LISTEN TO THIS ARTICLE · 11:27

Introduction

As you noted in the title of this piece, “The best interviewer in the game.” This is an article about how good Ariel is at his job, specifically interviewing people. Now before I go on lathering Ariel with praise, which I will, we must ask a simple question: why write something about him at all? Why take time out of my day to give him a 1,500-or-so-word article on how amazing he is at this specific skillset? No one’s paying me to do it. So, why?

My answer: nostalgia.

I’ll get more into it in the next section and you may very well have another answer. But it’s helpful to give you context as to why I’m doing this. If you care at all. Now, I don’t agree with all of Ariel’s takes or ways of doing things; I’m not a D-1 ------- (Let’s keep things clean here). I’m critical where I differ from him. But if you don’t care for Ariel and scoff at this, that someone would even dare put something like this together, then I can point you to a channel that has wall-to-wall, 24/7 coverage of that type of negativity. I for one know how to separate certain things. He’s a unicorn in the day and age when debate shows are all the rage. He can do both. But he excels far above everyone else in this area. This is why I believe he is the best interviewer in the game.

Nostalgia

As I mentioned in the introduction, I wrote this for nostalgia purposes. He and I are very close in age, a month apart. We both are married and have three kids: two boys and one girl. We are fans of teams that were both Chris Berman’s dream Super Bowl matchup, Bills vs. 49ers. Born in the ’80s, raised in the ’90s. We are both big WWF fans, Bret Hart for him, the Ultimate Warrior/Stone Cold Steve Austin for me. I truly believe we lived in one of the best decades to build a fantastical sports fandom. Dare I say nostalgic. So, he and I have a lot of similarities. We even have some overlap in religion. He’s Jewish, and as a Christian, I also consider Abraham and Moses key figures of my faith.

So, there is a foundation here, a ’90s sports kinship, as it were. But where nostalgia really shines through the caverns of my memory are with late-night shows and variety TV. I was a big fan of David Letterman and Don Francisco of Sábado Gigante (Ariel, you may have to ask Andy what that show was about). They had an uncanny ability to draw you in and make you feel that you were not just part of the audience but a part of the fun atmosphere they created. It was “can’t-miss” TV. I would look at the TV Guide to see what guests were potentially coming on.

I don’t really watch late-night TV anymore. I don’t need to. Because I’ve found the same qualities in Ariel. To me, he’s up there with Letterman and Don Francisco. But he’s doing it in sports. He may not get the credit he deserves because he doesn’t show up in a suit and tie as he interviews guests. His assortment of “toys” on his desk while he does interviews doesn’t give credence to what we call “professionalism.” He’s normally wearing a plaid shirt, though these days, he’s not rocking that iconic look as much; it’s all kinds of crazy shirts. Maybe that’s a product of doing more shows weekly; he can’t choose from the same set of clothes we are used to. But who cares, he’s a 16-time MMA journalist of the year. He can wear what he wants. Eat that, haters.

Okay, okay, enough about nostalgia. What makes him good? That’s why you’re reading this. I had a chance to ask him a few boilerplate questions about his interviewing skill. Nothing that would knock your socks off. But it’s enough to understand why his interviews are so fluid. Rarely do his interviews seem jarring, and for a guy that’s done probably between 1,000 and 4,000 interviews, that’s ridiculously impressive. (I know that’s a big gap. But I wasn’t going to count. A.I. couldn’t even tally it up for me. And if it’s more than 4k, my apologies.)

What makes him good?

I’m not going to wax poetic about his affinity and admiration for Bob Costas, Howard Cosell, Howard Stern or even Walter Cronkite. Those are among his favorites and as I recall he even named his son Walter after him. I know those names mean something to him and have helped shape him into the professional he is today. But what I want to do in this section is just highlight some of his qualities.

His memory

It’s insane what this man can remember. I’ve seen him rattle off stats about events when he’s interviewing people, and I just sit back and give him his respect. He does that day in and day out. He can name you events, dates, who fought who on the main card and probably what he ate the day of the fight. Even during an interview, like his recent one with Oscar De La Hoya, who had an “epic clapback” for the TKO folks, but he wouldn’t give up the goods. So Ariel, still softening him up with questions, circled back to that towards the end of the interview, reminiscent of Ilia Topuria framing up Volk before KO’ing him. But credit to Oscar, he saw it and even smiled at Ariel, knowing what he was up to. He even acknowledged this tactic, but it’s what makes Ariel good. He can multitask while speaking to you and you don’t ever feel out of touch with him. His ability to remember things is a cut above us mere humans. Though Father Time is sending a reminder he’s still undefeated. Just ask James Te Huna… I mean Tyson Pedro.

