You're listening to the Gas Digital Network.

Conceive, believe, achieve. Shut the f up.

You're listening to believe you me with Michael the Count Bisbing. You know my name yet? And Anthony Lionhardt-Smith.

We rise. That's it. Brian has officially pressed record. Anthony, you are in Denver, Colorado?

I am, yeah.

I am home. I was just in Atlantic City. Have you ever been to Atlantic City?

Unfortunately.

Listen, people live there. People live there, and I'm sure you have a great, happy life. But I got to say, it's not the best place to visit. No events.

No. I was there for a M1 global event. You remember when M1 was around? I cornered a couple of friends in that event. Listen, the people are great. I don't mean anything bad towards the people. Place is a shit hole, though. I fought there one time, too, actually. Actually, I forgot, I fought there one time, too.

Seemed a lot of people on the card started their careers there, like Chris Wyman, and we'll get into all that stuff. So I went for a walk. I was saying recently, we're obsessed with steps, got to get enough steps in. So I'm like, I am a work. I went for a walk. I'm walking down the boardwalk, which is... I don't know why I did that. It's just a bunch of tacky shops, fake knockoff gear, and the ocean right there, weird people. I saw, talking of getting steps in, here's the thing that they do on Atlantic City. People, in some cities, you can sit in the back of a taxi, but the guy wheels on a bike. They have those, but it's just a guy pushing them along in a I was like, You're a scooter. People push them. I was walking faster. I'm like, You lazy bastids. Get out of war.

That's America. That's America, it's the finest right there.

America is the finest. I put a little picture on as I was walking I said, a beautiful Atlantic City. And a lot of people just did not get the sarcasm. They're like, What do you mean? That's not beautiful.

I'm like, Yeah, look at the picture. There's nine dead hookers in it.

This is Atlantic City. Yeah, the driver said to me, he said, Do not go wondering around late at night. You're going to get stabbed. I almost got stabbed in the hotel, I reckon, because there were some pretty ghetto people. There was a lot of drunk, rowdy types hanging around that hotel.

I'm disappointed I missed it. I feel like we could have tore up Atlantic Atlantic City.

No, it was a good time. I'm just kidding. If you're Atlantic Cityan, I am not insulting your home. Anyway, good night of fights, though. Good night of fights. We'll start with Chris Wyman? Because that, for me, was the biggest story. Wyman, obviously, coming back after another extended layoff, breaks his leg against Wyman, fractures his other leg against- Brad Tavares. Brad Tavares. Thank you very much. I thought he looked good. He had a good fight. He showed up. I spoke to Ray Longo afterwards. He said he fought. That's the main thing that he liked, and he's right. He did. He turned up. He had a good game plan. Blindado obviously connected him and wobbled him once or twice, but It's a fight, and he's a powerful striker. Well done to him. He got back in winning ways against the guy that gave Pereira a good fight, who was the middleweight champ. But the eyepokes. There was a A lot of eyepokes.

Yeah. I don't think anyone out there is saying that Chris Weyand was doing it on purpose. I don't believe that for a second, but you got to feel for Bruno Silva a little bit. And he was losing the fight. He was down two rounds. But the way that Bruno fights, Chris doesn't back up a whole lot. So that Bruno fighting in blitzes and forward pressure.

We just saw that was a one, two eye pokes. It was a one, two.

Listen, Chris is a friend of mine. That's hard to defend, but- No, I'm not talking shit.

Things happen.

Oh, I know. But to anyone listening, they're going to be like, Well, how's he going to spin this one? It's tough. I can't.

It was a one, two, eye pop.

Right now, the eye pop.

But he was winning the rest of the fight before that.

Well, I think Hamilton said, Hamilton was the four eye, but I'm not talking shit. Well done to Chris Wyman. Got a good win. He was winning the fight. He looked good. Obviously, it was a finish, but it was a one, two eye pop, so they overturned it because initially it was a TKL. When I walked in, they announced it as a TKL. Obviously, they reviewed the tape or whatever, so then they've changed it to a decision win because they scored round one, round two, and then they scored as much of round three up until that point happening. I'm not sure if I've ever seen that before, if I'm totally honest. Judging it like that, I agree. Wyman clearly won the fight. Do you know who I feel for? Who? Well, not Blin Dardot, who was blinded. That's his nickname, by the way. Anyone that bet money on Chris Wyman to win by knockout in round three, they hit that ticket. They're like, Fucking, come on. And then two hours later, they're like, No, overturn, baby.

No unanimous decision, actually. Man, I think I've said this on here before, but I'll say it again. I've trained with Chris a lot, and still to this day, skill for skill, he's the best fighter I've ever trained with. His jiu-jitsu, he doesn't grapple like a wrestler. He's a really a legitimate high-level black belt jiu-jitsu guy, really great wrestler. He's really hard to hit in practice. He fights and looks a little more like Wonderboy, to be honest with you. It's hard to get to. He kicks a lot. So I just wish that Weidman would show up. And But I don't think even doing the research and breaking down his fights, I've never seen the Weidman that I see in the gym. I've never seen in a fight.

Yeah, that's always the way that was in it, sadly. Wideman was talking about, obviously, he fractured his leg last time and he had the broken leg facing his fears. So that's why he went out there. He threw nothing but kicks in the first two minutes of that fight, body kicks, head kicks, leg kicks, you name it. He was throwing. Yeah, testing it out, testing the waters, so to speak. You said that he called you after the fight. Can you share any of that conversation, or is it private stuff? Yeah.

He was really excited, but he also understood. Listen, I get it. There were some eye pokes, and there was some shit that happened. He was like, But I'm just doing the best I can in the moment. It's not on purpose. I just fought the way that he reacted. He looked hurt, and I went down for the finish. Other than not poking him the eye, there's nothing he can do there. I poked happen. It's part of the sport. I think the bigger conversation is the gloves. And this is the one thing. I don't really go against the UFC too much, and that's not because of my job or my position. It's because I just agree with most of the shit, to be honest. But the gloves, we got to do something about the gloves. We got to do something about it. It's been the same gloves forever with technology and where the world is. And there's too many smart people that work for the UFC to not get that fixed.

Yeah. No, I agree. Because something does need to change because- Well, think about bare-knuckle.

You almost never see eye pokes on bare-knuckle. It almost never happens. Wow.

That's actually a good point.

It's possible. And even in other organizations- Hold on.

How many bare-knuckle events? To be about UFC events. How many fights on the night? So I think the chance of Having more eye pokes in the UFC, of course. But it was a bad one Saturday night, but it is unfortunate. I don't truly believe, because I know people talk about John Jones saying this. I find it just it goes against everything I I think that a fighter is for somebody to purposely poke somebody in the eye. I just cannot imagine having that thought process and going, Right, do you know what I'm going to do? Rather than land a really good potentially knockout blow, I'm going to poke them in the eye. Like Crystal Stone in one, two. For whatever reason, the fingers were out. They were out a lot. They shouldn't have been, but it wasn't on purpose. There was no way that was a conscious decision where I'm going to go, rather than bang, bang, and knock you out. You know what I'm saying?

Even Even when I fought John, the eye pokes was a big issue leading into the fight. We brought it up to the referee before the fight. But I never once thought that John does it on purpose. It's just the way that he fights. He's checking his distance. He's got these long-ass arms. He's trying to do his thing, and you just run into him. But to be fair, when you're in front of John and his hands are out and they got his fingers in your face, it's a problem because you know you're going to run into one. So you're trying to move your head outside of it. I don't think it's on purpose. It's just how he defends forward pressure.

Well, for Chris, Saturday night, the fingers wear out a lot, right? And again, I'm not talking shit because you're in the moment, you're in the middle of the fight, and if that's how you're used to operating in sparring or whatever, that's how you're going to be. The rule is it can't be like that. It's got to be like that. I find that to be an absolutely ridiculous rule, if I'm honest. They've got to change that. How stupid. So the finger can be like that. Can't have it like that for obvious reasons, but it can be like that. It only takes a split second to do that. Do you know what I mean? If someone's coming in to do that, that's a stupid rule. The rule should be almost clenched. You don't have to have it clenched tight, but that all the time. None of this shit. What the fuck? This is the dumbest rule ever. And Gary Copeland, the referee, wasn't even really saying anything about that.

And that creates a problem before the eye poke even happens, because as the opponent, you can see the fingers are pointed at you. So if you want to blitz and come moving forward, you know there's a good chance you're going to get poked in the eye. And to the fighter's defense, when your hands are up like this and you think someone's going to shoot, your hands immediately go down like you're going to defend the takedown. If they don't, they're going to run right into a finger. It's tough. I don't know what the answer is. I think that a good start would be some different gloves that caught, that at least curved your hand a little more because the way the gloves are now, they do force them open. I remember back in the day, in between UFC stands, I fought in Bellator. And back then Bellator had a different glove than they use now. But it does slightly, or at least that older glove, slightly curved your hand just a little bit. And I don't know why that wasn't more broadly picked up by other organizations.

I am listening, and I'm not being disrespectful. I'm I'm looking at Justin Gage's tweet because Justin Gage's tweet about it. He said, Too bad, UFC don't want to change their shit gloves. And I think they are in the process of working on it, trying to figure out a deal. I think so, too. Yeah, I think they're working on it, but that was a shame. Anyway, stick on the positives. Good performance for Chris Wyman. He got back in the wing column. There was a possibility that he was going to retire Saturday night if he didn't get the job done. And if he had it done, I would have said that was a right decision. 39 years old. He's won the belt. He's been to the top of the mountains, done incredible things. But you just said he's still performing in the gym. He looks good Saturday night. What do you think is next for Wyman? Do you think he can climb that ladder at middleweight? And I guess the top, top guy Guys?

Well, like I said, skill for skill. I don't have any doubt that he can compete with the top guys in the world. The problem with Wyman is it's the same problem you had, I'm sure, at one point. It's the same problem I had. Just staying healthy long enough to put a run together. Weather. You can only beat on these old bodies for so long before. And he's already had a lot of injuries. He's had a lot of surgeries. He's a regular at the orthopedic place. He probably had more surgeries than you and I combined. It's crazy how many surgeries that guy's had.

I'll take that Pepsi challenge, bro.

It's up there. I don't remember exactly what the number was.

He said 30.

Yeah, well, maybe not you and I combined them. But either way, that's a shit ton of surgeries. And it just wears He was a high level wrestler. He was an all-American. He fought, and he's been in some wars. He's had catastrophic injuries that he shouldn't have been able to make it back from. So I think that's the question. Skill for skill. I think he can compete with everybody in that division up to the very top. But it's just, can he stay healthy enough to put a run together?

Well, I would like to see him get a high-profile match up next because given the pedigree, given the history, given what he's done for the sport, he certainly deserves it. So I'm just looking at the rankings.

With injuries, too. Even if you think about as you're looking at the rankings, even if you think about just his injuries and him trying to stay healthy, even slow rolling him through the bottom of the rankings is dangerous because that's just more opportunities to get hurt. That's more training camps. If you can get him a big name halfway up, maybe fast- Even Sean Strickland.

