Big John McCarthy & Josh Thomson | @WeighingIn | UFC's Evolution | Bellator Plans | Energized Show

Summary

What is up and welcome to episode 300 of the Energized Show! On this episode we have Big John McCarthy & Josh Thomson on the show to discuss their @WeighingIn podcast, The evolution of the UFC & Bellator's plans. Check it out, enjoy, subscribe for more and as always Stay…

Transcript (youtube_captions)

okay what's going on guys welcome to a brand new episode of energized ross introduce the yes man we have mma's number one podcast on with us today we have weighing in in the blue corner we have the man who broke we have the man who wrote the rule book in mma the mma referee ghost that is big john mccarthy and in the red corner we have strike force ufc and bellator veteran josh the punk thompson the only man to get nate diaz out of the octagon how are you doing guys doing good how are you guys doing man i'm glad i'm glad that you have come to grips with the fact that we are the number one mma podcast out there big john how does that make you feel to hear somebody else say it not just us come on baby it's no better than when they say that well once conor mcgregor says that that's certified you know oh there you go i'm done okay we'll just go over a couple of things before we get into the show obviously we have the two lads on this is episode 300 of energize if you are new to the show make sure to like and subscribe this is a banger we're coming to episode 300 with the best podcast in the world ross how happy are you man man i am absolutely buzzing this podcast is brought to you by kb nutrition they fuel the lads they they give the lads some great nutritious meals and also if you are here and you have not seen the weigh-in podcast head over episode 123 is out there now and they just talked about the ufc and derek lewis's big win over curtis blades and they talk about something that we're going to get into because i'm interested in using versus nick diaz as well pasmo what's your t-shirt say uh this is al calzoni he's uh he's been he's been a fan of the show for a while he actually lives near you josh as well he does he's the michael jordan of cheese steaks as well really michael jordan of cheesecake cheesesteaks huh yeah is it is your own business is he out of business yeah yeah yeah what what's it called calzone callows closey that's it exactly callosie sorry excuse me well get them to drop into your dms for a free cheesesteak sandwich afterwards definitely you mean calzone you mean like a calzone calzone calosi callosi oh you're gonna have to send it to me i want to check it out if it's over here by me in the in the bay area we will do we will do and also we want to give a massive share of the podcast dave as well he's uh he's doing great things and he's uh he's representing you too as well podcast dave do you ever hear him no we're not talking about him the scottish young jamie it yes that's so great oh so guys tell us what's going on what's going on over there where you guys are at how are you how's your lockdowns what's going on with that i'll to be honest with you josh we are like the laughingstock of europe we are in like what we call level five lockdown till may i think now and like our numbers are like aren't even getting any better so like it's all fairly doom and gloom over here and but we're keeping it energized man yeah we're keeping the energies and it could be worse like we do have power it could be worse we could be in texas boom there you go yeah always look on the bright side of life you know exactly exactly take it away you guys are a little rough no man it's just truthful they're sitting they know what cold is in ireland and they know what it's like to not have power like texas so you can bring your f-150 up to your thing plug it in so you can have some heat you better believe it but the cool thing about um i guess not having power is equivalent to like not having internet right big john i have no idea what you're talking about big john i can see you i can see you crystal clear if anyone's got the shaky internet on here it's the punk oh thank you so much you know that you know the truth well guys let's call a spade a spade let's let's get let's get right into it ufc heavyweight division is after getting very spicy very quick and derek my balls are hot louis is after coming in there and changing the game he knocked out curtis blades in the second round over the weekend oh he called the last week always said you can't you can't bet against that man's power and he's after making himself he's beat i think as it stands the number one ranked the number two ranked and the number five ranked ufc heavyweight does he not deserve a title shot if jon jones didn't exist with this heavyweight move wouldn't he be a clear court number one contender for the belt absolutely not no absolutely no no come on you got to be honest about this people people are forgetting that derrick lewis did have a title shot he fought daniel cormier for the title and showed that he was lacking in an area of wrestling that cormier was able to expose as far as it's not that you know he was the first one to do it but he was successful and take him down and ends up getting the fight but you've got guys you know francis ingano deserves a title shot i'm not saying take him out though i'm saying after he's not next in line oh yeah he's absolutely coming up in there no doubt about it but you got to look he's got to say jon jones can skip everyone and it's righteous because you got to look at the run that he's had as the light heavyweight king and to move up and get that title shot right away it's it's legitimate and it makes sense but francis nagano is right there with him as far as he deserves another shot let's see if he learned from that first loss that he had with stipe uh exactly how he's improved and what he's done so those same things that happened in that fight don't happen again what do you think josh yeah yeah what about you josh uh well i think i think we're gonna see i think john jones gonna cut the line which he deserves to like john and i were talking about um i think but we're going to see how the rosen strike fight uh plays out with serial gone and i think if john's going to insert himself into there into that middle there and take the next title shot which he should if he if he is going to stay a heavyweight or they get the work they get the the money worked out and the situation worked out for him to go ahead and get there then i would think you put you put um derrick lewis against the winner of serial gone and rosenstein to see who fights next after jon jones then that keeps both of those guys busy and then it also allows jon jones's opportunity to fight for the title uh if it's it for against francis or it's against teepee whoever whoever loses that fight is gonna have to go a little bit down to like number five and i'm not saying they're gonna lose in ranks that much i'm just saying they're gonna have to wait until after probably derrick loses lewis and rosenstruck or or cyril gone end up fighting to see to see who they're gonna have to fight out of that maybe or the winner of that fights for the title and the two losers fight each other to see who is gonna fight for the title after that like john john's always said this and and i think a lot of people don't understand this is that the ufc has like a little bit of a format normally the two two losers will fight each other so they end up with one of them being a winner so then they don't have to worry about two guys going on long runs and potentially losing um a little bit of that star power so they have two guys that have losses they fight each other when they fight each other one of them is guaranteed to come out on the win and when that happens they're going to move them on up you know the other one will stay kind of where they're at or drop down a little bit more and they'll just keep matching that other person up with probably another loser to see if one of them can get another win so you keep you keep following that track there but i think that's that's kind of a good format for them um with derrick lewis and fighting the winner of uh rosenstruck and cyril gone and then serial gone will probably fight the loser of uh whoever was the champion before you know so if it was jon jones versus uh stipe or if it was stipe losing and then stephen going down to fight cereal gone potentially making another run back of the title but it kind of makes for a very interesting situation in that heavyweight division because john and i were talking on weighing in just like what two weeks ago john and i was saying man the heavyweight division is just not doing it for me lately you still got a lot of these older guys fighting you've got arlovsky fighting del santos fighting i'm like over him fighting i'm like it's just not doing it for me anymore but then the young guys that showed up the other night and the young guys are going to come and fight again this week this weekend coming up i'm telling you it started it started to kind of tickle the butthole a little bit i'm liking it typical typical well i think josh just matched every heavyweight up against each other over the next uh six or six to 12 months but uh another big name coming out of this weekend's card is tom ospanol and what an absolute a raiders win and he he arranged he lit uh arlovsky up on the feet he shot a beautiful double leg in the second and then andre arlovski i've never seen someone give their back on and uh give their neck so easily especially someone who was a ufc heavyweight champion at one stage and but tom aspinall looks like he's the real deal and he's got to be the hottest prospect out of all the heavyweights do you agree with that cause i don't know if he's the hottest prospect out of all heavyweights as far as he is with people that didn't know him but if you've followed tom and his career he's good and now and he has really done a great job of taking the losses that he had and taking notes from those and saying i need to fill these holes and he's really done that well and his stand up has become so much better his ground game is a is he's a monster on the ground people have no idea how good tom astronaut you don't get heavyweights that are really good off their back you just you know and josh and i talk about it all the time and you know it's not a place that heavyweights want to be and i'm not saying that he wants to be there but even you know he looks like frank mir and he does have a ground game similar to frank mir which makes him dangerous for every heavyweight in the division because when you talk about guys that are good with through wrestling there's not a whole lot of them and then you talk about guys that on top of that have a good submission game now you're starting to really narrow down the field and with his stand-up getting the the thing that really impressed me in his fight with arlovsky was how relaxed he was in the stand up how calm he was how he was controlling the distance in the fight he was the one deciding when the engagements would occur he's just he's