A veteran of the UFC and former WEC champion, color commentator Brian Stann has a voice that fans and fighters alike have come to trust. Brian brings his extensive experience to Heavy Hands this week for an in-depth interview on all things fighting.

Stann shares his advice for young fighters caught between loyalty and ambition: "Sit down and ask yourself those hard questions. Talk with people you really trust--not coaches and management--and ask, 'am I getting better?' . . . It's hard for a fighter to look a beloved coach in the eye and say, 'Look, I have to go train here. There's nothing new you're gonna tell me, and doing the same thing every fight, I'm not winning. I'm stale. People have figured me out. I've gotta go add some new wrinkles to my game.'

On building a brand in a fight game dominated by brash personalities: "Open up. You have got to give access to [journalists] who write about this sport. You get so many guys--look at Jose Aldo. Hates doing media, hates the week of the fight, doesn't like all the stuff that goes with it. He's so phenomenal that it doesn't matter; he was able to go undefeated for a decade, right? But that's not the way to go about your business. You've gotta give access."

On Jones-Cormier II: "Daniel [Cormier] is an excellent competitor and a very underrated athlete. I've trained with him personally. You don't become an Olympian--this is a guy who turned down a full ride to go to LSU for football to go wrestle--he's a massive athlete . . . In rounds two and three against Jones he was getting inside and he was striking him. I thought he was turning the momentum of that fight. But he took a round off in round four and that was the main difference. You can't do that with Jon . . . I haven't seen anything technically that leads me to believe he's gonna be able to take Jon down consistently. Especially now that Jon has discovered weight lifting."

"And Jon's a unique athlete. Never lifted weights but you try to get your hands on him and his instincts for leverage and wrestling are phenomenal. I've watched him train with heavyweights and make them look really, really bad."

Stay tuned till the end of the episode for a UFC Brisbane recap and a few questions from our listeners.

For the full interview and more, download this episode directly. Just right-click and save this link.

You can also find the show on iTunes, or on Stitcher.

Heavy Hands is on Patreon!Pledge to support the show on a monthly basis in exchange for rewards, ranging from a simple "thank you" on the podcast website to a full episode topic of your choice. We appreciate your support!

For more, head over to HeavyHandsPodcast.com.