MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - 2023 Combat Sports Awards | Morning Kombat

Episode Date: December 29, 2023

Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell give out their end of the year awards. The guys talk KO of the year, Fighter of the year, fight of the year and much more. Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only at participating McDonald's in Canada. Reveille, reveille, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion.

That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. Oh, yeah. For the final time in 2023, your boys from Morning Combat are going to get together and hand out our damn awards.

Welcome on in. You're probably watching this on Friday, December 29th, 2023. And I did mention for the final time of this calendar year, this is the award-winning Morning Combat. My name is Brian Campbell. You know me as the American Alpha, my partner in crime in DC, experiencing a post-Christmas buzz at the moment, Luke Thomas. Luke, happy holidays. We're between Christmas and New Year's as we record this. We've got so much hardware to hand out across the sports of boxing and mixed martial arts.

But did you and the family have a great one this year, Luke? I think it was pretty good. Yeah. You know, Tuki santa eating all her cookies and uh drinking all her milk and then leaving her some nice gifts she had a great time um i i feel like i i was a good gift giver this year and you know i'm pretty hard to get gifts for but um they did their best it was merry it was cheerful we did lots of things in sightseeing had some lots of hot chocolate yeah i can't complain i can't complain what do they get for the man that has and knows everything luke it's probably a tough

you know math equation that they but they pulled it off again so did you happy to hear that same kind of you know this was luke i compare this to the uh first covid christmas we had a few years ago where we didn't go see any relatives everybody shackled up in their own houses we did that again dude these post-covid Christmases are great. Just put in your house the people that matter to you the most. Don't change or put on deodorant and just watch movies and eat bad. I mean, it's great, Luke. Dude, I've been catching up on so many movies that I missed because I can't go to the movies anymore.

Especially, dude, all the good movies now are like three hours long, right? So I finally saw Oppenheimer. I finally saw Killers of the Flower Moon. I finally saw Barbie, which was not saw killers of the flower moon i finally saw barbie which was not actually much better than i thought it was going to be um actually all three of those were really good but bc here's the power rankings for lt ready okay number one of those three of those three and they're all good want to be clear i actually like them all for different reasons but killers of the flower moon number one oppenheimer number two barbie number three but they were all with your time trio but i'll try to jump in and join you shortly enough um yeah you

know it wasn't even it's the best holidays luke when you're like it wasn't even about the gifts it wasn't i just really enjoyed who cares unplugging and just enjoying the gifts the real gifts that i have you know the people in my life you mean fortnight i play i got a new gaming chair for my wife so a lot of fortnight was played so i happy dude look i got a controller i got you can get the xbox app which i know is bullshit but you can get it on the samsung tv which is what i have i was playing this i was playing the new hot wheels game with the tukester it was a good time okay well oh big score here luke my wife uh nudged me to get for her for christmas the uh 8-bit nintendo that you plug into your tv and it has like 600 games on it you know those jams that are floating around and uh my sons and i have been playing a lot of ice hockey remember the original

just still yes you got to get four fat guys on your team when you're when you're making your team you know you can get a minute uh skinny you got the fast skinny ones or the medium size yeah and some some old school dr mario too so good times but that's that if you want to wear our merch and i'm wearing this hat right here luke what shirt are you representing right here it looks like the new york knicks uh this is not anything by the way here's our lowers our social lowers this is i got this at a record store in um in the lower east side oh is that big luke yeah yeah g in the new york knicks colors yeah i love that even though of course the nets or played new jersey now brooklyn i don't quite get why they did

it the way they did it but they did it the way they did it they did it they did it either way so you can go to morningcombat.store, get a little post-holiday merch. Maybe there'll be some deals from RJ to clear the shelves. You never know. But check all that good stuff out there going on. And quick reminder, folks, next year, 2024, we're bringing it. We've already filmed the projections as we look ahead to the new year. You can catch that right after the turn of the new year.

And then stay tuned for some big announcements to come as we continue to be the best thing that's ever happened to you i mean that's that's a fair statement right there okay we got the awards to prove it right now though we've got a different awards we're not receiving them we are going to be giving them out like we have done in the past the prestigious mk award for everything from donk of the year to event of the year to fighter. And then some and more get ready. It's coming at you, Luke.

We've done a lot of time in these parts, recap in the years as a whole great year for boxing, really pretty damn good year for MMA. It's produced so many big moments, a lot of debates here, but we have done our best to limit it down to one winner or a tie the best we could putting our best to limit it down to one winner or a tie, the best we could, putting our minds together. And we kick off the 2023 Morning Combat End of Year Awards with MMA Knockout of the Friggin'

Year. Luke Thomas, we're going to go right to our winner. We'll shout out the honorable mentions and all that. But the Morning Combat choice for best knockout in 2023, it came in South Florida in April. It was Israel Adesanya regaining the middleweight championship with a pair of counter right hands against Alex Podeta. Then the celebration heard around the world.

Then one of the best post-fight inspirational interviews of all time. Luke, we came to a consensus on this when you think back to izzy versus alex what stands out the most man um a lot of things stand out to me on that one i would say personally bc the triumphant moment that's really what it was was a triumphant moment i mean in any of these awards you have to sort of lay out your criteria and for me, it does matter who was executing it and what kind of context they were executing it in, both in a technical sense and then in a larger sense. There's a level of what were the stakes involved,

how good was the opposition, and how good itself was the KO. I kind of balance those things as the ones I care about. And when you look at it, and again, there's some people who think he played possum, whatever. I went down and did a big breakthrough where the fence now was not his enemy, but his friend because it drew in Pineda closer. He had a keen sense of timing

about how his hands dropped, as he does. Used that timing, dropped him, and then, of course, the three arrows and the celebration and what it meant to finally break through and get that win. It was truly triumphant. To me, it satisfies every category about what you want in a meaningful KO. You can find, you know, perhaps more vicious KOs or sometimes more interesting stakes depending on how you view it. But if you view it in the way that I do, in the way that I previously just laid out, this one is a clear satisfier in so many ways uh ways bc i really think of all this the the

knockouts we had this year we had some acrobatic ones we had some more devastating ones but we just didn't have one that played the levels like this one give me izzy over alex and i think the knockout of the year in both combat major sports of boxing and MMA can be that gray area that we're talking about where there are times that you can give a knockout more power on the rankings because of the stakes and this one had incredibly high stakes not just the middleweight championship but the immediate

rematch of their equally dramatic and sort of crazy ending in Pereira rallying back in round 5 so there's so much at stake for Adesanya reputationally, you know, like in so many categories that it fulfills, like you said, it was stunning to look at, maybe not as spectacular as some of the other ones, but when you factor everything in UFC 287, Miami, it's, it's like, it's tough,

Luke. It sucks for Adesanya. When we look back at the year as a whole, that he did not implode necessarily, not fall apart, not even really laying an egg on like a Aldana or Cyril Ghosn level in their biggest losses of the year that also fueled huge victories for Jon Jones and his comeback. And of course, the big victory there for Amanda Nunes, who walked away on top. But I feel like if Adesanya hadn't lost his title in the way he did to Strickland, that this knockout and the ripple effect of it, of what it could mean to different awards, could have been massive. We're voting it as the knockout of the year.

If you had a comeback of the year award, it could have won that. It could have easily been the promo of the year in terms of the inspirational interview afterwards. The immediacy of that celebration by Adesanya was so cool, uplifting, like inspirational, motivating, like it was everything in one. But look, it's almost as if the loss to Strickland and the way that he sort of gave back the title and sort of not, you know, kind of limps into a new year with us not really knowing which direction he's going in his career, which division he's going to. I wonder if that changes some things. We still gave it this award, but that moment was so big.

You could argue it was the best win of the year for any person at the highest level, that it was certainly the most important win in terms of what it meant. You can't discount, even at the highest level, what it means to get walked down and stopped in the way that Adesanya did in a fight that he was leading so much the year before and their first MMA meeting

in the UFC. And considering the boogeyman nature, the role that potato was put, Pereira was playing in Adesanya's head yet, what he did in that moment to turn it around. It's it was so magical, but I feel like it could have been even more. Maybe if he had beaten Strickland like we thought he would

and would have been in contention here for fighter of the year. Didn't go that way, but what a freaking great moment. It's going to be hard to top a knockout like this year to year because of all of those elements. I'll just quickly add, BC, we don't have as a category performance of the year. And again, it all depends on how you want to define it. To me, I would define performance as who on a single night performed the most ably on a single night right not over all the year not did they have a knockout or not not necessarily right it could be a lot of ways

in which you look at it but for me um it would be on the boxing side terence crawford beating errol spence that is to me out the best performance by any boxer this year. Far, far in a way and I do respect obviously what Noe Inouye has done and on the MMA side, I give it to Izzy. I give it to him on this one. Now, that's debatable. That's debatable because you had Makachev going in there and blowing through Volk in the rematch and like blowing

through him. The problem is the nature of the way in which he took it. The second fight on short notice. Yeah. It docks it. I mean, it's a great KO on tape. You know what I mean?

Right. It does. It changes that. And what's crazy about Adesanya here, final point on this, is he may have had the best win of the year, like you just debated, over Pereira, but he may have been on the losing end of arguably also the best win of the year, and that was Sean Strickland when he upset him because it was so thorough from start to finish.

So it just shows you the craziness in this game, but I'm glad we didn't forget what was a sensational, deep-rooted, inspirational comeback win right there. Let's keep it going, Luke, on the honorable mentions. Look, nobody's given this the love in the top five. I ended up voting it number two overall. It was in the PFL. It was during the regular season. Look, nobody's given this the love in the top five. I am the voting at number two overall. It was in the PFL. It was during the regular season. Do you remember Sadabu sees spinning back kick knockout against Shane Mitchell that did look a little bit

like Barboza versus Adam? I'm shocked that nobody's talking about that, Luke, although it did win the best MMA knockout at the World MMA Awards this year. So that was good to see. Do you have any honorable mentions that you want to throw out there? I guess if you're adding to other ones on that list, there's a few directions you could go.

