MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - 19: WAS KSI VS LOGAN PAUL GOOD FOR BOXING? IS NATE IN OR OUT? DID UFC MOSCOW DELIVER? CONOR AND KHABIB AT IT AGAIN!

Episode Date: November 11, 2019

KSI beats Logan Paul via split decision in a celebrity fight that did big business for DAZN, but did it help shine a light on boxing? Did Devin Haney and Billy Joe Saunders squander an opportunity in their performance in front of a larger audience? UFC Moscow is in the books. Is Greg Hardy a decent prospect or overrated? Did Zabit Magomedsharipov show enough to warrant a title shot? How about that Inoue vs Donaire fight! That fight has a legitimate shot at fight of the year. Brian tortures me throughout the show, you don't want to miss it.  GET A 30 DAY FREE TRIAL AND WATCH PARIAH: THE LIVES AND DEATHS OF SONNY LISTON SIGN UP AT SHOWTIME.COM/TRY30 AND USE PROM CODE: KOMBAT OFFER EXPIRES 12/31/19 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. It is Monday, November 11th, 2019, and it's time, donks, for Morning Combat. My name is Luke Thomas. I am the host of this program alongside my esteemed co-host from CBS Sports, Brian Campbell. You just saw, by the way, the trailer for the new Showtime documentary, Pariah. I've not seen it. I know it airs Friday at 9 p.m. East Coast time.

Brian, you did see it. Yeah, you got to check this out. Fired up. This was a quality presentation there. Not just the history of Liston as a fighter, the controversial two fights with Muhammad Ali and the fact that his career sort of fell off the hill after that, but a lot of that mystery that surrounds Sonny Liston's name, the issues with the mafia, his death, a lot of recreations in this documentary. It really asks a lot of questions that really makes you almost want to do even more research afterwards. Great piece of business there. Now, of course, we want you to

give this video a thumbs up. We want you to subscribe to the channel. Please subscribe. Tell folks about it. And we have good news as it relates to Showtime and that Sonny Liston documentary. So here's how it goes. We have a new promo code for you. Use the promo code COMBAT. And of course, that's going to be COMBAT with a K. Here's what you're going to get. You're going to get a 30-day free trial. You can get it for free. You can try it for free.

For 30 days, you go to Showtime.com slash try30. You can see all the information there at the bottom of your screen. Use the code COMBAT, and you can give it a look. You can start it. And by the way, after the Sonny Liston documentary airs on Friday, it'll be a Showbox presentation, live boxing right after that. Please support the MK. Showtime is the label that pays, man.

So, you know, everybody's got their cup, but nobody's pitching in. It's time to give back to the good brothers here at the MKUltra. I'm going to put this out there. I didn't ask you about this. I'm going to put it out there on the air. We are now, what, in the second or so week of November. We have just the rest of this month and then the next one. I would like to see if we can hit 30K subs by the end of the year.

Yeah, it's the second trimester of MK. Let's start to get some kicking going, right? Yeah, I want to feel that in the tummy, folks, and not just, well, I'm not going to say that joke. It would go quite poorly. In any event, did you miss me last week? Yeah. Fuck you. Yes, you did.

But I think, really, we've got to be careful here you know the great chuck mindenhall has been able to slide right into the dms of this bunker but man the people love him you're really one pulled ankle std you know extended absence away from not coming back because the people they love them some some some chucky m there chuck is great but but he ain't got what we got it's you and me baby bon. Bonnie and Clyde. I'll be Bonnie. It takes a select person to be able to sit in this undisclosed location in any WJURS where I heard many murders occur.

Plenty. It was actually the lyrics. Plenty of murders occurs. In any event, all right, we're here ready to rock. You had a long weekend of Mr. Mom I saw on Instagram. Would you fit your baby daughter for Kevlar and take her to a Rammstein concert? No, Rammstein. I don't listen to Rammstein. What kind of music is that? I thought you were into that sort of pre-mass shooting type of soundtrack.

That's not pre-mass shooting. That's pre... For me, the kind of music I listen to, to me, I put Rammstein. It's about as soft as The Cure. They're on the same level for me. You understand that? So no, I would not listen to that. You're more into nuclear warfare. Yeah, I do.

You got to really feel that heat. No, my wife is out of town. What a contrast to Luke the intellectual. Luke the veteran. Happy Veterans Day to you. It is Veterans Day. Thank you for serving our country and the Marines. About time you deal with that PTSD, though, but we'll get to that another time.

I'm glad you're making light of it. But, you know, it's a nice contrast between Luke the high school mathlete at Old Marietta and then this gung-ho, ex-Marine, heavy power lifter, beard-growing a-hole. No such thing as an ex-Marine, only a former Marine, and a pogue like you would not understand that. Nevertheless, we have to get this show started, Brian Campbell. We kick it off with your favorite sport, boxing. Well, something kind of like boxing.

If two famous twerps put their gloves on, is it still boxing? I don't know. It's like boxing adjacent. Something like that. All right, so let's get to it. KSI, I don't know who that is, and Logan Paul, that's the dude who made the video about the guy hanging himself in Japan. Anyway, they got together and had something called a boxing match in Los Angeles.

It aired on DAZN. And there's sort of a big question about it. Lance Pugmar of the LA Times, of course, this event was in LA. He's with The Athletic. Let's be honest. He's with The Athletic. Oh, sorry. He used to be with the LA Times. In any event, for the record, they did not sell out the Staples Center. The upper bowl was still roped off, but they sold out everything on the lower bowl and down. I've seen UFC events that have done worse, although TJ versus Cody 2, I believe, was in that venue. They did sell it out, but okay, whatever. The point being is, two guys with massive online followings who are very young.

A combined 40 million YouTube subscribers. Yeah, KSI alone, I believe, has had 4 billion YouTube views on all of the stuff on his channel. An incredible amount of traffic in any event. So they fought in what was their first professional contest on DAZN. The question is, who really won over the course of the evening? Now, the guy who won the match, Brian Campbell, was this dude named KSI, which I believe,

I didn't realize this until he won. I guess it stands for like, let's see if I get this right, knowledge, strength, integrity, is that right? Yeah, yeah, I think so. I mean, what a, what a dork. Is there integrity in YouTube boxing? All right, here's the deal, Luke.

It was a good piece of business. It was entertaining for what it was. I had set you up coming in going, look, I interviewed both guys ahead of it. They kind of got me. They got me to care. I did watch their first fight, which was a draw under amateur rules a year ago. And I cared from the standpoint of like a soap opera, almost pro wrestling to see who wins. They almost filled up the Staples Center. They got all of us across the sport to actually care. The winners in this case are certainly them for really raising their profile, for doing something that the average bloke wouldn't do, which is go through a professional training camp, actually take a fight to settle some corny grudge. I want to stop it short of like, though, the narratives that go

boxing wins and this is great for boxing. And that was something that was echoed on the DAZN broadcast that got super cringy. The promoters and maybe DAZN for one night win, because that's sort of the boxing way of doing things. You always sort of mortgage your long-term future to just make money tonight in the short term, and in that sense, it probably worked. People had to go out of their way to figure out, what's DAZN? Days in? What is this thing? I'm sure they found it. I'm sure they subscribed. I'm sure the promoters made big money. Spoiler alert, us at CBSSports.com did like almost record traffic. I had KSI on my podcast, The State of Combat, last week. Did 10 times the normal traffic on my boxing show. So if you were willing to take part in this, if you were willing to reach your hand over the glass

and get the hot dog out of the gas station and eat it. And I know you are. In the long run, did you get an upset stomach? Probably. But in the short term, everybody that put their hand on it did win. But this does nothing for boxing. This does nothing for anybody. It was a celebrity event that just happened to be boxing. And you do got to give them this, Luke. They didn't embarrass the sport. And the fight was kind of fun. It had controversy, had some action. Is that what it was? It was fun to insult is what it was. It was fun. There was a hate watch element to it.

I'll give you that. There was a clear hate watch element to it. I mean, when I was watching it, if you've been to, for example, regional MMA in your community, or even if you go to like a big fight and then you show up really early and you see the guys, this was a six-round professional contest. Now, for people who have an amateur background and they're fighting six-rounders in a pro contest, they actually look better than that. These guys are just picking up boxing, frankly, as a sort of aggressive hobby in their mid to late 20s.

They're not going to be very good. But at the same time, you could tell that they were in shape for what it was. You could tell that they tried for what it was. And to also your point, here's the one thing I'll give this event. Dude, these guys, these guys who are 22, 24 years old, whatever their exact ages are, they've been on camera for the last 10 years or more of their lives. They are natural on it. And they have these huge audiences they've cultivated on social and then sort of YouTube media, which also is a form of social in some ways. Dude, they did a great job selling this fight.

They really did. They got a ton of attention. When you looked at the promotional elements that they had put out, they had a story to tell. They had a reason for you to invest in one or the other. There was something unresolved that you had to see. They did a pretty good job. The problem was, in the end, it was just a bad fight. And not that it's a bad fight because they didn't try. It's a bad fight because it's two guys who can't fucking box, okay? Yeah, you want to be blunt? It is. But the thing that got me was, who was the big winner? In some ways, certainly in the short term, DAZN's the winner because, as I mentioned before, ESPN Plus is a growing and important business for

ESPN, but it is still sort of a bit of a secondary effort for them. It may be the long-term primary effort, but for right now, linear television is the way that it goes. Also, they have ESPN channels. ESPN Plus is an addendum. DAZN does not have a DAZN channel that you can get on Comcast or DirecTV. That's all they have. So getting some kind of business awareness for them is truly paramount. This is a great way to do it. So if they were doing this to raise visibility for their business, you sort of get it. What I object to is the obvious lie that this was good for boxing.

It wasn't bad for boxing. It just had nothing to do with boxing, right? This is the point. These two guys could have settled their beef, I mentioned this on Twitter, with a burrito eating contest. Or who could scale an American Ninja Warrior course faster? Or arm wrestling? Or slap fight? Yeah, but I got to stop you there, but nobody would have cared, though. I don't believe that even a little bit. They might have cared a little bit more, given some of the graver stakes of boxing. We talk about the hate watch element.

You want to see them get hurt if you hate the idea of this. Yes, a little bit, of course. It had to be a little danger to them, I understand. But the point being is, if you think about how real boxing fans are created, it's almost like, yes, you can kind of teach somebody to be one. There is an element to that. But usually, man, and I know this is true for you, it's a bug. It's an element to that. But usually, man, and I know this is true for you, it's a bug. It's an infestation.

