In The Corner: Jose Youngs from MMA Fighting Recaps Conor McGregor's Return

What's up guys?

This is In the Corner with Destiny McCubbin, Doug Vasquez, and today we've got the one and only MMA fighting's best, Jose Young's in the corner.

What's up?

What's up guys?

Happy to be here.

Happy to have you.

It is the day after UFC 329.

We don't normally film on Sundays.

But having Jose in town, we could not sleep on the opportunity to have him in here, and you guys were both at the fights last night, so there's obviously a lot to talk about.

How was it?

We're gonna get into all of it, but I wanna know what was going through your mind after that main event, the 3.

Genuinely love chaos.

Like I love wacky endings to fights.

It just tickles me, um, because I enjoy seeing.

I don't wanna say disappointment, but I just like the chaos.

I like how it just like throws a wrench and everything, um, not that I want that to happen, but it just, I'm like this is so funny to me.

Last night was a little different, um, because we were talking before we started.

It was if that was, if this was the biggest buzz kill.

That have I experienced, it's probably way up there.

I know Tom Cyril was real bad in Abu Dhabi.

I was there.

That one felt also different because I've sat cageside for that so I could hear Tom talking.

I was sitting next to Michael Bisping, who famously has one eye, so he was kind of talking through it too.

Um, that one was weird.

And then the long flight home, uh, I think it was UFC 61 or '69.

I can't remember it was one of the Tito Ortiz, Ken Shamrocks.

Famously Herb Dean, not the best ref at the moment, had a real bad stoppage, but this was after, like, because Ken, Ken and Tito were like the original rivalry, and then that first the fight ended in I think 68 seconds or 78 seconds, and it was such a bad finish that everyone felt like unfulfilled.

And then like Matt Mitreon had a weird one against Sergei, I can't remember his last name.

He got first kick right to the groin and the guy couldn't fight, so it was like 61 2nd, no like disqualification to groin kick, but obviously it's Conor McGregor.

And it's a catastrophic ending.

It's not like a groin shot or an eye poke.

This is like, we may never see Connor again.

That's this is the thing.

Well, you, so you speak about the chaos, and I think let's talk about the buildup to the fight all week because it did feel for me, it was my first Conor McGregor fight week.

Obviously you've done a few of them.

But I did feel like the palpable buzz all week, even with the, in the arena for the conference, not maybe not to the levels it was in his heyday, but comparative to the last few cards or the last couple of years.

Do you, did you feel that buzz all week?

I felt it a bit at the press conference.

I mean, not the press conference, the ceremonial weigh-ins.

This was a weird, this is a weird one because usually when Connor fights in July or especially in an IFW, it just feels like the week feels bigger because there's usually the UFCX.

Um, I remember a couple of the IFWs, there were like 3 fight cards in 3 days, so you'd have fights Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Thursday, Friday, Saturday, so that's 3 weigh-ins, 3 media days, 3 fights.

So it just felt like a lot.

And then they just, there wasn't the Irish didn't travel for this one.

I don't know if it wasn't because of the because there was no UFCX IFW or the World Cup is going on, so people aren't traveling or just the 2026.

Everything is more expensive, but I just remembered in 2013 was one of my first IFWs.

That was when Anderson fought Chris Wyman at UFC 162.

UFC Fan Expo was at the Mandalay Bay.

And then this they didn't even do official wehins like when you stepped on the stage that was the actual win they didn't do the morning weigh-ins.

So the UFCX fan expo was at Mandalay Bay Convention Center and then the set, the weigh-ins were at the arena like at the Mandalay Bay.

So they literally announced they're like, hey, if you're here, go to the weigh-in.

So like 30,000 people went to the weigh-ins, and that was nuts to see.

This, this felt this way was cool.

Just there wasn't just a big lack of Irish representation in the crowd.

Do you think all of Connor's issues the last five years, obviously him stepping away and some of his legal issues, do you think maybe that played into he's not viewed as that star in Ireland anymore and maybe people are looking at him a different way?

100%.

Like you can't not.

Say that because like I feel like all the people that really like Conor McGregor right now or especially the Irish people that like Conor McGregor are like Irish Americans and Ireland we've seen it all like I remember doing back in when I first started MMA fighting, uh, my old colleague Pizza Kara who now works for Yahoo did a man on the street interview.

So he, he just went out to Dublin, like didn't look for sports fans, just found people, and this is when I think he was about to fight no, he was about to fight Habib.

And he just interviewed like 50 people, 50 random Irish people, and they're like, Oh, Connor's coming back, and like 48 didn't care or something like that, or they were just like upset that like they don't like because Ireland, the economy is not great .

I don't know what it is now, but like back then it wasn't ideal.

I know Facebook moved there and then obviously whenever you get like this big Silicon Valley place like.

Establishes territory there, it raises the price of everything.

So a lot of Irish people kind of got priced out of Ireland.

And then, so they're dealing with this, and then they're seeing like the most famous Irishman in the world like live like so lavishly and not in Ireland.

I think it rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

OK, yeah.

So let's talk about the performance because obviously, obviously, you know, the, he, he got the last walkout, he did the Billy strut when he got in the cage, um, you felt like, OK, it's happening and then all the air just got sucked out.

Room, I think on that first kick is what it looks like, literally the first kick.

Why did he do that?

Why did he come running like that?

Like 5 years off?

You're not the same age anymore.

You're you know, like what the?

Yeah, I don't know.

I know like his, I know like John Kavanaugh's coach.

Like, posted, like they drilled that like that was the opening that they, there's the locker, yeah, like that was the opening that was the game plan.

I don't know why that was the game plan.

I don't know what the conversation was.

Maybe they just wanna be like, hey, I'm back, bam, and then throw a kick because he was famous for his kicks, um.

I don't know.

Like Doug said, there's video of him doing that literally in the locker room, like ready to go, and then they, they drilled it and drilled it and drilled it, and you can drill it 100 times.

101st time goes a bad time, right?

It's rough.

It looked really, it looked bad the way he landed.

It looks like it's definitely a bad injury and like going back to what you said, like we might not ever see him again depending on the recovery of this.

He's already 38.

Like this might be the end of Conor McGregor.

I bet he tries to come back at least one more.

Well, even if he does come back, it's at least it's one more in the UFC and then he's a free agent as far as I know because he has now one fight left, um.

I wouldn't blame him if he never fought again because like you said, like by the time he comes back he might be 40 because say I don't know the severity of the injury.

I also don't know exactly what it is, but say it's an ACL as the time we're recording, say it's an ACL and he needs surgery.

You gotta do surgery .

You gotta rehab it and then you gotta go through a fight camp like he's 39 or 40, yeah, and so if he doesn't wanna do it anymore, I don't blame him.

But if Connor, if is if Connor is one thing, he's a very proud individual.

I don't think he wants that to be it.

I think he will try to do at least one more, and then he can go box for somewhere, and he doesn't have to throw any kicks.

He's for boxing.

Max said there will be a 3.

why not?

Well, obviously Max, Max all week just seemed like he was in a great mood.

He was just taking the moment.

It was his red panty fight.

He obviously made a ton of money, and then at the press conference, he, when asked about a trilogy, he said.

Or, or someone said there's a million reasons why you would, you would want that.

I think it was John Morgan actually.

So obviously, Connor coming back, do you think that Fans might have a little fatigue and just not care if he comes back.

I personally do like a fatigue of Connor coming back.

Like, here we go again, probably, but Connor is without question the most famous fighter that has ever stepped in the UFC.

I think even if, even if 50% of the people don't want to see it, that's still more than.

Any other fighter that could be right now and it will generate business and they will sell out and they will probably break break the gate record.

I don't know.

I wonder what like he's thinking.

He hasn't come out with anything yet .

I don't think he just said he's like been depressed and he drilled he, but he, I, I do wanna say he posted, I think it was this morning that he said there was no previous injury last night.

Last night I was wondering he's like there was no previous injury.

Like he, he, he was 100% health.

This is his words like obviously that could be a thing.

But he said he was fully locked in and ready to go.

They drilled out 1000 times, and it's literally just bad luck, and he did say, I will be back.

So he'll be back, I think.

Yeah, yeah , I mean, there is Connor, and then he can go box Jake Paul.

What, what do you think when he comes back, like, it's way too far down the line to matchmake.

Does he come back at 170?

Does he 100%?

There's no way he's gonna 1100 if he's 40 years old coming off an ACL injury, there's no way he goes back to him unless they just open or they back the brink truck back, but they're not gonna do that.

They're, they'll, they'll probably do it at 170 against Max or Chandler or someone.

Yeah, easiest payday for, for Max.

Yeah, insane.

But also like two years from now, the sport could be so different.

Like, like Justin Gauci might be retired.

Charles Olve might be retired.

Peloton might be retired.

Tom Aswell might not be fighting.

Like the sport moves quick.

So Matt, let's talk about Max, right, because he's obviously not going anywhere.

He moved up.

To this fight for 100 at 170.

What do you think is next for him, because obviously Justin's the new champion.

I don't think people would say, see, hate, hate seeing that rematch at 55, but he's already up and he looked really good at 170.

Yeah.

Shoot, man, I would love to see Max fight a 170.

I think the issue is you have guys that are.

I want to see fight Islam and those are like the Pras and the Moraleses and Sean Brady looked unbelievable.

Like I don't want to see Max Holloway fight Sean Brady.

Sean Brady could just tackle him and just grapple him down, um.

I'd like to see him go back to 155 either to fight.

Justin or the Patties or the Armands or run it back with with Charles again at some point because they're both 1 on 1.

Speaking of buzzkill, that's that's up there, the first Charles Max.

Oh my God, I don't know , it's a total tangent, but when they were both on the up and up, Charles and Max, I was so I, that was like my dream fight at the time.

Like I need to see these two like 20 year olds fight.

And when they finally fought, I don't know if you guys are watching UFC or back then , Fox Sports pacing was abysmal.

It was so it would be like an hour you'd have one fight, so that whole fight card was the slowest fight card I've ever.

It was a drag, and the whole time I was like, doesn't matter.

The main event's gonna be amazing, and then like 30 seconds and it gets hurt.

That's probably my number one buzz skill because at least this fight card we got sick fights.

That was a bad fight card that ended badly.

Speaking about the rest of the card, like what, uh, honestly, like a lot of my picks did not go the way they , I thought they were going to go, but it was still such a great card.

