Habib got over the cage, jumped into his corner, and all hell broke loose Irish guys.
And Russians and let's just say they're not drinking water.
Well, yeah, that was the problem for the All the Irish guys were drunk and the Muslims were so oh my god.
Today we're talking about UFC twenty nine Kabib for Gregor.
I'd like to take this chance to apologize absolutely nobody his face.
They'll mess with Russia.
A Bibe's crew could come in here and probably wipe out half this country.
And the guy's wrestling bears when he's a kid.
Then comes Connor McGregor. He's incredibly witty. His trash talk is Ali level.
Throws the Dali through the bus.
You got arrest. You're dealing with two hardcore, fucking alpha male.
Who's the NFL equivalent to Habib?
Though?
First of all, I tell Brady this all the time, you gave me and my family twenty of the best years of our life.
Man.
Just everybody was training that year beat the Patriots. That's what happens when you're the best in the uf STAY. It's one of the biggest, one of the biggest fights. Ever, I am so tired of doing podcasts. I'm not doing any more podcasts. It's up, buddy. Thanks for joining us, man now, thanks for having me man so uh.
Games with Names is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome to Games with Names, presented by win Bet. We are on the search to find the greatest game of all time. Today we're back, baby, We're are we.
Back at our home away from home, the Win, the Win, Las Vegas Hotel.
And Casino and Casino. There it is. Today, we're recording and we are talking about the UFC two twenty nine.
McGregor could be our first time in the octagon.
First time in the octagon.
We've been in the ring once, we've been in the ring. One man.
Michaels, Shawn Michaels.
Yeah, I just saw they're they're they're related now, Yeah, w W and UFC they're one.
They're one. Why. I don't understand that, but I get it.
Yeah. I love to ask him, and you know, we have to. If it's gonna be our first octagon interview, you got to bring the guy who invented the octagon, right, they invent the octagon or he invented the UFC. I don't know that they invented the UFC and succeeded the USC. Yes, Dana White, the man. I can't I mean, I can't wait. I can't either. The guy's from Boston. I saw him at He's always been very hospitable to me at all
the little UFC fights I've gone to Boston. Guy loves the Patriots lost a bunch of weight shredded shred mcdead.
Oh my, we gotta ask him what his secret is because I need that tip, baby.
Yeah, what tip? Just oh jackie, Jackie. We get into the crazy fight and everything that leads up to it.
We talk about.
Boston, sports, Vegas sports. Where's he from? He says he's from both coastal guy by coastal guy, He's by coastal?
What is this on a coast? This is this is a.
Desert West coast technically, I guess if you're PSD, your west coast to be.
Yeah, it's pretty west coast. You're on the you're on the time zone. If you're on the time zone, you're on the time zone times the West coast. Uh. Maybe some has boula talk. What a guy, dude. I can't not watch him on anything on social media. Whenever I see anything. I saw him driving a car, flipping someone off, doing donuts, shooting gun. Yeah, you're shooting Ak's.
I mean he's like living how we all wish we could live.
Yeah, it's a banger episode banger. I'm looking forward to it. Not wait. Make sure to check out Games with Names on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok at Games with Names. Subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast. Comment a game you want us to do and remember.
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Games with Names is brought to you by win Bet. Win Bet brings the excitement of the Win Las Vegas and Encore Boston Harbor to your phone. Join win Bet today and bet with the official online gaming product from Win Resorts. Let's Go Jack, Let's Go. October sixth, twenty eighteen, T Mobile Arena, Las Vegas, Nevada.
A clash of styles, bold and brash versus cold and calculated.
I'd like to take this chance to apologize to absolutely nobody. This is UFC.
Versus hell.
Yeah.
Welcome to Games with Names, presented.
By when Beatt. Today we are recording at the Win Las Vegas hotel and casino, and we have a very special guest. Very special. I mean, look at we got so many people. We're here at the wind people were all gathering to see them. We got President CEO, the man who built the UFC, Dana White.
Thanks for joining us.
Man, Now, thanks for having me.
Man.
So you're from You're from Boston. Yeah, so my FA, you're also from Vegas. Yeah, I don't know this story.
So I bounced around a lot when I was a kid. You know, we grew up back there. They were paying nurses more here than anywhere in the country, and like the late seventies, and my mom moved me and my sister out to Vegas. I was in fourth or fifth grade. Stayed here till I was in high school, then went back to Boston after I graduated. Wow, then came back here when I was twenty six. So I bounced back and forth. Actually really lucky that I was able to
have that East coast West coast upbringing. Yeah, it was awesome.
Yeah, and this is that was before Vegas was really.
Thousand people here when we moved.
It's it's really like the last five years everyone yeah, left California came out here.
I mean it's crazy.
Well, now that sports are here, it's turned into a big sports town, and you know, I mean they're gonna have fucking ping pong here pretty soon. Man, I mean everything they do here slap. I literally just went to slap slapped. I literally just went to the w NBA game a couple of nights ago at Mandelay Bay. There wasn't an empty seat in the house. The place was packed. Crazy.
The champ champs, Brady owns them exactly what's their name? Called them out, say, hey, what, what the hell? Why?
Why is this the first game you've been to?
You own us one of their their stars. I gotta look that one up.
You gotta look that up. I saw that.
Welcome to games with names And uh, today we're talking about the Kabebe McGregor UFC to twenty nine fight.
It's a pretty crazy fight.
Awesome fight, big one that was a big one for us. And uh, obviously a ton of animosity between those two going in, a ton of animosity between Habib and Connor's cornerman, and it was just, yeah, it was it was crazy.
At this point, McGregor, he was at like the high of the high. He was probably the most famous athlete on the planet one.
Hundred and you know, and Habib at the time too, you know. And and when you think about the Muslim world, you know what I mean, over a billion world wide. It might even be two billion now for all I know, but you know, and he was like the first Muslim world champion in the UF.
State stud and it was it was crazy that like I remember this fight and all the hooplah, before the hype, before you know, the guy's throwing you know, McGregor throws the dolly through the bus. Like when you're putting toad out of these fights, there's like a there's like a probably like a meter of where you love that kind of shit because it's building the fight, and there's a meter where you have to kind of step in and say, hey, boys, like how does that work.
We're at a point now where we don't need the craziness to build a fight, you know what I mean. What we need are it's just a matchup itself. The fact that these are two of the best in the world. And people think that I love that stuff, but I don't because what happens is we're regulated by the government bas the Athletic Commission is is the government, and yeah, they they don't like that shit, so it's bad when
it happens. And you know, one of the things that I got criticized about by the media is when we were promoting the fight, I promoted the whole thing that happened uh in Brooklyn with the bus. But but it's part of the story. Yeah, you know what I mean exactly. I don't give a shit. It's part of the story. We told the story the way that it unfolded and how it played out, and you know, obviously it was a big fight, lots of animosity and uh, you know,
we were ready for what happened after, but we didn't. Uh, we didn't execute perfectly the way that we should have. You know, Habib got over the cage, jumped into his corner and and then all you know, all hell broke loose. It.
Did anyone get arrested?
I don't think anybody got arrested.
Uh, you know, if I'm if the if these questions are too much.
We actually no, no, we actually got it contained pretty quickly. We were expecting it. We expected to happen. If you look the guys that were inside the octagon when Habib jumps over. The guy is like just missus grabbing him and he gets over the cage and into the corner. But no, we were anticipating it. We got it under control pretty quick. Nobody got hurt. The problem was after you know, you had uh, you know, Irish guys and Russian and Russian guys fighting out in the and.