Sean Strickland, Chris Wyman, the All-American against Here's the thing, guys, American. Do it.

That's probably a really good fight.

That's That's a good fight. That's a good match.

That's a really good fight. I like it. I like it, though. I didn't think about that.

Chris Wyman, Sean Strickland.

Let's go. I'm going to text him right now.

Oh, he should start calling him out. Right. Strickland said last week, if he doesn't get a title shot, he's retiring, he's quitting. He's throwing his toys out the pram. He's spitting out the dummy, and he's going to go box. Anyway, so that was Chris Wyman. Well done to him. Talking of weird finishes, who was he? Who was it? Andre Petrowski. Yeah, where was that? Who did he fight? Andre Petrowski versus... Oh, Jacob Malcun. Jacob Malcun. Malcun is having a great fight using that jab, wobbled him a few times. Petrowski lands a few shots, goes for the first shot in terms of takedowns, and falls on the floor, and then a mean, mean body kick. And we will commentate and we're like, What just happened?

Yeah, why did he go down?

I think he headbutted his hipbone.

Really? Yeah. Have you never done that? Yeah, I have. I watched it a couple of times and I missed it. I just kept like, What? He shoots and then he fades away out of view. It was weird.

The hipbone is a big bone. I've done that in training myself, and I'm not a vessel that shoots him with that force. You know what I'm saying? You'd be surprised. A big bony hip, you hit that hard enough, the fire stands on the ground. Yeah, a wild finish.

A wild finish on the brick wall.

Manon Fior got the job done, beat Erin Blanchfield. What do you think? She looked great. She looked fantastic. I would have liked to have seen Manon be the aggressor as the fight progressed. But to be fair, if it ain't Brog, don't fix it. She's clearly winning. Blanchfield never really had an answer. She needed to change up the strategy. She was just trying to run in with not the best punches to try and engage She's in a clinch scenario, but it wasn't working. So I think that proves. She's still got a bit of work to do grappling-wise, phenomenal. She's really good, world-class, but she's got to work on the striking, I think, and just get a better understanding on how to close the distance, cut off the cage, and create those entries, use a lot of feints, jabs, stuff like that. Didn't see any of that, really. A man on the floor. She's next for a tile shot, 100 %.

Yeah, I would like to see a little bit more out of her. And I don't mean she doesn't have the skills. I'd like to see her be willing to open up a little more and maybe take some chances. I think she's going to get a whole lot more love and get that rub a little bit more. If she does take some chances, a little bit more offensive, pushes the action a little bit. But like you said, is she so good at how she's doing it? Why would you change it?

Yeah, she's now 13 and one or something. She's a strong man as well, because Blanchfield, anytime she got hold of it, she just threw her off with total disregard. Like, get the shit off of me. What are you doing? Are you trying to take me down?

She still manhandles people. When she grabs these other girls in the division, it's different. So for men on to just, for lack I have a better term, big boy her. It just gets me off of me.

Careful, do not misgender her. Big girl her. Big girl her.

Well, now we're talking about she's not that big. Regular size her.

I said this the other day on the broadcast. There were some big girls at the pool in Atlantic City. I'll tell you that. I was on the treadmill, and it was the best. In terms of people watching, time killing, because when you're on a treadmill, it's soul-destroying. You know what I mean? But the gym had a big, massive glass wall that just looked at the pool. And the pool on Saturday at the Harris Casino in Atlantic City, they got a big, huge indoor pool because I'm assuming the weather sucks, right? And it's all done up like a Vegas-style pool, but it's indoors. I saw there's a DJ on. Everyone's partying like crazy, right? And I'm just on the treadmill just watching it all. It was brilliant. I could have done a marathon on that treadmill. Do you know what I mean? And there were some big old boys and girls. It's Scantily clad, shaking their chimie. They did not give a shit. I was like, Hey, fair play. They got some real body confidence.

So Atlantic City has got some big old women. That's what you're saying.

Beautiful. And some big old boys.. Big old boys.

Big girls find big boys.

There you go. There was a lot of bigness going on. Why did it bring that up? Because Wakeem Buckley was at the pool. So I went for a massage. No, not for a massage. Went to use the sauna and stuff. As I was leaving, and I was just paying the woman, she says, So what's going on? There's a bunch of fighters here. So I'll quickly explain. Yeah, there's a UFC event. She goes, Yeah, I think one of the fighters is at the pool right now. I said, No, he's not. They went, No, I think he is. I said, Trust me, the fighters, this is like three o'clock in the afternoon, about four, actually. I said, The fighters are not at the pool. On Saturday, I said, The fighters are not at the pool. She was not. I'm pretty sure that's one. I said, No, trust me. That might be like some of the team or whatever. The fighters are not at the pool. Brian, if you can pull it up off Wakeem Buckley's Instagram because it was on there. He was at the pool. He was putting on a show for the people. He was hitting pads.

He was getting all the crowd, everyone in the pool all revved up. And speaking of Wakeem Buckley, he will be joining the show very shortly. We also have the victorious Nate Landoy. He We'll be joining the show as well. Congrats to everyone at Atlantic City. I'm going to ask you this, Anthony. Tell me this. I've lost it in the bloody thing. I've got it. 6% of Americans think that they could defeat a grizzly bear in a fight. Is that right, Hamilton? Do I have this correct? 6% of people.

Yes. So they interviewed, I think it was a thousand Americans, and they gave them a list of different animals. So I think it was like, 81% think they could beat a goose in a fight, 73% say they could beat a rat in a fight. And it goes on down the list. There was a shocking number. I believe it was like 9% said they could beat a silverback gorilla.

Hold on a minute. What % could beat a rat? 73?

It was 73 or 74. It was less than a goose.

I want to know who the 27% are that say they cannot defeat a rat in a fight.

We're not talking about master splinter here. We're talking about regular ass rats, right?

You just stamp on it. Just stamp on it. It's a rat. It doesn't know ju-jitsu.

I can't believe that's not 100 %.

It can't overpower you. Listen- You run up your neck and maybe middle on your neck, you just grab it and throw it off.

More people, according to Harrington, more people were... They were more confident that they could be a goose than a rat. And I think that should be the other... Have you ever seen an angry goose? If you're not a very big person, a goose might pick you up.

Well, they always said, they'll break your arm as well. That was what people said when we were kids. They'll break your arm, they'll goose up. I'll be honest.

Yeah, there's not a goose walking the planet right now. They would take a round off me.

How are you going to choke out a goose, though?

You just grab it's head and you just whip it around.

Throw it around. So a grizzly bear, listen, if you're on that 6% list, you're out of your goddamn mind.

Okay, a grizzly bear will listen. We're going to do this We're going to tear your head off.

We are going to do this again.

We're going to do this again. What are we going to do? Who wins in a fight? A grizzly bear or a silverback gorilla? Well, 8% of people think they can beat a silverback gorilla, by the way.

For crying out loud. All right, today's episode is sponsored by 8 Sleep, which is the mattress cover that will change your life. Listen, we love 8 Sleep in this house. Rebecca never stops going on about it. Obviously, it's a mattress cover. You can control the temperature of the bed. One side goes as low as 55 degrees, the other side goes as high as 110 degrees. So you get the perfect temperature. You ain't going to be tossing and turning. And it adjusts the sleep temperature throughout the night. The body needs to cool down in the night and then gradually get warmer as you wake. The algorithm or the program, the software, that take care of all of that stuff. Also, there's an app that lets you track all of your sleep. You can see how much I am, how much deep sleep. It even tracks your heart rate whilst you were asleep. So there's a lot of science there. And Rebecca is studying that stuff constantly and driving me up the wall. I'm joking, of course. I love this thing, and it's having me sleep like a baby. I have never, ever slept better. As I said, the cover just slips off your mattress.

You can automatically adjust the bed temperature based on your individual needs. The cover is fitted like any sheet, and it allows you and your partner to be as warm or as cool as you like. So as I said, it's a great thing you're going to sleep better. It's going to eliminate those silly arguments that you have. In addition to keeping you at the perfect temperature all night, as I say, it tracks your sleep and your health metrics. And on average, pod users see their sleep quality improve by 32% after just one month on the pod. So you're going to love this. It's a tremendous product. I really stand by this, and there is no better way to improve your day than better sleep. And the easiest way to do that is with the 8 Sleeps pod 3. Start the new year right and invest in the rest that you deserve with the 8 Sleep pod cover. Right now, go to 8sleep. Com/bisping. You're going to get $200 off and free shipping. So it's a very, very sizable reduction. 8sleep. Com/bisping to get $200 off and free shipping. 8 Sleep, you're going to love this. Check this out.

This is a good segue. George St. Pierre, probably the greatest mixed martial artist of all time, shit his pants when he was confronted he was faced with a live gorilla in Rwanda in the wild. He was absolutely terrified. He was talking on a podcast recently. Harrington, just give us a quick quote, please, buddy. What did he say?

He said, I actually got chased by a Silverback gorilla. I was in Rwanda. I did guerrilla trekking, and we had a guide with us. He followed the same family of gorillas every day, and he told us the rules. If a gorilla looks at you, a Silverback, don't look at him. Don't eat in front of him. Don't Don't take flash photography. And if he comes towards you, don't run away. Just get out of the way and make yourself in a submissive pose. And that's what happened. He looked at me, he went toward me. I get out of the way. I put my knees on the floor like this, and I was like, please, please. When you see a gorilla on TV and when you see one live, it's very different. I could see his muscle definition through his fur.

I could see the muscle definition and the fur and the silverback. You got to do it in the accent, He looked under his arm and the guy gave me the hand to rescue me, but it was just a test.

He told me the reason why the gorilla turned his back to me, it was because he wanted to show me how much of not a threat I am to him. I'm going to give you my most vulnerable position and show you that you can do nothing. It's very, very smart.

That's actually a pretty good GSP. Now, piss off, because the first time you came, you looked like you were in prison. That time when you came to his house and you looked like you were coming from the Red Light district He's in Amsterdam. I don't want to have you back on next time. I don't know what that's going to be. You're going to be naked. Shows the back to say, Hey, I don't give a shit. That is guys.

If he shows that back, I'm going to take it.

Are you going to take it? You take the back of a silver Okay, so this is funny.

I have this ongoing thing with me and my group of friends where I think elk are pretty big animals. And I've always said, If I could get the back of a wild Colorado elk, I think I could put it out.

I think. No way. No way. I think I could. I think so. No, you couldn't. No, you couldn't. And you definitely couldn't choke out a silverback gorilla.

I mean, if you- Yeah, okay.

97% or 98% human, similar structure. They have necks and heads, all the same build. The amount of muscle, no way. And it would just wrap you off. Look at that. Trying to choke out one of those elks, you will not be able to provide I had enough pressure for that to even give a shit.

