#328. Sky Sports Ring Announcer on Jake Paul v Anthony Joshua - Big Mo

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1:29Kody Mommaerts: when i found out i was going to be a parent i immediately felt a lot of anxiety and worry so i went on to better help to try to look for a therapist to help me with that my relationship

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2:03Kody Mommaerts: Jake is a really, really impressive guy, and I've been saying this about the Paul Brothers for a while. Look, they're polarizing people. Are you nervous for Paul versus Tyson? Not really. Tell me about how you got the call for the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight. Then we show up for the weigh-ins, and we have no idea how Mike is going to look. Mike shows up, ripped to shreds for someone his age, slaps Jake in the face. I see seven, eight security guards, not sure what to do. Usually they'd grab the fighter, they'd restrain him. So it was interesting watching a bunch of security go, do we put our hands on it?

2:35Kody Mommaerts: 44 knockouts, 22 in the first round.

2:38Big Mo: 65 million households watched that fight. 72 ,000 people were in that stadium. Welcome to the Eventful Lives podcast. I'm your host Dodge and I'm the founder of Bournemouth 7s, the world's largest sport and music festival. On this podcast I speak to proper characters who have all lived eventful lives. Do us a favour and hit that follow button and be sure to check us out on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at Dodge Woodall. We've now had over 100 million views. Let's roll our way back. How did you get into the boxing world?

3:09Kody Mommaerts: Okay, we're going to start. It's kind of a lengthy story. So I was a college football player, American football. And towards the end of my career, I started becoming interested in like hosting live events and public speaking. I was a business student, competed in business competitions. So I cut my teeth on presenting and things like that. I was working in business, et cetera. And towards the end of my career, I actually wanted to host a event at my university that was like an award show for the athletic department. So the ESPN has what's called like the ESPYs. It was that type of thing. And I wanted to host it every year.

3:46Kody Mommaerts: I wanted to do a monologue and wear a suit and the whole nine yards. I just was always interested in that type of presentation, but the athletic director didn't really want me to do it. He's like, I'm not going to have a 21 year old host this event. Boosters come to this administration comes to this, the president of the university comes to this. So I kept asking year after year, always said no, uh, ended up helping him move and he wanted to compensate me for moving. And I said, well, just let me host the event. So he let me host the event, did a whole monologue, hosted the whole thing, tuxedo, roasted coaches, jokes, the whole nine, wrote the whole thing myself.

4:21Kody Mommaerts: And I had friends that said, Hey, you know, you should pursue work like this, or you should pursue being a commentator because when you get done playing a sport, it's very common that you then become a pundit or a commentator for the sport uh at the time i was pretty burnt out of american football and basketball played in my whole life so just to let everyone know right now

4:40Big Mo: you're massive i told you six seven six eight six seven six seven yep and in great nick as well

4:46Kody Mommaerts: now i am yeah so i've lost about 100 pounds i used to be about 315 pounds 100 pounds uh

4:53Big Mo: We're talking 40-odd kg.

4:55Kody Mommaerts: Yeah. Was that 40, 45 kilo, 47 kilo?

4:58Big Mo: 40-odd kg, 6 kg. Jesus Christ, you lost about eight stone.

5:03Kody Mommaerts: Yeah. Yeah. My God. Of muscle or overweight? Mostly just, I mean, well, both, but mostly a lot of fat just because I had to be bigger to play football. I mean, I was eating a lot. I was a big guy. So yeah, gotten super into fitness, lost a lot of weight. I'm now more slim fit Mo, I guess, than big Mo. I appreciate that. Yeah, mate.

5:21Big Mo: Fair play to you.

5:22Kody Mommaerts: Yeah. I mean, suits look better and fit better. So that's good too.

5:26Big Mo: So how did you end up becoming like a ringside announcer in boxing on the world stage?

5:32Kody Mommaerts: Exactly. So I was tired of football and basketball, but I wanted to try commentary and I've always wanted to work in entertainment, but I didn't want to go the route of move to LA, sleep on couches, waiting for an acting role or things like that. I wanted to do something applicable. I had a master's degree in business, entrepreneur, helped start a tech company out of college. So I wanted to do that type of stuff, but I wanted to find a lane to do entertainment on the side because I had a passion for it. So I started cold calling combat sports promoters in my state, regional local promoters, got ahold of a promotion called Sparta, a good regional promotion, MMA, put guys in the UFC, things like that.

6:10Kody Mommaerts: I said, look, I have no experience, but I'm at the time I was 23. I said, I have good energy. I think I'm a decent talker. Are you looking for a color commentator? They said, yeah, we actually are looking for someone to come on. Why don't you come down to a show? Came down, actually wore a suit because I believe a lot in first impressions and looking the part. And the guy, Jeff, who runs the company said, you want to hop on commentary and give it a shot? So I gave it a shot. He liked what he heard. And I became a commentator for the company. Did a couple shows. And I remember seeing the ring announcer.

6:41Kody Mommaerts: And I thought, you know what? I think, I think I can do that. I think that's more my speed. I don't really know why, but I think I can do it. So I started doing it. Had a couple managers and coaches that said, Hey, you have a good voice. You might be onto something here, you know, work on this. So at that point decided, all right, well, if I'm going to do this, I want to fully dedicate it to it. So started branding myself as big Mo. Simply put, I just went as big Mo because it was shorter and easier than my last name. And I didn't want people to get confused. And the last name was, how do you pronounce it?

7:10Kody Mommaerts: Momarts. Momarts. Momarts. From. So it is Dutch and Hungarian. Okay. I'm a technically first generation American. My grandparents came to this country after World War II and the Holocaust. Okay. And Hungarian and Dutch is the background. Yeah. So I saw the ring announcer, thought I could start doing it, did it, started branding myself as Big Mo. I used to wear sunglasses in the ring and it was all designed to be a quick capture of attention. It was all designed to be, all right, well, if I'm going to put myself out here, if I'm going to get on these little shows and these YouTubes or whatever.

7:43Kody Mommaerts: I want people to see me and immediately differentiate myself from everyone else that was doing it besides just my age. So I started doing things to analyze what the industry looked like for ring announcers, because there was no, there's no textbook. There's no how to be a ring announcer one on one on one. It's one of the most niche industries you can get into. So I started just looking at the trends of the industry and seeing what kind of opportunities that were there. And the biggest opportunity is that I was significantly younger and still am. And so that was a point of differentiation. So I started utilizing social media, Instagram, TikTok, putting myself out there, went viral a couple times.

8:20Kody Mommaerts: People thought I was like Buffer's son. I think it's we're both white guys with slick back hair. So maybe I just thought, um, and then it just started building on that, started getting more shows. I then started working in bare knuckle with people like Mike Goldberg and Pauli Malignaggi and people like that. So I started to learn the industry of production a lot more. and then I got a call to do, well, then Eddie Hall and Hafthor Bjornsson were going to have their giant fight in Dubai, their strong fight. So remember I called... What was that says? Eddie Hall is the world's strongest man from England against...

8:54Kody Mommaerts: Hafthor Bjornsson, who was the mountain in Game of Thrones. That's right. And he was from Iceland. And what happened there? So I called the promoter, I DM'd him or emailed, and I said, if you're going to have the biggest fight in the world, you need the biggest announcer because you can't have some tiny little guy announcing these guys that wouldn't make any sense even though it'd be perfectly fine yeah and they liked it and they jumped at it so got on a plane to dubai it was my first ever international show never ever did anything that to that scale and while i was at that show i got a message from boxer and sky sports okay saying are you interested in possibly announcing for us

9:29Big Mo: so but it wasn't box of the main promoter ben shalom back by sky sports correct okay correct So that was your opening, was it? That was my opening. That's when Eddie Hearn left and went to DAZN.