What was, what was some of your favorites?

Oh man, I mean, it's hard not to say Patty looks pretty unbelievable.

He's an absolute superstar right now.

Like we, I was joking a bit that.

It's pretty catastrophic for the UFC that like Poeton, Ilya, and Connor all lost like spent of a month, like 3, they're arguably Connor's clearly number one, but then Ilya, Alex were like, who's the, who's gonna be the new face?

And then they both got sent tumbling back down .

So like right now, did you see Patty's video?

Yeah, 100%.

That was the star now I'm the face crazy.

That was crazy work by him.

Um, he's clearly a superstar.

He can't, he could headline an MSG.

He could headline a T-Mobile, and no one would bat an eye, so he's by far his stock has risen the most.

Probably within another shot, maybe one more win of a title fight.

I don't think he's gonna ever get the Justin rematch just because I, I think Justin has maybe one fight left, and I don't think they're gonna do that rematch.

Um, Rob looked unbelievable.

Adrian Yanez looked unbelievable.

I mean, it's hard.

Mario looked great.

I wish he would stop.

I was blown.

That's my biggest surprise is how much he just put it on Corey.

I don't, he should be within arm's length of a title fight, but it's Mario.

I probably not big fan of Mario, just the way he fights and carries himself, but he doesn't talk trash and he doesn't solve fights.

Going back to Patty, uh, you know, you and I spent most of the night in the media room, but then I actually did walk out for the co-main and the main, and just seeing Patty's walk out, it was like, it's, it's like, it's movie, it's like cinema because he has the whole crowd on his side.

And I felt that that walkout was more electric than even Connor's.

Like the crowd was more into that.

Do you think that his star power is commensurate with his fighting ability, because he put on a great performance, but the flip side of that is BSD might have had the worst game plan ever in a fight, shooting on him get up, up against the cage within the first minute of the fight.

It's tough to say, um.

It's tough because he clearly belongs in the top 10.

I thought Chandler was gonna rinse Patty Pimla .

I thought he was gonna rinse him.

I thought Gichi would rinse him too, and I, while Gichi did win, that fight was very back and forth, and Patty Pimle had a lot of success.

But I feel like people have overlooked Patty's skills.

The first time I interviewed Patty, he was still in Cage Wars, and he was a featherweight, and he had just lost in a Julian Arosa.

Oh no, he just beat in, in air quotes, Julian A Rosa because that is a.

If in the cage warriors lore, that's like a big controversy right if if Patty actually won that fight, but even then you knew Patty was gonna be a big deal.

Like there are, it's very rare that MMA fighting gives attention, well, not, I shouldn't say gives attention like.

Specific in attention to prospects.

Gable's one of them.

Mackenzie Dern was one of them on the rise.

Speaking of big performances.

Gables one.

Mackenzie Dern was one.

Patty was the guy in Cage Warriors that we would really, really interview.

And when he, he could have joined the UFC earlier when Darren Till fought Stephen Thompson.

In Liverpool, but Patty's like, I'm not, I don't, I'm not gonna be call event.

I can headline my own card.

I'll sign when I'm ready and look at him now.

Wow, good for him.

What, what, what did they end up saying what the, what that submission was?

It was like, it was like a Peruvian dars.

Yeah, it was nuts.

And even Patty was like, I've never done that.

Oh my God.

It was like a guillotine into a darts joke, and then he like stepped over and sat down like a Peruvian necktie.

Oh my God, it was so tight.

It was like the second he locked it up, I was like, it's over.

It was unbelievable.

It's over.

There's no way he's getting out of this.

PSD is a multi-time French national grappling champion, so it's not like he submitted a boxer.

Like this dude is a grappler who has more finishes and submissions than anyone on that card in the last 5 years, and Patty beat him in less than 1 minute.

Unbelievable.

Unbelievable.

And yeah, going back to Gable Stevenson also, wow, like I didn't.

I didn't expect such a great performance.

He looked good.

He had good footwork.

He was moving well, switching stances, peeps up the middle, foot stomps, knee stomps hard and quick too.

It was real sloppy, but I had a good heavyweight time.

Like he got, there's some like he just, he stands like this .

I'm like, dude, put your, you can block, you know.

And like when Ellison like clinched up and I'm like, Oh, it's a takedown now.

And then Ellison just closed his eyes and threw an elbow and Gable ate it.

I was like.

I don't know how that would feel if Cyril gone through that, so it would be, uh, there's very clearly things he needs to work on.

But man are the are the bricks there for a phenomenal place for sure.

It's crazy to like be in in such a place in your career already when you still have so much room to grow, you know, uh, I was worried about how he would perform like on such a big stage with it's just different and it's International Fight Week, but you know he showed up and he showed out.

I think, I think he's great for the he's just a, he's a sponge and I know he has his own controversy that follows him around that will continue to follow him around.

Um, I think he's got to get better at.

Dealing with because like you can't not after a while you can't not ask about it, right?

Well, that's a good point because he wasn't asked about it all week, no, because I think that happened it happened like 10, I don't know how long ago, it happened a while ago in college.

He's answered it a bunch and he's very clearly media trained.

Like he reminds me of like when Bo Nichols joined.

I'm like this guy is clearly went to a Division One wrestling school and knows how to navigate the media.

It slips out with Bo like when he went to MSG and he was giving the crowd the finger.

Slips out some time with Gable because he Gable is phenomenal at like praising opponents and then like last sentence just like drills in with like this underhanded compliment.

I'm like, I mean it's funny, it's really funny and I know what you're doing.

Um, I wish you would kind of like media day I think was, he was terrible.

It was too rigid.

It's just all he is very media trained and even with my one on one with him.

I couldn't tell like if he was being honest.

I, I told him that he was the biggest favorite in UFC history, and his reaction seemed generally shocked, but there's no way he didn't know that.

He was like, Oh really?

What are the odds?

I don't know.

I watched that and I thought like that's kind of what like made me look at him a little differently like because he was very genuine with that.

I don't know.

It seemed real.

I hope so, man.

He's just.

He's so talented and I wish he had maybe he doesn't need to because like he honestly does kind of his like his burst onto the scene reminds me of Kane.

Kane was 2-0, 3-0 when he joined the UFC.

I remember Kane was fighting in Russia because he couldn't get fights, so they're like, fine, come on over to the UFC and look what happened.

So his emergence reminds me of Kane.

I just wish he wasn't as rigid with his answers.

Do you think he'll have a hard time?

Obviously people want to see him fight, but he's not the guy that's gonna talk trash and try to sell fights, right?

I don't think he needs to.

I think.

Like he generates conversation.

Like Bo Nickel doesn't need to talk, and we still wanna see Bo Nickel.

But then there's obviously been other, like, I think it's Marcus Leviser.

I might have made that name up, but like he was an incredibly highly touted wrestler.

No one talks about him anymore, but like I just feel like Bo Nickel and also Olympic gold medalist is just another like Henry Cejudo had that.

Speaking of prospects that we were watching before, like we were covering Henry Cejudo's fight when he was 0-0.

Gabe was the same way, so I don't think he needs it.

Uh, especially a heavyweight cuz it's such a.

Like important division, the heavyweight champion of the world is the the UFC heavyweight champion is the baddest man in the world because they can do whatever they want to anybody.

If Gable becomes the heavyweight champion of the world, then.

Greatest combat athlete ever, as Henry Sudo says.

Did you think it was weird seeing the, like, because he's, his body type is not the same as Jones, but the way he was fighting like it's crazy.

It was like watching Jones, yeah, that was crazy.

He was, he did a switch stand so smoothly like to like to cut to do like an angle cutoff, and I was like, oh shit, OK, it's unbelievable like.

I, it reminded me, it reminded me of John and just like the way he's fighting with Brandon, with Brandon 66 G Gibson and Winkle John and Jackson, everyone, like you can clearly tell.

That those guys trained like we joke, if you just put like a silhouette of a fighter and watch them like shadowbox, you could probably tell where they trained.

Like I can, I could tell exactly if you trained an AKA because you're like walking around with your hands like this and you're like kind of swaying back and forth and City kickboxing does that wide, like with their hand forward to like measure distance.

That was a Brandon Gibson, Greg Jackson one on one right there, like the switch stance, like it's a whole thing.

It was great, um, but John loves beating people up in ways that are not expected.

So like when he fought, when he fought Chell just wrestled him when he fought Glover, he was like dirty boxing him when he fought Gustafson, it was a lot of head kicks and and boxing like he specializes in breaking down people in ways.

That you haven't seen him do it before.

And if Gable does the same thing, if next time Gable comes out and he's clinching up and throwing elbows and knees, I'm like, Well, god damn, like good luck being this, right?

What do you think?

How do you think the UFC is gonna handle his career, because obviously the heavy, there is some buzz around the heavyweight division with the issue , you know, Josh Hokit.

We're still seeing what's gonna happen with Tom Aspinall, but do you think the UFC is gonna be cautious with him and just Give him another guy like Elijah Allison.

When does he get a, when does he get a real test?

I think the heavyweight division is , is, it's tough for the heavyweight division because it's so much more shallow in the middleweight division.

Like Bo Nickel, they tried to do with Bo Nickel with Rainer De Ritter and like Paul Craig, I think when you fought Paul Craig, perfect matchmaking.

Rainer de Ritter has had like 40 professional fights, and is a high-level grappler, and he's from Holland, so he's had a couple kickboxing fights, like he famously like kickboxing is like baseball over there, like you just grow up doing it, um, just bit off more than you can chew at that moment, and At some point you just have to pull the trigger, like give him Marchin Taurra or, uh, I wouldn't give him like a, like a, like a spivvak would be a fight down the road.

I wouldn't just throw him in there with Sergei Pavlovich today or I Josh Hoca would probably be a big problem with him because Josh Hoa looks sick, yeah, but not right now.

I at some point you have to pull the trigger like with Tom they did the right thing .

Like right now if he was still in the UFC, like Andrei Arlovsky would be a great opponent , has had like 50 fights, former UFC champion like.

Andrelovsky fought Tai Tivasa when he was on the rise.

He fought Tom Aspinall when he was on the rise.

Like he's the litmus test.

You just, we need, like, it's essentially to Burr at this point.

You eventually that will be his crack into the top 15.

When he was asked about what's next, he wants to be on that MSG card.

That's pretty much guaranteed.

