MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Bellator 245 & 246 Recap | Hill vs. Waterson | Conor McGregor | MORNING KOMBAT | Ep. 60

Episode Date: September 14, 2020

On episode 60 of Morning Kombat Rashad Evans fills in for Luke and joins Brian Campbell to recap everything that happened in the MMA this weekend, including two big Bellator events and Michelle Waterson taking down Angela Hill. The guys also discuss the recent sexual assault allegations against Conor McGregor and preview the upcoming weekend's showdown between Tyron Woodley and Colby Covington. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

oh yeah it is Monday September 14th 2020 and you best believe this right here is morning combat the only show like it in the world of boxing mixed martial arts and beyond that is not luke thomas sitting next to me this week but that is a man you know very well okay who he is don't let it hold him back he's going to reach for the stars. He is a UFC Hall of Famer, a former light heavyweight champion, always sweet, never sour, the tower of 40-year-old abs and ayahuasca power, Sugar Rashad Evans, my man. Thank you, sir, for joining us this week. No, man, BC, it is good to be here. Great introduction, man. I'm excited to do this show with you, my man.

Yeah, many people have heard us before on the State of Combat on CBS Sports, but we're going through a bit of a merging right now ahead of the big MK Daily launch coming up. Morning Combat in your face, in your ear hole just about every day. The great Luke Thomas going to sit one out this week, going rest up. You better believe next week. We're coming on strong. MK Daily hitting you off every single day. Couple live shows per week. And don't forget, we got the Charlo pay-per-view on Showtime. We've got a big time UFC card with Adesanya and Costa. So a lot to get into

next week. But this week, we're gonna jam BC and Rashad coming at you. Rashad, South Florida, how you living? How you doing, bro? I'm living good, man. Just got back from Vegas. It was a good trip out in Vegas, so happy to be back home in Florida.

All right, all right. As the listeners and viewers already know, you can try Showtime for free for 30 days. As Luke would say, I don't know, you can get bent, pound sand, wipe standing up if you don't like it. But why don't you go to Showtime.com now and explore. Look, you're not just getting Showtime championship boxing. You're not just getting great documentaries and movies. You can also go onto the app, go

into that little saved area. You can find Morning Combat Classics, Strike Force, Luke, me, Scott Coker, Merle Ranallo. You're going to want to watch that archive of great moments as well. So please, go to the website tell them bc sent you try that out and if you are jealous of the fine merch that we are putting out for morning combat in fact uh rashad you could really outfit your kids nicely and stuff like

this you know this hat right here okay okay okay okay okay sweatshirt right here okay i feel like i'm in a barber shop with a gym bag right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why don't you head on over to store.show.com right now, and I want you to feel on your body what the rest of us are feeling. You know what I'm saying, Rashad? You know where I'm going with this? I feel you, BC.

I mean, it got a little awkward, but I kind of feel where you're going with this. Okay, okay. It got a little bit awkward. Rashad, before we kick it off and get going, you got well-wished by a friend of mine and yours, Los Angeles Chargers wide receiver coach and future pro head coach, Phil McGagan, signing in and saying, tell my boy Rashad to go bring it.

Go bring it. Yeah, that's my boy, Phil, yes. Big win for the Chargers to start it off. But with the pleasantries behind us, why don't we get into the biggest topics of the week in boxing and mixed martial arts. Jay, hit it for me. All right. All right.

Well, here we go. We're going to start off. Hey, big weekend for Bellator MMA. Not just the announcement of the move from the Paramount Network to CBS Sports Network and the ViacomCBS family. Shout out. They have also announced October 10th, Bellator will be the first promotion to enter France, putting on a card in Paris featuring Czech Congo and MVP now that the sport has been legalized.

And there's also two world-class level cards this past weekend. Rashad, I want to start right off with Bellator 245. Some gentlemen you know pretty well, Phil Davis, Lyoto Machida, mixed it up in a light heavyweight rematch, a main event with really, although it wasn't formally announced, it was assumed a number one contenders fight. The winner most likely going to get the rising star Vadim Nemkov. It goes down as a split decision with Phil Davis edging Lyoto Machida, winning the first two fights against him. Rashad, as this played out, 35-year-old Phil Davis, was this impressive enough of a victory for you to potentially like his chances? Don't forget,

he did fight Nemkov to a split decision two years ago in a potential title rematch. This fight was not the fight that I say, oh yeah, he's definitely got his best chance against Nemkov because you see the growth in Nemkov. But what I do see about Phil is that Phil always rises to the level of his competition and he fights kind of like his competition does. A great example of that is a fight on Saturday. A complete kicking contest almost negated his wrestling to a larger extent.

And I think when he goes against Nemkov, he's going to try to adjust his game to that level. But Nemkov, he's steamrolling right now, so it's going to be tough. You know, yeah, I was impressed by Phil Davis being the quicker fighter in here. Getting off first consistently. Didn't go for any takedowns, which was somewhat surprising to me, considering when he defeated Leona Machida in 2013 in UFC, it was aggressive, grounded pounded takedowns

which surprised us. We never see Machida handled, let's say, that easily. This was a lot different. He used timing, distance, and all that. I really wasn't all that super impressed though, Rashad. What is it about Phil Davis stepping up to the highest level of the elite

where it's almost as if his ability to impress levels down just a little bit? We saw that split decision loss when he lost his title to Ryan Bader a couple years back in Madison Square Garden. What is Phil Davis just missing from cracking the top of that mountain? It's the confidence,

the overall confidence in his game. You know, when you have the overall confidence in your game, you don't look to adapt to somebody else's game you implement your own game and that's what you don't see in phil you don't see him consistently implementing that that tough wrestling that he has you know he has a lot of funk with his wrestling too so he can wrestle at a different level than a lot of guys who have uh you know um conservative regular mma jiu-jitsu or regular mma grappling you know he has all that funk behind everything he does he can you know pull something off just by you know just going for a takedown in general so he has to go back to that he has to find a way to make sure

that he's always getting in his fights i think what happens with him is the fact that he starts to do so much research on his opponents and then he started to just you know try to shut his opponent down instead of imposing his will yeah and look styles make fights he fought a lot more aggressive against nemcoff the first time around did lose that by split decision will be interesting to see if he gets the call again rashad we all love us but are you on board with this narrative first by ryan badader, then by Scott Coker, now by Phil Davis, that in fact, Bellator at 205 has the best division in the world when you consider John Jones, DC, Gustafson have all moved on from the UFC. And we're going to find out coming up between Dom Reyes and Jan Blahowitz, who's the man there. Does Bellator as it stands now, Nemkov, Machida, Davis, you can rent Gegard Mousasi. Now, Corey Anderson dropping in.

Is this the best division in the world at 205? They make a compelling argument. I definitely, you know, when you say it like that, like just off the top of my head when you said it, I was like, oh, no, they're not even close. But I think it's pretty competitive. But what I would say is this right here, I would say the young blood of what the UFC has now have now in the 205 weight class, you know, it definitely can rival what they have at, uh, Bellator. But at the same time, you have to go with the younger talent because it's a younger

talent. You know, the UFC didn't get rid of, um, Corey Anderson because they thought they had a jewel in them. They thought that they squeezed them for what it was worth. I don't necessarily hold that opinion myself, but, you know, that's the way they see it. So, you know, there could be something to say about the younger roster makes the better fighters. Machida at 42. I didn't think he had a case to, you know, the split decision seemed a little bit closer than I had it.

I didn't think he was pulling the trigger enough you know, the split decision seemed a little bit closer than I had it. I didn't think he was pulling the trigger enough. I mean, welcome to the Machida era. I don't like to bring that up, Rashad. That's not a great moment in Rashad Evans' history. Much respect here. Is the Machida era over all over, though? I mean, he had a good third round, but I'm waiting all night for him to let that left hand go.

Yeah, I mean, you know what i i just think that he he goes against a phil davis who um you know he had nightmares about you know from the first time that he fought you know and if you ever been held down and been completely dominated like that it can kind of stick with you for a while so i think he was just a bit cautious you know he still looked like he had the quickness and he still looked like he had the legs and when i look at a fighter who doesn't have it anymore i look at the legs and i look at their ability to take a shot and he looked like he still had those but when it comes to just firing you know he was thinking too much and i don't know if he's thinking too much because he's got that gun shyness

to him because he's been uh hammered too many times in the cage or because he's being conservative because he's thinking about the last time he got whooped by phil davis you know all right. Well, to close on this, you know, I don't know where Machida goes from here, but if he is looking for a creative matchup, Rashad, you know, one with a little bit of storyline and history in it, one maybe with a little bit of revenge for one of my friends. I mean, I've seen your shirtless on Instagram there working out with Coach Lester, okay? I don't know. What do you think? What do you think?

What do you think? Hey, BC, listen. All they have to do is say the word. BC, all they have to do is say the word. You will have me in a fight before the end of 2020. He's ready. He's 40. Come at him.

