Liam-Og Griffin | Amateur Irish MMA Masterclass | UFC 261 Aftermath | Energized Show

Summary

What is up and welcome to the latest Energized Show! On this episode we have SBG Cork's head coach Liam-Og Griffin on to discuss the grassroots of amateur Irish MMA, UFC 261's action & more craic. Check it out, enjoy, subscribe for more and as always Stay Energized! Follow us…

Transcript (youtube_captions)

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] okay what's going on guys welcome to a brand new episode of energized ross introduce the guest man oh from the sony south we have spg corks head trainer mr lim og griffin liam how are you doing i'm doing great man i feel like i need to do some shadow boxing after that intro well you can do it people on spotify won't be able to see it so no need yet maybe at the end if they're lucky oh yeah i'm the bruce buffer of the uh mma podcast game that is undeniable i think that's pretty on the novel 360 sir liam how are you doing how are you doing down the court by the way like uh obviously the last year has been just absolutely crazy especially in for irish how may how are you keeping yeah we're tipping away i mean you know we're in the same boat as everybody else you know the gym has been closed 11 out of the last 13 months now um but you know we keep in touch with all our members online um obviously we have the the professional fighters have their own kind of bubbles and stuff like that so we can keep them going and but everybody else has been impatient and doing their bit for for this whole crisis and uh yeah we're hanging in there um it's been tough it's still tough um but we are through it more or less and uh we will be hitting the ground running once uh everything opens back up oh absolutely uh liam one thing i really did want to get into with this uh obviously we had phillip more peter on he's doing great things with karma and then we have paddy pool paddy hula hang on and uh he's doing great thing paddy poo i we're trying to get all the main figureheads of all your champions yeah and that you do great things down in cork but one thing that i think has been fed back to us is i know there's imaf ima which are heavily involved in and then gamma could you actually give us a brief description of each of them and what makes them different sure well let's start from the top you have imaf is the is the leading global body there's not the only global body but is the leading global body in terms of international mma from an amateur point of view and their rematch and goal it's looking very likely is to get mma to the olympics by 2028 which would be phenomenal for obviously for uh the the young athletes that are kind of starting out in their early teens now and you know that that would be a goal for them in 2028 a lot of the guys who are amateur now will be professional but then so it doesn't really matter to them but um the the workload that that's involved in getting to that stage is just it's mind-boggling it's even hard to to to fathom the amount of uh red tape that they have to cut through on an international basis they need to have more than 50 countries worldwide uh recognized by their own governments they need to have like so much so many different eyes dotted and t's crossed and they're doing a phenomenal job and that's that's just the political side they also run the major tournaments the world championships the regional championships in each continent and then they promote and help or are trying to push a national championships under all of those as well and in the last two years they've also introduced the youths um the rule set for the utes so the the kids from ages 12 to 17 now have a world championships so imaf is the is the worldwide body and they then provide support and a kind of an overall um map for individual countries to try and organize their stuff together ima is the the body that is affiliated to imaf representing irish mma and it's it's just amateur mma right now we like we have a lot of work to do obviously you know it was a few years ago we had a tragic incident with joe carvalho that kind of uh put a spotlight on irish mma we were almost banned at one point and there was a lot of chewing and throwing and you know the the goal of getting irish mma unified and and everybody's act together and running um shows for amateurs safely and efficiently that was already underway but then the jai carvalho incident just put a fire under that and and now it's been accelerated and so that's what i am is about and we can talk a little bit more about that as well if you want um gamma uh just like a number of other um smaller kind of novice shows which is which is where they started gamma um and before that the midlands opened of course um we've been to a few of them ourselves uh phil does a great job with that um we have a similar one that we've been running down in cork for the last like six or seven years the the the cork open the mma open and there was the irish open that deano wade ran in in um city west a few years ago um declan kennen and the cage legacy lads run a couple of navajos so these are all kind of feeder shows that kind of are like novice level shows that give the guys something to start with because amateur mma is not a beginner sport it's tough it's rough you know somebody somebody that has their first fight and i know because i had my made my debut back in 2011 in neptune stadium on cage warriors 42 got the [ __ ] kicked out of me in front of all my friends and family who were all pissed it was on um it's still on flight pass um you know so and that was my first fight that was my debut into mma that's not how you start at any sport you can just hear everyone hitting pause and look at that photo now yeah i know it's embarrassing i don't even watch it myself anymore but like but it's it's a it's a hugely important step for um competitors to be able to get their foot on the the competition ladder and uh yeah there's a there's a few shows like that um i probably left out a couple of them now but yeah that that's the kind of delay to land with those three levels that you've asked me about anyway no that that's actually very descriptive um i'm sure that really helps the listener homes be like right so that's what all those letters mean um because to a lot of people they are just letters they don't they don't understand past that and name one thing that we've we've sort of spoken with other guests is what do you think is one of the key factors to help grow irish mma and you know take it from the grassroots and you know to create these future superstars and i don't just mean in coaching but like to sort of have a strategy on sort of tier levels to you know move people on it's almost you're almost looking for a belt system except in the mma that makes sense yeah and that's already there and that's something that we're we were supposed to be rolling out the end of last year but obviously various different lockdowns have have restricted that so yeah like the the future is to create a developmental path and this is not just for mma this is there's no point in us reinventing the wheel here many different sports have done this where they've become mainstream and they've become huge sports you look at soccer gaa rugby any of the field sports and look at any of the other martial arts that have hundreds and thousands and hundreds of thousands of people worldwide um involved in the sport in ireland we are like in the mma community we have a lot of mma fans but maybe not so many people that are actually actively involved in the sport because it started out as a professional fight sport and what we've got to do is we've got so that's the top tier if you think of a pyramid that's like the the apex of the pyramid is the is the pros you've likes of mcgregor and all of these guys getting millions for for prize fighting well in order to create an infrastructure that fuels that economy you have to build the lower stacks in that