MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Allen Subs Craig | UFC Vegas 82 Recap | Jackson Stops Amosov | Patchy Mix | Morning Kombat Ep 517

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

On Episode 517 of Morning Kombat Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell react to a fun weekend of fights. The guys start off with UFC Vegas 82. Did Brendan Allen Announce himself as a middleweight contender? Where does Paul Craig go from here? What kind of opportunity would they like to see Michael Morales get next? Who else on the card stood out? The guys also break down Bellator 301. Will Yaroslav Amosov get a rematch after losing to Jason Jackson? Where does Patchy Mix rank among the best Bantamweights in the world? As always the boys close out Mondays with Dm's from Donks and HYSTS. (00:12:20) - Allen vs. Craig (00:32:00) - PFL Buys Bellator (00:57:00) - Michael Morales (01:00:30) - Rest of UFC Vegas 82 (01:07:20) - Amosov vs. Jackson (01:23:00) - Pettis vs. Mix (01:34:00) - Dm's from Donks (01:53:00) - HYSTS Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. It's the 20th of November, 2023, and it's time to give thanks, everyone, to Morning Combat. Hello, my name is Luke Thomas. I am merely one half of your hosting duo. I join you from the capital of the status of needles right here in Washington, DC in desperate need of a haircut and a beard trim. Cause I look terrible, but my cohost, he looks all right. He

looks like he's well refreshed. He's got a smile on his face this morning. It's Connecticut's own Brian Campbell. What's up BC. Hey Luke, did I scare you at all with my unintentional last-minute watching of the fights for today's show, which led me to log into this program 30 seconds before we went live? All I can do is apologize in the moment. That's all I can do. I mean, any time the Brian Campbell show is not in full effect at 10.30 a.m., I know something is amiss. Something is amiss. Well, Luke, i had a fantastic family

weekend in new york city i mean just refreshing as all heck you know what i'm talking about luke i haven't had a refreshing new york city weekend in quite some time but yes i do know what you mean did you do anything of note a lot of things of note you remember dr mike remember you know you know dr mike people magazine sexiest doctor alive you. He boxed on the Jake Paul undercard. He gifted my family with a set of tickets to his live show, and we had a fantastic time. And from there, Luke, 9-11 Museum. Can't wait for September 11th. We all know that.

And, Luke, the Blue Man Group. I mean, this was a, you know, Luke, those three pieces of business right there in their own separate way. Tremendous. What does Dr. Mike do on his live show? So he comes out and does medical related informational skits using audience members. There's a producer who's a improv comedian. So there's a bunch of little medically themed improv segments. His massive dog Bear comes out and does a few laps he brings out a special guest to talk about medical stuff

disabilities uh you know stuff like that i mean it was a very encouraging informative and entertaining program look i really enjoyed it all right well i'm glad you feel better i'm glad everyone is doing well bc and let me tell you this. And let me tell you this, Luke. Let me tell you this. He said he's not done fighting. Okay. I just wanted you to know that. I now know that. Now I know that Chris Avila match. He's not done fighting. Hey, Luke, I don't want to say anything disparaging or negative about September 11th beyond to tell you that. Have you been to that museum? I don't think I've been to that museum. No, I've been to the ground zero a million times, but been to that museum i don't think i've been to that museum no i've been to ground zero a million times but never that museum i don't think um it'll move you it'll it might move you right out the door the last you know the last section of it i kind of

had to get out of there because it was too much but that's that's maybe the best museum i've ever been to look that is a intense life-changing experience walking i'm not kidding i'm not doing it here i mean do the two ones that have ever made me feel that way where one was the intense, life-changing experience walking through here. I'm not kidding. I'm not doing a bet here, Luke. No, I bet. I mean, dude, the two ones that have ever made me feel that way, one was the Holocaust Museum here in D.C., and then the other one that was just an enormous story to tell is the African American Museum they built a few years ago here.

Yep. It's such this gigantic story that it's really hard to tell. And once you realize all the levels to it, it's quite overwhelming. But that's what a museum is supposed to do, right? It's supposed to raise some consciousness, make you learn about some new things, and yeah, good stuff. So I'm glad you got a good time in the city. I got to see Trolls on Friday over the weekend,

which, as I tweeted, was like being waterboarded by sounds and colors. Well, look, Not to troll you, but there were rumors that your Delta 8 level was exceeding district records in that area of the country. Well, the good news was there was a lot of adult chaperones, and we walked to the movie theater. It's pretty close to our house. So in the end, I can neither confirm nor deny that I may have been on the 8th or 9th or 10th or 15th row of Delta. But nevertheless, even my wife and Abuela were like, yeah, that movie was a lot. It was a lot. So what are you going to do?

It looks like we reserve the 8th, 9th, and 10th row as a family, if you know what I'm talking about. But we have a lot to get to. So, of course, on Friday, we had the last Bellator event. We don't know. We should tell folks that right after the show, of course, will be the MMA Hour over on MMA Fighting. And Don Davis, who tweeted this morning a very kind of cryptic, you know, this is going to be a new era for fight fans with sort of a new arrangement.

He's going to be live on that show. We obviously won't have the opportunity to react to that, but everything kind of points in the direction that there's going to be some kind of PFL announcement today about the future of Bellator. We were talking about its last Showtime event, which was on Friday night. Yeah, and Don's quote on the Twit deck, the old X spot, the old, yeah, MMA world changes today for the better, Davis said.

Better for fans, better for fighters, better for commercial partners. New MMA global powerhouse arrives hashtag pfl mma luke does that that would lead you to believe we're going to merge these two brands but i don't mean to you know reference a potentially unintelligent cage but that's not what i'm hearing from my sourcing let's find out today i guess right i i am still desperate to get an interview with the smart cage this weekend i'm right i i am still desperate to get an interview with the smart cage this weekend i'm gonna try i'm gonna try um so what will react to the last bella tour on showtime event plus of course it was the ufc over the weekend uh as well brendan

allen getting a big win in the main event we'll probably start with that in just here a minute so thumbs up if you're watching on youtube if you'd be so kind subscribe it's free it costs you absolutely nothing. BC, I know that the merch store is active. You can, of course, get the merch here that I have on this morning, average morning. What am I saying? Average morning. Average Joe Art. I keep thinking about morning jacket. Nevertheless, though, I am told that there's going to be some Black Friday deals

that everyone should be paying attention to. Is that your understanding as well? That is my understanding. Later this week, when you get all up in arms and get ready to head on down to Caldor or Ames or Bradley's or Best Buy, wherever you buy your finest electronics, regardless of the decades I'm referencing here, and you get in line to potentially have to rear naked choke a grandmother that might beat you to the xbox uh keep in mind here that uh mk's got you covered

just the same so be on the lookout later this week black friday cyber monday big deals coming your way right now they can go to morningcombat.store and get this merch right here which is a big deal factory town mma looks like a nice looks like a nice motorcycle gang t-shirt luke to be fair pairs nicely with this hat you know what i'm saying gives you i mean look you can you can argue that you and i are already resoluting our new year we are already putting our health first so i just want to tell you guys that the only thing that looks better than morning combat merch on your body is morning combat merch on a refreshed rebuilt body.

It's up to you. It is up to you. That's a fair point. All right. So there you have it. That's that you can reach the show, the producers morning combat at gmail.com for Wednesday's fan subs. Friday's dead wrong.

And of course we're going to have a bit of a different kind of week because it is a Thanksgiving week. We're going to have today's live episode. I believe we'll have a Wednesday live episode, and we'll have something special for you guys on Friday as well. So be on the lookout there for that if you can. All right? Very good.

BC, anything else to get to before we kick this show into high gear? Not much, Luke, beyond I really enjoyed the MMA that I power watched this morning. Would you say overall it was a pretty damn good weekend in this sport? Yes, in terms of just quality contests, not like the highest, highest level, but quality contests. And again, I do think that we'll get to some of this a little bit later. I do think you got snippets of the highest level here and there. But overall, if you were looking for just good high-level MMA fights, you got a lot of that, actually.

So pretty good weekend in the end, if I do say so myself, although obviously not the biggest attractions necessarily on the docket. Luke, I'm not sure in our rundown here if this is a properly updated OK Bet scoreboard, because I know that I had one fight over the weekend, the Bellator undercard heavyweight bout, Fortune versus Golem got canceled. So I'm not exactly sure what our records are coming in.

I know for a fact. I checked today. I went three and three because remember I had the one extra pick that I had to make in the main event. I did both main events. I went three and three overall. You went two, two, and one. Okay. So I believe our updated standings right now.

I just saw Mikey in there working on them. 82, 85, and 4 is Luke Thomas. I believe still in second place. Dead wrong me if you've got a calculator or a T182 in front of you. 83, 87, and 1 is your boy BC. So Luke, either way, regardless of who is technically in the lead, we've got about three weeks left of this challenge with ufc 296 being that big ticket item to close it out december 16th uh there may be no more hashtag vibes pics there may be no more

luke thomas cheating a little and going yeah i'll take the minus 700 favorite who cares right where there were rules to this no one ever told me i whiffed on the other one so you got what you wanted if we can move that shit out of the way and get serious luke get ready for some concert experience that you know don't want at all that you are not ready for i admit i had i slept on this the whole year and it is now costing me and here i am having to procrastinate the night before the big the big exam so to speak so we'll see how this goes i'm not looking forward to it either way all right bc with that out of the way let's start with the weekend's action and let's go oh um what i want to say there was something else i want to get in mind i didn't have it in my notes i'll get to it later it's no

big deal all right does it involve punani at all it does not it does not it involves just straight recitation of the events all right let's start with topic number one i apologize here we go so we'll we start as we customarily do with the Ultimate Fighting Championship. BC, in your main event of 185ers, Brendan Allen gets the third round rear naked choke submission. It was kind of one-way traffic, basically, nearly the entire time. So my question to you is as follows, BC. Just how much of an announcement was this win by Brendan Allen

to the rest of the middleweight division in how he beat paul craig oh look this is big this was really big and i understand that i picked paul craig under our okay bet under hashtag team vibes feelings rules experiences turns out in the end luke the right guy won and advanced and this is a guy who's coming the hell on five wins in a row coming in maybe you know was it five or six wins coming in in a row, but still somewhat under the radar in the overall extended top 10 picture of this division. To me, this was the performance that woke me the hell up that I hope does the same across the board and even gives Brendan Allen the kind of ranking that he's looking for moving forward. because Paul Craig is sort of a really tough

litmus test right now. Only one fight at middleweight coming in after moving down from 205, but we know what he can do in there. And Luke, I think what I was most impressed with, when you see it in this picture right here, was the physical dominance. Allen was fighting essentially a light heavyweight that's cutting down here, and his ability on the ground to ragdoll paul craig it wasn't without a couple little teases of paul craig's own submission abilities in there that quick rear naked choke he put on the the heel hook attempt right there but all in all alan acted like the bigger man even though technically he wasn't was more dominant in top position with those elbows to open up that cut

and then when the opening presented himself his ability to put that fight away look we have to start taking this guy seriously because of the win streak because of the age the attitude and anything i thought that my sleuthing ability right during fight week watching some interviews trying to figure out is this going to be too much for brendan allen a five-round main event an opportunity to really take that step forward. Oh, it wasn't. It wasn't at all. He looked like he belonged. He looked like he's ready for much bigger things. Unfortunately, his daughter had to be held by a man wearing a fake dead animal on his head,

but that's just fine with me. All in all, Luke, I'm seeing somebody who's announcing himself. Sure, you need to see him in a five-round striking battle against an elite fighter to truly see how he's going to swim here. But he was able to lean onto his strengths in this fight, and he looked freaking fantastic in doing so. There were very small portions in which Paul Craig had any single-strike success. Start to finish, this was pretty much Brendan Allen's fight. And I'm here to tell you, Luke, I was impressed and I'm taking much, much bigger notice moving forward. Now we got some breaking news I want to get to in a minute, but I'd like to finish this point so we don't have to double back here, BC. Let's stay with

Brendan Allen for just a moment. BC, you know what kind of occurred to me watching this was, you know, I thought like just from the appearance standpoint that Paul Craig looked pretty good for this weight class. You know, you could see in the picture that they had him facing off, you could see sort of the build in his shoulders. He looked ready for the opportunity, but to the point that you made, functionally, it did not appear that he was stronger. And the other thing that kind of got to me was, and again, there was a big age gap. There was an eight-year age gap, 35 versus 27. Brendan Allen appeared to be much faster, much more nimble in this weight class. Would you agree with that assessment? I do. I do agree with that.

Okay. So in saying that, at 27 years of age, I mean, I thought this was very impressive. We had talked about this. He's had not exactly up and down. That's not really the right way to describe the run that he's been on, but rather that he had a couple of trip-ups along the way. But they've been a while ago. He had the trip-up against Sean Strickland back in 2020 he lost that one in the second round the same one to his teammate

Chris Curtis he lost in the second round that was a little bit more recent that was 2021 but since then he's been on a tear by the way he's had good matches he lost to Hasim Rita in pure grappling but that's he went to the full distance there that's pretty good then he beat Gabriel Checo in pure grappling as well. Since, as we mentioned, it finished Sam Alvey, beat Jacob Malcun, finished Christophe Jaco, finished Andre Muniz, finished Bruno Silva, and then finished Paul Craig. Dude, this guy, first of all, you can say definitely ready for a bit of an upgrade in competition.

He's more than earned it. It really makes you begin to wonder exactly about his upside. His grappling is already good. You can tell he's a natural for the weight class. He fits in it just fine. He's got plenty of time before he moves into the prime of his career. So he has plenty of time to work on some of the other skills that he might need to that aren't as up to par necessarily as his ground game,

which I still think is the leading part of his game. But this kind of performance, I mean, the question I asked you was, what kind of an announcement was it? Is it an announcement that he's ready to contend for a title tomorrow? No, I didn't necessarily get that. But at age, I don't know if you could necessarily from a fight like this. So it's not like, oh, he's not ready. I didn't mean it that way.

I just mean, could you really see that from this? I don't know if you necessarily could. But what I did get from this was like man like you know when someone if someone asked me bc exactly what is his upside i would have to say i don't really know and by that i mean he's got so much ability already and so much experience at such a young age that know, we need to have some managed expectations for any person. But truly, I mean this, I think the sky is the limit for Brendan Allen here a little bit, because he's got now so many, you know, wins at his back, in terms of all the different ingredients he might need at age 27,

in order to really maximize his opportunity here, right? You see, like, this guy's experience, you were talking about, oh, there's going to be an experience level. Yeah, dude, there was an experience level issue here. And Brendan Allen doesn't have the bigger names in the bigger fights, but he's just got so much mat time already by age 27. I think you would agree he looked seasoned in there against Paul Craig. Oh, he looked at Beyonce's.

