Ali Revival Act Senate heating fallout, Alex Pereira's GOAT potential, more | The Craic

The crack is back ladies and gentlemen and my god, we nearly thought we weren't going

to make it here today with technical updates to laptops and what have you, but we're

here.

Andi, she got it all done.

We have a working computer.

I'm from a different angle slightly today because I'm using a different computer.

And you can see I've got a glow to me today.

That's because I got sunburned while I was walking my dog.

That is not important though because this is a combat sports show.

And if you didn't know, there was a big Senate hearing on Wednesday.

We had Niko Ali Walsh, we had Oscar De La Hoia, we had Nick Khan, Ted Cruz, everybody

weighing in on the Ali reform act.

Now you know that I have two of the greatest journalists in the history of combat sports

on this show.

But when I suggested adding someone a bit more expertise to this conversation, well,

the boys bit my hand off because it is a man that has been on this show before.

You might know him from those episodes.

You might know him from the Hay not the face sub stack, which is absolutely amazing.

He is an authority on all things, combat sports, litigation, and he'll be joining us

all today.

Let's bring in the four pack.

It is Chuck Maninhal, Ben folks and John S. Nash, John S. Nash, my God, welcome, sir.

We are very, very happy to have you here.

Sorry for the reclining pose.

I got, let me, if you can see, I don't even know if you can see, I got my cat on my lap,

right?

So my hands are doing this.

This is really unfortunate that my camera, I can't tell it even lower because right now

this is just not going to look good.

The whole shit owe me doing that, so let's just let you know.

I just want the audience to know that is, that is my cat.

My cat is actually right there.

Look at this amazing setup, John.

He looks so relaxed.

I know.

He's got the, like, the mic that comes in, like he's Howard Stern or something.

He's, he's a man holding that mic.

They're like holding it over.

Yeah, there it is.

I got the boom mic operator.

I got the, I got the, having a cat on his lap, like he's a blonde villain.

Yeah.

I was thinking more of Don Corleone, but it's a little pathetic over every Donters, you

know, but still, I'm just, I just saw your audience on the video would like to know that

I am not stroking myself, there is a cat everywhere.

You're on the right show for it.

Yeah.

If you, if you need to, you know what do we need to do really?

It's the first time for this.

Yeah.

John, we are so happy to have you here because we need to get on to this set and hearing.

A lot of people have come away from this and the discussion I'm seeing and the discourse

kind of voids with a lot what you've been saying before where this is almost a foregone

conclusion at this point.

I mean, a lot of people feel like this is just a matter of time.

Tell me what your key takeaways were from Wednesday's hearing.

Well, I think some people are, I think it's more of a foregone conclusion to me.

I've always said the odds are it's very likely that this gets passed and signed into legislation

that the bills pass, both chambers goes to Donald Trump's desk.

I think that's very likely, but I don't think it's a 100% guaranteed, like some people

seem to say only because you'll pay attention to the news.

There's a lot of shit that's going on.

And like this bill itself is really late.

They had plans for it to be signed and in place by the beginning of this year when they

rolled out Zufo boxing, but because the shutdown last fall, you know, the original hearing

was delayed like five, six weeks.

And so they ran on a lot of problems that, you know, you got a warner on.

You got the Epstein file still floating out there.

You got members of the house dropping out repeatedly.

It's possible still that something could happen, but based on the performance, based on how

I went yesterday, you have to say that for Zufo, they have to be feeling very confident

that this will eventually, I shouldn't say eventually, very rapidly get to a vote in the

Senate and likely pass because as people in Congress have told me, I've spoken just

disclosure, I've spoken to members of the committees, their staff, the one thing they've

noted is there is not a, is large of organized resistance as there are typically for bills.

Usually you have any sort of labor bill, the union show up and their connection show up

or an association or someone shows up to counter it.

And here, because it's boxing, it's very disorganized, very hodgepodge, and the people that

are trying to resist it, you know, God bless them are a very small group of people.

Yeah, it's interesting to say that and I watched Chuk's colleague, Luke Thomas speak about

this from morning combat today where he was discussing senators, Cruz and Rosen, and

you know, them kind of having been, they've been endorsed by TK holdings over the years,

which might make it feel a bit incestuous, but to speak about the lack of organization

within boxing, they did have some notable, the tractors of this reform act, one of which

was Muhammad Ali's grandson and just to give people a flavor of what he said, I believe

we have a synopsis of comments he made in his opening five minutes here.

Fighters are labeled independent contractors.

As a result, people say fighters will have options that we can just go elsewhere, but

when the same company controls who you fight, how you're promoted and whether fans ever

see you, it's not much of a choice.

When one system controls access, choice becomes theoretical, not real.

The Ali Act was built on a simple principle.

The people controlling fighters should not also control the entire marketplace, those fighters

depend on.

That separation exists to prevent conflicts of interest and exploitation.

The new Muhammad Ali Boxing Revival Act would undermine that principle by allowing one

entity to operate across promotion, management and matchmaking, it removes independence.

When that happens, you fight who you're told to fight or you don't fight at all.

At that point, real choice disappears and so does negotiation.

This type of centralized system is already seen in mixed martial arts, particularly in

the UFC, where a single organization controls promotion, matchmaking and fighter contracts.

In that model, fighters typically receive under 20% of the revenue, compared to boxing

where fighters can earn up to 80%.

The newly proposed Revival Act pushes that centralized model onto boxing, behind the claim that

boxing is broken.

Boxing is not broken.

If it were, UFC champions at the height of their careers would not be actively targeting

boxing fights because of the fair pay.

That movement is rarely seen in reverse due to the UFC's centralized pay structure.

Boxing has never been perfect, but one of its strengths has always been competition.

Global promoters competing for fighters creates leverage and fair market value.

When that competition is consolidated to one system, leverage disappears.

Protection should be strengthened, especially around health and safety, but not used as

justification to restructure the sport in a way that removes power from fighters.

If this bill is passed in its current form, it should not have my grandfather's name

on it, as it would betray the principles that his act was created to protect.

He fought for dignity outside the ring.

This is about dignity inside it.

Fighters should not have to choose between their careers and their rights.

That's Nico Ali, while she was taught, really conducted himself really, really well at the

hearing yesterday.

I've heard a lot of complaints about Oscar Della Hoyer, who was listening to the inside

of boxing earlier, speaking about his involvement yesterday.

Maybe we can speak about that later, but I guess John, the question for me is, you've

kind of mentioned this lack of unity among the boxing people, creating just a wall against

this reform act.

As we know, there are people within the boxing world that have endorsed it too.

Is this more of a conversation, do you believe, for the MMA community, rather than the

boxing community right now?

Well, I mean, the conversation that there's a lack of unity, that perp, because the

conversation about the reform act on the boxing kind of taking into this UFC model, so to

speak.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it is.

No, I mean, the thing is that it is very related.

People try to always make this argument that boxing and enba mayor is completely separate

sports, completely different, but their markets are very similar.

Their structures are technically very similar.

It's two guys fighting in a ringer or a cage presented for an audience where you sell tickets,

you broadcast it, you have sponsorship, and they're fighting eventually to win a championship.

The difference is, is what we permit in one sport and what we don't permit in the other.

So for MMA, because we permit them to operate like pro wrestling, they're allowed to have

their own titles.

They're allowed to, to thus say that just fight for this title, you have to be signed

to our promotional entity exclusively, where that doesn't work in boxing because the titles

are separate from the promoters and so fighters are competing to get these titles, promoters

in China competing for the fighters, where the reverse is Carlos Newton will say happens

in MMA, where the fighters are competing to get the promoter that will give access to

the title.

And so it's a completely different structure.