9:40Kody Mommaerts: Yeah, so Eddie left and Mattram left to go to DAZN. Boxer came into Sky, ended up doing this fight with Eddie Hall, who's obviously a very popular Brit. That got on the wavelengths throughout the industry, and then that's ultimately where Boxer found me. And then it just went quiet for a few months. I was like, all right, well, no harm, no foul. And then they reached back out and they said, hey, let's do this as a test run. So I came out, and that test run was Chris Bill and Smith versus Isaac Chamberlain and at the football stadium it was at the big oh it's at the big okay I was at that fight in fact oh really yeah yeah yeah it was a great show it was a great fight it was a really good fight of the year um and then the rest is ultimately history amazing so what is

10:19Big Mo: it so what is it you how would you explain yourself to someone you go and meet someone

10:24Kody Mommaerts: and say what do you do for a living what would you say it's a good question so um I basically I first off just say that I'm a host because that's an easy thing that most people can grasp and then And if I get deeper into a conversation, I explain that I'm a boxing ring announcer. I'm the person in the ring that entertains the crowd, introduces the fighters, basically just a master of ceremonies. And then at that point, they go, oh, are you like the guy that says, you know, X, Y, Z catchphrase that they know? And I go, I'm my own person, but same job. Yeah.

10:53Big Mo: And is there a, like we were talking about earlier on about branding yourself and saying, I'm six foot seven, I'm big Mo, I'll wear glasses in the ring. I know we'll go on to the Mike Tyson fight and the Jake Paul fight, but when you're in there, what makes you stand out apart from being big? Have you got one-liners that you say? You've got a really strong voice. Is there something that you want to brand yourself and associate yourself with?

11:21Kody Mommaerts: Good question. I mean, it's a few things. Catchphrases and one-lines, I have them, but they're not something that I necessarily... necessarily need or like, absolutely, this is my brand. My brand is more so just me. I want to be known as someone that was entertained to the crowd, did justice to the fighters. I think I have a pretty strong and powerful voice. I think my style is a little bit more dialed up in terms of energy and charisma and that type of thing from a traditional boxing announcer. I'm a little bit more energetic, I guess, for lack of a better word. But then I also like doing stuff around the industry beyond just announcing i host press conferences i do the weigh-ins i do media i've done commercials i've been put on fight posters and what i just figured out is i can ultimately become in a part of the entertainment for the show yeah um and that's what i was looking for

12:13Big Mo: there yeah because i was thinking a boxing announcer you go on there at the start but actually if you're hosting the wayings you're hosting this you're you're going to become mr mr boxing world host to go right that's the man you need i think this is your go-to

12:26Kody Mommaerts: And how I look at it is, I believe that boxing and combat sports is the best sport in the world. Agreed. Beyond just the sport itself, it is pure entertainment and it is a show. More so than pretty much any other sport that's out there. Boxing and combat sports puts a ton into the live event concept of what they do because that's pretty much all they got. So when you ask a lot of, even when you ask fans, what was your favorite part of the night? A lot of them will say the ring walk. A lot of them won't even say the fight because they love the showmanship and the pyro. And so when I was watching combat sports as a kid, I was a fan of it.

13:02Kody Mommaerts: I remember I lived in a couple houses with roommates with football players and I used to put fights on during the pregames. And I remember that, you know, a lot of my friends didn't necessarily understand what was going on. They couldn't tell you what a 10-8 round was or what this submission was or this punch was. But what they could relate to was the lights go down. The rest of it says. Pyro ring walk live performance the ring announcer the everything with that because it's a show and I love the show part of it I love the sport. I'm a diehard boxing and combat sports fan But I really love the entertainment side of it because it makes it such a different Spectacle than anything else when you try to compare combat sports to any other sport You almost can't because number one.

13:45Kody Mommaerts: It's one-on-one So when you're watching football or basketball, you're watching 10 20 people at a time you're watching one-on-one on this not only is it one-on-one it's one-on-one with violence there's no other sport that legalized violence legalized violence the suspense is different the energy is different i've told people if you haven't been to a fight it's a different atmosphere energy than anything else you've ever seen before and i fell in love with that and i love the entertainment aspect of what i do and i also understand that i can drive value for the show as i am the person that talks, I'm the only person that talks to both the in arena crowd and the crowd that's watching at home.

14:23Kody Mommaerts: So in a way, the MC, the announcer basically just puts a bow on everything and ties everything together. Yeah.

14:30Big Mo: And can pull the strings. Correct.

14:32Kody Mommaerts: That's the idea, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah.

14:33Big Mo: So where we sit, so when you, when you spoke to boxer and sky sports, tell me that journey you went on there.

14:39Kody Mommaerts: Yeah, it was, I mean, look, Like, everything in my career has happened very quickly. And I'm very, very grateful for that. So how old are you today? I just turned 30. You just turned 30? Just turned 30. Yep, just turned 30. Yep. So everything happened super quick for me. I started working for Boxer and Sky when I was 26. Came on, did the show for Chris Bill Smith. Then ended up doing kind of a short deal with him. And two fights later, I was doing Shields versus Marshall at the O2 Arena on Sky Sports and ESPN. and did millions of viewers worldwide, sold out O2 Arena. So my career went like this and then it just took off from there.

15:18Kody Mommaerts: And I knew I always had an opportunity to do that because I thought I was objectively good at the job. Obviously I believe in myself, but from a technical standpoint, I thought I was pretty proficient at what I was doing. And I think Sky and Boxer, they saw the value that I could drive through it. And a lot of the shows have seen that also, and they've given me opportunities and i've gotten to announce some of the biggest fights ever yeah yeah so the chris

15:41Big Mo: billiam smith one at the bick that was some atmosphere oh that was an incredible atmosphere you had the whole of bournemouth football fans and boxing fans everyone who loves chris in that in the big i don't know how many thousand it was six seven yeah six seven thousand but the

15:53Kody Mommaerts: atmosphere was a was special yes and i think that is that's the connection that i look for more than anything else. Um, I believe entertainment is very valuable for people. I think people look at entertainment as just, you know, it's a fun sideshowers, but I actually think that being able to watch something or go to an event or enjoy something with other people, I think is like critically important to society functioning because I think it gives people an ability to detach from the real life from their relationship, their job, their work, and they go for the next few hours, I'm just going to enjoy this.

16:33Big Mo: This is what I've been doing for the last 30 years. Exactly. Putting smiles on people's faces and bringing people together. That's it. I can forget about everything and just come and have fun for three days at a festival or wherever it may be.

16:43Kody Mommaerts: I grew up raised, single father is very close with him. We used to go to movies all the time. That was our thing. But it was a form of entertainment where you could just go enjoy something. So I get a sense of euphoria when I meet families that came to the show or I meet people that go, oh my God, that was such a great night. Thank you so much. But I get a sense of pride from that because I was able to play a role in entertaining. And putting smiles on faces. That's it. Yeah. That's it.

17:10Big Mo: I think it's fun. So obviously, like, how do you get paid? Do you get paid by Boxer to come and do the show?

17:17Kody Mommaerts: Yeah, I mean, it varies. Whether it's the promoter, whether it's the network, usually it's the promoter that ultimately hires me. I'm kind of in a unique position because all the other talent that works on the show is very just TV focused. There's very little talent that actually has to do with the in arena atmosphere. So I'm in a position where I not only need to entertain and captivate people that are here, but I also need to be able to get someone's attention through the camera to pull them in and to get them to pay attention. because what I've always said is that really the competitors for a boxing show or for a combat sports show, when you ask promoters who your competitors are, they will always list the other promoters, obviously.

18:02Kody Mommaerts: But I think it's a lot deeper than that. I believe that the competition for boxing is any other form of content that someone can engage with instead of watching your show. So we're not just competing with boxing promoters. We're competing with every other channel that's on TV. We're competing with music, phones, et cetera. You have to get someone's attention you have to get someone to go okay i'm going to put down what i'm doing or i'm going to stop watching this and i'm just going to watch this is in front of that's in front of me and in my opinion the announcer is a very critical piece of getting that to happen because if you didn't have the announcer if you didn't have the master of ceremonies of the narrator then the show would kind of just flop oh it would just go through yeah you're not so there's no hype no hype no

18:41Big Mo: builder correct yeah correct so who is who is it that you look at going because who's the guy who's the main guy i've been going for years buffer buffer fantastic yeah who's the guy with the

18:51Kody Mommaerts: dreadlocks uh diamante diamante okay is there anyone else uh jimmy lennon jr um those are i would say they're the main they're the big dogs yeah i would say that um and i put myself in that category also um i think that when you look at big fights that happen there's a handful of announcers that kind of people approach to have those fights what i've said is that it's a very niche industry. I would say across the world in terms of announcers that you will see, you know, more than once and actually do shows consistently. There's probably, I don't know, less than a hundred. And then if you look at ones that are actually on a network or actually you're seeing very consistently on pay-per-views or broadcasters, less than 10.