Obviously, Justin Gaethje knocking out Dustin Poirier with a head kick is really big. That's really, really huge. Rob Font's win over Adrian Yanez is a big one. You have to really kind of honor that fact as well. My favorite Bellator performance would be a submission for patchy mix. So we'll get to that a little bit later, but Umar Nurmagomedov beating Howie Barcelos KOing him is a big one. And Luke,

sometimes recency bias can be a factor in terms of winning this awards. This one didn't get over the top, but in any other year with Josh Emm emmett versus bryce mitchell from ufc 296 in december be in contention in your eyes for ko of the year yeah there's no i mean that's one of the most dude that's one of the most devastating ko's in the entire sports history i'm not being dead serious like that's how bad that ko is but the problem was in terms of making it the ko of the year, it just, the fight had no storyline. Mitchell was the last minute replacement. And obviously it was so devastating that it now has a bigger story attached to it.

But at the time in which they fought, it was like, hey, Bryce filling in on short notice. Isn't that great? And then he just suffers a vicious KO. It kind of docks it in the way in which I'm defining it. But again, all these award shows, everyone wants to pretend like their choice is better, but your choice is only a function of your criteria. For me, the other factors weigh when you're making a choice here.

But if it was just brutality or viciousness or thoroughness, maybe he would win. All right, I also want to shout out Benoit Saint-Denis. His head kick of Matt Frivola in MSG was something stunning. And we can't go any further, Luke, without also throwing a shout out in this regard. When you're talking about the best knockouts to Robbie Lawler, I know it was more of the moment against Nico Price, the retirement to end the preliminary portion of the UFC pay-per-view card in July.

The knockout was also pretty good, too. And you just take that all into account. What he did walking away on top, what Amanda Nunes did walking away on top, different circumstances there though. But I would put that in this criteria, an unforgettable knockout from the ruthless one, Robbie Lawler. Let's keep the finishing going, Luke. And I'm not talking about straw weights, right?

I'm talking about submission of the year. And here's a couple honorable mention nominees before we announce the winner. Shavkat Rachmanoff versus jeff neal third round standing rnc luke thomas and the bone fiend brothers we had ishmael in a knockout of the year performance uh nominee against mckinney how about gabrielle bone fiend against munir laze with the mounted guillotine luke any other honorable mentions you want to circle before we anoint a winner no no you got a pretty good list here i agree with basically everything you've got yeah all right the winner though there can only be one for 2023

for morning combat submission of the year alexa grasso versus valentina shevchenko it was their first of two meetings in the calendar year. This one was shocking, not just that yet another talented flyweight was pushing the great champion Shevchenko to the limit like we'd seen before from the likes of Talia Santos. But Luke, this was Grasso becoming a star in the moment and forcing one of the three greatest female fighters of all time to tap out. Did not see that coming. Yeah, didn't see it coming either.

Although if you go back and look at how she trained and what she had identified, there was nothing accidental about this rear naked choke. They knew that there were going to be opportunities where Shevchenko showed her back and they took advantage of it in the way that they had trained, in the way that they had game planned. It was an elevated moment for Grasso. It was an elevated moment for her gym, for her country, for the women's game. It was just a fantastic win.

And BC, in many ways, when you think about it, it was just rear naked choke. She jumped on a rear naked choke and got the stoppage very quickly. And what was so special about the choke itself? In that sense, it was a well-timed, well-executed one. But the choke itself wasn't dazzling. It wasn't a twister. It wasn't a unique way. You'd never seen it before. It was a very standard, for the most part, rear naked choke, but the other ways in which you can evaluate submission of the year. So the complexity or the level of technical detail, complexity is not the right word. The level of technical detail matters to me but in the mma sense bc them identifying all the opportunities to find her back and then

waiting for the moment that they had planned to do it in training sure enough shevchenko does it they then jump on it i mean that level of detail of game planning of muscle memory of execution of presence of mind and again the stakes being for the title being this the biggest opportunity for her career and then some against this the most successful fighter in that division has ever had basically in the women's side and then getting it all done that has to be your submission of the year it has to be it fulfills so many criterias so thoroughly and it was so shocking to see Shevchenko fall into a vulnerable position and then tap like that, just succumb to defeat in that way. Not that I expected her to pass out or whatever,

but it was just like, wow, Grasso's in this position, and wow, she pulled it off. It just escalated so quickly. It was such a breathtaking moment. They had an incredible rematch, and we expect a trilogy after that draw that we saw at Noche in September. Luke, I mentioned quickly those honorable mentions. That's rare, correct?

When we see Bonfim putting Lazé into a mount, tying up his legs with his own legs, and then delivering the guillotine on top position like that, you don't see that exact submission every day. No, I think it's Lazé's, although I'm not sure either, to be perfectly honest. But yes, it is a rare kind of, you know, in MMA, it's on

in mma it's not super common it's not super common for that kind of thing in mma and so you got that also jones gone being a sort of weird up against the fence kind of guillotine joke i don't have jones gone in any of my sort of categories even though jones coming back is one of the biggest stories of this calendar year, along, of course, with everything going on within Ghanu, Nunes walking away, the Adesanya versus Pereira type of discovery, Sean Straub, a lot of breakthrough stories of this year. But, Luke, I didn't like this finish. I didn't like this fight.

I'm now worried maybe in the long run because I'm playing up too much about how much Ghan didn't do. It's like I'm stripping jones of everything he did successfully in this comeback i mean the thing is this this this is why it can't be submission of the year is because gone's defense was really bad his defense in his shot selection in terms of his or i should say strike selection and then the defensive choices he made grappling and then the ease with which the choke was applied it's very very hard for you to award this to john because the opponent who was resisting was not a skill in this in this dimension was not especially skilled whereas shevchenko much more skilled that window

that shevchenko had just give you the window that grasso had to throw the football through right so to speak it was very very small and she did it was a very difficult needle to thread this was not this was just one guy and this dimension is not very good. And the other guy is. Boom. It's very academic. It's why it ended the way that it did. So you can't give it to him.

But John's application of it all was pretty nice for what that's worth. Yeah. Also, Yair Rodriguez getting that triangle on Josh Emmett and that very important number one contenders fight that led him to a title shot. Also, another big moment in this calendar year. We move on. Also on the Neil, on the Neil Rachmaninoff one, you know,

Rachmaninoff fans don't come much bigger than me, BC, but even I am like, it was a cool submission the way that he did it. And the fact that it, you know, it's part of this long streak of all finishes. This was his toughest opponent in the UFC today,

you know, it was a rock and soccer more, and he had this this next gear there's lots of things to admire from it but nothing really stands out about it that makes you want to say wow this was really special it's special in the greater context of the overall things of which he's doing and it was a nice win it's a very nice win uh and there was there was some trickery to the way he set it up by using his outside leg to block the hip of uh jeff neal but it just doesn't stand up to what alexa grasso pulled off much much much less congratulations to alexa grasso on really an incredible breakthrough year and really becoming the face that maybe brandon moreno was a year before of mexican mma and the breakout year the lobo gym has had so uh good to see right there

we go over to boxing KO of the year Luke a couple nominees that really could have won it I'm gonna name a couple I know you have one in your back pocket that that you felt could have won it David Murrell's one punch shot again against late replacement Yamaguchi Falcao on the Tank Davis Ryan Garcia undercard was big you've got to love Jana Beck's uppercuts against Steven Butler. How about Mauricio Lara in the first of two fights against Lee Wood? The first one being that fight of the year contender, Lara delivering a big left hook in round seven that dropped Wood. Wood's corner, Ben Davison would throw in the towel,

and that would lead them, of course, to a very exciting rematch. And I also wanted to shout out, you want brutality? Junto Nakatani against andrew maloney was a uppercut as maloney was coming forward that's about as brutal a one-punch shot maloney was down for a while as i can remember and anthony joshua we hated him sleepwalking through robert helenius luke but when he finally delivered that right hand in round seven it was destructive none of those are the winner and none of those are a bone to pick you have on a KO that you think could have won it this year.

I mean, there are some good choices, and again, this really depends on criteria. So for me, these aren't huge stakes by any stretch of the imagination, but they were relevant enough. The KO itself I really enjoyed, and the technical details of it kind of mattered to me. So, of course, he faked low and then went high, and then he looked the visuals of it. Surely you would agree that the visuals of it are somewhat unique in that when Brian Mendoza KO'd Sebastian Fundora,

he fell like a tree, did he not? And, of course, he's super tall, which is why he did. But the nature of how quick it happened, it was basically two shots, but it was really one. And he just completely fell back. This was the biggest win of Brian Mendoza's career. It ultimately set up a fight with Tim Zhu, which he was not good enough for.

He fought, but he didn't win. But BC, he is a good puncher. Brian Mendoza, this was well-timed. This was well-executed. And this was also Fundora riding as high as he had been up to this point, having great wins previous. This one, frankly, against Lubin, a bit of a battle-tested moment, I thought. And then Mendoza came and absolutely slammed the door shut on him.

It's not the biggest fight, and I can understand picks in other directions. I do think, though, that it's worth putting him on the list and saying, let's not forget about Brian Mendoza. Great KO he had this year. Great comeback year in terms of the past two years, like you mentioned, that led up to that loss to Tim Zui. He had some big comeback wins, but I think what was unique about this KO

and why it deserves such a high placement was you said it was two shots. You're right, but that first big shot essentially put Fundora on skates, Luke. And it was like slowly the timber of watching the tree fall as Mendoza landed that one extra shot. And it just really put the exclamation point on Fundora going down and falling like a tree, like a ton of bricks.