So it's just the flip side, the same coin of where the problems are.

Now, I thought all of you all should have an amazing job there because he kind of laid

it out perfectly in his opening statement, and he was the highlight for those that are

opposing the bill.

And it was disappointing that members of Senate maybe didn't pick up on what he said and

asked questions, but I guess that goes hand in hand with only being a select few members

of the Senate there.

And I don't think Ted Cruz, as much as he came across as fair and balanced, he did, you

know, it looked like he had a, he threw a, a soft ball right over the middle of the plate

for Nikon at one point.

So obviously there's a situation where he's, yeah, the middle way, it's amazing that Nikon

knew all the middle ways because no one does, even fans of boxing, and he actually, people

spotted it had a list on his table right there when he did it.

So and then you have Jackie Rosen, who's from Nevada, who, you know, all things said, if

you're in Nevada, TKO is a massive enterprise there, you are not going to go against them.

But I thought his exploitation was great.

It kind of boils down what the problem is.

And, you know, and it's pretty simple.

The Oli Act was put in place for multiple reasons, but namely to protect Boxer's financial

interest and the way they did that is we want to create competition.

Well, competition is the number one way to raise athletes pay.

I've had James Quinn.

People are not familiar with James Quinn and I have the, I've had the attorney James Quinn

on my shoulder discuss this.

James Quinn is the attorney that represented all the major sticking ball sports when they

negotiated their collective bargaining agreements.

He's the guy that worked with him when they came up with you.

He was there in the NBA when Oscar Robinson filed an antitrust suit against the NBA.

He was there when they came up the idea for the, for the NBA to possibly decertify and

sue the league to get concessions instead of strike.

He was there when the NFL took the strategy.

So he is very familiar with the subject and he will tell you the number one thing that

drives athletes wages is not a union.

A union is there to protect the right to get to protect the right of a free agency.

So there's more competition and then, and then negotiate a way that right to free agency

for concessions.

But the number one way pay goes up is competition and if you have the structure that you have

an MMA, it's specifically designed to prevent competition because you own the title.

You do not have to compete with other promoters for that champion.

On top of that, you engage in a practice called course of contracts, which the Aliacs specifically

prohibited where you say the only way you can compete for a, to fight this fighter or compete

for this title is you sign a long term exclusive contract with me.

Well, that's illegal under the Aliac.

You cannot force people to sign long term exclusive contracts just for the right to meet

one boxer, specifically someone for a title.

In fact, they have something called mandatory is in boxing, where if you become the number

one challenger, you get the right to compete for that title, win that title without giving

away any contractual obligations in the future.

And if you win that title, you get to walk away with the belt.

So in some ways, that's why you see the situation in boxing where there's constant co-promotion

where there's constant movement of a big name fighters moving from promotion to promotion

like canal Alvarez, like Devon Haney, like Shakira Stevens, all of these guys moving

around with their titles in place.

They do not script.

First, they do not have to go through a long process of years and years in multiple fights

to finally get all their contract, all that happens to.

There's long term contract.

There's all those problems, but usually when you get to the very top of the sport, usually

allow those guys, you know, those bud Crawford, you know, they're signing short contracts

and they have the right to leave with the titles and rankings as they do so.

So other promoters can compete for those.

John, one of the things that I remember hearing a lot early on in this process was people

being kind of surprised, like, hey, where are the boxing promoters pushing back on this

attempted, you know, TKO sort of takeover on boxing, especially when you have Dana White

out there more or less saying we plan to takeover, we plan to like, you know, we're beating

up babies.

We plan to takeover this sport.

And with this sort of legislative push, I saw a lot of people going, what is it with

these guys?

Have they not woken up to the reality of what this would mean for them?

Did they not realize how close it is to actually becoming a reality?

Why do you think it is that we haven't seen more boxing, do you think that they're starting

to wake up to it now?

Or do you think that they just, they, they have seemed kind of absent from this discussion

at least in any substantial way?

Well, I think there's a couple of things that play here.

One is, well, we have known this lately.

I mean, the last few months, Oscar de la Hoyas, who was there at the Senate, has been

talking about Eddie Herne has.

You had Bob Arrowman, top rink, he brought it up, the kind of surprisingly quiet people

of the people at P.B.

Steve, they've been quiet about this and they're a major player.

They haven't said anything.

And so there has been some talk about boxing, but the other problem is, is I think part

of it too is they are still very strongly connected to a cheek turkey, a trickie yellow

chic.

And so they do not want to upset him, right?

They want to still collect those paychecks, payments, whatever that he's been doing with

his re-ad season.

But is this moves along?

I think they're starting to realize that maybe the Saudi money is drying up and also maybe

this is not their best interest.

The other issue is I'm sure a lot of them underestimate TKO.

I think if you listen to the comments like a lot of promoters, they have this view that

Dana White runs Zufo boxing and it's just like it's another promotion that's trying

to get into space.

For a long time, they didn't quite understand, no, it's more than just another promotion

because yes, it's Zufo boxing with Dana White and they put on shows like everybody else.

But this is a piece of an entity called TKO that has a monopoly that runs MMA in the UFC

a $20 billion enterprise, the WWE that's just pretty close.

You could make a strong argument that has monopoly of market, overwhelming market share

or progressing at a $20 billion valuation, staff by elite executives that are connected

to Endeavor that has its hands and multiple entertainment industry businesses, including

podcasts and communications and stuff, so you get the message out and then now tied

into the Saudis, which so any money they want to give is probably going to go to the

Zufo boxing.

So this is an entity that is much bigger, much stronger than any traditional boxing entity.

And on top of that, they have strong relations to the White House and it's the fact that

this bill has been moving so rapidly, just so insanely rapidly through Congress, I think

is is finally woken people up, this is this is different than what we've seen before.

And maybe some of the concerns that people have voiced from MMA that are more actually

familiar with this idea of how you take over combat sports markets.

Maybe they're correct and we should be concerned about what the future holds if Zufo boxing

gets what they want.

Hey, John, you know, Oscar de la Hoya, like I know a lot of people are talking about

him, but does he, like you watch something like this, he's got the platform, he has the

chance to kind of counter and to point out the things that we're talking about.

Does it, did he do more harm than good in this situation?

I felt like he was up there and rather, you know, it's just basically saying that boxing

is in a good place and that it's functional and that it's healthy or whatever.

That seemed to me the wrong approach here.

That was a terrible approach.

The inner the introduction to the bill by Ted Cruz is we all admit that boxing has troubles

and we're here to talk about how to fix it.

He said, you know, paraphrasing and then Oscar boxing is perfect.

There's no problems.

Well, we've been laying out everybody who's a fan, everybody that falls boxing knows and

that's been the history of boxing since it's founding, you know, since, I mean, not

he's founding since it became popular.

You can go back and read like 1880s, 1890s newspapers articles, boxing's dying, boxing's

not going to last for generation.

So it's been perpetual dying and it's had tons of problems throughout its entire history.

But then here's Oscar saying everything's perfect.

It's just, it was a terrible performance for him.

I think one problem might have been the fact that they've created this alliance to defend

the Alliac, which is, it's great in some ways, like finally a group of people in boxing

are getting together to defend the Alliac.

I thought one of their smartest things they did is they put an equal alley wall in the

forefront because now they can speak well on the subject, which we proved.

He has the Alli name, so encounter Lonnie Walsh, Lonnie Allia, I mean, that they rolled

out at the house hearing.

So that was, that was very clever of them.

But then they picked Oscar and I think the problem is twofold.

One is they, in this alliance are the sanctioning organizations.

