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Conceived, believe, achieve.

Shut the fuck up.

You're listening to Believe U Me with Michael the Countess Bing... You know my name, yes. And Anthony Lionheart Smith.

Welcome to the show, everyone. International Fight Week is in the past, and what a goddamn week. What an event that was. Anthony, you got a weekend off? Where were you watching it? How did you enjoy?

I was just home. I was home all week. I'm not going to lie, though, I had a bad case of FOMO. I felt like I was just missing out. And I think I said this last week a little bit, I know how busy you had to have been, so I don't miss that part of it because International Five Weeks is a different beast. But I feel like after the Moreno fight and how the card went, man, I would have loved to have been there.

That was probably one of the best pay per views this year. If not in recent memory, I don't know don't know. Right from the opening bell, the fights were fantastic. What was it? I'm just looking here, Jesus Aguilar versus Shannon Ross, 17 seconds. Unbelievable knockout. And then they kept coming and coming. Cameron Simon, what was that? Three minutes 10, round one. Vitor, Petrino, got the job done in the third. Alonso Menefield, guillotin in the second. Denise Lopez, Yasmyn Howregui.

Yeah, I didn't see that coming. I didn't see that one coming at all. I remember when How Reggie debuted in San Diego. There was two really unknown girls and they came in. It was one of the best fights of the entire night. So I was excited to see her fight. I was shocked at the outcome there.

I was sitting there talking to everyone going, oh, Yasmyne How Reggie, keep an eye on her, guys. I'm telling you, Denickie Gomes, decent fighter. She's going to get smoked. That Yasmyne How Reggie is incredible. Oh, my God. Let's have a look. How long was it? How long? It's quick. Twenty seconds. Right hand, drops it and then just pummeled.

You don't often see finishes like that in the female divisions, especially the lower weight class girls. Man, she was cracking, man. It was shocking all the way around.

Obviously, we got a lot to talk about. We're just going to work our way up through the card. We also have the champ, Alexander Pantozha joining us in just under an hour. Talk to him about all kinds of stuff. So I'm looking forward to that. And a lot of news, a lot of things to talk about. But tattooed or tied up, be a good shiurs. Well done. Robby Lawler, Niko Price, give me your thoughts, Anthony.

Well, number one, just to start it off, you can't retire any better than that. It doesn't get any better than that. But I heard someone say, I don't know if it was just a clip I seen somewhere, and they said something like, That was always going to happen like that. You give a guy like Robby Lawler someone in front of him like Niko Price, who doesn't necessarily move his head all the time. He's been chitty. Maybe it was John Anick that said this. That really hit me like, Well, of course that was going to happen. I really like Niko Price. I think it would an honor to Niko to be able to get in there with Robby for his last fight. I'm sure it didn't go the way that he thought it was going to go, but years from now, he's going to be thankful for that opportunity to be in there with a guy like Ravi, just as I am with Shogun and Rashad and Guffs of Sin and those guys that are just legends amongst other fighters. Ravi Laller has... I don't know if I've ever told this on the podcast. He's stunned me a couple of times when I've gotten outside myself a little bit in whether it's a press conference or an interview and I've said some stupid shit.

I don't know if that is because I'm also a Midwest guy because Robb had came up just a few hours from where I came up at. So I don't know if that's it. But he's pulled me aside before after a press conference. I think I went off on Rockhold one time. Ariel had me all gas me up up there on the data.

Arian does that. He's a little shit starter.

Yeah, Arianl.

Gas me up. Arian is a shit starter, let's be honest.

He can be for sure. He asks the right questions to get you fired up, that's for sure. But I went off and made an ass of myself. And Robby Waller was up there on the press conference with me. And in the back, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, You can't do that. You got to pull yourself together. Don't let these people bother you. Don't give him any extra motivation. Gave me the older, more mature fighter perspective. And then he's seen an interview where I went off about something else and he DM me on Instagram like, Hey, kid, what are we doing here? We talked about this. Like, God, you're right. Goddamn it. So that's my Robby Lawler story.

Now, that's nice. That's nice. But you know what? To be fair, I thought Nicko Price was the right opponent. Robb is struggled. He beat nick Diaz in his last fight, but he's struggled a little bit. He's going now. He's retiring. Nicko Price has also had, shall we say, mixed results with respect. So I had no issue with the match up. I thought the way Robb walked out, the way he got the love from the crowd was beautiful. The way he stood there and he milked the moment before walking into the octagon. Again, I was watching in that with envy to be honest. I would have loved to have done that in a send off fight. And then to go out and do it in, what was it, 38 seconds, made it look easy. A beautiful conversation with Joe Rogen, that amazing triple that the UFC had played. It breaks down his emotional. There's a few tears there on display. I just thought that's amazing. Oh, inducted in the hall of fame a couple of days before it. What a way after 21 years of blood, sweat and tears, fight in at the top level, the emotional journey that fighting is to go through and just be shown the respect, shown that people care, get put into the hall of fame to win the fight in 38 seconds.

I mean, that is just a glorious week. And that's why I'll just say it. Conor McGregor saying that Robby L oel, fighting again by the end of the year, he's out of his goddamn mind.

Not a chance. What were you doing? His debut was 2012?

2001 in the UFC. 2001.

What were you doing in 2001?

2001, I was working at Contrast Upholstery. I was a quality control inspector for couches. Basically, the upholsters would make them carry them out to me. I'd look for faults. If the guy was a bit of a dickhead and wound me up that day, I'd find a fault. Then we wrap it up, throw it on the back of a wagon. That's what I was doing in 2001.

That's great. I was.

In seventh grade. Or maybe it was 2002, but who cares?

Big guy. Yeah, right around. I was in seventh grade. It's just crazy to see just, I don't know, I've just always been such a big Robbie Lawler fan, and I don't think it could have gone any better. And I wondered, though, if there was a lot of guys, either from his generation or even after, because he did outlast a lot of people that came after him. I wonder if there was some MV there like, man, I wish I could have done it like that and just been perfect.

Hey, listen, I'm sure a lot of people watched it and thought the exact same thing. So well done to Robbie Lawler on a legendary career. So let's go through the main card. Before we start having our usual fun and bollocks and talking about, I don't know, whatever's going on in the nonsense world. We'll go through the main card, talk about the fight, and then what we think should happen next. We'll do that before the champ joins us. So, Bol Nickle, Val Woodburn. Fair play to Val Woodburn stepping up on short notice against Bo Nickle. I think, and let me know what you think about this. The fight started, Bo Nickle goes for a take down. He doesn't get the take down, but didn't really commit to that take down. I think that take down was never intended to put him on the floor. I think that take down was just to reinforce the fear of the take down for Val Woodburn. So he's thinking about that. And then he just let go with the hands. And there was some decent power. A couple of people came up to me on the night live going, those hands were sloppy.

I'm like, well, they might have been sloppy, but he just knocked him out in 38 seconds again. Listen, not the biggest the opponent, of course, not the biggest name. Ufc debut, but still second fight in the UFC, I had no issue with it.

No, I don't have any issue with the opponent and the level that he's fighting at right now. I think Dana said in the post fight press conference, there are no rush to rush him along to the top 15. I've said this time and time again, the threat of a take down is as good as a take down sometimes. So just knowing that he has world-class wrestling is good enough to open up his striking. So his striking only has to be probably half as good as anyone else because the threat of his wrestling makes up for it. So he can feint take downs and it'll start bringing your hands down. He can feint a take down, throw an overhand. He can throw an overhand or feint the overhand, shoot the take down. So it's always going to be this, I don't know, this trick up his sleeve that he's going to be able to use for a long time. Now, once you start getting into the higher ranked guys and the better, more well rounded fighters, he's going to have to develop his game as he gets to that point. But right now, he's good enough where they sloppy a little bit, but he's not a striker.

He's only been fighting for a year. He's throwing better. He's throwing better punches than I threw when I was a year in. And he's got a whole hell of a lot more power than I had then.

He passed the test with flying colours. If you ask me, I was talking to nick Pete from BT Sport, and afterwards he was saying that he didn't like the match up. Okay, and I'm like, Well, hold on. That wasn't his fault. It's supposed to fight Trey Sean Gore. The show must go on. They found a replacement. He said, Yeah, but the UFC is where the best fighters fight the best fighters. I don't want to see it turn into boxing where we're giving them a leg up every time and throwing easy opponents at them. I went, You're right. I said, But the UFC doesn't generally do that. I said, you couldn't throw him a top contender. It's his second fight. And he's like, Yeah, but he was open in a pay per view. I'm like, yes, but still, you don't give him a ranked opponent. I think, though, because I spoke to Bo Nickle last week, did an interview with him, he said, yeah, he's in no rush. He wants to take his time. I think he's going to struggle to find him people to accept a match up. So the path will go quicker because lower level guys, imagine you want to get in the UFC and they go, Right, here's your opponent, Bo Nickle?

You go, No way. No way. That was going to be my alternate point.

And then, though, even ranked guys. Ranked guys are going to say, Hold on a minute. I've worked five years to get into this position. I've had some tough fights to get where I am, and I've got my eyes on the belt. I don't want to be a stepping stone for Bo Nickle. What do you think?