Let's just say they're not drinking waters.
Well yeah, well the problem all the Irish guys were drunk and the Muslims were sober.
Oh my god, no knowing about it. So is this is this at this point going into this fight, at this point of the UFC, Was this the greatest fight you think.
Greatest fighting Vegas, the big Vegas. Yeah, I mean we've had so many great fights. We talk about a great fight with a great fight means we've had tons of great fights. This is one of the biggest, one of the biggest fights ever.
Yeah, it was definitely.
It was like, and I wasn't big in the fight game or anything, but it was like I watched this this guy from Russia, Kabib or Kabib, and the guy's wrestling bears when he's a kid.
Yeah, and you got.
This, he's a freak athlete man, and he's a he's a badass dude. It's always talk about, like we talk about the pussies that are in this country right now with the ones that are going on and everything. But you know, we talk about, you know, how Bibe's crew could come in here and probably wipe out half this country on their own. These dudes are so tough and nasty and come from such a tough upbringing, like fucking men. Yeah, we talk about men. These dudes are like nasty dudes.
Don't mess with Russians. That's that's a that's a keynote.
To Dagenstan Oh my god, exactly any of the anything.
Stay away from.
Can you can you can you walk us through the origin of you taking over the UFC.
Yeah, so, uh, back in the day, you know, I was involved in boxing, very minor level, you know, uh trained guys and all that kind of stuff. The biggest thing I ever did was I got a local kid here a fight with Roy Jones Junior back in the day, and I started to uh take jiu jitsu with with my friends, the for Tita brothers. They own station casinos here in Vegas, and uh, through that, we fell in love with with with the sport, and we started to meet a lot of the athletes and I started to
manage Chuck Ladell and Tito Ortiz. I got into a contract dispute with the old owner of the UFC. His name is Bob Myerwitz out of New York, and he flipped out on me one day and said, you know what, there is no more money left. We might not have enough money to do the next event. So I was like, we hung up the phone. I was like, oh shit. So I literally hung up and called the Ftitas and said, I think the UFC is going out of business. I think we could buy it, and I think we should.
So Lorenzo went into negotiations with with Myerwitz and a couple months later we owned the UFCA for two million dollars.
God damn, how many two million bucks?
Two million?
What are they worth now? You guys were how well?
We sold it back in twenty sixteen for a four point two five billion and now it's worth twelve.
Is the UFC right now where your original vision?
Yeah?
Was there's still that point? Or are you still think it could easy?
I still have a ton of vision for it that we're still working on. A lot of things that you know, I was dreaming about back in two thousand and one.
Yeah, it's it's crazy.
You guys handled it like almost like the NFL thanks as far as like just the professional is them, and like how you guys handle all the deals with the sponsors and all the guys have their like everyone has to wear Rebok, right.
Well, the Reebok deals over now. Yeah, we're the company called Venom now.
But yeah, or even that, I mean, that's very Look that's Richie and Cognito. We won't Hey, no bully, no bullying dudes. Richie Cognito, that dude has some of the best feet. We used to work out together right when all that ship was going down about the bullying in Miami.
He's definitely a bully. But you gotta have a bully on team. You gotta have a bully.
There's a bully. There's bullies everywhere.
You need that asshole.
Bullies are everywhere, But you gotta deal with bully.
Especially on the offensive line. You want to fucking.
Bully on the offensive line. But I mean, that guy used to have crazy, but that's crazy now. You grew up in Boston and Vegas. Now you're a Boston fan. Yeah, of all of Boston sports.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, tell yes, yes, yes, I'm Boston. I'm still a Boston guy. I live in Vegas, but I'm I'm I'm Patriots, Celtics, Red Sox. I'm not a big hockey fan, but we're going with the Bruins.
Yeah.
Are you any kids stories of you going to any games or anything?
Or you didn't know that kind of money to really go to games. I went to a couple of baseball games when I was young, but I didn't really start going to Celtics games until I, you know, started making money. Yes, and Patriots, and you know, I was at the I was at the Super Bowl when you guys came back in Atlanta and won the won the Super Bowl. That night was incredible, What an incredible experience. First of all, I tell Brady this all the time. I'm gonna tell
you now. You gave me and my family twenty of the best years of our life. Man, just the Patriots run that every Sunday. I stayed home and I watched all the games. My kids grew up, we grew up in you know, born and raised in Vegas, but they grew up Patriots fans and just what an amazing uh, what an amazing experience, an amazing time during your run at the at New England was in credible.
Yeah it was, it was. It was a hell over run.
But you know in Vegas, now, how about Vegas having all these sports teams. That's pretty fucking badass.
It should have been this. This is by design, this is the entertainment capital of the world. By design, this is a sports town. You know, the gaming thing was just always you know, a big problem for people. Now that they figured out the gaming side, this is without a doubt gonna be one of the biggest and best sports towns.
How are the world?
How are the like?
Are the locals of Vegas? Are they like becoming Raiders? Like?
Are they Raiders fans?
Or is it because anytime you see away team come and play the Raiders, a lot of the fan base in that stadium is usually you know, you know.
Well, it makes sense when you think about the brilliance of it. If you're gonna go to an away game, you want to go to Vegas. You're going to Vegas your boys, right, It's it's it's a no brainer. But yeah, I mean the locals that live here have embraced the teams like, for instance, the Golden Knights. Huge, man, I mean, it's huge here in Las Vegas. Ever everybody, and what was funny is in the beginning, I had an opportunity to invest in the Golden Knights. I'm like, hockey in Vegas,
that's ridiculous. But I was way off on that one.
Man.
It is huge here. But now you drive on the freeways here you see the Golden Knights license plates, the Raiders' license plates, and yeah, it's it's a big sports now. I mean every sport. They're gonna have fucking ping pong team here pretty soon. I mean, every sport in the world is coming to Vegas.
It's hard not to capitalize on it. If you're a professional league.
Yep, you know.
I mean, it's it's a slam dunk. Now that the teams have actually done it, I agree, it's been insane. Vegas is a sports city versus Boston is sports city, easy.
Right, I mean, listen, the one thing that Vegas doesn't have is the history, you know what I mean, in the tradition, we're going to build the history here, you know, over the next thirty years. But Boston has such a great history of sports. You know, it's like Boston, New York, Philly, Chicago. It's a you know, we don't have that yet, but this is the place to come if you want to go to an away game.
It's kind of like, what is it a great gatsbeed. There's East Egg and West Egg. This is like East Egg people over here.
You know, it's it's still a little new, but there's still they still got some money out here. You know, as far as loving equity of sport. Can you give us the origin of fuck it Friday?
Yeah? So I started to uh, I like food and uh we ate. We put together this thing. One day was when Popeyes Chicken Sandwiches came out. I was like one of the crackheads that was running down there getting pop.
Pipes, were fighting over that.
It was insane. I'm not shoitting you. This happened. I had a guy that worked at Popeyes. He was he was talking him out the back door to us. We were paying him. He was putting them out the back door because they were literally running out there were big lines. I got a guy kicking them out the back door for me for some money. So we ended up taking uh one of the Popeyes Chicken sandwiches and making a sandwich with Krispy Kreme donuts, so the donuts with the
bread and the and the Popeyes chicken. And that was how fucking Friday began. I ate it. It was awesome and and uh that started the whole thing.
And it all takes place at the UFC headquarters.
