Level Change Podcast
Well, that was certainly a year... | Ep. 346
[Intro Music] Welcome back and thank you for listening to episode 346 of the level change podcast. I'm Stephanie Haines and I'm joined as always by my amazing co-host Victor Rodriguez and today is our year in show and we're gonna look at what we loved about the year, maybe not so much what we love, but the things that we found like the best KO of the year, things like that. It's our, you know, end of the year's show, but before we get into that, we have two things. We're gonna check in with Victor and I'm gonna give y'all a little tiny bit of really funny breaking news. So Victor first, tell us how you've been, how was your Christmas? Christmas was dope, I went over to my sisters, I did some cooking, I had a little more help than I expected and, you know, spent time with the nephews and everything, it was nice, it was alright. I had a quick turnaround because I had stuff to do in the morning and it's been really pressing with all the work stuff, but other than that, it was cool. I was thrilled to make my nephews very, very happy, so that's really what it's all about, frankly. I really, given the circumstances, you know, seeing as the boy wasn't, seeing as the boy is out of town right now, it's like, well look, I'm happy he's there, don't get me wrong, but it would have been nice to have him around, but still, I'm happy for him as well and his mother, his side of family, that's dope. Everybody had a great time. Like everybody won, this was lovely on my head. What about you? What happened on your side? Oh, we just, you know, did our usual, we stayed in and didn't do a whole heck of a lot, but you know, it's our thing, we watched lots of TV and things like that, but, you know... You have like a tradition type show or movie that you guys do? Oh, we just always watch like, you know, National Lampoon's Christmas vacation because that's like one of our favorites and like Home Alone, I really love Home Alone. I kind of, I, so okay, I had two of my cousins that came over from the DR. They moved to the States in like 1990-91 and they got Home Alone on VHS and they burned through that thing. They would watch it all day, every day, to the point, I'm like, I just don't like this anymore. It's just up liking the movie, like I was, I had, I had, I had McCauley Culkin fatigue in the worst way. I was just, yeah. So I don't really have, you know, some people love doing the whole die-hard thing every year. I don't have a tradition for that sort of thing personally, but I'm always curious to see people that do. I always find that kind of cool. We also just gamed a lot and it was kind of, well, I wish I had known when I was gaming that particular day because one of the voice actors in the game that we like to play, which is Star Wars the Old Republic, which is like an MMORPG game where, you know, like everybody's playing at once and everything. But Olivia Husei died a couple of days ago and she is most famous probably for being Juliet in the film Romeo and Juliet, the first one back in like, I think it was '68 or '69. And she also did tons of voice acting for video games and lots of Star Wars games, including the one that I play. And like, if you are a Jedi Knight or a Jedi Consular or anything like that, you have to go through a trainer on a planet called Tython and your trainer is a female and her name is Yuan Parr and Olivia Husei was the voice actor for her. So when you go and train, every time you go to train, you're training with, you know, Olivia Husei with Juliet. So anyway, I noticed her name was full in a run, I didn't realize that she had passed. I'm familiar with the name, I don't even see her in too many things, but I know she was. Yeah. That's a shame. That's not. So yeah, shout out to her, but that's basically all we did, you know, exchange presents with our neighbors because we're real close to our neighbors. Our neighbors on the left were super close to, but other than that, you know, not a whole heck of a lot, just are normal. And it's just exactly the way we like it. That's a listen, that's always sometimes, sometimes all you need is that bit of comfort. Yeah, that's exactly the word I would use. It was cozy and comfortable, just like it is every year. So anyways, let's move on for the purposes of our listeners so they don't get bored with our holidays, and let's talk about some news that just rolled across my radar about 30 minutes ago. And that is Connor McGregor's seemingly confirmed reports that the Logan Paul fight is finalized and get this, this is so freakin funny to me, for 250 million each at Wankety Stadium in India. Now listen, I'm sorry, but anybody out there that is actually using Connor McGregor for a source for anything other than being able to locate the fattest fucking rail he can find, that's a bold choice, that's a really bold choice to put any faith in anything that man says. And just because somebody tweeted about it and Connor made a smiley face and put an Irish flag next to it, and because Logan Paul happened to like the post, that seems to be, and I'm using the heaviest sarcasm, air quotes, confirmation. And oh my God, a $500 million card, are you fucking kidding me? Oh boy, okay, I want to point out two things. And again, I want to be very careful here with how I phrase this. We've, and I know I've notably mentioned this multiple times before in the podcast. There is a lot of blood money going around in the combat sports scene. There's a lot of unscrupulous people ready to whitewash their reputation any way they can and using combat sports as a fraud. India is no different than any other country in that respect other than the fact that it's not so much state sponsored, perhaps, you know, there's always some crazy rich guy who wants to do a thing and pull a stunt. You can't just go off that, like, look at how flimsy and you laid the case out so well, and I'm glad you did, right? Like this is what you're going with. The guy like, oh my God, it's happening. It's happening. Like, at what point do these people not feel like Charlie Brown of Lucy in the football? But at what point do you as a man, like, how do you navigate life? What is your financial situation look like? Where do you work? I want to know what else do you apply this same lack of logic to all this other shit going on