Speaker 1: The John Nick and Kenny Florian Podcast John Annick and
Speaker 1: Kenny Florian.
Speaker 2: I fucking love him.
Speaker 3: I can't get enough of it.
Speaker 2: Let's hear that both tonight.
Speaker 4: Big job there and crank there are a couple of
Speaker 4: absolutely self involved.
Speaker 1: You're your hosts, John Nnick and Kenny Florian.
Speaker 5: Hey, what's up Monday? What's going on Monday? How's everybody
Speaker 5: doing Monday? June twenty ninth, twenty twenty six, Episode six
Speaker 5: oh one of the Antik and Florian podcasts powered by
Speaker 5: All the Smoke Fight. Thank you in advance for subscribing
Speaker 5: to the antikon Florian podcast YouTube channel. Every time I'm
Speaker 5: on the phone with Domina Cruz, somehow the number of
Speaker 5: episodes we've done comes up.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 5: I just talked to dom a little bit because his
Speaker 5: Hall of Fame induction is coming up.
Speaker 7: Here in a few days.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and just some logistics in particulars on his mind.
Speaker 5: And uh, somehow his podcast came up and our podcast
Speaker 5: came up, and I mentioned episode six hundred was last week.
Speaker 7: He's like, Jesus, I'd like, I know, it's a lot.
Speaker 4: When you do it, you start to understand and comprehend
Speaker 4: how many episodes that is, But yeah, that's cool. Man
Speaker 4: Dom's podcast is going great though, great guests. Yeah, it's
Speaker 4: been good.
Speaker 7: Love and War, Yes, outstanding.
Speaker 5: So part of the reason we have this show is
Speaker 5: because of Saturday nights like or Saturdays, I guess for
Speaker 5: many of you in the States, but shows like we
Speaker 5: just had an Azerbaijan and it sort of puts things
Speaker 5: back into perspective, right. UFC Freedom two fifty was the
Speaker 5: biggest night in UFC history in many respects, certainly the
Speaker 5: biggest sporting event that I've ever called, right, But at
Speaker 5: the end of the day, right, it's about the mixed
Speaker 5: martial arts, and there was a lot of high level
Speaker 5: mixed martial arts this weekend, world class athletes competing in Azerbaijan,
Speaker 5: and I think for a lot of fans, right in
Speaker 5: this crazy Josh Hokitt world, right, kind of nice just
Speaker 5: to get back to the fighting. I don't know how
Speaker 5: much of the Azerbaijan show you watched, but I was
Speaker 5: thoroughly entertained.
Speaker 4: See, I watched a decent amount of it. Man, some
Speaker 4: really good fights, and there's a lot to talk about
Speaker 4: on my end for sure.
Speaker 5: So before Ray Longo comes on and we got Longo
Speaker 5: coming up in a half an hour.
Speaker 7: Drake is dupless.
Speaker 5: He might join us, might be training, but today sometimes
Speaker 5: when I go to try to book a fighter, like
Speaker 5: they faced on me and you know we're trying to
Speaker 5: get Drake is duplus he potentially over the course of
Speaker 5: the next hour R J.
Speaker 7: Clifford as well.
Speaker 5: But sometimes I wonder, right, how nice I have to
Speaker 5: be to Ray Longo or how much comedy I can
Speaker 5: bring to the table. He just went to Azerbaijan, right,
Speaker 5: and his fighter, whom I love as a human being.
Speaker 5: Nasim Sadakov was on the wrong side of a knockout
Speaker 5: loss in like ninety one seconds to Mateos Camilo. Right,
Speaker 5: seeing you're already you already got a fun a real tone.
Speaker 5: See this is the thing you're already like, Yeah, you know,
Speaker 5: I'm like back for Ray, right, and so I balance
Speaker 5: you out a little bit, yin and yang, right, yes,
Speaker 5: like I'm not gonna be like by nope, like by
Speaker 5: fuck right, dude.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean as a coach, you know, it's tough
Speaker 4: making that long ass flight. This is your nightmare. Like
Speaker 4: even like it's great if you win, of course, right, uh,
Speaker 4: And it's that quick. But Losing that quickly is never easy. Man,
Speaker 4: My god.
Speaker 5: Well, we'll see how Ray Longo feels about that fight.
Speaker 7: Unfortunate it may be for Team Sarah long Ago.
Speaker 5: I guess I'm just saying in terms of the comedy,
Speaker 5: and I don't do it for the show, right, but
Speaker 5: like have a little fun with Ray, you know, and
Speaker 5: these guys, you know, I know a lot of them
Speaker 5: listen to the show.
Speaker 7: You know, we're just.
Speaker 5: Having fun on a Monday, good stuff, you know. So
Speaker 5: a lot to get into from this fight.
Speaker 6: Car.
Speaker 5: We have the UFC meta rankings to discuss, and I'm
Speaker 5: wicked excited about that. We'll talk a little UFC three
Speaker 5: twenty nine McGregor versus Holloway two, which beckons here in
Speaker 5: less than two weeks, which is crazy, maybe time permitting
Speaker 5: a Liz Carmush appreciation mentioned she wont another mixed martial
Speaker 5: arts fight over the weekend, Alex Peta going in on
Speaker 5: herb Dean yet again.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 5: You know, there's some headlines with Dustin Pourier, whom I
Speaker 5: consider a friend, and you know, I know there's a
Speaker 5: lot of sort of life in there and life lesson
Speaker 5: in there, But sometimes I feel like people just can't
Speaker 5: wait to talk about it for purposes of clicks. So
Speaker 5: I don't know if we're going to get into all
Speaker 5: of that, but we love Dustin very very much here
Speaker 5: on the Annak and Florian podcast. But what is the
Speaker 5: lead story? I bet Kemflo has died to know. Let's
Speaker 5: get to headlines, headlines.
Speaker 1: It's time for headlines.
Speaker 4: I have some very.
Speaker 1: Urgent and important breaking new headlines.
Speaker 2: And Kenny Sans contast.
Speaker 5: So it feels like if Kemhl was producing the show,
Speaker 5: Rafael Fhazeve would be the lead story and not the
Speaker 5: UFC meta rankings. So we'll defer to the Mixed Martial
Speaker 5: Arts today, even though I would have led with the
Speaker 5: meta rankings.
Speaker 7: So Rafael Phazive over Manuel Torres.
Speaker 5: The knockout courtesy of the spinning wheelkick and the follow
Speaker 5: up punches comes at the fifteen second mark of round two,
Speaker 5: and you know just what The doctor order doesn't even
Speaker 5: begin to describe it. It does dovetail with the rankings
Speaker 5: conversation a little bit, but uh, huge win for Rafael
Speaker 5: Fazeve of course, over the weekend man.
Speaker 4: When his offense is going, when it's flowing, it is
Speaker 4: so pretty to watch he has such an arsenal, and
Speaker 4: he's so precise and so technical when he's on his game,
Speaker 4: you know, defensively, there were some scary moments for me.
Speaker 4: But dude, I again, this is another example of how
Speaker 4: the environment or the circumstances around your fight can inspire
Speaker 4: these amazing performances. Of course, you know, I'm referring to
Speaker 4: the Justin Gaegee fight that didn't happen too long ago,
Speaker 4: of him being in that in the White House, but
Speaker 4: this is another one of him being in Azerbaijean and
Speaker 4: being inspired by the crowd and just fighting inspired and
Speaker 4: with passion and with technique and you know, really going forward.
Speaker 4: And the start of that second round to have the
Speaker 4: confidence to throw that wheel kick to the head and
Speaker 4: land it with that level of precision was just beautiful
Speaker 4: and that became the beginning of the end for his opponent.
Speaker 4: But man, he looked good.
Speaker 5: So I'm just noticing for the first time. And thanks
Speaker 5: to everybody joining us live here on the Anakin Florian
Speaker 5: podcast the stream yard comments, which is amazing. So young
Speaker 5: Mikey fifty nine to sixty eight and shoot h McGavin
Speaker 5: fifty six and the rest of you.
Speaker 7: Thanks for being here live on a Monday.
Speaker 5: So for Rafael Fhazive, I thought it was a great
Speaker 5: interview with Mackenzie pavisitch after the fact when he sort
Speaker 5: of acknowledged Justin Gaechee, and just a great way to
Speaker 5: cap what I thought was a really festive live event.
Speaker 5: And you know, this doesn't vault Phazive into immediate lightweight
Speaker 5: title contention, but it certainly puts him back in any
Speaker 5: sort of conversation. I really do like Manuel torres massive
Speaker 5: frame for the division, as you mentioned, had a moment,
Speaker 5: but uh yeah, to your.
Speaker 7: Championship set back out, no other way to describe it.
Speaker 4: Got well, that division is just ridiculous and Torres had
Speaker 4: some good spots where he landed some big shots on
Speaker 4: Phyziv and he was going forward himself but just technically
Speaker 4: couldn't keep with the offense of our physive.
Speaker 5: So we talked a lot about Rafael Phaziv's health on
Speaker 5: the front end of this fight, and I didn't hear
Speaker 5: much during fight week about his health other than that
Speaker 5: it was great. But yeah, health is wealth, right, and
Speaker 5: as you get older, I think some guys with leg
Speaker 5: injuries it's just hard to overcome. But huge result and
Speaker 5: a spinning wheel kick that earned Rafayel Phazive one hundred
Speaker 5: thousand dollars. So in terms of the rankings part of this,
Speaker 5: Rafael Phaziv was number eleven and Manuel Torres was number thirteen. Now,
Speaker 5: when the meta rankings came out Ken Flow, Rafael Fhazive
Speaker 5: was unranked, so he would have been twenty and one.
Speaker 5: Thing I think with the meta rankings that might be
Speaker 5: evolutionary would be that eventually you'll get twenty and twenty
Speaker 5: five fighters, which would be very exciting. But I know
Speaker 5: Rafael Phazev took issue with the fact that he went
Speaker 5: from eleven to unranked, But I really believe in the
Speaker 5: meta rankings and not to suggest that this is the
Speaker 5: twentieth best lightweight in the world, but he just would
Speaker 5: have taken Manuel Torres is number thirteen and put himself
Speaker 5: back in the top fifteen. Cody, I don't need the
Speaker 5: graphic right now because I'll call for it later, right,
Speaker 5: but I Faziv coming into this fight had lost four
Speaker 5: or five. The one win in there was against ignaciobau Mondez,
Speaker 5: who then went out and lost his next fight. So
Speaker 5: in this particular case, right, I know some fans took
Speaker 5: issue with this, but the wrong sort of got righted
Speaker 5: a little bit over the weekend, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: I think the biggest mover in the ranking, Raquel Pennington,
Speaker 5: the former champ, went from number two to number fifteen,
Speaker 5: and I think it's just right. I mean, she hasn't
Speaker 5: won a fight in a couple of years, right, I
Speaker 5: don't think she's fought in a couple of years. And
Speaker 5: it's a fascinating conversation that will tie into points of
Speaker 5: our conversation today. But we congratulate Rafael Fazive what we'll
Speaker 5: see what the matchmakers do next with him. You know,
Speaker 5: char bullets six and one in the octagon, Kenny. I
Speaker 5: know sometimes maybe he's either not competing in the US,
Speaker 5: or you know, you wonder sometimes what exactly the ceiling
Speaker 5: is going to be. Unanimous decision twenty nine, twenty eight
Speaker 5: times three. A lot to sort of digest, but competitive fight,
Speaker 5: a lot of weaponry on both sides, but it is
Speaker 5: a shar bullet over Michelle Demolodor Paeda by unanimous decision
Speaker 5: of the Comin event.
