MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Bautista Chokes Out Oliveira | Horiguchi Wants Title | Does UFC Need Heavyweight? | PFL Dubai Recap

Episode Date: February 9, 2026

Happy Morning Kombat Monday, Donks! Luke Thomas and Chuck Mindenhall go over the results of UFC Vegas 113, starting with Mario Bautista dominating Vinicius Oliveira in the main event. Kyoji Horiguchi outclassed Amir Albazi in the co-main event. With this win, is Horiguchi in line for a title shot? Usman Nurmagomedov made easy work of Alfie Davis in the PFL Dubai card, scoring a choke from the back to put him away in the third round. Where does a win like this put Nurmagomedov among all lightweights, including those in the UFC? Join LT, the Iceman and the entire MK crew as they go over the latest in the world of combat sports and more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Revely, revely, docks. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion. I'm Luke Thomas. This is Morning Combat.

Hey, it's time for Morning Combat. The Seahawks are the Super Bowl champions and all is right with the world. Thank you so much for joining me. I greatly appreciate it here on this ninth. of February, 2026. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm merely one half of your hosting duo.

I join you from the capital of Estableness and News right here in Washington, D.C. With my Connecticut brethren with the ZB hat on. Look at this guy. I had to switch it up. This is a better look for me. Just like Brian Campbell, you're a whore for merch. That's right.

That's right. A mile away. I snapped up, not just the hat, but like a couple of shirts as well. On Zupa 1, I was there. That's what the shirt says. was there. If that makes you happy, God bless you. It does. It's the sub-zero to my scorpion. It's the ice man himself, Chuck Mittenhall. What's up, Chuck? How are you? I noticed a little pep in your step there, Luke. I'm guessing that the Patriots misery and their fans kind of suffer

through something. This is high excitement for you. You know what's kind of funny is the Patriots fan bases, they're right up there with the bills and being the worst fan base in all the pro sports. and but the difference is the bills are long suffering obviously but the Patriots have won so much and they're so arrogant about it and the worst part is as the season got better for the Patriots the folks who for some reason have it out for Jaden Daniels were constantly chirping at me about like oh you see how much better Drake May is doing you see how much better Drake May is doing

and I don't even have anything against Drake May other than his boosters were just constantly annoying me about it So to watch him get cut to fish bait yesterday by the Seahawks pass rush, it was such a wonderful moment. And now he's like Jaden Daniels in the sense that everybody's like, yeah, he was never good to begin with, you know? It's just like the fight game, is it? It's like, oh, exposed.

They were never. They're one of the worst teams ever make the Super Bowl. All the stuff I'm reading today, I'm like, man, we just revised history by the week here. Where did you watch the Super Bowl? How did you enjoy the game? There was a, there's a guy in town who hosts a, like a small Super Bowl party every year. And so we gathered over there.

It's so cold out there, dude. Even to walk a little bit through his driveway to inside. I was like, I was having regrets, man. It was bad. It was so cold. It was hovering around five degrees here yesterday. Yeah, dude. So we, so we,

my wife wanted to see a concert in Philly this past weekend. So we went to Philly on Friday. We took the train and then we came back pretty early yesterday. We were back here like three or four p.m. or something like that. dude it was like people were asking me like oh how did you enjoy philly i'm like well inside of the places that we went to were quite nice yeah but it was so painfully cold you like there was no way you could just like walk around town that was not going to happen we had to

walk point four miles because we went to a place to go eat and it was slammed and then i saw there was another place like i was kind of on our itinerary and it was point four miles and i was like all right well i mean you know under normal conditions this is a number nothing walk. Yeah. Dude, by the time we got there, we were turning into icicles. It was so cold. So we got back here yesterday and my wife and I, we all took naps and then we watched the Super Bowl here at home. Hey, I have to ask, did you watch the Kid Rock Hard R N-Word Spectacular? Or did you watch the bad bunny show? Which one did you watch? I did the bad bunny one. And, you know, I live in Connecticut, man. This is very blue out here. but there were a couple of people in this audience of our people gathered who I know are Maga.

And so watching them squirm through the whole thing was it was worth it. It was quite the spectacle, man. All those people dressed as bushes. I mean, that's like that's other level stuff right there. But we did have another TV and they put the kid rock thing on that. That looked like that looked terrible. Yeah. Which one did you check out?

Yeah. I mean, come on. My house. What do you get on? you think. I mean, yeah, it was a bad buddy spectacular up in this place. But, you know, people were like, oh, I saw Dan Levitart. He's like, that's the most sustained Latin American thing ever in the history of American television. I'm like, buddy, that's every day in my house. You understand? Latin people dancing and singing and celebrating where they're from, that is 24-7 in the Thomas house. What was he saying then? I mean, for all the people who are like, I didn't understand a word of what was just say. Can you interpret everything that was said during the halftime show for the people? Only because I've studied the lyrics, even his Spanish is like really hard for me. to get. Like it's very, very difficult to understand. Let's bring in the third member of the show here, Long Island. Long Island, how does you enjoy the Super Bowl this past weekend? I mean, besides most of my bets losing, and I had a good time. I watched the Bad Bunny performance. My girlfriend's a big fan, so, you know, we enjoyed it. But I didn't even know this other kid rock thing was going on until I was on Twitter today and seeing everyone like, you know, just talking about the bed bun. That tells me you're not into the hard R of the N word. That's what that. No, I mean, yes, I would say I'm not a fan of that. Thank you very much. What was the, what was the biggest bet that you won or lost over the weekend?

Biggest bet I won was the, uh, Patriots. Seahawks defense scoring a touchdown at like plus 650s. It's a good bet. Nice. UFC wise did pretty terrible again, second straight week, you know, went, uh, three for six on the main card, but the way I parlayed everything, I went over three. So it was pretty terrible, but, uh, you know, shit happens. Chuck, I'll say this. I don't bet a lot just because, you know, it's, uh, listen, my rule is for people who want to do it,

you know, let them do it. It just doesn't, it's not a lot necessarily for me personally, but it's just so humbling because you'll have these weeks like event after event where you're just nailing it and then a month passes and you can't get one of them right. You can't get one of them right. And I just can't deal with that kind of, uh, it feels like the cosmos are conspiring against you when you lose like stuff again and again, like where you have that streak where you cannot hit anything. And anything that can go wrong does go wrong for your bet. I don't need to go through that anymore, man. Yeah, I'm too old for that.

It's true. Let's set the tone here very quickly. Obviously, we're going to be reacting to the two major MMA events that happened over the weekend, the UFC Fightenat Bautista versus Oliva card, as well as the PFL in Dubai card, which had some interesting moments. Let's also remind everyone, we do have new merch. And in fact, at morningcombat.combat. This is the February exclusive you're looking at right here.

It's the Army of Donkness that is available. right now, evergreen items as well, including, but not limited to, look at these. Here we have the MKDC variety, which is the one that's got the black shirt, and then the MK logo in the sort of corner breast pocket area, and then, of course, the kind of graffiti evergreen shirts. Those are just, my understanding is those are just going to just live there at morningcombat.combat.shop as evergreen stuff, but that army of donkness is just available for this month, both as a t-shirt, as well as a poster. So go to morning. MorningCombat.

Dot shop. And of course, you can reach the show. Morningcombat at Gmail. com. We still do fan subs. We still do dead wrongs. We're just going to do them

in a more packaged kind of deal. Also, just to reach the show is a good place you can go. And then, of course, on social. You can follow us on Twitter, IG, and everything else in between. You can see there on the lower third of the screen for Chuck, for me and for MK, more specifically. Chuck, if you're ready, let's get this show going.

Yeah, let's try it, man. All right. Topic number one. Let's start with the UFC fight night over the weekend. Mario Bautista basically dominated Venetius Olivera in the main event of Saturday's apex-based fight night. In fact, Bautista even put the Brazilian away in a second round with a choke from the back. Now, it ended up being revealed, Chuck, that Olivera, we knew he had had a lot of weight to cut. He had made videos to that effect, and he had made the weight, but that he,

by his own admission, had conceded it was very, very difficult. But it turned out he may have broken his right arm in the weeks leading up. And in fact, here's what he said. And, I could have canceled the fight. I broke my arm 51 days ago. There wasn't much I could do, but I decided to move forward. For a good while, we trained with my arm in a cast. It was actually a bit reckless on our part. We kept it under wraps, but it was determined, I was determined, excuse me, to fight regardless of the injury. Now, I don't know if there's any weird betting lines that materialized as a consequence, but this is kind of one of the things that happens in a situation like this. Let me ask the question. Was this a case of Batista being like legitimately

levels above olivera or was it the case that olivera was so compromised he probably shouldn't even been in this fight at all well i think it's a bit of both luke honestly like watching that fight there were some moments within it where there was some curious i guess you know just curious things that were going on one of them being when uh venetius was on the ground midway through the first basically and kind of choosing to stay there even as batista got up and we'd just kind of try to like land some big shots or kick him or jump back into his guard or try to get a you know in position on top it seemed like he was content to just kind of hang out there even when you know he's trying to catch him with an upkick but it wasn't exploding back to his feet and let's remember this is a guy who you know he started off with a couple of KOs that's how the UFC knows him so like we i thought if he was going to win we were going to see some of that in this fight so to see him it felt a little weird to watch him opt to do that. And I felt like we saw a little bit of that in the second round as well.

But even taking that, everywhere this fight went, I thought Batista was better, man. He just, I thought he outclassed him all over the place. He just seemed like every time they were, wherever they were at, it seemed like Batista was getting the better of him. And I think that this was considering that Umar fight that Batista had last, this felt like suddenly he dawned the singler, he got into the, you know, he went into a training and he was, you know, working on his wrestling because he looked excellent even there. I thought he looked very good.

And I liked his, you know, his response saying that, you know, he kind of dedicated himself that way. To me, that was one of his best performances, man. What did you think? Yeah, I certainly agree. I'm pulling up the stats here because I want to refresh myself, excuse me, about what we saw. I thought that the thing that I thought was going to get Olivera on Friday eventually was that he was a little bit of a risk taker. He swings a little wild at times. He overcommits a little at times.

And against the guy like Bautista, especially over the course of 25 minutes, who's a little bit more Johnny on the spot with his offense, but also willing to just kind of let guys fall into their own traps, that that would eventually do him in. Now, again, the fight ended a round and a half in or whatever the exact time was. And it ended in part because not only was this guy's arm broken, you could see him touching his wrist between rounds. but he was also, I mean, dude, he was huffing and puffing in the first freaking round.

You know what I mean? Like, dude, you're just, you're, you're, you can say whatever you want about the limits of Batista. The reality is if you are not prepared to go 25 with him, you're going to have a bad day. That was a huge red flag, right? Like at the end of the round, you see him, uh, kind of drawn his deep breath. But then he sits on the canvas. He doesn't even sit on a stool. He just kind of collapses against the fence. And I'm like, that is not a good look. So I did not. Honestly, when I saw that, I didn't think it was going to get past the second round. And you just don't know to what extent, honestly, like, because I didn't know he's injured, obviously, but like you don't know to what extent in the end that injury parlayes into a bad weight cut, like he was saying. But let me ask you this, man. Like, we hear this a lot of times. I remember T.J. Dillishaw, that time when he lost the fight, like a big fight in Abu Dhabi.

And he was, you know, he talks about his shoulder. Can you use these excuses? If you opt to fight, you know, if you opt to fight, like, you. could put it out there to the world that, hey, I was compromised. You didn't get my best effort and I lost because of this. But it still counts as a loss and right. It should because it's, it's one of those things that you opted to go through with this and, and put that L on your record, essentially. Yeah. Like in this particular case, I'm not of the belief that that's the best that Olavera can look. You know what I mean? Like, I can, I can concede that. But if you

accept the risk of going through with it in a severely compromised state, then you, you, accept the bout as such. There's no more going back and being like, well, I was injured. Well, okay, great, but you accepted the fight. Who cares? And he's talking about it was injured nearly two months before. Now, I'm not saying that that's an easy thing to deal with. And I know what folks also might say, it's like, okay, well, he says part of the reason why he couldn't cut enough weight, or again, he cut enough of it, but he couldn't lose enough weight was because he was injured. And if you don't realize this, if your arm is broken and you run, just the bouncing of your arm, if it doesn't heal right, can affect it.

like it does, it can have a real thing, but it's like, well, then what was your plan to compete against this guy? I mean, these guys all make plans to survive the training camp. They make plans to survive the weight cut, but they never seem to think, okay, well, now you have to go win a fist fight. And there was just seemingly no ability to ever get through that. It's like the hurdle was the fight camp. The hurdle was the weight cut. The fight was almost for him, based on what he is saying, something of an afterthought. And I'm okay with the idea that these guys are going to accept fights under less than ideal conditions. You know the game as well as I do, at least from afar, and we've seen it so many times.