Dude, I totally agree. I think you're 100 % right. And I think the other side of that is, okay, he's only been fighting a year. He's already in the UFC. He's already got this hype behind him. What does everyone expect him to do? Okay, let's just go along with what all the casuals are saying. Bo Nickle doesn't deserve to be on the main card. Okay, you want him just to be smoking people people on the undercard? Okay, you don't want him in the UFC? What is he going to do to people in the LFA? Not just the LFA, but on the regional scene. You know what I mean? He's a special talent. He's different of course, you're not going to take a regular guy and pad his record a little bit and give him the opportunity. But it's unfair to him to be like, Okay, well, you've only been fighting for a year, but you're already this dangerous. Excuse me. And we're just going to leave you out on the regional scene for a long time. Well, that's not necessarily fair to him because he's not, one, he's not going to get any fights. Two, he's not going to get any better Smashing those guys.

He's in a unique position.

Because he's not a regular guy.

No, he's not a regular guy. I said the same thing about CM punk. I knew that CM punk wasn't going to be very good. So people are so pissed that he's in the UFC. What do you want? You want to send him to the regional scene? There's not even a regional scene out there that can handle the star power and the superstar of a guy like CM punk. He's a unique individual. And the only place that can handle him, not because of his skill level, but because of his star power, is the UFC. He should have an opportunity to fight.

You could draw parallels. And I know they're very different people, and the star is not as big. But in terms of credentials, you could draw parallels with Brock Lesner. Brock Lesner, I think, had one MMA fight. Now, granted, he's.

A Wwe.

It was a loss.

He was like one and one.

Yeah. And then he comes in, he fights Frank Maywee, he gets beaten. Two or three fights later, he's the champion of the world. And if I'm not mistaken, defended it twice against Shane Carwood and one other I forget right now knocked out Randy Couture. You know what I mean? And again, he's Brock Lesley. That's a different animal. But in terms of credentials, in terms of physical ability, what they can do, I think there's some.

Parallels there. The skill set is similar.

Playing matchmaker for a moment, do you have someone you might suggest? It's hard because I know there's a lot of fighters on the roster these days.

I would try to get that Traishan Gore fight back. I like that match up. I think the Traishan Gore, the Jamie Pickett, that level of fighter, I think they're dangerous enough where they could give him some problems. And absolutely, Trey Sean Gore could win that fight. But I would stick right around there. If they can, I would try to run that Trey Sean Gore fight back.

I like that because it's people that are in the UFC. It's people that are experienced. It's people that have had some success and won some fights. So therefore, as you say, he's only a wrestle and he's still learning. It's not like they can't pull it off. Yeah, they could beat him.

The guy that he fought Saturday could have beat him if he would have got caught somewhere.

Of course he could. So anyway, I agree with that. Run it back. Run it back. Run it back, baby. You're looking for a way to start your day, improve your mood, boost your energy levels, and strengthen your immune system? Well, look no further. Roots Apothecary have developed a full range of products that have been proven to have a positive impact on your health health and performance. Adaptogens are growing in popularity as stress resilience is increasingly recognized as influential overall health, wellness, and performance. Roots Apothecary Adaptive Greens are heavily stacked with performance mushrooms like lion's main and cotyceps. Powerful adaptogens like ginseng and bacilli extract, a strong synergy of probiotics, milk, thistle, and other botanicals that support improved overall health and performance by improving mind and body resilience to ongoing pressures. A lot of companies are putting out buzzwords, they're throwing around adaptogens on their labels without delivering the ingredients that offer the real therapeutic beneficial effects. Adaptogens and performance mushrooms only deliver on their reputation when they contain the active compound that these reputations are built on. And that is what root apothecary are offering. And that is why they have been around for over 10 years with a function first mentality.

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He was the last person to the scale. You know what that means? It means the whole time everyone else is hydrating, he's still killing himself. That will make you tired. But I think he was a little mentally weaker as the fight progressed. I think he started to doubt himself because as you get tired, doubt creeps in. And I think in general, Dan Hocker won that fight by being tougher. He was tougher on the night. He took some heavy shots. He took the head kicks, but he kept going and he kept walking out and throwing punches at Jaylen Turner. He was outmatched physically. He wasn't as fast. He's not as technical. He wasn't as sharp or as powerful. But he took the shots landed his own, and made... I mean, if there was 10 seconds left in that second round, that fight was over. That fight was over in the second round.

Mike, I think that Jaylen Turner is going to be much better from this fight. Even the Gamera fight, it was one of those real annoying performances. Jaylen is so talented on his feet. He's a pretty good wrestler. Gamera is just a different beast. And that's just a bad match up for Jaylen, especially on short notice like he took it without enough time to prepare for a wrestler and a grappler, the level of Gamera. But I think that he's going to grow a lot from this because he did everything he wanted to do on his feet and still won. He ended up in some grappling exchanges because of some decision making. He got out toughed. He got into a dog fight that he didn't want to be in. Because we've talked to him on here before and I've chitchatted with him at the APEX and stuff, he seems like the type of guy that this is going to light a fire and he's going to realize that there's a different level of toughness. You can be good, you can be sharp, you can have great kicks, punches, elbows, take down defense, but the better guy doesn't always win.

Sometimes if the other guy is just close enough to you to keep himself in the fight, he can out tough you. And I think that he just now learned that there's another level of toughness and it doesn't matter how good you are, you can still lose a fight.

Well, we talked about it on Thursday and we're going to get to it. The intangibles, Trickey Plessy on paper, is not as good as Robert Whitaker. On paper, Dan Hocker, I would say, is a great kickboxer. But Jelan Turner is a special kickboxer, I'm telling you. And yeah, I think he needs to make some changes. I think moving up to 170 as he's getting older, because he's still a very young man, 25, I think, something like that. He missed weight. He's massive. 170, I think there's some good matchups. I think 170 for him. He might have an easier ascent. But if he wants to stick at 170, 155, I'm looking at the rankings here. Matt Frivola, maybe.

I know he was calling someone now. That's a good match up.

Matt Fervola, he's ranked 15. Hidalto Mujica, I think he just got matched.

Up though. I think he just got matched.

Yeah. Matt Fervola, got to be a fun one.

I like that fight.

That'd be a banger. Two bangers.

That'd be a fun fight.

Right. Moving on. This, for me, was the people's main event. Dr. Jürgen Plessy, Robert Whitaker started off, and then we'll get into all the nonsense after was as well with his. Started off looking like how I thought it was going to look. Robert was looking as quick as ever. The in and out movement, the feet, picking his shots, being smooth, being crisp, being precise, growing in confidence, hands low, you know what I mean? Kind of pot shotting him. And the first minute, 90 seconds was all Whitaker. But then Du Plessy started inserting his way in. Started cutting off the cage, going out and being aggressive. And it was Terry Atlas that first said this to me, but it's a great point. Whitaker was relying a lot on the lead left hook, whereas Du Plessy was standing southp o ut throwing jabs and one twos and straight shots. Straight shots always beat hooks. Simple as that. Fastest point, A to B, as the Crow flies. That's why he dropped him in that jab. But the take down that he hit him with, I mean, that says to me, because Robert Whitaker is not an easy man to take down.

And that headlock take down that he took him down with, it's not the best, most effective, although Driccus does have good judo. But then when he took him down, the way he was able to outscramble him and maintain top position because Drickeys... Sorry, Robert Whitaker, you see here, he's got the under hook. He could have scuted over and took the back, but we see there he does the right thing. He makes the right adjustments, lands a nice little elbow, shakes equilibrium, and then gives him an opportunity to establish the base and go to work with the ground and pound. I thought it was phenomenal.

I'll just come out and say it. I owe Du Plessy an apology. I gave him no chance at all. I gave him no shot. And to be fair, nobody did. I don't think anybody did. But I'll be man enough to sit here and say I was wrong. But I don't think that my analysis at the beginning was necessarily right. I still think that if we're just talking technique for technique, I think Robert Whitaker is probably a little bit more skilled and more polished. Now, like we just talked about with the Jaylen Turner fight, the better guy doesn't always win. And I was super impressed with not just the toughness, not just the mental toughness, the physical toughness, but the brute power of Du Plessy. He was just the bigger, stronger guy, and he used it effectively. You can be bigger and stronger, but if you don't know how to use it and you don't know how to leverage your weight and your power and your strength, it's not going to work. He just did everything right. He did struggle with the speed a little bit at the beginning, and his guard was so tight. Everything was so tight.

His hands were in the right spot. Every time Whitaker would blitz with that straight left hand, he was covered the whole time. The difference in when Du Plessy would land a shot, it was affecting Robert Whitaker drastically more than the ones he was absorbing. It was a phenomenal performance, man. Honestly, I never really thought too much of Du Plessy. I just thought he was just super tough and was just out tough on a lot of people. He's figured out a way to make his skill set work for him. It's awkward and it's rigid, but it works. The take down was ugly as shit but.

If it's effective.

It works.

I think it's time, though, for the narrative to change a little bit now because I thought he looked way more polished than what he has done.

He's gotten a lot better.