Speaker 4: It survived a very scary round one, or he ran
Speaker 4: into a dart right down the middle from Padata that
Speaker 4: dropped him in of course, you know what followed was
Speaker 4: the ground and which also could have taken him out.
Speaker 4: I think Paeda probably punched himself out maybe after that
Speaker 4: first round. But what it showed to me is you
Speaker 4: know how well a fighter reacts to adversity, and Maga
Speaker 4: Medov responded extremely well. Not only did he finish the
Speaker 4: fight really well, even within that round, he came back
Speaker 4: with vengeance at the end of the round, still losing
Speaker 4: that round, of course, but came back rallied in round two.
Speaker 4: Was clearly the more active fighter. I think Round three
Speaker 4: was a little bit closer, but still was way more
Speaker 4: productive volume wise. It just seemed like he had that
Speaker 4: passion and willingness to want to win that fight, whereas
Speaker 4: Paeda's just seemed to die after round one.
Speaker 5: So there were some fouls by Sharra Bullet and some
Speaker 5: warnings by Herb Dean in the fight. I'd like to
Speaker 5: get your thoughts on that. Alex Paeda has called Herb
Speaker 5: Dean a coward and certainly some residual stuff there from
Speaker 5: his lack of action in the UFC Freedom to fifty
Speaker 5: fight againsteedle Goan for Poeton. But what did you make
Speaker 5: of the fouls and the warnings, but no point deduction, John,
Speaker 5: Not all.
Speaker 4: Fouls are created equal, like similar to you know, whatever
Speaker 4: the law has for us, Right, It's like running a
Speaker 4: stop sign, you know, stopping for a second and then
Speaker 4: slowly creeping past the stop sign is very different than
Speaker 4: you know, speeding past the stop sign at fifty miles
Speaker 4: an hour. And I think a police officer would probably
Speaker 4: treat those very differently the same way. As you get
Speaker 4: more and more deep down the rabbit hole as far
Speaker 4: as you know, breaking the law, whether you kill someone
Speaker 4: and all that stuff. If you treat all of those
Speaker 4: things the same, and you say, well, he listen, we're
Speaker 4: gonna let you go this time. Next time you're gonna
Speaker 4: be in trouble. There's a difference between accidentally hitting someone
Speaker 4: in the groin and pulling their hair on purpose. Yeah,
Speaker 4: what are we doing? Why are we treating all these
Speaker 4: fowls the same? John? It ticks me off. Yeah, And
Speaker 4: I think a lot of referees are afraid to influence.
Speaker 4: It's the fight, even if it's deserving.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you put it well, I mean, we all have
Speaker 5: our preferred referees, and we all have our opinions as
Speaker 5: to how relatively good we think they are at the job.
Speaker 5: I think Mark Goddard is the gold standard. I also
Speaker 5: believe that on any given Saturday night, for referees and
Speaker 5: fighters and commentators, this sport presents a lot of challenges
Speaker 5: and even the best will not be perfect. Right, We've
Speaker 5: never had a perfect show as commentators. I'm quite sure
Speaker 5: no fighter has really ever had a perfect fight, even
Speaker 5: maybe in a Moss feedal Askarin type situation. But yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean, I just really feel like referees like Kevin
Speaker 5: McDonald right, Kevin McDonald with a Boston Action, right, Ken
Speaker 5: McDonald right is not ubiquitously regarded as the best referee,
Speaker 5: but he doesn't care. He doesn't care if he's going
Speaker 5: to stop a fight early as opposed to late, because
Speaker 5: he prioritizes fighter safety. And I think he would be
Speaker 5: quicker with a point deduction than referees. And you know,
Speaker 5: sometimes when you watch boxing, and you know, boxing for me,
Speaker 5: really has nothing on mixed martial arts in terms of
Speaker 5: the excitement of the sport consistently. But sometimes you see
Speaker 5: when referees interrupt the holding in boxing, or you know,
Speaker 5: they take points away like they're irritated, and they're just
Speaker 5: they're not like they don't care about fans or promoters.
Speaker 5: And sometimes I feel like these referees are in their
Speaker 5: own heads and we're thinking about things that really shouldn't
Speaker 5: matter when they should be taking points away.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent.
Speaker 7: Man.
Speaker 4: It's very similar to, you know, caring about what the
Speaker 4: fans are saying or what the other people are doing
Speaker 4: when you have that guy in front of you that
Speaker 4: you need to face and fight and and it can happen.
Speaker 4: It's it can be easy to be influenced otherwise, but
Speaker 4: the focus always needs to be the job at hand,
Speaker 4: what you're doing in that moment. And I do feel
Speaker 4: like this is kind of systemic throughout a lot of
Speaker 4: refereeing in mixed martial arts. I don't think Herbdan is
Speaker 4: the only guy out there doing this, by the way, Yeah,
Speaker 4: and that's kind of the issue, and you did highlight
Speaker 4: you know a couple referees that that have a different
Speaker 4: take on it. But I do think that there's a
Speaker 4: lot of referees out there that are really scared to
Speaker 4: go out there and influence the fight one way or another,
Speaker 4: where it's like, just follow the rules and be consistent man,
Speaker 4: because a hair pull is very different than an accidental
Speaker 4: foul or say, same way, like where someone is clearly
Speaker 4: holding the cage on purpose. Like we gotta be better
Speaker 4: about this.
Speaker 7: Yeah, all right.
Speaker 5: Inaugural John Annik Top five referee rankings compiled right now
Speaker 5: live on the Attic Imploring Podcast.
Speaker 4: Ah.
Speaker 7: Yes, referee rankings.
Speaker 5: I'm quite certain some people are gonna be upset by this,
Speaker 5: but nobody's going to be more upset than Ray Longo
Speaker 5: when I haze him for his aser by Sean loss
Speaker 5: here in about eighteen. So all right, inaugural John Anick
Speaker 5: referee rankings, coming in at number five, never skipping leg
Speaker 5: Day nor arm days. Gary Copeland, Okay, Gary, congratulations.
Speaker 7: Welcome to the test. Number four.
Speaker 5: I believe actually was the referee in question in the
Speaker 5: Nazim Satakov fight this weekend. Rich Mitch Rich Mitchell getting
Speaker 5: a text from Jason Anick, which can only mean, oh,
Speaker 5: don't stop, no referee rankings. Oh no, we're doing the refee.
Speaker 5: We're already at number four. I mean there's a million
Speaker 5: honorable mentions. Jay, my manager, Jason Anick doesn't like this
Speaker 5: live segment, all right, Coming in at number four, effectually
Speaker 5: known as Rich Mitch Rich Mitchell all right, coming in
Speaker 5: at number three, Vitaur Shallon.
Speaker 7: Hitbero, Yes, I like that.
Speaker 4: I like that one.
Speaker 5: Coming in at number two, Jason Herzog and number one
Speaker 5: Mark Dard. I mean, Jay, what's the problem. I mean yeah,
Speaker 5: Kevin McDonald has a Boston accent. One guy who definitely
Speaker 5: doesn't have a Boston accent. Let's go three wide, Let's
Speaker 5: welcome in.
Speaker 7: Uh. One of the stars of the Anakin Florian podcast
Speaker 7: r J.
Speaker 3: He is raty tv NA LV.
Speaker 7: It contains strong language of violence.
Speaker 3: He's intended only from mature audiences.
Speaker 7: You were discussing advised. This is rated R with r
Speaker 7: J Clifford.
Speaker 3: The fighting, that's that's the fun part.
Speaker 6: It's like Hansle from Zoolander, which is so fucking hot
Speaker 6: right now, dude, Like, well, think.
Speaker 7: About it, Like I don't know who he is.
Speaker 2: I just know he's arrestler. You know, googled him.
Speaker 4: Only on the Annik and Florian podcast.
Speaker 5: I know one guy who's not afraid of some improptu
Speaker 5: referee rankings on a Monday.
Speaker 7: It's Randall Clifford. What's up? Man?
Speaker 6: When people ask me, why is John Annick the best
Speaker 6: broadcaster in sports. And is it the the opens of
Speaker 6: the pay per view? Is it the way he calls
Speaker 6: the action? Is the way he calls it finish? And
Speaker 6: I say nay to all those things. It's because he
Speaker 6: can take obligatory Monday morning ref rebitching and make it fun.
Speaker 3: I mean, how many people I.
Speaker 6: Was like, all right, we're gonna have to talk reffing.
Speaker 6: We're gonna have to talk about Jim Parados and his
Speaker 6: rough day and Rich Mitchell's early stoppage, as like that,
Speaker 6: let's rank these motherfuckers.
Speaker 7: Yeah, dude, place, I love it.
Speaker 4: John.
Speaker 5: So it sounds like you did not like Rich mitchell stoppage.
Speaker 5: Was he the referee in question in the Nazim Sadikov
Speaker 5: Camilo fight RJ?
Speaker 3: That was early? Can we all agree?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 5: So there was dissension on the post fight show. I'd
Speaker 5: love to hear your opinions. You guys are the fighters
Speaker 5: and the analysts. So h, I didn't necessarily think that
Speaker 5: Sadikov's body language, Yes, I don't. I'd liked him to
Speaker 5: have had a beat, but his body language was not
Speaker 5: intelligently defending like charl Bullet.
Speaker 7: It was.
Speaker 5: It was not a good look, Kenny, what are your thoughts?
Speaker 5: And then Arjie, I didn't have a problem with it.
Speaker 4: You know, listen, I think we all would like to
Speaker 4: see Nas get maybe another second to come back, and
Speaker 4: we've seen him come back before and we know that.
Speaker 4: I agree, John. The body language for me was was
Speaker 4: what kind of did it like? He wasn't he curled up,
Speaker 4: He was taken shot after shot, and I just didn't
Speaker 4: like the way it was happening, Like if you get
Speaker 4: back to your feet and like you you have balance
Speaker 4: and you're still defending yourself intelligence, Like to me, that
Speaker 4: would have been a better sign. I didn't see that,
Speaker 4: so I I and the way that he ran and
Speaker 4: he just he ran right into the danger zone, like
Speaker 4: and the worst way possible, right into that power shot.
Speaker 4: So that wasn't a great look. And unfortunately for Nas,
Speaker 4: you know, it was stop. But I, yeah, I didn't
Speaker 4: really have I've seen way worse stoppages than that.