It's one of the biggest things I do on social media. I watch it every time I post that just on my stuff it does over two million views. You know, everybody loves food, man.
Everyone loves food. I mean, look at you know, the El pres from Arsenal, I mean the pizza.
He's killing it.
Pizza reviews kill it.
What NFL player you think could come into the cage and be well and do well?
Well, it's interesting because a lot of NFL.
Players Harden, right, Harden did it?
Greg Hardy?
Greg Hardy? Yeah, a lot of Uh, there's been a lot of crossover. We've had college players and NFL players come in and and and and do well. Yeah, you know what I mean. You're talking about big, explosive, powerful athletic guys who don't mind getting hit.
Yeah, it's it's it's it's a different thing. Like we were talking before we hopped on, I started taking up box and it's so different if you're not like I couldn't imagine going and fighting a guy like a Habibe or some guy that's been doing this since he was two years old.
Right, I mean I got like different though. But look at the athlete for your size. Look at the success you had in the NFL. Now imagine if at your age when you started playing football, you started training the mixed martial arts, you would have done something you absolutely positively would have been somebody in the sport. You know, Ovid Saint Prue. Who do you play for Tennessee? Ovid Saint Prue osp Yeah, he played for Tennessee. He was a good player at Tennessee. He actually did really well
and has been in the UFC for like ten years. Wow. Yeah, football player, man. The football players are as far as physical attributes. And you could be the greatest physical specimen of all time. And you know this better than anybody. You have to like to get hit.
Everyone's got a plan until you get hit in the face, as Mason said.
And you were one of these fast, small guys cutting across the middle, wide open with linebackers that were three times your side hitting you. Yeah, and uh, so you know, I think you would have done damn well in the UFC.
So we have a segment where we like to go back in the date and go over pop culture. So this date was October sixth, twenty eighteen.
Number one movie Venom. Do you see that Venom?
I did? Yeah?
Did you like it?
I didn't want to. I'm hardy.
I didn't love it. It wasn't my favor.
You know, you didn't live up to the hype.
Well, the whole uh comic book thing has gone through the roof, so yeah, yeah, but in a different way different Some of those movies I can't man won best incredible right, the greatest comic MO movie of all Ted?
The original Spider Man's are fucking good.
Spider Man's are good. Yep, exactly.
I started doing them all the time.
The first Dark Knight I liked, uh.
The Christopher Nolan Batman's Yeah, those are the best. I think those are the best. I agree to hear that he's about to do the James Bond I heard. I heard that talks. I like that. Christopher nolanly Got who directed those dar nineteen might be doing.
The first X men really goes really good. Yep.
And around this time October four, Tom Brady becomes a third NFL quarterback to record five hundred career touchdown in a thirty eight to twenty four win over the Colts.
Couldn't happen to a better guy on a better.
Team against a shittier team.
We love talking smack about the Colts. So anything bad you gotta say about the Colt.
You know what, I bet you know it's funny And I'm gonna I'm in a very odd place now because Dalton Kincaid played football with my son and kind of grew up with my son and now he's a Buffalo bill. All the places he ends up is a Buffalo Bill, so all all, obviously we're rooting for him and we love him. But another one, Puka Nakua grew up so I funded the team that he played on with my kids.
He's from Vegas.
Yeah, yeah, he's a Vegas kid. He grew up with my kids since they were this big, and so we're really proud of him. We're obviously proud of Dalton, and it's and it is impossible to not love the quarterback of the Buffalo Bills. I fucking love him. Man. He is an absolute stud.
Yeah, he's he's a stud.
He it's a Buffalo Bills, like.
Dude, every time we play them. Even when when you guys were dominant and good, the Buffalo Bills were always a problem. They were always tough to play, and but they were they were front runners. They never they never got to the you know, they.
Spent twenty years trying to design a team to beat us.
And anytime he play in that division, regardless of records or anything, it's always a super tough game because you see him twice a year. You guys see him twice a year, every year, every time we played Buffalo, even.
When we don't know you'd end up in the you know, I just I like to.
You know, I think of it like this, you know, like when we were we were the big brother of the division absolutely for twenty years.
Right now it's probably best.
Well, the champs. You guys were the champs all those years, no matter what, even when you know we didn't win the championship, you got were champs and you were the team to.
Beat, exactly, and right now, Buffalo's probably the older brother of the Vision, right now. But it's kind of like I tell the Buffalo fans, which I'm always around Buffalo fans, and they're awesome fans, but I tell them like, at least when we were the big like the big brother of the division, we go out in the block and beat the shit out of everyone else. Now our older brother is getting his ass beat every time he goes
out and tries to fight other people. Right, you know, it's like, what's going on, Buffalo.
We got to get on this.
But you are right when you think about the fans of Buffalo, talk about people who have been First of all, you got to go out and watch your team in the nastiest fucking weather of all time. Okay, the nastiest weather other than the Packers, you know what I mean, other than the Packers, the nastiest weather ever. Your team is always the bride's maiden of the bride. They never make it. And every year, you guys, God bless all
of you Buffalo fans. You guys are always every time I talk to you, this is our year, this is our year. They love their felt now you're here.
They love that. I respect the shit out of those fans. I've never been flipped up so many times, and it's by so many different age groups. I've talked about it on the pod so many times. I mean three year olds to ninety year olds slipping you off when you're leaving all.
You know who else. It's true. I love Buffalo fan I love their passion. I love especially the Celtics. And we go into Philly, right, Philly, so I would go to these big you know, the Philly versus the Celtics, and we're getting into the playoffs and I come walking in and I wear my Celtics care and stuff. Boo, They're yelling at me. You got some balls wearing that. UFC sucks. You know. They're all fucking yelling at me
the whole time that I'm there. And God, God, if we can walk out of that arena that night with a win, man, it is the best feeling in the world. I'm like, it's just I love the rivalry between Philly and Boston. It's so fun.
They're very similar cities, so true. You know what I mean.
Well, you got New York Philly and then you got Buffalo. So those three rivalries are so fun.
They are East Coast cold weather people, tough people, blue collar people, throwing batteries at Santa.
If you're in it, I mean, it's crazy.
And tons of sports history, tons of history.
You grew up with Pooka Nakoud. Did you ever think that this kid would my kids?
Did? My kids grew up with Pooka?
Yeah? I mean, was he grew up in our house?
Yeah?
Was? He was? He balling, balling.
So when we used to fund a team, me and Lorenzo used to fund a team called the Little Cowboys in Vegas, and he was on the Little Cowboys with my kids and a bunch of other guys that are playing right now, you know what I mean. There's a kid named Cayu Uh he's playing with Uh. He just got I think he's with Seattle. And then you know, there's a few kids that went to the NFL from that team and in good colleges too. And to see Pooka doing what he's doing now, it's just it's so
it could not happen. Two way better human being. When you meet this kid, you will love this kid.
He's such a good, smiling fine And the crazy thing to me is that it's so hard for a rookie receiver, which he's not, like a overly dominant athletic guy, right, like a Jamar Chase who came in his rookie year and balled out, you know, but to be able to gain the trust of a quarterback, which you know he was kind of forcing that role with Cooper Cup not playing, but on any situational play, Matthew Stafford for those first four weeks was looking at Pook and a coup and
he was being a dependable, reliable receiver across that. I mean, it's been really impressive. There's a lot of there's a lot of great athletes. I mean, Bryce Harper's from out here. There's like it's like a little hub of studs.