I mean, right, yeah, I would imagine it's, that's unless they want, that's November, unless they wanna stick him in LA, which is the rumored card.

And not breaking news or anything right now, but if that card is actually happening still, that would be a good card for him too, because the one thing if you guys have covered a fight in LA, the stars come out, um, if they want to stick him where Kobe Bryant played and Shaq, because I think it'll be at the Staples Center, that'd be because heavyweight division , you don't wanna cut weight, crypto, the crypts, yeah.

So if he fights in LA, if he fights in September in LA, that'd be amazing.

If he fought in New York, that'd be amazing.

If he wants to fight in LA in September and then fight in New York at the end of the year, that'd be amazing too.

But like these are the cards you gotta put Bo, you gotta put him and Bo Nickel on.

Like you can't.

Bo only fought in Iowa because of the wrestling community, you know.

Like if they did a, they did a fight night in Minnesota, like throw Gable in the main event, perfect.

Um, running back, uh, Adrian Adrian Giannis looked great last night.

Wow, um, that's kind of how I expected it to go.

Do you think Cody's gonna retire soon?

I honestly thought he was gonna lay him down.

I, well, he left the cage with his gloves off, so .

Yeah, that's tough, man.

That I don't like it's something about the bandweight division that just catches up to like happened with Hennon Bau, it's happening with Cody.

Like you win the title and then all of a sudden next thing you're it's like it's also just like such a tough division.

It's so deep and it's like the the evolvement is like you just kind of get past a little bit, you know.

I bet he does at least one more, maybe one more.

I don't know where or when or who.

I would like to see one more fight out of Cody , maybe another vet fight, or I don't want to feed him to a young fighter.

um, I know he.

has interest in bare knuckle boxing for BKFC.

I, when I interviewed him on Tuesday, he was going to Sturgis to go to beat the BKFC fight, um.

I think he did a face-off with Kayi Stewart at one point.

It'd be like they were in the crowd.

Like Kayi fought and Cody was in the crowd, and then Kayi like did a face-off with Cody.

So like Cody, Cody's a sick boxing, um, if he wants to retire and go do RAF because people forget Cody has a wrestling background, he can't wrestle Sean O'Malley because they're both in the UFC, but if he wants to hang it up and then go wrestle Sean O'Malley at RAF into the lab beef.

I'm all for that too.

Can you put Cody's, uh, career in perspective because obviously he came in, won the belt against Dominick Cruz, then dealt with injuries, and is it, is it, do you feel like his career was kind of a letdown after a little bit of that initial buzz?

The buzz was so red hot, like the perfect matchmaking, and it was a combination of he had hype coming in because he's like a good looking guy, good tattoos.

He's with Team Alpha Male, really good talker, had a really exciting style.

Literally, I think it was one of his first few fights, might have been his first fight.

Fought Marcus Brimage.

First fight like Marcus Brimaged, the guy Connor knocked out in his debut.

So like they clearly knew what they were doing.

And then he headlines, he headlined a fight night.

At the MGM Grand, not at.

The Palms or the Mandalay Bay, they did a fight night at the MGM Grand, the arena, and he fought Thomas Almeda, who was at that point, I think, the undefeated prospect, and Cody murked him.

So, and then when he fought Takey Mizuaki.

Dominick Cruz beat him in like 78 seconds.

That was Dom's first fight back after that long lineoff.

And when they matched him up with Cody, the narrative was essentially, if Cody beats him in more quicker time than 78 seconds.

He beat Dom .

Dom's the champion.

Just do that.

And he did it.

He ran through him at UFC 202, which is the Connor card, and then.

Um, amazing awareness, Dom is on the desk.

The the Fox desk, and Cody points at Dom in from the octagon, it's like, when are we fighting?

I'm like, this guy gets it.

He really gets it, like Cody, and then I'd say in baseball, like perfect games are almost almost impossible.

Cody versus Dominick Cruz is a perfect game.

That is.

It's that fight, it's Connor over Eddie, it's Anderson over Forrest Griffin, it's though, it's that level.

That you are like talk about flow state.

I have never witnessed.

A more perfect fight from a fighter, and I think that's a little combination of Team Alpha Male fought Dominick Cruz so much that they eventually they figured it out, and Cody is a sponge for knowledge and just danced around Dominick Cruz, the greatest bantamweight that's ever lived.

So yeah, Cody's unbelievable.

I wish injuries and knockouts didn't happen.

But Cody's, you can't not talk about the UFC and not bring up Cody Garber.

He was a sick fighter.

Absolutely.

You talk about him maybe doing bare knuckle boxing.

He does have great boxing, but you think it translates in bare knuckle because it's obviously different.

Yeah, I think if anyone.

I'm mostly just, we're talking about like Cody's been knocked out a lot.

Yeah, I don't know if I want to see him in bare knuckle.

The style is just different.

It's boxing, but it's not, you know.

He also brings his head down a lot, and if you just get caught with that uppercut, you're cooked.

You, I mean, you have a boxing background.

There are a lot of differences because you're really trying to like dig the goal from a casual BKFC fan, it seems like the goal is to get the guy caught by using your knuckles.

I mean, how, how does the style differ differ in your, I mean, I just, it's dirty boxing, you know, like you're, you want.

Get in there, you want to hang on the head, things like that.

And like with boxing, you, you know, you have that glove.

That glove is like your, your defense, you know, but with your bare knuckles, like you're not like here and so the defense is a lot different as well, I think.

And even the movement is different, you know, and you could get caught, yeah, instantly or break your hand or break a nose or they say, they say it's actually safer because you're not hitting, you're not hitting as hard or getting hit as hard because of you're, you're being careful, being more careful and.

Yeah, that in a sense I guess.

Yeah, yeah, and It's similar to, like, like, you know who'd be really good, who has the perfect style for bare knuckle boxing is Ilya because Ilya, like in bare knuckle boxing, like in regular boxing, when you punch, you snap back and bare knuckle, you're trying to punch the wall behind the guy.

Like if me and you are fighting, I'm trying to put my fist in the back of your head.

Boxing, I'm just pop, pop, pop, bring it back.

There's none of that.

There's none of that in BKFC even the like the footwork is very different and.

KFC boxing.

It's also in like a, it's like a circle so there's not corners for cutoffs and anything.

Cody would be sick.

Cody would be great in dirty boxing, the promotion, yeah, he would be great.

Oh, dirty boxing, yeah, yeah, I love dirty boxing.

That's a fun little, that's a fun little matchup right there, bare knuckle, bare knuckle, uh, boxing.

Conor McGregor is an owner of Bare Knuckle.

How do you think he would do in bare knuckle?

Does his boxing translate there?

I mean, if he's not, if he has this one fight left on his UFC contract, do you think that's a, I think he's definitely gonna fight in bare knuckle at least once.

See, that's kind of a fighter with his style of boxing, I think would do well.

Yeah, if the right, if the Connor we saw in the past shows up where he's just like wings that left hand with like the counters now.

Who he fights, if he fights Mike Perry, that could be a bad day.

Um that, that would be the only fight to make unless you did like Eddie Alvar's rematch, um, but Mike, Mike's the biggest star in Bare Knuckle.

He's on MVP MMA.

Just beat up Nate.

It would be the fight, like, but I don't think it's ever, I don't, that would be it if I'm Connor, I'm not trying to fight Mike Perry with bare knuckles.

It would be really cool to see like Connor's style in, in BKFC, like, you know, his, his in and out, his foot movement and stuff like just in and out tagging.

It would be, it'd be a fun would be also generate so much revenue for that like you could.

Stick that in the T-Mobile.

Oh yeah, you could do it in Ireland.

Like you could do it.

Do you see they're doing like a like a like in the Bahamas like on a boat, dude, they're doing bare knuckle boxing at Fenway Park.

Fenway Park, I am very intrigued and then the cruise, the cruise, yeah, the cruise is cool.

I mean, it sounds insane though like.

All these fight fans and all these fighters on a boat, that sounds crazy.

I'm not a cruise.

I feel like I'm not really like the lowest form of humanity, but I might consider doing, uh, doing that.

Yeah, I would, I would, I would consider Cruz that Chris Jericho does with like all the wrestlers.

It always looks, it looks fun, but then after like 3 days I'm like, alright, I want to do anything else besides wrestling right now.

Let's, uh, let's jump back to UFC 329 fight of the night.

Brandon Royval, Loie Kavanaugh.

I mean, what a fight.

I mean that the pace in that fight was insane.

They both looked incredible.

Royval showed out.

Yeah, Brandon Royval has.

Like he's any fight he's in now, like I'm, I'm worried because I remember we're like now any fight he's in it's like, oh, fight of the night, fight of the year, like that's all everyone's gonna talk about.

We essentially did that with Joe Loz on in like 2013, 2014 because he fought Jamie Varner in one of the greatest fights you'll ever see, and he fought Jim Miller in one of the greatest fights you'll ever see, and then he fights Michael Johnson in Boston.

And I think it was the Chris Weidman.

I could, it's either the Chris Weidman, Dom Reyes one, or it was the shogun.

Trail center one.

I don't remember, but the whole build up was we were talking about like, oh, are you like the Arturo Gotti of MMA?

like you're always in these fight of the nights and then Michael Johnson 3025 him.

Like, I don't want that to happen to Brandon Royval.

I want him to have some clean performances.

Like, the problem is, flyweight is sick and it's never been better, and Pantoja and Josh Van still have to fight, and Monell Coop is still out there.

All three of those guys, like, I know Brennan, like Brennan just lost to Monell, but all three of those guys put on banger fights.

Lonnie Kavanaugh was amazing, dropped him in the 2nd round.

Raval comes back in the 3rd round.

Dude , it was crazy.

He looked good, but Roy, you could tell Roy Vug was definitely the veteran of the 20, 100%.

Brandon Royval's been now like the first time I interviewed him was at the Apex during COVID when he was still like a corrections officer, like during the day, and then he had, he was like a cop at night, and then I think he fought on the Abu Dhabi card against Kai Carr of France if I remember correctly, and he got hurt against Brandon Moreno, so like.

He got thrown into the fire immediately and he's been in the top 5 since.

Like, I want to see Brandon Raval fight for the title again, and I want to see, it just shows you how good Pantoja is too.

I want to see him fight Pantoja again and I want to see him fight Joshua Van again, and I want to see him fight Mannell Coop again like.

