freotech
So how cool is it to have the big return show in vegas 100 fans back happen to be a conor mcgregor fight. Yeah no it’s been. You know, it’s funny, because when you say things haven’t gone to you know, according to plan, it’s all worked out. It’S. All worked out for us, you know over the last year and a half and obviously you know for the big weekend for vegas to be back, i mean you got sold out conor mcgregor versus poirier at the t mobile you got, garth brooks selling out raider stadium, Rogan and chappelle thursday and friday night at the mgm grand bieber, is performing this weekend. Drake’S doing something this weekend. The list just goes on and on. I can sit here for an hour telling you who’s doing what but it’s it’s. Without a doubt i mean, if you look at all the massive things that have happened in vegas throughout the years. This has to be one of the biggest weekends ever yeah. I saw you guys put out a thing on your social media about the sort of economical impact. A mcgregor fight has how many people come here place bets. How many whales come into town you’ve got every casino filling up? Is it crazy? Do you hear from these people like? Oh thanks for this event, we’re doing crazy business yeah they get excited. You know for a mcgregor fight that that’s why we came up with the concept for that piece: um, but yeah it’s.
Just you know there’s this buzz and energy around a mcgregor fight that that reminds you of the tyson days. You know he’s at a level of of tyson um holyfield de la hoya, when he was you know on top and and the list goes on and on he’s he’s, one of the all time. Money makers for vegas there’s, not just money makers for vegas money – makes for himself he’s, obviously topped the forbes list. Again i saw you shared that on social media i’m curious for you personally, not even as a business partner. But personally, is it cool to see something like that? Someone like you’ve, worked with build up work alongside to see them make that sort of successful themselves. Is that a cool thing for you, yeah? No it’s incredible, i mean i mean we love it. We love when we see all the things that he does outside of the octagon and, and you know the business that he is uh that he has turned himself into it’s fun, it’s, it’s, it’s, awesome, couldn’t be happier for him and uh. You know kids worked hard and and made a lot of right moves and and done it have you seen that growth in him, because i remember, i think, the first time he came to vegas. You were like going down the strip in the convertible and he’s gone from this sort of excitable young guy, who just loves fighting to a very successful businessman.
Have you seen that growth in him? The thing is with conor from day one. Since i met him, you know uh, you know conor has this this this magnetic personality, you know and uh. You know i was like listen. If the kid can fight, if he can hang here, he’s going to be a huge superstar and and – and he is i mean he’s – not just i mean this – kid is a global superstar worldwide. This fight this weekend has more celebrities coming than any fight ever in ufc, history got more pre buys than any fight in ufc history and i’ve been saying you know to to fans. If you know that you’re buying this fight this saturday night, do it now do it this week, don’t do it on saturday, you know gon na, be you know two three million people trying to buy at the same time, that’s where you have the problems and i Think a lot of people are smart that’s why this has more pre buys than anything ever get it now, so you don’t have to deal with it on saturday. I think we could be looking at record breaking here. I think so i i think that this is going to be. You know, it’s, obviously the biggest pay per view of the year um but yeah. I think it’s gon na it’s it’s the perfect fight it’s, one of those trilogy fights people, love trilogies. What conor did to poirier the first fight? What poirier did to conor the second fight? These guys are both in a position right now.
If they win on saturday night for a title shot, i mean they’re just so much on the line the trilogy these are. These are fun fights. Let me ask you a brief, ufc history question when you think of trilogies before this saturday, what’s the first, the biggest ufc trilogy you remember, putting on the biggest trilogy well the most important in the history of the company, because trilogies they have this thing about them. Right, there’s, something about a trilogy that they stick there forever they’re historical. When you think of trilogies in ufc, which one comes to your mind, first yeah, i i think the first one would have to be uh. You know jones and cormier. Doesn’T. Call me i’ll call me and mia j’s just called me: st yeah that’s right um, like i always think, of liddell couture right. That was three that was very important for the company or even ortiz. Ortiz. Shamrock was good. I mean it’s a bit one sided, but it was very important for the company back in those days as well right. It was but that wasn’t that see the the ortiz shamrock won wasn’t wasn’t like uh, couture and liddell. You know nobody expected kotor to win that. First fight kotor, went in and beat lydell dell definitely didn’t expect it. You know um, you know, then liddell gets better prepared for the second and third fight. Yeah that’s, a good one. Yeah jones beat cormier twice yeah, i mean you booked it so many times.