Speaker 3: There's been way worse.
Speaker 6: And I will say this, Uh so I was in
Speaker 6: the locker room when Rich Mitchell was giving Naziine the rules.
Speaker 6: I can't be like, Okay, yeah, this is what a
Speaker 6: back of the head looks like. And they showed the
Speaker 6: back of the head of another ref and this is
Speaker 6: what I want to see here is running through all that.
Speaker 6: And he specifically told Nazeme you need to you know,
Speaker 6: if you get hurt and you go down, I'm gonna say,
Speaker 6: give me action. I'm gonna say, show me you're there. Right,
Speaker 6: And in fairness, this Zem didn't.
Speaker 3: Show a whole lot.
Speaker 6: I will say this though, two things the beat that
Speaker 6: you mentioned, Kenny, I would have liked to see, and
Speaker 6: two not one follow up shot hit Nazim in the head.
Speaker 3: It was all arm.
Speaker 6: So when a fighter is down and hurt and it's
Speaker 6: that fast, if I don't see something connect to a
Speaker 6: head and then no reaction, I'm thinking there's still kind
Speaker 6: of something. Let this guy kind of keep fighting when
Speaker 6: it's all arm. Yeah, right, he's not getting more damage.
Speaker 6: You're not saving the fighter from more damage. So again,
Speaker 6: Razor Thin, very tough situation and fairness to refree Rich Mitchell.
Speaker 3: That's he did exactly what he said in that little rules.
Speaker 6: When they did before, you did not show me enough,
Speaker 6: just a little bit too fast. It's like it's like
Speaker 6: an early stoppage, Kenny. When it's a reird naked choke
Speaker 6: versus a heel hook, Like if it becauesn't a heel hook,
Speaker 6: You're like, I think he tapped, Like I gotta jump
Speaker 6: in rear naked choke, Like I've been choked unconscious in
Speaker 6: front of five thousand people in strike force. That's the easiest,
Speaker 6: That's the least painful way to lose a fight, right,
Speaker 6: I'd rather get choked unconscious than lose a decision because
Speaker 6: you get more beat up in a decision. So that
Speaker 6: was my Again, definitely, I've seen more egregious but not
Speaker 6: not a perfect stop.
Speaker 4: Arg I think that's great inside info first of all,
Speaker 4: but also, you know, I think it's important what you're
Speaker 4: mentioning is the context of the situation, right, Like what's
Speaker 4: going around, what's going on surrounding the stoppage. And I
Speaker 4: think it's a fair point regarding the the hits to
Speaker 4: the arm.
Speaker 6: Yeah yeah, And I's a good looking fighter like you, Kenny,
Speaker 6: like no more shots.
Speaker 3: If it was exactly please, now what are you doing?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 5: And I can't really RJ have my cake and eat
Speaker 5: it too, right, If if I'm going to suggest that
Speaker 5: Rich Mitchell was a beat too.
Speaker 7: Early, then I have to say that the stoppage was early.
Speaker 5: However, I mean, even if it's just a little bit early,
Speaker 5: I just think it asks a lot of these referees.
Speaker 5: And I do think that learning lessons for fighters, right
Speaker 5: is that you got to stare at your opponent and
Speaker 5: try to be present and desperate and chaotic almost that
Speaker 5: you're so urgently trying to defend yourself.
Speaker 7: So thanks for joining us. R J. Clifford Live rated.
Speaker 7: RJ back from Azerbaijan.
Speaker 5: Your schedule has been breakneck and I'm very excited to
Speaker 5: see you and work with you on the Hall of
Speaker 5: Fame induction ceremony and UFC three twenty nine. So what
Speaker 5: was your trip like to Azerbaijan? And I guess what
Speaker 5: was the best part of it for you?
Speaker 3: Baku's beautiful, man.
Speaker 6: I mean we, as you know, we go to the
Speaker 6: Middle East often and it's the Middle East kind of
Speaker 6: has a certain flavor about it, and so we went
Speaker 6: to Baku for the first time last year, like, okay,
Speaker 6: it's probably gonna be like you know, Riyad or Abu again.
Speaker 3: It's like, no, it's a very different country.
Speaker 6: Because it was it was like Muslim forever, and then
Speaker 6: there was Russian for a while and more like Eastern
Speaker 6: European influence, and so like the architecture's beautiful, the weather's great.
Speaker 3: It's right there on the water. Yeah, people are friendly
Speaker 3: and dude, they love the UFC.
Speaker 6: There many dude fans were taking photos with like security
Speaker 6: guards and audio dudes and just like there's like like UFC.
Speaker 3: Adjacent Like this is my new profile photo.
Speaker 6: You know, you know, you know Miles l Audio right,
Speaker 6: Like it's just it's they love m m A that much.
Speaker 7: Yeah, he's huge.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: By the way, Niner's mother passed away, uh days ago.
Speaker 5: So uh, Niner's on his way to Detroit and uh
Speaker 5: we uh to missus Conley rest in peace.
Speaker 7: But we love you Niner very much. Anyway.
Speaker 5: So a lot of different directions in which we could
Speaker 5: go are j so and again you know, like far
Speaker 5: be it from me to play producer. But have you
Speaker 5: talked about on a hot microphone the meta rankings? Have
Speaker 5: you seen them at all?
Speaker 6: I have briefly discussed them, and I know, like we
Speaker 6: talked about it briefly about how people are thinking, Oh
Speaker 6: they're AI.
Speaker 3: It's not AI.
Speaker 6: It's a computation, right, It's just like a mathematical you know,
Speaker 6: insert ex plit times y equals z times pie. However
Speaker 6: they math it right, which I kind of dig I
Speaker 6: kind of like that because you get to say, hey,
Speaker 6: it's just math. It's not don't blame us. You can't
Speaker 6: blame a person, you can't blame a carbon based life form.
Speaker 3: If you don't like these rankings. It's math.
Speaker 6: And I love every time I had like an argument
Speaker 6: on my radio shows and you're like, well, it's just
Speaker 6: it's just the math. Are you argue against math if
Speaker 6: I want to like weasel out of an argument, right,
Speaker 6: That's that's the way I go. And now the UFC
Speaker 6: can say it's like, well, blame calculus, don't blame us.
Speaker 5: So wins and finishes and activity and a mathematical model,
Speaker 5: those are things that you need to be thinking about, right.
Speaker 5: So I just wanted to ask you guys quickly, we
Speaker 5: don't have to spend a lot of time on this,
Speaker 5: just about a couple of these moves right now. Certainly,
Speaker 5: if you really pick these things apart, there are going
Speaker 5: to be things that we all take issue with. But
Speaker 5: I am all in chips in the center of the table,
Speaker 5: and not because I'm some promotional shit. Ill and not
Speaker 5: because I'm married a mathematics major, right, It's because I
Speaker 5: believe in this.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: Quillan Salkild goes from number twelve to number eight, right,
Speaker 5: and I'm not giving you all the surrounding names, but
Speaker 5: that would seem to me like he's the eighth best
Speaker 5: lightweight in the world.
Speaker 7: Yam Bohovich goes from number four to number.
Speaker 5: Fifteen, right, Perhaps that is something I might take issue with.
Speaker 5: For kel Pennington goes from the number two ranked phantom
Speaker 5: weight contender to number fifteen.
Speaker 7: Now, I fucking love it.
Speaker 5: The question is is she going to be match made
Speaker 5: accordingly as the number fifteen ranked contender? Is she gonna
Speaker 5: be in some main event or title eliminator as a
Speaker 5: former champion? This all bears watching in terms of how
Speaker 5: it dovetails with the matchmaking. Again, I'm submitting a few
Speaker 5: to you, and then I'm gonna let you guys sound off.
Speaker 5: At featherweight Pat sabatin he goes from unranked to number
Speaker 5: seven in the world. Now, I've been promoting Sabatini. I'm
Speaker 5: a big fan. I think he's underappreciated, and now he
Speaker 5: goes from fucking twenty two to seven, and then I
Speaker 5: would say also at featherweight, Jose Miguel del Gato, just
Speaker 5: as an example, takes Josh Emmittt's number fifteen in the world,
Speaker 5: Right r J, what do you make of some of
Speaker 5: those moves? And uh and the direction seemingly in which
Speaker 5: we are going.
Speaker 6: I think the UFC kind of went the way of
Speaker 6: like the college football playoff system, where they're using their
Speaker 6: powers for good because they're the playoff Committee will come
Speaker 6: straight out and say, strength of schedule matters, right if
Speaker 6: you if you book a bunch of powder puffs your
Speaker 6: first three weeks, we're gonna knock you for it. Right
Speaker 6: you book Texas week one, We're not gonna hit you
Speaker 6: that hard if you lose, and we're gonna give you
Speaker 6: credit for tough for tough scheduling. So I think rewarding
Speaker 6: fighters who stay active is fantastic. You kind of eliminate
Speaker 6: like the Colby Covingtons of the world who get a
Speaker 6: couple of big wins and then just kind of sit
Speaker 6: on that ranking forever, you know, Like, I think that's important.
Speaker 6: You get guys that are kind of they establish themselves
Speaker 6: in that ring because that's guess how it works, right,
Speaker 6: like week one of any ranking. Let's again I keep
Speaker 6: using Colors Sports as an example, and then it's always
Speaker 6: based off of that. So if you're ranked number four
Speaker 6: to start and you don't look great, but you don't
Speaker 6: lose bad, you're kind of just gonna hang onto that ranking.
Speaker 3: I like the idea of it's always kind of refreshing.
Speaker 6: So every week it's just based on criteria, not I've
Speaker 6: earned my spot and it's mind until I lose it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, kill a lot of movement. There's gonna be a
Speaker 7: lot of movement, go ahead.
Speaker 4: Flow, yeah, which I like. I think it's going to
Speaker 4: be far superior to the last you know, the media
Speaker 4: rankings that they have before or whatever. But can we
Speaker 4: rewind a little bit and just kind of go over
Speaker 4: some of that, because yes, it's done by math, but
Speaker 4: how is the math skewed? Meaning if they're gonna put
Speaker 4: more weight on quality of competition or let's say who's
Speaker 4: away from you know, fighting for longer, then that's gonna
Speaker 4: affect there. Can we kind of go through that a
Speaker 4: little bit? Yeah, you guys know, or the idea of
Speaker 4: how they're ranking, So just.
Speaker 5: As an example, and I don't have it all in
Speaker 5: front of me, you know, yeah, I mean I only
Speaker 5: prepped a little more than long go for today.
Speaker 7: Right. But there's a word decay.
Speaker 5: So after a certain amount of time, I believe ten years,
Speaker 5: you get no credit. Right Like Josh Emmitt beaten Jeremy
Speaker 5: Stevens before I went through puberty, you get no credit
Speaker 5: for that. Actually Stevens might have beat Emmon either way, right,
Speaker 5: So some of those wins five to ten years ago,
Speaker 5: Kenny will decay, right, So that I know is part
Speaker 5: of the reason.
