MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Ankalaev Stops Walker | Jim Miller | Rest of UFC Vegas 84 | Beterbiev-Smith | Morning Kombat 537

Episode Date: January 15, 2024

On Episode 537 of Morning Kombat Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell react to the weekend of fights. The guys start off with Magomed Ankalaev's win over Johnny Walker. Is he now the no. 1 contender? Jim Miller got the submission win over Gabriel Benitez, will he fight at UFC 300? Who else stood out at UFC Vegas 84? The also break down Artur Beterbiev's win over Callum Smith. Will we finally se Beterbiev vs. Bivol? As always we close out Monday's with Dm's from Donks and HYSTS. (00:14:00) - Ankalaev Stops Walker (00:26:00) - Jim Miller  (00:52:30) - Mario Bautista (01:00:00) - Rest of UFC Vegas 84 (01:09:00) - Artur Beterbiev (01:26:00) - Dm's from Donks (01:00:00) - 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

Oh, it's a Monday outside, a cold Monday, a snowy Monday if you're in the nation's capital, and it's one hell of a Morning Combat Monday. Hello, everyone. Welcome. My name is Luke Thomas. That is the man over there with the gloves on his hands because he doesn't know what he's doing. That's Brian Campbell.

Sorry, sorry, Luke. Yeah, yeah, sorry. I was a little bit busy earlier. Luke, sorry about that. I bet you were. Welcome to Morning Combat, everyone. Episode 537 here on this Monday morning. Thank you so much for joining us. If you're watching on YouTube, as is customary, thumbs up on the video. It's free. Subscribe. It's free. Doesn't cost you nothing.

And of course, as you can see down here, all of the socials there to follow Morning Combat and Insta, on TikTok, on Twitter, and everything else in between. I join you, as I mentioned before, from the capital of the Stados Unidos right here in Washington, D.C. BC, are you getting a snowy Monday up there in Connecticut? No, I'm not, Luke. I've actually had sun the last two days, which has been an incredible oasis in the desert of my seasonal winter depression, but I will will say luke the snow is right around the corner whatever you're having right now i'll have what you're having in probably another 24 hours luke okay human centipede style that's what it's going to be human centipede uh bc whatever d how is it possible that the owner of the buffalo bills is worth seven billion dollars and yet he's got

donks out there he's paying 20 bucks an hour and hot dogs to to go fucking uh shovel his stadium for him how is that even possible because he knows his fan base he knows his clientele okay he knows they'll show up and do something stupid to put to put the mafia over but hey shout out to the cowboys luke on this monday morning right oh my god dude i sat there and watched them go 27 zero or what was it? 27, seven, maybe whatever it was in the first half. Just absolutely loving it. Pants around the ankles of the commanders can't be very good. And it seems like they can't be until maybe next season or beyond a second best is watching the Cowboys get thumped on national television, which by the way, Terrence Crawford using as an opportunity to bash Errol Spence one more time.

And I was like, Terrence, let it go. Let it go, buddy. You won. It's okay. Because Crawford from Nebraska is a Packers fan, as they have claimed the entire Midwest, Luke. Yes, yes. That's how that works. Actually, if you're in that dead spot in the Midwest without a pro team,

I think you are either Packers or cowboys right that or also they just picked the relevant college team you know whatever the whatever the big you know whoever the fuck is they like them so or it seems like people that don't have a team just end up dolphins fans maybe because of the uh finkel einhorn era luke lois uh loisis Einhorn is a man. That's what it turned out. Big old Mr. Knish. Remember that? Hey, Lace is out.

Man bag in, Luke. That's the new trend for the new year. Let's set up today here for just a second. So on today's show, we're going to react to UFC Vegas 84. We'll have some questions about who or maybe who shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame. Obviously, what's going to be next at 205. Also, let's remind everyone, Artur Beterbiev, you better believe it.

Holy smokes, 20-0, 20 KOs. Just beats the brakes off of Callum Smith. We'll talk about that and what it means. Plus, of course, have you seen this shit? And in addition to that, some DMs from DonksBC. So lots of good topics here for the day but let's start this off so i said this on social media on twitter and i think i put it on threads as well for the five people who read that right look you kind of you kind of a little bit a little bit so i i had noted that we have an announcement and we do

so if you've been listening to this show well well, for any amount of time, but certainly in the last, what would you say, BC? A few weeks, a few months, maybe even? We've been kind of hinting that we're cooking in the lab, right? I've been kind of bringing this up. BC, you've been talking about it as well. Yes. That's right. We've been cooking in the lab.

So, here's what I want to set up for today. First of all, folks might be asking, is this good news or bad news? And what I can tell you is this is unequivocally good news. Here is the reality. BC and I have been doing a lot of cooking, a lot of planning, a lot of strategizing, and it's now time to put those plans into action. We believe with very strong reasons that MKBC in 2024 is either going to be our best year or right along with it man we have not just big plans but we have very good reason to believe that it's going to be a phenomenally rewarding year for us like honestly like I'm so excited I don't even don't want to get excited because I don't want to, you know what I mean?

Like, I want to keep my head, stay level, right? In the words of Jim Zorn, staying positive, acting medium. But the thing is this, BC, in order for us to, yeah, in order for the, you would agree with this, in order for us to take this vision where it is now moving, the train is leaving the station on this, so to speak. We have a few steps that we have to take. Do we not? We have a few things that we have to do to get from point A to point B. Yes, Luke. You could even go as far as saying

that we are in the process of finalizing our next move. We're very far along in that process. The updates will continue to come in the coming weeks, but boy, do we start the updates today luke and people want to know how big is this full announcement so freddy sized okay so here's the deal um we're not bc and i uh we're going to be as routine and as ordinary as we always are we're going to be as reachable as we always are. But here's some of the changes that are going to happen. If you're Luke Thomas, not reachable at all.

Yeah. Or yeah, or me. I'm just going to do my doorbell will ring and I just won't answer it. I don't care if it's the police. But the point is as follows for the rest of January, MK is going to go to one day a month, which of course will be Monday. So the rest of these, this month, I believe there's three more Mondays. One day a week live. Yes there's three more Mondays.

One day a week live. Yes, but it's Mondays. It's Mondays, right? We're not doing it on Wednesday or Friday. It's just going to be a Monday show for the rest of this month. And then we're going to dial back MK, just MK during the month, the MK regular show

during the month of February altogether. Now, that means in March, we plan to kick the door down as we relaunch, reset, re-get going with everything thereafter. In order for us to get to that point, we're gonna have to do fewer shows in January, go a little bit quiet in February, and then come out and bang you in the face in March. What I want you to understand

is we're not completely going away number one. For example, we're going to have a UFC 297 preview show for you this week. I'm going to be doing the post-fight show on Saturday after the pay-per-view. I will also do one for those for the pay-per-view in March. We're going to have interviews time to time. Those will go up as well. But the

regular MK show, dialing it back to one day a month, which will be Mondays this month, quiet in February. One day a week. Say it right, please. One day a week for the rest of this month. One day a week for the rest of this month, which will be Mondays. Dialing it back

quietly, completely for the regular MK show in February and then coming out, crushing it with the new vision that we have created for ourselves out in March. BC, folks should know we're still going to have content in other ways. We're not going to be completely radio silent.

That's not what's going to happen here. We're going to make sure that we have stay in touch, any kind of update. You guys are going to hear from it first right what am i missing bc not much i mean look there's no off season in this game and and sometimes you got to go back into the lab get the knee scoped get some of that old cartilage removed and look our evolution that we've been teasing it's here the we're on the five yard line about to go in but we've got to prepare the way ahead of us. So this is not bad

news. I mean, look, you know, the seminal 2004 modest mouse album title said it best good news for people who love bad news that would really show up in Luke Thomas's dark carpet. This is time to be alive, hopeful because we're coming on because look, whether you're an Al Bundy ex athlete or whatever, you know, we all have those regrets. Could I have been that? What if I had gone all in? We have those same beliefs about You know, we all have those regrets. Could I have been that? What if I had gone all in? We have those same beliefs about the show, despite all the great success we have had since launching in July of 2019.

Us, the founding fathers of this show who had the vision along with us, we know what we can be. Stuff happens along the way. We've made adjustments. We did that during the pandemic, but I'm happily here to tell you that 2024 is going to be us opening up those doors made adjustments we did that during the pandemic but i'm happily here to tell you that 2024 is

going to be us opening up those doors and taking our swing finding out how great we can be so there are no regrets and luke i'm we're blessed to be in this position to go after it and i think our fan base once they wait this this little breakout they're going to see what's happening if you're coming on come on we're coming we're coming in a big way folks we're we're dreaming big and you might be asking well where is it all gonna where's it all gonna end up we can't wait to show you we genuinely cannot wait to show you today is not the day that we're gonna announce that we will have a future date where we're going to you're gonna learn everything and we're gonna have everything ironed out for you. But we wanted to let everyone know the process has started for the next stage of MK, which is why we are so excited.

So we're going to, again, we're going to roll a couple things back in the short run so we can have an absolutely ridiculous bang you in the face starting in March, but for the rest of 2024 and maybe for the rest of the show's existence. Consensually. Consensually. Consensually, yes, of course. Of course. It would never be anything else. But BC, we want folks to know this cannot stress it enough. This is exactly what we need. I know that may be a little bit hard to understand if you're on the outside looking in.

Trust us. This is exactly what MK needs, and we cannot wait to get to that place and share all of this fantastic news with you guys. Right? There it is. There it is, Luke. Look, we don't want to be just a Zoom-only show. There are big things coming for us, so give us a minute. We'll be back, and we're going to be right there along with you.

So don't unsubscribe. Don't do anything. Same channel as always. Yes. All the socials are the same. We're not going to some place where you have to subscribe to something else or join us on Substack. No, everything, all the Instas, all the TikToks, all the Twitters, YouTube, it all stays the same. Nothing about that changes, but we have to get to the next stage of what we're going. And in order to do that,

got to make a couple of changes along the way it's really the long and short of it okay if you have any questions you can shoot me an email luke thomas news at gmail.com you can email the show morning combat at gmail.com again i understand this might be to some extent confusing or perhaps you don't know what it all means one more time guys we are setting up for an mk takeover in 2024 we just got to make a few steps for us to get there that process like what you guys taking your time your lives your wives whatever we want okay it's looting season so let's go let's get ready all right with that in mind bc again if anyone has any questions you can hit us up morningcombat at gmail.com or of course lukethomasnews at gmail.com whatever you want and we'll happy to answer whatever we can

alright and by the way one more note for everyone who has been along with us for this journey for it's ups for it's downs for it's good it's bad it's weird it's normal and everything in between we thank you for your loyalty so much and honestly again we can't

put the cart before the horse but we are excited to deliver on the, to be able to give back to the loyal listeners who have stuck with us through all of the changes, all of the craziness, all of the ups and downs, especially that 2023 offered, right? Thank you guys and ladies so freaking much. We can't wait to share with you where this train stops. I think you're going to like it when we finally get there. Okay? All right. Fire.

Fire. I mean, final word here for me. You've ever watched certain segments we do and said, man, I wish the show could be a lot more of that. So do we. Get ready. We're coming. Trust me.

We do too. We do too. All right. So with that out of the way, BC, we do have a show to do today. Let's get it started. With that in mind, BC, topic number one. We go to the show here to start things off with, of course, at UFC Vegas 84. Is he now, in your mind, the number one contender at 205 pounds? My answer, the only negative part of my answer is depends on UFC's plans for UFC 300. And what I mean by that is Jamal Hill has next. He never lost his title in competition.

He was promised an immediate title shot when he returns. Although the recent comments from his own manager seem to seem to lead you to believe that's not toward later in the spring as we approach the summer. So if the UFC has plans in an opening to force Alex Pereira to defend this 205 pound title, and if it's not going to be against Israel Adesanya, Adesanya, however you want to go at UFC 300, I believe that's the only way Magomed Ankoliyev would be able to slide in and take that number one opportunity from Jamal Hill. But Luke, the spirit of your question is this, is would he be deserving based on the timing of all this to be that? Yeah. Yeah, he would be

because Luke, this is the Magomed Ankoliyeoliath that we all wished he would be thought he would be projected. He might be able to be despite the setbacks, despite the one step forward, two steps back, the DQ, the split draw lost in the air or tie, whatever in the,

in the, in the vacant title bout, this performance in the rematch with Johnny Walker was everything. He was that man. He was that destroyer. He didn't lay in prey on the ground. He didn't come out and not throw enough strikes and leave us wanting more. He was exactly who he was supposed to be.