Well, they're the problem and, you know, you can say that this, and this is my argument

this Alliac, this their proposed Matikao is a terribly designed bill designed specifically

to benefit, benefit them at the expense of everybody else.

But that doesn't say it mean that boxing doesn't need some improvements that the regulations

don't need revisiting and that the sanctioning organizations have failed in their duty.

And Oscar seemed unwilling to say that and he also seemed unwilling to basically say

anything because he wants the status quo to preserve because he's a promoter.

And that's, that's the sad part of these hearings is if you go back to the 90s hearings,

they didn't have just such a small group of people.

They brought in a huge number of stakeholders to testify as well as not even in Congress.

They did written reports.

So they were bringing in matchmakers, they were bringing in trainers, they were bringing

in boxes, they were bringing in members of the media to discuss it to give a, oh, just

a wide breadth of options and opinions.

And here it's a very narrow focus on those for it and those against it.

And that's, I mean, it's obviously it's designed and not to produce the best bill possible.

Well, we're speaking about Oscar De La Jolla and Chuck and John of spoke about some of

the criticism you got here.

Here is his opening gambit and again, we've cut it down just so you get the best bits.

This principal change of the proposed amendment allows a promoter to create an entity that

serves as both promoter and governing body, a so-called unified boxing organization.

This mirrors the existing MMA model and creates a close to some controlling rankings, titles

and access to opportunity.

Under this structure, as long as the UBO complies with its own internal rules, but not violate

the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act, meanwhile, traditional promoters like myself would still

be required to comply with full financial disclosures.

In other words, one system operates under transparency and accountability while the UBO's

do not.

This is a fundamental shift in power that if changed what put corporate profits first,

fighters second, we should be clear about who benefits from this.

These changes align directly with what Zufa Boxing and its leadership at TKO Group Holdings

have already said they intend to build in boxing, a model similar to the UFC.

And we all know what that model looks like and it does not work for the fighters.

The UFC and its parent company agreed to $75 million anti-trust settlement after fighters

accused them of suppressing wages and restricting competition.

At the same time, Zufa Boxing is fully funded by the Saudis.

We've already seen how that kind of funding reshaped another sport through live golf.

We should be honest about what is happening here.

That was sports washing, a clear effort to use sports to reshape reputation in current

Zufa contracts.

Fighters are reluctant to rigid earning structures with little to no ability to negotiate.

The promoter controls all major revenue streams, including media rights, ticket sales and sponsorships,

while fighters are limited to guaranteed purchase and discretionary bonuses with only narrow

participation in upside revenue.

As an independent contractor, fighters won't have leverage when one system controls all opportunities.

Under current law, fighters already have the right to see the financials behind every

event they headline, giving them a fair opportunity to negotiate their compensation.

I also want to address safety.

The proposed changes suggest improved protections, but Boxing already has strong safeguards in

place and existing protections, including health insurance, four injuries and life insurance

for fighters' families.

Commissions and promoters ensure fighters are medically cleared and covered and covered

related costs.

But this proposal is truly about protecting fighters.

Why are MMA athletes not included at all?

And there was Oscar de la Hoya, and of course we did speak about his kind of stance where

nothing's wrong with Boxing, which hasn't really gone well with most people I've heard

speaking about this afterwards.

His opponent, I guess John, was Nick Khan and he is so good at speaking to these people.

I feel like I was listening to this and I was disagreeing with nearly everything he said,

but I was like, just feels like it's playing so well, he's so smooth.

Like he, he at one point, at several points, he was bringing up amateur boxing and the Olympics.

And I was like, what the fuck is this?

It got to do with this act like this amateur boxing.

I don't know how they're making the argument that somehow this UBO being founded will somehow

help boxing in 2028 at the Olympics and we can have another Oscar de la Hoya.

He mentioned at one point, like nobody in the world, like he had the middleweight thing

where he said, who is the middleweight champion and Nick Khan at all the answers there.

Ted Cruz asked him, Nick Khan at the answer.

He also said at another point, like nobody knows who the heavyweight champion of boxing

is.

Nobody knows who this guy is.

I feel like he is speaking to the people that matter, you know, in terms of this Congress,

this people in the Senate, they can't think of these things off the top of their head,

but how valuable of an asset is Khan in all of this given his legal background?

I mean, he's tremendously valuable.

In fact, if you know it is for the two hearings they've done in the House in the Senate,

who didn't make an appearance, who was not there to argue on behalf of Zipa boxing,

even though he supposedly the front person of Zipa boxing.

They had Lawrence Epstein did a tremendous job and credibly skilled at this at the first

house hearing and then they have Nick Khan for the Senate hearing.

So they're keeping, Daniel White is job is not to speak about this.

In other words, when they do interviews to it, you know, when it comes to time for an important

who is out doing all the interviews about Zipa boxing at the time, it was Epstein and Nick

Khan.

So they're very, very important assets to have for this.

They're very well spoken on it.

You look at the comments, Oscar said, first of all, Oscar's opening statement, which actually

was pretty good for the most part, he did an excellent job of comparing it like what

they're trying to do to the UFC and then laying out the problems with the UFC, the complaints

that maybe the Senate wasn't aware of.

And then he closed the strong statement, like if these protections, if this bill is so

great, why doesn't it include MMA fighters?

But then he had to insert a little thing in the middle, which I don't have any idea why

he inserted this.

I don't know who told him to put this in there about how current medical protections

are great for boxers.

Because yes, you know, you could say we have gone along, we've come a long way from where

we used to be.

Look what the 1996 Health and Safety Act did for the boxing and proved it tremendously.

We've gone, we were doing a much better job than we ever in the past.

But we're talking about the Health and Safety of Fighters, we can always do more.

Let's investigate and see what is more we can do, what can we accomplish more that is

possible without putting out business tons of club shows, which potentially this bill

could have done if they would have left a previous provision in.

So that would have been an argument, but his argument like, oh, Health and Safety is

perfect.

I think that's, I mean, that just, you know, it just seems tone death on the subject.

Even if you were going to do a hearing about MMA, I wouldn't recommend Zufo boxing, or

I mean, the UFC, if they're going to do an MMA hearing in the Senate to say, oh, the

Health and Safety standards are perfect in MMA, we could never improve them.

You know, you wouldn't, that would be pointless by them.

They could brag about how good a job they've done than everybody else, but you'd think

they would be smart enough to say, we can always do better.

Plus come up with even a better system for everybody.

And I don't know why Oscar couldn't do that.

He just has to defend the status quo, which is just an absurd thing for him to do.

Now Nick Khan, in his statements, it's, it was impressive what he said, but there is, you

know, and this I get him credit is no one's going to question.

I'm no one's going to fact do any, you know, fact finding on it and see always he telling

the truth or not.

We do not have a pants on fire meter going with him because he brought up that there was

only one champion when Marvin Hagler was champion and that's true.

Marvin Hagler was the man, but it still was a three belt era.

He had, he was, he won guy because he had unified the belts.

I mean, it's a little, it was also a little different at the time because the IBF had just

appeared.

But still the fact is he's complaining, there's too many titles and yet you're, you

know, your example, Marvin Hagler held three titles, not, and that's excluding the Ring

Magazine title yield.

And you're talking about we're trying to bring some sort of unity to the sport.

That's the other argument at the same time we're offering options, just options.

Fighters can choose either system.

Well, if the problem is there's too many titles and you're offering options for fighters

and you're going to, you're going to introduce another title, aren't you just making more titles

unless the goal is that there aren't options and this is the only type of a matters.

And so it's, no one's going to question that though.

So they're just going, every seems to let those things pass.

And so, but he is well versed in the subject.

And I think that's the big problem is Nick Khan and TKO knew they're going to introduce

this bill.