just excelling at an exponential rate in his learning curve and he's just getting better and better so yeah he's that guy that's right there in that as i say knocking on the door of the top ten he should be right at in that yeah let's say 12 to the number nine spot somewhere in there you should see tom aspera now it's when he makes that next level change into that upper echelon yeah i think it could be the next british fighter to fight for a belt as well um it obviously depends on if um if izzy leaves middleweight and goes up like heavyweight the ufc love nothing more than trying to get darren hill into a total fight what do you make of jon jones actually moving up into the heavyweight division as well like can who do you think actually poses the biggest threat against him because uh he's cleaned out the light heavyweight division and that went sort of stale but now um there's some very interesting matchups uh john do you want to answer first john i look for for yeah for for me i think realistically it's just francis sagano and then uh and leaving derrick lewis i'll say derek lewis as well um derek lewis sure needs to work on his wrestling a lot more to stop jon jones's takedown but like we saw like like we've been saying for the longest time guys like francis and ghana and guys like derrick lewis with that amount of power that they have you've got to be very cautious on how you approach your takedowns and curtis blades found out the other night the other thing as well is when you're having these conversations about guys that hit hard and and guys that can change the game with you know with one shot john towards the end of his 205 pound career right towards he was getting hit a lot he's gonna hit a lot more and he just i don't know if it was because he didn't take he didn't really feel like he'd be hurt by those guys anymore there was nothing there that those guys could do anymore you can tell he kind of either he lost his motivation or he's just not the same fighter anymore i'm hoping that this run up to the heavyweight will invigorate him into making him a you know a more energized fighter like we saw when he fought stephen bonner and shogun hua and and those guys back in the day will we see that john jones again who knows because now you've got to be very careful with taking chances against guys that hit as hard as derrick lewis francis and gone new and that are as we saw very fast and explosive let's let me remind you francine gano almost decapitated over him yeah you know and derek lewis just just on saturday night just took curtis blade's soul so when we're having these conversations like you you know john jones can do all this the spinning fancy stuff but what happens when he gets clipped just accidentally and that that he gets taken out so it brings in new it brings a new dynamic to the game will john be the oldest john and will john be willing to take chances or is john just going to try to wrestle them to death and get those wins i think john takes a smart approach with the wrestling but guys like france nagano are very athletic and a lot stronger than the guys at 205 and should be able to stop a takedown or two and in the process jon jones is going to get hit he's going to hit like he's never been hit before so there's a lot of questions to be answering him going to heavyweight but what do i think of it overall i freaking love it man yes yes the reason to love it is it's spicing things up the 205 pound division now is set free from jon jones and john jones about to go to heavyweight and lock that division down now for himself if he can we'll is yet to be seen but man i'm excited to see i'm excited to see if we're gonna we're gonna see a new reinvigorated jon jones big john do you agree with that a lot of it i do and there but there's certain aspects i think you need to think about jon jones is an exceptional fighter and i think his matchup with stipe first off that is not an easy fight for him to win stipe's boxing is very technically clean his stand up is clean his wrestling is good his anti-wrestling look at dan cormier in getting him down he's popping back up and i you people can sit there and say what they want i know that john took dan down but john is not the wrestler that dan cormier was so steep has got an outstanding wrestling defense i think that stipe matches up incredibly well with john but i think he's the easier puzzle for john to figure out then you're looking at an ingano or a lewis because when you're taking a look at francis and ghana or derek lewis either one just like what josh said look it they hit people and hurt them when they don't land in the right spot they they you know ngano put you know not only overeem's lights out he put rosenstruck's lights out fast even with a shot that you go that didn't land that clean so he can hurt john at any point in the fight also the other thing is both of those guys and nagano is a little bit cleaner than lewis but they're both not technically clean in the stand up they throw from odd angles they do things that make you as their opponent you're you're used to fighting guys that are technical but when a guy does things that is not quite technical is just kind of wild and crazy it kind of makes you hold back you got to be careful with them and especially with the power that both of those guys possess john's going to have his hands well the step up in competition is not a step up in competition as far as total skill level but the step up in competition when it comes to the ability to put your lights out he is stepping into a world that he has never experienced before ross i'll ask you this question as well no one really brings up the fact that jon jones has enough money to like he could retire he doesn't have to go up and do this now obviously conor mcgregor has way more money but he doesn't need to do it either so like do you think that jon jones is moving up this is you still what do you sort of make it is because you can you can retire and live happily ever after right now i feel like jon jones is almost on a career revival he's gone been through his trials and tribulations and now he's trying to revive his queries trying to you know leave the sport with a good name and all you think that john johnson almost always fought to the level and ability of his opponents the better opponent you give jon jones the better performance you get out of jon jones that's why i feel like i i don't mean to disrespect them but like anthony smith thiago santos and maybe even dominic reyes i felt like john overlooked those guys he wasn't he didn't want to rise the occasion for them but when he sees these guys like this france and ghana steve bamiotic he as john said these guys are here to kill and like and ganu he doesn't even want to spend a minute in the octagon with his opponents he wants to get out there in under 60 seconds he's gone mr gone in 60 seconds and i honestly think jon jones is gonna know that and i'll be very interested to see the first 60 seconds of those fights i'll be interested to see does john do was crawl across the octagon or what way he comes out but um i think john jones he's gonna have to focus and switch on there for the full 25 minutes when he gets in there and it's going to be exciting to see forehead so i have one last question before we move off heavyweights b john you've been in there with some of the all-time greats but who do you feel that you've been in there with and you've seen hits the hardest out of all the heavyweights oh my god as far as heavyweights wow that's that's a good question there's been several guys that they just hit hard but i would say francis ngano is the guy that when he hits you now there's differences on the feet francis nagano is the scariest guy fedor is very close fedor's super fast with his hands fedor on the ground is the most damaging guy i've ever seen besides derrick lewis now derek lewis on the ground is a scary some [ __ ] he hurts people because he just throws everything into it and you know those are the three guys i want to say knockout power wise they're all incredible and one last thing i actually will say just as uh we're talking about referees i feel like herb dean unfairly got hit criticized this weekend about not stopping that fight soon enough in fairness it was a bit of a strange shot that he caught him with the uppercut and then it was very dan henderson michael bisping asked well you know you can't actually as the referee be on top of the guy you have to let them get in their scrambles get their takedowns he was he actually ran over and got over straight away derek lee was just got those two points in just a quick two second take on that john yep i i look in you know everyone thinks it's easy and everyone thinks fighting oh i could fight okay you put you put the average man into a fight he looks like a third grade school girl all right that's how bad it looks and people think that they understand refereeing they have no idea there's times and you know josh and i even went over this on our podcast as far as positioning and where you want to be but there's times when you will actually take yourself out of what you think is the right technical mechanical position to see something that you see going on and i think that's what because herb was on the side that he'd wanted he went to the other side because i think he looked it but blades fell away from him and it makes it to where hey you can only react so fast and you know herb doesn't jump in between guys like some referees do they'll put you know little keith peterson he shoves his body in there like he's a gopher going between guys herb kind of uses his leg and his butt to push guys to the side so everyone's got their own little style but he did nothing wrong in that fight it's just that derrick lewis said that's herb dean's fault no he he did something wrong john he was in the wrong spot [Laughter] again how many times is that guy referee yeah i know i know and he he messes up a lot more people want to give him credit yeah there's some there's some mistakes he does he does he does do a phenomenal job i like to give him a hard time he's messed up a couple times calling some of my fights and so i'd like to give him a little bit of a hard time but in that situation i did we did like john was saying we did talk about it on our show and i thought he i i thought he was in the wrong position because you and i have always talked about position john and where they should be in the open side and this and that and i wanted to know what you thought i thought he should have been on the other side because of the right hand and the power of derrick lewis but you're suggesting that he wants to see more of the other of the of the open side of the opponent of the person who has the more power because they will tend to sometimes fall backwards or fall forward but fall you know not in the way that curtis blades fell because it was weird that he had came to that side and then right before the knockout he was on his way back to the other side and then he got and then curtis plays got knocked out um but yeah i mean me and all poking