Why Isn't There Tickling in MMA? An Investigation

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So I think we got to do a draft of these.

I think we begin Dave Fleming this episode, and thank you for joining us again.

We need to draft the official rules of MMA, which I had never read before until you came to us with this list.

per the UFC website of things that are not allowed at MMA.

So you're the guest.

You may have the first pick.

Oh, thank you.

I know exactly where I'm going.

I'm going all the way down to intentionally placing a finger into any orifice or any cut or laceration of an opponent.

Well, with the number two overall pick, I'm taking fish hooking, which is the act of inserting a finger or fingers or one or both hands into the mouth or nostrils of a person, pulling away from the center line of the body.

Hair pulling is really next for me.

Oh, yeah.

Bear.

I cannot believe you left me.

Groin attacks of any kind with my second pick.

God, this is going just like my fantasy football draft.

Okay.

Three stooges, eye gouging of any kind.

Throat strikes of any kind and or grabbing the trachea.

Let's see.

Holding opponents' gloves or shorts.

Damn it.

That's like drafting a quarterback in the first round.

Ooh.

I know where you're going.

Ooh.

I know it.

Don't do it.

Don't steal it from me.

Small joint manipulation.

Exactly.

Because there's so much, that's so open for interpretation.

Small joints.

Just the small joints.

And what constitutes, I don't want to know, small joint.

Or manipulation.

Obviously, clawing, pinching, or twisting of the flesh, which I think we all know what that means.

Yeah, that is the purple nurple.

Yeah.

That is a steal.

With the last pick, I'm going to take fingers outstretched toward an opponent's face slash eyes.

Fantastic.

Is not allowed.

I mean, they've covered a lot here.

A lot of stuff I didn't even think of.

And I fight dirty.

You do.

You have, by the way, you are an athlete.

Yes, I was a former Division I collegiate wrestler.

If you can believe, I know.

I like how apologetic you are in revealing that you're in this athletic background,

which is why when you were assessing, when you were scouting this list of things you cannot do in mixed martial arts, a sport that I thought pretty much anything,

you know, went,

you noticed that there was something not

there.

I think it's the perfect combination for this story.

I grew up with three brothers and I was a collegiate wrestler.

And then I noticed, wait a second, the one thing that's not against the rules in MMA is tickling.

The very trauma that you clearly suffered growing up.

Yes, and I think you'll hear us refer to this often throughout this episode, but anybody who had a sibling, an older sibling, has been at some point held down and tickled until they've lost control of,

well, their bowels.

No.

Well, but you know, right?

I mean, I am both the tickly.

I am the younger brother to my older sister and the tickler, the older brother to my younger brother.

You can't breathe.

You can't control yourself.

I am the problem that I have raged against.

But there is a sense of, okay, so as somebody who's got a wrestling background and you're thinking about rendering your opponent sort of like paralyzed or overwhelmed.

I didn't think about this until you brought it up and I was like, it would work on me.

It's very visceral.

You remember back to your childhood of laughing so hard.

And it was like, well, gosh, that seems like it would be very effective in a fight inside the cage.

We should reveal that this is a conversation that we had about a year ago again that's seem that's about right for how long it takes to cook these ideas between the two of us where has dave lemming been since he went to death row and got nominated for a peabody award he's been investigating why isn't there tickling because it's clearly allowed in mma Does this mean I could,

you know, start training and kind of work my way all the way to the top of MMA as a tickler?

This is a question that I just want to make very clear.

We took as seriously as a show could take anything.

The first step is, okay, we'll go ask the experts.

We both know lots of people on a national level who cover this sport,

respected journalists.

And I have to tell you that one of the secrets of what I do is the minute I reach out to somebody like this and they get offended or they go, there's no story there you that's not even worth it or no that's you're insulting people who take this sport seriously for me it's like bingo

and the key tipping point for me in terms of like what is this episode gonna be why are we green lighting this are we just stoned right now

you must ask yourself that a lot the tipping point was the fact

that this happened.