So if the timing is there for him, Luke, did he achieve what you asked? Yes, he did. And I loved, by the way, we'll hear it on Have You Seen This Shit, that promo afterwards. That's what you need to do. Get on the microphone and demand what should be coming to you next yeah I would say the answer is he is most definitely your number one contender we have kind of argued that but I have been explicit that when Jamal Hill returns he is owed the title shot but to me BC that really is the way in which you should understand it. When he returns, when he is eligible, whenever that may be, that could be for quite some time. Now, I should be clear, if they end up doing Pineda versus Ankhalaev as the main event for

300, I think folks might be pretty upset with that. So I don't exactly know where it fits into the UFC's present or projected calendar. And for that reason, this makes it a little bit murky. But my general sense of things, BC, is that they're going to have the 205 title fight likely before Hill is eligible to return. I've seen folks say that they've seen him at the PIE. He is certainly looking better, but not necessarily close to fight shape yet,

which is understandable, obviously, given the nature of his injury and time off. And so there's going to be a little bit of time before we get ramped up there. More to the point, BC, let's just talk about what we saw from Onkalayev there. I think, again, he's unequivocally your number one contender at this point. Once Jamal Hill returns, we can revisit the conversation, but right now it's him, and probably will remain him for some time. But short of that one low blow that he scored, which was not that bad, what I liked from this from Ankalayev was problem solving.

Was a guy who was able to, you had a lot of weirdness from Johnny Walker, including at the end of round one, just doing that sort of standard capoeira dance or whatever the hell you call that thing, where they're kind of warming up and then they launch into all the other techniques. It's the kind of default technique in capoeira. He was doing stuff like that. He was throwing a million spinning back fists. He was throwing a lot of heavy unorthodox techniques. But the thing about a guy like Johnny Walker is that he's very athletic.

He's obviously very rangy. But to me, he's still, when he goes to techniques like that very, very often, it's a little bit more about trickery than like baseline fundamentals. Obviously, it's a lot more about trickery than baseline fundamentals. And that will beat guys who themselves are not fundamental or otherwise not thinking with their head on right. That's not what you got here. You got here at on Kalia, in my view, who took his time where he needed to attack attacked where it was open, was able to either block a lot of those attempts, get out of the way of them, anticipate them. A guy who was able to surf, so to speak, that crazy wave of the first round, and then in the second round, really began to pour it on, obviously finishing him with a little bit of a dirty boxing

from the clinch, shattering his nose, and then following up from there. When he is not out there compounding his own problems with a lack of discipline, BC, or making sketchy choices for other ways and other reasons, you can see what kind of ability he has, right? We were surprised the first time Rashad Evans was like, hey, I'm not sure about Ankaliev. At first, we weren't really sure about that. Now we can see what he was seeing. But BC, what I would argue is a performance like that, it doesn't erase history. Obviously it only adds to the preexisting one, but this does look to me like he's a little bit more clued in about the fact that if he could dial back some of the less optimal decision-making he was doing in some high pressure situations, you've got a guy of considerable ability. In fact, I would favor him to beat basically anyone in that division,

dot, dot, dot, if he fights like that. Yeah, I think he needs fire. I don't know how I can say this. He needs that fire lit behind him to spark him up. Here's my point. That performance that we just saw in this rematch is the best version of Magomed and Kalayev, the most intentional, the most dangerous,

but like you said, Luke in control of his weapons, as the MMA referees like to say, not at, look this is why this test was the perfect sort of closeup to show us when we had the questions coming in, is Ankalayev ever going to get it right? We know he can now because Walker, I thought leaned on his strengths better than he did the first fight. He didn't come out and try to just out technical him. He threw in the explosive stuff that you mentioned that you can't see coming and actually landed a few of them that never got Ankalayev off of the game plan.

That's what's key. But the question now becomes, was that one night when his back was truly against the wall and he felt the pressure of potentially like, like we said, if he had lost this fight, he may have missed his window overall, even though he's only 31 years old. So as long as he can activate that, some of the things that we wanted out of him that maybe he didn't show against Blachowicz completely, if he can now learn the lessons from the last few fights and those hiccups that didn't cost him but delayed this inevitability, right? Him becoming potentially a number one contender here. As long as this is a manageable way for him to reenact that, Luke, this is exactly the fighter he needs to be. Remaining dangerous without making self-imposed errors, which can get in his way.

We said, are those odds a little bit too wide coming in based on everything we knew? Well, what the odds makers knew is that ability versus ability and Kalayev was better, and he showed that. that's what we want to see of somebody in this position. So Luke, you're right. As long as he can do this again and be this fighter, I'm not sure who you would necessarily favor over him. There are potential for wild fights against the Prohotskos, the Pereiros, because of the offense that they bring to the table. But when Hank Kolaev is operating at this level striking wise, and then you know what he can do on the ground.

Yeah. There's a reason why we've been saying forever that inevitably, finally it'll happen. This guy will get his chance to fight for gold. And then hopefully this time for his case, win it, not settle for a draw and be disappointed. This is the version we need out of them though.

Yeah. And by the way, if you're looking at, to me, an interesting stat, if you go back to their first fight, which again, only went essentially a few minutes, three minutes and 13 seconds, but kind of an interesting note here, Magomed Ankalayev's targeting in that fight. So where was he targeting with his strikes? 53% to the head, 23% to the body, 23% to the leg. I would call that good diversity. Listen to this one from Saturday, BC. Here was Megaman Onkolaev's targeting in the second fight. To the head, 20%. 20%. To the body, 15%. And then to the leg, 64%. One of the big

question marks that came out of the fight with Blahovic was his own leg-kicking game, both offensive and defensive, and what he was willing to do about it. But you see, here's the interesting part about on Kali. He still might be a bit of an error prone guy when it comes to new or unusual circumstances. But the, the thing that I take from him is that he does learn his lesson pretty well, right? If someone shows him a problem in a fight that he has to deal with, maybe he overcomes it. Maybe it's a draw, but by the second or third fight after that, you can begin to see it's not the same guy anymore. Here was a guy, and by the way, Walker was throwing 79% to the leg as well. It wasn't like this wasn't just one way traffic. And so, or at least in terms of targeting anyway. So the point I'm trying to make here is BC having a fight like Blachowicz and then having a fight

like Walker, the one, the last one, and now now this one it looks to me like one of his deficiencies in terms of by the way open stance inside leg kicking but more defensively checking it himself he got a lot better through this process he actually really dialed back I should say he eliminated a strong word he sufficiently mitigated the problem in a way I don't think he was able to heading into the Blachowicz fight. This only adds to his well-roundedness. So is he completely going to be error-free going forward? No, quite obviously he will not. But some of the things that already held him up, given that he already had a good foundation, but some of the things that already held him up, I believe he's made a meaningful contribution towards addressing.

And I think a fight like this tells you a lot about that. Luke, key question about his future. If they don't put this title and this division at stake at 300 or immediately right after it, and let's say there is a future in which Hill does get the next title shot, would Ankalayev be better served waiting? Would he be forced to face a top contender he has yet to face? What do you believe on that? Because we do have a Blachowicz-Rakic fight coming up, I believe.

We do. UFC 300, if memory serves. Here's the other part too, BC. Ankalayev, devout Muslim, he might want to take Ramadan off. I don't know exactly what that's going to do for all the matchmaking there either. So he might not get it. It may be a... I don't know what they're going to end up doing I don't really know how to answer that question in terms of the the calendar of it but I just feel like I don't know it's not like a fight like this erases all of your doubts about him or like makes you think oh he's completely

overcome it but BC I do believe he is starting to defensively shore up and not just jump into the kind of mistakes he jumped into before like no one's going to get another triangle on him and he's just scary mofo so i'm happy for his case that he didn't get the even a 50-45 with dominant wrestling luke where there was no doubt it still doesn't have that same impact of what this finish had i mean we talk a lot and we probably will about that incredible uppercut that Archer better be land on the throat of Callum Smith. That was replayed so often on social media after that fight on Saturday, but the uppercut that I have did to shatter the nose of Johnny Walker after

he had fallen was slumped down on the cage. I mean, that's just nasty for ankle. I have safe Luke. I'd be running that replay on a loop around my house for the next week to really remind him that's who you are. That's who you can be. That's who you should be.

Dude, he's got the car in drive now. He's a scary mofo. He's a hammer in my cabinet, so to speak, Luke, okay? He's coming on. I'm happy to see this because, I mean, in our shoes, when we break down review and preview these fights so specifically as we do you hate to see wasted potential or or or or in you know anything in that category it's time for rank alive to put that behind him and man dude when he

does he is perfectly well-rounded he really is the potential kryptonite for every single style that you see across the top 10 in this division. All right. With that in mind, BC, let's go to topic number two if we can. So let's talk about Jim Miller. He gets a third round submission finish, which, by the way, BC, I was looking at some of his numbers. He had like a series of like four losses in a row around 2017. And then since then, he's been a little bit up, a little bit down.

But he's had nine wins since that big losing streak, which I think ended with Thiago Alves, right? All of those wins have been via stoppage, all of them. So to the extent he's won, he's won via stoppage. He had five in the first round, three in the second round, and then Saturday against Mowgli Benitez, Gabriel Benitez, it was in the third round. Here's a simple question for you. He has the most amount of fights. He has the most amount of wins in UFC history. Does he belong in the UFC hall of fame? So normally I'd give you the stock answer that I always give for someone of his ilk when they're entering this point with the UFC, you would say, well, it depends on the criteria. If we're using the UFC's criteria, he's already in because it does seem to be a somewhat soft criteria, not comparable, as we always say, to the more stricter standards of the Pro Football Hall of Fame or the or the the Baseball Hall of Fame in New York.

But Luke, but you really do have to look at this closely. He's 40 years old in a division where age becomes a negative after 35, especially for your title hopes. He doesn't have title hopes though, or maybe shouldn't in this spot, but he's won five out of his last six. And as you indicated, five finishes, he's actually in some ways getting better with age fight by fight. It's incredible. And I think because the UFC has allowed him a celebrated victory lap where

every time Jim Miller fights the last three, four, five, six fights, and probably from now until he walks away, they've really played up the idea of look at this guy, look at the consistency, look at the longevity and rightfully so. But I think because of that showcase element, it's really made us dial into two categories, most wins in most fights or most appearances in the octagon, that we sometimes, you know, it's an afterthought to us. It's a compiler number. It's like, okay, you were pretty damn good for a long time.

Unfortunately, though, you never really became very good or great or had a title fight, and that's always been the thing in our minds that holds him back, whereas maybe somebody like a Cowboy Cerrone is a little bit more borderline, never got past a title shot, but was a character, fought anybody, was willing to fight everybody, always put on good shows. A guy like that is always going to be borderline because they don't meet the official criteria, but they get in other ways. I think now even me who has this very stringent sort of, well,

the UFC should mind their own business and their own house a little closer and have better standards. Luke, he might be getting closer to push past those, any of the standards now. Why? Because of this win streak five out of his last six that I don't think anybody could have seen coming. Even though he's fighting second tier competition, he's not fighting nobody's right. He's not fighting clowns. He's now pushing his lead in each of these categories,

whether he holds onto them or not. He's starting to build enough of a gap where it's one thing to say, look, I'm the winningest fighter in UFC history. When Cowboy Cerrone might have a fight next week or Arlovsky and they could tie you or pass you. And it doesn't really have that significance. I think the longer that Jim Miller makes both of these records, his own, and every time he fights, including the upcoming hopeful ceremonial 300 appearance, which would give him 100, 200, and 300, I'm wondering now, Luke, if this is enough of a renaissance because the UFC has bought into it and really promoted it and given him the chance to shine, that maybe we do have to change our ways.

If he's able to retire as the winningest fighter in the company's history by enough of a margin and have the record for most appearances and be this guy who's got this longevity workman, like smile on his face seems to be a great dude from what we know. Yeah. I'm wondering if he has, because of this worked himself into position to get in there under any circumstances possible. That's a credit. That's a credit, obviously, to his work ethic, his belief, his ability to bounce back from defeat, injury, and all of that. But, Luke, tell me if I'm wrong. You know how hard I am in these categories.

Like, if you're not of that ilk, like, you know, for example, people wanted to put Paul Pierce on the Celtics Mount Rushmore after he won one championship. I'm a Celtics fan. I love me some Paul Pierce. But the dude won one championship. You're going to put him over I love me some Paul Pierce, but the dude won one championship. You're going to put him over Bill Russell and all these other guys. Like, let's not live in recency here.