He's a man. By the way, off topic but close. I did have dinner with Scott Coker last week. I did bring that up, Rashad. Okay. I said the fan in me did not let this conversation go without bringing that in. And I appreciate that. Okay.

Are you crushing your bills? Defeating your monthly payments? Sounds like you're at the top of your financial game. Rise to it with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. The credit card that rewards your good financial habits. Earn points for paying your credit card bill in full and on time every month.

Level up from bill payer to reward slayer. Terms and conditions apply. Thank you. All right, moving on there. Quickly, that main event on Saturday night, Bellator 246. On paper, it could have been the best fight of the weekend. Played out pretty well. I enjoyed it.

Vacant Bantamweight title on the line and it was juan archuleta taking it home against patchy mix mix had come in unbeaten rashad we'd seen some spectacular submission wins out of him but this was going to be a real proving ground tester archuleta's been in there against the very best the the patricio uh pitbulls and he's going to start his own era here rashad tell me if i'm wrong this looked a lot like the second yoana claudia gadella fight where if you look at archuleta in the role of yoana i'm going to take a step back let you do what you do great for two rounds but then as you start to slow down i'm going to implement my veteran skills very heady victory for archuleta yeah you know and

he uh you know he rolled rolled out a pretty tough storm. And, you know, being able to survive on the ground with Pachi Mix with that jiu-jitsu and just his ability to transition from each and every move, it's a tough, you know, tough task. I expected him to do that for two rounds. But then you see him start to come on as the fight went on and start putting a lot of work into the body. And those body shots, you know, hitting to the body, going back up to the top. But going to the body, it really took a lot out of Patchy, and it made it so that he wasn't able to implement that dominant grappling game anymore.

Yeah, I think it goes to show you there, you're not going to know who you are. We're not going to know as critics and pundits who you are in terms of getting thrown in the deep end until you actually do. Patchy Mix had been, you know, tapping folks quickly, but Archuleta was game in those first two rounds even though i scored them both for mix i thought he was uh you know he was showing the full bag of what he had on the ground but once you get into that fight late good god those body shots as you mentioned rashad i think even dc was waking up in uh and grunting in his sleep and not

knowing why those were uh brutal this was a strong victory good to see, but a pretty fun fight overall. To close on Bellator, not bad. Going to the CBS Sports Network, going to have some interplay with the things we do on CBS Sports HQ and our fine folks at Showtime, etc. Feels like a good move for them. Absolutely.

It's a step in the right direction. All it needs to have is a step in the right direction with the right organization with the right organization, with the right system around it, and these fighters are going to put on a show. You know what I'm saying? I think that these fighters are looking forward just to be able to have that stage to just blast off to the top. I like the Thursday night card, which is going to be a regular thing.

October 15th, I believe, was the date for that Chris Cyborg title defense against Arlene Blanco. That's going to be the U.S. debut of this new deal. It's all going to kick off October 1st, though, with Paul Daly from Italy. Good stuff there. But let's move on to our second heading of the week. Rashad, you're a great guy to go to on this one. You were in the building working the broadcast for ESPN. It was the main event of UFC Fight Night, Las Vegas, Apex, all that inside the bubble there. And we saw a fight that was elevated to the main event just weeks before when Glover Teixeira pulled out with COVID. And you had Michelle Watterson. You had yourself the women's straw weights, my favorite division, Angie Hill, the opponent.

And they went five hard rounds. Rashad, this was great theater from two women who went after it we weren't sure coming in is Watterson going in the other direction why while uh while Angie was rising had sort of this late career resurgence in terms of looking like she could be a real contender uh in the end it was Watterson by a hair from your perspective did the judges get it right yeah they got it right you know it really came down to me the last 30 seconds. You know, the last 30 seconds when you heard Michelle do that war cry and she's throwing kiosks and every single punch, you know, that extra effort, it really made an impact if

you were there because it lets you know who was the fresher fighter. And it just kind of made it seem like even the shots that she was catching her with was a little bit harder and you know also the front kicks that she was able to land what was something that landed big because it was so disruptive to the movement of Angela's progression that you just had to take note that you know had to be was a factor so those were the things that scored big from the show but it didn't start out that way you know Angela, Angela was giving her everything that, you know, she could take in the beginning. And Michelle's face was proving it. You know, just that forward pressure that she had. And, you know, Michelle, I mean, Angela didn't really back off that pressure until Michelle started to dive underneath and get those takedowns.

And once Michelle landed those takedowns and was able to be a factor on top then Angela got a little bit more conservative about her forward progression and that's when Michelle started to steamroll with those front kicks but gutsy performance by both of these ladies. Oh full-on theater. Watterson I thought she was going to get one of those Mark Hominick gross you know like be great for a drug mule to kind of sneak some stuff through when you got a softball sneaking out of your head. It didn't end up going in that direction but i think that flurry at the end of round five when it seemed like the fight was up for grabs whether you believe she was landing full or not it sells it and i think it sold it in the end i had it 2-2 entering that fifth round and i did

think that flurry at the end is what sort of won me over what's interesting is watterson was the younger fighter by one year but r Rashad, to be honest, I had thought her idea of being a legit title contender was over when she went in there two fights ago against Ioana Young-Jacek, fought her heart out over five rounds, just couldn't get over that hill against a bigger, better fighter.

She suffered a tight loss after that by split decision. This was a big win she needed, and I kind of like her comments, where she said, look, the division right now, it's always packed and loaded but you got tatiana suarez hurt you got rose nama unis hurt you've got uh uh mrs amanda nunez going into labor soon for their family so she's not gonna need to answer i'm not gonna be part of that there's always the idea of if a door opens and you're hot and you're coming off of something, and I mean hot, by the way, in terms of your progression up the ranks,

although it might work that way too. But if you're hot, Rashad, sometimes you can slide in. So this was as strategic a big win as possible for Michelle, who I know you've trained with and are close with. But give me the flip side on Angie Hill. She just can't seem to win these close split decisions. What is she missing, Rashad? You know, I think she hit it right on the head. You know, I think she's missing a grappling aspect of it. Not that she can't grappling, but she doesn't have the kind of game

that you see Michelle has to be able to impose your grappling on somebody. And, you know, we've seen in a few fights that Michelle lost, you know, she lost one against Carla Esparza, then she lost another one against Ioana Janjic. In that fight against Io Esparza, then she lost another one against Ioana Janjic. In that fight against Ioana Janjic, she was really trying to implement this game that you seen her pull off against Angela Hill, but it was to no avail that night. But you see the fruits of that labor paid off because what she wasn't able to accomplish on Ioana, she was able to accomplish on Angela Hill. So that's what the same thing Angela needs to do she needs to go in there and just start to just deconstruct a game and start to implement you know some grappling and

some of these fights and then before you know it you have a complete game and that's what she's really lacking yeah Watterson's grappling did seem to turn the tide a couple times Hill's exact quote afterwards was I've got to start taking bitches down and hugging them which is a strategy that I used in college. Not successfully, though, Rashad. Looking back, though, I want it better for Angie Hill. I love the rebirth story. She got cut years ago, right?

She was part of that original Ultimate Fighter House in 2014 when the division was created. She won the Invicta Championship. She lost a ton. She run three in a row, showed us that she's for real at 35. She was doing what I thought she needed to do to win over the judges. She was landing hard shots early and walking Watterson down.

But like we said, flip of the coin, as close a fight as you can have. And Rashad, I've said it before, and I'll say it once more. I don't usually day drink, and I won't today, but I do drink the Kalo hemp-infused seltzer,

and I'll pour a little bit out right now for the women of 115 in the UFC. Rashad, what is it about women in general, but 115-pound women, that just gets me so damn excited? I don't know what makes them get you so excited, but I'll tell you what makes me get excited about them. I mean, they just got a ferocity that, you know don't really see from uh from the other women's weight classes you know they just seem a little bit more canticorous than the rest of them and uh they go out there and lay it on the line you know they they definitely have that um they have so much skill set too you know what i'm saying they're like the perfect the perfect blend i like them too. It's the perfect weight. I mean, the divisions are so shallow in UFC at 35, 45. 25 is a kind of a Sarlacc pit, if you will, with Shevchenko on the bottom.

And this division is always fireworks. So shout out to all those women. I mean, look, it's when you look on the card. The first thing I look for are women's straw weights, okay? All right? It's just the way i'm wired all right you have to deal with that rashad okay you know when you wanna says boogie woman is coming might not be the only one all right enough weird stuff let's roll on here uh big names in the news

for our third topic of the week and uh hey con mcgregor back in the police blotter to a degree he has denied uh allegations coming out of France. He's on vacation in Corsica. I think there's some kind of world tour on a boat. I'm not sure, but he was in a French bar, and he was detained by police and accused of attempted sexual assault and sexual exhibitionism.

His team has vehemently denied this. There was no arrest. Yeah, Rashad, I'm not really sure, you know, how we can react to this. We don't know the facts in this situation. This guy is a public figure though, and keeps getting attached to this stuff. Your initial reaction when you heard this, was it sort of like, all right, we'll wait for the facts or was it, Hey, these things are piling up. Um, it was a little bit of both, you know, at first I was like, dang, man, he's always getting caught up. But then I thought about it. And then I was like, dang, man, he's always getting caught up.

