Louis J. Gomez and Brinton dissect the "Legion of Assholes" podcast network's strategy, revealing how MMA channels trade copyright strikes for ad reads to monetize content. They contrast Colby Covington's "Make America Great Again" heel persona with Michael Bisping's authenticity, arguing that modern UFC marketing mimics WWE by prioritizing character narratives over pure skill, exemplified by the Logan Paul vs. KSI spectacle. While George St. Pierre's emotional rise differs from today's social media branding, the duo highlights the unique respect in rivalries like Khabib Nurmagomedov and Dustin Poirier's, suggesting the sport remains a gentlemanly war where storytelling drives fan investment more than athletic ability alone. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Real Guys Fighting Hard00:13:44
What's up everybody?
Welcome to another episode of Flagrant Shoe.
No Whizzy Buckets Analysis by Assholes.
What a Cooler Commentary for Your Sports Needs.
This is a Patreon episode.
We got a special guest in the building.
We have a New York legend to be, the curator, along with others, but we're going to give you the credit right now of what I think is the gem of New York comedy now.
I think it is the only thing in New York comedy that represents us right now.
Comic base.
Not necessarily club base.
Obviously, there's the clubs that sell there.
Which is SkankFest.
And the owner and curator of one of the most potent podcast networks in New York as well.
We have Louis J. Gomez with us.
I've been trying to get Lewis on his podcast for, Lewis, I don't know how long this is now.
I know.
We are both very busy.
It's difficult to get.
You're very busy.
And you do a podcast with Michael Bispang, former middleweight.
Middleweight champion, Philip Middleweight champion called Believe You Me, which, and this is so typical of like the YouTube era.
I have probably watched 100 clips of this podcast on YouTube that aren't even through your guys' fucking YouTube.
It's like these other MMA channels.
Get your videos posted.
I've never listened to a full episode.
I listened to hundreds of these clips on.
And that's why I leave those up.
We don't take our copyright claims.
You know what we do, though?
What's that?
This was the smartest shit ever.
We started reaching out to the people who own those channels and they put these clips because these are MMA channels that have massive followings.
And I was like, hey, we won't take our copyright claims on you.
All you got to do is leave in our ad reads.
So then we get conversions off that.
We can use that.
That's great.
So sometimes a clip will go viral and get a million hits.
A lot of the time, I'd say 80% of them leave them in.
20% of them don't respond and we still leave them up because fuck it.
It's still people discovering the brand.
Dude, it's tons of people talking.
It's how I find about it.
You know, it's like there are a few guys that I'll click on for MMA stuff.
It's U2.
There's another guy, Bad Guy Inc. Chelsea.
I knew you were going to say it.
And he's got a great setup.
And he's a great talker.
He's very kind of like wrestling in his background, the way, not like actual.
Do you know his background as a fighter?
Well, very vaguely.
I know his like Bellator days.
No, no, no.
He used to be in the UFC.
He has got the best story ever because he was sort of like he was like, you know, I would say a middler for a long time.
He got it to the UFC and he was somebody that, you know, a very tough, gritty wrestler who, you know, just won a lot of fights.
But it wasn't somebody that, you know, people were really talking about.
And then he ended up getting...
A Silva Fight?
He ended up talking his way into the American Silver Fight, essentially.
If you watch his shit talk, you could probably pull up highlights of Chelsea, like his shit talking.
He straight up just took a page out of Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, like old school pro wrestling.
That's how I found out about it.
He's funny, dude.
And he was saying racist shit that he's telling a story about the first time he met the Noguera brothers.
And he's just being as serious as possible.
He was like, yeah, he was like, we got off this bus.
He was like, this is how dumb they are.
He was like, Brazilians, they don't even know.
He was like, they thought the bus was a horse.
They were trying to feed a carrot.
And I'm watching him.
I was like, it's a bus.
What do you guys think?
And it's one of the funniest fucking things I've ever seen in my entire life.
And I'm like, and this is an MMA fighter.
And some of these guys, MMA is a beautiful sport because some of these guys, they have these really great personalities and they really go big.
And even the guys that sort of miss, I appreciate the effort.
Like Kobe Covington, who's a guy who's kind of cringy right now.
But he's still trying to do this pro wrestling thing.
He wears a Trump Make America Great hat and he trolls people.
I saw him going on into Whole Foods with his team a few weeks ago when they were at New York for the fight.
And they were looking so fucking badass and like mean, but walking in Whole Foods.
That's just the most hilarious looks of it.
Like he mean, I think we kind of like recognize each other from whatever, but it was like, I couldn't put together Colby Covington and the Make America Grading and that shit.
So what I've heard about Colby is two things.
One, when the act is gone, nicest guy.
I'm sure.
I bet all these guys are.
Nicest fucking guy.
Two, I heard that he is a WXWWE writer and puts together all of his stuff and he has lines that he's like prepping before he goes on for these new lines for Semple.
And I have no problem.
I respect it.
That's how you make money in this space.
There's also other guys because it's not every guy.
