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The UFC stopped fighters from showcasing their sponsors during their fight when they did a deal with Reebok. All fighters had to wear gear in their fight with solely Reebok logos. Which myself and many other combat sports fans and athletes didn't like. In hindsight, the Reebok deal hasn't been the better case for fighters as Dana White suggested it would be. It might help more with the more established fighters as the Reebok deal gave the UFC a chunk of change. Newer fighters still trying to make their career in MMA however, lost out on a lot of sponsors and royalties they could've had without the Reebok deal. The Reebok deal is about to end and the Venum deal is going to start. Venum is a smaller brand but their focus is entirely combat sports. We can only hope they'll understand fighters needs and allow them to keep their sponsors during their fights. We can only wait to see if this will be another broken promise like with Reebok, or if Venum will set the pace by establishing it's brand as a company that really loves it's fighters. What do you think? Will Venum wind up being a better deal than Reebok? Will it help fighters or hold them back?

Everlast is a brand centered around combat sports and primarily boxing. If you think of a punching bag or boxing gym, you're probably already envisioning their brand on everything. The company was founded in the Bronx in 1910. They sell everything combat sports related from training equipment to apparel. 17 year old Jacob Golomb started Everlast as a manufacturer of swimwear. He wanted their swim suits to last longer than the ones he was using at the time. With their guarantee the suits would last longer than a year, their brand was named - Everlast. In 11917 they started producing equipment for boxing. Jack Dempsey heard of their quality swimsuits and asked if they could make headgear that would last more than 15 rounds. Golomb passed away some 40 years later and was succeeded by his son Daniel, as the leader of Everlast. Daniel made moves to increase the size of their logo for brand recognition, making it visible on televised events. Everlast has gone through many equity sales and acquisitions to get where it is today. Everlast equipment is still made in America! Their factory located in Missouri. They've sponsored Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, and Joe Frazier to name a few. They're arguably the most iconic sporting brand on the market. Their quality is unparalleled.

On the most recent episode of Hotboxin With Mike Tyson. Mike reveals that his oldest son Amir, could do anything he wants to and live lavishly. Instead, Amir wants to follow in his dads footsteps to become a boxer. Which Mike actually opposes. "He wants to fight Logan Paul and those guys. I said - Just get a job, get a real estate license. Just chill out, man." "This fighting drives people to commit suicide. Getting humiliated in front of millions of people. You gotta be able to take that pressure and heat." Mike has had an amazing career from boxing, it's made him who he is. So for us to hear him tell his eldest son not to, really must say something. I'm sure those comments come from a deep place of understanding, where Mike worked really hard to make sure his son doesn't have to endure what Mike did. If Amir does start fighting like his dad did, we can only imagine he got some of those knockout power genetics. It might be like getting to watch Mike in his prime fight again. I for one, would love to see a prime Tyson fight the Paul brothers. I think everyone would enjoy that fight. We've seen the Paul bros fight retiring boxers. Maybe it's their turn to fight someone young and hungry to make a name for themselves.

Derrick Lewis faces Ciryl Gane this Saturday, August 7th. Before he became famous in the UFC for being an epic knockout artist and hilarious fighter in his post fight interviews. Derrick was an aspiring boxer, or at least tried it out with the intention of improving his striking in MMA. George Foreman took Derrick Lewis into his camp with open arms. Seeing that Lewis had obvious talent after watching him spar George's son. He got Derrick a car and was on the verge of getting him an apartment across the street from their gym. Derrick told George he preferred MMA, and didn't want to put all his focus on boxing. To which the boxing legend responded by repossessing the car. In hindsight, George says that was the best decision Derrick could have made. Derrick Lewis doesn't care. Today he's one of the biggest fighters in MMA and has a Lamborghini, a few steps above the domestic make Foreman had him driving. George Foreman is still one of Lewis's biggest supporters and fans, although he is still saddened that Derrick didn't follow in his footsteps. It's really interesting the more we learn about Derrick Lewis. The guy is an all around character and if it wasn't for combat sports we think he'd make a great comedian. We look forward to watching him fight Ciryl Gane this week! There's lots of memes going around, prodding that although Gane is the more technical and trained fighter, Derrick will still probably knock him out.