in your, in your reality outside of fandom? I really got to know, man, this shit is just so, it's so wild to me. It's so funny to me. And the fact that people are biting on it like, yeah, Conor McGregor's boxing in India, bro, I saw it on TV. I saw it on the internet. I know it's real. Okay. All right. You know who made a great point? And I thought about something and then I caught this video on YouTube and it basically, like, you know, when you have a kernel of an idea, but somebody else expands on it way further and you're like, see, that's exactly what I was. That's exactly the vein that I was running in front of the show, Jimmy Smith. Did you see his, his video on the top, Conor McGregor thing? No, I haven't. Sorry. Well, so he was, he basically pointed out that this is the Conor McGregor jangling keys. What just happened? What else has he been notable notable for this year? Nothing. Back that core case. I know I was, I thought you were referring to something business wise. Sorry. Right. No, no, no, like fight wise. Yeah, fight wise. Nothing. You're totally correct. But how do you get that stink of that trial off of you? Got to make some kind of noise. You got to drop something and just smoke bomb. Right. Yeah. And I think that's, I think he saw that and he just, he just ran with it. And now here we are. We got to talk about the show. The other thing that's notable, especially this week is if you go to Connor's profile and you look at his engagement with his tweets, oh my God, it is at an all time low. Some of them are as low as just 200 likes like this thing, like this, the stanch of rape will never leave him now and I think that's what it is. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. It is that like before the trial and before the verdict and everything like that, Connor could be counted on to keep people entertained if for nothing else than pointing and laughing. But these days, it's not about pointing and laughing. It's about dragging him and he deserves all of that dragging every last bit of it. You know, I'll never budge from that never. So yeah, I mean, and I do feel that this is also a blatant money grab because I feel that Connor may have burned through his money. I mean, when you're spending money at a million dollars and a clip and people seem to think that because proper number 12 sold for about seven between 680 and 750 million, not all of that money was for Connor. He had business partners that were investors in it. The estimate of his take was between 120 and 170 million. That's it. Now, his cut from the Mayweather fight, the rough estimate is between 50 and 70 million is what he was able to take away. It wasn't no hundred million like everybody seems to think it wasn't that. We have to be realistic here, folks. Okay. But let's just assume for a moment, right? Let's assume. Let's just say for the for the sake of just conversation that Connor indeed did make a hundred million off the boxing, which he probably didn't most likely didn't, if he actually had made, you know, 200 or 300 million off the proper 12 thing, which well, no, he didn't make 200 to 300. Oh, no, he didn't because we actually were able to see some of the the financials there. And so we know that he didn't take away 200 to 300 million. We know it was between 120 and 170. Right. That's what we know for fact. Well, let's let's just say just let's just say that he did, right? You got to look at the chunk that got taken off how much how instrumental he was in the success of both of those ventures and how little he ends up within the end. And look, $175 million is more money than I've ever seen in my life. Like I've never seen that amount of money put together in front of me. I doubt that I'll I mean, I wish I doubt that I'll ever sniff that amount of money, right? But still, dog, I mean, for all the money you made, all these other people, that's got to sting. Like at some point, that's just got to hurt and he never learns. Yeah. And so, you know, if let's say that his accumulated wealth and we we went through this on one of our episodes, our recent episodes of Hey, Not the Face and we figure that his accumulated wealth is somewhere between two and 300 million. And that for many, many people is generational wealth, but not for him. And when you burn through cars, you know, he has a fleet of cars and they're expensive cars, super cars. You know, he's got Rolls Royce fantoms. He's got ventilies and he's bought cars like that for family members. He purchased as it purchased himself a big house. He's got another one in Las Vegas. He's got a Lamborghini yacht. He purchased his pen, you know, a house for his parents. He's opened the black forge in he's got lots and lots of stuff going on, but it's a lot of money going out and how much is coming in to support this kind of lifestyle. And now he's probably, I'm not sure what the when the the courts are going to decide if he is going to be liable for the something like one point something million pounds and legal fees and court costs that they're they're looking at pinning him with as well. Like they're going to force him to pay Miss hands court costs and everything. So, you know, you're looking at a million here, a million there, millions here, millions there, plus losses on his businesses too. Let's not forget he lost $2.3 million on black forge in everybody's pulling his stuff. I mean, he has expenses, I'm sure he fly he has a, I don't know if he owns a private jet, but he flies privately all the time. Yeah. That's a lot of partying that's been going on too. And let's not forget that he's like super mobbed up with the Kenahan clan. How, how much are they leaning on him to help fund things? I, I'm just, I'm always, I'm always looking at this sort of thing and I'm thinking, it seems like so much of this, well, let me put it for me this way. So there's a professional wrestler by the name of Stevie Richards. I'm not sure if I'm familiar with him, he wasn't the most famous guy, but he's pretty much been, he's one of those like forest gump of wrestling type guys. He's just been in these places working with some, you know, at the time where a lot of companies were high and Ellen's WCW was hot. He was there when WWE was hot, he was there. And he said something really, really interesting that, that about how professional wrestlers start