I mean, look, he was physically dominant in there for Paul Craig. Oh, he looked at Beyonce's. I mean, look, he was physically dominant in there for the large part of that. Now it's six straight wins, five of them by position. I'm sorry, submission. Yes, some of them were against sort of middle tier names, but each step up, it seemed to be a little bit more impressive. He had a number 10 ranking coming in against a guy in Paul Craig who, let's say he had one here. We would be talking about sort of a new sleeper in this middleweight division who's stringing wins together.

Instead, it was largely one-way traffic. So now the question has to become, Luke, not just what do you do with him? And I love the call-out afterwards where he really started to announce those names that are perennial contenders slash tough-outs, right? The Vittoris, the Cannoneers, on and on. But I want to see, like, how far skill-wise do you actually think he is from really putting the full game together? Because that's truly where you find out and announce who is title ready. The ground game, top notch here.

What did you take away from the striking game in this matchup? Striking game, I thought, in general, I thought pretty good. I mean, he rocked Paul Craig on the feet a couple of times. And it was because he was able to feint him backwards. It didn't really give. He was right up against the fence line, Paul Craig. And then he was able to, there was one where he would fake like he was going to throw the right. And then instead he went left to the body, hand came down.

Then he went left up to the top of the head, followed by a right. Really rocked him, like a great combination where you're flashing one thing, showing another. And you're able to really kind of, you know, in addition to all of the fainting he had done previously to put him in that space, had really done a phenomenal job. So like that part looked great. He was able to do that basically a couple of times. There were some other times he was trying to get going and couldn't quite do it, but that's normal.

That's the part of striking. Not every entry, not every exchange is going to be the most enlightening. So what I would say is I still think there he is. Is that Reggie? No, that's Zoe. Holy cow, that's a salt lady. Come on. I thought that in general what you got from him was he shows,

uh, demonstrative improvement in the striking over time. But it's, as I said before, I still think the better part of his game is definitely going to be on the ground because there was one moment you saw where Paul Craig went for a calf slicer. You could tell he was setting it up,

uh, and the way he was waiting for Brendan Allen to kind of overcommit positionally. He did, then he goes for the calf slicer. And even Brendan Allen admitted that he could feel some things popping in there while he went for it. But he was able to get on top, extricate himself, avoid any further leg lock entanglement

that advantaged Paul Craig, get back on top and ride out the rest of the round. And then that hand fighting sequence where Paul Craig had two on one and he kind of stripped it. And when you went right for the rear naked choke thereafter, I mean, this is like real high level stuff. Like that was not something he just made up in real time. That's probably an entry he's done a number of times from that position, that particular sequence.

He just really has a lot of this stuff nailed down. So the striking to me is coming along. It's already pretty good. It's not as good as his ground game, but as I mentioned before, 27, all this experience, you're seeing the improvements in the stand-up game, fight over fight over fight. Granted, this wasn't the most sturdy stand-up test. I guess we'll have to see how that goes if he can't get the takedown in a future sequence. But overall, BC, I got to tell you, I really liked what I saw.

It was a reminder of his dominance on the ground his improvement on the feet he put it all together for a winning stoppage performance against ostensibly a bigger guy not a lot to dislike if I could be honest with you yeah not a lot at all and apologies for Zoe kicking my door down and knocking over everything Luke some some you know some cats just wow uh Luke here's what I basically want to ask you a number 10 ranking coming in we assume a big step forward. He called out big names. Those in and around his weight class, a couple people already have fights, including new father Roman Delidze, I think announced over social media

over the weekend that he'll be fighting. Is that Imovov, Luke? Which name am I thinking of right here? Delidze? I'm not sure if he's fighting Imovov. Naserdine Imovov, number 12. I believe that's the fight. Tell me if I'm not sure if he's fighting Imovov Nasruddin Imovov, number 12 I believe that's the fight, tell me if I'm wrong but that's just a setup to basically talk about

who could be next do you think number 4, Jared Cannoneer is a bridge too far for what we just saw with a dominant finish of a tough guy in Paul Craig 6 straight wins, 5 by submission I know Cannoneer recently weighed in as the backup, which would tell you he's

somewhat close to the title would tell you he's somewhat close to the title but look he's really not that close considering the log jam atop of it with ddp next izzy's lingering i mean it's a bit it's there's there's a lot going on up there is that disrespectful if cannoneer gets the call tomorrow and says hey this red hot ground fighting kid you want him are you ready ready? Can you do this? Can Brendan Allen handle that on the feet? That's my question. Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I would say that's probably a big jump that we don't necessarily even need to make. And if I'm Jared Kananier, like, what is...

Say again? I said, what are our producers jumping in and saying? They're correcting me. Am I wrong? Are they saying it's DeLizze versus Kananier? Yeah, I guess DeLizze is fighting Kananier in two weeks. You said Imavov. Yeah, it they saying it's the leads a versus cannon here yeah i guess the leads is fighting cannon here in two weeks so you're you said he yeah it sounds like it's cannon here versus the leads a um which is a hell of a fight that's seven versus four brendan allen currently sitting at 10 paul craig was at 13 before they haven't been updated yet so they're going to move around here a little bit probably in all likelihood

you know to me he wanted the homestead fight i don't know if there's really going to be a lot of ufc interest for that. That would make more sense in terms of their respective ranking positions. Jack Hermanson there as well. Paulo Costa's an interesting one. Marvin Vittori's an interesting one for me. The Vittori one I would like to see because that's one where I think it's winnable on the feet.

The leads, excuse me, Vittori has pretty good takedown defense, decent defense there as well. If he could beat a guy as sturdy as Marvin Vittori, that might tell me a little bit more. Plus, remember, Vittori was that 27-year-old guy a few years ago and has now moved up, and we're kind of wondering whether he's going to make that turn or not. And now it's Brendan Allen's turn, and they're kind of in different,

similar trajectories, different positions along the path. Is one going to be able to overtake the other? The Cannoneer one feels like, irrespective of what is already existing matchmaking a bit of a bridge too far all right but if i may be let me update those matchmaking real quick for you because the report came out in september that it could be dolede versus cannoneer in december in the last 24 hours new reports are claiming that it will be what i mentioned delise versus imavov in february so that could open up jared cannoneer in theory but look uh you know our fine producers from alka uh gaffney jpierre and long island luke nocita uh you know what they

want luke they want bo nickel versus brendan allen i mean that's another conversation but it's one we could have today on the old mk would you sign up for that offering from our producers what i was going to say was there are a ton of i mean all of a sudden middle weight just has an outrageous number of new contenders that we weren't really considering maybe six months certainly to a year ago you've got hamzat on there you You've got Roman Delidze, by the way. He could make a big splash here. He already has, but I mean, an even bigger one. Plus, he's looking to get right off a couple of losses. So you have Delidze. You have Roman Kapilov, who's sitting out there.

You now have Brendan Allen, who's sitting out there. You have Bo Nichols not quite there, but he's on his way. You have Nasurdine Imovov. You have any number of different guys. Sean Strickland's already the champ Drikus Duplicy already beat Robert Whitaker like all of a sudden there's been this massive overhaul at middleweight where you've got a bunch of exciting guys the thing is BC

they're not all concentrated in the way that the guys who were making a big push at 155 were all kind of together in the pack these guys are all a little bit separated. In fact, I'm not even sure if Kopilov is ranked. I don't believe that he is. No, he's not. So this is what I mean. These guys, you've got unranked guys like Nickel and Kopilov. You've got guys who are kind of sitting in the top 10 space.

Some a little bit outside of that. By the way, I didn't even mention Anthony Hernandez sitting at 15. Fluffy. There's just a ton of different guys who are really, really, really, really, really good and they're not all in the same place, but the turnover at middleweight, kind of extraordinary to watch. Seems to all be happening right before our eyes in an instant.

You're asking about Bo Nickel versus Brendan Allen. I don't know how much interest I have in that. I still think Nickel needs some other kind of win between that and this one does he not I mean you could argue that both could go in completely different

matchmaking directions but I'm not I mean that could solve exactly what we're looking to find out about both of them at the same time what if Alan goes in there and houses Nickel you're going to say Nickel is trash what would you say about him? That he was not ready for prime time.

I get it. So, you know, there's a risk, but look, any match moving forward with Bo nickel is going to be a risk because he looks way too good for his small level of experience. So what, whenever they announce his next fight, it's going to have to be the type of fight where you're like, oh shit. Cause he's passed that introductory phase of of i mean he did two tours of duty in the daniel white contender series which no one typically has to do

this kind of is this kind of does i don't know if was that gaffer long island luke who said that because people do forget luke that long island uh luke's dad is from australia but that is luke all right that that that oceanic rooted piece of uh fantastic producer uh that guy wants it right now luke i just saying that i don't hate that because i'm i'm waiting bo nickel is one of those guys where it's just like i'm itching just waiting to see who's next i gotta find out who's freaking next luke i gotta tell you even anthony hernandez i wouldn't mind i just feel like someone a little bit closer the deletes the hermansons someone who's in that 5 to 10 range would be, I think, a better fight, but I don't know exactly how available or how much of interest

that the UFC has for those, but certainly a big win for Brendan Allen. Very quickly, before we move on to the breaking news that we have, BC, 35-year-old Paul Craig, again, doesn't physically look bad at this weight class, but if he was trying to get some kind of benefit conferred by going from 205 to 185, I did not see a ton of evidence for it in this contest. What should be next? What could be next for him? You know, I mean, unfortunately,

I hate to say it as generically as this, but another fight, Luke. You know, like, I don't think this killed his reinvention at middleweight. He's fighting a red-hot guy in his first main event who looks, like we said, ready to parachute into the top 10. It was largely a one-sided fight. Paul Craig had small moments on the feet and ground where it looked like momentum could go his way. But Luke, here's the problem. The Muniz fight wasn't the problem, the middleweight debut for Craig, because he was largely in control of that fight. It seems like most of Paul Craig's fights, he's fighting from behind and it has seen him produce abilities to create finishing sequences seemingly out of

nowhere. But in general, I'm seeing him fight from behind too much. And Luke, is it as simple as saying his striking game is just still not completely where it needs to be for him to be the type of dual threat that will consistently beat top 10 names is it as simple as that luke is it that freaking simple i'd love for you to answer this is this is just the issue for me it's like what is paul craig good at obviously grappling is really where he he shines and what is he good at in grappling he's good at pulling guys into traps he's good at setting traps he's good at making them into traps, he's good at setting traps, he's good at making them play on behind it on his terms, so like I'm going to pull guard and then try and go for

something, you react, and then I'm going to set up something else, right, so he pulls guys into these, this undertow of jiu-jitsu, and when that works, it works brilliantly, but when it doesn't, and because certain guys just have really good ground games, really good defense, very stout balance, it just bottoms out and there's nothing to it. So you thought, okay, what if I could take that game and take it to 185? What could I really do with it with the physical strength that he has and everything else? And the answer was I didn't notice much of an upgrade.

It's still basically the same kind of game, and it fell flat in this one because Brendan Allen is better on the feet, and then clearly after we saw here, very good on the ground as well. Doesn't make a lot of mistakes, and even when he gets caught in one of those traps that calf slicer trap that paul craig had set for him he was able to extricate himself with a thoughtful series of steps to get himself out of it very quickly so like if you're not getting the extra heft for this game to work at 185 or your game doesn't substantively change across weight classes what benefit are

you getting by cutting the 20 pounds i just don't know what that i don't know what the answer is there right it either has to make your it either has to make your exist a weight class change either has to make your existing game better or it has to change it in some way and it doesn't do either and it did look like although he was obviously to make that way he was in tremendous shape it looked like he's maxing his body out to like the point where there's nothing left to cut. So if you, like you said, if you're there already and you're not having great results, I don't know. I'd like to see him take six months and just,

and just bang that bag and get to the next level Luke and striking and, and come back big. He's 35. The window is not going to be open forever. You got to give him credit for how he's adapted to a sport without you know extensive formal training in any combat discipline and look where he is today but you're right this this was a setback not an exposure but it does bring those those those interesting questions about the future i'm not i don't think that's too harsh to say for a guy we love and respect and when you said you know what is he good at luke i was really wondering if that was in the cage or outside of it that you were mostly focused on because i have a lot of things

outside of it that i'm sure he's just you know yeah yeah i mean the man is probably has many talents i mean i merely mean at 35 in the ultimate fighting championship what do we know him for but scotland might know him for more than that who knows let's fucking go scotland right let's fucking go scotland uh all right bc with that in mind we do have a point number two to get to but we got to put a pin in it because we have breaking news here that we have to get to there's any number of places you can look at you can look at the pfl's twitter account or bellator's twitter account or there's an article out in the Financial Times today, which is a very big paper in terms. Always look at where an entity releases its news and who it releases it to.

The Financial Times is not the largest newspaper in the Western world or the English language by any stretch. In fact, it's probably fairly low on that in terms of the overall circulation. But it has a high degree of circulation among opinion leaders, executives, C-suite executives, that kind of thing. So this is who this news is essentially directed at this morning via this release. But the PFL has officially, officially acquired Bellator. This comes to us both from these announcements on the Bellator Twitter account, as well as the PFL Twitter account. I'm about to read you some excerpts, BC, of the Financial Times account. Quote, this totally changes the MMA landscape, said Don Davis,

who is the, I forget his exact title. Quote, you essentially put number two, excuse me, you essentially put two number two companies to create a co-leader the combined pfl bellator roster now has 30 of its fighters who are ranked top 25 in the world by fight matrix that's the same as the ufc has on their roster we'll be careful about that uh they go on to say when pfl was founded they announced that saudi arabia has bolstered its presence by giving it a bit of an investment. However, its investment in PFL has drawn derision from UFC president and chief executive Dana White, who said the league was, quote, burning cash. He goes on to say, although a venerable name in the mixed martial arts world with a roster that includes some of the best fighters, Bellator's viewership is smaller than UFC's, according to Davis.

That is true. Quote, you revitalize the product and we will rebuild the global audience. Bellator will continue to operate under its own brand, Davis said, with its own set of fight rules that allowed moves such as elbow strikes, unlike the PFL. However, it would share its rosters of fighters with the PFL.

And in fact, BC, if you go to Twitter, what they kind of indicate is that there might be a case for a Bellator fighters and champs to fight PFL fighters and champs. Let me jump in because I have the press release that just hit the inbox from the PFL. And the subheads underneath the big headline that you read, which is the acquisition of Bellator, is like you said, they form a global powerhouse poised to be the MMA co-leader. Here's the key parts though pfl champions versus bellator champions will meet in a landmark mma mega event that will be staged in 2024 so you're essentially creating i guess in theory an american and

national league that you're going to bring together for an all-star card although it did sound like what you mentioned that the that the roster could be fluid across the board. PFL to launch reimagined Bellator in 2024 with Bellator International Champion Series. Don't know what that is. And the other big thing was what you said about the combination of rosters. So Luke, in terms of our unanswered questions,

what we do know is that their brands will stay separate what we also know is that the fighters will have the the potential to float across brands and on top of that they're going to do a bellator versus pfl pay-per-view um all right luke separate for a second from the separate brand idea which you and i have been harping for months might not be the best idea in its totality is what Don Davis is saying. True. You're essentially taking the two biggest rivals competitors to UFC, not named one championship,

but you get my, where I'm going here. You're combining them together in that alone. How big is this news in 2023? It's big. This is one of the biggest. So we're talking about outside the UFC, one of the biggest sort of tier two amalgamations that UFC has ever seen.