This pandemic really has the nation on a massive split between everyone should wear masks and be vaccinated or - everyone should have the freedom to live how they want. There's solid arguments for both sides and it seems even UFC fighters are split between the decisions. UFC's Dana White says fighters will not be forced to get Covid vaccines. The promotion has a Nov 6 event in New York. A state that mandates vaccinations for any indoor events and even now requiring vaccine passports to eat in restaurants. "If you want to get vaccinated, that's up to you. That's your choice. You're never going to hear me say I'm going to force people to get vaccinated. Never gonna happen." - said Dana White. Michael Chandler went down as saying - “It’s not that I’m anti-vax. It’s not that I don’t believe in the vaccine, necessarily. I’m just not going to get the vaccine until it’s 100 percent FDA approved. We’ve had hundreds of clinical trials, just like we had the vaccines that my son has had – measles and chicken pox and all of the vaccines that have been around for 100 years that have been proven. We shall see. I don’t know what’s going to happen. More than anything, the chances of the UFC being able to sell out Madison Square Garden with only people that are vaccinated really cuts down their ability to sell out Madison Square Garden. So I don’t really know. I think it calls into question if Madison Square Garden will actually happen, to be honest with you guys. The UFC is brilliant and geniuses at putting things together and putting their fights together. But as I said, I’m not anti-vaccine. I think vaccines are effective. I think it’s everybody’s choice whether they want to take the vaccine. I won’t be vaccinated by Nov. 6, so I won’t be able to perform or entertain at Madison Square Garden. So we shall see.” So we can't really lump fighters or promoters into any category here. Some are pro, some are anti, some are just on the fence. All we can do is hope this pandemic ends soon and we can all get back to "the old normal."

Derrick Lewis (25-7-0) has already gone down as one of the most interesting fighters to watch of all time in MMA. Derrick is essentially the kid who never studied, never did his homework, and calculated the minimal amount of effort he needed to pass. He would score better on tests than everyone who tried hard, but you still couldn't cheat off his paper because he only passed the tests he had to. It's great watching Derrick Lewis fight. He'll be on the ground, won't scoot to the cage or be technical. He will just decide - "Yeah, I wanna bring the fight back up." To then just stand right up and start swinging again. He's fought people who are far more technical and follow strict diets and travel the globe to train with the best. He knocks them out and then gives the hands down best post fight interviews ever. I think Derrick Lewis is Joe Rogan's favorite fighter to interview post fight. You never know what the hell Derick Lewis is going to say. - "I just gotta go number two that's all. It's not really hurt from the kick, I just gotta go booboo." - "I just eased out a little fart. tried to clear my stomach out a little bit. Once it did it was good. The second round it came back again, just started bubbling. I was like - I've got to end this fight." - "It was more my trying not to Sh*t on myself." when asked how he got the knockout. Derrick Lewis is probably my favorite fighter. Imagine getting knocked out and the guy acting like it was only because he had to take a dump.

Dagestan, officialy - the Republic Of Dagestan. Is a Republic of Russia. Dagestan translates to - "Land of mountains." That's exactly what it is and partially why it produces some of the best fighters in the world, if not THE BEST. Vice reporter Alzo Slade did a piece on Dagestan fighters and their training routines. What he learned is they train relentlessly. Their workout routine involves waking up as the sun rises. To then run 1-2 miles across rugged mountain terrain, with high altitudes that test your cardio. Running across icy water and anything in their way. They then do pad striking for about an hour, have breakfast and a nap. They then hike for miles up the mountain and wrestle at it's peak. Wrestling is kind of like a way to keep Dagestan's youth away from extremism that has plagued the country. So the Olympic gold medalists and world champion fighters from there, are very big on giving back to their community and bringing youth into the wrestling. Alzo Slade heavily noticed how enriched these people are with their culture. How important it is for them to give back and keep the youth out of trouble. It's awesome to see. To them fight culture is more than just sports. It's staying alive. Staying out of trouble. Giving the next generation something to look forward to. It's no secret that top competitors in combat sports are hailing from Dagestan. With the likes of Khabib Nurmagomedov and his posse. If you want to train like no other, truly put yourself to the test, and become the worlds best. It seems Dagestan is where you want to train and the type of fight culture you want to embrace.