There's certain ways where I have to have lines and limits, but dude, if Jim Miller is going to be four or five, six wins ahead of somebody else, this is an incredible career. It's a backdoor way to get there, Luke, but I'm not going to hold it back. Yeah. If this keeps up, Jim Miller for the hall of fame is going to get my vote too. Man, I'm torn on this one. I'm torn on this one. And I'll tell you why it's like, I looked this up before, um, today's show. You can find guys in the, for example, the MLB hall of fame who didn't really do anything super special other than just play and win for a really long time.

Guys like Gaylord Perry, guys like, I looked this up, Don Sutton, you know, guys in the, in the case of Perry having like 300 wins over the course of some kind of career, like not notable achievements other than that, but he was able to get in. Here's the problem. You see, those are often edge cases, which other folks now in the modern age think those guys don't belong in the Hall of Fame and it was actually a mistake to put them in but they did in fact get in for some kind of longevity

so the question is to the extent we want to look at what other Hall of Fames do are there athletes who enter not for the peak achievement that the sport has to offer, but for consistent achievement over a long period of time? The answer is yes. That answer is yes. You can find them, but they themselves are edge cases and complicated. Yeah, the compilers. I want to say...

Let's be fair. Don Sutton, the compiler. I never thought he was going to get in. He got in very late in the voting process. Okay. All right. So my point is this, BC. In the case of Jim Miller, I don't want to disrespect

what he's doing in any way. In fact, here's the truth, man. I love what he is doing. I absolutely love it. And what I mean by that is, BC, we always thought that the old guy move in MMA was to go to Bellator, right? This is five, six years ago ago and fight other old guys in some kind of old guy Tito versus Chael kind of fight right that's what we thought the old guy move was and for the right kind of guy for the right kind of moment I suppose that it could be Mike Tyson Roy Jones Jr. putting on an exhibition for example there are those opportunities but I love what Jim Miller is doing because it's the opposite of that he He realizes he cannot fight the best of that division, probably not even like the second best of that division. He has to fight newcomers

or in the case of guys like Benitez, guys who've been there a while but are kind of up and down perennially. You know, they have notable flaws. They have some strengths you have to watch out for, but it's a solvable puzzle in the end. He adapted the matchmaking he was accepting in accordance with a way that actually made sense for the division, right? Because he is acting as kind of this sort of litmus test slash gatekeeper. The UFC finds that valuable. These other guys, if they're able to get a win, by the way, because I think Hernandez got a win over him recently, if memory serves, right? That can be very valuable. So it works for both parties in that sense. And it works for Jim

Miller because he's not out there taking on tasks that are otherwise stupid or insurmountable for some kind of like obvious check. He is at heart a prize fighter. Yes. But the reason why he does this is it feels like this is the appropriate kind of master's division that should exist in MMA, right? In master's jiu-jitsu, it's old guy versus old guy in a separate division. If you're above a certain age, you just go and compete over there. And there's levels to that as well. There's master's one, master's two, master's three, and so on, right? We don't really have that in MMA in a way that works the same kind of way. This is a better way to do the Masters division. But BC, if you win something major in the Masters division, it doesn't count in the same kind of way as it does to win a world championship

to the extent that the UFC has ever had rankings. I don't think Jim Miller's even been ranked or certainly not even been inside the top 10. He's just a guy who's been consistently on the outside looking in, although very skilled and although very talented never fought for a title never really got close i i don't really know what to do with a guy like that because i do think that creating longevity over time is its own kind of achievement that has to be respected it is it is not easy to do what he's doing even though he's doing it in a sober and interesting way. Let's say it, though. Longevity when you are losing more than you're winning is one thing.

Longevity when you've got a win streak of five of your last six, all five by stoppages, and a lot of these in very close odd fights where you're the old gatekeeper and we're not really sure what to expect. That's different, Luke. That is different than just hanging on losing two winning two going back and forth and just being a hand I think he's actually elevated above that I think that's the difference I see all right fair enough my answer to this would be so this was what 43 wins I believe he's had a 43 fights I believe he's had, or 43 fights, I believe he's had. 43 fights, not wins, what am I saying?

43 fights. But you see, I'll say this. I don't know what his future holds. Maybe folks are ready to do it now. 55 fights in total. Yeah, could he get, yeah, I'm just saying UFC, UFC fights. Could he get to 50? Could he get to 50 fights, you think?

Is that possible? Cause let me just say this out loud, dude, win or lose. Even if you went 50, 50, right? 25 and 25, 50 UFC fights is an incredible feat. That is something ridiculous, right? We have to find some kind of way to honor that. I just feel like putting that alongside the guys who hold titles and defend them multiple times and beat other pound for pound greats. These are not the same kinds of achievements and they don't deserve to be placed alongside each other in the same way. 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. Yeah, no, they don't. They don't. And normally, like I said, I didn't fully flesh out that Paul Pierce point. But the reason why I was so angry as a Celtics fan in 08 when Sports Talk Radio was trying to put him up there with Havlicek and Bird and Russell and Kuzi was I was like, look, Paul Pierce, great player, but if you're going to be on the Mount Rushmore in that case, you better be a multi-time MVP. You better win a handful of championships, all of that. It's normally where I stand on this debate of Hall of Fame or not. It's like, well, if you're not a title contender or weren't in very big fights, then what else are you going to lean on? We, we allow, we allow that to become a gray area

when you get someone like an Arturo Gotti who made nothing but great fights in boxing. And they sort of said, all right, we, you know, we kind of want this. Let's welcome him in here. Um, I think in MMA, you know, I, I gave the cowboy example. That's sort of an extreme one because he was his own brand. He was an attraction to himself. He represented the UFC brand yet was like a superstar just by being a badass. Can Jim Miller have his own version of that personality, that reputation that pairs with the all-time winning record? And then we just say, you know what?

It's okay once in a while to just applaud a really good guy who was consistent, but he also got better with age. And again, Luke, if he had lost, you know, five of his last seven here in this stretch, even with the UFC wins record, maybe I wouldn't be as, uh, as favorable in this discussion, but when he's trending upward like this, and to your point, fulfilling a role within the UFC as a veteran fighter, who's either who you have to either you know be or look good against to know what level you're at and he's distancing himself in the in the wins race all time it just might be enough and he's a really good dude on top of that it just might be enough for him to carve out his own sort of unique entry into there like Cerrone like Arturo Gatti on the boxing side, where yes, we prefer mostly that the people

we recognize as Hall of Famers were champions, were in really big fights. Can you get in just by being a huge draw and being really fun? It's possible. But let's also make room where you can get in by just never giving up, never stop getting better, never stop being great at your job and trying to do.

I think there is room for that if like you said if we can round that off with like first man to fight 50 times in the octagon and oh by the way he's got the most wins it's interesting it's changing he's changing this conversation in real time i would just say this though if you had guys around 35 36 years old or you know mid mid mid 30s right because by the way he's doing this in a very difficult place to get old. As you indicated, I heard you say it earlier, but BC here's the question. People like, Oh my God, Jim Miller's this anomaly. Jim Miller is a, I want to be super clear about this. Jim Miller is a very technical fighter for folks who don't realize obviously belt in jujitsu. I shot a, this is true. I shot a pilot for a TV show on fuel TV before fuel TV

ended up becoming Fox sports to FS two. And we actually went to Jim Miller's gym to do some technique breakdowns at that time. Nice guy, the whole, the both brothers, Miller brothers, nice dudes, ordinary dudes, Nice dudes. Ordinary dudes. Everything about them is likable, and he wrestled at Virginia Tech. This guy is a technician at his core, and for that reason, he deserves admirability. But what you have to ask is, if other guys at the same time in which he pivoted to fighting lesser competition, which I don't say as a pejorative, I say as a smart decision to give him more runway for his career. If other guys did that, how successful would they be? Part of his journey of success is that he is something of a lone wolf. He doesn't have a lot

of other people trying what he's trying. Whereas with elite competition, you have much more apples to apples comparisons. A lot of guys don't want to do what Jim Miller has done. They only want to try for the top. And if it doesn't work, then they either flame out or they get beat up too much or whatever, they injured or whatever. They don't want to take that thing. So what I'm trying to say is it's not to discount it as an achievement. It's just an achievement we don't have a great context with because not a lot of other people try it for us to measure what the relative strengths and weaknesses are among a group of people who try that kind of thing. Does that make sense? If you were standing in front of

my community college class, I could probably frame it in a way that made sense. What I'm saying is BC, we have one guy who's trying to take fights at age 35 that are much easier to take in terms of gatekeepers and whatnot a lot of guys don't want to do that they're either top or nothing at all jim didn't make that choice he said i'll take those kinds of fights and it's given his career uh a great last ish kind of chapter right it's given him a lot of longevity i agree what if what if 20 other fighters in a similar position tried that what would they look like at the end of another five-year run? We don't know the answer to that because no one really does it. Part of the reason why he's had success is because he has made novel choices in the fight game.

He's also navigating a route that there's a reason why nobody has done that because it's hard to be healthy for that long. It's hard to be an active fighter for that long and not suffer enough of a losing streak that would cause you to lose your job in the world's leading promotion. It's hard enough to keep getting better at the sport where you could run off five wins in six fights all by stoppage and be on the doorstep now of UFC 300 matchmaking conversations. But before we get there, Luke, I just want to ask you one thing or compare about how he did it and how he's doing in general. Jim Miller's bringing out a very well rounded game. His defense is on point. He doesn't make a lot of mistakes, but would you agree that

once he takes the fight to the ground, it's almost like old man Glover Teixeira. He's able to use that combination of strength and experience and technique where the fight is over sometimes once it goes there. I mean, he wasn't that same threat in his quote-unquote prime. He has taken to the foundational elements of this game and mastered them, and that was a big reason why Glover Teixeira at Light Heavyweight was able to have that renaissance. Yeah, there's just simply no doubt he's adapted all the different parts of his game to match what works for him at age 40 or, you know, previously ages, whatever it was, versus not. And I think that's 100% the case. Also, we should say 43 UFC fights never missed weight.

By the way, how about this stat? And this is when he went through Lyme disease as well. BC, he's never had, I believe, believe a sports related surgery during this entire time dude that is a fucking iron man yeah who can do something like that if you can have 43 ufc fights and not have to have any kind of sports related surgery as a consequence holy smokes this gets back to it to your point maybe other guys don't make that choice because they don't feel like this guy feels at 35 he He's like, hey, I'm going to make smarter choices. I feel like if I do, I can have a real longevity in the sport and that could be part of it. I guess my

point is, BC, I used to be very much against this argument about Jim Miller going in. Now I'm sort of in the middle on it. I want to see how the rest of what he's got goes. I will tell you, if he finds a way to make it to 50 UFC fights, I'm not saying it would take that, but let's say that he does make it that far, I would probably say he deserves a shot, no questions asked at that point. He may end up being the first UFC fighter to 30 wins, Luke. It would take, what, another five?

But it'd be interesting. Or maybe it's another seven. My math is off at the moment. But really, my math is always off, Luke it's gonna be fair with you just to be honest but would you say like i just saw a tiktok or instagram video of nolan ryan in his 70s throwing like an 82 mile an hour fastball to throw up the opening pitch and you're just like physically he's just a different dude he's just just built different. To some degree, Jim Miller, although he looks like the average man to avoid injuries, be that consistent, built different, Luke. So I'm glad we're finally recognizing that.

But speaking of 300, Luke, it's a great I mean, this is it's a random factoid that he has the chance to be the only fighter to fight on 100, 200 and 300. But but it looks like it's about to happen. And it does kind of help his resume, even though it's a random stat, right? Like what's the round numbers of these cards mean? Really nothing outside of having a fun anniversary and making a big event. But I feel like that's helping him because it's like,

well, who was Jim Miller and what has he done? Well, I'll tell you what, he's fought on UFC 100, 200, and 300. Okay, well, that certainly means something, right? So when we talk about 300 here Luke what is the best fight to capitalize on what he has built in recent years I think this answer is easy it's not that there aren't a couple of good options you could go with there are good options that's the good news this is an easy call for me Jim Miller should for me. Jim Miller should fight Matt Brown. Jim Miller should fight Matt Brown. No questions asked. That's the one. And I'll tell you why. One, Paul Felder did a post-fight press conference and it's obvious that he's, there's a

part of him that's pretty interested in it, but he would have to get ready. He would have to get out of retirement. He would have to do a lot. And I know he's already in the testing pool. I don't mean that, but like mentally, physically, he's already in the testing pool. I don't mean that. But like mentally, physically, he's not in the place where other pro fighters are. And that's, of course, totally understandable and normal. But there is a gap. That's the first thing. The second thing is, dude, Matt Brown, I can't, granted, there would be some issue with the weight there.