getting into restaurants, he's like, you know, I don't understand why the first thing these guys want to do is open something, but look, you got to have everything's got to be up to code. You got payroll, you got to have insurance. It's a, the profit margins aren't very big. Why not put that money into some other ventures, some, you know, stocks and bonds and index funds and mutual funds? Why not do something where the money works for you and you don't have to do all this and maybe you don't have to worry so much about bleeding money. And I worry in this case, I look at the Conor McGregor situation, he's got, well, think about that, like the black forgen, did he really need to open a bar? I don't know. It seems like more of a vanity project than, than a money making venture, right? Like, I don't know what the financials are, but it just seems to me like that's not exactly marketing yourself as the main selling point for this place, for this, this, this bar, tabbed or whatever you want to call it. I don't know, man. It just doesn't seem like any of this is set up for after I'm done fighting. It's like, as long as I'm a viable brand in the public eye, and then suddenly we're seeing him not being that and then all this shit is disappearing. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And apparently he bought some real estate and he has like some apartments or something and he's like a terrible landlord. I mean, there's so much stuff and it seems like he gets kind of bad advice to like in case in point what you just said, like who is opening a restaurant and here's the worst part about it is it's a super high-end restaurant that's set in a neighborhood that is not built for high-end traffic, you know? So I mean, it just seems like since the proper 12 sale, it just seems like it's been one disastrous move after another. And so, you know, he's, it just seems like he's floundering and you know, he's gonna get a sizable chunk, like somewhere between eight and ten million dollars off of the settlement, the antitrust settlement, that's a lot of money. But again, to see him like trying to book these, this mega fight with Logan, it just feels to me like he's in a lot more financial hardship than maybe we realized. And let's not forget, you know, Floyd Mayweather earned boo-coo bucks and remember he had trouble with the IRS like on two different occasions where he owed the IRS a lot of money, you know? We have seen Mike Tyson burn through generational wealth as well, but we've seen lots of athletes that, you know, made terrible decisions and just blew their money away like it was nothing. So for Conor McGregor, who's, you know, admittedly been doing cocaine, you know, that night with the Miss Hand and you know, it's, it's quite obvious in some of his mannerisms that there's something clearly going on there. He parties a lot. You can see him drinking a lot, et cetera, et cetera. It's not out of the realm of possibility to think that maybe he's burned through so much of that money or loaned it out to people, Kenahan, gang, whatever, what have you. Who knows? But it's not out of the realm of possibility to think that he has burned through a significant portion of what should have been generational wealth. Let me, you know what? I'd actually like to add to that. You know what else is within the realm of possibility? Maybe he should have paid automobile about that money. I'm just saying he should have done that because I think it's possible. Adam probably went to some Russian witch dog to motherfucker, put the root on him. And now, now your castles of aid and sand are rolled into the sea. Yes, that is, that is, that is probably what we're seeing right now. So you would have paid this motherfucker who wouldn't have these problems. Wouldn't happen. He went to the same, he went to the same witch dog to Richard Pryor was talking about that mud bone sketch. Just put your feet in that ammonia smelling piss and watch what happens. See that magic fizzle. So the last thing I want to say on this story, you know, 250 million a piece of five hundred million dollar fight, what if it was in rupees and they mistook it? Because if this were in rupees, that would mean about just under three million a piece. Now that seems like it would be reasonable to me, but like you said, some of these mega moguls and I can't help but call to mind just a couple of months ago, the most extravagant wedding in all of history, in all of history, was held just a couple of months ago. And it was India's wealthiest man, his daughter, or no, his son, Mary, Mary, this gorgeous girl, his very fat son at that, Mary, this gorgeous girl, the large son has been wed. Yeah. But apparently they, you know, have been, you know, they were set up to Mary very, very young and they were courting ever since high school. And so anyways, book, the point is, is they spent 600 million dollars on that wedding, six hundred million, let that sink in. I mean, that's insane money. So when you say that, you know, it's not out of, you know, it's not out of the realm of possibility for five hundred million because it's crazy like that, I believe you. Because I just saw a wedding, it's, it was all over TikTok, like I followed it like crazy because I'm a fashion hound. And so I was looking at all the fashion, like Kim Kardashian went to this wedding. All the stars in the world went to this wedding. It was just the wildest thing. You should look it up. I mean, I can't remember the name of the people, but if you just type in Indian super wedding, you will find it. And I followed it pretty closely when it was happening because it was all like a car and see on my timeline because I follow lots of fashion accounts. So anyways, you know, a six hundred million dollar wedding, a five hundred million dollar fight card, I could see it. You know, that's the move right there. So, so it's going to be difficult for Connor to fight because he's under contract, the USC. What if instead of fighting, he marries Logan Paul for six hundred million dollars? That's the move right there. That's see, see, Victor stays thinking. That's why. That's why I'm bringing into this new year, baby. Apparently, it's part of some travel initiative. So I don't even know if this is like a sanctioned boxing match or anything like that. Nobody knows much of anything because this is all