on the rankings i am the chance so go yourself i worked hard to get here and at the end of the day you can't do anything to take this away from me so if you want to do something come get it back in blood so peter come get it back in blood if you really want to do something and that's it damn that is a promo that's a way to end an interview can't wait uh april 9th not march 5th the rematch highly anticipated can't wait al jamaine sterling versus pierre john not peter young versus al james algeria certainly versus pyrion right get it right ariel let them know that yesterday's price is not today's price oh my gosh yesterday's price is not today's price [Laughter] see al joe thanks so much man appreciate it and good luck in training there he is al james sterling the reigning defending ufc uh bantamweight that was a good promo dare i say great promo i like that that was good stuff and so it's not happening uh march 5th i didn't i guess i'm not surprised about the jacksonville thing i didn't hear uh that jacksonville was a finalist but you know jacksonville opened their doors to the ufc before anyone uh back in may of 2020 the cejudo cruise car the ferguson gaichi card the first one back and then they had those subsequent cards so uh ufc said that they were going to pay back jacksonville for their loyalty and they came back last april with that first card with the fans in attendance and then uh it seems like they are considering going back in uh in april april 9th i'm wondering when they're gonna go back to uh tachi palace remember they said they were going to bring a car to tachi palace when they were going to do that card in april of 2020 and then they were told to stand down so hopefully the the good people of lamour california get a card in the uh in the near future um [Music] all right later in the program we're going to be joined by alex volkownowski i guess we're having a little bit of trouble of finding uh michael venom page um but there's still there's still a lot of show left also we're going to be joined by gc we're going to be joined by new york rick i did want to mention something while i have this brief moment here uh before the show i got this card this lovely card you can see it right there and there's i guess this is a groundhog would this be a groundhog it's a beautiful card that's a groundhog yeah um anyway uh it says inside just a little thank you lord helwani and when i opened the card i was like lord helwani this is interesting on behalf of sarah rose amber lewis judd alex weber ian ross jack and myself ek thank you for all you do xoxo you may recognize the vast majority of those names from the on the nose segment they are a great group of people a great group of fans i was like wow this is amazing a card from you know these names that i all know very well and recognize and i mean this is great this is beautiful so what is this that was a box so i was like what is this we open the box and then i get this in the mail in the box wrapped up very nicely and then we start reading it myself new york rick joe everyone's reading it and uh this is what it is it's a proclamation look how nice this is i'm uh i'm a lord everyone i just want to let you know breaking news if we have any breaking news music you can do the lower third i am a lord you all now have to refer to me as such thank you for that it says whereas lord ariel helwani hereafter referred to as the lord so please get it right has by way of notice this 11th day of december in the year 2021 in the 69th year of the reign of our sovereign lady elizabeth ii by the grace of god of the united kingdom of great britain and northern ireland and of her other realms and territories queen head of the commonwealth defender of the faith delivered unto us the intention to purchase and us with the intention to accept established titles has agreed with the lord to bequeath unto them a dedication of a plot of land of precisely get this five square feet in west scotland i'm very big in scotland i don't know if you guys know this i'm massive in scotland in particular the plot of land identified and described with the specific identifying plot number i think that's an e i'm not sure what yes e 0152326 established titles of a measurement of one foot by five feet it's a massive piece of land and here and after referred to as the plot established titles agrees to dedicate the plot in the name of the lord me lord helwani on an estate located in this is this is the most important part arbalee no arderly aberdeen sheer artilly aberdeenshier scotland of its choosing which may be identified altogether or as part of a larger area and form a part of a merkland or eight ounce lands and then there's a lot more here this is a really big deal i just want to let you all know breaking news uh i am a lord here it is i now uh i i believe own a piece of land in scotland shout out to the haggis where's where's the hag is right over there above my shoulder haggis country shout out to uh robert whiteford of course paul craig joanne calderwood nikki ash drew mcintyre of course i'm i'm very big in scotland and this is a huge deal for me look at this i mean look at that right here so i want to thank again i mean i was kind of blown away and i think we were supposed to open it on air and my reaction was like wait i was very confused now it has come to my attention that this is something that uh my old friend chael p uh likes to this is uh this is the uh the clip i guess this is a jlp thing because this is from one of his videos wait a second on behalf of our show sponsor established titles established titles is a project based on a historic scottish custom where landowners are referred to as lords and ladies they allow you to buy as little as one square foot of dedicated land so you can officially call yourself a lord or lord speaking this is amazing first of all how does shell get such a random sponsor like this number one number two who knew that you could even do such a thing i wonder if the guys in the back over there are viewing me in a different way now that i'm a lord where should we put this i mean we have to put this in the studio right i was very touched in all in all honesty and i'm i don't know why i just said in all honesty because i'm being honest right now uh the best part about this job without a doubt hasn't been the interviews or the people that you've met or the places that you've been to or you know the events and all that stuff it's meeting fans like these and these fans in particular um and i hate to even call them fans these people in particular these supporters of the sport of mma and my work as well have been very very supportive almost to the point where you wonder like why are they so supportive why are you so kind to me and uh you know it just really means a lot to have people like there's a lot of crappy people online there's a lot of mean-spirited people there's a lot of just miserable people and we sometimes put too much attention too much focus on those people these are the people that we need to recognize and and be appreciative of i need to uh be better at that so i'm just i was really touched by this honesty honestly i was really touched by this and uh it made me a little bit emotional and i know that doesn't take much but this was really cool so thank you very much to all of them again um sarah rose amber lewis judd alex ian ross jack and ek all mentions mention in their own right tremendous human beings this really meant a lot to me so i guess uh you know the lower third we need to now have like a lord helwani on the bottom you know when you put my name at the beginning of the show i mean we can work on that so this is really nice i'm gonna find a spot in the studio for this i'll put this here for now uh what what what a lovely gift and i guess thank you to chael for uh introducing us to that how great is that jlp klp's got a sponsor where you can get a piece of land and all of a sudden you're a lord or a lady beautiful so again my sincerest thanks uh that really did mean a lot to me and uh i i appreciate people like you guys uh more than you know you are the reason why i love doing this show and all the work that i do and probably why i haven't gone into hiding and uh quit mma a long time ago now uh it appears as though we have mr mvp or we don't have mr mvp now i'll break the fourth wall for a moment if i can because that's what i like to do here initially i was told mvp is coming on this show to break the news that uh he is uh he is fighting yaroslav on what was it may 13th what is the date here yeah he's fighting him may 13th yaroslav amasov against mvp london main event for the belt bellator middleweight excuse me welterweight welterweight title uh 26-0 amazon 7-0 in bellator on some kind of role won the belt last year and then of course mvp has had a great run in bellator 20-1 coming off the win over douglas slima and one in bellator so i was like yeah uh he wants to come on break and he was like great that's awesome uh we love that sort of thing chatri came online then i find out uh the news was broken this morning i was like all right fine whatever you know he's gonna come on talk about it will be the first interview then i see a bunch of interviews and i'm like okay well what did i get here i mean i love talking to mvp i mean he's a great dj i hope he's coming with some tunes it's fine we'll have him on it's going to be great uh now we're 25 minutes late and i'm just wondering like was i punked here what happened here was i punked what went wrong here because i feel like mvp and i have always been buds but now i kind of feel like i was punked i mean the fight announcement the first interview the tardiness what's wrong what did i do what did i do all right so maybe we don't have him seemed like a uh a false start there from joe i think he's trying to get me back for the uh the bills win on saturday what a win it was yes what a win it was it was beautiful it was great because uh the first half ended right as the calvin keator fight was about to start against giga and then it ended just as the third quarter i mean it couldn't have been better it could i couldn't have timed it any better it was a beautiful thing so um i appreciate everyone i'm sure they did that on purpose i'm sure they planned it like that i'm sure everyone you know wanted everyone to be happy so that we can watch the first half beat down and then we could take a little break and watch the fight and then come back it was just perfect it was one of the i mean did you guys hear the stat he had josh allen did he had um i believe it was more touchdowns than incompletions did you guys hear that do you guys understand what that means do you understand how improbable that is do you understand how special that is i mean it's just an incredible thing did i mention it i'm not sure if i mentioned it more touchdowns than incompletions i mean no fourth downs no punts i mean the longest third down they had was third and four i mean again this is 20 years built up this is a lot of text messages a lot of insults a lot of rubbing it in there's 20 years built up and we're you know we're high road here okay i don't know if you know this about us we're classy individuals we take the high road but i mean this is 20 years built up so i just want to let you guys know like i'm just you know it's it's all out of love it's out of you know tremendous i mean if i'm being honest there's a lot of sulkiness on on their side of the fence there's a lot of sulking sulkiness a word i'm not sure but on that side of fence a lot of sulking it's not exactly you know doing it the patriot way on this side of the fence it's just all jubilation and happiness and classiness and and uh taking the high road that's my read on the situation so um all right so we're in a weird holding pattern now like do we go to mvp do we not go to mvp do i tag in new york rick do i not do i bring in new york rick and then give him the boot if mvp shows up i mean i'm not really quite sure uh what to do here can we get uh can i get a little bit of uh direction because it seems like well it seems like we're are we close to getting him or are we not close to getting him let's see what do you say joe we close to getting him we're still talking to danny here oh all right so we haven't found them all right um okay take a quick break yeah but rick did leave he left the waiting room because we thought we were gonna get mvp so now you can't even bring in come on man are you here are you here is this on the air yes oh hi how are you i'm doing fantastic everything good i feel like this is sort of like the the show before the show because usually you're first heard from when you come on and do your segment but this is good it shouldn't be so formal you should be able to jump in that's why for sure i like the uh the voice of god here going in uh now we now we've got new york rick back so now we can bring him in okay what's happening over there can you give what's the problem they can't find them yeah like we we could we were we had zero contact with them yeah until about 10 minutes ago and now they're saying they've talked to him and that they're going to get him to join via zoom but we're waiting on him to join nevermind now we have mvp i mean we do this is live show business this is the best you don't get this on game night you don't get this on game night this is the best wait til we really do have him i'm looking at him right now mvp all right i'm i'm getting off now you can vamp it i mean by the way he better have a great rap song for me a rap song at least a good alibi oh at least i mean we got to play the throwback video that can fill too oh we have that the last time mvp was on the program this is how he came on no pressure or anything but this is how the interview started do we have that what's going on here you gonna play some music for us oh yeah oh man i'm mixing up right now man let's go let's start i'm in my bed i'm in my vibe i'm in my life baby i'm in my life yes you got to join me man i'm dancing right now by the way up in this he wrote this song produced by him i wasn't expecting this take that dj mikey [Applause] he had turntables he did that's what he told us that was before the douglas sema fight uh and so i think he's is he actually here or is this like an nft is this a figment of my imagination uh mr mvp are you there or is it nft mvp i am where are you at i'm definitely here where i don't see you yeah is it just is it just a phone i mean oh it's [Laughter] there he is where are you at vp you keeping me waiting what now you're a big