JRE MMA Show #50 with Yves Edwards

00:00Powerful drug. Here we go. 4 3 2 Hello EvenSwords. What's going on, my friend? Not much, my man. that shirt? What is it? A a moon smiley face? Yeah. Graffiti on the moon. Oh. You know me and my smiley faces. Yeah, people would graffiti the moon if they get up there, right? That's probably the first thing they're going to have to worry about these Virgin flights they're planning on going there. People leaving some that you can see from Earth. You know? Yeah. Pissing everywhere. Dude, so much to talk about. So much going on. Yeah, there's there's a lot going on in the world of MMA and the world of thug jiu-jitsu. Yeah, your world, MMA, even boxing. There's a lot of a lot of going on in boxing. Looks like we're going to get Deontay Wilder on Monday. He's going to be in here. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he's he's saying that Did you see the video on his Instagram? He shows that it's more than

00:5110 seconds. Yeah, it is. It's fact. I mean, he plays the clock as soon as Tyson Fury goes down, and then it's more than 10 seconds before he gets back up. I mean, it's human error, right? You can't You can't start immediately. Right. You know? There's There's always that little that little space of time. Isn't there supposed to be a guy on the sideline though that starts the count? Yeah. Yep. And then he picks it up with 5 4 Right. Yeah, but the ref problem is the referees, you know, when they're in the heat of the battle, the adrenaline, their seconds. It's not like they have a stopwatch in their hand they hit it every time a guy goes down, which why don't they have? Probably It's too much to remember. We just talked about the heat of the moment. Boom. Click. Is that too much to remember? I mean, think about all the Tyson Fury has to remember. You know how That's on instinct, right?

01:42Yeah. If Fury I mean, that fight I wanted Of course, I'm I'm I'm rooting for Wilder cuz I like I like big knockouts. You know what I mean? Yeah. And um he looked good in the first two rounds, then he just looked like he abandoned the the the game plan, and he was just looking for the knockout after that. Well, he he's got a problem. The problem is he can knock anybody the out. That's a problem. Anybody except that guy. Except Tyson Fury. It seems like he almost knocked him out. Like He knocked him out, yeah. Yeah, if it wasn't I mean, he definitely did 10. He was definitely down for 10. But here's the thing, if the referee instead of saying eight said seven, instead of saying six said five, would he have gotten up quicker? I think he probably would have cuz he's waiting for eight, nine and then he's standing up cuz he's trying to give himself he's an old vet.

02:30He's trying to give himself as much recovery time as he can. I don't know. When I watch when I watch him getting up, I look at that that replay and you see his head like his head comes up like he's trying to get up and he can't. And then he just like stands up like a zombie. I I think that's some gypsy man. That's scary. Well, I did not expect him to get up. Um I was watching the fight. Were you? Yeah. Yeah, so was I was at my uncle's yeah. Wilder was celebrating, too. The thing was like when he went down, I went, "Oh I can't believe he knocked him out in the 12th like that." And it was the left hook going down that was the craziest. It was boom, the right hand and then bang, the left hook going down. It was so insane. And he walked off. It was a walk-off It was a walk-off knockout. dancing and he was pointing to his woman in the audience and she was saying, "I love you." And he was like

03:21the whole thing was a celebratory moment and then the look on his face when he realized that Tyson Fury had gotten up. Like, "What?" Yeah. You know you know what that is? Remember remember the '80s and '90s um the Friday 13th movie? Yeah. kill Jason and you turn around and it's like, "Oh that is still here." Like a full set up. That's what that was. How does Wilder punch so hard? As a man who studied martial arts his whole life. Like there's some dudes, right? Don't you think? Yeah. That just they have some freak thing. power. But it's crazy how much he's got. He's only 212 lb. That's the crazy thing. It's like he's very small for a heavyweight. Like a lot of these guys 250. Remember remember a guy named Mike Tyson? Oh yeah, he was like in the 215s, right? He was like 215. Yeah. Yeah, not much less. a truck. I don't I don't know how you I mean, I didn't have that kind of power.

04:09My my knockouts were from like stuff you didn't see, you know, and quickness, but like a guy like Jeremy Stephens hits like that, you know? Melvin Guillard had that kind of power. It's It's I don't I I How do you develop I don't know if you could develop that. I think that's a natural thing. Yeah, Rumble Johnson type power. Yes. Yeah. Yes, that's you can develop that. I don't think so, man. I think you can accentuate it. I think a guy hits hard with better technique you can hit harder. I think it's a bone structure thing. I mean, it's like if you look at uh Deontay, he's kind of built like a gigantic Tommy Hearns. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Just wide in the shoulders and his back is just a bundle of like steel ropes. Yeah. It's just It's like those uh those thick ass ropes that they use for for boats. You know what I mean? When they moor ships. That's like the muscles in his

04:56back. Just just jacked back. That's where all the power comes from, I guess. You should let him body shot you. all that. all that, dude. Yeah. That dude's a scary dude, man. Yeah, he hits harder than anybody I think I can in recent memory. Like his one shot power is ridiculous. I What do you think? I mean, I Tyson was a better boxer. Yes. Better pure boxer, too. So, but like I I would love to see like big power punches like I they they need to make a boxing game where they where they have all the I'm I guess they might have, I don't know. But they need to have one where they have like all the power punches and stuff. Do like a power puncher tournament. Right. Well, you know what? I feel like that's a It was a perfect boxing match because you have in Tyson Fury, first of all, you have this guy that overcame depression and suicidal thoughts and you know drug addiction and alcoholism. I

05:51mean he was just Obesity. Yeah, he was living in a world of depression. He was just drinking constantly and doing coke and his life up. And then loses more than 100 lb, cleans himself up, gets in there against the scariest guy in the heavyweight division and puts on a boxing clinic. However, he still gets clipped. He still gets clipped not once but twice hard and dropped hard especially in the 12th round. So it's like for a person who loves watching fights, it's such a perfect fight because you've got so first of all, they're both great guys. Like like both guys like you if you're a fan of like exceptional human beings, both guys are great guys. Like the more I see Deontay Wilder interact with his family, talk about things, talk about the way he approaches fighting, the more I appreciate what he's doing, you know? And then Tyson Fury, how do you not love

06:43the guy? And the way they exchanged like pleasantries after the fight was over and Tyson was telling me he loved him and he kissed his fist. I mean It's like you It's like great all around. A great feeling after even though it was a draw, it was like I felt good about it. That was Rocky one. It was Rocky one. That's what that was. It was Rocky one. Right? It was Rocky one. Sort of, right? But it wasn't the slugger that won. You know? I mean what it was was just a great won. Nobody won. Yeah. For in Rocky one, right? Yeah. Yeah. It was a great great boxing match. That's what it was. It was like it had all the good elements. It was the best heavyweight fight I've seen in a long time. I mean that might have been better than than Holyfield-Tyson. That's hard to say because Holyfield was like the good guy coming in against the bad guy. Like there was so much to that

07:33fight. And then with Tyson, like you thought he was invincible and then Holyfield just eating his shots and slowly beating him down and then eventually stops him. I don't know, man. He gets his ear bitten. Was it bite? No, that was the second The second one, right? Yeah. Second fight, yeah. Yeah, that was uh It was uh it was one of the best I'll tell you what though, man. Anthony Joshua versus Klitschko was one of the best in a long time before that, you know? They're going to goad that fellow into a fight. Someone's going to Someone's going to trick that fellow into a fight. to see those that that that that three-way mix, you know? Yeah, I think Joshua better stay the away from Wilder. If I had a Yeah. If I was in his corner, I was like, "Dude, you get hit sometimes. You don't want to get hit anytime by that guy, right?" He's He's trying to avoid him. I mean, he's got

08:19his head movement going now. Yeah. I know he's waking up in the morning just bobbing and weaving. It's like the dudes like that, the consequences of getting clipped are so great. It's so It's so interesting when someone has that kind of power. Yeah. The consequences are just so great They're different than anybody else. Cuz you never stop watching. You never stop watching. That fight with with with Tyson Fury, I mean, we saw the gap getting bigger in the points. Mhm. But then that ninth round hit. Yeah. And he dropped him. And he's like, "Yeah, see, he can still do it." And you're watching watching, then the 12th round he hit him, and then, you know, if you're a Wilder fan like me, you're jumping up, and you you're celebrating your your you know, your victory. And then zombie gets up. Dude. I'm so impressed. Not only did he get up, he won the remaining part of the

09:06round. He stung Wilder, had him back off. Like that can't Well, I guess it could, but it doesn't really happen in MMA where somebody just gets destroyed or or or dominate. I guess in MMA it would be like a bad beating in one round, and then the next round you come out, and you're just like fresh. Because when he dropped him or when he get when when Fury got up, and he looked at him, you know, he was a little bit broken, but he's probably like, "All right, I'm going to take this out." And then Fury put it on on a little bit. And that probably not broke his spirit, but that probably made him kind of shrink up a little bit, you know. Well, he got lit. I mean, he definitely got stung. He got cracked. Yeah, and you see him like his eyes rolled back, he backed off a little bit, and then he grabbed a hold of Tyson. I'm like, "Whoa, he got rocked." Look, both guys are incredible. Good

09:53conditioning, too, for for for for heavyweights. I mean, yeah. For to take shots that late and cuz that that's a lot about conditioning. When you get tired, you you you know, your brain's ready to shut off. Yeah, and to be that big, I mean, 6'9", 256 lb, and still have that kind of conditioning. You know, and Wilder, to carry that knockout power in the 12th after being frustrated and and just whiffing a lot for 12 rounds, that exhausts you. Yeah, the punches you miss, that takes so much off of you. Yeah. Takes so much. Yeah. Yeah. It was just great all around. It was just great. What's the best What's the best boxing fight you can remember watching in your lifetime live? Not not in person, but just watching it as it happens. Wow, that's a good question. I think Julio Cesar Chavez versus Meldrick Taylor. All right. A lot of people say that. I didn't watch that one live.

10:48Cuz Taylor was so good. He was so fast, and he was winning up until the 12th round, and Chavez just kept the pressure, kept the pressure, kept the pressure, kept the pressure, and then eventually crack crack, he hits him with a big right hand in the 12th round. You see Meldrick is just beaten down. The downside of that fight is Meldrick Taylor was never the same again. That was one beating that just he crossed over beyond the pale. He went to the dark lands. It's just not good after that fight. So, what what do you think if Was it Richard Steele was the ref? I think it was. So, Steele doesn't stop that fight in in in the those last seconds, and Meldrick Taylor wins on the cards. Then then what happens? Is there a rematch and does he look the same as he like was he the same guy after that? I think If he wins. he's done. He's done no matter what. I mean, remember when Terry Norris knocked

11:44him out after that? He just did not look like he could take a punch anymore. That fight was so brutal. If you watch that fight against Chavez just constantly raking his body and clip him, but Meldrick was just so fast and so skillful. Like his movement and his speed, but Chavez was just relentless. Yeah. It was a great fight. It was a great fight. I watched it after the fact, but a few of those fights where you know that that was the one where the guy's never going to be the same again. Yeah. You you you felt that way at watching it? No, I felt that way afterwards. I mean, watching it you go like what a great fight, but then afterwards you realize like oh, that was it. That was the fight. I kind of felt that way honestly for MMA, I felt that way about Rory after the Rory Robbie fight. Ooh, right. fought Wonderboy and I was like yeah, he doesn't look the

12:33same. Well, I think he was having real problems with his nose. You know, um his nose has been shattered a bunch of times and he just can't take a shot in anymore. It just starts bleeding really bad, but I think physically the way he moves and his ability to take punches is still exactly the same. Like you saw him in the Lima fight, you know, he he looks good still. Yeah, he does. He up taking that Mousasi fight though. Yeah. Mousasi's too big. Too too big. I thought the same thing. big. You know? Exactly. I mean, they have a lot of similar skill sets Mhm. and then the bigger guy. It's like what's Mousasi might be a little better, too. Striking. Yeah, he's definitely better with his striking. Um His ground's no joke, either. Yeah. Mousasi's just so good, man. He's so good that like I if I was in his corner, I'd be like look, I get that you want to do a super fight. I

13:20get that you want to do a challenge. This guy's quite a bit bigger than you and really really good. Like Mousasi might be the best 185er in the world. I mean, if he's not if he's not he's he's there. He's with Whittaker. He's with Yoel. He's there. I I There's a mix of them. I really really like I have a whole lot of confidence in Whittaker. Me, too. Quietly, he's he just kind of rose up to the top and I think people still sleep on him. I think so, too, but I got to say that I was surprised at the decision in the Yoel Romero fight, the last one. Yeah, I was like I think Romero won that fight. Yeah. Or if not win it, it was so close it had to be a draw. It was so close, but I think Romero did way more damage. I mean, Romero hurt See, He hurt him a couple times. about like the Wilder fight, like someone said to me like, "Oh, the the score cards are all up. Tyson Fury should have won."