This is a fight happening in April of last year.

It's a Bantamweight fight between Tim Fargo, the guy on top, and Mason Lewis, the guy on bottom.

Yes.

One guy's head is being thigh mastered by the other.

Correct.

It's like a reverse triangle headlock.

And whose head is between the thighs of...

That is Mason Lewis, a Bannamweight fighter from New York.

The guy who is locking his head in a vice is Tim Fargo.

Be very clear, his groin is riding the back of his neck.

Yes.

And they're both lying horizontally.

I feel like one or several elements in this, in what we're watching, should be on that list we discussed, but they're not.

And so Tim Fargo, who has trapped Mason between his thighs, Mason,

Mason's up to some stuff.

He's doing like the Gugu Gaga tickle fingers on Tim's

exposed foot.

We should mention too.

Yes, look at how red his face is.

So he's stuck here oh the blood rushing to mason lewis's face yeah and so mason first he gives a thumbs up he's like i'm not being choked out i'm this is not the end of the fight i'm still alive don't call this yet he tries to punch which i think any mma fighter would do and then

and then goes back for a second one he's tickling the ivories He's very intentional and purposeful about it.

But then.

Wait, did you see that?

Okay, in all this reporting, I didn't notice Tim.

Did you see see him laugh?

He starts, he's like, what the

is going on right now?

I'm filming this because I can't be more obsessed with the fact that rage in the cage 24 is being settled by tickle.

But the point being that Mason Lewis, the tickler,

what happens at the end of this fight?

He gets out of that leg vice around his head because of the tickling, gets out of it, and actually wins the fight on decision.

So, Tim Vargo, the dickly, upset by Mason Lewis, the tickler, and you, Dave Fleming, are pointing to the tickle as the reason why.

And the sort of proof that this theory needs to be looked into.

So we should be clear also that like when this happened, much to the chagrin of all the MMA journalists and experts and fighters that would have talked to us about this, the internet did seem to notice.

What you may have noticed is that the

that's the universal language of tickling.

Exactly.

We know know what's up.

The world knows what's up.

But for some reason, this sport

doesn't want to talk about it.

And so, that's what I basically spent the last year of my life doing:

investigating

where does the sport fall on something like this?

And how did Mason Lewis specifically, our tickler, come up with the idea in the first place to tickle?

Yes.

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Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratchers from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers Scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly.

Must be 18 years or older to purchase, play, or claim.

There are all of these laws in a very lawless sport, seemingly.

And those rules that we drafted, for instance, like who decides those?

Who gets to make the call on this is allowed, this is not allowed in mixed martial arts?

Yeah, the whole like throat grabbing and eye gouging and fish hooking, you can find those in the Unified Rules of MMA that were created and ratified in 2009 by something called the Association of Boxing Commissions.

Which sounds very proper and legalistic.

Yes, of course.

But if you really want to know the scoop on MMA rules, you got to go talk to Big John McCarthy.

My name's John McCarthy.

If you're going to go to MMA, they call me Big John McCarthy, but I'm too old for that anymore.

But I started off in MMA at the very beginning at UFC 1, ended up being asked to be the referee for UFC 2, and it started from there and continued on for a little over 25-year career, and it was a lot of fun.

Big John McCarthy has witnessed the best that the UFC has had to offer over his years.

This could be another one of those

that goes in the final.

So, so far, this Steven Seagal-looking giant does feel like, yes, the appropriate judge, jury, and executioner on what's legal in MMA.

Perfectly fit for this role, but he is actually the chair, the official chair of the ABC Rules and Regulations Committee, helped establish the original rules of the sport.

And he retired in 2018, still helps with the rules, but has been a part of like hundreds, if not thousands, of fights.

And something that becomes very clear is that Big John, not a fighter himself,

still has a highlight reel.

Put yourself up, get ready to face me.

Knock it off.

John, that was Wayne Lane.

I've got to art to disqualify.