And it's actually been that way for a bit. I went to school with Marty Cordova. I don't know if you remember him, but he was the nineteen ninety five American League rook of the Year. He played for the Minnesota Twins, and you know, he grew up with us that There's been lots of people that have come out of Vegas.
Yeah, it's crazy. We got to get back to the UFC. That's why we're here. We're talking to hell. Yeah, not the founder, the guy who took it over bought it for two million dollar are so different four point eight Now we merged with WWE. Can you can you explain that real quick? I'm getting off my script because I don't I don't know.
It's all good. Uh yeah. So what we did was we went public a couple of years ago with Endeavor and Devor went out and and and you know, did a deal with Vince and the WWE to merge UFC and w w E h under the same stock ticker symbol t k O. And you know, I think he felt like there were a lot of synergies, Like if you look at the UFC, we we are a fucking
dialed in machine. And I think that when you looked at the w W E already saw some some opportunities to go out and cut new TV deals because their TV deals were up, and get that sponsorship number up, licensing and a lot of other things that he could add a lot of value to that would make this a very powerful stock.
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I haded that because improv. Let's get back into this fight.
How important of a character is Connor McGregor for the UFC.
Well, we've had. When you think about my business, it's very star driven. So you know when we started out, we had Chuck Laedell, Anderson, Silva Ronda Rowsey. I mean you think of all the stars that have come up, and every star that has been built in the UFC has helped take I'll give you an example, like Matt Hughes, right, Remember Matt Hughes came out to a country boy can
survive and he appealed to a certain audience. Chuck Ladell had the mohawk, you know, and knock people out at a time when people didn't really understand the ground game. And then you had somebody like Anderson Silva who was like the Bruce Lee of the UFC at that time. He could do anything. So you had all these different characters with different personalities from different places who helped take
the sport to another level. Then comes Connor McGregor. One of the things that I always talk about with Connor McGregor is that everybody thinks they're Irish when you think about you know, you go all over the world, you think about Saint Patti's Day and you know the Irish bars, and everybody thinks they're Irish. The Irish thing is really powerful.
So he comes out incredible personality, He's from Ireland and he can actually fight, So it was like it was such a home run, and it just you know, he took us to a whole other level throughout Europe and other parts of the world.
What makes him a special fighter is his hands length.
He's a lot of things with Connor. One of the things with Connors, let's start with his personality. He's got this magnetic personality that you were just drawn to. He's incredibly witty. His trash talk is Ali level. You know, his persona is Ali level. He's a guy that transcends all sports. Yeah, you know, he's one of the guys that when he walks into a room, everybody's like, holy shit, that's Connor McGregor.
Yeah. What about his fight style?
Yeah, he's one of these guys. He can do anything. He likes to stand up, he's got heavy hands, he can knock you out, and his ground game isn't bad either, you know so, but people like to see him stand up and knock you out.
Yeah, Jack, can you set the stage for this fight. Jump into the fight.
Yeah, let's get into this thing.
So, as we touched on earlier, the lead up, I mean, this goes back two or three years. Trash talk camps are fighting, slapping in the hallways.
We got the DOLLI through the And it's crazy because they they were kind of boys at the very very beginning and didn't habib He kind of like it was kind of a parallel rise, right then Connor at the very beginning, keep going like their rise was quasi parallel ish.
You're absolutely right, their rise it was at the same time. And uh, you know the problem that you're talking about with these two when you say they were boys, there were never really boys. It was like a mutual hair or whatever. You're dealing with two hardcore, fucking alpha males. Guess these guys are both killers. They both want to be the best, they both want to win, and they're both willing to fight anybody and do anything to be the best. So when you get those two type of guys,
there is no BM buddies. Those two are on a collision course before they even knew they were.
Yeah, yeah, as we touched on it earlier.
Also, I mean these two camps, like it was just animosity at every turn and a clash of styles too, Like you got to be cold, calculated, tough just to do the fight, like great wrestler ground great ground game. I mean a machine almost like I don't know, like, you know, how do you even beat him?
It seems impossible. I mean, I know, no one's done it.
I'm going to tell you one of the things that's super unfortunate for us, but very fortunate for Habib. You know the fact that I mean, this guy, I would have loved to have seen him go on longer. Yeah, so much more. When his dad passed away, it kind of sucked all the energy. His dad was trainer growing up and trained a whole camp and everything else, and the dad had a vision that Habib would be the champion. Then when Habib retired, Islam would come in and be
the champion. Let me tell you what you want to talk about. One of the greatest coaches in the history of the sport that's never talked about Abib and the murder Medoff's dad. You know what I mean when you think about what that guy built. So the problem was in the Muslim world is he became this huge megastar in the Muslim world. So after he beat Connor McGregor, he went on like this tour of all the Muslim countries.
So he's he's going into Turkey, he's going into Saudi Arabia, he's going to Abu Dhabi, he's going over to Dubai and they're raining on. I mean, he didn't even make it back to his dressing room. After the fighting. Putin was on the phone and Putin gave him and his father like twenty million dollars worth of property in Russia. Then he went into you know, the Muslim territories where these guys are just cars, money, Jim's whatever, whatever he wanted. So once you get to that level, it's like what
we're dealing with with Connor McGregor. Connor McGregor lives on a yacht in the middle of wherever the warmest place in the world is at that time, and you know, it's just.
And he's showing you, Oh, man, I live vicariously on Instagram.
Well, once you get to that level, man, it's just you're not getting up and getting punched in the face every day anymore.
It's just, you know, is Habib the greatest?
The greatest of all time? Is John Jones, John Jones, N Jones, John Jones. John Jones is undefeated. Habib was undefeated too, But I would have liked to see Habib more do more. John Jones has been around forever. He's fought everybody in the light heavyweight division. Now he's in the heavyweight division beating guys like take three years off. Ali never looked the same after three years. He took three years off. John Jones went in and made Cyril Gone look like he'd never fought in his life. Who
you know? I mean, Jones is the greatest ever. He's so long and he's never been beat never been beat man. Peter doesn't know what losing feels like. He's never lost. Think of that.
Who's the NFL equivalent to Habib?
Though?
As a player, it's tough.
Well, it is because you know, you guys have so many legends. You guys have so much history in the sport. There's so many legends in your sport. It's hard to say. You know, we're thirty years old, but you know the sport that me and the Fertida started is twenty three years old. Yeah, we're still We're still a kid compared to the NFL and some of these other sports.
That's crazy.
And the lead up of this one, I'd be remissed if we didn't talk numbers. Have you mentioned this thing? Twenty six and oh, coming off a win over Alai a Quinto not that long a year earlier Connor twenty one and three, but hadn't fought since the mainway weather, So there's a lot of talk would he have fared better if he'd had a little appearance in the octagon in between that you.
Think he should have had a little a tune up fight.
No, we don't do tune up fights here, and that's not how this w works. Tune up fights are like a boxing bullshit thing.
No stepping stones a step ll for not in UFC FU.
Yeah, there's no such thing, double cham Yeah no, he uh. It's it's part of the problem, listen, in this sport when when you have to be a very special kind of person to have fifty eighty one hundred million in the bank and still come out and compete at that level, it's part of what makes you so bad ass here.
It's two things. Part of what makes you so bad ass here is hunger, all the things you want right, And number two is once you get to a level of success and monetary success, how do you keep fucking training that hard and everybody that's under you is training to beat you? Just like you said, that happened you know, in the NFL and then the AFC, right, everybody was training that year to beat the Patriots. Breaking down your film,
breaking down your plays, breaking down your defense. Everything they saw was to beat you. That's what happens when you're the best in the UF state.
