The MMA Hour: GSP, Jorge Masvidal, Chris Weidman, Ciryl Gane and Kayla Harrison | Aug. 18, 2021

it's the mixed martial arts hour with [Music] [Applause] [Music] the next martial arts hour is back in your life i'm getting used to saying that i'm getting used to saying that it's starting to feel right on this wednesday yes i said wednesday august 18 201 hello again everyone welcome back to the show i'm a little out of breath because i just ran down the hall and came back doing a little cardio before the show i am so happy to be here on a wednesday this feels right you know when the show finished on monday at around four o'clock eastern time i was like man i want more i want to sit here i want to sleep here i want to sit here at this desk from now until the next show that's how i felt it felt so good it felt like putting on that like amazing pair of shoes that you hadn't worn in quite some time you forgot just how good they felt it just kind of like slides in right you don't have to struggle with it that's what this felt like on monday and i can't thank you all enough again from the bottom of my heart and i feel like i keep repeating it over and over again i can't thank you all enough for everything that you have said to me written to me tweeted to me about dm'd me about this show coming back into your life i can't thank you all enough uh as of this morning i think we were number four on apple podcast we were number 10 i think on spotify climbing the ranks you continue to rate review subscribe follow download comment it helps us greatly it helps this whole family here and that's what it is feeling like again and i really can't thank the people behind that wall enough as well and in other offices and maybe even at home the leaders of vox the production staff a few people that helped get this show off the ground so quickly alex and joe and brian and and miles and srinivas i mean i was talking with them uh leading up to this uh and i hope that i'm not forgetting anyone i hate mentioning names because i'm always afraid that i'm going to forget someone but this just feels so good and everyone behind the scenes at mma fighting and at fox who helped elevate the show and amplify it and get all the social stuff out the social team was great i mean it just feels so good and so what i always wanted to do with this show was not just make it a monday show i didn't want to say goodbye on monday afternoon and then come back in seven days i always wanted more but for whatever reason the schedule didn't allow for a travel this and that now we do it twice a week this is a thing get used to it who knows one day maybe five days a week but for now it's monday wednesday 1 pm eastern 10 a.m pacific 6 p.m gmt this is the show for mma you know i heard from a lot of people who said i'm a new fan i'm an espn era fan i don't know the mma hour some of those people exist you didn't do a good enough job of explaining to us what the show is did you watch it on monday that's the show the show is incredible access to the biggest names in the sport unfiltered commentary uncensored conversations no ties to anyone no ties to any promoter no ties to any manager no ties to any fighter it's me and you shooting like they do in the old days and that's the best way to do it in my opinion uh four to five guests on monday 45 guests on wednesday we do this bad boy twice a week and this just feels right it just feels right being back here i don't want to wait seven days to do this show again i'm here two days later i hope you're buckling up my friends because we got another great lineup for all of you third hour we're going to be joined by the one and only jorge marvidal am i saying that right i'm trying i'm trying it's hard with the ours it's it's just you know israel adesonya is a little more natural for me for me game bread himself will be joining us haven't talked to him in quite some time haven't talked to him since the monday after his loss tomorrow who's been since then launched launched his own promotion game bread fc was it yeah fighting championships um that was in june so he'll join us three o'clock by the way on my sub stack page arielhawani.substance.com i didn't ask me anything i asked all of you who have signed up for the page to ask me anything you want about whatever you want there's a bunch of comments there's a bunch of questions on there i have not looked at any of them i want it to be from the heart so ask me i have a feeling you're going to ask me about personal stuff isn't that whatever you want i'll try to get through as many as i can in a 30 or so minute stretch and uh i'm looking forward to seeing you know what you guys wrote in and what you have on your mind so that's gonna happen at three o'clock at 2 30 we're going to be joined by the pride of saint izodo quebec canada the greatest of all time the former ufc welterweight and middleweight champion the one and only george rush st pierre he is going to be joining us at 2 30. it is always an honor to talk to that man a living legend couldn't be more humble couldn't be more down to earth couldn't be more gracious gsp the man he's going to be joining us at 2 30 at 2 o'clock we're going to be joined by kayla harrison who's the face of the pfl who fights tomorrow so this is another new fun little element to the wednesday show pfl on thursday she weighs in she joins us the day before her fight that would never happen on a monday show right when other tuesday fights right there's never tuesday fights we get kayla harrison joining us a little over 24 hours removed from her flight is it removed would remove be the right thing to say or away from her fight remove will probably be after the fact and so we'll be joined by her we're also going to be joined by serial gan the new french prince of mixed martial arts the new ufc interim heavyweight champion who just won the belt what less than two weeks ago against derrick lewis we'll talk to him about that where he goes from here coming back home uh fighting francis his former teammate and friend all that stuff and more we'll talk to him at 1 30 eastern time but first let us go to the zoo machine and talk to one of my favorite guests in the history of this program we met him many moons ago in the aol days back in i think 2011 when he was joining his friend gianpiero valante in studio i called him chris weedman at the time he was just a baby-faced assassin in the ring of combat promotion a couple weeks away from making his ufc debut unbeknownst to us in louisville kentucky the one and only the former ufc midway champion the man whose picture is right over there on the wall the pride of long island who now lives in the carolinas chris weidman joining us via the magic of zoom hey chris what's what's up buddy i appreciate that intro we're back baby it feels good to be in this little office of yours back to the mma our set where's my little pop doll okay so well you have a picture i mean even better i don't know if you can see it it's on this uh maybe the camera angle that you're seeing your picture is right there when you knocked out anderson silva ufc 162 july of 2013 chris warhol i don't know if you know that happened but it's right over there i don't remember that i don't remember that uh so thanks for reminding me so it's there you will forever be immortalized in fact little known fact all the photos on this wall are new except for one there's one photograph that was from the old set that i was on doing this show back in 2017 2018 and that's your picture it was just an amazing photo taken by the great esther lynn all elbows and uh i just want it's a historic moment i wanted it up there so there you go that's how much i love you chris i appreciate it and again that you mentioned in the in the intro being in there for the first time with john volante it was the same day you had fedor on and his whole entourage yes yes i was so i was so intimidated um i was not i was in the room of combat and uh i was i was very happy that you asked me to come on the show beast and and be able to sit next to valante because it was in force at the time uh but it was uh it was it was definitely uh a nerve-wracking experience yeah it was february of 2011 right before the grand prix the first round of the grand prix at the meadowlands in east rutherford new jersey and then i do believe off the top my head this is how crazy i am march 3rd 2011 the debut right louisville kentucky impressive did you do what was what was the name of that card well you are you are good with this stuff it was uh yeah what happened what happened to you got all blurry on me look at you you've got a really cool camera oh there it is uh was ufc on versus martin katman against diego sanchez yep i was on the desk for that i was working the desk i was like a part of the actual broadcast really yes i didn't know you ever did that oh my god i forgot about that wow how long ago was when was the last time you did that wow you really have to go there huh oh no no no no listen uh the last time i've been on the desk well as part of the broadcast uh 2016 when i was working for fox and then they chopped my head off chris they chopped my head off by the way shout out to ian no i do not miss it at all i like unfiltered ariel uncensored ariel unchained ariel helwani i like this this version of myself i feel free chris i feel like these wings are sprouting off my back and i can fly and no one's going to clip them by the way shout out to ian parker by the way yeah go ahead i just want to give a shout out to you you're very good at talking yourself into believing that but i do i think you know even a little bit because you got you're really good at positive you know positive uh reinforcement and and talking yourself into that but i don't know i think it bothers you a little bit okay so you're wow i like this you're actually stirring the pot here poking the bear you think that i'm convincing myself that that i like to be on the outside looking in but in reality i'm dying inside is that what you're saying no i don't even think i think you're beyond i think you passed that i don't think you're dying inside uh consciously but subconsciously it is uh that still definitely eats you up inside no i can't i mean you couldn't be just a little bit no i mean you could not be any more wrong i appreciate you trying to go there this is good why are you going so hard with all these different adjectives to explain how amazing it is to be that's a good question you know why because when you've been when you've been when you've been breathless chris if i could be real with you for three years when you've been suffocating for three years you feel like shouting from the top of your lungs that you are free at last do you understand what i'm trying to say oh no i get it um and that's why i need to have you on my podcast well this is a great transition because i felt like you were interviewing me for your damn podcast which is a phenomenal podcast it's called won't back down what a logo by the way that you have over there it's really great won't back down with the great chris white man very proud of it what made you uh what made you do and you do it from yourself right now yeah where this awesome logo t-shirt and i'm not getting any money from this old net proceeds go to a heroes uh uh not-for-profit not-for-profit organization that helps moon and veteran wouldn't wounded veterans uh get back to normal day life so it's awesome what's it called is it higher heroes the one that stan is involved in get a hero no what now now you may be my second really here's this guy coming out here poking the bear and he doesn't even know the charity's name i mean golly all right i'm gonna we're gonna have to put this in the i don't know what we're gonna have to do we're gonna have to figure it away no it's okay you want why don't you have your producer i believe his name is troy work on that and he could send you the information oh my god i was totally wrong yeah okay what is it very embarrassing i apologize i just had surgery i have tons of anesthesia this is my system all right so give me a break sons of the flag okay not even close i went through so you have no idea listen i went through so much to try to find the charity to give away money to and it's so hard there's so many red flags you're not allowed to say that money is going to a charity um because a lot of times people will all people only buy the t-shirt because they feel like it's going to this charity and then people will take the money and steal so yeah i had to go through like so many so much red tape and um i talked to they have my managers talk to lawyers and figure out a way to even just promote that i want to give money to it you just want to be a good guy you want to donate and they're just they're stiff-arming you yeah well i had uh my buddy omar crispy avila who had 104 surgeries he was my second guest on my podcast um and he was the one who recommended sons of the flag and so and i decided to do that i originally was trying wounded warriors um but i think you have to guarantee like a hundred thousand dollars if you're gonna advertise is going to them wow a hundred thousand geez louise yeah i'm like all right i'm good yeah i mean that's a lot uh i can understand why uh okay i wanna ask you about the podcast i wanna ask you about your first guest that you ever had on the podcast of course that was anderson silva but first let's get the big news out of the way i actually wasn't expecting you to to be sitting here you told me yesterday you would not be sitting in the familiar podcast room now uh because you just had your second leg surgery but you're here and i appreciate that why did you need a second surgery well first i'm down here because this is the mma hour and i was like you know what mom my mom's here helping me out uh she flew in from new york so i'm really really lucky to have her um and so i got showered i got my boot on and i got help down the stairs and now i'm here i want the wow is a legit background for you thank you um and so the reason why i got my second surgery is so in the fight with um your eye hole broke my leg in half tibia and fibula gone they decided to put a rod inside the tibia bone uh screws up top screws down low and uh and they left the fibular bone completely alone the fibular bone is the small bone in the back and they feel they felt like at the time because there was so much trauma you know i had a compound fracture the bones had gone through the calf muscle they're worried about infection the main main priority was to fix the tibia bone because that's the bigger bone and that's the weight-bearing bone so they thought i was healing up well um they were looking at you know just you know the doctor looking at the x-rays um i ended up getting some different doctor opinions on the x-ray and they just felt like possibly the tibia bone was a healing proper properly and they recommended getting a 3d uh reconstruction cat scan so we got that done this all took about three and a half weeks and i'm like trying trying to stay calm because you know one doctor's telling me that i'm good other doctors are saying hey you might need another surgery um and some all different types of surgery uh they were talking about um so there wasn't really one answer they got the cat scan back and basically to make a long story short after going back and forth with different doctors from the east coast to the west coast um they believe that the fibular bone was non-union so it wasn't it wasn't healing properly it was basically like there was a gap here and there wasn't really any signs of healing going on there um they were a little bit they were like kind of off this and there was a gap so basically we decided to go in and plate it um it was supposed to be like an hour hour and a half surgery um put a plate over it conor mcgregor conor mcgregor had a plate originally um from the start just because his was lower on the ankle and he didn't have a compound fracture so they just went with it um and uh basically yeah so they they decided it was supposed to be an hour and half surgery ended up becoming uh three hour surgery because the fracture was bigger and worse than they thought and they had to put two plates on on it one going uh up and down one going across yeah um i i literally have more freaking uh metal on my lower leg than i have bone at this point it's crazy so i'm going to be good to go i already feel so much better really uh than i did yeah i just feel i just i yeah i just feel way better mentally um than i did even like before the surgery just because when i when i started getting back to doing things and i started going to the gym i was going through a lot of pain i was trying to just push through it um i was being told that the more i do the better more blood supply more blood to the area more work more time i'm up on my feet the better for it so i was going through a lot of pain and it got to the point where it just really didn't feel like it was getting better um like every time i would try to walk normal i would have this crazy aching pain in the back uh of my calf and you know it was just uh it was it was just messy and the fact that they were saying i was fine i was just like man uh okay and i'm just gonna keep pushing through but then we found out that it wasn't actually healing uh properly knock on wood are they saying to you all goes well like that's it for the surgeries that they're because i remember when we spoke the first time after the injury you said there's a chance there might be they have to see how it heals now do you feel like if this continues to go as you're feeling now that you're done with surgeries as far as this injury is concerned yeah i think i'm done uh only only possible of the surgery i think at this point um would be if the metal leg became too annoying all the plates they could possibly take that out after the fibula bone uh is healed so that is a possibility um sometimes you have no issues sometimes you can have an issue with it um so i just got to kind of wait and see that would not be a big surgery okay uh off the top of your head long recovery right right off the top of your head what uh i don't know if a lot of people know this we've talked about it a little bit in the past so this past surgery in total now how many surgeries has chris weidman had in his life 25 this is my 25th surgery wild man that is wild you've ever had like this time you're walking i i think it was maybe june when i saw the video of you walking was it june you had the injury in late april it's junior walking holy smokes we thought you'd be you know on crutches for months and now okay i know you say you're feeling pain your gym but like the the the news that okay i have to go under the knife and then the idea of like that recovery and being at the hospital again like how did you deal with that because it's a setback in in some respects did you feel depressed did you feel i'm gonna get through this how did you internalize that news um going into the second surgery yeah yeah i feel about it because it felt like you were turning the corner there for a second and then there's a bit of a setback yeah i think the hardest part was being in limbo for that three four week period where they were kind of like some doctors were saying i should get a surgery some weren't but we had to get a better like x-ray through that cat scan to really find out um so that that just took longer than i'd like to and i just wanted to know one way or the other what the hell the deal was um that was tough for me to deal with and then um so going through that last surgery of mine um obviously the you know breaking my leg and then you know everything that went with that the pain um and then the physical therapy afterwards that was the most painful thing i've been to in my life i've i've had like neck surgery shoulder surgeries hand surgeries some i've had some bad surgeries um there was nothing even close to the pain i was dealing with after that um so going into another surgery i honestly was scared i was i was not i did not want to go through that type of pain again um and thank god it was even close to the same type of pain i guess the i guess because of how traumatic that injury was just from you know that you know that kick being so explosive over uriah's leg that really just just was so much damage there was so much damage from being stabbed from the inside out you know with my jaggedy bones going through the skin and uh and i guess everything that happened with the surgery um it was just super super painful i wouldn't wish on anybody and uh and so going back into another surgery where they're going back into that area i was i was worried um but this has not even been close not even close to the same pain um so i'm grateful for that but it was scary i was telling someone about you recently and about the injury that you know a lot of people heard about it who aren't mma fans and the question they asked me was which is obviously impossible for me to answer so wait he wants to keep doing this like he's working to actually go back after that and and after that kind of injury do you still want to keep doing this like you obviously want to get back to 100 percent but like the idea of fighting again this still intrigues you it still interests you i i love fighting i love competing um it's what i'm best at um i love going to the gym i love you know sparring and working out the guys and doing all the different you know competitive stuff on a daily basis that's what i love to do and listen if my body was the point where it was like all right you can't do this anymore i'd be done um if i felt like i was going to the gym and going with top guys and and i just wasn't able to do things i used to be able to do and they were beating me um i wouldn't just go into the cage to collect the paycheck and get beat up you know i'm i feel great i felt great before this last fight i felt amazing i felt like uh you know i'm the best in the world you know and i was ready to have some big moments and so i'm gonna do everything i possibly can um taking day you know day by day and you know day at a time to get back to that spot and um i'm just gonna try to control all the things i can control and when i get back in the gym and they say my leg is fully healed um and i'm able to do things the way i was just doing it you know pre-april i will i'm 100 fighting and right now that's where my mind's at but if for some reason i get back on my feet and they're like hey this is the best it's gonna