Once you feel it, you can't really undo it. You had a bunch of 15-year-old girls there. They're not going to like boxing. You had people who just wanted to see some kind of petty, and it was petty. Dispute settled. Boxing is a reasonable way to do it. But it's disowned self-serving. It's disowned self-dealing. Dressing it up in these larger

ethical, we're giving back to the sport nonsense, is frankly kind of lowbrow and a little bit insulting and just demonstrably not true. And certainly from the idea of boxing, DAZN switched up their broadcast team to try to make it a little more hip and younger-based, and it was just cringe-based. Yeah, Ryan Garcia is not good at it. And Radio Raheem needed knee pads during that broadcast, for crying out loud. Yeah. And then at the end, you know what it felt like at the end? You ever go to a party and you welcome in another group of people because they either had the really good drugs or they could bring the girls with them and you're sort of selling part of your soul to

hang out with them. And it just sort of felt like, who invited these guys? I did that at prom. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, we got a comment here from Steven Sullivan saying, God isn't real. Bigfoot is. I have pictures. I'm really glad back there that we're adding that to the broadcast. It really elevates what we're doing here. It's really important that you do that. In any event, though, the thing about it is for me, last thing on the zone, because I want to switch to Devin Haney here. See how mad he was right there? Well, it's just, what are we airing that for? I mean, it literally serves no purpose. You're making a religious political statement, Jay?

Where are you going with this? Here's the point. With DAZN, you've now had this airing of this event, which I'm sure, by the way, did gangbusters for them in terms of viewership. And then secondly, you had the previous week where they were pushing back Canelo. Remember, even after your co-main event with Devin Haney,

which we'll talk about in a second, they aired some kind of dude named White Chocolate versus a pre-diabetic gas station attendant. Okay. I think I've eaten from his hand. You probably have. And then that, to delay the broadcast further. My only point about DAZN is I get that they have some struggles, but when you're rearranging your product, when you're making interesting choices like that,

when you're delaying it in these kinds of ways that they are, A, it's reminiscent of UFC on Fox Sports 1, which was painful to watch. And secondly, it's always an indication something's kind of up with the broadcast. Either in the case of UFC and FS1, they had to sell ad inventory, or in the case of DAZN, I'm not saying that they're doing poorly, but my hunch is they're making these weird choices because they feel like they should be doing a lot better. Well, I mean, they're paying an absurd amount of money to Kanell Alvers, to Gennady Golovkin, to all these players to disrupt the market. So they're trying to figure out ways to open the

door to get some of that back. Some of it's just going to be a guaranteed loss, but I don't know. I don't, I look at DAZN as a temporary box holder from the standpoint of like, you know, their goal is big ticket mainstream sports. Boxing is sort of an easy market to get into because of the lack of organization. So they've got in, they've made some noise, but they're probably going to do more decisions like this, like making Canelo Alvarez, your poster boy, wait on a couch for 98 minutes. That sort of pissed off the boxing regular because long term they have much different business plans, my take. Well certainly overseas is what they've already done. I'm not sure about this, but I believe in Canada,

you can get the NFL rights for 20 bucks a year through DAZN. I understand that, but getting those kinds of properties is going to be difficult. And in the short run, when you're rearranging and delaying and kind of chopping your product this way,

something's off with it. Now, that being said, Devin Haney was your sort of official co-main event. He did get the win, Brian Campbell. You were on this show telling me he was the real deal Holyfield. Over the weekend, I sent you an Instagram post from one of my favorite rappers, Osama bin Laden, or also known as O-Drama bin Laden, Vinny Pass, Boxcutter Pazzi from Jedi Mind Tricks,

and Army of the Pharaohs. He acknowledged that Devin Haney is talented, but he just didn't seem sold on it. This, to me, was a performance. It's the first fight from Devin Haney is talented, but he just didn't seem sold on it. This, to me, was a performance. It's the first fight from Devin Haney I've seen live. He's clearly gifted. I did not, in any shape, way, or form, get the feeling that this was a guy who was going to give Lomachenko a run for his money.

Not anytime soon. What am I missing here? It was a little bit sobering, this performance. And I think it's the same thing as if he had gone in there against a hapless opponent and blew him away in 30 seconds, it would be like, okay, it's probably not that good. And he's certainly not that, what word are you going to use to describe a performance in which he did knock down his opponent and he did win every single round on all three scorecards. But I do acknowledge from what Vinny Paz is saying and what you're essentially teasing and alluding

to that it wasn't the showcase opportunity it could have been. Why did boxers such as Billy Joe Saunders and Devin Haney sort of rush at the idea of being on this undercard and jumping in the pool with the KSI's and Logan Paul's? They want a bit of that audience. They want to get that rub. This wasn't the performance from Devin Haney to sort of announce that at 20 years old, he's the complete package. He's the next Mayweather. He does have an incredible backstory. He has sort of been gifted the WBC titles, is trying to get in line to actually face Lomachenko, the WBC franchise champion. No, that performance did not tell you that he's ready. It was almost sort of a lateral slash step back in the end. I don't think it's enough, though. It was a step back.

I don't think it's enough where you can damn him for all those things I just said. It just wasn't, you know, and look, sometimes that's matchmaking. They put him in there with an unbeaten guy who was hungry and came after him. Who appeared to me from a body language standpoint unafraid of him. And so I think that kind of threw him off a little bit. It made him a little bit more defensive early. He only came on strong later. Certainly a failure from the idea of all these nerds in the crowd who game and play YouTube and follow KSI around. Those people are not going to be like, oh my god, I've got to see

that guy again. So this is my last point about this, and then we'll move on, which was, does anyone be like, oh, this is good for boxing. It's not bad for boxing. It's not good for boxing. Boxing was just a conduit to settle some stupid internet beef. So I don't really care about it in that sense. But the other part was, you saw, I think, Eddie Hearn saying, oh, well, Devin Haney and Billy Joe Saunders got a huge boost in visibility. I want to see what it actually results in.

Does it materially or meaningfully change the careers of the next big fights for Billy Joe Saunders or Devin Haney? If the answer is it didn't, then just say what it was. Eddie Hearn wanted to make money, and there's nothing wrong with that, and DeZone wanted to get some cheap views, and I get it. But it's got nothing to do with boxing beyond that. Look, boxing sells its soul all the time. This is where they sort of lent out their soul for someone else to use it a little bit.

It's business. It's a sleazy transaction. It is what it was. It was kind of fun in the end, depending if you wanted to hate watch it or actually enjoy the drama. By the way, how about Jack get off my lawn, Reese, the referee, taking two points away in a six-round fight? You didn't get into that at all in care? A little bit because his eventual explanation was not so bad. These guys don't know the rules.

Which was he wanted to level the playing field between the knockdown and then the rabbit punch. So his answer was, you let the knockdown count, but then I'll take two points. What he didn't want to do was let him hit the guy, plus he knocks him down that way. He also caused KSI a knockdown earlier in that fight. Here's what I know. I don't give a shit about two guys with 1-0 and 0-1 careers in a six-round fight. Don't care. Don't care even a little bit.

Can't wait to get back to the boarding fights. Was this as lame as CM Punk in the end? Or not as lame? No, because Mickey Gall is a real fighter. That's what you saw. Like, here's the best part. Yeah, but CM Punk sure ain't. Well, okay, hence the point.

The point being is neither of these two dweebs are real fighters. So the benefit in seeing CM Punk go up against Mickey Gall was it was like, what happens when the illusion is shattered? And Mickey Gall is certainly, I mean, he's had his struggles in the UFC. He's still a young guy himself, so we'll see what happens. But he's like at the top of the food chain welterweight. So my point is this, you had Logan Paul before the fight. I remember the headlines because my producer was like, should we talk about this in the show? And I was like, no, we shouldn't. Logan Paul being like, I want to call out, if I win, I win, I want to go to the UFC. Dude, serious question. We know Dylan Dennis would pretzel him on

the ground. I think he might outstrike him on the feet. He had really nothing more than a jab. I bet you Dylan Dennis... Logan Paul supposedly has this amateur wrestling background. Yeah, I know. Fifth in the state. It's like, great. Dude, I think Dylan Dennis would tune him up. All right, considering nobody had cardiac arrest and died, is this a less of a stain than Dada and Kimbo?

Yeah. I mean, that was like sloppy to the point of embarrassing. These were just two guys who clearly took it seriously but have limited ability. It was fun for what it was. I don't want to see it again. I don't want to see boxing, DAZN, or Eddie Hearn continue to go down this road. Right. There's no need. When they were like,

oh, a trilogy, and they both were kind of against the trilogy, I was like, thank you, Jesus. In any event, last thing on this, I said this as well on Twitter. Did you see Jake Paul talk?

Yeah. With his grills? Yeah. Nothing makes me miss the knockout game more than when Jake Paul talks. Oh, I miss the knockout game so much. Where did the knockout game go

when you need it the most? Do you know what I'm saying? All right. In any event, speaking of moving on, because Jay is in my ear, losing his mind. We now go to our second topic. Nate Diaz over the weekend. We will get to UFC Moscow. But Nate Diaz over the weekend had said, well, I guess the previous week had said that he

didn't want a rematch. F a rematch. He doesn't need it anymore. He's moving on. Peace out to the fight game. Now, he kind of sort of changed his tune a little bit over the weekend. I think he told ESPN, you know, I'll never retire. I'll always be around.

I'll fight right now. I'll fight right now. But didn't necessarily give an indication about when he was coming back against who. Didn't really walk back the comments about F a rematch. So here he is again. Nate Diaz kind of returning to the fight game and then wafting back out again. What is your level of fatigue with his

I'm in sometimes, I'm out sometimes, and how capricious it all seems? Pretty high overall because like everybody else, we just sat through three-year layoff at the peak of his physical and commercial prime, and he did essentially nothing with it. So I'm pretty fatigued. But look, you gotta understand the mind of Nate Diaz, which we'll never understand.

Like, there's questions that we'll never have answers to, right? How do you talk to an angel? How do you hold her close to where you are? And what the hell is Nate Diaz thinking, right? I mean, the heights of that are absurd. So it's tough. It's tough to even have analysis here, because that's Nate. That's who he is.

He's going to lose a fight like he did's Nate. That's who he is. He's going to lose a fight like he did and then have almost an excuse on one breath and then another breath sort of, I'm retiring. No, I never said I retired coming back. So it sort of just asked me, how did we get here? And that's where it's going to be hard to figure out because you never get Nate to sit down on the couch and talk about his youth and figure out like who hurt him and how to get to this point. But I think what is a key factor in this is heading into that BMF fight, he had made a dramatic turnaround in terms of the eyes of his brand and UFC embracing him. They created this BMF title based on his inspiration. He wanted an anti-pettis fight before that. He broke his three-year layoff and got it.