hazy bullshit and you talking about key rambling, key jangling, that makes a ton of sense, a ton of sense. But yeah, I'm thinking, though, that a five hundred million dollar card just based off Connor making two emojis and Logan Paul liking a tweet. That's, that's not fucking confirmation. And until I hear it coming from whatever this, this wealthy billionaire until I hear it coming from his PR team, I'm not buying this. And to your point about the UFC, let's not forget, this would be co promoted to the hilt. I don't, I just don't think they'll do that again. I really don't. The whole thing of like, listen, whatever, like an exhibition match, though, and I think that he would probably get away with doing something exhibition. I think their whole thing has been and will continue to be whatever dwindling cloud we can bring out of this motherfucker, whatever monetary value he can bring in. Nobody's getting a cut anymore other than us. I think that's they would, they would probably do it for money like that. That's huge money and UFC would not turn that down. I don't know that they need it anymore. Oh, they, that's the kind of money that they would not turn down. That's like three pay per view cards right there. That's no, that's more than three. Like if they took a cut, remember, let's not forget who is Logan Paul signed to the WWE, who owns WWE and UFC TKO. Let's not forget all of that. That's true. There could be a little dipage from both sides. Who knows? I mean, that's just speculation on our parts, but it's, you know, food for thought for those of you out there. Now, what we're going to do right now is we aren't going to get to our end of the year stuff. So we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, we have 10 topics for y'all, but we're not going to drag them, drag them, drag them. We're just going to, you know, give you some brief conversation and try and power through this so you're not sitting here for 14 hours. So our first win and our biggest win event of the year. Victor, what did you have? You know, I'm a little bummed out that I can't remember. I couldn't find the name of the event. It's that event they had in Spain with the pit. You know, the one with the sort of dip, it would look like a, like one of those demonstrations for a Tempur-Pedic mattress. Oh, yes. Yes. That whatever the fuck that was called because they were doing kickboxing and MMA and whatever the hell else. And it was gold. It was weird. That's really what the thing is. The name of the game is making shit weird. That's why we, some of us that are old enough to remember Ghanrujima and all that kind of shit. It's fun because it's out there. It's a callback to the primal days of the so-called no holds bar and era. You know, you get something a little more barbaric, but it's not, it's not bare knuckle boxing. It's more comprehensive. There's, there's a much more all encompassing violence factor to it. And it was unpredictable and it was, it was shocking, frankly. And I don't remember any of the people who were on the card. I don't think I've seen any of those guys fight before, nor will I see them fight again. But I love what the hell I saw that day and whatever the name of that thing is and now my apologies to the people out there in Spain. That, that was dope. And I really hope they do something like that again. All right. Mine's a little more traditional. I went with UFC 300. We did have 12 current or former champions on there. We did get Callaway versus Gaechee. We did get a Perera fight on there. We got a lot from that card. And, you know, truth be told, I enjoyed myself immensely watching it. I did like it. And so that, that was my choice. And I do have a lot of traditional choices on here. But there was a couple where I was, you know, on the fence between two choices, etc. And so I'll, I'll, I'll get to those two. All right. So next up, we have fight of the year. Victor. I don't see, I couldn't, I couldn't get one for this. There were too many choices. Go. Let me, let me hear yours. Okay. I went with Dan Hooker and, um, Mateus Gamron. I really, really enjoyed that fight. Um, you know, Hooker got that knockdown and I just, I don't know, I just feel like he pieced him up, you know, um, it was a nice, full, well-rounded display from Dan Hooker. I feel like he turned a corner in technique. And he's just very well put together now, it looks like. And, you know, against a high value opponent at that. So I really enjoyed that fight a lot. And it, it made me appreciate Dan Hooker, a whole heck of a lot more. I mean, I remember when Dan Hooker first came on the scene and I just thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread. And then, and then I, something happened there and, you know, he was hitting the lols and then, you know, it was just, he hit the troublesome patch. And I don't know, I just feel like he's definitely looking a lot better. And it was very visible in that fight. How about you? It's been a joy to see Dan Hooker improve the way he has. I'm going to cheat here. Actually, I, I had, I've been oscillating between these two. And I, I know I'm going to get the sort of, I'm either going to be too casual or too hipster-ish on this one. First up is going to be Merab de Washvili back in February against Henry Saruto. That's a good one. I loved the fact that, you know, when you, when you just, when you watch a fight with two guys that are so good at everything in the game, I'm talking clench work, ground game, wrestling, striking. And they're just going at it. I loved it. I just personally, I, I don't know why I just felt like I had a really soft spot for that one this year. The other one, Charles Oliveira versus Michael Chandler. Yeah, that's a good one too. I mean, it's, it wasn't the close and, and, and fraught back and forth, but it was a great fight. It was exciting. I mean, sometimes you have your technical showcases, right? Your, your, your physical, your chess matches. And then sometimes you want a little Travis Brown versus Andre Alaski. Okay. Sometimes you want a little chaos, but this, this fits a different thing. Because again, you're seeing skill and technique on display, but you see in the fucking balls and bravado there, man, it was beautiful. My other one, my other choice was Amanda Serrano, Katie Taylor, too. That was a fucking beautiful fight. So