Brenna Wolf has fought everyone, and I want to see him rematch everyone because he's always better than the last time.

He's so good.

I was happy to see him get it done because when we talked to him Tuesday, he was like, I hate this arena because obviously he lost to Van, you know.

So that had me a little worried that that was where his mindset was, but I'm glad that he was able to, you know, get that look back for himself.

He is.

I think very critical of himself.

In a good way where even if he has an unbelievable performance, it's like not good enough like he takes everything personally.

He's like a Michael Jordan type guy where he needs to find something to like make him agitated and he called out Assu Almobayev and that dude is sick at fighting and he's not a star.

He can't speak English.

He's like, who wants to fight that guy?

You gain nothing.

From losing to him because you'll probably look bad and then, but Brandon Rival's like, you're a sick fighter.

I want to fight you.

I'm like, this is why Brandon Rival is amazing because he just wants to fight the best dudes regardless of how how famous they are.

It's funny because I, I thought of that he does have that Michael Jordan like just finding something to hate, make him hate his opponent or, uh, flyweight is so good, and if that is the fight that happens.

Sign me up.

I'm so excited about that fight.

As someone that's covered the sport for so long, the flyweight division was kind of the black sheep of the UFC.

It was gonna get cut.

They were gonna cut the division, and now it might be the most exciting division, especially at the top with the guys you just mentioned.

It's never been more exciting.

I, I genuinely think Josh Van has injected so much.

Into that division with just these epic performances, Pantoja might be the most talented flyweight.

It's hard to say because DJ might just be the greatest fighter regardless of weight class, and he made it look so easy, but there was a stretch of time where the flyweights were, they were gonna cut the whole division.

Like they let people go.

Like Brandon Moreno got let go.

Like Tim Elliott got let go, and then they had to fight their, well , maybe not Tim, they had to like fight their way back, and a few people survived.

Uh, and then Henry Suto beat DJ and the rest saved the division, which is true, um.

It's, yeah, this is never it, but it's never been better, and I'm praying that we can get pay per views with them at the top of the card.

I don't, they don't always need to be support like Van Pantosia.

I'll stick that as the main event of Salt Lake City.

I'll, I'll be excited .

Do we know when that might be happening?

No, I assume knowing Josh Van, he's gonna wanna fight tomorrow.

So I, I hope that could be a good fight, co-main event for an LA card.

Could be a good comment or a man for Salt Lake.

I doubt they stick that in Abu Dhabi.

Um, maybe a comain for if they wanna do heavyweight flyweight main comain MSG, but I just, I need to see that fight.

I need Salt Lake.

Allegedly, this is not breaking news.

It is the beginning of October.

Just note there are no more pay per views, correct.

PLEs PLEs um real quick let's talk about green.

I was just K Green Green wow.

K Green is.

He's not from this planet.

I mean, the guy, what was his, it was his fifty-second professional fight.

He's on a four-fight win streak when most guys are retiring.

He is.

From the generation of fighters that I was covering when I first started, not a lot of them exist anymore.

Yeah, you had talked about you, you, you interviewed him at King of the Cage, the Strike Force guy fought Charles Bennett.

Like if you fought Charles Bennett and you're still fighting in 2026, like what is happening circus, yeah, but like.

I love Charles Bennett.

I love King Green, and he comes from like that generation of fighters where they just want to fight.

Like, yeah, belts are cool, but like money is better and like fighting a lot and doesn't really care about rankings.

Like what did he get out of accepting a fight against Terrence McKinney ?

Nothing.

There was a little bit of bad blood, but that, but it happened because they, but like.

Ranking wise and like name value wise, he beats like King Green just puts on all these big performances and now he's gonna go back down and fight another prospect in Terrence McKinney, but Ken Green's like, let's, OK, let's do it.

Like those are the guys I wanna do those like that generation of fighters from like like RDA was like that.

RDA didn't need to fight Jeff Neil in Abu Dhabi.

But our day is like, let's do it.

I don't care.

I just want to fight and make money, and those are my favorite types of fighters, and we are missing those fighters in this generation, and King Green is such a joy to watch fight.

It's such a joy to like see where he was when I first started covering him to now talking about like , oh, I bought a bunch of houses and I'm buying property and I'm doing like finding homes for families.

I'm like you are so different than what I first when I first met you.

You didn't have a head tattoo yet.

You were just like a silly, like what I can't even remember his style of fighting when he fought Jacob Volkman in his UFC debut.

I think it was UFC 156 or 158.

I don't remember those two, but that was like when Frankie Edger's featherweight debut.

And Jacob this is when the UFC bought Strike Force, and Jacob Volkman, who I think got fired in the back after that fight, basically just backpacked Bobby Green, like just held him down for 2.5 rounds, and then King Green just just goes, no, breaks and just chokes him out with like 1 minute left, and then Dane even Dana White was like.

Holy shit.

And then Jacob Volkman was never seen again.

So yeah, Ken Green is, you can't kill him unless you're Mauricio Rufie and just kick him in the face.

What's the ceiling for the rest of his career, because obviously he is getting in the twilight when he's on a four-fight win streak.

The UFC obviously likes him.

He's on the main card here.

I don't think he's gonna fight for the title, but would a BMF match?

I wouldn't hate if anyone is a BMF.

It's Ken Green.

Like he's from that cloth.

Like the Poiriers, the Gates, the Nates, the Masvidals.

Like they'll break brick on anybody, and that's, I wouldn't mind that either.

I just don't, unless they, I don't think Charles will take that fight.

Nor would it probably make sense because Charles could probably be fighting for the real like the the UFC belt, but if they were like, Charles, if you vacate the belt, we'll give you this like King Green versus.

Fill in the blank.

I'm fine, yeah, like Dan Hooker.

You want like Hooker called him out.

RDA called him out.

I, RDA and Ken Green have never fought, which is crazy to me.

Um, either one of those fights.

I would like to see him fight veterans again, like, like the Jeremy Stevens fight.

I was really happy that fight happened.

If he wins one more and is on a 5-win streak, I don't think so.

I don't think he gets a title shot like the lightweight division that because you still have Armand, you got Charles, you got Patty, you got all these guys and like King Green's lost to Islam, who's now the welterweight champion.

I know it's on like weird stuff, but.

I don't think he's gonna get a title shot, nor would he care.

He's essentially like the Kevin Holland of lightweight.

Like, I'll fight whoever.

I doesn't.

I, I know he, he's out of the fight now, but why would Kevin Holland doesn't be fighting Jacoby Smith.

Like Kevin Holland should be fighting guys like top 10, but he's like, Paycheck, money, please, I'll fight this guy.

Great, love it.

Um, so, OK, circling back, how you guys were in the media room last night .

How was Dana after that?

Uh, uh, not as grumpy as I thought he would be.

He was in a better mood than expected.

Yeah, did he say about Connor just like freak accident if Connor does want to hang it up, like he'll have a conversation like it was interesting because Dana finished all of his media and then walking off the stage and then came back to clarify that there was no.

Pre-existing injury, which I don't know who said something to him as walking back.

Social media manager.

I, I did find that a little bit odd that he felt the need to go back and clarify.

Yeah, but I also think he was touting like 80 million people watch my video clip, like stuff like that, so.

Um, he was fine.

It wasn't as grumpy as he's, as I expected, but we also didn't, we don't really get anything out like news stories out of this anymore because he's like, Oh, that's for Tuesday.

Like I'll do that on Tuesday.

Um, so were you guys in there when he was pissed off about the Shakir Stevenson name fail?

What the heck?

He's actually right.

Like, why is this happening?

I have no idea.

Someone got, someone is getting someone is.

For sure fired like today it's like when they put uh Terrence Crawford on the screen as Kendrick Lamar and then I think there was even another one like they showed a like a graphic, like a tale of the tape and it was not the guy.

So someone is fired for sure because like we're the worst in history about and now showing celebrities.

He's like, I just give him all this money and you guys can't get his damn name right.

Yeah, yeah.

So I don't know.

It wasn't as bad as I thought, but.

Like Dana wasn't as grumpy as I thought, but we also like, what was, what we didn't get anything like the Joshua Fury stuff was.

Like He knows something, but he can't say it, and that's the annoying bit.

OK.

Let's, uh, let's take a step back because we didn't talk about, we wanna talk about your career and how you got your start, um.

Used to be an SI guy.

Oh yeah, I, well, fancied S I MMA.

I'm the one that helped launch that.

OK.

How, how long you been doing this, because I mean you talk about King Green and King of the Cage .

How, what year was that?

I've been covering MMA.

Like solely MMA since 2010, 2011, somewhere around there.

How old are you?

35, 35.

OK, so I was 20, so my credential for the UFC is the first photo I ever, so I'm 20 in that photo.

No way, and it's the same photo today.

Yeah, I told you a couple of weeks ago.

I think you needed an updated.

I'm literally 20 years old in my photo, and they won't change it.

I think it's hilarious.

I love that's the first photo I ever took.

So the first event I covered.

Was UFC 130 or 131.

I get them confused.

It was Matt Hamill and Rampage, uh.

Chris Costello is UCPR's first event too for the UFC.

Um, that was the first one I covered and then I was like, well, I'll probably do this because I was, I went to the Cronkite, Walter Cronkite School for journalism at ASU.

I was interning at Arizona Sports 6:20 a.m. covering the Phoenix Mercury WNBA team.

The Arizona Coyotes NHL team and the Reno Aces, the AAA team for the Diamondbacks, because it was like the three that no one wanted because like Arizona has 4 pro teams and so I was like, yeah I'll do this.

So I was literally just writing and writing and then they transitioned to 98.7 FM KTAR and.

My boss or my that one of the people was like, do you like MMA?

And I was like, yes, I'm Mexican.

I like fighting.

And they're like, All right, you're gonna do it.

And that's literally it.

I was literally sitting on my pod that day and that's how I got the gig.

So then I worked at a radio show.

Much better, much less quality than this with Ryan Bader and Aaron Simpson were my two co-hosts.

I did that for several years, and that's when I really started to cover.

Like I covered Rhonda at Strikeforce.

I covered Kelvin.

I went to like Kane's first ever fight.

It's not on his record because it was like a smoker, so it was stuff like that.

I went to Justin Gauche's first ever fight.

I went to Henry Cejudo's first ever fight like because Arizona had a, Arizona had a.

Like a deep MMA scene, and then we had competing, we had the lab.