19:37Kody Mommaerts: Yeah, that's right. And then really, if you get down to the ones that do the big fights, there's four or five. So I look up to all of them. Look, I came into this very unique position because when I started, I've been aggressive since I started and I have a business background, a sales background. So I was cold calling every promoter. The amount of people, the amount of best friends that I made that were secretaries that, hey, is so-and-so in? Are they here today? Are they back from lunch? And so, but that's just what I did. And I got through to a lot of them, got through to big, big promotional companies.

20:12Kody Mommaerts: I won't say who they all are, but I got fed the same answer, which was, I was 23, 24, no experience besides the local regional stuff. And I was pitching to, to do this job, which in the eyes of the promoters, a very important job. I'm getting handed a live microphone that's wired to every single person in the arena that bought a ticket and millions of people that are watching. And I'm handed a live microphone and I'm told

20:40Big Mo: go that quality so i get it yeah i get it why would we give that to a 23 year old kid yeah

20:46Kody Mommaerts: when we have people that have been doing it for 25 30 years told not mad what did you do then to

20:52Big Mo: prove yourself that people are like now we need big mo yeah i it was when i was given opportunities

20:59Kody Mommaerts: no matter how big i executed and was as good as i could possibly be and a big thing that i focus on is I'm big into affirmation and visualization. I've talked about this before, but when I was announcing smaller shows, mentally, I was envisioning something very different. I was envisioning that I was in a big arena, that I was doing these massive shows because I believe a lot in training your mind to live something before you actually live it. So when people ask me - Build a picture and then paint it. Correct. So when people ask me, were you nervous for Paul versus Tyson in front of 80 ,000 people?

21:34Kody Mommaerts: Were you nervous for Shields versus Marshall in front of the O2, blah, blah, blah. I say, not really. Because mentally, I lived it already. And from me, the perspective of doing my job, if I can do my job the same way in front of 10 people instead of 20 ,000 people, that when I'm up there and I'm in the ring, the ring is the same size. There's two fighters. There's still a referee. The only thing that changes is there's more people around me. But if I'm staring dead ahead, the end there looks the same anyway. So I think that that was a big piece of my career is understanding that if I want to do this and if I want to dedicate my life to do it and make a career out of it, I want to be the best at what I do.

22:15Kody Mommaerts: And I made that very clear. I want to be the person. I want to be that guy that every show goes, we need this person there for our show to be as entertaining as humanly possible. So I had to show that with every single opportunity and then get clips, circulate clips, show them what I was doing. And then I just had to wait for opportunity.

22:31Big Mo: Do you know what the beauty of this, like looking in now, like we hooked up in Cardiff on the bare knuckle boxing fight, didn't we? Yep. Ringside. We'll have a chat about that later. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what I love about this business model that I'm looking in now chatting to you, you've put yourself in the ring, I guess. Excuse the pun, but you put yourself in the ring, put your hat in the ring. You've gone, hold on a minute. There's four or five people here. I'm young. I'm 30 odd. I've got a great voice. People like me. I'm kind. I'm polite. I'm efficient. I'm on the ball. I'm sharp. You want me.

23:01Big Mo: I'll reply. da da da da as a business model and of you and what i've seen now you flying out here yesterday just coming out here for a couple of days to do the podcast do the charity event you're doing and flying back that's commitment oh there's a lot of people will go do you know i can't be able to go where you're we all can't be able to go from america to london for a couple of nights is it really worth my time you're putting yourself out there yes to say i want to own this space yes the beauty of what i'm seeing which i love is that for example we'll go on to the jake paul uh mike tyson fight 65 million households watched that fight yes 72 000 people were in that stadium yep jake paul and 40 million dollars mike tyson had 20 million dollars and you've hosted it so all of a sudden you've got 65 million people on your eyes on that on you on netflix knowing who's that big fella there big mo he speaks well all of a sudden you got to come you're competing with four people and you're putting yourself out there to hundreds of millions of people it's like the

24:02Kody Mommaerts: best business model i've probably ever seen yeah it's uh i i appreciate that no i look i appreciate that and i i was a better student than i was a football player i loved school i was raised by a hardcore academic basically he would homeschool me after school and i got super into business and economics and things like that and you know was a part of and part of a startup company that i was able to help get going out of college and things like that. So I've experienced a lot very quickly, but the one thing I just learned is that you have time and you have the ability to do whatever you want in this world.

24:38Kody Mommaerts: What I've figured out is life is about prioritization. Talk to people about losing weight, talk to people about school, talk to people about football and ring announcing and all the things I've gotten to do in my life. The reality is, is the reason why I was able to do them and still able to do them is because I prioritize these things in my life. You have 24 hours in a day. Let's say you sleep for, I sleep for six of them, but let's say you sleep rate of them, hopefully. All right. That leaves 16 hours. You can do with that 16 hours, whatever you want to do in that day. So if you don't prioritize those things and you shift them down the list, then they won't get done.

25:12Kody Mommaerts: It's like when I talk to people about fitness, oh, I don't have time. It's like, well, you don't have time if you don't prioritize it. No one has time for things they don't want to do. So in my opinion, I saw an opportunity to hit this as hard as I can and build this as quick as I can because I have momentum. If I don't execute on this and I lose this momentum that I have, I will never, ever get it back. When I started my career, when I was coming over here for Sky Fights, I was still working a full-time tech job. So what I would do is I would do fight stuff in the morning. American Workday started at 4 p.m.

25:44Kody Mommaerts: UK time. That's 9 a.m. in Denver. And I'd go back to my hotel room and I would work from 4 to 11 or midnight. And I did that for every single day that I was here. So I understood the concept of grinding as hard as I could to figure out and build the life that I ultimately wanted. And it all just comes down to prioritization. And it comes down to discipline.

26:02Big Mo: Yes. Discipline is the key. I can hear that. And I'm all over this. I'm addicted to it. So I get it. I totally get it. And focus and urgency and everything that goes with it.

26:12Kody Mommaerts: Yep. and also being uh aggressively patient yes i use that i like i like that term aggressively patient

26:19Big Mo: yeah no one uses that's my that's my that's the patient it's something that i use all the time because i know how long it takes business how long it takes to break the back of a business of anything that you're doing and what you're doing now you've got to be aggressively patient because aggressively go for it go for it but be patient because your time will come and it's coming and it's coming and i can see that right now yeah that was the hard thing i think for me

26:39Kody Mommaerts: to, I am, I have always been someone that I have to make this happen. When you're an athlete, you make it happen. You make the plays happen. When you're in business or you're in sales or you're an entrepreneur, you have to make it happen. The buck stops with you. I think the same thing applies. I think with entertainment, which is the ultimately the lane that I'm in now, you do have to kind of wait at times. And that was difficult for me because I came from a mode of, I have to go. I have to make this happen. I have to press the gas here. When in actuality, you do press the gas, but you do have to wait a little bit.

27:14Kody Mommaerts: So what I figured out was, all right, well then what I'm going to do is I'm going to differentiate myself with all these different things and I'm going to press the gas on all of them. And then as some start to go in different pacings, then I know, okay, I can ease off the gas here. I got to push the gas here. I can ease, I can, that's how I kind of figured it out. I'm good at multitasking. I'm super OCD and ADHD and all that types of things. And what I've always said is -

27:40Big Mo: Superpower ADHD, by the way. I agree. Superpower.

27:43Kody Mommaerts: I totally agree. So what I've always said is I'm spinning a bunch of plates. And if one isn't spinning as tightly as I want it to, I can direct all my energy. Like the focus. Yes. Yeah, man. Yeah.