Incredible visual. But the actual winner, Luke, and this is one I fought for, KO of the year doesn't always have to be title fight, pay-per-view, big-time television. You can win it in the off skirts of regular boxing. And we saw Mark Magsale, the former featherweight champion normally fighting with PBC, took a stay-busy fight in December to close out the year. It was off of regular sort of, you know, network television. But what he did against Isaac Avalar was good enough for our morning combat 2023 boxing KO of the year. It was off of regular sort of, you know, network television, but what he did against Isaac Avalar was good enough for our morning combat, 2023 boxing KO of the year, a left hook from hell,

but Luke, like, let's give you an equivalent, like Kevin Lee against Gregor Gillespie, a great MMA KO of the year nominee from a few years ago at MSG. When the body falls in such a spectacular way and Isaac Avalar'sars did he got caught moving with that left hook and then he folded up and laid under the ropes and it happened just perfect in succession dude that's about as violent and as aesthetically pleasing in terms of the art of the fall as i remember in some time just a perfect perfect demolishing ko for meg sale you love yeah and also the way he juked and then set it up moves the guy out and then catches him on the exit and then to your whole point the way he

fell and where he laid it's the most memorable ko and in a lot of ways right i mean this is the kind of one that you would put on a tiktok highlight reel and you don't have to know anything about either of the guys and just the way that it looks would make it very memorable and so for that reason i can understand putting it there and again here's where the mendoza argument for me comes up short as best i can tell the stakes just weren't really super high they were they were very important for mendoza they were very important to keep whatever title they had which was the interim title i believe in rotation which is fine there's there's some there's some importance to that i suppose but it wasn't super great and so the ko while cool

it wasn't as cool on pure ko terms bc as the mech sayo ko so i can't make a strong of an argument i just want to make sure we don't forget it that's all there it is right there that's your ko of the year but let's go to boxer of the year also let me ask a question let me ask a question before we move on last one for me why is joshua's ko of helenius which was nice but like was wilder's ko of helenius which happened by the way significantly quicker was it much worse was it less memorable i mean i don't remember being that much worse the punch that wilder hit helenius in which was the route it was a year ago it was in 2022 and it was round one and it sort of looked like a regular shot to the upper forehead top of the head area it's just

a wilder punches so destructively that helenius just went dead right in front of him yeah the one against joshua was different largely of course, because leading up to that, Joshua was circling from the outside boxing, kind of sleepwalking. So when he exploded and landed it, it just broke open a boring kind of weird fight. But look, if you rewatch it, the right hand landed so spectacularly as Hellenius was sort of sidestepping and it caused him to just explode and it was a reminder of the power that joshua brings which is why it was so nice to see joshua put the punches together against autovaline to close out this year and get a big win for him to sort of restore his name but it look at that right hand split the guard as helenius was coming by and it just splattered him okay fair enough i guess i just don't remember um wilder's ko and again i'm not saying it should have guess I just don't remember Wilder's KO.

And again, I'm not saying it should have been. I just didn't think Joshua's KO of Hellenius was as spectacular as you did. I did like it. So I was a little surprised that it ended up on people's lists. But, you know, because I don't remember Wilder's being on people's lists. Some people voted for it on CBS for KO of the year across the sport, Luke. It was up there. Don't forget that Wilderers was the previous year so

it wasn't in the running i understand i just mean i didn't see it on the lists at the time and i didn't think there was a big difference okay maybe you just need to see it again luke maybe that's maybe i do i guess i'm i guess i don't remember it correctly yeah yeah usually you re-watch them all as you're about to vote for it you know it's just no no i again i've seen it i've seen it dude i just don't i don't quite love it in the way that other people seem to love it, I guess. Fair enough. We have different tastes and opinions and criterias. Let's go to Boxer of the Year, Luke. And this was a very interesting debate because we had boxers that had breakthrough breakout years that, to argue, the guys who are going to end up finishing in second, third, fourth in this voting could have won it on many other calendar years.

But many other calendar years didn't have this kind of race, not just for pound for pound number one that went back and forth between Crawford and Inouye, but for the larger argument at the top. So your nominees that didn't win it for Boxer of the Year look like this. Devin Haney defended his four-pack of lightweight titles in a disputed pay-per-view fight of the year contender against Vasily Lomachenko. And then moved up in weight and really just walked all over Rougarou to announce himself on a pound-for-pound level. On really a whole new level, Haney could have won at end of year. Gervonta Davis, before going into prison to close the year, had two big-time knockouts on the pay-per-view level

against, of course, Garcia, Hector Garcia to open it, and then Ryan Garcia. And then you had, of course, Terrence Crawford. Only one performance, but it's the biggest win of this calendar year. One of the most thorough wins on the title level that we've ever seen against Errol Spence in their long-awaited welterweight undisputed fight. And David Benavidez, Luke, who doesn't win it on our vote,

but you talk about a fighter who's right here about to kick through your television screen. What more could you have asked from Benavidez? Couldn't get Canelo or the biggest names in, but went in there against Caleb Plant in a big fight on pay-per-view in March that got a lot of people incited and demolished him. And what he did against Demetrius Andrade to close the year on Showtime pay-per-view. Wow. Wow. Wow. Only Luke, that's not the winner. You and I are unanimous. The winner for boxer of the year was that name I mentioned off the top, the Japanese monster

himself, 30 year old in Iowa, in a way last December became the first four-belt undisputed champion in Bantamweight history. This calendar year, he moved up, fought unbeaten pound-for-pound rank Stephen Fulton Jr. in July, demolished him at home to win two of four titles at 122. And then what he did against Marlon Tupalis just the day after Christmas this week was just another one-sided victory and another feather in the cap luke niowa in a way when you ask okay why does he deserve it over crawford and haney your answer is what people would like to tell you that the fact that he fought two times versus bud fighting once would be the answer i don't really believe that that's really a great argument. You would have to say, what value

does each win constitute? And then you have to ask yourself, do the two wins from Noya, in a way, do they constitute enough value more so than the one victory that Terrence Crawford had? That's really a matter of debate. It's not very clear-cut. For me, the fact

that he did fight twice against the two folks who had the four titles and becoming unified or i just have to say undisputed so quickly tells you of the of the significance of who he was fighting the ease with which he did it right stopping both of them inside the distance doing it in the same calendar year all up a weight class from where he had previously unified. To me, to me, these are too many factors that speak to his excellence and consistency and daring for me to not give, in a way, the title. But BC, I will tell you something. I will tell you

something. Terrence Crawford tweeted this, and I would love to get your perspective on it to see what you think. He, in fact, tweeted this the day that we're recording this. Quote, I'm the only fighter to beat a top five pound-for-pound fighter this year, and the way I beat him was unmatched. 2023 fighter of the year is me. Some might say, but I only fought one time, but that one fight was bigger than any of the others. BC, I will grant that Spence Crawford, I mean, we're not in Japan, but it does feel, at least from what we can tell, was a bigger event than what Inoue had put on in Japan, all respect to how big that actually was for that market. But the other part, that he beat a top five pound for pound guy.

If you're a believer in Inoue in the way that you are, what's your response to Bud Crawford? Yeah, I think it's a perfect defense for Crawford. And I'm going to look, I did the same voting in the same day, meaning I cast my vote for my final pound for pound number one in 2023, right? Because Inouye fought the final week of the year. So it brought that back up for debate. The same time I casted my vote on CBS Sports and also right here on Morning Combat for Fighter of the Year. It just turns out that Inouye got both. So here's the breakdown in my head. The victory that Crawford had, if you want him as your Fighter of the Year, Best Victory of the Year, you know, pound for pound number one,

we can't argue with you. We can't. I mean, we said it in July. Because if you remember in July, Inouye fought Fulton four days before Spence Crawford. So it happened in the same week we've got incredible pound-for-pound madness going on. And I remember thinking to myself when we said it on the show, boy, would it take something special from Crawford

to have a chance to take that number one spot from Inouye that week. Look, we saw that something special, okay? So, like, I'm not here to argue against it, but the argument for Crawford is exactly what he said. He fought a guy who was not only number two or three based on your pound-for-pound voting, maybe fourth at worst in Spence, and if you would have had Spence at number one there,

people wouldn't have been, you know, coming to your door with tor with torches. This is a competitive pound-for-pound debate. And he not only dominated him, we are literally at the point where we're waiting on when Spence's next fight was going to be, which actually will probably be a rematch against Crawford, hopefully at 154 if we have to do this, but we're literally going into that fight wondering, is Spence done? I get that Spence isn't young. He's right at the tail end of his absolute prime in his mid-30s. He's closer to done than not, but let's remember who he was entering that fight, and now we're potentially talking about him suffering as one side of the dismantling defeat, as we're not even sure if he should box again. So that's all a feather, a massive feather in the cap of Crawford. If Inouye had only fought mere mortals to get to this point, then I would have leaned Crawford probably in both directions, even though I'm usually, usually having been a voter

and these type of things at ESPN and CBS going back more than a decade. I'm always against people who only have one fight in these debates because it's tough. It's tough. It's tough. Even in 2015, Luke, when everybody was naming Floyd Mayweather fighter of the year for beating Manny and then beating an old Birdo,

I was the guy arguing going, look, I know Floyd's victory over Manny, who was number two pound for pound at the time. How could you beat that? But look at the year Canelo had. Breakthrough wins, including winning the middleweight title for Miguel Cotto. Like, I was making that debate because I felt like it evened out.

In this case, at least for Inouye, he fought an unbeaten unified champion in Fulton, who if he wasn't number 8, 9, or 10 in your pound for pound, had to be no higher than honorable mention 11 to 15. Like, it's right there. And you add in Topalas, and also you add in Luke that to policy, wasn't the walkthrough that we expected. And while you can certainly look at that as a negative against a new way, like,

look, he didn't dominate him. Like we thought, I think this actually pointed instead to add even more layers to, to a new ways greatness, because after the Tupala's fight, he actually said like, when they were like,

what could be next for you? He said, oh, no, no, I think this is my division now, which is I think his way of understanding that now in his fourth weight class, maybe 122 is the ceiling. Not saying he'll never take a fight at 26 or 30, but maybe 122 is where his power and skills meet their limit against qualified fighters.

Tepalos turned out to be a qualified fighter, even though he lost a one-sided fight in which he was knocked out, in which Inoue landed three times the amount of punches, he did hang in there, he was game, and we got to see a little bit more of that true brilliance of Inoue come out against fighters that are just so naturally larger than him.

So I think the fact that he had two victories, one came against an unbeaten pound for pound level guy. And you consider this, what Inoue did in beating Topalas was he equaled Crawford in the history books as the only two division four belt undisputed champions. And when I say four belt, I mean the modern four belt era, which is going back 20 to really 1988.

But you can also argue that 2004 was maybe when we really started recognizing that fourth belt for the first time and giving it the care it needs. There's already been, I think there's a total of six or eight boxers before the multi-belt era who have been great enough to be undisputed champion in two divisions at the same time. Heck, Henry Armstrong was a three division simultaneous champion back when there was only eight champions. But we can only compare in this modern era. Even though Inouye equaled Crawford, I think it's even more impressive what he did.