Conor Mcgregor recently deleted some tweets he made in a twitter response to Khabib Nurmagomedov. Khabib tweeted "good always defeats evil." on Poirer's victory of Mcgregor. To which Mcgregor responded that Covid19 must be good and Khabib's father was evil. Which, calling someone evil is one thing but going for deceased family members just proves the assumption. Khabib was recently on Hotboxin With Mike Tyson where he touched up on the twitter conflict. - “When he talked about this, only evil can talk about your father, wife, kids, religion. If you’re normal human, you’re never going to talk about this stuff. For me, I think he post this tweet while drunk too much or he was doing something. Then the next day, he always delete these tweets. When he become normal life he looks at his phone and says, Oh, look what I did. Then he delete. This is my opinion what he do all the time. When someone is not with us, he is not even alive, this shows what you have inside. This shows how dirty you are. When you one of the best in the world and you come and you punch someone who is like 70 years old, like an old man in a pub, this shows your heart. This shows who you are inside, how dirty you are. When you have parents and you have kids, how can you show yourself like this? I don’t understand why his close people don’t go, Hey, what’s going on? When you become rich, when you become famous, some people they lose real people around them. They lose them. Real people who love you, they’re going to tell you the truth. But fake people? They always say - You’re good. They never say to you nothing because they don’t want to upset you because they know they’ll lose this comfortable spot. Real people, they don’t care about this. They were with you before you became famous and rich. They don’t care about your money. They just love you. I think he lose a lot of people around him. I don’t think he have people who were with him before when he become champion. Everybody needs someone who reminds you - This is good, this is bad." Khabib touches up on Conor's place and actually empathizes with the guy. Suggesting Conor is a victim to substance abuse and surrounding himself with yes men. We watched Khabib kick Conor's butt leave the sport undefeated and now going on as an undefeated coach. We're watching Conor fall apart. Animostiy aside it seems Khabib is still extending the olive branch - asking Conor to get help and surround himself with the right people.

There's a lot of banned substances in MMA, mostly based around performance enhancing drugs. We don't really want situations where one fighter has an immense advantage over the other, because they were taking anabolic steroids. We also don't want fighters becoming drug addicts, and harming their health. So we have the WADA or World Anti Doping Agency. What if we didn't have the WADA? Hear me out. What if we got to see fighters compete on any type of drug. Let some fighters take as much steroids as they want for a year before the fight, give them a bunch of PCP and Meth between rounds to see - how hard can humans REALLY punch!? There could be a fight card specifically for different kind of drugs. One bout would be like Nate Diaz vs some other stoner fighter, where they have a smoking competition before their MMA fight. Then we could get say two fighters to have a drinking contest before their fight, just watch two dudes smashed off their face missing hella punches. This will probably never happen, and shouldn't ever happen. Except the smoke contest stoner fight, that one should be allowed and wouldn't hurt anybody. Hell, you won't even notice the difference with Diaz.

Dana White gets a lot of heat from some of his fighters and other folks in the MMA community, over whether or not he has their best interest in mind or is just greedy. Dana has a net worth of 500 million, he sold his last equity stake in the UFC of 9% back in 2016 and now just works on a annual 20 million dollar salary. I myself have been very critical of Dana over things like the Reebok deal. It was very upsetting to see fighters lose their sponsors in the cage. The deal was supposed to significantly increase fighters payouts and earn them more than their in fight sponsors can pay. This wasn't the case for many fighters, especially the newer ones still making a name for themselves. The Reebok deal is about to end and now UFC is doing a deal with Venum. We shall wait to see what all this entails and if it's any better than Reebok. A lot of folks crucify Dana for being so successful but paying some of his fighters measly sums. I actually don't agree with the crucifixion here. It's really hard to start a business, it's immensely risky. Even the most liberal socialistic folks like Bernie Sanders do a 180 degree turn after reaping rewards from their efforts. Go watch Bernie tell one of his followers to write their own book and become a millionaire when they question him about sharing his wealth. The fighters definitely generate more cash than they earn, but that can't all be blamed on Dana. Dana has built the biggest MMA promotion in the world and took MMA from a back alley sport that nobody took seriously to the fastest growing sport in the world. The guy took a lot of risks to get us here and he deserves a reward equal to those risks and effort. Whether it's from the kindness of his own heart or the logical analyzing that any business savvy person can see - the UFC is gonna have to start leading the game in fighter compensation as their competitors like Triller and Bellator may soon be stealing talent with larger PPV sales and benefits. I think Dana cares about his fighters and a lot of people forget that networth is tremendously more valuable than liquid capital. However, if Dana wants the UFC to stay on top he's gonna have to lead the industry in fighter rewards too.

