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.