But the only reason you should accept a fight while you're still injured is if because, not just because, oh, I'm going to prove how tough I am, or I'm going to prove I can get to the finish line of, you know, the fight starting. I'm going, I actually have a reasonable shot at winning. We have a clip, if I'm not mistaken here, Long Island Luke, of Belmont. Alista talking about how he was injured heading into the patchy mixed fight. He doesn't want to hear any excuses. Anisha said afterwards that he actually broke his arm in December. I don't know how much that played a factor, but any thoughts on that?

That sucks. You know, I, you know, leading into my patchy fight, I popped a rib. You can kind of see it right there. And I still beat the shit out of him. So I don't care. your excuses, you know, that's part of the game. No, he got clothes and he was like, smile, smile while you can. And then he just got two clothes and I was like, it seems like you want to kiss me. And I think I broke his character, you know, he started laughing and then he said that he was going to beat me

worse than he did Kyler, my training partner. And then even at, when we faced off before our fight, you know, he even said the same thing. He's like, you want to kiss me now? And I just blew him a couple kisses, you know, before I beat him up. But yeah, it's all. It's all part of the show. You train hard, you have tough camp, easy fight, that idea. And that's kind of what happened tonight. And it was that game plan as well. I knew he's going to come out hot.

I didn't expect for him to initiate the wrestling. That's kind of, I think, a bad game plan on his part. But I just knew that he wouldn't last, you know, past those rounds. He would eventually gas out. I wasn't sure if he was messing around and kind of like lull me in into those big shots. And that's kind of what he did. It was easy to see, you know. I think that whole thing about him being like 165 pounds or whatever, you know, to me that you're slow, you know, and it makes you slow.

I could see everything. I had great eyes in there, you know, all the experience I've had, you know. So, yeah, I've seen everything. There's just these guys, dude. There are grizzled veterans and they just understand themselves. They understand what they have to do to win, what preparation has to look like, what the mentality. has to look like, the game plan has to look like, all the different pieces look like. And it looked to me, Chuck, like Vinicius doesn't understand that yet.

He doesn't understand what weight class he should be in. He doesn't understand necessarily what, like, has to happen for him to be in optimal situations by the time the fight starts. He's trying to be too tough for his own good. And it led to, you know, again, what would it have been like under ideal conditions? I don't know, but ideal conditions don't exist. The ones that we got, he showed up super short ahead of a guy who you do. Dude, at the bare minimum,

Bautista is going to do his homework. And if you don't, it will show up very quickly. Yeah, and I mean, we've seen Bautista show up in fights. I think people thought he was going to lose and he wins. I mean, the tape is out on the guy. But, you know, even when he threw, I think it was in the first round, he threw a couple of body kicks.

And you could see Vinesius. I don't know if it's just like more of a default because he didn't want to get like at this forearm in the way. but his instinct was almost to raise his arms and expose his midsection, which I was like, I'm pretty sure that that's, you know, one or two of those kicks. There might have been where he started to lose his wind. But this is a guy like, to your point, man, who,

Batista, if he sees that you're giving him an opening, he's going to exploit it. And I thought that he did that all over the place here. This, if we could talk about like, sometimes they do these apex events, these kind of fight nights, this is exactly what it should do, is give a guy like Batista a spotlight. that you actually see him for what he is.

Like you're mentioning him being a veteran and like doing his homework. But it also shows you the dude is really freaking good. You know what I mean? Like he's really good. And he's probably at this point in his career, what is he like in his young 30s? He's probably ready for the, you know, for that big step up. Obviously going against a guy like Umar is not going to be an easy fight. But I think he hangs pretty well with the top of that division at this point.

Yeah, Bautista 32, that final. sequence was incredible. He had mounted crucifix, then he goes to Camora, then he goes to backtake, and then to choke, and he did it just like that. This is what I mean, dude. Everything about his operation is smoothed out. Everything about his operation, it's all connected. And if you're an Umar Numergermar-Germadeov and you're crazy talented and you can control a guy like that, okay, well, that's one thing. But that's Umar Numer Germadov. That's one of the very, very best guys in the world who has some abilities in the cage who are lights out. Going into a fight,

like this, to your point, not being able to take the kicks, so you're just opening up. So then your body just absorbs it because your arm is broken. It's like, again, we know the story about fighter pay. Some of these guys take fights because they need the money. Maybe Olavera felt like, hey, if I say,

if I pull out of a fight due to injury, being in a main event slot, I won't get another one. And those are all risks that you have to weigh. again, no one competes without some of these difficulty factors being weighed. But at the same time, if you show up and you barely make weight and you're huffing wind in the first, and then you get thrashed ultimately in the second, giving up five takedowns, by the way, to Mario Batista, like, what is the impressiveness of the showing that you did there?

Like, everyone knows you're tough now. Do you do more damage backing out of a fight? You know what I mean? I'm like losing your main event spot or having that kind of showing, because it's, that's what it comes down to that it wasn't a good look but I do think you know ultimately in this game you plant the seed you say like hey man I was compromised and you hope that that asterisk is there enough for the matchmakers and honestly though he's got a lot to prove now right like he's got it like the next time in there if he gets through a healthy camp um it'd be very

interesting to see how he looks also it's kind of fun for me to see that like they keep matching him up uh Batista with uh either guys that the fans really like or or that there's a lot of intrigue around. So, like, I'm not sure if Umar is a fan favorite, but obviously there's a lot of intrigue around him. Uh, but, you know, Loak Dog is certainly one of the guys that's kind of been a fan favorite Aldo. And it didn't work out in the Aldo fight, as we all know, but I don't know.

It seems to me like win or lose, Bautista's kind of slowly showing everyone. Okay, the Aldo fight might not have been exciting, but the dude's world class. You can, you can like that fact or you can hate that fact, but he's world class. All the more reason that if you're going to, go up against him, you need to be in the kind of condition that you can have a 25-minute effort against a world-class

opponent. And Olavera was well short of that, ultimately in the end. You're mentioning the interesting people who's been matched up with, and it is kind of a, for a guy who's been in some high-profile fights in that division, I feel like he's a little under the radar, and that's always a strange thing for me, too. That's why a main event

of this type, you know, serves him and works in his favor. But he did, He calls out Corey Sanhagen, right? And they fought in 2019. What do you think about that? Because I was thinking about that. I actually remember that fight fairly well. It just seemed like at that time, they're both in their mid-20s.

This is pre-pandemic. And it felt like he was just, you know, drinking from the, from the, you know, the fire hose a little bit. Like he was a little overwhelmed. I remember he caught like a flying knee in that fight. And he tried to slam Sanhagen down at one point and ended up like almost in a triangle where he was fighting out of that. It just seemed like he was in deep water. in multiple situations in that first round. But I just see a whole different fight plan.

I think it would be fascinating to see that matchup now. We have video of him making this call out. Let's take a look and I'll react. Congratulations. I don't know if you saw, but Song Yadong tweeted out. You called you out. You see that? Who was that?

Song Yadong. Song you dong. Nah, I want to fight Sanhagen. Yeah, Song Yudong can just sit on that loss for a little bit. and then um sandhagen sitting at four bautista at nine although you would imagine this will probably bump him up here a little bit probably closer to him now there's still songadong sitting at five as i indicated amen's a hobby sitting at six and the figurado at seven so it's not exactly clear if that's going to happen i'll just say this i in a vacuum like the idea of san hagen bautista too i do but i don't like it taking precedence over the idea of sean o'malley versus gory san hagen To me, that's one of those fights that really, it's a, but that, Corey Sanhagen versus Sean O'Malley, to me, is one of the very best non-title bantamate fights you can make, period. And if there's an opportunity to make something like that, I think that they should.

However, if they're not considering that for whatever reason, they've got another plan with O'Malley, maybe a Piotr-Yon rematch, Chuck, then yes, then I would be totally okay with it, sure. Yeah, and you mentioned Zahabi, maybe that's the kind of fight that you do. because right now, I don't believe they have booked Zahabi, right? And he's above him in the rankings. Something like that might make sense. I don't know about Davis and Figuero, just given that he's a little bit on a downslope at the moment. So I don't know if that fight makes sense.

But I think it's cool that, you know, we're having a discussion about who Mario Batisa, because I always felt like he's one of those guys who's on the outside looking in for the guys at the top of the division who we're matchmaking with. And I think after the performance like that, man, you can plug them in against a few of these guys. who are above him in the rankings, and it would be a fun fight. I mean, I feel like he matches up fairly well. And by the way, here is this tweet from Song Yadong, the one in reference here. Congratulations. Enjoy the victory tonight.

How about some Kung Pow chicken in Macau? I don't, again, I don't know the appetite for something like that. I wouldn't hate it. I wouldn't hate it. But San Hagen rematch is a little bit more thrilling. to me, I suppose. Song Adon's got some work to do. I don't know.

All right. Let's talk about the co-made event. Topic number two here. Kioji Horaguchi gets, I mean, the UFC return couldn't be going a whole lot better. He basically outclassed Amir al-Bazi and had him out on his feet,

well, out on his feet, had him close to out on his feet a number of times in that second and third round on this fight night. With this win, Chuck, he cannot be far from a title shot. So let's talk about this. What should happen at the, the top of flyweight after the rematch between Josh Van and Pantoja, or for whatever reason, should they just jump the line and have Horaguchi versus Van, or should they wait for

Horaguchi versus Tyra in Japan? Talk to me about what you saw in this victory and then what this entitles him to in this division. This month, IHeart Radio is celebrating the stars of the 2026 Winter Games, representing Viana Virginia, Ilya Malanin is redefining what is possible on the ice. Known as the Quad God, the reigning world champion arrives in Milano Cortina as the only skater in history

to land a quadruple axle in competition. He isn't just performing a routine. He's pushing the laws of physics. Malin steps onto the Olympic ice looking to turn his technical revolution into pure gold. For more Winter Games gold, search Olympics on the IHeart Radio app. I'm Dylan Playfair.

And I'm Tyler Smith. We're putting loneliness in the penalty box by talking to some of our favorite athletes about the importance of friendship. This is bromance. Bromance is brought to you by Charm Diamond Centers, proudly Canadian-owned and operator. Charm has been part of your love stories and bromances for over 50 years. And you can find Bromance on the IHeart Radio Network or wherever you get your podcast. If the UFC right now knew that Joshua Vam is ready to go and we don't know Pantosia.

Like if they just thought that that was going to be off, I'd be totally okay if they wanted to bump Hora Gucci into that spot. for multiple reasons, man, because this is a guy who came back. And I think he was kind of, you know, in his first fight back, I think that he was booked to lose. I mean, I don't remember the exact line on that, but I don't think Coraguchi was favored in his fight. Who is he for the guy's name, escaping me?

Tagir. A Lulamakov. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, I mean, that fight looked like a trap, right? Like he's going to go into the situation. But to see him come out of that with flying colors. and I mean just kind of reannounce himself in a way that you're like, Jesus,

do we give this guy the fair shake the first time through and through his journey for what, seven, eight years away from the UFC, returning at 35 years old? I would have no problem, man, with them kind of bumping him right up there. And I know that like people have been calling this for the Japan thing. I don't know. Would the Japanese want the fight between Tyra and Horaguchi?

Like it's just, to me it's like you've got two guys who are both right there. You've never had a Japanese champion. Well, if they want the boxing fight between Nooya Inouye and then Nakatani, Yeah. Junto Nakatani, I mean, I'm not saying that this is on par with that. That's not my point. But I'm saying two Japanese superstars colliding.