For sure. He didn't run out of gas and he talked about having his nose fixed and maybe there is some truth to that. I'm sure there is. He looked way more technical, way more polished. And I think after watching that now, those are the fights with Derek Brunson and Darren Till. You look at them through a different lens as well. Remember, Darren Till took Robert Whitaker to the absolute limit. That was a very close fight. Very close fight. I love Darren, he's my boy. Kind of rag dolled him at the start, Till came back into it and we know what happened. Derek Brunson, he got taken down early, but that's what Derek Brunson's made a career on. And then he stops him at the end of round two. They throw the towel in because of the beating. I think now you look at that and then you see what he did to Robert Whitaker and what he's done throughout the entirety of his UFC. You start thinking, Hold on a minute. Maybe we were being a little too critical. Maybe we weren't looking at it from his perspective. He's clearly strong. He can clearly take people down.

He can get back to his feet. He dropped Robert Whitaker with a jab for crying out loud.

That shows the power he's landed. That's a man who took shots from Yoel Romero without too many problems.

And you could see when you see it in slow motion, you see the eyes of Robert Whitaker. I mean, there's no one alive that's not a fan of Robert Whitaker, the human being and the fighter that he is. But we just got to call it as it is. I mean, he fights his way back to his feet. Immediately, Driccus goes on the attack, nose he's got hurt, prays, stalks him, bam, bam, bam. And he was calm. Rich to the body.

Oh, yes. Stay calm. Stay calm. We didn't see him stay calm, but he's never stayed calm before. He's lost his...

That body shot. That body shot. That body shot. Drops him. That's what did it. And then the follow up. And then that's it. That's all she wrote.

There it is.

You can feel it. It's amazing. Oh, that's amazing. I did the right thing stopping that there.

My last point on here is, again, I'm not defending myself because I was just flat wrong on Duple C. I think he leveled up. It doesn't matter. It doesn't. I don't give a shit. But I think that to a lot of our credit, I think that he leveled up. And maybe he's a guy that fights to the level of his opponent. I think that this Robert Whitaker fight definitely forced him to be more polished. It forced him to work on his conditioning, I'm sure. It forced him to not lose his mind when he gets him hurt and blow his load. But I think sometimes we see stuff that looks different. And I think it throws us off sometimes because I think we all know it punches and kicks and wrestling. What he does looks different. And then he gets into these dog fights sometimes. Well, he was dog fighting with Brad Tavares. He was losing a lot of that fight and just toughed his way out of it. Okay, well, maybe he got lucky. Then the Brunson fight. He got taken down. All right, well, Brunson maybe gas a little bit. Maybe he dodged a bullet there.

And then the Till fight. You're like, man, he's just in every single fight. Even though they're getting.

Tougher.

They're equal as far as the fights are equally as tough. So then you're like, Well, if he does this with Robert Whitaker, Whitaker is not going to do that with him. It just looks different. It just looks different.

Maybe that's on us. Listen, we're allowed to make predictions and guesses. It doesn't matter.

And that's what it is. It's a guess.

As you start your fight career, you get better. And he's clearly putting the work and he's already got the intangibles we spoke about then. He's clearly got the determination. He's tough enough. He's strong enough. He's got the will. He's nasty when he needs to be. He's got the discipline to train hard. And every training camp he's doing, he's just getting better. It's like if you look at me when I first came to the UFC towards the end, I'm a way better, way polished fighter because every time you go through a training camp, you learn, you get better. And then on your downtime, if you're disciplined enough and you're not sitting on your ass drinking beers, you'll improve then as well. So it's just a natural progression. And that's why people start off on the undercard at the apex and they slowly but surely get better. Unless you're a freak of nature, unless you're a freak prospect like a Bob Nickle or a Brock Lesner or someone of that calibre. I mean, look at Eze when he first came. He wasn't knocking everyone out. You know what I mean? All his charisma and all the rest of it.

That seems like a good segue for the Israel Adel Sanya thing. Clearly, that's the next fight. That's going to go down. I enjoy the hype, shall we say? I agree with Drickey's remarks that Issy... I thought he'd let himself down a little bit, but whatever. It's the fight business, it's promotion. Give me your thoughts.

I don't like the racial stuff. I don't like it. I have no dog in the fight because I'm half black and I'm half white. So I'm stuck in the middle. But I don't like how...

You have the right to give us a different perspective from myself.

I feel like when he was talking about being a real African and being the real African champion and really breathing African air and all that stuff, I never took that as racial. I don't think if I said that to another person that was saying, I'm an American champion. I was like, Well, I'm a real American, I would never look at that as being racial, but I'm also not Issy's shoes. So although I can see why Issy got upset by that, because he does identify himself as African. Regardless of where he was raised, he was born in Nigeria. So I understand Issy being offended by that. I just don't know when it turned to color and race. I didn't like Issy being in the octagon because it's so personal for him. And I understand him being so upset. There's a lot of things that me and you will never understand why someone else is upset about something. Because for whatever reason, something that may piss you off, M ike, may seem not that big of a deal to me. But if you take it personal, then I respect the fact that you're going to be upset about it because it bothered you.

And that's how I look at it with IZ. But because he's taking this so personal, it's affecting him personally. He didn't go in there with the right mindset to maybe make the best decision when he got a microphone in front of his face. And I don't know if he had been drinking or not drinking or whatever. He was clearly upset, though. And I just don't think that... I think maybe the people around him could have said, Hey, hold on a second. I know you want to make this fight. Maybe we do this at the post fight press conference. T hen you can get your sound bites in there after you've had some more time to absorb it, calm down, chill out. I just don't like the racial part of it at all. I don't like is he having an opportunity so quick, right then and there, have a microphone in front of his face because you and I both know the second something pisses us off and we stick a microphone in our face right then and there, you're going to say something that maybe isn't going to be the best look and maybe you're going to look at it later and say, I should have waited 15 minutes.

I think Issy was shocked because he didn't expect this. He thought in his mind, Robert Whitaker is going to beat him. And then I'm going to get to beat Robert Whitaker once again because I know I can do that. I've beaten him twice. I finished him the first time. Second one was close, but I can do better. And I've done better before, so I will. Drinkers. And then to see Driccus go out there and beat him the way that he did, all of a sudden he probably felt a threat. Obviously, they've already had the beef. They've been going back and forth. They've been talking. You could see he was mad. He was angry. His voice sounded like my voice. He'd probably indulge in Vegas a little bit. And rightly so, the champion hasn't got a fight right now.

I don't see an issue with it. It's just maybe not the best time to get a microphone stuck in.

Front of his face. He's enjoying the festivities. Well, I could see him. He had a cocktail in his hand on several occasions. So he's enjoying the fight. He's like a human being. And then he goes in there... I didn't like it because... Listen, he could say whatever he wanted. And it is the fight game and people say nasty things to one another. But Drickey Dipletti was born there. Now I know you can start picking it apart and saying this and saying that and saying the other. There's a little bit of double standards there. If a white guy was saying that someone that was born in England, came from Africa wasn't black because... Sorry, wasn't English because the black. I think that would be a big controversy, but regardless, it is the fight game.

You know what I mean? I didn't like him saying the N word a bunch of times, like on the broadcast.

I didn't like that either. And I don't like it. I think we should just steer away. I mean, white people, definitely.

For sure. White people, I'm telling you right now, don't say that fucking word.

I would never say it. It's not part of my vocabulary.

I don't say it either. And I have a whole side of my family that I spend a lot of time with. And I don't like it when they say it. And they're all 100 % black, and I don't like it when they say it. I'm not.

A.

Stiff. I'm not a prude.

That was why he was saying that, because I think his point was saying, and again, I know nothing about this and I've got no right to be giving an opinion on this as an English man living in California. I know nothing about this. But I think what he was saying was because it is a word that is still, shall we say for one of a better choice, allowed to be used? People say it in the black communities. You know what I mean? And I think that was his point. I'm African. Africans are black. I'm saying this word to you right now because you can't say it because you're not African. And maybe I'm wrong, but I think that's what he.

Was trying to do. I seen a tweet somewhere and someone said, shout out to Israel Adesanya for saying the N word repeatedly over and over again while I was sitting with my children.

Watching the fight.

And that's really what it's about. We're with a bunch of adults, we're in a bar and we're having a conversation, or you're even having a tiff with someone. You guys are getting an altercation in a casino in Vegas. Say it as much as you want. Same thing. My kids were sitting there watching it, too. And it's like, Oh, come on, bro. I'm not a prude or anything, but I don't know. And I got a lot of respect for Eze. I get him being upset. And far be it me to critique anyone else for things that they do when they're upset or in the moment because I've done a lot of dumb shit.

Well, that's what I was just going to say because I, many times, have let myself down. I can't sit there and judge anyone. And in the heat of the moment, things get said. And afterwards, you might regret it. There's a thousand things I can look back on my career and go, man, why did I do that? Why did I say that? Certainly when you charge, when you're in the moment, the adrenaline is running through your body and you get a microphone, you say things. And listen, you're right. In the cold light of day, when everyone's fine and calm and heart beat steady and you're sober, yeah, of course. When you're the champion of the world, you're inspiring people. There's people that look up to you and all the rest of it. But also you got to remember that these people are also human beings. And everyone makes mistakes every day.

