MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Aljamain Sterling | Weili vs. Namajunas | Nunes vs. Pena? | Ep. 128

Episode Date: March 10, 2021

Wednesday means another MK. The boys are back to breakdown the latest in MMA and Boxing news. Luke and Brian breakdown the news that Zhang Weili vs. Rose Namajunas has officially been booked for UFC 261 and talk about the criticism Aljamain Sterling has been facing. Plus, is Juliana Pena next for Amanda Nunes? The guys discuss Dana's comments. --------------------------- 'Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn 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: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Reveille, reveille, donks. 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. It is Wednesday, the 10th of March, 2021. And it is time, donkeys, for Morning Combat. Hello, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. I am from CBS Sports. I am joined by the gentleman, the pale-faced Quebec Croix, to the right of the screen to the left of me. He's Lithuanian. He's into conspiracy theories.

He has diarrhea every day. Every day. It's Brian Campbell. Hi, Brian Campbell, also from CBS Sports. Hi, Luke. I'm unshowered, largely uncultured, but ready to rock and roll just the same with all the finest J-Mma hot takes

that you need in your life look you sound very uh like community college professor today you know that's a sad kind of professor isn't it i think you're a little too close to the camera you've got this mixture of sadness and arrogance that i don't know where the middle line is on that you know it's kind of it's interesting but well the camera is the camera is as close as it's ever been i didn't change that but i mean can we just get right to it where you can make continue to make fun of me where yesterday on the set of our uh yet to be announced showtime program that we were filming that uh you know i may have had i may have had a seizure and my brain just stopped working i mean all right you go ahead have have stopped working. I mean, all right.

Go ahead. Have it out, Luke. All right. Have it out. Brian, we need you to say cat in the hat. Okay? Okay. Cat in the hat.

Ready? Roll. The dog in the barn? BC, what the fuck is wrong with you, bro? It was that for 20 minutes. All right. Well, look, we laughed. We had a good.

Let's move on. Let's move on. All right. Maybe one day in a a documentary that footage will resurface hopefully not it will i'm told it will resurface i can't wait but until then we actually have stuff we we do want to move ahead but we still have some leftovers from ufc 259 including about aljamain sterling but there is also of course the look ahead maybe amanda nunez next fight. Let's see. We've got some ideas about what PFL might be up to, some scoring stuff, and, of course, we have SJ Dubs and fan submissions today. So a lot to get to.

Thumbs up on the video. Hit the subscribe button. Thank you so much for joining us. Standard disclaimers. If you want to try Showtime, you certainly can. Showtime.com. Get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If you certainly can showtime.com get a 30-day free trial if you like it you can keep it if not go bang yourself uh if you want oh wow luke i mean you know yeah yeah

it's a wednesday what do you want me to say uh on top of that we have merch you can go to store.show.com b campbell is showing his nipple this is what he was doing yesterday when he was botching the words but you can go to store.show.com this is is not the new new merch, but that's coming eventually, I think. Well, you better buy the old merch because once it's gone, it's gone, Luke. This is going to be a full frontal assault of new merch coming people's way. Okay? So you better, you want to be a collector of all things MK? You better get 1.0 while it's still available, right?

All right. Fine. Fair enough. Won't argue with that. And, yeah, I mean, I think that's about it, BC. Anything else I'm forgetting to preamble to the show? It was nice to see you the last two days. Yeah, there's our socials.

Yeah, a lot of people thinking, Luke, you know, that energy we had, you know, can we bottle that? When we show up in the same room aligned in our processes and, you know, goals and desires? You know, we can make magic, Luke. I mean, I may have interrupted you a hundred times, but you can't you can't you can't hold me back, Luke. OK, so I think we had a good showing there. Hopefully, as covid continues to thaw, if you will, we can get back to that bomb shelter more often, Luke, right? I would love to do that. I would love to do shows there at least. I mean, obviously we were doing them every week before. I don't know if and when that will ever happen again. But it does seem like at a bare minimum, why not once a month?

Why can't we go in there once a month, do the thing where we quarantine, get tests, you know, do it and then be on our merry way. It's doable. It's coming, Luke. Also, please continue to check out our bonus content. Not just Luke's fantastic live chat every Thursday, but I've got a really fun chat with David Benavidez this week, Luke.

We're going to get to his fight. He'll fight Saturday on Showtime, probably on Friday's show. We'll set the stage for that. But a very high-wired interview. He's calling out the world at 168 pounds. He wants all that smoke. He might even want Steven Jackson and Matt Barnes, for all I know. But he's using words like Canelo, Caleb Plant.

So you're going to want to check out that little piece of business there. All right. Well, with that in mind, let's get to our piece of business here on the show today. Let's start with some leftovers from UFC 259. And this is going to linger for some time. I don't think this is just an issue today or this week or for the foreseeable future. Until this matter is resolved, and probably even beyond then, this is going to be a topic of conversation. You see, there is continued focus on Aljamain Sterling's behavior once he was hit with the illegal knee by Peter Yan in their bantamweight

title fight. And of course, since the fight has concluded, any number of media have weighed in on it, and it appears to have angered Aljamain Sterling. I've not seen all of the different media responses, or the fans' responses, or the other fighters' responses for that matter. I've seen a little bit of what Yan had to say. I saw that Henry Cejudo apologized. I saw that TJ Dillashaw was taking shots. But Aljamain Sterling did some interviews yesterday with various media outlets and railing against other ones. He railed against Ariel and DC from ESPN.

He railed against Big John McCarthy and Josh Thompson from their individual... Look, he went off on these people, okay? He went off on them. Again, I did not end up seeing what Ariel and DC had to say, Daniel Cormier. I did go and watch what Big John had to say I got some thoughts about it but your reaction

to what Al Jermaine is saying why he's lashing out what do you make of it well let's sort of set the stage a little better something we didn't talk about a Monday show that maybe we should have is that there were pictures that leaked over the weekend so Al Jermaine did what I still commend him for as in some

cases the right thing. You know, he tried his best to get back in that fight. You can argue whether you believe him or not. Was he concussed or not? I mean, look, at this point, can I say, can we get off Aljo's back? He came out and set a hellacious pace and tried to win that fight. He fell behind. Then he got hit with one of the most vicious fouls in MMA history.

And he threw the belt out. I mean, he did all the right things. The problem for a lot of people, Luke, and we, again, were not one of the people that weighed in on this, was that pictures came out of him in the hotel with his crew with the belt over his shoulder sort of toasting drinks. So I do understand why there was a initial backlash against him where it's like, okay, you know, you throw the belt down in the cage, but keep that same energy when it's party time afterwards and you're living it up. And, you know, some people said, Hey, who cares? He give, you know, he's the champion, whether you like it or not, give him that moment. But of course, a lot of people were also like, that's a bad look after

what you just did in front of the cameras out there. Luke, we finally heard his side of the story during those rants you mentioned. And what he said is um you know i wanted nothing to do with that title i came back my people that traveled for the fight were there and you know they they kind of were nudging him on saying look just take a picture with it just put it on your shoulder whatever he was against it he gave in he took the picture somehow that picture got out and what he's also trying to say is uh i was not partying it up and drinking somebody put a champagne and glass in my hand for the picture and he said luke hours after this he was vomiting and still sort of uh you know in negative recovery mode from the damage of the fight

now all of this his explanation too you can take it for what you personally feel but what i'm personally saying up to this point is can we leave this guy alone? Like he didn't ask for this foul. He did like the sport. I thought the sportsman thing of saying, you know, okay, I'm the winner but I don't deserve this belt. Don't put it on me. And I think now he's kind of right.

And if he wants to go on a victory lap where he's sending all of our people to hell, I mean, that's fine. Go for it because he has been sort of labeled here as a liar and a hypocrite when I want to hear your side of it, from everything I've seen all the evidence I gathered I think he's innocent in this entire thing and I think he tried his best to get back in that fight and again I don't think it should be on a fighter to decide while they're half concussed whether

they should continue fighting and if that makes them the champion or not i think we got rule changes to make no contest vacant title all that stuff right we there's ways to put little incentives in there so no one can cheat the system i think there's changes that need to be made but as it pertains to aljamain sterling can we get off the guy's ball bag he didn't ask for any of this he fought like a like a man and i'm going to stand by that vision I saw, the image of him throwing the title down as saying, that's the right move, man. I don't know what people want from him. This is the thing I don't, what answer are you expecting that you're going to get that's going to satisfy you,

even if it's in, is it an admission that he embellished the results of the injury? I went back and I listened to what Josh Thompson and Big John McCarthy had to say. Thompson was pretty hard on him, to a degree. We'll talk about that in just a second. Big John's biggest issue, quite frankly, was not so much with Aljo. They did think that he was embellishing the result of the injury and the head strike. But basically, Big John pretty much put the fault in the hands of the injury and the head strike. But basically they put, and Big John pretty much put the fault

in the hands of the referee that there's a question about whether it should have been labeled an intentional foul versus having two points taken, which would have made it a majority draw. And I think Big John's point was if you'd taken two points and make it a majority draw, then Jan gets to keep the title, but neither person gets a win or a loss. So you have to run that back, and therefore that would be a much better circumstance. I certainly wouldn't disagree that that would be a much cleaner resolution to what we have, but this is what I want everyone,

no matter who's out there, to understand. And by the way, Aljamain needs to understand something too, but first everybody else. Listen, guys, this is not hard to understand. Aljamain Sterling did not do anything illegal. He did not ask for an illegal strike. He did not conduct anything that put him in the way unfairly of an illegal strike. He just fought according to the rule set that he was given and suffered a quite damaging, how damaging, we don't know. But that was not a soft shot that hit him in the head. And after that, he gets put in a circumstance where, one, if you are messed up, whatever that may be, and you tell the truth about it, fine.