fun i was poking fun at him saying like you know that he was in the wrong side which he to my eyes he was but but but in all fairness though like john like you guys have all said it's very hard it's very hard to get there that fast and to believe that you can just jump right in there if i was to put anybody else in there you know like like john was saying like an average person they would they couldn't sit still they'd be bouncing around they would have no idea what the hell they were doing and a fighter's life would be in danger for sure if you just put a random person in there because they wouldn't know when to stop it or they would stop it way too soon the guy got hit oh stop stop stop people overreact sometimes in situations these reps are put under a lot of pressure and uh in all fairness me i thought he did a great job in the olynyk fight was it him in the olympic fight yeah in the olympic fight and then i also thought i thought he did a good job with the derrick lewis fight i put more of that on derek lewis to be honest uh derek lewis knew that he was out yeah and i know you're supposed to wait until the fighter is you know until the ref pulls you off but curtis blaze was out i mean he hit him the second time the first time when he went down he was stiff and then he hit him again for good measure so he did i put a little bit of that on derek lewis i know the rules i know what the reps tell you but i put a little bit out of derek lewis and i put a little bit of that on on her beam so the two of them together uh i think are a little bit out to blame can i talk a bit about electricity in the octagon how many times would you like you two guys been in the octagon together like obviously josh fighting and john you rep him john john you you left my very first fight in the ufc yep with josh probably about five times see i just want to know after someone gets a massive win and then you lift their arm can you just like what do you feel when you're holding them like is there like what's that what's the electricity like in the arena like you know i mean you're holding him off the champion and everyone's applauding them and you're like you're taking it all in as well what's that like oh you know i'm just totally honest you're feeling really good for that guy but you're feeling really bad for the other guy too you know you go in there and you should you really have no emotion and very seldom i did so many fights that people asked me all the time were you excited no i wasn't and but i i can tell you the one time that i got a charge you know and then throughout my career it was at ufc 40 when shamrock and tito ortiz were going to fight that was the time that because of the energy of the crowd i didn't get a charge but i realized the sport's going to make it this is going to go and i really felt confident at that point but the one time i got a charge was um conor mcgregor conor mcgregor walked out and as he was walking out i felt this charge and it was against aldo because it was a fight that was really highly anticipated and i got this buzz that went up my spine and i was like what the hell was that man that hasn't happened in a long time so uh it was uh it was good because it just tells you man you're alive and you're ready to go and it lasted 13 seconds so yeah what about the time you left them i think it was chuckled dale versus your mom from friends [Laughter] yeah john was that the the best atmosphere you'd been in as well because like you've been in so many but was that was that number one no you know i've again i've had so many great experiences but the one that i really enjoyed i mean just absolutely stood in the middle of the octagon well not maybe not the middle more to the side but stood there and was like holy christ look at this was i had uh i had asked for the uh mark hominick versus jose aldo fight that was in between the first yeah the first big fight that they had in toronto is 55 000 people and you know they had to ask they asked if i wanted the main event with george st pierre and jake shields and i'd ref i think jake shields last four fights and i go nope i want that other fight i think it's a better fight that's the one i want and they gave it to me and mark hominick was was walking out and this is it was important because mark hominick along with a couple of guys sam stout and chris hordeski and they had a trainer that you know has passed and stuff but he uh shawn thompkins was a special guy and it was so special that he was going to be uh coming out and he had never been able to fight basically in his home province and he's walking out and it's playing the song you know i'm coming home and they've got this like snow coming down with the canadian flag and 55 000 people are going nuts and i was like this is the coolest [ __ ] it ever a good fight oh it was i was i was i was getting goose bumps right there when you were explaining me the snow coming down and the canadian flag and and uh one of the biggest one of my one of my favorite fighters to ever watch was mark hamidek clean and it's not even so much that he was fun to watch but have you ever met the kid he's probably the i mean and i i i hold frankie edgar at the highest level of standard but mark hominick is right there with him the just their their personalities their their sincereness of who they are as individuals and people just cannot be matched man the guy is just an absolute amazing person mark hamanick frankie edgar i mean sam stout and chris hordeski those guys they're just you if you were ever around them they're just a great group of kids great group of kids and um man like yeah you gave me goosebumps hearing that little story there john i like that thanks that was awesome guys what you make of the progression of the sport itself over the last 25 years because um in ireland it wasn't really big and then obviously like conor actually just blew it out of the park but like could you foresee that this was going to happen it was going to get this big or like is it just like conor sort of slightly fast forwarded it or like as it was inevitably going to get this big oh there's no doubt that conor put it in fast forward yeah i can remember back when we did the first show ever for the ufc at ufc 72 which was in ireland and uh it was you know it was a good show it had some you know decent fights and had one of my favorite fights was tyson griffin against uh clay guido was an awesome fight but you could take a look at all of the people that you know in the uk michael bisping was a big you know guy as far as he had won the ultimate fighter and he was kind of the guy people were looking at because there was guys before him like ian freeman you know and he was you know well liked but you know not the greatest fighter tough guy but not you know this incredible guy but conor was the guy he not only you'll get guys that can talk and you know we have a good friend in jail sonnet who's one of the greatest talkers there is imagined imagine but when it comes to the big fight he never comes through in it it always seems to elude him and so conor was the guy that he talked and talked well and always pointed out he was he was kind of honest in the way he would do it he would point out his opponent's flaws he would point out their weaknesses and he would say you know i'm going to touch that chin you know it's you you've been getting hurt you're going to your left and you're trying to avoid it and he's saying all these things and he was accurate with it and not only did he you know do the talk then he walked the walk he went out and he performed and when you can do both of those things you get people behind you but it was also his you know the the phrases that he came you know we're not here to take part we're here to take over that just that that fired people up and he got an entire country behind him at one point that you look and you go it's just amazing yeah because if you don't if like if you're not really aware of like the irish culture like a lot of irish people sort of run themselves down a bit or they they they'd never be braggadocios in any sort of way so when like myself and ross saw an irishman talk to talk and walk the walk like our minds are blown ross and then russ ross tell the lads ross tell that's what it's like what it's been like living in ireland ever since like conor blew up the scene because i i doubt the lads know exactly so actually over in ireland just on like every person who went to the lecture wasn't there here didn't wait give speech they just go what are you saying conor mcgregor and that's all that was said to him uh he then went and knocked out even bunching and became a two-time cage warriors champion and his first sort of fight in the ufc he knocked down marcus premise and there was the 60 g's and everyone's like that that was really really cool and people were on board with it and then and people then started like they just everyone started becoming their own little version of conor mcgregor everyone had you know the slick back ponytail like you walk into a double nightclub and everyone has a waistcoat with a hickey bow on and it was absolutely ridiculous you know what i mean uh at first i actually going down to jiggybo and nightclub one stage it was uh it was the thing to do and like you know everyone want to tell everyone you will do newton you know what i mean like that's that's all people wanted to say and just like his phrases became and every day in ireland to be honest it was insane well here the thing is is i don't like to give a lot of i don't want to pat him on the back too much not i'm not talking about connor i'm talking about michael bisping i feel like michael bisping like john was saying he kind of opened the door not just for uk fighters but he opened the door for a lot of international fighters because we already had brazilians we already had uh japanese we already had americans all fighting you know in pride in in the ufc and any other organization the wec there was already fighters that were there that had already fought from those countries and it was very rare to find somebody like um you know that could really make a splash from another country uh i want to say what was his name from australia john george stoppanopoulos or george yeah georgetown yeah so george he kind of was trying to make it's a little bit of a splash never really got there but i'm saying with when you're talking about guys like michael bisping had the chatty mouth he was uh didn't like didn't like to be pushed in the ultimate fighter you know uh matt hamill on him got into it a couple times there was a there was some some the things that catapulted him into it then the other guy that was never really mentioned is dan hardy dan hardy was like the first guy i think outside of michael bismay that brought that brash almost conor mcgregor-esque kind of like uh talking conversation and post-flight interviews and the mohawk the red mohawk and his fighting style was fun and he could back it up that was the other thing he could back it up um they kind of came before but what but to answer your guys's question in terms of