and that means you have to have your amateur very very strong you have to have your novices very very strong you have to have your hobbyists involved the people who actually go ahead and buy the tickets for pay-per-views you have to have your fan base your coaches your officials everybody across the board and at a certain point you need parents involved you need kids learning how to do mma safely and in controlled environments that that is that that their parents can trust in and then everybody contributes to this massive economy that's how you develop anything any business any sport that's how you do it how do we do that we do it with a clear defined developmental path and that's what imaf is producing on a worldwide space and then they're filtering it down to a national space the gradings that you mentioned imaf already have that rolled out um it's it's in the progress in the process of being implemented in in countries all over the world france have already adopted it uh mainstream so we were as i said andy ryan and uh danny core and um uh john cavanaugh were were going to be doing the the first lot of gradings the end of last year and it was it was going to be kind of something that was rolled out over the next couple of years and where where that comes into it is let's say you have you have a show coming up now you can match people according to levels it's not just about like oh he hasn't fought yet so therefore we'll put him up against another debut guy but these guys might come from a boxing background it might come from a kickboxing background they might have 100 sample fights in a different country which happens and but because they're all known and mma they end up matching each other it could be a grossly mismatched fight but if you had two guys who were green belts or whatever whatever the it doesn't matter what you call it yeah it could be an indigo belt it could be a purple patch it could be a a blue chevron it whatever you want to call it just make some sort of a level where we can say right these guys are the same weight and they're roughly the same ability level that should be a good match that would be a safe contest for those two people to take part in and then now you can you can go from the youngest kids right up to the to the adults once they become uh elite level uh amateurs they should be in and around the darker colors like purples and browns and when they become pros or or when they have a vast 10 15 years of experience behind them maybe then to become a black belt and maybe people would want to become a black belt in mma as as they would love to be a black belt in jiu jitsu how prestigious is the black belt in jiu jitsu oh yeah well it's very prestigious and it will also depend on who you're getting under as well it means absolutely 100 tears and then i mean then you start getting your black belt but your you know your red little uh notch on and so on and so forth you mean yeah um i suppose if you go the the gracie tier you're almost like 10th degree well black belt 113 and so on so forth yeah and there was a bit of pushback early on about the belt system i mean people saying oh there's no there's no belts in mma why were you just creating it there was no belt no belts in jiu jitsu as well at one point in time you know but you you take any black belt in jiu jitsu and say right your belt is not worth anything i'll take that off either thanks very much they will break your arms you know that that belt is worth something to them and we we like we're in a position at the moment where we're starting out this system and we we have the option we can either create a system that doesn't really mean it mean anything and nobody nobody really cares about or we can make it prestigious as the jiu-jitsu black belt belt system is and people would want to be a black belt in mma at some point in time and that might take us ten years it's worth achieving i do suppose like if i asked my mom or i asked you know a random person on the street and said and i went up and went i'm a martial artist they probably picture me being like that fella probably wears one of those fancy dressing gowns with a belt on you know what i mean like and they probably only go they probably go are you a black belt and then you know or a white belt and that's probably the only two belts they know if that makes sense so like i think a belt system works out well it translates to you know someone going to their first ever show you know i mean they they can uh put it on and the way you can actually structure the card you can always put the black belts on in the main event and then bring it down yeah and bring it down the card it makes sense it's an easy follow and you know if you're providing programs or something on the day that makes it very easy for you know joe soap was coming in off the street to go you know what that makes sense and don't forget you have people who like the vast majority of people who who practice mma certainly never in spg cork only 10 of our membership have any indication or any inclination to ever compete whether it be jiu jitsu or mma the vast vast majority of people are in it as a hobby they just want to to learn self-defense they want to get fitter they want to get in shape they want to know more about the sport that they're a fan of so give them something to aim for let them have a criteria over which a number of years they can develop into uh um an accomplished martial artist that has a something a belt a stripe a tattoo something that indicates that that that's a kind of a return on their investment of time and knowledge and and effort um every other every other martial art has it apart from i know my toy doesn't do it boxing has their boxing record but they do have a developmental structure of going through the the various um uh county championships national championships you've got the olympics you've got this and the other there's always a developmental pathway and that's that's what we need to be doing and that's that's what is happening imaf is leading the way on this and imap is trying to implement it as we go along a lot of work involved in it by the way yeah yeah it sounds like a lot no it was called that i'm fair played you for being one of the people leading the charge i just love to see that you know mma in ireland it seems to be in good hands it seems to have you know just from the people you lift listed off like some of the top people like trying to you know create some sort of almost formality to it that like everyone's under the the same sort of structure and i think that's what it needs more than anything you know we were talking to paddy hill and we were saying you know what funding from the government help and he was like here you can always sort of raise money yeah from the government be nice but the chances of getting it are quite slim and he was saying that look you can always sort of raise money but uh he was even saying when people do go off the imf's uh you know i mean that could almost be done slowly better in a way i think i was talking about that i mean everyone almost goes as an individual if that makes sense and you know they cover their own costs as opposed to maybe if you almost rang earlings and we're like hey look we have a plane full of people coming off can you do us a discount and then you ring the hotel and go look we all want to book 40 rooms you do discount that sort of thing uh maybe you could do better because we were sort of saying that we might not necessarily be sending the best people we're almost sending the best people who can afford to go which isn't exactly what you want to represent your country if that makes sense yeah so i heard i heard that discussion uh on both uh phil's and uh paddy's and i was screaming at the tv because i have a bit of a bone to pick about that right so first off first off you come from iran you come from any martial arts that's not boxing and you get to a high level uh international level kickboxing