27:52Big Mo: So give me an example. The first fight you did with Chris Billingsmith in Bournemouth, what year was that roughly?

27:57Kody Mommaerts: 20 let's see it's 2025 that was 2022 so okay yeah tell me about how you got the call for the mike

28:09Big Mo: tyson jake paul fight and tell me about the process of that and also how you felt on the day and on

28:16Kody Mommaerts: the evening yep so um i was doing the shows with boxer and boxer and sky had a few shows that were really big. Shields Marshall was huge. Chris Eubank versus Liam Smith, one and two were very big fights. Did you be playing for them, did you? Yep, those were my first pay-per-views that I did. So I was able to do a lot of big shows. And what I was able to show to people and what I was able to show all these promoters that I called for a while trying to get work is, hey, I can do this. That was the nice thing is I ran into... What's funny is all these promoters that I cold called, I ended up working with.

28:48Kody Mommaerts: And I was able to go, remember that call you got from that kid two years ago? That was me. That was me. Nice to meet you, man. I'll see you in the ring tomorrow night. But ultimately, I ended up getting a call. I got reached out to by Jake and Jake's team before he fought Anderson Silva. And I ended up not being able to do that fight for, I can't remember what reason it was, but we weren't able to get it done. Time went on. They reached out. What was the reason? I want to say it was, this was before the networks were kind of working together. Okay. So Sky and DAZN, they weren't working together at the time.

29:25Kody Mommaerts: So I didn't want to muddy the waters by bouncing back and forth. So I just - Probably a good move. I agree.

29:30Big Mo: Yeah.

29:30Kody Mommaerts: I agree. And now they're working together. Right.

29:33Big Mo: But there was a lot of angst at that time, wasn't there, with Sky and Boxer and -

29:36Kody Mommaerts: You got to protect, you have to protect relationships with who you're with. And that also means being strategic with timing. And I also knew that if they reached out once, I was going to continue to do a good job. So the odds that they reach out again are probably pretty high. so time went on and they reached out about hey uh we're gonna do this fight for netflix and i go wow okay and they go we've had internal discussions with netflix and we want you to do it and i go oh my god amazing then time went on it got canceled i was like well there it goes like that's boxing for you i've always said with boxing until i'm standing in the ring anything holding a mic anything can happen so i always take things with it with a grain of salt so i ended up getting rescheduled and i stayed on the show which was great and apparently there was a lot of internal discussion with netflix and mvp on who they wanted to use because again it was the same conversation of this is netflix's first live sporting event at the time they were only expecting 10 to 20 million viewers which is still insane they go 10 to 20 million viewers are going to watch this do we want to do we want to have this young guy do it even though i was experienced that question was still was still there and uh both sides ended up kind of voting on me to do it which was amazing very honored to do it um showed up and it was an amazing show i mean i you know it's it all was kind of a blur and when it was over i was like i don't know like when it ended i was like i worked towards those moments for so long that when it was over and again with the affirmation and the visualization when it was over i was like oh that was cool yeah and then it just kind of goes on to

31:13Big Mo: the next thing is the thing is the same feeling oh that was cool i've got that in the bank correct thank you very much that's in my pocket no one can take that away from me no what i've said is i've

31:23Kody Mommaerts: what that show was for me is and again to put this in perspective i came in this industry and i was significantly younger than not just the other ring announcers i was the youngest person in every room I went into, talent, production, travel. I was a baby in this industry. So it was important for me to validate myself and validate what I was doing. So when I did Paul versus Tyson, numerically, probably the biggest fight in history in terms of just pure viewership. After I've done 72 ,000 live people and a hundred million people watching, there's nothing you can tell me I can do. That's what that night was important for me, is it was not only internal validation, but it was also external validation to everyone else that was watching.

32:12Kody Mommaerts: Have you met Jake Paul? Oh, yeah. What's he like? I like Jake. I think Jake is a really, really impressive guy. And I've been saying this about the Paul brothers for a while. Look, they're polarizing people. They're smart dudes. And they are hardworking people. And I've also seen that Jake is also a business owner and a promoter with MVP, who I work with also, is a promotional company. so I've also seen how he interacts with the people that are quote unquote underneath him treats him well talks to him all he's kind of a quiet guy you know but he's just I think when you're that level of fame and popularity I think it can it changes people and I think it can you know it can alter how people are emotionally I don't know how Jake was before but he's to me he strikes me as a pretty focused internalized person because he understands how much of his life is so public.

33:05Kody Mommaerts: I think that's something that people don't give. I'm not saying that you need to give credit to people like that, but when your life is that public, it can rub people the wrong way.

33:15Big Mo: But that's what he does. He rubs people the wrong way, but by that, he gets the views. And by that, he gets more money into his companies. What I've always said is - He seems to me, when I look into him, sometimes I think, oh, he's a bit of a distressed soul in some areas. By the same time, I see this unbelievable promoter who gets attention and he can also fight. Yeah. That's the funny thing. When everyone, when he first started fighting, everyone's like, well, that YouTuber, Jake Paul, he's banging people out. He can fight. I wouldn't want to go, I wouldn't want to go and have a terrible, it's like there's people

33:46Kody Mommaerts: who think twice, I think. When I see, when I see Jake and Logan, I see two guys that just took over the world. Yeah. Two brothers that just did it all. And I respect that. And the thing is too, with boxing, and this is something that I don't think people talk about jig enough for boxing is remarkably fractionalized it is a mess boxing everyone says it's the wild west there's no league format there's no setup like there is with every other sport same broadcaster same venues it's it's everywhere and i like that because when it comes together it's the biggest thing in the world when it comes together you get 100 million people watching a fight it's crazy it's unbelievable but what that means is is that the stakeholders that are in the industry whether you're a fighter, promoter, talent, ring announcer, media, whatever.

34:32Kody Mommaerts: Ultimately, you have to then give what you can to the industry and the sport to help build it because it's relying upon itself. When you take someone like Jake Paul, he does more for the sport than a lot of people do. He built his own promotional company that now has like 35 fighters signed and X amount of employees that come from it. All of the fighters that fight on his car probably has the biggest purse they've ever made before. I'm guessing. I don't know. So when you look at what Jake does, it's not like Jake is just doing these fights and running away from the sport. He also builds gyms for underprivileged people all over the world.

35:08Kody Mommaerts: So he's helping the community of boxing. He's reinvesting in the sport and he's signing fighters and giving them a platform. What can you be mad about in the sport of boxing? It's those types of people that help the sport of boxing. When you look at the sport of boxing, there are certain people that move the needle more you look at people like in this country aj yeah aj is an industry aj brings so much more with him than just a pair of gloves he's just getting the ring of fight he brings everything with him that creates opportunities for every single person that follows that parade it's the same concept

35:44Big Mo: yeah mike tyson yes tell me about mike oh i've seen your experience with mike i met mike in vegas so my i don't know about 10 years ago and he was just had that menacing look because he's not very big yeah as we know yeah and for you he's probably he's probably really small isn't he but he's just

36:03Kody Mommaerts: got you know the eyes that menacing look of yeah what i've said is i believe a lot in energy with people um i think it's when i meet people i can you know i think i have a decent read on it that dude's energy is great like people talk about the term aura today a ura someone's aura you felt it when he walked in the room like i had limited interaction with him because of the nature of my job and things like that but i remember when he showed up for the weigh-in and he slapped jake i saw security not sure what to do so think about this so he gets so he gets up there at this point the fight's already big.

36:46Kody Mommaerts: Yeah. So it progressed very well because first a lot, they thought a lot of people were going to watch it. Then they put out the documentary on Netflix. That goes to like number one in the world. Now Netflix is expecting big, big viewership. Then we show up for the weigh-ins and we have no idea how Mike is going to look, how he's going to, anything. Mike shows up, ripped to shreds for someone his age, which was crazy. 60 years old. 60. Slaps Jake in the face. And I see seven, eight security guards, probably average in 6 '4", 280. Not sure what to do. Because usually they'd grab the fighter, they'd restrain him.