But I think the secondary part of it that has nothing to do with us or anybody watching is he gave Du Plessy an opportunity to look like the good guy. He did do that. And I don't think that that's been the case up until that moment. I think that it's been a lot of people on his side, and people start talking about all this, the history of Africa and whatever. I don't know anything about it. I'm not going to pretend like I do. But he did give Driccus an opportunity to be the guy that, I don't know, that didn't stoop to his level or the guy that was better in that moment as far as how he acted. Because a lot of other guys would have just fired right back at Israel. They had this heated back and forth. And Du Plessy, marketing wise and popularity wise for him, did himself a favor by being the bigger man or making sure that he appeared to be the bigger man. And I think that's probably going to bother Izi more than anything else is that he gave Du Plessy an opportunity to look like the good guy.

Yeah, valid point. And then also, I think as well, he understands there's a real threat there. And this is going to be a big fight because for all whatever, all other, if but negatives, the negatives of it, it is good promotion. And they are human beings and they are going to fight. And it does make it interesting. So from that regard, you say it worked. When is that? Nine weeks away is this fight card in Sydney.

Du Plessy, I don't think it's guaranteed that he's going to fight on that, but that's got to be the card. That'll be the main event in Sydney. Tied to a Varser I think on there. What a fight card. What a fight card. What a fight. I can't wait for that. And after seeing that...

I didn't really care to see too much before.

I think Du Plessy has a chance. He always has a chance. I think now it's a real fight. It's a real fight. Because I thought before looking at some of his past performances, I think if he did get a shot against Issy, Issy being as technically brilliant as what he is would just pick him apart. I feel different now. I do feel differently.

I had no desire to see Du Plessy versus Israel Adesanya at all. But I found myself Saturday night, once the card was over, going, man, I wonder what that fight would look like. I hadn't even considered being excited about that fighter or even starting to break down their skill sets and how they match up with each other. I hadn't even thought about it. But again, Du Plessy couldn't have had a better night. And I'm sure he's feeling the effects of it today as far as his media attention, his followers, the love, the attention. He couldn't have left Vegas on a higher note.

Without question. Well, first and foremost, getting a win over Robert Whitaker, that is a legendary name to have on your resume.

And this isn't like a flaky one either. This isn't like he threw a big right-hand and caught him and put him out. He beat him from beginning to end. He systematically broke him down.

And Whitaker looked good to start. He looked like Robert Whitaker. It wasn't like from the get go, he was like, Something's off with Whitaker. He doesn't look himself. He's limping. He's not throwing his left hand. Maybe he just didn't want to pull out. There's none of that. He beat him fair and square. He took him down. He held him down. He did damage. He followed it up. He dropped him with the jab. Then he went on the kill. Body shot, boom, boom, boom. Ground on pound. Technically perfect. Brilliant. An absolutely fantastic fight. And now he gets to fight for the belt, which is just incredible. 20 and two, nine team finishes out of 20 wins. It's crazy. See what I'm saying? It's doing something right. Doing something right.

Credit to him.

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Even just talking to a friend can help. But speaking to somebody that does this for a living, you can open up. There is no judgment judgment. The only judgment will be that you are being brave, you are being strong, you are doing the things necessary to make life better, not only for you, because it will do that, but the loved ones around you. If you're a family man, if you're a father, if you got a wife, your mental health is affecting everybody else. And if you're on your own, probably there's people that are concerned about you. So help yourself and help them. Be the person you can always be. Be the best version of yourself. Take big control of the situation. Visit betterhelp. Com believe you will get 10 % off your first month. That is betterhelp. Com believe. All right. And that, of course, brings us now to the co main event of the evening. As after the knockouts that we've seen, the finishes, Robert Whitaker getting done, I mean, Brendan Moreno is always in fun fights, but you're dropping down in power. You're going to the fly weights. You think you can be forgiven for thinking this isn't going to be as fun.

We're going to have 20 five minutes now of pitter patter action. Well, if you did think that, and you need to have more respect for the fly weights because if you did think that you were wrong. Pantosia always starts fast and hard. But my God, when I ran the Moreno, dropped him, crucifaced him, came close to finishing him, I was so impressed with Moreno because having lost two rounds, sorry, two previous fights, and then to take a beating, it almost get finished in round one. So then come back in round two and look phenomenal looking like Floyd Mayweather with the hands. You know what I mean? And to have the mental toughness to win that and come back was incredible. Back and forth they went. It was an incredible fight. Amazing fight. What are your thoughts?

I think that that's a great point. I think you made that same point on the post show how it would have been very easy as soon as he got hurt and he's in a bad spot to say, oh, here we go again. You start getting flashbacks and start thinking about the old shit that happened before, especially when he was on his back there for a while, like, man, I remember this. I had picked Pantosha, but it was really because of the grappling. I thought that he would get him into some bad spots, and I didn't think that he was going to be super competitive striking because Moreno's looked so good on his feet recently. I just thought that Moreno would be too quick for him, and he would pick at him. He'd get in and get out and get in and get out. And that was not how Moreno attacked this fight at all. I never expected those guys to stand in the pocket and exchange bombs like that. I just wonder, I don't know why this even enters my mind, but I wonder how much time has been taken off of Brandon Moreno's career because of the battles that he's been in in the last handful of years.

I don't think any. I understand the thought because it's a popular thought. Every time you have wars, you're never the same. You leave a piece of yourself in the octagon. I thought he looked really good. I thought he looked fantastic. The grappling exchanges were awesome. I think I told you, you said a sense of urgency. He's the better grappler is the better wrestler, obviously more dangerous on the ground. He had bigger power. Moreno was putting together really slick boxing combinations, mixing in the head kicks, looking beautiful. But whenever Pantosha would land a good one, he would sit him down.

Pantosha packs a lot of power. It backed him off every time he landed.

Yeah, the tie clink, the knees were super dangerous. Don't get me wrong, Moreno had a lot of success. I had it, though, talking about scorecards because Pantosha won one, lost two, more. That was Moreno's, three. I gave it to Pantosha. Four and five, I gave it to Pantosha. I had a four to.

One.

Pantosha, too. I had it, four to one Pantosha. And then a judge comes out and gives it for the first scorecard, 49, 46, Brandon Moreno. I was like, what on Earth?

What are you watching? That's what I kept thinking, oh, no. Because I had a bunch of people sitting around watching and I'm like, what do you think? I'm like, I think that's Pantosha 4 to 1. But I did get nervous when Pantosha's corner told him, you ou've won this fight. You've won three rounds already. You just have to stay. You need to stay safe in this round. Don't do anything stupid. I was like, man, don't tell him that because who knows what the judge is? You just never know. I thought 4 to 1 for Moreno is absolutely incompetent. There's no way he won four rounds.

They talk about damage being the biggest thing. I still think Pantoggia did the more damage. He was threatening the rear naked jokes a lot. Round 5, he spent a lot of time on his back. Backpacked him, did that several times throughout the fight. That's a dangerous place to be. Certainly someone like Pantoggia. I thought he backed him up. Moreno had a lot of success, but the damage, the heavier blows were landed by Pantoggia. He threatened the some missions on multiple occasions. There was times when Moreno did as well. But the bulk of it, I thought, was on the side of Pantorga. So I was really worried. And Teddy Atlas even said he was like, Oh, my God. He said, What's going on? Are we starting to use the judges from boxing now? Because we're in terrible in boxing. And I felt like, because I didn't want to correct him. I'm like, they are the same judge.

It's the same judge.

It's the same goddamn judge, which in itself is a whole different other conversation because that's wild. What do you think should happen next?

That's a great question because I know that, of course, I would love for my teammate, Brandon Royal Bell, to get the next shot. What do I think is going to happen? I think those guys are going to need a lot of time off. They're pretty banged up. It's a long fight, really tough fight. And I think we're going to see them run it back.

Well, fortunately, we can ask Brendan Roevel in just a moment. What am I saying? Alexander Pantosha in just a moment. I was.

Like, Man, we.

Got Roevel too. Yeah, I'm just looking at Pantosha's record. He beat Roj Val 2 fighter ago. He did. Alex Moreno, Perez, Roysval, and Manal Kharp. I think because the fight was so entertaining, here's the question I want to ask, because now it's three and a half to Pantology, three and a half. So that could be a hard sell. One of them was on the ultimate fighter. One of them was five years ago. When we're talking championship level, which that was clearly a championship level 5, by the way, I think running back because I'm not sure if any of the top contenders really do it for me. And the fight was so good. And I think Moreno, given the champion that he's been, the fights he's put on, the performances and what he's done for the sport in the lighter weight classes, certainly Mexican MMA as well, I think he deserves it with his resume. And I think after how entertaining that fight was, I don't think anyone would have a problem with seeing that.

I don't either. And I think that's going to be the cell. If it happens, that'll be why, because no one's going to complain about it. Sometimes you get these rematches, sometimes they're not as good as the original. But I think in this case with Brandon Moreno and Pantosha, I think it would be equally as close.