Excuse me, that MMA has ever seen. I'm trying to think of when the past version of this might be true. Pro Elite was a company that owned a bunch of MMA promotions at the time. I want to say the late 2000s, early 2010s. I bet it had been gone by the 2010s. I don't even really remember. And they had a series of organizations inside the overall Pro Elite banner. And then they were designed to fulfill different global or audience needs as such. In the end, that really didn't work for a bunch of different reasons,

but it sounds to me about something similar to that. It's big. I don't really understand this, BC. PFL will continue with the Bellator brand, and Bellator will be a, quote, one-off event from the product of the PFL. PFL will launch a reimagined Bellator product. I know you read this in 2024. Quote, the Bellator will be a, quote, one-off event from the product of the PFL. PFL will launch a reimagined Bellator product. I know you read this in 2024. Quote, the Bellator International Champion Series.

The Bellator International Champion Series will consist of eight fight events each year hosted in major cities across the globe, and each Bellator event will feature two compelling co-main fights competing for championship belts. So there's only going to be eight bellator events next year total that's it just eight bellator events all right if that's the case then that doesn't make me fear as much how much they would be limiting the potential impact of this news by keeping the brand separate because as we've already established even though the pfl roster right now

has bigger crossover names for the idea of the pay-per-view division that they're launching, thinking Gano, Jake Paul, that group of talented championship female boxers who've crossed over. But critically, Bellator's got much bigger name fighters, or much, sorry, much more accomplished. So this makes me believe, Luke, that they are going to combine the rosters, because if you're only doing eight Bellator events across the year and you're aiming them at an international audience, and keep in mind that you've got to give Scott Kobaker credit. He's created very nice inroads in Ireland and across the UK. He's gone to France a few times after the sport became legalized. And I get that you're still planning one big sort of bellator versus uh

pfl event but reading this press release in depth while you were talking it does lead me to believe they're going to take the biggest bellator names and right away merge them with pfl and really find out what a reimagined brand with this much strength can look like are you getting that same feeling as i am reading this in real time yes i am getting that i am getting that in general i just i don't under so i definitely it's from the way in which it's been written it does seem to me in the way you indicated bc that some of the talent will already be mixed from the word go but there will be some separate events where it's a bellator event and then they'll eventually be this Bellator versus PFL events

in the end for some championship. It's just how they're going to divvy up the talent doesn't make a lot of sense to me, or at least I just don't fully understand how that's going to apply in real life. And BC, this is the other part I don't get. Bellator becomes one of five live fight franchises of the PFL. PFL League season. That's what we know as basically the PFL.

PFL Super Fights. PFL Pay-Per-View Super Fights, which we haven't even seen yet once. I guess we have. No, we haven't, right? No, we haven't. That's only Jake and Francis, right? So we haven't seen that. PFL Challenger Series.

Amanda Serrano. Yeah, okay. You're right. Amanda Serrano. PFL Challenger Series, but that airs on Fubo. I don't know if anybody even saw that. PFL International League, so they have PFL Europe. But remember, they had Cedric Dumbay make his debut in France,

and they didn't even air it in the States. And now Bellator. I got a question, man. Why do we need all of that? I don't understand why we need all of that? I don't understand why we need all of that. I mean, that's one way to overly flex and announce how big your dominion is when in reality, OK, they have a challenger series. Cool. Not against it. It's a good idea to create your next generation.

They have an international series. Not against it. They got Dan Hardy as like sort of the face, the overlord of that. But look, what really matters to us, it seems, is the league championship format, which is their tournament for the year, and then the pay-per-view series, which they're meant to launch here. They have had pay-per-views only consisting of the year-end championship event, but now they're going all in next year. So that does seem like a lot of extra words, Luke, that doesn't necessarily affect the

core part of this announcement, which is the two rosters are going to merge, except for this asterisk having to do, Luke, with that super card. And here's the paragraph in the press release talking about it. PFL as a fighter first and fan focused organization plans to stage a landmark mega event in 2024, PFL champions versus Bellator champions. And this mega event in 2024 pfl champions versus bellator champions and this mega event will feature the champions of each promotion in all seven weight classes head-to-head against each other in an epic fight experience so that's still not answering all of our questions of what happens to the current bellator champions will they be held off the PFL brand until this super fight crossover pay-per-view or will they be infiltrated into the PFL regular season? Think AJ McKee, think Patricio Pitbull,

on and on, you know, Vadim Nemkov, the new Jason Jackson, your new welterweight champion. Will they be inserted into that seasonal format or not? We don't know know but if they don't come out guns blazing for whatever the first show or pay-per-view is of the new year with these big bellator names we know that'll be a fail until that happens luke i'm optimistic that they know what they're doing even though there's some potentially confusing parts to this release yeah you know i was looking up remember the pro elite reference that i made? This was a company that was founded in 2006. These were their subsidiaries. Elite XC, which aired on Showtime, basically at that time,

it was trying to be something of a UFC competitor, right? Cage Rage, which was a British promotion, one of the first big British promotions. So you have your sort of North American, UK. Again, this is a different era of MMA where it's not fully internationalized. Spirit MC, which I believe BC was a Korean promotion. I could be wrong about that. Icon Sport, which was more Hawaii in that area. And then King of the Cage, which has been a regional North American promotion,

not exclusively North American, but in general there. They were trying to cover all of their bases that way. This seems to me like Pro Elite 2.0 different era of mixed martial arts different plan different set of incentives different goals the question for you i would have bc is very simply how much should the ufc be worried about this also on a weekend where the judge declined to allow rediscovery in the fighter lawsuit which all that means is they're headed for trial in april so you know short-term worry and fear i would say no you don't need worry and fear when you are this far ahead of the game financially roster wise brand awareness so many

of those key things where i mean luke outside of that guy who in his mid fifties, who bags groceries at big Y, you know, I don't know too many Bellator exclusive or only fans, right? We've talked about that. So right away, no, but in the bigger picture, look, it's not that we're like, despite what we get called sometimes, you know, negative anti UFC and Dana White haters, we're not, they make up the large part of what we get paid to cover on a regular basis. But just like when I covered pro wrestling on a full-time basis, you want competition as a fan and journalist in this space. Why? Because it forces everyone to bring out their best and raise their game. Look no further than 2023, where we have been frustrated at times that UFC's lack lack of putting their best foot forward of sitting on their giant pile of cash redistributing it across

their larger endeavor portfolio and maybe not consistently bringing it when UFC did bring it in 2023 what did we learn that boy do they still got it. Boy, do they still know how to put the best fighters in the world and the best scenarios and bring the entertainment in action. Short term, would not be worried. But long term, if it wasn't for that Saudi Arabian investment and the potential threat of more for PFL, I may not be this optimistic about this news because what's fueling my larger excitement and optimism for this news? Fun competition. When was the last time we experienced that? Strikeforce, the launch of that heavyweight tournament, the Showtime and CBS contract they had at the time.

They had guys like Fedor that you had to see, but there was that short window where they had the best heavyweight division in the world. And they rolled out this grand tournament that, granted, didn't get the matchups that we wanted in the end. It was still a monster deal. It launched the career of Daniel Cormier. Now you can do stuff like that. And they can matter again to try to compete in the long term. Short term, you're not going to make much of a dent. Who knows if the PFL pay-per-view division is even going to make money and not be an albatross,

considering we need the right opponents for Francis Ngannou. You need the right opponents for Jake Paul to launch things and kick off an MMA run. But think about what they have, what we would want a promotion trying to compete in this space to have. They not only have the circus sort of crossover type of names that you need to get people's attention. They not only have now a very deep roster i don't want to overly state that a solidly deep roster of critical relevant

fighters in the global rankings that make sense and they seem to have big money big celebrity backing and investment we don't know where their tv deal is going to go to next year and that's going to be a big part of it but they seem to be armed to at least make a run at it. So if you're UFC, I don't think you're nervous. But if you're a fan and you're a fan of UFC first, you should actually be excited about this because any success the new PFL has with this is going to slowly force the UFC to look around and go, oh, yeah, let's get back to putting our best foot forward. I don't know if financially it's ever going to slowly force the UFC to look around and go, oh yeah, let's get back to putting our best foot forward. I don't know if financially it's ever going to work. I don't know if they're ever really going to take a bit of the larger chunk of business. But look, I don't think you can disagree with this. They have laid out their ducks decently well to go all in and at least

go for it. You need pay-per-view stars. They might have that. They might. It depends how they're matched, but they might have that already. We could get cyborg versus kayla for example for whatever that might be worth we could get you know jake paul and ghanu in these sort of like well i gotta see what it looks like matchups but now you can take aj mckee patricio pitbull amasov nemkov on and on yeah luke there's a pretty damn big move that i'm excited about. But unless Saudi Arabia continues to open that vault, there is an expected ceiling of how much they actually could can be. Luke, do you think the Saudi Arabia thing is going to matter? Because you did hear Ari Emanuel in some financial interviews going, hey, we're not we're not scared against competition.

We also have a relationship with Saudi Arabia and the UAE. But you know as well as I do, if Saudi Arabia opens the vault to PFL, then we're playing a different type of competition. Then you have the millions upon millions to go after the big name free agents. Then you can start to actually level the playing field. We are not there yet, but this is a good-ass start, if you ask me.

You've got to be optimistic. If you want competition, this is a good-ass start in this regard. So, I mean, I think I have mixed feelings about this, right? So, on the one hand, the crossing over of the Bellator and PFL rosters, assuming that we get a sufficient amount of that in 2024, I don't know that we will, but let's assume that we do, whatever that looks like, that can only be a good thing right what it what no one has really asked a big question like I wonder how PFL and Bellator would do if they

competed against one another but nevertheless when you're crossing over silos when you're crossing over you know rivers where there's this separation between two entities and then you get a mix you often get interesting results. I mean, I've seen it over and over again in MMA, where a promotion folds, someone else picks it up or picks up big parts of the roster, and then there's this interesting kind of interplay between the two groups in surprising directions.

I think we'll get a lot of that. I think that'll be good for the fight fans. Also, it gives people who are like, I mean, who would I even watch outside of UFC? You don't have to name a bunch of names. This organization is now clearly number two, and this does affirmatively make one number three. I know one and Bellator and PFL had kind of all positioned themselves as like the de facto number two outside of UFC, but it was a debatable claim in a few different directions.

I thought Bellator had the best roster. One had, well, Bellator had the best MMA roster. One had the best roster, but PFL had a lot of money and interesting connections. But now there's really no debate. It's this Bellator-PFL hybrid. So all of that is really great. What it's going to do for the fighter market

in terms of getting an offer, having one less promoter out there probably is not going to be beneficial. I just don't know exactly how much of the market will be affected you can see there's this promotional package that pfl put out so they've got footage now of bellator content and pfl content and they're mixing it all kind of together here kayla jake paul you can see all the different names and all the different stuff that they've done it's an interesting combination of products and i do think this will result in something much better than what we had before

however and i'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade i'm just trying to be clear about the context that we're all facing currently which is as interesting as it might be to get a scenario where we're like what would it be like if bellator's fighters fought pfl or pfl fought bellator we're getting an answer to that question. That's great. But the real question, I'll say again. No one cares about it, but nobody actually cares about that. That's right. It's a cool idea, right?

That's right. That's right. It's a cool idea. That's exactly what it is. It's a cool idea. It's definitely cool. But the real question is, how would any of those guys do against UFC? That's really the ultimate question.

And so while I am in certain ways excited about this new organization and what it can offer its real ability to have success will be to what extent it can get its roster matched up yes against the ufcs or get access to those fighters to bring them over short of that i don't think success is possible long but just like we used to say about strike force and and people trying to compete with the uf, you need, or Bellator, let's say Bellator during that Spike TV era when they're rolling out Kimbo and they're rolling out an old Ken Shamrock and Dada, that whole run where they did do millions upon millions of ratings. We used to say you need the firecrackers and sparklers to bring people in to see your real roster of real fighters. Well, now they've doubled down on that real roster of real fighters.

And do they have enough circus fare to get you interested? They kind of do. So now it's going to be up to them to be really smart and strategic and put it together and how they present it. And that's some of the answers we don't know. Will the Bellator champions be instantly infiltrated into these seasonal tournaments or not? How will that work? Will this Bellator eight-pack of international series be really aimed at international fans only?

Maybe that's what that's more about, Luke. So maybe, I don't know. I don't know what that part of it looks like, but they are set up correctly in terms of at least taking that big swing. And another note from the Financial Times report, Luke, Paramount, which of course our parent company here at CBS Sports and Showtime, will retain a minority level of ownership in the overall brand. I'm not sure to what degree, though.

Yeah, I don't know what the answer to that is either. We're finding this out as quickly and as relevantly as the rest of you guys are. BC, I'm not sure what else to say about it. They're saying that MMA is the sports growth business of this decade with its current $1.75 billion industry revenue projected to grow 10% annually to $4 billion by 2023. I'm not sure how they came at these calculations and who they're counting and who they're not.

It is interesting that they're going to have quote 46 fighters world ranked in the top 25 of their respective weight classes i will say it does boost the credibility of the pfl roster to get some of these bellator guys i guess my last question would be to answer this question in terms of bellator pfl or getting one guy to go over one direction or whatever is there any particular crossover matchup aside from kayla cyborg that you want to see um I mean that that's that's that's a key key question there and I'm saying separate from the pay-per-view crossover side of the Ngannou Jake Paul the attractions what about the real fighters um I don't know Luke I mean who do you identify I can identify on the Bellator roster instantly six seven eight, 8, 9, 10 critically relevant global fighters

that I want to see what they look like against the PFL guys. The question I want to spin back at you that you tried asking me is which PFL guys that are not the Kayla, the Jake Pauls, the Nganous do we think are actually on this level where you're going to be overly excited to match them with Bellator? Or are the Bellator guys going to slide in and be the, you in terms of the of the non-pay-per-view guys they're going to be the studs in the in this right away correct so let's just take this card on Friday as an example right you've got your 155 tournament championship between Clay Collard and Olivier Aubin-Morcier now someone tells me out of French Canada that OAM did an interview and suggesting that this

could be his last MMA fight. Didn't declare it to be, but could be. So I don't even know if he's going to be on the roster for very much longer, but I guess we'll see. And your co-main at heavyweight, Hedon Fajeda, taking on Dennis Goldsall. There's some interesting names there that could add to the heavyweight roster. They were rampaged by USADA. Sorry, not USADA, by the Nevada Athletic Commission.