Crawford was the undisputed champion at 140 back in like 2019. And yes, he got it done at welterweight by beating Spence. But Inouye did it in consecutive years in divisions that we, again, weren't sure exactly what he would look like in. And he didn't face no buddies who happen to have titles. He went in one by one and systematically broke down the best fighters in the sport in that division, including this. Even though Inouye did not get a chance to fight Muradjan Akhmadaliev, the unified champion who was upset by Topalas, he basically teased after the win over Topalas that I know you guys have heard the rumors

about me coming back in May. We still have to figure it out. He wants to fight Akhmad Aliyev next in May. So there's no doubt who the best guy at 122 is. So long-winded rant to say, I do think there's enough in that. We're splitting hairs, right? But there's enough in that to give it to Inouye

in the peak of his prime. I don't know what his limits are maybe 122 he's finding out that there are limits but i don't know what his true limits are if crawford had beaten anybody for that second fight would have been enough probably luke but it's hard to beat these two wins when you become undisputed champion in the second one like a new way did against apollos it is what it is i don't have much to add and I don't have a great boxing comparison. Perhaps you might be able to think of one, BC, but we started the show saying if there was a category, which we don't have, but if we had a category called

like performance of the year, a single night where someone just had a great night no matter what else happened, any time else, it was going to be Izzy for me in the MMA side and then Terrence here on the boxing side. So I want to remind folks of that, number one. the Izzy side is actually a pretty instructive here he had this incredible KO where he got back the title that he had just lost via stoppage he finally slayed the dragon exercised his demons put to curse put to end this curse where he couldn't get a win over this guy I mean all of this stuff and he did it in dramatic fashion.

And then what happened later in the year, he lost a bout. He was widely expected to win. I don't want to suggest that there couldn't be other factors in play that make his situation, both in a different sport, meaningfully different from Naoya Inoue's, not least of which is Inoue is 30. I think Izzy's going to be 34, going to be 35 relatively soon. So, you know, we're talking about guys who are, and by the way, there was a ton of tape on Izzy.

There was other factors in play that ultimately contributed to the Sean Strickland loss. My only point is, BC, if we're talking about a calendar year, 12 months, just because someone had a very great single event, that is, that does not in any way disqualify them from winning. But being consistent is very difficult to do it's why again the hardest thing to do in combat sports is to win a title boxing is a little bit different but certainly in MMA is to win a major title and then defend all comers it is very very very difficult to maintain that consistent excellency over time dude in a way you could say well the Fulton fight was more dominant than the Tepales fight that is true but Topalas overperformed to a degree depending on your perspective and he still got stopped like he still got stopped I mean the level of excellence in all the dimensions

and the consistent excellence from Inouye in a way it's just too hard to overlook for me yeah and it could be hard if one guy's only got one fight or in the case of Alex Pereira we're we're going to get to the mma fighter of the year balloting you could have a loss as part of your three fights but what if the other two you know look at katie taylor who is also in discussion here for boxer of the year her second win over chantelle cameron you know that's in discussion for the fight of the year as well but luke you can't overlook the loss though you can't right just like you can't overlook if somebody only has one performance. It is what it is when you're comparing at the highest level. To close on this, though, if somebody said, hey, guys, nice debate about Inouye versus Crawford.

Don't say Devin Haney. Oh, don't say Devin Haney. Dude, Devin Haney. What else would he have had to do? Dude, the win over Lomachenko, you can score it however you want BC we talked about on the show it's not necessarily a robbery although was you know I don't think a scorecard for Lomachenko is unfair either you don't get to win fighter of the year in cases like that I know he moved up in weight I know he won a title I get it I understand I I appreciate what he turned in

I'm not one some guy who thinks he's some fraud or anything like that. That's not my point. You are not allowed to have fights that close and win awards like this, period. Can't do it. Okay. Sorry. That's a fair comeback, but you got to give him credit across the board. Breadman Edwards told me when Spence lost to Crawford, he was of the mind that you should be dropped from the top 10 entirely and his argument was even

if you lose to the top pound for pound guy no top pound for pound guy should ever lose in the way that spence lost to crawford now that's debatable itself but when you frame it like that like we're talking about the highest level of excellence the guy who did the best in the entire sport this year you are not allowed to have a fight that close when no oya in a way is doing what he's doing and blowing people out of the water no chance i had that same debate i've got spence at number eight right now a lot of people took him off of the top 10 i do actually like the spirit of bedman's argument but i've always felt like if you're one or two and you lose in any circumstance could you actually get eliminated from the top 10 i try to hold back from doing that but you make a good point point. When you're dominated in that fashion and we have this many questions,

maybe we should consider that. We went from Spence being top five pound for pound to being like, we don't know if he should fight again. Like, dude, that is dramatic. That is dramatic. That is dramatic. It could go a lot of different ways there, depending on which criteria you're going to lean on.

But that's fighter of the year. Let's go to boxing fight of the year. We want to focus first on the fight that did not win the award. Luke, we got to put some respect on it. The Katie Taylor versus Chantel Cameron rematch at 140 pounds for all four of Cameron's titles, which gave Taylor a shot to equal, by the way, what we've seen from Clarissa Shields, Terrence Crawford, and Niwa in a way, becoming four belt undisputed champions in two different divisions. And for Taylor, this is simultaneous. But Luke, she did it at an advanced age, coming back after a competitive loss in her home country with the fans going sick. I think this is in debate and you really could have won it.

Taylor Cameron too had it all. It was great. There were a lot of great fights. Although I will say BC, what kind of stood out to me about this exercise is for how great the year in boxing was. And it was great. 2023 was a great year. It's not like there weren't a lot of great fights to pick from yeah but was this year a little short on a little short thriller matchups does that make

sense absolutely it is and there's been there were wars that need our attention and like hami munguia sergey derivinchenko absolute war luis nary versus azad Hovhannessian was like a under the radar war. The first Wood versus Lara fight, Lee Wood and Mauricio Lara, Luke, was an absolute war that ended in knockout, but they can't get it done. You can't forget Amanda Serrano in that bloody war with Erica Cruz Hernandez for a world title.

Artur Betterby versus Anthony Yard. There was a lot of fun brawls that were on the title level or below it, but I agree with your point. You have to encompass everything when you're talking about fight of the year. It has to have character stakes. It's got to have, you know, back and forth. It's got to have a lot of things going for it.

All of the ones I just mentioned came up just short. You can call it recency bias or not. But what we saw within the last month in Glendale, Arizona, top rank ESPN, a featherweight title bout as Robesie Ramirez comes up empty, losing his title via majority decision to unknown six foot one Mexican heavyweight, Rafael Espinoza. Luke, that had all that. And then some that right there, Ramirez versus Espinoza your 2023 mk boxing fight of the year why luke thomas well i mean i guess a couple of reasons first of all it was a spirited contest second of all uh rubisi ramirez why what were the odds again widely expected to win minus 1750 something

stupid like that yeah i mean just an absurd amount we bc i think we had kind of slept on i think we thought it was going to be good we didn't really give her hardly any coverage and first of all so first of all it's a shocking upset it was a ridiculous back and forth and ultimately like the final culmination bc espinosa putting a stamp on it basically at the end of the bout. It's just too good to look the other way. There's too much excellence in the boxing ring with too much of a narrative of the upset, with too much of

the sort of broader stakes involved here. Dude, like, what is there not to again, what is there not to like about this particular contest? I don't have quite, I don't, yeah, please add some to that because I don't feel like I have the best answer. Let me add what we might be missing. We want dramatic swings of momentum. I do when I'm looking at a fight of the year.

So let's talk about this. Not only was Ramirez a monster favorite, then Espinosa essentially goes up 5-0 on all three scorecards or to most people scoring at home. It's like, oh, wow, this unknown guy is pitching the upset. Ramirez comes back. They brawl through the middle rounds. They're in a 16 by 16 foot pine box of a ring in Miami.

And the crowd is going sick for Ramirez, the Cuban fighter, you know, big time star down there. He does this big comeback. He floors Espinosa and you think, okay, he's going to right the wrong. This is where we're at. But with the fight still in the balance and the crowd going nuts as they brawled, the fact that Espinoza rallies to score a knockdown in round 12,

and that pulls him just enough to score the majority decision. You had an upset, you had dramatic back and forth. You had a knockdown in the final round that gave you almost a knockout in the final round type feeling due to like the, what, like the, how important it was

and then you get the big upset emotional win in which he's broken down to tears it's puerto rico versus mexico i mean there's so many elements and it was a title fight in a main event on espn so it's not like it's one of these you know so far off tv that you need an illegal box to find it this literally had everything character stakes and a breakout performance from a guy we'd never heard of before yeah i'm gonna that's a much better explanation than the one i was able to provide i apologize i forgot about the mexico and puerto rico element which is obviously for mma fans who might not know that's one of the most storied rivalries in all of boxing in terms of nation versus nation it's never really right it wasn't um koto and um

margarito puerto rio versus mexico i mean you could just go down the list fight in that rivalry yeah right right so i mean you can there's just any number of historical battles along those stuff those fault lines as well so yeah dude what a win and by the way ramirez had he fought on the same creepy if i'm wrong he fought on the in a way fulton card He had a nice win on that event. And if you don't know his story, obviously he defected from Cuba. No, excuse me. Wait a second.

Ramirez defected from Cuba. He had the tattoo removal from the Cuban government. Yes, that's right. He defected from Cuba. I thought my brain wasn't working for a second. He defected from Cuba and hadn't seen his daughter uh until this year and the last time he had seen her was 2018 2018 so like we're talking about a guy who has overcome a lot of struggle and you could see he was heavily favored to win but then ultimately

um man forget about it we had a couple other brawls i just want to shout out joe cordina versus rockham off was incredible christian christian mabilli against Carlos Gonzaga was a memorable one, sort of off the radar, but one final mention on fight of the year nominees. I think Devin Haney, Vasily Lomachenko belongs in the top five. Luke, are you crazy?

Do you think I'm crazy? Because I know when we think fight of the year, we always think brawl, but when you have a fight that is a pay-per-view main event in much anticipated, which this was had a huge pound for pound stakes with two guys in the top 10 had huge stakes in terms of the titles where Haney's the, at the time,

the undisputed lightweight champion Lomachenko is the aging veteran trying to regain the titles he once had. And then no, was it a brawl? No, but it was high speed chess like De La Hoya, Mosley one, like Thurman Pacquiao,

like, like these skilled fights that have action and intensity, but there's a lot of back and forth and adjustments where, no, it's not savage, it's not blood, but in some ways it's the best of the sport. Do you buy into that, a fight like Lomachenko versus Haney, which had controversy at the end and had both fighters taking turns,

having big momentum shifts at the highest level to me that matters what about you i think you could add it to the list of nominees i'd be okay with that i certainly would be okay because the fact that the decision is disputed isn't really a comment on the fight itself the fight itself is still quite good um and i agree with your characterization of it so i would be perfectly content with having it on the list of nominees i would not be okay with that in this particular case being the fight of the year because i'm with you like we always do this we always just give it to the wild brawls which i don't like either i like carving out a space um for the more cerebral

side but for me to get fight of the year that cerebral side has to be accompanied by at times one fighter or both gathering momentum uh and this one the guys had momentum a little bit but it was a pitched battle through the course of 12 rounds i wonder if haney lomachenko is going to be a similar argument for mahachev volkanovsky one very shortly on the mma side we'll get to that but first let's's go to MMA event of the year. Unfortunately, Luke, we can't do this in boxing because the undercards really aren't promoted to be on the same level.