They knew they're going to have to appear in front of the Senate.

I know, you know, we can, I don't know for fact, I'm not in the soup as real, but I know

a pretty close to fact that he has probably had hours upon hours of meetings to discuss

this.

He has probably read hours and hours of reports and, and deck slides and presentations

of what they're going to do.

They have probably done focus groups, I'm pretty sure they've done focus groups to go over

the messaging.

What's the strongest message they can do?

And he has that on the side on the other side is Oscar Deloio had a good written statement,

but the subject is not something he has been debating discussing for a long time.

This is something that only in the last few weeks or days he's made the decision that

he's going to go out and fight.

And so when they ask him specific questions, it doesn't, it's not ingrained into a system

to come out with the right answer.

He is, you know, searching for answers and falls back in the defense that everything's

fine.

Leave it alone.

He has clapped back Thursday defenses.

John, what, what's your sense on when the, I guess the appropriate time for WrestleMania

to visit Cleveland?

Would you prefer it in 2009 or 30?

Can you believe that Ohio got rid of Sherrod Brown for the, they got now the, they let

the critical currency guys fucking spend an outrageous amount of money to get him out

of office.

So we could have guys that blatantly asked for, you know, I love how you can bribe.

He kept going back to it to like, he would like a first check, all right, it's funny.

And then it goes back to like three times.

I would, I think it would have been amusing if Oscar did say, Mr. Murrano, are you saying

that your vote is dependent on if they bring a person in you to Ohio?

Is that what you're saying?

Yes, sir.

It's a matter of fact, I am saying.

Because that would at least maybe got some attention in the news about that.

And that's one thing that's kind of interesting.

Maybe sad is that this story and the comments, parts of the whole has not been picked up by

the greater news, media world at all because, you know, it has all these elements you would

think that would draw interest from mostly the life, the left of center, but the, you know,

not all of them are left to center, but they're the labor news media groups, the anti-trust

groups, all these subject corporate cronism, all these things are kind of tied into this

subject right now, as we're saying it.

And there's no one to seem to pick up on that outside of the combat sports bubble.

And so we're getting no attention from, you know, the pundits that seem to be following

this.

And on top of that, even on the, the Democrats side and the Republican side, I guess,

we're a long ways from John McCain, who is an actual fan that actually tried to do

something because if they, if there were any more John McCain's, you think they would

dust off the bill's McCain introduced to fix the problem that never got voted on.

And we're partly blocked by lobbying by Zufa that we're supposed to address these issues

of the Alliac not being as effective as it was.

But on the Democrat side, who've argued for a while, we've got to become this more

populous pro labor anti-corporate anti-monopoly party is that you think you'd be ingrained in

their nature just to suddenly start raising questions.

And yet they did not.

They seem to give a pass to a company that has the brother of Ramo Manu running it.

John, Mike, so go ahead.

My question is, I guess I've been one of those people who's been a little fatalistic

about any attempt to oppose this just because it seems like, especially right now, an American

government, when the big companies with a whole lot of money who also happen to be close

personal friends with the president want something, they get it.

And so you mentioned early in the show that you thought there were more, it wasn't just

necessarily a given that this would go through, that there's a lot going on, that's obviously

true.

What do you think could reasonably stop it?

What would that actually look like?

Do you think it's just that distraction of what else is happening in American governments

would be the thing that just stops us from bringing it to a vote and getting it to Trump's

desk?

What would make this not just sail right through?

Well, I mean, that'd be the major thing, it was something big pops up that just derails

all votes in the House, in the Congress, that they have bigger priorities, I mean, they

already have bigger priorities than this, obviously.

But something so big that they, you know, they have to, all their attention goes to that,

and this just is thrown to the curb.

That's number one, that's possible.

I mean, it's, it's kind of unlikely, but it's possible, especially in this climate that

might happen.

I think the biggest hurdles you're going to face is one thing is interesting, is Ted Cruz

said that he's going to introduce a new version of the bill, which surprised me, because

I thought for sure he would introduce an identical version as the one that came out of the House.

And the reason I thought he didn't introduce a identical one, because if it passed with

no changes, then the bill could go straight to the desk of Donald Trump to sign.

Now, because it's going to be slightly different, if it passes the Senate, they have to

reconcilen the two bills, so they have to go back to the chambers to find out what they're

going to do to get, you know, about the differences they have in the bill.

And that would give an opportunity, because you remember, Democrats said they were not

satisfied with the bill, they're hoping to get another stab at it.

Well, that would give them a chance to get another stab at it, create more problems.

And the longer the process takes, the more likely something pops up that derails it, the

more likely, you know, I mean, there's a possible, if something comes into real long enough,

it happens if we get to the end of the, of this session of Congress, and it doesn't get

passed because something got in the way and has to be reintroduced, well, you think it

immediately get voted on, but then what happens is that the Democrats run both houses,

right? Both chambers, I should say, the House and the Senate.

Well, then the bill might die because it's not a priority for the Democrats.

It's a priority for the Republicans because someone from the White House called them and said,

this is a priority, let's push this bill through.

So I think that's the best chance is that the process gets dragged out, which can happen.

And it gets dragged out long enough that something else, uh, interseed, uh, interjects into the

process to, uh, extend it even further to the point where it's after the elections, uh,

and now it's too late because the, you know, if we go in the next year, the, a new, uh,

Senate and, uh, and House representatives takes their seats and they might be Democrat at

control and they're not going to be interested in pushing this bill through.

What's on, uh, if that's unlikely, I should know if that's unlikely.

Um, once again, we're so grateful to have you on here. Um, you are unbelievable on this kind

of terrain. Um, we look forward to everything you're going to put up on, hey, not the face,

sub-stack. Uh, we love the podcast. Hopefully we'll even get something on, on crown,

because I know you've done some right for us, which has been very well received, too.

And thank you so much for joining us today, John. Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me in

the cat on. I'm glad that I hope you're relieved that they found, uh, Dana's phone, too. Thanks,

man. Oh, yeah, I was very relieved. Yeah, that's about that. People aren't aware, uh,

last week, this last thing before you guys kicked me out the show because I'm sure people are

tired and subject. But in the antitrust suit that's going on, people are not aware. They,

is Oscar Lohoyah and Nick Nicolay Walsh brought it up. You have sees being sued again for class

for antitrust violations and potential class action. Uh, and part of the process is discovery that

UFC was ordered by the court to preserve all evidence and then handed over, uh, to the defendants,

do examine for potential information. And so the UFC since 2014's been under an order to

preserve all their cell phone communications. And just a long list of problems they've had on the

UFC, the defendant's side is that they've lost phones that they accidentally deleted or set

phones to delete, uh, that they did not upload the court that endeavor executives were using

the signal app, which came out during the, the Vince McMahon lawsuit with the, uh, the UFC,

WWE merger, uh, on that discovery, they found out that Arya Manuel and Mark Shapiro had the

signal app and had been deleting their messages and didn't report that, uh, just a, just a long

list of stuff. And one problem, too, is Dana White was missing a phone on top of having,

I accidentally deleted apparently a bunch of material. Uh, and his missing phone, they thought that,

Arya Manuel's nephew had stolen. And so that was the reason. But, yes, the intern and now, but they,

oh, that was a mistake. He didn't steal it. We have now bound the phone. Uh, it was in the back of

an old BMW Dana White had used a couple BMWs ago. Uh, but because it was in a black leather case,

on black leather seats, we couldn't find it. Uh, and now we found it. And, uh, the question is,

I don't think they have the password for it. So they can't open it. So they're handing it to

the forensic expert and he will see if there's anything on that phone. You know, I know how that is.