shot you got a title shot you keeping me waiting i apologize i apologize you got everyone scrambling everyone bellator scrambling tim scrambling you're just you're trying to play hard to get i'm vp yeah no we're moving up now oh you're moving up i mean guy gets a title shot and he forgets about the little people 30 minutes late what's the excuse what's the excuse you got to have a good excuse right i was i was still in the gym i literally just rushed back from the gym oh wow um i'm sorry my coaches put me pray i did send you a message yesterday on whatsapp you're always good to reply but it said the last time you were on whatsapp was on thursday so it made me a little nervous i'm not gonna lie no it's uh i'm having issues with my other phone so i've actually got a new a new line as well so i'll get i'll get you that over with the plug line or the other line what is it the plug and the lower i well i was saying you know it was very salty i was like wow wp stood me up we didn't get the exclusive we didn't get the first interview we got nothing here i mean and you don't seem like that kind of guy here i am laying it on thick not me not me not me my apologies congratulations yes i was hoping so you know no song this time oh i got music if you want music man you know what about vibes what we got what we got i got i always got advice man you weren't prepared because you just rushed back from the gym that's what i'm saying i wasn't ready i'm saying i'm ready yeah now i'm in a better mood i feel better that's what i do for you man that's that's right apology accepted [Music] i'm in my you don't know about this you don't know about this hey chips with a dip chips with a dip give me some chips with the dip mvp give me some chips with a dip you're crazy man you're crazy uh congrats on the title congrats on the title shot why is it happening in may though i feel like that's that's way too long why are we announcing this five months in advance mvp it's about the build up man it's about the story you want to make we want to make it a big occasion you know the last one obviously there was a story already it's kind of like it was just the story was already there it's easy to kind of to to to get what had happened you know there's a we had history in the past and you know i've been pushing for that fight there's already a history there no one really knows there's not really anything between us okay outside of just being at the top of our game so i think it just gives us enough time to kind of push it um uh get our get get our training up to make sure we're both our best so you're happy with the timing yeah you know it is to be fair you know yeah i'm not complaining i mean you're getting a touchdown you're going to do it at home it's it's rare that the challenger gets to fight for the belt at home right are you surprised that he agreed to that i feel like you're the bigger draw here for being honest so you get more of a say yeah i think i think that's what it is to be fair i think he gets that as well and i don't i don't think he's uh worried about he's a he's an amazing opponent you know he's he hasn't faced the defeat yet so what what's what's there for him to worry about are you impressed with him yeah i think he's a he's a talented fighter you know technically when you think about it i would be one of the best in in mma especially based on his record technically the best in mma based on his record um you know the only second ticker beam he's now retired so you know i'm dealing with somebody that is uh an amazing mixed martial artist it's one of those tough ones where he's super tough and everyone who watches the sport and watches bellator knows that but he's not exactly like the biggest household name right it's almost like you have to explain to people just how tough he is so that they understand just how special it will be when if you beat him right yeah yeah 100 100 he obviously hasn't i guess it might be the language barrier as well he's not necessarily uh as you say a household name hasn't got a big profile but the guy's a beast the guy's an absolute beast and you know we all saw that with you know how he dealt with douglas lima as well um and multiple other opponents that he's gone through in bellator uh and obviously before so yeah no a great a great opponent speaking of lima that was your last fight uh big win for you uh the the rematch exacting revenge how how did you feel about that fight in that performance uh yeah i wasn't i wasn't happy i don't know i wasn't not happy i was happy obviously i got the the result but i think we're all all quite harsh on ourself we want to push ourselves and be better um so uh i feel like i could have performed better there's certain things i was a bit hesitant on but again the guy is an absolute monster in there man he's so he's such a tough guy um yeah you know he's his his accolades speak for itself um so it wasn't something i could kind of i didn't think i feel like i didn't feel like i could take the same risks i may normally do [Music] and the win was the most important thing more than anything so i definitely feel like i could have done better which is another reason why i kind of wanted to go again um but yeah i'm obviously happy with the win uh it seems like that may have been the fight that changed bellator's stance on non-title main events because now they're going five rounds for those do you like that i i don't i don't like how it was done i'll say tommy why um simply because as you say it was kind of felt like that fight was what kind of pushed it on to that and i know we always there's this big thing about fighters pay but you're you're asking me to do extra rounds and without uh talking about our purses going up for doing so so like you know it's ten extra minutes that people get potentially um outside of that i get why it's done but yeah i feel like it was a bit it was a bit of a um knee-jerk reaction to what what took place uh versus versus actually you know sitting down actually you know planning out properly i know you know scott kolkata did mention that you had you know spoken about it uh prior anyway but i hadn't seen any of that so he may he may have as well um but yeah it just seemed a bit um it felt like it almost depleted my win uh against lima so i feel like it was just done with a bit too much haste but uh at the same time yeah like if it makes sense like i completely understand why you know they would do it they would do that and other organizations that you know they're already they're already doing it and they may say it doesn't make sense you bring up a great point if only because it feels like maybe the message was hey we needed two more rounds of this so now we're going to do this and you don't hear a lot of fighters who say that what you just said so i give you props for that like you you should get paid more if you're going to work more right put more yeah you know time on the clock uh i'm assuming that hasn't been discussed right nothing's really changed no i'm just i was just more talking just based on doing extra rounds for like non-title fighters yeah yeah yeah yeah i'm not talking just personally for myself i'm talking yeah for anybody that's now going to be in that in that situation there should be now be a discussion about the extra time that is going to be on like same with any job in the world yeah if you're going to do the time there's good there's talk of extra pay so um it just feels like we get we get bullied a lot in this sport and we're already struggling over here so um yes i feel like people need to take a bit more consideration of the fighter and how it affects them uh not just the entertainment side i couldn't agree more by the way in belt because i know in the ufc you get like a main event bonus do you guys get that for non-title fights in bellator i don't no i don't think so now maybe that comes into play um that would be very interesting i also saw you know the guy who's been talking about this a lot recently is jake paul it seemed like you were campaigning for the jake paul fight there for a second i saw after the woodley fight you posted something on your social media yeah yeah and it feels actually like that's a fight that could be made if only because you're both showtime you know i mean he's a free agent but it could happen was this ever discussed seriously was it ever brought oh no no i just it was just it was just kind of in the moment yeah me just saying like you know i feel like someone someone that uh i feel like i can so i thought in that moment it was just a case of like guys i think you guys need me back in boxing yeah yeah yeah um i know honestly uh since then shall i say i've actually been a bit of a fan of him in terms of what he's actually pushing for so um yeah which did surprise me yeah you've turned you went from not liking him to liking him definitely definitely again it's just it's what he's about in terms of what he's trying to push on to the sport yeah um and it's something that i i guess it's kind of dear to my heart and obviously affects me and affects a lot of my colleagues and a lot of up-and-coming fighters that you know i'm training with in the gym and i would love to see them whether it is even in my time i would love to see in their generation the next generation coming up that they don't have the same struggles and have the same you know complaints and things going through their career will it ever change you think honestly i know you want it but you think it will change because i don't see we've been talking about it for so long and nothing's changed right you guys still yeah i mean fighter pay is pretty much the same the revenue sharing is pretty much the same you know like nothing's really changed do you think it ever changes we need we need a competitor that is willing to actually make those kind of things happen if it doesn't start out with obviously the biggest show in mixed martial arts if it doesn't start there and they're not willing to do it uh other shows are gonna have to be the first person to take that step and it will definitely apply pressure to the to the bigger shows because a lot of fighters are going to be like you know what there's no it's better it's better over there [Music] so yes i i i don't know um i want to try and help as much as i can fighters do need to come together it is a difficult one it puts a lot of people in under strain or get they get sidelined or you know and this that's another reason why um we just need to come together somebody needs to organize something so that we can actually have a one stance yeah i think part of the problem is every you know a lot of people i think share your opinion but no one wants to emerge as that guy right no one wants to emerge as that first guy and it gets a little complicated with bellator ufc but for the most part you guys are all kind of fighting for the same thing um and you're put in a tough spot you know i i sympathize it's hard to criticize you're not doing it maliciously you just want to get your fair share of the right but at the end of the day in this sport you could be punished for doing that right there's no meritocracy exactly so it's exactly exactly you get that title though you get that title though you get a big megaphone no 100 to be fair i still feel uh as we've said even with guys that have belts so some of them are still not as well known yeah you know with you know with my next opponent so even now i i definitely do have a megaphone anyway a lot of what i say can be spun in the wrong way and so and then you know i can get criticized for it but the one thing about me is i always speak my mind i always sweep my heart and as you say i don't mean in any malicious way i'm just speaking from my personal experience and what it feels like from my point of view whether i'm correct in that and i'm happy to always hear another side and then say you know what yeah you know what you're probably right there and i probably could have done this i should have done that um but i always like to i always like to be honest in the moment um and so last time we had you on we were talking about your contract situation has that changed now because you got the title shot oh yeah yeah definitely definitely so you got a new deal yeah congrats thank you thank you how many fights oh nice uh i think i figured the actual whole thing it kind of just got incorporated there so um but to be fair i need that to the paradigm guys yeah i feel you but did you were there any talks about uh testing the waters finally after all these years sorry were there were there any talks about testing uh free agency after all these years nah to be fair um again after you know i had a talk with uh bellator i am happy with what you know how they responded to it um and again as i say this sport can be difficult with regards to your the higher ups versus the fighter so the way they responded to it was amazing um and after i respect i respect them for it so it doesn't give me any reason to want to move anywhere okay good i'm happy to hear that um and so at this point do you feel like uh you know what we know from mvp you're a very entertaining fighter and uh some love the whatever you want to say showboating theatrics some don't but you are consistent with it against a guy like yaroslav we can't be doing that right in the fight or am i wrong he's so different it has to be it has to be me all the way through uh i'm either gonna it's the same way i entered the sport it's either gonna be me and and you know i'm gonna come into the sport as myself with my with my as you say the theatrics my you know my style or i wasn't gonna be in a sport at all and it's the same going into this fight it's either going to be me with my style with the theatrics or there's no point in me taking the fight wow wow and so i'm from from beginning to end i will always be me wow so in this even in this fight with the stakes so high against arguably the toughest opponent you've ever fought i would say that's uh you know an accurate statement considering what he just did to to lima we're still going to see the dancing and the moving and all that stuff it all plays a part and it's it's just become me um so if i neglect these things i i almost take away from what i'm doing to my opponent in that moment uh i know a lot of people just think it's just me just acting out and you know the way i can belittle credible opponents this is why i get i get such criticism on the on the other side but like i said i'll always i'll continue doing that and i'll always be me how do you feel right now i feel like