Speaker 4: So you're saying if I came back, I wouldn't be ranked.
Speaker 4: That's what you're saying. That's what you're telling me right now.
Speaker 7: Correct.
Speaker 5: Okay, Now, if if you fight Alex Caro Lexis in
Speaker 5: an absolute war and you win, Caro Lexis gets no credit,
Speaker 5: and some fans are like, oh but come on, you know,
Speaker 5: so it's not there's no perfect system.
Speaker 4: But yes, that's true.
Speaker 5: The activity wins finishes. I guess that's probably enough about
Speaker 5: the rankings. Can I just ask you about Sabatini in
Speaker 5: thirty seconds our j and Kenny, because yeah, featherweight's ruthless, right,
Speaker 5: And I do believe generally speaking, you see maybe youth
Speaker 5: rewarded here, like a Jose Miguel Delgado getting in there
Speaker 5: in place of Josh Hammett. But what do you make
Speaker 5: of Sabatini? Right, The guy's won like five or six
Speaker 5: r J. Right, I mean going from unranked to seven.
Speaker 6: I mean he's he's five and one in the last
Speaker 6: like under three years. His only loss is Diego Lopez,
Speaker 6: and so I'm not saying that's perfect where he is,
Speaker 6: but I think he's a great example of what the
Speaker 6: rankings math is looking for, is activity, you know, lost
Speaker 6: his only loss was you know, a guy who's always
Speaker 6: kind of in contendership strength of schedule isn't all that
Speaker 6: great though, I mean not, He's not beaten ranked dudes
Speaker 6: in that run, right, Yeah, he's.
Speaker 3: Kind of a weird outlier.
Speaker 6: I feel like I feel like he's like, not a
Speaker 6: great example of what the rankings are doing.
Speaker 4: I think he's beating some guys that are pretty damn tough.
Speaker 4: You look at Pierce Brito, Mariscal Gome, He's like, yeah,
Speaker 4: they're they're probably not the guys on everyone like the
Speaker 4: tip of everyone's tongue, But dude, these are those are
Speaker 4: tough outs. Those are not easy guys to beat and
Speaker 4: I think to have that level of consistency in that
Speaker 4: insane featherweight division UH is impressive and kind of makes sense.
Speaker 4: And I think it's going to incentivize other fighters to
Speaker 4: be like, well, why is Sabatini right above me? Oh,
Speaker 4: he's he's been quite busy and fighting tough guys, Like, okay,
Speaker 4: maybe I should be doing the same thing. So it's interesting.
Speaker 2: I like it.
Speaker 4: Man sucks.
Speaker 6: He's the example of because you get so many guys
Speaker 6: that work so hard to get into the top ten
Speaker 6: and they don't want to risk that and so they
Speaker 6: won't fight anyone below them. He's the example of just
Speaker 6: keep winning and you'll pass them. You know, these guys
Speaker 6: will get ranked ahead of you, and they'll be afraid
Speaker 6: to fight a tough guy with not much of a name.
Speaker 6: He's like, just keep taking fights, keep winning, and you
Speaker 6: can Sabatini your way into the time.
Speaker 3: Right that, we're going to coin that term starting now.
Speaker 7: As I like it.
Speaker 5: As soon as I got off the call, I emailed
Speaker 5: the head guy just so I can get a better
Speaker 5: understanding of how much the matchmakers might be beholden to
Speaker 5: the meta rankings.
Speaker 7: And obviously that's not the case.
Speaker 5: Right, So just because Sabatini, with all you know, in
Speaker 5: all of his wrestling glory, is now number seven in
Speaker 5: the world doesn't mean he is going to be match
Speaker 5: made accordingly, a couple more minutes with R. J. Clifford,
Speaker 5: and again, if you got any bookou highlights that you
Speaker 5: want to get to on the way out by all means.
Speaker 5: But Julius Walker lost to Abdul Rochman yak Yayev by
Speaker 5: knockout in eight seconds, and Julius Walker went on Instagram
Speaker 5: and sort of just talked about how disappointed he was
Speaker 5: getting knocked out in eight seconds and as former profighters yourselves,
Speaker 5: I just wanted to read you some of this, you
Speaker 5: know after the fight, This is Julius Walker. I couldn't
Speaker 5: stop thinking about how much went into me going out
Speaker 5: there and getting dropped with the first punch. My family
Speaker 5: went two months without me, My sponsors invested heavily, and me,
Speaker 5: my team, my coach has spent hours preparing me and
Speaker 5: traveling to be here. Hard to wrap my head around
Speaker 5: the fact that it was all for an eight second fight. Obviously,
Speaker 5: he turns it positive and says, in reality, there were
Speaker 5: a lot of gains, but this sport, right, Like, all right,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna spend eight weeks RJ and Kenny away from
Speaker 5: my kids, right, and you go get knocked out in
Speaker 5: eight seconds, man, and there's nothing that anyone can say, right,
Speaker 5: and you just lead the league and apologies for the
Speaker 5: next two weeks. Just apologize to everybody in your life
Speaker 5: and they don't want to hear it. And uh, I
Speaker 5: don't know. It's just a it's a really tough way
Speaker 5: to make a lit.
Speaker 3: I think, John, you bring me on here because you
Speaker 3: guys have hearts and I do not.
Speaker 6: If you're so worried about putting all that work and
Speaker 6: having a bad eight second loss, don't throw a lazy
Speaker 6: fucking jab against Abdul rock monyak y I have? I
Speaker 6: mean you just chin out and standing up like super lazy.
Speaker 7: It's like it's yak ya yev. What do you think
Speaker 7: you're doing? Man?
Speaker 6: Like, Yeah, that's what happens when you throw a stupid
Speaker 6: lazy jab, hands down, chin up, standing straight up against
Speaker 6: the killer like yah yah I have, Like I feel
Speaker 6: I do feel bad for you, But what do you
Speaker 6: think is gonna happen?
Speaker 4: Like eight weeks of work? How about jab back to
Speaker 4: your chin?
Speaker 3: Jab head off center line, jab craw like, come on.
Speaker 7: That's what's gonna happen.
Speaker 4: That what's gonna happen. This is a sport with you know,
Speaker 4: serious consequences, and the truth will reveal itself for better
Speaker 4: or worse, and it will stare you right in the
Speaker 4: face and make you feel miserable. And it's up to
Speaker 4: you whether you want to look at your work honestly
Speaker 4: or not. And you know, there's there's many other jobs
Speaker 4: where you can make a mistake and you're fine. In
Speaker 4: this one, you get humiliated, could possibly lose your job,
Speaker 4: You get hurt in the process. You know, you feel
Speaker 4: like you need to apologize to everyone and your family,
Speaker 4: your team. It is. It is tough, dude, It is
Speaker 4: one of I think it's the toughest professional sport in
Speaker 4: the world, no question about it. And there's no opportunity
Speaker 4: to come back next Sunday and do it again. It's
Speaker 4: just it is what it is. You may not have
Speaker 4: another chance, right, It's it's that kind of sport. And
Speaker 4: I do agree with r J in that regard. In
Speaker 4: that listen, you gotta be better than that, and you
Speaker 4: gotta be more aware. This isn't a sparring match anymore.
Speaker 4: The rippercussions for your bad decisions or lack of training
Speaker 4: or lack of precise training is huge, and it's it's
Speaker 4: really tough, man, It's hard. It's hard, but you hate
Speaker 4: to see these guys. But it's true, like he did
Speaker 4: put in those eight weeks and and he and he's suffering,
Speaker 4: you know, away from his family and all that stuff.
Speaker 4: That's not the result you wanted. But again, mixed martial arts,
Speaker 4: similar to math, doesn't care about your feelings.
Speaker 6: And that's the beauty of the sport too. Is because
Speaker 6: as bad and I don't mean it to bash and
Speaker 6: Julius Walker, he had his work cut out for him
Speaker 6: against Yan, Yeah, of course I think he's a future champ, right,
Speaker 6: but there's a ying to every Yang. Like as bad
Speaker 6: as that was for Julius Walker, as like embarrassing all
Speaker 6: that work for nothing, it was like this for Yakiyayev
Speaker 6: because he had an eight second knockout, highlight reel stuff
Speaker 6: on an undefeated career.
Speaker 3: It's like it's it's it's a zero sum game.
Speaker 6: As bad as it was for you, it was as
Speaker 6: great for that as your opponent. And that's the beauty
Speaker 6: of combat sports. The stakes are so high. That's why
Speaker 6: Connor McGregor was so great, right, he just raised the
Speaker 6: stakes of everything. He talks all that trash, and when
Speaker 6: he loses, man, it just crushes him because he raised
Speaker 6: it so big and talks so much shit. But when
Speaker 6: he wins, it's just a win times ten, and so
Speaker 6: it's as bad as it is for a fighter. That
Speaker 6: means it's just as good for his opponent. And that's
Speaker 6: the appeal you can't have. You know, it's very rare
Speaker 6: when there's a Rory McDonald Robbie Lawler two where like
Speaker 6: both guys you know, profiles skyrocket, it's one going down,
Speaker 6: one going up, and it's almost exactly equal, right Like
Speaker 6: we'll have missus Annik do the math on that.
Speaker 5: But like that, my man, thank you for your time.
Speaker 5: We'll have a little bit more next week. We'll talk
Speaker 5: you SC three twenty nine and really want to get
Speaker 5: your thoughts on Connor McGregor's chances, but we will do
Speaker 5: that next Monday. Welcome home, enjoy a rare respite next
Speaker 5: weekend off and.
Speaker 7: We'll talk to you real soon. Thanks boys at R
Speaker 7: J R. J.
Speaker 5: Clifford with us live on the Anak and Florian Podcast,
Speaker 5: also back from Azerbaijan and also a star of the program,
Speaker 5: Let's get to uh.
Speaker 7: What do they call him? Raymond Pete.
Speaker 1: It's now time for the Ray Long Minute.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna a hole.
Speaker 7: That's what I want.
Speaker 1: The Ray Long Minute. The John Anick and Kenny Florian Podcast.
Speaker 5: All the Annak and Florian podcast listeners are looking for.
Speaker 7: In the corner. What time can you get to a
Speaker 7: round two?
Speaker 2: Just our listeners. J Clifford is killing it. I think
Speaker 2: this guy's killing it man.
Speaker 7: Yeah, he makes a little less than you per show.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's gonna be for long's He's doing
Speaker 2: a great job. You think when the fuck did he
Speaker 2: get back?
Speaker 7: Probably fairly recently. When did you get back? You look? Well,
Speaker 7: I tell you what, like.
Speaker 2: One in the morning. It was. It was brutal that
Speaker 2: that that's not an easy trip. And I mean for
Speaker 2: the guys that came from the States to fight, I
Speaker 2: think it's it's a big disadvantage that that trip is.
Speaker 2: You know, the Laos is a big yeah, just every
Speaker 2: just getting there, it's a that's a big that's a
Speaker 2: big ask for these guys, you know, just doing it.
