How are you doing, everybody? Hope you're all well. And welcome to another episode of the Believe You Me podcast. But don't worry, it's not just going to be me staring down a lens into your soul for the next 90 minutes. Now, Brian will be joining us. Harrington will be here, and we will be joined by today's guest, Dean Amasinger, an old friend of mine, former UFC fighter, and currently a director at the Shanghai Performance Institute. We choose. I lost to talk about with him. But I wanted to jump on and make a quick correction. Some of you always ask in the comment section at the start, Is this show live? No, it's not live. We're recording the mornings, and then Brian does his magic, fixes some audio issues, tries to make it look nice and sexy, and tries to edit out most of the dumb shit that I say. But he's not a miracle worker, so he doesn't edit all the dumb shit out, because as I say, the man can't move mountains after all. So we recorded the show this morning. We did 2 hours And then I finish, I walk out, I has some Rebecca for a coffee and some lunch and a sandwich and all the rest of it.

I look at my phone and lo and behold, there it is. Today's show starts with us talking about Benwa Sandine and Dustin Poey and that fight being off, being canceled. Apparently, They couldn't come to terms, according to ESPN. But in the two hours of the show, the story evolved. It continued to move on, and there was progression. And as we know, the fight is now back on. The story or the statement from Dustin Poey, Sorry, folks, I jumped the gun. I couldn't get a hold of my manager for a few days. I just spoke with him and Hunter. Misunderstanding on my part. See you March ninth in Miami. So as I say, first and foremost, I'm very excited for that fight. Cannot wait for it, and it's an amazing addition to the card. Over five rounds, that's going to be a banger. Now, when the fight was initially off, you had all the journalists coming out. Everyone loves to hit on the UFC and talk shit and all the rest of it. So people were getting to Twitter and talking a lot of shit. Dana came out with the receipt, Showed text messages back and forth with Benoît Saint-Denis.

And then Dustin Poey just says it there. He says, Yeah, listen, the misunderstanding on my part. The fight is on. So anyway, there it is, crisis averted. But more importantly, I had to say this before you all start talking shit. I appreciate Shit, I appreciate every single one of you. If you haven't subscribed and rung the bell, then please do so, okay? But if I didn't do this, you'd be like, What is this shit? What is this been going on about? This is old news. This is out of date. Listen, we run a good little show here, but we cannot predict these things, okay? So there it is. There's the correction. But without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, the Believe You Me podcast is now officially underway. Brian, roll the tape. Conceive, believe, achieve. Shut the fuck up.

You're listening to believe You Me with Michael the Count Bisbing.

You know my name yet. And Anthony Lionhardt-Smith.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, the Believe You Me podcast. Mike Harrington. How the hell are you, Mike?

Dude, I'm doing excellent. How are you, Mr. Bisbing?

Well, I'm all right. It's pouring down with rain here, as usual in California. We've got no roof on. I mentioned it off air, I think, to you last week. We've got no roof. We've got plastic sheeting, and it is pissing down with rain. Also, I'm a little bit bummed Why is that? I'm a little bit bombed out.

Why is that?

Dustin Poey is no longer fighting Benoît Saint-Denis. Literally just before we started, I'm on a group chat with the TNT Sports Guys. I was like, Oh, for crying out loud. Don't get me wrong, 290 299, should I say? 299, still a tremendous car, but the five-round co-main event, Benoît Saint-Denis, Dustin Poey, no longer on. Just get the official quote from me in a second, Harrington. I love that fight for many reasons. Benoît Saint-Denis has been incredible so far. That gave him an opportunity to break into the upper echelon of the sport and become potentially a household name in mixed martial arts, as well as a household name in France. For Justin Poirier doing the same thing that Justin Gagey did with Raphael Fazeef, stepping up and taking on a young, hungry, up and coming contender, and that had all the makings of a ridiculous fight. What was the official wording on that, Harrington?

Yes. So Brett Akamodo spoke to Dustin Poirier. He said he expands it on his recent fights off tweet. He said, There was no contractual agreement before the fight was announced, and we couldn't come to terms.

That is a shame. He wants that Conor McGregor money.

If you fight Conor twice, and you beat him, you think you might deserve it.

I'm going to say, you beat him two out of three times. That is a shame. It's still a brilliant card, though. I'll tell you who's really going to suffer in that one, Sugar Sean O'Malley. I don't think people aren't going to not buy the pay-per-view because of that, but that's a good fight to have as your supporting act, as your co-main event in your first title defense. I guess Aljomane Sterling will be happy about this. He was bitching saying that they're stacking it because Sean O'Malley is not as much of a draw. I mean, what is Aljomane Sterling talking about there? But yeah, man, that's a shame.

Yeah, and that's I don't know, Aljo. You got paper viewpoints when you fought Henry Sahudo, T. J. Dillashaw, and Sean O'Malley. Tell me O'Malley wasn't your biggest check. What are we doing? What are we doing?

I don't know if he was his biggest check. I think he came out. Well, on paper, he would be. I would assume that O'Malley is a bigger draw than Sahudo. Who else did he fight? Who else did he defend? Dillashaw. Dillashaw, Fire Island, they're always big ones. So anyway, listen, the fight's off, and I'm not trying to talk shit about El Jemim Sterling. He's probably just having a laugh and talking shit against future opponents, potential opponents, former opponents like you do. But the one after that, UFC 299. What comes after that?

300.

Jesus, just said 300. Yes, 300. Israel Adesanya is dropping major, major, major hints using the 300 logo from the Sparta movie. Israel Adesanya, UFC 300. What did he say, The gods have a way or something? The gods must be crazy.

Which, I don't know if you know the reference. No. There was an '80s movie where essentially it was like, Bushmen in a tribe in Africa had a Coke bottle just dropped into their midst. I guess it was dropped from a plane or something. But it made them aware that there was a society outside of their little tribe, and it leads to a rural Bushman coming to South Africa. So the thought process there is that it is a direct call out saying, I'm going to to South Africa and take what's mine, the middleweight title.

No, please tell me more about this random '80s movie that nobody's seen with this strange Bushman being called upon the gods. What was the name of the movie, Harrington?

The gods Must be Crazy.

Oh, right. Okay. So Israel Adesanya basically saying, he could be messing with us, but if we take him at face value, he's going to be fighting on UFC 300. Drikus Duplece, Alex Pereira. I mean, I'm sick of having these conversations. The whole is doing YouTube videos and content creators are going mad and people on Twitter, Chael Sonnen's naming everyone. I said, Brock Lesner and Tom Aspenal. Do you know what I mean? I'm sick of going over this. Dana White just needs to drop the goddamn main event. Even Nina drama is threatening to oil Dana up. If he doesn't drop it today, Israel Adesanya, Drikus N'Plece, or Alex Pereira, what is your pick? Gamble. I think it's-Prediction.

Between Between those three, I'm going to say Drikus. That's the fight that makes the most sense. It doesn't make sense for him to have lost the 185 pound title, then go up to 205 and cut the line there. It doesn't make sense for Pereira to come down for a non-title fight against Izzy at 185. And he has the built-in storyline with Drikus. You have a package you can play. And that is the level of drama that we're talking about for a potential main event of this caliber.

And I tell you what, for all this bitching, because there was some bitching about UFC 300. The fight card is ridiculous. And then you throw Drikus and Izzy on top of that. And before you all start, oh, this has been there, being the company man. Tell me that's not a sick fight card. Co-made event, Jan Whaley. What else? Justin Gagey, Max Holloway. Izzy Drikus, Yuri Brohaska, Alexander Rakic. Who else?

Arman Saurukian versus Charles Oliveira.

Arman Sarukian, Charles Oliveira. I mean, that is phenomenal. It's something quite special.

I think last week they said nine former or current champions on the card. So if it's Dreykis and Izzy, that's eleven current or former champions on one card. Insane.

I saw Joe Rogan coming out, and it was just a little clip from a podcast. These websites like to do it. Joe Rogan says that he doesn't like the fight of Justin Gagey and Max Hollowey. He didn't say that. He said he loves the fight, but he's not a fan of it for Max Hollowey because Hollowey If Teporia beats Volkanovski, there's a very good chance that Hollowey will be next up on deck. With a loss to Justin Gagey, still possible, although the stock would lower a little bit. And you got to think on paper, more than likely, Justin Gagey prevails in that fight. I mean, listen, you can never underestimate Max Hollowway. He's got a solid chin. He's never been knocked out. But Gagey's bigger. He hits harder. He's a knockout merchant. He's got the better wrestling, and he's just naturally a bigger guy. So you got to go with Gagey in that one for sure.

You have to. I think Max could present some problems with just his strict boxing game. If he just walks him down with a jab, keeps pressure on him, I could see a world in which he steals maybe three of those rounds and wins a decision. And that then vault you into a whole new category of stardom at 155. The possibilities are endless. And if he loses, comes down to 145 gets a win over Yaya Rodriguez, Brian Ortega, anybody in that top five, and you're still right there for a title shot against Ilyate Teporea.

And if he loses, there's absolutely no shame in losing to just engage it. In fact, if anything, He should be respected. Stepping up to 155, it's not like when you're a champion and you move up to another weight class and you're trying to become a double champ, there's nothing to lose there. He's not necessarily doing that. Yeah, okay, there's a BMF tile. That's legendary. There's only been a couple so far, so that's all well and good. But he's just trying to stay busy. He's just trying to take on the toughest matchups. And as a fighter, former fighter myself, you got to respect that. There is some people, Jate Paul would be one of them that are carefully manufacturing their careers. You know what I mean? Picking fights that they know they can win. They are highly strategic. It's almost like they're sitting down the managers, the agents, like in Rocket, the first Rocket, Apollo Creed, they're sitting down, they're going through all the other contenders. They're saying, This guy, no, not this guy. You know what I mean? They pick their fights like that. That's Max Hollowway just saying, You know what? I'll have a go.

He doesn't know we can win. He doesn't know we can get the job done. But he's like, You know what? I'm man enough to give it a try. I've got the balls. I'm willing to put my balls on a plate and let Justin Gagey eat them. Justin Gagey might eat Max Hollowway's balls. No one wants to see that. No one alive should be eating Max Holloway's balls. Okay? But he's going to pull them off Max Holloway. This is getting weirder and weirder. What the heck am I saying? No, listen, that's what... All jokes aside. That's why you got to respect Max Holloway here. It's just an incredibly brave thing to do. Yeah, nice. All the respect in the world.

It's like, look, dude, you're one of the best fighters on the planet, regardless of what. You should be in the pound for pound list. You are that guy, Max Holloway. If there's fight for you at 145, take that fight whoever it's against to get on UFC 300. That's a cool marquee thing to be a part of. It's like that guy does deserve a spot at the table.