that was my, my other choice. I unfortunately, I didn't get to see that one. It was good. I'm taking your word for it. All right. Now next up, person of the year. I can leave this one if you want. Please do. I'm going with Rob Maisie. Okay. And the reason why is because Rob Maisie went in there with the plaintiffs, with the, the core group, and, and he took on their case, he urged them to, to fight for what was owed to them. And he took on this case in the beginning, it was just him, just like, like leading the charge. And without Rob's, you know, belief in this case, without Rob's perseverance and hard work, I mean, a decade of hard work, unpaid work, it would not have happened if it weren't for that man. A two, I mean, excuse me, a $375 million settlement. One of the biggest in history, you know, that's a huge settlement. And it would not have happened without Rob Maisie. And it's criminal, how under discussed, that is, right, that aspect specifically, the fact that it's not pointed out as, as, as strongly as it should be, because this, what they did was nothing short of monumental. The problem is that, yeah, it'll probably be, you know, a chump change compared to what could have been. You can say that maybe it's not going to lead to the changes that the fighters would have wanted. But it's good that they got something, like they still managed to get some form of compensation and something for the fighters primarily, right? It's not a matter of, this wasn't so much a matter of greed. You know, people that want to throw the greed accusation around are looking in the wrong direction. Because, you know, again, unfortunately, a lot of people, and this is not exclusive to the US, but a lot of people in this country are very, very, not good at understanding and reading the dynamics of power. You know, these guys are just trying to claw back a little more of what they rightfully deserve and didn't get. And well, it's something, you know? Yeah, and we still have the other antitrust case that will move forward. The judge has already determined it will move forward. And now we have incentive, because now the lawyers are going to be paid for their hard work, and there's incentive to keep this train rolling forward. So, Rob Maisie, for me, how about for you? Ooh, you're going to like this one. Okay. Our mainest man and potential distant relative of mine, Turkey Alashik. The fuck for? Well, you got it. You might not like the man. You might not like his methods, but you got to respect the fact that he has been making waves and making moves for some of these bigger fights, especially for a lot of the encroachment that we've been seeing, from, you know, all the Saudi involvement that we're seeing in combat sports, he has been instrumental in that. He's been the guy who's been making those waves. So, being person of the year or, you know, man of the year, whatnot, does not necessarily mean you have to be a good person, right? These are people that have made an impact. These are people that have done something big. And, you know, you got it. If you'd said 10 years ago, hey, man, the Saudi government's going to be pouring truckloads of money in a boxing and basically start trying to set up something that would be as close to monopolistic as possible. He'd be like, I don't know, man. I mean, what would that look like? Well, this man's showing you. It ain't great. I don't love it, but you got to give it to him. The man's been making that happen. And I kind of worry about the state of boxing and what that portends truly. But he's been that guy. He's been making the shit work. Okay, then. Next story of the year. And my story of the year is hand in hand with my person of the year. The story of the year for me has to be the antitrust settlement, because after 10 years, it was fraught with drama because the first settlement offer was declined. And then they made another offer. And that was the one that the plaintiffs accepted, but then the judge declined it. So this 375 million, many people don't know, but this was the third offer. And it was finally accepted by the judge. And amid that acceptance, there was something that led to it. And it was those declarations that the fighters made. And we learned a lot of fighters are pretty much destitute. And a lot of fighters are battling symptoms of CTE. They're battling all sorts of injuries. I mean, Spencer Fisher's story was particularly disturbing. Fabrizio Verdume having an inoperable cyst in the center of his brain. I mean, there was some stuff in there. Shane Carwin's story was very, very sad. But the story itself, it has to be. I mean, that, in my opinion, was the most impactful thing to happen in this space all year long. I have to agree. I have to 100% agree. This is, this has been, like I said, right, it's not, you know, I would have preferred that if there would be more does not mean that this is over and that there's no other recourse for for fighters. But yeah, again, go back 10 years. Fighters are going to be suing. There's going to be a class action lawsuit. And they're going to actually not only take on this, but they're actually going to get not a few small victories here. Would you believe that? Yeah, exactly. I mean, everybody thought that nothing would happen that, you know, the UFC couldn't be defeated. This was going to be dead on arrival. And, you know, thanks to Rob Maisie. And thanks to the, the, the, the core group who tirelessly pounded the pavement to make this work, gathered statements, did a lot of work, especially Nate Quarry. Nate Quarry did a lot. And he wasn't even part of the suit, because he, his, his fight, his last fight was just outside of the window, literally by like a month or two. And so he kept doing this. What a fudge. What a fucking gentleman. Yeah. And they have made a special circumstance for him. So he will get a chunk of money. The, the five principles are all going to get a $250,000 chunk of money in addition to whatever they, they, their piece of the settlement is, but they made an allowance for Nate Quarry to get, also get that $250,000, which I think, I mean, over 10 years of solid work, that's just, he's very much owed that. So our next one, dipshit of the year. Okay, look, y'all already know what I'm going to say. It's Connor. Okay, it's Connor, it's always going to be Connor, because