be chris um and i'm not able to do the things i used to be able to do i can't grapple like i used to and i can't i can't strike like i used to a move like i used to i i'm not gonna i'm not gonna do that to myself i'm not gonna go in there and just get embarrassed um so yeah unless i think i'm the best in the world i'm not gonna fight does that worry you do you even allow your mind to go there or not yet no uh no no i i'm honestly uh just having just just getting to the point where i was walking before this last surgery i know i was having pain moving around um i still feel like i'm it's gonna be there with this fibula being fixed you know and and everything healing properly i think i'll be right back to where i need to be and i'll be able to uh deal with anything i need to i'll kick someone in the head i'll kick kick someone's leg again i'll let them kick me i don't care i'm willing to do whatever it takes um and but that being said if if there's if my body's not responding if it's something that's impossible to do i'm not just going to be going in there to get beat up i'm trying to have some amazing moments uh you know i'm trying to create some great moments and i really believe i have some great moments left in me inside the ufc um so that's where my head's at and i'm just gonna take a day at a time and get through this and stay positive um yeah zhang wei lee recently did an interview i don't know if you saw this where she said that she gave you a fist bump right before and and then seeing you you guys i think were in the same locker room and then yeah she gave you fist bump and then she sees you get injured and then she's next and she said that it messed her up in her fight you saw that yeah i gave her the bad juju um yeah i i mean i remember hanging out in the locker room and you know everyone you know when you're in the locker room you know you got to give people good energy and good vibes and yeah i remember her you know give me the first pound right before i went out and uh yeah i mean listen that was a it was a super traumatic moment um for me and i think anybody probably watched the people in the stands and stuff uh it you know it wasn't and you know people want to compare i probably i'm guessing you'll probably get get to this but uh with conor mcgregor you know his was like kind of over time you know slowly happened and they stepped back and it you know broke mine was you know we weren't even sweating sweating yet you know it was there was no adrenaline going i was fresh it was the first strike of the fight full force everything i have and uh it was traumatic i think for everybody to see to see that happen um so listen i wouldn't i would i think you would probably mess with anybody a little bit but that being said like you know you can't make you don't want to make excuses like that i'm sure rose i'm friends of rose i love rose i'm sure she was upset when she saw me do that but you gotta get right back you gotta get right back to uh getting your own head and being ready for your own fight but it is an interesting point it's actually one that i mentioned on the night um different than the connor fight which obviously didn't happen at that point or the anderson injury which was like the connor fight in the anderson fight that was the last thing right like that the night ended and even for me and i'm not competing but sitting at home i couldn't i was like wait okay so like now we're just moving on to the next fight in the past we've seen these moments in the main event like now we have to move on to the next fight i can't even concentrate on this and so to hear her say that and i know some people be like oh you're making susa blah blah no that makes total sense she was just in the locker room with you she gives you you know a fist bomb she's about to defend her title you're the previous fight it's totally understandable in my opinion for it's a rattle a fighter who's going out five minutes after you're being stretchered out it actually made total sense to me completely understandable and i'm sure she's being asked questions on why and she's trying to figure out reasons on why she lost and i and that 100 was something that was in her head and something that she thought about it wasn't a positive you want all positive vibes you know you're walking out you know there's a lot of negative thoughts you're trying to deal with and um to have to deal with something like that definitely sucks and um it's not like she's lying saying that right out there i i believe her 100 and so what's interesting is uh you have a great ability you're a very positive guy way more positive than i am or will ever be and so there you are at home you know you're super positive i'm the the least positive especially about not being on the desk anymore well that's different that's that's me trying to convince myself i'm just joking i'm just joking i'm just joking i'm joking listen you make this podcast while you're at a commission you go with the name won't back down which obviously is is uh kind of the title of your career you walk out to that song it's one of those songs that will forever be linked to you there's a few guys who have those songs that are forever linked to them but also the the sort of impetus of it all is like you won't back down like you're literally talking to people who have overcome things it's a brilliant idea how did this idea come to you well i think i always had a interest in you know just conversation and talking to people and uh the podcasting was kind of always in the back of my mind something i would like to do and then you know after that injury knowing that i was gonna have a lot of time that i had nothing going on you know and i was gonna have to fill my minds and my time with something valuable and something that was positive i thought you know what's better than you know talking to other people about you know different setbacks that they have had in their life and and ways that they have overcame it while i'm dealing with you know everything that i'm dealing with um so it was a way to inspire me and then also i know a way to inspire other people i mean i think that's probably one of the things that you know a lot of fighters me included you know you don't say as much but like really the goal of this whole thing you know for me from the get-go is to get big enough to where you can inspire inspire people you know and you know create a better world and so the fact that i'm able to talk to different people um with my platform and create a podcast and just chill and uh have a relaxed conversation with different successful people that have had setbacks which is pretty much anybody you know everyone's had tough times i just give them an outlet to talk about it and it makes makes me feel better to hear other people having issues you don't feel so alone and uh it's been it's been awesome so far i i really enjoy doing it and uh i actually you know the last i had to take two weeks off um with the surgery and this week um but i really look forward to getting back to it and your first guest is none other than the guy you'll always be linked to anderson silva who suffered the same injury i mean it was a perfect booking as someone who has to book his own show each and every week i can respect the good booking that was the perfect way to come out how weird was that for you to speak to that guy who you knocked out and then had the injury i mean like the whole thing was just amazing how how weird was the actual conversation for you um so originally he actually i saw he he came out on instagram or on social media and i said really some really nice things you know prayers after me and my family felt really awful um and then he actually his management team reached out to my manager team and he uh got on the phone you know got my phone number and we spoke and um you know i was in back in my wife's minivan i was in crazy pain i might have been like three or four weeks out and um here i am talking to pretty much my nemesis you know someone that you know obviously i beat i beat twice but even though i beat him like people hated me for beating him you know he was the goat you know and uh the way it happened you know both times people weren't really happy with you know they just you know couldn't really uh wrap their head around so it was always kind of like a thorn in my side too and i'm like you know what after talking to him on the phone he was just so awesome about it he made me feel so much better about my injury and where i was at i was like yeah i gotta really i gotta get him i wanna i want other people to experience this conversation because it's it's helping me so much and i think it could help other people so that's pretty much why we decided to have that podcast but it was it was like nerve-wracking you know it's the first time i'm doing a show it's with anderson silva um we have we didn't have the best relationship you know we had we've done tons of press conferences and different autograph signings together and we kind of always you know we were just very competitive and neither one of us wanted to lose and uh so there was there was always weirdness between us before each fight and after the fights um so it was weird to also you know be there talking to him um but what uh it really like you know i think made me a better person the way he was able to let go of losses i know what it's like to lose you know it's not the easiest thing to want to talk to someone that you lose uh lose to um and to you know give them a platform with yourself uh so it was just he's just a a very humble great human being uh and now i'm like a huge fan of him i i honestly um when he just fought julio chavez jr that was he looked amazing so good i don't know what happened to logan we're going to go on anderson silva talk here but like he looks so good in that boxing fight he made 180 180 pounds yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so lowest he's ever fought and i don't know how long his footwork his motion his taunting abilities the way he made a world champion boxer look out there no mma guy has ever even came close to doing that while crossing over to boxing i was begging i i saw that they were talking about logan paul fighting yeah i was dying to see that because logan paul will get destroyed by anderson silva uh now i see he's fighting t ortiz and i you know i just i just know he's making great money and it's a great time for him to be in the boxing world and i'm happy that he's you know doing what he loves and able to capitalize on it why did you feel the need to apologize about 168 to him well because that the pain that i went through and the pain that i was going through at that time was excruciating the pain not just on me but my family uh the fact that you know i couldn't do anything on my own everyone uh you know everyone was just doing things for me i hate that it was just it was just it was honestly terrible um and when we when we fought and his light broke um i felt terrible at the time you know i i did i tried you know calling the day after you know get in touch with them through ed soros um you know i know a lot of people see they they like to clip the part of when i break his leg and i my arms go up in the air and i start circling around the octagon and then he clip it as if i was happy and i knew that his leg broke and to clarify once again watch the whole damn thing because uh i broke his leg i had no idea i broke his leg i've never even seen that before that someone's leg is you know gonna break like that i didn't it didn't occur to me that that happened i just thought he got hurt because when you do check a leg kick which i was working on a lot because if you watch the first fight he did kick the crap out of my legs i just thought i checked it good enough i thought i did at that point we're already around the half in i was doing good i already dropped him once and was you know beating him from the feet to the floor i just thought it was just too much and he went down he was in pain and the ref stopped it i didn't realize his light broken hair so i circled around then i heard the screaming going on um and that's when i went over to him and i saw his leg being held you know he's trying to hold his leg together and that's right away i was like man i felt awful i wanna go got got his cornerman into the octagon because the security guards weren't letting him letting them in and i'm like bro this guy needs somebody around him that actually he knows and i was trying to get them in and whatever i felt terrible but that being said as bad as i felt weeks went on you know months went by and i wasn't thinking about it every day i wasn't really thinking about the recovery that he was going through it was hard to empathize with somebody when you never went through something like that i had no idea um so the fact that i was actually going through it now i had an idea and i could empathize and i felt terrible and one of the things that the thing that i apologize about which is something that he thought was stupid and didn't think i should apologize for it but i felt like i just needed to get off my chest because it did bother me is that i would i you know i was champion you know and then i'm doing autograph signings i'm doing appearances and all the fans want to take pictures with me now i just broke anderson's leg everybody wants to take a picture of me with me checking their leg kick you know and that's like the fun thing that they want to do and for the majority of i'm like no no i'm not doing it i'm not doing this disrespectful but over time i'm like you know what all right here we go go ahead throw the leg kick and i took some pictures like that not that i even seen any surface or anything but i knew that i did and it bothered me that i even took a picture like that because the the fact of knowing and understanding what him and his family went through uh after that it was uh was different to me and then i i just felt terrible that i even made any type of joke about it what a bizarre thing to ask someone the people actually asked you to do that oh yeah of course what of course that is the weirdest thing who would want to do that like a lot like more than five oh tons what punch that is so strange to me hans that's a that was i'm sure there's listeners here mma people have asked me oh my god the majority of them i told no um i could see them maybe give like asking you to sign the picture like the famous picture or whatever i could see that but to recreate i'm sure you have to sign the picture as well right yeah yeah pictures whatever it just depends i mean i'd be out random places and that's one of the things people instead of just doing the picture with the fist up it was um it was you know they wanted to like you know pretend like they're getting their light broken geez that is horrible um that is just very very weird what a strange strange thing um so in your mind like you know perfect world have you even allowed yourself august of next year september of next year like do you even allow yourself to think of a month or is it way too early um it's it's still too too early i'm gonna take a day at a time um i'm gonna get back as fast as i possibly can but you know being smart about it and we'll see uh we will see where we're at you know i i do i don't think this is going to take as long as people think i'm staying in shape i'm trying to work out i'm just trying to stay you know work no matter what i'm like i'm this morning stretching and yes yesterday i was working out i mean i'm trying to i'm trying to do as much as i can to stay in shape my weight i'm keeping low i'm on good diets um and i i really think i don't know maybe like three months i could be back in the gym feeling great wow so um yeah because my tibia bone has now been healing since april and that's really the biggest deal you know that's the biggest issue um the fibula bone is not as big of a deal you know hopefully four weeks i could start actually you know putting weight on it without a boot and um and next thing i know i'll be up on my feet working out you know boxing and then eventually i'll get the kicking probably you know a month or two later and i'll get right back into it man um yeah so i'm gonna come back man and i feel like it's gonna be an awesome splash i think it'd be inspiring for people i wanna fight someone good and um and i wanna and yeah i wanna just create a an amazing moment well this is the scene that i'm going to put out there into the universe let's say fall of 2022 the that's too far okay okay yeah i was just trying to be a little conservative a summer 2022 uh spring summer spring summer okay wow spring summer 2022 the brand spanking new home of your new york islanders belmont park main event the return the homecoming don't say you want to fight in charlotte or something like that the return on the island noah whoa and here he comes the pride of long island the pride what was the name of the town that you you were you went to school baldwin new york and you've been through so much hurricane sandy and the shoulder and the and the late notice and then damian maya and and and the towels sticking to him with the with the with the the the the static and anderson so that everything that this man has been through they've counted him out time and time again and he is going to walk through that curtain in front of his own people in front of the own crowd long island new york belmont stadium home of the islanders main event live on espn christopher jay wide man walking through noah whoa back down look at that noah whoa back down chris i love you you're the man love you too thank you for doing this god bless that was awesome thank you so much that's gonna happen i appreciate it i see it i feel it and i believe it best of luck to you thank you guys for all the support i really appreciate it and uh take care buddy all right there he is the one and only chris weidman joining us the uh the legend the former ufc middleweight champion pictures right over there knocking out anderson silva ufc 162. what a time to be alive las vegas 2013 we're approaching 10 years we're getting so old but could you imagine that like if the stars can align that he fights on long island not msg because msg you know it wasn't very kind to chris but long island was kind to chris i'll never forget when he fought kelvin gaslim july of 2017 i believe it was on fox main event remember that scene that was a great fight that was an amazing fight coming yesterday of course fighting this weekend um against jared kennedy what a great scene that was they've got this new stadium opening for the uh for the islanders if they can and i know it's hard sometimes to have the stars line if they can align the stars to have him come back at that arena that would be i mean that would just be magical one of the true great guys in the sport the podcast is great he's a great interviewer you know sometimes you have athletes who are not good interviewers because they're used to fielding the questions themselves talking about themselves in this case chris does a great job so i highly suggest you check it out all right uh let's go to our next guest now uh he is the pride of france uh two weeks ago in houston texas he won the interim ufc heavyweight championship he is undefeated he is a rising star he's only been doing this for three years and it appears as though he's on a collision course with his former teammate francis and ganu for now though let's go to the zoom machine and say hello to the new father serial bongame gan who's kind enough to join us my man cyril how are you i'm finding you online i'm doing great by the way uh thank you so much for joining us i love bon game as a nickname but i don't know if you saw this i i want to give you a new nickname let me know what you think of it i want to call you the french prince the french prince i like it what do you think what do you think yeah this is a good nickname i i prefer to have uh this nickname like more hamburgle like bonkerman like group keys i prefer that okay well you know why the french prince right like the fresh prince will smith you know you know the show the fresh prince oh french prince you get it come on man come on i know you're down that's good that's good right yeah yeah carlton there you go this man knows you're down uh listen you could run with that your management you can sell the t-shirts that's on me that's on the house okay you guys can do whatever you want with that uh it is uh it is great to have you on congrat felicitation not only on the belt but on the baby my friend is that your first child that you just had no this is my second daughter okay wow my second daughter and we just arrived uh yesterday at home so everything is okay well we are happy to have uh with us and uh everything is nice what was it like preparing for the biggest fight of your life as you're expecting a baby there's you know there's there's there's there's stress involved in that i know you're not actually the one delivering the baby but still there's a lot going on a lot of changes was it a stressful time for you the preparation for this fight or uh was it you know were you able to be shielded from all of that yes it was not not really easy uh at first when the ufc called us for this fight uh my first answer was no family first time and i don't want to do that i don't want to i don't want to do that this is too close and uh after a few discussions with my wife with my team with every people around me uh every every people tell me you're my man you did a lot of sanctions for this fight let's go my man this is a big opportunity and no rule is your daughter gonna gonna waiting for you and she's waiting for me so i'm really happy for that it's what a time i'm sure you'll never forget any of this um do you feel right here now like you are a ufc champion you know the interim title you know this fight it was a little polarizing a little controversial because of francis and everything he just fought do you feel like a champion or will you only truly feel like a champion when you get that undisputed title i must beat francis to be the real champion for sure one of the person uh this is an entering belt so i'm really happy about that i'm really happy about that this is this is really nice this is uh this is awesome uh but to be the world champion yes of course i must to fight again uh yes francis and i'm just weird for being the big champion of course yeah where's the belt now oh my gosh in your car what's wrong with