Although, shout out to a couple of pay-per-view undercards in Showtime in its final calendar year, really delivering across the board. But for MMA, this was a tough debate, all right? I'm going to tell you who did not win it but could have. How about UFC 290,uly 8th in las vegas international fight week how about ufc 285 which was the john jones return march 4th in las vegas how about ufc 295 those seem to be your three main sort of combatants in this topper uh in this top of nominees here.

UFC 285 was November at MSG. We didn't get, by the way, Jones versus Stipe, but what we got in its place was the momentum, was the knockouts, was one big fight after the other. Luke, those are the three we've identified as sort of our clutch, key, honorable mentions. If you had to pick one out of that group, who's the winner for

mk event of the year in 2023 and why does it get a nod above the rest i gotta tell you this one would be a surprise unless you double checked and of course we double checked before today's broadcast bc so you the ones you mentioned are all pretty good i think 284 was the one that my gut reaction told me would be the winner but 287 had some interesting moments along the way 290 as you indicated was also pretty great 291 was the same day remember as spence crawford 291 had a lot of great ones but the answer for me for the mk event of the year it's going to be ufc 285 and maybe that stands out to you maybe it doesn't this of course was the return of John Jones which was added a great degree of significance to this and obviously the fact that there was a

title on the line as well created enormous significance this is where John Jones became the heavyweight champion now the fact that gone folded as easily as he did it does detract overall I think from this argument we have to be honest about that however let me go through the card if I may be see that was your main event your co-main event was your submission of the year it's Alexa Grasso defeating Valentina Shevchenko via rear naked choke in round four that was your co-main how about one of the ones that was on the list for submission of the year Shavkat Raghmanov defeating Jeff Neal with a standing rear naked choke then you go to Mateusz Gamrot having a back and forth with Jalen Turner. Bo Nickel opened the card against Jamie Pickett.

Cody Garbrandt had a win over Trevin Jones. Drikus Duplessis had that weird-ass fight, but a big victory over Derek Brunson. Amanda Hibas defeated Vivian Arujao. Marc-Andre Berriob defeated Julian Marquez. Ian Gary defeated Keenan Song. South African prospect Cameron Simon was on this card. Tabitha Ricci beat Jessica Penne on this card. One of the Bacherot brothers, Fardad Bacherot,

defeated Daman Blackshear, and so on and so on. BC, this was a very good card with big names who won in big contests. There's a lot to like about this one. I have to agree with you. At first, i had that same knee-jerk reaction when going through the voting of oh jones gone that wasn't that great but it can be about the totality the jones moment was great it's arguably the moment of the year across combat sports so it certainly was and like you said you go top to bottom you get i think what

makes a card that the event of the year is, for me, the momentum. The momentum of seeing crazy early knockouts and upset, a big moment. Can that raise the level of intensity in the arena where you can feel it watching the broadcast at home and you begin to get caught up in it, maybe to some degree as the fighters are, where suddenly it feels like anything can happen. Those are the magical nights I do stand by you upon after doing the research that 285 did hold up. And that combination in succession, like you mentioned, the, I mean, look, that rock, the Rachmaninoff Neil fight wasn't just the big closeup referendum on Shavka. It's a potential fight of the year and submission of the year contender that escalated beautifully

into the fight of the year, the co-main event. Right. And then you had, of course, John's moment. I do want to shout out one that could have won it, Luke, that I mentioned earlier, and that's 290, which was International Fight Week. I don't know if you remember this. Do you remember when Volkanovski handled Yair?

Remember Volkanovski-Yair on paper was the fight I was most excited for this year. Like the fight that I remember, you know, that was booked, that you can see it coming a mile away, thinking, man, this is the one. That fight was a disappointment, and I remember thinking in our post-fight show, because we recorded that. That was July 8th.

You and I were in Atlantic City calling the undercard of a Boots Ennis fight. We went back to the hotel to do our pay-per-view coverage, did a post-show from there. But we were able to see that that fight had that momentum I'm talking about. From Robbie Lawler's retirement in the preliminary featured bout, through Bo Nichols' walkthrough, through Dan Hooker, Jalen Turner being a thriller, DDP upsetting Robert Whitaker. Then suddenly you get the fight of the year with Pantoja Moreno, which I just described to the card we were mentoring at 285.

I was wrong. Pantoja Moreno was on this card, and then you get Volkanovski doing that to Yair in the main event, that it was that succession of escalation where the excitement just kept building. But Luke, we said the Salt Lake card that had Poirier, Gaethje too, could have been up there.

How about UFC 296 or 294, which was, or 295, whichever was the MSG one. They closed the year very strong. And I want to give UFC that credit because I even wrote that column kind of trashing the UFC for not replacing the star power of Jones versus Stipe yet that Madison Square Garden card like

lived up to it and then some and 296 was as fun a top to bottom pay-per-view card as I've experienced in a while when you've got four or five cards like we do in this debate where it is hard to separate one from the other i guess that does speak to at least on the highest end this was a great year for mma watching and being a ufc fan no question yeah it certainly was i would just add a couple there is one thing that doesn't make the jones gone card stand out bc which is john's win was felt a little bit lackluster in the end the return was big but the fight itself just kind of was very anticlimactic. And what Grasso did against Shevchenko was important,

but it was not a big fight to sell at the box office, right? These are not massive pay-per-view draws. Rachmanov versus Neal, I think it had some significance, obviously, as welterweight contenders and people with all eyes are on Rachmanov as among hardcore observers, but that's really about it. Casual fans don't know who he is yet, so they didn't have that.

Bo Nickel ran over Jamie Pickett, and there were some folks who thought he cheated. And then Mateusz Gamrot and Jalen Turner had a bit of a, I won't say ho-hum affair. I don't think that's fair, but it did go to a decision. It was, you know, there was a lot of wrestling involved and anti-wrestling. And so it didn't have the celebrity. It didn't have the size.

It didn't have the, you know, have the size it didn't have the you know did 284 have bigger fights i think it did i think it had overall bigger fights not john but the rest of them it did but the actual quality you got in the end with the with the full um year significance again having two of those fights three of those fights being submission of the year reps kind of makes it a no-brainer and i want to give the unique nature of 295 that madison square garden card i mentioned in november when you consider the five bout main card were all knockouts all two rounds or less you had diego lopez with a breakthrough performance against sabatini benoit saint denis against favola andrage Andrade versus Dern, McKenzie Dern, which had a lot of sort of emotional breakthrough moments

of finding Dern falling apart. And then you get Aspinall knocking out Pavlovich in a minute and nine seconds, and Pereira becoming a two-division champion. Again, hell of a year for UFC. That card also over-delivered. MMA fight of the year for 2023. I think we got an interesting debate coming here, Luke Thomas. delivered. MMA fight of the year for 2023.

I think we got an interesting debate coming here, Luke Thomas, and I think the biggest debate is what you do with Mahachev versus Volkanovski won at UFC 284, one versus two pound for pound. It gave us five rounds of back and forth momentum.

Don't forget, Mahachev was on the bottom of full mount and getting pieced up and bloodied in the final round. There was the back and forth momentum. Don't forget, Mahachev was on the bottom of full mount and getting pieced up and bloodied in the final round. There was the back and forth, the Craig Jones-fueled escalation of Volkanovski's wrestling game. And at the end, you had undoubtedly the two best fighters facing off.

We got somewhat of a disputed winner and the debate only continued from there. Luke, this is not our fight of the year for 2023 could it have been though what's holding it back luke thomas wait are we going with my call on this one we have you have you relented i have relented luke thomas okay i have given it and relented okay so here's the deal for me, and I cannot speak for everyone, BC. I can only address this from my perspective. If you disagree, then you disagree.

I'm not sure what to say. Makachev-Bokunovsky as your MMA fight of the year at UFC 284 obviously at a bare minimum has to be on your top three considerations, right? We're not talking about something that is far outside the boundaries of consideration. It's right there in the thick of it. But the reason I can't ultimately give it that is far outside the boundaries of consideration it's right there in the thick of it but the reason I can't ultimately give it that is because I didn't think it was nearly as much of a pitched battle as everyone else did to me from that night I respect what Volkanovsky was able to turn in particularly in that fifth round where it had seemed at the time Makachev had really

gassed. I respect that he did this in front of his hometown crowd and used their enthusiasm to really deliver a very emphatic performance, even in a losing case, right? He really looked like he gave it his all. He had the respect of the audience. He had the respect of his foe. He was coming up a weight class. There's a lot to to admire there but i thought makachev won that one four rounds to one at worst at worst if you're being generous three to two i did not think it was all that close and so while i respect what kind of fight it was and i have great respect for what volkanovsky ultimately turned in bc it's not the same to me as like when you asked could Lomachenko and Haney be on that card? To me, that was much more back and forth, right?

To the point where there's lots of people who think Haney lost that contest. And there are people who thought Makachev lost. These are donks. These are donks. Just a reminder, me and a lot of people, I do the rankings for CBS Sports for pound for pound,

kept, Volkanovski fought so well, we kept him at number one, even though he lost. I can't remember that happening. Yeah, that's crazy. That's crazy. That's crazy. That's crazy. I mean, Makachev beat him cleanly in my mind.

And then you saw what happened in the rematch again. I don't think that was in any way a great call for Volkanovski to have taken the fight under the circumstances that he did, but whatever. It's been the past now. I just don't think there's much of a rivalry here. I didn't think there was much of a rivalry after the first time they fought. I don't think that now. And so for that reason, if you're going to go the pitched back and forth battle,

this is to me insufficiently back and forth to be part of that designation. Okay. That's fair. That's fair. I love the skill level. I love a lot of what I saw, but Luke, it doesn't get the nod. So for 2023, what is our MMA fight of the year? Now, BC and I have been pretty clear about this, or at least maybe we are completely contradicting ourselves. It depends on your perspective. We don't necessarily like giving it to the brawls. They have to have more than just being a brawl.