Yeah. Is a big deal. Maybe there's something like that, you know? I wouldn't be opposed to it. I mean, it would be a lot of fun to watch that. First of all, too, because Tatsuro was so much younger. You know, that kind of fight. has like a lot of

you know it could be a lot of fun but dude the whole division is fun right now imagining horaguchi against a very young dude like Joshua van could get could be very interesting as well right because just horaguchi you see how tough he is how wily he is and everything that was going on in that fight

dude he took 16 significant strikes in this fight this fight he just had over 15 minutes one strike essentially per minute i mean you know that kind of evasiveness at his age and everything. And, dude, you tell me too, like, do you have a little bit of a, like, a

soft side for a good you coming back, kind of missing so much time from the UFC coming back. And when he was in the UFC, there was almost zero fanfare, not just for him, but like for the division itself. The UFC was considering shuttering it. You know, everything was kind of, Demetri's

Johnson just wasn't really the needle mover. And I was at UFC 186 in Montreal in 2015. And, uh, he was the main event against Demetris. That was that that fight. It wasn't the greatest card. But the,

you remember, have you ever been to a show in Montreal before? You know like the GSP angle. It's almost like Hulkomania, dude. Like, it's like everybody's wearing the bandanas. It was like, I went to multiple shows where GSP,

and it just was like such a hotbed. But for this particular one, 10,000 people through the turnstile. It did like 100,000 pay-per-views, which is just the baseline. They could throw garbage on, and that's what would sell. back than 100,000, right? And it did something like $650,000 at the gate. I mean, these numbers for the

UFC even at that time were just atrocious. People had left. That was that fight where he kind of like tapped out at the very in like the last second of that fight to Demetrius. And I remember feeling back then like this guy is completely not appreciated. This time through, I feel like he is. Like some people are paying attention to him and maybe it's just that we've accepted the flyweight division kind of more so than what you did back of the day. But I certainly get the impression that he's kind of more valued this time through. You know, it's interesting. I have mixed feelings about like whether it would have been better to have Kiorgi Horaguchi stay in the UFC post-2016. Because remember, he loses to Demetrius Johnson in 2015.

Then he has back to back to back wins over Chico Camus, who's a sort of a Duke Rufus train fighter, Neil Siri, and then Ali Bagua Utenov. That Bagotinov one was like eye-opening because it's like, you know, just to do that. It was like he just dominated all three rounds of that fight. Yeah, and Baguettino also had like anti-doping issues along the way too. And then he goes over to to rise it and has great fights against Hideo Tokorah,

who was, you know, sort of a big Japanese fighter of that time. He beats Manel Cop. He finishes Minel Cop, by the way. Shintaro Ishi. Watari was kind of like a sort of a staple of that world. Ian McCall, he beats. And then he goes on and, you know, beats Dary and Caldwell over and then he comes back through Bellator and it has some losses too.

But, you know, in general, I would say that like at the time in which he was competing against D.J. He was definitely one of the better fighters that D.J. could have fought. But he was just so pre-prime. You know, he just wasn't even close to his best yet. And that's not a knock on DJ. DJ did what he did to him. Obviously, the fifth round arm bar is pretty incredible.

but, you know, he just, I am, I don't know what's true. Was it better for him to go back to Japan, build up his kind of star base there, work on his game with, you know, still difficult but otherwise easier matchups in general, and then come back and be a better version of himself, or would it have been better for him to have just stayed the whole time? I think given where Demetrius was and just given where MMA was in the States at that time, that really was not a bad call. It's just, I hope that they make use of the time that we have now.

Right. Well, that's why, yeah, if they wanted to bump him into a title shot, you know, you'd take, contextually, you'd take all of this into account. You know, like, what would he have done? That is a question. What could he have done? You know, historically, there has not been a Japanese champion. And we've seen a couple of guys get their shots, you know, Yushinakami.

I remember, you know, against Anderson Silva, Kyle Uno back in the day against BJ Penn. There were examples, but they didn't get it done. And you look at Horaguchi and you're almost like, if he's in the division when Demetrius is gone, right, the Henry Sohudo kind of resurrection era there, like where the division is suddenly going to survive. And then you get into the Moreno,

figurato, like that whole series where it takes place. I do feel like he probably would have had something to say within all of this. And it would have probably played out differently. I just think he's too good, even if he had stayed, you know, even if he'd say, I think he would have developed a skill set enough to have made a, you know, to have made a say in that whole scenario, the way it played out over the years. It would have been very interesting to see him against some of those guys, but I am happy he's back, man, and it's unusual to kind of get a guy to come back and to look

as good as he has, you know, at his advanced stage, not that he's that old, but 35 and he's been in a lot of fights. To come back and look this good, like he's really the contender that he was, he seemed like he could develop into. That's fun, man. You look at his losses too. So he has the loss to Kai Socorah, he avenged it. He had the loss to Sergio Pettus.

He avenged it. And then he had the lost Apache Mix. And of course, if you watch that fight, it ended up being, I think like 48, 47. Yeah. Mix dominated him. I should say not dominate him, but was able to get the win by basically just getting back control.

And now you look at it and it's like Mix is a big bansom weight and is now going to 45. So that one's kind of, it's like, it's not that Horoguchi is unbeatable. It's that he is a very refined version of himself now. Yeah. He's still very fleet of foot. In this particular fight, by the way, the counter punching against Albaazi, like Albaazi would come over with a right and there would be Horoguchi to come over with on top of it with the left and then catch him while he's punching and then just light him on fire that way.

So it's not like you think, well, he's, you know, lights out the best flyweight, but it is the case that on any, night, it seems like the title's up for grabs if Hora Gucci is there, right? It seems like 100%. Right. He's good enough. Yeah. And I mean, he, what was I think seven take down attempts over the course of this last fight couldn't get couldn't get it done. I just feel like he's just solid, right? Like he's solid. He's going to keep the fight where he wants it super quick with some of his striking and just his footwork. And like when you look at all of that, man, like I was going to ask you essentially like if you put him against Joshua Van, let's say that this. happens in the summer.

Who are you favoring in that fight? Because I think, I think Hora Gucci would just given his experience and where he's at would probably be like, I don't know if you'd be the betting favorite, but he'd be in my mind the favorite to win that fight. That's such a tough one, right? Because Van is very good about combination striking and then kind of like a volume of offense. But at the same time, he leaves so many openings. You would just wonder if a guy who's,

fleet of foot who can touch and go, what kind of damage could a guy like that do? Plus, I think his wrestling has gotten a little bit better and his, and his, grappling control has gotten a little bit better as well. So, like, there's that. I mean, it'd be a close fight. It'd be a really, really close fight. And I think for that reason, it'd be kind of interesting. The thing is this, it's like, you know, it's so funny, right?

You were mentioning Demetrius Johnson, who we live through his prime and his run in the UFC. And there's some conversations about it now, obviously, because here comes Horaguchi back again. And I just remember at the time, everyone being like, oh, you know, DJ is good, but, you know, we, he doesn't, to your point, move the needle. And now he's like a gigantic YouTuber, you know what I mean? Yes, one and it's like, you just kind of got to wait for your time to happen. And sure enough, he did and now look at the results. And then same thing with Horoguchi where it's like, was he ready at 24 for DJ back at that time? Maybe not, you know, but now look at him.

Now it's a very, very different situation. And it just feels like if he didn't get another title shot in this. version of himself, the matchmakers would have failed this division a little bit. That's kind of how I feel. What was the show you did? It was a room service diaries, the ones where you'd bring people on the couch and you guys had the porn set up basically the

Yeah, and then we would bag him's furniture. Yes. Yeah. That's right. So, remember I was, I sat in with you guys once on the Demetrius one and we talked about like, why didn't he translate? And one of the things he said is like

if social media had been what it was when he was basically, you know, there when he was the guy and he had that big streak, he felt like he would have 100% been more celebrated. But he just, he felt at the time, like, you know,

like the platforms were different and all this stuff and we just didn't see it. I kind of agree with him. You know what I mean? Because he's handled himself like through social media and like, you know, like you mentioned podcasting and all the things he's been doing. Like that is part of his personality. I think a lot of him would have come out more so if that was available to him back then.

Yeah. I sometimes you're thrust into the spotlight before the world is ready to receive you. And I think it was something like that with Horaguchi. Now Horaguchi, you showed the rankings. Put the graphic back up here for just a second, Long Island. This is who has a fight schedule. So we've got Pantoja sitting there. The thing is, Manel Kopp also kind of deserves a title shot.

Yeah. So like I'm of the belief that with Horoguchi, and I'm sure he's going to move up past Albasi, so let's say he moves into the sixth spot, right? You still have some of these other figures out there. Now Moreno obviously has a fight scheduled. Royvold, do you want to go that direction? Unfortunately, I'll just say this. I think they should do Horaguchi versus Tyra because cop is sitting up there.

There's just too much of a bottleneck. And now there's no way to resolve. I don't, I don't, it's just a tough situation, Chuck. You just got to have them go against somebody else. I guess it's a good problem to have, especially in that division, because for the longest time, it felt like you had kind of two or three guys and they were just switching each other out and fighting. So if you've got five viable options at this point,

you know, you could have the fight. You can redo Van Pantosia. You could have copse sitting in the wings, and you could do that fight, and I think that that would be a fine way to do it. And if the, it all comes down to Pantosia, and I haven't really read too much about when his return is, but if he's coming back in the summer, you know,

I think that that's what they should do. I think that they should basically keep Horaguchi busy. And if you're going to do that, I think the Tyra fight makes a lot of sense. I want to talk about Amir al-Bazi for a little bit here. Long Island-Luque found this image or this AI image asking why he looked so not infirm is the word, but just didn't do a lot. And here he is holding a bong. This is AI, obviously, for folks out there.

The man's was high as shit on Saturday. But here's the thing. Or it's possible you were, Long Island, Luke, and he just looked anyway. That's 100% confirmed. Al-Albazi, to me, first of all, he has a coach, Ozzie de Gullab golf, which a lot of people won't know that name, but to me he's one of the best coaches in MMA. He's like a savant when it comes to, particularly the wrestling side of the game, although more than just that.

But, dude, listen to these numbers from Al-Bazi. He landed three significant strikes in round one. He landed eight significant strikes in round two, and then just five. Dude, my guy was going up there. in a top eight matchup, and he couldn't amount more than single digit output at any point. Again, partly a big testament to the fleet of footness, so to speak, of Horaguchi, but at the same time,

0 for 2 on takedowns in round 1, 0 for 1 on takedowns in round 2, 0 for 4 on take downs in round 3. Chuck, he couldn't do shit to this guy. He could not do. And it's always, I mean, we're looking at through the other, lens, right? Like, you're looking at it from Horoguchi, but like from that standpoint, and especially I guess if you're betting on this guy, you're, you're waiting on him to do anything.

I wonder to an extent, you know, a guy, because what did he, he had like five wins. He was definitely this close, you know, to like punching his ticket to becoming like a, you know, a contender. He loses to Moreno, right? And like, does that like, sometimes you get a guy who returns off a loss, the first when he suffered a long time. sometimes the only loss. And they just show up in such a, like some different form, like they're not there.

And I felt like that was, maybe that was the case. It just didn't seem like he was, the urgency was there. It seemed like he was second guessing himself a little bit. It didn't look like the same guy who was kind of running up the ranks to start his UFC career.

So it's interesting you bring that up. He won his first one, two, three, four, five fights. Okay. However, there's something worth noting here. He beats Kaikara France in 23 via split decisions.

Caius of France had 99 significant strikes. Albazi just 43. Against Brandon Moreno, Moreno had 132 significant strikes. Elbazi just 63. And then Horaguchi had 73 significant strikes against him. Albazi just 16. So he's been numerically outstruck in all of them. But at least in the case of Moreno and France,

he lost the Moreno fire too. He was able to get at least one takedown on those. He couldn't get any of them. against Horiguchi and this one. Dude, his offense is just withering. It's withering. He's able to do less and less of it over time. And you add to that, he fought once in 2020, in the UFC anyway, once in 2021. He did fight two times in 2022, Chuck, but just once in 2023, once in 2024, not at all in 2025. And now here's his first fight in 26. It seems to me that the inactivity, and I know he's had some injury and some health issues.

The inactivity is decimating the development of his game. That's what it looks like to me. Yeah, I would agree with that. And it sucks for him, man, because I thought that this might be a good, a very good chance for him, right? Because I feel like Horaguchi, the spotlight's gone on him. You steal the guy's juice and all of a sudden you're right back in that conversation.

And it was the furthest from that, man. I mean, both of those fights at the top were almost showcases for the guys who won, right? Like they ended up being just, yeah, just straight up like guys showing how good like the gap between them and the, and they do their fighting. So that was tough to watch, man. Honestly, like it was fun to watch Horaguchi kind of get that done. But it was tough to watch if you're looking at it from Albaazi just given, I really believed he was kind of, you know, bookmarked for for a title run. And now he's really, really behind the eight ball. He's going to have to go on a run to even get back in that conversation.

How old is Albaazi? Let's see. Alvazi currently sits at 32. Right. 32. You know, if you're hitting the reset button at 32 at 125. Especially when you're looking more like holstered and, you know, like trepidation. Like it's one thing, Horiguchi's 35, but the dude has been kind of on an escalation and he's actually holding a bar of his own excellent.

Like he's just holding the bar of what he does well. Whereas you look at a guy like that. and it's a little puzzling. Like you mentioned those striking things. I guess you see it. Like the discrepancy is in striking and him just not pulling the trigger. But this one seemed even way,

this seemed way worse to me. It just seemed like there was no moment. Like the pattern was established and it seemed like there was no moment for Albaazi. There was never going to be a moment in this fight. So I guess I guess the count, the slight counter to that would be he did knock down Horoguchi in round one, I believe.