My, one of my daughters, uh, left a chicken strip in the little back, the seat, like a little pocket

behind the seat, uh, that thing been there. That was two summers ago. So it could happen. It

could happen. Yeah. I mean, all I could think it was Homer Simpson when he was asking for the,

the, the, the speaker, the yellow at Bart and then he had the only thing he could ask him was,

where's the remote and it was in his back pocket. And that's what I like. All I could think of

was that, that moment. I mean, why, you know, it feels like that. Well, John, thank you. Once

again, we really appreciate it. And hopefully we'll have you back on to spit some game and

Arya about this, uh, current, uh, reform actor proposed reform anytime you guys want anytime,

anytime you want anytime I can do it anytime that works, I guess is the, there's a lot of,

there's like, we don't want to have your people contact my people. Oh, absolutely will. Thank you

again, John. What a guy. Um, Roy Lads. I mean, it's just the three of us now. It's a bit weird.

And look, Ben's in a bad mood because seconds before the show today, I sent on a message to say

that the Saudis have pulled the support from the opera, the Metropolitan Opera. And Benny,

okay, first of all, because we knew, look, we knew the Saudis have been pulling money. I'm

the opera is something close to your heart. I just wanted it. Can I get a list of the things that

the Saudis don't financially support the list? It feels like that would be a lot quicker.

It honestly starts to make me feel a little bit like how come the, the co-main event podcast

that I co-host is never been approached by Saudis. Like how, how come, you know, we're over here

at the University of Montana, cutting our, you know, English master's program where the Saudis just

couldn't dip in the pocketbook just a little bit. Like they're funding everything else in

America. What the hell's going on? It's a good point. I mean, it is interesting though, right?

The Saudi cutting all this money. Well, this is going on. Send the figures. Those are like $200

million or something like that. 200 million. Yeah. I mean, it's not like it's insubstantially.

You know, it's like that's a, that's a big number. It is. I mean, it's billions there.

They're, they're obviously investing, farming the one, live golf. We saw that collapse.

And obviously Saudis are a partner with TKL when this box adventure, interestingly, I saw an

interview where Eddie Herney tends to do them quite a bit. He was speaking about Devon Haney and

he was kind of saying, look, we don't have the money to pay this guy. He is not interested in,

you know, traditional boxing belts as we used to do with them. He wants the big ones.

And next to Valor O'Port is out. That they're talking about doing Haney and Shakur Stevenson

on a Zufa promotion on Netflix. And it's like, how is this, with all this money being pulled

and they're saying we can't invest in this. It's kind of feeling like, are you guys making money

back on this box adventure? Because I don't think it is actually possible that they could be making

money off this. I just wonder why this seems to be their last stand to combat sports. You know what I

mean? I'm going to miss something. I think in part because Turkey's, that's his enthusiasm,

right? Like he likes boxing. I mean, I swear, I think it's just that simple sometimes that it's

an area of interest more than the others, you know? Yeah. I mean, that honestly is shockingly

plausible like that. If it comes down to it, somebody looks at the books and says, we got a trim

some of the fat here. What do you want to lose? And they go, we are spending an awful lot of

money on boxing. And he goes, but I actually really enjoy that. And they go, what about the

metropolitan opera? And he goes, okay, that one. You say, take that one. Golf gone.

Golf is golf. But the went to see something at the Met was not nearly as fun as I thought it was

going to be boxing. That was a lot more fun. Just get rid of it. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, who knows? Maybe you'll have an investment in RAF soon because Ben folks wrote a big

whole article about RAF, Chelsea, and a million dollar investment on a prospect by the name of

Bob Bassett, I believe. And really a great article, by the way, and great quotes from from

Chael Anbo. And but really the thing that's jumping out to me from this article, Ben, is obviously

we know RAF has rose to prominence by using a lot of the fighters from the UFC roster, namely

Arman's Rookie and who's become pretty much the poster boy of this situation. A lot of people

believe that TKO UFC are allowing these fighters to work with RAF to kind of stand alongside

their arguments on the class action suits that John was just discussing. They've recently announced

that Hamza Chimoyev has joined the roster. Arman's Rookie and appeared on Ariel's show on Wednesday

and said, you know, they're getting money commensurate to what they're getting for UFC foids

and RAF. You have this prospect, Bob Bassett, who you spoke to, he's sounds are going to

extremely talented guy. You've listed off the opponents, he's beef. There has always been a

conversation about after college, after the Olympics, what do you do as a wrestler? Is this

becoming a viable option? Do you think four wrestlers to continue the careers beyond those

Olympic and collegiate dreams? Well, I mean, for guy like Bob Bassett, it was a viable option

before even entering college. He's obviously a rare case, but I do think there's something

happening with RAF. If you've been around in this combat sports zone for a while, you've seen

a few different people try to launch some sort of real wrestling promotion and almost never does it

work for any length of time. It's never worked. It's never been a going concern. It's always been

just sort of hearing gone. It's difficult to get people who aren't already super into wrestling

into wrestling because it's a highly technical sport. You got to know a lot about it to begin with

to even sort of enjoy what you're seeing for the most part. The rules, the scoring criteria,

all that is not especially fan friendly if you're not already in it. And RAF has found a level of

success that we haven't seen anybody else get to. One of the ways they've done it is like they

do, if you watch the broadcast, they do have a pretty fan friendly approach to it. It's a good

looking broadcast. They move quickly from one match to the next and they're roping in such an

interesting cast of characters that we've heard of. And so they're kind of following a similar

model that BKFC has found where they go, hey, we'll get some of these interesting people into

interesting matchups where you go, I do wonder how that would play out and they go over there.

And they have the advantage. The complete opposite of BKFC is that they can go to somebody like

Armand Saroukian or they can go to somebody like Uriah Faber and be like, hey, man, it's a wrestling

match. It's kind of low stakes, low risk. I mean, at least if you stay on the mat and you don't

run your opponent onto the concrete on purpose, the risk of you getting hurt in three periods of

wrestling is pretty low, especially if you know what you're doing. Maybe you win, maybe you lose,

but you don't take too much of a hit. You don't get your face all beat up. You don't take brain

trauma or anything and you can make some decent money. Now, I don't know what kind of money they're

making back. They have a deal with Fox Nation. That's where you got to sign up for an account to go

watch it and everything. So they have pretty good crowds. It feels like a real event. I don't know

if they're turning a profit. I would say almost likely they are not turning a profit paying

these guys that kind of money this early on and a thing, but then that's probably the case for

BKFC still too. I do think that one of the things it was interesting talking to Chale about it

because he you see him on these broadcasts and you could tell Chale really loves wrestling and

has loved it since he was a kid coming up and wrestling all through high school. And what to

call is went to BYU just to wrestle was not at all interested in the religious aspect of BYU

way he put it to me one day. She'll say, yeah, they'd come and talk to you about it. But he said,

I'm a Catholic and I'm a Catholic on purpose. They're not going to convince me of it. And BYU

cut their wrestling program. And Chale said he was looking for places to transfer the next day.

Transferred University of Oregon back home and went back there and wrestled. And he still has this

love for wrestling. Very evident how excited he is on these broadcasts. But also he's been around

it long enough that he referred to it as a road to nowhere that and he was talking about somebody

he knew where he's like, I know this guy is a state champion high school. No college programs were

interested in them. There aren't that many big time college programs left. The, you know,

basically you can go to somewhere where it's a club sport essentially not even an NCAA sport.

But none of the big time programs were interested. And so it was just like, hey, congratulations on your

state high school wrestling championship. It's over. No, your wrestling career is over 17, 18,

and it's just over. And he's like, you know, that is still the reality in wrestling. And I go back

and forth between hoping that it could you RAF something could give you an opportunity to do it

beyond that. But he said everybody eventually leaves that sport with a broken heart and a bad back.