His research

I didn’t ask him this question, but I’m assuming he got his strengths from his mom and dad. I know he mentioned in an episode once, I think, that he got his interviewing skills from his mother and his work ethic from his dad. This combination for me at least showed up when he came up with JarryPark.com; it was a website he created during a self-imposed deadline to make this into a career. He would use MySpace to reach out to athletes and get interviews with them. It took a lot of research to put a website together back in those days. To talk to MMA athletes and know the ins and outs of who they are. You cannot fake that. Though MMA athletes may seemingly come off as barbaric, they are smart as heck, and they can spot a fake a mile away. Ariel, even from his early days, knew that he had to put in the work, so even though he has a great memory, it would be nothing without the work ethic in understanding the sports and athletes he covers.

Anyway, as for JarryPark.com, it still exists. Go give it a look; it belongs in the museum of fight sports. And he still wants to know, “How’s taste my website?”

The Instigator?

This is a common theme throughout Ariel’s career. He instigates things between fighters during interviews. The most iconic one was with Nick Diaz, in 2011, days before his welterweight title battle against Paul Daley on April 9th. During a line of questioning, Nick literally said to Ariel, “I feel like you instigate fights quite a bit.” The whole interaction is classic. You have to watch it if you haven’t.

Ariel’s line of questioning can come off as instigating, but that’s not what he’s doing. He’s said to that exact question, “I’m just asking questions. Some like them, some don’t. That’s the gig. I don’t take offense. I’ve always just asked the questions I wanted answered as a fan.” And I believe he’s right. You may think differently. But what stands out about his answer is the fan component. Let’s be real here. We love the buildup to fights. We love when there is bad blood. It gets us hyped for a fight as a fan. We aren’t here to watch two fighters hug or shake hands during fights.

Ariel is a fan at heart. His questions are a reflection of that. You may knock him for the type of questions he asks, but those are the ones that often give us the most memorable lines. Just ask Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. I can do another 1,000 words on just their rapport. But I’m nearing the end.

The Future Dana White Interview

It’s the interview we all want. It’s the one I want. Or is it? I asked Ariel, if he had one question to ask Dana, what would it be? He said, “How have you been???” Now of course this seems like a cheeky answer. And it could be. But it honestly changed the reason I asked the question in the first place. I now don’t want that interview, at least not in the form where he is a guest on Monday’s show and it’s a one-on-one sit-down with Dana and Ariel.

I don’t want that anymore.

Because his answer reminded me that even though we may see celebrities as entities or unreachable personas, they are just humans like you and me. This storyline between Dana and Ariel doesn’t deserve a one-on-one sit-down as guest and interviewer. It deserves a one-on-one sit-down between two people behind closed doors. Because it’s two men who were in each other’s lives for a significant period of time. It’s two men who helped grow the sport of MMA. I don’t care about the ratio of it. They helped grow the sport. Period. It’s a conflict of that. It was an inevitable conflict between journalist and fight promoter. It had to be this way for a sport so young in its life. There is no template for what these two men had to do in the beginning to grow the sport. How to deal with each other given what was the trajectory of their lives. The best fight promoter in the game and the best journalist/interviewer in the game.

We don’t deserve that first sit-down after all that’s happened. When it does happen, I hope it’s after a long conversation about moving forward. Never say never.

One last thing…

I don’t think I’ve fully satisfied the title of my article. There’s one thing left.

I believe Ariel Helwani is the best interviewer in the game, not just because of what I highlighted above, but because of one specific foundational quality.

He cares.

I won’t belabor the point because we are at the end. I want to reframe for the reader what happened on Ariel’s show, The MMA Hour, Episode 333, Monday, June 6, 2016. This was after the infamous UFC 199 incident. In short, he broke news about Brock Lesnar, and UFC wasn’t happy. He was banned for 48 hours. Then the ban ended, but so did what was left of his relationship with Dana White.

Ariel came on that show and told us his side of the story and then broke down during the segment. You see, some will say, “He’s crying… your kids are going to see that…” and ridicule him. But that’s not how I took it. And I don’t think that’s how most people took it. I saw a man who gave a crap about what he did for a living. I saw a man who put his heart, sweat and tears into what he did in the combat sports space. I became more of a fan of his that day. Not because I felt sorry for him. He chose that line of work. But that day told me all I needed to know about Ariel Helwani. He genuinely cares about his profession. Does that mean he’s a saint in all that he does? No. And we aren’t either. But he does care and that shows up in his work ethic and in his interviews. And that’s why I think he’s not only the best interviewer in all of sports, but the best in the game.

— La Mancha