14:10Maybe, yes. Maybe I see what you're saying. If you're looking at it in terms of like that, but as a a person who knows what a fight is, Wilder clearly won the fight if it was a fight. Yeah. Right? Who's getting up? Right? scoring, Yoel won that. right? And this is the the Yoel Romero-Whittaker thing. Who won the fight? Whittaker's getting, you know, just he got hit with bombs by Yoel. Yoel hit him with some haymakers, and Whittaker survived, but Whittaker never put Yoel in that same sort of situation where Yoel was staggering around like really badly hurt. I mean, you Look, Whittaker is a champ. I mean, the the the the the skills, the heart, the courage, all those things. I mean, he's got everything. He's a champ, but I felt like the the damage done I hate the 10-point muscles. Yes. I hate it. Especially for MMA. Hate it. So stupid. Doesn't make any sense. You

15:03got 5-minute rounds, you're only using 10 points. Like, why? Cuz it was already there? Exactly. That's that's the big thing for me because I mean, we got aspects of jiu-jitsu, we got aspects of wrestling, we got aspects of striking, boxing, and kickboxing, right? And we're using a rule set from boxing only. One set of weapons. Yeah. That's it. And like how does how does that how does that quantify the takedowns and the the grappling exchanges? It's Right. It's I don't know. I I disagree. I I remember there were they had all these different systems they were trying to work and I feel like at one point, I think Doc Rivers maybe Doc Hamilton. Doc Hamilton, sorry. Yeah, he had Doc Rivers is a basketball player. Yeah, Doc Hamilton is an excellent system. It was a half point system. Yeah, which was better. Was better than what we're using now. The Pride system was better. Yeah, the

15:50Pride system is better. Judge the fight as a whole and the last part of the fight is more important than the first part of the fight, right? Cuz that kind of tells you the path that we're going on. Schoolyard. Who's on top? Who's on top when the teachers get there? Who's beating the dude down when the teachers get there? Nobody cares if you're like throwing leg kicks and boxing a guy up for 15 minutes and then the teachers come right when the guy gets on top of you and punching your face. And I won the decision. No, no, no, no, no. The teachers pulled that guy off you. Yeah, and then you get rematches. Rematches at school? They're hard to swallow. You got to you got to have you got to have balls to have that rematch at school. Yeah. You know what you're getting into, right? Yeah. No money. All glory. Yeah. This has got to be a this got to be a rematch for this fight

16:31and it's going to be the biggest heavyweight fight of all time. I mean, it's going to be jai gantic. And I'm happy for Wilder because Wilder's finally a star. I mean forever we wanted American heavyweight champion. Yeah. Klitschko had it forever. Now we have an not only an American heavyweight champion, but we had an American heavyweight champion that knocks everybody the out. Knocks everybody the out. Super exciting. Great guy. For some reason he didn't catch. Like it's weird. Like who catches? Who gets famous? It's weird. then when you look at the post-fight interviews and um Tyson Fury, you know, God bless me, God bless you, and God bless America. I mean, he got a lot of people on his side and he's not American. He's a great guy. He's great. I would have him in here. He's great. I mean, he's a real character. He's a real deal. Both of them are. I mean, I'm

17:17so excited about the rematch. When do you think that happens? It's got to be a long time. He got HIT WITH SOME BOMBS. If I was in Tyson's camp, I'd be like, "Dude, we got to take some time off." Some real I know you feel great and you're riding this high. How about the guy donates all his money to charity? Isn't that incredible? That's That's ridiculously incredible. 10 million dollars. 10 million dollars. Just donated it. going to do that in the rematch, though? No, no, no. The rematch is 100 million dollars. 10 million dollars. He's banking on that Floyd Mayweather money, right? The rematch could be the biggest heavyweight title fight ever. Yeah. Yeah, it's I mean, it's bigger than right now, especially with the world the way the world is. It's bigger than Holyfield-Tyson. It's bigger than Bowe-Holyfield. Yeah. It's bigger than Holyfield-Tyson, I think. Or or right

18:02there, at least. Right there. It's hard to say because Tyson was such a cultural phenomenon. Like, there was no one like him. When we were kids and when Tyson would fight, it would just be like a watching a public execution. Yes. People would like wonder, "Should I pay for this? Should I get this pay-per-view? How long's it going to last?" Have a bunch of people over with popcorn and and last 15 seconds. What do What do you think What do you think um the benefit of Wilder having Tyson come into his next camp is? Is Tyson I mean, he's a student. You know, he knows boxing well. Is he doing that? I don't know. But what would the benefit be? Look, the benefit would be great. Mike Tyson knows a lot about boxing. I mean, he he doesn't just know a lot about how he boxed, you know, but he he knows so much. I mean, that was like one of the big things one of the big uh

18:54stories about his childhood was him watching Jim Jacobs' old reel-to-reel films. They'd watch all They'd watch all those old-school films, Joe Louis and and Jack Dempsey. You know, he he like patterned a lot of his style after watching those old-timers, Archie Moore, and Yeah, man, I think he could definitely help him. I think but the style of someone who could help Wilder would would be someone who is going to incorporate more movement and and more like switch up like don't always throw bombs. You know who I would bring in if I was Wilder? Andre Ward. Andre Ward and Virgil Hill. Yeah. Have those guys tighten up what he does. I think Andre Ward is one of the smartest guys in boxing. How how is he as as an instructor, as a teacher? He's too smart to not be good at it. Right. He's too smart. He knows too much about boxing. Like he's one of my favorite analysts when he talks about fights.

19:53Like the way he breaks things down. Yes. You know, and and he's a guy who really does find weaknesses and exploit them. It's not just pushing buttons and throwing haymakers. Like if you look at his rematch with Kovalev, like he figured that guy out. Like he he got hurt by him early in the first fight, but then won the remainder of the fight and then won the decision, a little bit controversial, but then said I know how to beat this and then came back in the second fight and stopped him. Yeah. Yeah, Andre Ward is and Virgil Hill. That's old school, though. Old school. Yeah. That's That would be a good fit, but there's a lot of good fits in boxing, you know? Yeah. Boxing is a an interesting thing is that they've had this long history of trial and error that that MMA hasn't had. You know, like you see you see this you know, you got lineage that goes back to the '60s and the '70s and um

20:46like Yeah, lineage that goes back way further than that. Yeah. I mean like Willie Pep. Sure. I mean in terms of like active trainers. Oh, yes. Yeah, and active gyms, you know? I mean these guys have been around forever. They've been putting champions into rings for decades. There's a lot of those guys out there. I think about I think about that, too, with like with Tyson. I mean like if Cus D'Amato didn't die when he did, Yeah. would Tyson's career have been different It probably would have. It probably would have been different. I mean, I think Kevin Rooney did his best to try to keep that teaching going, but I think sometimes that mentor is the glue that keeps you together. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Yeah, the other stuff. That guy meant so much to Tyson because Cus D'Amato essentially gave him this new lease on life. He thought he was going to be a loser, and his life was

21:35going to be hell, and then instead, he's the heavyweight champion of the world, the youngest ever, you know? Yeah. But then, yeah. Well, you know what? Teddy Atlas had a very very interesting take on Tyson. He just felt like Tyson never developed the skills to overcome adversity. So, like as long as he was dominating everyone, he was great, but as soon as it started coming back at him, he would he would never recover from that. You know we call that in MMA? A bully. Yeah, or a front runner. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of guys like that, right? Yeah, and good on top. Yes, they're good hammer, not such a good nail. Yeah. You got to be able to take them both. Yeah. Yeah, when you say hammer and nail, that reminds me of like there was something I was thinking when we were talking about Rory and Robbie. Like what it takes, how much pain you have to be in to be a

22:24fighter, to be a fighter of Rory's caliber, and then just sit down and concede. Yeah. Cuz like it hurts that much. I think his face was shattered. I think his nose was like broken into eight or nine pieces or some like that. It was just It was just mush. And I just don't think he physically could go on anymore. Like I've had I've had I've had breaks in training, I've had breaks in in fights. Um broke my jaw once training. I was like, "Oh, that hurts." And then I got hit again. I was like, "Yeah, I can't do this." Then um Did it was it a like a clean snap? No, it was just a It was a hairline, but like it hurt. Like I couldn't chew. I was crying the next day. Like I didn't know it was broken until the next day. But um and then when I fought Ludwig, me and him and I fought I was on top, he was on his back, he throws a punch upwards, hits me right in the eyeball and um

23:11bust my orbital. Yeah, you talked about this the last time you were here. Yeah, that is crazy. When he hit me though, I was like that hurts. Uh, I put my head down for a second and then I was like, I got to tap this guy, I got to tap this guy. So, I'm just trying to and you know, institute a jiu-jitsu game and um he's escaping all the time. But, the pain it was like it wasn't like I want out. For Rory to sit down and concede like I I can only imagine cuz I've been in pain in a fight like excruciating pain is like I I just got to figure this out and move on. But, he was just like, no, that's enough. And it's Rory, we know how tough he is. He's also he's crazy. Like this is a dude who who you know he's like you just kind of expect him to have bodies. Have bodies on him. Did you see him when he was on the podcast? No, I didn't. I didn't see that episode. He's not like

23:58you would think he is. He's a great He is. He's like very like warm and friendly. He's awesome. I sat on him sat with sat next to him on the bus a bunch of different times and we're just riding to the arena. We've had a bunch of conversations. I love him, but when you see his his demeanor or his persona when he when he's, you know, in front of the camera, he just seems very He's very serious. Yeah, very serious and and and that killer like that that serial killer like. I mean he is. He's not done either. I mean I think the Mousasi fight was a bad idea, but I still think he's one of the best welterweights on the planet. 100%. Yeah. 100%. I mean he can come I mean he can come back to the UFC and and and and threaten Tyron. Oh, yeah. I think so. I mean he he beat Tyron the first time, but that's a different Tyron. Tyron with Duke Roufus is a different Tyron and I think you know,

24:46he's just he knows more now. He's a champion now. He's successfully defended his title several times now. better, too. He's um he still slows later in the fight, but like it's drastically different than it used to be. And once what I would like to see out of Tyron is more use of all of his skills later on and not just looking to land that big right hand. Because like Tyron can do everything. Tyron can do everything, but there are those times when you see him start to really depend on that right hand and only look for that. And he's like he's like right hand, right hand. Wait, wait, right hand, right hand, right hand. The thing about that right hand though is it works. Yeah. When you have something like Wilder's right hand or like Tyron's right hand, you have something that can you have a right hand that can put anybody out. I mean, this is I brought up Dos Santos

25:39before, but think about it. He fought Darren Till and he fought Wonderboy twice. Those are two two guys that are arguably the best strikers in the 170 pound division. both of them up on their feet. I mean, both fights Wonderboy was on queer street. And then in the Till fight, the only punch landed at all was by Tyron. He cracks Till, drops him. Till never land touched him with a glove. Drops him, beats the out of him and then chokes him. I think that was one of the best performances from Tyron. I he looked really good in that fight. Really good. He looked almost like uh disdainful, too. Like, you know, you can't believe you guys got him the betting favorite. Yes. Like, what what is that It's like, yeah. Tyron beats Cowboy Cerrone, a guy was supposed to be fighting at 155 pounds is tough as but one big fight and all of a sudden you guys have him the betting favorite. Yes.

