UFC Fan Expo Video Interview #3: BG vs. Ariel Helwani…Who Takes It and How?

UFC Boston – Ariel Helwani Interview – Watch more Funny Videos
At this point, MMA interviewer/analyst Ariel Helwani is more famous than a lot of the people he interviews. If you’ve ever spotted him at an MMA event, you know that he can’t get ten f…

UFC Boston – Ariel Helwani Interview – Watch more Funny Videos

At this point, MMA interviewer/analyst Ariel Helwani is more famous than a lot of the people he interviews. If you’ve ever spotted him at an MMA event, you know that he can’t get ten feet without being swarmed by another group of fans, who follow his work intently at MMAFighting.com and Versus. Keep in mind that Ariel Helwani is not a fighter. He’s just a dude who started with a dream and went on to become the most well-known interviewer in our sport. To put it simply, he’s come a long way since Andrei Arlovski’s pee-pee-pee

So here’s something special for all the Helwannabes in the house: Ariel stopped by the CagePotato.com booth at the UFC Fan Expo on Saturday and spent some time on the other side of the microphone. Watch the video above to learn about Ariel’s journey from sports fan to "liver of the dream," his love of Howard Cosell, and of course, why he thinks we’re so awesome. Many thanks to Ariel for giving us his time and, at least for one moment, lending the CagePotato.com carnival booth some measure of legitimacy.

Note: Keep your eyes peeled around 2:41 and 2:56 to watch some amazing background work from ReX13. Yep. That’s what I had to deal with all weekend.

James Toney Isn’t a Fan of Ariel Helwani, David Haye, Bernard Hopkins or Randy Couture

(Video courtesy YouTube/MMAFighting)
There must be something in the water in Boston that’s making the fighters turn on Ariel Helwani. First BJ Penn questioned the MMA Fighting reporter about whether or not he liked him and now we have James Toney wrest…

(Video courtesy YouTube/MMAFighting)

There must be something in the water in Boston that’s making the fighters turn on Ariel Helwani. First BJ Penn questioned the MMA Fighting reporter about whether or not he liked him and now we have James Toney wrestling the microphone from Helwani after asking him if he dislikes boxing and calling him a clown.

"This guy’s a clown right here…Give me the goddamn mic….Give it to me," Toney said as he struggled to pry the microphone from Helwani’s hands.

When he finally did get the mic from Helwani, Lights Out tried to sign off from the interview.

"This is James Toney Reporting for this goddamn station, whatever it is," Toney deadpanned. "I’m outta here."

read more

Chael Sonnen Now Denies He Said Anything About Lance Armstrong, Ever

(Props: MMAFighting.com)
Giving more weight to our theory that Chael Sonnen legitimately suffers from multiple personality disorder, the UFC’s #1 middleweight contender did an interview with Ariel Helwani yesterday in which he denied saying that L…

(Props: MMAFighting.com)

Giving more weight to our theory that Chael Sonnen legitimately suffers from multiple personality disorder, the UFC’s #1 middleweight contender did an interview with Ariel Helwani yesterday in which he denied saying that Lance Armstrong gave himself cancer by taking steroids. Keep in mind that Sonnen made those incendiary comments on a publicly-broadcast radio interview that you can still listen to any time you feel like it. Here’s the exchange with Helwani, which begins at the 4:19 mark: 

AH: A lot of people took offense to what you said about Lance Armstrong recently, to Larry Pepe. Can you elaborate on that?

CS: I never did an interview with Larry Pepe.

AH: The Lance Armstrong stuff, you never said.

CS: I never spoke of Lance Armstrong ever. Never. Not until just now.

read more

Cain Velasquez Has Still Got Next

(VidProps: MMA Fighting)
Heavyweight contender Cain Velasquez brings a lot of excitement to his fights from bell to bell. In an interview setting? Not so much. Velasquez is a great guy but let’s face it, it’s almost impossible to get him to say …

(VidProps: MMA Fighting)

Heavyweight contender Cain Velasquez brings a lot of excitement to his fights from bell to bell. In an interview setting? Not so much. Velasquez is a great guy but let’s face it, it’s almost impossible to get him to say anything interesting. Just ask Ariel Helwani, who does about all he can to pry something, anything good out of Velasquez in this video.

In the wake of UFC President Dana White reconfirming this week that Velasquez has got dibs on the winner of Shane Carwin vs. Brock Lesnar, Helwani asks Velasquez who he’d rather fight. Either guy, Velasquez says. Who does he think will win on Saturday, Helwani asks. Depends, Velasquez says. Would the businessman in him rather chase the bigger payday of a fight with Lesnar than Carwin? No, he just wants to fight the best, Velasquez contends. What will we see from him in his next fight? He just wants to get better in all aspects of MMA.

So yeah, pretty much sticking to the script.

read more

Method Actor Michael Bisping to Play ‘Bad Guy’ on British Soap Opera

(I’m not sure if I can pull off a playing a brash, cocky hoodlum, but I’ll give it a shot.)
Now when people talk about the "Michael Bisping soap opera," there’s a good chance they’ll be talking about a television show, not the drama the perpe…


(I’m not sure if I can pull off a playing a brash, cocky hoodlum, but I’ll give it a shot.)

Now when people talk about the "Michael Bisping soap opera," there’s a good chance they’ll be talking about a television show, not the drama the perpetual smack-talker usually creates leading up to his UFC bouts. 

The 31-year-old Cyprus-born Liverpudlian revealed during The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani today that he will play a gangster on an unnamed British daytime drama.

"I’m expecting to get a lot of grief from the Internet," Bisping told Helwani. "It’s not a novel soap opera, it’s a daytime soap opera. I play a bit of a bad guy."

read more