And he got to this mountaintop, and then he lost trust again. The USADA thing happened, and then the fight stopping early happened. Now look, that's not UFC's fault. That's the commission stopping it to save him. But in the mind of Nate Diaz, I created this ish. I brought this belt into existence. Masvidal is only a thing because I created this to happen, and now you're trying to hurt my name and maybe stop me from having a chance to win it.

So in the mind of Nate Diaz, which is always going to be affected by temperamental bits of, I don't even know how to describe it. I mean, how do you really describe it? To try to understand what he's thinking, he's probably jaded and hurt in that regard. But how does that play into when he would fight again? He would have to get back into a level of trust, I believe. My view on the whole thing is, and this comes to, if I have been guilty of anything the last few years in giving opinions in the sport in any kind of a public way,

I have carried water for the Diaz brothers. Not in a way where I'm like, I need to go and support them because that's what I do, but because I genuinely believe those things. And as a general rule, every UFC fighter, especially the headliners, they have their ability to maximize their earnings and other ways of public visibility suppressed in certain ways. It's magnified in certain ways by the UFC machine. It's suppressed in certain ways, particularly on the wage side of things. So when those fighters never fully get satisfied with the amount of money they're

making, they are absolutely right. I support them 100%. So I say that all to also say, as a DS supporter, something feels off about this for me. I'm a little bit tired of it, if I can be honest with you. I mean, look, given the caveat that there is some kind of suppression going on of their wages because the UFC is a bit of a monopsony, I'm sympathetic to that. But he just came off a situation where USADA, Dana White, and the UFC went out of their way to exonerate him, which they have not. You don't think he's jaded and sort of. Probably a little bit, but they went out of their way. Look, no one is harsher on the anti-doping authorities than me, but they did at least take the public step to exonerate him, which they haven't done for others. Then they created a title out of nothing for him.

They put him in a headlining role. They gave him all the promotion he wants to do. They put it in New York City. He probably made a ton of money from it. It's like, dude, on some level, participation in the machine is required. I don't argue with that. Winning is kind of,

you don't have to win every time. Jorge Masvidal is living proof. But you've got to win enough. You've got to do a little bit here on your end of the, beyond just the marketing of it and getting people to care. You have to do kind of win a little bit.

I mean, look, it's the ultimate fighting dot, dot, dot championship. It is rooted into what we evaluate. It is rooted into what we care. And look, if he's a fighter who made a bunch of money and he doesn't want to fight, this is not me saying you have to honor what me or the fans say. You got to live your life the best way you want. And all those damages guys have taken, they have a right to come and go as they please. I'm not suggesting otherwise. But as somebody who likes it when they fight and cares about their interests, this one to me felt a little off. I was a little bit looking at this one being like, really dude?

Again we're here with this? What more without a union or the court busting this monopsony up, what more is possible? I honestly don't know. I'm 100% agreeing with you on sort of what you're saying. It's okay at this point to be fatigued and say, Nate, what else do you want? I'm trying to get in his head and trying to figure out what motivates him. It doesn't seem to be money. If it was money, he would have filled in those three years lost just fighting anybody.

It is clearly money. It's money to a degree, though. It's money wrapped in loyalty and an appreciation for what he brings. And yes, you could 100% argue they just rolled out the red carpet of appreciation. They created the bell. But you've got a defensive person here who seems wounded and jaded and is just waiting to go, see, I told you. I told you that this is all a trap.

I told you that they don't care. So under that, guys, how they book his next fight and and if that fight can be booked, is going to be so crucial. Because, yes, he's got the Conor trilogy to eventually cash in on. Right now is not the time. Conor's got to prove himself and seems to still have one more run, at least, at the title level. Who the heck is Nate going to fight next that would give him the main event placement and money he would desire, and a meaningful enough fight to actually main event potentially a pay-per-view that wouldn't insult him when he's in a spot thinking,

of my last four fights, I main evented the BMF at the Garden and set records twice with Conor. You owe me this. So it's going to be a precarious walk right now because if he's going to stay stubborn and sort of jaded on there, he actually may never fight again for three years. He'll fight again. And to Diaz, it's always wise to let the game cycle through a little bit.

You know, who was Jorge Masvidal in January 1st, 2019? He wasn't a guy that everyone was just sort of really caring about. Look at him now. Things have changed. So fortunes for certain fighters, they'll bubble up, they'll change, and he'll pick his spot. I'm not worried about that. And also, behind the scenes, who knows what the UFC told him.

He might really believe he's entitled to a rematch. Jorge said he would give him a rematch. And maybe the UFC is just saying, no, in boxing, if you had two A sides or A and B, however you want to put it, but two high profile fighters like this, and they want to fight each other, the promoters in all likelihood would accommodate both short of some kind of sanctioning body getting in the way. And so I understand that frustration. Here's what it is to me. It's probably, look, man, there is just some difficulties between the Diaz brothers and the UFC that they just can't get over. And I understand that, too.

All I can do is speak as a Nate Diaz sympathizer and, frankly, a bit of a fan of his work. It was a little fatiguing for me to watch that. And I would be lying to the audience if I came on here and said I didn't feel that way. I do feel that way. As much as I understand where he's at and he should live his life absolutely the way he's earned it, I was a little disappointed by the whole thing.

He knows his value now, or always has. And it's clouded by his beliefs in himself, sometimes to a larger degree than they actually are. But he knows his value. I don't see him ever being somebody that will stay active and eventually become a punching bag to the stars. I feel like

he's only going to continue to sit and wait for that perfect opportunity. I just don't know. And fair to what you say about, look, Jorge Maswell wasn't Jorge Maswell until this year. Who's that person right now that really justifies giving him that type of money that would make him that fired up? They did the BMF thing, but Masvidal has it or won it or may never see it again. So what do you do now? No matchmaker.

What do you do? You wait. Or if they come to him and say, well, it's a great title shot, he might take that. I know for a fact they offered him the fight against Tyron Woodley. UFC can say what they want. I know for a fact they offered it to him. He just asked for a lot more than they were willing to pay. And so eventually they just denied it.

I don't think you can get too mad at them, though, because this is what you said. No, no, I'm not mad at him. No, no, are you kidding? I'm not mad at him at all for that. I'm just simply saying that's what ended up scuttling. Do you have more sympathy for the UFC and the issues that they've had with him? No, no, no, I take the Diaz aside in virtually all of those. It's just at some point, dude, the clock is ticking.

You're going to be 35 if you're Nate Diaz in April. You know, what is it you really want? And again, maybe he wants to do exactly what he's doing, in which case, fine, case closed. But it's like the Diaz brothers are allowed to feel the way they're allowed to feel, and the UFC is allowed to feel the way they're allowed to feel. Well, so are we. So are we. So are we, the consumers of the Diaz product. We are allowed to feel the way we feel, which is as much as I am sympathetic to them, and truly I mean that, they have been done wrong for a very long time. I've been saying it for years. They made a title for the guy, man.

Like, it's like on some level, I don't know how you appease them. No, I hear you. I mean, how do you appease a guy who smokes two joints in the morning, smokes two joints at night, right? You're here. Smokes two joints at time of peace and two in time of war. I mean, look, this guy. We apparently have a YouTube question that's real.

Mr. McGregor and others play the same game. Isn't it all hype? What do you think? Yeah, it's all hype and positioning. Nate Diaz does it in a weirder sort of almost backwards way compared to the normal person. But yeah, in the end, in the long run, it's all sort of, I'm walking away. I'm going after the cheese, whatever Connors at the time. It's all sort of lumped in the same. I think though with Nate, there's sort of an extra level of craziness and stubbornness. Maybe that's no different than a Habib being crazy stubborn

in what he does as well. There's resentment built up between, I think, both Diaz brothers and the UFC. I don't blame them for it. When you say a consumer of Diaz's, you mean the fighting or their strand of CBD? I've had their CBD. It's a good company. In any event, let's move on to the next

topic. There were some fights over the weekend. You wouldn't know based on our rundown, but here we are. UFC Moscow took place in Moscow, Russia. Not the greatest card in the world, but the main event was Zabit Megamed Sharapov. Well, I'm not defending anything, but certainly getting his sixth UFC win in defeating Calvin Cater in a, I would argue, relatively close bout here, Brian Cable. The question is, is Zabit Magomed Sharapov ready for the winner of Alexander Volkanovsky versus Max Holloway? I would argue to you that he is probably not based on what we have seen.

Now, here's what I would mean. Yeah, explain yourself a little. Okay, so if you look at the rankings, because people, they seem to forget this. It's like, how are title shots handed out? Who's winning? Who's at the top? And frankly, who's available? Really?

Are you just ready to fight? It's often a pretty key consideration. So he's near the top of that division in a very important way. He's absolutely going to no matter what on that short list. Brian Ortega is ahead of him. But Brian Ortega, if he beats Korean Zombie, would only have to win one time to get another title shot. And especially if Max wins, you're like, really, they're going to do that? Now, if Volkanovski wins, it gets a little dicey. My hunch is if Korean Zombie, after beating

Hanato Moikano, comes back and also beats Brian Ortega, I suspect they'll set him up for a title shot. But Zabit is kind of right there. The question, though, is not whether is he worthy of a title shot. In as much as it is to me. Like, how would it really go? Six wins in the UFC is nothing to sneeze at. He's got submissions, I think, in two or three of them. One of them spectacularly with that Sulawesi stretch he hit on Brandon Davis from the Contender Series. At the same time, dude, watching this fight, did you not get the feeling that somebody like Max Holloway, who can go the distance through championship rounds, who can define the boxing exchanges on his terms, who can stuff takedowns.

This guy continuously in the Bokniak fight, in the Stevens fight, and now in this fight, he doesn't exactly fade in the third round, but his style changes. We went over it on Dissected. You look at the numbers in all three of those fights, they shoot through the roof for the opponent. So his numbers stay constant, but his opponents turn it on. Dude, that tells you something is up. That never happens for the elite guys.

So here's my point. Against two guys who can volume strike, who have good defense, who have good takedown defense, and have better cardio through the fourth and the fifth round, I think they're bad matchups for the current version of Sabit. Now, he's young. He can grow. He can develop.