For those of you that don't know, Calcio Fiorentino is basically what would happen if we took the NFL and made players stop wearing pads and told them they should actually fight each other throughout the game. This is what the NFL wishes it was. The game starts with each team of 27 players (No substiutes or backups or second string allowed) all just start beating the crap out of each other. Boxing, Kickboxing, Jiujitsu, Wrestling, nothing is really off limits here. Their goal is to incapacitate the other team and grab the ball in the middle to score in their opponents end zone. This is 100x cooler than football and you're wrong if you say otherwise. Imagine getting NFL tickets with complimentary MMA fights. Not that bullcrap where football players push each other and get fined or kicked out of the game. No. Full on knockouts and broken limbs from submissions and pure brutality. No padding, no helmets, just action. It's time we start an American League for Calcio Fiorentino, that way our culture at least knows it's a sport and not an Olive Garden entrée. This is America! We're just gonna let Italy have the coolest ball game sport ever? I think not. Move over Italy, we want to beat the crap out of each other during a sanctioned sport without refs throwing flags too.

With Sean Strickland going off about killing someone in a sanctioned bout this week, it's time to reflect on instances where fighters actually lost their lives in MMA. There's been 7 recorded deaths from sanctioned MMA fights, and more from non sanctioned. Professional boxing has had 923 deaths from 1890 - 2007. October 20th 2007, Sammy Vasquez at 35 years old was competing in Renegades Extreme. Sammy lost the fight via 3rd round knockout. He lost consciousness shortly after the fight and was rushed to the hospital where he underwent multiple surgeries for a subdural hemorrhage. He died November 30th from that fights injury. Micheal K Kirkham was 30 years old competing at Dash Entertainment's King MMA, on June 26th 2010. 41 seconds into the first match, the referee called for stoppage with Michael on the ground unable to defend against head strikes. Michael lost consciousness shortly after the fight was stopped, and died two days later to head trauma. He had a fight two months prior where he lost by KO, commissioners have since suggested he had second impact syndrome and shouldn't have been allowed to take another fight so soon. Tyrone Mims was a 30 year old competing at Conflict MMA Fight Night on August 11th 2012. The referee called stoppage in the second round with Tyrone seeming exhausted and unable to fight. Tyrone's corner checked him, and he seemed fine. He lost consciousness shortly after. Mims was pronounced dead on the way to the hospital. His autopsy revealed no head trauma or any type of conclusive reason for death. Booto Guylain a 29 year old fighter at EFC Africa 27 on February 27th 2014, sustained a head injury from his 3rd round knockout loss. He was taken to the hospital after fight showing signs of head trauma. Booto died a week later from brain swelling. Donshay White a 37 year old fighter competing at Hardrock MMA 90 on July 16th 2017. He lost by TKO in the second round and collapsed after the fight. He died on the way to the hospital and it was revealed that hypertensive heart disease was the culprit. As he didn't take his heart medication the day before the fight. Rondel Clark was a 26 year old fighter from Sutton Massachusetts. Cage Titans XXXV on August 12, 2017 would be his second and last sanctioned bout. By the 3rd round Clark was unable to defend himself and lost via TKO. His post fight exam showed him to struggle breathing, he was then sent to the hospital. He died August 15th. Autopsy showed that he had kidney failure, a sickle cell trait and mostly died to dehydration. Those are the 7 recorded deaths in sanctioned MMA matches. Sometimes it was direct injury from the fight or the fight just played a minor role. Regardless MMA is very dangerous and while it's a sport based around beating each other within an inch of our lives, we should treat it with immense respect. s the night before which may have impacted his death. He was part of a program that helps addicts recover through MMA.