That's what you're supposed to do, I would imagine, on some level. Or two, you could be in a situation where it's not necessarily as bad, but we have created rules such that it is absolutely not only the fighter's choice to embellish, but if they do, they get rewarded. Guys, if you don't want fighters to take choices like that, don't allow them to take it and don't make it in their interest to take it. They are human beings and they are tougher than most of us, sure. But in the end, humans respond to the rational incentives you put out in front of them. You put out in front of him that path. Why are you surprised he took it? Because of the bad look that might happen? Who gives a fuck? If you want to change the way in which these events are

handled, change the rules so that that is no longer necessarily in his incentive now there should be something to be to be said bc about aljamain sterling it is he does not have to answer for anyone on the other hand i would not that he wants my counsel but to the extent i'm offering any advice, he's also got to understand nobody knows how injured he was. Parts of it, I mean, I'm not a medical doctor. Parts of it look a little bit unusual, but none of us know. But because none of us know, and he was essentially tasked with this performance to convince us,

true or not, again, I don't know, it's inevitable that there's going to be folks who are fixated on that part of the fight i think rational observers should remove themselves a little bit but he should also understand dude it's not fair but that's just the way this goes and dude look i'm saying straight up that i actually believe al joe had you know the best intentions in all of those situations. I actually believe his defense. But even if that's not true, even if he was partying it up, Luke, and had the belt on and took a thousand picture shoot,

dude, who cares? You know what I mean? At the end of the day, it's like that's the way the rules are set up, to your point. You know, that's what you get when the rules are set up this way. He may never be champion again. I don't think he should be champion right now. I've already said that.

But he is. So, you know, people say, well, I saw that picture of him wearing it on his shoulder. Doesn't that contradict everything he said? Well, not necessarily, right? I mean, that's behind closed doors with his people. You've got rule changes to make. And, Luke, when I say the belt should go vacant and it should be a no contest, there are some people who come back and say, hey, BC, but what about if somebody's the champion and they follow on

purpose? There's some more nuances that need to be done. I'm not against John McCarthy's rule that whoever committed the foul, you take one or even two points away and then you go to the scorecards. So you eliminate the idea of, I think I know where I am in the scorecards. I'm exhausted. What if I can follow to save face? As long as you have rules harsh enough to prevent that. And I know that's why the rules are as harsh as they are now. They don't want anybody cheating the system.

But you also don't want undeserved champions. So we got to move on past that because Anthony Smith did the UFC a solid. Luckily for them right now, Aljo's, you know, let's say, he's a little bit better than Anthony Smith. He's a little bit closer to the title. Maybe there's some interest here in a rematch. But I saw Peter Yang going in one direction. He made a stupid mistake.

I don't need somebody who didn't win the fight as the champion. Can we just fix this situation? The one thing I thought was interesting that Josh Thompson brought up was that if you're going to be a commentator and your job is to essentially talk to the audience, that's kind of what you're doing, that in these arenas where there's no fans, you do need to be careful about what you say. Because I think he's of the, I don't want to put words in his mouth, I think Josh is a very bright analyst, so I don't know exactly what he was saying. I think what he was at least implying could have happened is that Aljo heard the commentators discussing essentially what his options would be in the event of X or Y happening. So if it's called this and called that and Aljo says he can or he can't, these are the results that will transpire. And so he was able to, I think he at least suggested it was possible.

Again, I gotta be very careful about this. But I think he at least suggested it was possible that Aljo may have heard that and that could have influenced his decision making. Again, here's the thing I just want to go back to. How do you know how injured Aljamain was? In the end, the only way to know is to either be him or to take a doctor's word for it and if a doctor says it what the fuck am i or you or anyone else going to say about it that it means anything

dude the situation is inherently ridiculous you're asking a person to either if he's if he's not injured to tell the truth if he's injured or know, can't compete in some kind of capacity, to tell the truth, or if he's kind of hurt and borderline, to not at all tell the truth, and be handsomely rewarded for it. Dude! Dude! You don't know how injured he is,

and we're telling him it basically doesn't matter. What the fuck do you think he's gonna do? Yeah, there's gonna be eventually the guy who's like, I don't want to do that. That's great. That's great. That's fine. That makes things easy on me and you and the UFC and everybody else, BC.

But it's just not life. So if you don't know how injured he is, and I don't one way or the other, but I do know that that was his incentive to take that path. I'm not the least bit fucking surprised he took it. This seems so straightforward to me. All right, you know, I'm saying I believe him. You're saying I'm not sure if I believe him, but either way, it shouldn't be that setup. That should not be the answer.

BC, here's the thing. If someone was like, what's wrong with him? Other than saying getting kneed in the head is not good for you, what physical things can I point out short of like dramatic examples like eyes rolling in the back of the head is not good for you, what physical things can I point out short of like dramatic examples like eyes rolling in the back of the head, total unconsciousness? Short of that, what am I going to say about his condition that is at all medically informed? Me, his critics, his supporters, nothing. There's nothing we're going to say. So that's why I just don't understand

why we're even fucking having this debate the debate should be about what the rules should be in these situations because they're not so simple it should not be was he acting motherfucker the rules incentivize acting i'd be surprised if he or many other fighters weren't i'd love to hear your your thoughts on ped use one time uh Luke, I saw some reactions post. Kevin Aioli of Yahoo put out a story basically saying, look, the foul from Jan was so severe that I'm not even sure he deserves an immediate rematch. I'm against that take, Luke, because, you know, from my point of view, Jan was up three rounds to zero on the way to going up four rounds to zero,

and he made a stupid mistake so what he loses is the fight and his title um if they're going to go to that extreme then he's got to get a second chance at this where do you stand on where we should go next because there was part of this sort of let's turn on aljo was the fact that there's pictures lingering of him in the hotel lobby going nose to nose with suudo, which some people are thinking, oh, Aljo's taking advantage of this opening and trying to lure Henry out of retirement. I mean, is this a no-brainer that it's an instant rematch to you?

Yeah, I don't know how you could do anything. I mean, this is the most unresolved championship fight. Even if there was a draw, that would be more. A literal draw is more of a resolution than this. This was a stoppage against the other guy who was winning, who lost his title. Like this, there's no, this absolutely has to be run back. I understand the point. Yes. And we made it on Monday, dude, that was an egregious foul. Like I understand Kevin Aioli's revulsion at what happened,

but I also believe that I don't think Jan's a cheater. I think he's a mean fighter, but I don't think he's a cheater. That was a bad foul, and he paid for it. But I don't think getting back to a situation where we're going in a different direction is the answer. The thing I would say, BC, is, and again, everyone wants the fighter to have all the responsibility here. They don't want anyone else to take up more of a cause.

And the fighter does have some responsibility. It's not that I don't think it's true, but I'm just pointing out something here. In either case, it's funny to me that the guy who, there's no way to medically know what the truth is, who was incentivized to take the plan that he took, took it. I mean, that's like, to me, the least controversial thing ever. The bigger issue is Peter Yan and his team didn't know the rules in Nevada. They didn't

know the rules in Nevada, not for just any old fight, BC, for a fucking title defense. Now, on the one hand, if you're in a championship fight, you probably should know what the rules are in the state where you're competing. On the other hand, BC, that we have this totally disjointed confederacy of rules where one state does it this way, one state does it that way, and then you add in the language barrier. I still think it's an error. On the other hand, if you put fighters in a position where they have to figure out new rules every time they go to a different place,

you're going to sow confusion, and we're living in the consequence of that now. And, I mean, I've seen all the takes in the last 48 hours of people saying, you know, Jan did that on purpose. Why the frick in hell would Jan do that on purpose, Luke? I would say people saying, oh, he wanted the money from the rematch. It's going to make him less money because of this. I mean, I just don't understand this. Also, Luke, I'm shocked this doesn't happen more often. Why? Because in a fight, Luke, in which let's not undersell it, underscore it,

overscore it. Let's not undersell it. You can lose your life in there. So in a fight, Luke, you don't always, you don't always know is the guy's knee up or down. I mean, you're in a freaking fight. Add on top of that exhaustion, add on top of that, you know, possible fighting through a concussion and not really knowing where you are. I am shocked, Luke, that we have had very few instances of this, that this is the first time this happened in a title fight. It's shocking. It's eye-opening.

Let's fix it, please, people. All right. So I don't know when they're going to fight. By the way, the thing about taking taking pictures it's like these fans they just they don't want real people you know i'm not saying the fans there are some people who are obviously i think quite level-headed about it but there are a fair amount of people they want their star performers to to not be real people to just performatively act in every public scenario so as to be pleasing to the largest amount of people or possible. And yeah, minding your P's and Q's in society is

generally the right thing to do. I think it's certainly helpful. It makes the things go nicely. But on some level, people are going to be complicated, sometimes contradictory. Sometimes they're going to change their mind or they're going to feel differently or they're going to feel better. Maybe when he got the belt put around him, he did not feel all that great. Maybe when, if you hear him tell it, his friends came over and they were kind of bigging him up and he's a young guy and that was a weird event and he didn't do anything wrong. And his friends are kind of putting the belt on him and they want to take a picture because they want to be with the champ. Dude, I can understand why you might feel

differently at three in the morning than you did, you know, whatever the case, when you're around your buddies. Like, this is a fucking scandal. The rules are what you should pay attention to, and nothing else. That's the end of it. And if it's 3 a.m., your father must be lonely, Luke. Indeed.

All right. Speaking of, well, it's not a rematch, but speaking of fights that we are, let's say, anticipating, BC, it's now official, big guy. UFC 261, April 24th. Not sure about location yet, but either way, Rose Namajunas is going to fight Zhang Wiley.

This will be for the UFC strawweight strap, BC, on the... You've gone silent. I can't hear you. I don't know why. I'm here, Luke. I'm right here. Yes, there i don't know i'm here luke i'm right here there you are okay i'm right here all right your level of as we would say here how sized are you for this fight luke please please send me location i will smash i will smash all of them luke i am so fired up for this friggin fight i mean look look, it's no worse than maybe the second or third best fight you can make in the sport. I'm saying that straight up. And I actually kind of like what they're doing on UFC 261, pairing this with the Valentina Shevchenko, Jessica Andrade's title fight, which Luke, be honest, especially in Shevchenko's title defense

history, this is by far the best fight, you know, in flyweight title history that we've ever seen. So you pair that with what could be an absolute classic. Former champion in rows coming back for her belt. Went through hell against Andrade in the rematch. And we don't really know where Zhang Weili is going to be. One year removed from that epic all-time great fight with Ioana. There's a layoff issue there's you know the the damage accrued issue this is going to be a hellacious fight um Luke maybe the

first that I really want to need to be at um if this is in Vegas or I don't care I know they're not going to Texas anytime soon but wherever you can put this UFC you want to go to Taichi Palace send me the location I'm going to be there, Luke. Tai Chi Palace? Tai Chi? Tai Chi. Yeah. Luke, I am so... Luke, you know, there was a fighter. He's a decent...