No, for sure, 100%. We have a guest joining us in a little bit, Dean Ammeringer, an old friend of mine, former UFC fighter. He was on Season 9 of the Ultimate fighter, or Season 14. Regardless, he was on one of the seasons that I coached. Season 9, I think. Former UFC fighter Good friend of mine, big fan of the sport, and he actually is one of the directors of the Shanghai Performance Institute. So it'll be interesting. We'll go through a few stories with him. Obviously, we got fights this weekend as well to go through, so I'm looking forward to that. Eleven weeks in a row now, Harrington, there will be UFC action. Thank God. Praise the Lord. Okay. Real things to talk about and delve our teeth into. And then obviously, when the fights happen, there's all the extracurricular stories around them, not just the fights themselves. You know what I mean? We're sitting there scraping the barrel, thinking of things to talk about. What have we got here? Should we do a quick non-MMA? I'm going to let Brian pick the non-MMA. Don't you look straight away as that? I've got one for you.

Brian, you see the notes? You see the notes? Should we talk about a Pennsylvania man who posted a video on YouTube holding up his father's decapitated head? Can we talk about.

I don't think that one is going to be safe for our YouTube viewers, but And we do have-What?

Holding up the decapitated head?

Yeah, actually, it was wild. I thought it was a sketch. I thought it was like a comedy skin at first. One of my coworkers texted me and was like, Oh, did you see this? And I'm like, No, that's silly. And then a half hour later, I'm seeing it on the news everywhere like, Oh, this guy actually cut his dad's head off.

Yeah, but I haven't seen, nor do I want to see the actual footage of holding up the head. Did you see that one?

I thought it was a prop. It looked like a prop in a plastic bag. It was awful.

Let's Let's just give the people some context, seeing as we are talking about this one now. It'll be weird to change subjects. Hamilton, the floor's yours.

Yeah. So a 35-year-old Pennsylvania man who lived at home with his parents decided that he was the Messiah, the best choice for President, and that his father was a traitor to the country because he had voted for Joe Biden. To show allegiance to the real America, he cut his dad's head off and then went on a 20-minute rant on YouTube while holding the head in a bag. It stayed up on YouTube for about six hours, which is frustrating as somebody who has to upload YouTube videos and they get taken down for way less.

That's what I was going to say. I put something up there, within seconds, demonetized all the rest of it. This bastard has an argument with his dad, thinks he's the next coming of Jesus, chops his head off, and it's up there for six hours.

We get booted within an hour for the slightest copyright infringement.

We had that thing, what was it? Rick Flair or something, when the line of coke hits and all the two wrestling. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they booted that straight off, right?

Yeah.

So he chops his dad's head off. You fail to mention that is a QAnon conspiracy theorist.

Oh, yeah, that's right. He spent a little bit too much time on the old 4chan, as we were talking about last week. He was just spouting all the Q drops like it was actual news news. And yeah, these were true facts. And yeah, I mean, I don't know. That seems like somebody just spent way too much time online and just fell into it.

No, no, no. And this leads us to the other thing that's going on right now, Mark Zuckerberg and all the other CEOs of all the social media stuff. I'm sorry. If a man chops off his father's head, thinks that he's the next coming of Jesus or the next president and all the rest of it, that is not spending spending too much time online. That is the man is absolutely crazy. I'm sure my screen time is too much. I'm sure I look at this website too much. I look at YouTube or Twitter or whatever. I don't have the urge to go out there and chop my father's head off at all. Right now in Congress, there's a big hearing with Mark Zuckerberg, and he's being forced to apologize to families that have children that suddenly have committed suicide, which is obviously awful. And we Our hearts go out to them. And I don't know enough about it because there's some crazy stuff that is allowed, and they need to do a better job and have stricter guidelines. But also, I don't think blaming social media is all there is to do. I think mental health is certainly a big proponent here.

Well, we have a huge problem with a lack of parenting these days. People like to just take their kids and put them in front of the TV or Internet and not actually raise their own children. Children. So then you end up with people that do dumb shit, think that they're the main character of the universe, because the only things that they've ever been exposed to are stories about a main character, right? So if that's the only thing you've ever been exposed to, that's going to be you. If you've never learned a life lesson, you're going to think that the world revolves around you, and then it's okay that you cut your dad's head off because he's an evil villain.

Yeah. Well, I don't think anybody... I mean, even Heekar thought that that was okay. Could you imagine-It also requires a screw loose. The severe amount of craziness, delusion, delusion, delusion, to chop somebody's head off and hold... This is your father. Your father's going to get in your head and do a YouTube video holding it up and probably thinking that people are going to be on his side.

A thousand years ago, he would have just taken his father's kingdom.

He would have killed him first.

Well, yeah. You'd cut his head off, you'd get his stuff.

Yeah. Well, no one's cutting any one's heads off, other than I might chop Harrington's heads off. But did you see all that stuff? Brian, I would like to hear your take on this about the... What is it? Mark Zuckerberg apologizing on the Senate floor?

Yeah, again, this is like a lack of parenting thing, right? Stop blaming Mark Zuckerberg Don't shake your head at me. Bad take, Harrington.

Come on. I took the sip of my honey, water, and lemon, and salt. Natural electrolyze.

It's a bad parenting thing. It's not Mark Zuckerberg's fault that your kid spends too much time on the internet and gets a self-worth from from likes and clicks and from all that other shit. You made up. If that's what your kid's life is like, you made it up. Straight up and down.

I agree. Now, listen, as I said before, can they do a better job? Can there be better restrictions? Yeah, sure, of course. But you can't put the blame solely on the creators of these social media apps. Now, Harrington, what is your take? I see your face. I see the disagreements. I see the shite appearing before me. Before you even say it, go ahead.

Well, I mean, look, these companies do build AI models of each and every single one of us so that they know the best way to keep us engaged with that platform for the longest possible time. They literally covered this in the Social Dilemma, which came out a year before COVID happened. And these were experts from these companies coming on being like, Yeah, we build models to know exactly what is going to keep you locked in and engaged. We're going to keep promoting things that increase discourse and get people arguing, give you an emotional response, and make this an outsized part of your life. Just to keep you watching for another ad for another couple of seconds to get their user rates up so They can go to their board of directors and say, We've got 13-year-old spending seven hours a day on this platform, where last quarter we only had six and a half. And that is enough to get your company valuation up 20 %.

It's still a failure of parentage.

Yes, absolutely.

The The lack of structure and activities in life will cause your kid to be a screen zombie. So unless you have good structure for your offspring, you will raise a shitty being of a human.

It's the modern way, the algorithms and the phones, and the screens. Nobody really watches TV anymore. It's all streaming services or your phone, or your computer screen. All businesses want to be as successful as possible. So that's what they're trying to I don't think that they're sitting there, Mark Zuckerberg, some big, crazy, evil person.

Oh, no, they probably are.

Oh, no, they're probably a bit mental because once you get to that level of wealth, you know what I mean? You start getting a few kinks. You know what I mean? But ultimately, I agree with Brian. If you're abandoning and neglecting your child and leaving them in a dark room-In the '80s, they were called Latchkey Kids. In the '80s, they were watching TV. They were saying, Don't get too close to the TV. Your eyes are going to go square. It's business. They're always trying to engage you as much as possible. Now, there's this new things or the modern version is the algorithms. The algorithms are designed to keep pumping you the next bit of content and your attention span is short. So the next thing, next thing, next. And that's why they want to do reels and shorts and all the rest of it. So you watch it. Yeah, my son does it. But after a while, we said, Right, no more of that shit. Now you're going sparring. We're going to take them kickboxing and all that stuff. Do you know what I mean? It's up to the parent. You can't just abandon them.

And listen, that kid obviously clearly had some mental health chemical imbalance for sure.

Yeah, beyond a shadow of a doubt. I mean, I don't think if you lined up 100 kids and fed them nothing but social media and what's going on in the algorithm, 99 of them are not going to decapitate a family member, right? But when you have this level of accessibility open wide range, you are going to bring out some truly mental... The worst mental defects in some of the people most susceptible to it in society.

I don't even want to mention this because we don't want to get thrown off. But yes, The other day, I was watching on the news and Ted Cruz, Senator in Texas for those people not in America, was asking about Instagram. And if you search for SEX with children and stuff like that, it was suggesting stuff, and it comes up with a warning that says, Seek help or something, or proceed to the content anyway.

It doesn't show up with an immediate flag of, We call the cops. You're going to jail. I'm not going to look that up on my computer, Mike. I'm sorry.

Oh, yeah, I don't blame you.

I'm just not.

In that scenario, of course, these tech giants need to do more. They need to be something that kicks in, some an alarm system system, searching keywords and phrases or anything that you're looking for. Immediately calls the authorities and said, This guy is reported to Big Brother, whatever you want to call it.

I wouldn't be averse to launching a missile directly at that IP address. Just go and blow them up.

So there's a pretty crazy story right now about this girl in, I think it was Washington, who this was from all intents and purposes or all measures, she was living a very normal life, very happy, connected with her family. She went to bed one night, kissed her mom good night. She woke up. The mom wakes up the next morning, goes in her room. Her daughter's phone is on the bed, completely reset, and she's gone. She's been gone for four weeks now. Everyone is looking for her. There's a massive manhunt. She spoke to a group of friends. Apparently, she had met some guy online and was talking to him via Discord or Kick or one of those anonymous messaging apps, and the phone was completely wiped by the time the mom got there. There's no trace of her. It's like you could lose your 14-year-old kid that quickly in today's day and age and have absolutely no clue.

Yeah. That is the sad reality of the world. I mean, Jesus Christ, people are always getting kidnapped and murdered. I mean, the evil that humanity is capable.

It's almost like there's an elite cabal of people kidnapping children so they can steal the juice.

Don't get into all that shit. Stop it. And then he signs off. Then he signs off. It is not the liberals and the pedophiles and the Satan worshippers.

It might be. We don't know.

Well, it's something that's sad sick sons of bitches is what it is. All right, today's episode is sponsored by PrizePeaks, the largest independently-owned daily fantasy sports platform in North America. They are the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports. It's just You against the numbers, okay? No more going up against thousands of other players, sharks, professionals. As I say, you just pick more or less, okay? It is that simple, and you can 25X your money. You can turn $10 into $250 with just a few little pics. For example, this weekend, the UFC returns in the main event, Nazardin Imovov. Is he going to get more or less than 69.5 significant strikes? It's a five-round fight. I'll say more. Hinalto Moïkano in the core main event, more or less than 1.5 takedowns. That's it. That's it. Oh, a Themba Grimbo, a friend of the show, over or under 24.5 significant strikes. I'm going to say over 24 strikes. That's not a lot of strikes. Listen, if you have an opinion, then get involved. Just go to prizepicks. Com/believe and use the code believe for a deposit match of up to $100, okay? It's very, very simple.