Maybe that’s why you think it happened three times, but it always fell through right because of jones and yeah yeah yeah. No, that is that isn’t what happened, but thanks for thanks for trying to save me, i tried you know when you look at this fight. In terms of in the octagon, how much different does conor need to show up on fight night to get the win here? Does he need to change the entire strategy? Does he need to make small little alterations? What does he need to do? No, you know i don’t know you know. Conor looked damn good in that first round um. You know i don’t know how well he prepared for that fight. I don’t know what he did. I don’t know um. You know the difference between his training camp. For that fight of this fight, i can tell you this from what i can see. He’S taking this fight a lot more serious than he did the last fight he’s doing things. You know he’s basically shut down he’s in his own little world, doing his thing um. He feels like the old conor mcgregor is that what he needs to do at this point there’s so much outside of fighting for him that just to close down focus on the camp that’s like perfect for him at this point, you think yeah yeah, i think so. Um but again only conor knows what conor needs to tweak and fix, and do you know i i can tell you this.
You know poirier is training down. You know in in in florida with savages every day. He wants this fight. Worse than anything, you know you got to look at at being hungry, there’s there’s. No doubt that poirier has to be more hungry than mcgregor. You know he wants all the things that mcgregor have. He was criticized for taking this fight and not taking the title fight. He absolutely positively did the right thing. This was the fight to take. I think most of these people who criticized him would have definitely taken the conor mcgregor fight. You know yeah 100, exactly all the people criticizing him if they were in his position that had taken the conor fight. It was the right thing to do, because if he can win on saturday night, he wins the trilogy again against mcgregor, and then he moves on to fight for the title anyway and uh a lot more people know who he is after this fight. Is that the definite move for the winner they fight for the title, i think so yeah i mean that’s it’s not set in stone. I mean anything, can happen after the fight who knows but yeah it makes sense in terms of that division. Are we ready to announce geichi versus chandler yet? Is that the plan i am but uh we don’t have anything done yet? Was there ever talk of making a backup for the main event? I mean obviously touchwood, but was there ever a talk of using one of those guys as backup for yeah? I mean we always are looking for a backup for the fight uh.
We do have a backup for this fight. I can’t remember who it is off the top of my head: that’s, not good huh yeah. I think so. I i i can’t remember off the top of my head. I just called jones versus cormier a trilogy actually felt so bad when he said that dude. I was ah no he’s gon na look awful, i get it do it did you know it’s actually funny. I will let you off here uh recently at a post fight press conference. I asked hannah boza, like oh, have you ever looked at someone as big as cyril gone and thought what it would be like to fight them? He’S, like i did, fight cyril garn, but you put on so many fights every weekend. I can’t remember them all at this point. Man yeah. I know it’s true and for some reason, when you were asking me that you know how the would i not know that jones beat cormier twice it’s hilarious. Speaking of john giants. Give me another trilogy, what’s. Another big try i’m sitting here. Who can investor jds you’ve got frankie versus graham maynard uh gsp, matt hughes, yeah yeah yeah? Thank you. That’S right, you’re welcome use those for the next one. Speaking of john jones, have you spoken to richard shaffer, yet what’s that have you spoken to richard shafer, yeah yeah, richard shaffer came in here and met with us uh uh. You know we had a good discussion and uh.
I think that you know we. We educated him a lot on how this business runs and and and how it works. So no breakthrough on that, just a sort of re evaluation of where he needs to be with john yeah. No, i don’t think so. I haven’t heard anything since he left so um yeah. I don’t know where they are with that and and realistically john said, he’s not fighting till next year anyway. So bit of an obscure question, i remember a couple of years ago. You said that when zeufa boxing was still on your mind, you’d hired an executive to run it, for you was that richard schaefer, no, no, but i had talked to a lot of people. Richard shaffer was one of them um. You know about the ins and outs of the business and uh i just the model is just so broken, you know and we’re still. We still kick around ideas on how to fix it, um so yeah, but do you think with richard and john it’s there’s? No there’s, no movement on it, he’s going to have to come back with a completely different package. Now that you’ve had that meeting, um yeah, i listen to john’s under contract. You know everybody keeps asking me about what you know. What are you gon na do with this? What are you gon na do with these guys are under contract, what contract with them so on to your next conflict with francis um, i i i don’t want to be one of these guys like, oh, why did you make an interim title? I get it.