I mean, not really decent. He's a heavyweight. Jake Hager, he once said, you know, Luke, I'm rock hard with emotion right now. Luke, I have a phoner for this fight, okay? Call me on it. Call me on that. No, I'm not going? Call me on it. Call me on that. No, I'm not going to call you on it.

Let me ask you this, though. This is what I've been wondering. You've got really significant historical bantamweight fights from the women's side of the game. Where would this one rank? Where would Nama Yunus versus Zhang Wai Li rank in all-time? Now, the fight hasn't happened yet, so we can't call it great as a result of what we've seen. But I mean, what is the significance historically of this fight?

Or is it just a good contender versus champion bout? I mean, I think it's a little bit better than the latter, but not necessarily the former. Meaning it is a former champion who's went through some stuff, got slammed on her head, didn't know if she was going to continue and yet worked her way back there. So it's a, it's, but I think even better Luke than the champ versus ex champ, you know, where does this tell us on the history of the strawweight division? Let's not forget, you know, it was Joanna's division for a long time until Rose took that from her.

It's also just a great style matchup. I mean, top to bottom, the straight ahead, tough as nails, full-throttle cardio style of Zhang Weili with the power, the ability to finish against someone in Rose who is just next level in certain categories, has become an insane boxer, obviously has the submission game to fall on, but also, to be really blunt and honest, can be up or down and can be hit or miss at times too based on the fluctuation of where she's at mentally.

I've loved her journey. When she is dialed in, Luke, talking about Rose here, she's as great as any female fighter I've ever seen. I mean, okay, maybe she doesn't have the accolades of a man of newness, but Rose at her peak A game is great. If she can pull that out against Zhang Weili, this could be a hellaciously fun, it'll be more tactical than the Ioana one.

The Ioana and Weili Zhang just ran into each other for five of the best rounds I was ever privileged to see, Luke. I think this one is going to be a lot more about technique and strategy, although it's also going to get hairy in there. Dude, if she ends up beating rosinama unis listen to her resume just in ufc she will have beaten dan just talking about jang wiley obviously she will have beaten daniel taylor danielle taylor jessica aguilar tisha torres jessica andrage you want to enjoy checking what we're calling the greatest women's fight we've ever seen and then if she ends up beating Rose Nama Yunus

dude that is like pound for pound shit right there I'm not saying number one but like how do you have a resume like that you know at that point she'd be 22 and 1 and you're not at least considered highly for a place in the top 10

I don't even know how that's possible at that point. Yeah, this really has a chance for Zhang Weili to double down on her potential, excuse me, for greatness. And I mean, look, in that Andrade win, even though I did question Jessica's strategy and mindset there in China, she knocked her out in like under a minute. I mean, that's a pretty powerful damn statement she made to arrive on the scene uh well i think there's also a lot of pressure on her luke i you know i didn't i'm not reading this like in print i'm reading it from reading the situation i mean

she's like her zhong weili winning the title was obviously such a great timing for the ufc in a long-term financial strategic moment right right? They're expanding in China, and they have their first Chinese-born champion winning it on home soil. I nearly said hope solo there, Luke. Wow, all right. On home soil by knockout. But, yeah, I feel like there's pressure on her to live up to everything, and yet she seems fully suited to carry that. mean look you'll want to send her to the

like down the hall in the back room of hell and then there's a stairway and then you go down luke and then you gotta you gotta get by some flames and and there's probably a few canadians there and then you get to the the the sub basement of hell you'll want to dragged her there and whaley walked right through it so uh she has the potential to be a special fighter. But, Luke, do you agree with what I'm basically saying about Rose, that although she's had ups and downs, I mean, her record's 9-4. I mean, that's almost Matt Serra level. When she's great, she's pretty freaking great, Luke.

I mean, I think she might be the only one right now that I'd favor over Zhang Whaley. And I don't think everyone else is. I think Zhang's going to be the favorite coming in. I just really like Rose in this matchup. Yeah, Rose has had a really Randy Couture-ish career. Real big punctuated highs and a series of noteworthy lows. The Karolina Kovalkevic one I think caught me by surprise. Andrade winning the first time didn't catch me by surprise.

And that she won. And the and that she won, and the way that she won, of course, slamming her on her effing head was kind of big, and then before that from Invicta, but she had flying armbars in her second fight, Rose did. I mean, that's just kind of who she is, right? So this is another one of those options where she becomes a two-time champ, and beating Ioana was big, and then defending it was big. But then she lost it to Andrade. She got a rematch. She got revenge on Andrade over three rounds, not five. She was kind of fading a little bit there at the end.

So who knows what that would have been. But if you go out there and you beat Zhang Wai Li, who beat all these other folks, you know, I mean, dude, this is such a special fight. You have either case. You have somebody either recapturing her title by just demolishing their peers with incredible performances in rows, although she's had a series of lumps, or you would have the case of Zhang Weili winning

where it's this just consistent level of ability, consistent level of deliverance at an extraordinarily high level. Either way, dude, women's straw weight is just unsurpassed greatness in the women's side of the game, frankly, in the entire game itself. And this is maybe, you know, it's going to be hard to beat Ioanni and Jacek versus Zheng Wai Li. But if there's any potential rival you could point to on the calendar and say, this might give it a run for its money, I feel like this one could be it, BC. That tells you how special it is.

We should consummate our relationship, Luke, from the standpoint of being in the same room when these two fights happen, because I'm ready. I'm ready right now for that fight. I don't need to see you take your clothes off, but, you know, to each his own. All right, BC, topic number three. Speaking of the women's side of the game, Amanda Nunes

taking on Juliana Pena? Maybe. We'll see. Apparently, Juliana Pena has been going on an active let's say lobbying campaign. Since her last win, she's been talking about it, but she hasn't stopped at all. According to UFC President Dana White, Juliana Pena has been texting him all night. She's been busy saying yeah we could do

that. Now according apparently what Nunes said was the Holly is off she can fight Jermaine Nunes said at the post-fight press conference. I feel like she has to get in the mix but we'll see. I'm gonna go back down. I'm gonna go see my diet because I'm pretty heavy so yeah I'm a champion. I'm never going to turn down fights. I'm always going to be facing whoever Dana wants me to face BC is this the one to make Amanda Nunes versus Juliana Pena probably be and it's more of a testament to the fact that there's not much else going on I mean you know I think Holly Holm who's who's stated her preference of trying to get a rematch with Amanda and do it at Bantamweight for the title, I mean, could she get there with her name value and all that? Yes, but she also just had to pull out of the Juliana Pena fight with kidney issues, Luke,

and she's looking to recover and get back and make that fight. I mean, I could see Aspen Ladd as a title contender, but she's just coming off a serious injury. Outside of those or Valentina moving up there just ain't no one else so I think in Juliana Pena's favor here Luke even though she's had some setbacks and up and ups and downs and layoffs you know I mean you remember back when Rousey was champion Pena looked like the next big thing but at the very least she's streaking coming off a pretty damn solid win over Sarah McMahon and it's also somebody that can sell a fight a bit now look she can, she can trash talk all day, and it's not going to sell this fight too much, but she makes it fun.

She's not afraid of the champion. She's going to get up in her face, and I think at this point, with the fact that Nunes is just dominating people, that's a decent sell right there. It's kind of like in the midst of Rousey's run, Luke, where we found Betch Gohea, right? She's like, I don't care. I ain't afraid. I'll dance right in your face. I mean, it was a nice distraction to the idea that Nunes is still going to win.

And I think even in this matchup, Nunes is still going to win, Luke. But at least it's somebody who's live, ready, aggressive, and believes in themselves and is calling for it. I'll take that every day of the week. Yeah, she's aggressive. It's interesting in the sense that, you know, most of her opponents are, they kind of find themselves, especially at 145, it's like, oh, yeah, they kind of find themselves in these positions where it's interesting in the sense that you know most of her opponents are they kind of find them so especially 145 it's like oh yeah they kind of find themselves in these positions where it's like

you win one or two and it's a title shot again in that sense she's been off for a while she had the losses before she only recently got back in the win column I think after a long time um but but the point being is this BC she is in the win column she beat someone noteworthy in that division she did it in a very impressive and interesting way and more to the point it is this, BC. She is in the win column. She beat someone noteworthy in that division. She did it in a very impressive and interesting way. And more to the point, it's like, dude, what's the better idea? Amanda Nunes has already defeated everyone else who's held this title in this weight class. In the other weight class, too. But we're talking about 135.

Like, you want to run back Holly? For what? You want to run back GDR? She fought GDR twice now. Why would you want to run that back? Yeah, the second one might be... If you look at the first GDR fight, BC, to the second one, you know, it's a different fight. GDR was putting it on her in the second one, and there was a real need for Amanda Nunes to go to that second, third gear of her game to really get the win. So in that

sense, yeah, you might get a different fight, but are you really going to get a different outcome? Do you really believe in your heart of hearts that this time Holly Holm has it figured out? Maybe some of you do. I don't. I'm not sure if Juliana Pena does BC, but here's what I do know. It's a fresh look. It's a fresh look in the division. At least one side is angrily campaigning for it aggressively.

You would think that on the ground, Amanda Nunes would be able to handle that, but Juliana Pena might be able to surprise you. I don't think that's the craziest thing in the world. This fight is the right one to make. When they want to make it, I don't know. But if anyone has a better idea for a more interesting fight, okay, Shevchenko. I got news for you.