It's I mean, number three is Amir Al Baze. Amir is doing great things, but that's not the one I want to see. Then it's ROI Valt, Kajcor of France. I don't know. I'd say I'd bring it back and let's see what happens. But Alexa Gracso is under a lot of pressure now. He went from having three Mexican champs to now she's the only one left. But she did it legit. She took out the champ, she took out the chef. But yeah, a lot of pressure for her. So four minutes until ROI Valt joins us. Roi Valt, what am I doing?

You're manifesting it now. Roi Valt's going to get a tile shot.

I'm going to call in Ro yal on the chat. Hey, Harrington, give us a quick non MMA thing, something small and light and delightful, something that takes specifically four minutes to talk about. In fact, give us number one in the notes, brother. Okay. I was going to give you the sphere.

You just spent the weekend Vegas. It's like the.

Coolest new attraction. All right, fine. Over the weekend, two celebrities came out and said they do not plan on leaving their family any inheritance.

They had different takes. Charles Barkley said his family has been free loading off of him for long enough. He hopes he dies without a penny to his name from gambling. And then Jackie Chan came out and said that his son will.

Either make his own money or he'll.

Waste his. So he's not going to give him anything. On the Jackie Chan one, he'll have to make his own money or he'll waste his. But if you die, Jackie Chan, why did you care? Why does it matter? You don't want to make sure that your son's financially secured. You don't want to make sure that here's my flesh and blood. When I die, I don't want you lying in this street. If you were to take my money and we're talking 400 and something million dollars, it's quite a bit. It's going to be hard to blow that.

It's going to be hard to fuck that up.

Maybe put some steps in places, you can't get it all at once. But if that's your flesh and blood, your son maybe I'm soft and I am a bit soft with my kids. But I scratch my head when I hear that.

Me too. I wish I had something funny to say, but I've just always thought I'm going to try to amass as much money as I can, whether it's money or investments or whatever, amass as much as I can and make sure that I raise my kids in a way that I'm going to be comfortable that when I'm gone and they have it, that they're going to do something bigger with it and better with it. And then it's going to continue to build generation to generation. That's the idea. It's not going to happen. I mean, that's my plan. But that's what I'm in the process of doing. So you always want to leave your kids with more than you have. The idea is not to hoard all your money like a squirrel, and then when you die, you take it with you. That's not necessary.

A blow it all on gambling like Charles Barkley. I mean, what is that? Why blow it on gambling? If you blow it, it means you're going to give it to a casino.

Right. Why not give it to your kids instead?

I think.

Shaq has a great plan. I love how when Shaq talks about, My kids don't get to touch any of my money until.

They get a degree. Hold on. Before you say, Have you heard the saying now from Shaq? He goes, My kids go, We're rich. We're rich. We're rich, dad. And he's like, No, we ain't rich. I'm rich. I love that. I love that. It's genius. It's brilliant. The children do need to understand that. And that's a different thing. I'm all about teaching my kids the value of a dollar. I just said to him, listen, you've got to get part time jobs. Callum isn't wrestling anymore. Before he was studying and he was wrestling full-time as a college athlete, didn't really have the time. And I wanted him to try and do the best he could. But now he's just stopped wrestling because of the injuries. And he's already applied for about 15 jobs. I said, you're 22 now. You're going to start standing on your own two feet and learning the value of a dollar and you're going to feel good. Same with Ellie, she's looking for part time jobs. The student's still so part time because I want him to get an education. I never did. But that said, my goal is same as you. I'm working my ass off because I know the world is hard, Anthony.

Life is hard to have a roof over your head, to be able to pay the bills, to have money, to be able to go on vacation, drive a semi decent car that you can be proud of, be able to go out for dinner and it not be a stress. And I've been on the side where there's no money. It's stressful. Bills come in, it causes arguments. It is a goddamn nightmare. And I never want to go back to living paycheck to paycheck because I've done that. And it's miserable and it's fucking horrible. And I sympathise with everyone that does because it's just the biggest stress in life. You know what I'm saying? All right, let's talk about Manscaped. Really quick, guys, manscaped. Com, they are sponsoring the episode and you can get 20 % off your order and free shipping and 20 % off when you use the code bisping 20. The performance package 4.0. This is the one. It is the package for you. Inside the package, you will find the lawn mower 4.0 trimmer. Things amazing. You can trim your crown jewels. You're not going to nick yourself. You're not going to cut yourself.

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Hey. What's up, guys? Limo Hart.

What's going on, guys?

What's up, champ? What's up, guys? It's a pleasure to come to this table.

Yeah, I was going to say get yourself in the middle if possible. This is awesome. And thank you for joining us.

Thank you to invite me.

Yeah, there we go. Just moving on. There we go. There we go. Pantosha, what do your friends call you? Alexandra, Pantozio, Cian?

Now it's Cian, it's good. But now it's Pantosha, it's good. My mom is a doctor and Pantozio is the name of the father I don't know, Father Laus.

Say that.

The guy put... I love this name. It's so hard. So strong. And I love that Pantozio is good.

I want to get to some things about your mother because I thought your post fight speech was beautiful. And we'll talk about that after. What does Pantozzi mean?

My middle name. That's actually what it's there.

Can you just slide over a little bit into the middle? Is that possible? Does your.

Chair go right here?

No.

The other way.

The other way.

The side. Okay. Yeah, a bit more.

A.

Little bit more. A little.

Bit more. I don't want to lose the belt.

That's great.

Yeah, that's perfect.

I'm r ally so out of it.

I think that a lot of us are maybe guilty of maybe not... We all have known how great of a fighter you are, how great your jutsu is, just how tough you are in there, and how dangerous you are for every fighter in that division. But I think a lot of us are guilty of maybe not digging too much into your back story and your past. And you said that in your post fight speech that if you guys knew my story, that you would cheer for me, that you would be my fan. So this is my opportunity to ask you, I guess, a little bit about your story and where that emotion came from in the post fight.

That's amazing. What do you live in this world? Two days ago, nobody knew about me and now I can speak about my history. I think I get the belt because I have that history. I started to begin. My mom is adopt and she's had a lot of scars and she's hard. Sorry, my English guy, I tried.

So hard. No, it's fine. It's great.

She had a lot of scars and she's hard. I don't know that the name is... She's mother loud, she's mother loud. She tells me that stories. Mother loud sometimes speak mad things about her. And she's grew like that. She used to work a lot. And I think I started start with my mom because my mom is my hero. And when she found my dad, my dad make three kids, my older brother, my sister and I. And in the beginning, what I remember is my dad drink too much and a lot of aggressive in his part. I really don't see he work a lot for construction, like beautiful family. Now I have two kids, I have my wife. That's my goal. I tell that before, I don't need the belt. I have my family. I have everything I have. That's my goal. I feel like a rich guy and I have all love I need. Now I'm old, I'm Daddy and I can see my Daddy put everything to lose when she's leave. My mom need to take care about me and my three brothers. Me and my two brothers. My dad never help with the money.

I don't want to crucify my dad. I really don't want to do that. I love my dad. That's why I say that in the end of the fight. I think he tried to send some messages because I don't talk with my dad for three years. The last time I talked with him, I sent some bad message when the or WhatsApp and SMS like that to say about like, Why you don't come? Why you don't look for us? I have 33, but I still miss my Daddy. I still want his love. I don't know if I'm wrong. I just don't want to leave. And I know my dad is love me. I know that. And he do it the best with he can. It's not too much, but the best he can do. But in the point, what I can say, he have a chance to get the family back. But he's leaving his life. He don't care about his... What I say, my kids, my dad is...

Grandchildren?

Grandchildren. He have four grandchildren. My kids don't know about a lot of my dad. She see him... Sorry. No, go ahead, Mike. Go ahead. Let's go.

No, sorry. I thought you were done. No, please.

Carry on. It's something like I say, what I learned with my dad is something like I need to help myself. I don't wait for help for anybody. I need to help myself. And that's why I learned with my dad. I learned like that. My brother take another choice, make some bad choice. My sisters, I think for a woman, for a daughter, that is like a true spine. If your daughter, I know what my sister means my dad. And obviously I need help. The only people I want to help is my dad, but I never have that. And that did help me a lot. What I do is I never look for help. I just help myself. What God gives to me is people to take care of me. And that's the point. When you don't look for help, and people know about that, people help you because you don't need the help. You don't want help, but you need. Sometimes you need help. One of the times when I go to fight for a RFA title in California, and sometimes I don't have a place to stay, and one of the women I just meet like, Bonnie, stop.

Sorry, my dog, guys.

You're.

Fine. She say, Hey, stay in my house. Stay in my house. I stay in his house for a month. And all the time, I have bad times, God sending me some one and give me help. This belt is about that. About all these people helping me for that moment. Like I said, I don't need any belt to say I'm a champion. I make my life, I make my family. I don't have anything when I come to US. Even Brazil, I don't have anything. I start to drive when I come to Florida. This is five years ago. Because I never had a chance to have a car.

Go ahead, please. No, no.

I was going to say... Help me here.