It makes the fight more fun. And listen, even When a fool could do it. Prizepicks. Com/believe. Use the code believe for a deposit match of up to $100. Anyway, I tell you what I could watch for many, many hours over and over again and not get bored is this trailer for Tyson Furie and Alexander Usik. That fight is going down February 17th. I was already excited. This will be the first time since, I think it's 1999, that all of the boxing belts have been unified. Last person to do it was Lennox Lewis. I think it's four different titles. So truly, truly, in terms of boxing, the baddest man on the planet, simple as that, bar none, will be settled once and for all. Brian?

Now, how do you unify the belts once they're put together like that?Different organizations.That's.

A good question. I got it.

No, I understand. No, no, no. Obviously, they're different organizations. Yeah, but what do you just say?

But do you think the belts would all just be up?

Yeah, you just said, In this one, I'm only going to defend the IBO.

No, no, no. So So the different organizations mandate different mandatory next challenger, or you give it up, right? So let's say the WP- Okay.

No, I know that, Harrington. But in my mind, is every time that person fights, it should be, and of course, There's different organizations and contracts and all the rest of it. But what it should be is that from then on, every time that person fights-That's just a string of belts that gets passed along. There's a string of belts that gets passed along, but it's not. And that's the problem with boxing. And that's why this is the first time since 1999 that they've all been on the table at the same time, going to one person. The winner takes all in a tail as old as time. I mean, look at this. This is ridiculous. This is one of the best promos I've ever seen. The money that they've spent on this is phenomenal. The production value. They have spent an absolute fortune on this. Could you Are you him being asked to ride a horse for a fight promo? Yeah, very easily.

Yeah?

Yeah, I'd love to. Look at Tyson. I mean, that's the first time ever I've looked at Tyson Furia. I thought he'd be good in the movies. That's the class he's from the... That's him from the Peaky Blinders.

Paul Anderson, he's the man. I would love to see Tyson Furia fight John Wick.

I would love to punch you in the face right now. What are you talking about? Shut up. No man alive. Both men larger than life itself. It really is phenomenal. So now they go back to the gladiators. They go through many different eras of fighting. There's Fury's wife, Paris. She gets a little cameo.

Beyond blood, sweat and fire, and the mercy of the rough seas.

Just pirates on the Coast in the Old West?

It's amazing.

Weak tribal.

I guess we're going to see the rest of it now. I'm going to say that's enough, but let's see the rest. Well, speaking How can you not? Older than words. They will speak loudly. And there is just one way to be remembered. Samurai warriors. The road of eternity.

Let's get ready to rumble.

It is time to fight. Sign me up. I'm coming back. The retirement is over. If that doesn't get you pumped up, nothing will.

Why doesn't the UFC get to do promos where they had to get Usuk and Furi together to do this? They probably had a good time just hanging out and doing the film thing.

Yeah. No, no, no.

I feel like the attitude in MMA is much more adversarial pre-fight than boxing. It seems like the boxing dudes are very much like, Oh, yeah, it's just business thing.

No, no, far from it. It all depends on the individual. I mean, even some of the boxes throughout history and some of the shit that's gone down. But the UFC put on loads of great promos, maybe not to that extent. You know what I mean? Like the one with Conor McGregor and Jose Aldo, that was phenomenal. That one there, I mean, that takes the cake. I mean, that's almost like a two and a half. That's like the end of a blockbuster movie. I mean, the CG The CGI is phenomenal. I have no idea what that would have cost. Five million dollars, something crazy like that just to promote it. But hey, did the job. I can't wait to see that fight.

Yeah, I'm absolutely floored. It's like, it's the end of five different movies. They had pirate ships crashing into each other and Samurai's fighting. Yeah, man, they know how to sell a fight in Saudi Arabia, for sure.

They certainly do, and I can't wait for it. What have we got to talk about here? How much did throwing an MMA. Do you know what? We should talk about the fights going down this weekend. Roman DeLizze, Nazradine, Imovov, Hinalto Moukana versus Drew Dauber. I'm very excited for that one. Moukana Dauber, I love them both. They're both awesome. I just love everything about Moukana. He's hilarious on the microphone, shows up every time when he fights. I think he's going to be careful on the feet against Drew Dauber. Drew Dauber is beautiful to watch. Slick boxing, very, very powerful. Probably give Drew Dauber the power advantage. But I think if Moikana can mix it up and turn it into, MMA fight, take him down, utilize some of that grappling, those black belt skills. That's going to be his best path to victory. But taking Dauber down is not an easy thing.

No, but I do see Dober as somebody who likes to plan his feet and swing with everything that he's got. Moikana is pretty good at timing a takedown when someone is off balance and over-swinging on power shots. I do think, to your point, once it gets to the ground, I see how Dober gets back up. Like you said, you could have a hard time getting him down, but I don't think Dober is popping up even one time. I think as soon as Moikana got you, he's getting his hooks in and he's getting a choke.

Also, we got Randy Brown, Muslim Salikoff. That was supposed to go down, I think. When was that? Supposed to go down Madison Square Garden, was it? Somebody got sick?

I think it was either. Go on. It was right around then because we had Randy on the show during MSP week.

Yeah, so that's a good one. Muslim Salikow, Randy Brown, Mokana Adoba, Dalize, Imovov. Great. Starting off a nice run. Eleven weeks of UFC action. But got a few minutes to kill before Dean Amr Singer joins us. Throw a story at me, Harrington.

Okay, so since you were talking about him a little bit earlier, Aljamain Sterling, he did. He mocked Sean Amali's drawing power and said they're stacking 2.99 for him. But in that same interview, he said his own trip up to 145, right? He's making a similar jump to Max Holloway, says, They offered four names, and Qatar was the highest ranked. He said, Maybe I'm an idiot for this. Maybe I need to take the Drakar close route and just go, Give me the easiest opponent for the most amount of money, that Chael Sunnen route. But I want to fight the biggest and baddest dudes. Man, at the end of the day, I think that's what matters most. I know if I beat him the way I think I'm capable of doing, I think I'm next in line for a title shot. I don't think that's too far fetched of a thing. I mean, you look at the guys at the top, they already fought for the belt. They Volkanovski wins again. It's wide open.

Well, that final point is a good one. If Volkanovski wins again, then, of course, you're running out of challenges. But Holloway, fighting Gagey, Jair Rodriguez, he's beating him. Toporia, if He loses, okay. And then, yeah, Ortega, Evlyuev, Allen, Emmert, Calvakeita, Ciccadze, Bryce Mitchell. If he can beat Calvakeita, who is number eight, it would be a stretch. It would be a jump. And I don't necessarily agree with everything what he says. But if Vult beats to Poirier, then that makes Alderman Sterling's situation way better, because now you've got a dominant He was a grand champion, defended about three times at Bantam Way. And he needs fresh meat. He needs fresh challenges. And the reality is, Al Jamain was massive at 135. I don't know how he ever made it. I don't know how he ever made 135. So 145 Could he do better? Could he challenge Volkanovski? More than likely, no. Could he show up and have a fight? Of course, he could. What are you going to say that Volkanovski can't beat Al Jamain Sterling? Are you going to sit there and pull your face at me like I'm an idiot for suggesting that?

I'm not saying he can't. I'm just saying, Don't tell me Aljomane Sterling can't beat Alexander Volkanovski with his size and the grappling that he shown.

Well, every fucking man is capable of beating another one when the ingredients are just Perfect. Okay. But we're talking about Alexander Volkanovski is one of the greatest of all time, and yeah, he lost to Islan Makhachev twice. Other than that, look at the performances with Max Holloway and all the other people that he's beaten. You know what I mean? And I understand because Volk's a little bit annoyed because people, like yourself, they forget. You go out there, you fight someone like Islan Makhachev on short notice, two weeks notice. The video, the interview is on this channel. He was saying, I was drinking beer and all the rest of it, and he thought, I'll do it. I'll roll the I'll have a go. Backfired. No shame in that. But you can't then forget about the whole body of work that he has. Listen, I like Al Jamet Sterling, and I wish him all the best against Kelvin Cater. And you never know, if Vogue beats to Portia, then there's a chance there. But you can't go, oh, the man that just got knocked out of Sean O'Malley is going to come up and beat the greatest ever, the man that's been dominated everyone at featherweight for ages.

Really?

Fair enough.

You're going to do that to Volk? Well, I mean, look, the narrative was there heading into the O'Malley fight, right?

Al Jamain was going to leave one way or another, win or lose. If he won, the plan was to move up and fight Volkanovski for a champion versus champion thing. So it's like, I think Volkanovski does look at Al Jamain as a real challenge in somebody who would walk for the division. One guy who doesn't respect Alexander Volkanovski, one guy who shows him absolutely no respect, that thinks of him the type of way you were just trying to say, I think of Alexander Volkanovski. That's his Yeah.

Taboria.

Ilia Taboria. He says, I don't have any doubt that the finish will come, and it will be one of the easier fights of my career so far. Yeah.

I I mean, look, listen, you got to be confident. You got to believe in yourself. You got to think that you're going to do it. Throw me over to the other side, Brian, please. You don't have to throw everyone off straight away, but Dean, I'm a singer. What's going on, buddy?

He said I was in the background and suddenly jumped onto.

I was about to strangle Harrington, that's why. So you came on at the perfect point. Good to see you, buddy. How's things?

Yeah, really good, mate. Really good. Just here in Vegas. At the PI. Got a few guys fighting this weekend from the academy in Shanghai. So, yeah, just been here for a little while, just getting them acclimatized to the jet lag and the time zone difference.

Right. Officially, introduction time. For anybody who doesn't know, today, ladies and gentlemen, I'm joined by the one and only Dean Ammeringer, old friend of mine, old student on the ultimate fight. I was just smoking before. Was it season 9 or 14? Season 9, right? Season 9, yeah. Season 9 on the ultimate fighter, former UFC fighter, all-around good guy, good drinking partner to have, and... It's all right. You're allowed to have a beer now and again, Dino. That's true. Come on. You're not a bloody raving alcoholic, but you have time to hang out. I am when I'm with you. What's that?

I am when I'm with you.

And what is your official title at the Shanghai CI?