I couldn't get on its back. But if we could get it to sit down and let me climb up there, get this body triangle around the bottom part of his neck, I could get right up under the jaw, lock that motherfucker in. I think I could put him out.

I think you're out of your mind. There's no way. I'm sorry. I know. I get it.

You've got full-stake of. I need the believers to back me up on this. You're in fight mode.

I get it. You're in fight mode. No, no, no. I'm I'm going to take you.

This thing going off for me.

I will choke out a son of a gorilla.

No man alive.

Definitely not a gorilla. An elk for sure. I'll put a... I could put an elk out. I'm telling you.

What's the toughest animal that you could take? I'll tell you what, I had this conversation.

This is a small female you could probably take. I'll have to bring that thing up.

Anthony Smith choking out female elk because he can't take out a male. That's the headline tomorrow. You couldn't even take a German shepherd.

What?

I'm telling you, because when I was a kid, I had a conversation with this- I would rather fight an elk, to be fair. A German shepherd, an attack, trained German shepherd, rabid with rabies, hungry, hasn't eaten in a day.

Why is he going to have rabies?

I don't know. Just to make it better. It's just wild. Because I was arguing with this person. I'm like, Listen, all you're going to do is grab the two foot legs and pull it apart, rip the heart apart. That's an old bullshit with old wife's tale. That wouldn't work. It's like, You are out of your mind. It get to your throat in no time.

I had a personal protection Malinois for a while. And that thing was, he was much smaller than a German Shepherd, similar breed, but he was every bit of 60 pounds, and he was an absolute monster. The guys would put on those big-ass bite suits, and he would ragdoll 300-pound men. It was crazy.

Belgium, Malamois. Yeah, it's a pretty big dog. Well, you couldn't beat a silverback.

I'll give you- I'm telling you, I'm still going to ten-eight this goose. The next Goose I see, it's going to be a 10-8 round.

I'll give you a silly goose. You can do a silly goose. What's the most masculine animal I think Anthony Smith could choke out?

Probably- A chimpanzee.

Forget about a silverback. A chimpanzee will- Well, Bryce Mitchell killed a deer with his bare hands, so it's got to be at least the white-tailed deer. Yeah, but that's a little Bambi.

I was thinking- There's not a bird that'll stand up to Anthony Smith. I don't know. One time, I was at the zoo with my family, and there was a male ostrage and a female ostrich, and this male ostrich was just doing dirty things with this female one, and it was violent and scary.

Could you take a cassawari? You know what that is?

I have no idea That's what that is.

That's the biggest, most dangerous bird on the planet, if I'm not mistaken. Is that with the big and huge beaks? Oh, no, no, no. What is that called? No, it's not.

Yeah, those things are creepy. The massive bills, you're right.

What are those big birds, Brian? They got the big, weird, crazy birds. They look like dinosaurs, and all birds are descendy from dinosaurs, of course. But this thing, you see in Africa- They're like they claque their bills, right?

Yeah.

They're cold and they're They're gigantic.

They're fucking huge.

They're huge. That is not it, Harrington. That is not it. Anyway, whatever. We don't care. They're massive. They're big birds.

I love these conversations.

Yeah, no, I know you do. You got 20 minutes to kill.

I'll punch that thing right in its face.

What's that? Oh, yeah. Go back. Show me that again. I was looking at the notes.

I'll punch that thing right in its face.

That's disgusting. Do you think you could take one of them?

I don't I don't know. I tell you, you have to throw a bunch of head kicks so you're not going to get too close.

They're about five foot tall as well, I think. They're big. They're gigantic.

They're like, That shouldn't exist. My wife hates her.

I'm damn terrified. I'm just trying to think, is there any other notable things on Saturday? We got Buckley joining us shortly. We've got Nate Landware.

I think those four are probably the Nate, Buckley, Wyman, and then the main event. I think those are the four bigger story lines that came out of it.

So they announced UFC 302, which is going to be New Jersey. You're fighting at UFC 301. Is there still any word, Anthony, that you know of a main event for 301?

No, I think they're really waiting on Pereira because he's being very serious about turning around quickly. So I think they're waiting on that, I'd imagine.

Yeah, we had Jamal on on Thursday.

What did he say? I know. I didn't watch it. How's he? Is he out of that? When Jamal is getting ready to fight, when he's not in training camp, he's like super lazer days. He's like, Yeah, whatever. But when he's in camp, he's super intense.

Yeah, no, he was chill to start. He was short with the answers, but then he warmed up as we went along. He ripped the top off. He gave us a little low down on what he was looking like. I'll be honest, I was expected a little more, but he said, Look at this. He's big. He did look big. The belly was still there, but I guess he never looks like a-Yeah, he's not a six-pack guy. He's not a six-pack guy. Are you going to be a six-pack guy by UFC 300, Anthony? I am.

I think so. I'm excited about it, too. I get real self-conscious about it, Mike.

Oh, right?

Oh, yeah? Yeah. Just as I'm getting older, I think my metabolism is slowing down, and I just put on weight faster, and it all goes to my belly, and it pisses me off. And so I'm starting to see I'm leaning out, and I look in the mirror in the morning. I'm like, All right, we're getting there. We're getting there.

Yeah. No, I know what you mean. I've got my first ever lead role in an acting in a film coming up this summer. No shit. Yeah. So I'm pretty excited about that. What's the movie? I can't say yet. You know what I mean? The contract is just.

I was trying to trick you.

Yeah, I'm so excited about it. It's a really good script. But of course, I got to have my shirt off a lot. Do you know what I mean? I was like, Oh, I've got loads of time. I was like, March, April, and then I was like, No, we're in April. April, May, June, July. That's four months. And I'm like, Well, why don't I just start now? Do you know what I mean? So I can gradually get it down. So I'm on a diet, operation slim down. How's it? Be good.

Yeah, it bothers me. When I'm a little heavier in the summer and I'm at the pool or something, I'm like, No, we got to do something about this.

All right, Harrington, show yourself, please, my friend. What's it going to look like this time? Oh, he's in a different room again. Do we have sound? Do we have sound?

Do we?

We do now. All right, there we go.

Why are you moving around?

Why are you moving around? A bunch of reasons.

Give us the biggest MMA story right now that we should give our focus to.

Okay, well, during the UFC Atlantic City broadcast, they announced that UFC 302 is going to be in Newark. A couple of fights were announced for that card, including Roman Dalize versus Anthony Hernandez, your boy, Basel Hapa, by my boy Mickey Gaal. But the rumor at the top of the card is that it's going to be Islam Mahatcha versus Dustin Poirier. Nothing confirmed. Really? That is a strong rumor going around the internet.

Where did that rumor come from? Did Ali Abdelaziz? A bunch of different places.

But most people are banking on the fact that Islam said that he plans on making his return at the very beginning of June, and this fight does take place on June first. Yeah.

And then June eighth, obviously, is UFC Saudi Arabia, Hamza al-Chimayab versus Robert Whittaker. I'm surprised that they didn't have Islam on there, but June first, he wants to make a quick turnaround. I'd said it at the time, Justin Gagey said that I had CTE and said that I'm talking ballocks on Twitter. If this comes true, I'm not saying I'm going to revel. I was just saying it made all the sense in the world at that time because Gagey is fighting Max Holloway. If that is true, and it's a rumor, nothing is confirmed, I think it does make sense right now because Gagey is fighting Holloway. We don't know how that's going to go. Poey, I think, over that last win, he's always been a fan favorite, but he reminded the world of what a bad motherfucker he is. And I would love to see that fight.

Yeah. I'm really surprised that Gagey took the Holloway fight to begin with because he's always, or not always, but recently, he's always talking about, I want to fight forward. I want the title. I'm not doing anything else. I want the title. With Islam having no matchup right now and not had one for a while, him coming off the knockout of Dustin Poirier, you think if he didn't have this matchup right now, he'd be matched up with Islam.

Yeah. I mean, it's hard to disagree with that logic.

I guess- But the paycheck is probably nice. The opportunity to fight on UFC 300 is big. Being able to have the opportunity to have a scalp like Max Holloway's on your mental, per se, is a big deal. So maybe he just thinks I'll go in there, I'll be Max Holloway, and then I'll still fight for the title anyways. That's the route that Dustin Poirier took. Instead of going for the title fight, he chose to fight Connor. Got to weigh the opportunities there.

Yeah. Listen, you can slice it up in many different ways. The reality is, he's fighting Max Holloway next week Yeah, he could maybe goes in and smokes him and they give him a title shot. So maybe. I mean, what is that? April 13th, 20th, 27th, two and a half weeks, May. Still that seven, eight weeks. It's still about seven, eight weeks. You never know. It It wouldn't be Justin Gagey. Maybe the weight, maybe the weight to see what happens because it's only next week. We haven't talked about that fight, Max Holloway and Justin Gagey. Obviously, I think a lot of people are dismissing the threat of Max Holloway in that fight just because Gagey has been so effective, the knockout of Poeya, the way he beat Fazeev, being the bigger guy. But what do you think about that fight, Holloway and Gagey?

If you look at common opponents, I didn't necessarily like Max Holloway. I 155. And I don't think that... It's not that he can't be successful at 155. It's the current class of guys that are at the top right now that are the problem. Max Holloway is not a power puncher. He's just not. He's He's a volume guy. It's death by a thousand cuts.

Paper cuts?

No, big cuts.

Max Holloway has punches to the equivalent of a paper cut. Yeah, there is. That is a nasty thing to say, Anthony. I know. God damn it.

I just don't know that he possesses the power to back off the heavy boxers that are at the top of that division. We've seen it with Dustin Poirier. Poirier waded through the punches and just unloaded on him. And to Max's credit, he's got an incredible chin, and he stuck in there the whole time. But Dustin Poirier and Gaiji are similar fighters. They're opposite stances, but they're heavy-handed boxers that have really great leg kicks with good wrestling. They're very similar to each other. So I think that those two guys are very competitive with each other, and Max Holloway wasn't very competitive with Dustin Poirier. Will it be different? I don't know, but I don't know that he's got the power to back off Justin Gagey. If you don't show some threat that you can hurt him, put him out, take him down something, I don't know how you get Justin Gagey to take a backward step.

Correct. I agree with everything that you said. But as we always know, we always speak about people... I had a reputation. People called me Pillowhands for a long time, and I'm like, What are you talking about? I can definitely bloody crack. I know for a fact, but people used to call me Pillowhands, and I'm sure people had that assumption. Don't tell me, Max Holloway, if he stands his ground and swings hard, we know he can deliver a decent punch. Has he got the power of a Justin Gagey? Probably not. Has he got more power than the average man in the street? One, A hundred %. And I think when you look at Max Holloway, I think size-wise, there's nothing in it. I think you split it as they're similar height. They've got similar reaches. Max is maybe a bit faster, might even be more technical on the feet.

And Maybe better cardio.

Maybe better cardio. Has it got to cut to 145, hasn't going to really cut much at 155.