Let's see how things go. If we have to learn any lesson from Kevin Lee and Darren Till, it's to pump the brakes on the criticism for guys who are still in their early to mid, even a little bit late 20s. At the same time, based on what I saw in this fight, this fight alone, does that make me think he's a legitimate threat to either Volkanovski or Holloway? No, it does not. I think it depends on how you perceive this fight, okay? Because I'm almost the exact opposite feeling coming off this fight as you. And you have to sort of lay some things down at the groundwork and foundation. You can take them for what they are. But Zabit was honest afterwards in saying, I had an illness.

It affected me. I didn't have the stamina in this case with the sickness to go hard in that third round and sort of fight at my normal pace. I get Professor Salt-N-Pepa. You can bring up all these stats from the other fights to try to make your point, and that's fine. Did he leave the backdoor open for Calvin Cater, who got aggressive and emptied the tank at the end, to make it 2-1 on the cards? Sure. Good effort from there.

Calvin Cater's also a tough out. What I saw was a guy who is ready for Max Holloway, and here's why. We didn't see Zabit wrestle, or try to wrestle, outside of that one half-hearted takedown, really, in the second round. And I think he was really setting himself up for what the fight would look like and be against Max Holloway, almost using this fight against Cater as sort of a testing ground.

Calvin Cater, not Max Holloway, but a volume striker, an aggressive guy who will come after you. And I think what I saw in this one was Zabit sort of drawing that line in the sand in front of himself and saying, I'm going to play that line defensively, and I'm going to counter, and I'm going to still be that creative wizard coming from all the angles, but I'm going to do it a little bit more subtly because when he does face against Max, the wrestling probably won't be a big factor because of Max's takedown ability, and Max is going to be a volume guy

who's going to be feinting and coming at him in a lot of ways. And from that standpoint of preparing for a guy in that level, I really like what Zabit did in this fight. I mean, he did a lot of the sort of next-level stuff that makes him unique, but he did it very subtly in the way he was switching things up and setting up his attacks. And I almost felt like he was using that fight

as a proving and testing ground for it. And I came out of there going, yes, he didn't get a finish. He didn't look spectacular or finish strong. But if you're going to believe what he says about the illness, and look, guys, where he comes from, they don't storm to F around with lies. They sort of just bring the truth, and it is what it is. I take him at his word.

I think I've seen enough from him now in six UFC fights that he's going to be a problem for Max and to his statement he said about... Or Alex. Or Alex. Or Alex that he's only shown 40% of how good he can be and when people hear that rightfully I think they can be like okay yeah whatever. He's a guy who when you press him you're going to get the best out of him. And I think when Max does and really brings it, it's going to be as hard of an out as they have in that division. So I don't come out of that fight thinking it was a boring fight, which some people were saying, or thinking that he's not ready for primetime when you take all those factors in together.

Uh, I would, I will grant you that as a method of getting ready for a Volkanovski or a Holloway, because by the way, I think Volkanovski is the toughest challenge Holloway's had to date, then yes, you're right. Like, not relying on the takedown is important. Now, he had the foot sweep, he had the one single leg attempt, and then he finally got a takedown when he had the double switch knee in the third round from Calvin Cater. He had thrown those in the two previous rounds, but not so close in distance. The point is, one, while he may have had an illness, and I take that seriously, his opponents clearly show in his last two fights before this one that they turn it on in the third round. So this is hardly

an anomaly. This is a bit of a trend, number one. Number two, while it's important he fought that way, I acknowledge I'm not seeing what exactly is the threat to Max Holloway. What is it that he does that would slow him down, that would make him hard to hit? I mean, he does all those things really, really well, but certainly not in a way that would be, I think, especially difficult for a Holloway or a Volkanovski to find, particularly in the case of Volkanovski, who can slam the gas pedal from beginning to the end. So the point being is, people talk about all the spinning back fists and then the hook kicks. When you go through the tape, dude, they don't really ever hardly land.

They serve a purpose in backing an opponent up and then confusing him about what's coming. But by the third round, in the Bokniak fight and in the Stevens fight and now in this fight, opponents begin to realize there's not nearly as much of a threat there in terms of materially landing as we may think there is. And that's why you keep seeing the numbers go up and up and up and up. I'm not suggesting to you that he can't win. What I'm saying is, I think a little bit more seasoning is in order. Maybe one more. And that may not happen because of availability, of they want to make a title shot. Maybe the zombie gets hurt. I get it. But I didn't look

at that thinking to myself, wow, Max Holloway has his hands full. I do think that, looking at Alexander Volkanovsky. Volkanovsky is an absolutely serious threat to the throne of the Hawaiian king. This guy, while I think he is extremely talented, he's a bit of a round winner. He's a bit of a round winner. And against a guy like Holloway, who will pour it on you, and against Dustin Poirier, he had the big power he had to deal with. Zabit does not have big power.

I think he's going to get marched down. Well, Zabit's brilliant. I get what you're saying. The flashiness is sometimes more of just a look. Sometimes he uses the threat of a potential flashiness just to set up a regular counter strike. He was doing that throwing his hand in the air and trying to throw distractions. Or he fixed the elbow and then comes over.

Some of that's just not going to work against Max. But what does Zabit do best? He creatively counters in such dangerous ways at weird angles that you can't prepare for, which would be perfect against somebody like Max, who is on you, gets in your ass, and is there the whole fight coming at you. I'm not saying Max is easy to be hit or countered. Max obviously controls length and distance so well and really faints to set up his shots.

But I think, true to what he said about the 40%, Luke, you're not going to see how great Zabit can be until a great fighter forces that out of him. So that's why I think he's a much tougher out against a Max than he would be against any of these secondary guys that he's going through. Because they're not fighting at that volume with that skill to force him to have to be that. It's clear that the guys top five and down aren't that much of a threat to him. What I would say is, again, we'll see how the title shot picture shakes out. He might be next. I think we probably both agree on this one. If he doesn't get the next shot, okay,

for whatever reason, I want to see him in a five-round fight. I think he has not been in one. I want to see it. I'd like to see you get on the board with the Dagestani trend of chopping off the mustache and going thick Abe Lincoln. Why do they do the Amish thing? I don't know. It's their culture.

What does it signify? I actually don't know. It's their culture. I represent. Yeah, but what does it signify? Do you know? I actually don't know. Maybe a love of American history. I don't know, Luke. But, you know, any thoughts? Any possibility there?

I don't know. Of going no stash yourself? No. Zero chance. All right. I like my bigote. Greg Hardy, Brian Campbell, was also on the card, losing to Alexander Volkov. We had talked about it on this very show,

about whether he would win, whether he would not. We were both wrong. I'd say I was a little less wrong than you. I'll explain in just a minute. But in any event, he gave Volkov about the best fight that he could, given the circumstances, given his lack of relative time in the sport, and then, of course, given the fact that it was a bit of a short notice. What can we say about his UFC run to date?

Greg Hardy? Greg Hardy. That's a work in progress. He overachieved from the standpoint of not being an easy out against Volkov, of showing much greater defensive abilities, I thought, and to not leave himself open and to be able to hang. But I think something happened along the way in this fight, and it's what Teddy Atlas always calls the silent agreement, in which

there was a certain point where Greg Hardy basically said to Volkov, I'm only going to try to knock you out going so far and won't go over that line. And Volkov was seemingly content to say, as long as you don't go over that line, I will continue to jab you, and we can go the distance here. I'm not saying it was as explicit as that, but I think that's

the way the fight fell into there. And I know Hardy injured his hand, and I know all those things. I think this is a win for Hardy in the long run. He certainly did not embarrass himself, and he went in there in a fight in which all of us, quote-unquote, experts like me, were like, he's going to get his ass kicked. He didn't get his ass kicked. He also, at the same time, didn't show you, in my opinion,

that he's really anywhere better than he was. Right? Showed good survival. Didn't show me that he's in a better than he was, right? Showed good survival. Didn't show me that he's in a better spot to win fights. And again, you can say what you want about the inhaler thing. And then the shot on his UFC debut at UFC Brooklyn, he didn't cheat, right? We're really at the point to be like, well, let's first say this. He didn't cheat, so let's give him a high five. What I mean to say is it's a clean chance to judge three rounds without any intervening factor. So you can look at it and you can say, hey, what did we learn here?

I think it's a Goldilocks situation, right? On the one hand, you have the people who hyped him up. Here's Greg Hardy. He was, by the way, in his prime, an excellent football, American football player. Aggressive. You can just say football in this country. No, dude. We got, no, no, bro. You can just say football. I'm not trying to boggle you, but you can just say football in this country. No, dude. No, no, bro. You can just

say football. I'm not trying to boggle you, but you can just say football. Unlike you, I respect our global viewers, buddy. You should get on board. In any event, he was an excellent player, okay? And so then he had his own situations against the UFC, and you think to yourself, wow, you don't have athletes like this at heavyweight hardly at all. And there were these grand expectations. Now, I'm not suggesting that the door has closed on him ever achieving them. I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is up to this point, this idea he was going to race to the front of the division is just not accurate. He still might get there incrementally, but the idea that he was going to be some kind of new wave challenger, no, that's not true, at least not yet. On the other hand,

you had all of his detractors being like, I hope somebody knocks this guy the F out. Volkov has the best chance. He sits here and mouth breathes the way he does. You would have thought Volkov, man, he would have gone in there and just run over him. He didn't try. He didn't try to go over there and run over him. Okay, but it turns out Greg Hardy's a little too good for that. So he's kind of found this spot in between where what you can tell is when you look at the tape on him,

he has clearly gotten better at footwork quickly. He's gotten really good at knowing where I need to be, defensive sensibilities. He just doesn't have very many weapons. Yeah, that's the key. The ability to survive, which probably comes from training against a JDS and ATT, the ability to survive was very good. Right. He just doesn't have enough offensive weapons. So he ends up being kind of boring. He's a little bit boring because he's in this middle zone where he hasn't quite fully matured as a technician, but he's got enough to stay in the fight against good guys. It just lets everybody down. It's like knock them out or get knocked out. What are you doing being so average in the end?

But he's not average. He's still a decent prospect. It's just he's not what anyone said he was going to be, either for good or for bad. Not yet, anyway. But the jury's still out, I suppose, a little bit. How much longer do you give him? A year or two before you say that's kind of who he is? I think he's like 32, right? I think he's a lot closer to being who he is. Although, look, I agree.