Like, I don't think that Nate Diaz, when the cameras go off, he starts making eye contact.
Because he's already up.
He's a fucking psycho.
That's who he is.
He's that thug from Socken, California.
And there are guys that are real.
Michael Bisping is Michael Bisping on the show.
He's Michael Bisping in the car.
That guy's very, very real and very funny.
But you see, there's so many different personalities in the sport.
And I think that it's kind of, in my opinion, why it's taken sort of the space as the number one combat sport.
It's because the UFC took so much from the WWE and they're like, wait a minute, we can put these guys sort of in the spotlight and we can make stars.
And I feel like there's not that many personalities in this.
Chicks fight.
Yeah.
That is a headlining car.
There's a 0% chance of Kitty's going to pop out.
We've watched so many watches.
Wendy's in the shit.
I watch a chick fight all day long to see some of them.
No, dude, the marketing is phenomenal.
It's way better.
And because it's part of one organization, much like WWE, you have so much more control of all these different fighters that you can prop up.
Whereas in boxing, it's a complete fucking free-for-all.
So it's not like the WBC can like brand guys and have some sort of tournament.
I think it's a big difference between the WBC, WBC, and who knows?
Even watching the Tyson Fury fight, it's like the linear heavyweight.
I don't know what that means.
I'm like, I see a guy with a green belt.
I'm assuming he's a guy.
It is.
The marketing leg of it is phenomenal.
And it seems like the guys are starting to realize the buying power behind the story.
Like we were talking about this on the episode, what was it, today?
Today's Tuesday, but this is coming out Friday.
And we're talking about how skill is not as important as story.
There is a fight that's coming up.
Logan Paul, he's a YouTuber.
You know him?
Yeah, I know.
And he's fighting this guy, KSI.
It's a rematch, right?
Rematch.
You know where they're fighting?
Where?
Staple Center.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The fucking Staples Center.
It's sold out, Brinton.
Staple Center.
The Fortnite World Championships was also at the Staples Center.
Oh, shit.
CPSCs were $250.
I was going to go.
I was going to go because I play Fortnite and I was straight up going to go.
But yeah, it's what people are invested in.
They don't really care how great you're striking or jiu-jitsu is.
They care about how great your background is.
Nate Diaz has a compelling background.
He's going to get people to see UFC's story.
It is the foundation of this sport.
They created a sport.
So I think because, and they're also the most respected brand of the Coca-Cola of MMA, that story in itself gives them validity.
So it's just different.
What KSI and Logan Paul are doing, it's sort of in a category of itself.
KSI and Logan Paul, if they were doing a rap battle, they could do it at the Staples Center.
If they were playing fucking thumb wrestling, they could do it at the Staples Center.
Their fan bases are going to just watch them compete against each other.
But for an individual fight to blow up, like any UFC fight I've heard about, it's because of a story behind it.
Right.
You know what I mean?
I saw 24-7 happen.
I heard a connection because of his personality and that like story, personality, that kind of thing.
Yeah, and you get certain guys that they sort of have everything, right?
That story is what you know, this is what makes them stars because it has to be there has to be a bunch of different factors.
And it's sort of weird because you see, like, George St. Pierre wasn't necessarily the most exciting fighter in the world, but he became the most popular fighter in the world because he sort of had this like quality in him that people, you know, I mean, he had an entire country behind him as well.
But the country helps, he was handsome.
Yeah, he carried himself really well.
Like, he kind of seemed like you could see him with like other athletes and he'd be like the face of that brand.
Like, kind of like John Jones for a second, where it was like, I don't really care how good of a fighter you are, but like, I could see you wearing like Nike shit doing those commercials.
No, it was also a different time because back then there wasn't social media the way it is.
Now these guys weren't tweeting the way they are.
They didn't have an opportunity to build a brand for themselves.
So really back then, you know, we're talking about when GSP was coming up 10 years ago, you know, he became the biggest fighter ever.
They had two, three minutes in the cage to have an interview with Joe Rogan after they win.
And they create those moments.
Yeah.
And in a press conference or in an interview, there were very controlled moments.
And George St. Pierre, there's a great moment where right before he got the title shot, he got down on his knees and begged.
I'm getting goosebumps thinking about it.
And he was like, Dana, what?
Please, please give me the title shot.
And like the crowd's like, ah, people are crying.
It's one of the most just amazing moments.
And like, that was like, it's, it's one of the things that stand out to me.
It's not him fucking getting into a fight in a bar or like crashing his car into a telephone pole.
It was sort of this very controlled thing.
It's like we pay more attention to the negative shit, but the positive shit works as well.
Yeah, yeah, of course.
I'm not gonna lie, like, yeah, exactly.
You're gonna have heel and you're gonna have promo and he's the baby for pro wrestling, and most people play the heel, but I guess we just ended up you can also play the good guy.
This guy, Justin Poirier, right, has been like the sweetest guy post-loss with Khabib.
You know, Khabib obviously helps out the charity, and there's a perfect opportunity for him to be the good guy and then face him up against some heel that we all hate.
And then we're all rooting for Dustin.