Knock it off.

Well, will you please drop the chair?

Oh, you bet I will.

Knock it off.

I will.

I'm done.

You're done.

That's it.

So I asked this guy what he would say to someone like me who thinks tickling should be used more often as an offensive tactic.

You're full of crap.

It's been this whole thing for years within the sport because it's tickling allowed.

You're not allowed to

pinch at or to grab the flesh in a way where you're trying to actually create a pain, twist the flesh or things like that.

It was asked, you know, during when we were setting out the rules, what do you think about ticklings?

Who cares?

Let me tell you something.

If you want to tickle me while I'm punching the out of you in the face, go ahead and try.

So, I'm the big board of people, I would not want to try in purple nurple.

I think Big John does go number one overall, but his philosophy or his worldview on this seems to be, what, that he doesn't think it's possible for a fighter to be tickled or, or that if you're hurt, if you're feeling pain from getting decked in the face over and over again it doesn't matter you can't even feel the the

it's even feel that it's all that and it's so dismissive of the concept that he was like we don't even need to put it in the rule book because it would be so stupid but exhibit a your honor is mason lewis versus tim fargo and so what does big john say to that i know i know the exact fight that you're talking about because i had a lot of people sit there say is this legal yeah it's legal absolutely legal is that why the person got out?

No, it's not why the person got out.

But is he allowed to tickle while he is either putting on a submission or being put in a submission?

He can tickle.

So he thinks the tickler, Mason Lewis, was just like doing a bit, basically.

Yeah, and Big John just sort of mixed this in with all the other weird hijinks he's seen over the last 25 years inside the ring.

Randy Couture fought T-Door T's long ago back at UFC 44.

And, you know, in the

very end of the fight,

fifth round,

you know, Tito is like working for, you know, trying to, you know, hook up a leg lock, and it's not even close.

And I was refing it.

And Randy's, you know, standing over him, and he starts smacking him on the ass, you know, like he's spanking him.

And Randy was being a smart ass at the time, and that's okay.

He can do that.

That was not a tap.

That was not a tap.

That's a pat.

That's a statement.

I'm just telling you right now, I've seen people that have done it out of trying to be funny.

I've never seen tickling ever stop anything in a fight.

But this is where he's telling us to not believe our lying eyes.

Right.

And the butt tap didn't work.

The tickle seemed to.

Right.

We watched it on film.

And so it's like, we know this worked somehow.

A lot of times people will do something.

And the fighter who's applying the submission hold or any of those types of things will actually feel something and like, stop, because what was that?

And they'll actually, they lose what is going to be the finish of a fight based upon stopping just for that one to two seconds of time that it changes the pressure.

It allows the person to gain a little bit back of, you know, what they can to get them.

And all of a sudden, they're getting out of the problem.

You can call it genius.

I call it ridiculous.

Isn't that Big John agreeing that it worked?

And Big John, if you're listening to this episode, I am very respectful of you and your work.

But you're trying to have your cake and eat it too.

He's saying tickling doesn't work except when it does work, in which case it's distraction.

It's disruption.

It's not tickling as tickling that has been effective, which is unsatisfying to me.

Yeah.

I always come back to the same thing, the big brother theory, because I think everyone understands what it's like to be held down by your big brother or big sister and tickled to the point where it becomes torture and you lose control.

I mean, what does Big John think about that?

Yes, your lived experience.

Exactly.

You're saying to the world and to Big John, these pants did not pee themselves.

There's a point in every episode we do together, Phlegm, where it feels like you should be charging me tuition

because

I learned things.

I learned things I didn't learn in college, things I didn't know that anybody had ever learned.

So where do you want to start with the history and the science of tickling?

It goes all the way back and is connected to and has been referenced by people as far back as Aristotle, Socrates, even Darwin.

I feel like every episode.

Aristotle had...

Yeah,

some tickle takes.

Well, I mean, right?

He was wearing a toga and sandals, so easy access for the tickling.

