All right, contender series water now, huh?
Stepping it up. Dave, your favorite time of the year.
Your series start. So, we got the first one in the books for this season. Just give us your thoughts as this thing gets underway again.
Yeah. It was a good night. Yeah. I mean, when I look at tonight as a whole, I mean, obviously Bal is exciting and I'm pumped about him. Want to see what he's capable of once he steps into the UFC. And then Went is fun. I mean, this guy's like all over me. He says, 'I'm not leaving Las Vegas till you guys give me a fight.' So, probably put him on Sacramento.
Really? So, you get them booked that quickly.
I love guys that want to turn around quick and fight again. You know, when you come into the contender and you do well, you get that pop. I mean, staying active is the best thing you could do.
Would you have similar plans for Bal Hassan as well since he did have the quick win?
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we'll turn these kids around. Mick said he left a bunch of spots open on cards coming up, you know, to see what happens tonight.
Yeah. As you said, Bal and Went were kind of the two standouts. When they set the bar that high, did it make it tougher on your decisions for the other two guys to bring him in?
There's lots of different things that I look at. Like the kid Joseph in the first fight, you know, I was like, I don't know. I said, let's see how the third round plays out. And then when he went for that arm bar and got it and cranked it the way that he did, I was like, you know what, this guy's 31 years old. He came in, he delivered, and I'm going to give him a shot. We'll see how it goes for him.
And then, you know, Thomas obviously stopped a really tough dude who, you know, highly motivated to win. You know, I like that fight. And even the fight that, you know, I thought that Abe lost that fight. I don't know how you guys feel about that. I think that's some shitty ass judging. Not only was it not a split decision, I mean, there's no doubt that Frizzio won the fight. And what I was looking at from Frizzio is, you know, Abe, look, you don't come here and push against the fence for three rounds. I'm never going to pick you if you come in and do that. But guys who do that do that. I did like that Frizzio was stuffing all the takedowns. And you know, you could tell he got tired in that third round. And I was waiting to see in the third round who's my guy, who's going to go in there and say, I want this, I want to get signed tonight. And it never happened, you know. And even for Frizzio, I get it. He was tired and you know, he's stuffing those takedowns all night. But you know, he's laying up against the fence at one point and he looks at the ref like now the ref isn't going to help you, man. Get off that fence and come on, get up and knock this guy out, finish him or do something or act like you want to win this third round. And I never saw it from either guy. So, you know, you had the guys who came in like Went and Bal and looked really, really good. But there's other things that I'm looking for and I like the way that Frizzio was pushed in that fight even though I don't like fence pushers. I don't like that. But when you have a guy like that, the question is how does the guy he's fighting handle it? So there's a lot of different things I look at. If Frizzio would have came out in that third round and acted like he wanted to be here, he'd be here.
Nice. You mentioned that nasty arm bar in the first round. Did you get an injury report at all on John?
The doctors were on the phone. We just walked by him right now. Yeah.
So we don't know what the assessment is yet.
We don't know, but we know.
I don't have to be a doctor on the phone to know that guy is in big trouble at the hospital right now. There's no doubt about it.
I mean, that arm was... 25 years I've been doing this and that's still for me.
The Apex setup obviously with fans at Dana White's Contender Series, I guess. What did you think of, you know, the environment tonight and maybe how that impacted things and just, you know, having the full setup?
Yeah, it was good. I like it.
The... I think people were kind of surprised to see how cheap the tickets were that they were able to get. Is that like a just because we're kicking this thing off or is that like, hey, we want to keep this as a very affordable ticket moving forward?
Nothing to do with the tickets. I have no idea. So, for whatever reason, they wanted to do 25 bucks. I like it.
Nice. Last thing, I did want to ask you about the UFC in Philadelphia this weekend. Big welterweight title fight there. A lot of debate. We were even debating it here as you were walking in where Islam stands if he wins. Obviously, he's got to get past Ian first, but there's a lot of discussion like is this enough to be the greatest of all time? Are you looking at this as this is his moment to be the GOAT?
I don't think about that stuff until the fight happens. I mean, when we see his performance on Saturday, let's see how it plays out. But obviously breaking the record, you know, you keep grinding, you keep fighting, put your head down, just keep, you know, knocking guys down left and right. And then by the time you say, you know what, I'm done. Then we all figure out where he ends up in the big picture, but he's on the right path. That's for sure.
D, tonight was the first contender series under Paramount. So, I know we're still fresh from tonight, but did you get any feedback from the network after the first night here?
No, the fight just ended. What do you think? The network called me immediately as soon as the fight...