He'd have to go up, obviously, and you know, Jim Miller fought at 155 most of his career. Obviously, he'll have to be at 170, blah, blah, blah. But, like, dude, the Matt Brown fight, to me, offers vastly more excitement. And it's also two guys who are so similar

in who they are. Matt Brown has also had some longevity, not because he's the best welterweight that we've ever seen, but because he is technically sound, fundamentally sound. He lives his life

like a prizefighter, yes, but mostly as a martial artist which means a devotion to lifelong learning in the martial arts that's what that means right devotion to lifelong learning in the martial arts he's got that as well that is a much better fight for me I think given the relevant factors are you a Matt Brown opponent guy are you a Paul Felder opponent guy? I'm actually neither. And this probably doesn't surprise you since I use this man's name a lot when trying to concoct the type of UFC 300 fights that I believe the promotion should be putting out there.

The kind that have relevance within the division, but also are meant to attract storylines, audiences. So Luke, I'm going to say it. If you're not going do patty the baddie versus connor at 300 same division how about patty pimblitt versus jim miller the winningest fighter in history playing the same role that he's supposed to play right now as old guy gatekeeper to a rising brand and pamble and pimblitt who's shown us a lot of good but still not quite perfect to me central casting where do i sign up

let's even you can even make that the preliminary feature about uh but here's the thing dude isn't part of what isn't part of what jim miller is doing is like again it's a valuable service for the ufc because win or lose he tests guys at a certain level but it's not like there's no consequence to it but there's no consequence for anything in the top 15 right it's removed from that consideration i feel like you're messing with that when you introduce patty into it especially coming off the tony ferguson win okay because if you okay if you believe that patty is going to go from the tony ferguson win directly into top 10 fights or the equivalent of top 10 fights like against people that are climbing as well. You're right. But I personally believe that Patty's climb will continue continually be slow,

incremental, and based more on the positioning of him in a specific city and a specific slot on the card to their advantage. So that's why I'm saying when we're looking at the 300 card and going, you know, it's just not enough yet to get me really pumped up. I'm not saying Patty versus Jim Miller is like the perfect solution, but it does add a lot of elements at one. Storylines, stats, personalities, Jim as this blue collar guy, who's the antithesis of sort of

what Patty can be looked at at sometimes for better or worse and probably not fair. But Patty gets looked at as like an industry plant, the guy that they want to be the next Connor. So put him in there against the blue collar hall of fame warrior right i mean and jim miller it's just too it makes too much sense but if you're not going to do that luke i don't hate matt brown i don't hate paul felder these are the type of old guy celebration fights mikey wants nate diaz by the way luke i don't think any of these Nate Diaz almost choked I was I covered that fight Nate Diaz almost choked Jim Miller's tongue off on their UFC and Fox 3 main event so yeah it was a

long time don't get me wrong don't get me wrong Mikey is right in the sense that like Mikey it's like Mikey what do you want to do today he's like Nate Diaz and I'm like okay where do you want to go he's like Nate Diaz I'm like how do you like to spend your time he's like Nate Diaz my man loves Nate Diaz and Nate Diaz is a good answer. Where do you want to eat that from the steakhouse in London? Nate Diaz. Nate Diaz. Yeah, exactly. That's my kid.

And by the way, he's right 99% of the time because when you throw that name in there, it works really well. But that one to me does not work. Here's the thing. It works. It works just fine. No, no, no. I'll tell you why. No, no, no.

Listen. Jim Miller is doing something where we're asking, hey, how long can he keep doing this? But when it was announced that he would be fighting Gabriel Benitez, no one was like, oh, I'm really disappointed in that opponent. The opponent almost doesn't even matter. Now that's not totally true, but it's mostly true. It's mostly just about how many times can he keep doing this given the circumstances. Once you begin to fuck with that a little bit, you can do it, but you're now changing the equation of what he's doing. And if he takes on something that's not

appropriate, it can mess up the division or mess up that part of the division, or it can mess up him in a way where he can't continue to do the things that he's been doing in the way that he has. So it's just, I got to be careful with this one a little bit, by the way, he is right. Mikey is right. Matt Brown is big for one 70. That is true. That is to be the one criticism of this fight is that if you make a Jim Miller, Matt Brown is that the weight class gets a little interesting here. Obviously you have to having to go to one 70. Matt Brown is a tall, lanky one 70. And by the way, again, is he a prime Matt Brown? No, but he's still very very dangerous i do recognize that that is a drawback to the fight i think it's a fair one but dude nate diaz is not

coming back to fight jim miller it's just just not going to happen no way luke how come nobody talks about the fact that brock lesnar also has the chance to pull the Jim Miller and fight at UFC 100, 200, and 300. And Jon Jones could have if he didn't drop the bag at 200, Luke, because people forget Jon Jones fought Jake O'Brien on the undercard of UFC 100. And when I mention people that forgot, I'm looking at myself, Luke, in the mirror. By the way, they did that to get rid of Jake O'Brien, too, at the end there. So not get rid of him, but to give him a really tough fight. By the way, is that why that debate started on the BizPing podcast

with Anthony Smith and got everybody pissed off? Why doesn't Jim Miller fight Brock Lesnar at 300 and then Anthony saying that Jim Miller should win or could win? Is that how that argument started? Probably, right? Because those would be the only two. Dude, you know what's so funny about this Anthony Smith does not think very differently than most fighters I've ever talked to he just articulates it more like dude the amount of conversations I've had with fighters about who they think could beat another guy across weight

classes would fucking shock people people think that Anthony is out to lunch. Now, I don't agree that he could beat Brock Lesnar. I think it probably would go quite poor for him. But the idea that like, oh, Anthony just has a bunch of silly ideas. No, no. No, no. Not true. He just articulates some of the things that are on his mind.

Most fighters have a really, that's not true. A lot of fighters have something of a distorted sense about how weight class can work for different matchups. Sometimes it's the delivery system because when he came on Room Service Diaries on our program and said that, you know, to be fair, Jon Jones really isn't that good, and here's why. I think what he was really trying to say was that Jon Jones is sort of good to very good at everything,

and that combination makes him the greatest of all time. He doesn't have... He's not a world champion wrestler. He's not a world champion in jiu-jitsu. He doesn't have, he's not a world champion wrestler. He's not a world champion in jiu-jitsu. He doesn't have any titles in boxing or kickboxing. That's what he meant. He meant he's like a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. Which is true.

That is a true thing. Right, he just kind of said it wrong, Luke. He just kind of said it in a weird way. Yeah, that's true. That's true. All right, BC, question number three here on the rundown. Let's got a couple more on the ufc vegas 48 and then we're going to talk about artur baterbiev bc let's talk about this one very

simple question what is the significance of mario bautista's win over ricky simone which was by the way somewhat not shocking but very surprising first of all that fight was an absolute banger luke and they came out there to earn the next level push into into you know uh the outreaches of the title picture here in the sports deepest division deservedly so because whoever was going to get their hand raised earned it i give credit to both guys even if luke i went double down vibes pick on ricky simone for our okay bet segment that we're gonna have to probably put on pause for a little bit. But here's what I'm trying to say to you, Luke. It's six consecutive victories.

So it's a wake up call to us that this guy is really good and he's putting it all together. Because Luke, I saw that in his recent fights. I just felt like Simone was going to be that much too much for him. That much a little bit better for him. I thought it would be a competitive fight. It was a little bit more action-oriented than I expected to our benefit. But Bautista proved, Luke, that we need to start talking about him.

We need to start taking him seriously. And that can happen sometimes in these very deep divisions where we get so fixated on that combination of star power former champions with the guys that are coming on, coming on, on the way up, the Bo Nichols, the Hamzats, the kind that are knocking on your door, kicking your TV screen in. But you can get these quiet, more unassuming guys who do anything but capture victories

in a quiet and unassuming manner. Dude, this was a mature performance in which Simone had big swings of momentum in his case, proved to be a tough out, but Bautista's long. He has a great chin, and he was able to hang in there and get the best of the action, actually going the route of a unanimous decision in a very close fight. But yeah, Luke, this is very impressive to the idea of young kids starting to really put it together. Dude, the poor kid had to make his UFC debut against Corey

Sandhagen you know you're just not going to get the most accurate read from that you're just not you're not going to get a great read about a guy's ability a just from his UFC debut and then b if it's against a guy who's like next level good in Corey Sandhagen or at least was ahead of him at that time so just keep that in mind but BC, I also understand why folks maybe didn't pay attention when he was beating the Benito Lopezes of the world or the Guido Canetis of the world, which don't mean a whole lot, but in the last two, well, more so the Guido Caneti, but in the last two, he beat Daman Blackshear and then Ricky Simone. First of all, it's his best win to date. Second of all, let me read you the stats. Number one, here was his significant strike totals round over round. Ready for this?

He had 18 significant strikes to nine for Simone in round one. He had 38 significant strikes to Simone's 21 in round two. And then in round three, listen to this. 56 significant strikes to Ricky Simone's 15. Simone never got past 21 and then faded in the third round. This kid did nothing but go like this. He is a testament to intestinal fortitude. He is a testament to will.

He is skilled. I don't want to lose sight of that. By the way, he stuffed 11 of 13 takedowns that Ricky Simone attempted. Make no mistake about that. That is tremendous. That's the quiet story of the fight, right? Yes, because Simone had about a minute 30 of control time in round one. He had just 28 seconds in round two and then a minute or so in round three.

Some of that's just up against the fence. But the point I wanted to make here is this is a guy who you can tell is psychotically driven. Psychotically, it is important to him to be able to have absolutely unending cardio, fantastic defensive prowess, which I think you're seeing here, and then the ability to just beat guys, yes, with skill, of course, but with work rate. And in this division, dude, this guy wasn't even fucking ranked before this fight. He wasn't even ranked and look at what he's capable of doing. The bantamweight division is shocking in terms of its depth. But to me, BC, the story is back-to-back losses for Ricky Simone, not great, right? Something to definitely work on. He didn't look

bad in this fight, but he met someone who could do what he did minus the wrestling in terms of volume output in your face, never letting off, put off the gas. He has an incredible will to win. And the only way to really beat a guy like that is you have to just be matter of factly better while being able to match most of his cardio. That just wasn't Simone on Saturday night. Luke Bautista from Winnemucca, Nevada, which is up there in Northern Nevada in the middle of nowhere. If you come from there, right, not too far from the world's loneliest highway or the, or the U S is loneliest one. I mean, you probably,

if you're going to get it out of, make it out of there, you're coming to fight Luke. I think we actually have an MK, uh, uh, uh, donk in our presence here, Jeremy. Oh, who, who relocated to that area? Luke, that area is not for suckers. Okay. You know what I'm talking about? Why would you move there? if you're not from there he's probably on the run luke probably but you know i support these guys okay you know what i'm saying you know yeah yeah he's probably just on the run from he's on the land just on the run but but you know he's one of my guys look okay and i stand by those people okay by the way just quickly on on mario bautista in terms of like matchmaking all

the things you could do, there's a million directions you could go with him, right? Isn't that the best part? There's so many names that you have to work through. I will say, again, it sounds like I'm making it about, oh, he just works hard and he's not very good. That's really not what I mean. He is both, but the work rate is overwhelming, I think, for a lot of guys.

What I would say, though, is to really get to the upper ends of that division, you're going to have to work on that. You're going to have to work on some of the polish a little bit, which, by the way, I think he has, up to this point, looked quite polished. But what you can see, like the last two decisions, the two best opponents he's faced, he had to go to a decision with them. So something to keep in mind for the future.

Luke, what do you think about matching him up against Chris Gutierrez? Who has lost with his last three, so maybe that's not the perfect matchmaking for a guy who's won six in a row. And I got to say, that's kind of a bad fight for Chris Gutierrez in the sense that, like, dude, Bautista, by the way, did you see he did like a Mario Brothers jump to get out of the way of a leg kick?

He just jumped like up in one go like that that was feet off the ground all in one go. And the leg kick missed. And he was right there on top of it. Don't recommend that as a way to normally stop a leg kick, but, um, it worked in his particular, I mean,

dude, a guy who's going to put pressure on you like that. That's a bad matchup for Chris Gutierrez. No, right. Yeah. Yeah. I just like to see bangers between hungry fighters who excite me,

Luke. You know what I'm saying? I'm an easy guy in that, in that regard. Is that your way you're waiting for that? Your Mariah Mills and Zion sex tape, huh to see bangers between hungry fighters who excite me, Luke. You know what I'm saying? I'm an easy guy in that regard. You're waiting for that Mariah Mills and Zion sex tape, huh? The bangers. I have no idea what you're talking about, but if it's anything like the Woodley tape, Luke, the answer is no, okay?