Do they count that as a knockdown? Let me see. did they count that as a knockdown? They don't. They don't count that as a knockdown. But I know the moment you're talking about. Yeah. It did kind of look like that.

So you could say, well, I still didn't score the first round for him. I still thought. But you at least had one moment. We were like, okay, well, maybe there's a power versus volume thing here. Yeah. But then he, dude, then he got rocked. His shit rocked in the second. And you got his shit rocked in the third.

And you're like, man, you're just, there's just nowhere for you to go here. There's nowhere to hide in this fight. Fight game's so weird, man. It's like, it's just so weird. Like, you'll see guys sometimes just fall off out of nowhere. I have no idea if he's really falling off. But, I mean, you just can't throw, you can't land 16 significant strikes over the course of a 50, you know, 15 minute fight. You just can't do that.

Well, unless you're at heavyweight. True. Oh, man. You can't. Which is a segue when you're here. Which we'll get to in just a minute. But against against a top guy at 25. and not a title shot fight, but kind of like, all right, who's going to do a top five thing here kind of fight.

Yeah. You can't. I mean, you just. Whose offense was more offensive to you? The New England Patriots or Albaughzi? Which one of them offended you more watching? No, the Patriots. Any point that they scored.

Ineptitude, right? Like that was my soul. Yeah. He hurt my soul. And I will say, though, my wife was cheering for Christian Gonzalez, you know, the Colombian guy who plays. You look good. You look really good. Dude, he broke up a.

couple of good passes. He looked real good. But yes, whenever they score, I'm always like, God, fucking damn it. Yeah, that was one of the, actually, you mentioned that. One of the prop pets I did have was JSN Smith and Jigbo to catch, because he's the stud of the league, right? Like, receiver, for him to catch five,

five passes. This was just part of a parley at minus 620. I just threw it on there, and he only caught four in large part because of your boy there, man. He, like, shut him down. His dad, by the way, Christian Gonzalez's dad is a Colombian guy, like from Columbia. He He's six, nine. I've been going to Columbia for 15 years. I show up there like Andre the giant

every time I'm there. A six nine native Colombian is like, you know, I mean, once every thousand years or something. You six four? Six five. Six four, yeah. Okay. Dude, I tower over people there. Tower. It's kind of funny. We'll come back to that. We'll come back to this card in just a minute. But first, let me tell you about something that we should, well, it's important to me. It's important to me. It's important to. the show. It's important to M-K. We are already a month into, actually more than a month into 26. If you're aiming, don't let those New Year's resolutions go to be healthier and keep nutrition top of mind. There's an easy way to stay on track without cutting corners or compromising

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Thank you to Huel for partnering and supporting our show. If you're busy, ladies and gentlemen, this is a game changer. Right here. Huel. Hul.com slash combat-1-5. All right. Very good. Big thanks to our friends over at Huell. Let's go to topic number three. And this is one when I sent the rough draft of the rundown. I didn't know if Chuck was going to want to play ball. And then he saw it. He was like, oh, hell yeah, I want to play a ball. And I was like, yes, let's do it. I am not even kidding when I say this. And my question is as follows, Chuck, but let me explain my reasoning for just a second. My question is as follows. Should the UFC consider getting rid of the heavyweight division? And I bring this up because of what we saw on Saturday night, namely in the Risvan Kunia fight with Jelton Almeida.

Now Kunia ends up winning a unanimous decision event. Jelton Almeida, by the way, 0 for 8 on takedowns. Here are his striking numbers, 5 for 12, 8 for 21, and he picks it up a little bit in the third, although he whiffed on four takedowns hitting 18 significant strikes. But it was a disaster of a fight. It was awful. We didn't need it.

And here's the reason why I'm asking this question, Chuck. we have a disastrous situation at heavyweight where there's virtually nothing of any kind of high quality. Taito Ivasa is still ranked. Is Owen six in his last six and hasn't won in four years. But the problem gets magnified when you realize they don't want to sign Francis Angano. And they tried to sign Rico, but it appears that they didn't offer him enough money. So he went to go box instead. My question to you is, Chuck, what is the point of keeping around heaven?

heavyweight. If you're not developing talent that comes up to supply it from the bottom, and you're unwilling to bid on the services of the best heavyweights or to bear minimum, in the case of Rico Verhoeven, a very, very interesting and fun signing for as long as that would last. But again, with Francis and Ghanu, and everyone's going to say, well, they got sideways with Francis, and, you know, Rico decided to go do boxing. And my point is, well, then what are we doing? Why are we keeping this division around if you cannot sign from the top down and you're unable to build from the bottom up. What is the point, Chuck?

Man, you did bring this up and when was the last, like, honestly, can you even recall the last really good heavyweight fight you saw in the O.C? Because it's like, I was thinking about this, and I know they probably exist, but like, it seems more often than not that we, that they kind of end, like, this is kind of how they end these days. This particular fight, especially

on the heels of the Twyvasa fight where he just couldn't even must have the strength to get up and deliver the fatal blow at the end just to kind of get that victory. To see this fight, like, it's just, I don't even know how to explain it, man. Like, it just, it's such, like, especially in the apex, it's just such a soul-sucking moment to me, because you see how it's playing out. There's nothing going on. Jailton and Alameda looks like he'd rather be anywhere, honestly, than fighting in that fight. And he's just getting pushed up against the cage. The referee is like, guys, please start moving. Then he has to step in there and basically pry them apart and set it again just so it can resume back on the

cage, a guy posting them up. This is what occurs to you, man. It's almost like back in the day, there was no interest or there was little interest in the feather in the fly weights and the UFC considered sawing it off. If you take that logic at all and you look at the heavyweight division, particularly for the reason that you just outlined, all of the excitement that they can fuse into it, they are just not getting done or they have no interest in doing that. One of them being a vendetta with Francis and Ghana,

who would at least add an element of the bigness of what you're trying to achieve there, right? Like a guy returning, some people might see him as the best heavyweight going. You plug him into a situation where you got Aspinall, you know, and hopefully he's able to come back, but you've got a couple of guys. Suddenly you're working with something. But right now, especially with RICO and just anybody that would spice things up, John Jones, they can't seem to work things out. Now he's talking about an arthritic hip.

It's not an outrageous question, man. I mean, you went through this exercise, right? Like, we were talking about 10 years ago in the UFC, like what it looked like, what did the heavyweight division look like compared to now? And when you look at that, you know, Bredom, Velasquez, JDS, Steepay was still there, Arlofsky, Travis Brown, Barnett, Hunt, you know, you go down those names. You're like, any iteration of that was pretty good. but then you get down to like, you know,

you know, maybe Rothwell and Oberim and like, that's kind of where we're at now. It's like the dudes at the top, you know, you've got blades, you've got like Almeida, Spivak, Typurah, like those types of guys, they would have been, you know,

this would have been the fringe outside, the top 10 in those days. And it's just so what are we doing? We haven't built that division. There's very few young guys. I don't know if there's a single guy in that top 15 that's below. I don't know if anybody's below 30 years old.

And a couple of them, when you get down to like, you know, Derek Lewis and Tyborough, they're in their 40s. It's just, it's, I don't know why you would, honestly, in this form, it wouldn't even hurt me if they were like, nah, we're just doing away with it. Would it bother you? No, no. Well, I don't, I know, here's the thing to me. I don't understand what the point is of keeping it around if you're not going to try to

make it great, right? So if you want to keep it around because, hey, listen, we don't like Francis, but we know it's good for business. We'll sign them to a three-fight deal. He'll fight three times and be on his way. Something to, you know, to staunch the bleeding. That's one way to go. You know, give Rico a big signing bonus to come over here. You know, like the UFC is printing money.

No one can argue with a straight face that they don't have the money for it or that they're going to be out, like they're going to be outbid by. you know, some other kind of MMA promotion. Now, I guess if Rico wants boxing money and he's going to fight, you know, I don't know, Ussick or something like that, you know, that's a little harder to compete with, fair enough. But at the same time, again, there's other options about what they could have done or who they can sign or who they can attract. And that's just not happening. And it's like if your whole, if your whole reason for letting Verhoeven walk is that you underbid him, you're not willing to sign Francis, presumably when he becomes available. Then what are we doing? Right.

Then what are we, what is the point of this? At a bare minimum, please stop putting this on the main card. At a bare minimum, fire this. If you just need content because you need a certain amount of bodies on the roster, divided up by division to just, you know, make the content demands at the end of the month, then fine, do that, I guess. But put it on the prelims because this is a waste of everyone's time. This is not world-class fighting.

Who on earth can look at that fight? and say this is world-class MMA. It's not. It's absolutely not world-class MMA by any measurement whatsoever. And I don't understand what the point is of crushing all of your competitors, having all the money in the world, and you're underbidding people who you desperately need. It can't be both. It can't be both.

Like, this is a division that's important to us, but we're just not willing to invest in it because we have these demands that we put on ourselves and we don't want to like pay guys a bunch of money. Okay. If that's the way it needs to go, I don't want to see them on main cards anymore. I don't want to see it. And I'll say this much too, Chuck. I'm not saying that this guy I'm about to name would beat Aspinall or Gahn, because I do think that they are a little too fast, a little too athletic.

However, Tim Sylvia would beat the fuck out of the vast majority of the guys on this roster. And you don't understand. Tim Sylvia, when he beat Gann McGee, this was at the same time that, Pride had like Fador and Krokop and like Nogera and all these guys. And people were like, yeah, yeah, you got the leftovers there at the U.S. Heavyweight Division. Those leftovers would beat the vast majority of the guys on the roster today. What is the point of keeping that as just urban blight sitting on the divisional landscape?

Cut that shit off and put it out of sight. I don't want to see it anymore. I agree with you 100% man. And I was not that you get nostalgic for, you know, some of the, some of the times that we've had. But remember UFC 146? It was like a, I think the whole main card was heavyweights. Like they had, yeah.

Yeah, they had, they, they were able to do that. I don't know how long ago that was. It's probably more than a 10 years ago. It was probably like 12 or 13 years ago. That was, uh, the, that was, uh, May of 2012. Okay. So going back to that, you know, you just, you look at that. And I just remember at the time, you're thinking, look at this heavyweight division.

There's so many possibilities here. It was awesome that they could just put them all on a main card. And what the UFC has always done really well is just kind of feed the imagination of what comes next. What comes next with this guy and this guy and this guy? That's what it was fun when Brock Lesnar was in there. And some of these guys, like at that time, because you could, you could kind of matchmake future fights. What is anybody doing that? Is anybody doing that with the heavyweight division?

Now, do you look at it and does it let your imagination go wild of? I'd love to see this guy fight this guy. or this guy fight this guy. It just, it doesn't even do that. It doesn't captivate the imagination. And at that point, and if you're not going to bring in the guys who would try to do that, you know, like they're the guys who might galvanize that action, like where you'd be, you know, Rico would be fun to plug him into some of these scenarios because the partition is down.

He's a huge star, you know, in his country. And I just, to me, that would be very interesting to see how that plays out. But they can't, they can't get that done. You know, and Francis and Ghana, we've shut the door on that. like you don't even give hope for that type of scenario. I'm with you, man. I mean, as crazy as it sounds, I don't see the value of having it, you know, around right now.

It's just it's not a, you look, we were just talking about flyweight where there's five guys that you can like mix and match. And you're like, oh, any of these would be good. I just, you can't even do that. You can't, like, nobody would care. Nobody would care about the heavyweight, the top five guys if you tried to mix and match them, would they?

No, no. Again, you got, I'm not saying this. is the case for Kuniev or Almeida in particular. Almeida still looks very, very physically strong. But like half the guys on the roster look like their biggest loser contestants and not even ultimate fighter, you know. And Almeida, man, I was high on him a couple years ago. And it's like one of those things you're like, well, may.

Almeida? Yeah, Almeida. I was like, I thought maybe he might turn into something. But I said, I think it was Ben Folks. He was like, does anybody check with him to make sure he wants to be doing this? You know, like, does he want to be fighting? Or is it like one of those like him being polite and just kind of going through the motions of it. because honestly, man, that was about as disinterested as you could be.

Did you see it that way? It did not look like he wanted to be fighting. He just looks like, look, he looks to me like he's got one way to win. And if that happens, great, he'll work it out. But if not, you know, there's nothing else that's going to happen. By the way, that card you mentioned, UFC 146, this was at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. JDS versus Frank Meir in the main event, he gets his lights punched out. in round two,

co-main event. Kane Velasquez beats the fuck. Oh, right. I remember that one. Tony of Silva. stops him in the first. Roy Nelson knocks out Dave Herman in the first. Peewee Herman was a fun guy.