But Socrates, he may have summed it up better than anyone else in the history of the world.

He says and wrote that tickling was a sensation of both pain and pleasure.

I mean, that's the definition of

that.

Honestly, kind of nails it.

But the question of why then,

what is the evolutionary reason?

There's still a ton of debate about sort of why do humans, why do humans tickle and why are we ticklish?

Yes.

And it's sort of all over the board.

It's fascinating.

There are theories that it evolved as a form of social bonding, as a way of sort of socializing infants.

Like introducing infants to human touch.

Yes, as sort of a bonding sort of ritual.

But then there's a more widely held theory that tickling is essential for survival.

This is like a or flight thing representing a form of mock battles that prepare juveniles for warfare by teaching them tactics and strategies for defending their bodies in a real fight.

But the thing I've always wondered personally is why some people are ticklish and some people are not.

I have friends who don't feel anything, it seems.

And so again, we had to go talk to an expert.

And the guy we found, Dr.

Shimpei Ishiyama, a neuroscientist at the central institute of mental health in mannheim germany is one of the world's leading experts in the science and neuroscience of tickling i've been studying ticklishness

for nearly more than 10 years and especially

in terms of neurobiological underpinnings underlying these sensations.

And I've been working on this heavy tickling, also called gargalesis.

So what he explains is there are actually two different scientific types of tickling.

The first one is nismesis, which is like a light sort of feather touch sensation that doesn't evoke laughter, but you know, sort of like that sort of like tickly skin.

And the second one is called gargalesis.

Which is a Pokemon.

Yeah, or I sounds like somebody that would do battle with Godzilla, but that's what we're talking about.

It's the sort of more vigorous version of tickling that usually results in laughter.

And gargolesis has only been observed in humans and a few other non-human primates, like chimps and orangutans and rats.

And

so rats do laugh.

when they are tickled on the trunk, but with ultrasound.

So we cannot hear.

so rats are if you convert the sound to lower frequencies you can hear rats laughing apparently it sounds like birds chirping so you're telling me that

we have this

would this be us if i could not supply the video

so here's the sound a rat makes if you tickle its back

The sound has been converted to a lower frequency that we humans can hear, but the source frequency is mainly 50 kilohertz.

Apparently, the rat likes being tickled.

The last time I saw a hand move like that, it was Mason Lewis on Tim Fargo's foot.

So when a person or a rat is tickled, it activates, it fires up the neurons in the somatosensory cortex.

the area of the brain that is responsible for tactile sensations, touch, temperature, pressure, and pain.

So now

we're getting somewhere.

Yeah, yeah.

Like now we've found our expert.

Because tickling, what you're talking about is an overwhelming of the nervous system.

Right.

And I'm going back to the big brother theory.

It's that, that's what we want to know.

What is the science behind that sensation of like,

I'm short-circuiting right now?

Yes, it feels like torture.

It can feel like torture.

Exactly.

And that's where tickle torture comes from.

Again, in my experience, if you catch me off guard, I can feel almost paralyzed.

That's how effective or how weak, I guess, my somatosensory cortex is.

Overlay that into an MMA fight.

Wouldn't that be really effective if you can render someone in that state through tickling?

I mean, that's like a secret weapon.

That's more than just mere distraction.

It's like a Marvel character who can render people paralyzed through tickling.

The tickler.

The tickler.

So at this point, it sounds like it's a pretty open and shut case.

Well, not really, because we can...

You just listen to the rats telling me there's more.

It gets more complicated.

It does, of course.

You know, there are still a lot of sort of unsolved mysteries around tickling, starting with the fact that I think we all understand some people are really ticklish and some people aren't.

That is true.

And scientists still don't fully know why that is.

So this raises one of the more existential questions I've ever contemplated.

Is all that why

we cannot tickle ourselves?

Kind of.

It's related to the idea that you can't tickle yourself because your brain can anticipate the sensation.

It's the sort of surprise element that is really important with tickling.

Right.