We had Arizona Combat Sports and then a bunch of people broke off and at the time was Power MMA , which is Bader, Aaron CB Chandler did some stuff there.

Robbie Lawler did some stuff there.

That's where I had my two amateur fights.

I was just gonna say you fought, right?

Yeah, don't look it up because it's embarrassing, but you can see me get my ass handed to me.

One of them is on video, Jake Watson.

Beat my ass and now he's.

He was like a prodigy and now he just stopped doing MMA and he did only jiu-jitsu and he's won like every Pan Am gold medal ever and now he commentates ADCC and I see him and I'm like, remember when you punched me in the liver and I was like pissing blood for a month?

Oh my gosh, yeah, that was a good time.

Is it cool though to just like know you've experienced it?

It's a different, it's weird in the sense that like when I first started.

It was the guys that I was like modeling my career off of were Ariel, Chuck Menenhall, Luke Thomas, Ben Fulks, Mike Giapetta.

Like these are the OGs of the OGs.

Like they were covering the sport back when there was nothing like they like Danna was talk you could just call Dan on the phone and talk to him.

So I like didn't ask questions at press conferences for like the first year.

I was just like observing, learning how to act, what to do.

Now it's weird.

I tell Doug all the time this like I, it's like me.

Kenny with USA Today, MMA Junkie and Mike Bond are like the Randy obviously for knockout Radio in Florida, but the guys that cover MMA full time, like we're the three guys that have been there the longest.

And there's like kids that are 20 and they're like, oh, I used to watch you in elementary school.

I'm like, get out of my face.

Get out of my face right now.

I don't wanna hear that.

I, it's absolutely baffling to me that I'm like, I'm still that people are like, you, I've been watching it for 15 years.

It drives me insane like in a good way.

It drives me insane, but it's such a different world now.

Like journalism, we were just talking about that the other night when we were out how.

There isn't a lot of journalism left in this sport, no.

And, and when I first started, social media wasn't even remotely where it was now.

Like I was a writer.

Like no one was doing YouTube.

No one was doing social media videos.

Do you like it?

Like what it's evolved.

I think it's, yeah, it was always gonna be like, well, every sport has turned into this, right?

Like it's a you gotta get things out.

Yeah, it's inevitable, um.

I wish there were young journalists that would take the sport a little more seriously rather than like, here's how I can get famous.

I wish they would cover the sport rather than try to just be a.

Like when you ask a question at a press conference or a media day or anything like I ask questions because I'm trying to write a story or I'm trying to do a story and I have like a purpose behind that question, you're seeing young journalists now that they just want the soundbite.

They're asking a question.

I'm like , but why are you asking that question?

Like what are you doing with that question like.

If you want it for the soundbite, say that, just be honest about it, but like I wish there was more.

I wish people took it more seriously and like listen, my big thing I tell young journalists is you have like I, I'm an overpreparer.

I get me today.

I'll come up with 30 questions for every fighter.

I'll ask 3 of them, maybe 3 of them, right, because it turns into a conversation and a lot of kids I did, I was horrible with this is I would be like stuck in my questions and I would not hear their answer.

And then I would rewatch it.

I'm like, why did I not follow?

Like, I interviewed Gayguard Musasi once.

It drives, I think about this too much.

I interviewed Gayguard Musasi, and I had my questions in my head, and Gayguard's like, yeah, I might go to welterweight for my next fight, which is insane because he's massive.

And then I was just like, so I was camp.

Because I was like in my head I was like 23 and I didn't, I was like trying to be prepared.

I thought that's what you had to do, but now I'm like I'll come up with questions and after that I don't even ask half of them.

You just have to formulate a conversation, but you have to take it seriously.

You're not, you aren't the star.

The fighter is who the fighter is the topic.

No one cares.

Like a good journalist, I think you can be popular, but you should be popular because of your work, not because you're trying to be popular, right.

Agree more and I'm glad you said that because I feel like so many people, you know, want to get into this space and they don't realize that it actually does require a lot of work.

Like this man is coming up with 30 questions.

When we talked to Oscar, he's talking about setting an alarm every 45 minutes to make sure he's not missing news, you know, these are the type of things that you that are required to actually make it and be good in this space.

Kids will join this and they'll like be on like they'll come to Vegas and be like oh let's do Vegas things.

I'm like I gotta work.

I like 50 things to do like I'm, I'll be lucky to do anything on the road like we'll sit in.

Like, I know where every Starbucks is in Chicago, because like I know, like I know where all the free Wi Fi, I know where every outlet is in the New York, New York hotel, because like I've done that, like I have me and like me and Kenny sat outside on rocks like editing video in Abu Dhabi.

I know where the fastest internet, I know where the fastest internet in Perth, Australia, this is what you have to do, you just have to grind, grind, grind, but you also.

Have to take the sport seriously.

100%.

I had kind of cut you off earlier.

You said you did something with Sports Illustrated.

Yes, so I, after I worked at Arizona sports.

For so long I worked, I then worked at the MMA Corner, which now don't, does not exist, owned by Josh Davis in Denver, and I worked there for free for like 34 years because I just, I literally just wanted to cover MMA.

Um, I was still traveling but not to like.

It was mostly Vegas, LA.

You were covering all your own traveling expenses.

Oh yeah, I would take the Greyhound from Arizona to Vegas.

And if you know the demographic, like the geography of Arizona, it should be a straight line, right?

Terrible.

You should be 4 hours.

It's like a 13 hour journey because you go Phoenix to Glendale to like Kingman to Bullhead City to it's, it's terrible.

It's weird.

It's like when you're traveling, you like go through towns like snake through.

Yes, it's so weird.

There's like roundabouts and shit.

So I was doing that and then I met Mike Allardy who now works for the US.

Women's or men's national soccer team, I think it might be women's, but at the time he hired, he was working at Fancied, um, and then Fancied partnered with Sports Illustrated, and he brought me over to be like 2, like the lead reporter for Fancied slash Sports Illustrated MMA.

Mike ended up leaving to NBC Sports Chicago, and I became the editor of Sports Illustrated MMA, so I.

Basically I created their YouTube page.

I did all their social media, and I was like the guy.

Mike, Mike Heck, my current colleague, that's where we met.

James Lynch worked with us.

We had a, uh, uh, Spencer Kite who now works for UFC.

com, worked for us.

We had a squad, and then I from there I went to MA fighting, and I've been here for 8 years now.

OK, awesome.

You mentioned Abu Dhabi.

We had Oscar in here a couple weeks ago.

Um, we won't, he said we'll have to wait a couple of years for all the Fight Island stories to come out.

What was your experience, uh, like at the island?

You spent a long time there, right?

So way too much of my life, way too much of my life.

It's What was my experience in fight like the fight like Fight Island, not just Abu Dhabi.

I mean it was a crazy time in the world.

Oh, the bubble, yeah, the bubble bubble.

Um, It was.

Strange cause we were.

Like So Abu Dhabi, where the arena is, it's on Yaz Island, which is, which is an island.

It's not like they have to go over a bridge to get there, but the Roads were barricaded off with like the army, like the military, so we couldn't leave the bubble.

There were no cars on the road, like it was literally just like I am Legend empty town scary and we could go from there were like 5 hotels.

A stretch of beach and the arena, and that's it, like.

Oh my God, that was a, and like we'd have to take a COVID test like every other day.

Did you have to quarantine when you got there?

48 hours.

Wow.

And then on the way back we had to like go through testing.

We had to be going to like all these holding things.

You became best friends with a lot of people.

He became best friends with not just like fighters because the fighters are staying there.

He became real good friends with.

The referees had to stay there.

The UFC employees had to stay there.

Security guards had to stay there.

So like that's where now when you see like.

Me or Oscar or John Morgan will like go up to.

UFC employees, it's probably because we were stuck in a bubble together for like the first one was 2 weeks, the next second one was 5 weeks, and the third one was 4 was 10 days.

Yeah, the 5 weeks is rough.

That was rough.

What was your best moment or memory from being there in the bubble?

Uh, Habib's retirement.

Dana White walking out of the press conference because he got mad at me.

Why did he get mad at you?

Uh, because he retired and I said, How long after this do you sit there because they had also announced to Dustin and Connor to, the one that was in Abu Dhabi, for January, and it was October or something like that, and I was like , how.

Like, would you make that an interim title fight if, if you're trying to convince Habib to come out of retirement, and he goes, and just walked away.

I was like, All right, this was not a bad question, but so that was fun.

Um, Uh, Izzy Whittaker was fun.

Oh, my favorite thing I did, my favorite, not Izzy Whittaker, Izzy Costa, yeah, yeah.

Um, I really enjoyed my interview with, I interviewed all of CKB at the same time.

They all sat on a couch in front of me, so it was Izzy, Shane Young, um, Brad Riddell, and Kai Carr France.

We all, I interviewed the five of the 4 of them together, and then I sat here and I was interviewing them, but the trade-off was .

I could with their manager and he goes, I'll give you all these guys, but you have to interview my prospect that's not even in the UFC.

So I was like, Yeah, sure.

Who is he?

Fuck, 6'4 dude sits Carl Solberg.

So I, I interviewed Carl Solberg.

He was like 3-0 .

That's where I met him in Abu Dhabi.

Yeah, it was great.

He was the nicest guy in the world.

He was like.

The way my camera was set up though was like his legs just looked massive.

It's so funny, but uh Robert Whittaker interview this week.

It was, I, I was thinking that too when I was filming it.

All the comments were like Bobby's looking thick.

Yeah , yeah.

So I interviewed Uberg and Blood Diamond, and it was great.

And then like two weeks later he got through the contender series and won, and then I was interviewing him a bunch of.

I've been, I've literally been there since before he signed, so those were fun.

And then like just kind of.

Hanging around Abu Dhabi, but you're not really, you're in Abu Dhabi but not in Abu Dhabi.

Exactly.

You're on it's like different on the island on the resort.

There was one bar that we could, there's literally one bar that we could go to in our hotel, and there were like 5 of us and that could go because everyone else, like a lot of Muslims obviously don't drink, so it was like me, Oscar, and John Morgan to the point where like we would go and they would just have our.

Dinner wait, like didn't even have to order.

Yeah.

Is it true there was a drink special there that Oscar got taken away?

He told the story on the podcast.

What did he, what did he tell?

He said that there was a drink special at the hotel, and he partook in it a little too much and ruined it for everybody because they took it away after one of his.