he, he doesn't make any smart moves anymore. And, and not only that, he's just the horrible person of the year award for me. He's just an awful human being, but he's also the dipshit of the year as well, because, you know, he loses a civil case for, for rape. And then he immediately starts pointing fingers at her and pointing fingers at the court and doing just the dumbest shit possible. This man had a fucking tantrum record. Yeah. You understand, like, this is, this is something that's not often discussed, this man had there. I mean, he was, he was doing crybaby shit up there on the stand, like, Oh, God. Yeah, man, it's hard. It's hard to pick anybody else who else has been fucking up and stumbling over their own feet more than this man who has been more impacted by his own malfeasance and bad behavior. Well, I mean, sure, some of his victims, but I mean, in terms of just like this wide thing, I just, why, why, why, could it have been anyone else at this point, maybe some other year, not this one. All right. Genius of the year. For me, and hear me out, folks, don't get mad at me, but whoever came up with the idea of Mike Tyson versus Jake Paul. And if that happened to be Jake Paul or Mike Tyson or a conglomeration of the two together, that was a brilliant move, because look what happened. Everybody and their mama watched, you know, hundreds of millions of viewers. They estimated 68 million, but that's per household. How many people were in each household gathered around watching that? So you have to, you have to consider that as well. Not only that, they each walked away with anywhere between 20 and 40 million a piece. The ladies fight that was underneath it, the Serrano, Katie Taylor too, they walked away with multi millions each. That's unheard of for women, unheard of. There was so much involved with this. It was a win all the way around despite the fact that a 27 year old fought a 60 year old. It was a brilliant move. So that's my genius of the year. I do have to respect that because much like my pick of Turkey, right? Like I don't love it, but I get it. And I'm always happy when you see stuff like this and it kind of accidentally opens up something else, right? When you get to peer into the mindset of a particular subgroup, bro, when you get to see that we're going to put this fight on Netflix and people immediately stormed to it, apparently the response was massive. And I thought it was really cool that we could finally have a moment where we admit to ourselves, Americans love elder abuse. The only thing they love more than watching an old person get this shit beat out of them is being able to watch it on a system that they already have and a service that they will not get rid of. That makes sense. I think that was good. Good for them. That's that is genius. That is a fact genius. So are you in agreement or do you have your own? I'm I'm in agreement. I mean that I mean, can you think of a more genius move this year that made that much money and that garnered that many viewers that basically opened a floodgate for not just an influencer type fight, but maybe open floodgates for more than just UFC. From a business perspective, I respect it. I mean, how could you not? I don't like it because we saw that this fight was supposed to happen during the summer. Mike Tyson had an ulcer, which like exacerbate like that that alone should have probably canceled this, but they kept it going. Yep. Mike was still good to go. I mean, and Jake even admitted after that he was carrying Mike. You know how many people I actually I had I had one of the most unpleasant arguments with my brother-in-law the day of the fight. He's like, you don't understand that muscle memory, the technique and the power. I'm like, bro, he's 60. Yeah, it's 60. And then like three days later, I'm talking to my sister. And she was like, yeah, who was who was it that was telling me who was who all the Mike? I was right next to you on the couch. I was like, that was me telling you this is gonna suck. Oh my God, it was terrible. Oh, what a horrible fight. Why that man? He was so old. Oh, now see, but but the fact that so many people were convinced and look, I'm not saying this to shit on my brother-in-law. I love the guy to death, right? He's got some shitty opinions, but that's that's not there in over there. He's not the only person who fell for that. Millions of people were like, hey, man, Mike still got a fighting chance, man. He still got it. And sure, you still got a puncher's chance, but I only seen little clips of it. I'm like, yeah, I don't need to see no more of this shit. It's exactly what I expected. You're gonna be slow. You're gonna be a little gun shy. But the fact that people still wanted to believe, and that was used as a selling point, the marketing and the lead-up, I told a coworker this. I said, how come every time you see a clip of Mike Tyson training, you don't see snippets that are longer than 10, 15 seconds? Have you not noticed that the clips are like a minute 30, but each little segment is less than 15 seconds. Why is that? Yeah, yep. Trying to tell you, man. Uncle Biggs is trying to help you out. Listen, you don't have to, you don't have to see the strings in the puppet show, but you know that the strings are there, yeah? You know you're watching a puppet show. So you know how these things go. It's not, it's not, I'm not some genius for deciphering this shit. And neither is anybody else who's listening who called it either. That's just the reality of this deal. So I fully concurred. That is the most unexpectedly genius thing that they can, the fact that it actually happened logistically, they made it work even after the cancellation, the first time from a marketing standpoint, big success. All right, our comeback of the year, and we were talking about this a couple of days ago, and we are both in agreement on this one. So I'm going to let Victor lead this one. The Cameroonian King, Francis in Ghana, this man went off the boxing. He fought Tyson Fury last year, a fight that he had no business being in, and he managed to put that man on his ass and do his little dance. He maybe didn't get the decision, but he's still one in the hearts of millions. And then we all wanted to see what would happen next. He goes in there against Anthony Joshua, and he gets pasted. After the loss of his