Speaker 2: It could be because I'm one hundred and fifty, but
Speaker 2: maybe it's different if you're twenty five. But it's still tenny.
Speaker 2: It's brutal. It's actually brutal.
Speaker 4: I don't think it's easy for anyone at any age. Yeah,
Speaker 4: yeah tough.
Speaker 7: Yeah you are.
Speaker 2: You are old though, No no question about feeling.
Speaker 7: Kenny and I have TV lights on us. You don't.
Speaker 5: But honestly, you look fantastic like you look, you look
Speaker 5: great like honestly, your wife maybe didn't hit the lottery
Speaker 5: or the jackpot in certain respects, but apartment. No, I'm serious,
Speaker 5: I'm serious. He married a handsome fucking man anyway. Not
Speaker 5: a great result for nas of course, a Nazerbaijean. Much
Speaker 5: has been made up the stoppage. We sort of exhausted
Speaker 5: it a little bit there with R J. Clifford, but
Speaker 5: just wanted to get your thoughts on on the fight
Speaker 5: as long as it lasted and everything after the fact,
Speaker 5: if we could listen.
Speaker 2: I thought it was a great match of finnas I
Speaker 2: thought he was looking good up until that point. Horrible stoppage,
Speaker 2: horrible stubb and and look, it's a big ass for
Speaker 2: the referee, but you have to know who's fight. You
Speaker 2: saw this guy. He needs to get hit to get going.
Speaker 2: He was one million percent very present. He had to
Speaker 2: cover up. He got knocked down. He knew it, and
Speaker 2: you know you got to give him a chance to,
Speaker 2: you know, grab a leger, grab onto something. Look at
Speaker 2: his last fight in Bako, He's getting seventy punches against
Speaker 2: a cage. He's covering, he's present. But unfortunately Finnas he's
Speaker 2: got he needs that to wake himself up. And this
Speaker 2: guy didn't give him the opportunity that you know, the
Speaker 2: last rift in and I think cheated the fans of
Speaker 2: what would have been a really really good fight. So
Speaker 2: but but wait with that, With that being said, hats
Speaker 2: off to Eric Nixick and Jimmy Gifford. Jimmy Gifford one
Speaker 2: of the nicest guys you want to beat. I mean,
Speaker 2: I mean, he's got to be around as long as me.
Speaker 2: So just even in defeat, you know, seeing that guy,
Speaker 2: he makes you feel good. He's that good of a guy,
Speaker 2: I think. And it was good to catch up with Nixic.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen him, so I'm not taking anything away.
Speaker 2: Hats off to those guys. Camillo did a great job.
Speaker 2: He threw a beautiful right hand right down the middle,
Speaker 2: and uh, you know, he walked away with the wind.
Speaker 2: I feel my heart goes out to Nas because he's
Speaker 2: a guy that really wants to go out on his shield.
Speaker 2: You have to give the guy the chance to to
Speaker 2: fight back. And I don't think you know, the ref
Speaker 2: did exactly the opposite of what he told us he
Speaker 2: would doing in the dressing room. Toe, I'll tell you
Speaker 2: to start moving. You got to show me something. Don't
Speaker 2: give me a thumbs up. Just just there was a
Speaker 2: three hamerfists maybe four, you know, like quick but on
Speaker 2: the arms. I don't know, I mean it's way ray.
Speaker 4: I assume Nas said he was fine. What were what
Speaker 4: were his thoughts on the stoppage and how was he
Speaker 4: after the fact.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he knows that that that's sometimes it takes him
Speaker 2: to get hit to to wake up. And he you
Speaker 2: saw him jump right up. There's no question about a
Speaker 2: totally unaffected one ready to go is. I think that's
Speaker 2: evident even by looking at the tape. Uh, and just
Speaker 2: really upset, really upset because now that's his second loss,
Speaker 2: and uh uh, he wants like again, he wants to
Speaker 2: go out on his shield. If he's going to go out,
Speaker 2: let me, you know, let me. I would stop to
Speaker 2: fight if it was bad. I mean a Taporia fight
Speaker 2: was a million percent worse than that. They let that
Speaker 2: go and the guy couldn't see that fucking override in
Speaker 2: the ref I mean, these guys can go fuck themselves
Speaker 2: at this point. I mean, be consistent. That's all anybody
Speaker 2: wants is consistency. That's it, Kenn.
Speaker 7: Can I jump in here for a second, go for you.
Speaker 5: I just wrote down the word inconsistency, and I say so, Yes,
Speaker 5: we're on the same page. Okay, But there's a few
Speaker 5: things that we need to get into here. And one
Speaker 5: of thesequestions I don't necessarily know the answer to if
Speaker 5: you win or you learn, then the learning lesson though,
Speaker 5: has to be how do you prevent this from happening
Speaker 5: if you get hurt in a fight. And I believe
Speaker 5: that the answer is you have to try to get
Speaker 5: an angle to your opponent. You can't give your back
Speaker 5: like that because that visual, whether it's intelligently defending in
Speaker 5: his own mind or not, that visual leaves a lot
Speaker 5: to be desired for the referee.
Speaker 2: Yeah, John, I'm not going to argue with it. But again,
Speaker 2: I'm going to go back to consistency. There's ten other
Speaker 2: refs that would have let that fight go on. And
Speaker 2: you're right, that's the issue, Kat, that's the only issue.
Speaker 2: We could say whatever we want. I mean, he did
Speaker 2: get knocked down, there's no question about it. Dude. That
Speaker 2: was a two second thing. It wasn't time it. I
Speaker 2: don't know was it more than two seconds? You got
Speaker 2: to give the guy a little bit of a chance.
Speaker 2: Now that guy's hands didn't go over his head and
Speaker 2: he took those shots. Of course you stop to fight. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but I don't know.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I might have to update my referee rankings. I
Speaker 7: have to move down.
Speaker 2: I don't even know who I end up, even sort
Speaker 2: a guy before Like again, they I don't I don't
Speaker 2: want to get into this ship. He doesn't it you're
Speaker 2: pissing up a tree. Uh, it's just it is what
Speaker 2: it is. But it's unfortunate because there's a lot of
Speaker 2: repercussions that happened. And uh, and again I'm always for
Speaker 2: fighter safety, but that wasn't even remotely close to anything.
Speaker 4: So knowing this, and and I guess maybe this is
Speaker 4: a better question for NOS. But does this affect how
Speaker 4: you or how he approaches fights moving forward, right, because yes,
Speaker 4: I get it sometimes you know it's like I was
Speaker 4: a slow starter as well. But is this something we
Speaker 4: were like, Okay, I need to rectify this because there
Speaker 4: may be that that point where a referee is gonna
Speaker 4: just stop it, Like I can't just afford to, hey,
Speaker 4: let me get hit a little bit to wake myself up.
Speaker 4: So how how do you change that?
Speaker 2: I guess, yeah, that's kind of answer a good question.
Speaker 2: And it's been talked about because he does start off slow,
Speaker 2: and unfortunately in a couple of fights he's got to
Speaker 2: get rattled, but he does come back and he's never
Speaker 2: really he's never really hurt, you know, hurt hurt. So
Speaker 2: I I agree with you, he's gonna he's gonna have
Speaker 2: to address that moving forward because you can't assume the
Speaker 2: ref's going to do the right thing at this point.
Speaker 2: And that's it that that question is fair, and it's
Speaker 2: been talked about. I talked, I talked to him about
Speaker 2: it all the time. You know, let's not go against
Speaker 2: the cage, let's not take that type of ship. You know,
Speaker 2: he's a very very talented kid, super talented joint that
Speaker 2: he has to figure that out moving forward, else he'll
Speaker 2: get fucked over again. And then it's then it's going
Speaker 2: to become you know, it's almost it might become then
Speaker 2: now it's on you like we know this, but you know,
Speaker 2: like when Morob, you know, me and Aljiel were talking
Speaker 2: about that there's fights and we didn't highlight it, but
Speaker 2: there's fights where like Morob says, please do not stop,
Speaker 2: do not stop the fight. I'm gonna be like again
Speaker 2: like you and maybe we should have just been more
Speaker 2: you know whatever, more concise with that in the dressing
Speaker 2: room where we just went over with him. You saw
Speaker 2: his last fight. Don't do it, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: he comes back. I don't know something. But you know,
Speaker 2: we didn't really stress it as much as maybe we
Speaker 2: should have, which at other times we one hundred percent doe.
Speaker 2: But I mean I think that was I don't I
Speaker 2: don't think many people are going to think that was
Speaker 2: a good stoppage. I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 7: Well, I think horrible is strong.
Speaker 5: I know you did say we are asking a lot
Speaker 5: of the referee in the moment, but no, I mean
Speaker 5: it's either earlier it's not, and I think it was
Speaker 5: a beat early, you know, on the spectrum that is wide.
Speaker 7: I think it was early. One other thing I wanted
Speaker 7: to get can we.
Speaker 2: Get Dominant Cruz's opinion on this? Please?
Speaker 7: Can we call him up?
Speaker 2: Can we get him on the phone right now? Can
Speaker 2: I have a lifeline? Can I have a lifeline to Dominate?
Speaker 5: For one thing that you said off the top was
Speaker 5: you have to know who is fighting? And I want
Speaker 5: to ask you guys this because I was watching the
Speaker 5: Post Show with Hellcat and Michael Kiessa and Dean Thomas,
Speaker 5: and there was some not only disagreement on the panel,
Speaker 5: but I don't think they really knew right, Ray said, Kenny.
Speaker 7: You gotta know who's fighting? Right?
Speaker 5: Did anybody see nas versus Nicholas's motive?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 5: But I don't know about that, because right, fighters evolve
Speaker 5: and fighters absorb damage. And if a referee is of
Speaker 5: a mentality that this dude historically, I don't know. Referees
Speaker 5: don't get their assignments necessarily way in advance, Kate. I
Speaker 5: don't know if a referee has to say, all right,
Speaker 5: this dude is made like a boot, you know, I
Speaker 5: gotta like give him every benefit of every doubt.
Speaker 7: I don't know, is is that a real thing?
Speaker 4: And I'll say this, John, I'm with you on that
Speaker 4: in that you know this, This is why I probably
Speaker 4: disagree with Ray is that the referee can only go
Speaker 4: on what they see in that moment. And it's hard.
Speaker 4: I think if you start to label that and say, well, okay,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna it's you know, Gae Chee fighting today and
Speaker 4: Toporia here and then, and I'm gonna address these differently,
Speaker 4: that's where you can get yourself into trouble because, as
Speaker 4: you mentioned, it's like Chuck Ladell had a you know
Speaker 4: he was you couldn't knock the guy out until you could,
Speaker 4: and those things change over time. So the only thing
Speaker 4: you can go on is really what you're seeing in
Speaker 4: that moment, not to say he was right for that
Speaker 4: stoppage or not. But I don't know. You know, all
Speaker 4: you could really look at is body language, and I
Speaker 4: think you almost need to take the fighter's name out
Speaker 4: of it. I would almost take the opposite approach Ray,
Speaker 4: But yeah, I mean, nas is gonna be different than say,
Speaker 4: other fighters from what we've seen. But I don't know
Speaker 4: if you can approach it that way as a referee.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I'm gonna agree with you guys even on that.