uh uk mma has never been better with uh the fighters in in bellator the fighters in the ufc i feel like uk mma is on fire right now does it feel that way to you as well that this is like the yeah no definitely definitely there's a buzz i think there's a lot of a lot of that i feel as though we've got a big wave coming through um and we we should see a lot of champions i hoping to be one of them do you feel like your bellator career because you've been there for so long 16-1 in bellator it would it would have felt incomplete if you never got the belt like did the belt really you know for the longest time we were saying we want to see you fight for the belt and they were kind of giving you the slow approach but for you is the belt validation is it something that you felt like you needed to get to sort of complete your career whenever that time comes it's more uh yeah it's part of the acknowledgement of my progression you know there's been i think there's been a few moments in my career quite a few moments in my career where i feel like okay yeah that's that's definitely shown my progression and so on and so forth and this is another big statement that you know nobody can really deny um so yeah it's definitely something that i would love to um you know be able to look back and say look i achieved this uh i i may out myself here for a second but you you walked out with uh a hip-hop artist last time yeah yeah who was it i helped you out yeah yeah yeah he is he a uk based guy he's uk but that guy's worldwide he's one of the yeah one of the one of the one of the greatest of our our generation and i've actually been listening since i was 14 13 maybe you're younger um again when i say about like moments of progression and it's also those acknowledgments from you know different people um and over time we kind of became friends just beforehand anyway he never even let me know that he was making the track he just released it wow and um yeah yeah he just when he just went into the lab and it's like got to work release the track and then i was like i have to use it for that we spoke again i was like you know you're gonna you're gonna you might you have to perform that he's like yeah i was always going to i was like cool man let's let's make it happen wow it was a it was an epic moment man i really i really did enjoy that moment uh a lot to the point where i was so hyped up and i think the crowd was as well i got into the cage and my coach looked at me and he's like really he was worried i was gonna have like an adrenaline dump yeah i i completely understand why because seriously that though that just that walk to the cage was unbelievable oh it was incredible i love when when you know it just makes the fight feel a little bit bigger a little more special it was back home for you um to have someone walk out with you and that song is called isn't it called bellator that song yeah that's right yeah that is wild yeah it's about you yeah yeah yeah it's just it's obviously it's a mixture i just get mentioned in there as well oh yeah it's a it's a cool track i didn't mean to disrespect i mean i'm more of a dizzy rascal guy if i'm being honest you know what i'm saying i'm a little like yeah you're you're way back you're waiting i'm just rascal yeah man you got we got i'm gonna have to update you with some new stuff update i mean of course i mean the greatest is drake right to me champagne poppy's number one i know that's not a cool pic right now wait no no right now in terms of what he's done what he's achieved the fact that longevity speaks on yeah yeah longevity he speaks on his you have to give him you have to give him his props for that man he's unbelievable i'm gonna get killed for this people you know the cool thing to say is jay-z obviously tupac obviously biggie i just think the longevity in the hits the amount of hits that drake has had i mean it's unmatched in my opinion and he's canadian yeah yeah he's definitely again like you got uh jay-z is kind of like i don't even compare him with anybody else he's just different levels he doesn't exist in that world anymore he's already he's already the living legend um and i i you know honestly if i reckon if he wanted to pursue the music he he'd be the same as well um but you know he he's a um an entrepreneur now doing so many different things helping so many different people music is probably the last thing on his on his list although he comes from there but yeah not in terms of longevity i i do agree uh drake is just unbelievable unmatched to be fair so when you uh walk out may 13th we have something special planned i know it's a little early but we got to top this now right yeah no definitely definitely definitely um and i'm taking my time i i never like to rush or have a snap decision because a lot of these things just come to me in the moments uh or or in the lead up to to a fight so there's there's never any reason for me to kind of like snatch and grab something now i always know that you know as i'm going through my camp as i'm you know meeting different people things just slowly fall into place uh and it's been the same with all of my finishes everything just kind of fell into place i think one of the most craziest ones was still the gauntlet one with david rickles because chris pratt was outside oh yeah 50 cent he wasn't even supposed to be there per se he kind of last minute decision uh he happened to be filming in the area obviously he's big in the marvel world i ended up using a glove i wasn't even gonna use the glove just the way it all kind of fell into place and and i like to i like to kind of have those moments oh yeah also the pokemon one that was huge exactly yeah exactly that got you a lot of love uh by the way uh before i let you go march 19th it seems like the ufc is coming to the uk for the first time in a while and then there's your card mark may 13th which one's going to sell more tickets oh london's my town i i don't care who's there i always say the same thing as i've been saying from throughout my whole career when they've said oh you know they're you know they're going to be putting you first for the tv card um but how do you feel about not being on the main card or not being the main main event and i said i'm always the main event i remember still that cyborg fight um it was there was two fights after my fight yeah most people couldn't even tell you what that was and they were there a lot of people after my fight left the building they were so pumped they just wanted out they just wanted to see they wanted to see if they can find me afterwards london is definitely my city so uh yeah i i don't care i'm definitely and this is another reason why we've got so much time to actually put into work into into promoting this uh i've got a lot of stuff happening as well in the background oh we're gonna have merch uh i'm doing a i've got an mvp uh token coming out oh on the crypt in the crypto space wow we're doing a lot of yeah yeah so there is an mvp nft yeah oh he's coming okay wow okay yeah how about that definitely comment so we're doing a lot we're doing a lot of work for this one so i'm kind of happy the the business side of me is very happy that we have the time to really put it in i kind of hate the last the snap decisions of oh yeah next month we're doing this i like it as a fighter but um like i said to be able to really promote and actually for myself for my from my pocket as well to be able to get sponsors in at the right time and did it there you know it takes a little bit a little bit of negotiation back and forth um so yeah having that time is definitely amazing and it is good you know unlike ufc and pfl you guys can still get the sponsors right there there are no restrictions there correct are there restrictions like are there certain ones that you can't i feel like i i can't remember exactly what it is but i'm sure there's a couple that um bellator have exclusive rights with certain people so they don't they won't allow certain things but to be fair the majority of the time is i i don't think i've ever had issues of a sponsor that i've gotten that they've had any issues with so um so far so good yeah yeah it's it's so that is a is is a great um aspect of of bellator well i can't wait what a huge fight yaroslav amazov his first title defense going up against the one and only michael venom page uh may 13th sse arena in wembley uh i was uh you know i was cursing you out internally i was like wow this dude you know this dude's standing me up i mean we i mean how many years has he been on my show i mean finally he gets a title shot standing me up by the way is wembley a place or is wembley just i know it's the arena but is wembley an actual place or is it wembley in london how does that work i was wondering about that like ssc arena is it a town no no no it's just just the building uh and then obviously wembley is a place happens to be in wembley okay so okay so ssc so wembley is an actual place where the arena is it's not just the name of the arena yeah yeah yeah yeah and that's in london yeah that's in london yeah okay all right uh i would like to go ahead these days uh michael thank you very much i appreciate it good luck to you thanks for coming on i know it was a big day for you the news coming out so we appreciate you very much and don't worry i won't hold it against you that you didn't respond to my tags or anything like that the music made up for it okay now i got let why don't you play us out what do we got what do we got what do we got oh i just i just shot everything off all right all right fine i don't want to put you on the spot thanks my friend all the best to you and uh we'll talk to you soon much respect take care all right there he is michael venom page the man some nice tunes there do you think i do you think i lay it on a little fake i mean i make people yeah it's that jewish uh that jewish guilt i'm sorry but i do love mvp what a legend so that's may 13th some big fights coming up first quarter second quarter ufc going to uk probably march 19th they haven't officially announced it but that seems to be the plan and then of course uh this one two months later there's a ton of fights in between now and then but uh nice to see the organizations traveling again getting out there they're going to ireland bellator is in february so uh that should be a fun scene austin vanderford against uh gegard mousasi for the 185 pound title so stay tuned for that of course this weekend at ufc 270 and uh next weekend bellator returns that's on the uh january 29th date i'll be at the royal rumble in st louis if you're looking for me but they'll be returning to arizona with the card headlined by moldovsky versus ryan bader all right matter of seconds here we're going to be joined by gc to recap the the weekend that was right gc not new york rick yeah uh but first a quick word from our good friends over at draftkings as you know yeah this has like a little uh video game theme to it video game vibes it is time for ufc 270 and the heavyweight title fight between the undefeated surreal the french prince aka bongame gan and knockout artist francis enganu for these guys it can only take one punch to win same goes for you at draftking book the official sports betting partner not only the ufc the mma hour but the nfl as well new customers can bet just one dollar and win a hundred in free bets if either fighter lands a punch rather bet this weekend's football games instead just playing on uh on sunday it's the bills uh draftkings also has a special offer for those looking to get in on the gridiron action i believe bill's uh plus two that's the one you're looking for uh new customers can get 56-1 odds on any playoff team bet just five dollars and get 280 and free bets if your team wins download the draftking sportsbook app now use promo code dmara throw down just one dollar on the ufc 270 main event and win one hundred dollars in free bets if gone or anganu land a punch a pudge that's code the mar this saturday at draftking sportsbook the official sports betting partner of the ufc must be twitter on loader new jersey indiana rpa only customers only minimum five dollar prize required one dollar wager required one per customer restrictions by c draftkings.com gambling problem call 1-800 gambler yeah all right it's a special mlk junior day edition of gc and helwani how are you sir i'm doing good how about you i'm doing good after the bills oh my gosh i don't know if i told you but uh big game on saturday yeah josh allen something on incompletions touchdowns seven for seven i mean have you ever seen i know you're still high off of your bulldogs a lot of people are giving me crap for calling it the natty you could call it the natty right yeah natty national championship i i said a few times i was going to the natty so what do they want you call it national championship i don't know what they're they're just a bunch of losers out there uh anyway i said the natty and people were all up in arms uh one of the all-time great performances i know you've been watching football for quite some time i don't know if you saw that i mean it was incredible yeah incredible seven percent yeah actually so one of my friends loves the nfl and uh he's betting on every nfl game so i was like you know what uh every nfl playoff game i was like you know what i'll ride with you uh one of his picks that i rode with him was the patriots what yeah i told him before the game too i was like man i kind of hate this patriots one and uh you went with the patriots i told him i was going to blindly follow him and that's what i did oh so yeah but he went three and two he did all right oh my god what was the other one uh the other one that we lost was the cowboys yeah that was that was a weird one yeah yeah that's just for fun i'm i'm i'm right did you go patriots moneyline patriots with the points that were they nah they're all just it's all just spread picks yeah he took four and a half yeah yeah i tried to talk myself into it so i was like i guess i like it because i hate it and i don't really know like a much a ton about nfl budding yeah so it didn't work out for us you know i think it says a lot uh because didn't i say like i don't watch national champion i don't watch this type of stuff college football and yet i was still rooting for georgia literally six days later you bet against my team that i think that that's i mean pretty much i wanted to win i think i think my exact quote was i want the bills to win 20 to 17. oh okay fair enough i mean that could be i'd like to see the quote was it in text