26:29This is preposterous. Put some respect on my name. Yeah. Well, he's uh he's a polarizing figure for some reason. I don't know why. It's uh maybe it's one of those things where guys have to catch, you know? Like maybe it's like if Tyron like had a GSP fight. Like if GSP comes out of retirement, fights Tyron, Tyron smashes GSP, then maybe people go I wonder like what Muhammad Ali was like because I wasn't I wasn't there. Right. Like everybody loves him now. Yeah. But did they love him when he was when he was you know running his mouth and like I'm sure people did. I'm sure that he had um his you know like the Conor McGregor fans, you know, because he he was that good. But I wonder if there was this big contingent of people that were like yeah, no. Um we hate that Muhammad Ali guy. Well, he was really that good but then he wasn't. See what happened was we got really crazy with Ali was

27:25they made him take 3 years Right. off of fighting. And during that 3 years he was supposed to be fighting in Vietnam. He's like, "Fuck you. I'm not going to Vietnam." So they strip him of his title and then he doesn't train. I mean when he came back, did you ever see his comeback fight? Nope. He came back against Jerry Quarry and um I'm telling you man, he looked like he had no muscle. Like you you look at him from the old days like look when he fought Cleveland Big Cat Williams. I mean he was just a Greek god. But then you see him when he's coming back and he's fighting Quarry 3 years out of the ring probably barely trained at all. His body just looks slower and smoother. He just didn't look the same. Like physically See if you can find that. I mean and Jerry Quarry was just a super tough guy. Just would walk forward and eat a bunch of shots. But you look you look at his body like

28:15it doesn't look the same. See look at look at his back. He doesn't I mean he obviously went through a full camp to get ready for that but he doesn't look like the Muhammad Ali of old and then when he's fighting he doesn't move like the Muhammad Ali of old. Those 3 years took a toll on him. Like look at his body. It just doesn't look the same. Yeah. Yeah, he he looks a little smaller. Yeah, smaller because he hasn't been training. So he lost probably lost a lot of muscle just looks smoother and just doesn't look as quick or as good. And he's fighting a guy that has no business in the ring with him. You know, he's fighting a guy that I mean, and he's a Jerry Quarry is a sad story when it comes to brain damage, too. Like the end of his career, the end of his life, rather, was horrible. I mean, he had fought so many times against big punchers and was known for

29:06being able to take a punch. And then also, I think coming up, I think it was his brother's his brother also had like a real problem with brain damage. I think they did a lot of real hard sparring together. And a lot of hard sparring in the gym and the end of his life was awful. I read an article about what it was like at the end for him. And it was similar to what the end was like for Ali. It's um I don't know. I I always When someone says something, it makes me think of something else. And you talking about Quarry and his brother made me think of Joe Lauzon and Dan Lauzon fighting in the yard. When they would have those barbecues, they'd beat the out of each other? Like legit beat the out of each other. Yeah, I don't know if I could do that to my family. I don't They had a different kind of friendship. That's so funny. It's crazy. Those are videos of Joe on top of him punching him

29:55in the head from behind. I'm like, "Whoa, Joe." That's not Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm thinking. It's like that's not a stranger, man. Yeah. Well, you know, that's some of the toughest guys grew up with brothers. They all had here beating the out of each other. Yeah, this is what I was thinking of. The thing is, though, this is Massachusetts, man. Massachusetts is a hard-ass place. And they are fighting. Yeah. I mean, they're full blast kicks and punches. And then the entire family is watching, too. Yeah. And they're they're having a real legit MMA fight. I mean, look at that. That's so What a bunch of psychos. They got little girls watching and And they're on the grass, and he's beating the out of his brother. And he's better, too. Look at What kind of psycho family are the Lauzons? Look at those little girls in front of the car. The whole family

30:47sitting there. Oh, Uncle Joe is beating the Oh, they have a they put a soundtrack on it. Oh, that's hilarious. Yeah, let's not watch this. I like both these guys. He got him in a triangle. Oh. Um about Tyron though, like I I don't I mean, look, when when Ali was uh the whole thing about him refusing to fight in the draft, like people hated him. There was a lot of people that hated him. A lot of people that considered themselves patriots that thought This is before, we have to realize that now pretty much everybody thinks the Vietnam War was a terrible idea. Right. The Gulf of Tonkin incident which got everybody into Vietnam was a false flag. It was all We shouldn't have been there in the first place. Who knows what the real reason for being in Vietnam was, but a lot of people think it had to do with heroin and money and all kinds of other crazy right? So, when Ali said,

31:38"I'm not fighting that war" back then though, back then people thought he was a coward. Right. Back then people thought he was a traitor and he was aligned with Malcolm X. He changed his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali and everybody was worried about the Black Panthers and the Black Muslims and you know, it was like there was a lot of hate towards him, I'm sure. And so then when he came back and he was not guy anymore, I'm sure people loved it. They were happy. They were happy when Joe Frazier beat him. People were happy. Yeah. Yeah, these people yeah. I I that that's that's human nature, right? It is. People pick sides. Like you pick sides when Wilder knocked down Fury. Yeah. Yeah. We pick sides. I don't you mean you don't know those guys, right? No, but like I'm also not going to hate on him. You know what I mean? That's the thing. I'm not hating on Fury. I wasn't

32:20like, "Fuck Fury." No. I'm like But you were also a successful professional fighter. You're not just a regular hater. Yeah. You're just a dude watching a fight. kind of hater, Joe. You're a successful former fighter who fought in many different organizations. Like for you to have be rooting on somebody, it seem feels different to me. It's okay. Okay. I'm glad I got the stamp of approval. He just doesn't feel I mean I get it. You like a style. I mean, who doesn't like knockouts? Right? Who the doesn't like knockouts? Everybody loves a knockout. Got to love him, man. Like I Jeremy Stephens is a guy I love to watch fight, right? Um like when I was fighting him, that's a different story, but like watching him fight, yes, I want to see that every time. But then when I'm fighting him, I want you to root for me. Yes. He had a terrifying style. He still has

33:11a terrifying style. He's just do or die. If Jeremy connects, you can be you can be fucksville. And he carries that power deep deep into a fight. Yeah. You know? Remember when he was young and he fought RDA? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That uppercut and that was a that was a highlight reel uppercut for a long time. Remember that fight? the Usman fight? RDA and Usman? I saw the end of it. Dude, near the last round. Usman's a Usman's dangerous. I was I was I was at Bellator. I was at Bellator with um with Schilling. Mhm. And and Bomba. Did you see Schilling's fight? Schilling looked great. He looked great. Man. He looks like he looks like a completely different guy. We were in we were in the in the dressing room warming up. He's warming up and he's hitting mitts. And um my first thought was, yeah, he looks like he's ready to defend some takedowns. He's sitting low. He's more comfortable.

34:01Like yeah, he's He's a different dude. He's very different. He's put it He's got to that point where you um it's not it's not uncomfortable to wrestle. Like he didn't know what to do for a long time. And I've been gone for a while. I came back and he was he was out there with Cowboy and Mickey and and and and Jafari Vanier. And those guys really helped him. And um I'm rolling with him and I'm like, oh, this is a different character now. Yeah. You know? I'm like, this is not going to be easy. I better get my I better tap him now while I can. You know? Well, he's a world-class kickboxer. So, and when it comes to the stand up game, he's going to have an advantage over almost everybody as long as he can defend take downs and as long as he fights smart. You know, if he doesn't fight recklessly, which is you know, he has in the past that that Japanese fellow that knocked him out twice.

34:46Yes. Yes. What's that guy's name? Kakuna? What's his No, that's No, that's not his name. I'm horrible with Japanese names cuz they all sound the same. That guy's a beast though. That guy hits hard, that dude. Joe hits hard. Joe does hit Joe hits hard. His name is Sakikado. Sakikado. Yeah. That guy is a beast though. That guy fought him MMA and then fought him kickboxing. I mean, that's what a what a beast that guy is. And he's not really a kickboxer as much as he is an MMA fighter. But Joe is Joe's turning into an MMA fighter. You saw his hips. For sure. For sure. No, no, dude. Everything. And and on top, you know, like secured top position, held him, ground and pound was ferocious. Yeah. A real strikers real strikers have horrific ground and pound cuz they just can generate so much more power from the top. This is terrifying, you know? Yeah, now that he knows how to how to control

35:36his hips when he's on the ground, yeah, it's just a different story. I want to see um I want to see where he goes. Now he's he's like it's it's weird cuz now he's like a prospect in a different way. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Well, he just needed to fix that one piece of his game and he fixed that one piece of his game, the grappling and the take down defenses. I I want to see Joe get to the point where he's um he's completely comfortable on the ground. He's he's he's close to it, but like in two or three years down the road, him and Stylebender. Right? Stylebender's a special kind of dude. Yeah, yes. He's a special kind of dude. That Derek Brunson fight showed it. It's like this is a special kind of dude. I like that kid. He's he's Yeah, he's fun to watch, man. He's slick. Yeah. He's slick. He's fighting Anderson next. I don't like that. For Anderson? Yeah.

36:25Yeah. I'm I I don't like these fights where like I didn't like Yair and B.J. I don't I don't like these fights where like these guys who've done so much for the game are kind of getting fed to the wolves in their in their twilight. But every now and then you get a Shogun Tyson Pedro fight which the old lion roars again. Right? Did you see that fight? I missed all the UFC fights this weekend cuz of Bellator and the boxing match. Shogun return from adversity too. He got hit hard in that fight. He got staggered and fought back. Tyson poured it on but couldn't keep it up and then Shogun got him to the ground, smashed him up a bit, got him standing up, hit him with a big right hand at the end of the fight, dropped him, and then beat the out of him on the ground. Like it was it was for me when I saw that fight announced Tyson Pedro versus Shogun I was like damn

37:13Shogun's got another hard fight. It's hard watching Shogun get knocked out a bunch of times, you know? But he won and he won in a big way and he and he won it in a war. It was a war. He's still He's still a badass, man. How is Shogun still so god damn aggressive too? Like he's not slowed down. It was like real frantic and aggressive and it was awesome, man. That's that's his thing inside you, right? You You can't get rid of that. Well, some dudes they lose a bit of it when they take too much punishment. They're they they lose some of the ferocity or some of the enthusiasm or whatever the it is. But I was One of the things I was watching that fight I was like god damn Shogun's ferocious. Still ferocious. Just everything about it like ah when he got had the dude hurt he was pouring it on but he was pouring it on in a demonic way. Like a monster. Like he was like he was enjoying it.

38:02Like he was Shogun. Like the Shogun of old, man. Yeah, this is it. Yeah, this is it. I mean he fought really well too. Like his ground game was real solid. His ground and pound was real solid. But it was also like his his the exchanges he would be when he would find openings he was frantic and like a very real aggressive. Yeah. It was a It was an awesome fight, man. Yeah, man. I had a fight pass this. Yeah, it was a FS1 thing. I don't know when When do they put those FS1 fights on Fight Pass? I think it's like a month. Is that what it is? I think. Go go further ahead of this cuz this is this is a long a period where Tyson was trying to secure a Kimura. You don't You don't go overseas, right? Not anymore, son. No, those would me, man. Those Those overseas things There's where he dropped him with the right hand. Yeah. Um they would they would wreck me for a

38:56week and a half afterwards. I'd be exhausted. If I fly to Brazil or fly to Australia is the worst. That's what I was going to say. I was like, Brazil, isn't that just like north south pretty much? It is, but it's still 16 hours on a plane. Really? Yeah. Yeah, you got to fly to Miami and then you got to fly 10 more hours to Rio. It's 10 hours from Miami to Rio? Yeah. Yeah. Wow, I didn't realize it was that far. South America, son. It's a whole 'nother country. It's a different continent. I I loved being there. I hated getting there. I hated going home. I hated how I felt afterwards. And I'm just too busy. It's just too It's too costly for me financially to take that much time off and it's also it's just too hard for me physically, you know? So, if they compensated you for the time and still physically No. That's that you money, Joe. you. But I See you know what the

39:51other problem is, man? This TV and watching it on Fight Pass or what doing Fight Companions, you know? Yeah. Those Fight Companions are the Yeah. Those Those are We did I did that one with you and Joe. Yeah, we did one for Glory. Yeah, we got to do another one. We definitely do one for for UFC. Yes. Yes. Yeah, let's pick one. You got it. You know what? Where are you going to be for New Year's? I'm going to be on vacation. Oh, okay. Well, I was going to say, man, if you're here, do a do a fight do a fight companion for the PFL final. Yeah, so tell me about PFL. So you are you're doing commentary for the PFL? Commentary and telestrator. And who else is doing it with you? Randy and Bas. Randy and Bas. What a combination. Right? What a combination. when when I got that call and they were like, yeah, and the team is going to be you, Randy, and Bas. I'm like, wait, you

40:36just put my name in the same sentence with those dudes is like as equals. And it's like for me like I get I get like some fight some fight fans maybe thinking, yeah, that makes sense. But like for me, I'm like these are guys I looked up to. You know, and now you're talking I I get to I get to hang out with them and you know, we're having a drink at the bar. That's pretty amazing. But listen, dude, you're a really good commentator. You're you're really good analyst, too. I I loved watching you in the Fox desk desk. I loved uh the way you break down things. You know, one one of the cool things about that desk is you'll have like a Michael Bisping or you'll have Tyron or you know, uh Kenny Florian, whoever it is. Everyone's got their own idea of how to fight and what it what what's important and what they think is going to be a problem in a fight. Like that's such a great move to

41:19have these ex-fighters and continue to you know, Cormier's always doing it. Continue to have them, you know, explaining from their own experience. Yeah. Yeah, that's um that was the first thing for me because I didn't I was like, I don't know what I'm doing, you know? I have no idea what it is that I'm doing, but it's just talking about fights. And it's it's so much fun to be doing it with with guys that are on that same level like like cuz you know, you're you're at home, you probably do it when when when you're at home and you're not doing a fight companion, you're watching fights and maybe some friends around. They ask you things about fights and you're like, you have to explain it to people who don't understand. But when you're having a conversation with somebody who knows what's going on and then you can especially when you come to a point where you disagree. Yeah.