Speaker 2: I'm not arguing. I'm going back to consistency. Though. If
Speaker 2: you're nas and you've watched other fights and you've seen
Speaker 2: them go on, why am I getting penalized when I'm
Speaker 2: not even ten percent as hurt as the other guys.
Speaker 2: So it goes back to consistency again. Now, I'm not
Speaker 2: arguing with you, Kenny, and I'll agree with you, disagree
Speaker 2: with me. I will even agree with you. But it
Speaker 2: goes back to consistency. We've seen it time and time
Speaker 2: again where people are allowed to continue. And again that's
Speaker 2: why I make a joke with dominic Cruz. But you
Speaker 2: know what dominic Cruz's answer is going to be. You
Speaker 2: know it. You know because he's been so emphatic about
Speaker 2: it the last two or three years, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. So, I mean, it was like when Morob
Speaker 2: got hurt by Marlon Morice. Thank god we had Keith
Speaker 2: Peterson in there. Morob might not even be where he
Speaker 2: is today without that. And that's the problem. They don't
Speaker 2: understand that they're affecting these kids' futures. I mean, they're
Speaker 2: fucking scumbaggs. At the end of the day. I mean
Speaker 2: what you want to say, not to give a fuck.
Speaker 2: They know what they're doing. They know exactly what they're doing.
Speaker 2: Be consistent and do your fucking job. That's what you
Speaker 2: paid for it. Just do your fucking job. That's all
Speaker 2: anybody's asking for. There's too many inconsistencies, and that's where
Speaker 2: it goes south.
Speaker 5: I I agree with almost everything coming out of your mouth.
Speaker 5: I mean, I believe that we ask way too much
Speaker 5: of fighters, and in the modern area, You're right, there
Speaker 5: is very much a trend towards late stoppages as opposed
Speaker 5: to early. Right, it seems like the consistency that doesn't
Speaker 5: exist is at least more towards letting a fighter stare
Speaker 5: death in the face as opposed to toward fighter safety.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 5: So part of the reason I get upset is because
Speaker 5: it's never about fighter safety, right. It's like, great job
Speaker 5: to the referee that you know, Daniel zel Huber will
Speaker 5: never be the same after the Esteban Riebevics fight that
Speaker 5: maybe should have been stopped because it was the fight
Speaker 5: of the year, you know what I mean. But like
Speaker 5: nobody knows the price that these fighters pay. Nobody knows
Speaker 5: if Chris Johnson in the NFL running back just got
Speaker 5: diagnosed with als. Is that because of all the concussions
Speaker 5: and the damage in his career or not?
Speaker 7: You know, we don't.
Speaker 5: There are a lot of unquantifiables, but you know, fighter
Speaker 5: safety seems like an afterthought in a lot of these conversations.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, and honestly, look, I got excited, and I'm
Speaker 2: gonna apologize right away because I don't want to get
Speaker 2: too crazy. But you know, we're in a sport that
Speaker 2: maybe shouldn't even be there. I mean, you're gonna get
Speaker 2: hit in the head. Getting hit in the head once
Speaker 2: in your life, John is not good for you, right right?
Speaker 2: You know, dehydrate and your internal logans over and over
Speaker 2: again is not good. There's nothing good about the sport.
Speaker 2: But if you give the people the knowledge that this
Speaker 2: is bad for you, it's jumping out of a plane
Speaker 2: skydive and I don't know, you just got Everybody has
Speaker 2: to know what the repercussions are and if you choose
Speaker 2: to do it. That's the society we live in there,
Speaker 2: you're allowed to do it. They know what the repercussions are,
Speaker 2: and then you have to have referees that understand that,
Speaker 2: and they're going to abide by that. It's just I
Speaker 2: don't want to see anybody get hurt. And you're right,
Speaker 2: the guy, would you know what that happened? Junior say,
Speaker 2: I shot himself in the chest so they can analyze
Speaker 2: his brain, you know their CTE. Does anybody give a fuck? John?
Speaker 2: Do you think anybody gives a shit about what happened
Speaker 2: to Junior? Say? Oh, what they do about it? Anything? No,
Speaker 2: they want that They're going to make their money. So listen,
Speaker 2: I'm good for beingning the sport. If that's what you
Speaker 2: want to say. Look, it's not good for your blah blah.
Speaker 2: That's just not the world we live in. And if
Speaker 2: it's not the world we live in, then you got
Speaker 2: to give the fighters that want to make that decision
Speaker 2: for themselves. WoT how many guys you still see now
Speaker 2: taking fights that they shouldn't take just to provide for
Speaker 2: their family in the future, even if they're there there
Speaker 2: or not there, And that's their choice. This is where
Speaker 2: that's the society we live in. They have a choice
Speaker 2: to make and sometimes you know, somebody has to step
Speaker 2: in and help him make that choice. But yeah, all
Speaker 2: of these injuries in football and the guys that can't
Speaker 2: walk it Joe name it. You ever see him walking
Speaker 2: with his knees after he was done. Who wants to
Speaker 2: do that? Would he trade it in again and do
Speaker 2: it all over again? Probably he knew the repercussions of
Speaker 2: what was going to happen, and so did these guys.
Speaker 2: So you got to give them the chance, I think.
Speaker 2: And it's it's going to be a hard bouncing act
Speaker 2: and the ref has a hard job. That's why.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 2: I don't really mean to come down on it like that,
Speaker 2: but when you're involved in it just gets frustrated. When
Speaker 2: I just thought that was a really early stoppage and
Speaker 2: you sort of guy bounced right up and look, we've
Speaker 2: seen it. It happens, and unfortunately it happened to a kid.
Speaker 2: I like, so it is what it is, and you know,
Speaker 2: and I know people will probably be saying if it
Speaker 2: was the other way, I go the other way, and
Speaker 2: probably would. I don't know. It's take a case by case,
Speaker 2: but this one was I thought, you know early, and
Speaker 2: like again, I go back, if they if Peterson would
Speaker 2: have stopped that fight, would never we would have never
Speaker 2: got to see where Morob's ceiling was he might have
Speaker 2: never even gotten the opportunity. And it's I don't know.
Speaker 5: You got so much unconditional love from the Annakin Form
Speaker 5: podcast viewership that.
Speaker 7: It almost no. I actually think that you.
Speaker 5: Are hitting on a lot of truths, inconvenient or otherwise today,
Speaker 5: and I think you've been very thoughtful coming off a plane.
Speaker 5: I actually think you've been really great. But I'm just
Speaker 5: telling you that this audience, right, you unlike me, right,
Speaker 5: you got them just eating out of your fucking hand,
Speaker 5: out of what you say you know about a rail
Speaker 5: and you know.
Speaker 2: Hey, John, I'm gonna say after that trip, I don't
Speaker 2: I believe in a quart of loure. I'm not even
Speaker 2: responsible for anything I'm saying right now. That was that
Speaker 2: was a rough, freaking trips. I might be out of
Speaker 2: my freaking bird rate now the.
Speaker 5: Next time, you know, the next time, you guys just
Speaker 5: need to win the battle for the lead foot.
Speaker 2: You won't end up, you know, yeah, Oh listen, just kidding.
Speaker 2: Don't don't get me, don't get me going, you know.
Speaker 7: No, I know, so I love you.
Speaker 5: It's all love right before you came on, Like, I
Speaker 5: wonder the extent to which I can have fun with right,
Speaker 5: you know?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know I got you know, you got caught block.
Speaker 7: So when I go get a cup of black coffee.
Speaker 2: I need my throne this morning, and I didn't have any?
Speaker 5: Is that because they didn't send it to the home
Speaker 5: and it's at the gym? Would you like pay a
Speaker 5: couple of cases sent to the house?
Speaker 2: Right, you could send it to the gym. I don't
Speaker 2: care where. I said, just send it.
Speaker 7: They did. We'll send you more.
Speaker 2: Oh did they maybe? Wait?
Speaker 7: I can't usually get it when they say like please first.
Speaker 2: Wait that first ship in we going back to that.
Speaker 7: This guy anyway.
Speaker 5: So but in all seriousness, let me get a little
Speaker 5: serious one. So you go get a black coffee, but
Speaker 5: you don't necessarily know what goes into that black coffee
Speaker 5: or how well it's being made. Throwing sport coffee is functional,
Speaker 5: better for you coffee. It's made for active on the
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Speaker 5: their website directly Sport Coffee dot com Thrown Sport Coffee,
Speaker 5: Get going, keep going.
Speaker 7: So have you not had any coffee today? Red? Right now?
Speaker 2: I just had a I had a Machia tea, so
Speaker 2: hopefully there's a little little caffeine in there.
Speaker 5: So I did some impromptu referee rankings earlier, and my
Speaker 5: twin brother Jason text me right away like stop stop
Speaker 5: with the referee rankings.
Speaker 7: You can get yourself in trouble, you know.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 5: Anyway, so I got a few other things I'd like
Speaker 5: to talk to you about.
Speaker 2: Before you do, let me just can I give a
Speaker 2: shout out to Uh. I'll tell you that the trip
Speaker 2: was very nice this time as your Bijian was great.
Speaker 2: And there's two brothers, Razula and Aslin, who owned a restaurant.
Speaker 2: I'm going to try to pronounce a right ect eppmunt,
Speaker 2: but just so high spittable these people and two great
Speaker 2: guys you ever and Anazebijan. I swear to God, I
Speaker 2: know those guys will take care of you. Did that
Speaker 2: type of people very giving and just beautiful souls and
Speaker 2: just it was it was a really we had a
Speaker 2: really good time that way, and uh, you know whatever.
Speaker 2: So I just wanted to shout those guys out because
Speaker 2: they're always gracious and they helped out a lot of
Speaker 2: people on this trip.
Speaker 5: Well, if you ever find yourself in Azerbaijan, go to
Speaker 5: episode six to oh one of the Antakin Florent podcast
Speaker 5: and find the ray long a minute. And uh, did
Speaker 5: anybody in Azerbaijan mention the Anak.
Speaker 7: And Florian podcast to you? That sounds like, I don't.
Speaker 4: Know, No, get him out of here, that's it.
Speaker 7: Get him out of man. Oh man. I guess there
Speaker 7: was a lot of Nazim Sadakov talk. Probably right, they
Speaker 7: love him, They love nas Yeah.