But then I thought about it. And then I looked at what they're saying. And I looked at the allegations. And this is another allegation. It's kind of baseless in a sense. You know what I'm saying? It's kind of somebody said that he indecency exposed himself or whatever the case may be. But I mean, you're kind of McGregor you're walking around it's a circus around him when people get around him they act completely nuts so who's to say what really happened who's to say what he really did you know I'm saying and and then when you start looking at the facts of the whole situation you know he's on you know he's on the boat with the yacht with his wife and his family and things like that so So when you, when you hear the heading of,

you know, sexual assault, it's like one of those things like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. But then, you know,

uh, looking at the facts of the situation, it's, it's more of a, um, headline grabber than, than actually meet to this whole, to this whole,

um, allegations, I believe. Yeah. Right before those allegations, I believe it was the day before McGregor posted on Instagram, a picture of USADA having found him out there, Rashad, and hit him up with a test. And he made the joke on social media that I'm retired.

But obviously, look, he's not really retired. No, he's enrolled in the USADA program. Yeah, if you're in that testing pool, you're not retired. But what's remarkable is the fact that they went and found him on the yacht and there's you know there's some people saying that usada don't make their way around uh to these international spots enough it's just funny that conor mcgregor makes sure he gets one you know stories of uh usada walking in on the bathroom on you or uh catching you with your pants down nothing nothing weird here no i mean they they'll you. They'll find you everywhere you go. That's 100% sure. They tested me a lot when I was fighting for the UFC.

No matter if I was visiting someplace, they'll just pop up and be like, Hey, we know you're here. There's a couple times where I didn't even think. I forgot to put in my whereabouts, and I got in trouble for that, but they find you. Closing on McGregor, I'm really lamenting 2020, right? We all kind of hate 2020. There's been some rough things. We got the quarantine, the damn Black Panther died.

Cliff Robinson's not here anymore. There's been a lot of crap going on, political tension. And I feel like this derailed what would have been a mcgregor ufc comeback now look him coming back whether you like it or not it's not on the level of some of these more serious things i'm just saying when he walked in there and destroyed cowboy serrani whether you believe that was a perfect you know get well gift from the ufc or whether you thought he was completely reformed it looked like he was ready to be busy and fight two to three more times this year and get back in the title picture and all that. And I get what the quarantine and the lack

of live gates, at least initially, did to the idea of these big stars coming back. But Rashad, you know, people get on us sometimes as journalists, maybe not you, you got the fighter slash journalist thing going. So you got to, you know, another level of cool going on. But for the basement peddlers like myself, the mouth breathers, you know, they're like, oh, you're just a Conor McGregor super fan. Well, you know, we talked about this before. The sport's better when this guy is active. But I'm wondering if I'm drinking the juice on the idea that he's ever going to be an

actual fighter again, more than a once a year giant cash in big big opportunity habib or you know some gsp superfight or something i mean every day every month we get closer to him you know getting 35 and 40 in terms of age rashad has that ship pun intended officially sailed in your eyes that we'll never see mcgregor again fight two three times in a year and try to be an active regular fighter yeah i don't i think that ship has sailed i don't think that we'll see him in a year and try to be an active, regular fighter? Yeah, I think that ship has sailed. I don't think that we'll see him in a regular fighting role. Just because every single time, even one of his fights, there's so much that goes into it.

There's so much that is at stake. There's so much to be gained. And each and every single opponent has to be mapped out. And every time that he fights, it's a blockbuster. So, you know, if you have too many blockbusters in a year, then they kind of ruin your blockbuster, right? So you can't even put him out there that much. So, I mean, yeah.

And not for nothing, I mean, you have to kind of protect him in a sense where you want to give him the kind of fights where even if he does lose it doesn't ruin his value and um that's where you're at with mcgregor so i think that's yeah that's that's a pretty fair assessment bc that is what it is right there i mean look uh more money rashad more problems okay he also died shortly after saying that uh rashad you did mention blockbuster i'm looking for your 90s strategy when you would enter the store, right? The great VHS tape store.

We all wanted to get behind that curtain in the back corner, right? Because you know what's back there, right? What was your strategy? Would you sort of like run to it and just be like, I don't care? Or was it like a casual, let me look at the regular movies next to it and see if anybody's in there? I would casually do it because most of the time I went there, I probably went there with my girl, so I really couldn't.

You were living in a different 90s than I was. All right. Okay. We're getting there. Yeah. Well, look. Okay. You were a high school football star.

People forget that there, along with the wrestling as well. All right. Also in the news on the boxing side, it's Big Red. It's Canelo Alvarez, the globe's biggest boxing star. My number one pound for pound King. It doesn't look like he's going to be back in the ring. Rashad anytime soon.

This broke a day after we did the show last week. So we didn't get into the impact, but Canelo has filed a 280 million plus lawsuit against his own, against golden boy promotions and against Oscar de la Hoya, his promoter specifically for, you know, broken promises, fiduciary, duchiality, if you will, and a bunch of other stuff. Rashad, I understand specifically his gripe with DAZN. I signed a contract for $35 million per fight, and you're offering me half that because of the quarantine. That ain't going to work i don't think you know any court of law as long as the contracts are written that way

are going to help out da zone in that case but do you make anything and we've we've known about alvarez's unhappiness with with golden boy over the last year of the idea that he straight up suing his promoter uh do you think at age i believe he's what 31 that he could be or 30 i'm sorry that he could be prepared for the possibility should this extend let's remember andre ward in his prime stepped away from the ring for something like two years to try to get out of his promotional deal he lost in court there ended up being a settlement afterwards uh canelo can't stop winning titles and making big checks. You think he's prepared to actually step away from that to win this? No, I don't think so. And I don't think that, you know,

the Delaware Golden Boy promotion is going to let that happen. I think they're going to try to look to appease and try to look to amend the situation as fast as possible because, you know, they know they were wrong in the whole situation. You know, when, you know, what happened was Canelo had a contract with them where he decides where, who he's going to fight, where he has the last say who he's going to fight. And then when DAZN came to the picture, Golden Boy and DAZN had a contract and Canelo wasn't even there when they had their meeting. And in that meeting, they discussed the fact that DAZN will have a say in who Canelo wasn't even there when they had their meeting and in that meeting they discussed the fact that the zone will have a say in who Canelo fights and that's where the whole problem lies

the fact that Canelo's like hold on these these people don't got a say in who I fight and when I fight and all that you know so that that's where the whole true problem lies and I think that's something that can be worked out because that having canelo sit out right now everyone knows that's a lot of money to miss out oh yeah i mean look it's bad for the sport too right he he fights the two mexican holidays may and september the old floyd and oscar schedule if you will for a reason and it became like boxing sort of you know majors quote unquote uh i think canelo at this point has earned a floyd mayweather level of of control over his future uh i don't think it's going to be easy to get out of this golden boy

contract i think it's more likely that this was a larger scare tactic that they'll compromise and figure something out but i also think that if canelo alvarez wants to do what floyd did or do separate let's say what miguel cotto did late in his career where he was only signing one-offs with each promoter or network to try to just you know bargain out the best opportunity he certainly deserved that this is the Canelo Alvarez era in boxing whether you've recognized it or not post Floyd and Manny although obviously both fighters still kind of lingering in their own way I mean Canelo has given us the best of the best yeah he he ingested some tainted meat he's done some things he's got really weird tattoos Rashad on the inside of his left forearm, including one of his wife's eyeballs.

Now, Rashad, I love me, my lady, okay? I don't think I'm getting her eyeballs on my left forearm. I mean, does your wife have that kind of control on you? No, I mean, that means she's always watching you. That's not a good thing. I do things with that hand, you know? I mean, what are we doing here? What are we doing here?

I do want to say this, though. I hope he comes back soon. I hope we can figure this out. But the most bizarre thing that came out of this, it looks like DAZN's only stance is they're claiming, now they haven't really commented publicly, but we're kind of hearing this around the horn through sources, that they're claiming that Canelo has not given them what was contractually written,

which is one quote unquote premier opponent per year. Now Rashad, they, I think are arbitrarily going back, right. And saying, well, we don't think Sergey Kovalev and Daniel Jacobs last year were premier. Like, are you kidding me? That's a joke. And now they were trying to say, well, you know, you want to fight Billy Joe Saunders. You want to fight Callum Smith. Those aren't premier. According to a source, and we've seen great reporting from the likes of Dan Rayfield and Mike Coppinger on this, DAZN's list of quote unquote premier fighters at this point for

Canelo are Gennady Golovkin, Jorge Masvidal, Habib Nurmagomedov, and 47-year-old Oscar De La Hoya. Okay, we got to decide on what we're trying to sell here, and that's the discussion that needs to be had here. Are we just trying to sell buys, or are we really trying to sell the sport with actual real competitors that deserve to be in that position you know and i mean that's what they have to decide because at the end of the day i mean you have somebody who who boxes and have the technique and just a beautiful skill level of of canelo you don't muddy him up just by letting him fight anybody you let him fight the best you know i'm saying you want to put him against the best talent because you want to showcase that it'll be a it'll be a ripoff to allow you to not let him show the world how great he is against other great talent i mean you can do uh may mac

by the way when floyd's 42 and retired for two years which they did and it worked you can't put canelo out there against masvidal right now you can't put him against Habib who doesn't throw hands you know on the level that he does everything else uh I mean the the De La Hoya thing's laughable although look I do wonder if we are headed into that direction given the uh unhappiness between them but uh yeah that look this is the zone and and you know they've done a lot of great they picked up a lot of below the radar big-time fights and made it accessible for us so we're not out there getting the Russian malware trying to track down the illegal stream.