And as much as he was excited about Bo Bassett, you know, his offer he explained he was like,

I was basically offering I'll give you a million dollars to sign you to an NIL deal because I think

I'll be able to turn around and sell you as a marketable commodity other places in a way that

will bring me more than a million dollars. And I'm going to keep everything I make back. But I guarantee

you the million dollars and just wasn't able to pull it off. But it also, it just seems like

the market is still so small. The question is, can you either grow that audience base for wrestling?

Or you would have to get better at getting absolutely every single human being who is at all

interested in wrestling to watch this. Or you just have to get better at monetizing it somehow.

Like right now, I don't know if we we have seen yet whether this is going to work. But I will say

it is working better than anything we've ever seen anybody else try up to now.

You know, but you're a favor said he had a bad back. But that out of bouncing, I actually fixed

his back. You can't convince me. Armin's not doing that stuff on purpose, man. And

and he's misunderstood Ben. He's just missing his stuff. Okay. He dig drives of like 50 feet off

the. Yeah. And especially and and did it at a point in the match where the match was essentially

over. You're going to win. You didn't have to do all that. You're doing too much. And

but yet there's no way like if you're RAF, you've got to be pretty happy with the investment,

the return on investment. You're getting from Armin's through Kim because if you're paying

in that much time and wrestle for you. He's wrestling for you like every month. And every

single time pretty much he does it. He does something that makes people go. All right. What is this

guys? He does something. There were the video circulates on social media. It is drifts around

all the real place online and people are reminded that this thing exists and that some interesting

stuff is happening there. And so he's doing you a huge favor by doing stuff that I

create these viral moments. It's just also kind of a dick move from other people because he's

doing it at somebody else's expense pretty much every time. I mean, he's a godsend. It's almost

like a and for them, I he's probably more popular. I wrote about this at one point. Like he's

probably more popular right now with RAF then he was as a UFC fighter. If you just strictly like

divide them, which is a crazy thing because you're like what you just said, nobody pays attention

to it otherwise. You know, it's it's very difficult. If you're trying to like like you mentioned

BKFC, like a lot of times it's like, let's take these MMA brand names and put them in our our ring

and see what they do. People will peek in on that. But it's it's tough to get an MMA. You know,

a person who watches MMA to pay attention to something more specific. We're used to a wider range

of things that you're watching within a fight of more danger zones, all that stuff. So to go to

wrestling specifically, like, you know, real wrestling, it is, you know, it's like going from like

an action movie that you've watched for, you know, into like some kind of weird think piece that

you're like, we're not used to watching this kind of thing. It's been the way they've navigated

that. I mean, armum plays a huge role in it. But the way they've navigated that has been very good.

I would say that that it is one of the more positive things. I remember you remember like Metamoris

and some of the jujitsu. They would start those up and I thought that that might have the effect. They

tried. They put them to money into it. They were paying their competitors fairly well. But it just

didn't have any traction. But I feel like this right now has traction and they've kept the kind

of overhead lower by just, you know, going to college hotbeds, you know, college wrestling hotbeds

and the smaller venues and, you know, affordable production. I know they're probably not turning

a profit yet. But given the exposure that it's gotten, I bet the tradeoff right now is still worth

it, right? Because people are paying attention to it. Yeah, it's, it's, I feel like the way they've

used armum, they're nearly in that situation that the UFC were in with Chuck Ladell. When everyone's

like, yeah, well, what are they going to do when this guy goes away? And of course, the UFC did a

great job. Obviously on a smaller scale. They aren't quite there. Like, I mean, they're not on the

cover of magazines, big magazines, sports, they look straight at all that kind of stuff. But I would

be interested to see if they can get a draw akin to armum. And so it's just not so heavily on his

shoulders right now. Certainly for the casual audience. Let's say it absolutely is casual audience

in mind. Big fight coming up the White House. Don't know if you guys heard about it. White House is

where your president lives, I believe. And you have part of the time, part of the time. Yeah.

UFC, big, big fighting company. They're doing an event there. There's lots of talk about the

structure, building and blah, blah, blah. One thing we do know is Alex Pereira is going to fight on

that card. Chuck Bendenhall has wrote an article this very week about the goat status that he could

somehow capture. Should he win against Sirilgan? And it's a very well done article because Chuck,

you've broken down everything. Like all of the candidates there, your GSP's, your John Jones,

your Anderson Silvers, even Hubebner, Mike, I made off, makes an appearance. I mean,

when you lay it out, right? When I was reading the thing at the start, I was kind of like, come on,

it's an interim title fight. But when you lay it out, the fact that this guy is defend the

middleweight title, the fact that he's defended the Lloyd heavyweight title, that's one back the

Lloyd heavyweight title after losing it to ankle, where do you stand? Are you beginning to convince

yourself with those beautiful words you put down on paper? Well, it's, it was Michael Kiesu who

actually said this first, right? That's, that was like, it got me to thinking and I was like,

I should actually look at this because he said, if he, if Pereira goes and wins a third

division title, that he's the goat. And at first, I'm like, that's ridiculous. That's not true.

We've seen him lose, you know, and then you start thinking about, I'm like, wait a minute,

what's the criteria of determining this? Like, how do you get, how do you like, defend it if you

really believe that? Like, how would you defend the guys against him who haven't done that?

For instance, Hubeb, he was, I brought him into it because he don't barely lost around during

his career, you know? And like, that has to be considered through this process. But ultimately,

when I was doing this, I was like, no, not really because what you start to think about is the

circumstances surrounding each step, you know? And like, and so, you know, he, he wins. And I mean,

still to this day, the biggest accomplishment was him beating Izzy in that first time, right? And

like, kind of pounding home the past story and saying, like, hey, check it out. I can beat him in

MMA too. Now I've got his title. But then he loses it. And I thought that, you know, kind of

order was restored. And he goes to 205 pounds more out of like, you know, what, I don't want to make

the weight cut. And I don't really want the true, you know, I'm just going to go and try this other.

I don't really think that we were all looking at him as like, he's going to challenge immediately

for a title. But he ends up doing that. His run there is very good. But circumstantially, we've

talked about the heavyweight mess that's been going on for so long, the belts, the NRMs and

everything. And people like stepping aside and vacating and everything that's gone on for him

to fight still gone who has already lost to a series of the great names in the division.

Even if it is an interim third title, like, it's a third title, I would probably need to see him

win that and then unify that before I would have that real discussion with Alex Perra.

I mean, I'd love to hear your guys' thoughts on this because that's, to me, I'm like, okay,

I guess you could start to put him in that picture. But that's what he would have to do, I think,

for me to be like, okay, now they're serious consideration for this.

Yeah, I think that it's the kind of thing that if you beat Cyril Gone, you add another

a version of another USC title in another weight class. And certainly, it's a great accomplishment.