I'm the Technical Director of the UFC Performance Institute in Shanghai, which sounds rather fancy. But basically, my role is... They made that name up because I'm effectively the head coach in terms of the technical training and whatnot. But then I oversee the We have performance service as well, like strength and conditioning, sports science, performance, nutrition, all of that stuff. We have obviously department heads, and I just make sure everyone's communicating well, working together. That's the idea.

You're a big deal out over there in China, basically.

That's all it's.

Talk to me about... Because the Performance Institute in Las Vegas, beautiful place, state-of-the-art training facility. But from my understanding, the one in Shanghai is four times as big Yeah.

Well, actually, before we get going, so make sure that we have time, I want to clear the air about something with you because-Oh, shit. Well, because I'm not on the Internet very often, but I'm social media. But the only time my social media has ever blown up is when you've been on Rogan and then blamed me for your injury before the GSV fight. It's true. Hold on, it is true. Okay.

You fucking took me down like your life depended on it and drove your shoulder right into my ribs..

Sorry, there's always two sides of story, and I want to hear Porello's version of this as well. But let me set the scene about this cab, right? So two people are ready to go. Go ahead. Two Two people already been sent home from you knocking them out, but within reason. And you're on top form, and that's fair enough. Part of the past of professional MMA training is all good. And we're getting those spiring rounds, and probably across the whole time that we did across camp, I might have got you down two times, and even in them times, it probably weren't proper takedowns. You managed to get, as you do, you get back to your feet. And so obviously, I'm there trying to recreate what GSP does, and If I don't go 100 % for a takedown, I'm never going to get you down anyway. You've obviously got an amazing... You're a world champion, you've got amazing takedown defense. And when he describes it on Roga, and it was like, I dug my shoulder in, and I was like... What actually happened, I got you to your butt, and then you butt-scooted away. If you imagine on the Tim Kennedy fight, you did that a couple of times.

Jesus Christ.

You did loads of shit. In terms of the technique you have That butt scoop to get to the cage, which is what you did.

And in that crunching motion, from my perspective, it wasn't me driving my shoulder in. It was that motion of that crunch as you pull yourself away. It was my fault.

It's not. Just so we know everyone, everyone listening, just tell them what day that sparring was on.

Yeah, it was the last sparring session.

It was the day Before I got on the plane to go to New York. Yeah, it was. So you could have let your little ego go a little bit, couldn't you?

I was trying to help you, mate. I was trying to help. The amount of stick I get for that, like little messages on stuff, and I'm just like, Oh, mate, let me try and clear my name slightly that I'm not a complete prick.

In fact, I didn't even know we were going to talk about this. You know firsthand the extent of that injury. I was not myself going into that fight. Anyway, whatever. We're not here to talk about that. We've had some good times. You just wanted to throw me under a bus, didn't you? You've been itching for this. Probably ever since I never showed up for your fight, the season nine of the ultimate fight.

You're bringing that up. I'm happy to move on from that. And then, to be fair, the other one when I did your IV, after when IVs were still legal. That's fully true. I'll put my hands up to that. I've been doing it for a little while. Then I was not experienced enough. And there was like, everywhere.

Obviously, I'm going to explain this. So Dean, prior to his position now, was a great coach, coached many great fighters like Ross Pearson, amongst others. Ross was fighting in Australia. I was fighting in Australia. And IVs were allowed back then to rehydrate afterwards. And I was going to get an IV. I had the bags me and all the rest of it, but I didn't have somebody to do it, to administer the IV. And Dean is like, I can do it. I've done a course. I've done a little course. I'll do it. And I'm like, Oh, sure. Yeah, okay. How hard can it be? Dean comes up to my roof, I'm dying I've just done the way. Dean comes in, gets the needles out and everything, does something wrong, bursts of pain. And am I exaggerating? No, it was good.

It wasn't like that.

The stream of blood about this just coming out of my arm. I'm Right in the next day. I'm like, I don't think this is right, Dean. So I put my finger on it, it stops. As soon as I move my finger, every time, and the panic on your face.

Yeah, I'm not prepared for this right now. I missed this module.

You almost murdered the main event. I don't know how you got a job for the UFC. Jesus Christ.

Thankfully, I learned from that experience, and I'm in a better situation. We've had some good times over the years, mate.

So, yeah, the UFC Shanghai Performance Institute.

How big is that? Yes, it's like 93,000 square foot, and the Vegas one is 30. 3,000 square foot, roughly. So it's basically three times the size. And obviously, what's different about it is that we have an academy there. So it's available to all the UFC fighters that are in the APAC. Well, actually any UFC fighter, but obviously it would make more sense for the guys in that APAC region to use it. But for the past few years, though, because of COVID and how restrictive the border has been, it's really only been the Chinese UFC fighters, which there are only about, I think, 12 or 14 of them that can use it the way that the Vegas ones use. And then the other thing is we have an academy. We have 30 guys that we recruit from all over China. We have this thing called the MMA Combine or the academy combine, which is like the NFL combine. It's a combination of non-technical and technical tests to see their fitness and strength and reactions and then technical tests in terms of wrestling, grappling, and striking. Then obviously, we look at their fight record, their age, experience, and we look at the fight footage as well.

We invite 50 girls and guys to this combine, and then 30 get selected to be on a full scholarship that they live there full-time in dormitories next to the PI. Then we organize all of their training in terms of like, condition, the weight cuts, nutrition. We have a full sports performance support team as well as technical coaches. And then we get these guys fighting on the regional scene in China, but then also on cage warriors or UAE warriors, that in between level before the UFC to get them the opportunities and let the matchmaker see the level that they're fighting at. And then the main pathway, which is why we're here in Vegas, is the road to UFC. So the road to UFC tournament is a tournament across all of Asia and the four weight divisions of flyweight, bantamweight, featherweight and lightweight. And the eight-man tournament, and they start in May. This year we had it in Shanghai. Then the semifinal was in Singapore when zombie fought, yeah, zombie fought, max follow-up weight. And then the final was supposed to be in Shanghai in December, but that event, unfortunately, got canceled. And then now the final has been...

That card got scattered and people got moved. And then the final is now this Saturday after the fight night.

So do me a favor, Dan, just scoot over to the side so you're a little bit more in the middle. Split the difference. Split the difference. There we go. Boom. Look at that. Look at that. I just want to go back to what you were saying before then. So essentially, for these people, these recruits that want to get on a scholarship, which is an incredible thing to have, do they need to have martial arts background, a competitive background? Yeah. What is the bare minimum requirements?

Minimum is generally three pro fights, a bit like TUF, but we have made a couple of exceptions for people that we see something in them that are there. There's one guy, actually, when we first came, we were traveling around the gyms around China. We went to Beijing to China Top team, and there was this one kid there. We were watching them, spa and stuff, and someone got him in a single leg, and he did a backflip to get out of it. And I was like, We'll have a look at that kid. And he was 18, but he was in the national team for wrestling. And so he hadn't had a pro fight yet. And so he's had all of his fights with us. He's now seven and one. He's had all of his fights with us. What's his name?

I think I know who you mean.

Dharamisi. Yeah, Dharamisi. He was on the road to UFC. So he was 18 at that time. So we have, generally, those days, younger younger fighters, but we want a minimum of three fights. We have some guys that are super experienced as well, like Shailan, who came through and who's now on the UFC.

Nirdan Becky.

Yes.

He's had like-I know the name.

He's had like 35 fights, I think when he joined us. And then we tier them. So there's that Tier A, Tier B, and Tier C. Tier A is like, we think they're within a year of getting to the UFC. Tier B is like two years. And then C is like a longer-term development, like those 18-year-olds that we have, that we're They're trying to develop. So the way that we approach them and their bonus structure is different and the benefits they get, I guess, are different depending on the tier they're in, and they move up the tiers. Mahashata, who you should know as well, the lightweight of the UFC, he joined as a Tier C, had some wins, went up to Tier B, and then got his shot as a Tier A on contenders, and now he's in the UFC. So he's like a real success. Same with the reach along, joined as a Tier B, and then went up to A, and then It's just like a rugby academy, football academy that they have, Manchester United, something like that. It's following that model of athlete development and just try to accelerate the development of Chinese and Asian MMA.

It's unbelievable. It really is. It is. We talk all the time about how far the sport has come and how many people it reaches these days in terms of the popularity. But to see that structure, and granted, we don't have that in the UK or even in the States yet, right? I'm correct to say that.

No, not at the moment. Because knowing I was coming on the podcast, I was just thinking about some stuff that we've experienced over the years. We started training together in 2003 in Nottingham with Dave. In a church hall. Community Center, a church hall. I was thinking about there's a wooden floor and there wasn't enough mats for everyone to grapple. It was like two judo mats. You could have one pair grappling and everybody else doing stand up and we'd rotate around.

Yeah, that's right.

And that's how we trained. I think you might have been Kader or a champion at that point. In the first time I had a pro fight, I'd never been in an octagon. Most gyms didn't have octagon. I think I will say I was one of the first. After that, you moved from Nottingham, and they were one of the first to have an actual octagon. And from that to now 20 years later, where we've got this 93,000 square foot training facility, the PI here as well, and the facilities that are available, and the team The support staff, not just the technical coaches, it's mind-blowing, mate. Sometimes I think more of the job that I have and the opportunity of working with the guys that I work with and stuff. It's just amazing.

That is phenomenal. And as you said, I look back on those days, though, As you said, these crappy gyms with leaks in the roof and freezing cold and the toes literally freezing. I look back on that with fond memories, though. You know what I mean? I enjoyed those days.

Those Rafa's days when it was me, Paul Daley, Dan Hardy, Andre Wynner, Ross Piers, and Nico Shippcha. We didn't really have coaches. Bearing in mind, our generation of fighters, I guess we're slightly different, but basically the same generation of fighters, our coaches didn't fight MMA. All our coaches were either striking coach, jiu-jitsu coach, wrestling coach, and then none of them... Had any of your coaches fought MMA?

No. It was impossible. If somebody that was one of my coaches, they would be a generation older than me.

You know what I And so we just got in there. It wasn't possible. We just were far away and we worked it out. Do you know what I mean? And even the path that I've taken to ended up being a coach has been a lot because at that time we didn't have coaches, and I just took on that role. And as you know, even in the time when I was fighting, I was still cornering those guys and coaching while I was fighting, which obviously wasn't the best for my fighting career. But later, I acknowledged that I'm definitely a better coach than I am than I was fighting. I was having more of an aptitude for coaching, and that's something I'm at peace with, and that's fine. But yeah, those days were like, I still joke whenever I catch up with those guys, it's just like they're the best times. It was amazing.