did you think in 25 years where we would be right now like connor sure catapulted it up there but i think what they saw from michael bisbeing and dan hardy was that all we need to do is find one star in every country and we can blow up in that country and let's just make that person a star and that's what they've done weili zhang you know you've got her now over there and she's just blowing up in china they're talking about doing more shows in china now um you know you've got obviously conor you know um they're they're they're making their way through the world khabib and russia they're making their way through the world trying to find you know one star in every country so they can make this a worldwide brand and people want to talk about the um i know i'm going to go off topic here a little bit john is they want to talk about the ali act but if you implement the all the act now you're taking away the ability to make all to make a star in every country kind of because now that champion can go anywhere they want and become a star somewhere else instead of making stars where right there in in the ufc so it's a little bit of a a catch-22 i think by trying to implement a union and all the acts in all those lines but i think the ufc has found the format for how to build some how to build stars in every country and it started i got i got i gotta say it started with michael bisping and dan hardy and i think you've got a little bit of that darren till now he's kind of taking the place of of michael bisping and dan hardy and you've got vittori you've got other guys that are coming up that are kind of like becoming stars by the way that they talk and that's not over the top but it's it's directed to the point and very energetic for the crowds to support and get behind yeah i suppose you also have a few boy nationality champions as well like you even look at uh izzy you know i mean uh he's new zealand and he's uh nigeria as well like camaro america yeah i i think i i think uh you know if you confuse ireland england the irish fans will let you know all about it but i feel like ufc just trolls any of the australia or new zealand guys on the same cards as same difference no there's definitely a difference there but you're so right with the these different nationality stars like you have in ghana and france you have um like you said vittori in italy you have tale you have amanda nunes in brazil you know i mean once you have all these stars coming from all over the world i mean it really does resonate with that home country and it gets a big interest in there like we have katie taylor uh who fights for what's called boxer flights of ireland pound-for-pound number one female boxer in the world i always say she's uh ireland's greatest ever sports star and that includes the notorious one she's undefeated and she's undisputed world champion olympic gold medalist as well so like ireland loves to get behind her own as i'm sure most countries do but i think we're just a bit louder when it comes to our hour well you you go i will i will tell you guys the greatest crowds ever are in ireland unbelievable unbelievable we just heard a video the other day of peter queenie walking out at bellator dublin and it was unbelievable like i can't even believe that's real because you can't even go anywhere wearing a mask these days and to believe everyone was singing in harmony it was unbelievable it was magic it was magical you know what one of the things one of the things that josh is talking about with you know the champions from all the different countries that's what has helped the ufc really expand at this time you're looking you go if you got the females you got you know whaley zhang then you've got valentina schaefko and you've got a man of new news we're talking about china russia and brazil you get into the men same thing you know at 125 you got brazil at 135 you've got russia at 145 you've got australia 155 it was dagestani russia now we'll see what it's going to be but you go up to 170 with usman who is from the u.s but nigerian background then you had izzy at 185 you've got poland with you know lehovich at light heavyweight and then stephen american you don't it's not it's it used to be all americans they're all brazilians now it is worldwide where these people are coming from and it has made a huge difference guys can you explain how come america haven't got like the face of american mma i know chris wyben was like very up to very recently put it away the way like obviously bisping would be in england or like obviously conor here in ireland how come america hasn't got that like the face too many different sports too many different sports stars and not the person who is able to go and you know americans are kind of you know they're finicky they want that person who's unbeatable they want that person who oh they don't lose everyone's going to lose i don't care in mma everyone's going to lose it's not boxing boxing you can always be you can be that floyd mayweather and you can have the right opponents that you pick and you can be so phenomenally technically good and athletic that you can get through a career you know managing it and never losing mma there's too many ways to lose too many varieties in there and too many things that if you don't cover those bases in your training for that opponent he can catch you with him so i always look at it that's the big deal i'm gonna agree and disagree with john is that he always does yeah i'm gonna agree with him and disagree with them though all in one breath um what it is is john was right is they want a person who is undefeated they want the best person but what it is they'll support any other person in the world over an american if that person is better than them now it won't happen all the time but almost 99 of the time like that's when when people i don't want to get into politics but americans they don't care where you're from they just want to support the best person and that's it they don't care they want you don't want to say you know what i knew i knew that guy i knew who caught everyone americans supported more of conor mcgregor than i think as many people were in ireland i mean that's how many more amer americans were like conor mcgregor conor mcgregor they didn't care if he was fighting an american i don't give a [ __ ] they didn't care they wanted conor mcgregor to win because conor mcgregor was the winner that's it they don't care americans don't care if you're from america they care about being being affiliated or associated with the winner that's it i didn't think chris boyden was like the one chance of america actually getting behind americans and then once he lost they were like nah they're like actually luke rocco's quite handsome i like him too if you had to if you had to like pick like a build your own like mr captain america or mrs america like what would they need to do would they need to be like an olympic gold medalist like what what what did he really need to do because i'm sure there's a few americans checking this out now that want to be the star of america that like what did they what do they need to do they would need to follow gsps format whatever gsp did they would need to follow that format i mean let's be honest i mean americans with with floyd mayweather they could follow one of two they could fall floyd mayweather's right where people would they only tuned in to watch him lose they didn't really tune in to watching him win they didn't like floyd like even to this day people don't like floyd uh but then more people bought the pay-per-view to see if they could watch him lose you could take that approach or you could take the gsp oscar de la hoya approach when oscar he was charismatic but very soft-spoken um always said the right thing and the positive thing uh people will follow that but the number one thing that they both had in common whether it was floyd mayweather gsp oscar de la hoya was that they won and that doesn't it doesn't mean anything unless you win and i've i've said this forever john knows this is winning solves everything if you keep winning people will follow you don't worry about all the other little [ __ ] and as you get more publicity everything you everything that you say will be put under a magnifying glass so just make sure you figure out what you want to say before you become a superstar you want to be the hill like floyd mayweather and josh kostcheck okay or do you or do you want to be the the gsp in the oscar de la hoya when they were you know in their prime and then successful and and growing to be the biggest stars you know that the sports have seen what you have to make your choice it does it and sometimes they won't take you and accept you you know as a nice person so then that's when you turn hill jon jones was trying to be that that nice person and it wasn't him it just wasn't him so he just said you know what threw it are you sure wasn't him i'm gonna go rent i'm gonna go wreck my bentley and i'm gonna go hang out with strippers and i'm gonna go do that stuff you know but in the end he became the heel and i think that catapulted him even more than what he was before you know in a crappy light but people now sometimes tune in to watch john lew's versus to watch john win and he's kind of taking that yeah the perfect the perfect the perfect example of this and what josh is talking about is henry cejudo this is the guy well you take a look man olympic gold medalist okay phenomenal wrestler that comes into mma and is knocking people out he's standing up he loses two times he beats the very best pound-for-pound guy in demetrius johnson to take the 125 pound title he then goes and beats the guy who was the 135 pound champion in tj dillashaw and it just wasn't resonating with the public and this guy is phenomenal he's a great guy super nice guy and finally he goes to that okay i'll flip i'll go from being the baby face to be in the heel and he turns in this triple c and the you know the king of cringe whatever but then he leaves and so he kind of left the ufc in a place where you know he's coming back it's just a matter of when and against who but that's a guy that you know he figured out hey i'm gonna make more money if if people think that i'm a jerk okay i'll be that guy that you know makes people cringe but he's the perfect example here in the us it's tough to get over yeah i don't know like i just don't think they have the right form for him now i think well first of all there's far too many guys who get the mic put in front of their face at the end of it and go i'll just fight anyone whoever's next you know some of them in the top 10 maybe you mean like ah like chelsea has a perfect you know i mean you need to pick your your shot and you need to shoot it after your fight it's the one time you get a chance to call your shot and saying whoever the ufc wants me to fight next is not the answer you need to pick someone in the top 15 pick some of the top ten you know and once you say their name you know egos come into play and people don't like their name being called out and that generates a bit of he for a fight