But, uh, you... Nah. Nah, bro. They can't get caught up in the whole, like, circus type of promotion. Like, that's not something you want to fall into initially. That's something that kind of happens. Rashad, they're the master of the damn Paul Brothers. Oh, right it's like but look like canelo doesn't have that reputation of not taking tough fights did he wait out triple g a year and a half yes but outside of that he's

always faced the best of the best fought floyd when they didn't think he should have you know the story fought trout laura back then when he when he didn't think he should have. You know the story. Fought Trout, Laura back then when he didn't have to. Just moved up to fight Kovalev. I don't care if you think Kovalev is washed. He's a huge puncher. It was a fight that mattered. So shout out to Big Red. He's done a lot of great for this sport. Tattoos, you know, notwithstanding. Alright, let's roll on here. Rashad, we

got a fight this Saturday night on the UFC side. The fight night, Las Vegas. That is definitely very interesting. Giving their history as former teammates at ATT, grudges against each other, and now some interesting pivotal, let's say, positioning in the welterweight division when Colby Covington, coming off of that title loss, goes in there against Tyron Woodley, who's coming off multiple despondent losses. Rashad, I think the narrative here despite

Donald Trump's uh endorsement this morning on social media of Colby Covington is uh is T-Wood cashing himself out because his title loss to Kamaru Usman his subsequent loss to Gilbert Burns I just didn't see a guy who wanted to pull the trigger I could have very easily have seen Tyron Woodley retire, take an easier fight, take some time off, figure some things out. He's going right back into the lion's den against a game fella in Colby Covington. What the heck are we supposed to expect right now from T? What a guy I love. Give me some Tyron Woodley. I love that man. Man, we're supposed to expect a dog fight. Tyron's fighting for his career. He's fighting for his life as he it as you know it for the last few years you know um when you're in a position like tyron you're trying to uh you know go back in time and try to you know uh experience what you once

had and you'll give anything for that and at that point at this point that he's at right now he doesn't believe that he doesn't have it anymore he doesn't believe that he's lost a step he you know he knows where his trouble has lied as far as just mentally not being prepared going to the fights and not mentally staying on and being distracted having too many things going on outside of his fights that pulls the tension away so those are the things that you know he knows but um he's fighting a really uphill battle because now his confidence has been chipped away you know losing the way that he has against gilbert and against kamaru you know that starts But he's fighting a really uphill battle because now his confidence has been chipped away. You know, losing the way that he has against Gilbert and against Kamaru, you know, that starts to beat up at your confidence. That starts to beat up at your ego. But he's been able to, I guess, rebuild himself a bit.

You know, having training camp with Masvidal, getting some mind wine from his coach, Gene Thomas, about just accepting that feeling, accepting that fear that he has just from losing like that. So he's making the right steps, but he's going against a very, very, very tough Colby Covington, and a quiet Colby. A very quiet Colby is a dangerous Colby. Well, I felt like this fight could have been a giant sort of pay-per-view type fight, but there's almost no buzz around it. And I think i think look when you get a typical grudge match we were going to expect a lot of fighting you know in interviews and tv we really didn't see any of that and i think obviously it's dumbed down or watered down by the fear we have of what's left with woodley because

this has some some sneaky action potential here especially since colby is looking to use his hands more and uh i just don't have that confidence that T. Wood's going to go in there and let the hands go. We talked about this in the past, Rashad. I love his welterweight title run. I think it was very underrated. He didn't get the support promotionally from UFC and Dana White. They were always sort of fighting.

What he did on that stretch and went in there and beat each guy from Walt Lawler through Till through Maya Thompson at what they do best, basically. But each of those fights, except for maybe the first Wonderboy one, which was a draw, he was the leader in those fights. He dictated the terms in the game plan. He was almost like a frontrunner. And I wonder if that sort of changed him as a fighter, right?

He didn't have to bring out the dog in most of those fights because job one, game plan A, was completely successful. When he was forced to be in that spot against Usman and Gilbert Burns, it wasn't that he tried and failed. I don't think he tried. You know, there was a failure to launch. The wires were crossed up here. I hope that knowing what's at stake,

mainly his future and reputation, to be really honest with you, I don't want to see him go quietly into the night. I want to see him throw some hands. And if he does, Rashad, Colby and Usman aren't the same fighter. Usman was able to ground and pound and rag dow. Will Covington have that

same advantage, potentially, should he want to bring it out onto woodley well yeah i totally agree and if for me if you want to look and try to find the black box you know if you say uh where things started to go wrong for tyrant i think you have to look at the rap albums you know i think you know not not to try to diss them or nothing like that but those are the kind of things that lead you from doing what you're what you're supposed to be doing. You know, I'm not saying that you can't branch out and broaden your brand out. But when it starts to pull at your attention and your focus on what you need to be focusing on being champion, then that's when it becomes a problem.

And I think all those other things that Tyron getting caught up with the whole Hollywood lifestyle, I think those are the kind of things that start to really chip at that armor of being a champion, because you can't be a champion and be Hollywood at the same time. It just doesn't match. You know what I'm saying? Like Hagler said, you know, it's hard to wake up in the morning and train when you wake up in silk sheets. That's true. That's true. I don't have silk sheets, but I'm sure that's true, Rashad. Ronda Rousey did find out that juggle with Hollywood didn't work out the same way. It's be interesting it's gonna be interesting I love I love T-Wood I hope he can at least give his best effort and we'll see if that's good enough for Colby Covington though because his brand is is sort of uh facing upward despite that title loss to excuse me Kamaru in which they went

five vicious rounds before the late stoppage do you think this secures a title shot with a win here knowing that Gilbert Burns is probably going to get the next one, or he is going to get the next one officially, and then you still have Leon Edwards lingering around saying, what else do I have to do? I think it all depends on how he does his fight. You know, if it's a very impressive win, then people are going to be calling for that fight with Kamaru right away. You know, if he looks, if he goes in and he looks super impressive and looks better than Kamaru did against Masvidal, then people are going to be calling for that fight. You know, one thing about Kobe is the fact that, you know, people learn so much about him in that fight with

Kamaru. We knew that he was tough. We knew that he was, you know, beating people by landslide, but we just didn't know how tough to gauge his toughness compared to somebody like Kamaru. But in that fight with Kamaru, we learned a lot about Kobe and we learned that he has not only a lot of mouth he got action behind it so you know people are starting to look at him with new eyes and um you know T. Wood is in for the five is life you know it's it's it's really it's really a tough position to be in when you're in there with somebody who talks as much as Kobe, and you just can't lose to him. That has to suck.

Yeah, look, they used to sell the drama between them much better back in the day in terms of trash talk back and forth, and Kobe saying that he made Woodley tap out and cry and all that. We'll see here. It's going to be a very interesting bout. Five rounds. I hope Woodley pulls the trigger. I'd like to see some wrestling. I'd like to see the T-Wood of old make a little bit of a comeback, and all that uh we'll see here it's going to be a very interesting bout five rounds uh i hope woodley pulls the trigger i'd like to see some wrestling i'd like to see the t would have old

make a little bit of comeback but as we found out rashad it's not you know sometimes it could be in your head not in your body or or or you know vice versa you've been there down the end of your career when yeah you still carry yourself as a champion but if everything's not aligning right right then you know mind mind, body, soul, spirit, all that, it is hard, it is hard. Yeah, I think, I think Dean Thomas, he did a post about it this weekend that really just solidified what it is, you know, that happens to you as you get older as a fighter, he said, when you're in your 20s, you want to fight everybody, but then, you know, as you get older, you don't want to fight everybody, you then, you know, as you get older, you don't want to fight

everybody. You know, you'd rather sit down and buy them a beer or buy them a dinner. You know what I'm saying? Just because you start to cerebrally start moving in a different way. And mentally, you just don't look at fighting the same way. You don't feel fighting the same way. So at that point, when you reach the same point, you have to recalibrate why you're doing it. You know, you're not doing it for the same reasons as you were doing it when you started it, when you were much younger. Now you have to recalibrate that and say, okay, now I'm doing it for this and truly believe it and get behind that belief like you did the first time. Rashad, this is a pretty damn good undercard. This is like a, you know, Applebee's two apps

for $20 special type deal there's a lot of little fixings on here that i'm interested in sampling here if you had to look up and down i'm gonna want to know which storyline on the undercard are you most excited for i'm gonna hit you right off the top don serrani's coming off of four straight losses and he's going in there against an absolute savage in this co-main event against Nico Price we've seen the cowboy Rashad just as you're ready to mark him as washed and done dig deep and pull on the Alexander Hernandez fight dig deep and remind you exactly who he is um I hope he can do that here because as much as cowboy is like you know Zufa for life and the ultimate company man it's hard to for them to

keep promoting you when you've suffered five straight defeats especially many of them by knockout i think we're going to see a cowboy who's really going to pour it out in there and this could be some freaking violent theater are you ready for this i'm ready for this and it's definitely gonna be some violent theater i mean first of all nico price is an absolute maniac inside the octagon uh just looking at some of his highlights and some of the fights that he you know he's won I mean, first of all, Nico Price is an absolute maniac inside the octagon. Just looking at some of his highlights and some of the fights that he's won, he finds a way to get it done in the most odd and most bizarre ways sometimes. But he gets it done, and he's got a dog in him.

