Whenever MMA Guru started opening up to the idea of joining Ariel Helwani on his show, we knew it was a mistake.

Ariel Helwani has shown who he is over and over.

Case in point, the Dricus Du Plessis interview and hundreds of hours of footage.

But Helwani openly wondered if he would be okay with MMA Guru coming on the show and that opened the door to Guru thinking about stopping by on his tour of the United States which would culminate in his Fishing with Bryce Mitchell video.

Guru bit on the ambigous psuedo invite and now Ariel is running with it for all it’s worth, trying to leverage the moment to somehow claim victory. Here’s the tweet:

And hey @THATBOYMMAGURU: valiant effort asking all your friends to beg me to come on the show. I respect it. Sorry the dream couldn’t be realized just yet. Better luck next time.

— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) February 6, 2026

The reason Ariel latched onto this so hard is because MMA Guru dominates him in viewership so he wanted some way to one up Guru (he always has to try act like he’s somehow the winner).

And let’s not forget, Ariel has shown up in Guru’s live stream long before any talk of Guru being in studio.

Guru lost track of Rule #1: Never Trust Ariel Helwani.

There’s over a decade of evidence that cements Rule #1 over and over. To ignore that evidence is to be ignorant.

Ariel also talked about all peace and love when he pretended that he was open to Guru joining in studio.

It’s not like anyone sees this as an actual win for Ariel, but it was a colossal misstep for Guru to even entertain the idea of a collaboration with Ariel.

Guru got caught up trying to level up by taking on collaboration after collaboration and he thought he’d gain from an Ariel apperance.

Huge misstep and Mr. Weasel himself went out of his way to remind him of that.

MMA Guru is doing his best to shield Demetrius Johnson from criticism after ending the Mighty Guru Show, but DJ needs to look in the mirror before he starts pointing fingers.

He knew exactly who MMA Guru was when he brought him on.

You don’t invite someone to build a show with you without having a very clear idea of who they are and what they do. When Johnson and Guru teamed up, Guru was already well-known — and known for very specific things: MMA commentary with polarizing takes, humor, and independent thought.

Guru has always been unafraid to touch every topic:

• race
• ethnicity
• religion
• sexuality
• politics

None of this is new. Demetrius Johnson knew what he was signing up for. Now that Guru is still Guru, all these episodes later, and the content isn’t as “mainstream” as DJ apparently hoped, suddenly it’s a problem.

Guru genuinely likes DJ, so he’s absorbing all the blame. But the truth is simple: DJ signed up for Guru, got exactly what he signed up for, and didn’t like it once it started affecting his pocketbook.

Pretty rich of DJ to ask Guru to tone it down from an 11 to a 2.

You got exactly what you bargained for.

And as for the people acting shocked that DJ “platformed” Guru — let’s be real. DJ had slightly higher view counts per video at the time, sure, but Guru was already a significant player with his own platform and a growing empire.

That’s why DJ partnered with MMA Guru in the first place.

DJ was in it for the money. He knew exactly who Guru was, and he liked what he saw — right up until the backlash came bundled with the views.

MMA Guru appeared on Tim Welch’s podcast on Friday (he’s been a featured guest AT LEAST once previously) and the reaction was tepid. We’re nearly two days later and this one has only tallied 89,000 views.

What’s surprising is that 11 months ago, a Tim-Guru show pulled 281,000 views.

Currently sitting at 222,000 subscribers, Welch’s podcast usually comes in fairly light at 10,000 – 20,000 views for most videos. He’s had a few spikes including his quick video on Raja Jackson which has hit 126,000, but overall it’s not a podcast that is running wild.

That said, Tim asked Guru some really good questions that nobody asks. Maybe the video was cooled off by a Friday afternoon post. This one will slink past 6-figures, but for a Guru feature, we’d expect 200,000+.

Tim Welch is the coach of Sean O’Malley.