Yeah, so I'm good on that. Three seconds of that, I was scarred for life. I don't need to see anything else. Yeah, I mean, can he lingus? Yes, he can, Luke, right? You know what I mean? Can he bus? Yes, you can, Luke, right? You know what I mean? Can he bus? Yes, you can.

All right, BC. Last bit on this on UFC Vegas 84. Very quickly, question number four for you. Give me any other name on this card that stood out to you. Well, I was hoping the name would be Andrei Arlovsky, Luke, but he came up empty against Where's Waldo cortez acosta in that regard but did you happen to watch the preston parsons matthew semelsberger welterweight fight at all i did because uh semi the jedi who's from this neck of the woods didn't it didn't go his way it didn't

but dude preston parsons is a grinder i wanted to ask you how serious i should take him luke because i wanted this to be my answer he kind kind of impressed me with his grime, but do you see him as a serious fighter? Not yet. I mean, that's a good win. It's a good start, so to speak, but no, I would need to see it. I mean, dude, the UFC depth is significant. Like, you got to do a lot to impress me. But yes, that was a very nice win and and heartbreaking for um old semi the jedi

all right well then separate from that luke because i'm sure you're going to talk you know you're going to be balls bonanza on this basharot and i'm not going to talk about gene silva till we get to have you seen this shit but uh bruno fajita was somebody i did pick for okay bet luke and he put it on phil hawes and that's unfortunately for old ph now, a ton of knockout losses packaged around one victory. But Luke, the job, he knew the job for Hada. He went in there and continued to excite us that there's another Brazilian powerhouse on the rise. I was impressed by that, but go ahead.

Regale me with what I should be. Phil Haas, man, is a heartbreaking case. You see, he got knocked out, right? And then I'm almost completely or pretty close to it. And then he comes to and then rolls to his knees and then puts his head in his hands and then just balls. You know, I mean, you can tell it's one of those guys who is like, dude, you know how hard it is to get a guy who's been knocked out multiple times

in a training camp to buy into the idea that this time will be different right and not only that but like hey you have to do all the things that not made you susceptible but you have to accept a certain kind of risk you have to do the right things you have to you have to go when we say go you have to fire when we say fire you can't just sit there and wait around and he did he. He was actually active. He was doing things. But then he got hit with a shot. And then, dude, Fajeda is fucking relentless after that and finishes him off. You just feel bad for a guy you could tell, BC. You could tell. Bought into the system, bought into the game plan that they had for this fight, and was exacting it and was bringing it to life, and it still wasn't enough.

That is a fucking heartbreaking thing. And I don't know what you're supposed to say to a guy after that, to be perfectly honest. I don't know what coaches say. I don't know what they do. Well, I'll tell you what they're unfortunately going to be saying soon is, are there any openings in the PFL, Luke? No, it would be a good time to try to reinvent, right? To try to go get a new lease on the situation. Because I can't think he's going to be around long with the recent success.

No, I don't think so. I don't think so at all. Yeah, it's a tough situation for Phil, who had all the ability in the world. Looks good getting off the bus. Just couldn't quite get it done here. All right, BC, last but not least, tomorrow for the co-main event podcast boys wait I wanted to stop you first and just ask you quickly back at the apex I told you I was excited like crazy just to get fights again I was I enjoyed it I was sitting in the eighth row Luke sitting back I had some 70s vinyl on with the broadcast turned down because you know I got a

little too much of business being early on so So I was ready to rotate off of that. So I pulled the Luke Thomas. Why is the apex empty? Like they have, if they want to be there to save money, that's cool, but they can pack that place. Why is it empty? Are tickets not available? I was genuinely curious about this.

I don't, I don't know. Event to event. I don't really understand how they manage crowds or don't, but I've said this before. Listen, the future of combat sports, even Golden Boy, so even Oscar De La Hoya, who has residency basically in Las Vegas, he has said Golden Boy, he didn't say we want to copy what the UFC is doing, but they want to copy what the UFC is doing, which is to have their own production facility where they can host fights,

not their biggest ones, which they would take on the road, not the biggest ones they'd put on pay-per-view, but the smaller ones that they could then control all the costs in-house, right? In a way that would be much better for them, in the same way the UFC is able to do that with the Apex facility. So this is the future of combat sports. But this is my request to every entity that's going to do this. If you are going to do this, it doesn't necessarily have to feel like a warehouse you

choose to make it feel like a warehouse there are ways with minimal but noteworthy attendance and how you structure the facility to bring it to life in a way that they're just not it seems like it's like hey we've got a place we can put. I don't want a place where you can put fights. I want a place that you have targeted fights to be and then made that a really dynamic, if intimate, smaller experience. We see when they took away Nirvana's electric guitars and they made them do Unplugged in a smaller venue,

they didn't make it less. They made it more. This is the kind of thing I'm thinking about. Technically, they did plug in for a lot of those key songs they did you know what i'm saying shout out to pat smear jumping in there luke right that's right from porno for pyros right yeah that's a name that no one below the age of 25 has ever heard yeah normally you hear pat smear you think gynecologist right but shout out to him So Luke, here's what I'm trying to say. Um, here's the, now that we're in the TKO group, UFC and WWE are putting their brains together in some ways. Look at the great success that WWE had when they originally put their, you know, their performance center in Orlando, which is what UFC has copied for their performance

Institute. Like no question about it, but what they've done in that space is that they broadcast NXT out of there. And even though it's a tiny little warehouse, they pack it to the gills with local hardcore fans are going to go nuts. And it created almost like a college basketball think like, you know, Duke and their tiny arena, like that intimacy. I don't think it's impossible. You could do the same thing at the apex. Even if you're giving up free tickets, which they don't need to, they can probably charge an ass load if they wanted to, because there are good fights at the apex.

That's been our problem. There's good fights there when they probably should be at arenas elsewhere, but it would be a very easy change in my opinion, if they utilize that space better and packed it with fans, because then you would have that raw energy there in a small space that if you get the right fans, especially not Zuck and his friends, but you get the right fans that are crazy and hardcore, dude, it's a no-brainer.

Those bangers are going to feel like magic in there. I don't get, and I was watching that from a distance going, why? Why is there gaps and holes? Why is Paul Anka out there sometimes? You know what I mean? Look, why? It's a choice. It's a choice, and I don't get the choice, but it's choice just the same it's weird all right all right with that it might be see uh for mine you you kind of took it away from me but i'll

mention it josh van was a guy i picked ahead of time for my okay bet segment he looks phenomenal took him around to kind of figure things out and then in the second round just absolutely getting going and i love the way he does at bc with a consistent work rate I said it before it's not about being a blitz on your opponent it's about being steady rain touching them constantly touch touch then you can go hard you could change up rhythm you could change up tempo change up ranges and as as the range changed and as the phase changed he still had consistent striking offense the entire time Josh V Vann is 22 years old, something like that, and very, very, very skilled. That guy is going to be something to watch as his career progresses.

That's one. You mentioned it, Fahred Basharat. He and his brother, Javid, I think they have a combined 35-0 record. These guys are super skilled. There is so much they can do. If I had one criticism of Basharat, and it is quite minor, very minor. I mean, overall, his performance was fantastic. If I had one criticism, it would just be there are times where he would faint

or he would reposition himself, and he would get Lapelus to follow him, and then he would back out again. He wouldn't attack. And I'm thinking to myself, man, if you can find ways to bait guys, then they take it, and then you strike it's going to completely open up his offense so he is not even as good as he can be and already very very well-rounded um phenomenal guy to watch so yes great job he was scary looking luke you were right about him i mean you've been right about a few luke although the cyril gone thing you were right

and then you were really wrong what are you now i don't know i don't know the problem is he does a lot of good things zero gone that is true um but he does a lot of bad things and he's not well rounded he's new coaching he needs a lot and there's a lot but he is a dynamic athlete like when you see someone who's like a real athlete you're like oh right this is remember when he was double pump duncan through it like going deep into his legs and bringing over his head and stuff yeah yeah he's a real athlete he's a real athlete all right bc i know you've been waiting for this one i re-watched the fight by the way tookie watched about a round with me which i didn't know how i feel about it but it was fine it was the first round didn't really matter uh our turbo terbiev or better bf i mean dude what else can we say he fucking smoked callum smith by

the way bc i would like you to mention why is it there's a lot of british commentators who keep thinking that there's guys from england that are way better than they are i don't quite get that he was one of them always been the case they look great domestically it was like super pronounced this time but there are people being like yeah dude callum smith's gonna upset him dude callum smith didn't win a fucking round against this guy getting stopped in the seventh archer better be have looked fucking amazing in this people are giving him habib comparisons what do you start let's start off there what do you make of the habib comparisons habib wasn't as dynamic a finisher to me it's a little more shopcott rachmanov to be honest with you um right because

he's got people submit the shit out of you lu let's be fair about that yeah yeah of course I mean but like he did go to decisions several times in his career that's something that better we have has not done but I keeps going back to what Steven Breadman Edwards has said which is a lot of times when guys absorb pressure and then they boxing off the back foot they get kind of recognized as a better boxer because you have to show a lot of defensive slickness you have to be able to move a lot you have to do a lot of things that require real skill and that's true you you should get credit for doing that but a lot of guys who come forward kind of get like the isak cruz treatment which is yes good fighter tough fighter but it's just a little bit more forward pressure as like the key ingredient

you can you know a good fighter like tank dav Davis who was able to move away from the pressure is sort of like the better boxer like in other words forward pressure guys don't necessarily get the same kind of reputation as being skillful but the problem with everyone with Artur Beterbiev is that he is a come forward fighter who is skilled and BC this is the really most remarkable part about it at age 39 everything he throws seems like it hurts everything he throws seems like he does damage he is a terminator tell me what you saw how special is what he is doing in the sport of boxing so it's incredibly special to be at this level to be a week and a half out from your 39th birthday, yet you're 20-0 with 20 KOs. You're the unified champion of the light heavyweight division,

and you're about to enter the biggest breakthrough fights of your entire career, including hopefully the Dimitri Bivol undisputed fight up next. But here's what I learned about him, Luke. The talk and the fear that I had after that Anthony Yard fight, which, by the way, was a full year ago, the idea of him getting old with age, I'm going to hold that one. I'm going to slow the foot on the gas pedal with that one. This was prime, absolute at 38 and 9 tenths as Archer Betterbeef could be.

And what I loved most about it was he jumped all over Callum Smith from the beginning. Basically, we thought this fight could be Callum Smith being a crafty boxer, having that length advantage, and really having pop that maybe he didn't always get to show at 168 because it was a very tough weight cut for him. And we did have a lot of people this week going, hey, I know you guys are bashing his performance against Canelo, but that was prime pandemic.

He had a horrible training camp, all this stuff. So I gave him that hope and that pass, and I expected a competitive fight early on, one in which Callum Smith could establish himself as a boxer, and it would take better time to adjust. But what Archer did instead was jump all over Callum right off the start, really put on some crazy pressure with high volume and intensity and that took the the terms of the fight right from the beginning to bet to better be and because of his combination of technique brains and just devastating power he never let go of that control

and it became a matter of time of how much more punishment could Callum Smith take whether his corner was eventually going to throw in the towel or whether Baterbiev was able to do that surgical dismantling of taking him apart. But you mentioned some key things. Everything he lands hurts. It's not just a power jab. Everything he throws, body shots, seems to be next level power, well-timed and all that. But if we're not going to have gas tank situations or some of the

other things that come with somebody rightfully so, right, he's going to be 39 soon after a long amateur career. When you start to slow down, we thought he slowed down because of what we saw against Anthony Yard, but it may have just been Anthony Yard taking some big chances with some big power, like Luke said in our preview of this fight, that may have made that look closer than it really was. It was obviously a visual to see Betterbeave cut from his eye and kind of need to rally a bit. Kellum Smith had different skills that he could potentially make good in this fight. But if you can't take control of the terms of the fight,

and if you can't hurt Betterbeave, you're in trouble. It's an inevitability. So how special is what he's doing at large let's put it like this everyone seems to want to that that impossible dream of retiring undefeated and doing the 50 you know that mayweather did or the 49 and know that rocky marciano did and we hold that into such high regard as sort of like these milestones, even though in reality, what? Sugar Ray Robinson was like 121 at one point, and Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. was something like 89 and 0 at one point. We've seen great starts to a career,

but I set that template to tell you whenever somebody retires just short of showing us everything they were able to accomplish, think Andre Ward. And I say just short because he did miss due to injury and due to sometimes in the court battles with his former promoter where he missed, you know, almost three full years of his career. We got a lot out of Andre Ward, but we maybe didn't get everything, every opportunity into his own, you know, respect.