was it was in texas i can get it for you all right for you wow i mean that is a questionable pick i mean i can't like i can't actually cheer for the patriots you know super bowl 51 falcons yeah even that alone yeah that alone i can't believe that you would do that 23 a lot of people are bringing that up saturday was 27 to 3 so of course it didn't exactly go down the same way uh do me a favor bills plus two okay bills plus two that's the line yeah that's in it wow yeah wow that is going to be a crazy game yeah bill's plus sunday night 6 30. can't wait uh definitely sweaty just speaking about it and nervous in any event uh how was your actual weekend in terms of fighting bets mma yeah just like yeah man weekend kind of stumbled out the gate in 2022 or what stumble out the gate a little bit uh we can start with the singles here uh we go one and two on the normal ones we get the 2k again by decision uh someone on instagram before the fight told me that was free money i was worried that they were going to jinx that but but sure enough it you know it's a pretty easy bet to cash and then i make the bonehead arrow i try to i try to hedge on cater and i go cater by ko uh first round he gets he gets gigas back i'm like why did i not just take cater straight up and then like when we get to like round three round four i'm just like wow he's not gonna knock him out like this is gonna go to a decision why did i not just take cater straight up because i had two parlays last leg over one and a half and giga so i was trying to hedge you out to guarantee profits and i ended up just losing more by doing cater by ko for a hedge and it didn't work out for me so that's a lesson learned uh just feels like you got a little greedy there i think i did yeah i think i did and like i immediately regretted it in round one as soon as they went to the mat uh so yeah just like a a really dumb error on my part by by going the ko hedge i should have just done it straight up and then we would uh we would have locked in profits for the week um but i didn't i didn't via decision was like the sure bet i mean that was nice that that was a nice one uh joe anderson burrito he just got dominated uh or no no it wasn't burrito brahimage got dominated uh burrito it was a little bit closer but he still couldn't pull it off uh and then we go to the parlays um we uh we missed this one obviously chicago uh we've found some success lately in the prop parlays that's three straight cards where it's been our biggest bet on the card uh and three straight cards it's cashed um so these these like fight don't go the distance or or the over unders uh we found success and it's my my alter ego ego tommy totals coming into play i uh i do that for college basketball i bet over unders uh and when i call myself tommy totals i find some success there uh we've been able to bring it over to mma as well uh and then we missed the air fryer pretty bad so uh so yeah wrap up the weekend here we finished down 0.43 units uh so really just like a a mad weekend i mean could be worse tommy totals is interesting i'd like to explore that for a second yeah go ahead what is that is that just like a gimmick that you play or what yeah so i do the college basketball thing as well and i take over unders and you know to start the year i was 15 and three on over unders there so what do you mean by over unders like totals over unders like like on the the games yeah like college basketball oh just okay i didn't know if it was like over under on wins you know oh no no no yeah people do that yeah i mean the response was like what a stupid question but that's a real thing but they're going to win 20 games yeah win twitter okay playing college basketball though they don't do that no no not in college big nba yeah big an mba non-college basketball really okay fine sorry um all right tommy totals we should have called the segment that the whole segment i didn't know i didn't know you had an alter ego um all right so uh a man out the gate man it's just man like it's a you know not horrible knocking like yeah i didn't like the the card to begin with yeah not it was not the best card if we're being honest i mean it was yeah we lost fights this is going to be a theme right now with you know omicron and yeah i don't think anyone's going to get supremely sick it seems like but it seems like we're going to lose a lot of fights i mean just to this weekend's card alone it feels like every you know that we lost um olynyk and we lost mozar uh and then greg hardy i was really looking forward to that one that was probably the best non-title fight on the card but yeah it seems like we're gonna we're gonna lose a lot unfortunately yeah i'm glad we got the pay-per-view this weekend though you know what's crazy i don't even know if i should speak it into existence should i say it or not yeah i want to hear it now well i have to look it up but i was actually thinking of this because you know how we keep losing all these fights let's see here has any fight like the week of and maybe you'll remember the week of in in this pandemic era we haven't lost any main events yeah right isn't that weird it is weird i think it's like they're untouchable yeah like uh that is like i'm looking okay so let's go let's go may of 2020 that's when this all started right i mean it's a lot of fights but yeah it's gonna take too long but like the week of you know we're losing a lot of these fights like a week 10 days before 14 days before off the top of my head i could be wrong someone tell me if i'm wrong i'm sure someone knows if it has happened yeah i don't recall i mean i'm trying it just like always feels like we lose like three four like i think we lost 11 fights last week yeah but it's like the main event always it always feels like the sort of non-consequential ones right i mean ilia is a big fight don't get me wrong but it's not like brandon moreno it's not francis i i and by the way i'm not trying to say any you know i mean there's a nice conspiracy theory i won't have the tinfoil hat for this one i like it but have you noticed it is interesting i was like sitting there researching fights last week and i'm like wow we lost so many and it's just like it was almost like it was never even a concern that we were going to lose giga and cater yeah it's weird we're probably speaking a jinx into existence right now and we're going to lose yeah i don't know i'll say that and the usada thing is interesting the usada thing there haven't been a lot of pops oh oh oh yeah i don't know you know once there was a period at the beginning of usada where it seemed like every week there was a period like around ufc 200 where it felt like you know there was obviously the brock thing the jones thing but it just felt like there was someone popping every five days every seven days now i can't i can't remember the last high profile i guess the last high profile pop would it be tj dillashaw against henry cejudo i can't even remember a bigger one i mean i feel like they give out more jackets than they do wow can we put that on the bulletin board i mean that is a big quote right there put that on the mma fighting instagram they give out more jackets than they do what suspension am i wrong like i feel like no that was a great line i'm actually jealous of the line like four or five jackets out it's been a lot of jackets does anyone wear those jackets i don't know like you can actually wear them around they get them right when they get them yeah for the photo op but you're not going to the mall you're not going to the grocery store wearing that jacket no i don't know what's worse wearing that jacket to the grocery store or wearing like a unis a ufc uniform shirt yeah i saw one person by the way one person in my entire life a grocery store near my house was wearing a robbie lawler championship reebok uniform shirt oh you're saying like wearing that the jersey's not the ufc fighter yeah yeah yeah yes yeah you like you buy like the gold plated like robbie yeah yeah i've seen that and they're super expensive too they always wondered who buys oh my god i'm sure there's people listening right now that buy those in there i'm sorry for offending you i'm sorry for offending you i i actually wonder what's worse the person who buys it or the fighter wearing their own probably the fighter wearing their own no man i don't know i don't know i think like if you wear if it's your own name like if you're the championship fighter like if you're caitlyn you kagan you're going to get like bananas and you're wearing oh you're talking about if she's wearing her her own shirt yeah that's weird i mean i get that they give him for free but like come on they're not even nice you were the you were the hijuani merch yeah wow okay we're going there um bug nose merge but that's nice yeah i mean they're just wearing their uniforms i i guess i stand behind them you stand behind them what's up with the writing of the letter like the name is like going vertically like that yeah let's do it like a football jersey where the name is you know in the back like this you know i don't hate that i don't hate the vertical writing it seems like it seems needlessly unique like oh let's think of a way to make this different let's put the name could you imagine if nba jerseys had names going down like that i mean yes that would be ridiculous but same thing imagine football jerseys with names soccer jerseys warm-ups i mean it looks normal on the pants like it covers the paint it looks much better on the pants yeah yeah okay well you mentioned like losing fighters and everything yeah you know it wasn't as good as it normally was maybe just because we're just getting on the gates people are still getting warmed up but we did have a few big hitters this week oh what do we got yeah we'll start with the big hitter of the week and it actually i mean how sweet is this saeed you cub kak ramanov he we bet i put in a bet on him and unfortunately we lost man to pull out because he tested positive for kovid but he hung around and he throws together this parlay five legs plus 17.69 throws 250 on it and he wins four thousand four hundred twenty two dollars holy crap yeah so instead of fighting instead of getting his his paycheck from fighting he uh he just ends up making a big bet and uh cash is out on it wow yeah and then we gotta we got a few honorable mentions here we'll throw them out uh at rent dues instead of at rents do i don't know what's going on there uh his name is not tom selleck so i just want to be clear here uh this is not tom selleck even though his profile picture is of tom seller okay wow throwback yeah he says his name is not tom selleck uh yeah he throws a hundred dollars on a uh plus 1071 parlay it actually had your bills in it had the bills the bengals and calvin kater in it i mean wow by the way i did a little pre-show on saturday uh my daughter claire popped in uh she picked bill's 1800s zero and then that's a pretty good that's a pretty good guess for a minute there was looking like we were going in that direction i mean slowed down a little bit and then she picked cater i mean that's that's the claire helwani parlay and then he added bangles on top to cash eleven hundred dollars if you're wondering uh she also picked cyril ghana and davidson figuerato for this weekend so ooh yeah i like the figgy pick i mean sierra gone is the line is moving on that he's like more in his direction he's like yeah he's like minus 160 at some point oh wow yeah he's like he's becoming a pretty big favorite uh last two honorable mentions uh sun tzu art of war this is just from daily fantasy like he just bawled out he entered seven hundred dollars and he won over fifteen thousand so he profits over thirteen thousand dollars just on daily fantasy which is just i don't know how you do that i mean that is just crazy so shout out to at sun tzu and then uh at t.j jerk tj jerkowitz tj turkey uh yeah great name well he took brandon uh roy val live at plus 385 and then he doubled down again at plus 392. what do you mean by live like during the fight when it looked like roy val was losing nice yeah i mean ballsy stuff there profits 971 dollars so i mean just beautiful execution there by uh by jerk owitz yeah jim quits it's a polish name i hope i hope i'm pronouncing that correctly by the way how has life changed for you now that uh it's legal in the state of new york i mean it's fantastic it's amazing i mean i can just log on right here and incredible and it's that easy i don't have to call my people out in the swamp right and you could do live yeah you can do that have you done live are you a big live guy yeah i do it every once in a while yeah i don't know what to do with live because especially like i'll live about other sports but if i'm live betting mma like i don't know whether i tweet it out do i tell people i'm taking it can i come on the show if i hit it but i didn't tell anybody about it i mean if you tweet it out if you say right now i'm taking uh moreno in the second round plus whatever i don't think it's a horrible thing to do i mean it's tough yeah uh draftkings league we actually oh yeah he won some money the draft king for the week is it el cubano no he was uh he was last time this time it was uh i like that the draftking yeah the draftking for the reek oh there it is there it is what in the world oh my god wow this is incredible there it is adriana barra what look at that that was amazing can i see that again yeah we can run it back that was very like uh 1987 nintendo yeah i was hoping that the text would be a little bit more legible but uh wow that's still working on it we're getting we're getting through some things look at that the draft game for the week baby how do you do that thing where it like like that that i mean that's just the magic of production back here i feel like i'm playing castlevania right now you know castlevania yeah yeah yeah or double dragon or no it was a double dragon well we're just we're just re-racking this thing we're just going back and forth adrian ibarra i mean he's getting his shine he went he won 112 dollars capra 150 cents yeah with what uh five dollars his lineup was uh he had borshev roy val collier uh mcgee kelleher and tj brown that was the winning lineup this week uh yeah this week i think we're gonna go big i don't know if this is too uh [Music] too daring too audacious i think we're gonna go for a hundred person league this week we did 50 last week and a lot of people were actually chirping me in the uh why you could put a cap yeah so like the thing is you have to fill the