MMA Guru just dismantled Rampage Jackson (again). For some reason Rampage has chosen the worst time to be a Kick ambassador (best time for Kick) and has streamed continually and increasingly stupid takes.

Even Ariel, who for the first time in his life wasn’t trying to be a weasel, got him on fundamental logic about not talking to his son.

Rampage is doubling and tripling and quadrupling down on there being some kind of ray of hope for his Raja escaping culpability for his egregious actions and there’s nothing. It was all streamed. There’s no doubt.

The 1/8 filled beer can head crush doesn’t equal teeing off on someone who is unconcious. Had Raja left it at just the power slam, he’s a viral sensation and probably comes away with cool points (like his dad, got revenge, etc., etc.).

But, no, he was going to continue to hit a guy who was clearly done. And it wasn’t even a fight, he got picked him up as part of a wrestling choreograph and the guy was knocked out from the slam.

When you keep doubling down on something that’s fundamentally flawed, no matter how many times you go back, it’s never going to get better.

But Rampage is and for some reason he’s streaming every second of it, including on his bowling alley dates.

Chael Sonnen is getting destroyed on YouTube. People are clicking on his videos, but they’re not watching them. They’re just forcing him to deal with his reprehensible take on the Raja Jackson disgusting display.

Chael thought he’d be super cool and “take the heat” by being the contrarian badass, defend his friend, and actually get views on his dead channel in the process. Instead, he’s become a pariah in the MMA YouTube community and his already dying channel (he doesn’t actually say anything in 65% of his videos) will become even more irrelevant.

He was soooo lucky to get that happenstance invite to CJI2. As we wrote about, this was a desparately needed distraction that broke the string of YouTube comments berating him.

But there’s still a strong force of commenters who will not let this go. Hopefully the onslaught continues.

Craig, the only reason you’re meeting so much conflict is because you’re close to breaking through.

We know you’re going away for awhile, but, when you get back, keep reshaping BJJ if it’s what you really want.

The UFC has thrown a roadblock, but that’s all it is.

Craig Jones first had to deal with Gable Stevenson’s rug pull (possibly UFC assisted) and then he let on that Chael Sonnen demanded a court jester’s ransom to show up and lose twice in 30 seconds at the last minute.

Gabi Garcia was drunk. The BJJ matches were so sluggish the co-promoter had to offer $50k bonuses for submissions.

We might see Craig again for awhile.

Craig Jones has the ability to take a nice slice of the MMA viewership pie and the UFC obviously hates him for it. Can one man take on the biggest operation in MMA?

Probably.

Also, what’s obnoxious is the UFC acting like this while also putting on horrible, pathetic cards. Why not do something with the lead, jackasses.

It’s been rough times for the sunflower from West Linn. He defended Raja Jackson attempting to murder a pro wrestler who had no idea Raja would pick him up to power slam him unconscious. Then he doubled down on his defense with a second video.

YouTube commenters have since cancelled Cousin Chael. But amidst a flurry of MMA videos nobody cared about (where commenters poured on reminders of how defeated Chael was), Chael got a lucky lifeline: Gable Stevenson pulled out and he got called in as a replacement opponent for Craig Jones at CJI2.

Of course, Chael lost miserably (twice), getting choked unconcious by the same “buggy” choke from Jones.

But it doesn’t matter, the event marked a huge break in the YouTube – Raja Jackson comment chain.

The UFC has an MMA Guru problem. MMA Guru is now bigger than many UFC fighters. What’s ironic is one time Sean O’Malley said he didn’t know if he should give Guru a platform and now Guru is the bigger star.

Is Guru bigger than Conor McGregor at this point? Probably. MMA Guru is the MMA media. There are certain current UFC stars who are bigger draws, but not many. Don’t believe me — go look at the numbers.

There are a litter of MMA stars on YouTube and none of them are drawing like Guru. For that matter, neither is the UFC. It won’t be long before Guru hits even bigger on mainstream.