you man in your with your in what in the trunk what is it doing you don't have it like on a on a shelf or something next you know on the fireplace what's going on i disrespect a little bit uh no because uh i was on my way for some people and i i i i i was really uh really uh i don't have the word that uh i want to be uh really quickly or something the interview oh okay all right that's why okay that's my bad all right so i'll blame myself for that but i saw a video that you posted i think it was yesterday or two days ago all these people showed up to the gym for you how many people showed up yeah i don't know exactly maybe five or six hundred people i don't know exactly maybe more wow it was a lot because uh you must uh you must have uh the the i don't have the good word yeah oh yeah so because of the kazakhovic exactly i expected the really less people and uh wow this is a really great surprise people are really happy about that what was it like a like a homecoming a celebration for you a party in your honor it was uh yes it was uh i i want to i want to give this present for every people that support me this is my present like like i did uh in the in the cage with fernando lopez this is this is our job this is uh this is uh this is how that's it and i want to i want to do that also with the people who are support me that's it it felt like there were more people there than when uh leo messi showed up for paris saint-germain i mean it felt like there were more people for your thing i mean it was unbelievable that's that's true that's true yeah you're a bigger deal in france than leo messi you should say that put that on the shirt don't be humble anymore [Laughter] you know what i'm saying um by the way speaking of sports i saw some footage of you you're a really good basketball player oh yeah i like every sport but i did a lot of years at the basketball yeah and it's really great but i was not prepared for to be a real professional was that one just for just for fun okay so but when you were a kid was that your first dream did you want to be a basketball player no uh at first it was a soccer it was okay football yeah your footballer exactly i was a really great player in the football but uh same same i don't want to be a big professional i don't know i don't want to be an adult before before uh i don't want to be a big professional this is more too much pressure for the young people for me it was too much really that's why i just want to play uh yeah but uh i think it was a mystic a little bit yeah why but no not really because today you see we we can talk together and i did what i did at the ufc but uh i'm a really great athlete and i'm really uh i have this uh this iq in every sport and uh i think if uh if uh if uh if i did uh more years in the the football yes if i if if i did a choice what i did for the for the mma i think uh uh probably uh uh will be a professional in soccer right i wonder if the reason why you say that uh i don't know if you saw but a lot of headlines recently because you you told i think a french outlet about what you made for the fight your pay and so do you feel like oh if i would have gone down the soccer basketball route i would have i would have made i'm such a great athlete i could have made more money doing that as opposed to this yes probably in the soccer yes yeah the soccer the the pay are really crazy right that's really crazy why did you uh feel like you you wanted to reveal all that a lot of people don't like to talk about what they make for a fight but you talked about it which i respect you for and i give you uh you know a salute but why did you want to talk about that well for me it's not so great if the people want to know how much i have for the bonus everybody you know can can can know that so for me it's not a surprise i'm not uh i'm not like the french people like i know i don't want to talk about my money and so no that's okay i can't talk about that but yes i saw on the media a lot of people uh put this on the headline uh because the people think i'm not happy about that no i'm okay with that i'm okay with that you have a tax like every job and you have a team the team take a look spend a lot of time with you yeah my coach uh uh don't saw his daughter uh during one month wow for for for for me for massaging for because he was really busy and uh so that's normal to to to to bring that for from a team so everything is correct and after that yes the dollar you translate in the euro yes but it's a game that that's okay and uh i just started there they are three years ago so nowhere is this is a this is a this is a big universe it's the beginning of my career of course yeah so there's a lot of excitement surrounding you because you're such a great athlete because you're undefeated because of who you've beaten and how you've looked in the ufc but also as dana white said in the post five press conference vince mcmahon himself of pro wrestling couldn't have scripted a story like this you versus francis the the two frenchmen former teammates how would you describe your relationship with francis right now uh right now we are really not close no because uh francis is not this kind of guy and because also when i arrived in the factory we live already to live in vegas okay so there are three years ago so that's why we are not really close enough i missed him uh when uh running coming back for uh for a count for over him another fight so yes we did something [Music] together but uh he is really more close than um okay for sure yeah so would you say you were never close you were never friends this idea that you were friends and all that you just kind of trained together sparked together but you were never like buddies you didn't go out to eat together hang out things like that no never no never never he's not this kind of guy how many times do you think you spart against them how many times maybe uh maybe uh ten times no more okay do you think i don't know the answer to this i'm just do you think you were part of the reason why he left the team i know can you repeat the question i'm not sure okay do you think you were part of the reason why he left the team no okay no no no no no you live already when i arrived in the factory okay so no no no no no no no no no this fight though and i guess his relationship with felnan lopez who who has talked to even our site mmafighting.com about you know he didn't love the fact that francis this is what felnan said didn't give credit to the coaches and the people who brought him up if you fight him is this a personal fight for you like do you feel like you need to to beat him for felnan do you feel like you need to do it for your coach no no no no no no that's that's that's a little bit funny because uh when i sing it without the ufc every major asked me yeah you and francis and bernie that's that's not my deal that's really not my deal i just want to do my thing and uh i think i'm a great athlete and i i do well and i want to do very well uh tomorrow when i'm gonna fight against versus uh francis i just want to do that with the good feeling i'm not this kind of guy i'm not a i'm not jealous i'm not uh i don't have a bad feeling uh in myself and when you see me yeah you know and uh and then tomorrow i'm gonna fight francis i'm gonna fight like like i i fought against a broken or just in you everybody directly that's that's another opponent that's it for me if it was up to you when would this fight happen what month if if it was up to you if the ufc said all right so francis is ready yeah but we want to know you know you just fought what would be best for you uh since uh one and a half years uh i did a lot for the ufc and for me i fought a lot i did a lot of camp and i just want to rest a little bit with my second daughter it's not easy to manage first person that's really not easy i can feel it uh this is this was my first night yesterday and i forgot what is it yeah so yes i'm gonna manage this i'm gonna do some uh some a little bit rest and uh and maybe uh this kind of of uh maybe yeah this time of of 21. okay so december you said is that what you said yeah december or maybe in january okay yeah have they told you that you are definitely fighting him next or do you think there's a chance they might try to do francis versus jones and then the winner fights you oh i think everything is possible okay i really think it's possible with the ufc i don't know exactly what the ufc war but i think i'm more legit for that now you need to you need to have the unification i think uh this is make more sense but everything is possible i don't know i don't know but if it was up to you the next fight for you would be francis right you you fight francis oh yeah okay yeah yeah yeah for me the next step that has to happen in france right if it's possible hopefully but i don't know if it's possible yeah i don't know exactly because it's a little bit complicated i don't know exactly because i know when you have a big fight like that with the with the big belt uh the prime time is the gas so i don't know exactly what the ufc want to do uh it's gonna be complicated to manage this in paris maybe because uh probably we're gonna fight at the 6 7 a.m but everything is possible we did it already with uh abu dhabi yeah but it was a little bit special i don't know so you say i don't know exactly you were much younger the last time you sparred him younger in your career still do you feel caught like the idea of finding francis you feel confident against him uh yes i'm confident with every guy uh i prove it today i did uh i did that i did really great uh but i just studied the anime and that because i got this fight i i can understand what i'm aware not because i'm just a good athlete not because i i got uh i got a good skills no i didn't because i got a good fight iq so tomorrow and when i started on because before the mma so now that three years ago but before that i did i i did three years in my time and it was my first experience in the armor shop and when i started i was very young no more experience and uh and uh i did very well because i got already this this fight right here and that's why today i think everything is possible against francis i think it's gonna be my bigger matchup yeah of course yeah yeah but i think everything is possible if i'm confident honestly though someone would have told you three years ago when you started in montreal by the way in my hometown quebec career if i would have told you though three years ago in montreal by the way surreal i looked into the crystal ball three years from now you're going to be ufc champion you're going to be on top of of of the sport you're going to be you know this close to a super fight again would you have believed me or did you think it would take a little longer three years longer okay a little bit longer yeah of course a little bit longer of course uh we didn't expect that that no it's impossible you see the bigger it's a big promotion you have a really high level when you say the name [Music] there are three years ago would you tell me that no no let me do my thing a little bit more yeah but but we did it so that's why i'm confident today against uh against uh francis everything is possible right um derek lewis is from houston he represents houston very well i think that you like houston rap more than derrick lewis does that t-shirt that's a houston that's right what is going on here are you just trolling derrick lewis what's happening [Laughter] you're just like sticking it to him one last time everyone was excited they're like oh man this guy had a lot yeah you stand in your stone you have a big uh this is a big city of the rap music this is a really big city i have a lot of franciscana when i was young i was i listened a lot of a lot of song in the rap music and that's why i have this a little bit this is a little creature of that i love it i love that we're learning more about you uh your basketball skills your love of of hip-hop uh you're a very interesting guy by the way i love french basketball evan fournier he's my guy you know evan fournier oh yeah that's my guy he's on the knicks now they made it to the gold medal game against the us it's a big time for uh for french sports you got leo messi coming to paris it's exciting times yeah this is uh this is exactly i like to say that this is a little country yeah yeah that's the first one but in the sport seriously we have a lot of stuff so in the mma uh in the hammock show in the k-1 in the kickboxing we have jerome this is a former champion but we have a new champion in the football too in my country obviously this is a little country but in france you have a lot of talents in uh but let me tell you something surreal there is only one french prince and it is you my friend okay you stand above the rest the french prince okay i'm gonna do it for you yes let's go the french prince i love it i love it my friend congratulations felicitacion on the baby number two on the belt you versus francis you versus anyone right now i watch you versus anyone it's a pleasure to watch you fight and to see you grow yeah and it all started in montreal so i love that as well uh thank you for doing this let's go let's go thank you uh i know it's a very busy time for you so i appreciate you coming on thank you so much all right all the best thank you for your invitation absolutely there is the french prince cyril gan the new intern champ joining us the ic champ whoop kind enough to join us on the show and so it's going to be interesting to see what the ufc does there do they go in the direction of uh i mean they could do no wrong at this point do you try to do the jones fight and then you know he wants a little bit of time off do you try to do to say jones and and gano can you figure that out for december then he fights the winner like i wrote on my sub stack there's a precedent there remember robert whittaker uh fought yo romero 2017. they didn't do the unification about with michael bisping they did bisping versus gsp who we'll be talking to in about 30 minutes they did that fight so whitaker wasn't stripped it got a little weird afterwards because gsp won but he had to vacate colitis so they did that and the interim champ stayed the interim champion so there's there's a precedent there of course there's a precedent for anything in the ufc because there's no real rules they could do whatever they want it's their promotion uh there's no sanctioning body or anything like that and so it's going to be or did you just go to the route of that fight and that's a big time fight in its own right that is a big big time fight it would be amazing if it could happen in france usually a pay-per-view in europe isn't great they did it with michael bisping in manchester uh what was it back in 2016 dan henderson the rematch they did that of course to uh you know to have the homecoming fight for the new champ michael bisping so it has been done and it was successful it was in the middle of the night it was like 4 a.m i didn't go to that one because my daughter was actually about to be born um my sweet sweet claire so we didn't go to that one but uh it's it's it's been done or do they do it in las vegas and just get all the buzz and all that stuff uh we shall see but nevertheless uh he is a big time name a big time talent and to do what he has done in three years is nothing short of amazing to beat the guys that he has defeated in three years is really nothing short of amazing so uh thank you very much to him great first hour in the books a little later on the program we're going to be joined by mr gamebred the pride of westchester miami florida one of the faces of american top team one of the leaders of the great american top team gym in coconut creek florida we're also going to be joined by the one and only george rush saint pierre the pride of saint isado quebec canada of course uh has uh fought many a time in montreal and currently lives there as well but in a matter of seconds we're going to be joined by the face of the pfl and also a member of the aforementioned american top team jim someone who fights tomorrow so like i said at the top of the show this is fun monday only show you're not getting fights typically on a tuesday other than contender series but now wednesday's show you're getting fights on a thursday and we could talk to people right before they fight how fun is that that's different that's fun that's unique that gets me excited in the morning when i wake up pfl on espn and espn plus um i don't always know is it is it uh espn is used and plus it's one of the other ah it's espn plus and espn beginning at 9 pm uh we've got the uh the women's lightweight semi-final and the heavyweight the men's heavyweight semi-final those are the two divisions in focus if you will and the main event features jenna fabian who is a very tall young woman four in one as a professional do i have her uh five nine looks like she's six foot three in the uh in the stare down going up against kayla harrison who is okay there's no way i mean fi was she wearing high heels what was going on over there why five eight five nine against five eight that doesn't make any sense anyway do we have kayla uh are we still framing her up okay still working on that thank you very much frank uh anyway in a matter of seconds we're gonna be joined by kayla harrison who has an unbelievable skill set unbelievable background of course two-time olympic gold medalist 10-0 now as a professional has done amazing things in a very short amount of time but let's be honest the talent pool at pounds isn't the deepest i mean heck it's it's it's damn near non-existent 145 isn't the deepest and she has dabbled in the featherweight waters as well that was an invicta when when pfl took their one-year hiatus but the big story here is she's got two fights left on her pfl contract the semi-final and the final and then she's a free agent and i would venture to say given her background given her skill set given her resume given how good and dominant she is and given the fact that there aren't a ton of women in her weight class 145 155 all that who are anywhere near as good as she is and who could by the way cut a promo as good as she can i would say she is going to be one of the most sought after free agents that we have seen in quite some time and so without further ado let us go to the zoo machine once again and say hello to the aforementioned kayla harrison who is kind enough to join us following the waynes there she is kayla how are you good how are you ariel oh it's so great to talk to you kayla again it's always an honor it's always a pleasure you just weighed in this morning correct i did yeah what's so funny why are you laughing [Music] you're just so uh hospitable well i am very uh oh it says my our meeting is going to end in 10 minutes uh that's not a good thing is that is that really going to happen guys i hope not uh we've got kayla harrison here the uh the two-time was that for me i don't know we're about to find out if not we'll reconnect okay okay okay and i know you've got uh a ton of interviews today um first can i just say this kayla i want to say something to you and i want to say something to the public as well this as i drop my pencil here this is very important for me to say you are a member not only of pfl but you are represented by dominance mma correct all right i used to have a tremendous relationship with the leader of dominance mma ali abdelaziz the the well-known manager had a very good relationship with him for many many years when he was managing guys working wsof et cetera et cetera in 2000 and i do believe 19 for whatever reason i have my theories uh that relationship disintegrated to the point where he told all the fighters at dominance mma to not speak to me anymore they are not allowed to speak to me now they speak me privately but they can't come on my show for whatever reason i think they're losing out more than i am but the fact remains i would love to have them on he has said you cannot talk to our fighters i'm going to ban you from talking to our fighters there's one fighter on that roster of maybe 70 fighters now one fighter who pardoned me for saying has the balls to say i am the actual client here i am the one paying my management team i do whatever i want i'm a two-time olympic gold medalist for god's sakes i'm a undefeated mma fighter put me on this camera right over here i am the freaking woman i tell you what to do there's only one on that entire roster of legends who tells them what to do and who comes on my show and talks to me and that's why i don't care if i'm a journalist or not kayla i don't care if i'm supposed to be unbiased i'm a fan for life because i respect you so much for for doing what you're doing for having a spine and for sticking up for yourself and honestly for sticking up for me so i just want to say thank you it means a lot to me whenever you come on the show oh wow i'm glad you did that off your set i want you know i've wanted to get i wanted to get that off my chest for two years now kayla but unfortunately on my other job i could not do that i couldn't break the fourth wall like i can now and for you to say because let's be honest it has been said to you not to come on my show and you have said no i call the shots here i do whatever i want i can't tell you how much that means to me i can't tell you honestly i am forever grateful for you well i'm glad uh you're welcome it's not really i mean i like you ariel i think you're great it's not for me it's not really personal this is business and it's in the best interest of me to go on your show it's mutually beneficial and um i get i guess yeah i kind of do what i want no one really tells me i mean besides my coaches what to do so if i want to talk to someone i'm going to talk to them there's not really and i don't mean that in like a look i love ali we have a great relationship there's nothing there's it's nothing personal to anyone i'm just going to do what i'm going to do no i know and i'm going gonna try to put you in an awkward spot and just even for the record i i told you beforehand that i wanted to bring that up because it just means a lot and i'm not gonna harp on this anymore the whole thing is ridiculous it should end he unblocked me i don't know if that's a sign of good things to come the whole i mean the thing couldn't be more dumb so let's not harp it anymore i just wanted to get it off my chest i've been told that there's no drama from him you've said there's no there's this