league if it gets over 20. everyone's always telling me they're like just check don't fill the league and it'll play but like once it gets over 20 people you have to fill the league i don't know why that's a rule what does that mean you have to fill the league like you have to so like if we have a 50 person league it has to get all 50 entrants or won't play everyone will just get their money back and don't get cancelled yeah so you're trying to be conservative right bud i was getting chirps pretty hard [Laughter] i was getting i was getting chirped pretty hard uh in the uh like there's a chat in the in the draftkings league oh my god oh 50 spots this is ridiculous i come off you think of they're like gc we spoke about this smh wow everyone's coming for me so we're going to do the hashtag road to 100 and try to get this thing to 100 we're going to go low this week so you think you could have got 100 last week i think i think the quality of the card i think i think so too this is a pay-per-view i don't have the league up yet i can't start one for some reason in mma yet but as soon as i can i'm going to get it up when i'm gonna push this thing hard cause i saturday morning it was at like 41 and i was like uh by the way you didn't tell me any of this i mean i would have given it a little muscle you know we're trying we're trying to get the league to float on its own yeah okay one anymore all right fine i'm just saying i could have helped out i did so this i did retweet it but it was just like a sort of retweet you know yeah yeah maybe a call to action well i didn't know i didn't know there was a call to action needed uh so a hundred people wow that's and uh did you do it yeah i did it and uh had it work out i fell on my sword i didn't put a line up in so you know what i donated five dollars to the cause what does that mean you signed up but you didn't actually put a lineup in yeah i completely forgot to put a line yeah yeah i mean huh cause i automatically i automatically join when i create the league so then you forgot yeah all right but it was a valiant thing that i did and how do people get the uh the link to join the league yeah i'll tweet it out okay and i'll tweet out the link it's nice i like that you guys do that a bit of breaking news here this is interesting by the way i uh i had heard about this from someone inside but was asked not to say anything according to rafael mourinho of combate uh amanda nunes has left american top team i saw that to found her own team while i'm doing the google translate here so to to i guess you know start up her own team yeah amanda yeah and this is super interesting for multiple reasons number one uh dan lambert who is the uh founder of american top team has been her manager for a very long time uh he has been a strong supporter of her and for her to leave uh makes me wonder if you know he's no longer going to represent her also there was the whole thing with kayla harrison right yeah yeah that's what i'm thinking does this does this open the door for kayla harrison amanda nunez wow which would mean kayla harrison is joining the ufc still heard as of right now that you know that's a that's a long shot i don't think that they're going to be able to pay what pfl is offering or even what bellator wants to offer to be honest interesting so she has to decide does she want you know does she want the money to secure and i don't say this but gradually she just adopted two children like get the money especially as a female fighter who historically don't get paid what the men get paid take the money or are you going for a legacy i say take the money all day you can't go to the bank and deposit a ufc belt it's not going to do anything for you take the money take the security take the you know the big paycheck but uh this is very interesting that it has come to fruition doesn't say but honestly well other than the starting her own squad um somewhat reminiscent of francis and cyril right yeah maybe this is a down the line type thing then oh yeah for sure wow how about that i think the uh the lambert part is uh the part that a lot of people won't you know notice right off the bat but uh it's sort of a three-prong thing here it's her leaving the team it's the lambert thing and the kayla thing so yeah that's uh that's very interesting some some breaking news there and i'm curious to know you know sometimes when you lose a fight of that magnitude and you make these drastic wholesale changes it doesn't bode well right right yeah i mean she had all the success with att for all these years and of course there could be a million things at play here so who knows you know don't want to necessarily speculate until she speaks about it but uh you see like a team a great football team or you know whatever have all the success and they they lose one big game or even a a fighter has all the success loses one big fight fire the head coach whatever fire the head trainer and uh sometimes it's not necessary you know sometimes you just gotta get back on the horse so i think that's interesting wow i mean it's very interesting yeah doesn't beat painting a rematch that would be crazy oh my gosh and misha tate said it herself of course she's somewhat biased she's friends with the opinion has trained with her for a very long time uh i i don't necessarily agree with dana way when he says that uh that rematch is going to be the biggest in women's mma history i don't think it has that kind of juice um i think even rhonda misha two was a bigger fight uh of course like the many invicta fights that you've watched over the years some of them have have rivaled that obviously yeah i mean i feel like chef chenko nunez 3 would be bigger than pena nunez too wow that's a hot take uh nunes prior to the loss uh yeah i mean i guess yeah i think the loss changes things a little bit uh comes back and beats pena and then faces shivchenko you don't think you i think that nunez shivchenko three would be bigger than painia nunez too yeah i think there is something to the fact that people want to know if like the penalty was a fluke did she right yeah you know did she just have a better night does she have her number ah it's tough again i go back to this i go back to this in order to have big fights in order to have big draws you gotta sell the fight and just historically amanda for whatever reason she's a lovely pro like i'm not trying to rip on her but like historically she just doesn't yeah sell the fight she'll show up fight week she'll do what she has to do but there's not going to be much else there and you need to get people emotionally invested you need to get i mean like just look at all the biggest draws in the fight game boxing or mma you can't just show up like even canelo who doesn't talk a lot of crap who like he's you see him you see him pop up he's present he'll he'll he'll talk he'll do stuff she doesn't do anything no media no nothing and and maybe look that's she's not complaining about her pay she's not complaining about any of this stuff so it's not one of these things where i'm like well you know if you're complaining about your pay you better point the finger yourself i'm not saying that however i'll just say i have a hard time believing that these fights will be the quote-unquote biggest of all time women's mma or not if a major portion of this story doesn't want to sell the fight doesn't want to partake in the promotion i agree with that i agree with that penny does a great job i saw her last week with uh mario lopez on the ellen show i guess mario was uh filling in for ellen or something like that but uh pain pain is a great interview i mean i think she does a fantastic job uh promo of the year yeah rewards that's right good call um just taking a quick look here did you have another shout out person or uh that was that was it yeah yeah through everyone no big hit or hall of fame right nah no hall of fame this week there wasn't anything like insane obviously huge bets but uh right nothing like that like plus a hundred six thousand type stuff just looking quickly uh so i see uh uh plus 155. [Music] yeah no that's good that's good that is great i don't even know how you did that how's the crown done the crown drop down yeah and then the the very underrated part that the listeners won't notice is the flashing yeah yeah i mean i don't put producers in my title for nothing yes i mean that is amazing value do you do like have you ever played nintendo i've never played nintendo yeah yeah like snes yeah no no that's super nintendo i'm sorry i haven't snes is the first i ever played okay so you laughed you didn't actually play what i was asking you normal nintendo the original the gray one you never played it no wow i mean this is straight up i don't like would super nintendo look like that yeah super nintendo [Music] what's that okay frank's frank's chiming in over here uh we've got frank filling in for new york right now oh next right next to me oh let's put them on the screen you can chirp me with a black face you know like with the blur yeah the blurred out face uh yeah he said that uh snes is 16 bit uh nintendo is eight but now he can't chime in himself with the microphone there i think he wanted to speak for me okay there he is by the way why are you sitting in the back frank just uh taking more of a super brazil wow look at this did you get a raise did you get a promotion look at him i mean she comes close to me so he can just chirp it's amazing uh so i guess we're not gonna be joined by mr monday afternoon i think he thought it was wednesday yeah i guess you just i don't know no uh near quick had a a family issue if you will to attend to but all is good all is well it was just sort of a logistical thing that he had to get to the funny thing is is that he walked in earlier because he was here and i was like oh well look who it is it's monday afternoon look who decides and he's eddie said how are you going to keep up this this this gimmick this joke and lo and behold he doesn't show up today yeah i mean come on classic yeah classic uh i think he might come on later i don't know well i mean how long do you expect me to stay here i don't know i mean yeah it's your show it's your show and i'm out all right i mean it's a federal holiday for god's sakes it is a federal all day i appreciate you all coming in by the way and happy uh mlk shout out to the box turning the heat on yeah that was a whole thing um did the knicks win i don't know let's see i know you don't want to talk oh they lost we won't talk about that big win on saturday against uh your atlanta hawks any thoughts on cam radish shall we talk about that yeah i was actually kind of bummed honestly that was yeah yeah oh yeah i think miles bridges went like crazy on y'all yeah 38 12 and 5. well i was just gonna say before we get to uh mr volkanovsky uh surreal ghan a plus excuse me a minus 155 at the moment francis ingano a plus 135 yeah yeah and it's interesting yeah man i'm looking at uh our good friends how about this okay not that long ago i was looking at the last they got a great thing on best fight odds the last time someone was uh you know they'll give you like the history of all their lines yeah last time francis was an underdog was the kane velazquez fight in february of 2018 coincidentally the first card on espn i was there actually i was in bristol chael and i came on right after the event it was very funny because in the promos they had to ignore that i was there too so you know like when they come out of commercial they're like coming up next on sportscenter chelsea will be in city i was like you know i'm here too guys right here yeah yeah thanks but we did get to uh kickoff sportscenter from bristol the only time that we ever got to do that so that's the last time but he hasn't been a dog i think i had to make cuts for that sports center for game night that night oh really wow okay how about this full circle um yeah i mean prior to that the blades fight he was a favorite the derek lewis fight he was a favorite the stipe fight which is super interesting when he was the underdog he was the favorite so maybe that bodes well for him in this fight where he's the champion uh excuse me when he was he was the underdog he was the underdog he was the challenger he was the underdog in this fight he is the champion and he's the underdog uh the alistar fight he was a pretty big favorite the arlovsky fight he was a big favorite the nganu fight he was a favorite is this just the second time yeah i don't know like i don't know like what to do with this fight like i i just have no idea who's gonna win like i could uh serogon's obviously incredible and gano obviously has that knockout power i couldn't with a good conscience take zero gone now because i stared at it at minus 110 minus 110 like all holiday break and now it's -155 at draftkings sportsbook so like i just like i i just feel like i missed out on the cyril gone party if i was gonna ride that way i mean like what's the number like how big does it have to get before i just have to take francis and ghana just based on the fact that like he can end anybody's night at any second like yeah i mean honestly i'm a little surprised here by the way just to finish people like bettors love cyril gone this week two other fights uh he's been the underdog um curtis blades in 2016 he was a plus 100 and then luis henrique which i believe was his debut but i could be wrong um he was plus 110. i have to say what's so funny yeah frank's just trying to oh you're trying to chime in i i have to say i get it i understand because of how good gun looks because of how he's been because of how young he is all that stuff and because you know the history the one forget about all that the thing that worries me the most about enganu is for whatever reason when you battle the ufc they always come on out on top and and i just feel like there's a lot going on this week there's a lot of pressure you know hey i'm not gonna fight for five six hundred anymore and all this stuff it's a lot of pressure right like he he needs to win like oh of course he needs to back everything up uh yeah i don't know i guess i can't really come out mad because i got the serial future so like him kicking off the year as a champion would be pretty nice for that and then of course uh we got the big homemade event uh davis figured out a plus 155 against brandon moreno claire's head is that yeah you going figgy maybe wow i mean i still got to do a little more research sure sure sure figgy uh and the last time these two gentlemen fought which was back in june of course