He's one of those guys that he likes to take a beating before he goes in there and finish you off. And Cowboy has to find a way to to not even uh give way to any of that you know he has to continue to put the pressure on right from the start and uh dive into some of his his game and some of his tools that he don't really use i'm telling you cowboy has the most amazing jujitsu i've i've ever i've ever seen but he doesn't use it enough and i think if he starts to use it enough as he gets older he can squeeze out a few more years or a few more wins yeah cowboy dad and his wife just had another child i forgot what they named it like something outdoorsy that that doesn't make a lot of sense but shout out to the cowboy family right there rishad any

other sub head quickly uh jumping out to you on this card i mean i like me some johnny walker back listen listen calm that shemayev hands down to me hands down is probably the best athlete fighter i've ever ever seen in real life train wow swear to god i'm not I'm not I'm not playing I'm not ever like like like I mean he's pretty dope man he's pretty dope I was watching him train the couture's gym just a few days ago and his creativity his ability his vision and sight is is on the next level man he's he's, I mean, like, I can't say ever, ever, because, of course, I've seen some great challenges. You said ever, ever, Rashad.

Well, I mean, okay, okay, ever, ever is a long time. He's got some skill. I will say this. He's, people should be worried about him. They really should be worried about him. We want to learn our lessons of over-hyping guys. We've talked about this a lot. But he, you know because you can have a sage north guy you can have a tom duke and wah a uh do who choy you know these guys are like oh my god they're gonna be the next

thing and then it just doesn't happen but he does really have that sort of next level thing going not just his aggression but the attitude for him to so easily rip all these elite fighters and call them out and laugh at them. I saw that video where he dropped Gustafson with a body shot and sparring. What's interesting here against Gerald Mirshart is they're already talking about making the Demian Maia fight for Chimaev. And Mirshart not happy about that. He's taken the whole underdog overlooking me approach. That should make him fired up.

This could be a good one, Rashad. It could be definitely a good one. I mean, fired up. This could be a good one, Rashad. It could be definitely a good one. I mean, you know, it will be a good one. I just, when I look at Shemayev, you know, he has an ability on the ground, and we've seen him just dominate guys on the ground and just have that Habib-type game. But what I've seen from him at Couture's gym was, like, some unboxed stuff. Like, he was honestly like

like doing some creative stuff and just the way he was moving in and out um his setups his vision seeing things coming at him it was uh it was amazing man i think that you know when it comes to overall game you know he's he's definitely top of the ladder in his weight class and soon the world is going to find out this card also giving us a women's strawweight special mackenzie dern and random marcos which i can get down with that every day of the week uh that's not the only big time fisticuffs this weekend showtime championship boxing back back at you with a bang and this is as we know an absolutely loaded era for the 154 pound division

junior middleweight super welterweight whatever you want to call it uh 99 of the fighters that matter are under that that uh that premier boxing champions banner we know a week from next weekend september 26th we're going to get that double charlo pay-per-view and specifically jermel charlo putting his title on the line against Jason Rosario, who won those two titles at 154 by knocking out J-Rock Williams. Three of the four titles will be at stake. Well, the winner of that fight could be on the hook to face the winner of this one on Saturday night when 25-year-old Erickson Lubin goes in there against Terrell Gauchet.

Rashad, this is a sneaky good matchup here at 154 because gauche may have either lost or maybe not always look the best when he step up to the very elite level but i look at him as a sneaky out a guy with olympic pedigree and experience a guy who can really box and he's tough i thought he beat austin trout in his last fight but he got a draw obviously the big name coming in here is Erickson Lubin, the younger guy. But both guys can win this fight. And when you're talking about the winner being a mandatory for that WBC title and the fact that the winner of Charlo Rosario is going to have to fulfill that mandatory,

we're starting to put the storylines together. You know, I beat this guy. I'm going to have to fight this guy. Division's loaded. We got Erislandy Lara. We got J-Rock williams jared heard brian costano tony harrison we got enough for like a 12-man tournament but uh how much have you seen rashad of the hammer ericsson lubin because this guy's hungry i've seen a bit of him i watched a few highlights of him uh you know he's got super fast hands and just um you know he's got that dog in him. You know, I think that, you know, being knocked out by Charlo is really kind of lit a fire under him.

And he's kind of got this mentality where, you know, he feels like the underdog. He feels like people are counting him out. You know, there's nothing that's going to keep him down. I was watching some videos when he was training, you know, during a pandemic and was just, you know, mentally motivating himself. But, you know, he knows that he talked himself into uh talked himself into this fight you know i'm saying calling out gosha and and just you know talking all that trash and whenever you talk that trash you have to train at this level you have to because that trash talking that does not sit well when you got your butt whipped yeah look lupin is hungry i have not seen heard this

level of trash talk out of him before i talked to him last week about this fight and he's fired up he thinks it's his time now to become the face of this division we mentioned 25 years old and he now thinks that loss to jermell charlo in 2017 first round ko it was devastating right he now looks at that as a blessing in disguise. Something that he ultimately needed to have happen to him in order to learn what he needed to learn. And since then, he's bounced back. 3-4, good-looking wins. He retired Ishe Smith.

He came in there against Nathaniel Gallimore in his last one and looked absolutely fantastic. Just shut him down. He's hungry and ready. He's got that big left hand. He called him the hammer for a reason. But he's a guy who could have gone the long Olympic amateur route and made that decision at what? 18 to turn pro originally promoted by Mike Tyson.

And he's really working himself together. I love the relationship he's having right now with coach Kevin Cunningham. He's a tough ass. Doesn't take no crap. Has a history of working well with soft paws like Devin Alexander. So this is going to be a good fight because go Shay, if they make this a X's and O's battle, I could see him really banking some rounds and getting in there.

It's going to be up to Lubin to let that left hand go and be the aggressor and make a statement here. And Rashad, as we mentioned, I can't wait for that Charlo Rosario fight. I love me some of these lions only Charlos, but Jermel's going to have a fight. Have you seen this guy, Banana, Jason Rosario? It's a big right hand, brother. Yeah, yeah, he does have a big right hand, and Charlo's going to have to watch out for that. Whenever you're going against a guy with that big right hand that has the ability to get you out of that one big right hand, you can be hot for the

whole night, but you always got to make sure that big right hand, but Charlo is so defensively sound and just got that presence in the ring that I don't think that big right hand is going to be a factor. I think he's going to find a way to neutralize it and just do what he does. Can't wait for that. Don't forget September 26th, Showtime Pay-Per-View. I don't know if you want to call it the intermission, the halftime show, but MK's got you covered.

Your boy BC, Luke Thomas, on the Pay-Per-View broadcast, right? 7 p.m. Eastern start. Two separate three-fight cards in the middle for a half hour. You're going to get yourself some morning combat, okay? So how about that, all right? I'll wear my best t-shirt. Let's do it. From the bubble, Mohegan Sun fired up indeed.

That will wrap it up for our big topics of the week. Rashad, we now transition to a segment where the people speak, okay? They want to be heard. The viewers, the listeners were deep in their ear hole each week. It's time to hear DMs from Don. Full disclosure here, we have not been briefed on these, so we're going to do it on the fly here

at dip 3886. Going to kick us off. So Rashad, this one's a little bit sexy. I like this. With Dustin Poirier having pulled out of the negotiations, claiming that the UFC doesn't want to pay him to fight Tony Ferguson at UFC 54, sorry, 254 in that co-main event, what would be your ideal choice to replace Poirier against Tony Ferguson?

DIP has offered Michael Chandler or Charles Oliveira as potential options. I like that Michael Chandler or Charles Oliveira as potential options. I like that Michael Chandler. I think that'd be a great fight for Michael Chandler to come into. It'd be tough. It'd be a baptism by fire. But at the same time, you know, Chandler's not the youngest kid on the block. He don't have time to sit up there and march his way all the way up through the rankings. And he wants to come in there and make an impact.