Yeah, no, no, no. You could see the emotion on Saturday when you won and when you spoke about your father. I know nothing of the situation, but there's a lot of dads out there that haven't been around. I think to a certain degree, I think a lot of them, they have issues and problems and I'm sure that they would love to be there as well. But they're ashamed of who they are. They're ashamed of how they behaved. I am making no excuses for any dead beat dads out there, but I think there's a lot of victims out there as well. And there's reasons and causes, you know what I'm saying? But I don't know your story.

I don't know about your father. Me and you guys have opportunity to learn with the martial arts. That's a brutal sport. Make for gentlemen. Everybody fight. Everybody on this part know about that. Just about love, respect, helping each other. And I learned this all my life. And guys, your father too, you know about... I give you everything for my kids right now. If I need to die, I die right now happy because I want to help my kids. I give you everything for give you opportunity to my kids. When I come to US, it's not just about me. It's just tell the opportunity to my two boys. Now, both speak better English with them. They're never going to speak. Both want to make an opportunity in the fight. I want to take care of my family. I think that's the point. That's my happy life, to care about my family. That's why I see the life. Now I'm old and I can see a lot of mistakes my dad did. I don't want you to crucify him. Like I said, he do it the best he can do.

It's not including what I think is good.

So let's talk about something that should make you smile. Saturday night, my friend, you went out there, you became the champion of the world in one of the best fights that I've seen lately. That's one of my favourite fights. It just happened to it's in my mind. That fight was ridiculous from start to finish. And all the hardships, maybe growing up, you could see that. That's made you the man you are today. But talk me through it. Talk me through the experience of your fight on Saturday night.

My it's not my best performance too far to that.

But it's pretty good. It's a pretty good one.

I know. I know. I don't want to say more than it's not good. She do the good and I do the best. When I can do it that day, but I know I can do it better. But a lot of emotions. And I beat more than twice. And when I see in the cross of the cage and the belt is in the middle, I say, I'm going to kill this guy. I go right there and finish the fight. That's what I try to do in the first round. But in the second round, he's coming strong. And I forget all the technique. I just put my heart and try to keep it going. And all the arena is coming with Moreno. All the punch Moreno throw me in my face. Everybody scream like, and at that point I think I need to do it more. But in that point, I don't have anything. I just imagine I need to kill this guy. I need to kill this guy. I need to beat him. But I don't use technique. I just put my body in the front and try to take him. And that's my first belt fight, my first title fight, first five rounds.

But if I won in the first round, very close to finish the fight, I think I don't have this taste. Always my life is like a tough, like this fight, very hustle, like a hard. I need to put everything for win. I don't can imagine the best fight for that with the Moreno gift to me. When I met him, I found him in the hospital, meaning go to the hospital. That my completely move me like Rocky found that Paula Cread in the hospital and talking bad things with each other. But I love Moreno. That's a good guy. I respect him a lot. And of course, that's a very good guy. It's not bad blood. Like I say, this is a brutal sport. Do it for the gentlemen. And I want to fight to Moreno again. Of course, I want to do better, of course. But it's not this time. I really think they need to give the chance for another fighters. Moreno and Daveson fight for the last three years. I'm one of the guys who wait for how long. I know some guys wait for a long time too, and let's do that. If Moreno fight one more time and he deserves for them to fight the belt again.

Let's do it.

So is that what you think is going to happen? You think that they'll run the Moreno fight right away or do you want a new contender?

I think they didn't like to know everything. That's the best guy for doing that. But what I think is the correct to do is move on. Give a chance for another guy. Moreno fight for the belt like five times in the last two years. He deserve. Everybody know that he's a big guy. He's beaten Davidson. He deserved. He make a close fight with me. Beautiful fight. I love that fight. I love all the second.

Who would that be if it's not Marino, who would it be.

In your opinion? In my opinion, what I think it's need to do is put some guys to fight and see who come to the new challenge.

Like Al Basi and ROI Vell, maybe?

That's it. I have Manel Capo fight with Carragher Friends right now. I think this is the best semifinal to do it.

Let's imagine if they do do you and Brando Moreno again, having beaten him now three times, having gone five rounds on Saturday night, what do you think you could do differently? Because you said you weren't happy with that fight. Round one was brilliant. You almost finished him. Round two, that's a beautiful dog. What dog is it?

Pit Bull?

Let's have a look. What's his name?

Bonnie.

Bonnie? Say that, Bonnie.

Set.

The hell down, Bonnie. We're conducting a very serious...

He's missed me a lot. Ten days.

Oh, bless. That's amazing. I told you, shut up. Having just done five rounds, round one, you were amazing. Round two, he came back. He had a really strong round. Three, four, and five were closer, but I gave them all to you. What changes do you think you would make or what would you prepare for if you do fight again?

I think if I fight again, I'm going to step back a little bit and see the clearly what I need to do. Because in the fight, I just think I go forward and I prove to every world that's my moment and I want to hold you to everything. Like I said, I don't fight with technique. I have, of course, but I just want to take, I want to take, I want to take. And in that point right now, I got the belt, I can relax. I trained so hard for a one and a half after my fight to Paris. And like I said, I don't leave of the house. I training, come back to home, train, come back to home. Because I know I have just one chance, that chance. If I lose to Moreno, everybody going to forget me, forgive me. Forget? Yeah, forget. And that's it. But the belt's here. Now I talk with Parumpa a lot. Parumpa say, Hey, you... What a guy.

I love Parumpa.

And I want to say he deserves the coach of the year. This belt is going to be incredible coach. I give to him.

To the... And so busy, Anthony. He's at the apex all the time. But at home, you've probably seen him in the storm.

Yeah, all the time. I thought it was amazing seeing how emotional he was with your kids. When you're walking back to the back, he seemed like he was the he was more happy for you than anybody in that whole arena. I think that seeing those moments, you could just tell how close you guys are in that moment, how much he cared about you and your family and your success. I thought that that was one of the coolest moments of the post fight.

Parumpa and I come from the same neighbourhood in Copacabana.

Oh, no way.

I crossed the world to found him here in Florida.

That's amazing.

And he's from Carson gray. What of the guy I respect a lot. Carson gray is the creator of the legend from MMA. I learned a lot with Parumpa. Not just about fight, but about life. And everybody know about Parumpa in this game. Everybody know about Parumpa's game. Like I said, he's going back right now to the next main event with Shitala in Holy home. He never ever stopped. He never stopped. He never get the belt from UFC. And last year with Preatia, Preatia was very close to get the belt with Al Jamey Sterling, and he throw the knee. One of the hand in the belt and throw the knee and the belt's over. And then when he got the belt, he understand why he don't get the belt before because he said, Potosha, you, my man, I created you. Five years I trained with Parumpa. I followed Parumpa for NTT. After one of my losses in Boston, I said, Parumpa, I want to go to it. I want to train with you. And he make it happen. And I come to it, tee, five years and that's it. The belt is coming. I'm so happy for him.

Before the fight, I say, I got to get the belt and you're going to take the trophy about the Coach of the Year. He deserved a lot of that.

No, that's beautiful because he really does. He doesn't get enough recognition because, as I say, me and Anthony now, he's at almost every single event, work so hard. We were talking about children right before you came on and what we want to do for them. And listening to your story, obviously you had a very tough growing up, I'm sure. But with that toughness growing up, it's made you the man you are today. I mean, did you ever think when you were growing up that you were going to become a champion of the world? Was that the goal when you first discovered martial arts? It's like, listen, I can take those hardships, I can take those tough times and turn it into something positive. Because the way you fight, you're one of my favourite fighters. The way you fight is incredible, man. You're so aggressive. You're going for the finish all the time. But do you put a lot of your toughness in the ring down to the fact that you had a tough time growing up?

That's nice, Mike, because that's who I am. I think all the aggressive about my life I put in the cage. I'm a very sweet guy. I'm a nice guy. I try to talk to everybody, gentlemen. I try to help all my friends. And now I know because I'm older, I can see I need to pass for everything. Last Saturday, fight with one of the best flyweight guys, Moreno, and put something more. That's about my poor starting in life. I have anything. My mom with my hero, take care about my family. My mom is very sentimal woman and she's never have a good guy with her side. And I looked for that. When I growing in my city with my side, I walk in the street with my sister. Some guys talk shit about my sisters and I'll fight back. I always fight back. And now I feel I'm a good guy. I'm a great Daddy. I'm a nice husband for my wife. I have everything and I pray all the time for God and say thank you. I never wish something more. I just say thank you. I'm grateful for everything He gave to me.

All the rocks I put it for make my castle. You see, I have my kids, I have my dog, I have my wife, and I have this belt right now. I know God gave me this everything for that moment. I'm a completely guy now. What I try to say is I'm a dangerous guy now because I have everything and I go work so hard to fight again and defend my belt with more intelligence, fight smart, make these mistakes I do in the fight, move ahead. Everybody say about that, Move your head. Please, move your head. But I want to do that. I want to train more box. I want to do more footwork. I don't know everything. But right now, I want to relax. I went to Brazil, I go to Brazil. I go to my hometown, Arraio do Cabo.

You're going to do the tour?

Of course.

That's what I was going to ask. How are you going to celebrate?

Come on, man. Let's get a big smile. Pantanal Morris, give us a big smile. Come on.

I need to give this back to my.

Old man. I told you, ladies and gentlemen.