42:02Cuz you have strong you have strong opinions why and you have strong arguments as to why you're right and why the other guy is wrong. And I I I don't know, I like I I those moments, man. I love having those things, especially being able to do that with guys who know what they're talking about. Oh, it makes it so much more fun when you're doing it with guys who know what they're talking about. What's one of the cool things about Fight Companion is that we're except when Brian Callen starts talking. Just kidding. Just kidding, Brian. Just kidding. But when when you're doing it like everybody's got their own opinion of how something could go down or how what what's going to be a problem. A lot of times you agree, you know, like the like the Till-Tyron Woodley fight. Well, Till's chance is standing up. Right. That's it. And you know, if I was Tyron, I'd take him to the ground. I mean,

42:41Tyron's a far better wrestler, far much much more experienced. But like there's some fights where you're like, man, like here's one this weekend, Brian Ortega-Max Holloway. Yeah. Who the knows how that's going to go? Like I've I've bounced that one around my head and people people have come up to me on the street. Like, "Hey, man, who's going to win this fight this weekend?" Like especially Hawaiians. Yeah. Hawaiians are super excited for Max Holloway to win again. I mean, he's the new B.J. Penn, right? Man. It may be a different level. But Max Holloway's a That's that's one of those fights. Yeah, it's very hard to pick. I What was that? Even? Like it's pretty even. to be. I mean, what what's your Vegas odds are? I By the way, I love the fact that you can actually gamble on fights now online. Like it's it's legal, basically, right? You kind of do it, right? If you

43:27were fighting, would you bet on yourself? Depending on the state you're in. Yes, I would. much pressure. I wouldn't want to think about it. Unless I knew. Unless the guy was a and he and he like, "I'm going to go smash this dude." Like there's just no It's very close. Uh they're both minus minus 105 minus 125, which would be Holloway as the favorite, slight favorite. That makes sense. Yeah. That makes sense. That should be how it is. Slight favorite cuz he's the champion. And you know what's interesting what Holloway said? And he goes he goes, "It's kind of weird when he goes it's kind of weird when the the the new thing is older than the current thing." Cuz he's like, "I'm younger, man. I'm the champ. I beat Aldo. I beat all these dudes. I'm younger, and yet this guy is the new thing coming up to challenge me. It's like, I'm the younger fighter. It's kind of funny.

44:18Yeah, but yeah, I mean, we haven't seen we haven't seen something like like Ortega a little bit in um in the featherweight division. Guy submitting, like pulling these submissions off to like the the one with Cub. Yeah. You know? I think that was beautiful. Like, he readjusted on that guillotine, too. That's that's probably the hardest submission to readjust. Mhm. You know? Uh one hand hanging on, readjusting, and then still sinking it in against Cub Swanson. It's not like it's not like Brandon Bishop or whoever. It's Cub Swanson. You know what I mean? That's like that's crazy, man. Well, he's a direct lineage, right? He's real Gracie jiu-jitsu. He is Hener and Heron. You know, he's come he comes from Horion. That school. I mean, this is where Brian Ortega comes from. He's direct from those mats. Yeah. And his technique is like razor blade. It's so sharp. It's so

45:11sharp and precise and so honed and just through drills and a constant emphasis on proper leverage and position. I mean, they're sticklers to that old style of jiu-jitsu. Like, and some people There's an unfortunate word that people like to use that sometimes pisses people off. Like, Viddi Magalhaes used this to describe Minotauro, and he didn't mean it in a negative way, but he meant the basics. He's like, his jiu-jitsu is very basic. He And then people go, "Fuck you, my jiu-jitsu is basic?" Yeah. But the basic is like the best. The fundamentals. But these There's guys that have those basics, like Roger Gracie. His jiu-jitsu is he's mostly the basics. He's not doing any crazy De La Riva or anything that you've never seen before. Like, what was that? Yeah, he's not doing anything where you never saw it before. It's strict, you know, guard pass, smashing on top,

46:01triangle, mount, arm triangle, armbar. Everything he does is classic jiu-jitsu, but it's just so perfect. Everything, the leverage and the weight and the the the the emphasis on, you know, certain positions over others. It's all like basic classic jiu-jitsu and that's Brian Ortega. Yeah. His jiu-jitsu is just so rock-solid fundamentals, you know? He's all about fundamentals though. Yeah, man. Even his boxing is not I don't believe he's as good a boxer as as Max, but he's fundamentally sound, strong and direct with his boxing. I mean, look look he he knocked out Frankie. He knocked out Frankie. He submitted Moicano, who I think is one of the dark horses in that division. Renato Moicano is a beast, man. He's so good. Mike Brown has nothing but praise for him, man. He's like, "That kid is legit. He's He's going to challenge for that title, for sure." that. I believe that. And he's super

46:57like respectful and intelligent and like everything about him I like. I love his his approach, the way he fights. And in that fight, Holloway or excuse me, Ortega made him shoot cuz he was beating him standing up. And he shot and Ortega's like, "Thank you." Clink. Clink. That guillotine is just a a death grip. He's just got a vice. Just clamps down on your life. He Yeah, man. Like now you got to put you to sleep. room. There's no room. You're going to sleep or you're going to tap. You're not getting out. He's like my size. He's big. He's a big kid. Max is big, too. They're Max is huge. Yeah. Max was 185 when they told him about the the Khabib Nurmagomedov fight. The horrible thing about that fight was that he lost all that weight really rapidly for no reason. And then they wound up pulling him out of the fight. The commission was like, "Fuck this. You can't fight." And a lot of us at the

47:52time were like, "Why is the commission telling a champion whether or not he can make weight? Let him try to make weight. Get the out of there. You don't know what you're doing. But then you find out after that that like when he was preparing for the the first fight with Ortega and he was experiencing these weird concussion like symptoms symptoms but they said he didn't have a concussion and then people are saying no this is weight loss. This is rapid weight cutting. His body is responding to the fact that he just went through this and now he's trying to do it again and his body is rejecting it. So there's a bunch of theories. There's not they're not giving us a whole lot of information about exactly what's wrong with him medically or what was wrong. Whether they know it or not, I don't know. Right. But even Ortega's been saying all week like what the was wrong with

48:36him? Why not How come they're not telling us? Like what if it happens again? Like Ortega's got to be thinking right now. Here we are today. It's Wednesday. Tomorrow's Thursday, the weigh-in's Friday. He's only got a couple of days. Like we don't know whether or not this is even actually going to happen, right? Like what What if it gets down to Thursday and Friday and he's in the the middle of the weight cut and he starts blacking out or he starts experiencing those symptoms again, they pull him out of the card. Moicano's on standby, you know. I did not know that. Yeah. He's on standby for this fight. That Yeah, see and then then it becomes an interim title. It must. It has to. It can't be They're not going to strip him. But then what happens? I mean a guy like Max that I don't know. It's It's one of those situations where it's like if that happens multiple times, like what do you

49:20have to do? Can Can you continue to How much longer can you continue to fight at that weight? I don't think he can continue to fight at that weight very much longer cuz I think he severely compromises himself getting down to 45. But he's been able to do it cuz he's a champion. But and I think if you do have a a like a George Lockhart in your corner, a guy that gets you to do it scientifically and then rehydrate yourself scientifically, it can be done. And you can pull it off and 24 hours later you can fight at a very high level. But is that the way to go? I mean, your kidneys start breaking down, your body starts getting beat up. I mean, your organs don't want to get dried out like that. Your brain doesn't want to get dried out like that. Your muscles don't want to get dried out like that. There's just no way you perform at your best when you're just at death's

50:04door 24 hours ago and now here you're fighting again. Yeah. I mean, Frankie, you know, when he was fighting at lightweight, you know, that kind of kind of shows you that you can be the smaller guy and do well. But, it's weird because like now Frankie set a bar. Yeah. And now guys reach that bar, so Frankie had to change weight classes. You know, that's that's that's a weird thing. And everybody's going I mean, it's the fight game. You always you try to get the best out of yourself and you try to get the biggest advantage that you can. So, the weight cut's going to always be an issue unless the weight classes are changed and or weigh-ins become same day. Well, Josh Thomson just said recently that he thinks that the UFC is getting rid of the 125-lb division. They're going to put on a 165-lb division, which I think is very interesting. If they do do a 165, I would like them to switch 170 to

50:58175. I think that would be wise. I don't think it's wise to have a 65 and a 75, but I do think a 65 and a 75 is great. Right. Yeah, I agree. I I 10 lbs 10 lbs is good across the board. I think across the board. I think we had every 10 lbs a weight class. I mean, a lot of people don't like the boxing thing where there's so many champions, there's so many weight classes, but who cares? Who cares? Who cares if there's a welterweight and then a super welterweight? Who cares that it's only 7 lbs difference? Who cares? Who It's more fights. It's more champions. It's more champion versus champion. I mean, don't you want to see that? I want to see that. I want to Yeah, I want to see the best of the best. You know what I mean? We're we're getting we're getting some of the best of the best right now. You get the number let's say Kevin Lee, right? Kevin Lee could be a 165-lb champion. Yes. But

51:44that's his weight class, too, really. He probably struggles to make 155. He's a big fellow. He's a big dude, but then he can't do it anymore, but like Tyron wrestled at 165. Right. Imagine if he was still that age, you know, and he could fight at 165. Then then you get Tyron can make 65. I bet Tyron can make 65. I think he can make 65. I definitely think he could fight at 75 and be at his best. And I think he could also fight at 85. I think Tyron has legitimate potential to be a three-division champion. He he should start He should start um rallying for that for that 65-lb weight class. Nobody listens to me anymore, man. If they listened to me, Melvin Manhoef would have been in the UFC back in 2002. Yeah. they listen to me sometimes. I think they listened to me with Ben Askren. Finally. go on record and I'm going to say I'm a big reason why Ben Askren got in the

52:27UFC. I I I brokered a meeting between him and Dana White. Okay. Dude, I put it together. I called Dana. I said, "Look, he's a good guy, man. He's talking but everybody talks Like, come on." I'm like, "The guy's undefeated." And he's like uh he was like when Andy wants to go to sleep, it takes Ben Askren. And I'm like, "It's It's It's fighting." See, the thing about fighting is it's not a matter of what is like the what's exciting to watch. For a person like you, a person like me, who's like sitting back, "How is this going to play out? I want to see what works." What's going to work? What works? Yeah. I get that. Yeah. I want to see what works. When when I see a guy like Ben Askren, I want to see what works. Three to one. Wow, he's a three to one favorite over Robbie Lawler. Holy That's crazy. They just added another fight to this card. Listen, man. You can't sleep on Robbie