It looks good on paper. But as, you know, the goat conversation is always at least a little bit

of a vibes conversation. Yes, it is. You know, it's never just about like the commissioner. We're

going on like how we see you, how we perceive you. And if you go in there and you beat Cyril Gone,

who at this point kind of has developed a reputation of the UFC are going to keep giving him

title shots when no one else is available or really. You know, and so it's like it's still

meaningful to beat Cyril Gone and heavyweight still impressive to keep going up and weight to

start out at middleweight and end up at heavyweight knocking people out. And it would be a huge

stage to do it on Alex prayer seems like one of those guys where the more people get a chance

to see him, the more people go, this guy seems interesting. What's he going to do next? So like,

it is a good opportunity for him to gain a lot of fan based up. But for those of us in the hard

core MMA world having those goat conversations, you do need to beat somebody like a Tom Aspenal

or even a John Jones would have done it. I think because that that was why that was such a huge

missed opportunity for the UFC. Because if you could have made that fight, if you could have made

Alex prayer versus John Jones, we would have all gotten so excited about that matchup that we

for the moment ignored the fact that the real heavyweight champion is at home letting his eyes

heal. And instead, you put Cyril Gone in there. And we go, first of all, it seems like the guy who

gouged the dude's eyes is being rewarded for it in a way. But also that no one was looking at

Cyril Gone as this is the best heavyweight in the world at the time that you booked this fight. So

I think it would take at least one more. Yeah. Well, I really enjoyed it, because I found myself

having an internal debate as well. Right. You know what I mean? I've always been a GSB guy.

You know, well, that's always my been my default is like with GSB. But then you kind of break down.

And you know, we're talking about kind of opportunities or circumstances in which you kind of

make good on something. Obviously coming back from 2013 to 2017, it comes back after four years

and he fights the one guy who is like, yeah, you know what? I could go in there and beat Michael

Bisping. You know, dude's got one one eye. And I, you know, he's like, he's not like, he's like,

like at the time he was something like 38, I don't even know. So I mean, even him, like you can

start to be like, well, how do you discount these things? How do you properly discount these

things? I even have beef. You're like, well, he's 29 and oh, but just kind of look at his

conquest list. And you're like, that's not as good as some of these other guys. And then he

get John Jones who it's like that there should be an obvious answer, but he's popped hot for,

I mean, it's some people that's an automatic exclusion, right? Like they don't even entertain

John Jones. Just given that he's he's been busted for steroids, right? Like I, and then

you know, that kind of puts Anderson Silva into a weird spot there too. So it just it really

depends on how you want to how you want to kind of score it in the end. Like you said, it is a

vibes conversation because you could you could make the argument for all these guys. You could

also argue yourself out of all of these guys. Yeah. You know, you mentioned the the GSP Michael

Bisping fight about, you know, GSP definitely seizing that moment to be like, now I am interested

in middleweight. I know. When I see the champion is after all those years, yeah, there was a

Michael Bisping once told me when I wrote a story and he was talking about that fight and how,

you know, he had been successfully fooling people about how bad his eye was for a while by that

point, but that he thought GSP and his camp had a sense that there is there's some blind spots

for Michael Bisping. And he said that when they did the thing, you know, there Madison Square

Garden for that fight and they exchanged corners so that, you know, your corner can come into my

locker room and watch them wrap my hands to make sure I'm not, you know, putting any plaster or

anything in there. There's nothing to fear. Yes. That that time honored tradition is sort of like

exchanging seconds so that they can make sure everything is on the level. And he said, as I was

sitting there getting my hands wrapped in GSP had Freddie Roach as his corner man. And he said,

Freddie was standing there and he's not looking at all at them wrapping my hands. He starts,

he's staring at the side of my face and he starts kind of moving

further to the side as if he's trying to see where does this guy's field of vision lose me?

Like, where does this, where does it end? And he was like, shit, like he kind of,

they're on to me a little bit. And he said he was very uncomfortable by how Freddie's just

looking at him and like sort of just like, he's like, they, they know, they know that my vision

is not as good as I've been pretending it is. And then sure enough, GFC kind of gets on that side

and clips him left hook. Yeah. Really. Yeah. Incredible. That's an incredible tip it there.

By the way, has he ever like taken out his eye thing for you like it? Because one time I sit

with Michael Bisping in Houston, I was doing an interview with him and I don't think he'd ever

done this. And he's like, he just pops out the eye thing and I was like, oh my God. It was like,

it was wild. Then I'm like, okay, wait a minute. You got to tell me then how did you

convince the commissions, you know, like to basically fight, you know, like to fight under

the, and he's like, never you mind, you know, and he's like, he got kind of, you got kind of,

just doesn't reveal his tricks, you know? I think he got into it in his documentaries. Yeah.

And he had some kind of code with one of his coaches who would somehow give him answers.

He'd be in the realm as a doctor was asking things. I mean, I will be sure that he had

made it. The whole thing, that whole thing more than any other stories we've heard just

completely gives the lie to the idea that these pre-fight medical examinations are there to

ensure that everybody is fit and ready to fight. They don't want to find anything. Everybody has

a vested interest in making sure that these fights go on as scheduled. The medical exams are

essentially a cover your ass tool so that you can say we did it. In case something terrible happens

is somebody you can be like, well, we did our due diligence to try to make sure that they were good.

And it also makes it so that if they try to come back afterwards and say, hey, I was fighting

hurt. I had an injury into this fight. Then at times, and they have done this, they've done it

to end the May fighters and they did it to Jake Lamata, you know, 80 years ago, they'll turn back

and say, you put down on this medical form that you were fine. So you lied to us. And like, if anything,

it's the fighter who's the only one who stands to get in trouble from that. It's also been like

the ultimate retort from the guys who think the Tom Asmal has elaborately choreographed this injury.

Look, Michael Bisping fought with one eye. You're like, don't, that's not recommended.

You know, it's a great idea. Yeah, I mean, who was like, yes, because this man

crazily fought with one eye, what are you complaining about? Hospital, absolute insanity. Love

the sport. Of course, I'm, you know, boys, big ol' card this weekend and we're back.

Oh, yeah.

The world's favorite venue. It is the meta apex. It's not the apex. It's the, they paid good money

for it to be called the meta apex. It's the meta apex. The meta just laid off a bunch of people.

I just saw a headline or something. So, uh, enjoy that name while it's still there, you know.

I hope we got that cash up front for the naming rights on that.

Fun. Zuckerberg popping up at UFC events makes me cringe to the point that I want to disappear

with my own asshole. I'm not going to, you know, he is created. Wow. He has created those gifts

for a result through the years of the passing of the things. I mean, I just, I don't know,

gives me the willies, as they say. Yeah. I know what excited for this card this weekend.

Um, who's on it? But, um, Al Jermaine Sterling is on a joke. Yeah. See, somebody was asking me

about this in my mailbag where they're asked, you know, Al Jose here in the main event and they're

just like, okay, you know, he's coming off all that went over Brian or Tega. Is there enough

time left? Can he make a run at 145? And my answer was no. That's the short answer. And not

because like he's not a good fighter. Like clearly, he can still do a lot of the stuff that he does.

He, he still has, he still can beat a lot of those 145ers. He also though, he's, I believe 36

body has been through the ringer and, you know, from, from wrestling to MMA. There's, he's,

he's got some physical damage that he's, he's working around and through. But also, I honestly

think still the biggest impediment to him having a real run and making a run at 145 titles is

going to be how the UFC sees him. They have never really liked him. They've never been eager to

give him anything. He would imagine how many wins he'd have to reel off at 145 or how many other

people would have to be unavailable before they reached out and be like, okay, Al Jermaine,

especially if they thought he might win. They, they did not seem to love it when he was

Phantomweight champion. They kind of rushed him into that Sean O'Malley fight before he really

wanted to. They didn't seem eager to do anything with him there. He went to featherweight in part

because of that to get a fresh start. I, it's hard to see like what would he have to do, especially

they put him in this fight, which I think he's, he's, he's absolutely got a chance to win this one.