Yeah, that's like the abridged version.

Eventually he, I, I'm not gonna blow on the spot, but yes, essentially there was a buy one get one free for Heinekens, and that lasted once, no mas because like it wasn't just Oscar though, like because they're like fighters like, like Iriguez Du Plessis made his debut there, so like we literally were sitting at the table.

The picnic table on the beach having a Heineken with Drus after his fight.

It's very weird, but yes, Oscar had a few too many adult sodas and then the rest of us had to pay.

Uh, are you going this year?

Probably, uh, I think it'll depend on the main event, but I would say probably I'm like I'm so used to it now.

When is that October.

Well, it's usually, oh no, you're talking about the fight night.

Oh, there's so there's a fight night in a, in a like a numbered, a numbered event.

So the fight night I probably won't go to that's a Roundtree and and Goliath .

That's a sick fight, uh, and then they always do a big like PLE numbered event in October every year, um, so I'll probably go to that one.

It's rare that I go to fight nights anymore.

What's your favorite location to travel to to cover fights?

Chicago, Boston, San Jose are the three best for sure.

San Jose is such an underappreciated fight town because they have, I don't know what the arena is called anymore, but it's the tank.

It's where the Sharks play.

This is the SAP Center for when I was covering it or the SAP Center.

That is the home of Strike Force, um, plus like the Diaz brothers and Gilbert Melendez and Jake Shields and like that whole scrap pack, AKA's up there.

And it just felt different when they would hold events there and then when the UFC went there.

In 2013, 2014, that was the first fight after the Strike Force where they like brought everyone over really.

So the main event was like Gilbert Melendez versus Benson Henderson.

You had DC making his debut against Frank Meir.

You had Joe B, TJ Dillashaw, and Chad Mendez on the card.

Josh Thompson head kicked Nate Diaz.

So it really did feel like a Strike Force versus UFC card.

Um, that was, sick.

I think San Jose is, I'm not talking about the town.

I'm talking about covering fights.

It's such a fight community like because it's the Sharks and then like AKA .

So yeah, I, I think those are my three favorite for sure.

New York is fun.

Like Miami is fun.

LA is fun, but those are fun.

Not about fights, Boston, Chicago and.

San Jose is just sick.

Yeah.

What other promotions do you like because obviously you're big on the UFC, but is there any other promotions that you really enjoy?

I mean, Rising does it right in New Year's Eve, like talk talking about production value.

Rising is, um, I've never been to a Rising card that's on my bucket because I missed out on going to Pride.

Pride was the coolest thing in the world when I was young, so I started covering the sport right after the UFC absorbed Pride, so I missed out on that.

And then Strikeforce is similar, um, but that doesn't exist anymore, um.

Presently.

Mention dirty boxing.

It's not dirty boxing is, but like dirty boxing like the product, like the rule set, the fights, like it's a very.

Great change of pace.

Like I don't hate it.

There are also just some, some fighters that they're just perfect for that.

Like like Jesse Jess, Jessica Rose Clark is amazing for that.

Yeah, robbed in that.

I agree.

That's that was the first big event I covered.

Oh really?

Yeah, so you got, you jumped in the deep waters right away.

PFL is like.

I don't know.

I, I just don't understand their scheduling.

They're always scheduling their marquee events when the UFC is doing stuff.

Like, don't, like I remember one time, World Series of Fighting, I think it was Justin Giting Melvin Gillard.

It was like the same day as Chris Weidman and Machita.

It was like, no one's going to your fight, like don't do this, um.

But PF like Usman Nur Magamov might be the best lightweight in the world.

Dakota Dijeva might be the best fly women's flyweight in the world .

She very well could be.

Do you think she'll ever move over?

And because like would they pay her enough she's got, she's getting paid really well now and she just resigned and I know she's like very adamant that eventually she does want to have kids, so like.

Us as men , our timeline is much different than women.

If her priority is make money, be a mom, maybe not, but if we, if there's trades happen like we like the UFC did with one championship, like I get it, um, I hope so.

I don't know, but I, now that she re-signed, I don't think we'll ever see her fight Valentina, of course unfortunately.

But like her Natty Nattie Ice would be sick.

Erly Manon would be sick.

Lexa Grassa would be sick.

She's so good .

She's so talented.

Have you been to azufa event yet, because I know they're mostly for boxing.

Yeah, I've been to a few.

I went to the first one and I've been to a couple.

I've gone to the one in New York, the Berlanga one.

Yeah, I'm gonna go to the Berlanga one.

Those are fine.

Um, it's new, but it seems like, obviously they just signed Shakor Stevenson, and I really enjoy him.

I love boxing.

I liked boxing before I even liked MMA, um.

I appreciate what Zu is doing because like if we can get Shakur and Ryan Garcia and Shakur and Connor Benn and Ryan Garcia and Connor Benn, like amazing, but I want them to do like.

You can't, if you guys, if, if you guys are signed to a contract, someone else just can't.

Start a thing with that like a show with Destiny because she has a thing like you guys are doing like you can't do that.

So like if someone signs to like Golden Boy and then like, oh by the way, we're we're we're making a fight with Ryan Garcia and Golden Boy is like, wait, what?

Like where did that come from you can't do that.

You cannot do that.

But if they're like, this is understanding and like they buy him out, great , fine, as long as people make money and watch it.

I don't wanna see fights like that at the apex.

I want to see Ryan Garcia, Connor Benn, like T-Mobile or Eligion or MSG.

Like, I don't know why Gio Bataya fought in in the AFex.

He should have fought in a bigger arena.

They just had the Cosmo.

How was that at the Cosmo?

That, that card was good.

I mean, the, the co-main event was one of, it, it probably won't be in contention for fight of the Year because they're not well-known guys, but at the Cosmo, it was, it was definitely a step up from the apex.

Um, I think the only, I don't know how you guys feel about it, but.

For the ape, it's like way too quiet.

Well, it's actually closed right now for renovations, but they're at it, but yes, there's, so for me there's pros and cons to that because I, it's an intimate setting.

We get to sit right up near the cage.

You get to hear everything, but from a fan's perspective, it's, and when you're watching on TV, it's not the greatest experience.

I remember we went to the first one and I was sitting next to Robbie Foxx with barstool and like Gio Bataya was fighting for the like defending his championship.

And I turned around and I'm like I could.

Can I swear on this?

I could fuck up this place right now just by saying crazy shit.

I could, I basically could just start yelling at Jive right now.

I could just be throwing heinous insults and everyone would hear me because I'd be the only one talking.

You could really fuck that vibe up and like throw a fighter off.

It's even worse than a BJJ.

That's what I'm saying.

That's what I'm saying it's like boxing, like baseball I can get when it gets when it gets quiet and football.

Can get quiet, but like boxing needs like ebbs and flows and pops and like it's like imagine doing a wrestling event with no crowd.

Like it just, it's just tough.

MMA fine, but like boxing, it's just tough.

Did you like the venue for for boxing at the Chelsea?

I, yeah, I, I, so I went to Power slap too.

I, it was much better for boxing than it was for power slap.

I hate, I hate it for power slap.

Yeah, they did it at the Chelsea.

They do it at the Chelsea Power slap is at the Chelsea now, yeah, they did when Connor fought Jose Aldo the Thursday, Friday.

They had fights Thursday and they had fights Friday.

They were both at the Chelsea.

That was Chad Mendez, Frankie, and Rose.

Page where the two fights, but then like young Al Jermaine Sterling fought on those, uh , that was, but that one was strange because it's the first time I really experienced it is because that's such a small venue yeah you're like right up against it is the concourse had, uh, so if you were like buying food they had TV so you could keep watching but we could hear the broadcast through the television so the corners could hear.

Like they could hear the commentators commentating the fights from the speakers on the concourse.

It was very, it was very weird.

It was very, very weird.

That's when, uh, Rose beat the hell out of Page and Frankie beat up, knocked out Chad.

And Sage beat Cody Fister, I think, yeah.

What's he up to now?

Sage is shoot, I know he was in one.

He's in karate combat, probably.

I mean, he was such a flash in the pan, highly, highly touted.

I mean, such a flash in the pan.

If he had just.

Uh, like, he brought the one did him dirty by matching him up against Cosmo Alexandre, and then they never capitalized on it because Cosmo like never fought again.

They put him in there with, like, imagine me fighting like, hey, you wanna go fight Rico Ver who, and yeah, get my face broken right away.

It's never gonna happen.

Like they blew it.

They blew it.

Speaking of venues, what's the worst venue you've ever been to?

worst venue.

Baltimore Arena is real bad, yeah, because it's a because it's a concert venue, so it's rectangle, it's like a rough town, isn't it Baltimore?

Yes, very much so, but it's like a, it's a rectangle, so the seats.

It's like long .

That's like Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, yeah, so it's like straight and it doesn't curve.

It's not a bowl.

It's like seats and then like half the people are like watching over their shoulder and then seats, seats and then there's the theater, but that fight card was sick.

That was John Jones Glover and the media room was in the bowels of the Baltimore Arena, but that place was filled to capacity before the first fight, so it was like a good crowd.

Baltimore Arena was real bad, um.

Shoot, all their bad arenas.

I'm not a big fan of the Dallas one.

It's hot.

I don't like.

I just associate Dallas with just being uncomfortable.

Yes, exactly.

It's like ugly.

It just doesn't have a personality.

Yes, it's very dull.

Yeah, Phoenix, Glendale, Arizona is the same way because I lived there.

There's just literally nothing to do.

Downtown Phoenix is a great, I hear downtown's fun, but yeah, every time I go to Phoenix, I don't get the hype.

Um, Baltimore is definitely the first one that, I mean, the White House wasn't great, um.

Baltimore, it's like clearly Baltimore is like one a and then like everything else is fine.

Fresno wasn't ideal.

Uh, I didn't enjoy the Cosmo.

But like that those were good fights and then.

It's like a People that were there still talk about it, whoever wasn't at the time, whoever was in charge of PR, because you know they, they feed us, right?

I don't know what she did.

But we showed up to that.

It was like a Thursday night fights and there was like a carving station.

There was like lobster bisque .

There was like literally like the nicest food I've ever experienced in my life.

And then Dana walks in.

He's like, What the hell is this?

Where did, why do you, why did we do this?

That was before the $8 billion media deal, but it was also like it was clearly a mistake.