53:18Lawler. Don't sleep on Robbie Lawler. That's crazy. That's crazy. Three to one? Three to one is horrible. Dude, Robbie Lawler can wrestle. And Robbie Lawler's been shutting people's lights out since the early 2000s. So it's a decent bet, then? It's a very good bet. would take I mean, I would take the Robbie Lawler bet, especially with him being being Three to one? Yeah. A hundred to make 300? if you if Lawler it's plus 230, so you'd win 230 something. oh, he's a three to one. So, you'd have to win bet three to win one on Askren. Right. Correct. Yeah. Yeah, I'd take that bet. It's a good bet, but I I like Askren's chances cuz I think that wrestling's just on another level. Yeah. That's the fight. Here's the fight. 165 KHABIB BEN ASKREN. WOO! I GUESS BEN CAN MAKE 65. 100% he can make 65. 100% 100% He wants to make 65 cuz he's good friends with Tyron and he's like, "I'll be the 65-lb

54:16champ. Tyron be the 70 or 75, whatever they decide to go with." That's that's the fight, man. Khabib versus Ben Askren cuz I'm telling you, man, Ben Askren, they just put his face on the on the camera the other day while he was in the crowd and the audience went crazy. He hasn't even fought in the UFC and they love him. Yeah. Fight real fight fans know who that guy is. who he is now. They know who he is now. It's like he's been building momentum. The hardcore fans absolutely are excited that finally this undefeated phenom of a wrestler is fighting in the UFC. Yeah. I I I would Yeah, I would pay money to watch him. He's going to be for sure. A lot OF MONEY. WOO! I'LL FLY TO RUSSIA for that fight. You think that's where they'll have it? I don't know, man. I'm going to fly to Russia and I'm I'm going to Yeah, and I'm going to as as soon as I get to my hotel room, I'm going to have

55:03one of them things that checks for bugs. I'm going to check for hidden cameras and They You got to rush, man. to check for Putin. What's that? Light up like a Christmas tree. Yeah, it probably would, right? The whole house is a bug. Yeah, man, I think that's a that's that's a fight that I'm very very excited about. Cuz like right now, Khabib, the the number one fight for Khabib, I believe, is Tony Ferguson. I think that's a big fight, giant fight. I'm really excited about that. that. I heard I heard rumors um and I haven't spoken to Dustin of that whole Tony and Khabib, Dustin and Conor let us fight each other. I heard that, too. But, here's the cynical part of me. I know that Nate Diaz was supposed to be fighting Dustin, but Dustin had to pull out with a hip injury. So, I'm like, okay, well, how bad is his hip injury and when is that going to heal up? You

55:55know, and is it going to heal up? Or is it going to like be a reoccurring thing? And them saying that Dustin is going to step in and he's going to fight Conor, that is a good fight, but does that make Nate Diaz go, "What?" And does that make Nate Diaz come back to the the to the bargaining table? And then they have like cuz that's the big money fight. The big money If I was a promoter, I'm not a promoter, if I was a promoter, I'd be like, "Nate, what are we going to do? We got to get weed? We got to get girls? What do I got to do? You want a new bike? What the do I got to do? What do we got to do? Deliver some weed and have a girl deliver weed on A NEW BIKE. AH! LIKE, FOR REAL, LIKE IF YOU wanted to make money, and that's what I presume they all want to do. And the reason why they want to have Brock Lesnar fight DC is cuz they want to make a ton of money, right? Nate Diaz.

56:45You want to make money? You call Nate Diaz. Go party with him. Become his good friend. Lighten him up. GIVE HIM WHAT HE WANTS. GIVE HIM A LOT OF MONEY. That's a good fight. I mean, it was there we saw it twice, you know. It's not just a good fight, it's a gigantic like fan-friendly spectacle of an experience. Nate Diaz doesn't take any You can't trash talk him. It doesn't work. Yeah, exactly. work. It works the opposite way. It works the opposite way. Like, when Conor talked Nate, Nate was like, "Fuck you." And it was like, "What?" Like, it didn't work. I ain't going to lie, man. One of my favorite Nate fights was him and him and Cowboy. Oh, that was a great fight. Right? He got in Cowboy's head. He did. It was a good lesson for Cowboy, though. So, an important fight for him in terms of like the path of his career. Yeah. You know? Yeah, he grew some from that. Yeah. But

57:38that that third round when Nate's standing there flipping him the bird. How good did Cowboy look against Mike Perry? Holy It's a new Cowboy. Yeah. He looked different, man. Look different. Just everything looks smooth and just like a goddamn executioner. rumors of that, too. I heard rumors like Cowboy and Conor. That's a fight that I would make. I would make that fight. That's a fight, too. That's a exciting fight. And that's a also a big sell. You could sell the out of that fight. That's a big fight. Ooh, but but Conor or excuse me, Cowboy has not been fighting at 55. You know, he's been doing majority of his fights um That's another 165 pounder. Yeah, how many fights has he fought? Till He's fought Masvidal. Those are all 70s. You know, they're all 70 fights. Yeah. Yeah. Perry. Is that There's only those three or was there another one? Leon. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Leon Edwards. Yeah. So,

58:33that's um Those are all 70s. Yeah, I don't think he's fought 55 in quite a while. I think he can still make it though. It's not a big 70, you know? Yeah. I thought he was talking about going back to 55. Didn't he say something to you about that? And you know, and if they do have a 65 pound weight class, He can That's where he sits for real. I I'm just I'm There's a lot of great fights at 65. Cowboy and Kevin Lee. Dude, anybody and Kevin Lee. Yeah. Kevin Lee's a beast, man. He's something special. I think Kevin Lee's one of those dudes you don't see him fight for 6 months and then he gets in there, you got a whole different animal in front of you. You got a guy with new skills, new momentum, new experience. He just He gets He's just in that I think he's 25 right now. He's in that peak prime learning, growing, confidence part of his career, you know, where he's just

59:24He's just a monster right now. I don't know, man. Those those guys are so much bigger than than the guys from my day. I know, 55? Kevin's like walks around 190 lbs. Big guy. I'm retired. I'm retired. I'm no longer in this. I don't worry about my weight as much. And I stand next to these guys and they're still bigger than me. Yeah. It's like how how is that? Why is that? You know what's the craziest? DC. Yeah. You stand next to DC, he's like 5'10. Yeah. 5'10 and he's like he could be a middleweight. He could be a middleweight. Picks up heavyweights, tosses them around, slams dudes, you know? I mean, when you see him with Derrick Lewis, you're like Derrick has no business being in there with this dude. And Derrick is a legit 265 murderer. Knockout puncher from hell. And no business being in there with DC. No. But then you saw that guy um Win. DC's training partner at the at the

60:20Affliction I'm not Affliction at the um Tito Ortiz fight. Oh. He fought Tom Lawlor. Oh, I didn't see that fight. Oh. Yeah, he's like 5'6. Really? Yeah. 5'6 205? What is he? 85 or 205? 205. Really? Yeah. 5'6? Who is he? Um I forget his first name. Win is his last name. He fought Tom Lawlor. He He He trains DC. DC's like yeah, this guy takes me down. What? Um yeah, he's a good wrestler. But it's funny cuz he sprawled on Tom Lawlor, but he's on his feet. Like he's standing, but he sprawled on Tom Lawlor who's on his knees. Like on his knees upright. Wow. And this kid is sprawled I guess yeah, I guess I'm older than him. This kid is sprawled on his head. Yeah. And but he he can he can box, too. But he's he's little. He He looks a little awkward. He looks like a guy you're in the you're in a you're in a Walmart parking lot, you talk to him cuz he's little. Yeah. He'll you up.

61:14Do you remember Dwight Muhammad Qawi? No. He used to be Dwight Braxton. He was the light heavyweight champion way back in the day. And then he fought Evander Holyfield as a cruiserweight. And Qawi was 195. He weighed was 5'7". He was just a tank of a man. And he would come at you like this. Just real low. He would get even lower. And he was a tough, tough guy, man. Just and real thick. Like you didn't see many dudes that were that thick back then. And he would wear his trunks way up high. So you had like this much body to hit. And it was all just jacked. It's like the strike zone. Yeah. Yeah, he's making it smaller. He was one of the first big tests for Evander Holyfield. Yeah. Dwight Muhammad Qawi from Camden, New Jer- the Camden Buzzsaw. That feels like I feel like that that I've heard of that, but I I don't remember anything. I feel like I heard the name before.

62:10versus Qawi. Qawi you spell with a Q. You talk about You talk about that, man. Q A W I, I think. How do you spell Qawi? Is that it? Q A W I, I know you. Q A W I? Yeah, I found the other guy, too. It's Daren Wynn. How do you have a Q with no U? Different language. Yeah, what is that? Q A W I. English rule. Qua. Yeah, what Q always has a U, right? In English, yeah. Yeah. Doesn't it? You want to see the Qawi? What if you start with a Q? See if you can get into that. Yeah, see this is he would fight real low. But he's just a tank of a dude. Yeah. And he was like all like bobbing and weaving and always ducking under. punches. And this is Evander Holyfield fresh out of the Olympics. He had had a few boxing matches, but wasn't you know, wasn't he wasn't the Evander Holyfield that we think of when he won the heavyweight title. And this is also before he started training with Mackie

63:10Shilstone. And Mackie Shilstone put a lot of muscle on him. Made him a lot bigger. He was a 195 pounder back then. You so like see how much thinner he is? But see like this is the style of Kahwei that bob and weave and style. See how Evander's having a hard time hitting him? Yeah, you move your head, protect your body when you're that small. And he was giving you all forehead and it was a big old bald forehead, too. So he's just like he's like coming at you all forehead first. Just a real skillful old school boxer though. And them them socks, old school stripes stripes on the calf. Pull them up. All the way up. I still love watching these old boxing matches. This is something I really miss, man, that boxing used to be on TV. Wide World of Sports. You know? They were showing actually Lomachenko like the best of Lomachenko too last night on ESPN2. Like a Well, he fights on ESPN.

64:02Yeah, he fights on ESPN. He's doing some serious world championship fights. ESPN has really stepped up and especially now that HBO has gotten out of the game, it's I mean, it's in a precarious situation. I don't know why HBO decided to get out of the boxing game. It's kind of crazy to me. Yeah. But after all those years of covering the greatest fights ever, HBO decided to just pull out. Yeah, I know. The the guy that started that or not started but the guy who's like the pay-per-view model creator, Mark Taffet, he he left and I don't know if if that had something to do with it. I'd imagine it has to be a profitability thing. I mean, I think that's the only thing that makes sense. Yeah, it has to be that they're just what they were losing money. I mean, you got to think the production is huge, right? You got all these cameras and all this thing and they're there live. They got to get the

64:44trucks, the production trucks. It's probably a live sports is probably an extremely expensive thing to pull off. You know? Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense. But they were the best at it. Lamley and Kellerman, I mean, commentary. Roy Jones Jr. doing commentary with them sometimes. Andre Ward, you know, they they had some of the the best fights ever, the best team ever. I like Roy Jones Jr. I love Roy Jones Jr. Trying to get him in here, too. You know, cuz uh do you know what what's happening with him? That uh Michael B. Jordan's talking about he could box Roy Jones. I love your reaction. Yes. It's hilarious. Yes. That's funny. I love I love a a cocky like robust young man who's delusional. I love Yeah, you got to add that caveat. I mean, he's a beast if you look at his body, right? Michael Jordan is just just jacked, full six-pack, built like a Greek god. But son, stop it. Creed's a movie.