Roy Nelson, Roy Nelson, Black Mountain Jiu-Jitsu, IFL champion. You know, this guy did some shit back in the day. Steve Miochich beats Shane del Rosario, rest in peace to Shane Del Rosario. And of course,

Dib Mioch, arguably, greatest UFC heavyweight ever. And then Stefan Strove arm bars, Levar Johnson in the first round. Now, not all... Big Johnson. Yeah, LeVar Big. Johnson. That was his name. I think you went back to prison, by the way. I'm not sure.

But, you know, the point I'm trying to make is not all of these guys are also world beaters, but just you could have an entire card with some very good heavy weights and then some decent heavy weights. And it kind of fulfilled the job that it needed. You could never do this today. You could absolutely never do this. And here's who's available now. Again, Volkov, I appreciate his improvement. Okay. Pavlovich, all right, and Blades, all right. And Waldo Cortez-A-Costa is athletic, but it's like, you know, there's just not, yeah, he's athletic in a time when, you know, he's also feasting on whatever's left. Basically, everything after that is, is, is, he's herring, he would beat most of these guys, you know? Yes. Who, who was like, what's your skill? He's like,

I'm just Texas tough. I know. You know, like, what else? Like, dude, Nogera? What would New, no, Gera do these guys? He would fucking smash them. This is absurd. It's absurd. And I just, My only request is I know that they're not going to listen to me. I know they're not going to listen to a show like this. But if there's a way for any of them to hear, please stuff this on the prelim card. Because this is a complete, for the car. Especially the juxtaposition between a heavyweight and the flyweight fight. It always, it always seems like you just like electrons are suddenly, you know, it's just when they, because it's so mired in slow sludginess.

And then you go to like this flyweight fight and it seems like you can't even keep up with it. You know, it's like a double speed. Bro, they had, think about this, on this main card, it was the Batista fight, the Horiguchi fight, the Kunio fight, the Aleccccic fight, you know, go down the list, pick anyone from the prelim fight. You could have had, by the way, the Donchenko fight against Morno, that would have been a little bit more fun. Dude, how about Javid Bosharad versus Gianni Vasquez?

That fight was great. That was a great fight. How is that not a better use of the customer's time to watch than watching fucking Kuneev and Almeida do nothing? I just, it was the first time in my life, I was like, if they, I remember when the UFC got rid of lightweight in, it's like, 2007, following the Josh Thompson and Eves Edwards fight. And at the time, it was a little bit of a shock, in part because of you thought they could have reconstituted it. And they eventually, of course, brought it back and then it had its heyday. But it's like, I've seen the UFC cut divisions do.

I've seen it. I've lived through it. I don't, I, who's going to. miss heavyweight when it goes. Yeah. You'll, you'll, you know what you would miss, Chuck? You would miss the concept of heavyweight. You would miss the idea of heavyweight. I mean, in boxing, it's established as you don't get any bigger, right?

Like, if it's, and I don't mean like in the literal sense of physical stature. I'm saying, like, you, in terms of a heavyweight title fight in boxing still translates for everybody. I mean, they've had golden eras come through that feature some of the people we still talk about 50 years later and even before that, but like, you know, you think about that all the time. And that's just not the case in the UFC, you know, it's almost like at this point, it's a little bit of a dead spot on a schedule. And I thought, you know, going into this one, I have to be honest, you're hoping that you're wrong, but I saw that the potential of this fight being exactly

what it turned out to be. It's just not a very exciting prospect when you book those. I would love to see what the internal data shows UFC about average customer interest in heavyweight fights or fights like this in the broadcast and what it does to viewership. I'd really, I'd be curious to see because again, I think people certainly will always have a romantic ideal for heavyweight, but the blinkered reality of it is a nuclear Chernobyl level wasteland of nothing. and it's a waste of everyone's time to watch this shit. It really is. And then also, I mean, honestly, like, let's say that Aspinall, you know, they, they run that back at some point this year, Aspinall beats gone. What's behind it? Like, what excites you behind that?

Like, that's, that's part of the problem. It's just there's just not like, there's just nothing coming up that's exciting about it. I don't know. Well, good thing you're not going to sign Francis and they were too cheap to sign Rico. great great amazing John doesn't seem to want the fight and he's got an arthritic hip so yeah yeah but he'll fight he'll fight the right fight

just not the one that any of us want all right let's go to topic number four let's switch gears here a little bit and talk about the pfl Dubai card pretty good card actually in the end let's start with that main event Chuck so in the main event Usman and Mugamatov made pretty for the most part pretty easy work of Alfie Davis getting a rear naked choke with the

arm in almost like an Ezekiel from the back in the third round as a indicated. So the question is this. It was not like this, listen, we saw the odds heading in on Friday. We talked about it here in MK. Usman was a gigantic favor heading into that fight. So in that sense, you kind of got what you were expecting. However, it does bring up an interesting question, namely among all heavy weights worldwide, Chuck. Where would you rank Usman Nirmigameadov today? Okay. So we'd have to look at the UFC's rankings. And do you have them up? Because I do I do have. I mean, so basically, where's Justin Gachie?

Currently sitting, Justin Gachie sits at, I mean, he's number one. Okay. I mean, obviously, right. I get it. So are you kidding sitting at two, Oliver three, max four. Those are tough fights. Like, if you're looking at a, how do you gauge it? Because with a guy like Usman who, like, you know, the brand names that he's fought, the Paul Hughes fight was very good, right? He had to show some metal and then he kind of looked a little more convincing in the rematch. But like, if he, if you gauge, like, you know, Benson Henderson, I think, was near 40 years old when he fought him, right?

And Petrieky was, like, in his late 30s. So it's like, you know, how do you kind of gauge it? But I do think that, like, just his pedigree, like, you know, where he comes from the guys who he trains with and everything and just what we've seen of him and what he's been able to do, even in this fight that we're talking about, I put him right up there. I think he beats Justin Gaichi. But, I mean, obviously, like, if you're looking at, there's a lot of, make him number one. I don't know about like those, like, but wouldn't it be fascinating to find out

what would happen against Serookin, right? A guy like that fighting one of these guys like Max Holloway, I think he beats him, you know, so I'm probably putting him up. If you kind of, if you look at Gachie as a, you know, like a guy hovering in the top three, let's say, and you put Serookin, I'm probably putting him right there, like right around there. I would put him above Gachie and right around Serookin. Where would you stick him out? Yeah. So, yeah. I was, I, I, I, I think death I think

Usman and Mugamadeoff and it's not of course not just based on the Alfie Davis performance but I would say that following Saturday

I think he's firmly top five I don't really have any issue with top five I think top three is a little harder to say because I think Toporia is definitely

the best guy sure the Sarukian fight to me is pretty interesting I would also say I do think that like people are kind of

sleeping on them a little bit. I do think that the Olivaa and Holloway fights would be really interesting. Especially the Holloway fight because he's got pretty good take down defense and a really great and consistent jab, good footwork, good movement, which could prove to be a real problem. The belief that I have, Chuck, is that Umar Nirmagamadov and Usman Nirmagamadav are very, very good, but they're a step down from Habib. Yes. And the reason why I say that is because Habib was not as well rounded as them. That is true. They are, they can, they can do a wider array of things within MMA. But they are, again, I know he finished Alfie Davis, credit to them. But in general, to me, they're not dynamic finishers. They're much more control

positioners, score and touch and go, you know, find a way to land and then secure a kind of control position. And they don't have a great ability to hurt their opponent. Whereas Habib was making you play a game of take down, pass, sub, ground, and bound. And you're trying to navigate all of them at once. And he had like, dude, he was vicious on top, you know. Yeah. They don't have that. They don't have that gear. So that is going to keep guys in fights who have pretty good defense a little bit longer. Oliveras got, at least on the ground, certainly, some pretty good defense. And then, you know, again, I think, I think Holloway has got really strong defense. So for me, top five, I could even say top three, but I do not think

that the evidence shows that he's the best lightweight on Earth. I can't go that far. No, and I mean, I didn't even consider, like I wasn't considering Toporre just as a champion, but I'm obviously, I mean, but that would be a fascinating fight because I do feel that like when you have you know, guy like Usman who you've seen him fight guys that he's supposed

to beat and sometimes struggling because I know in talking to Pizzi Carroll like that first fight with Paul Hughes, you know, in Ireland, they saw it a different way than the scorecards, right? Ended up being but you know, I think that when you're supposed to be,

guys like that, it's tough to kind of show anybody anything because he was supposed, like, I don't even know what the line ended up being on this, on this last fight, but I know he's a sizable favorite. If he goes against any of the guys we're talking about, obviously that line is a lot different. And there's a, there's a big public perception. Wow, he was a minus 1850. I had no idea. I had no idea. It was that big, dude. Jesus. I had no idea. But I mean, to me, that's, that's why sometimes you're like, you like when the PFL has a guy like this or, you know, a rival, you know,

promotion has a guy that you believe could go into the UFC and do some work and maybe even become a champion because that's, you know, that's level in the plan field on some level, you know, like, but I'm more fascinated to find out, you know, at some point. Like, how does he, how does he go up against these guys? To me, that would be a lot of fun. If he ends up, because I know he's fighting out, like,

uh, his contract at this point, like, right? like he's within a fighter too. I think I'm kind of like, you tell me, but I would like to find out at some point, right? Like, would you rather he stay there, like in the PFL or what would you, what are your druthers? Let's see how he reacted to this question

from MMA junkies, Mike Bonn, and then we'll react. Okay. How many times do you want to fight in 2026? I know how many times I will fight. I know it's going to be like only two times. Two times. It's going to begin and end of the end of the. year like like that yeah do i have on contract two more fights and after this fight i think we're

going to be seat to spoke to speak about future yeah i asked uh yeah i asked alie abdelaziz we did an interview uh last week in los vegas and i was asking and he said you're very happy with pfl but only a couple fights left in the deal but uh if you go to u fc it can't be for a pay cut they have to treat you well and uh he likes what pfl's paying you We'll see, brother, you know. We'll see what's going to be, how they're going to be interesting me. Because in PFL, I have everything is good, you know. I'm the champion.

And there is, there is, have a lot of contenders. You can grow there. Like, look, last by two fights. I think my opinion, I grow because I was fight with Beast. It was Paul Hughes. He made me grow. For sure, he grew to. and like PFL is good.

You can make you study here too. Just the questions, what are they going to be? Give me, like how we're going to be spoke. We'll see, we'll see. Now, first of all, I have to finish this guy. What do you think, Chuck? Oh, man. I mean, I don't know if the UFC, like, do you know what he's making in PFL?

Because I don't know, like, we just were going on about this with Rico. and I would assume that they really do like that name, Norma Madov. They like having it on their posters. And so there's a chance that they may do that. Like they may shell out and get a guy like that. I hope so in that sense. Like I would rather see him.

Like who would he fight? If he's staying in PFL, it's almost like the Dakota de Chiva thing, right? Like you're like, well, she's becoming a star on her own and she's doing all this. But who's out there for her? Unless they create something, unless they bring somebody in. It's more and more difficult to find relevant fights or fights that are going to move the needle or even show you their own evolution at this point. So in a career, like a legacy perspective, like career, I'd rather he go to the UFC.

I just would like to see how he does against some of the guys we were talking about. There's also an interesting argument to make about the UFC. Like to your point, I totally agree. Like when, you know, when Habib is cornering Usman, they'll have a Habib cam at these events, the PFL. Dude, that was doing tape study for Friday. show last week and I forget which fight I was watching. I obviously went over a bunch. But I remember there were, Connor McGregor was at one of them and they had a McGregor cam there. And I was like, he doesn't even fight like, he doesn't fight for your organization, nor is he even cornering anyone

who's fighting for your organization. At least Habib is in the corner working the thing, you know, so they, any kind of celebrity they can get like that they enjoy. And I think, you know, listen, if you can make big money, my understand, he does make some pretty good. money for the you know relatively speaking sure um so that you know that he may end up staying it's just there is an argument to consider that listen you look at the top of lightway as i indicated and we pull the rankings back up you've got the top you've got seporea gaiti won't be here for too much longer but you've soon got armin sar yuki and you still got max and charles hanging around here comes b sd patty you know i don't know if he's really going to turn it to

much that's at six now seven gamrott who's good but i think as you've kind of seen the limit of it hooker You know, we all love Dan, but there's limits to that as well. Hoofie's sitting at nine. We'll see what happens to him. And then, you know, the 10 and Moikano and 11 is Viziv. What I'm trying to make is at the top, you still have some pretty good names and some pretty good matchups. But the lightweight division is not quite as filled out as it once was.