You're measuring stick yep that's what Big called measuring stick team guy, fight fighter.
What Dana said made me think of that line from Rocky when you say the worst thing you can become is civilized, rock You wouldn't be game civilized when that is.
You know, what's fascinating is with Stallone. You know, Stallone is such a big fight fan. When I see fight movies, they're fucking goofy. To me, it's probably like when you watch a fucking football movie. It's like, this is the dumbest fucking shit that I've ever seen in my life. It's literally nothing like any of this. But Stallone always had this way of you know, when you watched the fucking Rocky movie, man, your ass was getting up at six o'clock the next morning and going to work out
and start training. And they were so motivational, and you always had these these things that were were true. Saying is about being involved in by boxing or some type of combat sport.
The origin of my beard is because of Rocky four.
Is it really Russia?
Yeah? You remember he wanted to go to Russia and.
He wanted to I saw Rocky one, two, three and four a million times.
Man, you can't you can't not turn it off.
So true.
I mean it's always on a TBS or some channel. I mean, if you're on channels anymore, probably kind.
Of what's your favorite Rocky? Everybody makes the argument that like Rocky one should be your favorite.
No, that's it's cinematography wise.
Yeah, and they got all the best.
But I loved I loved three and four.
Three was my favorite. Mister t cl so good and the training sequences that he had, you know, clubver Lang when he was coming up. But four was great too. I love Russian and uh yeah, three and four of my are my two favorites.
I loved three because, just like we were just talking about, you know, he kind of was up there and he's beating all those guys and then it gets a little harder when you're the champ. You know, you lose that hunger and then you got that hungry guy that's coming in there. You know, my dad used to say that when I come home from training and go you out train those six guys we're talking about the six guys in high school are coming take your job right now.
They're coming up right now. And you know it's true, you know. And that's what Glover Lang was. He was that one guy. And then Rocky had to get a little rhythm. He had to go to La get a little rhythm.
Right. Well, it was kind of like the uh they were They went to Philly. Didn't you go to Philly? He went to La though, No, Philly is where they went. They ended up at some gym in Philly that that Paulo Creed used to work.
I thought that was in l A.
No, it was Philly. That's where Paulo Creed came up.
Is that we gotta gotta I can't think it's l A. You might be right, because I remember they would race at the beach with a polo.
Oh yeah, you're right, Well Apolo was from l A. Yeah, you're probably right.
I thought I thought he's from Philly.
All right? Where did they train? But one of the things that Rocky three is about, and we're talking about out here, is how he had gotten top, had all the money and and all the.
Magazine anymore, and yeah yeah, and then old Mick lied to him.
Yeah, well he was doing easier fights and.
You can't beat him, rock, you can't beat him.
Yea.
The beach I'm looking at the beach scene right now. L A. What's what's up with Dakistan and producing all these great fighters? Is it just because they're so fucking tough out there?
They come out of a you know, they come out of a really tough place literally wrestling, I'm not kidding you. All the stands, everything that ends in a stand here, stay away from that guy. That's where here he's from.
Or her Jesus.
Valentino, ship Shanko too, have you? She's a badass.
What's it like beating the little HOSPITALA.
He's awesome. I'm going to see him next week. Are you flying on Tuesday? Oh my god, yeah, I'll be with him on probably Wednesday, Thursday.
We love him over here. We love Magnetic. I mean, he was on the phone.
Magnetic he is. It's incredible.
He's living his best life.
Oh you know what, just between me and the Milk boys, you know, we've made that kid over a million dollars just you know, and doing merchandise and doing fun shit with Yeah, I put him in the video game. He's gonna be in the video game. We paid him a shitload of money for that. Uh, you can fight has Bulla in the video game here pretty soon.
Oh my god, I cannot wait. And it's time for the Bounty wingman question. Bring out the wings. They're there. Bounty is everyone's favorite wingman because you can't have football without wings, and you can't have wings without Bounty. And today's Bounty Wingman question will be going to my day one wingman, Kurt de la rosa best friend since birth. Pretty much, what is the messiest situation that we've been in? I want to hear your story, and then I may
have one. I would say the messiest situation that you have been in. To keep it PG because you don't want to talk about being in trouble. You can do. You can do our.
So I don't know you probably you should remember this. It's the first year our city entered into Babe Ruth, which was a big kind of like thirteen fourteen, fifteen Baseball League or whatever, unless we entered.
The Palo Alto.
Yeah, so we're in a completely different city. They have you know, ten part ten teams or whatever.
The league's already set up, like like, hey, Redwood City wants to join, and we're gonna put our own little all star team together because Redwood City was already a big enough city that we had ten teams in itself already. And we're like, you know what, we're joining this pala Alta league and we're gonna kind of stitch a team together to fit in this other league. So we're now playing against all the kids that we usually would only play in like playoffs or.
All Stars or whatnot.
And so we're kind of like you said, the bad.
News Bad Bears. These people were classy and it was people had money. It was also like Jules and.
I were kind of like, oh, we're kind of getting pretty good at baseball. We're gonna be playing shortstop in second base. We had all these aspirations to be great. And so we're playing at Kenyataa and the rival team, I don't remember what their team was.
They were green, I guess all I can remember.
And they had this one dude who was like six' one two ten.
Rolled up he rolled up his sleeps.
Yeah, because he had guns.
He was like a pre chunky kid, you know what I mean. So, you know, but like he rolled up his sleeves.
I mean we're how old were we?
So we were thirteen or fourteen?
They went to fifteen, it went to fifteen.
Yeah, and you know, you should look at this guy who's six' to one, you know, two hundred plus pounds at the age of fourteen fifteen.
When you look at.
Jeweles and I and we're both still four ten one hundred pounds, soaking wet, you know, little little guy like and so there was this one play. I think we were up by like two runs already, so they're getting a little frustrated, and he hits a ground ball through the right side. And so, if you know baseball, what happens is the first baseman tries to get the ball. Second base has to rotate to first to cover just in case you want to back to where I'm on,
you know, if he gets too far around. So instead of him kind of running through the line, he just plows right through me. I get blindsided, taken out, and so I'm like in like a daze like cartoon, like, you know, I got dust all over me and I sit up and I just see Julian sprinting full speed, just launch his full body into this guy.
Yeah, through his glove.
It was like.
This guy's holding me like a little fucking ragdall like.
And you know that's the bounty, you know, pledge right there is like hey, like you get a med situation and and you got your clean up right here, and he came to clean up the.
Mess for me because you know that's what best friends do.
Back, like, fuck this dude, I don't sorry about you, but yeah, yeah, oh yeah. Second baseline, you want to know how our bad news bears. So we make the playoffs.
It's just another miss stitution.
Make playoffs, get to the finals, right, but it's like a two game elimination. So we lost one game, I think, right, and so then we battled our way back to the finals to play the best team that everyone knew, the best team.
We would have to win twice.
We'd have to win twice. First game we play them, we're beating their ass. Were like up like what eight or nine? Yeah, we're up eight or nine. I'm not gonna give no names, but our goddamn fucking manager not knowing the goddamn situations, puts one of our boys in because he wants to get him in. It's one of the last games, and the next next game is like championship.
You know what I mean.
It's in our final sub final sub ends up headbutting someone in something no he gets.