like one what are we doing yeah what are we doing what are we doing yeah we need to hug it out two egyptians we can uh hug it out over some hummus okay so let me i'm just my dad from alexandria egypt i think he's from alexandria too in any event i saw this stare down yesterday kayla there's no way she's an inch taller than you was she wearing high heels what was going on over there no yeah she was not wearing high heels she's just a big girl how do we feel about that big trees fall hard excited talent-wise is she one of the better strikers you would say that you have fought i think so i think her striking's gotten even better she looks sharp she looks crisp um you know she's got a good record she's she's everything i want an opponent okay did you even know who she was before this tournament well i was supposed to fight her in 2019 in the semifinals then um but she had to pull out because of a bad weight cut so um i actually ended up fighting the girl she the only girl she's lost to bobby jo who is also a six foot tall southpaw striker so i feel like yeah i know her i've been watching her i've been prepared for this i'm excited but let's be honest there's a massive talent gap between you and the rest of that weight class at this point are you ready like okay let's get through these two fights not looking past anyone but let's just get through this and and 2022 is going to be my real you know test my reel coming out is that how you're feeling because you're an olympian for god's sakes i mean you you want to be challenged i'm an olympic champion but uh i mean no the focus is what's in front of me i have i think of course you have big dreams you have big goals you have things that you strive towards but in order to get to where i want to go i have to take each step and this is another step along that path so i'm not focused on next year i'm not focused on the finals i'm not focused on anything but jenna right now have uh have they even tried to broach that topic with you or have you said we're not even talking about it next year a new contract all that stuff yeah i mean well they um they reached out to ali and said that they wanted to start negotiations and then i said okay and then um you know they asked me today not to talk about free agency just focus on the fight and i said well okay but send me an offer or we all know what's gonna happen so and what's that i mean they need to send me i mean it's it's not in my hands my job is to fight that's it i know that if i fight well do my job go out and steal my will that good things will happen wherever they may be but you know that the good things happen if you're 12-0 right like it's a big difference between 12-0 and 11-1 so do you feel any little extra added pressure in these last two fights no how are you so damn confident have you ever been in an olympic final yeah have you ever been no i have not but i don't know if there's much more pressure than that i mean i'm sure like surgery and stuff is a lot of pressure so maybe that but um you train i train very hard i train hard i work hard i believe in myself i have all the keys to success all right has has the pressure in any of these fights maybe the first fight that you ever had in mma maybe one fight has it at any point reach the level that you felt in the olympics or is this all kind of feel like cake to you i was pretty damn scared my first fight my first fight was pretty intense just because it's the unknown you know it's the what the hell am i doing why did i sign up for this oh my god ah like pretty pretty intense but since then i've kind of learned to control my nerves and calm the quiet calm the storm and um no i feel like a professional now i feel like how i did in judo you know i got to the point in judo where i was in so many finals i was competing all the time i was um repeating this process over and over so that it became my normal being in a high pressure situation became my normal being in the finals with you know everyone watching became my normal and that's how i feel in fighting now i feel like this is my normal do you love mma i do why do you smile when you say that because i mean it's just like such a bizarre my life is a very bizarre story where i didn't really ever expect to end up here i always used to say that judo is my love judo is my passion and judo is my first love it'll always be like my first boyfriend but mma is like my forever my forever love i i don't know if i can quite describe it it's um there's something very it speaks to the warrior in me or something to go out there and to try and be the very best possible version of myself inside of a cage versus another human being i don't know there's something maybe i was a gladiator in a past life or something i'm not sure the reason why i asked that question is because when you did the press conference i remember after your second gold medal you weren't that into this thing so like are you surprised at how much you love it i am i am i'm pleasantly surprised by how how i found my footing in mma and i didn't really think it was going to be for me there's a lot of trash talk there's a lot of negativity i feel like there's a lot of bad vibes that can be swirling around in here it's also a little bit like the wild wild west and there's money involved so people get nasty and greedy and it's just kind of like it can bring out the worst in people but in my experience i found it to bring out the best of me i found the right place i found the right coaches i found the right crew i found a home for myself and for the way i choose to live my life and it's brought out the best in me uh so we have this weird thing with you know we're a new operation here we had three years off i don't know if you know this we're going to call you right back as our thing is about then i'm sorry for this we will get you out when you need to get up but i don't want to cut you off mid-sentence so i think that they're going to reconnect with you here if you could just go back what do i tell kayla guys i don't know what to say to her this is a little embarrassing what do i say to her we're going to call you right back i don't know how you call someone on zoom but they're going to we're gonna reconnect with you okay uh we're just a little operation this would never happen i'm just joking this is if you only knew i remember the time that uh the phone numbers yeah that wasn't fun um we're gonna call we're gonna reconnect we're gonna reconnect here in a second with kayla harrison um zoom is a new thing when we did the show back in the day there was no such thing as zoom it was uh it was a new thing uh that only really emerged in the last year and a half or so uh thanks to the pandemic of course i love her um her confidence i love her fighting ability i love her promos i'm just i i you know i'm just going to tell like it is i root for kayla howard said and maybe i'm biased because hey you know she helped me out and i'm a human being i'm not a robot here i have feelings and emotions as well and so when someone sticks their neck out for you you want them to succeed as well and i like this is new health this is helwani this is independent i have love for everyone i mean if dana white wanted to sit right here i would give him a hug for god's sakes i would kiss him on his forehead i got love for everyone ali as well come on let's hug it out life is too short for this nonsense yolo anyway i think we're back uh with kayla she is joining us via zoom okay we're framing our up my bad my bad um yes i have love for everyone there is no hate in this heart there's no hate in this heart whatsoever i mean you know do i uh no no there's no way i'm just kidding uh so that's tomorrow by the way on espn and espn plus bellator on friday ufc on saturday so one of those rare weekends where we get three of the best promotions in the world arguably the top three competing in consecutive days back to kayla as uh we just had to take that little brief pause for station identification i always wanted to say that hello kayla welcome back hi can i ask you about the other teaching about now i was just saying that i love everyone i you know if ali came in here right now i would say you know what what you did to me was pretty damn cracky crappy over the last two years but i still love you all right i still want to hug it out with you even though you're you know you're you're saying you want to ban me that's it's right here right here as mazzagotti would do right there we're parents kayla you and i we're parents of multiple children we don't have time for this nonsense we don't have time to get in time for drama and i feel like you set a good example when you you teach your kids to love your enemy or love your neighbor and let the past be the past forgiveness is a very powerful weapon yeah it really is uh in fact when i heard that ali was in the hospital with covet i sent him a message and it never went through because apparently he blocked me on his phone i mean could you believe that in any event uh kayla olympics tokyo that was weird right i couldn't really get into it i just felt there was something sterile and just sort of off about it right yeah i mean i'm proud of our team you know team usa but i think yeah it was a very different time definitely not anything like what i experienced i'll say that much very different did you talk to any of the olympia are you in contact with any of them and yeah yeah i mean i talked to i mean i have really good my one of my best friends competed in judo at the 52 kilo weight class um i didn't really talk to her about her experience but i'm sure it was different from when she was in rio right did you miss the like when this was uh yeah this was your first one in four olympics right dating back to that you weren't a part of was there a party that's like oh i kind of missed that or you're done like it was out of your system all good oh no it's out of my system i definitely had nostalgia you know i i went back and rewatched some of my olympic matches and relived my glory days for a little bit there but um i'm very happy with my career i'm satisfied with everything i was able to accomplish and onto new mountains i promise you friend to friend that i'm not trying to stir the pot here by asking you this question but i do think it's interesting i just want to ask it feels to me like you when you think of the olympics you have fond memories you're proud you know you look back with a smile on your face and part of that is probably because you made history two golds incredible right when the person that you've always been compared to in mma ronda rousey speaks about the olympics there's a lot of venom talking about team usa in the olympics and what they left with and all that stuff do you think that is solely because she didn't win gold like you did or do you think she has legitimate gripes well to be honest with you at the end of the day you know when you compete at the olympic games you do it for your country you do it for the love of the sport you do it for um the desire to be the best in the world at what you do you don't do it for fame you don't do it for like any of those things um you do it for a gold medal that goes around your neck while you you know hear the national anthem and watch your flag being raised so i understand why she's a little bit jaded i understand like getting a 25 000 check and a pat on the back can be harsh but you kind of like everyone knows i don't know any rich olympians do you uh only from after the fact like from stuff that came afterwards right yeah so i mean i think my mentality is just different you know i'm grateful for the opportunity it gave me a life i never dreamed of um i'm also grateful to represent the greatest country in the world and i got to do what i loved and and win america's first gold medal i mean what's that's you know that's history i'll be a part of history forever no matter what and then you went back to back which obviously had never been done before and so i'm wondering you know like when this fight is announced when any of your fights are announced i'm again not i don't see kayla harrison showing up on sportscenter to announce her fight but yet there's clarissa shields on sportscenter to announce her fights i mean what's going on you have the same amount of gold medals you have more mma fights why aren't you on sportscenter to announce your fights right or wrong are you are you just here to start all day today i got your back kayla i got your back i'm saying what you maybe don't want to say i could say this now right am i wrong why aren't you on sportscenter to announce your fights it's an espn i think i don't know did that annoy you no i mean listen i first of all when you get bitter and stuff about about things like that and when you think oh why not me it should be me i've done this i've done that look at me look at me you kind of take your eyes off surprise and i've seen it happen countless times i've seen fighters make the mistake i've seen people in my gym make the mistake of worrying about what somebody else is doing it's just a waste of time you know i have a job to do um i'm not on sportscenter i'm not you know at the espys i'm not doing all these crazy things but i'm in the gym i'm working hard i'm being a good mother i'm doing what i love around people that i enjoy being around and i'm keeping my head down and i know that when the time comes and when it is my moment and my moment will come everyone will say wow damn look at kayla h it's coming i'm not i'm not in a hurry good things take time it will be there and also like i'm proud of clarissa i admire her as a human being as a fighter i think that um strong women build strong women up and i would never want to take away from anything she's accomplished to me that that's amazing everything that she's done is amazing and i have nothing but respect for her her journey is her journey my journey is mine we'll get to where we get to what do you think of her debut um i i was a little you know she has holes she hustles expected i think they were expected i think i was surprised um a little bit i think when you i don't know my mentality was just always to be as prepared as possible for whatever challenge i get myself into so i was surprised she took the fight so quickly after transitioning to mma i expected her to train for a little bit longer i think it's a very tough task to be boxing and doing mma at the same time i think she's going to have to devote a lot of time to her grappling game um if she wants to be one of the best in mma and i don't think she's going to have time to do that if she continues to box professionally so that's my opinion so you think in other words like it would probably be best to pick a lane right because boxing training doesn't necessarily help you for mma it actually could it actually could maybe like impede your progress right i mean obviously doing martial arts is going to make you better at martial arts but this isn't just boxing yeah it's martial arts you know it's a very it's a very different world when you step into that cage anything can happen you know it's interesting that like the lighting i don't know if you can see yourself but it's like going straight down the middle of your face here i don't know there's like it's still it's not moving and i like that it's not moving because it reminds me of like like the the lit up side is is mom kayla the left side is the one dropping those promos on people i mean those are you have dropped some of the best pro and you and sean o'connell are great because i love he asks you a question and you always give him the like that was a really stupid question i'm gonna sort of you know humor it but i've got things to get off my chest right like you guys have a great dynamic there i really enjoy it is that doing a superb job at what he's doing now by the way i love him as play-by-play i think he's doing great he does not get enough love in the world of sports and we're just like the little train that could mma but you know this guy is a fighter going to play by play it's not fighter going to analyst that doesn't happen in other sports athlete going to play by play so he deserves a lot of love but is this all dan lambert i mean does he literally sit with you beforehand and say this is what we need to do or is this coming from the heart what's going on am i giving him too much credit dad lambert wishes he was as cool as me are you kidding me i write dan lambert's promo oh i love it he had a good one recently aw did you see it that was his olympics ariel that was his olympics that was his moment he he told first of all he was like rapid texting me like i'm going on at 9 30 like letting me know he's like you gotta watch wait till you see this and then he does this whole nerdy like steal about all these wrestlers and this and that and japanese and all the styles oh my god this guy this is his moment and afterwards he told me i i actually was like dan i'm happy for you if you're happy you are the biggest nerd i've ever met in my life but i'm happy and he was like oh you want to hear a funny story and i was like yeah please tell me so he starts talking about how they prepared all this you know because wrestling isn't real and how dare you how dare you there's kids watching this right now would you say that about santa claus no we prefer scripted okay sorry uh wrestling is a performance thank you even better uh she said he said i had to tell the guy that i don't know whoever hit him or whoever got in the ring with him he said can you do me a favor and the guy's like yeah what's that he's like when you elbow me i need you to really elbow me oh my god he's like everyone at my gym will give me if you don't really give me the business and i was like oh my god that is amazing you are like a 80 year old man getting in there getting dropped by an elbow like this is not good i love it wait he said two champions are you one of them i am not you would you wouldn't be caught dead over there right not bringing in the real like he's not bringing in the real muscle he's bringing in like that the lesser okay he's not bringing colby is he i mean that's i don't think so no no no that was i was just choking there um you don't like pro wrestling if they ever came to you would you consider it they actually reached out to me after the 2016 olympics really yeah but at the time it was like there were two things that i really didn't like number one was i was i would have to be on the road for four days a week or something like that like it's a lot of travel and number two you're not in control of the script right fake so they would they would say if i was a good guy or a bad guy he said i'll just be me yeah and if you ask me for real and if you ask me you're a very good guy good gal of course a baby face you stand up for what's right in the face of evil each and every week kayla and uh you are doing incredible things jenna fabian kayla harrison this thursday night tomorrow night on espn and espn plus the four-in-one fabian from australia going up against the 10-0 two-time olympic what's that are you sure about that yes fighting out of australia that's what it says here she trains at city kickboxing in new zealand yeah but where's she from from like i live in america but i'm from canada and she got mad when they said really okay i'm just like hey i just want you to be a good journalist you know what i i i appreciate that you know what new zealand yeah look i got false information here i'm going to blame um i blame greg savage of the pfl for this uh faulty information uh thank you so much kayla all the best you can't wait for not only the fight but the post fight promo as well and if you want to shout us out here on this program we're just trying to get it off the ground on espn no less that would be pretty damn cool it's called the mma hour and don't you forget it you were in studio right here not that long ago come on all right ariel have a great day thank you take care there she is kayla harrison joining us she's very busy she's got a lot of interviews lined up and she is great what more can you say about her she is great she returns to action tomorrow night on uh espn and espn plus just trying to see if there are any other uh names yeah i won't say the website that had jenna fabian as an australian i'm not gonna i'm not gonna throw them under the bus but uh it appears as though she is a uh a fighter from new zealand so my apologies to her for that the stare down was i mean it was it was a pretty large uh discrepancy there in terms of height i'm looking forward to that and of course we have like i said bellator on friday ufc on saturday and then the big one uh is summerslam allegiant stadium in las vegas i'm going to las vegas tomorrow for the first time since march 8th 2020. can't believe it covering summerslam that's going to be a lot of fun main event for the ufc event is uh kelvin gaslum versus jared cannonier later in the program two guests left two massive names jorge mad vidal and george st pierre sandwiched in between there will be a little ask me anything segment i haven't come up with a better name than that ama as the kids say on reddit i found a lot of good reddit pages recently a lot of them uh pertaining to mma there's one that i like a lot it is uh it is very very entertaining shout out to them if they know who they are shout out to them i go there quite i'm a lurker i'll be honest i'm a lurker but i enjoy what they uh what they put out very much and so i did this little ask me anything um let me just send this i think we need a new on my sub stack page and i got a lot of great questions but i i just kind of skim them and in no particular order uh do i need to send the new uh link to george or do they have them oh okay all right um we got frank back there audio frank does a great job whole new team but actually a lot of familiar faces so it's it's great it's not like you have to reinvent the wheel and teach someone how to ride a a bicycle again um again i don't know how but i've been told it's it's pretty easy once you jump on there uh so anyway on the uh the sub stack page i asked people for um for questions and uh there are a ton there well over a hundred so that's uh that's very exciting i appreciate that and a reminder that we're back we're back on monday and wednesday this is going to be the uh the usual schedule every monday and wednesday way back in the aol days we used to do it monday thursday in fact there's a very fun episode where phil barone the new york badass himself co-hosted