He walked away while he still had it after the Kovalev fights at right around age 35 and said, you know what? I need to do this now. But when you do that early, and I think Ward is like 32 and O or something in his career, like Habib, it's hard to kind of frame. You can maybe overrate somebody.

You can underrate somebody. Cause you just haven't seen everything. You've seen a lot, but Joe Calzaghe at 46 and O we would have liked to him as great as he was. And super Joe was, you would have liked to him, have come to was in Super Joe was, you would have liked to him have come to America sooner and face more guys. Well, what about Piterbiev? Look, he's going to be 39. He's got 20 wins all by stoppage. If he beats B-Vol and becomes undisputed champion,

if he moves up to cruiserweight for one or two fights, he literally is going to have the opportunity imagine if he retires 24 and 0 with 24 knockouts having been undisputed champion of a legitimately tough division having been ranked in the top pound for pound which he's rightfully so in that mix and and you have fought everybody available to you What do we do with that conversation now in terms of how unique of, what do we do with this career? He may not get there. Who knows? But that's how special and unique he is.

Because what I saw on Saturday was a living legend. I tweeted that. I'm watching an all-time great. I said that about Inoue. And we were right. Whenever Inoue comes out and does something ridiculous, you're like, I'm literally watching in the moment. The difference is Inouye's 30. This guy's going to be 39 and he still got it. And Luke, I hope they make B-ball in the spring. I hope Saudi Arabia

backs up the trucks. I know Betterbeave's not going to step in any direction, but at that fight, even though that is a can't miss brilliant, we need that fight. One of the biggest of the year. Dude, Betterbeave's going to rightfully so be a favorite coming into there because of what we've seen when he steps up in the unification fights, when he steps up against whoever's available, it's the same story. Every time his toughest opponent to date may have been unbeaten. Alexander Vodzik when they met in that unification a few years ago,

dude, he retired Vodzik that night. I know he's since come back after taking a bunch of years off and he had a brain bleed scare, but how good is Baterbiev? In the toughest fight of his career, two unbeaten champions coming together for unification, he knocked

out and retired a guy in the midst of his prime. This guy's a fucking badass and it's not just power. It's not just one thing. It's everything all at once i'm so happy that he's finally about to get the chance to stamp an all-time legendary career because he's of that ilk he's of that ilk luke bc what do we make of the post well there was some pre-fight stuff because remember there was the atypical not the adverse analytical finding they did not find that he had definitively used some kind of performance

enhancing drug but he did have some levels that were a little bit outside of normal range which there could be a natural explanation for or there could be an unnatural it's just they don't have enough information to decidedly say so they you know tie goes to the runner they essentially say well we don't have further information we're just going to assume it's a natural one but we're going to keep a close eye on him. Maybe that factors into it, but I did notice after the fight, there were a lot of people being like, wow, what he's doing is not natural. In fact, Tony Bellew being like, it's amazing what he's doing,

but he had some suspicions about it. What do we make of this conversation around him, especially as he gets closer to 30, excuse me, almost 40 years of age at this point? Yeah, and I'm not trying to wash this under the rug. We should follow this closely, this story, this situation, because there is smoke here. So what does that smoke mean? Okay, we have seen people in the past. Look at the UFC USADA situations where it came down hard on somebody and then the truth was found out.

I'm hoping in all cases here that this man is clean and this was everything he said it was. If it's not Luke, then that would explain why he's at this age and not going backwards physically and able to ramp up. But I also want to add one thing, PEDs or not. And a lot of people that are close and been following him from the beginning professionally have been saying this, his improvement cannot be overlooked. Like he was a little slow footed, slow handed when he first turned pro. And it's that, uh, it's that commitment to the craft and improving as he goes on that he's just a different fighter. Now you can see physically, he's just different. He's a rock. Um, yeah, Luke, I'm really hoping that this story takes the positive turns to clear him. If that's the case, if it's not not you got to take that that rant

i just did that was all you know fun and games and roses and let's put the crown on the king's head and and and really change that but would you believe that the facts that we know leaned you to believe that he's going to be fine or would that be a a a little bit of wishful thinking fine in what sense in terms of accusations yeah that that like do you like you know like when canelo lost the triple g rematch immediately and said sorry guys tainted beef it happens in mexico you got to be honest luke all these years later we don't bring it up we gave that guy the benefit of the doubt he seemed to have a plausible excuse or maybe we just said you know what everybody's using anyway yeah i mean

i would imagine that drug use is i would imagine that drug use and in boxing is rampant um they do have vada which is not nothing if for folks who care about it there is something to be said for vada in fact i think vada is the best way vada's legit come on well it's only not legit in the sense that it is voluntary and so you are i know that some sanctioning bodies require it in certain ways, but, you know, it is a voluntary system. But I would say it's the best system. And the reason why I say that is because if you do care about anti-doping as anti-doping enthusiasts do, their protocol is pretty rigorous. Their science is modern, relatively speaking. And again, they get the buy-in from the stakeholders. It's not forced on top of them in a way that other systems might be. So for that reason, I actually feel like that, for people who are like,

well, what's a good solution to you for drug testing in sports? VADA. VADA is a great solution. You buy into it, and that's the end of it. So okay, neither here nor there. But I think if he has some more testing issues, that he could have real problems i i i

think if this is the only one that comes up then it's probably not a big deal but here is really the issue this is why everyone wants some kind of like this guy's clean and this guy's dirty you just can't actually have that conversation so i'll give you a perfect example you brought up canelo canelo had claimed that he had clenbuterol in his system because he had eaten some beef in Mexico. So here's what we know for a fact. We know for a fact that the tainted beef in Mexico, depending on certainly where you buy it, but the readily accessible kind, is so bad that all the sports leagues, including the NFL, has been very explicit about this. They warn their players in the offseason that if you are going to go to Mexico, you must be aware that if you eat the beef over there, there is a chance that you could have an adverse analytical finding just from ingesting a normal taco.

That is not, or however you wanted to ingest it with whatever kind of way you were. I mean, in certain cases it came from a taco, but you get the idea. However you serve it. That is a real thing. Factory farming out there uses pharmaceutical drugs to keep these animals both big and as bacteria-free as possible. And to do that, they resort to a series of pharmaceuticals and clenbuterol obviously being one of them. It does make its way down. We have seen in other cases,

youth soccer teams have similar issues where there was never any other way to say that they were on performance-enhancing drugs, but they ingested beef in Mexico. And sure enough, it ended up in their system. I bring this all up to say, it ended up in their system. I bring this all up to say, it sounds ludicrous to someone who might be skeptical to be like, oh yeah, this guy had beef and that's really what caused it. Not the fact that this guy's in a very difficult

professional environment and job and use performance enhancing drugs to give himself a benefit. Like a skeptical person is naturally going to go to the second one. But the world in which we live has made adjudicating these claims increasingly difficult. You have seen, in fact, this is one of the reasons why I really do like the UFC's new anti-doping policy over what USADA has done, which is that you heard Jeff Nowitzki say, not exactly on these terms, I am paraphrasing, but there used to be something of a standard where it was if you ingested it and it showed up in your body, you were automatically responsible for it, even if it was a case of contamination.

And in fact, you might be laughing at me, USADA has documented it. There have been cases where a U.S. female gymnast got in trouble for drinking water out of her tap that it turned out had trace pharmaceuticals in it. She was able to get cleared after some time, but we live in a world of tainted beef, tainted water, tainted materials. Contamination is frankly everywhere, including with the sensitivity of all of our tests and whatnot. And some of them can be sensitive, but inconclusive, which is kind of what you have in a case with Canelo and other ones as well. All I'm trying to bring this up to say is

people want to sort athletes into these neat categories and the way in which we have constructed anti-doping and the way in which we have used the scientific tools available to us, it just simply doesn't make that possible except in

extreme cases like jorrell miller bc who popped for like seven different i mean he was just on everything you could possibly imagine yeah that guy's obviously using and that really bad arrest too yes yes so so the part i'm trying to make is the part i'm trying to make is quickly just on better beef let's see let's see what happens but if it's just this then what happened over the the past week which is again an atypical not adverse analytical then to me it doesn't mean shit it doesn't mean a damn thing yeah i'm with you on that um i did have something to tell you related to that hey mikey i sent it in the chat i don't know if you can get the uh the tweet up or you can get the photo in the news luke i threw it in the chat too it's from

the it's from the thing i sent it's not just ariel it's everyone reporting it it's in the it's in the thing it's in the uh it's in the graphic but if you want please read it uh yeah so breaking news boxing wise out of uh these upcoming saudi arabia future uh super cards for the february 17th usic versus fury heavyweight undisputed fight the co-main event will be a cruiserweight banger between J. Is it pronounced Alpataia, Luke? This guy's legit. I'm going to get the pronunciation right since I'm butchering Turbiev or Betterbiev or Betterbeave.

It's your choice. He's going to be, Jai Alpataia is going to take on the former champion Myrus Bredis. That's a fantastic fight. Probably for a cruiserweight title as the co-main to Fury Usik. And then in march the day before the ufc pay-per-view when aj anthony joshua and francis and ganu box jillel zhang from china who has one of those secondary heavyweight titles is gonna take on

joseph parker fresh off his upset of dionte wilder so look that's not nothing as we get further closer to really finding out who's the best heavyweight in the world. And then hopefully the winner of that fight fights the remaining most popular guy who's left coming out of Ngannou versus AJ. This is getting fun, dude. I'm excited. Yeah. And again, I hope we get a chance to show the fight poster because it looks pretty cool. They did like a street fighter video game kind of thing with it. They didn't go full out all the way with it, but they went pretty far. It it looks cool it looks cool um okay bc well that is it for our top five with that i was gonna say i know it now remember don't forget also that while you can transfer peds through

eating tainted beef do you remember when that female u.s boxer a few years ago while training for the olympics tested positive for peds and then they found out that she acquired it through sex with another athlete who was using Luke. You can do this. These things, you don't imagine that they're possible. They are, in fact, quite possible. So think of an MMA where power couples is becoming the norm. It's a very incestuous organization in sport. I wonder if people don't pop more

often because of that luke i mean i pop just thinking about it right you know that's okay all right great i'll see myself out yeah all right with that in mind it's time for dms from dogs all right bc is like is he throwing up or is he getting off i couldn't figure it out look that sound i don't like have you ever thrown up while getting off i mean i haven't but i would imagine someone has right this is our last show for more than one reason now okay yeah exactly all right uh bc uh question number one from Flannels and Jets are a regular on these parts. What is your favorite Jim Miller fight? Ooh, good question. I know how both of you feel about Jim Miller not being a standard Hall of Fame guy,

but is there something to be said about his longevity and consistent evolution? We got to the last part, but the first part, BC, favorite Jim Miller fight. What do you think? I'd have to look, and that's an argument against his hall of fame ship for sure i mean look without looking what's his best win that's probably a better question oh um man i actually think some of his best work happened a lot earlier in his career so you wouldn't give tiago alves in 2016 is that an aftermarket win would you say uh well he uh yes the tiago alva's one is um aftermarket for tiago

a little bit that's a good one early charles olivera in 2010 that's got to be the best win right now uh the yancy maderos wins a good one for bco commoise is a good one the first joe lazzan one was decent melvin gallard was a good one melvin gallard was really good one kamal shalaroos folks might remember that name he was a good iran Melvin Gillard was a really good one. Kamal Shalaroos, folks might not remember that name. He was a good Iranian fighter, first in WEC, then UFC. That was a good win. Gleason Tebow was a good win. Mark Bocek is a good win.