I think it comes down to approach. I'm not saying he can't knock anybody out. That's just not his style. And I think that was your... I think you were a volume-heavy, really long combination striker. It's hard to sit down and try to knock everyone out with every single one of those punches when you're trying to be fast, slip a punch, hit an angle with your feet. That's just how Max's style is. So if he starts to fight in a way where he wants to try to hurt people, I don't think he's as good. I think his best qualities are the way that he fights normally. I just think that every once in a while, you got to sit down on one of those sum bitches and back someone off. And if he doesn't do that, it'd be tough.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. Because with my style, I started off being a power puncher. And then when I got to the UFC, I mean, all my stoppages pre-UFC were in the first round. First few in the UFC were first round, I think, as well. Then I started getting taken down of wrest and held down. Richard Evans was my first loss. And then subconsciously, I developed this style where I was so light on my feet and moving around because the threat of the takedown dominated my thoughts because I thought, I'm good enough to compete on the fucking feet. I just don't want to get taken down by that. Ncaa division one all-star wrestling.

These goddamn pussies.

I don't want to fight. Speaking of which, I saw Tim Kennedy doing a little post today. He was talking. I saw him on Instagram. I woke up this morning, I'm having my coffee, I'm scrolling Instagram, and I see Tim Kennedy sitting there basically saying what a badass he is. Okay, nothing new there. I had fights and people were like, What is wrong with you? Because I I would be about to walk out for my fight and I'd be saying, What are we doing for dinner afterwards? Are we going to go for sushi? And my coaches were like, Oh, dude, can you just focus on the fight? Never mind that. What are you talking about? I've fought in wars. I've been through blood baths. This is nothing to me. I I went out there and had a five-round with Michael Bishman, beat the living daylight side of him. Then afterwards, I was like, Where are we going? I hope we go somewhere with that real wasabi. I'm like, Number one, didn't beat the brakes off me. It was a very close fight. I just had two years on the sidelines because I had to detach my retina.

Was told by the doctors, I'm going to get my heart rate up, and then took a fight six weeks later when it got cleared, and it was a close fight, and you held me down, you were a really fat piece of shit. You know what I mean? And he's like, Oh, my heart rate is already down to 55 BPM, bro. We know, we get You're a badass. You were in the military. I've seen this.

I've seen this thing. I didn't see that part of it, but I did see him talking about why he retired, essentially, was the fight with Yohel. And there was this Every time I see Tim Kennedy talk about anything that has to do with MMA, he's always a Michael Bisbein dig in there somewhere. Something that has nothing to do with you. He'll just dig that in there. He said, Well, yeah. I was fighting Yoel Romero, and I'm the winner of this is going to get a title shot. My last win, I had just beat the breaks off of Michael Bisbein, and he's got the title now. And I was like, What does that have to do with it? Why does that have to do with the story?

Fair play to him. He beat me fair and square. What were we saying, though? We were talking about Max Holloway. Was it Max Hollowway?

Yeah. You never know.

He might have an approach, a game plan, a strategy.

I'm not saying he can't win either. I don't want to get out there. He might go in there.

I think it'll be an entertaining fight. I do favor Gagey for obvious reasons, but I think it would be a good one. I'm not sure if Gagey could choke out an elk, though. Really, really.

Not with those lightweight arms.

It's a little bit slim on MMA news this week, but Jack Delamandalaina did say that he had a broken arm. Not only did he have a broken arm, but he had a staff infection in his knee when he knocked out Gilbert Burns. I did not see that he had a broken arm. Harrington, what are you talking about? Are you talking mid-fight, he broke his arm?

Yeah, he broke his arm early in that fight. His manager actually released that X-ray. Look at that. That's a pretty clean break. So yeah, that was early in the fight. He battled through that to get the third round finish there.

I do believe that's the ulnar.

The ulnar.

The ulnar? Radius?

I think the radius is the inside one.

So that's the ulnar?

Yeah, you're right.

You got to specify, Harrington. He broke his ulnar.

Broke his owner.

All right. I'll get- Give me the three bones in the leg, Anthony.

Oh, fibula, tibia.

What's the other one? He just wanted the whole body. Oh, fibula. Big old boy.

I was thinking, lower leg. I was like, Shit, I think there's only two.

We have a few minutes until Wakeem Buckley jumps on. What else have we got, Harrington, real quick?

So Jack, also in that same interview where he was talking about having a staff infection behind his knee. He said that the idea is he definitely wants to fight at UFC 305 in Perth, Australia. He said that, obviously, his first choice for that fight is Shopkott. He says it makes a very clear number one contender. He said in the event, though, that Shopkott can't get healthy, he said he has heard rumors that Shopkott is currently injured and he's on the men doing rehab, whatever the case may be. He said he'd welcome a return to the welterate division for Kamaru Usman on that card. I don't know what you think about that I tell you what, Jack Dela Madalena, he's got some balls, man.

You know what I'm saying? The balls on this guy.

Look at the balls on bread. Number one, I don't know if he's going to make it to August. Of course, he's from Perth. He wants to fight there in August. If he's got a broken tibia, that's going to need surgery, probably. I don't know what the recovery is on that. Three, four months, I would have said.

Yeah, that probably needs surgery.

Yeah, so I wouldn't rush it. Harrington, yes.

He did. He's already had the surgery on it. He had the surgery on it It's pretty much right after he said it. Sure. Yeah, he said it was eight weeks he was going to be out, but it would still leave him with 12 weeks to train for that card. So he's expecting to be there.

Yeah, I just would have rushed. Don't interrupt it just to ridicule and undermine me, Harrington. I'm aware he would have had surgery the next day, okay? And I know how long a broken arm takes to recover, but I'm saying you don't want to rush back. You don't want to rush back just because it's in your hometown. But Shafcat Rokmanoff calling him out and then calling out Kamara Usman. What do you think Kamara is going to do? Do you think you'll stick it middleweight or one-single?

I hope he stays in middleweight. I hope he stays in middleweight because it's a fresh coat of paint. It's all new matchups. It's new people. It's new narratives and new story lines. I like it. I like him. I mean, fuck, he might have fought the toughest middleweight there is right now already and kept it pretty close.

He was really short notice. Coming off the couch. What was the notice? Like a week, 10 days?

It's like 10 days. Ten days He was in Abu Dhabi, if I remember, right? Abu Dhabi. So he got a lot of... There's a lot of that with travel. So he might have fought the best middleweight in the world on short notice and did really well. So I mean, I'd like to see him with some notice and a training camp and a big name and see what happens at 185.

Masvidal did the exact same thing to him. Came off the couch, flew to Abu Dhabi, and had a good show in against Kamaru. We had five rounds. Kamaru Usman versus Sean Strickland. That also would be a good one at 185.

What are you trying to do to Strickland? Leave this man alone. No, he just. He wants to fight Duplece. We already gave Strickland to Wyman.

Yeah, I know. But Wideman might not take that. But Usman, that's a big name. Yeah, that's a rematch, isn't it? Or do you think Strickland is just going to wait and let Izzy and Drick his fire and expect to get a title fight? Because we've I've seen how that plays out.

I was going to say, I don't like that. I don't like that. That doesn't ever work out because you're going to get left behind. Because if you wait and then someone else has some great... Because we can't forget, we got Whittaker and Hamza fighting. So if you wait and then Whittaker and Hamza fight and someone comes out of that looking like a superstar, then you're definitely getting pushed at the back of the line. You're going to wait all that time and still have to fight anyways.

Well, if Hamza beats Robert Whittaker, it has to be a title fight next What would that be? Eight or nine in a row beating the former GOAT or pound for pound great in Kamara Usman, beating everybody other than Gilbert Bez and Kamara really quickly. Extremely dominant. Eight wins in a row. I think that would be if he beats Robert Whittaker, He's getting a title fight. Simple as that. If you're struggling, do you wait?

You can't risk hanging out and not at least getting a win, because now, regardless of how he feels about it, it's a loss. You're coming off a loss. So you have no argument over anybody in the top five or top eight that are coming off of a win. That's going to put them ahead of you. So you got to get back in there and get a win.

Yeah, but his point is, well, other people have had immediate rematches or immediate title fights. When you lose a title, generally, you got to rebuild yourself again. You have to have some wins to get another title fight. All right, we're going to talk about Mando deodorants. And Mando is from the makers of Lumideodorant. Now, Mando is clinically proven to control the odors that you create naturally. We all do it. We all make body odors. Some of us suffer from it more than others. Some of us don't really have an issue. Some people absolutely stink. Well, guess what? Now you can block your body from We've been creating those smells for 72 hours. So make the switch to Mando, whole body odor, and make the change and smell like a zero. On a 1-10 basis, most people have a seven or eight when it comes to the body odor. With the test that they did, with the Mando, whole body deodorant, people were smelling a zero because it stops the body from actually making the smells in the first place. It was created by a doctor who saw firsthand how normal B. R. Was being misdiagnosed and treated Clinically proven by doctors to block odor all day and then control it for up to 72 hours.

Now, a lot of other deodorants, they just mask the smell with a fragrance, okay? So you still end up thinking, but you're smelling sweet at the same time, which is just weird. It's baking soda-free, it's power bend-free, it's pH balance, so it's actually safe to use below the belt if you want to do that. It is clinically proven to control odor better than a shower with soap alone. Twelve hours after a shower, the average men's grundle order was a five out of 10. With Mando, the average grundle order level is a zero out of 10. So there it is. What more do you want? Well, you want the code. Go to shopmando. Com com. Use the code bisping. You will get $5 off the starter pack. That works out to over 40% off shopmando. Com. The code is bisping for $5 off the starter pack, which works out to over 40% off. Shop mando. Com, and the code is bisping. We got Wakeem Buckley. How are you doing, brother?

What's up, fam? What's the word? What's the word?

How are we doing? I want you to tell me the word. Because I saw I got your little Instagram post for anybody that hasn't seen it. And I think you're messing with us all. You're like, Backstage, I saw James Kraus. He gave a consent to Luke a ticket, and he said, You did a good job.

Well, you obviously already know, man, it's a little April Fool's thing, bro. A little jokey joke. You all know how I am. But I thought I'd just play on the crowd, play with the fans, bro, because everybody that's been talking about this fight, instead of talking about what I did to Vicente by breaking them down, beating them, and making them quick, they wanted to talk about the fight was rigged and it was thrown and all this other shit. So I thought I'd play with some folks. You understand? I love the commitment to still taking jabs at Jamie Kraus. Yeah, got to. He popped up back out of nowhere. He had a little Facebook post, something that he had brought out, speaking out since this whole little And it had happened. So I said, Might as well.

Do you like James Krauss? Do you guys not get along?

It's not to point down like anybody, but I just don't forget.

Okay. Anyway, never mind that. I forgot It was April Fool's as well, Anthony. We'll talk about that when we're done with Wakeem. So Vincente Luque, biggest fight of your career, biggest win by far, fantastic stoppage. I think it was very foolish of him to pull guard the way that he did. I thought you looked tremendous, though, Wakeem. I've said this to you many times, man, you have all the ability in the world. You got bags and bags of potential. But just give me your general thoughts on the fight now that the dust has settled a bit.