The Shevchenko fight might be more important for those two women, but the Pena fight might be a lot more fun. I'd rather go with that in the short run to tell you the truth. I think you've got too much fear, Luke, that this third Shevchenko-Nunes fight will be too technical and too Thompson-Woodley-ish. Not for me personally. I think you should drop that fear.

I think that's Valentina's chance Luke and I asked this to you offline while we were under the influence of influences and I said look if if Valentina goes in there and beats Nunes and does it in some form of convincing fashion

does she bring the goat home with her is she the new goat I do think that the goat title doesn't is she the new goat i do think that the goat title doesn't typically transfer as easily but if anybody's in the category of of having a shot at competing for that title along with cyborg who gave it to to newness after she knocked her out it's obviously a mythical ceremonial goat title but um yeah i mean i wonder luke i mean imagine if valentina beat amanda you know after having like so imagine if she did it in like a marquez pacquiao four type way where it's like the you know close on

the scorecards but came up empty close on the scorecards but feel like i was robbed so now i'm gonna finish her i mean that would recalibrate a lot of things luke so i think you should get excited about that fight's potential here's the the thing. Marquez was, how do I say this? He was really muscular by the fourth fight. Right. He was hot wired. Yes, Luke. You know, I mean, I don't know that that was the same Marquez.

Now, granted, Pacquiao, I think, was taking creatine too. You know what I mean? I think he was definitely having. He was putting the cream and the clear on his toast in the morning. You see the size of his calves? Listen, I'm just saying, I don't know that you can expect that from Shevchenko. So for those reasons, I'm not sure that you can map that out that way. For those reasons, I'm out.

Very Shark Tank of you, Luke. I did want to ask you, there's been some more Kayla Harrison rumblings of, hey, could this super fight ever happen? Look, don't they train in the same gym? And I know Kayla has been trying out the 145 class and some of these one-offs she's been doing. PFL is on the same network as ESPN.

If there's ever a chance for a special situation, like UFC tried to make Fedor come over in a special situation, but as we've talked about a million times with um Vadami and all them with M1 Dana's like no I'm not gonna let you co-promote my card that didn't happen is there an opening here for a special situation where Kayla almost one-offs her way into a into a Nunes title fight at 145 that would be the only other acceptable response like we're talking about a universe where the UFC looks inwards who do we have on roster that makes sense for Amanda Nunez your only two choices to me are Shevchenko or Pena although I should say those are your two

best choices looking inwards but if you want to expand the scope of the search BC and so now Kayla Harrison's in play that seems like that's the best one you could do, period. Because I don't know that Kayla's ever going to get to a level where on the feet she's even close to what Amanda Nunes is. But on the ground, while she has had some finishing issues, she's strong as shit. She knows how to get the fight to the ground. She has good passing. She's got good ground and pound.

That seems potentially doable that I don't know but that that's that that at least appears to be a real threat um or a threat you should take seriously anyway but I don't know what the fuck they want to do with that man it's so hard to know how they sometimes UFC just goes all in on free agents like Michael Chandler and you're like wow that was really easy you, like they didn't bad mouth or distance themselves from this person once. And then sometimes it just, you know, they're always at the end of their reach, whether by choice or by accident. I don't know.

She kind of feels a little more the latter. If it could ever happen. I think Kayla's got the right manager and I'll lead it to try to make something weird like that happen. But look, final point on any, all things, Amanda, from me, this is, this is the last one for me. Thanks, John. john okay last one for me here uh i wanted to say did you see that the the twitter pics that the cyborg van there was like a rv or a van that had bellator and chris cyborg like images all around it it was parked like next to the ufc apex so everyone driving into the arena saw it Luke uh what what is with

that because obviously with with Cyborg being the Bellator champion and with how bad her exit happened with the UFC where they basically were like get away from us with the whole video situation we ain't seeing that rematch anytime soon then what's the point of that why was that there I don't know I don't know why that there. Because it's a good way to get some free publicity, maybe? Do you feel robbed as I do as a fan that we didn't get that rematch? Not that I'm saying that because, oh, I think Cyborg's a better fighter. I'm just saying, like, the first fight was great, and it was a true super fight, and I was front row, and it was a knockout and it was insane but you feel like given Cyborg's resume and history

she had a bad strategy and she got served you could have ran that back Luke you could have you could have ran it back you could have but I'm much more able to lament fights that didn't happen at least once than ones that didn't happen twice I tend

to be more of that variety. So to me, not getting Lesnar versus Fedor stands out. No Tony and Habib. It's like, eh, you didn't quite get that one either. Not so much Habib GSP, which is a stupid pipe dream that we've talked about endlessly. But yeah, it would have been nice,

but I don't like, oh man, gosh, how am I going to sleep through the night? We didn't get a rematch. That's not how I look at it, per se. Luke, I was in Jersey City yesterday, and I saw you from a distance, and I yelled Dino 17 times, and you never turned around once. Yes, because I don't respond to weirdos yelling random two-syllable words

at me as I'm in Jersey fucking city. I just stay moving, bro. Wasn't that your frat boy nickname when you and your boys used to play quarters over there? Yeah, but I don't know you, and you're weird. I mean, that's pretty fair. All right. All right.

Thanks. All right. Let's get to this one. Kind of a fun little side thing. Cub Swanson, UFC featherweight, a few weeks ago, but he only talked about it recently, which is why we're bringing it up, put out a tweet saying that, you know, hey, wouldn't it be cool or, you know,

what do you guys think of the idea, basically, that MMA media should be required to get or to have three amateur fights before becoming media and it produced a lot of people a lot of MMA media were angry about it me I'm you know I'm dead inside so I don't feel things so I just didn't really care but you also got a lot of responses from folks trying to reason through like why it's not necessarily a good idea before we and by the way Cub was just saying I didn't really mean too much by it it's not necessarily a good idea before we and by the way cub was just saying i didn't really mean too much by it it was more of a hypothetical hey wouldn't it be nice if

mma media kind of understood where we were coming from a little bit more than just as a fan but you could experience what we experienced and you could possibly understand our process on a deeper level that was just some wishful thinking cub's a great guy he's not a bad guy he i think cub was just thinking out loud about an idea he thought would improve media I don't think that it would but I didn't see anything harmful in what he had suggested BC what do you make of him sort of circling back to this now and the controversy that it produced I mean it was a short-lived controversy right and it's it's not new I feel like um journalists in the in boxing are much more sensitive to this topic. It comes up a lot from, you know, a fighter hearing he was criticized by some, you know,

basement keyboard warrior like myself or somebody who, you know, couldn't go a half round without dying of a heart attack. And they're sort of like, what'd you accomplish? You ain't done shit. You shouldn't be able to have this job unless you fought. And, you know, that's a slippery slope. Does it help inform your job in general? Like mean you've rolled for years does it help inform your job as a technical breakdown of course you know what i mean um all of that helps but it's obviously not that doesn't

have to be there's been plenty great coaches in sports who were horrible athletes or didn't even have a history playing that sport so uh it's the same with journalism i think cub circling back was just his way of saying like i don't actually believe this i was just sort of having a discussion about it and the thing blew up like crazy um luke it's it's a it's a non-issue non-story for me i got nothing to say about it here's the thing that i just don't unless you want to have unless you want to have a three fight series with me luke to to fulfill this request this require you really want to go oh and three i mean that's a little weird but okay look the odds would be against me based on the fact that we're not even in the same weight class luke okay the odds would be against me but i do know your weakness is better than most okay not just the

potential of a choke but uh i'll go gallbladder and i'll go hard, Luke, okay? I have that kind of gall, bro, all right? To go for the bladder. I would just say this. Is it true that if MMA media had each three fights that the media would be better at their jobs? Well, some might be. I mean, it certainly wouldn't be worse, I don't think, that it would universally create better media, I think is very much overstated.

And it kind of tells me most folks, even well-intentioned ones, don't really understand what the job entails. For someone like me, yeah, three amateur fights would probably be quite helpful. But I have a somewhat unusual job. I don't do the sort of normal things that MMA media does. And to get, like, for example, like what would I say is one thing I could, if I could grant an ability on MMA media at once

and make all of them better at something, what's one thing I could do? I would say to, you know, I wouldn't pick out three amateur fights. If I could wave a wand, I would say something like, you know, understanding online metrics understanding online analytics um the ability you know it's not really about that though right hold on let me

finish the quick the ability to quickly turn around photos or the ability to quickly turn around videos or someone who can write quickly under deadline those to me to do the actual job yes it wouldn't make you more of an expert on the actual fighting, but you wouldn't need to be an expert on the fighting. You need to be just sort of kind of literate about these matters, but then have all these other skills related to the production of content. Those are way more valuable. If I'm thinking about hiring someone and you've had three amateur fights,

but it takes you five hours to make it under deadline, and you don't know how to really use Instagram properly or whatever, you're not that good. You're not that useful to me. But if you had no fights, but you watched for a long time, you can write under deadline. You do know multimedia. You can program in HTML or whatever.

You're far more valuable to me than otherwise if I was hiring. That's the most good faith response I've ever heard on a non-question so i give you credit for saying it i'm serious though wouldn't you agree it's not about that at all do you know why these debates come up not because fighters think media members if they had three fights could be better at breaking down fights no this debate comes up because fighters are sick of people that couldn't beat them in a fight having an opinion publicly about their mistakes or their decision making and look i see both sides to that number one we are in the you know a very in terms of media we're in a very different digital and beyond new media era entertainment heavy so you know um do we even on this show say things that that are insensitive

to a fighter? Of course, right? But it's also part of our job. We're trying to make a great show. What this is really about is if you haven't been in there, if you don't have the toughness to go in there and fight, you shouldn't be commenting on somebody's toughness and their decision-making in a fight.

And to that degree, I get it. I mean, that's not wrong, you know. But at the same time it's like there's a small percentage of people who luke who could do this for a living and who want to do this for a living that doesn't mean because we're not in that percentage that our opinion is baseless and worthless you know that's sort of the line right there yeah the other part is um i also tend to we'll move on after this i think that that the fighters believe that if MMA media had fights under their belt, amateur or otherwise, it would make media to them something that they'd be happier to read

or that it would make conversation about or watching the videos better. It would make them feel better about how everyone is discussed, whether it's through area edition or the even-handedness of discussing a topic. And I don't think that's true at all. You got Big John McCarthy, a pioneer in refereeing, also has a black belt in jiu-jitsu.