Like, I remember when people really enjoyed the fight between Bryan Stan and Vanderlei Silva. I enjoyed it too, but I did not think that it deserved to be a fight of the year that deserved to be a fight of the year for the winner in a fight of the year for that bout in the, in the year took place, which I think was 2014 or so. But for this year, we're going to go a little bit more on the brawling side. Give me UFC two nineties Pantoja Moreno three technically, or whatever you want to call it. But the one in which Pantoja beat Moreno to win the title again UFC 290 this of course BC was the fight that afterwards Joe Rogan is interviewing

Pantoja and then Pantoja looks at the camera and says are you proud of me dad BC I am the guy who typically can't stand it when award shows just give it to the brawl so let me explain what appears to be grotesque hypocrisy, if I may, as quickly as I can. It's actually quite simple. There was a lot more to this than just brawling. Now, to be clear, there was a lot of brawling, of just standing ground and just throwing punches and absorbing them in the least defensively responsible kind of ways.

But there was a lot to this fight that was more than that. And this was one of those fights that was so brutal, we didn't know if the guys were going to be the same afterwards. We'll see what happens with Moreno when he fights Amir El-Bazi. It looked like Pantoja was okay against Rodog, but again, it was such a vicious contest in terms of the toll on both competitors. And I do think in the technical application,

especially on the ground, there was a lot to really enjoy that did not make this a pure brawl. And then I want to say one more thing. When a fighter has this experience, you often hear them talk about how it can be like a religious experience to be in one of these things or the euphoria of it is so crazy after a fight. I had someone who covered collegiate wrestling tell me something that has really kind of stuck with me all these years. And he said, look at what happens at the end of a wrestling match, which can be very short, right? Look at what happens at the end of it. They can barely shake hands, but fighters don't do that. Fighters, when a fight is over, sometimes there's bad blood, but a lot of times they embrace and they hug and they, you know, they talk very fondly about each other because this is such a spiritual experience to go to the depths of what you're made of with this other person in this very unrestrained environment. It's very, very unusual, in this case, violent environment. And out of that pulled from him this moment he has where some kind of childhood trauma that he had been carrying with him, it came to the surface and he almost cried in the moment in which he was talking about it.

Guys, you can't get to the depth of a person like that without a very extraordinary event to pull it out of him. And so for that reasons, just forgetting if you had never even seen the post fight BC and you only saw the fight, I still think it wins the contest, but when it does that to the people

involved you can't look the other way give me moreno and pantoja i mean this had a lot and i understand it edging out the the high skill level of what i loved of much of volkanovski and the fact that it was so tense if sort of like who's going to get the nod is volkanovski going to be a two-division champion this is. But what Pantoja Moreno three, if you want to count their prior history, which includes the ultimate fighter had was, it did have a title at stake in a crazy division. It did have five insane rounds and feeling like either guy can win,

but it did have that savageness of the brawl. I mean, they were just dropping their hands and just enduring whatever, like it became a fatigue brawl, meaning like they're just, they got nothing left throwing arm punches, just eating every punch. Like you said, we don't always want to reward that, especially if it's not at the highest level, but it played into the storyline so well and the hunger of Pantoja

to finally have his moment and sort of justify his career. And you add in the connection to his father and Moreno trying to hold on and be this new face of the division after this wild four fight series with, with Figueredo. Yeah. It really kind of had all of that. I'm more than okay with this, getting the nod edging out Macha Volkanovski,

a just an incredible fight and incredible performance. When we quickly round up the others, Luke, that Irene Aldana-Carol Hossa fight from just a few weeks ago at UFC 296 was the kind of three-round blood brawl that you just don't see on the female level. And it kind of mattered, too, for positioning in terms of creating new title contenders in that barren division. I want to shout out that. Luke, do you remember this PFL fight between Brandon Jenkins and Zach Jusola that is getting a lot of post-end-of-the-year nods? I don't remember it. Do you know it? No. No.

All right. Well, I'm sure it was great. I do remember. It would have to be one of the most extraordinary things you've ever seen because the stakes are inherently far far less than anything else so it would have to win in the other for us to give it to the award it would have to win in like the other ways and like vast over performance it's not really possible all right i'll read you a couple more fights you just tell me yes or no if they have an argument for this award ready uh rafael fazeev losing to justinethje at UFC 286. Yes. Neil Rachmaninoff in that absolute war at 285.

Yeah, I mean, I would put it on the list. It wouldn't win, but yes. Okay, what about, this is interesting because it was one-sided. Jamal Hill versus Glover Teixeira at UFC 283. You don't put one-sided fights in your fight of the year unless maybe it's this batshit crazy and savage, right? It was batshit crazy. Again, one of the ones that you do, this batshit crazy and savage right it was batshit crazy again one of the ones that you do you should have crazy ones on your list the crazy ones shouldn't win out unless it's very special rare circumstances which i think this one qualifies

for moreno and pantoja but hill and tashara would not no all right uh two others kelvin gasolam chris curtis underrated one from 287. No? No. And Edson Barbosa, Sadiq Youssef, you're not winning for that one either. That's a great win for Barbosa, and it's a great fight. I don't know if it's a contender for fight of the year. That seems— All right, Hooker and Turner on this list,

along with Yair versus Josh Emmett was also a very good— Dude, I got to tell you, not a memorable year from Bellator right yeah not a memorable dude I mean just be serious about this how many times did you watch a Bellator event and the audience was booing the main event I mean it was it was frequent

it was frequent if it wasn't a stick kick Luke it was early booing put a lot of those main events in trouble just lots of booing about all the shit they were doing patchy mix stands out right obviously he had a great year um vadim nemkov getting uh the win over cory anderson that was big there was some other big moments as well but geez and sergio pettis beating patricio pitbull was a big one absolutely and you know some really nice uh for the breakout win of jason jackson against yaroslav amoslav to close off the year yes fantastic yes but

for a full calendar year yeah and we didn't get the completion of that lightweight grand prix and usman der maga met off pop dirty so it just that that portion of it just didn't ring uh the way we would have hoped and wanted it but luke that's a perfect transition here into just that. MMA fighter of the year. We have an award for male. We have an award for female. So when we look at female, is it a clear-cut race, or do you think there's a handful of names that could get this?

And maybe it's tough because Amanda Nunes had a great win over Irina Aldana and walked off in one of the greatest retirements in terms of exits we've seen. But that's one win in one calendar year. Chris Cyborg continued to survive in advance. Liz Karmouche had a nice, speaking of Bellator, sort of comeback year, winning the title, defending it. But Luke, they don't all get the nod

when we look at the one that we've identified. And that's Alexa Grasso, Luke. It's not only a compelling and compelling year from her but I think there's a gap here between her and everybody else when we're really looking at this award I think it has to be her I mean this was to me a bit of an interesting year in women's MMA where I think like this win and her you might be saying well you didn't give it to Haney because it was contested wasn't this a contested thing uh that she had in the rematch with Shevchenko Shevchenko yes there was extreme contest but

this is the issue with women's MMA in 2023 which is BC now maybe I'm wrong about this and if I am please understand I'm not trying to do some stupid argument like the worst thing that like not the worst thing but dumb dudes love to show up and be like, Hey, did you see the WNBA highlights? They weren't that great. It's like, I'm not sure what point you're trying to prove here that we don't not what the fuck are we doing? I'm not trying to do that. I'm not trying to replicate that. However, I do want to be honest about something that I feel like I've observed. Tell me if I'm crazy. This was not the best year for achievement on the women's side of the game in MMA. For that reason, Shevchenko loses to Grosso. Grosso, high note, tries to replicate it and can't, right? Or does it in a very disputed way. Amanda Nunes gets revenge. That's something, but now she's gone.

Zhong Wai Li got a nice win over Amanda Lamos, but she only fought one time. I'm not here to tell you that the women didn't do great things this year, but were there three or four candidates this year that had real breakout years? I would argue not. However, what I would say is BC look at, for example, two fighters who got two wins this year, who i think had good years and i think are probably poised to have great years next year tatiana suarez had two wins aaron blanchfield had two very good wins can i pause you there because i did want to bring up aaron blanchfield and just say this you're right at the top end we don't have enough to really rival

what um grasso did and grasso has a draw that she probably should have lost if there wasn't that 10-8 scorecard so it's another topic but can blanchfield be in true contention when she submitted jessica andrage in the second round and then really rolled over a top class competitor in tyler santos is that enough to like literally put her head to head with or is it because there's no championship at stake you have i think there's an argument for it to be honest with you it's not the one that the win over Shevchenko for Grasso was so nice Grasso was so nice that it's like man that's like up there with any that win is up there with any of the best wins of the year I do believe that male or female like that is such a nice win so for that reason I'm kind of inclined to lean that way.

But I would say if someone has Blanchfield on their list, I understand that completely, given the way that the rest of the year went. And by the way, don't forget Jessica Andrade fought five times this year. I think she ended up winning two or three of them in the end. But she had a rough year too. This is my point. It's like the big names. Mackenzie Dern had a nice win over Angela Hill

and then kind of petered out towards the end. You see what I'm saying? There were really great moments, but I think that Blanchfield is going to have a really strong 2024. I think Tatiana Suarez is going to have a really strong 2024. There just wasn't a lot happening on the women's side

relative to years past in my opinion what do you think there's one name that we don't have here we both voted for grasso we've looked across the global landscape and again nice year for chris cyborg i mentioned carmush but luke what about pfl's larissa pacheco who scored four victories this calendar year, moved down to 145, won the PFL championship, took a decision from Julia Budd, stopped Amber Leibrock in the first round with punches, stopped Olena Kolesnik in the first round with punches,

and then in the championship won a decision over five rounds. We should call an audible here. Macantina. So so luke we're talking about grasso winning with a breakthrough victory over legend and a draw that she maybe should have lost in a very big spot we're talking about four wins a million dollars yeah you know what that's such a great argument bc i'm so glad you brought that up i i formally issue a retraction i think it should be larissa Pacheco, especially because you could say,

well, what about the stakes? But the stakes for her, given who else is available in the sport, in those weight classes, that is about as good as it's going to be. Just not totally because she didn't fight Kayla or Cyborg, but you get the idea. Yeah, it's her.