Like I said, he was better at survival than I thought he would be. He didn't gas out badly at the end of the third like he did against the Wombat. But the ceiling's coming. I mean, how much more can you evolve? I know heavyweights have a longer window. They have a larger opportunity late in age, and he doesn't have the damage and the mileage you would think, although you can't really calculate what the NFL career does to slow

down your overall meter inside the cage. But it's weird. It was a plus, and it was a win in defeat, but there was a sobering element to it. Right, right. I mean, it's very complicated because on certain fronts, you're like, wow, that's pretty impressive. On other fronts, you're like, yeah, but there's lingering problems there. And so you never really know what quite, you know, the grade to give it. Did you get Volkov at all for not giving what people wanted from that regard when it was there?

Do you think it was there? No. Or maybe he's still thinking about Derek Lewis in the backseat. My hunch is Greg Hardy does have really good power. Every heavyweight does, but I'm guessing he does. And my hunch is that Volkov probably was fearful of it and so was like, eh. And then it was like, if I can win this way, I'm going to win this way. I'm in my hometown.

Plus, we've seen it before, man. Guys who are A-sides are better fighters, take fights on short notice, and then they look kind of weird even in a win. Jon Jones versus OSP is sort of a classic example. There have been many other ones as well. He probably was just like, dude, I'm not going to risk nothing on this guy. I'm just going to get in there, get the job done, and get out. And he did.

So what are you going to do? All right, last but not least, dude, how is this thing just still going on? Habib and Conor just going after each other. Let's start on the Conor side. So during UFC Moscow, Conor began to tweet and then ultimately delete a series of taunts towards the cousin of the UFC lightweight champion and rival, Khabib Nurmagomedov. His cousin, of course, is Abu Bakr Nurmagomedov, who was fighting well enough, coming from the PFL, now to the UFC.

Wait, was he one of the guys who ran in the cage at 229? I don't believe that's correct, but I honestly don't know. I don't even care at this point. I thought he was one of the guys that got suspended. He might have been. I honestly don't. I gave so little attention to that, believe it or not. People thought that that was like

Tiananmen Square in terms of gravity of things at combat sports. Could have been. Could have been, Luke. They got lucky. But it also wasn't. It could have been the modern palace brawl, okay? No, they weren't fighting fans. They were fighting each other. In any event, he lost via triangle. Nurmagomedov did.

Not the senior, but the cousin, Abu Bakr. And Conor took to Twitter and called him a shitbag and laughed at him, said he was disgraced forever for doing it. What did you make of Connor tweeting all those things, the nature of the tweets, given that he has lost via submission to his rival's cousin, and then deleting it all? It's completely on brand for Connor to do that, so I'm actually for that from that regard.

He's a trash talker. He's got obvious beef with the extended Nurmagomedov family and the larger team for running in and attacking him, which is a small element that I think sometimes we do look over. He was sort of blindsided and attacked from behind, although, look, it was not premeditated. I mean, you know what happened in April in Brooklyn and all that, but deleting him, that ain't the real. That's not gangster. That's not BMF to you? That's not BMF territory. I mean, I get if you? That's not BMF territory. I mean, like, I get if you're going to make fun of, you know,

Habib's wife and touch on the culture side of it, you want to get away from that. You delete that crap. But this was sort of like, you can't leave that out there? What do you make of the idea that it's like, you know, look, they're not equivalent, the way Abu Bakr lost to somebody who is not nearly of the level, and the way that Conor lost to Habib, which was sort of the lightweight championships.

One is much harder and more difficult to come by than the other. But both have technically lost in the UFC by submission. What do you make of him making fun of somebody else for also losing via submission? I get the irony. I get you want to, you know. I'm not suggesting. Me, it's like Conor's Twitter shtick. I'm just over it. It was great. So that's where I'm at. It was just kind of weird. So this is where I'm just over it. It was great. So that's where I'm at. It was just kind of weird. So this is where I'm at in general.

And I feel like I've been here many different times in this roller coaster of the last, what, year plus since Conor fought. Like, fight or get the hell off my timeline because I'm really past the point of caring. I mean, like, I got into it a little bit with you right there. But, no, I don't care. Fight, dude. Hey, UFC, we think January 18 might be a date. Is it going to be Cowboy? Is it going to be Justin Gaethje? I don't know. dude hey UFC we think January 18 might be a day is it gonna be cowboy is it gonna be Justin Gaethje I don't know gonna be Frank I don't just announce it announce this crap because us even putting it listen to the show at this point and going Connor and Habib it's

like yeah if I'm Habib I don't even talk about him I don't even make a car I know what do they say yes they have ten wins before he are ten other fights before he gives him a rematch. I mean, especially with everything going on with Conor outside of the cage and the sexual assault allegations and all that stuff and punching old guys, at this point, the smartest thing UFC can do is rush him back into a fight and let that become the narrative. Let Conor go out there and blow somebody away or win in any form, and then you'll get me banging that drum again going,

hey, should we make Habib Conor 2 next fall after Ferguson if he wins that? But as things stand right now, especially with Tony Ferguson waiting in the midst, can we give him his fight already? Can we go for it for the fifth time? Can we give that man the title shot he deserves? Can we not follow him around with a TV cord pulling on his leg, ready to swipe it out from under his legs? I mean, come on, make that damn fight and get off my timeline, Connor. Last but not least, in the Connor versus Habib thing, it's not so much Connor,

but at least on the Habib side, he said, interestingly, and I think a Q&A he had done with the fans, that he wants an apology from the Nevada Athletic Commission and he is much more interested in fighting in New York.

Now, you can understand the latter in a couple of different ways. It's a big venue. It's exciting. There's a huge Russian population native to the New York area, certainly native at this point anyway. And remember, there's a press conference that they held for him at Brighton Beach, and it was just a scene. Okay, so I get that. However, there are also complications fighting in New York. The commission is a little wonky. They make weird decisions. If a fight goes to a decision, one never knows the

competency of their judging or their medical supervision or a number of other concerns as it relates to the weigh-ins, punishments, that kind of thing. It's kind of weird, right? Like, for a commission that he's mad at, that punished him for, you know, rightly, you could assume that they would want to take some action for what he did. It's like New York is like relatively, actually, I would argue more punitive than Nevada. They haven't punished Habib for anything yet. But if you're worried about a commission that might, boy, they're at or near the top of the list for capricious and sort of odd things. Let me ask you this because I don't know the answer. Is Conor McGregor allowed to fight in the state of New York right now?

I don't think he has a license. I think you have to apply for one. But I believe he has served all of the, in terms of any kind of law enforcement issue that would prevent him, I don't believe that is the case. But by the way, commission always has a discretion. Now they would approve him. Because if Habib's taking a sort of moral stand against Nevada for what happened at 229, but yet it's like, well, I want to go back to New York where Conor attacked me in the damn bus

and really nothing happened to him outside of, I know Dana's going to say, he paid millions. He paid for that move. But nothing really happened to him in a fighting sense. He got rewarded with the biggest fight in history. Right, but I think the idea is, certainly that's a great point, but I think the idea is, at least if I'm trying to read Nurmagomedov's mind

such as one can, it's that he feels he was done wrong or humiliated or had his integrity attacked in some kind of a way. Like, he believes what he did at UFC 229 was absolutely ethically justified in every way. I think he knows he got a little bit foul with the rules, but he sees those rules as an impediment to an ethical lifestyle that, again, he sees for himself. And so in the course of the commission's actions, he just cannot find, it seems anyway, common

ground. Hey, Habiba, D ground. DTA, brother. Don't trust anybody, right? I mean, industry rule number 4080, most athletic commissions are shady? I mean, come on. Yeah, I had Jay in my ear, so I'm glad I missed your little nursery rhyme. Oh, wow. In any event, with that being said, we have gone through our five topics.

It is time now for your questions, ladies and gents. It is time now for DMs from ladies and gents. It is time now for DMs from donks. All right, let's get started. So this goes to us from Zaid Gets Faded. This is some dude who either gets drunk or high. Or knocked out often. Chilling in the cut. With the recent losses of the Jeremy Stevens and Calvin Caters of the world, it seems like three-round fights don't give you all you can get out of UFC fighters, or out of the fighters. Can a guy really claim, Brian Campbell,

to be the better fighter if one more minute was added to that clock, they would lose? Should all UFC fights be made five rounds? All UFC fights should not be made five rounds. Now, the idea of putting non-title fights at five rounds at main events, was it really, what was that fight? I believe it was in Calgary. It was a light heavyweight bout.

I can't remember. It was like a non-title light heavyweight bout. I think it might have been like Rampage and Machida or somebody on that level. Remember, it was really boring and nothing really happened, and that sort of seemed to be the tipping point of people going, why do we not have five-round main events?

My problem with five-round non-title main events have been a lot of times they just throw it out to whoever's next in line to headline UFC Albany. And it's like certain fighters aren't... To me, fighting at the five-round level, which was always akin to being on the championship level, sort of means

something. It's sort of like you need to accomplish a certain point to get to a level where you can then be fighting on that five-round level. So I never like to begin with when just to sort of fill out a main event, we just sort of bump people up to the five-round level with nothing. Do you think that's, I mean, where do you stand on that? I have a sort of a different view on this.

Chael Sonnen has really affected my thinking on it. He has introduced the idea that if you really look at the damage that a fighter can take in a three versus a five, and again, there's always going to be exceptions, but that the amount of damage they take in a five-round fight is truly career altering in many, many occasions, especially at the highest level. That's why I like reserving it for only title fights. That's really my point there. And also, this is why these guys need to be paid. So the idea of making it a five-round fight for all UFC fights, number one, is not tenable

for a broadcast position. And number two, it would do untold damage to these guys. Also, there's something weird. I know Joe Rogan has gone on these things like, oh, they should fight in a basketball court where it's like there's no walls and whatnot. Look, any fighting scenario, whether it is the street, the street with weapons, the street when you're

blinded, the street at night, the street during day, in a boxing ring with gloves, in a boxing ring with four-ounce gloves, in a four-ounce gloves, in a cage, every scenario is just manufactured. There's no such thing as a real fight. Everything has certain rules. Everything has certain boundaries. And yes, I do think for some championship fights, when they're going to be five rounds, like every championship fight is going to be five rounds, and you have somebody who's sniffing that territory,

like as a beaten Megaman Sharapov, it'd be nice to see them in those five round fights. I get that. But people in MMA have this weird obsession with one's real and one's not real. This is the authentic way. This is the inauthentic way. They're all inauthentic in their own way and inauthentic in other ways. The point being is just work with the terms you have, fight according to those rules, and let the best man win. Yeah, and the spirit of the question is saying could you have an argument if you fought in a three round fight and seemed to be coming on? Well, not if it was a three round fight. Not if you signed up for a three round fight.

