132 Comments

Ariel, I have an important question. Its Saturday night in Perth. We're beginning the championship rounds, and Islam has had no success taking Volk down. Volk is really starting to piece up Islam to the point that a finish looks imminent. 2 Minutes into the 4th round, a huge commotion breaks out in the crowd to the point that the fighters stop fighting for a moment to see that the Eagle of Dagestan, Khabib Nurmagomedov is descending down the ramp towards the cage. Islam, temporarily lifted by the sight of his best friend and coach, manages to land an overhand right to push Volk off of him. As he looks back to Khabib who has now reached the cage for advice, he reaches out to him only to be met with a smirk. Khabib makes his way over to Volk's corner, and starts spewing instructions to Alexander. Chef Volk finishes Islam through vicious ground and pound honed by years of smashing Taki's to a fine powder. My question after all of this is : do you think this would be the biggest heel turn since Hulk Hogan / NWO Bash at the Beach '96? I think this is bigger. This was father's plan all along : The Makhachkala screwjob!

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What's up Ariel!

Just a quick question, any rumblings about a UFC card in Canada for 2023?! Seems like we are the last major country for the UFC to return to... hoping it's this year!

Have a great day and a show!

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Hey Ariel and crew,

If you guys had to rank the 4 upcoming PPVs by excitement level, what would be your ranking? I can’t remember a time when we had 4 PPVs this massive all in a row (Maybe UFC 201-205 as there were 2 Conor fights)

284 -> Islam vs Volk

285 -> Jones vs Gane

286 -> Leon vs Usman

287 -> Alex vs Izzy

Thanks!

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Hello, fan since 2011 but first time asking a question. I believe you when you say that no one told you to not share the news about Brock Lesnar fighting at UFC 200 and the narrative the UFC staff, for lack of a better term, tried to put out about people losing their jobs if it gets out was false. However, something I've wondered for a long time is this, did only a select few people know about that news? If they did were any NDAs in play? Last and most importantly, how did you learn of it and then confirm that news? Keep going, love your work!

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Hello Ariel!

Could you make the case that Dustin Poirier is the #1 contender for the winner of Saturday’s Lightweight Title Fight between Volk and Islam at UFC 284?

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In regards to Tim Simpson leaving Paradigm Sports and starting his own agency do you know why he left and do you know if there is any animosity between Tim and Audie since Tim will continue to represent Izzy, Leon, and Jiri? I’ve heard mainly good things about Paradigm but also bad with the Tony Ferguson situation. Would love to get your thoughts.

Thank you as always!

- Israel D

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Hello R-E-L & Crew,

With the promotion-wide title landscape taking shape and the majority of champs putting up their hardware and testing their mettle in Q1 & Q2, I have two questions for you:

Who do you think Zhang Weili is going to get first in her second title reign?

For you and the whole dang crew, who is a lock to still be holding his or her belt come December 31st, 2023? I challenge you to not take the easiest two (the featherweight champs, Volk and Nunes). Despite picking against him in his last 4 fights, I’m going to go with Aljo. Outside of Volk, he is the only other male champ with any current title defenses and looks better in every fight. Speaking as someone who may have been leaving Clown emojis on his page, his interviews with you and his handling of all the negativity thrown his way have actually made me into a fan. That being said, I think he’ll hold onto it until Umar Nurmagomedov takes it in 2024.

--

King Tyler

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Hey Ariel,

Last week Woodley implied that he was part of the Masvidal card hinting at rematch possibly paul Daley . What happened ?

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Good day Ariel and crew,

The UFC announced that they will build a PI in Mexico to develop further talent in Latin America. With Mexico having numerous title contenders in the past few years, do you think the UFC will host an upcoming card in Mexico?

Thanks,

Logan

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Hi Ariel, you often say that mma promotions need a 'face' to grow their promotion, but the UFC seems to be doing fine despite Dana's lackluster efforts over the last year or more, and PFL and ONE seem to both be growing strong without an amazing promoter as figurehead. Is it possible that mma has grown in popularity and legitimacy to the point where it is less reliant on 'guy at mic shouts about fights' and more on social media teams and savvy business deals? What is one thing ONE or PFL could do to build their promotion that they aren't doing yet? Cheers to you and the crew!

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Ariel,

Did you ever touch on the whole Terrance McKinney vs Barstool topic?

-Nick the Dane

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Hey Ariel love from Montreal!

If Alex Volkanovski manages to get passed Islam Makhachev.

Do you think the next move for him would be to stay at lightweight and defend the title or move back to featherweight?

I personally think there would be a lot of fun fights for him at lightweight especially with him having beat a lot of the top prospects at featherweight already.

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Hey Ariel and crew!

This is going to be a little long and outdated as I’ve tried to submit some of these in the past but couldn’t make it by Moderator Louis.

I’m the guy who sent those AI images to GC. For some context about them, I used Midjourney. With Midjourney you can submit a picture and then use keywords to generate the images. So that’s what I did to generate those images from Monday’s show. The picture of Ariel was from a Showtime event. The picture of GC was indeed from a watch party. The picture of NYR was just behind the mic on the show. And the pic of Frank was from a quality selfie GC posted of the two of them.

Secondly, I was a little sad when you read Newman's post from before the holiday about his wife being pregnant. I was hoping we’d get a "Your boys can swim!" Or a "Finally slipped one past the goalie" response from you.

And a question for GC about the most profitable fighter for 2022. Wouldn't Christian Echols have been the most profitable fighter of the year? With just the 1 win you'd have made more than the 3 wins from Dolidze. And that’s not even counting the fact that Echols had 3 wins in 2022, not just the 1 big upset against Pat Downey.

A final thought about the parlay pals. If you want to make it interesting and remove people, a rule could be that the total parlay number always needs to be positive. So with 4 people having a positive parlay is easy. Then with 3 it gets a little tougher and same with 2. The onus could fall on the person who’s making the last pick to get the number into the positives. Then once you’re down to one person picking by themselves, that person needs to pick an underdog or you could just start over and call that person the winner.

Thanks,

Kevin from Ottawa

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Kevin, if the latter half of the question doesn’t make it in this week, move on. It’s February.

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Alright, but the Newman quip should've made it in weeks ago, Ariel would've appreciated it.

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Hey Ariel!

Greetings from Lisbon - Portugal! First time sending a question.

What do you think overall about the Islam and Volk interview in DC & RC? I thought that the interview could be held in a more proper way. A lot of internet breaks, bad connection, and sound problems. This goes back to the way that this event is being promoted. Lack of quality overall. What do you think? PS: Benfica is going to win the champions league

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Hi Ariel,

I’m stoked on the main and co-main event of UFC 284, but I have to say that I’m really lukewarm on the rest of the card.

Are there any fights on the prelims or early prelims that I should be more excited about?

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G’day Ariel from Perth, Australia. I’m just wondering what your thoughts are on the AFL (Australian football league) have you or GC watched many games, if so what do you guys think of it and do you’s understand how the game works?

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