figueretto showed up super late to the weigh-ins and looked like he wasn't in the the best of shape um that was ufc 263 back in june june 12 2021. he was a minus 240 favorite how the tide has turned yeah and moreno was a plus two of five first fight figurine minus 275 moreno plus 235 so by the way looking at figueretto last time he was a dog going into a fight he was a favorite against perez favorite against benavidez favorite against elliott um favorite against pantoja favorite against formiga favorite against moraga favorite against morales underdog against jared brooks and then underdog in the first benavidez fight so interesting times all right it's gonna be an interesting card so on wednesday we'll be back and you'll give us uh your official picks yes that is what we'll do and we've uh we've got the champ we got the champ oh boy i am looking forward to this i am really looked at the australian open yesterday was he really ah sorry about novak yeah yeah weird one called novaks come on oh wow that's my guy wow i have to say that is pretty damn i mean that is clever that is trying to stop greatness wow okay where did you see that he was at you he was just sitting there you saw an interview or something my girlfriend's working and she said that he was there oh shout out to the highlighted people so is your girlfriend there no remote bristol yeah do they even do they even go they used to now they don't anymore because of the covet so she has to work overnights because oh my god yeah because the time zone it's just terrible and and and what about uh the broadcasters are they there the broadcasters are there yeah okay but the production isn't yeah okay well maybe we'll ask alex about that thank you very much gc we'll see you on uh wednesday do we have the champ here i am looking forward to this wow okay we got the chat i mean is there a more talked about man in mma right now than this man everyone's coming after him we thought it was going to be max holloway then it was a max holloway then it was you know henry coming after him josh emmett coming after him yair coming after him zombie coming after him who isn't coming after this man apparently he was at the uh australian open without further ado let us say hello to the one and only alex the great folkanovsky the most wanted man in the sport there he is how are you alex i'm good mate i'm good yeah you're not wrong you're not wrong we all they all come out didn't they i mean it's good to be the king i suppose when you're sitting at the top of the hill everyone wants a piece you were at the australian open yesterday that's the word on the street apparently you were spotted yes yeah i was a good man i'm down here down in melbourne i had to do a couple of gigs down here so yeah it was cool it's good to watch so um wow okay let's uh let's start with this i want to work in chronological order alex i have so many questions for you i think everyone does and i really appreciate you coming on especially in the morning you know i always say i always appreciate you guys when you come early in the morning so um we get word that it's you and max march 5th was that a little premature by the way that announcement like were you just told i was kind of told that it was like it kind of came out of the blue that one or were you uh up to speed on that one just before the injury to max just the initial announcement well like yeah yeah it was because uh we knew about it obviously it was gonna happen it was locked in and and then it got out there which was like the whole thing was a you know was a bit funny in a weird process to to what i guess what we were used to but it did come a little bit early but i was like whatever i don't mind it when it when it comes out earlier so we can start hyping up that fight um earlier so i was all good with it but then then the next day yeah you know what i mean like it's just what was your reaction when you heard that he was now out of the fight i was disappointed you know the boys called me and they made sure joe rang me like you know just uh because i knew i'd be a you know man i just i was really looking forward to that fight i really was uh and you know just started or you know you know i was ready to get in the camp and you know getting get things going and uh you know end that chapter and all that type of stuff but you know uh as as as everyone says well bless says it is what it is but it's you know it's a it was unfortunate you know it's a big fight a lot of people wanted to see it but what do you do that'll just have to wait till later so uh we'll see what happens and so when you find out that he's now not fighting did you want to stay on that date march 5th or did you not have a preference yeah i wanted to you know i made it clear straight after my fight i wanted to fight regularly you know i mean even fighting in march was later than i would have liked uh because i wanted to you know i want to get some uh some defenses you know with defenses and i want to fight as much as i can this year uh so yeah i definitely wanted to get whoever we could um on the march but as you said there was a plenty of options plenty of people carrying on uh but you know that's that's how i my malesia i'm an easy champion understand you would know like you know i mean whoever's whoever's that number one guy or next in line that makes sense you know what i mean like and if you're ranked number eight or if you're coming off losses or you're retired and things like that it doesn't make sense but i mean if you're the closest guy in the rankings that's coming off a win or something like that easy that's an easy decision it's the only one that that makes makes sense so it was pretty funny seeing everyone karen i know you're going to ask him questions anyway so i'll let you i'll let you ask me about that okay i appreciate it i appreciate it uh were you approached about zombie or was that your idea or your team's idea uh well yeah the team the team obviously bringing up we had a conversation uh pretty much as soon as we found out the news so uh you know we'll uh obviously you know rattle about that but we're like oh well you know we want to we don't want to change the day we don't want to wait till you know he recovers or anything like that you know what i mean so we're like what do we do so we just uh you know the boys the boys talked and then they chat to me uh and they were just you know the early one that makes sense and again they know they know what i'm like you know i mean just again if i was going to fight guys that that don't really deserve it you know that that or that i don't like that that's not what i'm what i'm about you know what i'm about uh about yeah you're the guys that make sense he's an ig of the sport you talk about legacy like he's you know he's one of the one of the like the biggest names in the in the division that without as well you know though i want to i want to take out all the guys you know i mean you've got the guys that i face you know the legends of of the featherweight division and he's one of them so uh again and he's uh coming off a win a good win off uh d and uh danny guess sorry and um yeah so it's the only one that makes sense and that's why we wanted it yeah and he's won three of four like you said uh he has looked good um and i know that you guys have been sort of you know going like dating back two years now almost you guys have been going back and forth so there's some heat there right it's it's it's not quite the max fight but if you go into the archives i mean i remember talking to you about him in 2020 i remember talking to him about you in 2020. you guys haven't really seen eye to eye so it's it's somewhat personal as well correct oh of course it is you know i mean there was a time where you know he uh i guess decided to play the hill or his manager or someone did anyway and uh you know when and he was there calling us out and saying some things uh so yeah there is there is a bit of history there but you gotta remember like that was uh before that's why he was fighting for that number one contender when brian and him fought uh so it shows that you know he was close to that title shot uh but you know didn't go his way so that's why i fought brian and now he's uh went back and did what he had to do and and he's like obviously you know if max didn't pull out none of these guys would be getting uh get an opportunity maybe we don't know but that's what happened so uh i want i want to fight and ufc wanted to want us to still fight so we all agreed that uh zombie was a guy to do it again there is a bit of history he's an og of the the division so uh just yeah let's make that happen so i'm going to put him off to the side here for a second and i want to ask you about a young man named giga chicago uh let's get into our area let's get into it let's go he was very vocal oh my gosh and i said it on this show last week alex before the fight i said the disrespect shown to calvin cater this week is astounding we're talking about giga versus alex the guy's fighting on saturday can we wait at least till sunday to talk about it what are you thinking when you're hearing giga not just i mean let's be honest i mean a lot of it was disrespect i mean it was it was like personal he was calling you all kinds of names and stuff like that when he's fighting on saturday how did you internalize this well there's a there's a few guys that went a little disrespectful about it but i mean look there's going to be people are going to trash talk and all that it's a part of the game we understand that but there was a there was there's other science to it and then there is real disrespect not only to me but to calvin kader as well like you know you've got a man a top contender in front of you and you act like you're just going to walk through this guy not only let's win first before you start carrying on uh what do you know you're probably going to get injured it's not that the fight's not too far away and all that like there's so many things that come into play and then you know he's just in there obviously the champion oh whatever i don't really care about that but trying to say you know you take an easy way and then disrespecting zombie like he did uh just disrespecting everybody you know what i mean you know i don't know the full uh situation with that you know because i've i've talked to a giga and he's a you know he's not not too bad of a guy he was saying like you know i'm looking forward you know what he i said mate keep doing what you're doing remember having that conversation with him keep doing what you're doing and it's gonna happen uh but then you know uh you started uh i know maybe just thought that's what the waste was the way to go about it you know we started uh carrying on and uh you know a lot of people like me and like you know pull up like you better win this is gonna look real bad and you know what i mean i think it was a bad choice because now he just looks like a bit of an idiot and then he's uh carrying on even a zombie zombie all he does i think he did like one of them emojis like who wasn't thinking that right you know the way you're carrying on who wasn't thinking that and then you know you you start going uh going off if you're going to play that game you've got to you've got to expect that criticism you've got to expect uh people are gonna bite you know just it's actually if that's the game you want to play then play it the whole way don't uh don't don't get upset when people started rubbing it in your face and sticking with giga for a second as he was talking all week even before the fight was there any part of you who's like if this dude wins f this i want his ass i want to fight him because now he's he's talking a lot did you ever feel that way at any point well i didn't like to be honest if he was carrying also not only he has to we yeah for him to even start talking you know let's let's try and get out of that fight unscathed before he even asks right but then i still don't think he deserves it remember he's ranked number eight right he was ranked number eight and he was fighting rank number five you know these guys that he's calling like acting like and he's so surprised that i was fighting zombie these guys are ranked above higher than him yeah we're gonna be ranked higher than him even when if he won you know what i mean like it's just it just doesn't make sense like again yeah you've got a winning streak but let's let's find some contenders let's fight some top guys and you didn't look what happened like you know what i mean again like obviously everyone every time you don't pick someone they're going to try and say you're scared and and whatnot look at the people up here look at the guys it's crazy you're an absolute idiot if you think that i i dodge fights who's going to give you know max holloway has proved he's the next best guy i'm giving him the trilogy after winning twice who does that only guys that know that they've got the skills to keep when then he's going to do that the guys that don't give a sorry yeah you know what i mean the guys that that yeah have balls they're going to do what they need to do again like uh that's it's just plain and simple i'm an easy an easy champ to understand i ain't running from nobody earn that number one spot you can get it so mate we've got plenty to talk about because there's a few guys carrying on oh yeah yeah well i'm getting today yeah all right yeah yeah i'll i'll let you ask okay okay i just saw one okay one more on giga what did you think of the fight though um were you were you impressed with cater yeah look uh obviously i was impressed with certain things that katie did um again i go deep with a lot of things and uh it just shows you that you know kata can change a bit of his game to you know work a game plan so he changed his game a lot you know changing his stances and things like that to take away the kick from giga which absolutely rattled giga um but even though i thought peter was very vulnerable in southpaw when he would creep in like that he was very vulnerable but he literally giga did not know what to do so i was very impressed that he you know he sort of uh changed a bit of his game even went to things that you know he's not used to to nullify his opponent you know what i mean i thought that was great um i thought they both gasped uh you know i thought kader could have you know i was really thought well at one point like oh kate is just gonna mow it down now like this this is gonna be just easy work but i think they both slowed down a little bit but kata you know