65:51It's a movie, man. I know you felt good hitting those pads. I know you look good. Look at him. Roy Jones Jr. will light you up like a Christmas tree in Times Square. Rodman in his corner? I don't think that's Dennis Rodman. I know. Looks like his brother. I mean, he's jacked for sure. He looks good, but listen. Check It'd be a terrible disaster. Check out my segue. Like if he thinks he's that tough, he should come fight in PFL for a million dollars. So what is the deal with PFL and the million-dollar thing? Like what do you Is it for each individual weight class? You get a million dollars? So on on on New Year's Eve, there's a there's a $10 million prize pool. Um all the winners, the six winners of their championship fights, get a million dollars. Wow. So three fights for million dollars cuz of the playoffs fights, right? The playoffs are cool, too, though, because

66:38once you make the playoff, if you lose in the quarters, that's guaranteed 50. If you lose in the semis, that's 100. And then the finals are the winner gets a million, the loser 200. Still good. Still good money, right? Um I'm happy to see how good Vinnie's doing. Vinnie Magalhaes is a beast. He's a completely different guy, man. He is. You know, he always had uh the the some of the best jiu-jitsu you're ever going to see in MMA, period. But then his striking wasn't up to par. But now it is. His striking was good. I mean, he won two fights because of his striking. One with strikes and one by setting it up with his striking, you know? Um Vinnie, he's he's really working at it. He says he says he claims to be training four times a day for this. Um and he he looked that way. He didn't get out of the first round. Like each fight got longer, and the longest fight

67:28was like 2 minutes 33 seconds or something like that for Vinnie. Like his jiu-jitsu is on another level. I mean, Vinnie Magalhaes is one of just forget about MMA. He's one of the best in his weight class on the planet Earth in jiu-jitsu. I mean, he's a monster. Do you ever see when he flying armbar Pe de Pano? No. Dude. Dude, when you flying armbar a world champion like Pe de Pano, I mean, Vinnie just they they tie up and Vinnie just throws his 220-fucking-pound body up in the air and snatches his arm out of nowhere, flip him flips him over on his back, and Pe de Pano tapped out. HE WAS LIKE, "FUCK!" VINNIE'S a ninja. He's a bad dude. Yeah, his jiu-jitsu is really on. That's um I think that that is the fight that I'm the second fight that I'm looking to the most for the for the for the finals. Then that Ray Cooper the third. Dude. He's another one. 5'7". Haymakers.

68:21Vicious. Why did they make Jake Shields fight that dude again? It's just how it how it played out. That's crazy how they number eight seed, right? by by Ray, and then he's got to fight him again. And it's like he didn't have much time in between them. To improve, right? 5 months? Not even 5 months. It was like Let me see. The first one happened in like July. The second one was October. July, August, September, 3 months. Yeah. How crazy is it that Jake fought his dad? Jake fought his dad 14 years ago. Yeah. And then and when they were scheduled to fight the first time, Jake is the favorite cuz we know who Jake Jake Shields is. We don't know who Ray Cooper the third is. We don't know. State champion wrestler. Mhm. Haymakers. Hits like a truck. Dude, I mean he's just a tank of a man. And when you see him in there he doesn't look as small as it like when I stand

69:11next to him and talk to him he's like a short stocky guy. Yeah. But then when he's in there against Jake Shields he I don't know that persona that attitude that personality he's coming forward and Jake's backing up and it makes him look bigger than he is. Well, he's only 5'7" but Jesus Christ he hits so hard. He's terrifying. Mhm. And he's got crisp technique. Like it's not just like throwing wide looping ridiculous punches like Ricardo Mayorga or some that if they hit you you're No, he's throwing everything with great technique. He's a monster. I I think I mean he's he's he's been my biggest favorite this this season. Like just watching. Well, he's unquestionably world class and so is Vinny and that's one of the more interesting things about today's climate. I feel like with Bellator, with the PFL, um for I Absolutely with One FC and you have world class fighters in many

70:04organizations. It's not just the UFC and these guys can all come over and compete I mean essentially at the top of the heat right now and basically you got Lance Palmer, you got these guys in almost every organization that I feel like can compete with the best in the world in any organization. It's pretty it's getting pretty even now. Much more so than it was four or five years ago. Yeah, it's weird though because all of these things happened in the past. We had Pride, we had Strikeforce, you know, the WEC and then those things got absorbed, right? And then all the best guys ended up in the UFC. And then it's like, well, all the best guys are here now and like now these other organizations One was still around and one was always not a threat but always always had quality quality fighters, you know? Now we know that the One there's some some really legit guys over at One and we got

70:48Askren coming over. And now the PFL starting up. Like guys like Vinny, his his career like he's a different guy now. Like with the fight compete with anybody at 205. I really do. I really do. Like it's a very different story for a lot of guys. But now what happens when when these guys in the UFC the number eight ranked heavyweight in the UFC sees a guy make a million dollars. And he's like, I would And he's And he's thinking to himself, I'll THAT GUY UP. I LOVE IT. IT'S GOOD. IT'S GOOD FOR EVERYBODY. YEAH. Competition is great for the sport. It's great for the athletes. It's great for the organizations because the organizations, whether they like it or not, it's going to make them pick up their game. It's going to make them step up. don't like to pick up their game, Joe. Some people like to be com- They just like to be comfortable. That is not life. That is not. That is not life.

71:40Well, it's not. Life is pick up your game. Man, I got I got I There is something I wanted to show you that um that reminded me of why I need to pick up my game. I was looking through my through my phone a couple of months ago and I have this video of my dad. I'm going to show it to you. You had to turn this down. But I'm just going to go straight to the end cuz that's the coolest part. Do you want to send it to Jamie? Yeah, I can do that. I'll um Can you AirDrop it to him? I can AirDrop it to Jamie. technology. I see Young Jamie's MVP. Yeah, that's it. That's it. Bam. There we go. Jamie, what are you going to call yourself when you hit 50? What What What's Lil Wayne going to call himself? Best answer ever. And I didn't name myself. You did. That's right. I named you. True. It's a good point. But you got to go through You got to go forward some through some of it. But yeah, like like

72:35just reminded of like some of the things in my life. I would I I've been kind of are we going to see? What is this? So my dad my dad dad is limbo, right? My dad was the baddest limbo dancer on the planet. Really? Um and he did some crazy crazy stuff. You might need to try it again. It it uh I think when you Oh, probably when I closed my phone. Okay. Um, there we go. Waiting for Jamie to grab it. I'll leave it open. Um, no, my dad used to dance limbo. And um Limbo's when you go under the stick, right? Yes. Yes. And um, he I don't want to I don't want to ruin it. Right. But he was the best. He used to tell jokes also. Like 88. Oh. Like the year before he died. Wow. Yeah. So Like I I don't know. I just reminds me of some of the thing and and peop- my family, anytime I did something that I thought was cool, they would just be like Yeah, like so what? Your dad your dad

73:30would do that kind of It's like it was like Like I could never get out of his shadow. But this is your dad? That's my dad. Oh, With fire? Yeah. Damn, how the is he doing that? That is insane. Dude, that's insane. Yeah, he did this for like tons of he did it for like he used Everybody wanted to see him do this. He did it in front of Mandela, he did in front of the queen. You know. Look, he's going to go under it there? Yeah. But it it gets better than this. Hold on. He did Damn. How the is he doing that? You know what kind of core strength that takes? Yeah. Blowing fire? But this right here. Now, this is where it gets ridiculous. This is like I I see this and I'm like, yeah, that's my dad. Like He's going to go What? So this is on fire, folks, and this this thing is I'm not bullshitting. And he's got two flaming pizzas in his hands. And he's like that that might be what?

74:2513, 14 inches off the ground, and he's going under it. That's insane. And he's spitting fire while he's doing it. Holy You weren't joking. No, my dad was a badass. That's crazy. How crazy is looking at this old VHS footage digitized? It's not that long ago, man. No. And that's a different world. And that that That kind of thing my dad kind of I mean, I was always with I used to love being with him, you know, he's like my best friend. I remember I was telling my son this story about him. So, I had this this thing with my kid and I'm recording this conversation with me and my son and I'm like, "What would you do if you could go back in time?" And he's like, "What?" I was like, "If you had a time machine, you could go anywhere, where would you go?" He's like, "I don't know, the 1900s." And I'm like, "I grew up in the 1900s, what are you talking about? That was like last

75:09week." Right? I want to grow up I want to be in the '90s, Dad. What? And then I told him the story. I was like, "You know, remember when I was little, my dad used to he used to bring me on stage to do that?" I was like 4 or 5 years old. No, I was like 4 years old. And he'd pick me up and carry me under the under the bar, right? And one time he brings me on stage, he's like, "This is my son." And he presents me and the spotlight's on me and I'm like shy and I'm like, "Oh." And he's kind of disappointed, you know, he's really disappointed in me that day. And then um a couple weeks later he I was with him again, he's like I was like, "Daddy, will you bring me back on stage?" And he brings me on stage and um he's about to pick me up and I'm like, I moonwalk away and I go back to my seat. And he loved it. He loved it. You know what? I told my son that story my

75:50dad was like he afterwards we walked through the hotel to go back and he has me on his shoulders and he's just so proud. He's like, "You see my boy?" And he's like, you know, I told my son about that and my son was like this is like 40 minutes later in the conversation and my son is like, "Dad, if I had a time machine, I'd go back and hang out with you and your dad." Wow. And I was like that was like that was like the best moment of my life, Wow. Yeah, cuz he didn't get to meet him, but it's one of those things, man. And and just just thinking about that kind of thing um kind of makes it inspires me to like to like want to do things where where you know, kids. Like this is what my dad did that for me and he made me excited about things and now I want to do stuff where something where where I can give something to kids. And um This is what you're doing with your book? That's what

76:34I'm doing with that and and like my thing is mixed martial arts, right? So, this thing this this is the first book, the Talon Quest. And um So, it's about these characters. These these Did you write all this? So, here's the thing. The concept and the characters came with me. I have a I have a good friend. She's a she's a psychologist and she's in Australia. She wrote this story out and um then we have this girl that does the the illustration. She's a Nary Ann. She fights she fights in one. She's fighting this weekend. Right? So, like It's all it's all about mixed martial arts and psychology of it and and working on on all these different things. But, we're going to put this whole program together that that's all about teaching kids like discipline, self-respect, you know, self-resilience, all of these things. And put these stories together with these characters. And um it's a whole

77:22lot of fun. I I I have a book for you and I'll I want I want you to to to enjoy it with with, you know, with with your little ones. I will do that. Thank you, man. That's awesome. So, is this available for sale? Where can people get it? So, you can get it on Amazon and Amazon K What is it? KDP? I have I have to read the thing in my phone. But, it's um it will be available. We we're going to release it on the 15th of December. And um you can get it by ebook and you can also get it um a printed copy like this. So, let me know when it comes out. It's the 15th of December. If you would remind me or something. Remind me and I'll tweet it. Man, that'll be super dope. Um when this PFL thing comes out, when when is this it's on New Year's and it's on NBC Sports? So, what channel was that on? What is NBC Sports on DirecTV? That's one of them weird ones. Yeah. You got to find

78:12it. Yeah. You got You want to watch the Olympics, right? Is that what it's on? NBC Sports? NBC Sports. If you want to watch curling. Or like synchronized swimming. Or some Yeah, taekwondo. Yeah, it has all the Well, they're they're going to do MMA. They're talking about doing MMA now. In the Olympics, yeah. I heard about that. It's right next to like FS1. It's right It's FS1 is 219. NBC's SN is 220. So, it's a great net channel. Um what is NBC's plans for this? For this Is this like this is obviously they spent a lot of money because they're giving a million dollar prize to three different guys. Yeah, well the PFL is its own organization. They have So it's a it's a partnership with NBC. So the PFL puts the money up for the fighters. NBC does have does in you know, there's an influx of money coming in from NBC, but the PFL is in control of all of that. So I don't

79:01know what NBC's plans are, you know, but the PFL has big plans. They they have a contract with NBC that I believe the contract is up this year, but of course they're going to renegotiate, you know. They're going to work things out. And this is the only MMA product that NBC has. MMA is hot right now. So I don't believe NBC wants to wants to let the PFL go. It's the the the thing that seems to be the bottleneck with other organizations is the name. It's a you know, the UFC is like the NFL. It's like got this it's the biggest name. UFC is MMA to to a lot of people. To a lot of people. And then you hear about the PFL you're like what's what's that mean? What's Bellator mean? What is One FC? What does that mean? It doesn't mean anything. It's like it's hard to get I think Bellator is making some ground, you know, because they've been doing plenty of television events and

79:47Paramount Network is a big network. A lot of people get the chance to see it. They've had good ratings, but it still hasn't caught fire. Right. The the thing with the PFL yeah, the name Professional Fighters League. Yeah. Like you hear PFL you don't know what that means. You hear Professional Fighters League you have an idea what's going on. But it's a good name. It's a great name. Um, and it's the name is is representative of what it is. Mhm. You know, it's a league. We have a regular season. So you fight in the regular season. You score a certain amount of points. You score points by getting finishes. You score points by getting finishes in the first round. You know, you win the fight that's three points. You got to finish in the first that's three additional points. Second round two points. Third round one point. And then at the end of the regular season the top eight seeds