Well, the thing about it is that I knew that since they're taking this fight, it was a big deal because at the end of the day, I wasn't a ranked opponent. I wasn't somebody that was on a walk away radar at the point. For Vicente, I knew that he knew this was a very dangerous fight, especially with the stylistic styles that matched up. But with him taking it, I'm already knowing that he was confident enough to do what he needed to do against me, that he felt like he could beat me if he signed this fight. When he lost to Jeff Neil, you already know the condition that he was in. He got that brain bleed, right? I'm not going to lie to you. I really felt bad leading I really wanted to show that man some mercy going into that cage. And I was actually looking to try to get my first little submission. You hear me? I was going to try to go down there, take him down and get him out because even though Vicente is a Black belt, he gives up his back a lot. And a lot of people don't know that my jiu-jitsu is really good.

I only show it in training. I only show it in the gym. Haven't really gotten a chance to highlight that. But I was going to try to show that man some mercy by not trying to put so many I had bad boxing combinations on him and striking on them. And I was going to try to take him down and submit a presente and get a monitor. But unfortunately, his coach gave me a little bit more motivation to go out there and put his lights out. So now I'm coming for a kill clip.

What did the coach say?

How did he motivate? It ain't what he said, it's what he did.

What did he do?

So funny enough, when we was out there at the hotel where all the fighters are, I I wanted to go check my weight to make sure we was good on the official weigh-in. And Henry Hooks was downstairs by himself. It wasn't around for a centile, the rest of the team was just him, so we ended up crossing the path. Now When we first met each other, it was all love and respect. He's like, Hey, man, good luck. Both of you boys, you know what I mean? Put on a good fight. So just the regular norm. But this time, a day before the fight, going into tomorrow, he looked at us and he does this. And he continues to walk away and don't say nothing. And that switched my whole mentality. I was like, All right, I'm going to put your boy down now. Because essentially, he's telling me, We're going to knock you out tomorrow. That's crazy. That's how I read it.

Yeah, that's crazy. Before I move on, I got a bunch of other things I want to talk to you about, but I feel like you've done a pretty good job since the fight of highlighting, maybe not even Vincente, the person, but the position that he holds in the UFC as far as being a ranked guy, giving a guy an opportunity to come up. And I think that that's something that I've always done. I'll fight anybody. It doesn't matter to me. I don't really care about the numbers. But I don't think that's how a lot of people in the rankings are. I think that's a big deal to give someone an opportunity to move up instead of just fighting other ranked people, and that holds everyone else out.

Yeah. I mean, well, it all depends. I feel like a lot of guys that's been in the ranking, right? But if you've only been able to do so much with your career, then you ain't got no other choice but to try to give another guy another chance. But if you're already staying rolling through guys in the ranking and you're pursuing and you're moving up the ladder, then obviously you should continue to fight ranked guys. But there's some guys that's in the ranking that's been in the ranking that shouldn't be there, in my personal opinion. Sometimes the USP lets them stay up there so they can promote a guy that they want to be in the rankings later on. And that's just my opinion about that. But you're right, though. But if you're a real fighter, you know what I'm saying, and you really want to make them check, then you should fight whoever, no matter who it is.

Who are those guys that don't deserve the ranking? Come on, Makeem. Don't hold back.

You said it.

You said there's people that don't deserve the ranking.

Now, I ain't going to lie, though. Hold on. Before we even get there, though, I ain't going to lie, though. You was right. I should have called this punk ass out when I was out there. You was so right, biz, man.

I was trying to get you to call a name out. I'm trying to make viral moments. I'm trying to get you to maximize your moments.

But you got to understand, I'm the viral king. I know how to go viral, but this time, I ain't going to lie, you got me on this. You definitely got me on this because as much as I want to work with Anheuser-Busch, them being from St. Louis, I think it's going to be a minute before I get a comment back or a response back. But yeah, that promo video of me, the Kill Cliff killer, me talking to you right there at the knocking out for Sinte Luuk. Would have went crazy. So definitely dropped a bag on that one. I ain't even going to lie. But just back on the response, though. Like, Tiesta, is he still ranked? I don't know. I'm looking at the ranking. I'm looking at the ranking right now.

In front of me right now, Kiesa is ranked number 15, I would assume, though, because Luuk, you were 11.

Get him out of there. This ain't like a disrespect to the thing. I'm not disrespecting these guys. I I like these guys, but the guys that don't need to be in the ranking, I'm going to give it to you. Who else is that? Neil Magne?

I think Neil is 12.

He's gone. He's gone. Who else we got? Hold on. I'll go through the top ones, and you say in or out. So Tia, get him out of here. He's a bomb. Kevin Holland. What are we saying about Kev?

Did he lose to somebody that was ranked?

He just lost to Jack, who did that? Michael Van der Page.

Was he ranked? Was Michael Van der Page ranked? No. Get him out of here.

He's a bum. He's a bum. Michael Page, he's now ranked at number 13.

Hey, he deserves it.

He's in. Neil Magnus, 12.

Out of here. We've been talking about this. He's a bum.

Who else we got? Vincente Lucas, 11. He's gone.

I got it. What do you mean, since day 11? I need to be there.

Yeah, well, you're gone. That's tomorrow. That's your spot, Jamal. Then at number 10 is Jeff Neil, 9, WNDYVOI Thompson.

That's good. I think the rest of the ranks is good right now.

Okay.

Mvp, that sounds like a lot of fun. Not for me. If I'm you, That sounds like fun.

To be honest with you, all those... Because for me as a fighter, it doesn't matter who that guy is. When I say it don't matter, I really mean that. A lot of other guys, they be saying that, but they be like, Okay, let me skip over that guy, though. Each Which one of these guys that's in the ranking can get that work, right? I really feel like whoever wants to promote the fight and put up the biggest fight to help make it a main event and make it a five rounder, that's the person that I will value the most. But other than that, anybody can catch that work. And that's going to be shown throughout my career as a fighter, having twelve fights, having six finishes within the division and now having eight wins. Bro, we're turning up the game right now.

Yeah, no, And you're getting better and better. That was a really mature performance on Saturday. It really was. You should be proud of yourself. You're doing big things. I think getting those top five fights could be in your future. I really do feel like that, and I'm sure you do as well. Can you tell us a bit about your background, Wakeem? Growing up, what was life like? Where did Wakeem Buckley... We know you as the fighter today, but what was life like for you as a child?

Life was simple. Life wasn't crazy. I had my mom, single mom, who raised me up. Everywhere she went, I went. I was her shadow. She showed me how to hustle, how to grind when you don't have much and you use the resources around you. But I lost her at a young age as well when I was around 12, 11 years old, going to middle school. Then I had my grandmother and my grandpa, Elma Harris. They raised me up to be a young, respected kid. Even though school was a little difficult for me, I always made sure to keep working as hard as I can and stay committed, and made sure I had to do what I had to do in order to graduate high school. But after I said, I got done with that, I said, Forget that, man. I'm not going to go ahead and hunt for this dream, man, to be a mixed martial artist, something that I always watched when I was a young kid, watching mixed martial arts, movies and all this other stuff. I was like, Yeah, I want to make this a dream come true. Then when I turned 18, I actually had eight amateur fights, and I went pro right after that, back in a year.

So I turned pro when I was 19, 20 years old.

That's crazy.

Yeah, there's no story.

That's fast. That's super fast.

Can I just ask you? Sorry to interrupt you. No, you're fine. Before we get off it. No, you're fine.akeem, thank you for sharing that with us. And I'm sure that was a terrible time when your mother passed away at such a young age. I can only imagine what that does to a young man. That must have been just an awful dark time for you.

Yeah, it was. Losing my mom, like I said, I was so close to her at the time. That was the person that anything I had going on, any issues, any problems, that's the person I ran to, literally. But losing my mom, I had to learn this overall in time. But losing my mom, it made me grow up faster. It had to make me more independent, be more of a man for myself because I didn't have a father around. I didn't have a father figure necessarily around me for a time. I really had to do things on my own and really learn how to be by myself at a young age. So it's not hard for me when I'm... Like now as a grown man, as an adult, being able to go from place to place and be on my own and do what I need to do and really lock in because I've been doing this since I've been a young kid.

That could have been really easy to go the opposite direction, though. You know what I mean? People have catastrophic losses in their life, and sometimes it tears those people down. And it seems like you used it as motivation and fuel.

Yeah. I guess my mom not stand to prepare me for her being gone, but she said, I'm not going to be here forever. She used to tell me that all the time. I'm not going to be here forever. So I need you to do these things when I'm not here and realize that whatever that you do, there will be consequences for those actions. And I've always lived by her words.

Well, I'm not a religious man, so I can't sound like a hypocrite, but I'm sure if religion is true. She's on there and she's extremely goddamn proud. And I'm sure if she was alive today, she would be extremely proud of you, Ricky.

Thank you. I appreciate that. I appreciate that, Mike. But even though myself, I'm not religious at all. I don't follow a Bible. I don't follow something certain doctrines and stuff like that. But I am a spiritual individual. I do believe that there's a higher power. I think there's something that created us that's bigger than us. So at the end of the day, even though you're not a religious person, as long as you're spiritual, you believe in something at the end of the day, I think you're good.

I'm still undecided on all of that stuff, if I'm totally honest. But let's get to something a little bit more light-hearted. I hope Brian is going to edit this in in post. I was saying before, Saturday, I went to the spa. I had a little sauna and stuff before I went and commentated, and the woman was saying, Oh, one of the fighters is by the pool. And I was arguing and said, No, none of the fighters... I wasn't arguing. I was just politely disagreeing. I'm like, No, none of the fighters are going to be at the pool. They're focusing, they're locking in. And then I see it on social media, you're at the pool, putting on a show. I'm a whale of a time.

Yeah. We just knew what we were capable of doing, and we knew exactly what we was going to do. See me, a lot of fighters, they get nervous, they be having anxiety, they be stressing about the night that they're about to fight. But that's the exciting part. That's the reward for all the work that we put in for months and months and months. It's the reward to actually show people, Okay, hey, this is what I'm going to do to this guy, and I want you guys to come out and watch the show. So that was just a little promotion that I did right before the fight, four hours before the fight.

How long were you out there?

I was out there for a short time. We just got a workout in. That was it. Just a little shake out. So I say about a little 45 to an hour, 45 minutes to an hour.

I saw you hit your pass, but then I saw another bit where everyone in the crowd and you were giving it.. You're absolutely right, man.

You over. You know what I'm saying?

I was telling Anthony, there were some big old scantily-clad people out there shaking their asses. I was on the treadmill. I got to say now.

I think I've seen your post about it, too. You've seen some whales out there. But, hey, big girls need love, too. Big girls need love, too, though.

Of course. Hey, I love a big girl. Come on, man. Let's go.