son, he comes back. He returns to the Pia, he makes his debut with the PFL cage against a very dangerous headed for error, right? A guy who can crack, but is also very limited in many other ways. And Francis, he fought smart, and he beat the piss out of that man. And that's fucking crazy. Because that is a big dude. Like probably, if I remember correctly, bigger than Francis, you are that guy slaying giants bigger than you. From every possible view, that has to be perfect, right? Because you have, you have this guy who not only bounced back, but to do it against a guy who maybe isn't a top 10 heavyweight, but was still a bit of a tall order. And a guy who'd already won the heavyweight tournament, and had that personal strife and grief and to overcome everything that was going through there after that, especially after that loss, which I'm sure must have not crushed him quite the same way, right? But to have all that, the tragedy of everything around it, and people starting to wonder if you still got it? Oh, yeah, my man, he never fucking lost it. He's still there. Yeah. All right. Our next topic, influencer of the year, there's a lot of them out there. And I was torn between two. I was torn between Nina drama and Ben Davis. And now this category doesn't have to be a like for people out there. But you have to understand why I pick the two people that I picked. Bane has been doing everything under the sun. The man gets in there and fights. He commentates. He's pretty funny on social media. Very funny. He does a lot of stuff. He is moving and shaking constantly. And then you have Nina drama doing the exact same thing on a much bigger platform. And yes, for some of you out there, you're going to be like, I can't stand her. She's, you know, almost nepoed in by the very fact that she's just an influencer and a very attractive girl. So you can almost call her an influencer, an epo baby, if you will, because UFC likes that. They they really, really like that. And the way that she has exploded, like when she first came on the scene late last year, she had, you know, very limited following and everything. She has increased her following like a hundredfold. Like, I don't know how many followers she's got right now, but it's between her, all of her social media, it's in the millions. Like, I think it's something like 16 million followers between Insta, TikTok, and Twitter, like 16 million followers and are YouTube. But somehow MMA guru has an even bigger footprint than her. So you could throw him in there as well. But for the bang for the buck and the exposure that people are getting, I would estimate it that it's between Nina and Ben Bain Davis, because they have a lot of exposure between all the promotions for for Nina exclusively UFC. But for Bain, it's Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, influencer boxing, bare knuckle, FC, just everything. And under the sun, the UFC loves them. Everybody seems to, you know, really like this kid. And he's out there doing stuff visibly. Like guru is just doing shit on his YouTube. And that's it. But Bain is out there floating around amongst many promotions and doing stuff fighting as well as commentating. And you've got Nina out there traveling around amongst the fight camps and showing up at award ceremonies and just doing this, that the other she won an award, blah, blah, blah. So it's between those two. But for me, I got to go with Ben, because I feel like his impact is a little more solid than hers, because of what he's doing, he's actually getting in there and doing things, impactful things like commentary and fighting. So I feel like I need to hand it to him. See, the problem with this, and just to give you all a little bit of a, not so much a peek behind the card. And so there's more of it, a bit of an understanding here. We discussed this previously as to like what the parameters would be. And it's really, really hard when you use the word influencer, there's a bit of versatility to the term. Yes. Yeah, because there's certain ways that you can consider someone to be an influencer and to what degree, right? So you have someone like Nina Drama, who is more of a UFC ambassador. But as we've also discussed not too long ago, right? A lot of people, there are people who don't like her content or don't find her to be a pleasant person to deal with. I personally, I'm neither here nor there. And I just, like, I don't really care. I don't need to watch or stuff. So it's easy for me to sidestep and not deal with. Ben Davis is kind of everywhere. If you're a very online fan, you know, he's, he's doing, like you said, right? He's doing everything. He's showing up and doing all kinds of stuff. But I can't pick either one. You mentioned them in my guru. And I'd have to say he's probably the biggest influencer right now in the game. And I don't particularly, I look at him the way I look at a guy like the Yovan. I don't think the Yovan is funny. I've never heard him say anything interesting or insightful. And same thing goes for Guru. I don't think any of the stuff I've heard him crying and whining. He seems to me to be more of these people who's an outrage merchant and never really happy with anything. Furthermore, he seems to be one of those guys who's, you know, I know more about MMA than anyone else, but he only watches the UFC, which is like, okay, well, if you don't have more, if you don't cast a wider net, what are we, you know, and look, it's fine to be an MMA fan and to only follow one organization if that's what floats your boat. But to compare yourself to others or to be to get into these one sided feuds with people and I don't, I don't like it. I don't like his vibe. I don't like what he does. And I don't really care to delve any further in his business. He's also very easy for me to simply ignore. I do not care. I'm not saying this to disparage, man. I'm just saying a point out that despite the fact, again, much like Turkey, I got to like the guy, but I got to look at the impact. And I think he's got a greater impact than Ben or Nina because fighters listen to this guy, fighters watch and pay attention. They react to his shit. And it's a very unfortunate thing to see happen. We're going to talk about that then. We should loop in the really big influencers that have a way, way bigger impact and platform than like, you