He gets caught in a pick between home and third and instead of just getting tagged out, decides to just go full spear like into the third basement, like way over the top or everyone's kind of like whoa, that was.
Little aggressive, ejected, full eject.
We had to force this bottom of six. All we had to do was get three more outs in the next inning to force a final game to the season.
The championship Bad News Bears had a forfeit fucking no subs, no subs, Bad News Bears knocked out of the game. Our whole team like classless as they come, like, fuck you guys, We're all like from East Redwood City. It's a script. I don't think they had a rather Redwood City team ever enter that league. Again.
We were like fuck you guys and your stupid league World champions like literally like the Bad News Bears at the end where they're like pouring like beers and stuff on him for.
Losing the game.
That was us Kenny Inglehart. Why you gotta try to take someone's neck out.
Bro in the heat of the moment, you know, he got he got excited.
Maybe that's why he was a sub.
Though, And that's our bounty wingman question.
Storytime, should we get into this, uh this breakdown this fight. Of course, lightweight Championship. As we know, the pay per view buys were insane two point four million.
I believe, yep is the highest at that time.
Yeah, I mean, uh crazy, the only the only paper view, the only pay per view that beat that was uh Connor and Floyd Wow and Floyd and uh.
Pack y'all, Oh that's right, that's right. But then so okay, so this is number one UFC. Yeah, damn insane, I thought. So we all remember what happened. Everyone talks before and after, but rounds one and two Kabib kind of dominated dominated.
He was just like just on top of him, wearing him out, wearing him out.
I was watching that fight. I was like, there's no way Connor's gonna win this fight.
Yeah. To Connor's credit, I mean, if you look at when he when he fought Poorier, you know when he grabbed down to Pooria and did what he did to Poorier. He came out of that fight and was like, I was freaked out by it. I couldn't believe that somebody could do that to me. It was blown away by what Abib had done to him. And then, yeah, Abibe was a bad boy. I would have loved to have seen more of him in his career.
And there was talk of stoppage in the second round. People were calling for it. Even Joe Rogan was on the on the mic alluding to like, is herbding gonna stop this thing?
Like what makes herbdin such a good riff?
Well, he he does. Uh, you know he trains too. He trains and he's had a couple of fights himself, I think any amateurs. I don't know if he ever fought pro but uh, he's knowledgeable. He knows what he's doing. Is one of the best refs of all time.
What was that called to Connor? Like after the bus incident, you're like, we fucking doing that.
Well he got arrested, I know, to go to fucking it's just like you gotta.
The commission, that's what you gotta put. Commission had on.
That's the mentality, man. I mean, this guy a bebe and his crew ran into one of Connor's buddies slapped him. He called Connor and told him. Connor loaded up a bunch of thugs on a plane and from Ireland. They jumped on a fucking on a fucking g six fifty and fucking flew out here.
Rolling deep and uh, you know, Jesus, now.
What happens when street kids make some money. She's six fifty and flat of New York and start a fucking.
Rumble, a legit rumble.
It's insane. Oh my god.
What's a fight day routine like for you?
Do you get? You get work out in?
Yeah? Yeah, every day. I get it.
You know.
I'm addicted to like cold plunging and and this. There's this thing called the Superhuman Protocol. I do it every morning every morning when I wake up, and uh, I work out out and then I start my day. I literally, now that I'm fucking fifty, I dedicate two hours of my day to my health. Got you. Yeah.
Since I've retired, it's been so incorporated.
My life is so routine, you know, wake up in the morning, body work, ball drills, meetings, body work before, practice, body work after. Like when it's not your priority, When your body is not your priority right now, you have to. It's a mental toughness for a person to make it a priority into their day.
And for you, what happens to a lot of athletes is, how do you know, thirty seven thirty seven? So for the last we'll call it fucking thirty years, probably the last thirty years, it's been all physical for you. You've just been working out and doing all the shit. A lot of guys when they retire are like, yeah, I'm done, I'm not working and then I'll try to get their health back till maybe ten years later.
You know. But I tried that. Like right when I got out, I was so just mentally drained because I tore the root of my meniscus and it was a fucking grind. I couldn't walk until Friday and playing on Sundays and like that was so raw my head were like as soon as I retired, I kind of took a chill break. And I was always a guy that worked out all year round, which you.
Know, was a strength, but also making me. I broke down my body because of it.
One hundred percent and I was like depressed.
When you work out, it releases an endorphin, Like when you wake up, you work out, you accomplish something, it's like then you're ready for the day.
I couldn't agree with you more. That's where I'm at, man, That's exactly where I'm at. But yeah, I could see how that could happen to an athlete when when they retire. I gotta ask you a question. So you know you're you're on one of the greatest teams of all time. What you guys achieved and accomplished, the money, the you know what it must feel like running through that fucking
tunnel end of the stadium. You know, whether you're in Foxborough or you're going to another place where you're getting booed, and you got the animosity in and that's fun to win. How fucking hard is it to say, all right, I'm gonna walk away from this now it's time to go. Was it harder? Did you just feel like, you know what it's time?
It wasn't hard for me because I respect the game too much. And when I was turning on the film, I wasn't looking like me. You know, when you turn on the film and and things that were so remediately easy started becoming hard. Like I was like, all right, I'm not greedy. I love the game.
I've accomplished so much from this game.
I've went above and beyond anything I ever expected. I got to get out of here just because I pissed off a lot of people. You know, when you go when you're in your prime, and I remember watching guys. You go against guys, and when I was younger player, they were in their prime and they dominated me. And then I got into my prime and you could see that they were getting out of their prime, and you want to embarrass them. You know, there comes a point
where you can get hurt out there. If you're not you know, you get hurt.
It's exactly.
You can get hurt if you're not cutting the same way. You're a millisecond off. Guys are trying to tee off on you. You've been on the Patriots, You've won so much everyone, you were circled every year. You know, this is the team you want to if guys are getting paid off of that game, coaches were getting jobs off of beating ut like, so it was one of those things where it was hard and it hurt.
It was.
It hurt me mentally, but it was like I was so thankful that I got to have my career where I had it. I got to play on one team and I respected the game too much where you know, I could have played two more years, right, it would have been a fucking like what are you doing? I didn't want to be that guy, right. I remember watching
those guys and when you hurt ye you. Yeah, the root of my meniscus in the beginning of the year, and and it's usually like a you can get this micro fracture surgery that go in there, but it's like twelve month recovery.
I was thirty four.
I was like, I'm gonna try to do it without it, and it was just it was a grind mental You know, when you're not healthy, that's what wears you out because you have to go out and perform and there's a standard and there's an expectation, right, you know, you've been doing it for so long at such an elite level that like when when it's it was so hard to just get right. For a Sunday, I was like, I can't what am I doing? Yeah, it was it wasn't my time anymore.
Got to hang them up. It was tough.
How bad do you miss it?
I didn't start missing it until my body felt good.
Yeah, that makes sense.
I remember. I was like there was a couple of weeks in my last year where like, I don't know, I'm gonna fucking play this game. And I got like a big game plan to me, you know, like we were I'd have to go and run the day before the game. It was COVID, so it was all fucking weird. We couldn't like practice or certain certain things. And I couldn't even walk Like we played against Seattle. I couldn't walk the day before the game, like my knee was
blown up. And it's just that stress because you don't I wanted to go out, you know what I mean. There's an expectation of how you're supposed to be right, and that that that wore on me, you know, and it broke me down a little bit.