Like instead of $5000 they spent like $500,000.

Or something like that and then the next day it was like club sandwiches.

Like even the, the dessert was like, here's like a king size Hershey bar.

I was like, amazing, let's go back here, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Awesome.

That was a fun week though.

That was the most stressful week I've ever had.

I, I miss the, the MGM is my favorite.

MGM Granite.

Oh, I miss that place so much.

The old studio A and B was the, was the media room on the concourse.

Uh, there is nothing like because it's in the bowl.

There is nothing like covering a fight there.

I think I wish the UFC would do fight nights there, like when TJ fought like.

Uh, Corey Sandhagen, I thought that fight was too big for the Apex.

That deserved to have a crowd, or like when Dust, I know they couldn't do it, but like when Dustin fought Dan Hooker, like those deserved for those wouldn't fill out the T-Mobile, but stick it in the MGM, man.

That's to this day the best venue I've ever, I've ever covered.

What's your favorite fight that you've been in in person?

Uh, Korean zombie Dustin Poirier is my all-time favorite fight ever in the history of MMA.

Uh, Shogun Dan Henderson one was also very sick.

Uh, Joe Lowe's on Jim Miller, Joe Lowe's on, uh, Jamie Varner, but zombie Poirier is like my.

That when whenever people message me they're like, oh like there was a couple, there was a stretch of time in COVID where people would DM me and be like, I'm gonna smoke tonight, which fight should I watch?

I'm like zombiepo Super Korean zombie, uh, I mean, uh, Korean Superboy duo Choiy and Cub Swans, it's also a banger zombie Poirier.

Because at the time Dustin was like choking people out with the darts choke, and then they go to war and then the combination of like zombie with flying knee into the snap down into the darts is just like oh my God, it's just such pain in the louver.

Yeah, that's my favorite, but Zombie is my favorite fighter ever by far, and that fight just, like, it's the one time because you've probably experienced this with not just MMA but other sports.

You're really invested in something and you want people to like experience why you like it, and then you're like, hey, Derrick Lewis is fighting France and Ghana.

Let's watch it.

And then that fight sucks.

Yes, all, all the time that this is, I was at a friend's house and I didn't go because I didn't go.

I was there.

I went to cover the fight and I was like, I'm gonna go cover this fight in Fairfax, Virginia.

You guys have to watch, and I just built it up so much because Dustin was amazing and Zombie was my favorite.

I'm like, you have, and they're like, fine, Jose, we'll watch this.

And then they were like, this part of MMA is amazing.

I was like, it worked.

Like it's the best thing in the world.

Yeah, that's my favorite fight.

That's all a time.

It just cemented why zombie is my favorite ever.

Yeah, I love it.

OK, I really want to talk about ABF, anything but fighting.

Oh yeah, hit me.

Let's talk about it.

Yeah, like when, when did this start?

I love it.

It's so cool.

It Started with, uh, it was like just an idea I had with Jan Blahovich where I interviewed him.

In Salt Lake City three years ago, really, uh, I saw a t-shirt.

I saw a video of him embedded with a cyberpunk 2077 shirt, which is one of my favorite video games, and, well, technically I'm so I'm, I'm gonna sound like a real nerd.

This is fun.

We know this is where all the listeners will tune out.

It's like my favorite board games and video game because it was a, it's a whole thing, um.

And he was wearing it.

I was like, oh man, like that is such a deep cut.

So that it was media day.

It wasn't even an interview.

I was like, did you, are you, do you like cyberpunk?

He was like, yeah.

And I was like, do you like Skyrim?

And he was like, yeah.

And I was like, do you like The Witchard?

He's like, yeah, you have to play Gothic.

And then now, fast forward 3 years later, Gothic is a video game from like the early 2000s.

They remade it.

And Jan is in it as an unplayable character, but he did the mocap, and he voiced it, and he's the guy that teaches you how to fight.

He's like that goes, you have to learn how to fight without a sword, and he teaches you how to like box, like his character, and they, the studio DM's me asking to use my interview, and now my interview is in the trailer for the game, and it's John being like, you have to play Gothic.

And like because of that, and then like I posted that clip and then Bethesda, which is the company that makes Skyrim, and then CD Project Red is the company that made Witcher and Cyberpunk, were all tweeting at me and it like it went mega viral.

So from there I was like I have something.

So then I started talking with PR.

I'm like, I'm gonna interview fighters about bullshit, and they're like, go ahead.

I literally it snowballed literally because of Jan Mahovich.

Such a sick idea.

Who's been your favorite, um.

Payne Talbot Me and me and Peyton are like our our.

The the the wavelengths of our mind are very similar, like it is.

The way it's been described is like Sean full send Sean, I did one.

I did anything but fighting with paying and he's like, uh then Sean was had an interview with him the next day, so he's like, I, Sean was like, I'm gonna watch your interview to see if there's any follow-ups.

You watched the whole thing.

He goes, I don't know what the fuck any of you said.

Like we have just such niche minds, like we were talking about like such obscure experimental music and such obscure television and such like, like we had just met, but we had like inside jokes.

Because I was like, have you ever seen this and this, and he was like, yeah, so paying my Peyton, uh.

Charles, Oliveira, Max, like kind of packaged together.

Rob Whittaker, obviously.

And he was the biggest clip of biggest clip of my week.

He's great.

Uh, the biggest one I've ever done is Grant Dawson because he's like has a lot of opinions on Batman.

Um, those are probably some of my favorite, but Jan is still like, I hope, I have so much respect for Jan because he like.

Really wanted to do it.

So whenever I see him now, he, he brings up, he brings it up.

You're still doing your show, yeah, he's like, You're doing your show.

You're welcome.

I'm like, Yeah, right, yeah, that's awesome.

So when was that?

How long have you been doing it now then?

Anything but fighting 3.5 years.

Yeah, but fighters probably love it too though, right, because they're in, you know, they're cutting weight.

They're getting asked the same.

How's camp?

What's your opponents how I started off, yeah, so fighters probably warm up to it, right?

It's literally how I start.

I'm like, I'm not talking about weight cutting.

They're like, thank God.

Denzel Friedman was a fun one too.

Do you have your own channel for, for that specifically?

You just put it on?

It's all on MMA fighter because like they pay the bills, so they get the show and it's totally fine, and I don't like doing it because like I've, people have asked me to do it, but I don't want to do it on Zoom.

I want to do it like in person.

There's a ton of fighters in England and Izzy was a fun one, in, in Australia and stuff that I wanna do it with, but I wanna do it with them.

So for preparation to do these interviews, like when you like they'll give you your lineup that you're gonna have or whatever, and you, you just like kind of do a deep dive and try to.

There's some I, I know I can just, there are some I know their interest because like I've, I've followed them on Instagram.

I've heard them talk, or what really helps is a lot of us have real strange tattoos and I'll like recognize band logos or animes or like, like Charles Johnson.

I apologize to everyone that's watching this.

Charles Johnson has a Millennium piece from Yu Gi Oh tattooed on him , but he has like like all the pieces like scattered, and I would like when they're scattered, it doesn't look like nothing.

But if you know what you're looking at, I'm like that's a Millennium puzzle piece.

Charles Johnson, come on down.

And then have you guys read Harry Potter?

You read he has Dobby wearing a Saint Louis Cardinals baseball hat.

And I was like, that's cool.

Please tell me about this.

Let me just talk about Harry Potter.

It's great.

So it's like bad tattoos is a great way, t-shirts, like stuff like that.

Like Brendan Rovelle had a great time interviewing him because I didn't know he was.

I had no idea he was a Metallica fan, a hard Metallica fan, so he brought it up.

So then.

We did 10 minutes of Metallica talk and it was fun because I also love Metallica.

awesome.

Yeah, I just like talking about weird shit, Megan too.

That was awesome.

Oh, Megan, yeah, Megan is like essentially Megan is my like older sister that I've never had, so I didn't.

I had two brothers, so I have, I, it would be her, my friend Fifi, and my friend Cynthia, but Megan is like.

My road sister, like when I need advice, I go to Megan.

Like when I need anything, I go to Meg.

And then Joe is one of my best friends in the world, um, and we had been talking about doing anything but fighting forever.

And then when we finally did it at the White House, it was like.

Let's just tell them, talk to me about the Spice Girls because that's all I want to talk about right now.

Yeah, she's the best.

That's my goat.

I love Megan.

Megan is severely underappreciated in the broadcasting world.

She would be great for your show.

Can you get her on?

I'll, I'll tell her, dude, I would, I think I've messaged her through like over the years since I started this a couple times.

She's great.

She's just because she does NFL too.

She's everywhere and like I'm really big on like outfits and stuff like I go to her for inspiration.

So for MVP I like sent her a video of my red suit.

I was like, I just thought you'd appreciate this and she messaged me back.

She's like, it looks so good.

Yeah, she's that's like her gambit you wanna sit right here and just go, tell me everything about Victoria Beckham.

Open the fuck.

Yeah, she's, she's amazing.

Uh, Feely is a good one that I really like.

Me and Feely are like, I don't know how you guys are like you train still, you've covered a million sports.

I don't, I can't cover my friends.

I won't write about, like I won't, I won't write or interview Andre because it's like I want him to win and that's not fair.

It's like when he fought Vinicius Olivera.

I don't have a relationship with.

I don't, I don't care who wins any fight.

I can't interview Andre and I can't interview Ryan Bader because like I went to college with Ryan Bader, so those are tough .

Those are real tough.

I get that.

I wrote on, um, Adrian Yanez and Ricky Simone, and I'm, I'm friends with both of them.

So that was a really hard piece to write and it was a tough fight.

It was like it was like a violent.

It was violent and like Ricky's kind of like family.

Adrian and I are friends, so it was, that was a really tough piece to write.

I didn't even want to share it.

Yeah, I don't like covering.

Like anytime I have like an emotional connection to a fighter, I can't do it.

Yeah, after that I said I wouldn't do.

I was like, again, it's just not fair to their opponents like to sit there and like, oh, I hope Andre wins, but then if he loses, like now I have to interview Vinicius.

It's tough.

My first piece I wrote was Danny Gay and uh the Dammatian.

What Costa, uh, and I, yeah, and I love Danny Gay.

We're good friends too just from coming up here in Vegas and then Dan lost , but I still had to write the piece, so that suck that sucks too.

I've written because I obviously covered.

You'll love this story.