There would be no bigger impact than going in there. Oh, God, he'd be a title challenger tomorrow if he won that fight. I mean, that'd be massive. Yeah. Whew. I'm still interested to see where this free agency goes, if Chandler and Bellator can come back to terms and we can get into making that rematch with Pitbull,

or whether it's time. At 34, looking great. It's time to go in the UFC. This is as tough on the dream list of matchups for michael chandler to debut against right we talked about paul felder would be great kevin future champion kevin lee would be great yeah tony ferguson would be even better and if we can't get poirier ferguson which i really think was going to be in the discussion for best non-title ufc fight in history really rashad it's up there with Evans versus Rampage right first guy to tear

the door off the socket people forget hey it did a million pay-per-view buys back when hey they forget I don't want to say back when that meant something it means something today to do a million plus pay-per-view buys all right so shout out to that grudge match in the power of the ultimate fighter back then in drawing ratings um give us a full disclosure here on the set of tough with with uh with rampage jackson a was that door uh made out of anything but fly paper and b did you guys really come close to breaking contracts and throwing in the uh in the tough house yeah that that door was a cardboard door pretty much uh they expect them to get broke fighters lose all the time and punch them so they make them pretty flimsy uh and yeah we we came to blows almost came to blows a few times to the point where you know dana had you know like put us to the side and like listen listen

listen we we cannot have you guys fight at all because it was getting to the point where every single time we see each other it was like on. That's still the best season of tough. Now, that's the heavyweight season, correct? Yeah, heavyweight season. They had Kimbo, Roy Nelson, Mitch Rion. Showtime's Brendan Schaub checking in there as well. Oh, yeah. You got any good memories?

Did you coach Schaub? Yeah, I did. I did coach him. I coached Schaub, yep. We'll forgive him for him picking Conor to knock out Floyd, but outside of that, we love ourselves some Brandon Schaub in these parts. All right, Rashad. Yeah, Ferguson, Conor would be great.

Not going to happen if it's either of those names mentioned, if it's anyone from Felder to Kevin Lee. Really, you can't go wrong here. You do want a really big one, though. You want to reward Ferguson for taking the interim title opportunity against Gaethje on such short notice. Obviously, if either Habib or Gaethje get hurt, big one though you want to reward ferguson for taking the the interim title opportunity against gaethje on such short notice obviously if either habib or gaethje get hurt tony's going to be the one who slides in there so a lot of big things but you want to get ferguson something soon because i

think the fact that he stayed out for so long was the main reason why uh he got smashed up against against gaethje like that fair very fair i mean not saying it not not trying to take anything away from gaethje i'm just saying like i think that you know the starting and stopping and just not being active is really what uh cost for this this is the real show we take things away from people on the show right i'll take away your innocence if you watch this enough okay thank you hey let's move on from danny from at danny warner g danny warner g he says if habib is so focused on legacy why has he never talked about going up a weight class and doing the double champ thing oh interesting rashad um i don't know if i've ever heard habib say it or be against it i mean could you imagine him wanting a Kamaru Usman for all the marbles, champ, champ welterweight bout?

Nah, I can't because that right there is, it would be too ego-driven for Habib. I think that, you know, he's one of those fighters who, you know, he wants to beat everyone in his weight class. And he doesn't, you know, feel the need to go up or anything like that. I feel like he, in an expression sense, he has a relationship with Kamaru. You know what I'm saying? Like, I don't think that he would do that. I think if, if it was somebody like GSP out of weight class, I think that would be the only exception, but I think he's a, he's, he's trying to just solidify things in his own weight class. And look, Danny Warner G has written this in a sense that it sounds like he's sort of taking a shot at Habib.

I get it. Now, you know, there is a holy grail element in becoming a two-division champion to a degree. I also think it's been overplayed and bastardized and more people have gotten opportunities at that than maybe didn't deserve it. I mean, look, like that Holly Holm GDR fight could have gone the other way and home could have been a two division champion doesn't mean you know that that changes her legacy too much uh good god durandamy could have been a two division champion if she had beat amanda that time so you know so hudo got it at a time i didn't think he deserved it yet since then he's said look i'm one of the best ever you know fight me on that

and i think he's right um i don't think it's a slight against habib he has the opportunity rashad and you and i talked about this ad nauseum on our podcast that should he go the distance beat gaethje and then do that retirement bout next april whether it's against tony connor gsp whatever in this modern day era, good Lord, if you retire undefeated at this level, that's an, that's a, you know, it's both equally overrated and underrated, but at the same time, it's super impressive to be able to do that. He will be in that conversation with John Jones. If he pulls it off, whether Luke Thomas wants to believe it or not.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And that, and that to me, it, that solidifies his legacy more than anything. And like you said, I think too much has been made about the double champ and all that stuff. It's truly about the body of work and who you've beaten and the way you've beat him. And I don't think that he's even lost a round. I think maybe he lost maybe one round. One to Conor. Well, let's be honest.

Your boy Gleison Tebow won a couple rounds against him, but the judges didn't recognize it. But Conor has officially won a round against him. Yeah, Conor won a round against him. That's right. Conor did win a round against him. So, I mean, that's greatness. That's legacy right there.

Now, obviously, if any Habib legacy discussion, you're going to counter back and look at the injuries, the time off, the times he couldn't take fights due to fasting all that stuff he didn't fight in the end if he only has two more the amount of names we would have loved him to but when you go that that type of stretch with losing

one round I mean I'm sorry like you're you know he will smash your boy he's the real so there it is I smash yeah just send him the damn location uh from at leah m o'brien i can't tell if this is an irish male or if this is a lady wow we got some females watching the show shout out to that they want to know rashad evans of all your walkout songs in your career which one was your favorite step into the world the the the the uh krs1 song step into the world man yeah that was what stretch of your fights did you use that i use them for a little bit i use it

when i fought rampage and i use it like during that during that whole time i think i changed it up once i lost a few times but whatever song you used against Sam Alvey let's never delete it from your iTunes account I think I didn't come out to no music today what did you choose against John was that KRS1

against John Jones I don't know it wasn't KRS1 I can't remember what I used against John Jones what is the biggest... You have a Hall of Fame career. You freaking knocked out Chuck Liddell with one punch. You also won the UFC title. But you had that big selling pay-per-view with Rampage.

You had the damn grudge match with John. What's the biggest night of your career? Not in terms of accomplishment. What do you think was the highest platform you reached? Was it the John fight? I mean, that mattered. Yeah, it did matter. It did matter.

But I think the Rampage one was a true one because I think that one kind of pulled people in more. You know what I'm saying? Because of the beef with me and Rampage and the fact that it was on you know uh on ultimate fighter show and it was you seen him be for weeks and weeks and weeks so it had much more of a build-up you know yeah how about two black men pulling off one million buys on the pay-per-view there a lot of people uh got behind that same thing with

angela hill becoming the first african-american female this past weekend to headline a UFC card. So good on all of that. Let's go on at crowned terror. Rashad, everybody always asks who hit the hardest, but with all respect, who hit you? And you thought to yourself, wow, I didn't even feel that. Love you guys. Thanks. A little bit of a loaded question here, Rashad.

Who hit me hardest i think keith jardine hit me the hardest i remember fighting keith jardine that was a great fight by the way from the ultimate fighter people never talk about that fight yeah that was a great fight he hit me and uh like i remember like for a minute went out, and then I woke up, and then I thought, the referee hit me. You know what I'm saying? Because it was just, like, one of those things, you know? It was Mazzagati, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was one of them. And the hardest blow I ever received in a fight that I immediately felt, because sometimes you don't really immediately feel the hits in a fight,

was when I got kicked in the eye against against oh my gosh I love my tongue just not Glover not Glover it was uh Sam Holger Sam first fight he it was a third round everything was going beautiful and he threw a kick and it hit me in the eye and immediately it was like the worst pain I've ever felt in my life, man. It was terrible. But that was it. And who did I fight?

You know the real spirit of this question, Rashad. They want to know, with all respect, who hit you and you thought to yourself, wow, I didn't even feel that. I know the story you're about to tell. Tell the damn Machida story. Do it. I can't say what I mean. Machida's story, do it! I can't say what I mean. Machida did, at first he wasn't really thumping or anything, but then he did come with some power.

But I'll say, whoever punched me, I just didn't really feel it. Believe it or not, I would say, believe it or not, it was probably Brad Imes. Brad Imes hit me. You're walking through those. You're walking through the big six. I remember he hit me with a couple of punches, and I was like, they didn't hurt as bad as I thought they would hurt.

You know what I'm saying? I thought you were going to set me up with the machida, give you a little okie-dokie, a little tap, tap, tap, and then he brought the pain. All right? You know, here's the thing about it. It's like when you get punched in a fight, you know, it's always the ones you don't see.