Let me, I'll read you something from a study that was released just this past May.

Each voluntary movement we we perform, our brain uses information from the motor signals to predict and suppress the self-generated sensations.

Consequently, when touching or trying to tickle our own body, the brain predicts and cancels the resulting sensations, prioritizing the process of external stimulation, such as those from our predators.

So in other words, nobody anywhere can tickle themselves.

Well, as with all of nature, there is an exception, Pablo.

And this is an extraordinary one.

There are several clinical and non-clinical

reports that self-tickling is possible.

So one is this is schizophrenia or healthy people with schizotypal trait.

Only people who can tickle themselves are schizophrenics.

and other people with disassociative disorders.

I'm now thinking about the tickling scouting combine and how there is a

there's a trait that the scouts are all looking for and it's schizophrenia which I did not anticipate finding out today.

I tried to warn you this was the rabbit hole of all rabbit holes.

It's very interesting indeed because

in most adults tickling is aversive.

It's annoying, right?

So

otherwise otherwise we would have been like a tickling each other all the time time instead of shaking hands, right?

But we don't do that.

So

we hate being tickled.

Right.

So when we grow up, especially.

And that's why it can be used as a weapon, right?

Because it can annoy the other, the opponents.

What about, okay, is it past interference if a guy goes up to catch the ball and you tickle him and he brings his arms down?

No.

Is it illegal if in soccer when you're making a wall and you want to like, you know, disrupt that in front of a free kick or something.

Right.

You know, you know, or

somebody jumps up to hit a header.

I mean, now they're fully exposed.

You get a double tickle.

Right.

They're immediately going to go fetal position.

The ball's going to sail out of bounds.

Think about the entire underwater world of water polo.

Dr.

Ishiyama even brought that up.

He was like, it would change the sport.

I have an idea.

It's a water polo.

Because water polo, you don't see, you can't see it underwater, really.

That's why they're really like

doing aggressive

fighting underwater invisibly.

But

you could tickle the other.

Your sport of wrestling.

Collegiate wrestling.

I mean, my God, how many NCA titles would I have won?

Right.

A new feeling to dropping the gloves in hockey, by the way.

Yeah.

Would be when you drop them to tickle.

You could tickle in horse racing.

You could tickle in 4x100 if you're allowed to reach over and tickle your opponent so they can't catch the baton.

I just feel like everyone else needs to catch up

to the argument that is being made on this program.

Yes, I feel like after this airs, there will be sports before this episode comes out and sports as we know it afterwards.

To the point where the strategy, the conversation will not be around tickling as offense, but obviously how to play defense against this.

Now that we've established that it can be used, that it's effective, we even found out for the next step, how do you play defense?

Against your big brother or

an opposing professional athlete in any number of venues.

Right.

In over a dozen different sports.

Yeah.

It's pretty fascinating, the science behind how you defend the tickle.

When I read your email about application to wrestling, I immediately thought, yeah, what if like a wrestler feels ticklish?

That's going to be very disturbing, very distracting, right?

Then, how could we prevent that?

Fortunately, we have an answer to that.

So, if you touch yourself, the somatosensory cortex activity goes down.

If somebody touches you, the somatosensory cortex activity goes up.

Meaning, if you apply both, it's gonna be flat because it's canceling out each other.

This is a very interesting phenomenon.

But if you know the mechanism, it's very simple.

It's just canceling out.

Dude is saying

when you're about to get tickled, what the ticklee should do is start to self-tickle.

Yeah.

We've just changed the lives of millions of little brothers, right?

Because it's like, no, no, no, bam, I'm tickling myself.

Yep.

Yep.

It's a defense.

It's kind of perfect.

It is.

I think it also proves how it...

If there's a defense, then there must be.

It's also just like the schoolyard insult school of defense.

It's like, before you call me ugly, I begin to call myself hideous.

Yes.

And therefore, I am rubber and you are glue.

It's the self-deprecation defense.

That's right.