Speaker 5: So I don't know how much of these other performances
Speaker 5: you saw. I mean, there's a couple more that I
Speaker 5: can get into with Kenny on the back end, you know,
Speaker 5: we can talk about Connor McGregor. There was a Suliev
Speaker 5: stretch that I want to get into and I don't
Speaker 5: know if people are mispronouncing Sulyev, but Asu almabayev man
Speaker 5: and I think it's really a case of a guy
Speaker 5: sort of using his UFC experience and challenges to his
Speaker 5: advantage and just getting better. And Kenny this sort of
Speaker 5: performance and Ray dovetails with what I was saying off
Speaker 5: the top, like, if you're a UFC fan, if you're
Speaker 5: a martial arts fan, this night really had a lot
Speaker 5: of meat on the bone Kenny that I would tap
Speaker 5: like so fucking fast.
Speaker 7: And if we have my leg in that position.
Speaker 4: Dude, it's a rare one and it's a really cool
Speaker 4: one and a very painful one if you're in it. Aw,
Speaker 4: but you know it's great to do against guys with
Speaker 4: long ass legs like Johnson, you know. So he saw
Speaker 4: the opportunity to off balance him, got a hold of
Speaker 4: that leg and the picture that captured it was just amazing,
Speaker 4: but it looked so brutal. And that's one of those where, yeah,
Speaker 4: it's you're in the position to choke, but if you
Speaker 4: see a limb and you see a lever, you scoop
Speaker 4: it up and avoided all by do that to Charles Johnson.
Speaker 4: That was nasty. Al Jael had one of those.
Speaker 2: And al Joe hit it headed on Cody Stamen, and
Speaker 2: then Zabiat hit it after him. Al Joe and Zabat
Speaker 2: got the bonus.
Speaker 7: Let me let me hit her pill.
Speaker 2: Let me just stop. We know. Me and al Joe
Speaker 2: talked about that. I mean, it's really is whatever is what?
Speaker 2: But that thing looked like it was stretched. Really that one.
Speaker 2: I caught the end of it like a holy crap.
Speaker 4: That was involuntary.
Speaker 2: Yes, talk about stretching your hamstring.
Speaker 7: If you're still watching, send me the quarter two payments
Speaker 7: for Longo and our.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna get I think I'm getting fired after this.
Speaker 7: I don't think so.
Speaker 5: So I got a lot of things in my notes
Speaker 5: that I would like to get to in these final
Speaker 5: few minutes with Ray Longo. So we talked on this
Speaker 5: show about Connor McGregor's return for the first time since
Speaker 5: twenty twenty one, and if he looked like he was
Speaker 5: all shredded up and was showing you all of this
Speaker 5: training footage, you know, maybe you would lean more into.
Speaker 7: Your expectations that he would perform well.
Speaker 5: So, as we sit here, Ray, less than two weeks out,
Speaker 5: you've seen a little bit more from Connor. You've heard
Speaker 5: a little bit from Connor. I have my opinions as
Speaker 5: to what I'm seeing and I'm hearing. I'm curious how
Speaker 5: you feel about his chances now that we're, you know,
Speaker 5: less than two weeks out.
Speaker 2: I think, listen, this is a guy that and as
Speaker 2: much as I'd grown to kind of like him and
Speaker 2: the way he speaks, this is a guy that's really
Speaker 2: abused his body last five years. So the body is resilient.
Speaker 2: It could look good, but he's got his work cut
Speaker 2: out for him against Holloway. I'm sure he'll have a
Speaker 2: power advantage, but you know, eat and uh, you know, uh,
Speaker 2: combinations are gonna be. I think he's just gonna it's
Speaker 2: gonna He's got a big ask in front of him.
Speaker 2: And I think it's the way he's lived his life
Speaker 2: the last five years. That's a hard life to live,
Speaker 2: and some guys could do it, man, I made some
Speaker 2: guys can do it. I've seen guys that can drink
Speaker 2: and go in and fight like it's nothing but age
Speaker 2: plus that tends to catch up with you after a while.
Speaker 2: But uh, I don't care what I'm looking at. I
Speaker 2: go back to the previous five years, Like you're seeing
Speaker 2: the tip of the iceberg below. That is a lot
Speaker 2: of debauchery and uh, let's see if he could he
Speaker 2: get pasted it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Kenny, it doesn't necessarily seem as though this return
Speaker 5: has been preceded by twelve months of the most rigorous,
Speaker 5: intense training you've ever seen in your life. Right, I
Speaker 5: don't know what condition Connor McGregor is going to show up,
Speaker 5: and I know he's full of pride. I know he
Speaker 5: still feels as though his MMA legacy deserves to be
Speaker 5: bolt both. What do you think based upon what you're
Speaker 5: seeing in here at kept flow?
Speaker 4: Yeah, obviously this is not an easy fight for him
Speaker 4: at all, no matter how he's treated his body over
Speaker 4: the last several years. But I do think he's made
Speaker 4: it a concerted effort at being diligent with his mind,
Speaker 4: body and spirit. And when Connor McGregor has traditionally done that,
Speaker 4: we've seen the best version of Connor McGregor. Now, I
Speaker 4: think Ray's bringing up a great point. Now, you know,
Speaker 4: is it enough to do that over the course of
Speaker 4: three months, six months, even a year, when say, the
Speaker 4: majority of that time frame over the last five years
Speaker 4: has been maybe not treating your body that great. I
Speaker 4: don't know, and I think raised you know, smart to
Speaker 4: point that out. It's like everybody is different and how
Speaker 4: they can treat their body and how they can come
Speaker 4: back to those certain things. I think what's probably even
Speaker 4: more worrisome in some ways is being out of competition
Speaker 4: for that long. The sport will pass the if you're
Speaker 4: not keeping up and evolving. However, I think Connor McGregor
Speaker 4: has been very honest in his assessment in himself and
Speaker 4: how he's approached the sport, how he's approaching the sport now.
Speaker 4: I think he's way more mature in what he's saying,
Speaker 4: and those are really good signs it's gonna be interesting.
Speaker 4: I also think that if you're gonna fight Max Holloway,
Speaker 4: you're fighting him at the right time, and you're also
Speaker 4: fighting him in the right way class at one seventy,
Speaker 4: especially given Connor size versus Max Holloway. Not that Max
Speaker 4: Holloway is small at all, but I think those are
Speaker 4: things that are slightly in favor of Connor McGregor. And
Speaker 4: guess what, he's also coming in as an underdog in
Speaker 4: this fight, which is also kind of a good position.
Speaker 4: To be in because I think Connor loves surprising people
Speaker 4: as well, so I think he has all those things
Speaker 4: going for him. I do think it's a very difficult
Speaker 4: fight for him. I think it comes down to how
Speaker 4: Connor is coming into this fight on a technical level.
Speaker 4: Is he forcing the knockout? Is he believing in his
Speaker 4: power alone? Or do we get the vintage Connor McGregor
Speaker 4: that realized that it's his creativity and offbeat rhythm that
Speaker 4: made him special. That's that's what I'm most interested in
Speaker 4: seeing this version of Connor McGregor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with you. I just think he always
Speaker 2: kind of struggled with endurance a little bit, and that
Speaker 2: that can't get better as you get If anything that gets,
Speaker 2: that's one thing is hard to keep up as the
Speaker 2: endurance part. And and I think Callaway's got a good
Speaker 2: guess tank. If he could throw a lot of volume
Speaker 2: at him and make him react like he's just I
Speaker 2: think that battery will go down on him. And I
Speaker 2: don't know that's the way I'm looking at it, but
Speaker 2: who knows. It's a tough call. When was how long
Speaker 2: ago was the Dustin fight? How many years ago was.
Speaker 7: That twenty twenty one. I mean, that's a long time ago.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, remember in boxing, if you took off
Speaker 2: a couple of years to come back, even what Lennon
Speaker 2: did with Hagler, like those kill this man, but I do.
Speaker 2: But look that both were forty five is so I
Speaker 2: think it's going to transfer over good for both of them.
Speaker 4: Devil's advocate over here right now.
Speaker 7: So what if?
Speaker 4: What if maybe Connor wasn't taking his training so seriously
Speaker 4: back then, and and what if some of it has
Speaker 4: to do with the way cut and at one seventy
Speaker 4: maybe he'll be at full power. I'm not saying that's
Speaker 4: the case, because it does look like that.
Speaker 7: Seventy right, he hasn't cut weight in ages, you know, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 7: I mean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Look look if I'll say this, if anybody could
Speaker 2: do it, it's kind of McGregor. I mean, he's proven.
Speaker 2: I mean he always, you know, more or less backed
Speaker 2: up whatever he was saying. And but you know, your
Speaker 2: brain starts to think you could still do things that
Speaker 2: your body just isn't in agreement with. And I think
Speaker 2: that's where he's at. Sure, Like he's a proud guy,
Speaker 2: and of course he's going to say the right things
Speaker 2: and he was always what I always admired about him
Speaker 2: was he was always gracious in defeat or winning, like
Speaker 2: he always had a realistic approach. I think that'll help him.
Speaker 2: I don't think he's you know, stupid any means. I
Speaker 2: think he understands it. But Kenny, there's so many things
Speaker 2: that come in. Is it a payday? Is it?
Speaker 6: This? Is it that?
Speaker 2: What's the real motivation? It's it's I can't get inside,
Speaker 2: everybody says. I'm sure his coaches know exactly where he's at,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, they've seen it. But you know,
Speaker 2: for us, we're outside just looking in, guessing and pontificating
Speaker 2: or you know what, what's gonna happen here or there,
Speaker 2: or how he's gonna feel. But I just think a
Speaker 2: general in being general is that that's a long lay
Speaker 2: of five years. And it wasn't like.
Speaker 5: The Dustin't counterfight was a lightweight John No, No, he
Speaker 5: hasn't fought a light light scen twenty eighteen.
Speaker 4: Oh I see a lightweight fight here, Okay.
Speaker 5: No, he fought Serny in twenty twenty at welterweight, and
Speaker 5: then he fought Poury a twice at welterweight so last
Speaker 5: time he cut wait was twenty eighteen against Kabbe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he's coming off two losses. A long time.
Speaker 2: The Seroni fight was over kind of quick. I don't
Speaker 2: know he's got it. He's literally got a big mountain
Speaker 2: to climb. He yeah, but I will I will say this.
Speaker 2: What I really agree with is he's fighting Holloway at
Speaker 2: the right time.
Speaker 5: Well, we said, I said when we first had a
Speaker 5: betting line and Connor was plus three ten, that there's
Speaker 5: no world in which he closes there. And right now
Speaker 5: he's plus two oh five on Draftking sports books. So
Speaker 5: it seems as though some money has come in on
Speaker 5: Connor McGregor. Ray, you headed to the gym right now
Speaker 5: or what?
Speaker 2: I'm actually taking off for a while, And I'm really
Speaker 2: was kind. I didn't think I was making the podcast,
Speaker 2: and I got up and I go, geez, I feel
Speaker 2: pretty freaking good. But you know, two hours from now,
Speaker 2: with tomorrow, I could be sleeping in the middle of
Speaker 2: the gym, I don't know. So I'm gonna go in
Speaker 2: later and teach, but right now I'm gonna chill out
Speaker 2: and try to decompress and get my body back to
Speaker 2: where it should be.
Speaker 7: What's for lunch?