That's always the one that rock you. Even if the guy doesn't have much power, those are the ones that rock you because you don't have a chance to brace for it. So, you know, that's why it makes it hard to say who hits the hardest you know i'm saying because all these guys got different powers compared to just based on how much you're ready for it yeah i'm with you i'm with you on that love the insight thank you uh from at brian c campbell rashad which shevchenko sister do you think is hotter oh sorry that was that was uh that was for me um Guwop Macaroni.

Is there some racial slurs in there? I don't know. But Rashad, if it was allowed, would you fight on acid or shrooms? Wow. Very woke question here for 2020 medication. Shrooms. Shrooms. Shrooms, definitely.

You know, I used to train on shrooms. I do a microdose and i train on shrooms make yeah you just can't make sure you got to make sure you just don't do too much but what happens you know whenever i trained on on shrooms is it kind of like uh it makes everything slow down like the matrix it was crazy you just got to make sure you do the right dose because you you know uh you can get into that zone where you kind of feel a little too good. And then it's not good for sparring. But there is a certain... We got USADA on line one here, Rashad.

Retroactively, yeah. There's a certain dose where you can get, you can take, and you just be totally plugged in. I know some fighters who actually fight on mushrooms and they love it. Wow, okay, okay. I guess we're going to have to end that story there. But what would it take to have a morning combat outing in which you, myself, Luke Thomas, I don't know, we went to Joshua Tree

and we licked toads together and had the cameras rolling. I'll dig deep, Rashad. I'll find the inside of myself, okay? Let's do it. I think that would be a great idea, man. I think we've got the cameras rolling. I think that we'll have a very cathartic experience.

I've got a perfect shaman. His name is Producer Jay. Can we bring him in? Jay, are you there? Jay? Jay, would you facilitate this, Jay? I would facilitate it. I don't know how much partaking I would do in all the good times,

but I would definitely facilitate it. I think it would be good entertainment. Jay, you know they're calling you Jet Engine Jay on social media. You know you had a rough week. People are coming for you, coming for your job, coming for your reputation. Somebody slid into my DMs, and I immediately bought a new Nest camera. I'm just going to leave it there. Okay, all right, Jay. I DMs and I immediately bought a new Nest camera. I'm just going to leave it there. Okay.

All right, Jay. I did send it to you for proof, though, in case things go too far. Rashad, success brings out haters, right? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You one time had to beat up those drunken dudes in that hotel room, right? Great story. Rashad, that'll wrap up that.

Why don't we go into uh i don't know the greatest segment in combat sports history here's what it is rashad we scour the globe for the good the bad the ugly from combat sports and beyond you haven't seen these videos i want your immediate reaction it is have you seen this shit jay hit me with the horns money all right rashad we start from saturday night ufc fight night in las vegas the post game show on espn karen bryant rashad evans and anthony smith shopping at the same store rashad what's going on here bro oh my gosh look i had no idea he was even gonna wear that look we didn't even talk about what we were going to wear on wardrobe day. And he surprised me with the whole exact.

Because Anthony was saying, yeah, I got a blue suit. And he just left it at that. So I'm like, okay. He said, it's a little bit different than yours. And he's seen the color of my suit. So I didn't think anything of it. Next day, he pulls out a damn near identical suit. Yeah.

And a tie. It was crazy. pulls out a damn near identical suit yeah it was awesome is there any sort of tension because you guys have shared the octagon before no we're actually really really cool man we're like we're like really cool like really good friends it's surprising it was kind of weird at first but then like uh i don't know it just kind of feels like we're just like natural friends it was yeah luke thomas's favorite fighter of all time don't let him hear just kind of feels like we're just like natural friends. It was weird. Yeah, Luke Thomas' favorite fighter of all time. Don't let him hear any differently. All right, we also had some highlights from this card. Hit me with it, Jay Lightweight's Atman Isatar sending Kama worthy to the deep, dark depths, Rashad. How about this KO one?

Yeah, that right there was amazing because nobody knows who Atman is. And, you know, you look at him and he doesn't seem as if he should hit that hard. But his in-the-pocket punching, the education going high-low, going back high again, that's some good boxing. When you've got that kind of punching. Yeah, Worthy had been red hot. And you told me before the fight, Atman was live. They call you Mystic Shad on CBS Sports HQ due to your betting picks, Rashad.

You're on fire. You're absolutely on fire, all right? Hey, I mean, you know, I do pick them. I do pick them. All right. Speaking of that, let's go deeper on the card. Featherweights, Billy Quarantillo was in a war with Kyle Nelson, a lot of back and forth, but we open up round three, seven seconds in. One hit-a, quit-a,

Rashad, because that's all it took. This guy, Billy Q, don't call him Quarantio. He's removing that pronunciation from his name. He's on fire, Rashad. He gets hit, though, but he's on fire. Man, Billy Q is... First of all, he's from Western New York. He's from Ransomville. That's

pretty close to where I grew up from. I grew up at, and he can get it done on the ground. He can strike, but that power that he showed in that right hand and the vision that he showed, it just shows this guy has a high ceiling, but that, that punch hearing it live, it was like, oh my, I grabbed my eye. It was just so concussive and loud it had a thud to it where when you were there you like it sounded like something broke like he broke an orbital socket or something he's been under the radar one of the biggest surprises of the quarantine right hannah cypress still taking quarantine l's unfortunately but this is billy q rising oh let's move on heavyweights on this undercard rashad somebody's getting beat by a man with titties it's alexander romanov giving the fat guy suplex on roky martinez hey this guy

romanov afterwards was calling out the entire division um i don't know how they made 265 rashad but you down with this guy i mean he had some hell of a throw but he has a nice b cup too or maybe c cup but listen he can get down i mean when it comes to what the heavyweight division is lacking he has what they're lacking so he can definitely go in there and make an impact but i need to see more with the hands you know i didn't really get to see what he had to offer from his hands and really transitioning into some meaningful grappling uh takedowns. Michael Bisping had the joke that this rechecked the reinforcement of the octagon.

It reminded me of the greatest fat guy suplex of all time. We go back in the way back machine to 2011 WWE raw Mark Henry getting the big show up Rashad, very reminiscent of Saturday night. Only the ring couldn't hold them. Oh my gosh. That's exactly what it was. ring couldn't hold him oh my gosh that's exactly what it was I couldn't believe that throw and then he had the nerve to throw his his corner afterwards

but I mean look at this throw right here dang that's a lot of power right there that had to be every bit of like 800 pounds Luke Thomas would not allow this if he was here all right let's go on Bellator 246 the co-main event Neiman Gracie submitting 42-year-old John Fitch with a kind of interesting reverse knee bar, whatever you call that thing, Rashad. But afterwards, Mr. Fitch leaving the gloves in the center of the cage. Rashad, he's had a very sort of demonized career, yet you look, there's a lot of wins on that career.

He called it, I'm too old, I'm 42, there's nothing left to accomplish. How will you remember John Fitch, good or bad? Good. He was a really good fighter, and then the fighting game kind of made him cynical, and just kind of, he lost his love for fighting, and once he lost his love for fighting, just the passion and what he put behind it kind of went away as well and he kind of lingered on for a while but um you know he was a force and and he definitely was uh at one time one of the toughest guys in the ufc uh dana white never loved him uh there was a lot of like cinemax b movie level sex positions he'd pull off but you know he had won something like seven in a row then had the

draw with rory mcdonald and then this fight so he had been active and successful in uh in world series of fighting onto bellator but uh he moves on after their big win for name and gracie who needed it we go on to top rank boxing over the weekend rashad edgidus uh cavaliuskis mean machine is back rebounding from that loss to Terrence Crawford on the title level by sending Mikhail Zuzki to hell. Afterwards, he called out Bud Crawford, but Rashad, I don't need to see that fight again. No, no.

I mean, look, the way he got dusted off real quick, I mean, the way to come back and everything like that, look at the way he just blazed him across the ring right there i mean it is i feel you bc we don't uh in gross boxing of the week we go to moscow uh ufc and bellator veteran heavyweight sergey karatanov making his pro boxing debut against two 47 year old danny williams the guy from britain who knocked out mike tyson like 18 years ago uh karatanov won a ko2 tko excuse me when williams uh just stopped fighting and the ref waved it off but rashad this didn't make the headlines his entrance is what made the headlines have you seen this shit rashad evans we got an 80s level rock band band playing. It looks like Zach Wild right there.

And we've got a live bear, Rashad. Oh, my gosh. Wow. Oh, my. Wow. They do things a little bit differently on the risky side. That looked like the damn bear that Habib was wrestling at that time. Many a PETA supporter, including Luke Thomas, had issues with this on Twitter.