have you guys have you guys ever talked to chael and we met him with bellator 200 but i'm saying look so look with jail right and the situation with chael sonnen is that the reason why this this this uh bad guy personality came out was he realized he had just got a win i don't even know what ufc was he was telling me the story he realized he got a win and when he got up to the presser nobody asked him any questions no one cared he's like uh he's all i'm winning these fights now he's gonna have like a two or three fight with street now one person asked him one question so he's just like you know what screw this so he just started doing the whole bad guy thing and within seconds within seconds of him doing it in in a couple interviews he blew up people loved it and it just catapulted his career into that position where he is now i mean you got to think in terms of in terms of guys right he worked for bellator he also worked for espn and he works for the usc all at the same time tell me what other guy could do that yeah dana ain't allowing me to go anywhere near the ufc but it's you know what i mean like it's that it's that thing that he did when he decided like one day i'm just gonna flip this switch i'm gonna go ahead and play the hill and he did and everyone knows he's not the hill i don't know if you guys have ever really met him and talked with him but oh noises he is one of those super nice kind of nerdy nice guys you know i mean versus what you guys see in reality and it's it's fun man he's a really good guy i love being around a man and uh it was it's always fun to work you know side by side with him that's just a couple of more things before we get like before we get into pedal tour coming back and uh i'm telling you we can't wait for that but the thing is right obviously during the crown of voters like everything got shut down and then dana pulled off like the most ultimate master stroke in creighton floyd island first of all creating the buzz about it but then actually delivering and then putting on some of the greatest fights that we'll probably ever see well hopefully there's better ones to come but like can like john like you obviously you obviously know dana very well like can you believe he was even able to pull this off oh yeah and the reason why you gotta go well this is why he and you can go and he he did a whole video thing and i got pissed out he went and did something that he was he was screwing up during this coronavirus thing when you know bellator pulled a show that was back at march 13th of 2020 and there was the ufc in brazil in brasilia on the 14th they had that show they took away the crowd but you know didn't have any testing or anything like that exactly and then you go and he had the fight with tony ferguson against khabib that he wanted and that was scheduled for april and he was saying this fight's going to happen and he then went he went off the rails in actually going and trying to book it at a location that was basically he was it was being illegal he was trying to do it on indian reservation they didn't have regulation he was going to self-regulate it the california state athletic commission was saying we will have nothing to do with this the state of california is saying we don't want you to do it it finally got shut down but from that point when he went to florida and this is before you know he had the fight island thing you got to understand the fight island thing took place years ago back when lorenzo fertitta who was the brains behind the ufc his brother frank being a half owner with lorenzo and they gave you know dana that little section then they decided to sell five percent five percent from lorenzo five percent from frank and one percent from dana so it was 11 tonal to flash entertainment which was located in abu dhabi they got a relationship there that relationship blossomed and it was that relationship that was spawned by lorenzo fertitta that gave dana the ability to go back to the abu dhabi government and say hey is there anything they had yaz island yaz island was being shut down and they said you know what we think we can do something let's see and then all of a sudden fight island came about you know it wasn't that oh they made an island for the ufc it was there but it wasn't being used it was that relationship that was initiated by lorenzo fertitta that's what created fight island and it has worked for the ufc today look at lorenzo fertitta people he was the guy in the background he wanted to be the guy in the background he didn't want to be out front a lot he was the brains behind everything that has occurred in the ufc when they lost lorenzo they lost a ton and john was that was that back to ufc 112 was it when silva fought maya and believe it or not it was a frankie egg or bj pen that's right that was the first fight that they had and that fight occurred in abu dhabi based upon that exchange when they sold part of the ufc to flash entertainment and that relationship started to blossom at that point knowledge flexed by me [Laughter] guys like before before we went into like crown of virus and like we're living the chrono virus lifestyle i me myself and ross we were obviously doing the show and so were you lads um and like bellator would be on the same night as ufc sometimes and like it would be difficult to watch both yadda yadda but now that bellator has now found a home of friday nights and ufc is on a saturday night like how much better is that for the mixed martial arts itself i think i for me personally it's just going to help the sport grow the other thing as well is that we as as bellator we we work for them but we also understand the importance of not stepping on each other's dicks and that's really what it comes down to is you don't you don't want to hinder the sport from growing and people will follow who they want to follow but we want to give them an opportunity we want to get them an opportunity and a chance to follow our guys as much as the ufc wants to give their their guys and their girls their female fighters to um to be to be fought as well and so when you're talking about them on us on friday like when we i love that we were all on thursday night on cbs sports i loved it because we knew that it gave it gave fighters and gave not fighters gave fans a day of rest on friday to go do whatever they wanted and then two back in on saturday to the ufc if they wanted to watch that so i loved it because if you think about it right the only conflict that we would have really had ever with thursday night was the nfl and that was on thursday night football and you have that that that problem with that situation but at least on friday we don't have that problem anymore and having two big big nights of fights friday and saturday nights you know it is great for me the other thing is was if i'm gonna go out right if i'm gonna go out to a nightclub or do anything i don't normally go out on friday as much as i go out on saturday because i know saturday i have all day to just i mean saturday but i have all day sunday just to rest and lay around some friends work late on friday night like it just for me friday night tonight if i'm gonna come home and i'm gonna watch something on tv it's gonna be friday night and saturday night is you know don't be wrong a lot of people will continue to watch you know the ufc on saturday nights but i feel like it's a good step in the right direction for showtime to be on friday nights for bellator saturday night will probably be the ufc or any other boxing event that's the other thing boxing events will generally occur on saturday night showtime boxing might be on saturday night which will conflict with the ufc and the fact is that we they will kind of still take some of their viewership away because boxing fans do watch mma and but boxing fans are more loyal to boxing than they are mma and so they will steal some of their fans from their viewership whereas on friday night we very rarely will have boxing or you will very rarely see boxing on a friday night unless it's a massive ufc fight or a massive football game on a saturday night like some of the playoffs this year for football american football by the way um they were on saturday nights some of them are on saturday during the day during the playoffs saturday day saturday night and so unless it conflicts with that then i think i think you're going to see bellator's stardom and star power for these uh younger athletes that have not been able to get a lot of recognition lately that now they have a home on show time they'll start to get more recognition plus it gives all the casual fans an opportunity to see it on friday the the bellator fights and it gives the other fans a chance to see him on ust on saturday night yeah no it didn't i thought it was a great move myself and russell agree as well because obviously the time zones and having on friday night and then saturday and saturday night and then you know yourself lads like if if you were if you're working a desk at the bellator event while ufc is on as well it it's just it's just a bit of a mess when you have to go back over everything as well but um no no it's like but once bellator announced that they're calling back it was just very very exciting and like um like you know you know the way it is here like for everyone that's gone to a belt or a double event they've fallen in love with it full stop that's the other thing is i tell people this john knows this is you have to go to these events yeah okay if when you get an opportunity a chance you need to go to a bellator event you need to go to a ufc event i encourage everyone to go watch mma live you guys have no concept no clue the normal fan at home that watches it on their tv box they have no clue what it's like to be there live watching these fights it's the energy of the crowd especially like if you're in ireland get the hell out of here man like you'd be missing out on a lifelong experience to tell your friends for for decades or grandchildren how amazing it is to hear a group of you know 10 000 people all seeing in unisa like come on these are things that you people need to understand it's one thing to watch on tv but it's another thing to be there live in person 100 i i actually have friends here in the states that are waiting for the next bellator event in dublin ireland they're gonna they're gonna get tickets they're gonna fly out there because i've told them you have got to experience it and they're all just waiting for it because it's something that you just can't explain until someone has been there and seen it then you can talk about it yeah i think when you really think back and look at peter creedy versus ryan scope in dublin and you know peter quilly comes out first ryan's goal comes out no one knows what his walkout song is all you can continue to hear is zombie play in the background ryan's go puts it on peter creely and then in one of the most amazing comebacks of all time peter queeley comes back and finishes roy's scope is probably one of the greatest mixed martial arts comebacks under the bellator banner of all time and he