karate that's my own background taekwondo judo doesn't matter what it is you get on the irish team you're paying your own way there is no funding for that it doesn't happen in any other sport it doesn't even happen in jiu jitsu now jiu-jitsu is is like how much does it cost to go into an ipgf tournament any idea somewhere between 100 and 150 quid 200 but yeah yeah and and some of them are some of them are no the medals are lovely but that's a one day tournament you don't get any food and accommodation you don't get any equipment right so people are and nobody complains about this that doesn't include your flights your accommodation probably going to madrid for a weekend so that that would cost you six seven hundred quid just to compete and then you might lose your first flight you're out the gap and that's it that's the way it is right yeah just because we we have this a um a cost associated with mma competition at an international level it's exactly the same as every other martial art and none of the other martial arts are getting funding for that particular purpose apart from boxing and athletics and any of the the well well-established olympic sports that have come back from olympics with gold medals then the money increases and then eventually you get there right now having said that an imap tournament is approximately 1500 euro that like on average right i've been to nine of them i've paid my way for for for every time i've gone and i've got a bunch of athletes that that have done multiple imac tournaments ryan spillan has done eight tournaments and every single time it averages it out about 1500 euro what are you getting for that you're getting five days of of events you're getting your accommodation your food and the equipment that you fight in now the coaches have to pay as well but let's let's remind let's remind yourself of how much does a hotel cost for a week how much does your food cost for a week six seven hundred quid it's not bad all right now i know like i would much prefer as a coach not to have to pay but i don't expect anybody to be paying my my my hotel expenses either for me you know um if if if i went to corner some of my jiu-jitsu athletes i would have to pay for my own flights and accommodation also so i it is what it is um it is expensive there there is not going to be any funding even if we do become recognized as a government uh by the government there's probably not going to be funding for that in the next decade at least and the cost is there but also this is this is about how bad do you want it do you want to be a world champion do you want to be a ufc champion is it that important enough to you that you make sacrifices everywhere else in your life you get an extra part-time job you beg borrow and steal you look for sponsorship as a club you get behind your athletes and you you do fundraiser and you get them there do you want to be a world champion or not that's that's the that's that's the biggest question so i don't i understand where you're coming from with regards to the uh the cost of it but um i don't believe that um i don't believe that there's anybody who hasn't i don't believe there's anybody left off a team because of the cost of going everybody has has has the opportunity to go and and get this done we we would offer help to anybody to help them to um like to to write begging letters for sponsorship i've done it i've given everybody that i've been on the last few irish teams i've given them the letters that we use down and down in sbg cork for um plaguing local businesses and trying to get 50 quid here 50 quid there it all adds up so the help is there it's a cost but how bad do you want it this is dana boyd do you want to be a fighter do you want to be a [ __ ] fighter that's exactly what it is do you want to be a world champion can you do without a sun holiday and a drinking holiday mag aloof for the chance to become a world champion in imaf that's my question yeah i was actually i know this is a bit of a to the left but uh i was listening to ben askren on uh he's talking to dave portnoy and he was saying when he was younger like his parents wanted to bring away in holidays and he was just told they should go because he wants to become a world champion in wrestling and it's that's just the way it is ross isn't like i mean some people are getting into the game maybe for the glitz and the glamour but older people are into it because they love it but like liam like how many how often has that happened where you picked someone and then they just weren't able to go because you couldn't afford it like it seems to be happening next to no times almost never almost never i mean we have had a few times where people have been selected and we say weeks before the defining like the payments were due and stuff that did the messages say look i just i can't get the money together or i can't get time off work almost as equal um to not being able to afford it is the time off work right and then you say okay we have we'll offer the place to somebody else but you had the first refusal and that's it um you know i i'm not saying that that like everybody should have 1500 quid just just sitting under their mattress waiting for a championships but you know it i it's very very rare that it has been the case that somebody didn't go because they couldn't afford to go there's many athletes that have been very generously sponsored by local businesses within their own organization and there's many athletes where the club that they've come from have rallied around them to promote or to to chip in to get that athlete to the championships yeah i think it's in every sport this is not just mma i've got two athletes here and they're they're they were supposed to make their mma debut uh chris and sean mccarthy karate twins as we call them and they they um they are actually going to a qualifier next month and they're hoping to be at the olympics in in tokyo uh in the summer they're they're that level in karate right and they're they're part of the association which has the path to the olympics now in 2019 they did all of the qualifying tournaments and because they were um they were 17 at the time or something like that they had to travel with um with a guardian at all times in the accumulation of all of the tournaments that they traveled in 2019 the family ended up paying 25 000 euro to make sure that those kids got to every single um qualifier throughout that year now that was done in a series of fundraising the parents obviously chipped in the the two boys got got part-time jobs these lads are want to be on the olympics that bad that they would crawl over broken glass to get there and it's part of it it's and it's not just mma it's every sport we have these types of stories in boxing we have it in in gaa we have we have it everywhere there's a certain level of desire that's required if you want to be a world champion and that comes with like none there's nobody here that's been to the world championships that that's that's a millionaire i could tell you there's like i i've had to beg borrow and steal to get there myself i'm certainly not floating on a load of money but it's that important enough for me for it to to raise future imaf champions and get them to the to the likes of bellator and ufc that i will crawl over broken glass to get there yeah i think i think me and ross were just so like we were worried that some people in the irishman may see and there could be future champions they're just missing out just purely financially and i think that's that's one of the main reasons why we're getting yourself yeah now i i understand you know yeah now i understand and and there is certainly there is a cost i'm not i'm not diminishing the cost of it at i'm i'm just saying that it's i i i don't remember an athlete that was left behind because they couldn't afford it yeah no that's just what we're worried about you know absolutely i i do think if the sport does get an