And also, three round fights will change a strategy. It'll change how you prepare. It doesn't necessarily mean that if it goes five rounds, the other person can't win. No, but I think you're right on the idea of, like, when we see something really bad finally happen in the UFC health-wise to somebody, it's probably going to come before you. I mean, could you really make the argument that Carlos Condit

was the same after the Robbie Lawler fight? I just don't think you can make that argument. So, no, I'm not a fan of doing five rounds all the time like that. All right, and this comes to us from John Riggins, the famous quarterback. Not really. Running back. He said, John Riggins? What did I say?

Quarterback. All right, well, I'm tired. We're thinking of Joe Theismann's leg. It's still dangling. Yeah. You know what? I think yesterday was the celebration of Mark Rippey and six touchdowns against the Atlanta Falcons. I remember that game.

91 conference playoffs. What trilogy are you most intrigued by? Who put this question together? Connor, Nate, or KSI, Logan Paul? Derek, did you pull this question? I did not. Are you looking for skulls right now? I'm looking.

I mean, how are we doing in broadcast time? You going to go after young Jake over here again or what? Oh, apparently, I won't say his last name. Apparently, it was Matt who did it. Yes, all right. Yeah. Way to go. Why would you put this question?

I mean, I don't even know how to answer this without getting angry at the questioner. You know what I'm saying? Why don't you take your shot at Riggins 32 there? Yeah, Connor Nate is the answer. Thank you. Why don't we use this time at Riggins 32 there? Yeah, Connor Nate is the answer. Thank you. Why don't we use this time to actually get an educated answer? Luke, that fight will happen, Connor Nate 3, before they both retire and die. But what would be the best scenario for you as a fan?

Under what terms? I don't care. Does it motivate you? Have we gone too long when the idea of what made this rivalry great was the beef between them? Have we gone too long in a sense? No. It's easily sellable. It's a fine fight. I don't have, like, a lot of times people ask me, like, oh, what, I had someone ask me today, what's your dream UFC card? I don't really feel, I don't think of the sport in those terms. There are individual fights I would want to see. For right now, the one I do think about is Habib versus Tony, right? For me, that's really important to see.

But I don't get around super steamed up about the idea of what would be an ideal circumstance for Conor and Nate to fight again. That fight doesn't, for me personally, the fight itself, while I recognize the greater sporting impact, it doesn't move me in that way. So I don't really have any strong thoughts about it. All right. If KSI Logan Paul III happened, but they decided to bring it to the Bellator cage, would you avoid it at all costs?

Yes, I would avoid it at all costs, yes. And also make it with knives. Also bring back the knockout game for Jake Paul. All right. Next, I don't even know how to say this one. Jack Thompson. You can't just spell it like a normal person? He may have things going on at home. You never know. These guys will come looking for you if you cross them, Luke. I guess. All right. Do you think when Colby Covington beats Usman and Dot,

providing Tyron Woodley beats Leon Scott, will they do Woodley versus Colby or go straight for Masvidal? What do you think? So if Colby wins the title, no, they will not do Woodley versus Colby. They'll do Masvidal. Masvidal is, yeah, they'll go straight for Masvidal. What do you think? So if Colby wins the title, no, they will not do Woodley versus Colby. They'll do Masvidal. Masvidal is, yeah, they'll go straight for Masvidal. I'm not so sure. I was speaking to some people close to Masvidal. They don't seem too hyped on that fight. So Masvidal's team doesn't want

the Colby fight, is what you're saying. Is that due to some friendship? My read on them was that is not their first priority. So the title wouldn't be Jorge Masvidal's first priority. Okay, so this is the contradiction in all of it, and this is what I said to them. I'm like, hasn't he explicitly said fighting for not just a belt, but the divisional belt was like a real long-term goal of his? Like, he's been, to my mind, pretty clear about that. And they were like, yeah, but right now what

they're thinking, this is what they told me, right now what they're thinking about is who can give them the most money. If you're the UFC and Colby Covington should win the welterweight championship, what's the biggest fight they could make to take advantage of his ability to be a heel? The Woodley fight would be a big one, but the Jorge one is the biggest one. The Jorge one is the biggest one. This is, for me, why I like them saying that. Maybe they're just telling media that, so I'll say that, and it just puts out a negotiating perspective. One never really knows.

But it's like, dude, if Colby wins, the gravitational pull to get the BMF holder, even if it was Nate, to fight the winner would be huge. Add in the fact that it's Jorge Masvidal who has a personal, a real,

no BS, personal failed relationship with the other belt holder, and that it's Jorge Masvidal who has a personal, a real, no BS, personal failed relationship with the other belt holder and that there's acrimony there that is eminently mineable. Man, dude, with a story to tell, I mean, this is...

They just upped the dollars and they would make it. I just don't know how you don't make that fight to be quite honest with you. They would make it. Now, if Usman wins... That's where you have a dilemma, right?

That's where it gets a little dicey for me. Do you want to send Jorge Masvidal's brand into that deep water of that wrestling? It's a bad fight for Jorge, if you ask me. It's not that Jorge can't win. He can beat anyone in that division. But it's just like, historically, the guys that have given him trouble are the ones who can spam him with takedown attempts. It's exactly what Camoro can do.

What if you got Nate Diaz a win? Is he suddenly, instantly a welterweight title contender where you could put him in there against an Usman? What do you mean? He just got a win. Nate Diaz. Oh, Nate Diaz a win, is he suddenly, instantly a welterweight title contender where you could put him in there against an Usman? What do you mean? He just got a win. Nate Diaz. Oh, Nate Diaz. Why would you want to make that fight? That's a terrible fight for Nate.

That's a terrible fight for Nate. Really, the reality is, dude, Nate's not a welterweight. He can fight at welterweight, but didn't you feel like, because I wasn't on the show for the Monday afterwards, didn't you feel like, watching that 244 main event, it was like, one of these guys is a real welterweight, and one of these guys can fight at welterweight. I actually didn't think the weight was the issue. No, no, no, not the weight.

You don't think Jorge had much greater punching power? No, I mean, I agree with you on that. I think it was more of Jorge's evolvement that I saw was the difference in that fight. Tell me how you think he's evolved. I don't buy this whole argument, but tell me how you think he's evolved. It's the combination of refining his physical skills,

but mostly just straight up believing in himself, getting to the elite level of cardio where he's not afraid of fading and just getting to a sort of effort point, not effort from the standpoint. He's never had bad cardio, dude. Never in a million years. But he's talked about and admitted the whole idea of maybe the fear of it. And how that affects him. But it's not effort from the idea of nothing matters,

but F it from the idea of I'm going to find out how great I can be and none of the other crap is going to slow me down and get my way. I just think that these are all just platitudes that writers say that don't mean anything in the real world. Dude, this sport is 90% mental. It really is. I 100% agree. Here's to me the difference.

He has clearly had a mindset change. On that level, I agree. He talked about going into the wilderness and having to hear your own thoughts. I've actually been doing a lot of reading. I'm being dead serious. I've done a lot of reading about the powers of different forms of meditation or solitude and how they can...

Frankly, it turns out your mind needs that kind of thing. You could find a lot of peace from spending time alone. Believe me, I get it. That's actually a real thing. So I take that seriously. To me, the difference is, if you go back and you watch the Iaquinta fight or ones he's lost like

The Larkin fight a lot of times he wasn't fighting on his terms He was just kind of answering the complexion of the fight set by the opponent now He's going out and he's putting his stamp on everything right? That's to me the shift the shift is I'm going to defy it define the terms of these exchanges That's fair and that has made him instantly better. Still plays into what I said though, right? I got no time for your gruffness right now. Sort of, sort of. All right, this comes to us from SozTac2Me. Should people hit the bag with bare knuckles to condition them, if at all possible, especially those interested in bare knuckle boxing or self-defense, where obviously you don't have

wraps and gloves? Speaking of bare knuckle boxing, ain't it Artem Lobov Jason Knight too this weekend? That's not what he is asking. All right. You can handle that all you want. So actually this is a better question for someone like Faraz Zahabi or what you call it. The only thing I've ever done to this effect, speaking of Veterans Day, so I took part in the Marine Corps Martial Arts program and they did a thing there called body hardening.

You ever heard of that? Where they would spend time during the day, and I wonder with modern practices, like, how important this is. I used to do that during Cinemax late night. No, no. Body hardening. Not treat your body below the waist like an amusement park. So, for example, you ever seen these kids who fight Thai boxing?

They're like nine years old. Yeah. They'll take and they'll roll, like, glass along their shins. you ever seen these kids who fight Thai boxing? They're like nine years old. Yeah. They'll take and they'll roll like glass along their shins. You ever seen that? And what they're trying to do is they're trying to deaden the nerves inside all of their shins so when they throw, they can throw with impunity, right? They would do things like that in the Marine Corps where we would hit the bag bare knuckle. And at first, it would tear your knuckles to pieces.

And then over the course of a few weeks, you'd scab up a little bit. Kind of an equivalent of what they're doing to you mentally when you get in there, too. And also, you have to take 100 leg kicks, not full ones. But they would want to deaden the inside of the nerves here and then outside. There might be something to that. But honestly, it feels like with modern practices, preserving the body is probably better. There should be some kind of, you know, a callus here or there is good. Like, for example, when I see people lift weights with gloves on, I automatically know you pee sitting down. There is

just nothing. There's nothing that says I'm, there's nothing that's like, how do you broadcast to the world, like, total cuckness? Put gloves on your hands when you go to the weight room, because you want the callus. The callus and your natural grip is better for grabbing the bar. It's actually long-term what you want to build. So there's probably something to be said for that. On the same time, though, just ruining your hands. I mean, they wear wraps for a reason as well, right? Because you want to protect the integrity of the wrist and then the bones here are very fragile, right?

You're both a weightlifter and an asshole. So what do you make of the people at the gym, the guy who's actually built, but he wears the real tight ball shorts, and he doesn't ask for a spotter, but he screams at every lift? I mean, it's the type of scream that's like, look at my tight balls. What is going through that guy's head? Well, first of all, I don't get lured in like you, like some kind of cobra who just gets enamored with it.

Number one, I go about my business. Number two, this is a rule for life, because if you ride enough subways and metros like I do, you see the people open up the door, hey, everybody. Hey, everybody. Merry Christmas. I need, you know, I'm not mocking the homeless, but they come through all the time, and they've always got a sad story to tell. Sometimes I give them mine, sometimes I don't.

But the point being is to tell the world, leave me alone, and I'm going to focus on my business. Over the ear, noise-canceling headphones. It's the only way to fly. I've got a Bose pair. Somebody could be yelling for you to help them. They could be pinned down on their neck. They need a spot, and you're just like, F off. I've got to listen to this death metal here.