You got Josh Thompson, hell of a commentator, hell of a champion, hell of an elite lightweight. And they were critical of aljermaine sterling like it didn't it didn't please him in any capacity at all i think they want mma media to be nicer and my only response to this bc is if y'all think mma media is not nice enough literally the most compliant media in all of sports media you know you should try seeing what they say about

folks in nfl media or even college media. They rake those fuckers over the coals. I would argue they've got it good and they don't know that. I think you're right. I think this is the most, this is the largest percentage of group of people who are happy to be there and want the health and support of the sport they cover and get paid for to only grow, which dissuades them from doing certain investigative and breaking news type stuff. So, yeah, this is the safest place possible. But, Luke, I get it.

No one wants to be criticized, right? So you get criticized, it changes everything. It sucks. But the thing about being, I mean, I've seen it on certain occasions where I've been criticized. Not that I'm a famous pro fighter or something, but it happens on occasion where I'll come up and people will have their opinion. And if they bring it, again, if they, but it happens on occasion where I'll come up and people will have their

opinion. And if they bring it again, they bring it to my doorstep, I'll block and tell them to shut the fuck up. But if they don't like, they just go on their merry way and talk about it. You got to just let it play out. You can't,

you can't fight the ocean. Let them have their say. Uh, if it's egregious enough, you know, all right, you can, you know,

fire back, but if you don't need to, don't. And if they call you a risen racist, you just, you take the L. Yeah. You just take the L, you know fire back but if you don't need to don't and if they call you a risen racist you just you take the l yeah you just take the l you know and then you stop doing karate chops uh that was taken out of context luke come on i know i know i know i'm just having a home for comedy anymore besides uh besides brendan shop show i mean come on i'm having fun i'm having fun i'm chill out all, last thing on this.

Not this one, but a separate thing. Pro Fight League, you know, the PFL, has partnered with Verdict MMA. They're going to offer fans a chance to score fights on the main card on ESPN2 for all of 2021 PFL shows. I've not used Verdict MMA, BC, but I would love to know your opinion about this. Isn't this essentially they just all vote on who won,

but they have a point system that makes it a little bit more clever. I think it's interesting. It's a, you know, it doesn't mean anything. It's an, it's the same thing as having an unofficial score, like you see on a lot of boxing broadcasts. But if it's something Luke, where they will be showing on the screen and it's, like you said, it's based on a system it's not just hey drunk guy who do you think is doing better right it adds an interesting talking

point and I think it you know adds to the idea of is three judges sitting cage side the right amount should there be one watching on a monitor should there be five and you narrow down the highs and lows and get down to the three I mean there's still a lot of debate about scoring this doesn't fix anything but I think it certainly adds some interesting insight and

entertainment to the whole discussion. And Luke, it has some people saying, what if the third judge was America? Like on Dancing with the Stars or some American Idol bullshit. Luke, would you ever want to live in a world where you have two judges cage side and the third one is everybody watching at home and that's it at the end of the day? No. Mm-mm. Okay.

No, a jury of your peers can mean many different things. You know what I'm saying? No. Popular vote. Yeah, it would become a popular vote is what you're saying? Yeah, I don't know that I would want that kind of capricious whim out there. I'm looking at it now. So, yeah, you can score rounds like who won, you know, like X or Y,

but you can also see like how many people, let's say 1,000 vote, how many had it at 10-8, who had it at 10-9. There's sort of a predictive element to it. Really, it's just PFL being like, look, no one gives a shit about this product. We've got to find a way to get people to care. That's what it seems like to me, but it's a perfectly reasonable way like look no one gives a shit about this product we got to find a way to get people to care that's what that's what it seems like to me but it's a perfectly reasonable way to kind of get there uh and you know um they're the pfl experience is one where they're constantly being like hey here's how fast this punch was thrown it was thrown at you know 50 miles an

hour or whatever it is and then they're doing They kind of experiment with a lot of these inanities that don't mean a lot. But they can be fun over time. Last one, BC. We've got some stuff announced for PFL Season 3. Fabrizio Verdum is going to face Henen Fajera. Kayla Harrison is going to face Mariana Moraes. Who, by the way, is 16-10 is her record. Also on the card is the brother of Kamaru Usman,

Mohamed Usman, who's a big heavyweight. How excited are you for season... I've got to tell you, season three of PFL, easily the most intriguing season they've had for these two reasons, for the Anthony Pettis reason, for the Rory Mc... People forgot Rory McDonald was at PFL. For all of those reasons, not the Anthony Pettis reason, for the Rory McDonnells at PFL.

For all of those reasons, not a bad season they're kind of putting together here. Yeah, for all of those reasons, I'm in, Luke. I'm into what they're doing now. And does that out me as some sort of filthy, gross casual who's only in it because I know the name of Fabrizio Verdum? No, not necessarily. I do live loose life on the edge, Luke, right? Yeah!

Deal with it, Luke! They pay me cash for this shit, right? Wow! What are you doing? I don't know. Performance art, I think, Luke. I don't know. Dude, I hope you understand acting like you're a 11-year-old

who has been given too much Adderall. That's not art. You know that, right? Look, I've had this debate with you enough. No, seriously, look, PFL is doing some things. I like the matchups. I like the brackets laying down. The proof will be in the put in, Luke, of whether you sit down and watch it this season.

Yes, that's really quite it. But we'll see. Some of them, Anthony Pettis, I got a feeling Anthony Pettis isn't going to win that season. I'm telling you right now. I don't know what's going to happen, but I got a feeling he ain't the guy. So that should be kind of interesting. Also, Kamaru's brother, Mohamed Ousman, seems like he could make some trouble for folks at heavyweight. So it could get kind of interesting. Also, Kamaru's brother, Muhammad Usman, seems like he could make some trouble for folks at heavyweight, so could get kind of interesting. All right, before we move on to

SJWBC, I want to let our morning combat listeners know about Paramount+, which is live now. You've probably seen the journey to Mount Paramount spots featuring Bill Cowher, James Corden, Patrick Stewart, Beavis, and Butthead. Quite a squad. Paramount Plus is live sports, breaking news, and a mountain of entertainment. You can go straight from game day to movie night with Paramount Plus. Stream iconic movies like The Godfather, Indiana Jones, Mission Impossible, and new episodes of critically acclaimed original series like Star Trek, Picard, The Good Fight, and The Stand. And get this, it's where you can dive into live sports from us, CBS Sports, including

the NFL, March Madness, the Masters, Champions League Soccer, my favorite. And of course, they don't put this in here, BC, but I'm going to add it, Morning Combat as well. It's not on the app, but you know, it's part of the company. Plus stream hit shows from CBS, Nickelodeon, MTV, BET, Smithsonian Channel, and Comedy Central. Live sports, breaking news, and a mountain of entertainment. Paramount Plus streaming now. I got my email from the company, BC, about activating my free account.

Did you do that yet? I did. I get it now for free. My family and I are enjoying it. And, Luke, you can get CBS Sports HQ on there. Oh, by the way, that's also part of it. And you know what I've been watching that's exclusive to the Paramount app, Luke?

Did you see they have the Real World 1 reunion show? That first cast from New York from 92, Luke? They reunited for a week during COVID and did a bonus reunion season. Luke, I am all over that ish, okay? That's my freaking wheelhouse all of them i love them all they're bad do you remember when the first real world came out and it was like it was it wasn't just reality tv as we understand it that that didn't exist what you understand to

be reality television was not a thing so this was very much like a it was more treated like what a science experiment a gimmick yes a gimmicky science experiment where you didn't really know what was going to happen when they put them together and how weird it was going to be or what it would produce uh it was you know revolutionary is a strong word bc but it was certainly groundbreaking oh it was and that was before you know people figured out that you want sustained ratings for something like that you have more of a jersey show jersey shore excuse me or real world las vegas type of shit show where you got drunk co-eds you know with no inhibitions but what real real world season one was and i know there's people that in hindsight call it boring no it was great it was like you know there was some really interesting debates on uh racism and uh a lot a few other serious topics Luke that were not only

ahead of their time to have those debates on TV amongst you know young people like that but there's still relative debates today so it's pretty interesting I know we're putting over a company app here but they also have the full archive of like the MTV real world and road rules history and challenge so there's a lot of fun time you can kill on that thing Luke all right remember when it used to be that road rules was the thing where you went on if you weren't cool enough or good enough to be on real world and that was you were like you were like the fucking discount store real world guest you know or contestant or whatever i do i do luke i do luke do you have a favorite season of Real World at all? Were you day one-ish?

I mean, were you watching season three? Yeah, I was day one. I was day one. I would say probably the San Francisco season. Was that season five? Yeah, season three. Great, great season. Yeah. That's the one with Puck and then Pedro who died of HIV or AIDS.

Yes. That was a crazy fucking season. That was a crazy season. Yeah. When I was in uh when i was in la for showtime for one of those gervonta fights luke i walked down to uh in venice beach where uh where the the season two house was and uh and checked it out it was pretty awesome luke okay do you remember the one where new orleans where the guy was like come on be my baby tonight oh

david that guy's that guy's the best and worst. Yeah, yeah. Ski, dabba-doo-wee, dabba-dai. Come on. It's very Tyron Woodley-like, Luke, right? Yeah, yeah. I don't know. Did he have a song called I'll Beat Your Ass?

Did he have that? That was close. Yeah. I mean, their music, they should collaborate, Luke. It's pretty close. I'll tell you that. All right, BC, your chance. We got to tell the folks what's next. The show is yours right now.

Yeah, yeah. No Wheel of Death this week because we've got so much other crap to, your chance. We got, tell the folks what's next. The show is yours right now. Yeah, yeah, no Wheel of Death this week because we've got so much other crap to waste your time. I mean, look, isn't that what life is about? Finding things to distract you and waste your time as you get closer to death. I mean, we're talking about a dude who did scat talk on the New Orleans season of The Real World.