literally blew the roof off his plate off the place he etched his name in irish mma folklore history yeah i would have to say it's probably one of the best comebacks in mma history period i'm not just being that i'm not saying that because the homer i called that fight and i'm sitting there just in disbelief that ryan scope gasped himself out trying to put him away and just couldn't find it in his gut to survive the rest of that that rest of that round i was in just such disbelief i was like i can't believe this is happening and the other thing as well is i'm one of those fighters that fought a lot in san jose and for him to be able to do that in ireland in dublin like he'll never ever forget that moment ever in his life that will be in his mind probably the greatest moment of his his whole life i mean outside of probably having kids yeah his whole career guys like obviously we have a lot of irish people that watch it watch our stuff is there something that you can tell them that like bellator have planned or something they can look out for for the next battle tour dublin right now i don't think josh or i know when the next bellator in dublin is going to be you know the whole thing with covid really changed the scope of what was going on and and where they're doing i think right now they're talking about bringing you know the really good irish fighters that they have signed guys like gallagher you know bdk uh peter queeley these guys are probably going to be coming over in the first half of the year to fight here in the u.s at what they call the fight sphere at the mohegan sun because you got to get those guys fights because you know that's you know important to keep them going uh but they're going to go back there because they they as a company bellator loves dublin ireland they love the fighters there they have a great relationship with john cavanaugh there and the other gyms that are there andy and all of them it's it's a special place that i think that bellator right now other than conor mcgregor they own pretty much ireland you know and they have a great relationship with them so they want to go back yeah we we always joke that uh scot coca runs all those decisions boy john kavanagh before he actually decides what he's doing he might yeah well then he has a seat at the table anyway yeah and like dane even took notice of that like put trying to put tail against whitaker in dublin as well like that like that turned out to be an unbelievable fight but that like you setting up a really really good card but um now bellator are doing great things over here they've they've like uh but what would you say ross well what's better done to irish mma well i think they've just given a lot of irish fighters a platform to to fight and put it this way you know i mean since conor mcgregor is sort of retired unretired retired or unretarded and also he's too big of a name to put in the three arena they're not going to do an outdoor show in ireland because of the weather and then also like we've seen it with them michael bisping when he fought don henderson and i think it was ufc 204 that you know they had the fight on of like four or five o'clock in the morning british time for the american pay-per-views and like there were we saw photos like the audience were asleep at that time it was four or five o'clock in the morning what do you expect so if you want conor mcgregor to headline a pay-per-view which of course you want conor mcgregor's headline pay-per-view you're gonna have to have them fight in ireland at four or five o'clock in the morning because the pay-per-view boys are still on vegas time so it's never going to happen it just won't guys you got to make sure there's at least one irish person on on every card and then like you'll have you'll have the whole country checking it out like any time any irish person is doing anything from chess to fighting they'll they'll be they'll get a massive like like sport they'll they just will well yeah one of the things you know the irish fighters are just guys fighting out of ireland because there's a lot you know the pedro carvalhos who is from portugal but fights out of spg or franz malumbo is another one but the irish fighters have performed and you got guys you know no one knew who will fleury was before but when will flurry goes up man he's had one fight where he wasn't able before other than that man he has put on some great fights and so and brian moore another one he's boxing beautiful oh yeah you talk about you talk about putting combinations together because combinations in mma start to become a rare thing and you look at what brian moore is doing it's he's awesome he is fun to watch the pikeman is someone i i love to watch he is great that oprah court is sensational yep dude he looks like canelo when he throws it yeah oh he actually actually put up a post the other day of him and canelo doing the same combination side by side oh really yeah well guys let's get let's get into april you know bellator's big return uh what do you guys make of the light heavyweight tournament and who's your early favorite winner go yeah john um i mean realistically my early favorite is is nemkoff is the bellator champion my early favorite right now is him he's riding off of a huge win over ryan bader who is also the bellator heavyweight champ um i think the three years and look and i'm anthony johnson i'm an anthony rumble johnson fan like to the to the t to the top of the top i'm one of his biggest fans um but he's been offered over three years and to think that he's gonna come back and he's gonna have a barn burner of a fight against somebody even though he's 44 year old years old you're well guerrero but he's been active at 44 years old and let's be real he's probably about 32. okay look when when you put the two of those guys together and then the winner of that's going to advance on and i think it's going to be against nem coffin the winner of nemkoff and um uh davis bill davis and so the winner of that fight but i would say that nemkoff is the favorite the one thing that concerns me a little bit with nemcock is that we saw it in the phil davis first fight is that he's extremely good for the first three rounds but as that third round comes around he starts kind of slowing down a little bit to the point where guys that have great conditioning will push the pace on him and be a little bit more active and wrestle and make him wrestle make him work make him you know make him uh make him work too much to the point where he the output is not there anymore and john will speak on this is that he's he's rough do you reference that fight that he had had a long long time ago where he was so tired yep and so yeah john will talk to you guys about that as well is that he just he's got to learn i think hopefully he's learned during this time on how to conserve his energy or pick and choose his shots on when to be explosive and fast and when to when when it's the importance is to get up off the bottom when the importance is to slow down your activity from the bottom if you are on bottom um i think his wrestling [ __ ] is judo all of that stuff together makes him the favorite he if he was to have a hard time it would be with probably joel romero out of everyone um i give i give nemcoff a little bit of an advantage over uh anthony johnson and even though anthony's not one of my closest friends but i would get because of the wrestling aspect i'd give him a hard time i can give nemcop a hard time against uh yol because he's not able to take him down he's gonna have to make sure he keeps his chin tucked and doesn't take big shots from you well and not trying to over push the pace of the fight um but let's not forget about corey anderson corey anderson's long lanky fast way faster than i had ever thought he was until i saw him fight melvin manoff in person he was extremely fast and i it really threw me off the fact that he was that fast and his wrestling his control in his top position he would be the next guy that i think is a little bit a little bit of a dark horse but nemkoff i need to meet his favorite um and then i would say corey's probably next and then you're going to go with joelle and anthony probably after that somewhere in there and then machida and ryan and vader you know in that other corner i'm going to lean towards namco being the favorite so just to be honest i agree with you i i agree with uh josh i think the two favorites in my opinion looking at the entire lineup and i love rumble and rumble can really rumble can win this thing in three fights uh with three 15-second knockouts he's got that kind of power okay let's just be honest anthony has he has that scary power like what we were talking about with a francis ingano or a uh derrick lewis so he has the ability to touch someone and to put them out of the fight that can happen at any point but that's not an easy thing to do and i would tell you that in my opinion nemkoff has gotten so much better what josh was talking about his fight with uh yuri project was in rising i did it and he beat yuri to a pulp but it's a 10 minute round and at the end of the round with nine minutes and 30 35 seconds you know gone at the round there's 25 seconds left he's exhausted yuri basically turns him over and starts hitting him a couple times the round ends and he was so exhausted he couldn't get up because he did not know how to fight as far as he couldn't control his pace he didn't know when to take those seconds to take that deep breath and then come back he was this all forward 100 percent let me go get rid of this guy fighter because that's what had worked for him before this fight he had never fought that guy that he couldn't get rid of and then exhaustion was what beat him and he's learned from it but josh is right he is a fast twitch muscle fiber athlete he needs to be able to control the pace for him to be able to not get tired if someone's able to push him in areas he can get tired and i think phil davis knows that off of his first fight so i think phil davis is a tough fight for namco in the first round i think on the other side looking at it bader and machida is going to be a good fight i think it's going to be a different fight than the first time i think corey anderson is going to get rid of his opponent and in the end corey anderson i think is going to be the guy against nemkoff and that is a pick em fight because they're both when corey's able to fight the way he is meant to fight meaning using his wrestling at times not being this boxer not being a guy that's standing there looking for a knockout because he wants to satisfy the matchmakers he doesn't have to do that anymore all he has to do is go out and win his wrestling nemcost wrestling his stand up nemcos stand up they match up incredibly well they're both super fast it that's a pick and fight i think those are your two finalists no noise uh i'll give you a moy quick run down uh first of all i think the deck is absolutely stacked against nemkoff yeah he he's got he's got the absolute murderers row to retain that belt like phil davis in the first round you know you want