Dude, it's not even about that. Because if you just put regular headphones on that are not noise canceling, which I've been using for years, you can still get distracted. You've kind of got to turn your music up. It's not as great. Get the noise canceling. It's kind of an example of how you deal with life. That's right.

I just turn off the noise, and I focus on what I'm doing. And it works out pretty well for me. Yeah, I'm not going to be hardening my knuckles at any point. Are you going to be watching, though, Hick Diaz against Artem 2? What's happening? Is there any UFC this weekend or no? Yeah, there is. Yeah.

Oh, it's the terrible card, though. That card is so bad. Yeah. Are we going to have a show next week? Because that card is horrendous. Yeah, we'll have a show. We'll drink beer. We'll debate 90s classics.

Yeah, where's my beer? By the way, they asked me about this in the elevator. Where's the beer, dude? All right. You talked a lot of shit. Where's my beer? By the way, they asked me about this in the elevator. Where's the beer, dude? You talked a lot of shit. Let's see. Last but not least, this comes to us from Mount Booble. I'm sure a place you've climbed once or twice. The Mount Rushmore of...

I've been to second base, if that's where you're going right now. The Mount Rushmore of Little Debbie snacks. Do you like Little Debbie? I do. You know what? Just to make sure I refresh my memory, what is on Little... Is Twinkie Little Debbie snacks. I can't, do you like Little Debbie? I do, I do. Let me pull, you know what, just to make sure I refresh my memory, what is on Little Debbie? I love, I don't know if they're actually made by. Is Twinkie Little Debbie?

I don't know if they're made by Little Debbie, but I love the zebra cakes, you know, the white cakes with the black drizzle across the top. And I tried to, I haven't had them since like 92, and I tried to get them in the store the other day, and my wife called me white trash when I tried to grab them off the shelf. She could call you white trash blindfolded,

to be quite honest. Wow, wow. But yeah, that's the best one right there. Those things are like crack. I'd love to see what they put inside there. So they got brownies, they got cakes, they got muffins, donuts, cookies, pastries, pies, snack, ooh, the nutty snack bars. Nah, those are lame.

You don't need to go there. You know, I don't know if I've had a lot of Little Debbie recently to be, oh, these ones. Which ones are these? Yeah, the traditional chocolate cupcakes. Cupcakes with the frosting inside? Yeah, those are the... Those are badass. Look, the Christmas tree ones, those are life-changing.

Those are terrible. No, those are amazing. Do you like peppermint? No, no. Yeah, okay. All right, so we're good on that one. By the way, are you a cake or a pie guy? Pie all the way, bro.

Dude, how is I have asked the guy who eats gas station food? Dude, understand, pies are what they throw in the faces of clowns. Cakes are what they serve at weddings and then to visiting dignitaries. Cakes are for royalty. I mean, get out of here. Dude, the best desserts in the world, I'd say at least three of the top five best desserts are pies. Chocolate cream pie, apple pie, meat pie. It's not a dessert, but Thanksgiving's coming up.

Meat pie is the way to live your life, right? You need some serious. Very French Canadians, my people. You need psychological counseling. All right, now we do your bit where we look at slapstick. Oh, yeah. Hey, hey, have you seen this shit, Luke? Now, Luke, disclaimer, you always say all I'm about is the slapdick, the slapstick.

Oh, my God. I didn't say slapdick. Did that guy get elbowed in the nuts? Oh, my God. Oh, no, Luke. I want to give you the type of porn that you watch. So why don't we start off here at number one. You don't say slapdick. Did that guy get elbows in the nuts? Oh, my God. No, Luke. I want to give you the type of porn that you watch. So why don't we start off with your number one.

Combate San Antonio. Oscar Suarez against Chris Cortez. Butterfly Hooks Week. Check this out. And check out the jajuts here, Luke, okay? What do you think about this? Look at this guy, Nogi Berra, over here. It's just an armbar from Mount.

Oh, I thought the transition was nice. I know you were looking at the back of that guy's ball bat while he was doing it. Butterfly hook sweep, Mount. He's going to post the left hand. I thought this was a nice transition. See, I don't get down like this. Watch, watch, watch. He posts the left hand, extended away from his body, and he takes it. The rule is, they teach you this.

Derek will tell you this. So you're not accepting my gift. This is for you. Yeah, his move to the arm bar was swift, which I really appreciate. In fact, he almost over-rotated. If you watch, look. He's going to almost over-rotate. Watch how far he whips around like that. See that? He almost whips everyone all the way around. But the reality is they teach you like this to make a... Derek, back me up. To make your hands on top of each other, and

then you just take turns opening up, doing arm bar from S-mount back and forth. It's a standard arm bar. Never let your elbows in jiu-jitsu get away from your body. True or false, Derek? Never let your elbows get jiu-jitsu get away from your body. True or false, Derek? True. Never let your elbows get... So look at it. Watch. Knowing that your elbows

should never be separated, watch this guy. Hold on, hold on. Hear me out. Hear me out. Watch his left elbow. Watch how far away it is from the rest.

Look, look, look, look, look. It should never be that. You should never... In a street fight, you should never do this. It's like trying to buy gifts for my wife. She's always looking back

in the bottom of the box for the receipt to see where she can bring it back. This was for you. I could have shown a nude guy getting headbutted in the balls but this was for you luke well i'm glad you didn't show me two guys well okay i mean just keep going all right why don't we go to some action here um robin catalan at one championship check out this head kick and watch the way this fella falls luke that's like me when i get into bed at night and the dogs are already there and I got like a little sliver to dive into.

Check this out. Somebody lost a contact. I got it. Oh, wow. It looks like he's belly flopping. Hey, by the way, do you see one said that? You know, my favorite part about this is it's drug-free sport. That's what I love about it.

I love drug-free sport. Do you believe one when they say 85 million saw their 100th cut? I don't believe 8 million saw it, much less 85 million. All right. Heck of a finish there from Robin Catalan. That's nice. By the way, the referees will tell you if the guy falls forward versus backwards, it's always a little worse.

All right. Hey, we searched the globe here for the bizarre, the wild, the wacky in combat sports. I'm not into this combat sport we got coming up. This slap-tastic action. Let me guess. Is this Russia? Yes. Look at this Marilyn Manson stand.

Oh, God. He ain't. Is this Russia? Yes. Look at this Marilyn Manson stand. Oh, God. He ain't coming back from that, Luke. He may deserve it for those tats. So you ever seen Lifeway, the kind of kickboxing, the Burmese kickboxing? No, but look at that. Slow-mo on that. So the way it works in that is, if memory serves, like if you get knocked out in Muay Thai, let's say one clean shot, you're out.

The match is over. In Lifeway, dude, they can wake you up. They wake you up. Oh, you told me about that, and I just saw this morning a video of that that made me want to throw up. They wake the dude up after he gets knocked cold. But look at, so did you see the fat guy no-sell it, first of all? Dude, you call him fat.

That dude, his neck doesn't turn at all, bro. Look at that no-sell. I mean, that guy kind of had it coming for that fat setup, right? Dude, look at the size of the paw on that grizzly bear on the left. See, I'm not into that. Even bare-knuckle fighting, it grossens me out after a while, right? By the way, speaking of porn, did you see that, you mentioned it, did you see that there was a woman who has done porn who fought in Bellator?

I think her name's like Orion Star or something. Did you see this? No. So I had never heard of her, and then I looked up the kind of porn that she has done. I'm honestly not certain if she gets hurt more in that or in her MMA fight I mean you know what in the name of war machine do we have to have this conversation you know a dead serious hey let's roll on its head kick season Bellator 233 over the weekend John Jones protege Kristen Edwards needed just 16 seconds Wow to knock this dude to the

deep dark depths of hell, Luke. He looked solid. I mean, he wasn't fighting a guy who's all that great, but at 3-0, you don't need to be. You need to be just getting ring time. Do not pass goal. Forfeit your soul at the doorstep. Wow, Luke. Just times it.

Sets it up perfectly. Payment is due when services are rendered. Look at this. Right in the mouth. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, that's bad. Look at the way the body falls.

You don't see it like that too often. Oh, does he testify in church? Let the body hit the floor there. Wow. Let's see. Does he testify? Let's see with the hands. Do the hands fly up?

Whew. I can't see from the highlights, goddammit. Yeah, Jay's getting in your way a lot. Yeah, a little bit. He might have testified there. I think he was kind of doing the, what's that, the Macarena? I know. We're sitting here mocking these poor bastards. Yeah, I little bit. He might have testified there. I think he was kind of doing the... A little bit, yeah. What's that, the Macarena? I know, we're sitting here

mocking these poor bastards. Yeah, I know. People die all the time. All right, let's go to... Did you see KSW51 over the weekend in Zagreb? The legend is back! Marius Pujamowski, bitches!

42-year-old Pujam. Look, this looks like a bad Tinder date at the end. Look at this. Wow! He's back. Don't you mean Grindr? Grindr, I just met her. But look at the way he goes right to full mouth this. Wow. He's back. Don't you mean Grindr? Grindr.

I just met her. But look at the way he goes right to full mount there with the advertisement on his back. Hey, Crow Cop was there in attendance. Yeah, he was. Pujab was back. We got to get a freak fight for this guy. Can Bellator sign him?

Dude, Marcus Pujanowski is so fun. I love KSW so much. And I love, this guy's actually pretty talented, you know, for a big, muscly dude. Yeah, he got a TKO over Erko Jun. You know what I love about this? Who's a bodybuilder. I love drug-free sport. I love drug-free sport.

This is drug-free sport. The same drug-free sport. None of the sport you watch is drug-free. Are you okay with the advertisement on the back? What is this, goldenpalace.com? I mean, come on. Come on, Pujol. You're better than that, right?

It does feel a little low-rent, right? Yeah, it feels a little like 12 years ago. Like, he should be better than that. But can he beat Jake Hager tomorrow? Bellator 248. No, but he'd make it fun. All right, you fired up for Bellator Tel Aviv this weekend? All right, hey, I always have a bonus for you.

I know what people are watching this going, hey, we didn't see any dongs, all right? But I wanted to make a little MMA element to you. Did you ever hear of the Naked Ninja? No. How many cops do you think it takes to take down a Naked Ninja? Check this out, Luke. Is this New York City?

They've apprehended this gentleman. PCP is one hell of a drug. Look at these moves. Kind of looks like Zabit. Dude, holy shit. He did a hand. And he got away. He's loose.