Getting a guy like Hussman Numer Gamedov added to that when he is still actually pretty young. Numer Germenov currently sits just 27 years of age, Chuck. I always forget he's the younger brother. Bumar. For some reason I was... Yeah, exactly. He's 21 fights. He's 27 years of age. In my view, he's probably top five in the world, maybe a little bit higher. That'd be a great signing for them to have to really begin to fill out more of that division. That's the thing that they want to do. Yeah. And I mean, like I was saying, I just don't know who, you can you name who would be next for him in PFL? I guess that's what it comes down to us. I'll tell you what the PFL rankings say, and that'll probably

answer our questions. I mean, there's a couple of guys, right? Like, but they're just, Rabinova already lost to Alvis, right? Albi, so it's like... So you have Godzi Rabatinov who Alfie beat. You do have Archie Colgan, who's interesting and undefeated and has a wrestling background, but to me is just not nearly as well... I mean, not even close to as well-rounded as Usman.

You do have Paul Hughes, but can you pull the trigger on a trilogy fight? Not yet. And then after that, you know, JJ Wilson sitting at seven is kind of interesting to me. So is Alexander should believe, but I don't think either of them are necessarily going to get out of beaters, you know? Yeah, I mean, selfishly, selfishly is this like from the fan perspective in me.

Like, I would rather see him going against the guys. You, it's, I mean, 27 years old, too, man. This is a guy who is not even, he hasn't entered his prime yet. He hasn't even entered his prime. So to me, like, it would be, you know, to see him go up against the litmus test, are we bouncing back and forth here? Yeah, like the long out of Luke, you're having a stroke back there, buddy? He said his computer's bugging out.

I saw it like in the side note here. So there we go. There he is. Sorry, guys. My shit was bugging. I think we're good. You all right there, buddy? Have little problems at home?

Dude, my whole thing. You guys were glitching out for like five minutes. I refreshed. And then when I refreshed to add my, whatever. We're good now. All right. All right. So yeah, man, just from that perspective,

I would love to see him against the guys in the UFC. By the way, very quickly, we have Alfie Davis reflecting on this loss. If you can play that long out. I heard my corner say 30 seconds left. And I was like, oh, I just chill here and wait. really gonna get this and the next week and I'm waking up he had a monster squeeze on him yeah what was going on on your mind when you wake up you know well I woke up with Khabi in my face I was like it's weird maybe even if you've

ever been choked out it's like a sort of weird buzzy feeling and then I woke up was like where am I I was like oh there I am but yeah so fortunate so did you talk to Usman right at ox's fight yeah he was very respectful to be fair all very respectful I think his Laa Macachie gave the best comment. He laughed at me and said, Hey, brother, now it's one-one. It's very funny. I don't get it. What's the one-one joke?

I don't know, Alan. I don't know what that is. Because he beat Gadsie Rabatinov. Ah, I see, I see, I see. I see. You go team-mate thing. And then last but not least, just take a look at this tweet from Bronsetter, who was our guest on last Friday. I'm told that PFL Dubai will not be available to watch in Canada or Brazil, Chuck. Jesus.

And two powerhouse, at least one powerhouse, but certainly, you know, Canada did have a time or it was a powerhouse market. Dude, I don't understand the PFLs. They've got their deal with ESPN Plus, and this was actually in addition to it, so it doesn't fit neatly within the framework of content that they've got. But it's just is like, you got your pound for pound number one guy,

and you can't showcase him. It's a problem. It's a problem. PFL stands for pretty freaking limited, Luke. That's what it stands for. With that in my horn, where's my horn? He must be... Yeah, exactly. Where's his horn?

Fuckface? There you go. He would do that with BC. He would laugh at all of BC's jokes and then I have a banger. I'm struggling through tech issues. He'd give me the crickets and shit, you know? Put down the bong. Oh, man.

You're not supposed to be funny, Luke. Yeah, exactly. But sometimes I can't help myself. All right. Topic number five, if we can here. Co-main event of that PFL card. We'll talk a little bit about the rest of it as well. So this was interesting.

Ramazan Karamagamagamadav defeated Shamil Musayah, which I was very surprised by. I thought Musayev would have won, but no. Kurumagamatov does, and he does so for the most part, pretty convincingly, there was a point deduction in the fourth round against Musayev, okay, which made him the Walterweight champion, Chuck. And you're like, wow, that's amazing. Like, this is incredible.

He beat somebody really good, and he's now the champion, and PFL finally is, you know, sorting out the division. We're not going to have, like, PFL Europe, you know, but fuck champion or whatever they do with their designation. But then he just, just retired as soon as it was over. And I'm like, this is my question to you.

What is PFL supposed to do with this? I don't know. And I feel like he caught him completely off guard because Dan Hardy's in there. And he's trying to talk about like, you know, the big performance and all that. And meantime guys like, I think I'm done, man. I, you know, I think he's, I hope that's not the case. You know, he's trying to talk him out of it in real time. And he's like, no, I think I'm done.

I mean, that was just, I haven't seen something like that. I think usually in the pre-production, they might have some kind of inkling of this happened. This struck me as like that they had no idea that that was coming, you know? Poor Dan Hardy, bro. I know. I felt like he was like, oh, now what? You know, he's like, well, I hope at the end, he's like, he signs off like,

well, I hope we see you again, you know. Just like, bro, I hate it when like I do this kind of thing too. And like, listen, at the end of the day, it's the athletes. turn to talk. Like when I interview fighters post-fight, you know, it's the athletes turn to talk. And especially if they win, I mean, sometimes you'll talk to both, obviously, but in a case where the athlete wins, my view has always been, I need to ask them questions that I think the fans might be thinking of. Sure. But at the same time, it's their turn to talk. And whatever they want to say, you have to, you have to listen to. But sometimes they'll just come out, 99% of time it's actually,

even in a crazy sport, you can kind of predict what they're going to say, you know, tough fight, blah, blah, blah, I'm great. Here's what I want next. You know, that kind of thing. But then sometimes they'll be like, you know, I'll ask him like, hey, how was the fight? And they'll be like, I'm HIV positive. And I'm like, okay, why are we doing it this way? Oh, my God.

Can you just be normal? And so it kind of puts this onus on you as the guy interviewing them. You're like, okay, wait a second. What does the promotion now want me to ask them? Because, you know, what, and poor Dan Hardy is out there trying to tap dance around this. So Chuck, just for reference sake, Shemil Musayev was, again, they haven't updated the rankings. It's the same thing as the UFC side.

But Shemil was sitting number one. It was a vacant title. And then you had Karamakamadov sitting at two. So now Musayev loses. And again, I thought he had a better ending of the fight than a beginning. I'll put it that way. I guess you could have Musayev fight in back-to-back fights for the vacant title against Thad Jean, who was there,

who won the last tournament, who people seemed to like a lot as well. I think me Jason Jackson to win. Does that tickle your fancy? Yeah. I mean, and Thad Jean's one of those guys, too, who, like, has a certain dynamic that, like, you pay attention to.

I felt like he was one of those guys on the rise that was getting some shine. So I wouldn't, I guess that's what you do, man. It's just, but it's like, it takes something off of it, right? when your new champion decides that that's that. But at least they've got something that they can put together.

That's all. I think that that's one of the reasons, like, for John Jones, when you look at the UFC, and they're like, well, we don't want to bring back John Jones, and he pulls a GSP where he just comes back and then all of a sudden, we're just, you know, whatever, he has a belt, and then he retires. And we've seen this with other guys, too, where you're just not sure. Gaichi's at the end, you know, and you're like, I don't know how long he goes.

But it's kind of a gamut. You know, like with these guys in the UFC when you see this happen. And when when you see it happen where they're caught off guard, it's a bad, it's, it's a bad situation. We're sitting here talking about, um, Norma Madov possibly getting out of the PFL. And then you get a guy who's a champion and you're trying to run their machine and he decides he's done. I mean, how are you supposed like, this is why when I when I see this kind of shit, Luke, this is when I'm like, good luck running for much. Dana's all absolutely right about that when he's like, hey man, you try running a promotion. It's very difficult.

And to juggle all of that and to keep going and to always be able to put on an event is very difficult. And this is one of those cards to me, like where you're all of a sudden, fat gene has been, you know, kind of injected into the situation. This is when you see it, right? Like you're like, man, it's just constant adversity, it seems like. I loved Kerr and Maga Madov's approach. He was on Musayev, like white on rice from the beginning of this fight. We talked last week about how Diego Lopez couldn't cage cut to save his life. That was not a problem for Kerramaama.

He was all over him. Now, again, as the fight wore on, you saw Maasai able to get a little bit more distance. That's what I was going to say. Did you think, like from a guy who likes to analyze the fights, like Messiah, especially in KSW, like he kind of ate wrestlers up a little bit by letting them wear themselves out. I almost wondered, you know what I mean? If that was what was going to happen in this fight, a couple, you know, maybe the first, maybe early it's one way and then it goes the other, you know, he swings it in his favor late.

Just didn't happen. No, it didn't. But like, again, Kurt Mekamatov was doing it with the striking too. He was bombing on him. I mean, he he kept just intense pressure, again, not throughout the entire fight, but through long stretches of it, that fourth round. He obviously, that that killed any chance that Musayev might have had with that illegal need when he was down. By the way, Big John, roughing this fight, Big John back to action, some of these bigger high profile contests. He kind of orbits in and out, right?

It's interesting to see. It just really is a shame because it's like, dude, this was, this was, I was very surprised at how well Kerrmeager Madov did. And then he's just like, yeah, fuck this. I'm out. I'm like, oh, my God. If you break his arm, it was unclear. Yeah, he might have. Yeah.

It's like, which is even more impressive. I mean, it's just like, I know. But to your point, it's like, dude, why would you ever want to run a fight promotion? And I see these fighters. You remember like like Jorge Mazbitt all retired? Like right away, he got into like game bread. He hasn't done that in a long time.

I know Anthony Pettis has one. I know Favors got one out there called A1. But still, do you remember the Diaz brothers war? Or was it a raw or war? It was one of those two. War. It was war. Yeah. It was in a ring to.

Yeah. But it's just, it's hard to make money. It's very difficult. There's constant issues with the last XFC event I went to, dude, the one of the guys in the co-made event didn't even show up to the way in. He just didn't even show up to the way in. And he was a local Vegas guy. Yeah. It's like, oh my God, they're so unpredictable.

It's so unpredictable. Anybody else from this card that stood out to you for any reason, any other fight of note for you to highlight? If I do, if I do so, myself. I got to. Okay. The Salamat Isbulayev, Jesus Panado fight. Dude, Isbulayev, Kazakh fighter, uh, PFL debut. Hezis Panado is proven, brother. Yeah, that's a good fighter. And Isbulayev buzz sawed him. I was like, yo, he's good. I mean, to be on, to be completely honest, these are the two fights I got to see because there was things going on over here with an ice dam situation at my house. So we have people working. Um,

So the two fights at the top were the ones that I was able to check out, and I still haven't had a chance to go back and watch all of the PFO. Shouts to Habib Nabiev, Nabayev, who's 12 and 0 at a 205, Russian guy who looks to be pretty good. Luke Traynor also, same thing out of the UK. Denise Kielholz gets a win. And there were some other ones, Taylor Laplice gets the stoppage. That was a pretty nice one. Puyah Romani, we talked about him last week.

He gets a win in the second round. He defeats Carl Williams. but that, by the way, Lazy King, Abdul Abdul Abdurogyamov, he gets a win, although barely. But then Salamadus Belive, as I indicated, that dude looked to me like the real deal, holy field, a great find for the PFL if I did say so. I'm asking this, Luke, did you watch Knucklemania and what were your takeaways of that? I did not, I was in Philly, but I did not even know that knucklemania was there. I was a cold, you're in town, but I went to a concert that night.

I went to a concert at the Fillmore there. I would say that Andre Arlowski's longevity is one of the most surprising stories in combat sports. 47. I cannot do. We thought he was chinny over a decade ago. At least two different runs we've thought this too.

Like where he's had huge losing streaks. Dude, he went toe to toe with Pedro Hizzo. Pedro Hizzo is like multiple generations ago. And he went toe to toe with him. as a heavyweight back in the day. It's insane how much longevity. What was the first UFC? What was your first UFC you ever attended? Do you recall? Attended? Yeah, like that you were at. I'm not even sure. Yeah. I, I mean, paid attention, obviously, and it was writing about it, but the first one I actually attended was UFC 82 in Columbus, Ohio.