Yeah. Ski, dibba-da-wee-da-boo-da. Come on, baby, tonight. I've seen those other thugs you've been with come on my baby tonight yeah yeah all right luke uh every wednesday some wednesdays what we do is we uh we scour the uh the interwebs and uh we bring to light the latest and greatest beefs between athletes on social media. And let's bring in the honorable, the dishonorable judge, Luke Bader Ginsburg, for this week's SJW. SJW.

All right. Order. Order in the court here. The great judge has sat down. Luke, we start off with the aforementioned Aljamain Sterling. Things got heated on the old twits. Here we go. Aljo says, not the way I ever want to win a fight. It was close, competitive, filled with action.

I felt the knee was intentional, especially after the ref announced I was a downed opponent. So I didn't expect to be hit. Jan is a bad dude. We will do it again. This was Aljo's immediate Saturday night post-fight reaction, Luke, after all that went down. Here comes P. Oter Jan.

He says, I apologize and wish a speedy recovery to Funkmaster MMA. I didn't mean to throw an illegal knee, illegal strike. I just made a big mistake and I paid for it. Okay? Okay. And Murab Davashili, Luke, posted a picture on Twitter.

Yes, he posted a picture on Twitter of him and Sterling after the fight at the hotel with the belt between them and you know who didn't like that luke peyote or jan so okay wow i mean like really how unprofessional is this show luke right it's a stupid show yeah it's pretty damn dumb all right he says uh glad to see the champ is fine now all right all right we're heating up here we're heating up let's go to the next slide aljo responds all that talking stops when we're face to face we can do this fight next

instead at dana white but he's not talking about jan luke right that's that's henry so that's henry cejudo right there he's talking about the tweet marab put out of a video taken inside the hotel of him and henry suhudo going face to face so luke maybe maybe let's bring back a little of the al joe hey i open up the show saying hey get off this guy's balls but this tweet does rub me a little bit of the wrong way this is al joe taking a video of him and suhudo and saying look we can do this fight next at dana are you okay with that judge it's an opportunistic idea but yeah i mean here's the thing here's the thing i'm not saying that he hasn't done things that look a little bit contradictory to what initially was happening on

fight night i'm not saying that that's not true or at least you don't have a right to perceive things that way. But at the same time, Juan has indicated maybe he just changed his mind about certain things because he felt differently. And the other part is, dude, it's done. It doesn't matter. It's over. You can't go back and revisit it if you don't like the rules. And that's okay if you don't like the rules.

If you think the rules are bad or they should be different or whatever, fine. But to me, again, I can't say it it enough you don't know how injured he was and even if he wasn't at all he was incentivized to do exactly what he did after that if if shit i have the hiccups i apologize if shit doesn't match that then it doesn't match that you're just compounding your own frustration for no reason luke don't never be afraid we. We're burping in the show. I mean, this is like the Bohemian Grove. I apologize. I have hiccups on the air.

I don't know what's wrong with me. We're just pissing everywhere, Luke. I mean, you can fart in your hand and smell it again. I don't care, Luke. All right? Well, Peyote Jan did not like that. He quote tweeted and said, paper champ already ducking the rematch. Hmm.

So Aljo came back with a SpongeBob meme, Luke, and he said, I didn't know he was down. I'm going to fake apology now. Talking some slander against Peyote or Jan. That's the old SpongeBob meme. And here's where Jan responded with the meme. It's a picture of Aljo posing with the belt and his friends at the hotel. And here's the quote. I won't accept the belt this way. And then five minutes later, there of Aljo posing with the belt and his friends at the hotel. And here's the quote. I won't accept the belt this way.

And then five minutes later, there's Aljo celebrating. I know, but people, I mean, here's the thing. Does that picture, listen, does that picture look bad? Yes. Excuse me. The picture looks bad. The picture looks like a total contradiction of what had happened inside the cage. But I can also imagine, and he explained it that he had 30 30 people come to

see him and that they wanted to toast him late at night so he agreed to it like is that true either i don't fucking know what the truth is but it doesn't matter it doesn't matter anymore like it's yes it's a bad look but um who cares all right well uh al joe quote tweeted the response and said you're right pd i should have told everyone who flew out to Las Vegas to not come to my house, to not say they were happy to see me, and to not want any pictures with me. By this logic, I should have been locked in my room until my next fight. Makes sense. Aljo later tweeted this Photoshop meme saying,

Maybe Peyote or Jan need a break from Champion. So the need is spelled K-n-e-e and he's posting a photo of him posing with yan is that is that a photoshopped photo luke what's going on that appears to be photoshopping okay it's a photoshopped photo in which there's a man wearing a shirt saying life is short break the rules okay okay that's it's interesting come back there from Aljo Jan responds with you took that knee like a champ done celebrating yet and then we get back from Sterling

celebrating what two training camps for your dumb ass to just do some dumb illegal shit how does the champ not know the rules because you are too stupid to know the rules i have to watch to start training again for a rematch blah blah blah okay we're getting we're getting long here but you get the gist of where we're going um other people did chime in luke opportunistic here tj dillashaw the former i love this tweet bc i love this tweet he says and the oscar goes to at fake

master for best actor in a title fight. And Peyote Yan needs a crash course in the rules of the sport. He was once champion in. Hey, Peyote, now you're a cheater too, bitch. Dude, those are fighting words right there, Luke. Yeah, nothing is nothing. Nothing explains MMA more than fighters policing the authenticity of each other while doing a pro wrestling heel act.

Yes. That is my favorite thing on earth. I'm going to go out here and police all of your inauthentic identities and statements, and I'm going to do it for some reason talking like foghorn leghorn but more importantly in a totally fake non-existent persona for the uh total you know needs of the fight game by feeding a media cycle that is driven off absolute inauthenticity i'm gonna accuse you of being inauthentic while being the most inauthentic. The only thing authentic in this dumb sport

is us, Luke. You and I, alright? Aljo closed this conversation by saying to TJ, you cheated your entire UFC career and you have the balls to call someone an actor. You lost your manhood when you decided to inject yourself so that you actually compete. I hope Sanhagen tools

like he did to you in practices before. I think at this point from Aljo, we've lost the English language, Luke, but you might get the gist of where he was going. Is he saying you lost your manhood when you injected that because your balls tend to shrink during steroid use, Luke? That or just, you know, from a metaphorical standpoint, the thing that makes you a man was taken away. I thought that was one of his better...

TJ's going to have a hard time getting over this thing ever, especially until he books his first post-suspension win. So I think Jan did a better job of getting at Aljamain, at least in terms of Twitter beef rules. But I do think that the the the dunk on tj was good for aljo yeah i'm gonna give yan the uh the win in this one this guy's pretty good on social media whoever's running that account luke yeah they do a good job for him all right let's switch over to boxing for the next social justice war on this wednesday Luke. Gervonta Davis quote tweeted a tweet

from someone in Australia who put up a picture of Rougarou, Regis Progre, and Gervonta Davis. This account Boxing Australia tweeted, if these guys fight, who wins, right? So just so people know, Regis Progre fights at 140 pounds. Gervonta Davis holds titles at 130 and 135

and is threatening to move up to 140 to take on Mario Barrios. We'll see if that happens. So Tank quote tweeted it and said, I will beat the shit out of this bum ass N-word. So that's interesting, Luke. Rougarou did not like that. He quote tweeted and responded,

little boy, don't mention my effing name. If you don't want no spoke i ain't for this back and forth shit i'm ready to wreck something let's get it popping yo big sister ducking me so i guess he's sent to flock to yo flock ass okay this show's falling apart luke as i'm struggling through this no this is the best part is like when two 40 year old white dads try to try to read tweets from like young athletes he ain't gonna have no choice but to come see me so look who is he talking about when he says you're your big sister he's talking about adrian brunner i assume has to be right because he's talking about somebody up a weight class that

he's tight with who else would it be who else would it be uh ruger who sent out one more tweet saying y'all really think that tank could fuck with me i mean i know he's popular and a pretty good fighter but i would hurt that little boy floyd never let him close to me they'll need a restraining order after fucking with me so look that's the gist of the exchange between the two um how fired the frick up would you be if this actually became a thing yeah it won't because it's awesome and exciting and boxing doesn't do that but yes regis program for folks who may not know very mma friendly has trained with jose aldo um uh pedro jizzo's academy when he goes to brazil his wife is black but she's black from brazil and so

when they go back to brazil he trains at some of the various MMA academies, has a good relationship with several MMA fighters. And by the way, in box in boxing can box his fucking ass off. He is amazing. He's a great showman. I actually think he would beat tank Davis. And I don't think he'd be especially close. So this is not,

you know, this like tank like, Oh, I would knock this bum out. I'm like, nah, I don't think so that's interesting to say it wouldn't be close i mean look the question that would need to be answered his tank is kind of

short for the divisions he's in so he'd have a size disadvantaged luke from height to to girth could his power carry at 140 that's a big question and simultaneously could he take the power of a full junior welterweight? Now, Progray gets on that lead foot and just walks you down and attacks you. So this would be a hellacious fight, Luke. It's interesting. I wonder where the odds makers would be at knowing that Tank's more skilled, but he's the guy coming up in weight.

I don't know if he'd get rolled, Luke, but this is interesting. I hope this continues. I mean, I need to see more pro-grade tape, but from what I've seen, I'm not automatically going to side with the idea that Tank is more skilled. Tank, I think, is the naturally small, but for his size, I think pound for pound he has better punching power. I think that's true.

And he does have some slickness, but he takes rounds off. And this is 140, not 130, 135. I tend to think I would favor, not like heavily, but clearly, I would favor him clearly. Yeah. I'm of the belief that Tank hasn't had the chance to show how good he can box

because he just blows through people. I really believe that. I see something. Luke, I see things. All right? I do see. I see dead people, Luke. All right.