the show with me and i think my memory is maybe a little bit off here but i actually think that josh barnett was on there am i crazy it was definitely in the aol days baroni was there this couldn't have been later than 2010 um and it was just it was it was a wild time we did that only for six months i don't know why we stopped maybe maybe brian remembers why we stopped um but i'm very much looking forward to this new flow of monday wednesday mainly because like i said on monday in case you missed it like i don't have to load the deck for one show on monday and then worry about you know another show in seven days you have a few longer interviews on one show you go back to the next show on on wednesday if you can't get something for monday you have the wednesday option as well and so that just makes for a much much better booking experience and i think a much better viewing experience for all of you less guests longer interviews in-depth chatter but twice a week like what do you do when you're done with the show and choose you got nothing else i am here to save the day you know seth rollins is the messiah of monday nights i'm the messiah of monday and wednesday afternoons self-anointed all right so in a couple of seconds we're going to be joined by george st pierre i'm going to take some water here i've been talking a lot for the last hour and a half been in the news as of late a little bit there was some talk of him uh going up against oscar de la hoya in a boxing match that ended up being oscar de la hoya versus vitor belfort triller would have been fun uh as the story goes and i want to get the story from the man himself uh still under contract with ufc so couldn't do that although recently we saw uh chad mendes get the green light to go to bare knuckle fc you know they will do this they'll pick their spots a lot of this has to do with the uh class action lawsuit so they can point and say hey look you know we let this guy go we're not a monopoly we let this guy go we let this contract up but it's all very strategic george ain't getting that kind of that kind of love chad mendes you know maybe there's not a lot of money to be made right now all right you could go out and do your thing it's all very strategic like conor and getting out of his contract to go do a boxing match they'll co-promote but he ain't going on his own um so it's like oh yeah phil davis we'll let you go benson henderson and they've done a phenomenal job of always knowing when to say when if you look at the history even recently with pettis and mcdonald's like always knowing when to say when uh i mean that's that's talent evaluation that's good scouting if you will knowing where a guy is at there have been very few i can't even think honestly of one instance where they have let a fighter's contract go out run out i should say i'm putting myself on the spot here and the fighter signed elsewhere dan henderson and enjoyed some success maybe he's the one i'm trying to think maybe someone on twitter can tell me or maybe in the youtube chats but that's a bit of a that could be a bit of a mess as well but there have been very few there have been a very i have been very few instances where someone's contract um okay all right someone's contract ran out and uh they uh they regretted it so look this uh this is the way the sport is built this is the way it's uh uh this is the way the sport is uh structured right now it's a lot more like pro wrestling in the sense that you know you're tied to that contract and that promotion as opposed to boxing where you can go around and around and now we're seeing situations like tyron woodley and anderson silva and and t ortiz uh enjoying some financial success vitor belfort uh going over to boxing as crazy as that sounds i mean that triller event on september 11th the the the top two fights three out of the top four fighters of the card are mma fighters anderson silva t ortiz and vitor belfort it's a crazy thing but that's the way the sport is and so without further ado let us go back to the zoo machine and let us say hello to in my opinion the greatest mma fighter of all time the pride of saint isador quebec canada the man who won the middleweight title at madison square garden the long time and greatest welterweight champion of all time and i don't care what kamar husman does in his career he will never never hold a candle to this man george rush saint-pierre there he is look at this guy the one and only george saint-pierre george sally come on doing fantastic yourself you put the bar a little bit too high no ariel you're too humble george you're too humble you're the man where are you in florida right now i mean is that weather in montreal it's beautiful over there what's going on i'm home in montreal that's montreal here that's where i am well it uh it looks fantastic that setup that you have over there thank you so much for doing this george our first week back it wouldn't be the same without you uh you are a legend in in your own right and i think you're the greatest of all time a lot going on um that i want to ask you about yes go ahead congratulations to to get back on your show it's a great way to promote fighters promote their their thing and uh thank you for doing what you do thank you george that means a lot to me okay we thought for maybe a second there were some rumblings let's get right to it no more dilly dallying that you were going to fight oscar de la hoya what happened tell us the beginning what tell us the whole story here from the moment you were you were contacted about this to the moment that you realize it's not going to happen what exactly happened so i i was contacted by a trailer to do a a novelty fight against oscar de la hoya at 170 pounds with uh big gloves it would have been 14 or 12 ounce gloves uh eight eight rounds of two minute two minute the rounds and uh i thought it would be a fun thing to do my my career as as to prove that i'm the strongest man in the world in the sport of mixed martial art is done i'm 40 years old but to do something different something that could be fun and very motivating for me and plus on top of that a lot of money would have been given to charity against a uh a legend in this sport as oscar de la hoya i think i would have done it i think not because i believe i'm a better boss boxer than oscar de la hoya was when it wasn't his prime but i do now believe he probably have more mileage than i do i'm in great shape i'm younger i used to compete at heavier weight class i think it would be a fair fight that the fans would have want to watch so uh and uh when i because i'm i'm retired of the sport of mixed martial but i had i'm still under contract with ufc i needed to have the blessing of dana white i called dana i even called lorenzo to try to convince daniel lorenzo liked the idea but dana did not wanted he i know he hate oscar but i said to him i said listen i'm gonna make oscar look bad because i'm in great shape i've been staying in great shape the whole time and i'm gonna do a train a full training boxing training camp with freddie roach and his world champions there so i'll be very well prepared and you didn't like the idea that trailer take uh some of his fighter that he promote all they took a lot of time to trying to promote them and make money out of them that's what that's the argument that he gave him did you try like did you push back did you argue was it a debate did you give it the old college try you really wanted this yeah well at first he says to me the reason why he did not want it it's because he thought that oscar would basically destroyed me in a boxing match and i i had some good argument i told him that i believe oscar has more mileage than i do he's no longer in his prime i stayed busy the whole time i'm still in great great shape i'm gonna be very well prepared and i'm taking this fight very seriously if i do it i because it's my name my image is attached to it so i will do it 100 and i i told dana i said if there's one mma fighter that can go to boxing and make make and look good in in this situation it would be me uh because we see what happened with ben aspen and all the some of the other guys and um at first he refused then he thought he thought about it but he came back with the the argument that oh now it's not because he thinks oscar gonna when he thinks it's because um he doesn't like the fact that trailer take me and make money out of my back even while i'm still under contract with vfc and so is that when you know so what what what dana says listen to this then he came back and he asked me if i wanted to fight khabib and i told dana i said that's very strange why would why you didn't want to do the fight when we asked you a few years ago why why is it now and i you know what i mean he said yeah because khabib was not retired and he was not the same guy that he was now it all makes sense so i didn't want to but i was curious to see what would have happened so i didn't i said to when i said i'm gonna think about it and i wait turns out that then i shortly after i saw in the media uh people saying that oh now khabib is he doesn't want to fight me because i asked for the fight with khabib i never asked for the fight of khabib it's they know why that probably went to and khabib and ali george want to fight kabi we asked a long time ago but i didn't ask again i didn't beg for that fight again we both retire and i'm good so i believe the strategy behind it because that's what i thought it was happening dana white had a lot of heat for not letting me fight from the media so he asked me to fight kabir because he was expecting a negative answer from me so he would have had a good argument a good reason saying to the media and george refused to fight for us so i'm not gonna let him fight for someone else so that's for the reason i i wait to see what happened and that turns out that i was right i believe so the the it can be refused but i didn't mean that i was going to say yes the promoter that's how they do they make money out of it you know promoter and a lot of manager they they have percentage of the money so they make money out of the fight that's what they do and dana is we know dna is probably the best promoter of all time in terms of how to promote a fight so yeah he probably went to khabib's team and says oh george want to fight you this might get a bit very exciting and try to make it happen right and it turns out that it it didn't it didn't happen so in a way you almost called his bluff you say that you're sort of interested what would have happened if habib said yes and then they came back to you and said all right he's in let's go no i don't want i i didn't want to but do you even think that they would have said do you think that they would have even explored it or do you think they had no real interest in even making this fight if we both have said yes i think they would have done it if we both have said yes however we oh that's quite the cliffhanger right there he paused right on me there okay remember that remember that thought if we both had said yes i need to remember that thought i have a horrible memory now i'm getting a little bit older um but we have to all remember that collectively if we both had said yeah i mean that's quite you know in my mind i actually blame myself for this moment right here now because i was saying to myself holy smokes he's outside the connection is fantastic i mean has there ever been better connection than that in the history of zoom um he looks like he's in a phenomenal setting i don't know if that's his backyard i don't want to pry but i'm from montreal you don't get weather like that all the time it is it is august so you know it's a little bit different um and i was actually just thinking to myself right then and there this is great connection george st pierre great connection and then of course that happens it's actually it didn't happen last did it happen last monday no it didn't happen so you know we were bound for one this is the beauty of live video this is the beauty of live video but very interesting stuff there we're getting into it he's explaining to us what happened because i did hear afterwards about the whole oh george now wants to fight habib and this seemed you know something something was rotten there in the state of denmark because uh it seemed a little bit suspect to me that all of a sudden um you know the situation was okay all of a sudden now wait now he wants to fight habib uh this this seems a little bit weird so we're getting a bit of the background here uh now we're being told that perhaps his phone died on us hopefully it's not some other uh you know factors getting involved here because it's going straight to voicemail just our luck but we'll get him don't worry guys we're gonna get him we're gonna get him back you know george probably has a lot of uh a lot of different devices no problem this is why we've got a bit of the the pad time as they say in the business on the back end so he's rocking the karate combat hat there i do believe uh he's been doing uh he's been doing some work for them as a sensei a seasoned sensei yeah i just texted him and it's not going the blue is not going through so clearly his phone died on us which is just amazing he's probably plugging it in and uh and getting back on track this is why it's probably good that if i should send uh oh now it went through it just went through delivered so what's happening now is plugging it in everything jumps you know when you replug in your phone after it dies everything's like jumping out blah blah blah scrambling uh and then he's gonna join us like the mensch that he is and by the way at 3 30 we're going to be joined uh by jorge masvidal he'll be our last guest of the day i already have some guests by the way booked for uh for next week as we try to uh you know get ahead of this thing of course you can't get ahead of it too much because you want to actually see how the fights play out uh and next week's a big week as well jake paul tyrone woodley i don't know if you heard about that fight that's a sunday night in cleveland on showtime but uh there's also the etsy barbosa giga uh chicaze fight we've we've located george i don't even remember what i said to myself what was the oh i lost it you see can anyone remind me what i said i don't even remember uh he'll remember it was something about khabib what did i say what was the key word i should have written it down such a failure it was i remember it was something about habib but now i forget as the great gus johnson once said these things happen when you're doing a live show via zoom but how great is the studio right i mean look at this new addition right here shout out to the blue jays go back to the zoo machine you don't hear about me talking about the blue jays anymore um he's good or not not yet yes no i wasn't sure go yeah he's good all right let's go back to the zoo machine and say hello to george let me guess george did it die did the phone die what happened it did not die there's you know in montreal we normally don't have that problems but apparently it eat up oh yeah so yeah because i i kept the phone there for too long so the sun eat it up and and i i was not in the shadow the phone wasn't on the side under the sun okay eat up and it turns up okay well we're good now thank you for scrambling through that you were saying about khabib you were do you remember what you were talking about or no yes yes absolutely okay go ahead continue so i i catch dana white's bluff uh that's what i that's what happened i think not that it was a bluff but that uh the main reason why he wanted to do it it was be because of the the eat that he received from the media and the fact that also maybe he wanted to make an extra money trial omran because he knew khabib and i were retired um you so the last thing that you said thank you to my friend sean for this you said i think they would have done it if we both said yes however and that's when you cut out so so if you would have said yes and said yes you actually think they would have been sincere in their attempt to make this fight happen i think so okay i think so it's for money yeah that the goal of a promoter is to make money and i think they knew it was the last one they would not have done it before because they thought they could they could have probably keep khabib for more fight they rather make less but more fight with him than one big fight and that's it you know that's what i believe by the way behind the scenes i i know you have a good relationship with habib and ali as well did you talk to them and say hey what's going on here like did you try to go behind the scenes and see what was going on or did you kind of stay quiet no i i didn't talk to them i'm a good relationship with uh captain and uh ali um ali a long time ago i used when i didn't have the money we were training in new york i was staying at his house in brooklyn wow in the same area that where apparently notorious biagi was living wow so i know i know i live for a very long time we go we go back a long long time but i didn't i didn't call him because i thought it was trainer that's trying to i think dana said something to them to try to make the fight happen but you know i should probably have tell them the truth they say by the way if they now call you or or because the way they and i approached me he approached me saying that khabib was waiting for an answer so to speak that's not how he said it to me but he said it like the deal was already accepted on khabib's side that's why i said i'm going to wait and i get i'm going to get back and give you an answer that's why i thought it was strange because i heard in media was saying there's no money in the world that can make me break my mother that promise i made my my to my mother and i think it's a very noble thing to be strong while most of people are driven by materialism you know i think it's something that it's it's an it's a very noble thing so that's why i thought it was strange and i waited i told dana so i'm gonna wait and i'm gonna get get back to you and tell you an answer so i was waiting to see how this thing will play out and that's what happened so this idea of you boxing was this something that was on your mind or did triller just come to you with this idea and then you started to think about it no that was not something that was on on my mind at all i you know it's just that my favorite boxer in the world number one it's uh sugary leonard my second favorite boxer in the world is oscar de la oh my gosh yeah so so if let's say i when i'm gonna get older i can look back at my life and say you know i was champion in mixed martial art and added an opportunity to box against oscar de la hoya in a novelty fight plus also you have to remember that the rules were different the bigger gloves smaller time that the round were shorter so the risk of injury are very um minimized i mean there's still a risk it's a dangerous sport but i would say i would have described it as a hardcore sparring not really as a my real fight so that's one of the reason i would have done it you mentioned that there was a charity component what was that all about yeah big money i when i talked to mr can and oscar on the phone because i was on the phone with them before i said that because a lot of critics are given to these kinds of fight you know because now it's more about entertainment than to really know who's the best boxer in the world and that's not why we were fighting for were there were not any title we were fighting for purely for entertainment and i thought that to prove to the audience that we don't take ours i mean it's a serious fight but that we do it we can come out for a special event for a novelty fight i i thought it would have been a i suggest the idea that we should do it for charity as well to give a big big big part of the of the benefit for for money and they they like the idea now there's this whole thing as you just mentioned about like you know the youtubers the boxing the mma fighters going how do you feel like the jake paul fights and logan paul you like this sort of thing tired woodley fighting him next week are you a fan of this or not your style no i i i'm gonna watch it i it's i think there's room for it there's room for wrestling there's room for boxing there's room for mixed martial art there's room for entertainment now i think it's a new thing that is happening soon and mark my word i am pretty sure it's gonna happen soon we will see two celebrities going up against each other maybe two celebrities that has some kind of fallout going on going going up against each other and people will turn in yes people will too and people will tune in to see because the promotion of a fight is always driven by emotion people are curious they want to see what's happening so that's why i think it's going it happened it's going it's going so well for for these kinds of entertainment and i think it's i mean ufc it's all about who's the best the strongest man in the world but and normally boxing like when you watch a deontay wilder against tyson fury it's it's to a legit title but this is something different it's a different kind of entertainment so now that the idea has been put in your head and you've thought about it and you feel this way about it at some point before you get to 50 before you know you'll always be in incredible shape do you want to have this boxing match like now that it's actually been a thing proposed to you is this something that you would like to do before your your time is done well now the element of i would say the element of surprise i would say that the the the thing has been stolen i mean it's not not stolen but i made a joke to victor victor is my victor bell first my friend i said to victor hey you stole my fight you stole my my five but i'm very happy for for him he was able to do it and i wish him the best of luck and i'm gonna turn i'm gonna tune in to watch chip and i hope he it's gonna be a good show but what about you do you want to have one of these fights maybe let's say if oscar uh i mean i'm cheering for victoria's victorious my f is a friend of mine and but it's it's something happen and maybe oscar will win or something happen like that maybe i'll i'll get i'll get oscar after we'll see i i i mean i'm still under contract for i think another year or two with with ufc okay but i'm not i'm i'm not going nowhere i'll uh if the idea interests me still when i when i'll be 42 40 41 42 maybe i'll i'll jump back