Come on, Anthony. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Motherfuckin' s champion of the world.

It's incredible. That's it. That's it. That's it. T's not about fake guy, you know, guys. He's a normal guy. He's a humble guy. And I try to... Today I go to ATT. I don't know if you guys can see all the gyms right there. And I have hugged to everyone. Everyone, so heavyweights, fly weight, girls, light weight, tell you the number. Everybody in the gym. And this is a lot for me. Why? Because I trained with these guys all day. And if I have the love of these guys, I train all day, this is a lot of respect for me. This is something like... And all the guys say, You're true champion. Your history, everybody know about. And if I can be a champion with everything I pass for my life, everybody can do that. Now that's it. I go to Brazil, I go bring this belt for my little small city. Put this belt and show this belt and show that everyone want to feel. This is for everyone. This is for everybody to help me. I say, a lot of people say, you're going to be a champion. And that's true. I make that...

I'm so happy, guys.

I'm so happy. Let me ask you this. Saturday night, you fight your ass off, you fight your heart out. You entertain the fans. And by the way, you're right, a lot of the fans were Mexican. There's a massive amount of Mexicans in the area. So Moreno had tremendous support. When they read out the scores and the first scorecard is 49, 46 for Moreno, what are you thinking?

A lot of confuses about these scores. You have seen last time, everybody talking about that. But I don't know if someone can do it something. It's a complicated because you know my history now. You know how far I come to this moment. And some judges thinking about to give the belt back to Moreno. But after, I don't see the fight. But I see a lot of comments and everybody say I win the fight. And Parumpa is a very correctly guy and say, you won the fight. Don't worry about that. You won the fight. And one of the guys thinking about to put this belt back to Moreno and put all my joints in the trash, this hard. But I'm happy because another two judges with everybody see that. And I really thinking about in the fight, I think I won the first round. That's okay. And the three and the fourth. But I see before the fourth round, the last two Judges give it to Moreno. And that's something in the last round I think about when he punched me. And I think I need to make something because all the arena with Moreno and this make the judge's score wrong sometimes.

And that's why I go to four. I have more to do. I have more to show him. And I proved that. And I will try to finish with my best movement, go to the back and finish with the knee, the choke. And I really think about, yeah, I want to take the belt with my best movement, with the choke and win the belt. But more than do a very good job and escape of that. What I proved I won the fight. Take down, control of the game. That's it. That's MMA and a lot of heart.

Were you surprised you couldn't finish him when you got to his back?

Yes.

You were? Yes.

I think in the third round, I think he's the back. I sweet the hook and he's keeping like escape, escape, escape, escape. I really think I want to finish the fight. And he do a very good job.

So let's talk about things that aren't mixed martial arts. What puts a smile on your face?

My wife and my kids. That's it.

How long you've been married?

Ten years.

Ten years. And how many children?

I have two. One of my old is my son, but he's everything for me. I learned with him, be a dad with him. That's very important for me. And he have 12 and my younger one have nine. This guy, he's so special. Both is my best friend. When I hang out with my wife, I bring these kids, Hey, no phones, no nothing. Let's go talk. Enjoy the moment.

That's it. That's too many.

Phones, man.

Too many phones.

And sometimes I see he... What I do for my kids is be an example. I try to be an example for my kids. That's the figure out for my two boys, me and his mom. That's the best example for both. When I see in the YouTube, I say no see YouTube. Don't forget that shit. Because you put something in the kid's mind. And sometimes he start to speak English. He start to speak English here and say, No, speak Portuguese with me. Don't speak English like a gangster with me. Speak Portuguese. Because when he speaks Portuguese, he's humble. And when he's speaking English, he's like, Oh, yeah, no, no.

No, no. So you.

Have to respect me, speak Portuguese. Don't come with a damn dude. No, don't come with that for me.

Are you at home right now?

Of course.

You want to come? No, no, no. Bring him on. We'd love to.

See him. Everybody's tired here. Everybody's tired. Oh, sure. I think he's in...

What was that moment like when you walked in? You've got the belt over your shoulder, your wife, your children. That must have been beautiful.

The best moment when I go to arena and go to the octagonal and see my wife in the front line, my kids. I feel really relaxed with that moment because I saw my wife, I see my kids, and I say that night is my night. I feel like I'm in the home. I don't need a full arena with me. I have my wife and my kids here. I'm good. And that's all support I need. It's very special for me to have my kids in that moment. And then under the fight, I can say, he speak my wife name is Gabriella. Like a hockey do it. Hockey for me, one of the best fight is never fight. Because everybody watch the movie and I think it's so inspiration, so inspiring you. He never fight, but he's talk with us. It's something crazy. All the movies. And the third movie when Mike, he want to fight with Clever Lane. When you fight, you don't can be a fashion guy. Well, I can say Civillians, the fighters don't care.

A civilised guy. Talking about when he's now his all fancy, he's made money.

He lose the two war, the Tiger of the Tiger.

It's crazy.

That's.

True. Yeah.

And he doesn't fight.

It is. You're absolutely right. Mocky did it for me.

Those movies are amazing. He's my mental coach. You know, he's my mentor coach.

Shout out, Mick. Shout out, Clive Allain. Shout out, Silvestre Solan. And shout out to the Flyweight Champion of the world, the one and only, Alexander Pantoja. Brother, we're going to let you go. We're going to say goodbye. Thank you. Congrats to you, to Gabriele, to all your children, to Pahumpa, to American Top Team.

Thanks so much, guys, for the support. It's been amazing. Lionel Morton, Mike, that's the best moment of my life. I want to enjoy everything. Thanks so much.

You guys. Enjoy. You deserve it, man. Beautiful.

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What a guy. He's so humble and just down to Earth, real world. What a guy.

And what he was saying, touches on what we were talking about beforehand. My voice is getting worse and worse. Like Charles Barkley, they want to spend all the goddamn money.

And.

I was just saying when it came, life's tough, holding a roof above your head is tough, paying your bills is tough, all that type of things. So I want to make sure that my motivation, my drive, because I've got a little bit of money, I'm not Conor McGregor, but I'm all right. But I want to make sure that if on the odd chance, and I would have don't say this publicly, my voice is failing and they don't listen to the podcast because they hate talking to me either way. They're not listening to me on the podcast as well. But if they somehow fail, in life and end up losers, I want to be able to be able to offer some financial assistance even from the grave.

I'll never, ever apologize. I came from not a lot. I relate to a Pantosian a lot actually, about just craving the love of your father. I didn't have it and me and my dad made up just a few years before he died, so I didn't have real long with him anyways. So I relate to that a lot. I understand what he was talking about. But I'm never going to apologize for starting my kids on third base. No way. I'm never going to fucking apologize for that. You can teach your children the value of a dollar and how to be not pieces of shit and not be spoiled, entitled rotten brats. That's the parenting part. It's not starting them off on third base to make some pieces of shit. It's how you raise them. You can raise them correctly and to be respectful and humble and and understand how to earn an honest day's wage, but also start them on third base. I didn't start on third base. I scratched and clawed and fought for everything I had. So I always tell my kids, Daddy fights so you don't have to. I've always told every single one of my kids that from day one, you know what?

And if people say I'm raising assholes. I'm not. I don't care. But I loved Pantosha's mentality. Everything's for his kids. There's no wonder he wasn't going to be beat Saturday night when he said he was so calm. With his mindset, with the things that he's gone through and the things he had to endure. And then that's the last thing he sees before he walks in. I'm sure he just had a no fucking way.

Not being able to do that. Because there's that expression, it's very popular, tough times create strong men. Good times create weak men or people or whatever. And I understand the sentiment behind that. And certainly, tough times do create strong men for sure. But I disagree with the second part completely. I mean, there is certainly some people, as you say in our surroundings, that are weak. You know what I mean? Maybe do you create weak times, each other because everyone gets more comfortable and all the rest of it.

Oh, I know what you're saying. It's the tough times create strong men. Strong men create easy times. Easy times create weak men. Weak men create hard times. It's like this big circle.

Yeah. And certainly, because we say, This latest generation, look at them, they're all bloody soft and all the rest of it. So there is a little bit of truth to that. But to your point, I look after my kids. I want to raise them right. I want to give them the things that I didn't have. You know what I mean? That doesn't make you a bad parent. I'm trying to prepare them for the world because the world's tough, the world's hard. Do you know what I'm saying? What was your lowest point in life, Anthony? Before you were a professional fighter, what was your lowest point?

I've had a couple of pretty tough ones. I think the car accident was a pretty bad one when I was just partying. It was out of pain, though. I'd lost my grandpa and he was the only father figure I'd had. I was just partying. I think I've talked about this before where I was drinking and driving and passed out, driving on a gravel road and rolled and ended up on life support. Waking up from that was a pretty surreal real moment. W aking up on a ventilator thinking...

Was that a wake up call, though? Waking up on a ventilator?