I had to cover, so I was covering the Reno Aces.

The aces are, I don't remember what because the Paw Sox play in the International League or whatever and then I don't know if you know how AAA baseball works.

It's like split half, right?

And the winners of both leagues play in a series.

So I grew up in Rhode Island and the Paw Sox were our only professional team, and I worked for the Paw Sox for 7 years in high school through college and then the Paw Sox played the Reno Aces in the championship, and I was like, oh shit, like.

I clearly this is my hometown playing the team that I get paid to cover and that was a diabolical weekend for me and Paul Socks lost so it worked out.

Now the Woo Socks, we don't wanna talk about that.

Unfortunate.

Uh, so let's, let's wind down here.

Looking ahead to the, did you have anything else?

OK.

Just looking ahead to the rest of 2026, what are the three fights we need to see happen?

And why?

Oh, I would say Mozar Volkanovski Mozar has probably got the title fight 2 fights ago.

Tom Cyrrell because I just want, I want an undisputed heavyweight champion and then you know then we can get the division rolling with.

Like since Tom's fight, since that fight, like Josh Hoki's back here, Gable's here, the interim's the, like it's needs stability in that division, we need stability, those two.

And.

Oh, what's the 3rd big fight like this.

What is, I'll, not to interrupt you, what is Armand's next fight, because I think we all need to see him.

Literally what I was thinking of right now, I was like, I wanna see Arman fight Justin, but I don't think that's gonna happen, not because Justin's afraid of him, because like if you have one last fight, it's gonna be Armand, you know, you want like a legacy.

You probably want a rematch or a legacy fight.

Do, do we get Ilya versus Armand next?

Maybe I bet they do Ilya, Patty.

Maybe that fight actually makes sense now.

Patty's, I like that.

Patty is needs to win one more to get a title shot.

Ilya is not gonna get the immediate rematch.

If the winner of that, that is a fantastic number one contender fight.

How do you see that fight going?

Shoot.

The problem is Ilia is kind of a small lightweight.

He is a featherweight that is like bulked up like he he smashed Charles, but then when he fought like Justin who doesn't go away.

Didn't work out.

Um, Patty's also a massive lightweight.

You and you can tell all fight week he is, I mean, he makes weight, but he doesn't enjoy having a good time.

I would still favor Ilya, but certainly I think that gap has shrunk since they're pre like if you ask me.

In May it's Ilia kills him.

I minus 1500 that is shrunk now because you know the maybe the blueprint is out there now we know he's human.

I think if you ask me right now what fight I want to see more than anything, it's Ilya Arman because I think those are the two best like 55 on the planet outside of Justin.

Yeah, that, that would be if I could watch any fight like a one fight card, Ilya Armand 100%.

That fight that fight is amazing.

That is like.

Just high level martial arts.

I don't give a fuck about pressers or trash talk.

I just want to see two sick fighters fight each other.

That's been my jam.

Do you think we get Kayla and Amanda before the end of the year?

I do.

I don't know where, but I, I don't know where, when, uh, but I definitely think we get that maybe.

That could be a Salt Lake card that could be end of the year card, but I think that definitely happens for sure.

How do you see that one playing out, Amanda?

I think if they fought in, I think if they fought in January, I would have favored Kayla.

Neck surgery is, yeah, no joke, especially when you're like your whole fight is predicated onto like.

Grappling and using your body and using your hand like the neck is not something to be played with.

It's like you saw what happened to Tatiana fighting like Tatiana is incredible, but there's a difference, and I, this is not a knock on like.

Montana de la Rosa, because she's an amazing fighter too.

There's a difference between having neck surgery and missing a couple of years and fighting Montana De la Rosa and then having neck surgery and coming back and fighting Amanda fucking Nunes, who is one of the five greatest fighters ever, like, clearly the greatest female ever.

I, I think we can all agree, um, I'm cyborg, but no, I'm kidding.

Go ahead.

Totally get it.

Cyborg.

I, I think Cyborg is my number 2, but I think Amanda's beat everybody.

So like it's just the difference.

To beat Cyborg is crazy.

I know that's, that was mind blowing.

The loudest arena I've ever been in was when Amanda knocked out Cyborg.

I couldn't hear myself talk.

That was louder than when Nate tapped Connor.

That was unbelievable.

Yeah, because it was just a 60 seconds of chaos.

Stepe Overing was pretty loud too because that was Cleveland.

Oh yeah, yes, Cleveland got down.

Cleveland's an underrated city.

I, I always say Cleveland is the most underrated city in the country for sure.

It's, I mean, it's Midwest and, but like their downtown area, their restaurants, they have a new casino there.

It's, uh, Cleveland's , you asked me, and I, it just because you brought up Cleveland, the promotions I like covering RAF, yes, really, really enjoy it.

I really like their product.

Uh, their pacing is phenomenal.

You get 12 fights in like 2 hours.

You and I were backstage in Tempe interviewing Aljo when the Arm and Georgio brawl spilled into the backstage.

I think they do.

I think they do a fantastic job of stacking the top of the card with what we want to see, and then you find like.

Now you're invested.

Like you might not watch wrestling, but now you're investing in Kyle Snyder, one of the greatest wrestlers ever.

I didn't.

I, I had very low expectations, but like seeing it, and it's not something I'm gonna, it's appointment television for me, but just from a media member or fan, like the production value and all these UFC guys that they have obviously coming over, help sell the product, and it looks like they have a lot of capital, um, supporting it.

So I've been to one.

it's a lot of fun.

It's 2 days.

It's press conference fight because wrestling it's the same day weigh in.

So you weigh in Saturday, wrestle Saturday, and we don't get to go to.

They're kind of just weighing in on like their normal weight or are you seeing like a 5 pound cut or something?

They're not doing a lot of 3 pounds.

Like Armand weighs in at like 168.

Like whatever you like, you might cut a pound or two, but no, it's nothing.

Is it just a pound a lot?

Do they do the allowance?

Don't even think they needed to do that because like I think when.

Like, like when Hamza fought, he weighed in at like 212 or something like that.

It's the product is good.

The pacing is phenomenal.

Like they're interviewing a fighter after a a fighter.

They're interviewing the wrestler after the match, and the next fighter to come out is like ready to go.

Like it's and for media it's.

I don't want to say it's easy because anything is hard, but like they save everything for end of the night, right?

So during the matches you're just watching wrestling.

I love that, and then the end of the night you got one big press conference, and then like if you need guys media days or a breeze, it's just a fun they people there that work there, it really reminds me of like Strike early Strike Force where like it's very small family and they're all, they all want.

This to succeed.

They really want this to succeed, but I'm very invested in like Arman Colby is in Milwaukee next week.

Like, like Sean Brady, speaking of Cleveland is wrestling Jordan Burroughs.

Jordan Burroughs is one of the greatest American wrestlers ever, period.

And Sean Brady is wrestling him.

Like he's gonna get smashed.

This would be like if like Ilya fought, like, oh, not even Ilya, if who's a really high like trying to think like Michael Chandler is gonna go fight Shakur Stevenson.

Why?

It's gonna have smashed , but why?

Like, I'm invested though.

Sign me up for nonsense, I guess my question with it is like it just kind of came out of nowhere and like the production is crazy.

Where is their money I have no idea.

I think, I think Chad Bronstein, he comes from a VC world and probably has access to some of that capital from the VC world.

So, but they're not.

They're not skimping out on anything.

It's, yeah, they're paying them well, right?

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know if it's UFC level pay, but because you're not, they're not cutting weight and they're not taking damage that Arman has booked like 5 wrestling matches.

Like why not?

Like he just wrestled this weekend and the next weekend he's going to Milwaukee to wrestle, to wrestle Colby Covington.

Like it's stuff and like it's stuff like that because they are putting so much money into it.

Do we think it's gonna be around long?

Yes, really?

OK, I think the next because they're on Fox Nation right now that will probably run its run its course, and then they'll be too big and then television rights where the real money comes in because like BKFC is also.

Rumored to be making a big splash in the television world as well.

Might be easier for RAF just because of the stigma attached to, but maybe AFC has a real big person at the top from Ireland that generates a lot of interest.

So, but they also like the RAF just did a match in Georgia, like the country, and they wanna go to Iran.

They just announced a match in Moscow and.

That's one like Iran has a like wrestling is there is like the sport they do.

It's like the sport.

Did Rob end up doing it?

I know he was not only 80 and came back and yeah, it's like, uh, it was the equivalent of the King Green match like getting just his ass handed to him and then comes in.

And beats an Olympic gold medalist in one of the best wrestling matches you'll see.

Yeah, exactly though, but like RAF , RAF is just doing it right.

And now like I'm like Kobe's retired because now he wants to be invested in this, and we're gonna get cool matchups against that.

We probably like we might like Kobe, Kobe's probably gonna be armored, not because he's like better, but skill wise, like, like size.

He's just so much bigger.

You, we could get Colby Kamara in RAF.

We could get Colby Hamza, we could get Kobe.

Anybody and it'll be sick and I'm here for it.

Awesome.

All right, we can wrap it up here.

I think the, let's just go back to Conor McGregor what A year from now, when you are back for International Fight Week doing in the corner, what are we gonna be saying about Conor McGregor?

Is this gonna be our annual thing?

What one year from now, what are we saying about Conor McGregor?

Probably, you're probably gonna ask me that exact question.

That's a really great answer.

Yeah, so, so remember last year I asked you this.

He's still not back.

I can't imagine he's back by this time unless the injury isn't as severe.

Um, I don't know.

DBD Connor is a.

An enigma at this point.

We'll figure it out next year.

I'll be back next year.

Thank you so much, Jose.

It was fun.

This is like weird being on this side of the microphone.

Yeah, yeah, it was really cool.

It's an honor to talk to you on this side.

Oh no, it's fun.

It's a lot of fun.

I really like your production too.

I'm glad to see you at Sports Illustrated.

Like putting.

Well, what's the word, like assets and everything into MMA.

Not that they did it when I was there, but when I did it, it was still like a new, it was still a new thing, and we like really convinced them.

It's good to see Sports Illustrated doing this.

Thank you.

Anytime, homie.

Yes, thank you, you guys.

Jose Young's absolute, absolute OG of the game in the corner with us.

Thank you so much for tuning in.

This is in the corner with Sports Illustrated.

Real fighters, real stories, real talk.

We'll see you next round.

See you next time.