But you can just look at the ages of each guy in it and know what the UFC is likely thinking here,

right? Well, yeah, then locally for us, the UFC is about the best fighting the best. So all he

needs to do is create one of the rankings and it'd be given a deserved opportunity. He's right,

because they will. Yeah, he's right. That's why you're at the meta apex. You know,

who's the best, the best, the proving grounds known as the meta apex. Mrs. Apex herself. Normally,

Dumont will be appearing. Your favorite. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it shook was at the, the

phase. Dumont V-Lad. I was there. At what point do we start referring to the meta apex as the

house that normal bill? I like that a lot better. I tell you what, it's fucking depressing watching

these events at five o'clock in the morning and blanchet sound. Not on whisper outside and you're

like, why have I done this again? I made a deal myself a long time ago that I won't do this.

There's not a whisper outside or inside. I mean, it's just, yeah, at least when they're in a

big arena and in Winnipeg, you can draw some energy from the crowd. I'm just shaking.

It's some good fights on it. David Grant, my boy. I mean, David Grant, the most underappreciated

UK fighter of all time, still doing the fucking thing. Was he trying to be a shepherd as well or

was he doing something? No, no, just always on the MMA thing. You know, he was on tough smashes,

I think, back in the day. Was he really still fighting? He had a three year layoff because of a knee

injury and he still goes on these runs and they keep on putting them against these young guys who are

like, ah, David Grant, what age is this dude? I'm going to fuck David Grant up and then they eat a

load of fucking elbows most of the time. Anyway, so I'm looking forward to that, but that's not

not a not a congested combat sports weekend, but I'm sure you know, you'll think of things to do.

Chuck, I can't help but see the result of the game last night. You know, first is Ariel's team,

so for one, and then I saw your boys, the nuggets, and I saw I looked at the start line.

My boy, yo, could you still fucking wrecking people out there? 15 rebounds, what,

30 odd points? Come on. What's going on? But it was a bad performance. Like he went out and shot

the first like five shots. They were all off, making the route to go bear look like a hero in this

series right now. That's just disgusting, man. That was a bad point. At what point do you pivot to

being like, I'm just a Colorado avalanche guy because they're looking for a lot of process. I mean,

I always am. I am a Colorado. I love that scene, too. They are looking good, but you know the problem

is it's the team that they would face next. The Minnesota wild have beat them a couple of times

in the playoffs, and the Dallas star is absolutely own them in the playoffs. That's where I'm like,

yeah, we could beat the Kings, but I'm not sure what happens when we get to the second round.

That's going to be the true hurdle, I think, for them. I mean, they are the favorites.

There's the top betting favorite to win the Stanley Cup this year. You can see this is me trying

to get you. I know that maybe you you've dabbled a little bit trying to look up some hockey,

trying to find how you can watch a hockey broadcast over there. Yeah. But I got to tell you,

the watching the the NHL playoffs is a completely different experience than watching a regular

season NHL game. These guys are out there every night trying to take each other's damn heads off.

Okay, it's crazy. The hitting goes up to another level. Seemingly, after every whistle,

every minor stoppage in play where punch each other in the face, the shit you can get away

with doing to another human being during the NHL playoffs without even being sat down for a

couple minutes in the penalty box is amazing. And what's really insane to me is if you pay attention

to what is required of the NHL referees. I saw you posted during the playoffs. It's there's no

way they're getting paid enough to do this because almost every single time they blew the whistle,

the stop to play, they got to get between a couple. It's like 500 pounds of professional hockey

player on either side of them and they got to throw their body in there, wrench these guys apart,

they're a fist flying that their catch and strays. All kinds of crazy shit is happening. It's

it's basically they you ever tried to break up a dog fight. Yeah. Dog ever again. They're basically

doing that, you know, 16 to 20 times a night. It's insane. Well, all of which is to say highly

recommend the NHL playoffs as a viewing experience. Which game? Which game should I watch this weekend?

Any of them, Pete, see absolutely pick. Tell me which one and I'll find a way.

The Minnesota star series is good. Yeah. Well Buffalo and Boston is a good one. Buffalo is

an exciting one just because they have been shit for a long time. And they win this night.

They did win last night. Two won in that series. Boston not going to go down easily though. And

the other one for as long as it lasts watching Philadelphia and Pittsburgh natural enemies.

And the intensity of those games has been really, really high even if they haven't always been

quite as competitive. It would have liked. The last one I watched was American Canada and I text

you guys like halfway through going these guys aren't fighting yet. They're like, oh, they're not

going to fight. And the playoffs, too, generally speaking later. In the Olympics, it's frowned upon.

And then it was beside me. And she was like, what's happening? And I was like, I have no idea.

Nothing. I can't explain anything. One, I know what a goal is other than that.

Yeah. They try to fight less, right? Ben and the playoffs like they try to because they don't

want to be suspended or like, you know, you don't want to get into a situation or hurt. Yeah.

The broadcast won't cut it though, right? Like they will show me. Oh, no, they will. The referees

make a much, much more concerted effort to stop the fighting before because that's why it's such a

hard job for the referees in the playoffs is that they are trying to break up all these scones

before it escalates into guys throwing off the gloves and fighting. And sometimes they succeed,

sometimes they don't normally when they fight in the playoffs is when the game is pretty much

decided. But what's incredible about the NHL playoffs is that normally during the season,

you play a team once and then you move on. You'll play somebody else the next night. You might play

I'm twice in a row, but that's kind of uncommon. And in the playoffs, you play a seven game series.

First person to win for these games. And that is a long time to be lining up against the same

guys each night. It's a plenty of opportunity for resentments to build for for and and it also makes

it so that part of the intense hitting of the game is because, hey, look, we might lose game too.

But this series still got a ways to go. So if we can reduce somebody's physical output,

by putting the body on him in game two, you know, if we can, if we can make them start

worrying a little bit more about the violence coming their way in game two, maybe it pays off

in game five or six. And so like it's just the game completely changes in the playoffs because

of the way these series were. And you know, the players inside and out by that point, the greatest

thing is you see like a seven game series goes to overtime. There's all this tension. It's a crazy

sport that way. And then they line up in a big line at the end and they all shake hands like

gentlemen. It's a that's a beautiful thing about the shake hands like gentlemen, except some

of the exchanges every once in a while. You know, when the series is over is when they'll shake hands

and sometimes you can see in the the handshake lineup, there's a little bit of I'm going to

fucking kill you. You should you should retire in the offseason because if you come back next year,

I'm going to fucking kill you. The avalanche red wings used to have a bad I mean, it was crazy. They'd

fight the goalie would fight everything. But that that's the kind of handshake line you would see

with those guys. It was fun. I'll be chilling in for it all the handshakes and everything. And

you know what? I'm sure a lane is going to be ecstatic to say, Oh, another American sport,

where you just stay up all night and then all that the most inconvenient times. And then when

I have a phone call at 2 p.m., you're like, trust me here. Well, that's that was a beautiful

education. Some of the education they've been John S. Nash, check them out, hang out the face,

there's a great podcast with Steffi. It's really, really good. He is the guy. He is the authority

and all things. I felt like he could have kept talking for another two hours, man. That's his

wheelhouse, isn't it? He's so good. He's so fucking good. And he has been for so, so long. There's

nowhere else to go. Class action. This obviously this this reform act. He is the man to speak to.

And if there is any big developments, we will have him on again. But before we go, is there any

super chats, Andy? Nothing today. Wow. We don't even get to hear the music today. I mean,

do you know what? Andy has let us out. Oh, there's a lot of music. Yeah. Yeah, still

buzzkill. Thanks guys. Well, he's very much. Thank you to Oscar Loseb. Thank you to Andy,

stepping in for Jordan, who's on vacation for how long now? I mean, fuck it out. Thank you to

Chuck. I'm glad that I'll thank you to Ben, folks. I don't know if I thanked Oscar Loseb

already. However, I love you all. We will see you next week. I'll watch always hockey.

And we'll talk about it then. Lots of love.