mean, like the melt boys and such? Nelt boys, especially Aiden Ross right now. Aiden Ross is his platform dwarfs all of these people. But I wouldn't I wouldn't count those guys because they're not as centered in the in the combat sports world. Yes, they are. Yes. Not to the same degree. Yes. They have more of a degree. What in the hell are you? Does guru do pranks or talk about video games or anything that's not fighting? Does not matter? Does guru get invited to hang out with the president at UFC events? No, he doesn't. The impact is bigger. I don't I don't know that I'd count that in the same way. That's the thing. Like, I agree that, yes, I mean, obviously, in Ross, one of the biggest streamers on planet earth, all right, that's that's undeniable. I totally grant you that. I just don't know that I'd put him in this same sphere since he's only marginally nibbling around the edges when it comes to MMA. You know what I mean? He's said boy for certain things. He doesn't pay attention. He doesn't make it his central focus the way these other people do. He makes it his central focus when he wants to. For instance, Christmas night with Drake, he had Drake on Christmas night on his live stream. And guess what the topic was? MMA UFC. Who's your favorite UFC fighter? They had this long conversation about it. I mean, I feel and just like you said earlier, the versatility here. So if we're going to loop in bigger names, we should absolutely include Aidan Ross and the Noteboys. And their footprint and their influence is way bigger. And who else has literally tens and tens of millions of followers in and impressionable followers willing to spend money, which is why Aidan Ross is worth like hundreds of millions of dollars right now. Like he has so many crazy wild endorsements. It's insane. But when you have someone like that that has a huge platform that hey, guess where I'm going? I'm going to UFC. Watch me on UFC tonight. Supposedly Donald Trump will be there. Guess what happens? Now, do you think if MMA guru said that that his, you know, whatever thousands, hundreds of thousands of followers are going to invest the same kind of money that all of Aidan Ross's people would? I don't think so. I think that if we're going to include, if we're going to be versatile, we should loop guys like that in too. For me, the reason why I chose men is because I sort of led with my heart a little bit and I feel like he's more positive than all of the rest of them. That's very true. And that's where I feel like my heart played a key there. But you absolutely made the astute choice and picking guru as far as footprint. But if we're going to do that, I feel like we should add the biggest footprints to the circle, not saying we have to choose them, but we absolutely have to include your now boys and your Aidan Ross because they're impactful and they are deeply, deeply rooted with the UFC now because Dana White and the PR crew went out of their way to court influencers. When you have UFC catering to you, that's mighty. It's mightier than whatever MMA guru is bringing to the table. And you notice, you notice UFC doesn't have any nothing to do with guru. No, nor should they want to. Yes, but you know what? He's way less toxic than Aidan Ross and the now boys. Probably. So, I mean, you're not going to see him out here, you know, see, hiling, I don't think. Thank you. Whereas Aidan Ross will probably do it on a goop. We're like, I've never shown why people were mad. Yes. I mean, his latest bullshit is going to some, you know, pre this, this Amazonian tribe or some tribe, some, oh, my fucking god. And giving them vapes. Like for giggles, shits and grit. That is the most egregious thing. I mean, I was furious when I saw that. So you, man, I don't even want to go there. Let's not, let's not, you know, dirty. I'm already on, I'm already on like 15 different watch lists. I'm not going to say something that'll put me on like another three. But anyways, we save the best for last. And that's knock out of the year. I don't know why I like this category so much. And I, man, I had so many choices. I have boxing choices. I had MMA choices. I had Muay Thai, but I ended up with going with a boxing choice, but I had a good runner up. But my boxing choice was Niaoya in a way when he absolutely just modulated Luis Neri. And my runner up was Ming She versus Fang Shao Kahn, our little doctor that sent her opponent to the hospital near Comatose. Oh my god. Yeah, she was my runner up. But if you watch the Inouye Neri finish, man, wow. So yeah, that was, it was so neck and neck there, man. But that's who I went with. How about you? It's gonna be a bit of an odd choice. Wang Kong making her UFC debut against Victoria Leonardo. Yes, that was a nasty fucking knockout. There was another one. I know there was one on, Oh God, I can't remember if it was the last UFC event or the one prior. There was just, it was, I think it was a heavyweight fight. I can't remember who the fuck it was. I just remember dude just got slumped so badly. Jesus Christ. But no, the Wang Kong one was clean as fuckdog. I was, I just, yeah, it was good. It was very, very good. It definitely was. So there you have it, folks, that's our end of the year wrap in our special Connor coverage where we just talked mad shit and laid out a few facts in between. But anyways, I want you to do me a favor. Follow this guy on all his social media. He is at Vic Em Rodriguez on X slash Twitter. I don't do that. Don't, don't call it that. And blue sky. Yeah. And he is Victor Sinister Rodriguez on Instagram. So to pop catalyst over on Twitch and Tiger driver 91 on only fans. And if you're looking for a website, he's got one of those too. It's called mightiestdaddy.com. So check out all of his stuff there. And you can find me on Twitter slash X. And I'm going to do that because I feel like when X eventually collapses, I don't want to call it Twitter and say Twitter collapsed. I want it to be X that collapsed. I don't know, man. I feel like the Saudis are going to take it from the alignment. So boy, maybe who knows? But anyways, I am crooklin MMA on Twitter slash X and I am crooklin over on blue sky. And those are the two main places you can find me. So from here, y'all know the drill until next time, please subscribe and do it with your dollars. And please stay safe. [Music]