You good? I got to ask this question. We're having fun, and maybe I'm going to pull this back to some more serious shit, and I don't mean to do that. But as you know, I'm good friends with Brian, right? So me and Brian talk all the time, just regular chit chat. And he brought up- Brian. Yes, Brian Butler, his manager.

Yeah.

So he's always told me that I look at you differently. I see a super dangerous guy. I see someone that could beat anybody in the division. He's getting better and better, especially with the weight class change. But it seems like It seems like you're upset that other people don't see that, which I totally understand. I get feeling disrespected from the media and stuff like that. Instead of coming on one of these shows and feeling like I thought it'd be a good opportunity for you just to talk about it and just say, What the hell is happening? Is it just you feel like you're being overlooked or you're not getting the respect you deserve?

Well, shoot. We can talk about it since you asked, right? And I appreciate that. You guys are fighters, so you all know how it is. The biggest thing is when we go out there and we put on a performance of lifetime and people still don't get the respect that we deserve or they want to come out of the woodwork now and try to give us a a little promotion and try to give us a little love out of nowhere. It's just like, what was that when I've been working up this up the ranking, period. So I was just doing Ariel Houani show. And be honest with you, I'm not the biggest fan of Ariel because when he be having fighters on, he be setting them up with certain questions that could potentially hurt a motherfucking career if you say the wrong thing. Because at the end of the day, this is a business, right? And Ariel, he's great at what he for his job. But for me, I feel like he been enticing certain things within the industry that, like I said, could hurt certain fighters. But me, personally, when it comes to me, personally, why are you trying to talk to me now?

When I did my kick, it was a beautiful situation. Everybody wanted to talk to me, right? But when I took a L, didn't hear anything from Eric. But when I got a couple of wins, didn't hear. It wasn't until I got dust to get in my corner, right? To really promote the fight, really get people interested in it. Like, Man, this dude got to survive a tack. This guy, this shit ain't going to work. And guess what it did, right? Got to win over the result. I had Listen, the first thing he asked me before we got started, he was like, Hey, you're not upset, are you? And at first, I didn't really put the two together. I was like, No, why is that? Well, I haven't talked to you since the kick and everything, so I just wanted to make sure, whatever. And I I was like, Well, no. And I even explained it myself. I was like, Well, guys got to work their way up. So I understand this is business and all this other stuff. But I realized after that whole thing, I was like, he only talked to me because I had dust in my corner.

So he really didn't even talk with me whatsoever. And now that I'm on this win streak at 170, and I shouldn't even took in the interview, I ain't even going to stunt because it had me feel in some way and it had me out of character on this show. But I feel I feel like most of the media, when they do not promote us in the light that we should, I really feel like they diminish who we are as a character, as human beings. For me, like you said, people don't know who I am. People don't even know where I'm from necessarily. Sometimes we put a lot on the media for that, but I got to realize that I got to take responsibility too. I'm glad that some of the media did come up with me because now I understand, bro, I'm just going to be promoting myself. So now that I got this win over with Vicente Luque, I'm not looking to get on too many media shows and try to promote myself because I'm going to promote myself within myself. So people got to come to the stores to mess with me or get to know who I am.

Do you think that that adds to the hunger that you have? It gives you a little bit of an edge, like a rescue mentality?

I always got that. But just a little bit, but it shaped I need to understand that, bro, this business is what it is, and you can't change it, and you ain't going to change it. So you might as well do what you need to do for yourself and not get upset about it, because that's one thing I did allow it to do. I let it frustrate me. I let it get me upset, and That's only going to hurt one person, and that's yourself.

The thing is, Wakeem, is that they don't give a shit about you. They don't give a shit about you. They're there to try and use you when they can if it suits them. But you've got to use that to your benefit. Have that chip on your shoulder. I mean, I had that chip on my shoulder when people wrote me off, said I was never going to achieve anything. I would never amount to anything. I was never good enough. And that fueled me so much. So allow that frustration to It's going to benefit your career because the reality is they're going to love you on the way up. They're going to talk to you when you get to the top. If you become a champion and you lose the belt, then they're really going to come after you. The reality is no one gives a talk about you, but you, your loved ones, your family, Family, your coaches, your corner, and everyone can go. Everyone has to talk about you.

Yeah, it doesn't even matter. But sometimes, though, it's well, and there's no disrespect, right? But it's not just the media. It can be my own promotion who I fight for. And I don't mean the promotion in the staff like Sean Shelby or Mick Mayn. No, because the USA staff, they work with me. Everybody that work with the USA. But sometimes I feel like I still got to work so hard or harder than everybody that's on the roster to get just that little bit of extra chicken, bro. I don't know. Do you remember who won the fight performance bonus the night that I fought for? Nate definitely deserved that 50K. Nate, the train, won. Who was the other two or three? Aslan.

Aslan had fight of the night.

Who was that?

Aslan versus bringing sexy back to Night.

Oh, my Lord. Just That name alone, you all need to cut him. He said, That guy's not in the rave.

He said, He's got to go to two.

Yeah, he's a bum. He's a bum.

But rewatching those fights, there was nothing to me that showed me that should have been a fight of the Night. And I believe that that boy got knocked out, right? He got knocked out. How you receive fight of the Night, you got knocked out. When you fight like that, how he was fight, you deserve to get knocked out. Which you all talk about, right? So I feel like for me, the performance that I put on was well worth 50K. Nobody has ever made Vicente quit. Never. And I went out there and dog walked that boy.

There we go.

And don't get it twisted, though. Don't get it twisted. That was the best version of Vicente. He even said it himself, Vicente 3.0, and it still was no match for me. It was still no match for me, bro. So where am I? It's going out to the main dude at the top. He don't talk about me no more. He don't say my name, so I ain't going to say his name because you all know who I'm talking about. You all know who I'm talking about. He don't say my name no more.

All you're going to do is keep winning. All you're going to do is keep winning, Wakeem. You keep having the personality, keep putting on the shows. And for the love of God, next time, I have a name ready. I got you.

I dropped the bag. I dropped the bag on me.

No, no, no. Wakeem, you're the man. I'm a big fan. I truly mean that. Thanks for your time. We've got Nate Landwear waiting.

In fact, Nate, Brian, do you wanted to- Tell Nate to give me a little thump, thump. Hey, what up, Nate?

Where are you? I can't get rid of this. I see this man at the airport.

I'm going to be there until you give me that little football, though. I'm going to be there.

You know what I'm talking about? That sucker punch connect. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sometimes they give three, four, five bonuses out. So definitely in that situation, it was an odd way to stop it, but it weren't his fault. It was odd. It was his fault that dude quit. You know what I mean?

Yeah. I could have got the fight of the night and a bonus, though.

You know what I mean?

You all be trying to reward the other dude.

I just want a performance of the night and knock out of the night. That's it. Don't give him none. Don't get another thing.

You don't get none for that.

Yeah.

Let me ask you this. So you guys, so each of you at the airport, you followed the same night.

You got any stories? We had dinner beforehand. We had dinner before.

You had dinner? Jesus. You guys were like, That's what I'm doing.

You got a little story you can share.

You got a little story you can share. From something behind the scenes that we might like to hear about?

That's up to Nate. If you don't mind me giving a story, that's up to him, though. You go ahead if you want to. He actually gave me a lot of motivation, man, leading up to my fight. So obviously, we backstage together, right? And usually at first I thought they put Red Corner, Blue Corner all in the same, but they actually had us mixed up because he was a Red Corner and I was Blue Corner. But regards to that, though, we was going out there, he was up next. So I was about to get my hands wrapped up and my man getting warmed up. We just talked and he was like, Hey, bro, it's just another fist fight. He said, Bro, you already know. He said, Man, I've been fighting since the first grade. I was like, I heard that. He said, Man, I know this dude. He stole my football, but I can't have it. This dude trying to take my football, man. No, no, no, no. They ain't going to be like that. They ain't going to be like that. I said, I'm good, you all. Go get your football back. And then my man said, Hold up, hold up, hold up.

He had to call his girl. All this girl up. He said, Hey, baby, I love you. I appreciate you. You know what I'm saying? Hey, we got that new money. No, we got that old money, but it's time to get that new money. They need some new shoes and all that. I was like, Oh, man, that's straight lit. Then my man went out there, got that knockout on an old buddy. Yeah, that shit was lit, man. I ain't going to lie. So to see that leading up into the fight, boy, that was a lot of motivation. Hell, yeah.

Get your blood popping.

Yeah.

We're going to let you go, brother. Thank you for your time. Let's do this again soon.

All the best in your career. All right, brother.

All right, mate. Congratulations.

Appreciate that.

Now we got the one and only, Nate, the train land wear. The train is still going. What's going on, Nate? How are you doing, brother?

Good, man. I was stuck in a tour yesterday for five hours on a delayed plane. I finally made it home on Easter, so it felt good.

That's all you need. You go out there, you put it on a show like that, and then you get delayed and stuck in Detroit, of all goddamn places for five hours.

That's where I see Bucket. He came through Detroit. I was like, Okay.

That's why.

Jamal Emmers, you got the job done. It was a beautiful KO. Well, round one. Emmer's very, very good pedigree. He's a really strong boxer.

I think actually his resume is worse than he is. I lift him up. I think he beat De Gege. I think he beat Gege Jemimah. And I think he beat Jack Jenkins, too. Both of those. I think he should literally be without getting heel hooked, how he dropped Pat. So he could be literally... He could have been unafeated in the UFC. You know what I mean?

Yeah. No, he's really good. He was coming off the back of a big win over Dennis Buzukia, who got a win Saturday night. And he connected with a few shots. He was looking slick early, and then you turned it around with the pressure. You got the job done. You got the finish. Walk us through the fight, though, from your perspective, please.

Yeah, man, for real. Fighting's all about what you is and what you ain't. You can't be what you ain't. You know what I mean? So he was faster, but I timed him, hit him with the uppercut, got his ass out of there.

You don't seem like the type of guy that worries too much about shit going into a fight. But if there was anything you guys were focused on in training camp, what's that thing you guys were like, All right, we got to stay away from here. Let's steer away from this shit.

Man, just looking back on my career, as long as I don't get need, I feel like I'm winning. That's the only way I got got. My major losses come from Dan Egan and get need in the face. So I wasn't fighting Dan. And as long as I don't get need, I'm probably going to win.

Yeah, all right. I mean, you've highlighted the two losses that you had in the UFC, but you've had a lot of wins now as well. And your star is growing in a big way. In fact, who was it? Someone was saying, This is bullshit. I don't get the push like Nate, the train. Nate, the train is getting the real big push, and they weren't. But do you feel that? Do you feel the levels of recognition for the hard work that you're doing now? Because as fighters, it's great to win. Making money is awesome. But I'm not talking about money, and I'm not talking about Fame, but just to be recognized for the sacrifices and respected that you're making.