Yeah, for sure. It was like, how did I end up fucking this up so bad? And there's a lot of terrible shit that happens after that because you get in trouble. You got to go to jail. You got to deal with all the consequences, which I did willingly. And then I think in my career, my lowest moment, I wasn't doing doing very... I was okay. I was on the regional scene. I was all right. I was hit and miss. It was post getting cut from the UFC when I got cut after my first fight. And my wife was pregnant with our first kid. I didn't know shit about kids. I just knew that I didn't want to be the parent that I didn't want to be the dad that I had. But we had no money. I was training and I was trying to fight and I had a fight coming up, but I wasn't quite here yet. My wife was working, but she was eight months pregnant and we were hungry and didn't have any money, so we scrounge all this change. And we go to the grocery store real late at night. And we had enough change to get stuff for spaghetti, which is pretty cheap and goes a long way.

But I was too fucking embarrassed to go to the to go in the store with her, being eight months pregnant, to go and buy the spaghetti with change. And I sent her in there by herself. And I remember sitting in that fucking car like, You are a fucking coward. What are you doing? You're going to have a baby in a month. You're going to have a baby in a month and you can't afford to feed yourself. And it was like that for... But I remember I'll never go back to spaghetti with change. Dude, fuck.

Fuck, man. I mean, see, that's fuck. That's crazy. Do you know what I mean?

I borrowed when she came early.

We call it copper ring up in the UK because the coins are copper. The smoker are copper ring up. So you were copper ring up to be able to buy some cans of spaghetti?

Yeah, it was like hamburger meat and noodles.

Oh, you mean to make a spaghetti but still...

Yeah. And then the baby came early, like three weeks early. So we were trying to stretch ourselves till she got another paycheck. And then the baby came. So the day my first kid was born, I had to borrow money from my mom in the hospital to get by to even the next few days. And then I ended up fighting in Strike Force. I got a short notice opportunity in Strike Force a couple of weeks later, and I got knocked out, but I got a check for it. So it was like, whatever. I needed it.

So maybe, though, on the flip side, though, because I'm sure every time when you got a fight in Strike Force and every time you're going into a fight and things were starting to get a little bit better, you're thinking back to those times, you're thinking back to those days.

Never going back to spaghetti with change.

You're using that as the motivation. Maybe some people would argue, see, look, children, young people, young men, young women, young families have to experience those times to have the motivation. That would be the alternative opinion from what we said. And I totally get that. I get that too. I resonate with what you said. We were able to buy money off Beck's parents all the time. And they used to go, Oh God, I was ashamed. You know what I mean? Because Beck's mum and dad, they've always done very well. They're then they're amazing people. My mum and dad always supported me and did everything they could. And my mum would always lend me a little bit of money. My dad would throw me a bit of money. But when we're talking a little bit of money, they didn't have much money either. We're talking about £10 or maybe a £5 or.

A tenner. But if you got none, that's a lot.

Yeah, of course. I could put some petrol in the car to get to work and stuff like that. But every now and again, Beck's dad would very kindly put £1000 in the account. You know what I mean? I'd find out and I'd be like, What the fuck is this? And she's like, Michael, we've got nothing, we're broke. They know that, so they're trying to help us out. And I'd get mad because that's my stupid pride as a man. You know what I mean? Of course, I was so bloody grateful deep down I was, of course.

I'm so happy deep down, but also so embarrassed.

Especially because it's the father in law. I don't mind asking my own parents, but asking my girl's parents, you know what I mean?

I've always said I've never been super concerned with being rich, M ike. Rich, I think, is a perspective. Rich to me, I love going to the gas station and just filling my truck up with gas, and I don't look and see how much it costs. That's rich to me. I go to the grocery store and we just buy what we need, not what we can afford. That's rich to me.

Well, it says, I'm good with that. He said I'm a rich man. I've got my wife, I've got my children. He's got a roof over his head. And ultimately that is, I mean, if you're in that position, you are doing.

What a fucking perspective to have.

Well, you're doing better than 95 % of the population on planet Earth, to be honest, when you start roping in all countries, African countries, a lot of countries that are doing very poor, South American, things like that. And yeah, I never wanted... Don't get me wrong, I'll earn as much as possible.

And I'm very happy to do it. I'm not.

Turning it down. No, but my goal is I want to be rich. I'm happy with where I am. And some people would say that I am rich. I'm not rich. I'm very financially comfortable. And don't get me wrong, I'll take the Conor McGregor money. But that's the... My goal with this, and I've said it a load of times, so sorry if I'm boring you, was to earn enough money out of fighting to be able to go back to college and get a trade, become a builder or an engineer or an electrician or whatever it was. That was my goal. And then obviously I started doing better and better and better. I don't know where I'm going with that. But I think people will enjoy hearing that answer because I think a lot of people need to hear that. Because I forget what his name is, he's this guy, he's an old dude, he's a bit of a prick. He's like a financial dude. I see him pop up on Instagram and he said, It's always so funny. He said, Being rich is like being pregnant. He said, Because people always come up to you and say, Congratulations, but they don't know how many times you got fucked.

It.

I love that.

We haven't talked about the main event yet, which is absolutely ridiculous. The whole reason the fight card happened, Volkanovsky went out there, excuse me, sorry about my voice, against Jari Rodriquez. Just established himself as the pound for pound number one. He just showed he just levels above everyone. He took down Jari Rodriquez, controlled Jari Rodriquez, bust up Jari Rodriquez in the third round when Jari started getting hit to the take downs, forced Volker N ovelist to have to stand with him. And I said it on the post fight show, careful what you wish for. All right, so now he's going to stand with you because taking him down was the easiest path to success. On the feet, it gives you a chance, an option, a chance to land the flying knee. But you couldn't get him down. So screw it, we'll stand. He hits him with this, finishes him in style. Just beautiful.

Well, it's like he used the wrestling to take a little bit of the pop, a little bit of the steam off of him, a little bit of the speed, make him a little bit more telegraph, see him come in, just slow him down just a notch. That's all he needed, just slow him down just a little bit. Like you said, I guess be careful what you wish for because Volkinovsky has no slouch on his feet and he was so cautious. You could just tell he was I don't think a lot of people are probably wondering after being in there with Maka'chev and being so close to potentially winning that fight, is he taking these contenders at 145 even serious anymore after being right there with the pound for... You know what I mean? With one of the greatest in action right now. I think that there were those questions is, maybe did he take his eye off the ball a little bit when it comes to 145? And I think that that performance showed that he's as focused and as motivated to be, especially after talking to him on here, like, oh, this guy has a beginner's mindset.

He's still trying to learn. He's still getting better. He's still focused on his legacy and moving forward. I thought it was a fantastic performance. And honestly, Yair's pretty dangerous off his back, too. The guy's got submissions from his back. And he's just so physically strong. He's positionally aware. Having Craig Jones in his corner and coaching him in his Jutsu and grappling has clearly made a difference.

Yeah, it was a perfect performance. It really was. It was a perfect performance. He was executing.

And Yayo didn't look bad.

No, no, no. Yayo looked really good. He looked good. Some of the strikes that he threw, this question mark kicks and stuff were with such precision and speed. That's what makes him dangerous. But he had the fight IQ, the game plan, and the skills to put it all together and make it an easy night at the office.

Yeah, he made it look easy. Which is insane to say with a guy like me.

He made it. He made it. Look easy. And I say that I'm a huge fan of Yayo, the way that he fights. I don't know him personally. He's a man of few words. But as a fighter, you have to respect, not my voice, right? Yeah, my voice is going, man. You have to respect Jair Rodrique.

You talk. You have to. I mean, look what he did to Josh Emmett. You know what I mean? We see how tough Josh Emmett is and the power and the explosives. I mean, he went in there and did what he wanted. I don't think that, like, Jaira loses a whole lot of stock here. I still think that he's at the top of the food chain when it comes to 145 pounds. It's just unfortunately for those guys, they're living in the same era that I think a lot of people lived in with Anderson Silva. A lot of people lived in with John Jones, with GSP at Welterweight. Sometimes you just get stuck with a generational type of talent. You could be the best in the world, but you have Okinawa in your division.

The question is, what happens next? Abu Dhabi, October, Islamahatchew, or teporia?

I would guess it's going to be Toporio because he sounds like he was having some surgery and I don't know how serious it is, again, but I don't know. I would guess it's Toporio because Dana did say in one of his little post things that.

They had a thing. Whatever Vogue wants, they'll do.

Well, he said whatever Vogue wants, they'll do. But he also hinted at someone that kept asking about the market share thing. I don't know. He hinted it like maybe there's something already planned, like they're getting ready to announce something with the people in Abu Dhabi. So I don't know. If I had to guess, though, I would guess Toporio, which I'm fine with.

When is the Abu Dhabi fight? Sorry, pardon me. The Abu Dhabi fight card? October, right?

October.

So what are we in? July, August, September, October. So three months. Yeah. I don't know.

Yeah, it's tough one.

It's Toporio or... Sorry, or Islam.

Yeah. I'm watching both.

We'll leave that there. Guys, Anthony has a meeting or training to get to. I am losing my voice. I told you it was incredible because I have no voice. We're not going to do questions today either. We will do them all on Thursday. We will have another guest on Thursday. But if you're listening on iTunes, Spotify, wherever you find podcasts, make sure you subscribe. Leave us a five star rated positive review. It really helps us out on those platforms. If you're watching on YouTube, make sure to subscribe to the channel and you hit that.

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