So

now as we take this back to where we started,

what about Mason Lewis and Tim Fargo and the whole reason that we actually gathered here today?

Don't you worry, Pablo.

That's where we're going next.

Straight to Tickletown.

And we're back live during a flex alert.

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What's the game plan from here on out?

Laundry?

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What a performance by Team California.

The power truly is ours.

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So I feel like we should start with the tickle E.

Yes.

Because Tim Fargo, the guy who took the L in that match, in that that fight, how hard was he to find?

Not hard at all, in fact.

Fights out of New York.

And I was definitely not the first person to contact him about this viral incident.

Well, everyone, for like the last year, every week, people have sent it, like at least two people have sent it to me.

So I've seen like every version of it so far.

And Flem, if you are half the journalist that I know and have hired you to be, there was a very important opening question.

Oh, Pablo, I brought the Peabody heat right away in this interview.

Like, scale of one to 10.

How ticklish are you?

You think?

I don't know.

Probably

not much, like four, maybe.

So, if he's, if he's like a four on the 10-point ticklish scale,

what was going on in that video?

So, even while it was happening, I think Tim was trying to figure that out as well.

Once I noticed what he was doing, I was like kind of like look back, like, what, what's going on here?

Even if it's not like tickling you, it still mentally

kind of takes you out of it for a second, right?

You know, like,

because you're trying to figure out, you just start thinking about it instead of what you're supposed to be.

And I think that's the point.

I just feel like this is the upshot.

This thing works.

That's what Tim Fargo just told you on the record, finally.

The question then becomes: if that's how the tickly

felt, what about the tickler?

Yeah, got to go to the source.

Got to go to Mason Lewis, right?

He's the final piece of this puzzle.

And he was so hard.

Oh, he still did not make it easy.

The number of texts I sent Mason Lewis after you got stonewalled by Mason Lewis.

Oh, not just Mason Lewis, his management, his gym, the people who supply him with merch, family members.

I mean,

I went all in trying to track him down.

And the thought was, the fear was that the tickler would not want to come clean about his

most distinguishing career.

Right.

And, you know, so we sort of bought into the whole MMA hype of this was embarrassing.

This is not good for the sport.

Real men don't tickle.

Right.

He's also like a 23-year-old.

You know, he's barely a pro.

No, he's still an amateur.

Yeah.

Still an amateur.

He's only fought eight times.

Right.

Six and three is his record.

Also fights out in New York.

And so the question was, well, we have honestly just spent a year

without getting the big payoff.

Can we talk to the tickling rat expert in Germany and then not track down Mason Lewis?

And then we put all of our PTFO minds together and we realized Mason had a fight coming up in Rochester, New York.

Yes, we had to send you on

maybe the most luxurious assignment to date.

So I kept thinking, what could be a worse assignment than death row in Texas?

Well, yeah, Rochester, New York for eight hours of amateur MMA fighting in the ballroom of the luxurious Wyndham Hotel in downtown Rochester.

Thank you, Pablo.

Where dreams are made.

Not just my dreams, because they had used the ballroom the night before for somebody's wedding reception.

So,

I have been all over the world.

I've been to China.

I've been to Super Bowls, Olympics.

Yep.

And there I was in the Wyndham ballroom waiting for the tickler.

Yes.

Last night it was love.

Tonight, it's war.

All right.

I made it.

This is 15 minutes before fight time.

Welcome to the Thunder Ballroom, Dome.

It is otherwise carpeted.

Yes, there are folding chairs.

I'm not exaggerating.

Yes, think of a wedding ballroom that has a

generous points program in the lobby.

A fighting cage in the middle, surrounded by chairs.

There's a bar and a buffet and a humongous

display from the local pot dispensary out in the hallway.

Perfect.

Of course, the air conditioning is not working in the hallway, so it's an 80-degree melange of BO, dirty carpet, cannabis, and

hope.

And hope and hope.

And so I'm really glad I wanted to go.

I'd never been to an MMA fight.