olympic recognition it could be massive for sport in general and from a financial point of view because then the government will almost be forced their hand will be forced that they will have to give some form of sponsorship and you know even if it was 100 euros for 200 euro off nothing it would go a long long way i know there are companies out there like indeed who do sponsor olympic athletes and athletes i haven't gone to the olympics yet olympic hopefuls and stuff like that so like i'm sort of looking you know i'm waiting for some company that has a foothold in may to you know get what's called sponsor the ima team to go off the imafs and and you know and like you say lima they don't have to you know take take the millions out to send every time dick can hurry over you i mean um a small bit can go a long way come in yeah you're trying to get it yourself yeah i'm trying to avoid myself he's like how can i be there i am a bruce wolfer i could be the water boy no absolutely no it's it's it is it is an issue you know it does cost money and i i you know i i know that that i just okay the bone i had to pick was that like i i think it was framed that uh there was a kind of an elitist an elitism of kind of all the rich guys are gone and all the poor guys left behind that's just not what's happening and it's good in terms of the selection process also there is no favoritism or anything like that going on there is a squad andy ryan is the head coach of of the the irish national team squad we run squad sessions outside of pandemic times of course and there is an irish team that's it there is no there is no spg there is no team writer there is no cmak there is no mma card there is no there's no teams there's a team ireland you turn up at the squads you register your interest to be part of team ireland that's going on whatever campaign that's going every member club of imf receives notification of this via email and um through the social media channels and those who turn up you put the time in you you do your training on the session and uh you apply there's two places in every weight class over the last few years has been very very rare where we've had to have fight-offs for the individual places so most times we say specifically in the heavier weight classes or the lightweight classes we have less athletes than we have places for so those selections are automatic fine great brilliant nothing to worry about there where you have selection is usually in the male featherweight between featherweight and welterweight between fedorweight and middleweight perhaps there's there may be three athletes and there's only two spots um and then in that case we would at the next available show maybe at the cage legacy maybe it's a cage warriors academy maybe it's uh another show we would make sure that those two fighters were matched on that card and whoever won got the space would that be announced would people know beforehand yep it's been done on uh battlezone twice um it was done on cage legacy a number of times i i believe there was a fight off between uh jack monaghan and lee hammond at one stage for for the remaining lightweight space that was the year that um um that i think that was for europeans and if i'm if i'm not mistaken i i don't want to be doing jackman and dirty here now but i think lee hammond won the fight well i do remember seeing the league yeah what's called um i think he went off to one of those europeans or world championships at this time last year a foican member remember um kiever was keeping an eye on lee hammond over and now uh gold somewhere and they're all celebrating there no well uh lee hammond was the the 2018 world champion same same year as uh royce ballan i think it was the year before that i was i think it was 2017 where lee was selected but he actually injured his thumb weeks beforehand and then jack bonham was offered a spot and jack went and he fought on that it was actually it was it was the european championships in 2018 in romania and how did jack do jack um i believe he went out in the quarterfinals of that of that particular tournament that was a tough year that was a really tough year i suppose at lightweight you're always going to come up against some of the top talents because it's a lot of people's natural weight class is it's one you know when you meet a common fell off the street who does trying they're going to be in around that build so yeah it is a very common way to yeah you'll see it in the tournament um listings there's 32 in every division in every weight class and it's a five-day tournament so the 32 fight down to 16 down to eight down to four and then there's the finals on saturday and it's a random draw isn't it it's um it's seated so if you have if if um you'd have like the the the number the number one two three and four are ranked um based on previous imaf tournaments we say the gold medalists and the silver medalists from last year's championships would be on opposite sides of the draw so the only way they could meet is back in the final again so there's things like that but apart from the top four rankings it is random it's literally computer generated it's done on big screen in front of all of the athletes the night before the first fight and it's extremely transparent but you could i mean it happened with the with reince paland in 2019 um world championships now he had he was he was the defending world champion and he went out um he went and fought a guy from russia in the uh it was the quarterfinals so there was only he yeah it was the quarterfinals the dude that he fought was a two-time sample world champion with over 300 flights in sample but it was only a second mma fight so you're going into a tournament and there's no there's no footage on these russian guys because their their their names are are kind of spelt in different alphabets so there's a cyrillic alphabet in the the the whatever r1 is i don't know what that one's called the latin alphabet that one yeah but you you can type their name in as it is on the on the imaf um roster and you find nothing nothing on youtube nothing on facebook nothing on instagram you would have to know how to translate it into the cyrillic alphabet and then when you go do that there's there's a hundred of them so which one is it you it's so difficult you know so but yeah anybody has gone through that imaf man like the likes of lee hammond lee hammond won five fights in five days to become the 2018 world champion and then the following year went in and uh went out in the quarterfinals in his first fight it's crazy like the levels are just absolutely insane well i suppose like as you know every fighter has good days and bad days as well you know i mean then like i mean you need to be on at all times and you need to be switched switched on and if you're not you know i mean you could have taken a long flight for you know a short short time in the cage but uh liam i must say thanks so much for clearing like loads that up uh really really insightful and part of the reason we got you here because we knew how involved with ima were and we're like right well like i actually said to barry i was like i actually want lima to break down all the organizations and then like tell us how it works and like you've actually done a perfect job of that can i make a recommendation for you in terms of the the the political uh side of imam what ima is currently trying to do there's a lot of breakthroughs coming from coming through in the next 12 months can i recommend that you get on tim murphy the current chairman for ima who knows the entire ins and outs of where we are with sport ireland where we are with the the national governing body status and uh what's stopping us from getting status what are the roadblocks and what we're doing to to get around it there's some phenomenal work going on in the background there that it's it's difficult to um it's difficult to put it out there because you don't want to put we say um