to make them adjustments uh for that fight you know i mean to change to change his game a little bit uh to nullify what a gig i thought that was good you know i mean not many fighters can do that i will do that or no to do that so that was a that was impressive um but again you know what i mean uh i can uh critique it all as well you know i'm a bit of a bit of a critic i feel like uh could you imagine he falls in front of uh or i guess both of these guys and i don't want to throw shade on kato after a great win but i just mean like these guys slowing down and everyone knows i don't slow down but i think it was a big eye opener for for giga you know what i mean that uh my get guys that you can't just rely on a kick you know the giga kick man like it just shows you you nullifies giga kit and he ends up being a punching bag you know what i mean it was a it's again just men that's why you got to fight these contenders fight all the top guys guys that are going to mix it up see where you are see you know what i mean before you start facing the champ you could imagine you know when you talk about making adjustments game planning cardio all these tools that i have mate i would have i would have made him look really really bad and you know what i mean you could you could imagine so before you want to take out these types of guys let's experiment with some of these good guys and see where you're at and he showed that you know he's not he's not really uh at that level you know he needs to go back and hopefully you know man to be honest even though he was carrying on you know i was like i'll be funny if he gets bashed but i was like look man fresh blood as well he goes out there and wins and wins again you know everyone's going to be screaming his name there's a lot of people screaming his name already when he didn't even deserve it so i want this i want this new blood you know i did want that in the way as well but um you know again for him to earn that shot he had to fight uh guys that are that that know what they're doing and it didn't work out for it so then obviously now no one's going to be talking about it but we'll see katie kate had done a great fight you've got to remember his last fight was against the number one contender so uh you know he's up there so uh you know we'll just we'll just see we'll see what happens there's a lot of guys up at the top now and i mean it's it's a it's a it's a very uh stacked division you know it really is there's a lot happening as you can see why there's a lot of people uh trying to call for the shot uh because they're amanda which is good it's good to know that we're we're going to have options very soon there's no clear number one other than their match that's where maxwell's going to get it but i mean there is guys that are just there you know i mean and then this injury for max you know what i mean if a couple of guys get fights here like they're all going to be screaming their name like you know it depends how long max is out for but you know i'm guessing that they're just going to make this happen a bit later but you get guys go out there and win and take that number one spot you never know what the ufc gonna do so uh it just shows you how our stacked our division is and uh how fun it is that he's getting as well and then we get to henry cejudo henry cejudo who is making all kinds of headlines who really wants this fight and my take on it alex and i can't wait to hear yours i don't think alex if this is presented to him this is what i said turns this down now we know what you believe in and what you say you know you say you want guys who are earning it and all that i don't think you turn it down because he's a big name and it's historical and all that and he was all mad at you and i said his criticism and his frustration was misdirected it's the ufc that's not calling his number it's the ufc and now i think he realizes that now he's going after dana white what did you think of what was going on there with henry because he became more vocal than ever yeah man you know look that's him but i don't even mind the guy obviously we have a bit of fun and you know he's always there trying to you know troll me and they're gonna get on my skin and make that fight happen i didn't you know i'm sure if you know if it was offered to him to get a chance to just go straight to the featherweight um i don't even know if he is in the testing pool i'm not sure if he is but so i don't know how serious he is but he seems like he's serious about it but um but again you know what i mean like again people are going to say am i i'm running and whatnot like the the ufc never bring up his name ever you know it was never mentioned to me it was never even close to an option you know what i mean you know how am i going to take it seriously if the ufc don't take it seriously and i don't even know if henry's really taking it serious but man i liked a guy he's got great skills but you know what i mean you've done great things in other divisions uh and you retired and you know so it's just it does it doesn't make sense obviously you're getting some people that are that were like yeah henry henry henry but it just you know it just does it doesn't make sense look what if there was ever a time that was gonna do it probably would be now but you know again the ufc were never going to bring it up you know uh you know they're thinking that what's the point you don't you don't you don't deserve it and then what if you do somehow get it done you're just going to retire and do that even though you heard said henry's i do that i'll stay and you know you know i don't think they believe that but you wouldn't have to worry about that anyway if you're watching but but man look again i don't mind the blood i don't mind the blood he's actually he's a good guy i've been listening to a couple of his interviews and uh when he's talking about what he knows what he's talking about he's good he's got the skills he's got the game plans and things like that so i've got respect for henry but um yeah it just it's no point even wasted that's why i don't waste too much energy on if they would have come to you and said we want to do this big fight henry zahuda versus alex wilkinowski a chance for henry to win three titles in three different weight classes do you say yes you think if the money makes sense and all that other stuff like are you open to it money makes sense and all that type of stuff or do you believe me yeah no orgy but like if it was this if it was this fight or do you believe like hey man because dana said it on saturday like go win a fight at 135 win that belt and then maybe you could talk about moving up but you can't cut all these dudes in a weight class that you've never fought in that's essentially what his stance seems to be yeah man well that's exactly right look if they if they were to bring it forward and they want to push it would at least talk about it you know at least talk about it and again it would be a timing thing which could have been now because of what happened obviously you know for if max didn't get injured and we weren't you know we again we wanted to fight as soon as possible so um you know that was probably a time for someone to to get a chance you know what i mean and that's why everyone knows that that's why everyone everyone come out of the woodworks and expected a title shot but uh you know it's it's just yeah they're not taking serious but if the ufc were to come come to me you know would at least maybe talk about it but you know i'm not taking it seriously if uh nearly anyone's taking it serious especially with the ufc so i'll waste some energy on it and then i've got a whole heap of killers a lot of peculiar vision that want to come try and take the crown of them and then we had yair call you out as well i mean it was like a historic week of call outs i mean i don't know if anyone's been called out that much in the span of two days yeah man like you had a lot of people call out and yeah people call out respectfully um you know yeah like joshua a few guys just put their hand up you know not carrying on you know what i mean so i give them respect for that you know you've got guys that earn the spot earn the earn the shot more than others and they're not even carrying on but then you've got a yeah yeah lucky again yeah like yeah like like one thing that that surprises me and what annoys me the way he acted about as if it was a no-brainer that he should be the next in line i'm like and then starts carrying on and and like swearing and saying i had to speaking you and all this type of stuff i'm like are you serious okay let's remember like okay let me let me bring you back let me let's let's be real for a second what over two years you're you're pretty much running from the bit i didn't want to bring that up but i mean you put me here you put me here so you're running from zabit pulling out you know you're getting suspended from yasada you've been a diva and then the ufc had so much hassles with you you know what i mean like you could imagine so it was a bunch of chaos so you have seen that going to take that serious and then let's remember he just lost i don't get it like i just really i really don't get it yeah you haven't fought for how long uh then you're coming off a loss and then you you get angry because i don't sit there and call you out like yeah man it just it just blows me away so it's the way that some of these people were not i don't mind the guy whether he just thought that was his way of getting the title shot maybe i don't know but i mean if if he's being ruined he's like you i'd respect her mate you're gonna carry on like say to my face if you really want to carry on like that or was it just trying to get the shot you know build a bit of hype i don't know but if that's uh really what you feel about it bring that same energy in person as well you know what i mean because uh i didn't do enough wrong you're the one who didn't fight for over two years and you're going to come enough a loss uh you want to get angry and carry on whatever but look again it's i guess when you're at the top this happens so uh you know it's all good is it hard not to respond to all these guys at the time at the time i'll be honest at the time i'm like i just i can't believe it because i'm just i'm bred i don't know if i'm bred different but or you know it's just my mentality like we've had plenty of conversations there and you know you know what i'm like yeah i'm always talking about earning it you know what i mean go and go and earn that number don't let it be given to you that's my mentality you know i mean i'm the type of guy that rather than crying like a little girl if you know and things like that i'm going to go and earn that that number one spot by taking out the number one contenders take out whoever i have to put me there so there's no one else in front of me that's what i'm like and then i start hearing all these guys uh carry on like that and you know let me tell you this ariel i'm going to be champion for a long time the mentality i have compared to some of these guys the way they go about things and the way they just want things given to them here's a good example for that dodging fights just so we could get find an easier way to the title shot and carry on like he did now you think you're going to beat me with that mentality that's why i'm championing for a long time because the mentality i have and the guy i am and the guy you know that's going to be turning up in the gym doing what he has to do even as a champ i'm going to be doing what i need to do to make sure i stay on top you know i'm still more eager than these guys chasing the chase in the crowd because that's just me that's just who i am it's what i'm all about these guys want to be uh you know carry on like little princesses um and just expect things given to him but when you have that attitude you ain't going to get nowhere in life so whatever but i mean uh you know korean zombie he didn't carry on um and i thought you know we thought he deserved it ufc thought he deserved it and a lot of people thought he deserved it again he's og you know i mean everyone's been watching him for for a long time i can't wait to be uh listen to his music coming out you know what i mean i said it's iconic you know i'm looking for that that gets me going yeah so you know i'm looking forward to that but again enough with everyone uh you know they carried on maybe they just thought that was a way to get that shot maybe they thought they can get me angry and i'll be like i want this guy but you know what i mean the guy i am is more important you know what i mean guys that deserve it you know that that's who should get it and uh you know the reason why anyone even has a chance to get this this time show is because someone got injured but i mean there's some of them that understand that and then there's some of them that just carry on and think that should be given to them their whole life but that's a loser mentality was it hard not to respond to everyone when they're all coming at you with the insults and making it personal or do you just let it roll off your back um it was hard i was about to just go what like yeah pretty much what i just said to you but probably a little bit more aggressive i know okay i would have probably would have swore a little bit more you know carry it on a little bit because man it just blows me away like how people like literally that not only were they not only were they calling the shop when they should have the fact that they couldn't believe that they were the next guy that that should have been like you mean and just the way like what makes you even think that right you know i mean like you know whether you're retired whether you're ranked number eight or whether you're coming off a loss and i haven't fought for over like two years you know i mean i just where where are you where are you getting this from what makes you feel like you're that guy i don't i just don't understand it so that that really burned me and i just wanted to just get a bit of a reality check to him but again you gotta you gotta calm down you don't you don't even know the story um it could be someone else on the instagram uh you know yeah or which we we're pretty we we know pretty much uh that was the case in some of them but not just that we're not just that like maybe they thought that's the way they get the title shot so uh you know do you have the you know sometimes you you see the stuff on twitter and then sometimes you see people in person it's