Remember, they lost like half their playoff roster. Those two names are fine to add. They're interesting, but they're not going to be game-changing. They do get a big boost at Women's 145 with Larissa Pacheco. That's an interesting one they're going to have. Magomed Karimov has always been very, very talented, 33-6, taking on

Sadabusi at 170. Some interesting names. Impa Kasanganai, taking on Josh Silvera. Kayla Harrison, Aspen Ladd, Ray Cooper, Derek Brunson's going to be on this. Jesus Pinedo, who's very, very good, taking on Gabriel Alves Braga. Biagio Ali Walsh,

I mean, Bubba Jenkins, Chris Wade. I gotta tell you, this is what I mean. It's like, it's not so much Bellator and PFL coming together, it's that plus whatever chunk of the UFC they could get. That to me would make a much more interesting product. So what you just said right there, here's what success will look like for this new entity, in my opinion. Not whether the Nganou pay-per-views hit a certain number.

Not whether, you know, Jake Paul brings in a certain amount of consistent eyes. Whether all of this, the pomp and circumstance of their new pay-per-view setup, the double down of the on two separate occasions, they've gone back to the well and made the contracts even more airtight to prevent this type of movement. But with that antitrust lawsuit right around the corner, granted, it likely won't develop into a verdict that has instant change in this industry, like not going to be the next calendar year, right? This stuff takes time with appeals, but you are starting to move some of the bedrock that needs to be blasted out for there to be real competition. But I really do believe the only real competition that can come is can you get active UFC fighters right still in their prime who come to the end their deal, and you can lure them with bigger money. If you can do that, if you can go back to Saudi Arabia and have them refill the war chest for you, so to speak, that's the difference. Free agency is how you compete long-term, Luke.

Short-term, though, they got a couple bells and whistles, and now they got twice as good of a regular roster. So all in all, big move for the PFL. But please, let's take all those really good Bellator fighters and pour them in right now. Just mix it up. Let's do it. Let's do it right now. And also, get rid of the tournaments or most of the tournaments and then add elbows, please. Also, I want to talk to that smart cage about what role it plays.

I didn't see anything in the press release, BC, about the smart cage and what role it would play in its leadership of the company. Yeah. I gotta tell you, I don't know how smart this cage is after all this has been said. All right, BC, with that in mind, let's hop back to the top five if we can with the time we have remaining. We'll go to the UFC,

and then we will go to Bellator right after this. But let's finish up on UFC if we can. Point number two. Very quickly, BC, not a whole lot to say about this one, but it's worth having a conversation. Michael Morales fought what I would consider to be a competitive fight against jake matthews moving i think to 4-0 in the ufc what did he prove with this win what kind of opportunity do you think he earned i think he took a nice strong solid step forward look this guy can

strike he's all business he goes out there lands big shots seems to have good technique walks you down forward consistently did not get the finish here but you look at the quality of names that he's beaten in a very short time on this roster. And oh, by the way, Luke, he's Colombian, not Columbian, so you've got to be really excited about that. He's Ecuadorian. Is he? Did I look at that flag wrong and set up my joke improperly? It's the same. The flags are very, very similar, but no, he's Ecuador.

All right, I take that back. I'm a large, ignorant, washed loser. That's all right. We all are. Luke, I like him, but you seem to love him. Was this a like or a love performance? Yeah, it's a great question. This was a like performance for me.

And understanding, this was never going to be, this was the one I had picked because I thought it might go to KO because I thought both guys would end up slugging it out. they slugged it out certainly for three rounds but it was a careful kind of slugging it out they were picking their shots this wasn't the most exciting affair per se but I think for Michael Morales who basically did not get the takedown although there were some scrambles or whatever this was basically you know contested on the feet still a lot of things about his game that are raw but we just talked about Brendan Allen in the main event at 27. He has four wins in the UFC, Morales does, including one win in the contender series. That would make it five, but four in the UFC. Undefeated at 16-0, but BC,

24 years old. He's 24 years old, right? So when you look at this, you are definitely grading him on a curve. You don't look at his striking and go ready-made, ready-made for the title. That's really not what we're saying. What we are saying is a lot of key ingredients in place. And in particular, the one thing I keep going back to, which I think will ultimately force him to move to a different weight class probably as he gets older. He's just a tank at 170, dude. He's a tank in this weight class. He's so, yeah, he's so strong. He's so big. He's so physical, but he's not just a big dude. He's got real athletic ability. And you're seeing some of the skill building going on behind it. You know, I asked you the question of like, what kind of

opportunity did he earn behind it? I don't really know exactly what that is, except beating Jake Matthews tells you he's got some real ability for a prospect, but he still needs another, I think, good, but potentially flawed name to really develop what's going on. 2024 to me is still very much be seen, I guess to answer this question, still very much a developmental year for me for him. So nice win, solid win, thoughtful win, crafty win in many ways, but we're still grading him on a curve for being as green as he is at age 24 i think that's fair luke but i think that i went from really not knowing a ton about him to

to being like there's a lot of potential to build upon here i just love the pretty savvy striker luke seems to be you know he hits hard too so let's see what we got out of this guy i think jake matthews realized he had he was dealing with a physical beast pretty early into the first round. And not that he pumped the brakes or anything like that, but just he knew he couldn't make a mistake against him. He knew he couldn't make a mistake. Like one big shot really might have some damage. By the way, there was a couple of times I thought Matthews popped his head back and Morales just took it. Like he just ate it like it was nothing.

Pretty incredible he was able to do that. So he's just a real big, as I said before, he's a tank at 170, which makes him really, really hard to beat, obviously, for the level of competition he's faced up to this point. Not a whole lot to say beyond that. So BC, let's go to point number three if we can, which is more of an open-ended question. Let's talk about the rest of that UFC fight night card

that happened over the weekend. Who else stood out to you positively or negatively based on their performance? Well, look, Chase Hooper and, and I'm going to put them both in here. They're both on the main card. Chase Hooper and Amanda Hibas in separate fights had both come in with the same record over the last six, three and three. And if you look at the recent trends, that means they were both set up for a loss this time, only they both got a win, Luke, in different ways that they got there. But let's talk about Chase Hooper at lightweight.

Jordan Levitt's Mohawk was in his way. And while they both had some early moments on the ground to see Chase Hooper, who throws big bombs, as he always does early to lure you into a clinch so he can take you down, his adjustments on the ground were good to see. That was a heady, mature performance to tap Jordan Leavitt versus sneaky, rear-naked choke just during a point

where they seemed to both be fighting over each other's ankles. And then you look at Hibas, Luke. She was probably down on the scorecards here after a tough first round against Luana Pinheiro. And to see her come out in the third and still stay dangerous, land some spinny shit, follow up with some strikes and finish finish off it's good to see two fighters who i like both good personalities but have some real upside to their game starting to put some of the mistakes away focus on their strengths and get to that next level i was encouraged by both of their

performances on a card that wasn't overly deep but both of those pretty much stood out for me yeah i thought chase hooper did really well you know i thought his game is still what his game is where he's chasing things in the grappling department and then making you play catch up with him and when he was physically overmatched and maybe making some technical choices that he shouldn't have made it didn't work very well but here was a case where it worked really well he's maturing physically i think you can start to see that now he's not going to be the biggest guy on the roster but he's definitely bigger than he once was and he is very technically adept he does have good jiu-jitsu he's got a great ground game and he was able to make jordan levitt play constant catch up with him um no matter what i thought that was strong from him i also want to

give a bit of a shout out if i can bc from this card if i may um or rather we should probably have a quick conversation about it. Did you watch the Nicholas Motah and Trey Ogden fight? Did you see this one on the prelim card? I heard there was controversy. I did not get a chance to see it. Luke, could you break it down for my layman ass? Basic idea is as follows.

Trey Ogden was winning this fight well into the third round where he then moves to a head and arm triangle after having mount for some time. And it looked like it was tight. Don't get me wrong. This was a tight submission. It did look like Mota was in big trouble here, okay? You do see referee Mike Beltran try and grab the wrist to see, you know,

what kind of sturdiness is left from Mota as he's being, it was a head and arm triangle, so he's being choked to the side. Literally, they call it a side choke in, I think, catch wrestling. And the first time he doesn't do anything because Motah resists, but then he does it a second time, and I don't know what Mike Beltran felt, but he felt that something enough to intervene. He lets go of the choke, Trey Ogden does, and Motah's immediately okay, like immediately gets to his feet and like, what's happening here?

And again, he gets to the situation where like, listen, did Mike Beltran make the right decision? Clearly not. But it's a very, very difficult one to get right. Now, here's the controversy. They go to the replay and they realize, ah, we made a mistake and it's no contest. And Trey Ogden's like, well, wait a second, wait a second. Why don't we just go to the judges' scorecards? We're two and a half rounds through.

If we do, I'm winning. I was winning in this position. Why am I now going to get a no contest? Which of course, as we know, means he's going to get half of his paycheck. Now, I don't know if the UFC did him a solid afterwards. I don't know that, but that's what at least it means on paper. And he was talking about this at the post-fight press conference. So I guess we'll see, but you know, Big John McCarthy made a really good point, which was, right, but what if you had gone to the judges' scorecards and Ogden had been losing that fight? Let's say he had affirmatively lost the first two rounds and did have this head-and-arm triangle very close,

but then the referee intervenes and they go to the judges' scorecards, Ogden would get screwed in that case because he might have been very close to a submission but now he's going to lose so that the long story short is it's not really clear what to do in situations like this one this late into a fight where the referee gets it wrong I'm going to go back to it and say there should be some kind of way to resume a ground battle after this if both competitors agree to go back to that scenario again i don't know how easy it is to implement that solution either bc but i know what we have is not great and it doesn't really serve justice in the way that it should be served sounds like a big ass snafu if you know where i'm going here

luke right it sounds like um i wanted to add one more thing for you on Amanda Hibas to get the story right, Luke. She's still 3-3 in her last six after this win. But two of those defeats, split decision to Chukagian, TKO loss to Barber, did go at flyweight. Luke, she's not as bad across the board at strawweight. What I believe is her preferred weight class. The only defeat she has in that division in her UFC run was that stoppage loss to Marina Rodriguez. What do you think about the 30-year-old Hibas' chances moving forward if she focuses on straw weight, where I do believe her power is more potent?

Is there a corner to be turned, or have we seen the best of her so far? And I don't necessarily mean the tattoo of her submitting whitmire on her dad's forearm yes i i i know that's your favorite tattoo um but what i was going to say was i definitely think that she can keep getting better i mean i think this is evidence that there is in fact more to be done right when she again started off a little bit not that great but ended up really great which by the way showed great, which is what you want as well. But also, I did see some technical improvement. I did see some, also, I saw, you know, poise.

I saw didn't panic. I saw, you know, a lot of different parts of maturity in the fight game and in the fight process itself that maybe I didn't see quite as much before. So you're asking, like, how much better could she get? You know, again, we always have to have managed expectations, but I don't think this is the sum total of what she's got, if that's what you mean. I do think that there's another year or two beyond this one.

I thought she was in better shape, too, like really had physically rebuilt herself muscularly to another level, but still got to work on defense and head movement. If she can, she's a good striker. Good striker, luke and has a pretty good well-rounded game i'd like to see her stay at 115 and try to make something out of it but uh not a bad fight night card all things considered not great luke but we learned a few things we're not great but we learned a few things i think is right all right which takes us now to

the pfl owned and backed bellator mma this was their last event on showtime which they did announce during the broadcast itself. They said this will be the last Bellator event, dot, dot, dot, on Showtime. So let's start with the main event, BC. Can I ask you a big picture? I don't mean to cut you off, but I want to ask you a big picture thing. If this is the end of the era, not for Bellator in totality, because there's just announced today that they will continue on in almost a different form, leading to an inevitable sort of combination of the rosters under the PFL brand.

But if this was the way they went out, 301 Chicago, I saw a lot of people saying what I felt rewatching it this morning. It's a great card, Luke. I saw Jason, the guy behind MMAI Analytics, who was there in attendance, was like, that was a badass card. The Weasel tweeted the same thing top to bottom. That main card delivered. Did you agree that really across the board, start to finish, this main card really came out and hit a home run?

If this is the way that this version of the Coker-led Paramount-owned Bellator was going out, it went out pretty damn strong. Yeah, I would say that. I didn't quite get the euphoric sense that everyone else got, but it was definitely a very good card. And then the main and co-main more than delivered. I mean, it wasn't just that that was the only part. The other fights were good. The other fights were good.

Those ones were really good, really delivered. It's just, for me, it's just really hard to shake. I remember being... I worked at Spike TV in 2012 when they were getting rid of, or their partnership with UFC was coming to a close. They couldn't have Bellator rights. They had purchased Bellator from, I guess, Bjorn Rebney, whoever the owners were essentially at that point.

And you got to remember like what Bellator was. Bellator under Bjorn Rebney was a tournament show that lived in in casinos. And it was designed to be small and very cost efficient and to provide a different model of MMA from the matchmaker model that everyone was used to. But then something kind of happened interesting in the fight game. As the UFC left Viacom, what ended up happening was Viacom was like,

at the time it was not called Paramount, it was called Viacom. Viacom wanted their own UFC. They're like, well, what we're going to do is we're going to purchase Bellator. We're going to pump assets into it. We're going to give it airtime. We're going to do all the things that we would have done for UFC, except now we're going to own this so no one can take it away from us. And then they decided that Rebney's kind of smaller casino show model wasn't big enough. Plus, there was tournaments and everything else.

So they brought in Coker post strike force was there was some you know a year or there was three year gap essentially but he eventually gets in there and they wanted to blow up the scale i remember they were doing dynamite shows and they were co-promoted with glory kickboxing and it was this whole thing at the time the 301 event was the close of that the viacom experiment to have their own essentially ufc it people forgot that that's what the mission was because so many years have passed and no one really cares about those old battles at the time Google Dana White and Philippe Dumas that was a huge battle at the time between Dana White and then now a former Viacom executive you know I still have thought if I can be honest with

you like on on Friday night because I did watch it i enjoyed the show but it's hard for me to shake or for i should say it's hard for me to forget about what this battle what the ending of saturday friday really ultimately meant it meant the end of that early 2010s viacom experiment to have their own ufc that came to a close on friday night and um that was what i was most thinking about to be honest with you okay i've Viacom experiment to have their own UFC. That came to a close on Friday night. And that was what I was most thinking about, to be honest with you. Okay. I've got one more question on this merger that came to me,

Luke, the idea of this Bellator versus PFL champions, pay-per-view super card, or I don't know if it's pay-per-view, whatever super card. Do you think it's more realistic that they do that to kick this off early 2024? Because you're going to crown this weekend your

2023 pfl champions and when would you put champion versus champion next year if you want these bellator champions in your seasonal tournament wouldn't you do this champion versus champion show almost as a way to kick off this new era and then whoever wins you say okay you're the true champion now everybody meet back in the tournament in three months we're way to kick off this new era. And then whoever wins, you say, okay, you're the true champion. Now everybody meet back in the tournament in three months. We're going to kick it off. I've definitely seen some online chatter about that just during the show, but it's like, I don't know how they want to do that because I don't think this is likely, but imagine they did that.