some civil civil servants knows how to joint before you have a meeting in two weeks time or something like that but tim does a great job in bringing it breaking it down and he would give you the the the blow by blow the analysis of of of where we're going and what has been done in the last like five years it's been there's been a lot of people working tirelessly with with no like like giving their their own free time um to to put hours into these endless books of notes and pages and back and forth emails and it's slow progress but it's steady progress and there's going to be a lot of breakthroughs this year and i think tim would give you a phenomenal breakdown of what's coming down the tracks i think you wrote that down bass knowledge yeah i do uh i actually wrote like uh ross lloyd the limo there but i'm only messing but uh like like how much has stuff progressed over the last year obviously a lot of people are stuck at home like like how much does kovid like either like hurry things up or slow things down um i think it's going to be interesting to see everybody come back out of the blocks because uh um one of the things that's common knowledge with with regards to training for fights is that you don't really make developmental leaps when you're training for a fight you're in fight camp you're basically fighting the scales and you're getting ready with your cardio and you're just fine-tuning what you've already got when you have a time a break then you have time to go and learn new technique you get to develop your skills you get to improve on aspects of the game that you don't normally have time to work on and we've had an entire country of dedicated athletes just spend 12 months developing what the hell is going to come out of that i'm very very excited to see that the destroys that people have made and i can see it from from my lives in the gym the the the pros like pali han is is a different animal to this time last year hulk is yeah and hulk like reince balance he like ryan spilan's a different shape than he was this time last year do you know these guys or a bad way i don't want to give him a big head right because he already loves himself that much but oh we know we know so he's been described as going from um hold on let me get this right now is it the luke for ignore hulk is that the older guy yeah yeah i know and now he's the mark gruffalo hulk so he's on the marvel comics folk so he he's the what's called cgi hulk name yeah yeah absolutely but yeah and and they're just the athletes that i i can see with my own eyes but i know that there's lads putting in the time wherever they can they're in small bubbles somewhere or they're training in their back garden they're watching instructional dvds and and grappling a grappling dummy at home and learning out the leg lock or something but what we will see coming out the blocks here in in the summer time hopefully um hopefully cage legs will be back i know clan wars are on in in at the end of uh may as well hopefully those shows go ahead we're going to see some phenomenal performances and and phenomenal changes in the athletes and i think you're going to have a much better appreciation from the athletes themselves as to what they were missing you might have been taking it for granted all along i'll just fight whenever i want these guys are like i i couldn't fight for last year i've got one fella that keeps texting me every day he's like can i fight tomorrow can i fight tomorrow there's no freaking shows on leave me alone but he never did that last year but this year because he can't have it no he wants it and maybe maybe we'll we'll see a big boost in people's desire to fight this year and i think um the fans will win from now yeah that's definitely a big thing because no i was just going to say russ that's that's actually pretty good to hear i i actually thought lean might be saying something not negative but it was just it goes to show that uh people are still grinding in the background as liam saying earlier it was uh champions are going to still want to be champions so there has been progression where we thought this might be actually a really negative thing but it actually turned and turned out to be a pretty good thing maybe maybe it's just in cork but uh i'm sure it's not just in coordination there have been some setbacks and like just from from the imap point of view i know that there are clubs that had closed their doors within within like with the sentiment that they probably wouldn't open again um at least four or five clubs that um we received that unfortunate email from and you know we wish them the best the best and if there's anything that ima can do certainly to support just reach out or whatever um but in for the most part everybody's just being taken away you know keeping their online classes going um ashling that works here as the administrator for ima it has been kind of keeping in touch with all the various clubs and and kind of helping them to share information there's been some clubs that they were doing much better with zoom classes and they kind of shared how how they were doing it and then ashley would patch that on to other clubs and maybe maybe help them to do it as well and so yeah it it hasn't been all rose in the garden but um you know we are the fighting irish for a reason and we've we've gotten through it this far and we're going to come out the other side fighting as well amen baby amen and uh we're going to move on to ufc 261 in two seconds but before we do um pa and roy and have fights coming up john tell us about them for a quick two minutes sure so pa is um pat is going to be fighting at the end of may in uh luxembourg it's on a new promotion called soko fc and he's fighting a kid from france uh whose nickname is tarzan don't know anything else about him that's about it um so uh pa is as i said he's in phenomenal shape he's actually fighting in his own weight class at this time for a change so he'll be fighting a featherweight normally he fight he'll fight anywhere from featherweight to welterweight doesn't care um he's just one of them you know um but this is the his this is his weight class this is where i am when we do get um a kind of a more mainstream contract for him this is where i want him i want him at fighter weight this is where he is this is where his natural size come is his advantage so he's fighting may 28 there in luxembourg um and then on july 25th both of them are on the battle arena card in birmingham so um hulk was the european amateur heavyweight champion for battle arena like four years ago i think i think every time ryan fall you got new championships yeah but he won that one with a seven a seven second head kick i'm sure they're only going to have a backseat they actually yeah no they they there was a kind of a message went out on one of the forums saying they were looking for a heavyweight and by the time i messaged um james price the the ceo of battle arena they had already matched that that fight sort of that that flight was gone and then uh he was like he sent me the sad face emoji sorry we've already matched that fight i put down the phone and it rang again straight away what what if we have this guy fight him instead we really want him so yeah he's he's going over and uh yeah it's going to be a good one so he's fighting um um a guy called romex sim romek's name is three and one as an amateur and two and all as a pro um he's from eastern europe don't ask me where um but like hulk will just flatten him yeah because he started to bellator as well didn't you no no it's still santa bellator so he's he's officially a bellator fighter but he has a one fight release because uh bellator are not going to be running a european show possibly until the end of this year um hopefully at the end of this year we're hoping that they will be back in october but um we just don't know so in the meantime they've they've given ryan a one-fight release and get get him going and