All right. Final SJW of the week, Luke. Connor and Nate are back at it. So Connor McGregor quote tweeted Shamakar Sandu and says where Shamakar said, done it all, still here. I'm sorry. I screwed that up, Luke. So Sandu

puts out, one thing I'll never forget is covering UFC 196 where Conor had to kill himself to make featherweight, along with a picture of what he looked like shortly after, a few months later, as basically a welterweight against Nate. Conor quote tweeted that, done it all, still here.

Thank you. Got it. This might be the last time we ever attempt this segment. That's a great tweet. I'm glad we saw it. Yeah, this is great. Nate replied though, Luke. Nate saw this. He says, I fucked you up and you never got it back, but you acted like you did. Now you get a rematch every

time you get your ass beat like a spoiled little bitch. Would I have done it all and I'm still here? No, no. You got your ass beat like a spoiled little bitch uh would i've done it all and i'm still here no no you got no no you got your ass beat like a spoiled little bitch would next sentence i've done it all so the lack of punctuate look this is like editing my children's homework that lack of punctuation it's tough here okay um i've done it all and i'm still here plus the guy who just beat your ass is is a scared little bitch. Okay.

Also, fuck you. Also, fuck you both. This is the letter we're going to receive from CBS Sports when they fire us. Okay. So, yeah. They're going to call us little bitches and then be like, also, fuck you both. Yeah. I don't know if this segment has life, Luke, but your thoughts on this little dust.

I don't give a shit. I don't care. I side with everyone who didn't read these tweets because you're the luckiest people on earth. Did you see that Conor McGregor may have sold proper 12 and doubled his net worth? It wasn't possible. It's a fact he sold it,

and he made a shit ton of money doing it, and good for him. Okay. All right. Well, Luke, here's the other shitty segment we do on Wednesdays. It's where the people show us what they've done with their lives. Okay? So it's called Fan Submissions, and every Wednesday, of course,

you can hit us up ahead of time. We've got mail at morningcombat at gmail.com. Show us your merch. Show us you. Show us yourself. No stick pics, but show us what you got. All right. Send your dick pics to Brian's Instagram.

We start out with Greg Mack, who says, I'm repping with my MK hat in the Muay Thai gym. I feel like I need to defend myself as I wrote in about lifting weights with gloves on because I have a nickel allergy, one of the fastest growing sensitivities in Western nations, Luke. I challenge Luke to some light sparring. If he's ever in Chicago, this former airman will light that former Marine on fire and show him the power of lifting with gloves in all seriousness.

I'm a huge fan. You guys in Jack slack really pushed me over the edge to begin training, which was a great decision for my life. Wow. Cubs Swanton is going to love this guy much love from chicago greg mack ps bc i love your factory town humor and luke i don't roast my ink too hard oh i was gonna uh that p sign the p sells luke but who's buying that tattoo sign i actually don't mind um but the stuff around the script i don't quite get well shout out to this fellow for wearing that black mk hat we appreciate you and luke this former airman would light your ass up in the spa airmen tend to think that but

they joined the air force for a reason all right shout out to greg mack just the same uh let's move over to a fella named shim i think it's a man i'm not sure afternoon chaps big love from england luke nobody from the uk says people from ireland quote speak irish rather than gay i literally hold on i literally got five or six dms from irish people saying I was right to call it Irish. This guy can suck on my balls. How about that? All right. He says, you don't love the absolute authority with which you stated it.

Mind, but you're dead wrong. And I'm definitely not. But OK. And BC, stop looking at my pussy during the show. Yeah, this guy's dumb. First of all, instead of tweeting the show, work on your cable management, guy. I mean, you know, it's a nice fucking plate of spaghetti

you've laid out there behind your television. I mean, look at this. What, are you working at a fucking Best Buy? Get your shit together, guy. Number one. You a damn geek squad? Number two, BC, do you know where i learned that it's called irish i had lunch with my brother and his co-worker who was from ireland the republic of ireland

not northern ireland and he told me it's called irish this motherfucker is trying to try dude have you noticed like like for example i don't give a fuck about this royal wedding thing or not royal wedding the uh the interview that the royals did with oprah did 17 million views but whatever i didn't watch it the brits don't like it when you have opinions about the royals have you noticed that as an american they want you to take they want you to have at least three amateur fights before doing that yeah they don't they don't want you to have an opinion about it it's kind of like that with all things you know uk and obviously in general they're going to know much better but the guy who told me it was irish was motherfucking irish so well shim closes by saying keep up the weekly debauchery and good

riddance to jay wow that's an editorial right there luke megan markle sneaky sneaky beyond yeah plus size yeah yeah she is okay Thank you for being honest for once. God, for one time in your life on this show, Luke. Yeah, she doesn't fight. I don't think it's wrong for me to be like, yeah, she's not ugly. But if she's fighting, I think it's a little on the unprofessional side. Yeah, it's a little unprofessional. I would never do that.

All right. Bruce B is back, Luke. He says, hey, Luke, BC and the crew, just living my best suburban life, enjoying homemade poivier buffalo wings stay frosty bruce b all right looks good dude the wings look sharp he's got the blue cheese you can see the chunks in the sauce got a good beer got some hot sauce got a mug got some got some fights bc this is this ain't a bad life man it ain't a bad life you and i had an off-camera debate yesterday why do you have issue with me having dustin poirier at number five pound for pound right now

more so that you're pronouncing it like barbara walters in 1986 i'm just i'm listening to you i'm following your lead i say par r r poirier i don't go, probably way. Okay, all right, Luke. This is probably our last one. Probably way is coming in at five. We've fallen apart. Falling apart really quick. Alex N has two of them, Luke. Here's the first one.

Not for sale. Please don't sue. But Morning Combat is a gift to our shop speakers nearly every day. So here's an homage to both of you. The Luke Thomas combo is the Jim Beam and Diet Mountain Dew. Luke, this is spectacular. There's an MK Tumbler in there. So this man made this, Luke, Alex N., okay?

And here's the second one. This one's for BC. It's the BC Omegang Three Philosophers and a gas station hot dog. You see, have you had the Omegang Three Philosophers and a Gas Station Hot Dog. Have you had the Omegang Three Philosophers? Yes. Fantastic beer. I have had this. That's very good.

It says, Luke, they are offering to ship this to us, this creation. Yeah, hell yeah. We should do it. Yeah, we should give them the address for the bomb shelter, and we'll just pick it up next time we're there. Okay, okay. I'm down with that. I love this creation. Shout out to their shop shop we'll get the information to give them some

plug and big thanks that's awesome fantastic work all right uh scott d has a um something he's created of luke and men it says let's zoom in here i can't see because the thing all right it says uh luke is saying in a bubble, when do I get to pet the fluffy little bunny, BC? When you finish the documentary. Good dare, Luke. Good dare? And then there's an arrow pointing at your ass, Luke, and it says all about that base.

Wow. Look. No treble going on down below there, Luke. I see that, buddy. I see that. I'm telling you. Listen, working on the diet, bro. I see that, buddy. I see that. I'm telling you. Listen, working on the diet, bro. What do you want me to do?

Yeah, I'm working on it. What are you doing here? And then he says, is this the big booty Latina BC has been talking about? Wow, Luke, he's calling you a big booty Latina. I know. I wish. I wish. I would look at my ass all in the mirror.

I wish I was. No, I'm just gross. All right. Hey, their next one is from an inconsolable cat. It says, Dear Morning Combat, I think of Luke as a complicated whiskey. Wait, are we even reading the right one? This is fucking cool, but this is not the right one. An acquired but delicious taste is Luke.

And BC is a spritzy mixer who always brings the bubbles. Together you make the perfect morning combat cocktail. And that's with a K, by the way. Thanks for all you do. I hope you like this art. With love, the inconsolable cat. I like the concept, Calvin and Hobbes, Campbell and Thomas. But I don't know what this has got to do with the whiskey explanation.

Although I like that independent of this. Yes, yes. All right, our people are messaging us. Okay, thank you. Let's keep it rolling here. Becky L. says, Luke didn't want to share what his father's text message was on the show the other day So this is how I think the text messages went between Luke and his father during last Wednesday's show I think BC might be able to use this on the Monday show

Well, we're playing it on a Wednesday show So Luke, here's a mock text of Papa Thomas saying I'm very proud of you, son The steak you made last night was the best i've ever had and luke says hello father i think you meant to send this message to your other son the chef and your dad says oh shit did you find a real job yet or do you still do that internet sports show from your bedroom i mean the best part is the only part that sounds like him is the last one. Number one.

And number two, he would never even tell his other son he was proud. That's how you know it's not my dad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Luke, it was rustic tribe design were the folks who created that wooden art for us there. That's a fantastic job. Okay.

Oh my god, this goes on? Jesus Christ. Luke says, I think you would be proud to know that I am an on-air CBS analyst for the past two years. And your dad says, no shit, you're on CBS News like on television. And Luke says, well, it's CBS Sports News

and it's still an internet show and I do it from my home office, not my bedroom, with a fancy bookshelf behind me. Yes, very fancy, BC. I bought it from Ikea. And then it's Luke asking if his dad is proud of him, and he gets no response. Papa. Why does it go from blue to green? I know what it means.

Blue is if they have an iPhone. Green is if it doesn't. Does it change if they block you or something? I don't know. I don't you or something? I don't know. I don't know, Luke. I don't know where we are anymore, really. Let's just try to get out of this the best we can. Ivan M. says,

This is the moment you realized eating all that sauce was a mistake. Yeah, a little bit of heartburn. You got to get that. You got to get that. What do you call it? The Prilosec OTC. Luke, you'll never live that moment down your celebration of all things poirier i don't give a shit i'm not trying to live it down embrace it lean into it luke that's

right aljo should be like yes i fucking uh acted it up and i can do that because that's part of the rules bitches all right hey kevin l says uh luke crawls for halloween candy after breaking his back and it's a uh is that a uh diehard meme luke yeah who's crawling through the air duct no mine was more pathetic i was more on my side but that was about my face when my back was fucking scrunched that was a terrible time dude i wouldn't wish that on anybody a full day without getting up and you just ate Halloween candy? Yes. Didn't you have a cell phone? Yes. Did you call anyone? Yes.