And then the Bellator fighters just wiped the floor with the PFL ones. Yeah, that's not a good thing. And now you have to have a full season of like having watch all those guys get washed there has to be more integration into a single hole first but it could announce it could announce hey watch this coming season look at our new fighters they just beat all of our guys because our real guys are all of drugs suspensions um question from long island luke of malca producing fame who's working the show right now he wants to know that with Paramount retaining a minority stake ownership, do you think, we don't hear anything from above, that Paramount could be in the running to acquire the TV deal of the PFL Bellator merger for next year? I would say if they did that, they could just decide to keep Showtime Boxing too, Luke, but that's just me, all right? Yeah, I mean, I don't know what Paramount's going to do.

You know, they don't tell us. We find out when you guys find out. But I don't get the sense that they necessarily have a dedicated future in combat sports. I don't know that. I could be totally wrong, right, BC? We're just guessing. It just feels like they're pivoting away from combat sports for the most part. Again, they do

have a minority ownership but uh we're doing the last showtime pay-per-view prelim card basically uh on this saturday you know so i feel like i feel like paramount's gonna go in a different direction but i don't know i don't know exactly i agree with you yeah um all right so with that in mind bc let's talk about this main event from Bellator. How about Jason Jackson, man? Here's a guy I've just consistently underrated, man. I couldn't get this one right if my life depended on it. But boy, he looked phenomenal, BC. He stops. Yaroslav Amasov takes away his undefeated record, no less, in the third round.

But dude, he had great answers the entire fight. This was a gigantic announcement by Jason Jackson. What an incredible surprise for a guy here in the final Bellator main event under this ownership and iteration. We were talking up this co-main event, rightfully so. Pat G. Mix against Sergio Pettis, unifying that title. This was almost a like, okay, they're going to do it. Good for Jason Jackson.

He got to the title level but Amosov's 27-0 guys and he just washed Storlie in the rematch after two years on the front lines in Ukraine in the war only Luke I found out about the result before I watched the fight so I had assumed it was a lucky punch or it was a perfect punch but maybe amasov just got caught you know what i was pleasantly surprised to learn about the 33 year old ass kicking machine jason jackson jamaican born by the way continuing this trend leon edwards you know aljameed sterling of jamaican descent shout out to them yeah um i will say this he didn't win this fight with that combination that dropped and finished Amosov.

He won this fight from the opening bell when he stuffed every single takedown of one of the best wrestlers in the MMA space globally. Again, a guy who was 27-0, two away from that incredible record Khabib retired with. And Luke, it came down to Jackson being more physical and once he was able to stuff every single attempt double legs ankle picks uh trip attempts in the take I mean he stuffed every kind of takedown attempt then you saw that his striking was that much better than Amosov's and he was able to clip him look he heard he heard him in certain parts of the second round he heard him early in the third before the finish. That constant, consistent counter-striking was huge. I'd have to say, first and foremost, shocked he was able to keep this fight off the

ground as long as he did. Shocked. I mean, look, did Amosov even have one takedown? If so, maybe it was just one because this was all jason jackson in that category how shocked were you not even that he wanted or knocked out amasav that he was that stubborn against the guy whose lights out in this category dude it's such a great way to put it stubborn man stubborn he's so stubborn stubbornly good stubbornly relevant like i think i don't think it's just me who didn't necessarily give him his his due i think a lot of folks have been like yeah none of us have ever thought jason jackson was bad that was never the case but we were never necessarily i don't know that he was like the spot lit guy be like

that's the next guy amasov story was incredible right he was undefeated gone for all those years two years or whatever it was and then beating Storlie when he came back and then looking dude that was the the fight against the the rematch anyway against Storlie was maybe Amosov's best fight and that was the one just before this one like you thought he was as ready to go as could possibly be and was battle tested by every style that you thought was there and then you realize no that's not quite true Jason Jackson had several gears that I know I just did not fully appreciate I see them now and the end was really kind of interesting BC you saw Amosov lunge on a jab get too far forward in in terms of his commitment of weight Jackson

gets off the line and hits him with a three two three and uh polishes him off man just an unbelievable finish the uppercut that he had, waiting for Amosov the whole fight, drilling him with that or at least at the bare minimum, threatening with that the whole time. Here is a guy who was, you know, BC Raskin, like, how much better can a guy be? I don't know if Jason Jackson can get much better than the version he

is now. It sounds like, oh, I'm sleeping on him again. No, he's really, really, really good. He was physically prepared. He was strategically prepared. He had all the right tactical answers. He was physically prepared. He was strategically prepared. He had all the right tactical answers. He's ironed out so many parts of his game. You don't stop Yaroslav Amisov in the third round, I'm going to say relatively easily, relatively speaking,

unless you are a very sort of buttoned up, T's crossed, I's dotted kind of fighter. And that's what Jason Jackson is, dude. BC, he can wrestle. People sleep on that all the time. He's obviously physical for the weight class, which we did know. Remember, he's fought at 175 before. But here he is outstriking Amosov by making good fighters take advantage of other fighters' mistakes.

He didn't make him make one here, but he allowed Amosov to kind of get desperate, perhaps with range, overcommit, and then just absolutely stuck it to him. Jason Jackson is a deserving world champion today. Salute to that man. Well, shout out to Jason Jackson for this fact that I didn't know, that he appeared on the first season

of Dana White's Contender Series and lost due to ankle injury to Kyle Stewart in round two. And look at where he came today. Don't forget about that close Ed Ruth decision loss that looked like it probably should have gone Jackson's way. And you mentioned the idea of being surprised about this. Look, I think Jason Jackson was surprised about this. Did you hear his post-fight interview and then the press conference?

It sounded as if he was as pleasantly surprised by the outcome by his ability to neutralize Amosov at every turn that he almost came in there maybe it was because of the situation not knowing really what Bellator's future is and and he came out there with with sort of this just attitude like oh shit I did it and it was great to see and look I do wonder what that uncertainty meant for bellator fighters not only on this card but on the recent run of of cards that we thought could be the last in bellator history or this version of it because even after this show i saw danny brenner uh pr maven to the stars long time luke long time bellator pr champion basically tweet out like you know end of an era

it's been so great this is it then I saw Chris Cyborg be like don't worry Bellator is not going anywhere it'll be back so we were confused in the motion in the moments there in the last 24 hours until Don Davis's announcement right now today I just wonder if the fighters were in that same spot not knowing whether either and if that contributed in some weird manner to the results we saw either way though jason jackson no fluke did this the hard way i mean luke amosov looked to be in like peak shape and it didn't matter it didn't matter because the better fighter won on this night that's exactly it i mean if you can if you if over committing on a jab with four positioning causes you to lose your title and you know it bad forward positioning, but it wasn't insane. He didn't leap or something.

He just took a big step. Then you're dealing with a guy who is a legitimate competitor. If your competitor can put you away based on that mistake, not a huge mistake. A mistake ended up being a very costly one but on paper not a huge one guys do this kind of thing all the time you know that is you're dealing with a very sort of special talent jason jack i love these stories you know we don't love being wrong necessarily about predictions but you do have to love the stories of the people you didn't see necessarily you didn't spotlight as the guys who you would imagine like that's the next guy that's the next girl whoever

and then they go and not just prove you wrong, but, like, really just make you reimagine who they ever were to begin with. Jason Jackson has done that. It's going to take, you know, it's going to take, like, what would you imagine, BC, who would be the guy to beat Jason Jackson in PFL? They've got some decent welterweight talent out there, but I've got to tell you, they're going to have to, they're going to get their hands full dealing with that guy no doubt about it well that's the thing because if you

haven't been following this close enough and again we didn't give him a ton of chance against amosov you might be wondering oh who did he beat how'd he get here dude he's won seven in a row and the last five are benson henderson neiman gracie paul daly former champion douglas lima and now 27 and oh yaroslav amasov this did not happen overnight we know that performance against ed ruth that could have gone the other way beat jordan mean two fights after that like he has slowly like raised his game to another level with each step up the rankings beating big names and former champions to get here yeah i'm not really sure luke i'm not really sure who they have that can contest with him uh do you think the rematch would look any differently i don't know

and by the way don't forget jackson putting some legit training with logan storley ahead of this one who had what eight rounds in the bank against amazov in two defeats including that first one that was very close so that had to play a key role as well yeah no no doubt about it i don't know either megamed megamed karov, potentially if he wins for the PFL Championships this Friday, I suppose you could put him in there. I don't know. I don't know.

It's going to be curious to see, but you're right. You're asking about a rematch. I mean, here's the thing. I'm not saying a rematch couldn't be different or the fight look different, but the fact that Amosov

was kind of denied at virtually all the different entries that he was looking for, both literally and metaphorically, it's not like you can go back to the first fight and be like, oh, more of that might work. I mean, you could take away some of the mistakes, but you know what I mean?

Like, it wasn't like he got the takedown whenever he wanted, and then the fight restarts, he gets KO'd or something. It's not that. He didn't really have a whole lot of success against Jason Jackson. Jason Jackson had something for him everywhere, and that to me is like, if you're going to do this one again, Amosov probably has to go and earn it again. I don't think he should.

Dude, you get finished like that, there shouldn't be a rematch. I know that's his first professional loss, but sorry. It's a matter of fact the way he lost. They should not run that one back. Not immediately, anyway. All right, BC, this brings us now to question number five about the gentleman who I had my sort of scouting eye on the entire

time and he delivered in ways that it's just kind of hard to overstate. Patchy Mix submits Sergio Pettis in the second round to become the new Bellator Bantamweight Champion. BC, very simple question based on how he looked at his tournament

run, which let's go through it. Ready ready Kyoji Horiguchi via decision Magomed Magomed excuse me Magomed Magomedov he submits via guillotine Ralphie and Stotts he uh what does he do he KOs flying knee flying knee in the first not even flying knee a step through knee in the first round and here he submits with rear naked choke from the back in the second round Sergiogio pettis i mean koji horiguchi magomed magomedov rafion stotts and then sergio pettis and he finishes off three of the four bc where does he rank among the very best bantamweights in the world dude i know we do this thing when we cover bellator and we cover the crap out of it our company owns it or did own it now owns a minority stake and these are very high level fighters.

But we do this thing all the time, Luke, with where we go, oh, man, you know, Vadim Demkoff, there's an argument to be made. He might be the best light heavyweight in the world. And Masov before this loss. There's an argument to be made. Look, I'm not going to tell you that I'm going to take off that asterisk of there's an argument to be made. But I've never felt more confident in the last couple of years that we've been doing

this, watching another fighter in another organization rise to a certain level of prominence where we're like, oh man, not only could they compete with the UFC's top five, I think they could win a bunch. I think Patchy Mix, of all these experiments that we've tried to do, most fulfills exactly that. It's not just the names it's the manner look when he beat horiguchi that thoroughly over three rounds horiguchi had just five rounds done some dumps over five rounds had just done some huge things in dominating sergio pettis

before of course that dramatic knockout loss when he fought magomed magomedov dude he put him to sleep john jones machida style just left his ragdoll body hanging there. We talked about the Stotts finish, which was so clean, so violent and powerful. This fight against a Sergio Pettis, who just came back from a long injury and looked really good against Patricio Pitbull. This fight, he physically dominated him. Look, he picked him up and ran over and dumped him like it was Matt Hughes and Frank Trigg in the rematch. I mean, he looked like a full-fledged UFC featherweight, not a bantamweight in what

he did to Sergio Pettis. Yes, I think he is firmly in the discussion of best bantamweight in the world. And all you have to look at is his size, his finishing ability on the ground, his ability that he has raised his striking game throughout this process the confidence i mean he has as he said afterwards come from nothing but look at what he's done i have to believe his relationship with tatiana suarez and then pushing each other to get to the next level has huge has been huge and luke i don't look past this one small moment that i know you don't want to hear about that also may have been a turning point.

When you and I went to high rollers and they were passing around those gimmicks left and right to us. You know what I'm talking about, Luke? And Patchy Mix was walking by ahead of his main event grappling match. And I grabbed his shoulder and said, Patchy, tap that motherfucker out. And Luke, he looked at me like I was an absolute weirdo and then shook his head and walked away rightfully so but ever since that moment he's been tapping them motherfuckers out true or false true true i i would i would probably say this is something known as correlation not causation but yes that is in fact a true recitation of events all right jokes aside

jokes aside luke thomas you have a much sharper keener eye than my white belt ass in what ways did you see in this fight patchy mick screaming that i actually could do this against the ufc elite i mean let's just be clear though he had a little bit of difficulty on the feet with Sergio Pettis. Sergio Pettis is clever and was able to... It was even in the first round on the feet, largely. In other words, Pachimix couldn't quite get something going on the feet. So he shakes it up, gets the takedown, and then wins the first round, you know, essentially from there. The thing that was kind of interesting to me was, BC, is that if you go to the first fight in the in the tournament the kyoji horiguchi fight he won that with back control and a lot of body triangles but couldn't do much with it here he has a body triangle in the second round and then uses that

hook to catch there was a picture that they had if they could throw it back up he uses the hook of his leg over the arm to to to capture it which now creates right so john danaher talks about this all the time if you have the body triangle on someone and you have two hands and they have two hands there's no numerical asymmetry here it's not this one it's the one after that i think we're either this leave it there for just a second if you can guys uh so what he recommends is put one of your feet again you have to set this all up properly, over the top to capture their arm. Now you have two hands, they have one. So you now have this numerical supremacy, and he's able to get the choke. Now what's interesting about this is BJ Penn was doing this,

I mean, decades ago, quite literally. Like this is not new in the sense that we've never seen it before. We have. However, Penn was way ahead of his time, and there's been a big gap since guys ever started doing it Danaher Gordon the the the new wave guys the Danaher death squad guys not just them but they were big proponents of bringing this technique back from the back and so what I'm trying to point out here is you have now that high level nogi jiu-jitsu technique, BJ Penn notwithstanding,

making its way to MMA, and somebody who could only use the body triangle last time now uses the body triangle this time to then set up the finish. And he did it against a guy who was not the opening bout of the tournament. It was for the unification of the title. He was the interim champ. Pettis was the existing champ. This was the unification. So it's this complete growth of position, taking best practices from the very best in

the world, making it MMA ready and useful, and showing growth between what he was able to do positionally at the first fight of the tournament to essentially what was now the last one. Dude, Patchy Mix is no doubt about it i don't know if he's number one in the world bc you got to see him fight to really know but what i would say is he is very much in my mind capable of beating any bantamweight in the ufc on the right night i do believe that and i hope he gets an opportunity to prove something like that look Look, you know what we're not talking about in this Bellator PFL merger or acquisition from PFL

is what is the status of every major Bellator fighters contract at the moment and will that automatically be grandfathered into PFL or is there a renegotiation process? Basically what I'm saying is is patchy mix aaron

pico aj mckee you know name name all the the bellator fighters that who are the most globally critically ranked or have the brightest potential to the future is it automatic that they're that they're walking into that smart cage luke do we know this like i mean it's interesting because if and i don't want to say this because i want competition but if patchy mix was ready tomorrow to walk in there and challenge you know the the marabs the sean o'malley is champion the aljos the whatever i mean he looks like he's of that ilk right now and that's the truth so i don't know what that contract stipulation is but it is something to look at closely as we you know pontificate the future of fantasy matchmaking and all that yes yes it certainly is it will be interesting to

see where he ends up plus um well for all those guys i mean yeah the whole thing is that's what i mean dude the whole thing is complicated and weird and it's really hard to know how to parse any of this but i just know this just getting back to the topic at hand i just know this patchy mix is going to make a lot of noise in the next couple of years, a lot of noise. And I don't know if it's going to be in the bell tour or the PFL cage or ultimately UFC your point about the contracts. I don't know.