And that particular one, Arlovsky is in 2008. And Arlovsky had a contract dispute. Remember with them and ended up, they pushed him onto the prelims. Defi J. O'Brien, right? Michael Brian. And I remember that being such a big deal. But dude, we're talking 16. What is it? It would be 18 years ago in March.

It's like 18 years ago. And the dude had already had a full-on career at that point going into that fight. And here we are 18 years later and he's still going. I mean, it's just it boggles the mind even contemplate that. You know, guys like Evan Tanner were on that card and, you know, people who are no longer with us. I mean, it's just. Now I'm curious. Let me see who was on that card.

I want to pull the whole thing. You said UFC 802. Hindo versus Silva was the main event. I know Chris Leibin was on that card. And Luke Kumo, remember that guy? The guy who drank his own piss? Yeah, that's him. Out of Sarah Longo.

Yes. All right, you said UFC 82, right? Yeah, yeah. All right, so UFC 82 was called Pride of a Champion. Yeah. This was when Dan Henderson came over from Pride. Right. And he was the double champ at this point.

Silva beat him in the main event. Heath Haring defeated Czech Congo. dude, check Congo, why would he not be a UFC champion these day? I don't. That's a great point. You know, Chris, like he was, he looked at all right, Chris Lieben, Alessio Sicario, Yuschen Okami, Evan Tanner, John Fitch, Chris Wilson,

Andre Arlowski, Jek, Ovonty, Lukumo, Josh Koshchek, Dustin Hazelit. I mean, that was that sick arm bar. No, he lost in that one. Diego Sanchez was on this one and Jorge Gersel, who by the way, Jorge Gersel now a bit of a translator. I saw that, man. I saw that. It was one of those moments where you look at me, like, Wait, who is that?

You had to place him for a minute. I say, that's Gersel. All right. You're that crazy. Most of those guys are gone, is the point. That's just, that's nuts. Indeed. All right, that's our top five.

We appreciate you guys sticking in for this, but now we get to hear from you. It is time for DMs from the Diggity Dogs. Once again, that's how I breathe into my wife's ears. All right. Let's go. First question. A man and his cat, would you rather try and stay awake

after a triple dose of NyQuil or watching Oh my Lord Jelton Almeda fight again cut him bro cut him cut him

cut him got to like if you're not in it man if you're not into it you don't belong in there right like this is just one of his long proverbs he didn't look like he wanted to be there I mean when you see a guy like that like what are you supposed to do with him

he doesn't look like he wants to be there if I was this corner I would be like why we spin in our wheels you know Also, like, MMA is supposed, I mean, you know, to the extent that this happens, the way that it's supposed to is debatable, but MMA is supposed to be one of those sports where even if you lose, if you fight enough with enough heart and vitality, the fans can sometimes still rally around you. You do a couple cool things, show a lot of fighting spirit. It doesn't even necessarily matter if you win sometimes. But then if you lose and then you lose in a way where people are like, holy shit, I never want to see. It's like, dude, you're in the most forgiving sport for losses.

And even with that, they don't want anything to do with you. Consider how bad it has to be for that to be a thing. I'm taking the NyQuil option here. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Give me the NyQuil. I'll just go to sleep. I'm going to fuck.

All right. Next. Flandals and Jitz says a regular around these parts. After Arlovsky, here we go. After Arlovsky winning the BKFC heavyweight title, how good question, because he didn't really answer this one. Okay. How should his combat sports legacy be defined, Chuck?

Does this late career success elevate him as a rare multi-era combat athlete? Or is his legacy still primarily as a former UFC heavyweight champion with BKFC as a sort of a separate chapter? How do you assess it? That is a great question. It is a great question. What do you think of? I mean, honestly, when I think of him, I still think he's a UFC champion from way back. Like, I still look at him and like that, which is kind of crazy because he has, you know, the affliction shows when he fought

Fador and his, it's like, I mean, two resurrections essentially because he's had two different times. I think that that's actually what would stand out to me in the end. It's just that his perseverance and adaptability to a heavyweight

division where guys just can't sustain for as long as they did. Like you said, we were calling him Cheney. He had that moment where, like I was during that Fador streak where he got knocked out a bunch of times. He was able to come back and put together a win streak. Then he had another one, right? Like I'm not looking at his page, but he had another one where he lost like four or five fights in a row.

And you think, well, this is certainly it because you can't do that. And he did. He came back again. And I felt like he worked with, you know, his coaches in Albuquerque at that time to just kind of like, hey, how do I, how do I keep going with a sense of self-preservation, right? And it became a little more boring. But he was able to do that. I think the perseverance actually is probably what I'll think of in the end. There's no question. I want to tell a story. So he's he he's he loses back to back. This is 2001, 2002. Okay.

He loses back to back to Riga Rodriguez and Pedro Hizzo, right? And so this is UFC 32 and 36 long time ago. Damn, man. Then he goes on an incredible win streak. He beats Ian the Machine Freeman. He beats Vladimir Matt Yushenko. That was a big win. He beats Cabbage Carrera, which at the time was a big win. Then he beats Tim Sylvia. That was for a belt. Then he beats Justin Eilers. He knocked him out in the first round. Ilers was a big. guy out of, of militage fighting systems. Then he chaos Paul Buantello in 15 seconds. And this is when he had, this was big hair, Arlovsky. Loses back to back to Tim Sylvia. I'll taste my pee peeve your love. I'll taste my peeve. Yeah. But then goes on an incredible win streak. He beats Peta Pano, who was a big jujitsu guy at the time, Marcio Cruz. He beats Fabrice over a doom. As you indicated,

he beats Jake O'Brien. Then over at Affliction, he knocked up Ben Rothwell in round three. That was a big win. Yeah. And then an elite Dix C, he knocked out Roy Nelson. Okay. So then he fights Fador and he gets knocked out at affliction. Then he follows that up with losing in the first round in 22 seconds to

Brett Rogers. Right. Okay. Then he loses to Bigfoot Silva in strike force and then Sergei Heratanov knocked him out in two and a half minutes. And Chuck, I was at that event when Serge Heratanov knocked him out. And in fact, I had a terrible seat because Scott Coker didn't like me.

And he gave me the worst media seat imaginable But what it did was it gave me the spot where the losing fighter would walk past on route. And Greg Jackson was cornering him at the time. And I'll never forget the look on Arlovsky's face because he had lost four in a row at that point. Three of them by stoppage and the three of them by stoppage were all in the first round. And I remember him having this vacant look, absolute disbelief on his face. Like I don't know how to get right.

But Chuck, he would go on a pretty incredible windstreet. he'd beat Ray Lopez after that, Travis Fulton. Yeah, that shitty-ass rematch again with Tim Sylvia in one, no one remembers it. And he gets two more wins in, like, regional promotions. He goes to the second event of World Series of fighting. Anthony Johnson rearranges his teeth,

so he loses that bout, then goes on another win streak, where he beats Mike Kyle, some dude I can't even pronounce, he beats Brendan Scha, he beats Antonio Silva, he beats Travis Brown, he beats Frank fucking Mier. Then he goes on another,

losing streak. Insane, man. Stipe Miochich, Overeign, Barnett, Francis Angano, marching Taibora, and he's been kind of up and down since,

although he's had some streaks there as well. But the reality is, did he achieve the highest heights in the sport? He did. He became a UFC champion. But that level of reinvention, that level of finding a new groove to then use that as long as it goes, and then I'm going to find another one to take that

as long as it goes, and just the hard yards. that this guy has put in is one of the most remarkable things I've ever seen. Not many people live to hear eulogy's written about him like three times. You know, this guy did. It's insane, man. They've been, and I've been one of them. I've been one of them.

I still remember the look on his face when he walked past me after. Yeah, man. Was that in New Jersey? Was that that event? Yes, that was at the Aizond Center. Yes. They put the real media that Scott Coker liked in the penalty box. And then they put me by the pyrotechnics and it singed the back of my neck.

Yeah, hoping you might catch on fire. Yeah, it's like, listen, Luke, could you never come to this again, please? Don't worry, Scott. I don't know Scott Coker didn't like you. No, dude. I mean, he fronted like he did, but he didn't. All right, next question. From John Winkle, Fred.

Thoughts on Craig Jones versus Dylan Danis at CJ.I.3? I think they're calling the winner the world's greatest grappler. Really? I didn't even know this was happening, man. I didn't even know. What do you think? This is your role. I love it.

I love it because Dennis is probably still going to be pretty good on the ground he's probably not going to be as good as he once was Craig is a higher level and has always been a higher level so I think Craig should probably win this but Danis is a troll Danis will probably still show up

like Gable Steve Sen was playing fuck fuck games with them you know and then bitched out at the last minute I think you can count on Dylan Dennis to be there right okay that's what I was just going to I saw the Long Island and Luke make a little note about that. I was like, do you think he shows up? This is his realm.

You don't think he shows up? Why not? That's the gambling. It's like a troll for like signing these things and never actually going through with. Yeah, but it's sport jiu-jitsu. I mean. Yeah, but that's exactly the one thing he's actually good at. So he'll actually like lose pride.

It's spiritual. Yeah. Like he loses in boxing. No one expects him to win in boxing. You know, it's kind of like. That's it is interesting that way. Dude, he had such a buzz on his name when he first was coming. Remember that?

God. It's like just he was such a, like, he's such a wizard in the Jiu Jits world that everybody talked about. I remember talking to, you know, just people in New York and they're like, watch out for Dylan Day. He's a young kid still. It's like, the Marcella Garcia Brown Belt All-Stars. It was him and Jonathan Satava, Mateo's Denise. It was all these guys who were all brown belts. And then they all became, and then Mancher Kara.

And then they all became black belts at roughly the same time. And you were like, dude, these guys are tearing people to pieces. And then he just. When does that happen in this thing with Craig Jones? Is it? probably next summer, this coming summer, I'm guessing. I mean, I'm more intrigued by that than anything else that Dylan Dennis has done in the last few years. I will say that.

Yeah, I mean, I don't care if he lives or dies, but I think it's good for the event. All right, next. Probably Brian says, it could be BC. Who would you have performed at the Super Bowl next year? Can I be honest about this? Listen, I'm not even like necessarily the biggest bad bunny fan. I like some of his stuff. I know a few of his songs.

I enjoyed the show. It was cool. Joined him as a pro wrestler. He's pretty good in that realm. But go ahead. I saw that in the, like, people post it. I didn't even know he did that. That was like, wow. Yeah. I can't believe they haven't had Metallica do it yet. And they were in San Francisco.

I know. That's what. Where Metallica is from. And I'm like, don't get me wrong. I'm not mad about anything at all. But like, how has Metallica not been tabbed to do one of these things yet? I think it's Lars, you know, it's like, it's a Napster I don't know it is weird though

isn't it like I feel like anybody of that magnitude especially in their backyard like that that would have made a lot of sense I don't know

you think that is that your prediction then like I don't know it's in LA next year just if that makes any difference well I mean they already

did Kendrick Kendrick's from L.A yeah that's wonderful Long Island Luke who are we forgetting that's like you need someone

that's still kind of cool but maybe also I mean because Bad Bunny and Kendrick are young but a lot of times you know this a lot of times you know this what they'll do is they'll get like someone who's kind of dad rock cool you know they do that a lot

they had Green Day open the band show like Green Day would have been a solid call I feel like Green Day would have got a million hits you could have done it with them red hot chili peppers another band that has like a ton of hits I'm so I'm so over those motherfuckers same here I feel like everybody I talk to says this it's funny it didn't black eyed peas have they ever done

one they got a ton of hits too and also I'd rather just eat a bullet I'm just thinking of bands that I know I have like a show that it's I don't know man Eminem. They did Eminem. They did one him once, yep. That was when it was like Dr. Drain, Snoo. And Kendrick actually. Yeah. I mean, obviously they were trying to go,

they're trying to do like an international audience thing, which is why they did what they did. I had relatives and I do, this is true. This is a true story. I had relatives in Columbia sign up for Disney Plus last night. So they could watch the Bad Bunny halftime show. Just to see that part? Just to see it.