in it so that's really interesting you're not tied to them even though you have fights left for life at some point the contract expires and you will be free as you said in a year or two to do your own thing yes exactly it's a few years after i retire now i'm gonna be free and when i say free i'm always gonna be a competitor you know i i might do some grappling tournaments uh but i think when it's done for a good cause i i always like to give certain amount of money for charity when something like that it's done because my career like i said my serious career i mean it's always serious but when i'm talking about legacy title it's done you know i will always try to show up 100 and fight to the best of my ability if i do something like this but i'm aware that probably my best years are behind me so you will not see me anymore competed for a mixed martial art title you know i might you might see me for a grappling event uh modify boxing rules even something something fun like this that it's of course still dangerous to do i might do it just for the kick of it correct me if i'm wrong i know there's a lot of money being thrown around there they were probably offering you close to what you were making in the ufc to do this am i wrong no not as much now uh i would have made for example in my last fight with uh michael bisping i made i made i made a lot more money that what i would have made for oscar de la hoya but still it would be still still a lot of money for a eight rounds two-minute fight it's a lot of money you know and and it would have been again it's the legendary oscar de la hoya so the experience the money if i count the crown crown and counts pros and cons it would have been worth it um i don't know if you saw this and no one is on your level george in my opinion no one is is close to you but chad mendes was recently led out to go do bare knuckle and so people said oh why why was chad allowed to do this and george wasn't did you see this no i did not i don't know but maybe his contract is different than mine okay and and um maybe he's able to to to get free you know you know i real a lot of people have suggested me to hire some lawyers and and to go fight ufc for this but i didn't want to do it you know i didn't want to spend time and money and energy to wire lawyers and get into that sort of thing i'm gonna happy men you know if they the opportunity present itself again maybe we'll i'll do it but i i'm i don't mind it's not like it's not like uh when i was back in a day hungry and i went went down on my knees and begged for the ufc power world title against matt hughes this i'm not the same person anymore i'm i'm a very happy man right now god bless um you're wearing the uh i think that's a karate combat hat right oh yes exactly are they trying i didn't have time to calm my hair i just uh look at that hair george why are you hiding oh my god the hair is fantastic why are you hiding is that is that bleached by the way or is that your real hair color no my my real hair color is uh brown blonde blonde brownish okay and i i bleach it it's a silver you love it you love it right you're happy with it yeah i like it and you know i have a lot of uh audition to do nowadays for movies yes so i have a big project coming up oh and my advisors suggest me that it would be good for me to change my style a little bit because everybody knows knows me as gsp you know the mma guy right right so it's important for me sometimes to change you know to change the way i look and it helped me get the job done uh any projects you can tell us about or you're keeping them close to your best yeah unfortunately like a lot of the pro these projects are are are confidential but but i had something that was supposed to happen in fall apparently covet is getting very bad in in los angeles and california right now so they pushing back everything and i was supposed to go to a movie or uh this with this this coming up weekend and it's been uh delayed as well unfortunately oh well the reason i asked you about the hat was i'm wondering you know you said grappling this and that if they were trying to get you to compete karate combat i know you're just a sensei but that you know now that you're part of the team like hey george just one match what do you think you know i like already combat but it is very very serious competition you can get hurt very bad so if i do something it will be i don't want to put my i mean it's always a risk because it's a full contact sport and uh if i do something that i put my my well-being into it i i want something that the rules minimize the risk of injury you know because like i said i'm a happy man right now i don't fight for the same reason i used to fight back in the day if i fight because i like the idea it excite me and i can give money to charity it will make me a very happy and it will make also the audience and the fans happy as well i just want to ask you about three fighters and then i'll let you go george thank you so much for the time always appreciate it did you see anderson silva's boxing match and if so how did that make you feel to see him look like that bro it was one of his best performance in life i would say amongst the rest of his elite performance that he did in mma to me the way he beat caesar chavez it was incredible and i was under the impression before the fight that you would not have do like he wouldn't cheese caesar chavez would would dominate him you know because of his boxing experience man he took everybody by surprise it was very inspiring to see him perform that that way it was very very inspiring and what a great ending for anderson silva right now you know what i mean i i hope if he comes back into these kinds of fight it will be something worth it not only about money but in terms of legacy something that it will make him shine make him look good because he man you you check his last two performance against berea hall it was kind of disappointing it was kind of sad but what a way to come back what a way to get back on top man that was amazing he's uh he's boxing t ortiz next did you hear that i didn't know that no way yes he's uh on that same card as vitorin oscar triller not in mma no unboxing yeah yeah i think it's a good fight maybe for for uh it could be a good fight for anderson because he's more into his field of expertise what is your take on rory mcdonald it uh it appears like people are saying he doesn't have it anymore you know it's not the same guy when you see him he's your friend and training partner when you see him what do you think yeah unfortunately i wasn't able to you never know what happened to fires why certain things affect their performance you never know what happened maybe he's hiding an injury maybe things happen in his life maybe that night was simply just not one of his best night right it's hard to tell but clearly in my own opinion i've seen rory perform better before in in the past and i think he something might have affected his performance but i i can't tell what it is i haven't spoke to him i just wish him the best uh recovery and hopefully he will come back and choose to do what is best for his life and i'd be remiss if i don't ask you about conor mcgregor in your opinion can he get back to the conor mcgregor of 2016 based on what you've seen from him lately he started off the fight very well but then after you could see that poi was was getting over him and and i i think if he comes back if i'm conor mcgregor or maybe not conor because he's a very proud fighter if i'm his manager i don't want my my my client to come back to fight the same guy again for the fourth time because now it seems like dustin has his number you need to perhaps take another fight maybe if if no i'm talking not as a fan i'm talking about as conor mcgregor i think he should come back and maybe fight nate diaz or or someone else that that has a different styles than uh dustin poi because styles make fight and sometimes i i have the feeling that now doesn't why probably have his number right now and and conor been out for a long time he needs to to get back in there to to spend more time in the octagon in order to find his own self er er the way he moves and his a bit his ability it seems like he might have lost some of his ability because due to his inactivity george it's such an honor to have you on thank you so much you're always so gracious i love the way you are being respected in our hometown of montreal they built a statue for you yes it looks a little bit like barack obama but still it's a statue for you george who would have thought when you were a little kid being bullied in safety zodo that they'd be building statues for you right i was actually just in montreal i wanted to go see it exactly now my bully can watch out and watch it and be like man i i beat that kid when i beat that guy when i was young about it absolutely they even made it ariel they even made a burger on my name to one of the uh the little uh rest outdoor restaurant it's called katzen shabab they made a little a cheeseburger that is actually pretty good i'm happy because i went there as an inspector just i didn't tell nobody i went there to to order and they were like hey you're just saying here i'm like yes yes i'm like i'm coming to taste my own my burger it has my name so i want to see if it's good and they were laughing so it's actually pretty good what is in it is it just a cheeseburger is there something special in it double uh double meat portion uh salad tomato uh chili pepper mayo relish and mustard it's actually pretty good wow uh i texted you when we were montreal i was at one of your favorite restaurants and mine pidgeon in uh monkland i love that place everyone should check it out one day i'd love to go there with you but i'd also one day my dream george is to go with you this is my dream to go with you to the orange julep on decary and uh and have some spaghetti and you know arnold allen you know arnold allen i tweeted i was at the orange julep i tweeted a picture of it when i was there a couple weeks ago with my family my kids love it the drink i love it too and he said he eats the spaghetti and it gives him diarrhea he said it's the worst food and i said i'm going to tell george that you said are you crazy to speak of orange julep like that he's crazy right he's wrong nah man maybe he's allergic to gluten or something like that it's actually their spaghetti is actually pretty good of everything they have in their menu i i recommend the spaghetti the number one thing okay i don't know about that i think the julep is the number one thing but maybe for food uh the sp yeah yeah maybe but they're the speaking it is actually pretty good the third the juice and the spaghetti with it right right um all right so that's my dream we're gonna make it happen uh one of these days george and i at the orange julep an iconic location in montreal uh we're gonna enjoy some spaghetti and we're gonna enjoy some julep george thank you so much for the time all the best to you much love my friend and uh i can't thank you enough when you come on it always means a lot to me the greatest of all time being on this show i really really appreciate it hey thank you ariel for having me and uh sorry for the little problem that happened now i know that next time i do an interview i'm not gonna let my phone hang under the sun for too long sorry to use it to the audience no problem we live and learn the man himself george st pierre of montreal what a guy what a mensch there will never be another and it's always a great honor when he joins us on the show fascinating stuff there regarding uh the triller fight and oscar de la hoya and uh khabib what a mensch you know what the word mensch means you you you look up the word mensch in the dictionary you see that man now 20 or so minutes we're going to be joined by jorge maswell last guest of the day i got to go to las vegas summerslam but i'm putting on my glasses like an old man they're very one second one second one they're very uh they're very foggy i think i've been touching them too much these are my glasses which really became a thing in my life because of all those zoom shows that i was doing which i hope to never do again and you know you gotta roll with the punches but it's great to be in the studio look at this uh i said to you guys that i didn't ask me anything on my sub stack page ooh look at this 180 uh arielhauwani.substack.com and so without further ado should i go from the bottom up i feel like i should give props to the people who are there first top first it's a great page arielle helwani.substance.com i'm not trying to plug here but um let's go i didn't read any of these i scammed here and there i wanted to see if people were actually engaging so let's go uh 18 or so minutes of some questions who wants some who wants some who wants some all right here we go uh this is from dan b thank you very much you were first one up and so i will give you uh i think if you like the questions they move up i don't know how this all works i'm very new to it all but this is going to be something that i'm going to be doing more of my glasses keep like pinching my ear here all right uh this from dan i haven't read any of these just want to let you know given everything you put out there regarding the relationship with the ufc and danae ah how about that the first question god bless you and yourself are you able to go report on site for live events or is that not possible this seems to be a thing that keeps coming up it feels like this is revisionist history it almost feels like people have skipped over 2016 to 2018 remember 2016 199 the banning lasted 48 hours you know cooler heads prevailed all that stuff you know the story i was back i was back 2016 2017 2018 then i went to espn and i was back as well the reason i haven't been to an event since march of 2020 isn't because i'm banned at least no one's told me i'm bad the reason and i don't know why i would be 95 of the things i talk about are positive about the ufc the reason is the pandemic and yes i i did say many times i'm ready to go back i want to go back but espn look at my colleagues they were very cautious now some of them lived on the west coast vegas california it was easier for them to drive or literally like walk over there i live on the east coast tougher i was supposed to go to glendale but then the contract you know and everything and so it was just kind of the end and we just let it you know ride out uh so to the best of my knowledge all's good i mean of course uh you know they don't roll out the red carpet but i don't need them through all the red carpet you know you just want to go cover the sport and i have no beef here again there's no beef on this side the whole thing is crazy to me i don't understand it i will never understand it um but yeah people keep saying i'm banned i'm not banned uh i just i my employer didn't want to send me out and there was a pandemic i don't know if you heard about it there was a pandemic but you know if if i wanted to go back and and i'll also be honest now with all the shows and everything i'm doing uh i think the role has evolved and changed and you know don't have to go to 30 events a year like i did when i was a youngster because i got other things to do but i still love going going to the events and uh i hope to do so in the very near future maybe the nick diaz fight coming up um first of all okay uh this from nathan first of all welcome back which fighters champions from other organizations do you think would be title contenders and possible champions in the ufc first one that comes to mind is aj mckee uh he is incredible i think he could give alex volkonovsky a run for his money at 145. um just what a great fighter what an absolute great fighter and young dynamic aggressive finisher undefeated just beat pitbull who's a fantastic fighter in his own right and so yeah uh he comes to mind kayla harrison comes to mind uh undefeated two more fights maybe we see her crossover after the the pfl deal is done who knows there uh who else who else you know of course there's did he just say young here um you know mousasi could still hang in the ufc obviously ray cooper is a great fighter in pfl but i don't love the narrative of like oh aj mckee just want a belt he should go to the ufc no aj mckee's getting treated really well by bellator we shouldn't always want to push these guys look guys i understand why you feel this way as a fan you want all the fighters under one umbrella so that you could see all the fights that you want that makes total sense but if you are a fan of fighters and a fan of mixed martial arts you actually should be rooting for competition rising tide lifts all boats you want more options you want more opportunities for fighters you want fighters to be able to go out test the market and make money because as they like to say the window is very very small and some of them only get five years to make a lot of money i want to see them all make money i want to see them make more money than they could ever dream of then they know what to do with and it's hard to do that when there's one game in town uh this is from riley could we see a helwani trivia road show again in the future i would love to do it i think we did two of them and they were so much fun one in chicago one in las vegas i would love to do it no plans right now covet new jobs all that stuff but uh i would love to do it i would absolutely love to do it um and i will do it maybe not the same way but i will do it uh the trivia is a lot of fun i actually pitched a trivia show to fuel tv back in the day and they never did i thought that was a mistake uh wanted to get your perspective on why the ufc hasn't given oh this is from flick i wanted to get your perspective on why the ufc hasn't given leon edwards a title shot how much more of a win streak does he have to rack up yes the last fight with nate was touch and go at the end but he won couldn't agree with you more in any other circumstance leon edwards is fighting for a belt next ten and one only loss um no yeah well he had he had the he had the loss uh to to kamar usman what six years ago at this point if you look at his last 11 or so fights compare that to colby's last 11 or so fight also kobe's on the same same record but colby's last loss was two fights ago kobe's 1-0 1-0 since his last title fight he got a title fight and colby this is a funny thing about colby uh he i think he went on submission radio and he was talking all kinds of junk about me if you knew the battles that i had to fight on behalf of colby covington to to talk to him quite frankly to shine a positive light on him with the marines and do pieces on him in my previous life colby should be thanking me honestly not disparaging me all of a sudden colby doesn't like me anymore i don't know why i don't know what's going on there i have nothing but i true story i once had colby covington on my show um i walk into the studio there's a lot of famous people there and this is at the said espn walked into the studio a lot of famous people and someone said to me why do you have that guy this is someone on air said to me why do you have that guy wearing that red hat on the show i said i don't care he could wear whatever he wants now this is before things got you know really a little bit tenuous but like this is two years ago he can wear whatever he wants it's not my job to censor him not my job to tell him what to wear he could you better pan up you better get that if that's what he wants to wear god bless i've always been that way come on say whatever you want you want to come on here you want to talk smack to me by all means i would love it i would invite it and so you know he's trying to say all i was saying i put out this tweet last 11 fights leon edwards colby covington i think leon deserves it he's not the most dynamic personality so they don't push him as much uh and and and that sucks quite frankly that sucks because he deserves it i don't care how the nate diaz fight ended up he deserves it he has done enough to get a title shot and and and don't get me started on the gilbert burns thing gilbert burns a year ago i mean ali is telling espn that they are banned from talking to anyone because i suggested i had the audacity to suggest that leon edwards should fight gilbert burns in a number one contender fight now we have gilbert try to pressure publicly leon edwards to fight him why why in the world would he take that fight that makes no sense leon should consider only two fights right now if you ask me the mos vidal fight for revenge for his heart to get back at him for the three piece minnesota or the title fight just wait it out that's that uh another question not trying to be greedy this is from dan b will you be doing any on location interviews soon like the trip to albuquerque for jon jones or the one in philly with eddie alvarez i found those to be amazing love your stuff ariel yes i'll be doing a lot of that a lot of that for bt sport other places but yes i want to get back to doing that uh this is jeremy duke remember it's been a weird time a year and a half no traveling all that stuff um i've got two i understand if only one or none make the cut jeremy duke mma media generally asks dana the same softball questions and the fighters the same old questions over and over while they're cutting weight is this because those reporters are generally not creative or does it have to do with them not wanting to anger the ufc no i don't think it's the latter you know different reporters have different styles i was talking about this with someone yesterday um there was a thing that happened on twitter yesterday with you know a fine young reporter and there was like a mishap whatever it's not important mma media look at the state of mma media i would put right now mma media up there with boxing me with any type of media core everyone loves to do look at mma media this is the problem with mma media no what they mean to say is this the problem with social media with people running to do things first to get things out there to maybe make a name for themselves i would put like ben folks chuck mendenhall sean alshady carol uh john morgan kevin aioli brett akamoto um uh uh nolan king farah noon dave doyle i mean i could go guillerme cruz the freaking brazilian beast himself jose young's damon martin i mean do you want me to go down the entire list you know now i'm i'm i'm uh you know i i always say i don't like to say names but like there is a great great