37:23Kody Mommaerts: But it's Mike, man. It's like 44 knockouts, 22 in the first round. And that was before he then went to prison and became that also whatever, however that changed him. So it was interesting watching a bunch of security go, do we put our hands on him? And then I heard his manager go, just let him calm down, let him calm down. Like it's that dude's energy is what I've always said is there's been guys in human history that were just bred to be a warrior. Fighter, warrior, you know, different cultures around the world. Right. He is one of those people. He is one of those people that, in my opinion, was put on this planet to be a warrior.

38:05Kody Mommaerts: And he just was done it in a time period where it was done for sport. I think if Mike Tyson was born hundreds of years ago, he would have been wearing armor and holding the sword and been on the front lines of the battlefield. He's just that type of character. It was cool, man. It was an honor to introduce him, to give him the introduction that I did, which was very well received, and he deserved it. I love that fight because it gave Mike, it was almost the victory lap for Mike that he didn't get. I remember because his last like pro fight, he kind of like quit on his stool and didn't answer the bell.

38:41Kody Mommaerts: It was just kind of a fight. I saw 72 ,000 people stand up and give this dude like standing ovation, ring walk. Like that was, in my opinion, people have varying views on the fight. fight was successful, fight was big, mega, blah, blah, blah. It was all great. The undercar was great. Taylor Serrano was a classic. Like there were so many - Unbelievable fights. I agree. And we'll talk about that. There were so many good things with that night, but in my opinion, the highlight of that night was watching mixed generations show up for a guy that had a pretty chaotic end of his life, made some mistakes, had some terrible things happen to him his daughter died like just horrible stuff happened in his life he got to go out a rock star you know and and i thought that was really cool i didn't like i loved everything

39:33Big Mo: about it and as a boxing fan when i saw it i was like oh oh i'm not sure if i like this or not i'm not too sure jake paul can bang people then i saw tyson training i saw him training on social media I was like, Jesus Christ. But it's very different to be training fit than match fit in any sport. So different. Whether you're playing rugby, whether you're doing American football, whatever you do, it's so different. Yeah. And the difference of him going to the ring, and respect to Jake, I've got to say, that last round when he didn't want to finish him off. Yeah. That, he got loads more respect from me, Jake Paul, when I saw that happen.

40:08Big Mo: Right. But then I just felt a bit flat for Mike afterwards. It was like, ah. But he got$20 million for it. Yeah. So he's fair play to him.

40:17Kody Mommaerts: And I think it also, look, it extends way past the ring. It also gave Mike a platform to show millions of people maybe who didn't know what he was or who he was. In my opinion, the moment of that entire week, I wasn't even there for this. I saw a clip of it, but it was during the open workouts. And the interviewer, Sibley, asked Mike, like, why are you doing this, blah, blah, blah. And his last thing that he said was, my kids don't know who I am. But he goes, but I'm going to be able to show them on Friday that their father is very special. Wow. Powerful. That, again, this is a guy who lost his daughter.

41:00Kody Mommaerts: This is a guy who went to prison. This is a guy who lost everything. And he was able to come back on the biggest stage in the world at 59 years old, get in shape, go through a camp. He battled an illness and an ulcer, still got in the ring, and fought in front of a sold-out Dallas Cowboys stadium on Netflix. I loved it. Unreal. I loved it. Unreal.

41:25Big Mo: On your build-up to that, when you were going into the ring, all rehearsed? No. Give an example. Tell me what you said when you brought Mike Tyson into the ring. Can you remember?

41:40Kody Mommaerts: Well, when I brought him into the ring, I said, Welcome home, Mike Tyson. Um, and then in the ring, I did his introduction and I closed it with, uh, he was, he is, and he will forever be the baddest man on this planet. And that's when, I mean, that's crowd freaked out at that point. It was actually a cool story. I, uh, exit the ring after that introduction and I sit down at ringside and I get a tap on my shoulder and it's Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys. And he goes, that is the best ring introduction I've ever heard. I've been watching boxing for a long time. He goes, thank you for being here.

42:16And I was like, thanks for having me here.

42:20Kody Mommaerts: Nice building that you built. Tell me your introduction to Jake Paul. It was introducing, it was like get through his basic information where he's from introducing the fighter, promoter, content creator, philanthropist. And then there's like a couple of things. It's hard to introduce someone like Jake because what do you introduce him for? He's an anomaly. I can't think of a boxer that was famous before he started boxing. That dude was one of the most famous people in the world. And then he started boxing. So you had to kind of, you had to amalgamate a lot of things together and combine some stuff together.

42:57Kody Mommaerts: But that whole moment was amazing.

42:59Big Mo: So your lead up to that, you're building up together. into the ring to say that once you've done that bit are you done uh until the winner that was

43:08Kody Mommaerts: decided obviously and then go back into the ring yeah and announce the winner and announce the winner yeah and that's that's a whole different amount of pressure because you obviously never want to make mistakes knock on wood never have don't plan on it but in that moment it's it's a lot because i'm handed a sheet of paper off the cuff that reads out that reads off the winner off the cuff, no rehearse, and who I announce, there's a lot of snowball effect of who wins this fight. So everyone's sitting, like the amount of promoters that try to look over my shoulder and I'm like, hey, you know, I'm looking at, I'm talking to the commissions table and everyone's trying to get a look and everyone's trying to see what's going on.

43:44Kody Mommaerts: So it's crazy when that happens because it's really the climax of the event is the fight, but really the climax, if it's a close fight is, all right, well, who won? And then it all kind of leads up to that moment. And obviously you want to get that correct also. so have you got a relationship with eddie hearn never met him never met him no i know his dad barry hearn no i'm still new to all this i ever met a lot actually no no i take that back i take that back i'm wrong i've met eddie briefly uh in the ring for both uh of the taylor serrano fights okay so i met him in the ring for taylor serrano two on my tyson card and then also when taylor did their trilogy at mass and square garden so briefly Serrano Yeah

44:25Big Mo: Katie Taylor Sick My god Sick My god I would pay 30 quid Yeah Pay per view to watch that Yeah The reason why I think that fight is so amazing is Two women fighting, beating Living bells out of each other

44:40Kody Mommaerts: There's a big push for women's sport When everything is moving all at once

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45:47Kody Mommaerts: What's in this world? I love that. I think it's a good thing that's happening. But what's interesting is boxing with women has always led the charge with that. When you look at boxing with women, when you talk about people like Katie Taylor, Amanda Serrano, Shields vs. Marshall, those were both sellout shows at the O2 in Madison Square Garden on an all-women's card. First Shields-Marshall was on Sky and ESPN, and then Taylor Serrano was on Netflix. record pay for all of them so what's interesting is with this giant push for women's sports no one's talking about boxing yeah and boxing arguably is the most male dominated sport because it's fighting you you would naturally think that mostly men would do it so the reason why katie taylor manis serrano was so incredible is for three straight fights but really the last two they generated i think 50 million people watch the second one and i think that the third on netflix i can't remember it was north of 10 yeah so record pay they both made millions like when you talk about women's sports boxing leads the charge agree so so that one there you said madison square

46:58Big Mo: what's the capacity there roughly 20 20 odd okay usually and they packed it out oh yeah it wasn't an undercard it was the main fight they packed out 20 where else in the world could you do that with women's boxing you couldn't where else can you do that with women's sports yeah you couldn't that's why boxing mind you england rugby the other week had 70 odd thousand people at twig okay all right phenomenal yeah like you would have rolled back five six seven eight nine years you'd be like oh it's gonna get 20 or thousand yeah i'm real it's entertaining women's sport is has grown the quickest i've ever seen it's gone voom yeah the standard of rugby the standard of football the standard of boxing even when we were at the bkb bare knuckle boxing it was women that was brutal by the way women bare knuckle fighters are a different breed my god that is a different breed i remember coming in and and i think the second or third fight i was like i can't remember the names now yeah um i was like jesus christ they have they are living they're like smashing each other to bits yeah with no gloves yeah no 12 ounce no eight

48:09Kody Mommaerts: and whatever just bare knuckle look for five rounds yeah again like i said earlier boxing doesn't just compete against boxing boxing competes against any other thing that someone can choose to watch it just comes down to whether or not it's entertaining yeah if it is entertaining people will watch it and people will invest their money in it. Taylor Serrano is the perfect, perfect measure for that concept. You have two people, neither of them are American. Serrano's Puerto Rican. Kenny Taylor's Irish. They can go to America with smaller fan bases behind him, just population wise, but they put on a show and they sell out.