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As you're getting older, it's dropping every single year. You've got to stay active, you've got to keep moving, and You got to keep boosting that testosterone. And you don't want to be like Veto Belfort. You don't want to look like a penis with veins. You want to look like the man you used to be or the man that you want to be. And if the testosterone is getting lower, You're going to struggle. So give it a boost and do it the natural way with chalk. Com. Go to choq. Com, chalk. Com. Use the code bisping at checkout for 35 % off your entire order. One more time, chalk. Com. The code is bisping for 35 % off the entire order. Obviously, China has got quite the talent pool. Is it 1.6 billion people? I think it's something like that. Whatever it is, 1.2, 1.1, whatever. We're splitting has. It's in the bees, okay? It's over a billion people. What is the level of interest from the general public? Are you swamped? Because I would assume something like that, if you put that In most Western countries, there would be so many people trying to enroll and get on a scholarship.

How is the level of interest out there in China?

Yeah, that's a good question. So obviously it's changed over the time that we've been there. We've been since we opened in 2019. And when we were there in 2019, we were definitely not as popular as we are now. And then in 2020, we were super fortunate that Wei Li won the title. She's obviously been a huge ambassador for MMA in China. But I was trying to look at creating... We were looking at creating KPIs for the success of the academy and stuff, and we had to look at the size of MMA. You can use topology and look at the size of MMA fighters that come from China. And actually the amount of pro fighters in China is less than it is in the UK, which is surprising, considering it's like...

No, it makes sense, though. I understand why.

But it's growing. And the thing is, though, is that the Olympics is so important to China, and combat sports is big. They medal in a lot across all different sports, but particularly, obviously, in the Olympics, the combat sports as well. And they also have Sanda, which is another martial art that's big. We're actively trying to recruit from those sports and develop them as well. But it's a process. It's definitely... We've just signed a... No, maybe two years ago, we signed a deal with Migoo, which is effectively signing with ESPN, but in China. And so that's a big deal. That's representing representative of where the sport is going, the fact that we're on the major TV network in China now, which is called Migoo. And that was probably no chance to happen that before we started to do what we do with the academy and the exposure that we get from our academy fighters. And this road to UFC in China is actually pretty popular. And in that combine thing that we have, we do a live grappling test and a live wrestling test, which there's 100,000 people that watch that. I know that's not a massive number, but for a grappling test is part of a combat.

It's huge. Yeah, it's pretty good. So that's showing where the sport is developing. And that's basically what we're there for. We're there to develop Chinese MMA, to grow the sport in China so that it becomes more popular. It's a huge market. And because they have such a martial arts background, we want to tap into that. And if we let that happen organically, that might take another 10 years where we're trying to accelerate it.

I'm trying to expedite the process, obviously. I'm going I'm not going to hesitate. Well, I'm not going to hesitate. Bollocks to it, because there's always this narrative that I'm pro-UFC. Of course, I'm pro-UFC. I'm very, very pro-UFC. But anything that's going to be a company, man. But as you're sitting there saying that, I can't help but what crossed my mind is it's insane because they are literally cultivating and spending a lot of money to cultivate this next generation of Chinese mixed martial artists. I don't know how many people that works at that facility. It's a 90,000 square foot facility. That's a lot of money already. You got scholarship programs, the road to the Yacht, and all the rest of it. But then you got people out there talking shit about the UFC. They are literally breathing and growing the sport actively in countries like China, where it doesn't exist or didn't exist until very recently.

Exactly. And the only reason it's only been China for this period is because of COVID. So first year was supposed to be just China, and then COVID hit in 2020, and our borders have been completely shut. So every time you come into China, you have to do two weeks quarantine up until January of 2023. I did 19 weeks of quarantine every time I was in China. And you just sat in a hotel, in a government hotel. You're not allowed to... It's like government run. You're not allowed to leave the room. You're there for two weeks. And then one time I had to do 21 days.

Yeah, but if you get COVID now in the UK, you can still go to work.

Yeah, exactly.

You did 19 weeks in quarantine.

In quarantine, mate. Yeah. So we only had to have it in China, but now this next combine, which is happening in March, we're inviting guys from India, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore. And it's supposed to be for the whole of Asia. It's only been China because we couldn't have got the athletes in. So the UFC is investing in the whole of Asia to develop the talent there, which is what other sport is doing that. And then there's going to be Mexico opening in March, and Mexico, the same thing is going to be Latin America, developing talent in those areas like Mexico. Think about the boxers that come from Mexico. If we start taking some of those guys, those incredible fighters that are out there, Mexicans are known for their fighting spirit. You get some of them transferring over to MMA. We're going to see way more Mexican champions. And then Abu Dhabi is on the line, potentially Nigeria. There's plans to have a PI. You've heard Dana's talked about it. The plan is to put... Because they know that putting these PI's around the world is going to accelerate the development of the sport. And we already have champions from all over the world.

But that's just helping in those In those countries that don't have the infrastructure. If you think about America, we've got the collegiate wrestling system. There's lots of good gyms, lots of good coaches. America doesn't really need the help. Brazil is pretty similar. The sport is very established, almost, you could argue, started in Brazil. A lot of Brazilian champions. So they're trying to go into the territories that don't have the infrastructure, don't have the coaches and support and help them make it more of a level playing field worldwide. So there's more worldwide champions.

That's unbelievable. It really is as a guy. And as you say, going back to those early days, when I started doing martial arts at the local dojo, and it was in the local squash club, and you get the mats out at the beginning of the session, and then you put the mats away. I'm sure a lot of people know what I'm talking about. They used to do the same thing. You know what I mean? Just putting the mats away. And now it's come to this, and it's on TV every week. It is unbelievable when you sit back and you look at it. Yeah, mind-blowing. Mexico, Nigeria. Wow.

Abu Dhabi is on the cards for sure. And it's also the type of training that's going into it, what we're trying to do in terms of having an interdisciplinary team, of having performance services, supporting as well as technical coaches. Even when you were a world champion, you would do certain training in one place and certain training in another. And sometimes maybe all the coaches-It was pain in the ass. Yeah, pain in the ass. And then maybe some of the coaches weren't necessarily We're on the same page around having high and low days and periodization and all of that stuff. Whereas we're all in-house. We've got sports science support, talking about training load. We've got S&C making sure they're fitting in the days that I want as a head coach. And just more what other professional sports are like. I think that historically, you've had a lot of fighters who have come through in the sport who have just tough fighters and been able to Excel. But now you're going to get the athletes coming through that are also fighters and then technically being proficient as and bringing all those things together. And you're just going to see the next...

Like, John Jones is an exception, but maybe there are a lot more out there that come from other sports that choose to come to MMA.

No, of course. And the old comparison used to be George St. Pierre. A guy started up. Oh, no, not even George St. Pierre, but they always talk about this new generation, that the level of the talent is getting better and better and better. And that's essentially what you're talking about. And we do say, can you imagine what it's going to be like in 20 years with programs like this that are legit cultivating them from the grassroots up? And it is going to be wild. Is there any thoughts of taking on youngsters and children that show a flair? If you're a young martial arts prodigy and you show an interest in doing that, is there thoughts about some program, not full contact and all the rest of it, but having some amateur youth league?

Yeah. So one of the things we're trying to do is we talk about expanding the sphere of influence that we have in China, because at the moment we've got these academy guys, and then if we're not working to develop the guys that we don't have in the academy, like the amateur guys, we're going to run out of talent. And on the other end as well, we've got an athlete coach program. So some of the guys that don't quite make it, I don't know if you remember Jan Jafar, who fought on Contenders. He was older at that point and he lost the split decision in Contenders. But he was His opportunity is probably gone now. So we put him in an athlete... You know how it works?

Sorry. Just something popped in my head when you said, remember Jan Jafar? And I was thinking, brought to the Oxxon. There was that one in Singapore. Was he smoking a cigarette afterwards or something? I think he had a cigarette beforehand because he's from wherever he was from. He was like, yes, this is what I do all the time. I thought you were thinking of that guy. No, no, no.

The This goes on Contenders. I can't remember. Yeah, a couple of years ago. Anyway, so now we're supporting him in developing his coaching as well. So we bring him in periods of time. And there's a few other guys as well, like Willy Jiburin, I put them We're coaching a coaching development program, fight to develop programs. So then they can go back to their home gyms and then start developing new talent. And then also working with the Amateur Association in China and workshops and all of that. But we're actually coaching and having those younger guys. There's a lot of responsibility in terms of liability and all of that. So I don't think we're going to go down that route, but we're certainly trying to help amateur as well as the program that we have in this. So there's a long term legacy effect of the program.

Yeah. Amazing stuff. Harrington and Brian, let's just see if they're still here or if they've taken an opportunity to go to the bathroom or run away. Oh, here they are. We don't leave. Listening internally. What do you think of this? Isn't this... It's pretty amazing if you ask me, and I'm not sitting here saying that as a man that obviously gets paid by the UFC to hear what they're doing here. It's phenomenal.

I was singing the praises of Road to the UFC heading into this. I think isn't the Featherweight guy, isn't one of the guys in the Featherweight Championship? He was in the title last year. He could have won a contract against Park, I believe it was.

Yeah. No, I think his name is Lee. Or He's going to be parked. His surname is Lee.

Park-lee or something.

Yeah. In this road to UFC final, we've got across the four weight divisions.

In the Featherweight, we've got both- Just have a two-shot, Brian. I'm going to run the bathroom. I've been waiting for...

Okay.

Should we carry on? Yeah.

Yeah, give me your... I'm actually super-hyped. I'm going to be watching for the extra three hours. My girl's very about it.

Yeah, mate. Obviously, it's a culmination in terms of our KPIs and in In terms of what the academy is doing, that's really the culmination of it. We're trying to get guys into the UFC, so it's a big night for the whole PI and the PI Academy. But in the featherweight division, we've got two guys fighting each other. We have both of the featherweights from China. One of them is Li Kawen and one of them is Eizha, who, as you mentioned, was on the final of last year. Obviously, I'm a bit biased, but I personally feel he got a bum deal with the scoring there. It was a split decision, I think. A lot of people thought it could have gone the other way. He also thought maybe he would have got signed directly then, but he didn't. But he took that really well. He's been really focused this year and now he's in the final again. Then in the other weight divisions, we have a finalist in each of the weight divisions, but the Bantamweight fight, unfortunately, is going to be delayed because there was an injury to one of the fighters. So that fight, they want to keep it.

They didn't want to bring in a replacement. They wanted to give the finalist an opportunity to delay that. So on Saturday, it'll just be the flyweight final, the featherweight final, and the lightweight final. We're Hopefully, we can have three champions and three guys signed to the UFC on Saturday.