you know um we'll be back for that then shortly after ross we're gonna have to invite these lads on before the fights as well absolutely absolutely i quickly just one quick one will there be any issues with hotel quarantine stuff coming back into the country after going over those shows yeah so we're trying to we're trying to figure that out at the moment in fact um we've been just working all morning uh for dean barry um from sbg charleston he's flying out to uh dominican republic yeah correct yeah and uh so he'd be the first irish athlete and i think um is uh liam mccourt is fighting in the us as well shortly afterwards and maybe the same weekend yeah so those two from charlestown are the first uh to test the waters on this so officially um professional athletes and elite sports athletes that are going to covet controlled environments to compete as part of their sports are exempt from that hotel quarantine but that's athletes who are recognized by sport ireland ima and mma is not recognized by sport ireland so we have a bit of work to do there um ima have already issued or are are currently issuing letters to those athletes to to say that like obviously imac consider them to be elite athletes and professional athletes um but i just don't know how much weight that that holds with regards to uh whoever the authority is when they fly back in so we're we're trying to clear that up with sport ireland at the moment it's just one of the jobs that that we're kind of trying to work on in the background here yeah hopefully all works out because like i'm sure you you'd hate for any of those guys to take fights especially your guys in the pro they do you and then and come back and own money uh after you know yeah i'm sure i'm sure they will be okay but it's just the way we we have a bit of work to do there and that's that's just one of the one of those jobs in the background that that ima is helping to do um you know if we like who's going to do it otherwise you know it it needs a national governing body to sort out these little issues you know and uh i was gonna say that's all fair but like who knows you look at flying out of belfast and see what's happening from from there still won't work no okay i'll try that already okay fair enough i always i'm always one for a chance my arm by chance my arm everywhere yeah we tried that already and and the the weird thing as well is if you get caught for hotel quarantine let's say you fly back into cork well then they'll put you on a bus and make you do your hotel quarantine in dublin dublin so you fly into cork you get on a bus all the way up the motorway to dublin and then you start your hotel quarantine so it's it's it's a mess of uh of a system for anybody to to to be looking forward to so hopefully we get that sorted and we're working hard on it and um hopefully it won't be an issue hopefully ufc 261 here to split up where'd you want to start yeah okay uh before we let limo get back to uh trying to get key people out of quarantine uh we'll just look over at the action that happened over the weekend obviously usually defeated jorge mastrodial in the second round um liam the question is like um where do you think kumar oozeman goes from here after beating jorge maswada um well i think they said colby is next i don't like that but um that that's what i think i believe dana says and um i believe colby also said that he's contemplating retiring as well at this stage so um it's kind of up in the air um i'm not on board with just a a ghost talk for kamaruzman i know he's got 14 wins in a row i think is is his um his record at the moment um but only three of those have been title shots or title fights or four of them or something like that so i don't believe he he kind of ranks up there with gsp and uh jon jones and a few others amanda nunes in particular as well um but where does he go from here i tell you what i'd like to see i'd like to see him fight stephen wonder by thompson because he uh boy is one of it is one of the welterweights up there that uh presents a style that's a problem for kumar uzman i think he steamrolls colby again he's already steamrolled or immersed vidal i think he'll do the same to leon leon roberts i think he'll do the same to michael kiesa i think they need to give him just for the sake of the division and for the sake of the sport there's no point in us seeing him steamroll the same guy with a different face over and over and over again give him a challenge and and let's let's raise another uh contender hamza caimi f is coming up there mr paulo d who's my uh co-presenter on the gods and glory podcast will uh be uh swooning when i mention hamzad khaimef but um he's another problem coming up through there that's yeah that's what you want to see anyway i want to see wonder boy versus guzman all right ross what creates green panty knight for camaro well as a limo said there you know it looks like it is going to be colby covington you know i mean you'll get a lot of um really corny [ __ ] talk between those two going back and forth and one thing i will say about khmer uzman is i think he's changed the narrative on his career uh over his last couple of fights you know and he was marty fake newsman or marty snoozeman and i don't think you can watch any of three of camaros last three fights and say they were boring in any fashion whatsoever and i must say hats off to trevor whitman and for me he's mma coach of the year this year and he's done an absolute phenomenal job with camaro usman since he's got a hand up handsome and also he had rose numbing eunice in the co-main event but look camaro uzman he looks like an absolute killer he looks more dangerous now than he ever has and he is a very very tough puzzle to solve not many people can go undefeated in their ufc tenure he is undefeated at the mountains ufc tenor he might finish undefeated depending on what sort of moves he does make but um who would i like to see him point next oh i'm a big fan of leon edwards to always get the win i would like to see that fight do i think leon edwards is gonna beat him probably not at this stage from jordan what i just saw um from kamara who's been there but i do think leon edwards is very very well-rounded his defensive wrestling is very very good and his stroke is very good so i think it could be an interesting matchup and he's a tough man to put get out of there on edward so i'd like to see that but whether it happens or not it doesn't it doesn't make green panty noise basma but who do you want i i think the colby covington fight is just it was such a great fight last time that like i would like to see it again i'm like you know what colby's selling the forum oozman as well like i don't think guzman can really sell anything but colby's like generating a bit of hype but he sort of he makes you think like even though we all saw the fight he sort of like said stuff and like he's trying to trick him to not happen i thought like you know i mean like it wasn't finished him but he lets on he didn't it's you know i mean like for people who didn't see the fight that's something that they have to be looking forward to i wasn't a fan of that fight i'll be honest i i don't see why people are ranting and raving about that being a great fight i thought it was two mediocre kickboxers just basically doing mediocre kickboxing when they could have very very easily put on a wrestling masterclass it was just a kickboxing fight between two guys who couldn't kickbox now i know uh camaro has shown improvement certainly this fight but back then it was just single single punch combinations that was it yeah but anyway yeah it was the drama i know sex sells it was the drama behind the whole thing the the the back and forth between the two of them and it was a good finish i'll give them that much yeah i'll go go into the next four ten lads obviously rose number eunice came away with the win against uh wadi zhang um rossu todd rose was going to get to win um i didn't