48:54Kody Mommaerts: They have diehard rabbit fans that they give a lot of love and appreciation to and they scrap. People will watch. It's that simple. It doesn't matter if it's men or women or whoever's doing it. If it's entertaining, people are going to watch. That's it. He's Don King around still. Yeah, I think he's still bouncing around a little bit. I don't know entirely how much he's doing.

49:18Big Mo: He's got to be in his 90s, surely, isn't he?

49:20Kody Mommaerts: Yeah, I don't. my only interaction with Don King was fictional Don King when I was in the Mike Tyson TV show on Hulu, but that's about it. So what were you doing there? Oh, the Mike Tyson show. Yes. That was a funny story. Um, so again, this is before, before a lot of my ring announcing stuff kind of took off. Uh, but I remember I was at a party in Los Angeles, like a, just a friend's like backyard barbecue type thing. And I ended up meeting a script writer, a screenwriter. Uh, he's actually, Margot Robbie's screenwriting partner. His name is Steven Rogers. He wrote I, Tonya, which was a big movie for Margot Robbie about Tonya Harding.

49:59Kody Mommaerts: And he was telling me about, you know, he was working on some boxing thing. I was like, oh, that sounds kind of cool. And then just time passed and things like that. And I have an acting friend who lives in Georgia and he sent me a casting call for a ring announcer. And I was like, all right, well, sure, why not? I'd love to be on the show. I mean, it's for Mike Tyson. They wouldn't give the details of the show, but they said it was a TV show about Mike Tyson. So I said, yeah, I'll audition. I start reading the background information. I go, I know that screenwriter. Turns out it was the exact same screenwriter.

50:29Kody Mommaerts: So I reached out to him, auditioned. They all liked it, obviously. I thought I was cast as Michael Buffer, truthfully, but I was actually more of like a side radio type of presenter. But I had a full monologue and everything, showed up to shoot Hulu, Disney production, etc. The director was a guy named Director X, who's actually directed a lot of Drake's music videos, a really polished director, sat down, did my lines. I remember I almost, I think I did a one take, and then everyone there was like, have you done this before? And I'm like, actually, kind of, yeah, I have done this a little bit.

51:05Kody Mommaerts: So really, my first time introducing Mike Tyson was for this TV show, this fake TV show. So it was kind of an interesting why i did it on the tv show and then years later i actually got to do it in real life so unfortunately my scene got cut but it got cut i got it though i got it when you edit here

51:23Big Mo: thanks for honesty tell me about uh chris eubank fights the ones you've done with chris eubank yeah

51:27Kody Mommaerts: smith yeah so i did uh i did both uh eubank smith fights at the aorena in manchester both sky sports pay-per-view uh big big fights love both guys love liam and chris i think they're both good dudes those were again when you look at you know highlights in my career those were important because those were the first pay-per-views i ever did and pay-per-view is a different it's slightly different because a lot of it is determined on well how many people actually buy the pay-per-view you know so there's a direct revenue line item that's attached to it versus just your traditional show that a broadcaster may pay for so but i love them how does that affect you it doesn't it doesn't no again i do my job the same way but the whole concept of a pay-per-view is the whole show is in theory bigger.

52:13Kody Mommaerts: There's a lot more stuff to it. There's more, you know, performative things. They may have someone that walks out with them and that kind of stuff. But incredible, incredible night. Liam won the first one. Chris came back and won the second one. Some of the best atmospheres I've ever experienced because of the amount of Scousers and Liverpool guys that came down from Liam. And that was at a time where, you know, Chris was the bad guy. So not everyone loved Chris. I think Chris has gained a lot of public love, which I love to see because I think Chris is a stand-up guy. So it's cool. Those were two really cool nights for me.

52:42Kody Mommaerts: Did you watch the Chris Eubank-Connor Benn fight? Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Special. Loved it. Loved it. Thought it was really, really cool. I thought it all just came together how you want to. And again, with boxing, like I've said, the show is not just as important as the fight, but it's a critical compliment. When people look back on that night, they look at the show. They talk about seniors showing up. They talk about how the dads were there. they talk about the ring walks that's a lot of what the end of the fight obviously was incredible also so it all again every box was ticked when boxing comes together whenever when all these different pieces and all these fractionalized pieces come together and it works you have something like that which in my opinion is an amazing night it was interesting that you did

53:24Big Mo: the mike tyson jake paul fight 15th of november 2024 yeah which is pretty much a year ago today oh well it is yeah yeah yeah yeah the conor ben chris eubank two is on the same dates 15th of november yeah the second one who do you think will win that fight um i would lean towards chris

53:51Kody Mommaerts: he won the first one so i think it's safe to say he's probably the favorite for the second one but the problem is is when you get a little bit longer in the tooth which chris is getting there you know every single fight kind of changes you and every single weight cut kind of changes you and chris obviously had some stipulations with his weight and things like that to make the fight you know even or whatever uh so you never know i think connor came out very excitable which was i mean obviously it's the biggest fight of his career chris had it was the biggest fight of Chris's career too, but Chris had done those bigger, bigger fights.

54:26Kody Mommaerts: Conor hadn't yet. Conor's much younger. So I do think Conor's going to come into this a lot calmer, I would guess, and probably a lot more focused. But then at the same time, Chris is back with Bomek, which I know that he trains well with Bomek. Bomek had to miss the last fight because he was doing stuff with Crawford, I'm pretty sure, so that was kind of a tricky thing. So I think it's, in my opinion, it should deliver as well as the first one. You obviously don't know until we get there. I would say Chris is probably the slight favorite just because he won the first one. But again, I try to stay kind of in the middle.

55:02Big Mo: Who's doing the ringside for that fight?

55:06Kody Mommaerts: That's Riyadh's season. I'm assuming that would be Buffer. Yeah, Buffer does the main events for those. So Buffer's a legend.

55:13Big Mo: Tell me what you've got in the pipeline coming up.

55:16Kody Mommaerts: Yeah, so I work for a few great shows. obviously I work for boxer I also work for MVP which is Jake Paul's show do some bare knuckle I like announcing I like announcing good fights and big fights whether it's a one off or whether it's a long term deal with a broadcast or whatever I like doing what I do I like entertaining people so regardless of the fight that gives me that opportunity I'm excited regardless

55:41Big Mo: so when did you get involved in the bare knuckle because Joe Brown down here great lad jim mcconnell down here drove you down here today hold me down here where we're uh massive respects those two boys by the way lovely lads where did you get involved in the bare knuckle boxing was mike vasquez uh yes mike vasquez has been on the show yes and so has mike goldberg mike goldberg

56:02Kody Mommaerts: yep who's a legend yes yeah yeah so i they were the first like national show that i started working for. So they were the first ones that I started working for. Well, I did a couple of MMA shows that were decent sized. They reached out kind of in that same time period, but the bare knuckle experience of BKB was super important because that was my first time working with like a real solidified production and broadcast to where I got to work with people like Mike Goldberg, like Pauly Malignaggi, like Claudia Trejos and Benny Ricardo, very, very established media personalities. That was the first time that I got to really see how a quality show is assembled because I never really experienced that before.

56:50Kody Mommaerts: Um, and they also treated me like their equals too, which was, uh, that really meant a lot to me because at the time I dealt with a lot of pushed out in the industry. People didn't like what I was doing. People didn't like that. I was significantly younger. I remember I once was in a, a production meeting for a show and I raised my hand in the production man. I go, hey, what do we think about maybe starting the show like this, blah, blah. And I got cut off by another member of Talon. He goes, we don't do that. But you...