Respect by other man. To be respected by respected man. You know what I mean? No, but it's the way that I live my life, man. Never took an easy fight, never took a shortcut, never made an excuse. If I got something going on in camp. You'll never hear me. Man, I was sick. I stepped my toe. I broke a finger. All these guys, the thing that they're going to brag about, the same thing they're going to make an excuse about if they don't win. Then these guys, they win and they're They'll brag about being sick, and they'll brag about being hurt during camp. They lose. They'll be like, Man, but I was hurt. But me, I never make excuse. The people that I fought on the way to the UFC, I fought this in my 23rd fight. Between those 23 people, my opponents have 157 finishes between them all. I mean, 257 finishes between the 23 guys I fought. I fought nothing but finishers, nothing but winners. I don't fight guy. I fight a guy, he going to go on a win streak after. I don't fight losers. I fight champions. I fight people that want to win, that's destined to win, and I beat them.

You know what? I just realized as you were talking, I don't ever hear you talk too much about where you're going either. I've never heard you make it... Obviously, never heard you make an excuse or really talk too badly about anybody. But you always want that next big fight. But I've never heard you talk too much about the end goal. What does the end result look like for you? Where are you headed?

Man, my goal has always been to not quit fighting, it's to retire. I hate when people are like, I'm retired. Well, you ain't really retiring unless you got some money. You just quitting. So the end result has always been for me is to feed my family and fund my future, man, and make some badass footage on the way I fight like I'm already done. I'm looking back on it and I'm trying to add tallies.

You can be I'll tell you when you've got one eye, though, the good eye is coming up, just in my defense.

That, too. Yeah. But think about it, that one good eye that you had was looking at some money.

It was. It still is. Nate, I could talk to you all All day. But you said something last week because I know you're so proud to represent Clarksville, Tennessee. They've got the Nate Landra Day, right? Is that still thing?

Yeah, we got the Nate The Train Day.

Nate the Train Day. There it is, which is just It was unbelievable. Congrats on that. I got to come to a Nate the Train Day. I bet that's wild. But you were talking, though, because in December, your town, Clarksville, it was hit by some pretty serious tornadoes, right? And there's a lot of damage. Seven people passed away.

Yeah, it was not a good time. But you know, my city is resilient. The same day it happened, I'm talking about anybody where the truck was out, all the stores was empty in a good way. It wasn't a bad way empty. Everybody was buying stuff to give. You know what I mean? Sometimes a disaster happened. You go to the store and everything's cleared off the shelves because people hoarding it and they're being greedy. Everything was cleared off the shelf because people wanted to give to somebody who needed it. We got a big military base. We're the home of the 101. We got the Night Stuckers, Port Campbell, big time army base. And man, we're strong over here.

That's beautiful, though. And when you hear things like that, it restores your faith in humanity. You know what I'm saying? Because a lot of the time in the media, you just hear about doom and gloom and shittiness and just tragedies. But to hear people are going out there emptying the shelves to give to other people, that's amazing. What is the population there?

I would say about it's hard to say because it's like we got basically two cities because we're right on the border of Kentucky. So we got the Fort Campbell base. I would say about 200,000 altogether.

Okay.

200,000. We got a big college, Austin Peace State University, D1 School. And then we got the army base that brings people in. Plus, we're about an hour away from Nashville. So that's been bringing in a bunch of cats.

Nice. So what are you doing in your spare time? Unfortunately. Unfortunately. I've tried to drag this out of you once before, too. What do you do in your free time when you're not punching people in the face on ESPN and then training? What are you on your What do you do?

You're not going to decorate in the house.

Yeah. I'm an avid. I like painting. That's what I do. I paint houses. I'm an avid gardener, man. I love gardening.

What are you growing? Really? What are you growing?

I grew everything I could eat, man. When I'm in town, it's crazy because it's like, I'm not here fighting my ass off to live a life that sometimes I don't get to live because I do my camps down in South Florida. So I got to go do that time, man. And it fuels the fire when I'm Because it's like, I got to be away. Now, not only away from my wife and the rest of my family, but away from my son, and it just drives me. And when I'm home, I'm growing food. I grow everything. I got vegetables, I got fruit trees, I got little fruit bushes. I'm talking about everything you can think of. I got it.

No shit. Do you hate living?

You got a farm?

Yeah, I got about two acres.

How many?

About two acres.

There you go. That's enough. That's enough. So I'm in training camp right now. I live in Nebraska, but I do my training camps in Denver. So I'm in Denver. I'm away, too. So do you hate it when you're gone, every second of it?

It's not like I hate, but it's more like a necessary evil. I hate the fact that I got pushed out because I would love to do my training camps here, but it's not built for that. I didn't have enough people. So it's like I had a force. But you got to grow. What are you going to do? Stay behind. So you got to fill that gap. So you go somewhere where it fills that gap. And the thing that is good about it is that when I'm away, think about when you're at home, you're a father, you're the owner, I'm a gardener. So many things when you're at the house, when you're away in the training camp, you're one day, a motherfucker on a mission. So in that aspect, it's like, Okay, laser focus. Let's go. Somebody's going to pay for this.

Yeah, I always say that when I started training here in 2016 or 2017, I was so pissed about it because I wish I could just have this at home. But I feel like if I had this exact same thing at home, it wouldn't be as good because now you're mowing the grass in the morning and then you're going to practice, and then you're picking your kid up from school, and then going back to practice. You got to turn that switch on and off. Yeah. It's a grind. I hate it. I hate it, but it's necessary.

Yeah, but it also fuels you as well because as you just said, you're mowing the lawn or you're coming back and you're just messing around with day-to-day bullshit. Now you're locked in, you're You're in a dorm, you're in a hotel at Burberry & B, wherever it is that you live, just thinking about the fight 24/7, getting ready. It's like walking.

Just going to do it.

Yeah, going crazy in your mind, training like a madman.

I get that mic, I'm going to say something. But you know what? I got to beat somebody up just to say some shit.

What did you say Saturday night? I can't remember. I was too busy trying to get the microphone to your bicep because he kept doing this, and I'm like, Motherfucker, I got to get past the biceps.

I got to start bringing a little dumbbell in there with me. So I had a couple of parts in.

You seem like a very, very chilled guy, but in the octagon, you're a wild guy. I love the way you fight. I love the ferocity and the aggression that you bring, but also you got strategy as well. On the microphone, you're a promoter's dream. You know what I mean? You always got some great Rick Flair, WWE style promos, but you seem like a very chilled out guy. You're on the phone arm, you're growing your vegetables. So is it like two versions of Nate the train?

I think it just in general, every man has multiple facets. You know what I mean? Nobody's just one thing. To my wife, I'm not the same thing as I would to be to a stranger trying to steal something from it. You know what I mean? To my son, I'm not the same as I would be. You know what I mean? Everybody has these different facets about them. And when you all see me in the cage, I'm in battle mode. Then when you see me with the mic, I just want. Obviously, I want you ain't going to give me the mic if I ain't wearing something. I'm obviously hyped up to the point to where I just the highest high you can feel. I mean, you all two can relate to it. There's no high like that, one high. That's why these kids I always ask me what's one of the takeaways about finding them. It's going to dove down the rest of them Saturdays. There's 52 Saturdays a year, and you feel one of them things like this. Their mother, 51, ain't going to be quite like that. You can have a good time, but it ain't going to be like that time.

You're so right. Did you make a call outside? I can't remember.

It's just one of those things that I got this big ass cut on my head. I'm just trying to see how the division plays out, man. I don't know how long it's going to take me to get back, but you know who I always wanted to fight? We came in the UFC right at the same time as Billy Q, but he just took that L. But, man, he's still a gangster.

I think you should be looking at the rankings.

Yeah, so the UFC want me to pop off. I want another shot at them rankings. But there's a bunch of good fighters. You got Nathan, Nathania Woods. That's good. Of course, you That Danny guy, I wouldn't mind having that Julian- Alex Caceres is number 15. Caceres. I wouldn't mind fighting Caceres because we were supposed to fight. Didn't get that fight. There's so many possibilities. It's whatever the UFC wants. They want me to go against a banger. They want me to prove myself top 15. I'm down. No, I'm down, though.

They don't even got to call you first. They'll call you second.

My manager just calls me. I'm like, Yes. And they're like, No, I didn't call you for that. I think I... Yeah, but I'll shout out to Brian, brother. Every time he calls me, I'm just like, Yes, win. He's like, No, I was just calling to tell you that something else.

You guys all got the same manager, right?

Yeah, me and Buck, dude.

Him and Buckley, yeah.

Yeah.

Brian's just my buddy. I like talking to Brian. He's a different type of dude. I like talking to him, yeah.

He stopped here. I call him Uncle Brian. He's like a good uncle.

I feel like every time I do something stupid in the media, Brian calls. So anytime his name pops up on my phone, I'm like, God must have said something stupid because he'd call me.

He used to go ahead and run for a politician of some sort.

He's a president. So you're back at home now?

Are you back You're back in Clarksville?

Back in Clarksville, yeah. I got home last night, yeah.

What's the plan for the rest of the week?

Plan for the rest of the week? Just chill at this hill. See, all my family lives in Clarksville. So my mom has a big family. So I got a bunch of aunts and cousins. I see them, see my nephews, see my sister, see my brother. See everybody. I see all my homies that I ain't seen. You got these friends that you're friends with, but the only friends you really got is the Mets and the heavy bag for a while. So get to see all them and spend some time with family, plant some seeds. I got to get these potatoes in the ground a little You better get out of it.

Beautiful, man.

And I'm jealous because I'm- When you're on that garden lifestyle, you got to live a different cycle. It's like, Hold on. I'm a couple of weeks late, baby. Shit.

Get the potatoes We'll get our seeds in, but we won't keep you any longer, Nate. Big fan. Congratulations. Saturday night. Phenomenal performance once again, and I look forward to the next one. Enjoy your week.

Enjoy your planting.

Let's go.

Let's All right, Mike. All right, my man. Take it easy, brother.

Take care, man. All right.

All right, today's episode is sponsored by Shopify, which is revolutionizing people's businesses. It's allowing them to get online, to sell to the entire world, to take all major payment methods very, very easy, and just to help you grow and scale your business in a really cost-effective way. Shopify, it will get you online very quick with a professional-looking website. As I say, it will allow you to accept every major payment method, and it will allow They allow you to sell across all social media marketplaces like TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram. They have a 24/7 customer service helpline. They've got an extensive business course library. They are there to support your success every single step of the way. And what's incredible to me about Shopify is no matter how big you want to grow, Shopify is there to empower you with confidence and control to revolutionize your business and to take your business to the next level. So now it is the time to get serious about selling and try Shopify. Shopify. If you've thought about this for a long time, but you've never taken that step, you haven't taken the plunge, Shopify is how you want to do it.

If you've got a business, if you've got an idea, Shopify will be the tool that you need to make it a reality. Right now, you can sign up for Shopify for just $1 per month. As I said, you'll have a website, you'll have a place to sell, you'll be able to accept all major payment methods for $1 per month, a trial period, like Shopify. Com/believe. So right now, go to Shopify Shopify. Com/believe to take your business to the next level today. Shopify. Com/believe. All right, so Nate, The Trade, bringing the goods once again. Love that guy. Absolutely love him.