That's cool. Yeah. Because he just did a, he just did a couple of concerts. Medellegine and it was like a huge deal. So he's Puerto Rican, but they love him down there. It'd be interesting to see. Metallica is the one that I think. Metallica would be cool, actually, because they, you know,

everybody knows that. I mean, they like those bands where they can just kind of roll out there. He'll hit like Bruce Springsteen back. You know, he could just do a little medley and everybody's like, oh, God, this one too. You know, that's what they like. Dude, you know what would fucking slay and I mean this. I don't know he now looks like an aging lesbian, but, um, Axel Rose, if you got a guns and roses

Metallica crossover show where like all the guys of Metallica are helping Axel and slash play November rain and shit. Yeah. I mean, I'm a 46-year-old white guy talking. I have no fucking idea what's cool. Looks being transported right back to 1992. But I got to tell you, I feel like that would bang. I feel like that would bang. I don't know if Axel's vocals hold up. Like I keep seeing people post like him trying to

So I saw him in the I saw him maybe four years ago, maybe a little bit less than three. He he he is not the maestro of that anymore. Slash is right. Yeah. So slash is the one that plays everything, no breaks. He has a guitar closet to the side of the stage that is like, I mean, you could, it's a walk in closet of guitars. And he has two guitar texts on him at all times. And then what happens is as they're switching a slash out, he's playing songs,

Axel goes and takes a break and then changes clothes. and refreshes his voice. And then comes back for the hits. Wow. But the halftime show is what, 13 minutes? Like, you can take a break, you know. All right, I'm sold. Let's do that one.

All right, next. If dying fetus isn't available, that is. Yeah, dying fetus, obviously. I mean, come on. If you both had to compete in a Winter Olympics event, which one are you choosing? I wouldn't be doing the, whatever that, whatever Lindsey Vaughn crashed on, man.

Did you see that? Yeah, like, dude, that's a, they had a drone following like somebody else on that like that downhill speed whatever that is and they're moving it's so fast it's like it's like bro they had a miles per hour clock in the corner

they were going 80 miles an hour that's just insane man I was going to say it's called downhill alpine skiing I mean no I'm doing some shit like curling yeah curling would be my speed is there still archery boarding some shit

I'd go snowboarding. Not that I've ever been, but you know, I grew up skateboarding. I feel like I'd be decent at snowboarding. I'm not anything where I'm airborne and then have to land. Nah. Not anymore, man. Not my big ass. I grew up in Colorado and used to snowboard back in the day.

Dude, it'd kill me now. There's no way. My daughter goes roller skating and she's like, why don't you go roller skating with me? It's like, because I don't want to be paralyzed. If I fall, it is, I mean, it's just the world crashes when I come down. kids don't understand that. They're just like, what are you talking about? Come on. It's like, no, it's fine. I'm fine. I'm like, I'm eight times your size. Yeah. Is there anything left anymore? That is it. That's it. All right. I'm Dylan Playfair.

And I'm Tyler Smith. We're putting loneliness in the penalty box by talking to some of our favorite athletes about the importance of friendship. This is bromance. Bromance is brought to you by Charmed Diamond Centers, proudly Canadian-owned and operator. Charm has been part of your love stories and bromances for over 50 years. And you can find Bromance on heart radio network or wherever you get your podcast very good thank you for those and of course you can do that uh on i g every sunday when we solicit for comments thank you to everyone who did and now we're going to play eskimo brothers here we go i'm fine you you guys already know the drill i'll give you three fighters you got to be the first to name their mutual opponent so first up johnny hendricks israel a

Sanya, Yuel, Calvin Gassel. Yes. Damn it. Nope. No. All right. Hold on here.

Let me think. Gasselm never fought Yowell. Hmm. Was he scheduled to? For a second, I thought maybe I had, maybe there was more than one answer. I seem to remember, but actually, no, probably not. Is it Whitaker?

It is not Whitaker. He never fought Johnny Hendricks. I don't know. It's currently ranked. currently right so he's still going okay uh god costa yes sir how costa all right look you're up one next up we got always forget about that dude brandon roivall kiojuriguchi and alexandre pantosia uh um merino no nope wait who's the first guy here that's roi ball yes Is it, it's not Asakura, is it?

Nope. Cop? Yes, sir. Well, one titty bigger. Luke's on his game. He does have a big. What's going on there? Oh, yeah, he's got them guy knows.

So Luke, you're up to zip. All right, this one is specific. So, because there's multiple guys who have fought all three of them. Okay. This man beat all three of these fighters. Calvin Cater, Michael Johnson, and Dan E. Or sorry, sorry. All three of them beat.

this man. Oh, okay. Jesus. So these three beat the guy. Okay, so man. Bro, I am out of my ideas. This game. This is one of the hard. These guys have not just a lot of fights, but then a lot of fights that went under the radar. Yeah. So I initially, when I came up with these three fighters, had someone in mind, then realized

they all fought two of the same guy. so then I took the guy they all beat. So if you name either of the guys, I'll give you credit. Honestly, dude, I'm out of ideas. All right. Well, he's a team alpha male guy. They're both team alpha male guys, actually. That doesn't help him, though.

How does that not help? That's a small gym. Featherweight? Oh, Andre Bealey? Yes. Yes. It is the Green Rush star that also starred Luke Thomas. Andre Touchy Feely.

The person I had in mind when I came up with it was Josh Emmett. they did all fight Josh Emmett but they all beat touchy feely this is not an intuitive game for me let's try the next one next up we got heavyweight

Waldo Cortez Acosta Curtis Blades and Jarzino Rosenstrike fought all three of these dudes huh yeah I don't know did Derek Lewis fight all three

nope Derek Lewis never fought Jarzino Rosenstrike um dude he didn't fight him um I mean, I don't know.

Currently a top 10 heavyweight. I mean, that means nothing. Speedback. No, but you're Time to stop. Who'd you say? Tabora?

No. Bro, I don't fucking know. No, it's not Pavlovich. I don't fucking know. Yeah, it is Pavlovich. It is, oh, it is? Yeah, Sergei Pavlovich. So I do remember, if you had told me

gun to your head, your family, or gun to your family's head, rather, they don't live has Rosenstrike fought Pavlovich I'd be like no there's no way that happened and then my family would be dead if I remember correctly it was boring as shit maybe you finished him I don't remember honestly

but next up we got Montana de la Rosa Amanda Hebas and Tisha Torres Pennington who Angela Hill no but good guess Hannah Seifers

no you know Brian Campbell is just I mean oh I know using himself right now I mean you guys should you guys should know this

that's all I'll say should we really yes I don't fucking know we want any guesses I should yeah give me a hint

top five straw weight top five straw weight straw weight um Janjuroba nope it's not way Amanda Lamos?

Nope. Yon Shownon. Nope. Fuck, who am I? I mean? UFC champion McKenzie Dernsey. Oh, God. God.

Oh, God. That's her official UFC headshot right there, too. Is that? Yeah. This is where you guys would lose Brian Campbell. Yeah, Brian's like, guys, I need a minute to myself. Okay, so this one is this guy beat all three fighters. So who beat Kevin Holland, Mike Perry,

and hafail dos anos oh man uh is this relatively recent that he beat dos angios yeah yeah rda is the most recent of the three wins not brunson rda oh my god dude i don't fucking know i can't i can't i can't pull this in my brain yeah this is this is tough he's currently top 15 welterweight in the welterweight top 15 welterweight Nico wait Jeff Neal yes Jeff Neil oh not sure how that

Oh doing him dirty Sorry Jeff Anyways Vicente Lucke also fought all three But Jeff Neil beat all three I see okay Next up we got Joseo Aldo Cody Garbrand and Sergio Pettis Batista

No Churchill Pettus God Rob Font Yes Rob Font Good job there Looks at least

accessing information right now I can't Chuck's just Blanking on everything Next up we got Liz Carmush Holly Holm and Ketlin Vieira

Oh I was going to say Rousey up until the end there Yeah Two of the three Wow Newn is

No. It's Dumont. Is it Shevchenko? No to both of those. Okay. Looking right now, she is currently ranked at Bannamweight. Women's Bantamweight? Bantam weight?

Bantam weight. Former champion. Pena? Nope. Pendington? Nope. Man, I don't fucking know. A former champ.

Some would say her nickname is pretty sweet and indulgent. Like, you know, maybe Quill and Sal killed's family would be baking one of these in the oven. Nisha cookie monster. Tate. Oh, Jesus. The other two I would have got. She's still ranked? Yes, dude.

Misha Tate is still fucking ranked. Also, here's a lovely photo of her and Brian Kairway on the ATV that he allegedly may or may not have tried to take back in the messy divorce. but I just want to bring up this picture is on TripAdvisor and it's under like a TV tour and it's like couple Misha and Brian enjoying a great day on the trails yeah so pretty outdated

TripAdvisor get on you shit All right next up guys we got Johnny Walker Alex Poetan Pereira and Anthony Smith Oh boy There's two answers for this one Jamal Hill No

Nope small hill was scheduled to fight anthony sirkanov no did they not sirkanovitch no no because he didn't fight smith that gustavson dude what the fuck are these questions both top 10 light heavyweights right now

rackage no it's not span because span didn't fight span moved up to heavyweight too currently top 10 light heavy current I can't get over Johnny Walker just looking like a fucking maniac

oh man I need to start looking at the rankings more apparently all right two of the both answers lost to Poetton in title fights Khalil Roundtree

yeah Khalil Roundtree is one of the answers and technically the other guy also beat him in a title fight big hint there you know oh and Kaliav yes calio roundtree dude i completely forgot that uncleaya

fought smith oh my god i did too uh all right guys last one we got thank you jesus showing michael chandler islam machochev and al iaquinta long island's best real estate agent

oh man um oikano no nope i mean give me a fucking hint bro the shit's he uh he just fought like

within the last two weeks and is it it's not Daryush, is it? No. No. Um, our good friend Oscar Willis may or may not sleep on. Oh, hooker. Yes.

Oh my God. Hang man. Yeah, this game. Yeah, dude, I mean, Hooker versus Iaquinta. If you asked me to tell you one thing about that fight, my whole family would have to die. It was a name event, I believe. It was right around.

Jesus, man. Dude, you know how like Savannah Guthrie's mom was like kidnapped or whatever for ransom. If they called and they were like, tell me about the hooker fight with Iaquinto or your family dies, I'd be like, put my family on the phone so I can say goodbye to them. Tell me about where the hookers are. It sounded like what you were going to say or something. But guys, that was Eskimo brothers. Hope you enjoyed it. Thank you very much, sir. We appreciate it. Chuck, what you got going on for the week, sir? well that's a good question that is a great question we're going to find out because we do not have a UFC coming up this week in fact we have a quiet weekend coming up don't we like we have a well it depends valentine's day for the people who aren't in cells true uh I guess that could be its own

fight game oh listen you know long Alan looks like oh yeah honey I have to watch UFC hubbidi hobbiti hobbiti how about Valentine's day with Dana did me good or Hunter whoever's running the company nowadays did me good they were like Valentine's day we'll take that weekend off there you go you're on long island you got big plans for valentine no i mean we'll go out to eat drinks whatever but no i don't i don't fucking know what we're doing yet doesn't think that far you planned it a week ahead i mean what bro i got reservations for valentines at the end of 2025 foggida chow fogg de chow's overrated a place you always named what was the place in philly you went you went to uh i went to two places in philly i went to a

to a place called Elvese, which means like the time, sort of. It's kind of how it translated. And it was a Mexican restaurant. I'd say it was pretty good. Yeah. And then I went to a place called Angelo's, which is like a takeout spot. And that one was a fucking home run. What, dude, going to, I'm telling you, the older I get Chuck, the best food you can

buy is whatever place you go to, what do they make as part of a cultural tradition there? Exactly, man. Get that. Yeah. Get that. And, uh, dude, it did not disappoint. Angelo's is a incredible spot. This sounds like a good trip to Philly. Usually when you go to a place like that, you talk about bedbugs or lice or things like that. Dude, my wife got us a nice hotel. Tukki was well behaved. The train was fine. The only problem, truly the only problem was how freaking cold it was. Yeah. You just couldn't walk around. He's got a grin and Barrett at this point. Yeah. Well, I got Valentine's Day plans on my wife since you fucking heathens don't do that but uh at any event uh where can folks get more of your work this week uh you can check me out on crowned i'll have some stuff coming out this week i's still kind

of being planned out at this point at this early junction and i'll be on the crack with ptze carroll on friday one p.m eastern all right big shots of those folks as you can see here all the socials you want to follow for mk for me as well as for chuck on twitter and i g don't forget morningcombat dot shop. We have now both the regular when I say regular I mean like once a month special art design, the army of donkness and the posters. That's of course

available at morning combat.combat shop. Plus we have now the evergreen stuff, the morning combat graffiti kind of logo as well as the DCMK version on top of that. Long Island, what do you got going on to plug very quickly? Nothing because there's no UFC fights this week.

So I have a new episode of Prop Quiz on Friday but we'll talk about that. All right. Very good. And then, of course, if you want to reach the show, Morningcombat at Gmail.com, morningcombat at Gmail.com. All right, for everyone on the show, for Long Island, Luke, for the Iceman himself, Chuck Mendenhall. I'm Luke Thomas. Thank you all so much for watching. We'll catch you on Friday. And until then, may all of your gains be loyal.

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