You know what's interesting when you say that, it was when you started to your body started to heal. It's like these fighters, like there'll be a great fight we'll have on Saturday night, right, and I'll go back to the press conference and the media will start asking me when's you know, when's this guy going to fight again? It's like, he just fucking we just finished the show. What are you talking about? We don't even call these
guys for weeks till after. You gotta let Once they start to go home, you know, they've been away from their families, they've been cutting weight, they've been stressed out about the fight. The fight's over now, they're all banged up. You let them get past all that. When you're when you're that type of an athlete, like you just said, you start to get antsy. Once you start to feel good, you know, then you start to think about what's next
and all this other stuff. But when you're beat up and they don't even want to fucking talk about it, think about no, that's what.
I You know, when the season would end every year, Belichick would always say, don't be calling me, you know right after the season, saying you're gonna retire.
Like, take a fucking second.
You know what I mean, Because you were right after a battle, right after a fucking eighteen twenty week season. You're beat up mentally, it's been a fucking grind all year. You just want to you know, your you know, you let it make a decision a couple you know, just like what you guys do.
Let's get back to the fight, Jack.
Round three, Connor comes out and gets it bounce.
I thought Habib was kind of like getting his wind in the third round.
It was you were here in the commentary a little bit. The muscles were full of blood, all that ground and pound, all that domination in those first two rounds, he was a little slower, not like didn't look like off, but it was a little slower, I would think, right, Connor, hebben round three.
I don't know, man, I don't know. You know, I can't remember what the stat is and if he ever did lose one, but he Bib hadn't lost a round, right, That was the first one whole frigging career, right, And he uh, he was one of those guys that seemed to get more dominant as the fight went on because he was actually wearing you out and grinding you. And but I don't I don't remember how he.
Was energy a little bit, that's the same same, And I don't think he was going to bring him to the ground.
He was, Yeah, it wasn't like he was with Yes, he was toying with Connor.
The only other round he ever lost was justin gafee, so.
That was on the judge of scorecard he lost.
Yeah, but then round four comes out that crank is it thanks to the ground.
Wanted to change his face.
Wanted to change his face. That was the quote from the from the All of two twenty nine.
Honestly, geez, I can't even imagine, because I know, like what you're thinking, because I've been arrested and should had to deal with the commission stuff. I couldn't even imagine what was going through your mind when you see the melee is going up after the fucking fight.
I mean, just a.
Liability, especially when we were expecting it. We were expecting it and we were ready for it, and it's still happened. It's just it's yeah, it's it's a.
Fucking two testos round up. Motherfuckers.
Just disappointing because I mean it's one of those like the lead up was so crazy that like there had to be that ex sale of like when it actually started, like all right, we got to this point and then it ends and afterwards like that's insane.
Yeah, it's yeah. People think that because I'm a promoter, that that that stuff's good for us. It's not good for us because the Commission, you know, and we're the biggest and baddest in all of combat sports, so we're the ones to make the example out of when it does happen.
I mean, you gotta gotta lay down the law. Did would you you find find him or something?
Where they did? What did they find them? Two million bucks? Two million dollars fine? Believe got fined two million dollars. Yeah, you gotta find two million dollars. That's no fucking joke. So that's how how much they frowned on this shit happening. Yeah, two million dollar fine.
I mean he got to he gotta do that. And I'm a I'm a player guy. Joe Rogan incredible, unbelievable yep, when you you hired him?
M hm yeah, what year? Shit? I mean he was he literally was doing fear factor when I hired him. So when we bought the UFC, the company was based in New York. So I jumped on a plane, flew out to New York and started cleaning out the old offices. I was emptying all these boxes and and and sending ship to Vegas that I thought I needed to keep from from the office, and I had a VCR because they had fucking tapes for days. I mean I must have watched two hundred and fifty three hundred tapes to
make sure that it wasn't anything whatever. So I popped in this tape and there was this talk show, the Keenan Ivory Wayan Show, The Oldest Wayan brother had his own talk show, and they had Joe Rogan on there, and Joe Rogan was talking about and I knew Joe Rogan from Fear Factor, you know, I would watch on t and Joe Rogan was talking about how bad ass UFC fighters were and what they would really do to some of these karate guys that were in movies and shit like that. And I was like, man, this guy
knows what he's talking about. He's smart, he's funny, he's articulate. So I reached out to Rogan. At that time, I think it was on the internet, you know, I reached out to him. We started talking and I asked him if he would like to work for us and be a commentator. So if you look at where the UFC was at that time, you know, we were losing money like crazy. We bought it for two million, which sounds
like a great story. Now we ended up being like almost forty million in the hole before we turned it around. But Joe Rogan did like the first twelve or thirteen shows for free. He said, fuck yeah, I'll come there and do it and sit in the best seats in the house and everything else. So Joe and I have been super close friends for a very long time. I would do anything for Joe Rogan.
He's killed It came in at UFC eleven. You in the backstage interviews.
Yeah, so before we bought the company, he worked for a little while for the UFC. He was a backstage interviewer. Yeah, and then but I didn't even know that when I saw the videotape of them.
Did you have anyone else in mind for that role or was it just Joe Rogan.
Was So when I came in, I sort of took over all the production and revamped all the you know, the the commentators and who was going to interview. So you know, if you look at our production now, it's fucking Our production is so on point. But it took twenty three years to get there.
Yeah, I mean it takes a lot of time to refine routines, and you're constantly still doing it.
I betred percent. Yes, we're still evolving.
You when you're green, you grow, and you're ripe, you're rot.
That's what my dad used to tell me. Is your dad a football coach? Yeah, yeah, it sounds like it.
Yeah, he was a fucking he was shout out Frank, shout out Frank Beab's legacy in UFC. One of the greatest of all time, one of the greatest. Connor yep, one of the one of the one of the biggest superstars ever. I think it was the first guy to win two titles in two different weight classes, and and the guy who really took the company to another level all throughout Europe. Yeah, and more importantly, who's your favorite fighter of all times?
It's hard to say that I have a favorite fighter Connor. Connor has been an incredible partner, you know what I mean. Usually when you get guys that are that big a superstars, they go they become total egomaniacs and they go against the fucking and do whatever. Connor McGregor is for a kid that you know, when when you think about it, he was he was almost called the Dole when we signed him, which is basically he was on welfare. Think about where he came from. The business sense that this
kid had is fascinating. And Connor McGregor, everybody always asked me, is he a nightmare of dealers? And know he's actually not. He's actually a really good partner and and he understands the business, and you know, he's actually been great to work with. So Connor is one of my all time favorite. Ronda Rousey probably the greatest that I've ever worked with. Anything you needed, whatever it was, Ronda was willing to do it. And you know, I have a really really
incredible relationship with Chuck Ladell. Chuck Lidell one of my first big superstars, and you know, helped help bid the spot. And there's there's so many different people along the way, and I feel bad not saying everybody. I've worked with lots of incredible people in my career. And then that doesn't include my staff, the woman sitting behind me, the only person in the world that I actually listened to and uh respect opinions from and and and many other people in our organization.
Top three fights of all time.
Jones Gustafson McGregor. Habib and I have to pick this one because you know, going into when we first started bringing women into the UFC, the backlash we got, how I said women would never fight in the UFC. The list goes on. And on the night that Ronda Rosie fought Carmouche down in southern California, place was sold out. When Ronda walked out of the tunnel, the place fucking erupted and went crazy. And I stood around. I looked around and said, I made the right decision, and now
look at where women's fighting is now. Yeah, so me personally by top three.