He's just refreshing. He's refreshing. He reminds me of a couple of my real country cousins. They're just really chill and relaxed. Everything you say or everything he says, I believe, because he just seems such a genuine, honest guy.

And he seems like he's got his priorities all We're in the right place. You know what I mean? Doing everything for the right reasons. Anyway, you got to go. You're in bloody training camp. How is camp going? Real quick?

It's going really good, Mike. It's going really good. I feel like I'm moving really well. My condition is coming along. The weight's coming down. Me and Mark are on the same page as far as just... Because sometimes we're not. Every once in a while, it's like, he wants this game plan, I want this one. And so every once in a while, we butt heads and go with his idea anyways. But this one, we're on the same page. I feel good.

Well, he's the coach. That's what you're paying for, I guess. Anyway, we'll do some questions and we'll let you get out of here. If you got a question, please send it in to bympod@gmail. Com.

And if you're listening on Spotify, iTunes, wherever you find podcast, make sure to subscribe. Leave us a five-star rating, positive view. It really helps out on 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 in. If you want to catch a refiner of an episode, you can't find anywhere else completely ad-free and totally uncensored. Head to gastigital. Com. Use the promo code bym14. Get a two-week free trial. Check out our 20 great shows on the All right.

First question we got here today is from Mr. Bailey Fouts.

What up, Mike and Anthony. Bailey from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Good luck on your next fight, Anthony, number one.

Number two, I was listening to your guys' episode earlier today and heard you guys don't get enough real personal questions, only MMA questions. So I'll ask you a real personal question.

See what you guys think about it. My dilemma right now is I grew up on a farm, smaller town. Everybody always told me that I needed to go get a college degree, get a good job, stuff like that. I go to college, I get a nice degree in accounting, my bachelor's. I'm going to school right now for my master's in accounting. Right after I graduate, I get the perfect accounting job.

Corporate, great benefits, really pretty office, nice view, really nice people in the corporation where I work.

Nice boss, everything.

They even feed me donuts, candy, everything that I want, pretty much. It's It's a great place to work. I can't lie, but I hate it. I really wish I worked back home with my family on the farm.

Dilemma is. It doesn't pay good compared to what I'm making right now. I don't know. I don't like it, and I don't know what to do.

It's a struggle, and I'm sure it's a struggle that more than just me go through.

I want to know what you guys thought. Hopefully, that was a real enough question.

Fuck you, Harrington and Brian, not everything is a conspiracy theory.

Very well said on all fronts. And that is a great question. And Bayly, thank you very much. Well, I'm glad you said that because Callum, my son, is going through a similar thing right now. He just got his first job working for a big Fortune 500 company. So he's got a really good job. And so far, I hope nobody from the job watches this. He's still settling in, and he's not sure that he loves it, you know what I mean? But it's like, that's just part of life. Now, for you, Bayly, of course, you studied accounting. Now you've got a job as an accountant. It's a good firm. You're making good money, and you hate it. So first of all, you got to put happiness over money. You can't always be chasing the dollar. Of course, we need money to make the world go round. We need it to pay the bills and to have freedom in life. You need that. But is your be miserable? I'd You'd rather have less money and be happy. However, the fact that you studied accounting was probably the wrong thing because that's boring. I'm sure that's what you're finding in your day to day.

However, those skills, that time that you spent at college, the life lessons that you learn You've learned the education that you gathered, this is your first job. Who knows what you're going to end up doing? You're a young man. You just finished college. You've got your first job, you don't like it. There's probably some adjustment periods to go on. You got to get used to the lifestyle. But you're a young guy. If God knows where life is going to take it. My brother Adam, he studied as an accountant, and he was going to be an accountant. And now he's a warrant officer in the army, which is the highest grade, highest rank a non officer can get. And he's loving it. He's flying all over the world with the army. He's always taking troops out for skiing lessons and stuff in Austria and whatnot. He's living a great life. He's making a good living, and he's very, very happy. So just follow Follow your instincts. Follow your soul. But you got to give the job a fair shake. You got to give it a fair shake and see how it pans out, because you might end up liking it after a little bit of time, but you can't put financial gain over your personal happiness.

Anthony, give me your take, please.

Well, I agree with pretty much everything you said. I would add, though, there's always other opportunities. I think sometimes people look at things, and I think this is the benefit what we've done with our lives is everything is so black and white, I think, to the rest of the world. I either have to be an accountant or I go back home to my farm town and do that. Those are the only two options. And I think as fighters, in being in the world that we've lived in, we've been forced to have to make other options because option A and option B, they suck. So we got to come up with our own option. Maybe it's not that black and white for him. It could be maybe you use this really cushy, great paying doing an accountant job to fund whatever you want to do back home. Instead of just saying, I'm living here, I'm working here at this place, and this is what I'm doing, it always be, I'm using this shitty opportunity that's financially doing really well to fund something else when you get back. Some of the people, when I was growing up, that made the most money were actually the accountants for the farmers in the small town that I grew up on.

It's the money guys that were connected to the farming community. You can always match those two communities together or find another way to make it work. You can, who knows, stash a bunch of money from your great job and then go back home and figure out how to make that into something more successful financially at home. You just got to make other paths. If path A and path B are ones that you don't necessarily like, then you got to create your own path. And that's something that I think that us, we've mastered of just digging our own way through and figuring it out at the end instead of taking the cookie cutter. I'm either going to go back home or I'm going to stay here and You can figure out your own way.

Yeah, and that's not what I meant, quit that job to go back to work.

No, I know what you're doing.

But for you, what was his name? Bayly. Bayly for me. You got to get life experience. And a lot of the time, you've got to figure out what you don't like. You obviously thought you were going to enjoy being an accountant, but you don't. And I was always very jealous, personally, of people that knew what they wanted to do from an early age. And those people, I think there's less of them than They make a small amount of the population. Most people don't have a whole clue, and we're figuring it out. And I'm still trying to figure it out at this stage of my life. I'm a retired fighter. I was a successful fighter, and I've got a great career now, but I'm still like, What am I going to do for the next 20 years? So you're always figuring it out. You're always looking for the next thing. But right now, stick your job out, figure some stuff out, learn what you don't like, make connections. And who knows? Maybe you go from accounting to something else. As you said, Anthony, save some money, go train in a slightly different field. You've got an education, you've got some qualifications behind you, and you can use that to open other doors.

As you said, you could become the biggest farmer accounting guru in all of South Texas or wherever the money it is that you live, Bayly. But I know nothing about accounting, but I can add up pretty good. But good luck, Bayly. Good luck, whatever you do. Good luck. Life's a journey, man. Good luck on the journey. Listen, just- Keep us posted. See what doors this will open. It will open doors. And if If it's not opening doors, then maybe you got to close the door on that one at some point. You know what I mean? But all the best. Good luck. One more, and we'll let Anthony get out of there because I can see the stress, I can see the anxiety. I can see you thinking, This is my nap time, my eating time, my recovery time. Martin Montoya is going to be kicking your ass this being Brian.

All right, next question we have here is from Ben. Hey, guys.

My name is Ben.

Just a couple of quick questions.

Mike, Anthony.

What's the most pain you've ever experienced inside the octagon?

And what's the most pain you've ever experienced outside of the octagon? Physical, emotional, whatever.

Thank you for the podcasts. You guys are legends. Be excellent to each other.

Peace out from New Zealand.

Thank you, brother. That's very nice. A nice way of finishing that. Be excellent to each other. That's nice. If only... Dude, what is it? Anthony, most pain in a fight?

Losing to John Jones.

I thought you were going to say getting your teeth knocked out off a lever.

No, I can't I don't even recall a time where something was extremely painful in a fight, where it was unbearable. I don't know that I ever fully covered from losing to Jon Jones, completely. I think I'm a different person than I was before. I left that acting on a different person that I walked in. That's for sure. So it took me a long time to emotionally digest that. And then, I don't know, you leave the You leave your home. Wherever you live, you leave there. And in your head, I'm going to come back a world champion. And then on the plane right there, you've envisioned all this stuff. I'm going to have a belt bag, and it's going to be up on the top of the plane. And then you're on the plane, you're like, Yeah, well, that was wrong. And then you get off of it and in your head, people are going to be celebrating you because you're this world champion from nothing and a place that no one cares about. And then you're not, and no one's there when you get back. No one really It's not going to work anymore. Sponsors start dropping you.

It's a dark place.

It is. But you know what? That's what all the fighters are experiencing whenever they lose as well to a certain degree. You know what I mean? Maybe not quite as during dramatic circumstances. In terms of in octagon pain, there isn't anything that stands out. I think it's because of the adrenaline. You don't really feel pain in a traditional sense, of course. In fact, I don't even remember getting cracked in the face and thinking, That hurt. Never.

No, I can recall one time I got hit with an elbow in it. Have you ever been hit with something and you got to rub it because it itches? I got hit with an elbow one time, and I remember being like, That was stupid. The last for a second, but you're like, This is stupid.

I'm not saying I've never been hurt. I was hurt plenty of times, but never actually had the conscious feeling of, Oh, that really hurts. You either rocked, where you wobble it, knocked out cold, you don't feel shit, or the adrenaline just masks it all. In terms of most pain outside of the octagon was my eye when it went blind. I detached my retina, it got repaired, it redetached. I went for a walk, and then I started getting this headache. I led down, face down on the floor because that was the only thing that seemed to ease the pain. And then the headache just got worse and worse, worse and worse. It literally felt like my head was going to explode. You know that scene in Casino where they put the guy's head in a vice, and they fucking...

The squeezing the head in the vice? You'll never guess this.

Go on.

I've never seen Casino.

Jesus Christ, bro. You've got to see Casino. Well, there's a scene where a guy's got his head He's in a vice, and they're like, You, Cuck, sucker, just give me the name. And he's making the vice tighter and tighter. Anyway, that's what my head felt like, and it was like, and got to four in the morning, and I was still experiencing it. I went to two different hospitals. They gave me medication. None of it helped. And I've probably told this story before, but when I was driving to the hospital at 4:00 in the morning to Pasadena, the pain was just unbelievable. A regular person's eye pressure is between 9:00 and 20:00. Mine was in the high 80s. They'd never seen it that high because the drain in my eye, because where the water comes out was blocked. So I was explaining like this, a balloon on the end of a tap filling with water, what happens? Well, eventually it's going to pop. And that's what was going on with my eye. The pressure killed the nerve endings, and that's why I never saw it again. So, yeah, there you go. That's your answer. That is it.

That is the show. You've got to go. You've been great, Anthony. Nate Landre was amazing.

I love it.Wakeem Buckley was great.Buckley was great.

Yeah. Harrington was terrible.

Yeah.

Brian was okay.

Brian's okay.

Brian's okay. We'll be back on Monday, guys. Take care.