It's Pacheco. Yeah, give it to her. Wow, in the moment audible, but I like it. And here I'm going, you know, I think it's Grasso and I just don't think anyone's her. It's Pacheco. Yeah, give it to her. Wow. In the moment, audible, but I like it. And here I'm going, you know, I think it's Grasso, and I just don't think anyone's close. I want to respect everything Grasso has said. I don't want to miss what Pacheco did.

But even with that draw for Grasso, man, to raise your brand to that level, to raise your game, I mean, that's the key about that Grasso submission over Shevchenko. It's that she raised her game to a level that I didn't think in that moment was possible. I didn't think it was possible for her to quickly take the back and get the tap just like that. I will say again, we talk performance of the year, Izzy, Bud.

On the women's side, the performance of the year, it's got to be that one, right? It's got to be that one. But Pacheco's got four wins, a million dollars, a season championship, and is coming off of an upset of Kayla Harrison, a division up the year before. So that's your debate.

That's your vote. It's going to go to Larissa Pacheco of the PFL. The smart cage knew it all along. Luke, on the men's side, though, I think we've got one hell of a debate. These are the nominees that we have deemed are in this conversation for male MMA fighter of the year. Islam Mahachev, your UFC lightweight champion, with two wins over best in the world Alexander Volkanovski, including one by head kick KO. Patchy Mix winning a million dollars and the Bellator championship and beating world class opponents opponents to do that and have a monster breakout year. Sean Strickland scores three victories, including a major five-round audit of Israel

Adesanya that I still don't know how that was possible. And Luke Alex Pereira, three performances, one loss, right? In the knockout of the year, he lost, but moves up in weight, beats two legends or two elite former champions, and is now the champion in another weight division. That's four compelling arguments, and I didn't even mention Jon Jones or Leon Edwards, who defeated Usman and Covington in the same calendar year, or even Tom Aspinall, who had an equally breakout year. Somebody's got to get the nod. For 2023, Luke, who's the male MMA fighter of the year?

This is debatable. This is very debatable, and we're just going to do our best to judge on the value of achievement. BC and I disagree a little bit with this one. While I value, I mean, everyone on that list had great wins. I'm going to give it to Sean Strickland personally. Now, BC and I disagree on this, and we're going to have it out here in just a bit. My reasoning is one BC, he fought three times. Now granted the full repertoire of difficulty there is only really peaked at the very end. Okay. With the

fight, but it was a historic upset that certainly you or I gave him virtually no shot. I know I gave him no shot in hell and he goes and does it as we indicated previously off of what looked to be the biggest and best moment of Izzy's career. Did it basically, I won't call it neutral territory, but he had to fly to Australia. You know, Izzy's from New Zealand, so there's something to be said. Although he pulled the crowd in his favor, it seems like, weirdly. But the point I wanted to make was the nature of that upset was so big, so hard to see coming, so thorough, right? I mean, he not only beat him over the course of five rounds,

he rocked him and dropped him. You know, just things you could never imagine him doing. It's a level of performance. I can't give it to him over is he beating Pineda because he knocked him out. That's so much more authoritative. But short of that, it's probably number two in terms of the best performances all year,

maybe ahead of what Grasso was able to do. The point is, the fact that he fought three times, to me, carries a little bit of value. The fact that he beat Izzy carries tremendous value. The fact that he did it in the way that he did it, while being totally counted out, flying to Australia. Yeah, the leveling up is extraordinary. You got to give it to him. Whether you like him or not, you got to give it to him. All right, Luke, this is the only time today that we're not handing out one award.

We are handing out two awards. A co-winner for MMA Male Fighter of the Year for Morning Combat. Luke Thomas is going with Sean Strickland. As you mentioned, the three victories are hard to come by. So is the leveling up

against Adesanya. But Islam Mahachev, if i can say that correctly islam mahachev i just think is getting so disrespected across the board in this exact voting i'm identifying that there's tough choices patchy mix could win the whole thing he knocked out rafi on stats in the first round to win a million dollars and then beat sergio pettis by second round submission to unify those titles but look i, I'm going to go Mahachev. Why? Because he fought a blown up featherweight twice and beat him twice?

No, because he fought the best fighter in the world two times in the same calendar year. The first fight was so close, even though you upon multiple rewatches have a four to one. I actually have a four to one too upon rewatch, but I'm not going to deny both in the moment and the public reaction afterwards felt that Volkanovski might have won that fight. So they've stumbled into a second chance on short notice, which while we can talk about how much maybe the short notice choice by Volkanovski was bad in hindsight, although I think I can argue he knew that was his only chance really to get that fight was to do it right then short notice, be the hero, he took it.

That's also short notice for Mahachev. And yet he goes in there against the biggest brain, the biggest IQ in this game, and head kick KOs him to shut everybody up and close this year with no debate in the pound-for-pound rankings of who's number one. To me, the quality of wins do matter. It's why you can argue for Terrence Crawford off of one win. It's why, you know, it matters the quality of wins. And when he beat a guy in Volkanovski the first time,

yet people like me still had Volk at number one pound for pound because of how much he raised his game in that performance, showed that he could wrestle on decent terms and not get exposed there. And then he had to go do it a second time. We rarely ever see one versus two in this game. We saw it twice. We know who the better fighter is. I don't want to hear anybody say, Oh, he was a featherweight moving up. Yeah. That featherweight almost won the championship in the first fight. All right. That featherweight is a generational all time talent. I know there's a customer fatigue element mixed in here.. I know there's a customer fatigue element mixed in here, and I know that Islam didn't have either victory with the same level

of passion of Sean Strickland pulling that upset or Grasso beating Shevchenko or any of these other people that are in their own debate for fighter of the year. But he did what Mahachev does. He put his head down, handled his business, and moved on. He beat the best fighter in the world twice and head kick KO'd him in the second time around. I can't look past that. He's the best fighter in the world, Islam Mahachev, in my opinion right now. And all he did this year was prove that. Exactly. He gets my nod, which creates a co-vote. Congratulations to Sean Strickland and Islam Mahachev as our co MMA male fighter of the year.

Luke staying in this category, because I think there are interesting debates. Um, why can't patchy mix, get it done? What else would have he had to do? Is it only like, look,

I'm sorry you weren't in the UFC. Is that really what we're going to tell him at the end of the day? Because he beat UFC level guys in St stats and pettis without question um i mean again strickland beat a pound for pound guy right strickland beat a pound for pound guy and shut him out and dropped him uh didn't stop him but did everything else basically that is so big that as good as patchy mix was man and those wins are credible i don't think he did that now again he did well in ways like you know what is the abus magomedov value like patchy mix beating patricio is leagues above that i'm sorry um uh sergio is leagues above that or you know pick who else who you beat in the tournament again the knockout

of stotts is insane but strictly beat a pound for pound guy for a ufc title all the way in australia that's so big man that's really hard for me to look the other way it just it's just as those other wins aren't great though they're not great those other ones they're not they're not great they're not great they're not great they don't add a lot to the resume again i think there's as i mentioned previously in the show i think there was something to be said for consistency but to that point consistency against b-level guys doesn't say much but then the win over izzy was fucking enormous um yeah it's tough to overlook that it is all right and i think there's but i recognize that like in any other year in any other year i would have given it to islam like i get that islam is deserving of this award too

and maybe this is the same debate we had at the end with grasso and pacheco from this standpoint that even though grasso's one singular win was arguably the biggest of the year of any sport, any gender, she did have a draw on the second one. And you know, you could argue upon closer look that she probably should have lost it. What do we do with Alex Pereira in the same debate on the men's side? Because I actually had him one spot, I think higher than Strickland in my final voting. And let's recap his year. He gets knocked out by adesanya in april comes back in july to take a split decision from jan bohovich in his debut at 205 and then stops yuri prohotska coming off of a long layoff and injury in round two to win the championship in a second weight class what would you tell him at the end of the

day luke sorry thanks for playing i mean you had that loss and end of the day, Luke? Sorry, thanks for playing. I mean, you had that loss, and that's the difference. You got viciously KO'd to start the year. That doesn't make him completely ineligible, but the other two wins are nice, and in particular winning that title is also nice. But again, it was against a guy who hadn't fought in a long time in a weak division. Yeah.

Yeah, no, I don't think that's on par. Again, remind yourself, dude. Remind yourself, Izzy is a when when strickland beat him was a top 10 and maybe even top five pound for pound guy like it's very different what he did i'll give you that i'll give you that um i just i wonder you know it's like i see people floating votes for leon great year for leon beat a new smon in their trilogy and we weren't sure how that would go and then be covington but even if it's not his fault Luke or you know I've argued that maybe it is his fault he's not going to get a lot of love for the Covington win because of the way Colby fought

and that does matter into it in some degree right and the Usman win I know people are unnecessarily trying to downgrade that as you beat an old guy look at what happened when he moved up and lost his next fight too but I want to give him respect he's on the tail end of the ballot but he can't win it with those two wins is really what i'm trying to say for i agree with every word great year fantastic year but no not not the winner here we go fantastic year for the top performers on the men's side especially a lot of debate there but it's going to go as a tie we have two more awards to get through luke both of them NK related. I'll hold the donks for the end because that's the big one here.

But let's talk about NK moment of the year. We have talked a lot about the ups and downs of this year, the ups and downs for us personally, the ups and downs for our parent companies, technologically, budget-wise. Look, Showtime, unfortunately, sports has folded after 37 incredible years. And that's not a, you know, representative of the performance of this calendar year.

But Luke, MK in 2023 did, though, provide some really big ticket moments. I want to shout out when you and I for Crawford Spence hosted that show on CBS Sports Network from the studio in Stanford that aired live on regular TV for two hours. I want to certainly shout out the incredible Room Service Diaries interviews we did, including that great trip we had in South Florida where we caught up with Phil DeRue, John Anik, Rashad Evans. I mean, we did have some very good moments in this year. We were on the front lines hosting for some of the biggest boxing events from Tank Garcia to Spence Crawford through Canelo versus Charlo. But this could have fallen in any calendar year for MK that was good or bad. The London show was just a different entity altogether. That's your 2023 MK moment of the year. Luke Thomas, how would you sum up what the hell that trip that night

at King's place when we headlined a 500 seat podcast festival and their main event and sold every single ticket you've been in this game a long time. What the hell did London mean to you and your journey up to this point? I mean, I guess in retrospect, it was the high watermark of the year. It happened in February, which kind of sucked for us. I mean, this year was, I mean, everyone took it differently. And you guys still don't even know half the story because we've only told basically half the story. But this was a terrible year for me personally. And I aged a thousand years. It was like dog years for me to live through this, and it has just been not easy.