He's gone, Luke. He may show up on set here. You never know. It's like naked crossfit. Jake, why are you taking your pants down? Look at that. Where'd it go? Put it back. There we go. They had him down, too. They on set here. You never know. It's like naked CrossFit. Jake, why are you taking your pants down? Look at that. Where'd it go? Put it back.

There we go. They had him down, too. They had him here. They had him. But look at how loose. Look at these guys backing up. They don't want to see that. They don't want to touch that.

Dude, this guy is definitely a friend of yours. Look at that. Look at that. I tell you, we're all out of trouble right there. These poor cops. We've all been that guy before, Luke. What kind of drugs was he doing? You think? Yeah.

Oh, straight PCP. Because he's not drunk. You can't fight off five officers. He's doing handstands. But he's got a jujitsu game right there, right? He's doing kip-ups. He can roll? I mean, look, if he had a gi, I would know where I'm grabbing.

When he's going no-gi like this, where would you grab him with? Where does he go? Where would you apprehend him with? With no-gi? Yeah. Neck or waist? He changes oil? What are you going to do to keep him down? Neck or waist or a limb? Some kind of a apprehend him with? With no gi? Yeah. Neck or waist? He changes oil? What are you going to do to keep him down?

Neck or waist or a limb? Some kind of a limb? Wrist? Something like that? Go for the fifth one. You want like an elephant walk? Dude, how is it we always end up talking about penises during your segment? I mean...

What are you doing to my career? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Hey, have you seen that shit? Yeah. No. Are we done? Are we done watching the naked dudes? Yeah. All right. Hey, have you seen that shit? Yeah. No. Are we done?

Are we done watching the naked dudes? Yeah, we're done watching dongs there, but shout out to that guy, okay? All right. Last but not least, odds and ends. What do you got for odds and ends? This past Thursday in Japan, I don't know if you saw the finals of the World Boxing Super Series Bantamweight Championship. Pound for pound ranked.

Nahua Inoue, the monster, was going in there against the legend, future Hall of Famer, Nonito Donair. And they have to round and produced a fight of the year contender. We've been saying that a lot this year in boxing. Kind of a sneaky good year in boxing when you consider fights like... Also on DAZN, right? Fights like Spence Porter over-delivered. You had Triple G, Dervyn Chango, which was a fun brawl. It seems like every other week we're going,

that's a fight of the year contender. This one certainly was, and it may end up getting my vote because of the drama involved. Donair's a week from his 37th birthday. We all thought he might get handled and hurt there because the Japanese monster Inoue has been rolling through division by division, just knocking suckers

out. What happened? He eats a legendary left hook from Donair in round two. They find out he broke his orbital bone, bad cut, and he goes through that fight, and it's a legendary left hook from Donair in round two. They find out he broke his orbital bone, bad cut, and he goes through that fight, and it's a war. Donair gets knocked down with a body shot in round 11. Shades of Arturo Gatti in the first Mickey Ward fight. No business getting up from that.

You can see the anger and the anguish, and he finished that fight. And we love Luke in combat sports when an old warrior is willing to pour out that jug one more time and go out in a shield, and this was beyond a moral victory for nonito donare like he's going to go in the hall of fame he's great he's a multi-division champion but this is one of those where it's like could your best win be a loss because this was one of those just inspirational type of performances and in the end a new way is still that dude because you want to see a pound for pound rank guy who's been blowing people away be forced to show you how great he can be once he realized that his power wasn't going to move

donair who had fought two divisions north in recent years a featherweight and sort of had the size advantage we got to see what a new way is really made up from the standpoint of speed boxing iq he he he raised his profile in the end the wbss which has been giving us gold kind of produced another memorable moment. And if you didn't see that fight, check out DAZN and watch it because I got the feels. I was really moved by it. And I love the Ali trophy. I think it looks really cool. And there's a little story about that

at the end there, too. Donair had promised his kids that he would show them, he would bring them home the Ali trophy, but he didn't win, so he wasn't giving it to him. So he asked Inouye if he could borrow it to show his kids. Inouye allowed him to do that for one night so he could show it to him. So he asked Inouye if he could borrow it to show his kids. Inouye allowed him to do that for one night so he could show it to his kids, not as something that dad had brought home,

but as a matter of what it means to persevere. And also, what an incredible sign of sportsmanship. So while DAZN did show Logan Paul KSI, and that got the most headlines, they also showed the best boxing fight maybe of the year just a few days before that. At like 7.30 in the morning, too. It was great.

If you're a real boxing fan, you'll find the gems there. By the way, we thought Inoue might walk through him in one round. To be honest, when they announced the fight, and I know it was a bit of a tournament, but I was like, I thought Donair was kind of washed, to be honest with you. I thought Inoue was going to blow him away. He didn't. By the way, Inoue, I'm sorry, Donair to get to the finals of that tournament, his first opponent got injured, second opponent got hurt.

It was just sort of this almost luck along the way of that tournament, like his first opponent got injured, second opponent got hurt. Like it was just sort of this like almost luck along the way. Like he gifted, yeah. And then in a way it was just blowing through all the real challengers. So incredible, incredible moment for the sport of boxing there. Last but not least, I'll go with Sage Northcutt getting out there and admitting since having his face broken against Cosmo Alessandri

in that terrible fight he had back in May for his, I think it was his one debut, which required an eight or nine hour surgery to repair everything. The feeling is still coming back into his face. He's not trained since then. He's apparently hit the, maybe hit the mitts a little bit. He's certainly been lifting the weights. Still got the abs if you follow. Still got the abs, but that is it. He has not been able to train. You know, this is amazing. He's going to go back to 155 where he said he's undefeated rather than fighting at 170, which really ended up being 185.

Now, Alshandri's always been about a 170-ish fighter in his career as well. But the point being is, like, we solved weight cutting. Well, whatever weight policy you had got him super hurt, number one. Number two, I certainly hope that this is not the case, but you really wonder, like, is he going to fight again? And if so, how much long-term damage can he really take, given how severe, frankly, all of this was? It was not effective matchmaking by one, even a little bit.

Now, later on, Sage had bristled at the idea from Dana White that he should retire. I don't know that that's right either. I don't know that that's wrong, too. I mean, he got effed up. Like, his face was, like, nerve-ending. I give all the credit in the world to Sage for wanting to come back and say, I want to get back on the horse and get back to my natural weight class. Fair enough.

The guy's a warrior. But that was a really, really, really bad knockout. You have to be very careful with some of these prospects. In the end, I thought the UFC match made for him pretty well. I guess one thought more was going to happen for him in that contest, but it didn't. So we wish him the best. We hope everything works out. But that is a situation to monitor, to be quite clear.

Shout out to King Mo Lawal, who got knocked out in his final fight for Bellator. Not for getting knocked out, but for Mo. Big fan of him as a fighter in person over the years. To see him go out on his own terms, and then the next day, sign with Major League Wrestling and appear in a match for them. He used to do a little cup of coffee with TNA Impact Wrestling in the past. So he's doing what he wants. He's a great trainer at ATT, great dude.

So he had a fun career. He had a fun career. Folks just don't understand what he meant when he was flying through Sengoku the way he does. He was the most exciting and electrifying prospect at sort of light heavyweight early and then middleweight for a time. And there was times when people thought, like, how Mo would do against Jon Jones and do the injuries just completely.

He had an artificial hip. He has just been through the ringer. What's the victory of Mark Kerr of all people? Yeah, and it was funny. He mentioned this. Whoever the guy was that beat him, he was like, look, man, when I beat Travis View, I covered Travis View's fight in 2007 in Washington, D.C.,

but he's like, when I beat Travis View, it was this passing of the torch, and now this guy gets it. He sort of understood his place in the ecosystem of fighting, and so he's always been smart about it. He's always been clever. He always understood the game. And certainly I don't care for pro wrestling, but I hope he has a phenomenal career whenever that takes him.

And quickly, it is UFC Sao Paulo over the week. How do you pronounce that in your hipster South American way? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how that's pronounced. Oh, wow. I thought you would have some Colombian, you know. It's a different country.

OK. Wow. How do you pronounce Oslo? I don't know. It's a different country. Okay, wow. How do you pronounce Oslo? I don't know. It's in Norway. Johnny Blachowicz is back. Jan Blachowicz. Does he get a title shot if he blows away Jacare in 2005?

No, I think the Reyes thing is the one that's cooking. I think it's going to be that way. By the way, let's not forget one more time, one more quick plug. The Sonny Liston documentary will be Friday, 9 p.m. Pariah. He has seen it. I cannot wait to see it on Friday night. If you want to try Showtime, don't say we don't do nothing for you. Look at the code right there, COMBAT. You can try it free for 30 days. A trial right there. You can check it out. You got to use the promo code by the, let's see, end of this year, the 31st. Get

it out there. Use the promo code COMBAT. You can go to Showtime.com slash try30. It's right there for you, donks. Three, well, 30, whatever it is. I can't read it. Yes, 30 days free. 30 days free. Best month of your life. You don't want to miss that. You want to close by throwing out a diss track at all of our competitors? You want to hit them up? We don't have competitors. Don't one of y'all got sickle cell or something, right? All right. Okay. I guess I was alone in the 90s.

Sorry. I had a good run. All right. Oh, are you doing the whole hit them up thing? Yeah. I tried. Well, we are in NEW jurors where plenty of murders occurs. I do know that.

Yeah. I did make that reference. Okay. One more time. One more time. Very quickly. Like the video. Subscribe to the channel.

Tell folks about this. The more you subscribe, the more this show comes to life. Trust me when I tell you that. So please, subscribe. Help us hit our unofficial goal of 30K by January 1. We'd love for you to help us put us over the hump there. It would be kind of cool. Yeah?

All right. There's our handles. You can follow me on Twitter and or Insta. And you can do the same for Brian Campbell. We both have stupid names that don't cohere with one another across social media platforms. So we're very smart. Yeah.

You got anything coming up personal this weekend? You going to do anything good? Bro, I barely just got through the last one. All right. I don't know. No. You going to have any more kids? Is that too personal to ask in front of thousands of people? Probably not. Probably just have the one. Okay. Might adopt one. All right. I don't know. No. Can I have any more kids? Is that too personal?

I'll ask in front of thousands of people. Probably not. I'll probably just have the one. Okay. Might adopt one. That's probably real. That's real. That's real.

All right. We'll see how it goes. All right. For Brian Campbell, I am Luke Thomas. Thank you guys so much for watching. Enjoy the fights this upcoming weekend. We'll be back in about a week. And until then, may all of your, be loyal. you you