different you know so maybe maybe you know maybe it will be different when they're in person and i just wanted that shot you know no disrespect but yeah maybe who knows i don't know but yeah there's a lot of guys that did deserve and that's why they didn't get it so it looks like april 9th uh it sounds like maybe jacksonville is that what you're hearing as well to um i'll be not being down melbourne uh working a big danny so i i haven't i haven't heard that okay fair enough so yeah that's that's that's news to me all right well i'm happy to share some news with you um by the way speaking of can i ask you you know i'm not trying to get political here but is there a part of you that worries that your days of fighting in australia you know with this whole thing that happened with novak djokovic that you may never get a chance to fight in australia again or that it might be tail like do you think about that at all because of uh how i mean this was this was a pretty crazy story that happened i don't say crazy in a bad way good way i'm not casting any sort of aspersions but it does seem like if you are unvaccinated you cannot compete in australia and let's be honest a lot of mma fighters aren't um are you worried that this might affect your ability to fight at home or do you not care i mean like obviously i can't but i mean it's just we're just we're just in this uh situation just right now i feel like that's going to going to change okay um i think things are we'll move on so i'm still hopeful obviously the defending my belt and i'm hoping it's the one after this one we could do it and i think it's going to happen you know i really i really do um but yeah it was it was a big story uh you know i didn't look too much into it but i mean it was everywhere yeah but uh yeah that's why obviously the ufc i'm bringing it here yet it has a lot of uh a lot of hurdles across uh so i think just time time will be uh what we need with all that now i asked uh robert whitaker about this last week and i tried to ask you i know you guys were on the set of that uh that fight show in uh australia and he he said the stuff about kykar franti like he didn't want to be fake towards him but you were sitting there so you had was that awkward at all for you because he's fighting izzy or are you able to separate that and and be cool with him oh man like it's look i'm cool with everybody that's just how i am you know i get along with everybody and i've known rob rob a long time but obviously you know easy's uh uh you know like a teammate of mine so you gotta that's the difference you know i'm always a lot of people like oh he's ozzy yeah aussie but then you go like family you know what i mean especially how we are with our training partners the same as at our gym at freestyle fighting gemini city kickbox is a real family feel the blood sweat and tears it's different you know what i mean like and uh you know so that's why you know he's he's my boy you know what i mean and rob knows that so rob was just like you know i'm different you know i mean so i'm the type of guy where it doesn't matter for me like i can get along with everyone business is business you know what i mean you know some people just uh do things a little differently so i wouldn't say it was awkward but i mean yeah it was uh maybe maybe it may be a little bit but i mean probably i guess more awkward for him rather than me just the fact that he felt awkward made me maybe be like oh okay okay you know because uh i'm i'm different again business is business are you going to be away from sorry go ahead what was that nah oh i was just gonna say are you gonna be able to go to ckb for this camp ah no no we've things that are going on over there as well so obviously it's still strict over there yeah uh so that that won't be happening i mean we can travel everywhere in australia so we get a lot of training partners uh around here but i mean we just bring everyone to to that's so we've done the last like three camps so um yeah so it'll be good it'll be good to go back there whenever we can but that's just uh not happening okay uh man i got to tell you the cooking with volk videos are just some of when honestly when it pops up i get excited when i see it on the feed i get legit excited i mean out of the production the one where you were at the beach with your family and you caught the fish yourself and then i mean i couldn't believe that you're you're actually like skinning these things yourself that's it oh my god i'm telling you man i'm just a real man's man hey that's it right the guy i was 10 years ago mate is the guy i am today i just got a nice shiny belt and i so happen to kick ass as well you know what i mean but i love my fishing i love my adventure i love my cooking you know i'm not the best cook ain't no but i have fun with it and i just like to record it and i like that you know i i like to have fun with it and that's what i think people get yeah you know what i mean i'm sure there's chefs looking at me like when that's terrible i don't know how to play food for let me tell you i'm not i'm not about presentation i'll be honest with you i ain't about presentation i'm all about the the taste but um but yeah man i enjoy it you know i just try to do all different things and you know some things are just like oh let's see how this goes you know i mean i'll try crazy different tips and on chicken wings and all that type of stuff well crisps i don't know what you guys call yeah but um you know just yeah so well i just have fun with it man i love it and the people seem to love me i love it people get nuts about it it's entertaining and honestly you make it seem so easy i'm like oh i could do this even though i can definitely not i mean that's the whole point as well yeah we keep it he's nice and short and anyone can do it okay anyway last question before i let you go i saw some footage this really caught my eye you were hanging out with some basketball stars over there in australia i know basketball is big over there uh you know historically the mma fighters aren't great basketball players we didn't see a lot of footage of you actually shooting and you know doing the drills but how did that go how would you rate your skills with those guys mate there's a there is some footage out there okay and they made me look good they made me look good which i'm thankful for but mate i can't shoot for i used to think i used to think i was good i used to think like yeah i'm because i'm a competitive guy i'm good at everything you know that's how i'm like but i'll i'll tell you now that yeah yeah shooting hoops isn't my thing man the last few times i've did it we've had a our cameras been for embedded or we're doing a lot of things with the illumina hawks we're doing some promos for them and i had to do one just the other day there was a under armour and uh uh steph curry doing that collab so we had to do this shoot like steph oh my god and uh yeah and so we had to do that we had to shoot shoot some threes shoot some threes and uh to raise money and i'm like man like you know i mean like i feel bad you know how am i going to raise some money so if i miss him i'll just pull money out of my own pocket and pretend i shot some hoops but um we ended up we ended up raising the money so that that was good but man i can't shoot i don't know what it is about mma fighters you guys can't shoot basketballs it's crazy i mean jon jones go find footage of jon jones shooting a basketball it's one of the most incredible things you've ever seen has no idea you know what it is it's a finesse in the fingers oh you know what i mean it's the finish you know the finishing little touches yeah we ain't about finishing your fingers mate it's all about the closed fist that's right that's a good point i mean we're we're a bit too aggressive we're a bit too too aggressive with the the hands and fingers and so it is although although john you know he puts the fingers out you know i that is right that's right all right so uh april 9th uh location tbd uh you versus the korean zombie this is a big time fight i like it i mean he's look good and uh honestly it's one of those fights where people bellyache and all that on the night itself i feel like there's no way that you two together like the the the concoction that is you and him together makes for a boring fight you know what i mean i don't know if zombie has ever been under boring fight period and you as of late i mean i don't know by the way congratulations you won the mma hour round of the year award i know it's very prestigious and you were very emotional when you found out the news but uh i mean that round round three is an all-time great how many times have you watched it by the way that round i've watched it a few times yeah what's up uh yeah because it's funny because we've had to do a couple of uh obviously gigs for it as well so a lot of people you know want to see my reaction while i do it or you know we go over it's so great still a lot of buzz around to say that's good but you know hey that's what i'm i mean it's funny i'll leave you with this because i use the i'm such a competitor i'd always been a competitor and that's that was my main focus where now you know it's more than that you know i've made it clear leading into the the last fight that you know we obviously winning is great but it's it's more than that and with zombie yeah and it's going to be a fun fight you know i mean i'm going to prove that i'm i'm still the best by far but it's going to be a fun fight can't wait so i'm really looking forward and i'm going to make sure we put on a good show and and i can't wait to go out there and entertain man give me give me these crowds again man i'm loving that i'm still buzzing from it get me in there sold out stadium and let's have some fun yeah and they can they could charge 75 here in the us for that fight i pay another 75 for a live feed on izzy as he watches the fight i mean those reactions are just incredible with him at home watching it so perhaps by the way perhaps when he fights you should do you should return the favor and do a youtube because you know i know you're active on you do one of him you do one of you watching him what about that what about that idea that's a million dollar idea uh it is a very very good idea because uh yeah i've got my own youtube channel and yeah i do cooking i do cooking on that as well um i'm even doing a breakdowns and things like that uh so uh you know i'm even doing pixelmate and i'm doing pretty good i'm doing pretty good with the pitch so i break it i break it right down to detail for everyone so have fun with that but yeah i think your reaction is definitely going to be the thing i'm going to do and um yeah i definitely were because i get i mean i get more emotional watching people fight than when i fight i bet you know my i can't control my emotions i guess i'm not trying to so uh you know i'm usually trying to keep myself uh level and compose when i fight but when i'm watching people fight i'm like i like freaked out you know i mean i get nervous whenever people fight i don't get nervous when i fight so it's it's funny so you definitely get a good reaction to when i'm watching people fight i'm in there i'm slipping yeah oh we gotta see it for 271 you got to do it for the izzy fight that's the one yeah we'll definitely actually have a chat with you today okay we'll tell them i say hello we'll do all right thank you alex all the best always a pleasure always great to have you on and i felt bad for you everyone coming at you i mean man alex doesn't you know he's not that guy i mean he's respectful so i don't know yeah it is a good thing it is a good thing a little personal at times the answer don't cry about it when you don't get the shot that's what that's what it is that's right thank you alex all the best to you see you mike all right there he is always gracious with his time alex folkanowski the reigning defending ufc featherweight champion and so it shall be on april 9th him versus uh the korean zombie chan seung jung and he is right he is an og put some damn respect on chan seung jung's name for god's sakes people acting like chan seung jung is just some scrub come on it's a nice story it's a nice story and i'm looking forward to it it's great fight it's a nice two pack of fights if you will with the featherweight title and the bantamweight title on the card all right um okay so it seems like new york can't join us because of the family hey perhaps you can join us on wednesday we'll see if we can you know squeeze them in uh it has been a fun day it has been a packed day a lot of people snowed in a lot of people at home so uh i hope you enjoyed the program if you were watching it live and uh if you're watching it after the fact i hope you enjoyed it as well but we're out of time so you can hear my music another fun one in the books and we shall be back on wednesday already some guest book for that so stay tuned [Music] of course we shall talk more about ufc 270. [Music] gonna be a fun one high stakes high drama great theater back at the honda center the pond in anaheim last time they were there was for dc stipe a2 also uh nathan diaz versus anthony pettis so a long time ago august of 2019 believe it or not so it's been it's been a minute as the kids like to say so we'll talk more about that on uh wednesday's show for now though we're out of time thank you very much for draftkings thank you to the guys in the back thanks to all of you and of course thank you to today's guest hopefully uh you have learned not to disrespect calvin cater anymore big time win for new england's own and uh you know if you're if you're a sports fan from new england you were happy on saturday i presume you were happy right i mean your guy won so that's great thank you very much to miesha tayden of course uh congrats to calvin keator and the new england cartel thank you very much to al jamain sterling thank you very much to michael ben and paige and of course thank you very much to alexander the great volkanovsky back on wednesday save time and place until then i see you

Channel: MMAFightingonSBN

Views: 282,918

Keywords: mma fighting, mixed martial arts, martial arts, ultimate fighting championship, combat sports, combat tv, ufc, mma, the mma hour, the mma hour with Ariel Helwani, Ariel Helwani, Alexander Volkanovski, Calvin Kattar, Miesha Tate, Aljamain Sterling, Michael Page, MVP, Bellator MMA, Bellator, Korean Zombie, Chan Sung Jung

Id: 9xDuxeubpIY

Length: 219min 55sec (13195 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 17 2022