I don't know how it's all going to shake out. I don't give a shit who they give that guy, uh, as an opponent, he's going to look amazing throughout the course of the next couple of years. There's no, there's not a doubt in my mind about that so we shall see all right bc it is no longer time for you and us to have these discussions with just us it is now time for the fans to get to ask us questions it is time for dms from the diggity dogs let's get to it yeah hee haw oh you know what before we get to dms bc let's remind everyone we will get to dms here in just a second gotta remind everyone bc you know what? Before we get to DMs, BC, let's remind everyone. We will get to DMs here in just a second.

Got to remind everyone, BC, you know this, how difficult it can be to keep up with a workout and keep it fresh and keep it effective both at the same time. And, of course, you might know at times you might hit a workout plateau. FitBod, BC, can absolutely help with that. If you want a regimen that will keep you on your toes, you got to check out FitBod, the app that creates a personalized workout routine that adapts to you and keeps you on track.

Yeah, look, if you have bad habits, let's use FitBod to help you build strong fitness habits to stay consistent. How do they do that? I mean, it's pretty simple. They create custom workouts based on your goals, your experiences, and more, including your available equipment. Look, not everybody has access to a large gym. You may have a bench in the basement with some free weights, or I don't know what you have going on. FitBot can work around that and help you produce the best you. Get ahead of the turn coming up, right? New year, no limits. Everybody's running out to the gym. How about you get healthy before those holiday meals right now? You can do that with FitBod because this app intelligently varies the intensity and volume of your workout, tracks your muscle fatigue and recovery to design just that, a well-balanced

workout plan. Luke, you know what it's like at this age. The motivation can go up and down. I could be working, jumping through windows one day, lifting all the weights. And the next day I don't want to get out of bed. FitBot though, helps you maintain that consistent growth up and up onwards and upwards. You can play have a coach in the palm of your hand. Luke, I'm not smart enough to do all this on my own. You know that about me. I get FitBot. Yeah, no doubt about it. Listen, here's one of the most important things you need to understand. It's important to not just track your, what you're doing, but to track your achievements, track your progress, and then learn new exercises along the way. FitBot is going to help you do that.

You're going to be able to keep track of what you've done, where you're headed, what the right progress is, what workouts work for you, which ones don't, what exercises work for you, which ones don't. You're going to be able to give it feedback. It's going to go right for you. Again, you don't have to have all the world's equipment. You just got to give the right data. And I can't tell you, if you want to learn movements the right way, you got to have not just the right

encouragement, but you got to have the right library of movements to learn from to begin with. So it's not just about tracking progress. It's about learning new stuff as well. So here's what we want you guys to do. Download FitBot today and get a headstart on your fitness resolutions. You can get 25% off, folks, 25% off your subscription and get three free personalized workouts when you go to fitbod.me slash combat. That's 25% off, free personalized workouts at fitbod.me slash combat, combat BC. Hey guys, keep those gym sessions fresh.

Mix up the workouts they've got 1 000 over 1 000 exercise demonstration videos look we all hit those walls you can get through it with fitbod f-i-t-b-o-d dot m-e slash combat with a k let's do it this year luke 25 off let's start a new trend you know i'm talking about? No doubt about it. All right. With that in mind, let's get back now to DMs from docs. Question number one, BC, from, you know who this is, Appy Fatathon. Oh, God, Appy. This person writes, who cuts a sadder figure, Tito Ortiz at a town hall meeting or Ron Rivera on the sidelines of a game against the New York Giants?

Hey, fuck you, Appy. How about that? How about that? Hey, Luke, how about your Redskins? Didn't they lose to like a third string Juco quarterback or something? I don't know what happened. Yeah, they lost to like, I think his name is Tommy DeVito, who was like a third string quarterback.

Dude, his quarterback rating yesterday was 137. I was like, dude, how the fuck is this? Oh, right. I know. Riverboat Ron. There's no more Riverboat, bro. There's no more Riverboat bro there's no more riverboat it's just not that at all anymore i mean what do you want to say dude he's had nothing

but losing season since he's been here it was by the way they're not they're not that name anymore they're the commanders pay respect to the manders you know what i'm saying yeah luke long island luke is reporting that tommy devito still lives with his parents and his mom makes his bed every day in Jersey. Yeah, I mean. Dude, the best part was that no one could take a shower because they had no water and no hot water yesterday at the stadium. I was like, damn, dude, Dan Snyder just farted in the elevator on his way out, didn't he?

He just took a dump at his dungarees and then walked out of that elevator. I mean, unbelievable what he's done on his way out the door. Luke, do you think Redskin legend Mark Rippin's legacy needs to be downgraded because he had really bad face acne for an adult? I mean, I think that's making some unfair judgments about the world that we shouldn't probably do, you know? All right. I was really making unfair judgments about your team, Luke.

Just try to pile it on you. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. Oh, now you're a Giants fan a giants fan huh i've never been a giants fan people that know they know luke okay i don't care about those people question number two from an irish name i can't pronounce underscore delaney what are some of your favorite all-time moments from bellator's history good question bc what do you think great question great question look we can first and foremost go to the high notes of of tv ratings right i mean say what you will about the ridiculous dada versus kimbo or shamrock versus kimbo look those things like yes there were cringe elements

to it yes dada was lucky he didn't die in that cage yes shamrock and and gracie were like a combined 137 when they fought a third time there but those moments got you out of your seat they were attractions but even more than that luke it's the fights that stand out to me the most it's it's not necessarily the fact that john annick and lupe contrarians were part of season one people forget that it's this luke the the alvarez versus chler rivalry, one and two. Those to me are the fights that I take away the moments, the feeling that in those bloodbaths as each guy took huge punishment yet found a second wind and would make big reversals and rally back. I was talking Eddie Alvarez.

You can check out that interview in full at YouTube.com slash Morning Combat about his big BKFC fight with Mike Perry. But one thing I asked him about was UFC 300. I'm like, if they call you about Michael Chandler and say, let's, let's consummate, let's do it. Let's find out who's the winner. The old Bellator fan, fan in me needs to see this. Luke, those two fights at a time where Bellator was aggressively trying to find its place in the market. Those were fights that UFC fans had to stop what they were doing and go to and into. Like those fights mattered. And I think for me, as somebody who was watching early Bellator, I believe it aired on ESPN Deportes at that time in Spanish in that first couple seasons. We saw it on MTV too.

I mean, it bounced all over the place. But those two fights were, for the first time for me, were like, oh, they've got world-class people here. These guys are absolutely legit. And they just put on fight of the year type fights one and two i still need a third one yeah i understand that uh and by the way that you may have said it but the the eddie and michael chandler fight one same day i think it was yesterday was the anniversary same day as shogun and dan henderson That was one of the craziest days in MMA ever. I remember that thinking like, my Lord, this is a nuts day.

But that was a great one. I was there for Shamrock Kimbo. I was there for Kimbo Dada. I was there for, as I mentioned before, I was there for Rampage versus Joey Beltran in the now defunct Revel in Atlantic City. And there were some other Bellator shows. I was there for Bellator shows i mean i was there for bellator nyc you know which was kind of a big moment as well okay that was a big moment not only a pay-per-view at madison square garden it was fedor versus matt mitrione and that double

knockdown that they produced in round one with me sitting cage side i'm sure you were there too luke it was one of those like holy shit moments i know mitrione got up finished fader off shortly after but luke that was like oh my god i'm going to be present for a double knockout it's really going to happen you remember that that was she was crazy i do remember that yes that was bananas as well i'm trying to think of like my favorite bellator memories obviously man you know patricio's rise has been kind of fun the whole time. That Dynamite show that they did that was kind of crazy was fun at the time, right?

It was weird, you know, but it was fun. I went to Tito Ortiz versus well, first of all, dude, my god, how could I forget this? I went to the Tito Ortiz pay-per-view that was in, it was supposed to be in

Memphis. It ended up we ended up it ended up being actually like somewhere I think in Mississippi or some shit I forget it wasn't actually in Tennessee um so I went to that one where that was where Kimbo accused uh Bjorn Rebney of uh dick riding on live television do you remember remember this? Yes. Yes. Yeah. I was in the arena at Mohegan, Luke, when RIP Stefan Bonner came out with, what was the name of that lower level? Justin McCauley. Justin McCauley was in the pro wrestling mask and they took it off. Luke, while that was corny as F, it was Bellator.

It was kind of fun to be there for that. I mean, it was something. All right. It was Bellator. It was kind of fun to be there for that. I mean, it was something, all right? A lot of Bobby Lashley fights. They had a lot of great moments, but they could never quite get, I mean, Kimbo, still the most popular fighter in Bellator history, like by a million miles, like not even a close number two. So there's been some good ones. There's definitely been some good ones.

All right, BC. From TheRealKCarter, make your best argument for me to pay $620 Canadian for nosebleeds at 297 in Toronto. This is the cheapest ticket that will get you in the building. What do you think? Can you do it? No, I can't. But it's where they're going. It's what they're doing.

We just saw over $900 for the last row in MSG for John, expected a John Jones-Stipe fight. That didn't happen. Cards still lived up. Did people pay $900 and get their money and MSG for John expected a John Jones steep a fight that didn't happen. Cards still lived up. Did people pay 900 and get their money's worth? I don't know. Can you pay 600 here and get your money's worth for a, you know, what's, what's looking to be a pretty damn good pay-per-view, but not like major. This doesn't feel like tent pole major stop traffic, but look, that's the direction that they're going. And we can, you know, I can only complain so much because a lot of people are going to go, well,

why does boxing have all those live gate records in Vegas? Oh, it's because they jack up the ticket price. They do. The big boxing pay-per-views, they jack up the ass out of those. Do they jack them up to $900 for the worst seats? Not that I've seen necessarily. You're always, of course, going to get big thousands for the ringside ones. The casinos scoop up a lot of these and give them to high rollers. But the difference is, in some ways, I look at what boxing does as survival to be able to pay the salaries of the fighters. And that's why those fights go to pay-per-view to begin with. The UFC has a bigger built-in financial edge, and they're doing that, and it's during a season when their matchmaking is taking a sort of unjustifiable dip, not an insane dip, but enough for us to be talking about it,

that no, I can't justify this, Luke. They are going all in on full maximum swinging corporate raider style. Let's see if it can last. Let's see if it doesn't drive away fans, but they're still riding the momentum, in my opinion, of that post-COVID thing where they're going back to cities that they haven't been in three, four, five years. You know, Toronto and a big pay-per-view would be one of those. And boy, are they coming out and just saying, you want it? You're going to pay. Come and get it. If people keep coming and getting it, Luke, we're just going to look like two old guys

in the Muppets theater making fun of everybody. But eventually, I have to believe there is a correction involved in this, right? There is eventually a fallout in doing this. Is it worth $600? No. Do I think it's worth $500 regular price to sit in the upper deck of the Super Bowl? No. But at least it's the Super Bowl, right?

Mikey said he paid $500 for the SEC championship. Well, if you're a big college football fan, that's probably your Super Bowl. This Toronto card, not really a Super Bowl, Luke. Maybe John Jones Miocic was. Maybe, right? Maybe. Or Mikey's saying, no, I did it for the national championship. Yeah, maybe. That's like a Super Bowl. This is a pay-per-view card that has Rocky Pennington in the co-main event for a vacant women's bandwagon. I'm just saying, Luke. I'm just saying.

You know what I'm saying, right? Again, dude, here's the thing. Every time I keep looking at these card prices, people in London complaining, people in Miami complaining, people in New York complaining, and then they're still doing Great Gates. It's like I realize there's a lot of complaining on social media, but as long as these things keep getting sold at the prices they're selling them, I'm not sure who's buying them. but as long as they keep getting sold they're

just going to keep doing this so i guess we'll see how it goes yeah we're out here crying about peace luke but you know if peace sells who's buying right exactly all right question number four bc flannels and jits this is kind of a long one but we can keep it short well the lee versus ufc lawsuit this is the fighter class action lawsuit, gets settled before the end of 2024. How will this impact the MMA landscape for years to come? Well, dude, fuck the end of 2024. Judge wants that one at trial, I think, April 8th of 2024.

So, like, unless there's some kind of continuation of the lawsuit and they push it back, which, by the way, like Judge Boulware has been very reluctant to do you might get a settlement by april you might get that i don't think there's going to be one later it's going to be either now or not now but you know this this chunk of time between now and april or or not at all i guess i guess we're going to see i i still tend to think that they might settle but well do you think ufc will go out of their way to delay as much as possible yeah any plaintiff in their position would any place in their position well we we've heard we're sorry what am i saying any defendant i apologize yeah we've heard people who are closer to the legality of the laws tell us look

you're not you won't see a resolution like right away or this calendar year or whatever. But Luke, if it turns out to be where there's so much negative headlines coming out of this, could there be immediate change? Will certain fighters coming up for renegotiation get taken care of, big stars, to try to quiet that? Or has UFC already shown us that you could have as much bad press as you could have for the CEO of your company slapping his wife on New Year's Eve and then launching PowerSnap two weeks later, and it just doesn't matter? I don't think media pressure will play a significant role here. Even with all these developments, you just don't see a ton of media coverage about this. People are still much more interested in like people fist

fighting at the Performance Institute, which is not a small or insignificant story. It's just that when you think about which story is bigger and has much more importance for the sport, it's clearly the lawsuit by a million miles. And yet there's just not as much coverage of it. And again, lawsuits are hard to follow. It's not the, even, you know, do people realize that Google's clearly the lawsuit by a million miles and yet there's just not as much coverage of it again lawsuits are hard to follow it's not the even you know do people realize that google's in the middle of like a existential is not quite the right word but they're in the middle of a huge antitrust trial right now that's coming to a close here in dc like you know people just don't necessarily pay attention to the stuff they might pay attention to the outcome but at that point it's too late so i think if there's any kind of pressure to settle it's strictly from what their lawyers and their teams

decide on what kind of risks they want to run with having this go further or not i don't think it's much more complicated than that luke although um although eileen perez of ufc fame over the weekend will have a dedicated portion of her antics and Have You Seen This Shit This Week. Did you want to talk about the Performance Institute fight that led to her being hospitalized briefly, but yet her fight still went on? I mean, what do you want to make of it? Dude, this whole thing is really weird. It's really weird. So the basic idea is this.