I was honestly fascinated by the dispatches you were live sending me.

Yes, torturing you with.

And my curiosity got the better of me.

And then once I sort of got comfortable, the athletes themselves, regardless of sort of what level this is or what's going on there, the athletes themselves, a lot of respect for actually getting into a cage to face another human in a fight.

Yes.

And so once I got more comfortable, I was like, I'm going to pick out the toughest guy tonight and I'm going to try and tickle him or at least ask him about tickling.

And so about midway through the night, Cedric, I am not making this up, Cedric Cedric Sexual Chocolate Ortiz.

That's his government name.

His ring name.

He won his 185-pound fight in under a minute by basically just punching another human in the face until submission.

And so, of course, sexual chocolate is the guy who I decided to try to tickle.

Outside of the box, like tickling.

Have you ever heard of someone tickling?

My boy, Basie.

I still remember when he fought Tim Fargo and he had him in the triangle and started tickling his...

Yo, I was dying when I seen that dude.

Did you like it?

No, it's bro.

It's the art of war, man.

It's the art of war.

Like,

this is not just, like,

sadistic brute force, man.

It's, like, science out there, man.

It's like,

we're not just fighters.

I consider us scientists, experimentalists.

We are not regular people.

We are experimentalists.

Okay, but are you ticklish?

Like, would it work on you?

I'm not gonna lie i don't want i don't know and i don't want to find out because if somebody skates by submission for me get tickled i'm probably gonna be a little embarrassed at the same time proud because i know it's a genius tactic come on i'm gonna try it out right now

no i'm not that ticklish

thank you

dude career highlight unlocked the fact that sexual chocolate did not just actually gouge your eye out oh my god he's kind of shocking Yeah.

In fact, it was the opposite.

He sort of scurried away, I think, looking for human resources to report me.

But who knew you could go to Rochester to find what an amazing quote.

What a philosopher.

Yeah.

What a philosopher king.

What a heat check.

A journalistic heat check by

I also like how we obviously knew who you were talking about.

Yeah, so clearly they...

My boy Mace.

Yeah, and Tickler.

Right.

Exactly.

And just the fighters themselves could, could not have been better to talk about.

Without being too grandiose, it's like, this is what most sports is actually like.

Right.

That's a great point.

The true alphas, and I learned this lesson over and over again.

The true alphas are the ones that are totally cool to talk about anything having to do with their sport.

It's guys like this who, the minute the final bell rings, they hug each other and they're done being combatants.

And they're generally great guys who are are very approachable.

And he, I mean, it was funny the way he said it, but they are thinkers.

They're trying to figure out different angles and new ways to approach their craft.

Yeah.

And much like a German lab rat,

they will let you tickle them.

It did sound a little bit like bird chirping.

He kind of did kind of go like that.

It's like, so

where, where is Mason Lewis?

In the ballroom, where it happens.

In his opponent,

with a record

He is Mason

Louis.

Our boy Mason, Sexual Chocolate refers to him.

He was the co-main event.

So I had to sit through

almost 20 other fights before we got to Mason coming into the ring.

And as a courtesy, I didn't want to approach him until after the fight.

Again, like it was, it was like approaching like a snow leopard almost.

Like you didn't want to scare him off.

He's a rare creature to encounter just in the wild.

Right.

Cause, and we weren't sure what his reaction was going to be.

We weren't sure if he was going to.

No, he'd been evading both of us.

Right.

For a long time.

And so, yeah, I gave him the courtesy of waiting until after the fight, and I didn't have to wait very long.

Even into round number one by Rear Naked Choke, and new

FCP, Benton Lade Champion,

Mason.

Mason basically in the first minute of his fight, wins his first amateur belt with a chokeout referee tap out in one minute exactly.

And I think exerted more energy jumping on top of the cage than he did winning this fight.

Which means that amid the crush of post-game press

enters Dave Fleming, PTFO correspondent.