80:29get into the playoffs and you fight by your seed. So that's why Jake had to fight fight Ray Cooper again. Cuz Jake kind of edged into that eight spot and Ray Cooper was the number one. Might want to rework that system. Jake might want to rework it. the um finish in the third round is worth less than a finish in the first. That don't make any sense to me. Yeah, it's um because it's a little tougher to finish in the third. Yeah, not only not only that, it's a finish. A finish is a finish. Yeah, I I I agree. But I don't Like sometimes it takes a while to finish a guy. Like like here's a perfect example. Say uh you're fighting a guy like uh a Josh Thompson, you know, back in the day. Like this is a tough fight. Right. These are two world-class fighters versus you fighting Henry Smith from Albuquerque that nobody knows. Right. if you finish that guy in the first

81:18round. Like yeah, you've got to finish in the first round. But did you get a finish over a world-class guy? If you've got a finish over a world-class guy in the third, that's worth more. I mean, it's depending upon who you're fighting and what what style they how resilient they are, how difficult they are to beat. But then it gets becomes more subjective when you're talking about the difficulty and matching up styles and then you're starting to to to bring the odds into it from like like I guess it wouldn't be betting odds, but similar to betting odds, you know? So, it's one of those things where there is no perfect way, but you take what you have and do the best of what you can. I get it, but a point the difference is in two points. Like you get three points for the first round, but one point if you finish in the third. all that. Finish is a finish, man. You So, bonus

82:07points for a finish is what is your Finish is a finish. I I made that argument. We we we had that conversation. It's it's like But then again, then what do you do? How do you get bonus What do you get bonus points for? Here's a perfect example. How dare you? How dare you try to diminish Yair Rodriguez's last-second KO of the Korean zombie. Impossible. He shouldn't get all the points for that. That was crazy. He literally knocked the guy out with one second to go with a no-look elbow. I mean, that's all the points. Give them all the points. That's legit. Like yeah yeah yeah you get you get so many points for a finish whether it be first, second, or third round. But points for a decision. I agree because the the one the one difference that we have is isn't a draw. Like both guys get one point. I feel that if if you or if it goes to a decision, maybe you should get points.

83:03You know? Maybe you should get a point for for surviving, but the winner gets more. And then if you get finished, you get no points, but the finisher gets all the points. Well, it's it's definitely squirrely. Like the the idea behind it squirrely. I get what they're doing. But I don't buy it. I I I buy the I buy the fact that you got to get points cuz it's kind of like kind of like college wrestling, you know? You get team points. You get you get points for a pin. You get four for the pin. You get three I'm sorry you get five for the pin. You get No, you get six for the pin. I'm sorry you get five for the major decision, you know? You get three for the decision. It's it's weird, but and it may be tweaked next year. There may be some tweaks. for people to remember all that That's the thing. So we're constantly talking about it on on on on air, you know? As as the

83:52fight's going on. Yeah, but the people listening are drunk. They're like, "What the are they talking about? What is the point?" They can't do the math with their commas. Yeah. But it's it's it's super cool because it changes sometimes guys' attitudes when they're in there. They they changes what they do and how they respond in the fight, you know? Um say the fight There was a fight with Kyle Annalcar and Mike Kyle, right? Both of these guys needed a finish to get into the playoffs. Either one of those guys gets a finish, they get into the playoffs. Josh Copeland's sitting at home hoping that nobody gets a finish. The fight starts and boom, my Kyle rocks Kyle Allen Capps. And it's like it looks like he's going to get a first round finish, make it into the playoffs. Kyle Allen Capps starts coming back. He gets on top in the second round. He looks like he's going to get the finish and

84:37make it to the playoffs. These guys go to the third. Both guys are gassed now. Nobody finishes. Josh Copeland jumps off his chair at home and he's in the playoffs now. And now he's in the finals. Like he was the eighth seed. He beat the number one seed. Then he beat the number five seed by KO. Now he's in the Now he's in the finals and he has a chance to make a million dollars. The number eight seed is going in. Interesting. Okay, that you just made a good argument for it. Mhm. I'm not sure if I buy it though. You buy it, Joe. You buy it. Why don't they revamp the scoring system? I would not be surprised um if this off season we we do some some some brainstorming and and change a few things. But I don't know if a whole lot is going to be changed. Um I think some a few things will be changed and next season's going to be even better, you know. And to a man, I've heard I've

85:28heard virtually every high-level guy, every UFC level guy that I've spoken to, um they said to me, "They going to be able to pay that million dollars?" When when they see that million dollars is real, Yeah. then I want to see the reaction to that. That's going to change everything. Once people get that million-dollar check, you know, once you you see someone, you know, you see Vinny Magalhaes driving around in a Ferrari, in a Rolls-Royce. What the Look at that I kicked his ass. Yeah. In that Rolls-Royce. I know. Yeah. You going to see Ryan Bader sitting around going, "What? The fuck?" He's going to be mad. Ryan Bader's another guy who's transformed, right? He's like a legit heavyweight contender now. He looks good, man. The way he beat Mitrione, like Jesus Christ. And Mitrione Mitrione has improved. Yeah. Mitrione has improved a lot. Knocked out Fedor. Yeah. I mean, come on. That's a

86:21I mean, that's a feather in your cap for the rest of your life. Shoot. I I sat next to Fedor, and that's a feather in my cap. I know, right? we I was going to go uh to watch the uh Fedor Fedor's fighting uh Ryan Bader in LA. They're fighting at the Forum. But there's uh there's a UFC that night. Can't go. I wanted to go see Fedor fight live. Yeah. Never seen him fight live, and I felt like that was a great fight, him versus Bader. Like that's a great fight to see live. I've never I've never seen him fight live, either. I have a picture of me, Fedor, and Tim Crater. Really? Like just just Tim was fighting, and Fedor was giving me some advice on on what to tell Tim. What was he saying? Oh, He was just He's just He's got to stay low, keep him away cuz he's fighting Chael. Right. is before Chael was Chael. And he's like, he's he's he's wrestler. Like he

87:11And somebody's translating, too. But um he's talking to me, he's talking to me, he's talking to me, and someone comes along and translates, but he's like, he's got to stay low and keep him outside, keep him outside. The guy translating sounds like this. He He's He says He says Fedor say, he keep him outside and stay low. Damn. But just just having a conversation with that dude and sitting next to him, and he's not that big of a guy. Fedor is not that big of a guy. So He's another guy who probably could be a middleweight. Yeah. Fedor is awesome, though. I mean, if you see some of the middleweights that are in the UFC, like Yoel. Yoel was in your chair, sitting right there, and it looked like somebody dropped a a giant iron sculpture of a superhero and put it It didn't even look like a He doesn't look like a human. He's so big, dude. He's like 220-plus. Just jacked. Everything. Neck,

87:58shoulders, back. Just jacked. You're like, that is a heavyweight. Yeah. You know, if you sit him next to Fedor, he looks way bigger way bigger than Fedor. Yet, he fights at 185. also so jacked and ripped, and he's like my age. It's incredible. Like but he's he's not like he like you can be my age and be ripped. Like I am if I take off my shirt but I don't want to embarrass you right now. So don't. Thank you. But but like the way he is he's ripped like a 25-year-old. He's ripped like a bodybuilder. Yeah. Yeah. Right? He's a freak of all freaks. Yeah. Like he like you see his body in the ring and you go first of all how did he make weight? That's what I always think. Like when even when he steps on the scale like back before we had the early weigh-ins we had the weigh-ins at the actual time of 4:00 he would step on the scale and make weight and you're

88:43like HOW IS THAT 185 LB? It doesn't even make sense. He looks like he's 200 lb easy. Plus. That that same thing happened in in the match with um Conor and and Floyd. When Conor was getting on the scale Yeah. Um Mayweather's Mayweather's promoter was like he's not going to make the weight. He's not going to make the weight. But I don't know there's there's some guys who you know especially MMA guys are bigger than boxers. Yeah. You know? So it's one of those things like Yoel has that down. He's he's he is huge. But that dehydration hits and that's probably why he sucks. Lockhart talked about it. Yeah. Look at the size of that dude. That guy is like 42 years old. 42. He's so big. He's so jacked and unparalleled wrestling skills too. Oh Yoel Romero versus David Branch is booked? I don't know if it What is that? Click on that It might not be this is could be older.

89:32It might be new though. Click on that What do we got? What is this? UFC on Fox. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's old. So that never happened. Right? That never happened. I don't remember it happening. That didn't happen. Hm. I typed in Yoel versus Fedor and there's a picture of them matching up for 234. division is kind of crazy cuz they're promising if uh Stylebender fights Anderson they're saying to Anderson if you win you get a title shot. And everybody else in the division is like what? Mhm. What? Yeah. Like Do you think that that's like some trickery to get Anderson to fight Stylebender? I That's exactly what I think it is. That's exactly what I think it is. I um Cuz if they offer Stylebender a title shot if he beats Anderson Dan Hooker I don't believe so. And that Dan Hooker Dan Hooker posted that on on his on his Instagram. And I I just like I like Hooker and I just had to say

90:24something. I was just like look, we know that Style and my thought was we know when Stylebender wins this fight cuz I really believe Stylebender Stylebender's going to win that fight. When he wins this fight, he's not going to get that title shot. And I For me as a former fighter and knowing who Anderson is and what he's done for the sport and for the UFC, I'm just like I feel like that's that's that's that's so it's disrespectful if you ask me. Um that's my opinion. It's an opinion, it's mine, and I stand by it. That that you know, we want to make this young guy a star and we're going to we're going to sacrifice you to the wolf to get that done. But Anderson still feels like he can compete at the highest level. Man, we all going to feel like we compete If if you put enough money in front of me, I will I will Khabib up. Right? Right? You put something in front of me that I really want.

91:17Right. Um like that's the thing. They give you a goal, they give you a time period to train and prepare for it. Yeah. Anderson's what? 43 now? Yeah. Yeah. So So that's that's the thing. the realm of possibilities. He's the same age as Yoel. Or close to it. Yeah, it's not least 40. Yoel's at least yeah. He's I believe he's 40. He might be 41. I mean, it's not The problem with And I mean and then Anderson may started failing drug tests. You're like okay, so he's probably struggling. He's trying to get that edge, you know, trying to trying to recover in training. So he's taking a bunch of weird supplements and some of them are tainted and I bet you if you go back to just go back to what you used to do. Go back to what it was you did when you became the Anderson Silva that everybody loves, you know? Before before he got to the point where like before the Forrest Griffin fight.

92:13Because I believe that's when it started to decline for him. Yeah, he still looked good and he still still performed well, but he got away from from the fundamentals, you know? Um in that Forrest Griffin fight, he was able to take Forrest out without the fundamentals, moving his head, doing doing these weird things, and just popping back. Um the fundamentals are what what's strongest thing in the game. For sure. That fundamental the the Forrest Griffin fight's an interesting example, too, though, because Forrest had been KO'd twice in training for that fight. Like he had no business being in there. They really And he just couldn't take shot. Which uh is another thing I want to talk to you about, Tito Chuck. Yeah. As a guy who's retired, who had a an awesome career, and you're watching that, and you're seeing a guy come back at 50 and get stopped like that, what

93:00does what did that do for you? You kind of knew that Well, I felt that Chuck shouldn't be taking that fight, you know? Tito's been competing, Tito's still in there. And then when they stepped in, as soon as they touched up, it's like, yeah, Chuck shouldn't be in here. He looked That's the first time he looked that much smaller than Tito. He didn't look the same size as Tito. He didn't look comfortable. He didn't look as coordinated. Like Chuck was always little quirky and awkward in his movement, but he didn't even look like Chuck Liddell. He looked like a shell of Chuck Liddell. Um and as a person him hitting the the pads, like recent video of him hitting the pads? No. Did it look terrible? Yeah, see? he was just warming up. Like he had talked to Brendan Schaub about it. He says, "I always look bad when I'm warming up." And like, it's not just that Look, it looked like his balance

93:46was off. Like I I get that. I I would I would See, if I would have saw that beforehand, I still wouldn't put a whole lot of stock in that because like I remember being in a locker room before I fought Hermes, Frank Mir for the first time in the UFC, and Nick Diaz was in my locker room. And Nick's hitting pads, and um he's about to fight Robbie, and he's hitting pads, and he's like, "Yeah, I'm going to knock this out. Yeah." And I'm like, "Not the way you're hitting those pads." Like, he didn't look He didn't look like He didn't look sharp. He didn't look like he had any power. And then he went out there and knocked Robbie out. Well, he probably was just warming up though, right? Like, sometimes when guys are warming up, they'll just they'll just they're just trying to get their body warm. Yeah. They're not really trying to look like a fighter. They're not trying to