Wow, she was.
She was an absolute rock star. It was almost like when she when she lost, she finally lost, it was like it was a big deal. It was huge. You never thought she could lose.
We were in Australia in a soccer stadium, right, No, Holly Home, Holly Home in a soccer stadium.
Soccer that's how big she was.
Forty seven thousand people for a woman's fight. You two women fighting forty seven thousand people in another country, and the and the two women involved in the main event weren't Australian. Yeahs fucking crazy.
That's a testament to you taking that making that it's crazy, that's unbelievable.
Jack. Do we do we miss anything?
We got a couple uh we were. We got to give a shout out to the little cowboys. Kyu Kelly on the Seahawks talking hookah Little Cowboys, shout out to the little cowboy.
I want to take them all. I want to I want to get a time machine and get the little cowboys. I played on the little road with City forty nine.
Ers in the Bay Area. We wont Super Bowls.
We won Super.
Cowboys versus a little forty nine ers.
I mean movie, should we make a movie?
And before we leave, I mean you couldn't walk the week of the Seattle game. You go out and have your career high one hundred and seventy nine yards. I know, int cam throwing you the ball. Cam gotta shine, gotta use some sho brother.
I remember that. That was after after that, that was like one of my most proud moments was because I remember I had to walk with the trainer. We were walking just to get the fluid out of my knee. I was hitting the bike on Saturday. You fly out two days before going on West Coast trips and I'm sitting there, I'm walking, We're walking up these hills in Seattle, and I'm like, I don't know if this is I'm talking to my guy mids. I'm like, dude, I don't know if we can I can go. You're going to
be fine. He's from Australia. You're gonna be fine. Mate, you gonna be fine. And I'm like, fuck. And we went out and did that. After that game, I was like, mine is a crazy thing. Mind over matter so true, mine, so true.
But I mean that's when you play in the NFL, the level that you guys play on. Again. I know you hear this your whole life, but at your size to be able to do what you did in the NFL and be able to do what you did on the Patriots. And like I said when we started this interview, the the enjoyment that you guys gave my family over the last twenty you know, every Sunday a family member either had a Brady Edelman, Ammondola or Gronk jersey on
We Lovely. Everybody in my family either had one of those jerseys.
Lines my guy. And it's not an interview, this is a conversation about whatever.
This is, this conversation, whatever's going on?
We started? Whatever's going on here? What does this?
Does this fight have a name? Because this week we call games and names. What is Does this fight have a name?
This fight, this conversation? What I know?
The fight, the fight that we're talking about, the BIB fight.
Oh uh, that was just Abibe versus Connor. Yeah, that's enough vers versus Connor and b versus Connor. Two.
Yeah, are we teasing something?
No, you said too.
Uh.
We have scored the game presented by win Bet.
We have a thing where we score each fight, each game in all sports stakes one to ten. What is this?
This was?
This had to be a ten.
It's a ten stakes, especially with the with the uh, all the stuff that led up to the fight.
Yeah, ten star power everyone was at this fight.
Oh my god, the two guys in the ring, everybody sitting ring.
Star parking on the star power on. This is a thousand.
You got to give a starter level ten.
Well, this is this is the thing that you think about. That's crazy when you think about fighting. I mean, you have the most powerful people in the world watching these fights. It's like we were just talking about when she goes back to her home country. She meets with the present.
That's crazy. It is gameplay, fight play. It wasn't a ten because Kabebe kind of owned them.
Yeah, but but but you know what, a lot of people don't last four rounds with Habib. Yeah, Connor, did you know one.
Out of ten?
What you got?
Yeah?
One out of ten?
Ranking give us seven?
Seven. That's a good score. That's honest.
I like that.
It's honest. Name a bebe versus Connor?
Yep, this, I mean that's probably like a I mean, there's been some crazy we've had, like some crazy games on.
You, but those are two of the biggest superstars in the.
It doesn't need to rumble in the jumble.
Yeah, we're a fucking one. Then all right, we'll give it a three. All right, that's a three.
There we go. We gotta come up with the name. We'll have to hit the comments section.
Yeah, we'll get the when we post this, we'll see thirty.
Now you do that median seven point five? Where is it listing the games?
Yeah, you do it?
Okay, So a seven point five puts us and a dead tie. Oh my god, with the true this is an insult to Combat Sports. It's a tie with the twenty fourteen the basketball tournament team Barstool versus the Notre Dame alumni.
Jesus, I'm gonna I'm just gonna put it out that we got fucked because we didn't come up with a cool name for the event.
You got to go marketing's big.
We got fucked. Listen, when you got two of the biggest superstars in the game, you don't need to say shame sell it, you know what I mean. I don't have to come up with rumble in the jungle or anything like that.
You know what I mean, Geez, rumble in the desert. That's all we need.
Desert is if I came up with duel in the desert, it should be a fucking old point five should be our score.
This scoring is all wonky every.
Time we got fucked. Yea, I got fucked on the name.
Man, Dana, Thank you. Do you have anything to plug you want to?
Man, We're good. I'm just happy to be here. Thanks again, man for all the enjoyment over the years, and it's good to hang out and have a conversation with you.
Definitely, I appreciate you too. Man, You've always taken care of me. I was say you in Salt Lake at what UFC was.
Well, you and I used to bump into each other Celtics games.
Too, Celtics and then at the Boston you guys had a Boston fight and.
What yeah, and a bunch of you guys came out for that, came out for that, right, that was fun.
You've always taken care of.
I think the last time I saw you was when the Lakers and the Celtics were in the finals out in LA and we were both coming in that back door area. Oh yeah, I lost twenty grand a snoop on that game.
We got Meta World Peace coming on soon to talk about that game. Actually, oh really, yeah, what's he doing now?
I don't know.
He's changing his name now, he's Meta Sanderford Artest. So every week we got to stay.
Up on it.
I'm gonna a whole digital team that's working on on what his name is. Got to keep tabs on him, the tabs.
But I don't know.
I appreciate you, man, Thank you.
It's good to see you.
What an episode.
Cool dude.
He knows a lot about fighting and.
Everything, being a g making money, fighting, making money, fighting and dieting.
And transforming. I mean, if you think about it, he's transformed the UFC. Yeah, I mean a huge success, and he transformed his body into a huge success.
I don't see Roger Goodell looking ripped and he's put together. I mean, if you're a ripped commission, pretty cool.
Sterlingksion he does adam silver? Silver or silver?
Yeah?
Who was?
I think that's Donald Sterling from the Clippers. Yeah maybe that definitely not ripped. No bad guy, actually bad, actually very bad? Or wait, who was it was before him?
It was?
Uh, what am I doing? David stern sterne.
A lot of ESS's either way, they ain't ripped like Dana ripped.
I ain't Dana rip.
Thanks again to Dana and thanks to the beautiful win Las Vegas Hotel and Casino. This is this is it. I think we made it to the bigs when we get to have field trips on our podcast. So cool.
This isn't even really like a field trip. This is like a home away from home.
It's like Dunston checks in.
It's like what like Dunston checks in?
You know that Dunston checks in?
I thought that would be right in your wheelhouse.
I'm a blank check kick, I know that.
You know that?
All right.
That's another episode of Games with Names, presented by Win Bett. Remember to follow Games with Names on YouTube, Instagram, x TikTok, and snapchat. See you guys later, See you next week, Jackie lad Laida. Games with Names is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.