It was really, really quite difficult, to be perfectly honest with you, but it started out, as BC indicated, with incredible promise, and that trip in London, I've said it before, man, this is really the truth of anybody who is ever going to try and make it in media. I don't know what the future is of the entire industry, to be honest with you. It seems uncertain at best. But all you really need in this life, if you're lucky enough to get it, it sounds simple and it is difficult, or I should say easy, not simple. Or sorry, excuse me, simple, not easy. But all you really need is you just need a couple of people to have your back. You know, a couple of people to believe in you, a couple of people along the way who give you a little bit of a push.

And certainly I am insanely grateful to the fans that showed up that day, who made that event possible. The fans who watch MK, who made the going to London possible. But the fact is you have to convince people to give you that platform in the first place. And we convinced a couple of people along the way, BC. I'm just insanely grateful that I was able to get a couple of people, whatever happens from here on out, I was able to get a couple of people who believed in our vision

and what our project was and what we wanted to do and put us in a place to be able to go and execute on that. And it reaped rewards that, you know, were not ever in my imagination for what we would get out of this business. Once we got into it, um, it was profound for me, the London, it was special. It was a night I'll never forget. It was a moment I'll never forget. And to me, it all comes from my career. Luke's a big damn near biggest moment of my entire career and that does you know that that means something that means something huge i mean dude 500 people in a play in a city i'd never even been in and a continent i've never been in 500 people bought tickets to come see us tell stupid jokes

and have a fantastic interview with the great dan hardy and and you know we did our routines and our bits and we spun the wheel and we we fought we tried to find out if eric nixick has a big uh cory luke but he had the fun and game shenanigans but like that mixes to me which is why why you and i've been pushing behind the speeds to get that final donkey mentory actually edited and and published and produced because dude the paquettes came over from nova scotia appy came over from france i mean people turned out for this they gave us our flowers they gave me vinyl they gave us red wine that you tossed in the trash luke they gave us their love their time i mean it was it was special man it was really special and you know what it felt like in that moment and i'm happy that we're here after the storm to tell you that 2024 is going to be the biggest year in MK history.

And we believe that by the way, but to have that moment, it just reminded me of like in London of like what's possible in our lives and careers, you know, like it opened up like to see Showtime jump at that opportunity, sent our entire team, you know, Brian Daly, Matt Snyder, Courtney Mag, like we really had, it just, it was so, so, so special to have them back us like that. And then we are only in that moment in that spot because the fans voted for us to win those awards. And then that same award company, the sports podcast group starts this festival and asks us to headline it. I mean, like it was timing, it was everything,

but everything came through and, you know, maybe Luke, maybe we, we figured out F and around there that that's a model we can sustain in the future. You know, like maybe we figured a few things out, but I am happy that it came in, in a rough year to remind us of who we are, what we're capable of, and what's still possible for this brand to grow. And you know what? We need everybody. We need our listeners. We need the people that have our back, you know what? We need everybody. We need our listeners. We need the people that have our back. You know, Mikey Mormont producing, great people at Showtime that we work with, great people at CBS. We've needed all of this.

But it might be just you and me, two middle-aged dads talking to a camera. But that trip, right, that trip showed me that you can do big things in this setup, Luke. It was an incredible moment to be there. You know, we've been on TV. We've done some shit. We've done some fun shit. We've interviewed our heroes. Dude, I sat once in the basement of ESPN with Sugar Ray Leonard for a half hour just asking him to tell me stories about the biggest fights I watched as a kid. Like, those are the moments you'll never forget.

I'll never forget what it felt to walk out in front of that many people in London,on to have uh to have dan hardy his beautiful wife and his buddy saul in the locker room handing out uh handing out gum handing out uh air sealed packages of uh of incredible gummies to us i mean it was just like it was special right it was it was a great can we mention who that guy saul is that guy's a legend that guy yeah yeah he was uh he was a real og and it was a great day That was a great day in our lives, man. It really was. Great day. We loved it.

Thank you to everybody, the Paquettes included, who came out. Appy, who made that special. We hope to get that documentary out eventually. And like we said, next year we're going to bang Tooey. So let's go. Let's go. Let's go. What a great year.

We can't have, though, these great episodes, these years, these moments, without the donks. Every single week, you guys, give us fan subs, hit us up on dead wrong, like and subscribe to what we do. Vote for us for awards. Show up at 3 a.m. to hear our instant analysis. All that. Right. It's you guys.

That's why I love making this side scam living. I do off of cameo dot com slash Brian Campbell, because I love connecting with the people. So Luke, we have had now for four years running our donk of the year award, which recognizes for that calendar year, our most passionate, creative, memorable, and consistent fan across the board who have helped add to what we do here, have been a big part of it. The only issue before we announce the winner, Luke, is what the hell is going on with this? Okay, we named the great Christos Christoforos Web Scream

our Donk of the Year, and I think he stopped watching the show afterwards. Year two, we named Damien the Donk from Stockton our Donk of the Year. And I don't know if he's dead, incarcerated, or he hates us. And then we named a tie between Appy and jay paquette and then they ended up having a big war against each other for the whole year is it us or is it them luke what are we doing wrong here yeah it's them all right so with that said um first here are your honorable

easiest question to answer in the world hey is it the uh weirdo listeners of two weirdo dads or is it the two weirdo dads no no we're weird guys i mean please make no mistake and also losers but at the same time if you listen to us that makes you another degree of weird so there you go thank you very much uh here are the five honorable mentions and by the way speaking of our great fans uh jordan cash hendricks and his wife are in the hospital with their young son in the NICU. I've been there. They're fighting the good fight.

They're going to get through this. You got our prayers and love behind you, folks. Look, we're all going through this life together. So shout out to our donks, top to bottom. We love you all, even if you're in an RV with Bill and Jen in Pennsylvania. Let's go to the donk of the year. These are honorable mentions who didn't get the cut. Some big names here, Luke, okay? Allen W., a finalist last year,

great fan sub guy. David Appleton didn't even make the finalists, right? Chef Cass, shout out Luke. Nutritionist to the stars, Chef Cass, right? Jay Paquetteette who had a nice comeback after seeing us in london with his lovely wife the boss lady and two from hawaii shout out to telvin key papa who's always there for us and this new guy dazz mahalo out yeah back up on that ass and give these motherfuckers a blast from the past well your top five nominees for donk of the Year read like this in no particular order. Here we go. The Real Saul. Two Changs, a.k.a. South Oregon Bird.

Average Joe Art. Long Island Rob. Yeah, we see you with a video attack this year. And KY Luke again. Not the jelly, but this man not only contributed to a ton of fan subs this year and ky luke again not the jelly but this man not only contributed to a ton of fan subs this year but he beat us both in okay bed and he went to not saying posting his picks every single week along with the updated scoreboard we're not missing anybody right because remember that time i missed uh danger mouse and then he didn't come to our live show and now he hates us

we have this ability to turn people away you know uh you know what ky told me this is a fully true story he told me his friends call him astro guide that's what they told me i don't believe that one bit are you serious no no of course i'm not serious all right all right and your winner for 2023 donk of the year the fourth I guess fifth if you count the, or maybe it's fourth. I don't do the math. The winner for Donk of the Year, Morning Combat, Average Joe R. Luke Thomas, this guy is half man, half amazing,

and apparently half MK employee now. But if you had to answer the question why, why Average Joe R. art in 2023 what's your answer it's a great question i would say certainly he was involved uh just very noticeable very visible always being a part of the shows and everything else but helping us forge a line of merch that you could tell spoke to our personalities that meant he understood the show and dude average joe art basically i mean did he do a great job with the shirts my daughter loves them like so yes of course he did but like this is what mk is honestly about it's a community of misfits and

people who've got this guy is weird but he's got this crazy talent and this person has this thing and they do that one and this guy can and it's all sort of put together and we're able to source the community to help us show better things and have better moments. And in this particular case, sell better merch, but you know, merch that speaks to our personality to like do more authentic work. Actually, when you really think of it in that way, he helped us do that kind of a thing that that's what we're looking for. Not helping us all the time. I don't mean that BC, but I'm just saying being reminded of the talent that it that's what we're looking for not helping us all the time i don't mean that bc

but i'm just saying being reminded of the talent that the community has and then having that reflected in something that really speaks to us personally i don't know it just all seemed to work for average joe art this year it's what exactly the kind of thing i'm looking for it was just it all made sense it really did well he he not only started the year just assaulting us with some of the best fan subs we've ever seen, but that escalated to the level, as Luke mentioned, where it was, hey, maybe these are the best T-shirt designs we have available to us at the moment.

Let's get them hooked up with RJ Dunkel gangbang. And I really am proud of what they've created together with that crossover art collection. Now you see Average Joe Art spinning off, doing merch for Arnold Allen, doing merch for uh uh johnny eblin anik and florian and a bunch of other very high profile shows and he's whoring it up he's whoring he's a big old whore but but a great guy uh shout out to the loss of his fantastic dog brutus we we showed pictures of him in the past but uh just an animal lover a man lover and okay maybe a people lover, okay?

I didn't mean to put him in that weirdness there, but thank you, Average Joe Art, for your contributions, and thanks to everybody. Two Changs had a huge year. He came on late. Appy and Jay Paquette were big parts of this. We had a memorable feud between them. Two Changs had the smart fence.

That was a good bit. That was big. That was big. And Saul, man, he's there every single day. Yeah, just torturing his significant other with our dumbass shit. Just a rock. We love all you folks so much. You are what makes this show go around.

And Mikey Mormile of CBS Sports, to close our year, Luke, also been a rock for us in so many ways behind the scenes, helping out. We lost Showtime, but we still got Mikey. We still got CBS Sports. And we thank you to everybody who works on this show, all the people from Showtime and Malka that had been big parts of this throughout the years, Luke, that their time has now

come, is now done, and we appreciate that. We can go back to Jay Aaron. We've had a few people come in and out of here, but this show, it still matters. It still rings true to people, so we're going to still deliver it. You got my word on people. So we're going to still deliver it. You got my word on that.

All right. There it is. That's Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. Those are your awards for 2023. Take care of yourselves, guys. We'll be back in the new year. Big plans ahead.

But until then, I got two words for you. We out, bitch.