94:26look like sharp like they're going to be inside the inside the cage. And yeah, he I mean, so Chuck one Let's see if you can find that. Chuck Chuck Liddell hitting pads. It's different. It's different because it's like it he his balance looks off. His coordination looks off. It just doesn't look uh it doesn't look good. You know, it just there's a you know, here it is, right here. Take a look at this. Watch this. Yeah. Yeah. Looks like he has no pop, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it it's crazy to watch, right? It just looks like Let's see how he throws that kick and and leans back afterwards. It just looks off. Look, there's a real issue with someone who's had that many KOs. You've been KO'd that many times. Like, your your brain's been scrambled that many times. Like, what is how is the the connection between your muscles and your mind? Yeah, goosebumps. Neurological Yeah, it

95:30makes you uncomfortable, right? Yeah, it does. Like, I mean, and that's Chuck. Yeah. what I mean? One of the greatest of all time. I don't know. I I don't And I 49 also, you know, 50. That's that's There's a point. Yeah. I almost feel like I would do it again for for certain I I'm not trying to be a world champion. I'm not trying to get to Khabib or Dustin and those guys, you know. Um but like Joe Lauzon, Diego Sanchez, somebody that's like from the same era, at least a part of the era that I was in. Somebody like that, you know, somebody who I have respect for and it like it's it's going to be fun and something but like I'm not and I guess that's what Tito and Chuck is but also Chuck beat him twice. Yeah. You know, what's He beat him twice by knockout but the I think he just felt like he always had Tito's number. But this is the problem is like Tito wins now. Yeah. Right? Like

96:20the the guy who he never wanted to win now wins. The guy who wouldn't fight him when he was the champ now now is the winner. Like when it all said and done, Tito KO'd him. And he KO'd him more soundly than Chuck ever KO'd Tito. Cuz when Chuck KO'd Tito, he he basically beat him down and then Tito covered up but he was conscious. Right. Like Right. Chuck went to sleep. Chuck out. He put him out. And you know, I mean it was a good shot for sure but it just seems like you're dealing with a guy who's who's brains are, you know, it's just he's been scrambled too many times. Yeah. Were you surprised that they made that fight? I am surprised that the commission let the fight happen. Yes, if that's what you mean. I'm not surprised that that Oscar De La Hoya and Tito Ortiz came together and said, "Let's get Chuck to fight me." Right. You know, I'm not surprised about that at all.

97:12Um Do you know that they said it was only like 25,000 pay-per-view buys? That's what I heard. That kind of sucks. That's crazy. Horrible. That's so low. That must have cost everybody money. Like I have more Instagram followers than that. Yeah, it was a hard sell and the undercard wasn't so good either. It wasn't like there was a lot of like big names on the undercard that's going to draw people in where they're going to go, "Well, it's going to be great fights no matter what." You know? Yeah, the the the undercard was not that great. No. No, you know. You you saw the whole show? No. You Cuz that's right, you didn't you didn't see who won. But the um the undercard was not great. Um and then the Tito-Chuck fight Chuck I mean, Tito looks like the the the much better striker, much more accomplished striker in that fight. And like Tito Ortiz knocked out knocked out

98:01Chuck Liddell. Is that that's like a phrase I never thought I would hear and it be real. But, isn't it also the case of not just Tito remaining active and staying competitive and what it is. It's that too, but it's also Tito's skills got better. They definitely got better. Jason Perillo is an awesome instructor. I mean, he's a fantastic boxing coach and and he really tightened up Tito's hands and all his techniques over over the course of the years they were together. And the last time Tito and Chuck fought, iPhones hadn't been invented. Yeah. Think of that Yeah. You know? No iPhones. People using Sidekicks. Remember those? Remember those things? I remember that. I remember that. Flip up the keyboard and and everybody thought they were slick. Yeah. That was the last time they fought. It's a different and MySpace was a thing. It's a different world, man. It's just um

98:50it's just sad to see it go down like that where I mean, it would be one thing if it was a good fight. If like Tito looked like Chuck, Chuck looked like Tito, cuz Tito looked good. Yeah. Chuck did not look good. They both looked good and they put on their best fight and then Tito wound up winning, good for him. But, it wasn't that. It was one guy was a just a shell. A shell of himself. So, what kind of fight for Tito or a rematch for Tito would make sense to to that you think would sell? Is there is there one? Tito versus Chael will sell a little bit. I mean, he's been calling Chael out saying I want to kick your ass, but I think that was probably before the pay-per-view numbers came in. And then they're like, "Ugh." Oscar De La Chael's like Chael's like, "Nah." He's probably got 15 voicemails on Oscar's phone. Oscar ain't calling back. Oscar's just sitting there going, "Fuck.

99:40Tito Ortiz willing to postpone retirement to kick Chael Sonnen's ass again. Yeah, see. But the thing is he's going to try to do that with Oscar and Golden Boy and that's going to sell 13,000 pay-per-view buys. Nobody's going to buy that. Well, I mean if if Chael gets in on the marketing, somebody will buy it. Look, if if they could figure out a real competitive fight for Tito against someone who's got a big name. I don't know who that big name would be, but he could still sell some. Did you see the um Did you see There was somebody posted these I think Renato Laranja posted these two videos of Tito where um it was like somebody was asking him how does he feel about this fight with Chuck? And he's like, "I'm a much better fighter than I was 12 years ago. I'm a much better fighter. I'm I'm bigger. I'm stronger. I'm younger. I'm He said he's younger? Tito gets a little

100:30flustered with the mic. Said he wanted to outlive his kids, too. Like, dude, that's the worst thing you can do. Yeah, right. He also said He also said He also said The guy was like, "So, who's making the money off of the pay-per-view? Is it just you Is it um all the fighters on the card? Or is it just you and Chuck?" And he's like, "Yeah, it's me, myself, and Chuck. We're going to make the money off of the pay-per-view." You know, he just he just gets flat and he just powers through these things. Yeah. Well, you know, it's not a talker's business. It's a fighter's business. Yeah, it's weird, you know, you're asked asked to be several things. And when a guy like Conor comes along or a guy like Colby Covington. Oh, that was the other thing I wanted to talk about. They're talking about Colby not fighting Tyron for the title now. And then Usman leapfrogging

101:11over Colby who's the interim champ. Didn't they strip Colby? Did they strip him? I believe Colby was stripped. Maybe they did strip him. Yeah, maybe they did strip him, which is also weird. Which is weird because like that would have been Tyron's first fight back from that that shoulder surgery. You know, that's what the interim's for, right? Yeah. I mean, that's If it's not, then what's an interim for? Unless if they stripped him, that's the only reason why I could see saying Usman. But also that's another thing where I think it's probably negotiation tactics. It's like the the Nate Diaz Dustin Poirier thing. Yeah. I remember looking this up and someone was trying to correct me last time I did. It was supposed to be, which I don't know if it actually happened, when that fight happened with Tyron until when that fight happened he was supposed to be stripped. But he's on the website he's

101:56still listed as the interim champ. Well, it's a good move to keep him the interim champ if they decide to fight cuz then it's champ versus champ. You know, if they do decide to make that fight. I feel like on paper at least um financially it's a good fight cuz uh like Colby talks so much It's like it's worth, you know, it's worth putting together just for that cuz people don't know who Usman is as much. But Usman's a nightmare for anybody. He is the biggest, I believe, biggest threat to Tyron right now. Solid wrestling, solid striking, conditioning, everything, super strong. Yeah. And just has been on a tear and has gotten better with every fight. He's been proven, has gone through the trial by fire inside the octagon. Exactly. Like Colby has Colby has the wrestling, um submission awareness at least. Um his offensive submissions aren't the best but he can finish you.

102:52Um and his striking is competent but he has no power. Um he's not going to hurt Tyron. Interim title holder. Oh, okay. He still has it. Yeah. So they didn't strip him. They decided to keep him. But who knows? They might have just not updated the website. He was actually the ref. He was one of my students. Really? Yeah. Wow. That's great. He's a great ref. Yeah, he's a good ref. Um the the Colby thing is interesting, you know, it's like his fight against Rafael dos Anjos. Like anybody who thought he wasn't for real, like you see that fight. He beat the out of dos Anjos. And his conditioning is incredible. I mean, that is that is one of the big things about that dude is his conditioning. It's off the charts. get tired in the gym, yeah. He does not get tired. He's a animal. Yeah. So, that's one of the thing that makes that fight interesting with Tyron. Can he push Tyron?

103:38But, can he survive? That's the thing. Yeah. That's the big thing. See, Dos Anjos is more of a volume striker at 170. He's not going to knock those bigger guys out. But, Tyron knock out anybody. So, this is this is a I want to see that fight. And the thing with with Colby, like the last time I trained with him, it's been about a year. But, at that point, he was hard to miss. You know? Um for me, I know I'm a striker, but um Tyron like Tyron's got good crisp boxing, but he hits so hard. So hard. He's so fast, too. He's so strong. He's so fast. Like, his straight right hand is just I remember when he fought um Carlos Condit, he hit him with a lead right hand and I was just like, "Whoa, did somebody like remove some frames from that?" From reality? He crossed over so fast. Like, his distance like he closed the distance so quick. He's explosive, and he's so fast. I don't I don't know. I

104:33Tyron's a real champion. You know what I mean? He's a real champion and and the not getting the credit that he deserves for a long time. That that bothers him. Well, he's in a handful of the greatest welterweights of all time now, in my opinion. You got Matt Hughes, who's a legend. You've got, of course, Georges St-Pierre, Robbie Lawler, and then Tyron, who knocked out Robbie Lawler. I mean, in my opinion, he's right up there and as these wins pile up, you make more of a case of him being the best welterweight ever. Yeah, Tyron with that being said, he's he's beaten a lot of the guys in the division, but he needs like you said earlier, he needs a fight like a GSP. He needs some something where somebody else is established because with him coming in and taking out Robbie and and all these other young guys, they're proven amongst themselves and amongst each other. But,

105:21a lot of the like you said, nobody knows Kamaru Usman. Yeah. Right? And Usman, he's he's a threat. To everybody. to everybody. Everybody. You know, he he's been wanting He's been wanting Colby. He's been wanting Darren Till. He wants He wants everybody cuz he wants that shot at the belt. Yeah. And um I believe for real he's the biggest biggest threat to Tyron. But um Tyron could win that fight also, could win it convincingly, and then it means nothing to the to the world who Tyron wants to respect what he's done as the champion. Yeah, in that case that's one of the reasons why I think the the fight with Colby makes the most sense. I think it'd be the most controversial, highest profile cuz Colby will talk mad Tyron will get really angry. And if he beats him and smashes him, then it steps up him and puts him in a And then it in the meantime, I mean, Till's not going

106:09to fight at 170 anymore. Till's moved up to 185. Okay. So like but you still have a plethora of killers in the welterweight division. I mean, you can make a lot of matchups. But the Colby fight The Colby fight also could help Tyron get over too because Colby's going to talk talk a lot of And some of it's disrespectful. And people people people like to see those guys get stopped. That's true. You know. That's true. So. That's that's that Maybe that's one. That's You'd like to see those guys get stopped. Not just get beat. For Tyron to win that fight, for the most part he has to stop Colby. Yeah. You know, because Colby's not going to quit and in the fourth round he's going to He's going to step on the gas. And Tyron can't keep up, then it's going to be a problem. Yves Edwards, I got David Goggins here, too. He's here next, man. So uh anything else before we get out of here? The only

107:00other thing was the ketone meals. Like those things are awesome. They they want to make an an elk meal and they wanted to want to talk to you about about about it. We'll talk about that afterwards. We'll talk about that after. So what what is that company? What is it? Ketone Ketone bodies. Ketone bodies. Ketone bodies. The ketone meals um and um you can look them up online. Ketone meals online. working with them? Yes, they they've been sponsoring me and they've sent me good stuff to my house. Beautiful. We'll talk. Yves Edwards, thank you, sir. Always a pleasure. PFL New Year's Eve New Year's Eve NBC Sports Check us out. Bye, everybody. Gracias.