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58:53Kody Mommaerts: I don't know that yet. And I was like, oh, okay. I understand the energy now. And I also understand that a lot of people are competing for these jobs, specifically with the ring announcer, only one person gets the job. It's a very independent and individualistic role. And I just, I knew that I was going to run into that BS. Not every single person in the industry has been super welcoming to me, which is whatever, I'll make my way regardless. But the reason why I appreciate working with BKB is all those people treated me as their equal, opposed to this kid that they were trying to help along. that was important for my development because it got me solidified and comfortable into being around

59:35Big Mo: other quality members of town that also were proper people yes well mike vaskett is a proper businessman entrepreneur very successful correct are you doing all the bkb fights in the u.s there's eight there and eight and eight in the uk yeah are the venues better in the u.s than the uk

59:53Kody Mommaerts: i mean it just depends on the show i mean venues are venues are venues to certain i disagree

1:00:00Big Mo: within reason obviously you know i think having a good venue is the key for a to help a really good show for the experience on the day i agree i think for the the cameras it doesn't matter where you are as the camera homes in on the on the uh the trigon yeah i think the most the most

1:00:18Kody Mommaerts: important in my opinion is the atmosphere that the crowd presents you can't beat the british crowds cam no i love the british crowds are i love it i'm a big fan of how you guys treat sports here and how passionate you are in my opinion that's number one you give me a great crowd in a parking lot versus a terrible crowd that's a quarter sold in the o2 i'll take the packed out crowd in the parking lot after that you start to think about okay well after we have that great crowd. Where are they? How does the venue look? Does it have the type of amenities that we want? Again, like this is all the stuff that comes into the play of, of these fight promotions.

1:00:56Kody Mommaerts: What I've always said is every single fight base might as well be its own business because you focus on marketing that fight, doing as big on that fight, getting as big as you can to generate as much revenue as you can to then hopefully then build onto the next fight. So every single one is from fight to fight to fight, which is why you see if they have a hotshot prospect who loses in this fight, there's a snowball effect that comes from that. That affects the next slew of fights that they may have. So for that reason, they need to be hypercritical of, okay, well, yeah, but what is the venue setup?

1:01:28Kody Mommaerts: What is the parking setup like? What was it like in there? Did the people like it? Should we go back? Like all those questions need to be asked. Yeah, I agree.

1:01:35Big Mo: The difference, I'm a massive boxing fan. When I first went to bare knuckle boxing, I was driving there thinking, oh man, I'm looking forward to this, but this is going to be brutal. The moment I walked in, I was hooked. Yeah. I can't tell you, if no one's ever watched it or gone and watched live bare knuckle boxing and you like the fight game, go and watch bare knuckle boxing. Agreed. 90 % knockout, first round knockouts. Yep. Bang. Yep. Clean.

1:02:00Kody Mommaerts: Bare knuckle is at an interesting point because bare knuckle is still so, MMA is still early on. It's very embryonic, isn't it? Boxing's been around for, you know, 100 plus years, right? MMA's only been around 25, 30 years, right? really in terms of popularity. Bare knuckle is early, early. So it's fun being a part of something that's really at the foundational ground level and isn't even there yet. Until broadcasters get involved, until big name sponsors get involved, we're still very much in the infancy. So I think what's important is right now bare knuckle is, they have a tricky thing that they need to overcome, which is the sport can appear to be very brutal.

1:02:44Kody Mommaerts: It's very cosmetic. There's actually science around it showing that the concussive damage behind it is actually less because people don't understand this. The glove wasn't designed to protect your opponent. It was designed to protect your own hand so you keep fighting. If you throw a full speed boxing punch, even if you turn it over perfectly with bare knuckles, good shot, you break your hand. The punches are slower and without a glove. the equation for force is mass times acceleration. So not only is the acceleration lower, but the mass is also lower too. In theory, that creates a less forceful blow.

1:03:18Kody Mommaerts: What it also means is bare knuckle fighters need to be more precise with their punches. They can't just throw whatever they want because even if you graze someone with your pinky knuckle over the top of their head with a boxing glove, you'll probably be all right. You do that with a bare knuckle, good shot, you break that, right? So I think it's a lot of it is just the public embracing that, embracing that it may cosmetically be worse, but in terms of traumatic brain injuries, it might actually be less. I think that's an important piece too. So again, it's just getting the public accustomed to it, getting them involved with it.

1:03:54Kody Mommaerts: People forget what people used to say about MMA, right? Was it John McCain used to call it human cockfighting, right? Everyone thought MMA was this

1:04:02Big Mo: brutal horrible sport i will never ever be i don't know about you obviously you were saying 25 years in america but really proper pride yeah in the u in the uk when this come about you're going well you can elbow people you can do this you can get them on the floor you can strangle hold them right we were like that is brutal that's fine now yeah and you're worried and i think that big medical boxing is at that stage that mma was right 10 15 i'm not going to listen i mean

1:04:27Kody Mommaerts: if you're going to tell me that a bare knuckle punch to the face is that much worse than a shin bone to the face or a knee to the eye socket or an elbow those are stronger bones

1:04:38Big Mo: where's the business model lie right now because i look in as a promoter and in the events world i look in and go bk b fc there's bk fc bk fc sorry bare knuckle uh and you got bkb correct One's gone in with massive razzmatazz and spent an absolute fortune and split all the shares up and is losing a fortune. What is the business model in that?

1:05:03Kody Mommaerts: Look, I can't speak on how BKFC runs their business. I've never actually interacted with them. But in my opinion right now, any bare knuckle that comes about is helpful for the market. it's so early to sit here and say, well, this company has market share or this one's smaller, this one's until it's on significant broadcast media that's consistent. We're all in the same boat, which is we're trying to popularize the sport, which is why fighters bounce back and forth all the time, right? It's because wherever there's opportunities, those are going to go. In my opinion, right now, we have to get the public comfortable with what bare knuckle is, what the product of bare knuckle is.

1:05:45Kody Mommaerts: And that also means we have to shape the product how we want it to be. Okay. If we want to get people away from the brutalness of the sport, we have to commit, we have to come up with creative ways to circumvent that to where that's not just the focus of the sport. And beyond that, there also needs to build an infrastructure around the sport. How do you get into bare knuckle? Is there a farm system into bare knuckle? Because right now to a lot of people, bare knuckle just looks at, well, you go to bare knuckle after you finish your own mayor boxing career. But in actuality, there's a lot of young bare knuckle.

1:06:18Kody Mommaerts: Right. So there needs to be an infrastructure in place for the market to sustain itself. Again, it's the same concept as boxing. Boxing is, I won't call it a house of cards, but it's dependent upon itself. It's dependent upon all the stakeholders doing a good job within the sport because it's so messy. Bare knuckle is just as messy. So there needs to be, you need to take pages from what boxing did to build the foundation around boxing to support that. The same thing has to be done in bare knuckle. The UFC and MMA, kind of a unique position because they had such brand and market share that they kind of controlled everything and were able to turn it into a league through just outlasting their competition.

1:06:59Kody Mommaerts: So it's a slightly different setup. in my opinion, bare knuckle probably will follow the boxing model better than it would follow the UFC model. The UFC model is very, very hard to accomplish. I've always said this before, but there's very few sports where the casual viewer will refer to the sport as the name of the company. NASCAR is one. WWE is one. The UFC is the third. Think about all the casual people that call MMA UFC. You know how hard it is to accomplish that type of brand recognition where people call the sport your company? It's very important to do. So I don't necessarily think that bare knuckles going to hit it out of the park like MMA did.

1:07:38Kody Mommaerts: In my opinion, it's going to follow more of the boxing model. So for that reason, you got to build the infrastructure around it.

1:07:43Big Mo: Someone's got to have some very deep pockets as well. Yeah. Because no one's making money out of this. I'm looking as a promoter again. They're not making money. They're not making money, but they're looking for the future again. This is embryonic. if we're on it now and we start building this brand and start owning this brand in the future it will be worth a lot of money yes but you do need the broadcasting rights you do need the big sponsors you do need the characters in the actual uh bare knuckle boxing world to come through but it's what's interesting is like you could have five fights five wins you could have six fights and two losses but you're still an amazing bare knuckle boxer because anyone can get knocked out.