actually think she was going to win you didn't order it no russ you're you're all right what made you think she was going to win i think we've lost the audio thereof no ross on you oh my god sorry sorry about that that's technical difficulties um there's just something about rose numbing eunice when someone comes at her with it with aggression which i believe whaley zhang was i think technically she's actually the best striker in the strawweight division i think she's better than joanna you know i mean her boxing is so crisp and like the way she true that head kick it was off the lead front leg as well and it was almost out of the blue it was so nonchalantly thrown and it landed straight on straight on the money and she went in there for the kill and one thing i will say about rose numbing units very impressive she only has 10 wins in her mma career and she's claimed the strawweight title in the ufc twice no female has ever lost the belt and reclaimed it in the ufc and very few people fighters in general have been able to do it i think stephen outright is probably the most famous ever do it and there arose i just think if she is mentally there and ready to fight she is a tough problem in that division to fight um liam uh who do you think role should take on next or do you think that you're trying to think about the winner i think is the winner between uh carlos esparza and is it one shanann yeah the other chinese followers girl yeah that's what i say um paula d pronounces all the chinese names brilliantly and i i just refer to him normally so but yeah um yeah i think i think that's what's next um we we had a kind of a um a segment on our podcast there last week where we were describing the um the revolving door that's been um the the strawweight division you've had like uh joanna and jacek whaley zhang rosen ammunis and who's the fourth one andraj yes between those four that that's that that's been your title picture for the last couple of years so we need some fresh faces in there and there's a couple of uh younger athletes in the 125 division which i think that could possibly drop down i'm thinking of miranda maverick and um there is there's a couple of like early 20 year olds that are that are coming up to the ranks and we need to see a couple of those kind of be developed a little longer but two years time then we'll have some fresh um fresh blood up there around about the top but for now carlos barza and wang shannan the winner of that one also that'd be an interesting rematch if carlos barzik would win to rematch against frozen i'm eunice which was the inaugural um strawberry total flight also mackenzie jerns making a bit of a charge at the moment and she's got a bit of a star power behind her so who knows yeah yeah she looked awesome in her last fight as well and then that's in the the third toilet fight i was in fantashenko defeated jessica andraj i think everyone picked this one but like where does valentina go from here she's just so dominant and like where did she go from here russ where do you think valentina should go from here i think valentina schwichenko is the demetrious voidems johnson of flyweights i don't think there's a flyweight on the planet that can torture and she took it dresh andraj down a whale and she got into that uh sidemount and crew's fixed position um she just absolutely hammered her she's a stone cold killer and the way she says that is she was like i don't really have a game plan i get in there and my body takes over and it just does whatever it does i mean very true though she's a very scary proposition i know people are clamoring for the amanda nunes trilogy it look if it's made i'll absolutely be delighted i'll watch it i think she's going to fight lauren murphy next and lauren's quite a good wrestler i think it'll be interesting to see her fight that but like let's be honest i think shushenka will probably get her out there just as fast as he did on raj what's your take on their limo yeah i i i agree i think um there's nobody in the flyweight division for um valentina at this stage uh lauren murphy is just going to get absolutely steamrolled i think i i i'm a lord murphy fan in the same way as i'm a roxanne mata fiery fan like roxanne and and lauren have against all odds stayed stayed up there at the top of the division for so long and without the the benefit of like naturally phenomenal genetics like like the likes of valentina shishenko um but having said that they're not getting past they're not even getting into the into the same realm as valentina i think the amanda nunes fight is the one to make because i think it's the only way it's the only where the only place that the two of them are going to get a challenge now is against each other i think they're kind of in a similar position do you think they should put that valentina laura murphy for you on the amanda nunes julianna pennycard therefore they're perfectly lined up and then they can finally do that early for whatever reason dana white doesn't seem that keen on the trilogy but i think all the fans are very keen on the trilogy why not i think he'll come around to it he's been wrong before yeah did they say that women were never going to be in ufc he didn't indeed he didn't date at first he does admit when he's wrong and you have to give him credit on that well i hope he's wrong about this jake paul thing you said not to bring that up the fans tend to get what they want especially money talks but this is one thing we have to talk about lads chris wyman against your royal chris williams obviously he won the middleweight title against anderson silva with the same situation about the leg break right when i when you watch it in slowly no we defended us on this one oh just yeah okay but my point is right when you watch chris wyman after the leg break and watch his face he doesn't even notice his legs broken and then when he stands down i know he got [ __ ] sick everywhere like russia you had you told me some stat earlier about like well i've been being like it's only happened three times in ufc and he's been part of a toys like when you saw that what did you think man yeah i think it was david lewazzo anderson silva and then chris woodman throwback third well it's not thursday but throwback thursday to david luazo he's a very old school there was a corey hill in there as well maybe it was corey hill they look similar yeah he's a big tall six foot four featherweight yeah so like maybe maybe it's the fourth time maybe i have to go his name wrong um but um yes uh who was the listener i was listening luke thomas i don't know do you know who thomas name off yeah he was saying that uh if you came up with a movie script and you hand it to a producer in hollywood they'd tell you to get lost because they wouldn't believe that that story was real yeah um it really was like something of a movie and sadly i think that's chris wogen's career over he was 36 going into this fight it'll be uh 37 in june by the time he probably recovers and get back from this 38 and will he be the same fighter as before probably not i think anderson silva lost seven of his last eight fights after that leg break um and i think he's had his last seven already six of them had last five years of his last seven before this fight as well so now this is six of his last eight so he's yeah it's time to hang them up yeah definitely and you know what yeah he had an absolutely fantastic career i felt like it's sort of weird to say he was the middleweight champ of the world but i feel like he never fulfilled his potential i felt like he was one or two i don't know whether you you probably have a coaching perspective but i felt like he was always one or two tweaks away if he stuck to more of a wrestling base he could have actually had much more success in his career and i thought like his top uh his on top grappling on a submission game was very very strong and he didn't utilize enough yeah i mean it was a weird one i think he