He said, she said, and we don't really know what the answer is. Maybe the people at the PI do because they might have cameras. I don't know. I don't know what the answer is. Well, who's pi do because they might have cameras i don't know i don't know what the answer well who's the other fighter is it is it jocelyn jocelyn edwards yeah well jocelyn's claiming that the coach of eileen perez started the the altercation and started choking her allowing eileen press because i gotta go blow my nose you gotta yeah please do people have been hoping for that for years yeah uh and then then also luke uh, Team Aileen Perez are saying basically that Edwards started an altercation, assaulted her. The coach then jumped in to try to restrain her, putting a choke on her.

And that led to Aileen Perez teeing off with shots. But there's some other parts of this that are unexplained. Mostly Perez in multiple interviews during fight week when asked about the black eye under her eye, right? The bruise that needed stitches after the fight happened, not the actual fight in the cage, the fight at the Performance Institute, and then obviously swelled and blew up during the actual fight that Perez would have. She was just saying, oh, I don't remember who did it or somebody attacked me, right? That was very like, very avoid, she was avoiding the topic a lot. After the fight in which she teased, hey, after I win on Saturday, I'll tell you guys what happened.

We heard her side of the story. I don't know if this is just a beef between the two of them. Aileen Perez would go on to say that she was talking, not trash about Edwards online, but in her opinion, just responding to a question and speaking truth and that this quote irrelevant woman took issue with it and attacked her either way luke that's as weird of a fight week as you could possibly have the one eileen perez just had especially when you add in the twerking and her son celebrating in the crowd as the camera cuts

to that more on that in a second but he said she said on how the fight started but yeah you probably want to step up um security situations like this because uh fighters are crazy luke they're volatile they're emotional they're uh you know they see some slander online they're going to take it personal and want and want to receive from that and you know they're cutting weight probably at this time too like they're not necessarily going to be their most rational selves the thing that kind of gets me is i don't know how to split who's responsible here you know it's just impossible to tell based on the information that we have it's an ugly and regrettable scene i think we can all agree with that it's weird that you know again if he was doing it to intervene to help a male

fighter coach or choking a female fighter it's like you know i realize that they're all down for fighting that's what they do for a living but if it's not this was not a contest that she consented to which you know or sparring or whatever it gets a little weird for me about like how ethical all of that is again i don't know i have all the answers but the other part to me is like you know remember there was a jake shields and mike jackson incident at the pi there was the ham Shields and Mike Jackson incident at the P.I. There was the Hamzat and Paulo thing at the P.I. And it's like you sort of get it right at the P.I.

Was that when he attacked? I think it was at the P.I. Yeah, I think I mean, I'm not I'm not I'm pretty sure it was at the P.I. I'm pretty sure. Don't forget, too, when Cyborg punched. Who was it? Was it Magana at that UFC summit? Oh, that was different.

Yeah, that wasn't at the P.I. But yes, it was it was the thing we're fighting outside together. Yeah. Yeah, that was different. Yeah, that wasn't at the PI, but yes, it was a thing where fighters would stick together. Yeah, it was outside of it. So my thing is this. It's like, dude, I get that whoever runs the PI and they have security there,

it cannot in any way be easy to manage who gets to use what facilities at what times and who's got beef. It's got to be so hard to do. At the same time, if these kinds of events are happening, it sounds like there should be

some more security involved um because this that could have gotten really bad and really out of hand well the biggest accusations were Perez was accusing Edwards of purposely trying to get her to pull out of her fight as a payback for the quote-unquote trash talking and then Edwards's team is claiming that the coach had Edwards in such a dangerous deep choke that it wasn't just she was he was going to put her to sleep he was going to do some very serious physical damage to her so yeah i mean seems like a monstrously regrettable situation all all around and shouldn't force griffin have been there to break it up it seems like he lives there luke right yeah i don't again dude i don't really know what the protocol is there for all of this,

but I can just say that if that kind of thing is happening, they should be on notice about this being in the future. All right, last but not least, BC, from Nicholas Illustrations, what's more likely to happen in 2024, BC finally finishes reading Dune, or Izzy returns at UFC 300 to fight Shemaev? What's more likely to happen in 2024, BC? 300 to fight Shemaev? What's more likely to happen in 2024, Izzy? 300 to fight Shemaev?

I mean, I guess you could do that. Wouldn't you want him to fight either Pereira or the winner of DDP Strickland, right? He's just talking about the likelihood that you read Dune. Yeah, all right. So I've started the 800-page Dune book, and I've hit a few pitfalls. 800 pages? Jesus. Look, I I've hit a few pitfalls.

800 pages? Jesus. Look, I'm not a great reader, okay? We know this, right? Nonfiction, I can read all day. I mean, I grew up reading encyclopedias, almanacs, and just memorizing stuff. Luke, I'm a weirdo, right? I'm a savant in my own brilliant, dumb ways. Brilliantly dumb, excuse me. But yeah, I will finish this book. Let's give an end date here um i'm about about 250 to 300 in and it's fan friggin tastic and by the way luke the new the second movie which is the second half of the first dune book it's now looking like march they will they will bring it to theaters that because the strike is over so i'm fired up by that so i guess i need to finish this book by march right i will i will do that okay i will i don't believe that i mean you know i will say this as you get older especially in our modern media environment I guess I need to finish this book by March, right? I will. I will do that, okay? I will do that. I don't believe that.

I mean, you know, I will say this. As you get older, especially in our modern media environment, your reading stamina gets challenged. My reading stamina when I was 16, I could read all day long. Yeah, I can. I cannot read all day long now. No, I don't have it anymore. I'm a victim of social media and my job, and, you know, it creates ADHD.

You know that, Luke. All right, BC. That's it for us.'s time for bc's feces let's see what you got what kind of back you got this week hey i came back from new york yesterday and put together a pile of shit for luke to comment about i hope he laughs a lot this one's called have you seen this okay yeah okay anybody got? Yeah. No, not those type of papers. All right, Luke, you ready for this? You should have seen how much snot I just blew in that rag, dude.

Like an absolute mountain of snot just came out of my face. What are the odds that you will use that rag during lunch to wipe your mouth while eating? Probably pretty much. I've already thrown it away, so zero. All right, all right. Well, Luke, we were back at the apex this weekend and amanda he boss had a hell of a spinning kick to set up this comeback finish look at that damn brilliant man brilliant she took some bombs you could see the damage on he bosses face luke she took some some strikes in

this fight yeah i took some risks there at the end though but it paid off she she in the end i thought this was a good performance by her for sure uh luke jonathan pierce and joe anderson brito had a weird fight let's listen in on pierce's accusation here luke pierce is yelling at the referee telling him telling him that brito grabbed his cup but luke we found a camera that was pointed on the crowd at the apex and this is the reason why he grabbed the cup i can't believe this grab his dick and twist it oh my god this is an mma fight dude twist his dick twist his dick oh my god Look, twist his dick. Oh, my God. The old dick twist.

Look, he gave him the old dick twist. I've been to many regional MMA events. You get a lot of these types there. Yeah, yeah. I mean, he was a fan favorite. They told him to do it. He grabbed that dick. All right, Luke, let's go over to Aileen Perez from Argentina.

She really had a coming out moment here after she won a fight a couple months ago and twerked a lot we wondered what would be different this time so first here is her getting emotional while making weight the second time she needed a second attempt an hour later let's listen in look could you translate that, please? I had a hard time hearing it. I heard caballeros. I didn't hear much else. I didn't.

All right. Well, she's obviously emotional about the week she had. She got beat up at the performance center. She was in the hospital, but she still made weight on the second attempt. And then, Luke, what the heck was this move on the ground against Lucy Pudilova? Could you tell me this, Luke? What is this? Because I loved it, just to be fair, right?

But what is this? BC, when you ask this question, are the sweatpants around the kneecaps or closer to the ankles? Because that's really going to inform how good faith this question is. Like I said it before, I'll say it once more. I do not support anyone's OnlyFans account. Listen, MMA is, you know, you ask Craig Jones, he would tell you BJJ and MMA are very homoerotic sports. That's just how they are.

Okay, well, Luke, the camera cut after Aileen Perez found out she was the winner to her son celebrating in the crowd, which was great. But then they cut back to the mom celebrating in the game. All right, mom, way to go. Okay. Wait, wait. Whoa, whoa.

I mean, Luke, you can raise your children however you want. Am I being too harsh here? I think that of all the things that ever air on an MMA broadcast, for people to be as obsessed about this one and let the other ones go is a little strange to me. All right, well, let's get into the other ones. The celebration continued, and I want you to listen in on Brendan Fitzgerald, play-by-play man for the UFC, responding to Perez's victory celebration.

Oh, my goodness. On the fence. Best scene in the house. You know what? He's just telling the truth. He's just telling the truth. He's just telling the truth. He's not doing anything other than telling the truth.

What do you think about her coach, the guy who got accused of choking out Edwards, was doing the same dance with her? I mean, is this going to be banned by the UFC? Are there rules about who can and can't twerk? I don't know them. I guess not. Okay, if you're wondering if my pants were on the ankles, we've got to see Fitzgerald's pants.

Here's a reverse view of what Fitzgerald saw. Look at my man. Look at my man. Signal to the audience. Look at my man. Hand in the air. He's like, dude, look at Brendan Fitzgerald, fist Look at my man. Look at my man. Look at my man. Hand in the air. He's like, dude, look at Brendan Fitzgerald fist pump with that right hand. Look at him, bro. What was that signal he's doing?

Was that like, he's like, you ever seen the Argentines do that? When they, when they fucking sing their songs for like Boca juniors or River Plate, maybe he's doing one of them. I don't know. Well, Luke, Sean Strickland, as we know, has had many volatile comments about things, including female UFC fighters having OnlyFans. They asked Aileen Perez after the bout about that. Sean Strickland went on Twitter recently and was criticizing female fighters for having OnlyFans and saying they don't have any talent.

And I'm wondering if you have some response to that. I know you have an OnlyFans and you've been successful with that. What you what you would say to Sean for those comments? ¿Tienes alguna respuesta para eso? Sé que tienes un OnlyFans y has sido exitoso con eso. ¿Qué dirías a Shawn por esos comentarios? El flow no está a la venta. Quizás él no nació para tener OnlyFans. Lo siento. Todas las cosas donde yo, Aileen Pérez, saco provecho, voy obviamente a eso, a lo que me conviene. Y suscríbanse a mi OnlyFans que por ahora la cuenta está gratuita. Y mi OnlyFans no es pornografía, es arte. Todos los suscriptos pueden comprobarlo. And my OnlyFans is not pornography, it's art. And all my followers could prove that by checking it out.

Well, Luke, I am a big fan of art. You know that about me, right? Dude, i've been saying pornography is art uh for the i mean that's not what she said but you know i've been saying pornography is art for a long time what do you think about her saying her flow is not for sale while other things are for sale on that website well i guess her only fans did she say it was free did i hear that temporarily yes Temporarily, yes, temporarily. She mentioned Carol G. I don't know if you know who Carol G is. She's a famous Colombian singer.

No, all right. And she's referencing that. So, you know, I don't know. I mean, I don't have a single OnlyFans subscription, but I know that you do. So I'd like to hear more from your perspective. No, I do not. But I will say, does this make her a new must-see TV undercard fighter in the same way of, like, Vanessa Dimopoulos and some others?

Yeah, Luke, because they got to hit it. That's only a question for you. I try to rate them on their fighting ability and no more. No, I'm not ranking them on the elements you think I am. I'm just saying theatrics, like must-see, what are they going to do next? Oh, oh, oh, oh. Because how do you top that? What she just did in Brendan Fitzgerald's face.

How do you top that? We got to find out, right? You got to go to her OnlyFans. You know what I'm saying? That's probably where it's going to be topped. That flow is not for sale, Luke. How dare you? Let's keep it going here.

Hey, let's go over to dad trying to do dance moves. I do this all the time. Let's find out what happens to this dad. Oh, my God. Oh, no. Oh, dad. out what happens to this dad oh my god oh no oh dad dad he was trying to do that whole bit where you know where you hold your leg and then when it comes through and it's like yeah no dad look at this guy put up the video again it's just a white guy in a red sweater is that all this is yep yeah i mean this is just captain i mean captain cracker here oh god i mean with glasses too face first that's gotta suck wow yeah it has to all right yeah well luke

it's let's let the holiday season begin it is the time of giving and wherever this store is luke we gotta get there right season of giving 70 off head yeah. Yeah, man. Yeah. You know, because you think it might be about racquetball stuff, and then you're like, I don't know that for a fact. I mean, that does seem like a great deal, Luke. I mean, first we got free OnlyFans, now we got. I got a lot of friends who have taken advantages of deals like that over time. Yes, yes.

They're called Marines, and they serve this country well, Luke. They're called soldiers, too, because I know a couple of soldiers who did that shit. So I don't think it was just the Marines. We need to find out where this German Dunkin' Donuts is right now, because look at what they're offering.

Wir suchen dich. How much? How much? What's your offer, right, Luke? I mean, come on mean come on right yeah i don't know what that trans what does that translate to from german uh head yeah yeah 70 off head yeah yeah apparently yes all right uh let's transition here bellator 301 in the windy city here's featherweight tamir kazirev watch this highlight package of flips and escapes from him. What do you call that, Luke?

I need to see it one more time. Is this it? So I thought this was the flying squirrel. It's not quite. It's something you see in parts of freestyle wrestling. I don't know the name of it. That's an outside major reap. That's a hurray goshi.

But the first one is i thought it was flying squirrel they do like the leap backwards off the treetop but i don't actually know what that's called yeah a lot of good shit here looking like prime carl parisian on these trip ups right yeah for sure oh by the way the german that from that sign according to deep l translates that we're looking for you we're looking oh they are we're we're i'm here if you need me yes i'm i'm found i've been found here if you need me in germany okay uh let's keep it going here what's this reversal that rafi on stats had by the way luke would you say this sabatello rematch was exciting i love this was great this was so much better than the first one so he has like a sumo g almost to come up to like half guard him out.

Is that like exceptional? And then just proceeds to start slamming on him. Is that an exceptional reversal, Luke? Yeah, that was a very nice one. Because it's hard for the other guy. It's hard to turn them over depending on how they post. Let's see one more time. He puts a hook in the right hand.

He doesn't go to the side. He goes overhead, which makes it impossible for him to use his leg as a bracing mechanism. And that's why he goes ass over tea kettle. That hard to do that's really hard to do very very hard stats had a pizza place so uh advertising on his ass which i'm into luke pizza and not that necessarily his ass and there was a lot of reversals like that and i don't know if you saw afterwards he tried to get danny to hang around so he could serenade him and danny ran out of the cage but rafi on admitted afterwards that he does have respect for that guy after uh what eight rounds together dude that fight I mean the first fight that they had was terrible like legitimately very

very bad this fight I wouldn't call it amazing but I would call it really good really good fight you know all right nice win for Stotts it worked out an okay very good win dude he he he bounced back big time from that KO loss that That was a nice win, you know? Indeed. Let's go to Patchy Mix. Here was just some of the manhandling. Not the finish against Sergio Pettis, but look at this early pickup in round one. We didn't get the big slam.