Dwayne Ludwig, not so much because Dwayne Ludwig was a good fighter, but he was mostly a striker, so he got subbed out in that one. But he's had a few good ones. He's had a few good ones, yeah. The worst loss for him would be the Nate Diaz one, where he was biting on his tongue when he got guillotined but short of that um not so much all right bc question number two from real kempi are people forgetting that ddp gassed out versus till in the second round and was one big punch away from being done now bc wasn't this pre-nose surgery

like you know yes yes breathing it was not just pre-nose surgery it was pre-evolution because i watched that fight randomly recently as well on youtube and the thing i took away from watching it was i felt even though that's a great win for ddp and shows how physically dominant he can be i remember thinking after that fight and i felt it again after re-watching it of man his striking's just not at the, at the elite level, his, his awareness, everything like he has made, you got to give him credit. Luke that Robert Whitaker upset doesn't happen. If he doesn't make really good leaps to things like his stamina, his technique, his IQ, all of that, it does now seem to be really coming together in a way that's overwhelming and overpowering,

but I'll never forget heading into Whitaker fight week week luke where i gave him almost no chance and and and jed meshu the second over there mma fighting was like nah man ddp's gonna win get ready and man i thought that was just a really weird southern lawyer a non-practicing southern lawyer with a lot of issues in his life luke but he turned out to be a prophet jed and he doesn't get there without ddp figuring out how to be a profit Jed and he doesn't get there without DDP figuring out how to be a professional here. And you need that. You need what, you know, either losses or fights that you win, but you made a lot of mistakes. You need to get better. He got better really fast. Give him that. He's a good athlete. I mean, he has some wonky ways of doing things, but just like

pure athletic terms, raw power, you know what I mean? Um, he's got a lot going for him, and I think if you can tidy up the rest of the things that you've kind of articulated, you can get pretty far. Like, are you picking? Dono, real quickly, real quickly, and we'll talk about this with our 297 preview, BC, but if I go to the odds for this one, for the UFC 297, they've got Sean Strickland, our friends at FanDuel, have Strickland as a minus 138 to Duplice's plus 108. Slight favorite. I got to tell you, I might take the action, not just on the betting terms, but I kind of feel like DDP might win.

The thing is with this Sean Strickland, he had the perfect style and then approach and night to really shut down a thoughtful striker who takes his time like Izzy. Izzy was fighting at his pace. DDP is just not going to do that in all likelihood. No, he's also going to do and he's also going to be more physical than Adesanya. Adesanya, you know, one of the best strikers of all time, but isn't overly physical in some of the same ways that DDP can just close the distance and be on top of you. Look, Strickland can win this fight with his boxing, but look, the fact that Strickland isn't a finisher against the, at least hasn't been a proven finisher on the elite level in either category in striking or

subs, that is going to give me pause of him holding the title for any level of length. I do think he has specific great skills that are going to be really hard for strikers to figure out but you'd say ddp is more than a striker right i mean you know he's a yes yes his path he passed robert whitaker's guard with a toesy pass which is like a real brutal way of passing so yeah i mean i'm i'm taking the upset i think you're going to get a lot i wonder if this line gets pretty damn close by fight night because of that uh real quickly before we go to the next question we have the fight poster that we aforementioned for francis and anthony joshua let's take a look at it here if we can knock out chaos they kind of built i mean so for example

they kind of let it down a little bit in terms of the graphics by the bottom and sort of middle rows um even though even though main and co-man to an extent, obviously, but the way they did Joshua and Francis looks cool as hell, does it not? Yeah, I like it. It's the video game font there. It looks very early 90s, 16-bit Sega Genesis. I'm with you. I'm in on it. I love it. I love it.

All right. Question number three here for DMs from GemCityJesus. Which fight do you think sells more pay-per-views fury usic or joshua and ganu joshua and ganu right yes joshua and ganu opens the door up to a much larger audience um but it doesn't mean i think fury usic dies on the vine i mean there's there's not just the personality of tyson fury but i mean it it's history. It's, you know, it's two unbeaten all-time great champions. I mean, really like we don't, we probably don't talk about it enough. And the reason why we don't is because even though

we are finally getting Fury versus Usyk, in some ways, it's not really like the championship, the end of the bracket because, because AJ has never fought Fury yet. So that's a possibility of a fresh new matchup, and I think because Ngannou could crash this party completely, but we also have to factor in, if Fury wins in the short term, that's for either guy, but maybe even more.

Here's the real question. Who has more to gain from one victory in this fight over the other? I think it's Usyk, because he's arguably the greatest cruiserweight champion of all time, along with Evander Holyfield. He won an Olympic gold medal and now unbeaten, he has the opportunity to become an undisputed heavyweight champion. If Usyk beats Fury here in their first fight, regardless of what happens after, he's already a hall of fame fighter, but this is a ticket to like immortality, right?

Whereas Fury's fighting more to get this fight under his belt, get the history of it. But then you still have to beat Joshua, in my opinion, or Ngannou if he beats him. Ngannou definitively to say, I'm the best of this era. And that's really what Fury's fighting for. Either way, Luke, I think it's going to be close. But the star power of the Ngannou and the mma fan base i think will win out what do you think i mean i mean nganu has been doing like shannon sharp's podcast has been doing like all kinds of stuff that like whatever the significance of usic versus fury and of course it's legitimate

in ways that far exceeds anything that joshua and nganu are doing fair enough i understand that and to your point it's not like a huge distance necessarily between them in terms of what they ultimately will sell but the star turn that nganu has taking has taken people keep thinking like oh it's the mma fan base which i do think some of that will be in play don't don't misunderstand me but there's a casual audience that francis has begun to tap into that i don't think we're fully aware of yet and that will manifest itself in something like this. And you can't say, well, look, the fury in Ghana fight was a bomb. Well, yeah, because the, all of us in the media, rightfully so in hindsight, not knowing what we didn't know,

because what we didn't know was remarkable that in Ghana was this good. We all, we all played that down as being not necessary and getting in the way of the Usyk fight. And again, rightfully so Luke, I just didn't expect expect and I don't think Tyson Fury did either that in Ghana would be this good so yeah that fight's going to draw a little bit more but I guess my point was the history involved in the Fury Usyk I think you're still going to get a good number even considering it's in the afternoon and considering we're in a pay-per-view era where it's hard to do great numbers, and it's very easy to steal the fights. No question. Fair enough. Question number four from johndavis.of.earth.616.

I mean, just send this guy to the gulag for a name like this. The UFC is offering a $10 discount code. I saw this for UFC 297. Is it a sign pay-per-views will be down for this event? Yes, I think that it is. I think that they realize, dude, this card on paper, not great. Couple of gems, couple of gems as there always are. Couple of interesting storylines here or there.

But 297 is not a strong pay-per-view product, relatively speaking. Right, and it speaks to, we haven't been in Canada for a pay-per-view in a long time and now we're finally coming back. So you're loading it up with Canadian prospects looking to break through and you're putting that women's bantamweight vacant title bout in the co-main event which you know i mean it's their decision look i can't i can't tell them how to see the temperatures for toronto this week no oh the highs are all like

in the negative eights or something let me let me pull up the they're used aren't they a lot more used to that than than american wimps like us i don't know okay so the high gets that hard edge on them luke you know what i'm saying i'm exaggerating i'm exaggerating a little bit i'm exaggerating a little bit so that's not quite true i guess with the wind chill will be different but the temperatures for let's say wednesday high of 17 thursday high of 22 friday high of 19 low Thursday, high of 22. Friday, high of 19, low of 5. And then Saturday, a high of 13. Have fun. Have fun. Toronto's a great city.

It's just fucking cold. There were some Twitter rumors that the O'Malley win last time out against Sterling did under the threshold of what ESPN expects. That whole thing of espn is getting is paying per pay-per-view to the ufc the equivalent of if they sold 500 000 buys in the old the old way we think about it um if that's the case then a discount doesn't come out unless they are looking to drum up more business so i think that would say that yeah pay-per-views seem to be down in general i mean

they don't go out they don't aggressively look i don't watch espn content day to day obviously like i used to working there being a super fan of all sports now i just follow combat but is it getting like aggressively pushed down the throat of casual fans these days do you come across sports center in the barber shop or whatever and see ufc on regularly? I don't know if I can fully speak to that. I don't know. I don't know that I watch enough ESPN to really know. I don't think that I can answer that question. I just don't.

I don't see it enough to get a sense of things anymore. I watch if there's a game I want to watch. Otherwise, I don't watch. So, yeah. All right. Last but not least, from Dallin M. Johnson, BC, what are your guys' for you pages filled with on social media i think i have an idea about what yours are filled with what is he talking about like on facebook or

something so on like tiktok or threads you can have the what you follow which is the ones you've actively selected to follow and then for you kind of what the algorithm suggests you might like based on searches or it's is it like you said one time that if i open up my instagram and hit the circle button on the bottom and if it brings up nothing but chicks that look like ufc strawweights then i'm telling on myself did you say something in that i'm paraphrasing that's about right yes exactly all right well then you know ufc strawweights look because there's a lot of research for this job that, you know, you got to follow every division. Yeah, mine's definitely not women with big asses.

It's definitely not that. It's everything else but that. You know what I'm saying? Definitely, definitely not that. Yeah, that's great. All right. There you go. All right, BC.

That's it for our five questions there from the fans. Now it is time for your feces. I can't wait to see it. I can't believe I for your feces. I can't wait to see it. I can't believe I'm saying that, but I can't wait to see it. A nice small, small batch here with a lot of potency, Luke. Okay. All right. Trying to trim out a very artisanal batch of BC's feces.

Yeah. I scoured the glove, the good, the bad, the highs and lows, the ugly, something like that. It's heavy. Seeing this shit. Let's watch it. All right. this shit let's watch it all right i love that at the end you know that's a good one we have right that's a good intro that's a great one i agree all right ufc back at the apex look i mentioned

the empty arena you know what wasn't empty the seat right next to the cage you know who filled it that punky qb dude i popped huge for this jim mcmahon was on screen like 75 of the broad why does mark ratner look despondent why does mark ratner look younger than him uh luke i will say this my second favorite athlete of all time after larry bird jim mcmahon i i still aspire to be in this role as shamelessly arrogant and successful as that man once was at the peak of his powers. People just don't even know what a brash personality or even who the fuck he is. But we do. They don't know. They don't even know how, you know, his greatest, I would say, as an NFL quarterback, his greatest reputation is legacy.

Nobody played hurt. More ill-advised, but nobody played hurt and sacrificed their body more as a qb than that man luke okay i mean he's paying for it now believe that all right but he got that but he looks like his blood alcohol content is like 50 bud light at this point but hopefully luke let's get him on the couch because i'd pop huge for that all right let's keep it going here uh i mentioned the ankle i have call out for the interpreter afterwards this is what i love to see but this is not the most important thing the most important thing is i am ready to fight for the title i have 10 victories in a row it's been a long time i'm worth it give me that fight for the title now dude shouldn't everyone speak like that you're

not getting paid enough you should be demanding opportunities like that. Also, he's had a couple of fuck-ups. Remember, he had a draw and then the weird stop thing, whatever it was, no contest, whatever they called it ultimately in the end. He had to get right. He had to have everything dialed in. So good for him. He did.

He did exactly what he was supposed to. Great job, Bonacolato. I hear another person in a big spot when they go, any call-outs? And you're like, nope, whatever the company wants. It's what I do. Yeah, whatever the UFC wants to give me. It's like, okay, well then that's what you're going to get. Just whatever.

That's exactly what you're going to get. Hey, Luke, I mentioned featherweight Gene Silva. Is that how I pronounce that? Or is it like Heen or something? It's Gene, right? I think it's Gene Silva. Yeah, he's Brazilian. It wouldn't be an H.

Okay. Luke, this was the slow, creepy walkout that took so long that Shaq Majore told me they went to commercial break at the end of it, and when they came back, he still hadn't entered the cage. Can you explain this? Yeah, this is me leaving the gym after leg day. That's what this is. That's very relatable and very true. Yes, yes.

Is this like, because I i once ripped poeton's entrance until someone told me it was you know a reference to his indigenous history and a warrior code shout out what is this right here this is bc looking at the girl's asses at the gym as he walks by the row of treadmills you know know? Well, look, he had a hell of a TKO victory where he showed big power. But what did you think of the celebration afterwards? Looks like Jay Aaron, dude. Right? You know, not my favorite.

Not my favorite. A little sketch. I don't quite get the barking dog slash Poindexter glasses bit, but if it works for him, it works for him. One finish we didn't talk about on this undercard. How about Bantamweight Marcus McGee, Luke? This dude's a beast.

Look at his right hook. And watch the kick to? Damn. Oh, we missed the right hook. There was a right hook that really set it all off at the beginning. By the way, shouts to Randy Steinke. You guys might not know who he is. Steinke, S-T-E-I-N-K-E.

He's one of the striking coaches out at the MMA lab. He is one of the guys who works closely with McGee. Who's been kind of in my ear the whole time. Like this guy's amazing. This guy's amazing. Randy Steinke, one of the best striking coaches. I don't think a lot of people know Randy Steinke.

All right, Luke top rank boxing was in Quebec city for better BF. And this, by the way, was a banger of a televised card, a lot of credit out there to, to the matchmaking here. We mentioned that Arter, but better BF, how about I commit to that pronunciation? Better BF. stanger of a televised card a lot of credit out there to to the matchmaking here uh we mentioned

that arthur better bf how about i commit to that pronunciation better bf was surgical in his destruction here's the finish against calum smith everything short hard and accurate right so the way he set this up is he moved away to the power hand and then walked to the jab side hand, waited for him to counter, and then came over the top. And that's what set all of what you're watching into motion. He tricked him. He baited him.