You always say we got fights, we need to put them on. We have markets to put them on in. I got fights every saturday. If you want to fight you can, if you don’t, if you don’t, want to fight don’t fight it doesn’t matter, you can do whatever you want to do. Nobody’S, pressuring anybody to fight anybody here. I have um number two versus number three, which is the two best. The other one number one is stipe right who just fought. I got the two best heavyweights in the world. I got one who beat francis, who already has a win over francis and the other one is undefeated, so these two will fight. We will see who will win and then the winner of that will fight, uh, francis and then um the winner of that will probably fight stipe. I i i understand why you did i just wanted to clarify. Does the interim title come with pay per view? Points? Does the winner get pay per view points going in so actually it’s better for the number it’s like a normal content ship, but better for the guy who fights francis, then whoever wins is champion versus champion and that’s pay per view too. So listen. Nobody loses in this scenario, so what’s the issue with francis’s management for you to go public like that. What was the issue with that funny i wasn’t even talking about him. I was just responding to him: he’s, not the one he’s, not the believe me he’s, not the one.
They know who the one is it’s, not him um. I was just responding to him saying um. I was responding to him saying uh. Oh, this was a shock dust and i said no, it wasn’t you knew this was coming and you know it’s not a shock at all you’re full of, but as far as him he’s he’s, not the problem what’s the issue with the other guy. I think the big issue with the other guy is, we had a deal and he came back and said no, we don’t after we had already said we had a deal we’d already agreed to a deal. Has this been a long running issue with francis, because i remember back in the day you said he had a bit of an ego problem, or is this something that’s new that’s come with his recent success? I think the the you know, the ego problem was a whole different, a whole different situation, um it’s not even worth getting into, but you know we got past that we got past. All that i mean he lost two and a two in a row there. I think at one point you know, and we could have parted ways with him, but we didn’t we, we stuck with him and uh, and now he’s the world champ and you know see how this plays out. Do you think this is going to be like a long running issue with this manager? You clearly have an issue with him, or do you think there’s something you can resolve and it’s the guy from caa, not the guy who was talking tough on on on instagram it’s, that that guy’s it’s, not even the guy? I was talking about um it’s, his other manager.
I don’t know what the pecking order is over there, but yeah we had a deal. Then he came back and said we didn’t have a deal um and whatever listen whatever i’m putting on fights every saturday like i said we got the interim championship happening now and the winner of that francis wants to fight we’ll fight for answers. Last couple from me – and we spoke before about how you don’t want people asking about this guy’s next fight, this guy’s next fight, the diaz brothers, you working on something for nate and nick working on something for nick. I mean uh we’re, trying to get the next thing done right now, um, you know, like i said before: i’m i’m, confident he’ll fight this year, but if he doesn’t fight this year, he’s not fighting what’s. What level do you bring him in? You know right because he’s been gone for so long. Do you put him against? Like i mean for a second, though they were talking about hamza. What level do you bring him at? Listen i’m hearing stories of him having incredible sparring sessions, uh the guy’s still doing triathlons it’s, not like a lot of times. What happens is when a guy leaves for a while. You know they don’t work out and they don’t do anything for a few years. They might go in the gym and and mess around, but they’re not training at that level. This kid this kid’s a kid’s, a world class athlete you know um, so i don’t know we’ll see.
Could it be ham’s that no it won’t be armed? Who is for hamza we’re, looking at a fight for him in october? Is that an abu dhabi, yeah? Okay, that makes it he could be a big star in that region. For you right, okay, we’ll round it up, he could be a big star globally, i mean, if you look at when you talk about that region, you look at what habib did. You know he was a massive star in that region, but he ended up becoming a global superstar. For us. There was a report recently that he was looking to focus on 170 going forward and the two division thing had kind of come to an end for him. For a while is that something you heard and is that something you’re? Okay with that? He just focuses on well to wait for now. Yeah, definitely all right! Well, i think we think we’re all wrapped up here.