That'd be pretty sick. Do you have guys circled in your mind? I think it was Nakamura, the Japanese guy who won flyweight last year. He's made some waves since coming in the UFC, I know the Indian dude. Was he Bantamite? Yeah. Okay. And then I know the Indian dude at Lightweight also lit somebody up on the last fight card when Anthony Smith fought Ryan Spand. I ended up watching that as well. Do you have those guys circled as like, Oh, these are the regional tough guys that we're looking for in the PI?

Yeah, definitely. Well, we help support the matchmakers in terms of looking at the talent. Obviously, matchmakers already have an incredibly challenging job just servicing the roster, which is like, what?

Do you know who has a harder job?

Who?

The commentators announcing these names. They're bloody tricky. You can stay on, buddy. You can stay on. In In fact, sorry to interrupt. I was dying for the bathroom. I was trying to find a polite time to go. I've got about four receptacles of water here that I'm drinking through. So I apologize, Dino. That was very rude. Brian, maybe you want to join the screen if you can for a second.

What's up?

Dine lives in China. Shanghai. Talk to me about that, because I'm sure Brian's got some questions.

I know that it's a Communist nightmare if you are a citizen there, but I'm sure they treat Dean slightly different.

Dean is not going to say that. Because I was going to say... Well, he's not going to say that. My experience is when I've been to China, it hasn't felt like a Communist country to me. You know what I mean? I see a lot.You.

Do that on purpose.

Wealthy people and people shopping and enjoying life and all the rest of it. What is it like on a day to day living your life in China, Dean?

Shanghai is probably my favorite city in the world. I've lived in Tokyo, I've lived in Australia, obviously from London, spent a lot of time in the US as well. I'd put Shanghai as number one in terms of a place to live. It's got amazing restaurants, loads of nice bars, so many things to do. It's a city of 25 million people. So you can imagine there's a lot of stuff to do. So, yeah, day to day in terms of... Well, living and working at the PI is amazing. Every day when I come to I can't believe I'm here. But, yeah, living in Shanghai, there's a good expat community, and And Shanghai is like... I mean, you've been there, Mike. It's a cool city. It's really all of China is like that, but my experience in Shanghai has been super positive and we've got a good network of friends. And I love it, particularly the food. There's loads of Michelin star restaurants and all cuisine from all over the world because of which I think Shanghai is in terms of, I guess, the financial hub of Asia. There's a lot of influence on... And there was a French colony and British colony, and there's a lot of French restaurants and stuff in the French concession area.

And even just the food around China, what I was quite ignorant to. My experience of Chinese food is really like, Cantones food, what we have the Chinese that we go for back at home. But in every different province has a different style, like Unan food, Xinjiang food. There's so many different styles of Chinese food. And I'm like, I love it. I love all that spicy food as well and all the different... There's some interesting cuts of meat and stuff.

Sorry, Brian. The reason I said that is because Brian is- Mike is trying to get me to argue with you about the communism in China, but the cities are different.

The cities are very Western and capitalist type cities, a type society. But outside in the country is where you get killed for your farm. He's not allowed to say that. He's there.

I don't know what you want me to say about.

We can't have this conversation. We're trying to get him killed, Mike.

Jesus Christ. No, we're not trying to get him killed. I was pulling everybody's leg and being a little bit silly. I'm serious off the shop.

I don't want to get into the politics.

I'm not going to get into politics.

There's pros and cons to every country, whether it be Western countries and some of the things that are going on worldwide and the legacy of colonialism and all that shit. You know what I mean? No country is perfect. So I don't really have a position in it. I enjoy living in China. From my personal experience- No, of course.

And I don't expect you to have a position on that either, Dean, as a resident there. Let me ask you this, what is the temperature gage or the level of excitement for UFC 300 with Zhang Wei Li fighting Jan Zhaunang, an old Chinese title fight? Are you expecting that to have a real big impact on the popularity of the sport out there?

A hundred %. One thing about when people say-Right.

Do you want to just slide me over? Oh, yeah. There we go. That's better.

You know when people say you want people hate you and love you. That's how you get the most amount of exposure as someone like Mayweather or whatever. In this fight, I think some people are like, this is amazing, two Chinese athletes fighting each other. And then on the other side, people are like, it's not good that Chinese against each other. They only want to see... That means that a Chinese person has to lose. But in terms of the social media, apparently there's been a lot of interest in it, and people are super excited. They're either really for it or slightly, I guess, against it, but still in a vocal way, which is already trending. When it got announced, it was trending on the Chinese social media and stuff. So it's a huge fight for Chinese MMA, and it's a massive achievement to have two of any nation fighting each other, apart from America, I guess, because America is the dominant nation in the sport. But it's not often you see people outside of America of the same nation fighting for a title. It's never happened in England, never happened. Where else could you think that happened?

I guess, Brazil.

Brazil, for sure. Yeah, maybe Russia.

No, I don't know.

I don't see we've had it. I'm saying you could see that.

See it happen, yeah, for sure.

With the talent pool, Russia, Brazil, The States, obviously, maybe one or two others.

It's a big moment for Chinese MMA, and certainly in terms of what they're trying to do in developing the sport in Asia and in China, it's a huge moment.

And I don't even know if this is a question, it's just an observation. It seems that the women, and this isn't me being all bloody welcome to 2024, but the women are making a bigger impact in the sport than what the men are. We've got two Chinese ladies competing in a title fight. I can reel off two or three other ones that fight in the UFC. But the men are struggling to make the same impression. Don't get me wrong, there's some tremendous talent that is coming The guy is coming through.

What I would say about that, which is definitely commendable about Chinese sport, which I think it comes from their Olympic program. In the Olympics, a gold medal from a woman and a gold medal from a man is the same, right? It doesn't matter. They invest massively in female sport and they value it in the same way. That's definitely something I've noticed. We have a contract with the Chinese Olympic Committee, and they sometimes send their athletes into a training camp at RPI. We've had all different sports, like rowing and speed skating, and loads of different ones. They value female sport really highly because of that, because that attitude. That translates to all combat sports as well. The participation of women in combat sport is really high. I think that's part of the reason. And we've got this one girl coming, I remember the name. She got this, she called Wonsong, and she beat Shevchenko in kickboxing. She's joined the academy when she was one and oh because of her record kickboxing.

The pedigree.

Yeah, pedigree. And she's now five and oh, and she just beat Wu Yunan. Do you remember the Chinese fighter?

Yeah, of course. There you go. Wuyunan. I've heard of these names. I wasn't being... I mean, I'm a man myself. Do you know what I mean? I was just saying, as I said, they're making more of an impact in the UFC so far.

She's going to be the next one because, yeah, Wun Nun is now not in the UFC, but they just had a fight in Thailand on a Kunlun fight, which is actually a Chinese organization. I think when Pereira fought Izzy, that was on that organization. Yeah, and she just beat her, a real dominant performance. I think next year, the road to UFC might have a female division that hasn't been locked in, but we're hoping. Then she would be in the women's 125. She's a 125-er. Mate, her striking is next level, and she's incredibly strong, and she's super athletic. So yeah, really excited about her. Her name's Wonsong, so look out for it.

Wansong. And you're going to remember that name as well.

Yeah. It's not spelled like that. W-a-n-g and then C-O-N-G.

But yeah, still have a one song. Harrington, throw a mixed martial arts because Dean, whilst being an expert in all things mixed martial arts, weight lifting in particular, as I said, drinking, Dean's a good man to hang out. I mean, look at that smile. Dean's a good guy. We've had some good nights out that shall remain off the air. One, particularly when we were celebrating your brother's birthday, I believe, in London.

Have you ever told that publicly?

No, shall we?

It's more of you than me, mate.

Yeah, I didn't do anything. I just said you got beat up off a bunch of dormant. No, Harrington. Harrington, join the show again. Throw a little... In fact, Dean, if you had to whip Harrington into shape, what would you start with? Because Dean is an expert on nutrition and lifestyle and barbecuing. I mean, we've done a lot of trading camps out in Australia And Dean was the barbecue master, drilling up the kangaroos. Mike Harrington, what would be the first step of advice? In fact, never mind that. I'm joking about Harrington. We always pick on him. For anyone out there, because it's January and people fail, As a guy that's been around this sport and you are a trainer, anybody that's listening to this right now and they want to get in better shape, they want to live a long, healthier life, of course, there's lots of things they can start with, but what would be one piece of advice advice that someone that needs to really try and take stock of their life and make a positive impact?

Yeah, good question. Yeah, it's definitely different for general population compared to athletes, because the pursuit of high performance is not necessarily even conducive to health. What athletes put their body through is not actually... You could view it maybe as healthy, but for the general public, everything is about consistency. So everyone One has the best intentions, and then they go from nothing to training five times a week. And that's just not sustainable because we have jobs, we have family, and it's about creating consistency, both in terms of their training and then their dietary choices. There's a lot of benefits of intermittent fasting, and they could be debated about what the hormonal benefits are of that. But just the fact that you're having one less meal a day, and as long as you're not pigging out on those other meals, that can create a slight calorie deficit or at least maintenance, and is able to make it consistent. And then if you're adding the odd training, more walking during the week, it doesn't have to be hard training sessions, going for a walk every day. Steps. Step, yeah. Those things that are really attainable and been able to be consistent, getting some for your heart health.

Sauna is really good. I think everyone should be doing sauna if they have access to a Sauna at a gym It's really good for your heart health.Rebecca.

Has gone step mad.Really? I'm obsessed with getting the 10,000 steps a day in.

It's an easy way. You don't even know you're doing it, but just going for a walk, and it's nice. Going for a walk with your wife or whatever in the evening, it's a nice thing to do, I guess.

It's not always nice. Sometimes a few little arguments brew along the way, but we're obsessed with that.

The advice I would say is about its consistency. Something that's You can do sustainably for a long period of time and having a lifestyle change rather than the best training plan in the world. It's like, if you can't stick to it, what's the point in having it?

And I was just seeing recently as well, regarding long term health as well. The deficit It's a deposit of calories is such a big thing. I was watching something recently. It was a documentary, actually, about living to... What was it called? It's about living to 100 or something on Netflix, and it isolated these four different parts of the world that have-Bluzones. The blue zones, correct. You must have saw this. Is that what they call it? Is that the term?

That's the term for the.

So they have these blue zones and the things that they all have in common. And ingesting less calories was a big It's a big part of it. And of course, ingesting less calories equates to less cancerous or less potential cells in your body because it's all about an overabundance of energy in terms of calories in your body, which encourages the mutation of cells into cancerous cells.