to split sitting last time you know he was to say if phil davis can secure an early takedown in each round he's a hard man to get up off their back against um like to be honest i think that's almost a pick and fight but uh i would slightly lean towards nemkov i think the striking is that big crisper um in the next rumble versus romero you know i think glover's chair is still looking for his tooth in the bleachers uh from the time they fought so uh look i think eventually romero's chin will eventually have to give way i think rumble could be the man to make his team give away uh i'm really hot on corey anderson um sort of on his way out of the ufc it taught you know him versus yamblah which was a pick and fight and i thought the winner that was like definitely had their hat in the ring for best 205 or outside of jon jones uh i actually know next to nothing about his opponent i was actually disappointed gay guardian sassy wasn't in this tournament uh as an extra and then beta versus machida i do sort of fancy machida uh to get the win again just i know i also feel like there's a bit of pressure on bader being a heavyweight champion if he loses he goes on through his last two fights so i don't know i think he could be a bit attention from there and i don't think he can be tentative against the outer mosquito so i think you know machida anderson i'll pick anderson and then rumble versus nemkov i'll probably pick nemkov and then i'm gonna go for corey anderson to win the belt i feel like i feel like in his whole career he's had doubters and he feel like he finally has a chance to prove them wrong yeah also it goes to when you look at the brackets like the least dangerous side if you could even call it that is obviously the beta machida anderson and um yeah at least damage corey anderson could get actually get into the final nemkov like could get there with some serious damage yeah i you know what i haven't heard yet i haven't heard either one of you guys pronounce that guy's name that's fighting corey anderson go ahead give it a try oh yeah i tried to do it last week it was so difficult like i was stuttering for a week i also noticed you when you you and john who called the voice also tried to evade his name so maybe you should uh as the experts today give it give it a go oh you just call them yuri shigedov dolodov which is totally wrong but like you know i'm gonna give i'm gonna give him a nickname i'ma stick with it man that's it that's all he's getting from me when the grand prix was announced to come back that that was very exciting but like there was talks about a bantamweight grand prix coming back as well um was there were was stuff moving and like were things about to happen or and it just didn't go true or is that something to look forward to in the future i think it's definitely something you're going to look forward to in the future i think that what happened was i i do believe they were looking towards that 135 they were also looking at 125 for the women for a while but the 135s was definitely in the game plan as far as what they're doing and then they made those signings they got corey anderson all of a sudden then they got you know rumble johnson they knew that that was in the back burner and then all of a sudden they decided okay we're going to pick up your oil remember because he'll go to 205. man we've got to do this we especially when you're looking at the ufc's light heavyweights right now if you if you insert jon jones into the ufc's light heavyweight division it becomes the best light heavyweight division in the sport based upon jon jones he's been that guy that's been there done that and is basically undefeated you take him out and put him in the heavyweights and now you have jan blehovich who's a great fighter you've got guys like dominic reyes you've got some other you know people in that realm with the light heavyweights but bellator has a very good uh good stance in saying hey our light heavyweights are better than yours i think you put it this way john if you say if you take obviously john jones out of 205 and then we're to rank the next best 10 heavyweight heavyweights in the world you could argue bellator would have more fighters in the top 10 than ufc that's exactly it so for bellator to say well i'm going to do a 135 tournament when i can now really show off the 205 i think they made the right move with going to 205. yeah i also think that that move had to be made for a big splash the fact they did sign all the heavier guys most people will want to tune in and watch the heavier guys fight in the big splash for showtime to splash onto the the showtime network is hey we have you've got rumble you've got your well you've got nemkoff you've got corey anderson you got brian bader phil davis leono machida the name value is there it's already been created and these fighters are all new to a couple of them are new to bellator but why not just now that we're on showtime you know potentially of being on cbs let's go ahead and just explode into this with a big 205 pound tournament and it weren't actually at that event by the way because we saw the morning come back guys are there and it was like oh you had the b team but had the a team this is exactly right oh my god nothing wrong with luke thomas and brian campbell great guys but you're talking junior varsity you know what it's called i actually love those shows those guys well i actually love morning combat as well i was like oh big john on josh i was like a little bit more noticeable you know and like but actually it is what it is also did you guys notice in when uh maro ronello was calling it to 204 she was like an auntie rumble johnson he's like wait he's not here he's like are you sure pretty sure i saw backstage somewhere that was like an absolute brilliant moment maro was like such a such a character you know i mean like what's called when it goes wrong it it it's it's almost a bit like my goldberg i mean you sort of just have to laugh it off i i can tell you moro yeah i talked to more about that i said well you played it off well he goes john i swear to god i thought i saw him right i go you thought wrong they would have told you if he was there but i will tell you man moro moronalo is he is a genius the guy is brilliant you know he doesn't turn on that voice or anything that is his voice you can ask josh no matter where he's at and he comes up i know the sport really well and i've got i've got history in my head morrow's the guy that can try to challenge me with that history he is just brilliant when it comes to the sport of mma um is back it's april 3rd isn't it if i'm not mistaken is is that is that it like bellator is back it's like fully up and running nice camera action expected nearly every friday yeah yeah they're saying it uh for three weeks straight we're gonna open up this tournament and then after that it'll be two shows a month for the rest of the year that's pretty desperate to hear that the first the first show actually has the the semi-final of the featherweight tournament between patricio pitbull and emmanuel sanchez and that is going to be a rematch that is going to be just fire that should be an incredible fight i really i really believe i really believe outside of aj mckee this fight is to see who is the number one fighter in the world you've got aj mckee and you've got patricio pitbull but amanda sanchez is right there trying to make that push to make to secure whether he's the number one guy in the world i don't know if he gets it done i think patricia's really coming to his own but right now to me in the in the world patricio pitbull is the number one what featherweight in the world everyone's going to say max holloway how how is max holloway the number one guy in the world when he's not even one guy in his promotion so you can't you can't say the two things i can match up john and i talk about this all the time i can match up fighters to where my guy wins every single time just like people that are staying where max holloway is you're trying to match up a fighter that could potentially beat our guy but that's only because you're trying to match up the guy you think that has the best tools to beat him but if we were to say champion for champion my champion which is the is the bellator champion which is the three steel pit bull i think he beats volkanovsky he beats him i think nine times out of ten times they were to fight my personal opinion but i look at patricio pitbull the way he's coming to his own with his wrestling and i've trained and grappled with him on the ground he is physically just probably one of the strongest guys i've ever grappled with and very technical trying to move his legs is ridiculous no way trying to pass that guard he is phenomenal and he obviously has the punching power of a guy who fights at 205 and heavyweight you know when you put him in the cage against guys that are his weight he just absolutely destroys them and we saw that with pedro cavallo so if you don't if you're going to match those guys up aj mckee to me will be the biggest threat against patricio pitbull males that just sure is going to pose some threats as the fight goes on but you've always got to be afraid of that of that uh that power of people but right now to me and i'll continue to say this and it's very controversial but patricio pitbull is the best 145 pounder right now in the world there you have plasma what do you think of that no like car would you say that because like me and max holloway are best mates yeah and then um obviously people knocked out michael chandler as well who like people can't keep out of their mouth in the ufc as well but that's i'm just looking at the time i know we kept you here a bit longer than expected so we'll sort of like wrap things up you know just shortly um as we we invited two lads on because myself and also massive fans you guys show you know i mean we've been we've been watching for a long long time and it's only able to get you on it was like it was perfectly brings on when bellator announced it as well also it's episode 300 and what we said off the air as well ross that um we we're after be let being let know that it's it's confirmed that we will be on the uc 259 countdown video which is a massive achievement for myself and ross because like we're just two lads trying to live our lives and we're just trying to do as good a job as you lads and uh it was just a very proud day so to have you guys on to sort of share the moment it's brilliant and everyone who tunes in as well but like obviously uc 259 is gonna be an unbelievably massive card and we're really really looking forward to it um i want to give you all the opportunity to pick one fight i'll see someone's going to pick the best one first but like i want you to tell me what fight you're sort of looking forward to there and what you're sort of expecting from it so if does it does anyone want to go first and then we'll let our guests go first plasma yeah go ahead john uh so ufc 259 who saw who's on that card yeah oh my god um you know for for me it's for me it's peter yawn i knew you were going to say