media core mma media is doing just fine this idea that mma media are a bunch of hacks is totally wrong now are there going to be people on you know twitter are there going to be people on instagram that are making up stuff sure but mma don't paint us all with that same brush mma media doing just fine now there's going to be some jabrones who show up to the events in person and ask these crazy questions that's not us that's the type of people that they wanted the press conference just to say oh look who's at the press conference even the dude i'd even ask hillary harrison about the mma media member that asked her that stupid question who is that like that's not mma media this is someone who makes his living off of him josh gross i mean i could go on and on tremendous media core mma media is very very strong right now it's very healthy and i feel bad that i i probably missed a name or two but you get the point mma media is doing just fine will you uh this from luke uh will you invite pouya rebecc once more luke luke thomas respect uh will you invite puerto rico once more for impersonations the valid one still cracks me up every time if anyone knows where preebek is pouya rebeck the legend if anyone knows where that man is please do me a favor tell him i miss him i would love to have him in studio do you think oh it's a go on sean do you think figgy deserves the trilogy fight with moreno straight away i can see the argument i can see why he wants it i could also see the argument to let them go elsewhere have a fight and then meet up i mean they're trying to do zhang versus rose if they're trying to do zhang versus rose then why don't you do that fight it's probably the biggest flyweight fight that you can make right now so i won't be upset about it like i i i would be more upset as a big word i think carlos sparza is being wrong by not getting that title fight carlos sparta should be fighting rose number eunice next for the belt and that has nothing to do with zhang but you know she wasn't a long time champion she got knocked out pretty quickly win one fight get back in there not a gazillion fights but one fight carlos sparza there's a story to be told there she beat rose nominess in the first ever straw away title fight and now she's on this amazing role with some big wins make the rematch it's a big fight for rose and it's a big fight for carla i don't know why they're going back to that well is it a business thing with china and i don't know but that one makes no sense to me what you know is being targeted for the december pay-per-view this is from musana great questions uh too early too early right now um my guess is maybe poirier but you know we just got to november so it's a little too early but if you look at the roster who might be available poirier oliveira could be a fight um riley what is your take on the connor versus dc beef as you can see just i'm just going to the first ones that i see uh it bums me out i love dc that's my guy that's my brother i don't want to see them beefing i don't want to see connor and michael bisping beefing i saw that on twitter um these are legends no one wants to see that so i don't want to see it and it bumps me up patty the baddie ufc champion by end of 2023 corey b so end of 2023 would be in a year yeah sure i could see that i mean i'm really curious to see how he does there hasn't been a great run right now there's been a couple of examples jack shore and whatnot but there hasn't been a tremendous run right now of cage warriors guys cage warriors guys cage warrior guys uh going over to the ufc and having success let's see if he can be different by the way jorge masvidal still coming up who is most likely to regain their title first zhang figgy max robert or stipe this is from eliezer katz great name by the way um zhang figue max robert stipe max holloway rish i hope i'm pronouncing that correctly r-i-s-h no r-i-s-c-h ufc has thrived during the pandemic if covet never happened do you think the growth would have been comparable and do you think there are any major differences as to where the sport would be right now the ufc 100 thrived 100 thrived uh they took a chance it paid off they were the first to come back may june july they were the only game in town and i think the perfect storm if you will for lack of a better term of them being the only game in town the rise of the online sports books sports gambling becoming more legalized you know bed mgm draftkings fanduel all those places it was an incredible turn of events stars aligning for the ufc i remember may june july people come up to me friends neighbors cousins who never spoke to me about mma hey who's going to win in the michelle waterson fight like what you know who michelle waterson is they weren't they wanted to watch sports they wanted to gamble they wanted to be entertained worked out huge plus let's be honest the espn deal has worked out tremendously for them it has been the best thing to ever happen to the ufc honestly who would have thought the numbers would be this great on plus pay-per-view it's because of the the rub that they get from.com and in sportscenter and the other programming it's been a fantastic relationship and the ufc always wanted to be on espn even before the fox deal the dream the ultimate goal was to be on espn so it has worked out and they are killing it right now and they're getting paid in advance for the pay-per-views like the financial deal is just fantastic so yeah covet helped um they probably would have ended up in in this in this uh in this spot eventually but i think it expedited things no doubt juan uh ariel what is your take on the bantamweight division and is it the most exciting division at this moment um you know i see a lot of people saying that i think casey says that uh and it's certainly i mean 135 155 those are up there um i would obviously do the john sterling fight that needs to happen absolutely that needs to happen next um and it's going to happen hopefully on october 30th and then you know tj is going to be out actually spoke to his team recently i mean tj with the recent knee surgery that he had he's only going to be ready in around february of so january february something like that so does corey sanhagen slide in there i wouldn't hate it i think you could make a strong case that he won that fight does he slide in there does he get that title shot um i still think corsain hanging is going to be a ufc champion come hell or high water i am uh i am planting my flag in that hot take i think he's going to be a champion does it happen now does it happen later we'll see but it's a great division i mean there's a lot to like sean o'malley does henry cejudo come back aldo is doing great although dillashaw would be a lot of fun dominic cruz is still out there doing his thing marlon vera's out there so there's a lot of pedro munoz um did you always want to be a journalist when you were growing up this is from matthew and if you did why well early on i wanted to be an nba player i actually wrote a signed a contract that my cousin presented to me i said i was going to end up in the nba i think i was 12. he said i had to pay him a million dollars if if i if i didn't make it to the nba i think it'd buy 21 i don't know if you know this but i didn't make it um luckily he hasn't taken me to court i don't know if that contract was legally binding um but i remember you know always emulating the broadcasters always being fascinated by you know the magic of tv and and and the way that the uh you know the announcers set things up and all that stuff and uh i remember being in the ninth grade and reading sports illustrated and it said syracuse university is the home for the best sports broadcasters and i said to myself that's where i want to go and so i went to syracuse and the rest as they say is history all right uh maybe we'll answer a few i mean there's so many questions here i feel like i could have done three hours just on the questions thank you all maybe i'll go on the page and answer them answer some of them as well um but for now let us go to our last guest of the day what a great pleasure what a great honor it is to be joined by this man he is the pride of westchester miami florida he is the bmf champ he is the man who just recently successfully launched his own bare knuckle promotion to rave reviews to great success and there are rumors that a second event is on its way as well he is the one and only jorge bidal i don't know if he appreciates the way so that jorge vidal joining us via the magic of what do you think what do you think jorge not bad it's a different take on it but you know i'll let you slide because it's you man well how would you say it like the authentic way we're not going to go any further okay all right fair enough sorry i try i try i hope you know it's sincere jorge thank you so much for doing this i know you don't do a lot of media and whatnot so first week back i wanted to have the legend the man himself game bread on the show so thank you very much always an honor and a pleasure my brother thank you okay i appreciate that um a lot to talk to you about most importantly congratulations on the launch of the new promotion the official name game bread fighting championships right or is it championship is it plural or singular it is all powerful one challenge okay okay uh how was it your first promotion i mean like this is great your first event under the new banner what was it like back in june we get intense man um had a bunch of guys that competed that wanted to fight he wanted to get in there earn a paycheck to honestly throwing rocks you know slinging fish it was it was amazing to see that energy and it's just a little different when it's bare knuckle it feels like well it doesn't feel there's a lot more on the line you know so you're definitely paying attention every second is passing by submissions are also easier to get so the finishes went through the roof uh we loved it i i uh i got more than what i bargained for when did this idea come to you and why like why did you feel like this was something that you wanted to do well i got my start kind of like in the bare knuckle right so we went full circle with it bringing back to the people to the fighters to to everybody that wants to go out there and get it you know and i could use my name to promote all these guys to push them forward and uh help them on their career you know we're looking for the best hungriest meanest up-and-coming guys am i wrong are you the only bare knuckle mma promotion i think it's the only one right the one and only one damn okay i'll watch i know because it just happens right monkey see monkey do a couple more about the pop-up yeah hip-hop the og the og now uh first one success like did you make like were you in the black did you guys did you guys make money off of this was it good well did well okay it was in mississippi we sold out um we had a good amount of downloads as well on the bare knuckle app so we're they're happy with the business end of it we're happy with what they're bringing to the platform so it's amazing man we made money it was a good day now sorry i got somebody in the group here that lost their marvels what happened sorry about my fans and listeners ever again brother god bless you what happened what happened you know somebody lost your mind for a second i hadn't just like put an end to that okay all right you're the man jory you're the man if you need me to clean something up for you over there i'll i'll fl i'll run right over there to miami okay okay i'll dress up somebody know when i'll tell you off camera oh okay it's probably malki i get it i get it listen um malki you gotta love him one of the best congratulations to him on the new uh the football signing that he just had with the colts that guy's jokes you're like hello i don't want to talk about him too much because he's definitely gonna pop out of that window any second now if we keep talking about him um jorge are we doing a second one what's the deal doing the second one september 11th um we're ready to set fire you know we got a main event that's incredible that we were working on and everything fell into place all the ducks in a row and that is bigfoot silva what air no i'm gonna have to bring him in actually sir come here and say the other name bigfoot silver versus alex nicholson ah there he is that's the main event right there that's big time stuff bare knuckles heavy weight guys one thing i know freaking ending storybook so september 11th game bread fc where is it mississippi okay we're back uh the great bigfoot silva against alex nicholson um what is this is this three rounds i love it uh who else on the card we know you want you're in this giving mood right now break some other news for us um isis is opponents what's your name we got this girl that we're really high on great striker and to see her bearing up with i think it's gonna be a real treat um what's your opponent's name i just i you know i get hit for a living so i forget names in a while don't give me the name right now okay any chance before the career is done verses oh here we go oh here we go i may just destroy her name and i'm sorry that's abe oh abe you could pull up you could pull up a chair you could hang out all day i got i got love no problem i thought it was malki my bad my bad that's that's that's even worse maybe okay this is great uh now before it's all said and done the career the active career is the dream for you to wrap up this whole career this amazing journey that you've had almost two decades now in game bread fc fighting for your own promotion i mean what a what a what a rags-to-riches story that is bare-knuckle but it's you're the freaking promoter you're the man before it's all done is that the goal here there's a lot of if ends and butts to that equation but definitely um you know why not is one of the ways to put it but at the same time it's it's crazy right because i'm on the contract and this and that you know so who knows right okay okay okay um you recently said on twitter you wrote on twitter pay-per-view money just cashed in see you guys in the cage soon with a smiley face what did you mean by that and i'll see you guys in the cage some smiley face do we have the next one no we don't have the next one we don't even have a a date an opponent anything i'm going to vase in about two weeks to meet with uh with the shock callers and uh i'm gonna sit down and throw numbers back and forth and put a boundary in somebody's head and then i'm gonna go grab that earnings on that somebody said let's say you know i'm hunter campbell we don't look a lot alike but let's just say for this ex you know experience here where i'm hunter campbell you know hunter right that's your guy i mean really the brains of the whole operation right now if you ask me um oh yeah hunter i don't mean to talk often uh maybe not as often as we should sure talk often and for those that don't know he's like a huge part of the corporation yeah massive he's making these voices everything major has to happen to him you know and then of course dana and the rest of the company but hunter is like very instrumental so if he says to you all right jorge you're the man what do you want what do you say you're such a good you're good at what you do bro that's why you keep getting all these awards because you're good man you just you put you put these questions right how do i answer that um i'll tell you this much i'll say give me the fight it gets me fastest and closest to a tiger shop that's what i would say and i mean that from the bottom who is it let's go who do you think will get me closer to that who is the highest ranked dangerous fight whatever whatever whatever tell me what it is put a price tag on his head and we're gonna fight about that for like two weeks just on that price tag then we're gonna come to it i feel like there are three options i feel like there are only three options if i'm being honest the first one is gilbert burns okay the second one is leon edwards the third one is nate diaz i feel like those it's one of those three guys the rest doesn't make sense i think uh i think those are all great options it doesn't matter to us as long as they put that paycheck on it and it gets me closer to the title they say so and so this person right here gilbert because he's the highest ranked dude is the the next guy you have to beat to get to where you want to go let's go that's the simple it is so all these guys always talking on twitter in this nap you know just like the other guy that i punched his name uh what's his face back says he's talking he thinks i own something i don't know nobody i only own my kids and my parents and myself the biggest paychecks possible so when it comes to business i make sure i get every dollar i'm worth you know mm-hmm so we're gonna get underpainting the most and closest to the title and so forth and so forth is this a matter where you you want to talk turkey as well it's not just about picking the opponent you want to talk business too oh it's always it's all business right there's no you it's all business worlds okay um you know the last time i spoke to you you were kind enough to talk to me on the monday after the oozman fight in april and it was it was a i mean obviously no one wants to see you down but you were very honest you were very raw and you know you had to work through the emotions uh that was a big fight for you were four months or so a little less than four months removed are you still kind of feeling the emotions after that fight are they all gone away do they only go away once you fight again how are you feeling about what happened in jacksonville oh no those nightmares are forever sleeping and i'm fine with i've already like made a mechanism to cope with them it's totally cool i just you know got to give it back at some point you know something new got to get in there it's a long shot now obviously i had a lot of work beating so i don't want to talk too much about fighting him but i just want to say that whatever the amount of work that it takes to get back in front of them i'll do it so that is still the goal because there was even that brief moment where you said you even thought about saying sayonara for a second in the locker room you said yeah yeah but um i was like you know what let me go back in the gym see how i'm doing when i'm swallowing when i'm grabbing on the moment can i still hang can i still keep up with the with the dudes the up and coming guys the good guys tonight i mean what a better gym in my gym to find out if i still got it or not right so still got it man i ain't going nowhere still a few more years um let's say two more years huh okay that's not that's not that's not a ton of time but it's you know five more fights something like that six more fights yeah if i could get lucky and get six fights today and you would be supreme do you want to fight again before this year is over the immediate answers yes why do you say immediate answer because you know like i said it's a business i got to get in front of the group and they're going to say yeah but this or not and that you know who knows it's it's not anything against them it's just it's if it's up to me i'd fight this year i'm trying okay probably the back end of the year right like in november december something like that yeah okay um what's that you know too much no i don't know anything that's why i'm asking you all i feel like i'm peppering you here i feel like it's like an interrogation i ask well you already know like answered yourself i feel like it would be a travesty i don't know i hope you don't get mad at me if i said colby versus you would have been such a big fight to me it's a shame that it didn't happen it was still happening at some point you think so i know okay in in the cage or outside the cage that's the best thing about me is that um i aim to believe so i'm going to give what the audience wants both you know ever see this kind of person that's he said a lot of things i want to see you know and you know what's the really funny part is that like months ago he was talking about he was going to call the police on me now i'm sorry but if he sees me on the street he's going to beat me up when he's walking around with his shirt like by his side he's got like this older dude uh cop guy that's a sheriff that and he's going around yapping his mouth you know what i'm saying that he just wants to put people in jail that's what he wants to do so like almost like a bodyguard that's what you heard no that's not what i heard that's what i've seen now you've seen it i've seen i've seen pictures videos of it you know you can't move in my city without all right you run that place um okay so so these are the options just i just want to be i just want to tie this part up uh you don't have any preference nate rematch uh during yo florida you know whatever you're just gonna go there with an open mind see what's up but there's no one in your heart right now that you're like alright that's the guy that's the one that i want next um no the one that gets me close because i i don't feel like uh like anyone gets me closer than the title than than what they decide you know because their their way of thinking sometimes is completely different than me and my management is thinking they might be telling me to do something completely different so i i finally get accustomed to that so i go into these meetings like which are just okay just you know what i deserve and let's move forward on you know i saw this video recently i think you were in like a costco or something and this dude came up to you and did like the bruce buffer announcement of you yeah yeah yeah that guy was incredible oh you know when it first started out i thought he was gonna like fade out like a lot of people yeah yeah yeah yeah and as he kept going i was like oh this guy is serious and he's good you know so guess what we did we went so after that you guys got his info and legit hired the guy immediately after you know because it was a crap i don't know if they can't there was like about 150 people behind him yeah i was like oh if you can do it like that with all these people behind him no sweat he's ready for the big times let's go god bless you uh that so that was uh you were doing like a signing i think it was for and i'm not a drinker so i don't want to butcher it you're you're um not a drink but more importantly you're not a spanish speaker my brother that's what we're here for yes um you said i don't want to butcher it