Yeah, they were kind of even on the feet before this, and then Patchy takes it to the ground. First round was not super crazy in any one direction. There wasn't a whole lot going on. It's the second round where you really begin to see him take over. Didn't he look like a weight class bigger than him here, Luke? Dude, he sure did. And remember, he had to take a second opportunity to make weight,

which makes you wonder, okay, right now he's definitely one of the best bantamweights on earth, but how much longer can he be a bantamweight at all? I'll be curious to see. All right, one more. Carrie Taylor Melendez, the wife of Gilbert Melendez, was on this undercard. How about this nice submission when she pulled off? Yeah, she gets the guillotine. There's no hand

fighting on this one. So she just pulls her into on top and wraps it over. Yeah, that's about it. That's kind of closed it. Yeah. Oh, she was busted up on the feet too, bro. Look at that face. She was a mess. Yeah, nice victory there and good sportsmanship from uh gill's wife as well there nice to see bellator 301 all together

hey let's go over to grandpa and listen in on what's happening here we haven't had elder abuse in a while whoa whoa i skipped ahead luke sorry sorry oh damn damn dude that was nuts and the guy i like the guy at the bar look at the guy at the bar doesn't turn around there turns around sees this guy getting flattened right and then he's like yeah i'm just gonna go back to my beer fuck these idiots look at the guy in the orange shorts he gets hit in the face on the crossfire from this pool stick but then doesn't get pissed off watch oh maybe this dude who's putting the hands on him maybe he's like a local gangster and you don't do that you know what i'm saying yeah you don't do that you protect him afterwards indeed all right not really elder abuse just more uh i don't know yeah that was not

that was more uh of the other kind the other kind right there so let's keep it going here let's go over to your uh grandpa moment here let's keep it going here. Let's go over to your grandpa moment here. Let's get some elder abuse going. What did you put, John? Oh, old fatty tipped over, huh? Look at my man in the worst underwear imaginable. Luke, I got to fill for 30 seconds while I sign something at the door. Watch Grandpa again.

What did you get at the door? What did you get at the door? You got a package? You got that ED medicine, finally? Huh? Let's run this clip one more time of this old man taking a dive here. Let's see what happens. Here he is.

Look at him, big ass. This man tits hanging out there. Look at William Shat ass. Man tits hanging out there. Look at William Shatner just going ass over tea kettle here. And the dog's checking on him too. By the way, I had to take my dog to the ER last night. Didn't know what had happened. He had broken one of his nails and was bleeding all over the house. It was a disaster.

But Barbas is good to go. Unlike this big fat man who's got the worst underwear ever. And he's just going to come out crotch first. Watch him get out crotch first. Yeah, there he is. Come on out there, fella. Get a shirt for him, please. There we go.

Try not to break all the furniture on the lawn. And he goes back to the beer. That's a good idea, bro. That's a good idea. All right, so BC has decided to go uh sign for erection medication at his front door here he is coming back to the camera i like how you're just answering your door in the middle of the show bc sorry my wife ordered a whole mess of uh hallmark wine your wife into hallmark movies or they don't do that down under she does like chick flick uh christmas movies yeah yeah she is

all right so i had to sign for it it's all good luke thank you for watching grandpa let's continue this great shit i've got let's go mma sound of the week luke this comes from an interview that was done in octagon mma in a promotion in the uk comedian paul smith from liverpool took on reality star jakeenden, and he ended up losing by submission. Here's your post-fight interview. He fucking hit hard, man. That first shot, that first right cross came, and I was like, oh, shit.

I grabbed hold of him, and then I grabbed him. I was like, this cunt's well heavier than me. He's got fucking lead legs. Mate, I can't wait to see the full month. His dick must be about 13 inches long. Fucking hell. I never thought I'd see a fucking ab on me. And I've got abs. They'll be gone next week, but I've seen them

and I've got a picture, so fuck yous. You into that, Luke? That was pretty damn good, right? Guy's got a huge quarry on him, too, I'm sure. Yeah, he's like, Nelson, I just beat this guy in an MMA fight, but his hog must be the size of, you know, a pterodactyl. So I look forward to seeing it. All right, it's time for some MMA fighters in the wild, Luke.

You know I always get excited for that. Here's Tom Aspinall in an interview with Nina Drama. Have you ever been fingered by an MMA fighter before? Fingered? Yeah, fingered. No. What would it take to... To finger me?

Yeah. Like, are we talking about the same thing? Exactly. To finger me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Never. No. All right.

Well, I've seen some really weird questions on your Instagram. That's a weird one to ask. I'm just going to throw one in there. I'm just going to throw one in. No, never. No, never. No, never. I've seen some really weird questions on your No never no never no never just checking What about to my question? What was it? Um the would you rather poop once a month or diarrhea every day? I don't know you're probably once a month. Yeah, what do you need to all the time or? What the fuck what the fuck did we just watch mma journalism like i i need a shower after that that was uh that was inappropriate terrible that was that was really terrible that was really back to what we normally do in mma luke which is i will say this why are we doing this when i was drinking i never really had to figure out the question of That was really terrible. That was really terrible. Can we get back to what we normally do in MMA, Luke, which is other things?

Why are we doing this? BC, when I was drinking, I never really had to figure out the question of, like, would I rather have diarrhea for a month or poop once a month? Yeah. Or diarrhea every day? Because I just had diarrhea every day anyway. You know what I mean? Yeah, right. I mean, I don't know if you can ask that to a female journalist. What is happening here?

Yeah, I don't know what the fuck we just watched. That was really unsettling, if I can be honest with you so all right let's keep it going here uh diego lopish and alessandro costa luke ufc fighters were in their gym and some giant weapons came in what are your thoughts holy shit balls if they could do one of these and just turn into a marijuana smoke gun you could absolutely just shoot me right in the face apparently it was weapons day in the gym uh we got a bow and arrow we're throwing knives we got a fire torch gun you know i gotta tell you except for nunchucks i've never been interested in the martial arts that are into weapons stuff it just doesn't do much for me you know yeah you want those guys no i'm not into

weapons much luke i'm into my own love weapon but i've you know retired that a long time ago right luke you know three needles later here i am three needles to the bag and you you called it a day speaking of the bag luke the greatest featherweight of all time was back working the bag can this man still make 145 and is this teasing you the way it's teasing me, Luke? No, it's definitely not teasing me at all. He's just hitting a bag to probably stay in shape. Maybe more.

I guess we'll see. But it doesn't mean much to me until it actually means something. All right. Zabit Magomed Sharapov, I still believe. Let's go over to Luke Rockhold. He was hanging out with an influencer, and he was asked to deliver a liver kick. Oh, God, dude. Why the fuck would you do this?

Oh, dude, what the fuck is wrong with these guys? I'm told that this guy, whoever he is, his gimmick is to absorb painful situations online, Luke. Yeah, I mean, listen, it's a great way to get noticed. Yeah. There's a market for it, clearly a jackass. It's like, dude, can you imagine getting Luke Rockhold to fucking kick your liver? Like, why the fuck would you do that?

Maybe Luke was looking for some payback for what Mike Perry did to him, Luke. I don't know. Maybe. All right. Let's go over to the Netflix menu board. Somebody's going to get fired for this, Luke. Wow. Right next to Macaul fired for this, Luke. Wow. Right next to Macaulay Culkin, huh?

Yeah, that's what happened, Luke. Sausage party, MJ style. That's an unfortunate assortment, I'll say. Luke, speaking of sugging some D, let's go over to the NBA hardwood. You a big fan of this dynamic duo all right yeah okay that one got me i wasn't expecting that one that one got me that's funny that's great all right you know what we do for fun here luke we rate that friggin tat up first the greatest heavyweight of all time steepipe Miocic in the UFC at least or at least that's what they say I thought Kane and

Fedor were better what do you think about this on Stipe's arm um not bad that's the Croatian I forget the exact name it's called like a mechanized tattoo where you know like the cyborg underneath is coming through the flesh.

Right? You see that? Yes. I don't love mech tattoos personally. I don't know much about them. This one looks okay. A little jarbled. All right.

Are you a big Blink-182 fan? Take off your pants and jacket? No. No. Okay. Are you a big fan of blink 182 tattoos luke we'll find out here i guess we're gonna find out what the fuck is that tattoo i think that's his favorite song luke i miss you by blink 182

and it's at the what the 119 mark is that it yeah i think so we might have to tune in to see what yeah he probably there's some kind of coded message there. I've seen people get QR codes tattooed on them, and then when they play it, it's like, I'm a Barbie girl. I got to tell you, that's a lot of work for a dumb joke, you know? Yeah, I'm with you. We go through a lot of work on this show for pretty dumb jokes. Let's go to this man's alligator tattoo, Luke. Tattoos on titties.

What are your thoughts? Dude, what's up with my man's nipples? I got to ask you first you know that guy's got areolas like pizza pies luke what are we doing here with this guy what do you think i don't want to make a mountain out of a molehill but my man's got some mountains here um okay the tattoos are actually pretty well done uh to be quite honest with you but i gotta just tell you this guy's nipples are out of control and really quite disgusting bc you should be well i mean you as a as a monster izzy fan out of soynia luke i thought you'd be

more into this okay i mean i don't know what you're doing because now we're just having to talk about like enlarged male nipples that we're doing now no well sometimes we do that but let's i got one more for you luke rate this tat on a scale of 1 to 49 wow yeah right what type of nfl fan do you think this guy is an incarcerated kind let me just say i you know i i i met i met someone uh the other day who you know i think was like 21 or something like that and their first tattoo their first tattoo they got a neck piece and it was like i gotta tell you guys don't do that don't do that don't do that it's okay to get the one here or on your back. Start modest, and you can always grow from there. But the guys getting the face tattoos and the hand tattoos and the neck tattoos,

it's a big commitment, fellas, especially to the 49ers. That's a lot. That's a lot. Yeah. Luke, the neck tattoos are not permanent. They're just temporary. But watch what this man did at this museum. These things are so cool. This one's at ripley's believe it or not in the gold coast it's like a little museum thing um definitely a must check out um yeah pretty fun nice bad day

out with the did you look at the unit on that guy look wow, wow, right? Was that the guy who lost the MMA fight in the previous clip? Because he did, in fact, have a 13-inch wang, you know? Yeah, wow, all right. Truth in advertising. Everybody's got a party trick. Check out this weird beard, Luke. I'd like to see you try this.

Is this motherfucker about to set it on fire? Yeah, fucking hell. Dude, what the fuck are you doing yeah right oh he just lets it go i think these are auditions for the fourth hangover movie look that's great that's fantastic all right easier ways to trim your beard i hope everyone knows that yeah there are way easier ones look you should find one best face plants of the week luke let's go over to this commercial you fit in there i'm lying i'm buying on that one all right i think that thing is called the one wheel um yes yes people rave about it the one biggest regret on that man's life now uh let's go to the roadway here for another good face plant you'll probably have

issues with this luke wow man oh fucking hell oh you knew it that you knew they were gonna do that bit that's new they were gonna's not acceptable on this show. Neither is violation of the flag code. So, Luke, is this technically a violation of your own personal flag code? I'll allow it. Look at the size of that dude yeah i mean how is i mean this is just proof that like overdosing on marijuana must be very difficult to do because she's trying she's trying all right we got some hot dog time here luke to round it out uh let's first go to this dream refrigerator

setup my black liver is smiling right now. Oh, yeah, right? This is nightmare fuel. Okay, right, Luke? Well, if you're a redneck, you can take it up a notch culinary style. What do you think about these, Luke? Those are not tacos. That's just leftovers

and you don't know what to do with them. You know what I'm saying? Also, diarrhea in a shell right there. Some people get a little out of control with hot dogs. I used to be one of them. What are your thoughts on this gentleman? That should look busting on God on God respectfully. Oh, no. Oh, no. oh no oh no okay

I mean how has this person not how has a SWAT team not tased him yet I mean didn't that look like Brendan Allen a little Luke no Brendan Allen has shit to do with his life this fucking guy does not well let's cleanse the palate with this, Luke.

Chicks and dogs, right? Boy, this could be our last show, you know? Like Bellator 301, Luke, let's go out with a bang, right? And I got one more for you uh here's a psa to all you content providers trying to film people in public without getting their signature oh you want but i'm not gonna let you put your foot on my vagina that's your shit of the week luke i hope you saw it that's all i got that's about it. It's pretty good.

In general, pretty good. Probably going to get us fired, but other than that, pretty good. Pretty good. Okay. I have to say. Hey, let's remind everyone. We got a show on Wednesday live. There, of course, will be Thanksgiving on Thursday, and we'll have something ready for you guys for Friday as well.

So keep it locked here. YouTube.com slash Morning Combat. There's all of the different socials. You can follow us right there. Don't forget Black Friday sales, Black Friday, morningcombat.store to get those. And, BC, let's set the table if we can. You and I are going to be in studio on Saturday. This will be the last Showtime Boxing pay-per-view.

It's Joseph, excuse me, I almost said Joseph. It's David Benavidez taking on Demetrius Andrade. And it's going to be a great contest. We'll be calling the prelims for that. And I think we might be doing a post-fight show as well in studio. Not bad. If you guys have not seen the all-access episode of Benavidez versus Andrade that Showtime Sports has put on their own YouTube channel, check it out.

Very well done. Get you fired up for the card. We'll have more setting the stage for this fantastic super middleweight matchup coming on Wednesday's episode. But a really good pay-per-view top to bottom, Luke. Nice loaded main card. And, of course, you and I call in those prelims on Saturday with a featured bout.

Sergey Lipinets, former 140-pound world champion, taking on the one-loss Michelle Rivera. Should be a very good timeout in Jersey City. Hope you'll join us Saturday early evening. Yes, indeed, indeed. So that was a very, very good fight and a very good event that we're going to be a part of. So be on the lookout for that.

BC, what else we got to tell them? Morningcombat at gmail.com to reach the show. Anything else you want to say? I'm going to go to the PFL show on Friday, so I'll be there. Oh, wow. Will you interview the Smart Cage or Don Davis? I'm going to try to interview both. Yeah, I'm going to try to interview both.

Okay. Okay. This is good. This is good. Big day today in MMA. PFL Bellator merger. Big day. We'll talk to them about that.

By the way, they're doing, I'm not making this up, they're doing weigh-ins and presser on Thanksgiving Day in the evening. Don't know who made that call, but I'm not going to go. Yeah, sorry, guys. Not going to go to that one. It's just not going to happen. Yeah, not going to be. All right.

Well, shout out to your city, Luke. They're hosting a really important MMA event this weekend. Hopefully people turn out for it. I hope that they will. I will be there just the same. All right. So thanks to everyone who watched. Thanks to Malka.

Thanks to CBS Sports. Thanks to Showtime. That's BC. I'm LT. We're out. Thanks for watching MK. We'll catch you guys on Wednesday. And until then, may all of your gains be loyal.