And then came the moment in Rochester where I, instead of hating you, I understood your genius because getting in front of Mason Lewis, getting him to talk,

he couldn't have been more sort of thoughtful, more sort of introspective, more, he couldn't have been more open about why he tickled, how it worked,

all those questions we had been searching the world for a year to answer, he was more than happy to open up.

So I'm very conscious in the cage.

A lot of people just disassociate and they leave almost their mind, I want to say.

I do a lot of meditation.

I do at least an hour of meditation a day and I do journaling.

I journal my entire life, how I want to perform each day at practice, how I want to sleep, how I want to eat, how I want to feel mentally.

And I do a lot of journaling and meditating.

And I feel like that allows me to be conscious in every moment of my life.

When I was 23, I was not sounding like that.

Yeah,

that really caught me off guard.

Dear Diary, today

I scandalized the world of mixed martial arts by tickling my opponent's foot and upsetting him in a viral bout.

In the cage, last year i distinctly remember i don't know why but i thought that he got me in that lock in that uh reverse triangle it's called right and it wasn't choking me because he was choking he was he had the lock on the wrong side and i couldn't break the lock with one hand and i knew people are ticklish people let go so i figured if i tickled his foot he might let go

and he did let go yes so there's our proof oh my god it couldn't have he couldn't have been more premeditated intentional right he just absolutely thought about it, went for it, and then felt for himself, because he's the one with that guy's legs wrapped around his neck, that tickling is effective.

He's like, I got a couple moves here.

I'm going to go with the tickle.

Yeah.

And I do kind of love the theatrics of it too.

And he mentions this about the sort of the showmanship.

We were in a boring position.

Let's make it fun because he did do the doink, doink, doink.

I mean, yeah, he was very intentional.

And so the question

is,

is he at all ashamed?

Like, what does this mean for Mason Lewis's future?

Or more importantly,

would you tickle again?

100%.

Okay.

If that's what it takes.

If that's what it takes.

Yep.

And that is when my content cortex

started feeling like Don King.

Oh, yeah.

We instantly went into matchmaking mode and was like, oh, we need to make this happen.

Can I confirm at some point in the future, you're down for Tickle Fight 2?

I'm down for Tickle

2.

Yes, of course.

And I just want to put this out there that I do,

I love watching Tim fight.

I think he's a great fighter, too.

Oh, but there's a key difference to Tickle Fight 2.

This time, right, Tim Fargo has his own secret weapon.

He is apparently...

willing to do whatever it takes.

Would you use that if you had to?

I should do that if I can get him in a situation.

If I can get him in a tickling position, then I would.

If I could get him locked up.

I would rather tickle someone and win than lose.

But there is an issue here.

And this will really affect the betting lines for Tickle Fight 2.

Mason Lewis doesn't just have one big brother.

He's got three older stepbrothers and two older sisters.

Mason Lewis is the youngest of six.

Are you ticklish?

Like, where'd you get the idea?

Very ticklish.

Oh my gosh, you could tickle me to death.

Okay, yeah.

Okay.

So wait, what if someone does it to you?

Then I'm screwed.

It feels preordained in retrospect that the story would always end with the tickler

becoming the tickly.

Oh, see, this is great.

You're already working on social media lines for the fight.

Yeah, the fight poster.

Which is great, Pablo, because I already measured out in the conference room.

We could fit a cage in there.

I've already measured it.

We might have to move like the coffee machine and stuff like that, but we can fit a cage in there.

We don't have an HR department, so that's totally fine.

Also, yes, we're all good.

TF2 is like off and running.

It's going to be amazing.

PTFO TF2,

fully legal.

PTFO

TF2.

This one's for the little brothers.

Where the last sound that you hear is

This has been Pablo Torre finds out a Metalark Media production

and I'll talk to you next time.

And we're back live during a flex alert.

Oh, we're pre-cooling before 4 p.m., folks.

And that's the end of the third.

Time to set it back to 78 from 4 to 9 p.m.

What a performance by Team California.

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