Speaker 2: Ray, I'm gonna go out with my friend John montalone
Speaker 2: to go get something a nice. I forget where we're.
Speaker 7: Going, but we're going somewhere, all right, have a great day, all.
Speaker 2: Right, guys, gat to see you. So And if everybody
Speaker 2: is seriously, I can't be held responsible. I'm fucking it
Speaker 2: might not come across like that, but I'm fucking delirious.
Speaker 5: But hey, and I can't be held responsible for suggesting
Speaker 5: that the McGregor fights against Pourier were at seventy because
Speaker 5: some sites are saying fifty five. Wikipedia says seventy, but
Speaker 5: it looks like they were at fifty five fifty and really, and.
Speaker 2: I'm really impressed with au j Cliffe because I saw
Speaker 2: him in Baku, so I know he would through. Where
Speaker 2: does he live?
Speaker 7: California?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 2: Is that a quicker ride than the New York For
Speaker 2: that was?
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 5: I think a lot of us talking heads are just
Speaker 5: conditioned to grabbing a mic when our heads are I think,
Speaker 5: you know, I actually think if you were to watch
Speaker 5: this back and self critique, you'd be pretty satisfied.
Speaker 7: You know, I have you killed it?
Speaker 4: Ray, You're the man, dude.
Speaker 2: Hey, thanks funny, take it easy, guys, you.
Speaker 5: Too, Ray Long a minute every week here on the
Speaker 5: Anakin Florian Podcast. So yeah, So Connor McGregor, my apologies.
Speaker 5: Ken Flow did cut to fifty five twice that year,
Speaker 5: and now when I think about him, you know it
Speaker 5: was a smaller version. He has said that he's a
Speaker 5: welterweight now, so if he wins this fight, right, and
Speaker 5: Islam Makasha were to still be the champion, right. I mean,
Speaker 5: it's crazy to think about Connor beating Max Holloway, the
Speaker 5: former featherweight champion at seventy and somehow passing the Michael
Speaker 5: Moralesis and Carlos Protests of the world.
Speaker 7: But you know it's going to be interesting. It really is.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I mean, we told you that plus three
Speaker 5: ten betting value was gonna go away, and it's gone
Speaker 5: away considerably. A few other things I want to get
Speaker 5: to before we open some cards, Yes, and let us
Speaker 5: know how you feel about the card opening, because I
Speaker 5: absolutely love it. We save it for the end of
Speaker 5: the show, but if that's something that is somehow off
Speaker 5: putting to a whole bunch of you, then let us know.
Speaker 7: I think it's fantastic, Kenny, So a.
Speaker 5: Boost Magametov beat mikhal Olikshiguk with a guillotine and nice
Speaker 5: showcase of a Boost's skills.
Speaker 7: And I just wanted to say this.
Speaker 5: I don't necessarily need a response of any kind, but
Speaker 5: when I look at Sean Strickland, and I mean I
Speaker 5: found myself on fucking Liz Carmush's Wikipedia page today, Okay,
Speaker 5: but when I look at Sean Strickland in some of
Speaker 5: these non title fights wins over a Boost, Magametov on
Speaker 5: short notice, nas Ordini Mavov without a full camp in
Speaker 5: a main event, you know, and I look at everything
Speaker 5: that this guy has done against everybody not named Dricus
Speaker 5: du plus c right, she might have an adas sonia.
Speaker 5: I mean, dude, it's just impressive because a Boost is
Speaker 5: a middleway who I think is really really good.
Speaker 4: You know, He's built different, man, There's no other way
Speaker 4: to say it. The way that he goes out through
Speaker 4: and competes. He's very unique style.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: He shows up pretty much every damn time, dude. So yeah,
Speaker 4: I think when we look back on aside from Sean
Speaker 4: Strickland outside of the cage, when you look at what
Speaker 4: he accomplished inside the cage, I think, but we'll look
Speaker 4: back at his career fondly and go, Wow, that dude
Speaker 4: was something else.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no bonus for a boost, but a great performance,
Speaker 5: just the way he snatched that guillotine and then modified
Speaker 5: it a little bit. Just wanted to acknowledge American top
Speaker 5: teams a Boos Magametov. All right, So yeah, I've been
Speaker 5: spending a lot of money on cards, basketball cards, football cards,
Speaker 5: baseball cards, mixed martial arts cards. I've been buying these
Speaker 5: UFC tops chrome Right, maybe I should reach out to somebody.
Speaker 5: I'm not good at asking for things, but this is
Speaker 5: Homa Fight Repacks. And if I told you a sixty
Speaker 5: dollars investment could land you a sixteen hundred dollars UFC card,
Speaker 5: perhaps you might be interested. It's powered by Collectibles dot Com.
Speaker 5: You can download the Collectibles app, but basically you secure
Speaker 5: your packet. Inside is an already graded authentic UFC card
Speaker 5: from there. Depending on the value, some choices keep it
Speaker 5: in your online vault, ship it home to your collection,
Speaker 5: or move it instantly right back to Collectibles dot Com
Speaker 5: Homa Fightcards dot Com. Check it out or download the
Speaker 5: Collectibles app. Get in on the action, because sometimes the
Speaker 5: biggest wins don't happen inside the octagon. All right, we're
Speaker 5: in Ken Flow's account and we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 5: Homo Fied Exclusive MMA repacks. This is a sixty dollars card.
Speaker 5: There are one hundred and fifty dollars elite cards. We'll
Speaker 5: see if Kenny's getting the itch later with his robust balance.
Speaker 4: What we got here, Cody oping, Now I said, we have.
Speaker 7: Okay, all right, all.
Speaker 5: Right walka twenty twenty three Pinini Select UFC Sparks Memorabilia
Speaker 5: Johnny Walker Red Prison PSA seven. They're offering you thirty
Speaker 5: six dollars and fifty cents back. Kenny, I'll take it.
Speaker 4: I'll take it. I'll take that. Yeah, I'll take that.
Speaker 7: Kenny's gonna sell that. It's a PSA seven.
Speaker 5: So Kenny, Nate Bronson, one of our fine producers, he
Speaker 5: of all the Smoke Fight fame, would like to incentivize
Speaker 5: you for your second purchase today to buy an elite card.
Speaker 4: I think I should. I got the money, all right.
Speaker 7: He was easy to convince.
Speaker 5: So this is now going to be an one hundred
Speaker 5: and fifty dollars card and gives Kenny and in theory.
Speaker 5: His son archer a chance to reel in a big one.
Speaker 5: So this is one hundred and fifty. It's a Homo
Speaker 5: fight elite MMA packet.
Speaker 2: It's gold.
Speaker 7: It's as gold as gust the gorilla. Kenny, let's see
Speaker 7: wow do it?
Speaker 4: Come on?
Speaker 7: All right? So Kenny, I like that gold. Imagine if
Speaker 7: you get herb Dean. Oh no, you won't. You won't
Speaker 7: with an elite, you won't get a referee.
Speaker 4: I mean he's not in the annek power ranking, so.
Speaker 7: I have to he's not on the top one, no.
Speaker 4: Leading lion.
Speaker 5: Okay, So twenty twenty two Panini Don Russ Optic UFC
Speaker 5: number one thirteen. Lee jing Lyong Signature Pink PSA ten.
Speaker 5: They're offering you seventy six dollars, which is half of
Speaker 5: what you just paid. So this is a rated rookie
Speaker 5: Lee Jinglyong in the Pink PSA ten.
Speaker 7: That's a cool card. Uh, you do what you want.
Speaker 7: It's your account.
Speaker 4: Oh it's a it's audio.
Speaker 7: You have to keep it. You have to keep it.
Speaker 7: We keep autographs with the fans. So you let's do it.
Speaker 7: You don't have a choice. Thank you for letting it.
Speaker 7: That is cool.
Speaker 5: That is a rated rookie pink auto Lie Jing Leon
Speaker 5: Amazing China.
Speaker 7: I'm old. I know Ray Longo is old er. I'm old.
Speaker 5: I did not see the autograph. I saw the little
Speaker 5: rookie car thing up in the corner. I saw the
Speaker 5: beautiful PSA pink ten on the leach, but I did
Speaker 5: not see. Yeah, the Chinese autograph. That's sick. I would
Speaker 5: give that to Archer and not an MMA fan if
Speaker 5: it were me, But you know, I mean the lea.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's not.
Speaker 5: It's it's just gonna have value for a UFC fan.
Speaker 5: I don't think it's gonna have great monetary value. So
Speaker 5: I'm gonna open up a couple of cards today of
Speaker 5: the sixty dollars variety, and we're looking for either a
Speaker 5: card that we can add to our collection, a card
Speaker 5: that we can give to a UFC fan who listens
Speaker 5: to the Anakindfloring podcast, or potentially one that is of
Speaker 5: such value that we keep longer term. So here we go,
Speaker 5: home of fight Repacks. Here live on the Anakin Floran podcast.
Speaker 5: Come on, man, set the tone for the rest of
Speaker 5: my day. Twenty twenty three, Penadian instant UFC Jung Yong
Speaker 5: Lee PSA ten. We will sell that back for forty
Speaker 5: four dollars and fifty five cents. If I have called
Speaker 5: that man's fight, I apologize. I don't remember junk yong,
Speaker 5: all right, So we get forty one dollars eighty eight
Speaker 5: cent payout. So I lost nineteen dollars on that exchange,
Speaker 5: and that's okay. We're right back at it, right back
Speaker 5: at it. We got one more purchase for today that
Speaker 5: says nothing of what I might do personally on the
Speaker 5: back end of the program.
Speaker 4: He's very exciting.
Speaker 7: Dun dun, dum oh.
Speaker 5: We're keeping this one because this gus is going to
Speaker 5: be on the Anakin Flooring Podcast next week twenty twenty one,
Speaker 5: Panini Prism UFC premium box set Brandon Royval PSA ten.
Speaker 7: We're going to keep that.
Speaker 5: Brandon raw Dog Royvall likely to join us as part
Speaker 5: of our UFC three twenty nine preview coming up next Monday.
Speaker 5: We'll talk to a few UFC three twenty nine athletes
Speaker 5: and we will get you. I think it's eight or
Speaker 5: nine predictions from Ken Flow and Yanni the Greek for
Speaker 5: UFC three twenty nine. McGregor the Holloway to Yes Connor
Speaker 5: McGregor has the red corner if you are scoring at home,
Speaker 5: thanks to our Jay Clifford, thanks to Ray Longo, Nate Bronson,
Speaker 5: our fine producer Code Merrow, and we are right back
Speaker 5: with you in less than seven days, Conley. Subscribe to
Speaker 5: the Ana Comploring podcast YouTube channel. A lot of exciting
Speaker 5: things to come over the next few months, but we
Speaker 5: got one of our biggest and baddest shows next Monday
Speaker 5: for UFC three twenty nine, and we look forward to
Speaker 5: seeing you then. Have a great data, better evening for
Speaker 5: kem Flum, John Anak. Until then, you'll fuck it later.