that i want to see the peter yawn fight because look as many people want to talk about how great he is i haven't seen quite enough of him yet and i'm sure i've watched him fight but he's looked so good and so dominant and so technical in so many different areas and the reason why i want to see more of him though as well is that bellator just signed maggie man magametto and he's had one fight in bellator and he's the only guy to ever beat him just like magamad uh margaret off and his only loss has been to peter young so the two of them together is the two of them i want to see more so i know more of how to talk about his for his fights bhagavad bellator but peter young to me and uh and aldrin sterling algo is the two of them together should make for a very good fight in terms of i'll join sterling know what the speed the power the aggressiveness coming forward but the way the way that peter young handles other people so technically is it really makes me want to want to tune in to watch and see how he takes away the athleticism out of algerian sterling how does he do that because for me that was something that when i aimed throughout my career sure i was athletic but i fought a lot of guys that were way more athletic than me and i was able to get wins but i could never go back and critique and say how i did it and i want to see how he does it because he doesn't look athletically gifted at all when you look at his body style you don't you look at the way the things he the things he does but he seems to to find ways to to slow other fighters down to make him fight his style of fight to uh take away their advantages and that's the ones and i've always wanted to watch the littler guys fight because they're the most technical i love watching the two smaller guys or the smaller athletes fight because they do fight more technically than the bigger guys so to me that's the fight that i'm looking the most forward to big jump ah my i i agree that that's going to be a great fight and i love peter yan uh but you cannot take anything from the yamblochovic versus israel out of sonia fight that is the fight that is a fight and it's a lot of what you know josh was saying with the algo versus yon fight it's about technically good how technically good is israel out of sonia he is so good can that technical prowess can that ability that he brings to the cage take away the power punching opportunities that blojovic tries to create and and if he does get touched can blejovich put him out we have seen in kickboxing and i did i did uh some of israel's fights in kickboxing we've seen guys be able to hurt him in that kickboxing range well with a four ounce glove and the power of the hovis he can put you know israel out but you look at his last fight against paulo costa and the way he handled the guy that's a heavy puncher the way he handled uh his ability to take away all the tools that paulo costa brought i think that's just going to be a incredible fight to watch roscoe first of all shout out to johnny box and uh i don't know if you know this josh but peter yan's boxing coach is actually an irishman so big shout out to him uh for me i'm actually gonna say the return of dc the original dc domina cruz he's coming in against casey kenny uh i thought it was a very strange matchup when it was made i thought you know putting on the cruise in there i thought he'd maybe get a bigger name or a higher profile fight but i want to see you can dominic cruz get the job done does he still have anything left in the tank and i'd love to see him maybe have one or two last big paydays against maybe a jose aldo or a tj dillashaw or maybe even a cody garbrand rematch i'll be interested in those so i'm interested to see what dc dominar cruz has left in the gas tank if i had to pick one or no i should definitely mention the the potential goat and amanda nunes taking on megan anderson but thiago santos against alexander wreckage in the low heavyweight division that is i'm just expecting pure fireworks off that lads but um like like i do want to reiterate thanks a million guys for coming on the show and i know you have to say you're very busy guys also have you ever done a podcast together on someone else's show no here we go we popped the cherry we popped the cherry let's pull it out one last quick bellator related question bellator 2021 ends do we see james gallagher in a total fight and will he walk away with the belt we see him in a title fight um i i don't know i don't know and do is this is this is sort of yes or no section here i don't know i think it's pretty simple you got you got a top five that you're looking at and gallagher's probably part of that but he might be the fifth guy in that and so he's gonna have to get past he's not gonna get that shot right away obviously we've got pettis coming against archuleta that's gonna be the next one but there's a couple of guys in there that you look at their style patchy mix against gallagher that's going to be a very interesting fight if you can uh get that sign and i honestly think they're looking at putting those two guys together but then you've got magamet magametto that dude is a stud and i did his fight that he lost to peter young and i can tell you it was a great fight he is good so can he get that in 2021 he's got to he's got to get a big win he's got to either get a big win against someone like apache mix maybe a big win against someone like amagamet he gets that he'll get that title shot there's a lot of guys there there's guys in that top that top 135 pound weight class that aren't even on that list yeah josh yeah i mean you you've got uh the androhigo you've got uh and then yeah he's not there right now uh but then you have uh who's the one that uh that margaret just beat uh he just beat him oh uh matos matos matas is just as good as well i mean he wasn't able to you know he got out hustling out worked against maggie madoff but he's up in that talk in that conversation one or two wins he's gonna be right there in that top five as well so you've got guys that are in that mix that are not even on that list james gallagher's got his hands full i mean it's really gonna come down do i think he can do it yes do i think get to the title yes but he's gonna he's gonna have a rough road you know the other thing as well is he physically he's not physically he's not that strong he doesn't look physically that strong but his submission game is very damn good he doesn't get enough credit for it everyone thinks he wants to try to be a conor s type fighter maybe in the brashness and the talk but they don't find anything alike they're nothing to like on the feet they're nothing alike in their styles of fighting maybe they're talking conversation and maybe a couple tattoos that look similar but other than that they are nothing alike james gallagher is a different type of fighter than conor mcgregor which is good for him you know um he's phenomenal on the ground but he's got his hands full with guys that are phenomenal on the ground as well maggie madoff and apache mix are the two that come to mind directly that i think will make for amazing fights against him because of the grappling aspect of it you also got to figure out he's young he's still so young he's got so much growth potential in him and he can get you know all these things are going to come with time and right now i one of the things i will give him credit for you know he came up with spg he's been out in the in the states in kansas which no one wants to go to kansas i'm telling you right now okay see james christ james krauss you know has got his school glory james cross is a phenomenal coach and gallagher has been there training and he's been learning things from them they've been learning things from him that's what he needs to do he needs to expand it doesn't mean that he's leaving spg he's just going and expanding his you know knowledge of the sport opening up that toolbox putting a couple things in there that eventually he fights one of these guys he's going to probably need one of those tools and he's going to have it in place yeah shout out to kevin croom who's a part of that team fighting this weekend yeah also it's great to see bellator are going to be implementing the ranking system as well so just be a lot easier for uh for people to just really understand everything but uh i'll just give them a two cents now that's i wanna i do wanna attack you again i love the way you always have your show ready and out on monday so when i'm about to work like you're the first one to check out every week and i really do appreciate you doing a great stuff not just for like myself but everyone who really enjoys it your chemistry is brilliant and i think that really helps battle torah do well as well russ yeah no uh guys thanks thanks a million for coming on when i said you guys were the number one podcast mma i really meant that i have like a little rankin order i was like i listened to wayne in first then dc and hell honey and then i listened to morning combat uh i don't like listening back to our own show although i do do it just to make sure that the sound is all good and all that for that i don't think anyone is is that a push that they like this back themselves but you guys are killing the game it's great to have inside of the third man in the cage like john especially when you know there's a you know questionable decision you know just even go back to the weekend pierre versus conan scott just the way you break down the sort of what the rule set is and then josh obviously being a fighter yourself and obviously being a high level and a champion it's good to see from the foider aspect so it is the perfect mix it is it is yeah you guys if you if all your listeners you guys understand that you guys are in ireland with time change you guys we drop to you guys on monday morning but we drop early on sunday mornings almost always uh usually like six six to eight a.m on sunday morning so if you guys are in the states you know that's the time that we drop here in the states and then we drop for you guys what monday yeah like you guys were saying so yeah check it out weighing in on uh youtube we're on all the all the audio platforms as well if you guys don't get youtube or you guys have a hard time accessing youtube we're on stitcher spotify itunes soundcloud google play all that stuff so you guys check us all out there as well so yeah youtube for sure we're on there and john man i tell you we we see it's great to hear other people say we are the number one podcast i love it both barry and ross thanks for having us on man it's it's we are like we're fighting nerds we we can do this all day long that's that's the one thing that when when josh and i got together it was real simple because we when we started just working together in bellator we would stay up until 2 30 3 o'clock in the morning just talking fights and then 8 o'clock in the morning we were back and we're talking fights and it's like it's just what we love to do so thanks for having us on it was it was a pleasure yeah so like share and subscribe and as always stay stay energized