because they got that word and that's easy yeah enjoy it you you did a lot you did that i love it you did a lot of deals like after the ben asked fight and everything at any point did you feel like it got to be too much or are you happy with the way everything kind of played out post 2019 no obviously not you know i wish uh menu she could have came to an agreeance on the first title fight way way before you know things like that maybe that that's something you know i i got a lot of um making up grounds that's what i'm going to do you know so i'm not happy obviously with 20 20 20 you have regret no never regret a lot of data to go look back on and work on this work on that multiply this subtract that things like that you know but not regret we're starting to see a lot of people you know um someone that you know jake paul you've trained with him talking a lot about fighter pay and stuff the stuff that you talked about last summer yes you feel like this is going to change at all no why you know fighters are very individual creatures you know stuff like that and we'd have to like come together under a roof or something like that and and have each other's best interests at hearts as we sit down everybody together and things like that and that in itself is a problem you know i want every single audience on the roster to get what they deserve but um it's crazy some people are happy the the next guy that's not even the machine might be just happy to go to this and that and that and this you know right right yeah it's a tough thing to get everyone on the same page because you've got the guy who's making 10 and 10 who's just happy to be there and doesn't want to rock the boat and then you got the other guy at the top who's like oh i finally made it i'm at the very top i'm the top five percent and then it's the guys in the middle who are like yeah what am i doing you know like you said that's a lot of a lot of people no i think in the future something will happen but it's uh i don't know i i hope more people keep bringing attention to it because i think it's messed up i think they just released the other day again like uh the salaries like in uh the percentages of even bellator and um like other organizations how much more they give you know that's crazy yeah like 15 as far as like the revenue the revenue share yeah yeah um i heard that you said tyron woodley's gonna beat jake paul am i right on that never yeah yeah why do you think he's going to beat him because a lot of peop jake is the betting favorite why'd you say why why do you think so huh i didn't say who by the way i didn't say who i said why no but you're messing with me no i don't know it's not it it's not the district but you've been watching them for a minute yeah woodley could pull them hands then that's we never could you know what i'm saying right so it's like you got a guy that could fight they could sling fish when it's time to sit like woodley could have made his money grappling which he did he was good enough overall and he was good enough for athens to make his money with his hands so now people will out you know so i don't think i don't it's not i know jake's never been in there with a guy like that you know it's explosive that's a good athlete and it has a ton of experience over so if jake wins wow my hat's off to him i was wrong i don't know about fighting right but chances are he's gonna knock him out wow you think he's gonna knock him out you're one of the few who's saying that by the way and i appreciate your your loyalty to your mma guy you know he's a part of the att family but just for the record a lot of people are saying jake is going to beat him i don't know what the are you're looking at man no no no i have no idea you see you you're seeing him who are you hanging out with bro no i'm just saying i'm seeing a lot well first of all the betting odds have jake as the favorite which initially you would think is kind of crazy when you but when you you you felt him right you've trained with him he's got skills we didn't spar his pads yeah i think i've seen him lightly spawn with guys i'm only seeing from fights in the footage that he has online when he's born at 100 100 speed um yeah that being said i've also seen woodley when he said pads when he's farting at a hundred and when he's fighting at a hundred and when i do the math willie wins man willie just wins you know as long as he as long as he did his part which was trained leading up to the moment was in the gym doing his thing he's going to win it's just too much experience and athleticism on that side i think jake's a good athlete but well he's a different type of rat it's just you know that next next level honestly compared to jake's gonna feel it in the fight you know he's never i don't think he's even ever smart with somebody's athletic degree they can cover the distance that he can that if woodley wants to get like tired or hurt can clinch him and there's nothing jake could do you know and then yeah the referee will break it up but there goes four or five seconds you know and it's gonna get manhandled in the clinch i feel like as well you know so just i see woodley uh two last very quick things uh colby usman ii who do you think wins who's mine okay um and i want to give you this opportunity you can say no if you want there's a lot going on in your in your home country of cuba is there anything that you want to say in support of the people there anything you want you know i know it's near and dear to your heart you want to talk about it or no there's a genocide going on over there and it's not being covered by the internet because they've shut off the internet um a lot of police have been and reports have been made but nothing's been done to give cuba internet just so they themselves could broadcast the horrors that are going on over there it's crazy uh it feels like we're speaking into deaf ears you know we're seeing the craziness happening in afghanistan too and it's like uh i think i read a report where like 80 30 000 americans were left behind translators all types of different people that are out there helping our government securing our freedom so that we could do what we do you could be on the show i could be fighting because they're risking their lives so no terrorist attack happen here and then we turn their back on those people it's like man the world's getting real up real fast you know do you have family in cuba still yeah are you able to contact them uh okay are they doing okay for the you know to the best your knowledge some of them are in the country countryside like a way like out in the mountains and they're doing much better than unlike the poor people in cities and stuff like that that are dealing with the government directly face to face you know right on the hearing of communism and socialism and all that well my heart goes out to uh to everyone over there and hopefully i mean it is a crazy time whether it's one of my all-time favorite boxers manny pacquiao yes and he's also bringing a lot of attention to cuba and what's going on over there and he actually escaped from that communist regime became a world champion boxer at one point was like seven and one in boxing you're seven and three and then just worked as well to becoming a world championship now he's gonna fight manny pacquiao great story guys dude yes you don't know that that's this saturday on pay-per-view i think t-mobile arena in las vegas you'll be watching for a great college yeah i'll definitely be watching you going to go support him i'm going to be at american top 10 grand opening in pennsylvania for bone nickels grand opening i won't oh it finally opened the state college one state college one is finally open i think it just blasted you yeah you might be the first to hear that damn look at that i love it i love you guys need to get gable steveson to come train with you guys as well how that guy's the man right i got to see him watch the ncaa championships live oh right that's right i already knew that i was like wow you might just go into men's uh trials and then get a medal i'm thinking right when i'm seeing him which college gosh is he good he not only goes out and gets a medal but it's a gold medal bro and and down five points in like 30 seconds right like was like 30 seconds left he was down blowing at me insane made it made it look easy i love your uh respect for collegiate wrestling amateur wrestling i know you're a huge fan of that i remember when you were in my studio many many many moons ago in new york because you were coming to town i think with abe uh to watch the uh the championships at madison square garden uh yeah yeah yeah well jorge uh so to recap bkfc not bkfc ha game bread fc too alex nicholson i love it live on i love it and you're going to las vegas in two weeks and uh two weeks to meet with the brass infinite on sale right now right now today where where where did they what do buy buy favorite part of the change gamer fighting championship gamertickets.com boom and it's championship not championships yeah i just got a list don't make fun of it no that's good bro hey if you need me to go to vegas with you for the the chat with the bosses let me know i'll clear the sketch and we'll talk turkey you know i know i know i know all jokes aside would you clear the schedule for me because they would love to see you i think it would be great i think it would work very well for you if i showed up on your behalf this is my advisor what's that are you sincerely telling me that because i'll focus the flight i'll take care of flights i will i mean i don't know if i'll be you i'm not serious i'm in jorge i'm in i'll sit right next to you on the plane me hey me you and manuel going down there there's no way that we could be stopped [Laughter] much love my man thank you so much for doing this i really appreciate it thank you abe as well uh and congrats on the first event and i look forward to the second september 11th god bless everybody listening thank you everybody for your love and support boom jorge mazvidal the man the bmf champ how about that how about that first week my friends how about that israel addis sonia dustin poirier uriah faber jackson darren till george st pierre jorge mazvidal kayla harrison surreal gone chris weidman the king is back the show is back the show of shows is back the show of record the number one show in the history of this damn sport is back and i don't care no more who who is it that oh it was gone who's saying himself you know what humble's for second place i feel bad that i didn't get all the questions i'm gonna go i mean we've got three minutes left let me just run through some of these very very quickly um what is your opinion on the state of the flyweight division i don't mind it hey we also got cody garbrandt coming down against kykar friends i don't know how that's going to go but max b that's for max b i don't mind it um what's it like being back home ariel what a great question how did it feel on monday being back i wrote a long thing about this uh this from sean o'driscoll on my sub stack the best way i could describe it is i feel like i can breathe i feel like a weight has been lifted i'm just happy and i i i wish the same to all of you even my haters i just want us all to be happy if there's one thing that i learned over the past year and a half is this damn life and we all knew it but you know it hits you in the face is too short let's just be happy any enemies out there any i say we're friends let's shake be happy we don't have to be best buds but i don't want hate in my heart i don't want venom in my heart i don't want to be obviously censored all that stuff but like i just want to be happy i want to wake up and be happy and feel fulfilled in my soul and that's what that felt like and it was great it was really great is there any chance for mike that a show like the mma beat comes back hmm that's a great question i would say stay tuned that was a bit that was that was inappropriate and that that was another you know i like to think that the uh the questions are uh usually okay uh wade or waiter uh a simple one what is your dream mma matchup i'll say the first one that just came to mind brock versus fyodor that would have been amazing brock versus pewter uh nicholas how is the relationship with dc and chael currently absolutely great i spoke to dc yesterday for maybe two hours i've texted with shell like i said at the top of monday's show love those guys they will always be my friends ah this is a great question from anon 1 is there a realistic is there realistically a way for you and ali abdelaziz to make up it would be really nice to have habib on your show again in the entire roster i will say right here now what ali did to me the last two years was pretty damn crappy trying to hurt me trying to cut off the guys despite all of that i would shake his hand if he walked in here right now and and bury that there is no hatchet to bury he made a deal to try to hurt me let's just call like it is and he can he could spin it any other way and by the way use the phone number that i gave him to try to get me fired from my last job if we're just gonna shoot i will shoot with you that's what the guy tried to do to me and despite all of that i would still say bygones be bygones i would shake your hand and have you here in any of your fighters here and a lot of them reach out to me there's no hate here there's nothing they can say there's not a single skeleton in my closet there's nothing they could say i can look at myself in the mirror and say that i have tried to do everything fairly and ethically while covering the sport i've tried and you know the one blemish the thing with fox you know about the payments and all that and i willingly offer that up and it's the biggest regret of my life um rank and order the companies you've worked for fox media number one two more good question nick now that gina is in the books who's the next big interview you are after lorenzo that would be great i'd love to have lorenzo by the way addressing genia gina while we're doing all this love gina unfollowed me broke my heart i never said that i wanted gina to be cancelled or fired or any of that i was just coming out to explain why a jewish person might feel a certain way about that meme that was it reached out to our team tried to clear the air all that stuff i never go back never ever talked about cancellation never talk i don't believe in that mob mentality no one should be fired for one little thing that is no i mean obviously you hurt someone it's different thing so i got love for gina and i will always have love for her okay okay um who's someone you respect a lot but mostly disagree with oh my i don't know i don't know disagree with that's a good one you stump me on that one uh what are your goals when it comes to the return of the mma hour guess that you haven't interviewed i want to do the show the right way give the fighters a platform be free talk about whatever i want and just do this twice a week for if i do this for the rest of my days i'll be a happy man honestly it's funny when i hear toby oh you went back trust me i'm i'm happy for the rest of my days um how do you manage your anxiety and push through at moments where it seems like it wants to take over great question justin i don't know to be honest luckily for me the anxiety has never crippled me to the point where i can't leave my house so i can't leave my bed i know other people have had that and that sucks and i've talked to people about medication and stuff like that it's never gone there it's never gone that bad it was really bad when i was a student in syracuse i've told this story before 3am i can't leave like i'm literally waiting till 3 a.m in my dorm room as a freshman waiting till i don't hear a sound so i could go brush my teeth and then i run to the bathroom communal bathroom run back to my room and hope that i don't see anyone for the rest of the weekend that's how much anxiety i had social anxiety these days i have anxiety about different things it really got bad in february when i was gonna go to my first you know trip um away from my family after a long time and it's funny we talk about this because i'm leaving tomorrow and i have anxiety about it just because i feel guilt i feel a lot of guilt i'm a very guilty person i feel guilty about leaving my kids about leaving my wife i don't know why it's a silly thing but it's just the way i am and um they tell me it's okay you know and uh i just i just you know i i hope and pray that everything's okay and everyone's safe and then i can come back and do this show and the wheel keeps on turning but yeah like i feel something in my chest sometimes but it never gets to the point where it's stopping me i heard ryan reynolds say on the smartless podcast which i by the way recommend very much it's a great podcast and i heard him say that his anxiety it's great to hear him talk about this is his engine and i feel that way as well it has been the engine of my career and february was scaring me because i felt like it was impeding my career it was stopping me from growth and now it feels like an engine again and i'm very grateful for that and the main reason for that is because i talked to someone about it so i would urge anyone to talk to someone about it um okay okay does surrell beat francis he can he 100 can he's that damn good uh let me scroll down here too man so many great what's your favorite public holiday oh my gosh uh doggone it day that was a weird one i want to come out with a calendar and have all the public holidays on it those weird ones do you know if many ufc fighters are vaccinated i don't i haven't asked i don't think it's a i don't think it's the majority if i'm being honest but from the ones i've talked to it's hit or miss uh what are your thoughts on tj dillashaw coming back i thought he looked great close fight i hope that uh you know he recovers and can fight for the uh for the belt if he's able to win a couple more although i thought that court san hagen won that fight fight can you interview kamar usman at the moment i don't think so but he's welcome to come on the show when are you coming back to ireland sean sheehan i would love to hopefully with bt i can soon or anything for any event i would love to um last one last one let me make it good no not a good one now okay um good one as someone who might be trying to break into the industry what would your advice be from tanner i would say this is what i say to everyone just start writing by the way subtech great place uh sb nation blog great place just start writing now you don't have to write i did audio podcast back in 2007 look at the landscape look at what other people are doing take from other people be different be unique develop your own voice don't just do recaps of bellator 265 because why would someone look at that when they could see it on major sites find your lane a guy like mike bond who i didn't mention before great job found his lane stats factoids does a great job that's his lane so my lane was interviews i really love doing interviews i'm not saying i'm the only one i'm not saying i'm the best i just i really love doing interviews and i felt like there was a void in that regard in mma so that was the lane that i tried to develop for myself and build and all that stuff find your lane find your little niche there's plenty out there there's plenty of platforms to do your thing and to get your voice out there like i see a lot of people saying i'd love if you hired me well it's hard to just hire someone out of obscurity who's done none of this and works in a completely different industry start a platform for yourself and i always said about you know jerry park that i started many many moons ago i didn't care if 10 people saw it or 10 million people saw it i used it as an online resume just to show people what i can do use the internet to show people what i could do that's the beauty of living in 2021 as opposed to 1987. so use these platforms available to you show people what you can do if you want to be a design a graphic designer but make them on instagram i don't know do your thing find the lane get your work out there meet people reach out to people be cordial be professional work hard and when you think you're working harder work even harder and then be patient it ain't gonna happen after four months it took me you know years to realize my dreams i still haven't realized my dreams you know what i'm saying so just be patient it's not going to happen overnight but if you're patient and work hard professional cordial and work a little harder you'll realize your dreams and with that my friends let us say goodbye frank you can hit the music oh my it feels so good to be back sorry for sometimes yelling but i get very excited hey shout out to the hey shout out to the youtube comments i'm gonna write something right now shout out to the you the to the youtube i can't even write youtube comments sometimes you guys get a bad rap but you know what i say i appreciate you if you could just keep it a little clean that would be nice but i appreciate you and be respectful of others i appreciate you guys i appreciate all of you much love most of all there is no show without the fighters and so i appreciate all the guests today everyone who stopped by chris weidman all the best my man second surgery in the books remember you heard it here first spring summer 2022 belmont stadium whatever it's called new home of the islanders you're gonna walk out won't back down it's gonna be great it's gonna be fantastic surreal gone the french prince put it on a shirt right now i could see it crown beautiful shout out to him kayla harrison good luck tomorrow jenna fabian great fight can't wait for it shout out there george st pierre the legend saint zadal much love and then of course game bred jorge masbadal thank you very much to him september 11th gamebread fc2 and most importantly week one in the books thank you to all of you rating download subscribing all the time back next week same time and please until then i say peace i'm outta here you

Channel: MMAFightingonSBN

Views: 644,800

Keywords: mma fighting, mixed martial arts, martial arts, ultimate fighting championship, combat sports, ufc, mma, the mma hour, mma hour, the mma hour with Ariel helwani, Ariel Helwani, GSP, Georges St-Pierre, Ciryl Gane, Chris Weidman, Kayla Harrison, Jorge Masvidal

Id: hLK850thD40

Length: 191min 40sec (11500 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 18 2021