And Yeah, and in all my studies and stuff that they've done, they-I'm a cancer doctor. The way I think of it as well with that stuff is if you think about your body as an engine, every time you're consuming food, the engine is being turned on to process that, right? And so if you're doing that less over time, there's more things going on, free radicals being created or things that potentially cause cancer, particularly nowadays with some of our being processed and not being the best types of food. If you're avoiding that and you're not making your engine work as much, that's another analogy to think of it in reducing the probability of cancer. That fast that Dana just did I think he did a 72-hour fast.He.

Just did one.Yeah..

There's some strong evidence around that in all-cause mortality being reduced, the chance of cancer being reduced, because those dormant cells that live in your body that aren't really doing a lot, they can then turn on to potentially becoming cancerous cells. In those moments when your body's like, Oh, shit, I might die because I'm not eating, it cleans those cells out. That's what's going on. There's some decent research to say that that's like, don't do it every month or anything, but maybe a couple of times a year, you can see some real good health benefits from it.

Yeah, I did you do in a session? I did 84 hours. It felt miserable. Yeah, but at the end of it, it was like, Oh, okay. I feel like this is what we're supposed to feel like. I'm not supposed to feel way down constantly with all this garbage in my body. So it was very nice.

I know what's his name, a caveman guy, the one he got done for Stillrise. What's his name again?

The liver king. Liver king.

I know he's obviously got a massive gimmick and whatnot. But if you do think about when we were living in those days, we wouldn't have been eating three meals a day. It just wouldn't have been there. We would have gone to extended periods of not eating, and our body is set up to dealing with those times in the way that we choose substrates as an energy source, et cetera. Mixing in some fasting is a positive thing.

I try and tell Callum all the time, and he thinks it's necessarily because I'm trying to get him to lose weight. Listen, we all want to lose a few pounds and all the rest. But I'm like, these are habits that you need to try and get into long term. I do a pretty good job. Most of the times I eat till one or two o'clock in the afternoon, most days, and I have two meals a day. But along with that also is one thing that me and Rebecca really like looking into lately is that when you retire, because in the Western world, we have this format that we work until we're 65 years old. And then what do we do? We sit on our asses and essentially wait to die. Do you know what I mean? And then when you're not active, your mind isn't active, you slowly deteriorate away. So that's why I've I've talked about it a few times on the podcast. We're trying to find somewhere in one of the more Eastern states, like a North Carolina or somewhere like that, where we're going to get a big plot of land, like 15 acres, 20 acres.

We're going to have cows and grow her on vegetables and bees and all the rest, because then that will keep us active in our old age, because that's what we're trying to do.

My mom's just retired back in England, but she's got an allotment, and she just spends all day in the allotment, and she loves it. She's like, otherwise, what else is she going to be doing? But she's keeping her active, and I think it's really good for her health. Otherwise, what are you doing with that time? Having some purpose and working towards something and then seeing literally the fruits of your labor, I think is a real positive. That's a great idea.

And I need to have the whole thing filmed when I do it because I'm useless at everything. So that'll be a killer reality TV show, Me on a Farm. Harrington, before all the believers are like, What is this? We're talking about Chinese MMA. Throw a subject, a Dinamising, let's test his MMA knowledge before we let him get out of here.

Okay, so I thought this one was interesting. Cory Sanhagen, he was on, he was talking to Eero Hawani, I think it was yesterday, and he said about the Umar Narmayga-Mado fight that was scheduled and then canceled. He said, There's Famous guy leverage. I won't beat around the Bush, but there is famous guy leverage. I'm trying to acquire some famous guy leverage. I think maybe I should start hanging out with rappers and making myself look less like a normal guy than I already do. Maybe that'll be my 2024 rebrand. I'll I'll get some face tattoos, I'll color my hair and start hanging out with some rappers. It seems to be the nature of the sport. Is that what Cory Sanhagen is missing? Colorful hair and some rapper, Frank.

I mean, look, in terms I'm not really an individual athlete, I don't necessarily want to comment as a UFC member of staff around a specific athlete. But what I would say is that, of course, the sport is entertainment as well as professional That's the sport. It's prize fighting, it's for entertainment, it's selling paper views. If we use Mike as an example now as a retired fire, he wasn't doing it. Mike, the way you spoke at press conferences, that's just the way you are. And being authentic in that way, people liked you or they hated you. But either way, they were watching you, wanted to see you fight. And you've got to play that game a little bit. And the formula is not black and white, because the GSP is He's really straight down the line and not particularly entertaining. But he's himself and he's authentically himself. And people really liked him. And even his style wasn't necessarily, although I think he's technically one of the best ever, he The style wasn't that entertaining, but people loved him. So there's not an exact formula to it, but you do have to play the game because ultimately, that's what's involved in the sport.

The reason I'm looking at my phone here just Are you going to get going in a minute, Dino? I do.

I've got one minute.

Well, that's it. You're not having it. You're not having it. I'm actually kicking you off the show. Okay. He is the great Dino. I'm a single lady. We need Harrington back, though, Brian, because it'll just be me sitting here with a glare. Dino, thanks for your time, brother. All the best to you guys competing next weekend. We'll talk soon, Dino.

Take care.

Take care, buddy. Bye-bye. Cheers, buddy. Great guy. Non-dine for years, years and years and years. Just on the See, Corey Sandhagen thing, I was just looking this up. Have you seen the tirade of abuse that Chael Sonnen is going on towards Corey Sandhagen? No. It's hilarious. And there's so many. There's literally so many tweets, one after the other after the other. I'm trying to find the right one here. It ain't rocket science or nuclear fishing. You've got no friends or allies in the entire division. One day you're going to realize on this, you can bet, you don't get what you deserve, son. You get what you get. And that's actually not bad advice. And then he quotes again, the Cory Sandegan piece that you're talking about there. And he goes, and he goes, You know what? Improved with age boy, you ain't French wine, ain't it? And it ain't like country dancing where you get in line. It's more like rock and roll. Don't let a chance pass. You're a jungle, Jim Morris, or your out on your ass is writing here. He's going on and on and on. He's giving Cory Sandegen a lot of shit for this appearance that he had on Ariel's show.

Robin Sweet and Lo from Starbucks eating ketchup and rice to the guy I gave my shot to. Bet he's living nice. Anyway, whatever. You get the feeling point of what I'm going on about. Chael is not a fan of what he's saying. Yeah, I mean, listen, Corey Sandegen is an incredible fighter. And the reality is he got injured in his fight. He got injured. So he's had a bit of time off. He's going to come back, win one fight, and he'll probably get a shot. In fact, there's a good possibility because he was talking about Umar and Amaga made off, and he doesn't want to fight him again because Umar has pulled out several times. You never know. If Chito beats O'Malley, Cory Sandhagen could come in and be the next contender, the next guy to fight Chito Vera.

Do you think that's why Cory Sandhagen was like, No, forget this Umar and Omegamado fight, because Cheeto already announced, Cory's next for me if and when I win that belt. It's like, Why take a fight and risk when I have, in my mind, a coin flip chance at the next title shot?

Potentially. I don't know if Cory's mind operates like that. But if number one, you got to say fair play to Cheeto Vera. As we were saying before about Max Holloway going up and fighting Justin Gagey, that's really ballsy and really brave and commendable of Chito to say that. And you're all probably thinking, he's my friend, but how can you not look at that? Listen, Cory beat Chito. It was a great night at the office. Cheto couldn't get going. He didn't really have much success. It was a shutout, essentially, for five rounds. I'm not breaking news by saying that, and she don't knows that. If he beats Sean O'Malley, he's calling out the guy that just did that to him. I mean, number one, as I said, that's so commendable. For Cory Sandagen, you want to be a part of the biggest fight. Why would you want to fight Umar Nemega Madoff when a guy that you've already beaten, who's on the verge, potentially, of being a champion, wants to fight you next. And then on top of that, I forget the actual number. He said he's pulled out of four fights or something like that.

I don't know how many it is.

Yeah, he said a few. I can look up his topology page, but I think the point is made where it's like, why lock yourself up in something like that when the reward just certainly isn't there? Fighting the number nine guy in the division.

Yeah. All right. This episode is sponsored by Fit Bod, which is a revolutionary workout app that if you struggle to get time to go to the gym, if you have plateaued in the gym, if you don't know what to do in the gym or time is limited, you work strange hours, then Fit Bod is a smart workout app for you because it creates custom dynamic exercise programs based on your goals, your experience, and your equipment. And it also varies up the routine so you never overtrain. The good thing is that there's over 1400 high definition videos that teaches you perfectly how to do the exercises. So the form is always correct. So you're not going to go out there and injure yourself. And the best thing is the price. For less than the cost of one session with a personal trainer, you can get a full year of personalized workouts with Fitmod. Fit exercise into your schedule because, listen, whenever you're free, that's when you want to workout. And with the Fitmod Smart Workout app and their algorithm, which uses data and analytics to build your best next workout, you can see all your streaks right there.

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I agree. Of course it would. That would be the icing on the cake. That would be phenomenal. He also went on, didn't he, to say that Leon Edwards and Balal Mohamed would not fit the bill.

Yeah, he was saying, While it is a great fight, to headline something like UFC 300, you need the background, you need the drama, you need bad blood. And neither Leon or Balal is really bringing that to the table at this point. So as far as a narrative and a storyline, it's not there for the main event of UFC 300. But he didn't disrespect the fight, but just that spot, not right for it.

Yeah, you can't disrespect the fight. Leon Edwards, he's really separating himself from the rest of the division now. And I've said it before, the only one And I'm not disrespecting Balal, but the only one that I can see potentially taking that belt is Shabqat Rachmaninoff. Oh, did you see that? He's supposedly fighting Kolby Covington.

What?

Yeah, just look that up. I have to Google that. Brian, look that up. That just popped in my head. I saw that somewhere yesterday. Kolby versus Shabqat. I don't know if it's not announced, it's far from it, but there is a rumor of it going around. Shabcat responds to Kolby trash. That was a month ago. I got sent something. It's something on Twitter. It's a rumored fight. It's a rumored fight. Who sent it to me? It was just going around on Twitter. Everyone was talking about it and whatnot. But if that does get made, that's a tough one for Kolby.

I would assume Kolby would retire before he would fight somebody like Shovcat. That goes so against everything that Kolby has done for his branding to put himself in a position to fight somebody as dangerous as Shovacot. If he takes it, God bless him.