This is what I mean about the boxing, BC. The thing that started it all off, we're watching him go into Terminator mode here, which is cool. Don't get me wrong. But the thing that set it all off was not him leading this way it was Callum Smith leading and then him tricking Callum Smith during that process that is what got

this all started that's what we mean about being a guy who can actually box and be a terminator at the same time dude that's just schoolyard bullying. I mean, he's squaring up. The technique is obviously great. He's splitting the gloves, but he's just throwing short, concussive, just, you know, just daddy pants and this elite fighter. I mean, it's it's incredible because if you can hang late into a fight with him and a couple of people have, you better have the gas tank and you better have the next level chin because he's going to be all over you. And he does not stop, Luke.

It's it's damn. All right. Hey, this co-main event, we got to start talking about the super middleweight division. Christian Mbili, French speaker here, Luke, 26 and 0 with 22 KOs. Dude, he got into a war with Australia's Rohan Murdoch, who brought just giant balls to the to the dance here let's get a little a little zoom in on what what you missed if you did no feature right just up the rubber from where he lives and trains in montreal and these local fans loving every minute of the backs them up with that right hand now he digs through the body again

comes across just missed with the sweeping right hand doesn't miss with that right hand. Now he digs through the body again. Comes across. Just missed with the sweeping right hand. Doesn't miss with that. Closing moments here around number five. And Murdoch's in trouble against the ropes. Smothered by him, Billy. Eyes swollen. Body damaged. Big right hand.

He is taking and taking and taking. Luke, the record's glossy. How good do you think this guy is? I mean, he looked the part here against this Aussie. I mean, physically, he looks great. We got to see him tested against somebody who's got some real skill. But physically, goddamn, he looks the part. Goddamn.

Very impressive stuff. And not to be outdone, Bantamweight Jason Maloney, who just recently won a world title, defended against Saul Sanchez, and they're talking about early fight of the year contender. Here's a little snippet. I'll tell you. Luke, did you watch this fight at all? This was a war.

No, not this one. I mean, not big punchers, but they left it all out in the ring there if you get a chance to re-watch this on the old plus anybody a big win for jason maloney and a hell of a performance from both all right luke uh your soundbite of the week you remember chris rose from the best damn uh sports show period remember that luke you remember that right yes from fox sports yeah yeah he's now on the nfl network desk and um get ready for this is far and away the best defense that patrick mahomes has had right i mean is it possible that they can ride the d the defense okay listen

turns out it is, Luke. It is possible. Wow. I didn't see that. That is so fucking hilarious. Can they ride the D? Yes, they can ride that D. Who was that analyst?

He's like, stop it. Just stop it. That was great. When he stopped and went, man, come on, bro. Please. Oh, God, that was fucking great. Can they ride the D? That is awesome. All right, let's move on to your T-shirts of the week, bro. Oh, God, that was fucking great. Can they ride the D? That is awesome.

All right, let's move on to your T-shirts of the week, Luke. Hopefully you can find this on the discount rack. I finally found it. It says. Is that Walmart? Boner King. All right, you sent me this one from lights out 14 regional mma watch out luke he's back yeah big dick is back in town

that is fucking dude this is nothing first of all he's walking to the cage with a black eye yeah with his hat on backwards and his shirt says, Big Dick is back in town. This is about the most MMA-looking man I've ever seen. Who wants to get dicked down? That's what I'm going to ask my opponent. Who wants to sex Dikembe? That's what we want to know right here. Look, we're going to go to this hockey broadcast. Watch the fan in the back on the right.

Don't bully me. I'll come. Okay. All right. That's a lot. That's a lot. that's a lot that's a lot that's a lot uh luke in this space you're always upset at people who violate u.s flag code in terms of their nwo wrestling t-shirts with these what about this guy luke now i don't know how this would work i mean his shorts obviously fuck the whole thing up but yeah i don't know if getting

strategic sunburn qualifies as flag code dishonor i don't know i don't know how that works i think he honored it actually he was willing to endure that pain it's like all your fraternity brethren who get that brand on the arm luke so they can be brothers i think that's almost exclusively a black fraternity thing i don't know i don't know that but i'm pretty sure that's extreme come on the q dogs do that the q dogs do that they're tougher than i am let's be honest about it all right yeah of course all right uh keep it moving here luke uh let's talk about uh trash talking karma listen to this angry driver no no no no no no hold on mikey i gotta see that one again i gotta see that one again oh too bad we couldn't see them plot luke america's roadways are filled with absolute morons yeah

morons bc that's florida to the nth degree it looked honestly that i mean i don't know i don't know if you guys know where that is i don't know if mikey knows where it looked to me like just interstate america it didn't look it didn't look super special guys know where that is. I don't know if Mikey knows where it is. It looked to me like just interstate America. It didn't look super special. The only thing that didn't make that America is that no one... Say again? Turn left at the Buc-ee's. Is that what you're saying? Yeah.

The only thing that didn't make it America was that no one brandished a firearm. That's the only difference. There we go. Well, Street Fight of the Week, Luke, check out this move. Will this be coming to an MMA cage anytime soon? Oh! You got to put a stripper pole in the middle. Yeah, it's like a discus punch, dude, swinging around that.

Yeah, turn him around and then hit him with the old left hook. Left hook Larry there. That's good work. That's solid work. All right, your multitasker of the week. If skateboarding wasn't hard enough, Luke, look at this guy. Is he about

to lose teeth? I think he's about to gain something. Oh, he's hitting a bong. Okay. Yeah. All right. Skateboard. All right. Let's see if you can pull this off. New York City style, I'm guessing. Oh! Oh, wow. Let me tell you something, buddy. Let me tell you something, buddy.

Let me tell you something for the kids out there. Jesus can shred and hit the bong at the same time. Don't think he can't. Don't think he can't. What would you think if I wanted an HYSTS spinoff where we interview the weird people in these videos afterwards? 100% into it. 1 billion percent into it, yeah. It's like Tosh Redemption 2 2.0 you ever see that back

in the day luke yeah yeah of course uh let's keep it going to major league baseball this kc royals outfielder luke uh took one for the team here yeah right on the old yeah look at that face that's not a happy man let me see this one hey here's my idea bc maybe next time catch the ball motherfucker you get paid to do it how about that foul ball indeed you're gonna catch the ball or you're gonna catch a ball you know what i'm saying either way you gotta catch it our license plate of the week usually puts us in maine luke one of the weirder states of our union very beautiful state though what do you think about this plate i eat a55 i don't know what he means by that bc i'm very confused by the vacation land nature of this man's tag luke trying to keep his job all right let's check in on the whites luke we had to outlaw one video because there was too much ass in it which you described to me as only

the whitest i mean it's sort of a clan rally only the white the most non-racist white video imaginable is the way i would put it yeah well let's we got other white videos here let's go inside the bar and watch this chick i think they call that natural selection. Luke, we got one more for you. All those whites, Luke, that's the shit of the week. Can I see the girl falling off the table one more time what song was she singing i don't know i don't know luke i don't really you know dude i've worked at a bar once where they all the girls would get on the table i don't know who started this i had to go around and be like, yo, it's a fire hazard. We're not allowed to do this.

Get the fuck off. Where they would get on the tables and dance to Bon Jovi's. What's the song? Oh, Living on a Prayer. Halfway there. Living on. I just wanted to spray them with fucking pepper spray just to get them out of the bar. I didn't do that, but I wanted to in my mind.

Did you ever bartend at Coyote Ugly, Luke, and have to dance on the bar? No. I got thrown out of Hogs and Heifers, but no, I've never done that. What did you do to get thrown out? We can close the show. I don't exactly remember. I was with two other guys, and we got asked to leave. I'm not actually sure.

I don't really remember. I was really drunk. I've been escorted out of, or sorry, ejected from many a college bar look for very foul and offensive reasons did you ever get thrown out of a bar for something that 100 was not your fault no okay i always had it coming look believe me all right you know yeah uh yeah i've been around one bar that was not my fault one bar um and that bar went out of business it was on uh it was on 19th street and m in dc so shouts to those people for throwing me up that's your shit of the week uh reminder um of a few things luke first of all you can get

our merch we're both wearing it luke wearing a 1.0 designed style old school i got on the factory town mma shirt you can go to morning combat dot store right now check out the latest styles check out the average joe art crossover collection and if you want 10 off right now live 10 is your code live e10 skim a little bit off the top but luke do you want to reiterate if you miss off the top of the show sure breaking news a little bit cryptic but for good reasons but we're coming we're coming yeah i know the show sure breaking news a little bit cryptic but for good reasons but we're coming we're coming yeah i know i know it might seem a little bit hard to parse what does it all mean trust us when we tell you please please please these are steps we are taking

in a concerted thoughtful way to set mk up for its next chapter so for the month of January, the MK shows will be once a week. It'll be on Mondays. We're going to roll back MK regular shows for the entire month of February for a big relaunch in March. During that time, though, we will not be silent. For example, we're going to have a 297 preview this week. I'm going to do a post-fight show for UFC 297.

Stuff like that's going to be out there. We'll do interviews don't have to go anywhere else you don't have to subscribe to anything new stick with what you got on our socials mike if you want to put the social graphic up there you can do that you can follow us on all the socials nothing about that changes youtube.com slash morning combat nothing about that changes all that's going to be in play guys we have big dreams we have big ambitions. We have big ambitions. And more importantly, we have plans. Those plans start. They've been started for a while, but the mechanism of it, the actual groundwork, the under construction sign, so to speak, it goes up today so that we can have a better, brighter future. We cannot be more serious about

this. And we appreciate everyone who's been along for us and will continue to be along for us. Yeah, hopefully a little bit of this absence will make the heart grow fonder as we come back big. But we're in the process of finalizing these plans now. And when we can tell them to you in full detail, you'll be the first to know in a big way. But the MK that you always wished we could be, we got a chance this year to be that.

So come along with us. Thank you, as Luke said off the top, for always having our back from the beginning. This is just another transition. We got through the pandemic together. We got through a wild 2023 together. We're still standing better than we'll ever be, okay? All right, so please don't go on me.

Don't go on me now, all right? Let's keep this going together. There might be a tendency to be like, oh gosh, Les is this is this a bad thing no no it's a temporary change so that we can set up a new future that's it mom and dad are going to live in separate houses temporarily to figure a few things out but then we're going to come back together parent trap style and no no no these are big, substantive, exciting changes, but we can't do them all in one moment. We can't just flick a switch.

Things have to happen in stages. And so for that to happen in the way that we want to give us the best possible future, this is the path that we have taken. And we do feel pretty confident we'll be in a great place when it's all said and done. So again, don't go anywhere. Everything stays where it is.

We're just going to be rolling back some of the MK regular content until we can really fully relaunch it. And when we do, look the fuck out because 2024 is going to be our year for the taking. In your face. In your faces. Let's see.

Reminder, youtube.com slash morning combat. By the way, I put up the Dewey Cooper interview or I should say thank you to Mikey who got that up on Friday. I did not do it. He did it. Thanks to Mikey for getting that up. We have that up.

We talked to him about this Anthony Joshua fight and everything else. BC, if you haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, I really encourage you, especially as the boxing mind between us, some of the stuff he says about, listen, he may not be able to convince you that Francis is going to win. But if there was one prevailing theme throughout that entire conversation it was that the world in his mind the world is going to see that the performance against Tyson Fury was not in his mind because Fury took him lightly it is because it was no fluke and you're going to see evidence of that against Anthony Joshua if he can't make you believe that that uh Francis will

win he can at least get you super excited for that fight in a way that maybe you haven't been to this point and by the way Francis moved his entire team and training camp to saudi arabia for this one so he's going to be working out there acclimating to the time and that harsh weather that unforgiving climate luke which you are currently experiencing in a quite opposite way in dc so bundle up stay warm stay safe on the roadways. Luke, get ready for when we bang. Well, like, not like, like, not like, like, not like really, right? Not like really, but yeah. All right.

Hit us up. Morning combat at gmail.com. And you can hit me up. Luke Thomas news at gmail.com. Thank you guys so much for watching. So for Mikey, for CBS and everyone else involved here in the project, that's Brian Campbell. I'm Luke Thomas reminder UFC two7 preview coming out this week, and there will be a post-fight show for UFC 297,

an instant reaction. I've got you covered just the same. All right, that's BC. I'm LT. This has been MK, and until next time, may all of your gains be loyal.