was gifted the title first like anderson still was showing off and and he would like other if anderson silva had not shown off at that stage chris boydwin would have lost that fight there was no way he was getting anywhere near him you know the second fight i i mean that was a freak accident so you could argue that he was gifted those two fights um the fight against rockhold he made one critical error he was actually on the way to win that for him he threw a spinning back fist yes wheel kick yeah yeah and he he fell over or something and luke rockhold uh got a top position and rained down elbows on him from the mount position and he never recovered from that and i think um you know so that that whole story there and he's kind of been hit and miss ever since um as i said five of his last seven were glasses or are like he didn't he had only one two so yeah i think maybe it's a case of a guy that probably shouldn't have won the title when he won it if he hadn't he would have gone back to the drawing board developed with a couple of smaller fights and gotten better but i think that the fact that he won it then meant that everybody he fought from den on was the best other person in the division and he he wasn't there yet it was he was he was the champion too soon yeah and who can forget the order romero knock out against him as well that was like literally run into a bus um yeah but here look we'll look ufc is back this weekend uc is every weekend it's [ __ ] brilliant uh dominic reyes is taking on yuri prochaska in the low heavyweight division that's headlining this saturday um ross what are you expecting this weekend people were saying dominic reyes should have beaten he did be jon jones he then lost young black [ __ ] for the title what are you expecting here now oh you just really like yuri i think he's an absolute wild man i think his fight stance is so awkward and unorthodox and there's just something about him that i i'd hear from me it's almost um it's the shades of almost like johnny walker yeah isn't it you don't you don't really know what's coming he troubleshots from weird angles and also he's a european guy i think dominic reyes after he had that very close flight with jon jones i don't really care whether people want to say he wins their loss i think you make an equal argument for both and i just think he went into that yamaha which fight and he almost assumed he would he would win and then you know i mean i don't think it was going to be that straightforward and i don't know whether he's going to get that confidence back that he had going into the john jones fight so i just think yuri's coming off win he's very very confident and reyes is coming off you know the biggest you know sort of disappointment of his career and losing the fight to jones especially considering he thought he won and then losing tian and such devastating fashion so i'm gonna go for yuri yeah i'm in the same boat um i'm a yuri fan um even though he's only had i think he's only two fights in the ufc at this stage but we've got a a we've got a fighter here in the gym uh by the name of rory henry and he is the most awkward [ __ ] to fight and he is perfectly matched for yuri prochaska um the the strikes to this guy trolls are just the wrong strikes at the wrong time but they work and that's there's no way that you can prepare for somebody like that and dominic reyes as you've rightfully said is his confidence is low do you know that that you know uh be beaten by jon jones i i i think that was pr that probably boosts his confidence that he got so close but then the the the knockout to bla blahovich that takes that takes something from your soul and you need a bounce back fight and i think yuri is just the wrong guy for him i see yuri hitting him with a back fist or something like that or a toe puck or i think he might even just hammer fist the top of his head or something there's something weird going to happen with this year you protected i could picture a fly in here he's just a firework in there yeah yeah i'm going to go yuri as well as but like this card obviously isn't amazing it's coming off a pay-per-view event but like cube swanson's on it is on this as well like you have to watch him once he gets in there he walks right up to them um so like it it should be go crack that's this saturday uh pfl is on thursday this week it says here actually uh roy mcdonald's fighting melinda anthony pettis lost over the weekend as well that's not great for them at all and then this friday mikey collins fighting as well he's phoned in london and then on saturday katy terror's fight as well um that's sort of like gone over everything ross i i didn't know we were going to get this theme for the game but it was uh it was very good to hear the background on like what's actually going on the structure in the background and uh i'm really looking forward to the future of irish mma and we will have more people that are representing irish mma to talk about in the future yeah well definitely i think we were making some assumptions and make some guesses that limo said to set the record straight which is way better uh power is definitely knowledge and we appreciate the knowledge and wisdom you have bestowed upon us uh limo and limo do you have anything you want to add in bar wishing and the fighting irish good luck this weekend also let us know about your podcast where we can find it on any social handles you have sure perfect well i'll i'll go backwards there because my brain works in in reverse order right so find me on twitter liam og griffin also instagram and facebook under that i handle as well uh it's disgusting i got that wrong didn't i it's the guts and glory mma podcast and we're up on youtube we've got um obviously a live show kind of kind of like this a kind of a live chat kind of discussion panel we do that twice a week live and then we've got uh three or four kind of regular uh segments top ten lists um paul does a matchmaker where he matches up all the other fighters who won and last from the previous event and what they should do next and then we've got like andy hickey from um from clan mel who's like a master statistician this dude has i don't know has he got like servers in his attic or what but he comes up with some of the best and interesting facts that i've i've come across and he does um behind the tape segment first every week where it's just stuff that you just you just didn't know about like it he always catches me for a loop so he does that so guts and glory mma podcast um shout out to andy the irish team has a busy year ahead of it this year we've got um hopefully the squads the squads were hoping to get going in may we've had a couple of um events like squad sessions planned that had to be cancelled due to um lockdowns but hopefully we get back in may because we've got the the youth championships is in uh istanbul in august we've got the european championships as in saint petersburg and russia and we've got the world championships later on in the year which is in kazakhstan and anybody who comes back from kazakhstan when a medal should have a statue erected in their honor on freaking whatever o'connell street in dublin or patrick street in cork it's going to be a tough year for the irish but we're going to we're going to step up and meet the challenge yeah because we've all seen how tough borat is at wrestling i was wait i was going to crack the the swimming dog thing he has like mankini but uh yeah russ i forgot to mention as well uh shout out to everyone who got onto us for getting on the ufc 262 countdown video that's her second time and but i was going um let the cat out of the bag i think it just did we're going to be on the next one as well so that's going to be third time and then let's see what happens as well for the future but right liam thanks man for coming the show if you are new to the show make sure to like make sure to share make sure to subscribe and as always stay energized