Just go back to those, please, Brian. I just want to read those out. Let's go back. So Kolby, Kovalee, versus Shovok, Ratmanov in the works for UFC Seattle in June. Kolby versus Shabqat, again, UFC Seattle, June. Yeah, these are all different The little outlets on Twitter, of course, nothing official, but multiple sources. But you never know because one person comes out, says something, and then they all jump on the bandwagon. What I would say is that they're not doing Kolby any favors necessarily there with that one. Kolby coming off. Very disappointing fight to Leon. Disappointing fight. Come on, everyone knows that. He knows that. And the question is now, and maybe Kolby would spit in my face, theoretically, figuratively, what I'm about to say, but with him now losing three title fights and being 36, does he still have it? What I mean is, does he still have it? I mean, does he still have that fire? Does he still have that fire? Because you can look at those setbacks as motivation for the comeback and say, I'm still going to do this. But then they give him Shovcat Rachmaninov, who's arguably the next toughest fight in the whole the welterweight division.

Well, if he can beat Shovokat, why not give him another title shot? I agree. That's the Boogie man, right?

Could you imagine this shit? It's fucking wild. Could you imagine if Kobe went out and beat Shovokat Rachmaninov, who's 18 and 0, with 18 finishes, who was the next guy in line, you beat the man, you become the man.

I wouldn't be mad at that.

It's all there. It's all there for the take-in.

Dude, he has done such a good job of managing his brand to the point where my mom and my dad, who don't watch MMA at all, they hit me up to be like, Can you believe this Colby Covington guy got robbed because he's a Donald Trump fan? He's going on these Fox news shows, and he's telling these middle aids, these boomers, these people in the Midwest who don't watch MMA, that he was robbed his title because of his allegiance to Donald Trump. And these people are eating it up. People who've never watched a UFC fight might buy this next pay-per-view to support Colby Covington. He is a master of marketing.

He is spreading his Q-Anon theories, his theories to the Q and on massive. You know what I mean? Because you have actually got a good point because the majority of people watching Colby on Fox News have no idea what happened in the fight. They don't know that he never showed up. They don't know that he never pushed the pace or wasn't aggressive until the final round or whatever, where he had a little bit of success. They just said, Oh, yeah, that sounds about right. What's the word I'm looking for? He's getting punished because he's a Trump supporter, and they will fucking lap that shit up.

No, just like the left I talk about all the time, the right has just as much crazy madness around it. And their stuff is just fun, though. Their stuff is like, Here's some science fiction for you. Space lasers and, I don't know, a bunch of other weird shit. Clones.

Yeah. Hey, listen, I'll say this. If Kolby takes that fight, fair play to him, man. Fair play to him. And if Shavcat, one would think he beats Kolby based upon that last performance. Shaft cat has got to be next. Shaft cat has got to be next once Balal and Leon finally throw down. And I can't wait for that because Balal could stop going on about it for one minute.

Yeah, it'd be nice. Do Do you think that has a place? Dc was saying it doesn't belong at the very top of the card. But if Dana was to come out and be like, Hey, your main event is Izzy versus DDP, and your co-main is Balal versus Leon, plus the BMF title, plus the women's straw weight All China Championship. We got four belts on the line at UFC 300. I mean, that to me feels like it would hold similar weight to an out-of-the-box thing, like a Brock Lesner versus Tom Aspenal or even McGregor Dias III.

I'm still waiting for Brock Lesner to come back.

Listen, if you compare it to UFC 100, it brought Lesner and Frank Mir, George St. Pierre Tiago Alves, me versus Dan Henderson. Who else was on there? What were the other two? They were the three big ones, if you will. And then there was two other fights. Who was it?

John Fitch, Paul Tiago.

John Fitch, Paulo Tiago. Paulo Tiago. I know there was one young John Jones fighting a Stefan Bonner on UFC 100. If I do- On the prelims. John Jones was backstage. I think he might have been in my dressing room. It was like this little shit. He's never going to amount to anything.

When's the last time Jon Jones fought on an undercard? Is it a UFC 100?

It's got to be. Yeah, Oh, the other big one was Sexy Yamma versus Alan Belcher. Yeah, Sexy Yamma. Well, it's time for the end of the show when we're digging up old UFC 100 cards. Big thanks to Dean Ammeringer. And if you have a question for me, Harrington Bryant, Anthony, send it in to bympod@gmail. Com.

And if you're listening on Spotify, where you're on podcast, make subscribe to the show and you leave us a five-star rating positive view. It helps us out on all those platforms. If you're watching on YouTube, make sure to subscribe to the channel, and hit that notification bell to find out whenever a new video drops. And if you want to catch over 500 episodes, you can't find it anywhere else. Completely ad-free and totally uncensored. Hey, head to gastigital. Com. Use the promo code BYM. Get a seven-day pretrial. Check it over 20 great shows on the network.

Well. Oh, hey, Michael Bisbein. We got a question from O'Necada Cartwright.

Oh, this guy. Conor, how are you, Bisbein? How are you doing? Anyways, I'm wondering what some of your favorite TV shows are. I like Lost Me, South Park's a good one, and also Power. Have a good 'n' lads. Hey, hey, hey. Hey. Hey. Every TV shows. Oh, God, I feel like we've been here. Let me see. Do you know what? Again, it's been for the last few weeks now because it's long. We're doing Sopranos again. We're doing Sopranos. What else did we do? We watched a film recently. What was it called? Was it called? What was it called? Paul Giamatti, he's got, what's it called? The Leftovers. Have you seen that?

I think it's called The Holdovers. The Holdovers.

The Holdovers, yeah.

I just know it's nominated for all the Academy Awards. Larry David said it's his favorite Oscar movie, so I do want to check it out.

It's all right. It ended up good. I put it like this. It's good. Rebecca did toy with the idea of turning it off halfway through. It's just a slow burn, but it is very good with tremendous performances. Tv shows, I'm waiting for, what's it called? House of the Dragon to make its return, because House of the Dragon, the Game of Thrones prequel, the first season came out two years ago, and they said, The next one is not going to be up for two years, which is this year. Did you watch House of the Dragon, Harrington?

I tried the first episode, and I just couldn't get into it.

It's so good. It's ridiculously good. I will say it's better than Game of Thrones. It's fantastic. Wow.

That's big. All right, now you're giving a homework assignment to the Harrington household. You're going to make Alex sit through this after we put the baby to bed for the next week as well.

House of the Dragon is fantastic. Okay, it is. Anyway, sorry, can't I count? I can't really think of any shows because I'm watching bloody Sopranos. Hey, what else we got, Brian?

All right, we got one more high energy question here from Sterling.

What the fuck is going on, boys? We are back, baby. Sterling from Houston, DC, Texas.

I got two quick questions.

First one's for both of you.

If you could fight in any era from when the UFC started, Strike Force, Friar and Pride, now whenever, you could fight in any era, what era would it have been? And second question for both of you as well, what the fuck does the boy got to do to get you on the podcast, baby boys?

I sent you both the DM's. Let's go. How's it feeling to be a boy? My energy, you were not kidding, Brian. Thank you for the question. Any era, right, this is going to sound like a proper wanker thing to say, but I wouldn't change my era. I would not change my era at all. The era that I competed in, for me, yeah, I wouldn't change that because, listen, the sport's big now. There's more money in the sport. And of course, money is a big deciding factor. In the early days, it would have been Cool, but no money, no recognition. People called you cage fighters, no holds barred, and all the rest of it. They looked at you a little bit weird. When I came into it, you had superstars like Chuck Liddell, Tita Ortiz, George St. Pierre, Quintin Rampage Jackson and all these type of people. The sport was just penetrating into the mainstream. So there was still a cool vibe to it. You know what I mean? It was still underground, but it was big enough that you could earn some real money and change your life, which I did. Obviously, I didn't earn money like Chuck Liddell or people like that.

Conor McGregor, when he came along, he changed the face of the sport. But I got in at 2005. I got out at 2018. So, yeah, I liked that era. That's a pretty long era.

You got in after Gloves came in and before Calf-Cicks got there. So I think you nailed it, dude.

No, you're absolutely right. I say this all the time on commentaire. I've never taken a Calf-Cick, and I have no desire.

You see DC took from Alex P the other day or a couple of weeks ago?

Yeah, I did. Fog that. Do you know what made me think about that as well? Because A really good way to take somebody down without having to get your hands dirty. You know that someone's being a dick, someone's in your face, and you're a trained guy? Just a good fashioned leg kick, a good old fashioned leg kick, because they're not conditioned to it. They will on the floor and they will be howling in agony. So if anyone ever gets in my face and starts talking shit again, like some New Orleans punk bitch, they're going to get leg kicks going forward because I'm not luring myself to rolling around in the streets with them, but I will leg kick them. But then that got me thinking, I haven't taken a leg kick in quite some time, and you lose the conditioning. Do you know what I mean? I'm like, I don't think I like getting kicked in the leg either.

You probably wouldn't like kicking somebody in the leg, to be honest.

Oh, no, I still kick the bag. My shins are still like steel. I still got the titanium shin bones. Any era, Brian, what would you compete in?

You have the best one. You have gloves, and it wasn't Cash Click. Yeah.

Calf-kicks. Cash-clicks.

Cash-clicks. I don't know.

Having done.

Bro, if I could pick any time, I would say, Enter me into next year's Road to the UFC 3 women's tournament, and maybe I won't get murdered.

Identifies as Yeah, he identifies as an Asian woman.

So I was going to ask you, the first thing that pops up- You want to come...

You just said...

He identifies as a 145 pound Asian woman, Mike. Yeah.

He's Kayla Harrison's next opponent.

Yeah, that's me. She will destroy me.

Oh, she's so good.

What I was going to say when I heard this question was I would assume you would say either Pride's heyday or debut about a year before USADA came into effect? Because those are two different... You always talk about wanting to go to Japan, so I figured that would be... And pride seemed really cool. But I always wonder what your career would have been like if you were just starting to get buzz when every Everybody started getting tested and it was a level playing field. Because I think at that point, put you at your prime in 2017, 2018, you might hold on to that belt for half a decade.

I find it hard to disagree with you. No, that's very you to say, Harrington. I appreciate that. But yeah, listen, pride back in the day. Pride back in the day. I mean, that was wild. That was when I first started. Oh, man, I remember. I'd never seen MMA before. I just got told about it. There was a way to make money. I was like, All right, I guess I'm going to be a part of an MMA fire. Then I started watching Pride, and I thought, This is the craziest thing I've ever seen in my life. The huge, massive arenas, the crazy walk house, the lasers, that woman screaming the names, the fights themselves, Wanderler, Silver, Shogun in his prime, Rampage, all those guys. Mugrera, Fedor, Crowcop, Soccer kicks, Footstops, all the crazy Japanese fighters. I mean, that was amazing. It was amazing. It really was. It really was. And I guess on that note, that's where we're going to end this episode of the podcast. We'll be back on Monday with a roundup of the Weekend's Action with, of course, Lionhardt Anthony Smith. Enjoy your weekends. See you on Monday.