Did they come help you? I couldn't order food because I couldn't sit up to grab the door handle. You understand? Okay. Do you have a family member that could come over and help you not have to live on the floor? Do I have a family member who would come over to help me is that a serious question okay wow wow all right i'm gonna move on this is getting sad uh scott d says uh he's got an mma meme for us luke it's from the movie twins can you blow it up many luke on live chat uh the mma community hugging luke you're so the

mma community is arnold hugging danny devito of luke on live chat so i guess that scott d is saying luke that the the people want more solo luke and less morning combat i think that's what scott's saying luke yeah but danny devito was a loser ass creep in that movie like you would want more of that i don't think that's right i don't think he thought it through that deeply he probably never saw the movie look yeah some of these memes are not that great by the way do we have quality control where's mikey more mile when we need it yeah mikey's got mikey you let some things through the filter that uh man you would probably respond by saying hey guys you've had a rundown for four days I know

our producer will put together the rundown send it to us well in advance we will not look at it and then blame him for what's in it and then complain 10 minutes before the show starts that we don't have all these video elements because we never told anybody it does happen Luke alright hey David S says this is what I think is going through

Luke's head every time BC makes a dong joke. And I know BC is getting triangled, but at least he's got a purple belt. Keep killing it. Love the show. Wish you both the best. If you dig it, I'll definitely do more for you.

Wow. Luke, he's basically, uh, cruel intentioning you and saying you can put it anywhere. Luke. I like the artwork, but I would like to see something different. Like I like your face and my face, but i would like to see something different like i like

your face and my face but i would like to see something different what move is that luke what is he doing there uh it's one of the senkaku fucking triangles i don't know i don't know i mean it's a it's a you know it's just there's different varieties of triangles this is just one of the varieties i don't know the specific name for it. Luke, Scott D is imagining what it will be like when you're reporting from Columbia for a month. How Luke thinks he will report morning combat from Columbia. I don't know if this is racist. I'm going to say

it's not in the interest of good humor, but I will say if it's not, it's a little adjacent. Still pretty funny, Luke. Still pretty close to funny though all right first of all yeah it's a little on the funny side the fark doesn't exist anymore at least not as a guerrilla group uh and that's a little on the racist side but i'll let it slide this is where you would give scott d a passionate tongue lashing about why making drug jokes about Columbia or the drug trade is an insult to your extended family Luke well first of all they're just stupid right like everyone who makes that a lot yeah everyone who makes a drug joke thinks that their drug joke

is like very very funny and the first one that's ever been made at like a party or a comment in a coffee shop or something one of the reality is they're not funny uh not to say like they couldn't be funny but like their version of it is not funny and it's certainly hackneyed i one time was watching like the we were this was years ago my wife and i were first dating and we were in a bar and then they were watching you know like the olympics they always have the opening ceremony where each like country that's represented comes through you know and this was the winter olympics and columbia had you know just a handful of um members or whatever the team

was they didn't hardly do any participation but just a little bit and someone was like how do you train for the winter olympics in columbia do you ski on a mountain of coke you know just like the worst fucking dad humor you could ever imagine and he thought that was like very clever and very funny like he went back to it the reason why it's not that funny is because yes people do drugs in colombia but not like you think what they're trying what they are i've said this before what they do is they manufacture drugs in the jungles and then that goes to europe or the united states or Mexico. It's not their drugs, it's ours. But more to the point, and this is the part that gets kind of serious, which is that

if you know anyone about my wife's age or a little bit older, so let's say my age, 40, 41, something like that, what you begin to realize is everybody you meet around that time has some kind of deep scar from the narco-trafficking wars that took place and then also from the government instability that helped create the FARC as I mentioned you know my wife lost her father this way they have a family member who has a leg missing or a missing from the knee down because he was in a movie theater and kicked a bomb plenty of people have had their you know their significant others or brothers or whoever kidnapped never to be heard from again like it goes you can go down the line and every one of them has a story about my brother's dead my sister's dead my mother's

dead my father's dead all of them are dead because of the violence that has scarred that place so i'm not saying you can't make a joke about it but it should be pretty good yeah like at least luke i worked the 94 world cup into my columbia jokes like i look i was i was pleasantly surprised that the second morning combat doc they left out that uh spectacular joke i landed which followed by you humbling me and making me feel really bad about things all right The second morning combat doc, they left out that spectacular joke I landed, which followed by you humbling me and making me feel really bad about things. All right? Yeah, it's not off limits. Nothing is off limits, but try to make it good.

That's what I would say. Okay, we all can live and learn here, Luke. Alan W. has got three of them for us. Here's the first. I don't know what this is. It's something about Ioana, he says. You're the you're the t1000 yes from terminator with bullet holes through me and it says i'm looking for yoana young jay check oh that's a bad one all right here's this next one luke he's going

super troopers on us uh can you blow it up i don't want a large brian i want a goddamn liter of cola will you just order a large okay i don't get it but i guess is that a super troopers reference must be right it is luke you know i've never seen that i've never seen all of it so i'm lost on this luke we're really ruining what luke if we could actually i know this show's live but if we could just end it and remove it it would be as if it never happened Luke you know what didn't need to happen today's show we didn't really need to do one did we

we're just paid to do one but like if you think about like essential content the show today not essential hopefully people just like hanging out with us Luke so we'll keep it going here alright Alan W's final one says a live look at 100 000 subs and there's salt bay yeah that's better i like that a lot better and there's your sad face getting a terrible tattoo yes i love it that's well done from alan right there there's luke's going all

salt bay on that ass. Okay, yes. Final one from Joseph K. He says, been waiting for this. Big Dan, but them's the rules. Is this English? Does anyone know how to check English anymore? So what are we looking at? Is this a video?

For the winner, and still the undisputed UFC light heavyweight champion of the world, the pride of Poland, Jan Blachowicz. Oh, through. I mean, you know, I probably could have ran in dead wrong, Luke, but, you know, you got to go out on a limb sometimes, and that's the beauty of sports. Luke thinks none of us know shit. We shouldn't make predictions. No, you make them, and then you were wrong. You were wrong, Luke.

Yeah, I don't see you having to answer for your god-awful predictions mostly because people aren't paying attention to them but uh yeah this is why i don't do them at my subscriber total on youtube luke and in twitter well it must be nice to make all the same errors but get away from it by virtue of what do you want to call it anonymity uh whatever you want to call that? Anonymity? Whatever you want to call that. Is it anonymity, Luke, or is it likability? It's a little bit of both. It's a little column A, a little column B. But yeah, listen, thought he was going to win, thought he was going to win handily.

Still think he could have if he had gone a couple things differently, but he didn't, and that wasn't the reality, and your boy got it spectacularly wrong. So I got to take the L. I'll just take the L. All jokes aside, thank you guys for sending in your fan submissions. MorningCombat at gmail.com. And I'm not trying to roast Mikey.

I did have a few days to read these. Luke, I didn't read them. Okay, so maybe we all need to look in the mirror. Okay? I purposefully... Well, here's the thing. I look at the other stuff. I don't look at the fan submissions

so that my reactions can be... Natural. Yes. Yeah, organic. So I can't help him with that i need someone else to look them through like one more time be like is this really funny because if not yeah i'll i'll become that man for us all right i'm sorry to the people that we that we shit all over the floor with this show okay yeah all right oh look one thing is our producers are telling me we've got a little sound to

throw due to get people excited about saturday's showtime so here's david benavidez you just told me you had sound! What the hell's going on with today's show? Oh. I don't speak tech. L3? What does that mean? Lower third, fuckhead. Lower third. Ah.

Thanks, Maniche. See, now Maniche is sore at me, Luke, okay? So, yes, like and subscribe Morning Combat. Please tell your friends. Good bonus content out there. A great sit-down with David Benavidez to get you fired up for Saturday's return when he takes on Ronald Ellis in the super middleweight main event. Big business at 168, so check that out.

Luke, I apologize to you as well for this show. It is a breakdown, just a full breakdown. It didn't need to happen. It was very extraneous. They just made us do it because we get paid, but today's show did not need to exist. There is a UFC show this weekend. Can I plug your music career, Maniche?

One of these days I will. I love it. He's a soulful white guy, Luke, okay? Certainly is. All right, so let's wrap things up here very quickly. Tomorrow, live chat, 3 p.m., Friday show, which does need to take place because we will preview some of the boxing that weekend, some of the UFC that weekend.

There's some stuff happening, so stick around for that. You can follow us on Morning Combat with the same name anywhere but our names between Instagram and Twitter, as you can see from Brian and I switch up a little bit. By the way, it's fine for the dead wrong today because i deserve to get the dead wrong but if you've got some other ones go to morningcombat at gmail.com send them in label them dead wrong in the subject line so that we know and please double check it will you i have people being like you called canelo sorry you called what they say j balvin mexican i'm like there's no fucking way

i called him that i was like where's theamp? And they gave me the timestamp and I went back and I listened and it clearly says I'm talking about Canelo. So he didn't actually submit it for a dead wrong because it wasn't, but I saved that man a little bit of a click. I need you guys to do your little homework. If it's wrong, it's wrong. I got that shit wrong. Fine. But if it's not, you know, okay. Uh, let's see if you want some merch, you can go to store.show.com you can be decked out like me and Brian

looking like a sexaholic I don't know I don't know what we look like but not that if you want let's see Showtime

you can go to showtime.com and you can try 30 days for free if you like it you can keep it if not you can go pound sand

if you join now for Bellator for six months I think it's five bucks a month something like that $4.99 and that's it until tomorrow at 3 or Friday at 11 BC any final thoughts If you join now for Bellator for six months, I think it's five bucks a month, something like that, $4.99.

And that's it until tomorrow at 3 or Friday at 11 BC. Any final thoughts before we close today's very superficial and extraneous show? I'm done. That's it. All right. For Brian Campbell, I'm Luke Thomas. We're from CBS Sports. Thanks to Showtime as well as Malka as well as all you good folks out there. And until next time, may all of your gains be loyal.