1:08:18Big Mo: Correct. And again, that's, it's, it's all, again, my, my whole background

1:08:23Kody Mommaerts: is business, studied business, all that type of stuff. You have to create demand. It doesn't just appear. Sometimes it does. If it's like a necessity for a lot of things that are a, a choice purchase or a choice attendance, which a live sporting event is either people are going to put their money into it or they're not. You have to create that demand and show them why it works. So that For example, you just gave, that's a hurdle for bare knuckle because it's counterintuitive to what the other two combat sports are. The other two combat sports are, try to stay as undefeated as you can. The UFC, I think, made people back off that a little bit because a lot of UFC fighters have 500 records and they're still some of the most entertaining fighters.

1:09:04Kody Mommaerts: In my opinion, that is where bare knuckle can copy UFC is that, hey, it's not about being undefeated. And by the way, if your career last 10 bare knuckle fights, congratulations, that's a lot of people. so again it's that type of it's that type of hurdle that's going to take these promoters to think creatively around how to get over that instead of just going oh well the fans don't really like that they're not undefeated okay we'll turn that into a marketing pitch around okay well why aren't they why is that not important are they entertaining do they still sell who did they lose to why did they lose things like that that's all important i think that i think the key to the

1:09:40Big Mo: british fighters is we need to make characters out of all not make characters but they need to become a mini brand within the sport and if we can get that right i think the bkb is really onto

1:09:51Kody Mommaerts: something i agree no again it's when you look at the stakeholders that are in the sport you're going to have people that move the needle significantly more than others those people in bare knuckle need to create themselves need to present themselves and whenever you look at the ufc because that's the most recent example that we have there were certain guys that came through that took the company to that subsequent next level. Before there was Conor McGregor, there was Jon Jones. Before there was Jon Jones, well, same time, but basically the same concept. Before Jon Jones, there was Anderson Silva.

1:10:23Kody Mommaerts: Before Anderson Silva, there was Chuck Liddell. Before Chuck Liddell, there was Randy Couture. There was always these characters and these brands that helped take the sport to the next level. I think that is where Bare Knuckle is working to. And that's also why Bare Knuckle needs to be patient. You can't, this is more of a sociological, economical perspective. you can't just force the public to adopt what you do. You can't do that. There's an adoption process that needs to come in. And that adoption only comes from repeat exposure to what you're doing. And hopefully it's a good exposure every single time.

1:10:54Kody Mommaerts: So if you can, it might take 10 touch points to get someone to become a consistent viewer. It might take five, but the only way that we're going to get there is by doing it over time and seeing how the market reacts to the sport.

1:11:06Big Mo: I think one of the biggest touch points for me, from my experience, is going to a live bare knuckle fight. Agreed. Once you're in, you are hooked. Yes. I can't tell you the feeling I got. Yes. I think. But when I watched it on telly before I got there, I was a bit like, oh, Jesus, that is brutal. It is brutal. Right. But it felt more brutal watching on telly than it was clean knockouts.

1:11:27Kody Mommaerts: I agree. No, I think there's a massive opportunity and a massive market of people that will love bare knuckle. but it takes getting to that market. Agreed.

1:11:38Big Mo: And we need better venues in the UK. We need to be at the O2. We need to be at these places which BKB is going next year which I think is fantastic because then you can generate more celebrities coming. They can generate more social media views. You can generate more razzmatazz, more wow factor.

1:11:54Kody Mommaerts: Yeah. No, I was actually talking about that the other day. There's two schools of thought with that because on the one side you need localized fan bases because that's how you grow things on a grassroots level. But on the flip side, you have to get the attention on it first, because the smaller markets, that only brings regional and local attention. To bring national attention, you need to bring the product to where there's congestion amount of people, metropolitan amounts of people to where you can hit 20 different types of people, different backgrounds, different cultures, et cetera. And that's how you expose them to the sport.

1:12:30Kody Mommaerts: That's the only way. Because if you only go to the small towns, people in those small towns are all kind of the same, right? The reason why boxing can go to those small towns is because boxing is big enough to where they can produce ticket sellers in smaller markets, right? So for an example, I announced a lot of Callum Simpson's fights and he's in Barnsley. That's a perfect example of a boxer who built up a great local regional following. Take people like Josh Warrington. You take a lot of fighters like that. That's great. To get to that point, you have to take boxing and you have to show it to the world which boxing has are obviously already done now

1:13:03Big Mo: bare knuckle has to do also yeah yeah totally agree yeah totally it's fun though it is fun it's fun you were like listen listening to this now this is really refreshing i appreciate really refreshing no because you're you're i'm looking in now you're young yep you're 30 years old you've got a really good brain on you you've got an entrepreneur's brain you've got a good you're sharp you get it you're hungry you're gonna you're you're gonna open doors you got presence There's everything that's in place. You've had the biggest show the world's ever seen and you hosted that. The world's your oyster, I think.

1:13:35Big Mo: And the competition is really low and the eyeballs on you are ridiculously high. Yeah. So this is going to be a huge, huge win for you.

1:13:43Kody Mommaerts: I agree. Look, I want to see where I can take this career. I want to try to get into other forms of entertainment, whether that's hosting shows or being an actor or doing whatever. I just want to do that. Again, I love entertainment. I really do. I get a sense of pride and euphoria from watching people have a good time. You know, I'm that guy in the friend group that if the group is having a good time, I'm having a good time. Right. So it's the same concept, just multiplied out by a lot of people. And I also think it also fits what I'm good at. I'm very detail oriented, very OCD. I'm a perfectionist with everything.

1:14:17Kody Mommaerts: You need that to do live television because there is no cut. Can we try that again? What's my line? Like, it's all just go. and so that's been the fun part is you know i work with these producers and directors and they just say they give me a cue and yeah i just go and as long as you know i know what i'm doing then it'll

1:14:34Big Mo: turn out pretty good big mo i've really enjoyed this i appreciate that i've really enjoyed it i think a massive career ahead i think you'll see it i can see i can visualize it now you've got a massive career there's no i'm looking forward to you looking back at this chat we had down in Bournemouth in the UK in five, 10 years time. I'm living an eventful life. You are living an eventful life and that's what we all do.

1:14:56Kody Mommaerts: No, I think it's, it's fun. And I, and I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to kind of tell my story and talk about what I do. It's, it's niche obviously, and it's different, but I think it takes, there's concepts that I've tried to communicate to people with things that I've achieved in my career and certain lessons that I've been able to take. And so hopefully I've, Again, if I can carve a career out of being a boxing ring announcer, which is one of the most niche industries in the world, then there's no reason why anyone can't go do anything. If I can go become a ring announcer and do my job, which is ridiculous.

1:15:33Big Mo: For anyone out there, it's a great opportunity to become a ring announcer. There's only five out there. Get yourself in quickly. Over my dead body. You know what? When you're a maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant, you keep production lines moving and quality on track because there's no room for slowdowns. With Grainger's vast selection of high-quality motors, sensors, belts, and hard-to-find parts, you can get what you need fast and all in one place so nothing gets in the way of getting the job done. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click grainger.com, or just stop by. Grainger, for the ones who get it done.

1:16:14Kody Mommaerts: When I found out I was going to be a parent, I immediately felt a lot of anxiety and worry. So I went on to BetterHelp to try to look for a therapist to help me with that.

1:16:24Big Mo: My relationship with my family and with my boyfriend and with myself were suffering. I really needed help. I was ruminating a lot. Really getting those thoughts out to a therapist and getting feedback was just life-changing. discover what better help online therapy can do for you visit betterhelp.com today

1:16:48come on become a ringing out this is going to inspire a lot of people hey i can do that

1:16:53Big Mo: but yeah mo i thoroughly enjoyed this man i really appreciate you coming down you're such a gentleman thank you man you're a good man much i wish you all the best absolutely thanks guys hi guys i really hope you enjoyed that as much as i did can you do us a favor and leave us a review as it massively helps us grow the show. Cheers, guys.