If he wins, he wins.
If he doesn't, he doesn't.
I mean, like, you can sell positive fights.
Fuck the Gacey fight with the cowboy this weekend.
Like that moment that they had afterwards, dude, that was super sweet.
I was smiling, thinking about it, and my girl was like, What are you like?
What are you smiling about?
Like, because she thought I was thinking about her.
She was like, What are you smiling about?
But it was this beautiful moment where like Gatesi was like, He want to keep going.
Like, you could tell they fucking cared about each other, you know?
And yeah, I don't know.
I think it's interesting.
He got very emotional because, like, you know, it's a guy who, you know, he doesn't have any ill will towards the guy who he likes, and the referee didn't stop it.
So he sort of got mad at the ref.
Kirk's got the ref.
Yeah, he's like, dude, you know, I'm hitting this guy in the head an extra 10 times because you can't just fucking stop the fight.
It's done.
Right.
Yeah.
And that, dude, that's it's an amazing thing.
It's what it's why, in my opinion, it's the best sport in the world.
It's like there's all of these different factors.
And then on top of it, on top of the story, on top of everything else, these guys get they get into a cage and they fucking beat the shit out of each other.
It's like, you know, you could all, I just think it's like the absolute, you know, the highest level of like competitiveness, the highest level.
And it's not an original thought of my own.
It might be like an old Joe Rogan thought or even Dana White or one of these guys, but it's like in all these sports, that aggression, they come out of the gridiron of football and like, ah, and then they're going to go stand by the line.
Bend over.
Like, what are you doing?
They want to kill each other.
Kill each other, motherfuckers.
It's the what is it?
Sport is supposed to simulate war, and this is the closest you get.
This is as close to fighting as you can get.
It is fighting.
It's fighting.
I can grab your balls and fucking put my thumb in your eyeball.
If I'm fighting you, I'm going to take this bottle.
I'm going to hit you over the head.
It's a little different.
It's the closest.
It's the closest thing you can get to the real deal.
Real deal, you know, and with keeping it civilized.
I mean, the reality is the fact that it is as popular as it's gotten, and you really look at just sort of.
It's civilized within like man's rules of how to be civilized.
You're gonna hit a guy, another guy in the balls.
You don't whatever.
You know what I mean?
Don't fight dirty.
But a guy is concussed on the ground, and you can hit him one more time.
Yeah, it's the one more.
To a man, it's like whatever he doesn't pull you off.
You do it one more time.
You have to.
Dude's rules are: you got to win.
Yes.
You can't lose.
So if you got to hit him one more time, that sucks.
That's what you got to do.
Yeah.
These guys, there's something about it, you know, which I love.
It's like the, you know, they're when I, it's all, it reminds me when I was a kid.
I remember there was a few times it was almost like, we're going to meet after school 3:30 in the parking lot, right?
And it's like, there's something about there's this weird gentlemanly thing where I agree, I'm going to fight you.
You agree to fight me.
We're going to stand there.
Yeah, it's a duel.
One of the guys go down and that's that.
You're like, all right, we've settled this.
And you usually shake hands.
This is my whole childhood.
Every one of my friends I got into some dumb fight like this with at one point.
And then you're buddies again.
And you weirdly got closer to them through that weird fucking thing.
And I love that.
And then you watch it happen.
You watch guys that are, you know, they talk all the shit in the world to each other and they go to war and they try to kill each other in that cage.
They leave it online.
Then at the end of it, they fucking break down and hug each other.
And they have this beautiful moment because they legitimately went through.
You know, that relationship is something that very few people in the world will ever experience.
Going, you know, training and then, you know, obsessing over a person for three months and studying what they do, what they think, trying to get in their head.
That's a whole other level.
It's like when your girl gives birth.
It's like you watch your girl give birth, right?
It's rare you get to see someone give maximum effort.
It's hard to not fucking respect someone who you've seen give maximum effort.
You remember when we got Izzy on the show?
Like this is right after he just won the interim title.
Maximum Effort and Hugs00:01:18
Yeah.
And he just had a fucking war with this guy.
And we're asking him all these questions about like, yo, just what's your mindset at this point?
And you're looking at him and he's like, one, he was willing to die at that point.
And he knows the guy.
Yeah, the guy across their cage is willing to die also.
Like, it's a different respect.
Like, you can't pretend.
Like, there's no pretending.
It's so personal.
It's just very dumb.
It's a one-man sport.
You know, it is a really personal thing.
And I have so much respect.
I did that dumb comedian fight for charity for Enlist Mania last year.
Yeah, I love that.
I went through that whole process with Ryan O'Neill.
And, you know, it was really humbling.
Wait a minute.
We need to do one of those with the bloggers.
We need to do a comic versus blogger MMA match.
Oh, please.
Like nine fights.
I'll get in there.
That's the only site I can get into where dudes are in my weight clash.
Hold on.
Me versus CD Doyle.
Come on, man.
You make the rules.
There is no gender gender.
Yo, what's up?
This is Akash.
That was a preview of our Patreon episode.
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