But, Rashad, look at the 80s vibe, the dancing chicks, the guitar solos. I'm kind of here for this. I'm sorry. All right? I'm sure that bear's happy. They probably put him to sleep with a laser gun afterwards, but I'm sure he's very happy, Rashad. Imagine if that bear would have went ape shit and just bit everybody. You remember in the early 2000s when we used to get high all the time

and watch celebrity boxing on Fox? But then it kind of ran its course, so they had that man versus animal show. Yeah. Do you remember Kobayashi had the hot dog eating contest against the bear? And the bear basically just sat there, stared at the camera,

and then picked up like 27 of them with his claw and ate them in one bite. Great moments in TV history there, Rashad. I know you saw that. How do you say this? Let's move on here. Rashad, we all want to be there for our kids and our daughters, but if you're a dad, you've got to know about weight limits here

if you're going to get on your daughter's bike. Shout out to this guy with the socks and sandals and uh little girl's bike you've been sent to hell oh my gosh that bike is never gonna be the same that bike he just got it from he they just got it from the store yeah that's walmart approved right there oh that is definitely walmart approved he probably haven't rode a bike in so long oh man look at that handle fat people video shout out to that on instagram uh we go on to spinny shit of the week rashad we love we love ourselves some good bad spinny shit check out this dance instructor oh god i mean you gotta you gotta warn you're dealing with children here fellow what are

you doing what's going on here oh my gosh but the worst part about that whole video is not the fact that he did it was he didn't even check on the child he's sitting there just in in awe that he did it look at the child the child's knocked out cold buddy rashad this is the uh the showmanship error on social media he knows the cameras are running so he wants to finish the shot you know before checking in oh god that kid that kid is knocked out cold that kid is knocked out that kid is probably concussing right now jay jay sorry child services on line one jay can we roll on here uh what's next in the in the lineage here of spinny shit oh god it's raymond daniels the 40 year old kickboxing mixed martial arts superstar uh rashad can you go to church and

light a candle for this fella called uh patrick stenonic because he didn't just get a spinning back kick to the crotch once and waited five minutes for his man parts to come back he got it twice uh rashad there are certain noises we just shouldn't hear, right? Our parents in the upstairs, we shouldn't hear that. A grown man with no one in the crowd, guttural screaming. Did you hear the guttural screams that came out of this after the second one? He was diagnosed with a, I think a groin contusion. Is that black balls? He got black balled, Rashad.

That is just, that's as bad as it gets bro give me something here you knew it was painful when he doubled over and then he starts hitting the ground because he just can't get the pain out like the screaming is not getting the pain out enough you know what i'm saying like only thing that was missing in that pose was his feet just banging off the back of the canvas that was the only thing missing in that pose, but the velocity in which Raymond Daniels probably threw that kick. Oh, my gosh. Because he's on the Kung Lee program. Yeah.

They put him in there just to do spinny stuff. And I don't mean to be ill-humane here, but as a man, knowing a tenth of what this feels like, if they would have shot Patrick Stononick, I mean, it would have been murder, but it would have put him out of his misery, Rashad. Yeah, I mean, and here's the thing. Like, the cup, like, normally you'd think, like, when people get hit in the nuts, I'm like, all right, come on, you got a cup on,

especially with the right cup with, like, a steel cup. You don't really feel it that much. So I don't really, like, I'm kind of bothered when people do that. But this right here, that would probably go through any steel cup. feel it that much so i i don't really like i'm kind of bothered when people do that but this right here that would probably go through any steel cup that would go through your soul rashad i mean yeah i don't know if he's ever going to fight or walk again he's definitely not having kids so hey he had a good run there patrick's you know nick uh we all grieve with you uh let's roll on jay what do we got next here oh yeah there it is there it is just let that out oh here's the video of the week

rashad check out the athleticism here do not try this at home we've all been there though we get down the wrong subway platform we're gonna miss our train look at carl lewis here lord mike powell insane whoa whoa sign him up is that parkour shot what is that wow that's hood parkour that is that man just put his life on the line for our entertainment shout out man wow it looked like he has done this many times too like this is what he does like this is what he does yeah unbelievable i mean i know the world long jump record is like 29 feet so it's probably not that ridiculous but just the danger of the uh yeah okay hey let's go on from here uh another knockout i don't know if you saw this rashad tuesday night dana white contender series from the apex tell me about philip hawes land in this one damn next stop hades

amazing shot and such a well-deserved uh job such well-deserved for phil hawes who you know had a struggle making it and performing at this level on the scene with the ufc and now with that that big right hand he gets a contract and you know And Phil is somebody I trained with way back in the day, and he's come back around to the team, and now he's clicking on all cylinders and just feeling himself immensely dialed in. He's going to be tough. Yeah, Haas, you've seen that shit.

I have. All right, let's go on to ladies working out here. She's got a good setup. She's got a good plan. Rashad, what is that? What is on those pants? What the hell are we doing here? Look at the unit on that guy rashad what are we doing what is happening here what what am i seeing what am i looking at here that's i feel like i shouldn't be looking there you know but i just

can't help chicks with sticks no that is a that is a print design on her pants there that makes me uncomfortable jay i'm sorry can we get out of that all right hey rashad you ever see those papa shot things in the basement check out this guy two-hand slam dunk champion you look like he might have broke his back on that one get back on business that way man doctor said you need a bacchiotomy yes all right yeah okay final all right rashad i know you live your life a quarter mile at a time like dom toretto so check out this car chase in england it is both fast and furious look at this oh my gosh but look at you can escape now now that that's something off a movie like if you you see that in the movie like that would never happen that's like you know what i'm saying but it does it does happen we just seen

it that's something also like you see in florida because in south florida you see the craziest accents you see cars flipped over people running around you see crazy stuff as our resident florida man rashad kid firms i like you like oh my, you would only see that in a movie. Oh, actually in South Florida. All right. Hey, Rashad, we got one from the archives. Our viewer, Ahmed Atia sent this in. You know your manager? Manager of the Stars?

Ali Abdelaziz? Check him out. 2007 at Heroes 8. Going in there against former UFC title challengerenger Kale Uno. Oh, my gosh. Look at this. Now, full disclosure, Ali ended up tapping in this one. Submission loss.

But look at this. That's a takedown, Rashad. Yeah, he had some moments. He actually threw him a couple times. Ali has some sneaky good judo. And it's surprising like ali can ali can really fight and and when i was fighting for uh training for sean salmon ali was my main training partner i learned how to throw that kick so good because ali's a soft

paw and i was kicking him in the head with that kick now your your your head kick of poor sean salmon is running every highlight reel of great UFC moments. Did Ali get some of that sauce during training? Yeah, that's how I perfected it, on Ali. What happens in sparring supposedly stays in sparring, but I think the statute of limitations have passed on there. It passed. Look, our viewer of the week, shout out to this guy once again, this couple.

They're touring the country. It's Bill and Jen's RV Adventure on Instagram. We love Bill. Check them out, Rashad. This week, they're at North Cascades National Park in Washington State wearing the MK merch there. Very comfortable green shirt. We'll have to get you outfitted in that.

Rashad, are you a National Parks guy? I am. I love that shot, too. Where is that at? That's at North Cascades National Park. It's up on the Canadian border of Washington State. It's supposed to be the the u they call it the u.s alps rashad all right they got some nice uh tite shaped mountains up there i'm a big fan of that you know shout out to bill and jen they are still i don't know if they work i don't know what's going on

we love bill and these parts uh also one of our viewers at g GregAlt31, sent in. He actually did go to show.store.com and got in on the merch. He ordered the mug. But, Jay, what is going on here? Can you talk to people in shipping? Well, first, Bill with the point. Thank you, Bill. Thank you. Jay, can you advance the slide, please?

Yeah, that's not good. Oh, man. The U.S. Postal Service ruining that. Jay, can we bring you in here? Jay? Jay, can you personally see that Greg gets a new mug or what? I'm sure I'll be blamed for this, as I'm blamed for everything else that goes wrong on this show.

Is that on us or is that on the shipping? That's on the Postal Service, right? I'm sure it was not on us. It would definitely be on the uh nice shipping fellows if we have to blame somebody let's blame the post office all right we close with this rashad we have a listener who's more like family he lives in italy he is the greek god of graphics and thunder christos christoforos who every week just gives us these goodies of uh posters he makes rashad my favorite action movie of all time is Marked for Death, and check

out what he did for me here. Seagal Goes Campbell. Jay, can you read that, what the poster says? I can't see it, Jay. Not a word of it. Not one word. Hopefully one of our viewers with one of those big 50-inch screens

can... Yes, people do watch us on those. I've seen those i've seen those posts online yeah rashad i gotta get this printed out and put put behind me i mean this is just fantastic i mean that was that now that was the one with the jamaicans in it right yeah i'm right that one who did that the white boy hatcher rashad let's be honest who took the worst death in action movie history? Was it Screwface number one or two? I mean, you know, they both got their...

Yeah, they got their junk sliced up with a sword. Yeah, they got... BC, do you have a knife like that at home? Is that part of your personal weapon? I'm not allowed blunt weapons in this house, Jay. That is not blunt. That does not look blunt at all. Let's go on to a little bit of odds and ends here to close the show.

And I will start, Rashad. You were there, so I want to bring you in on this. This bizarre situation going on. Short fuse Ed Herman was in a light heavyweight bout against Mike Rodriguez. He was getting beat up. There was a knee to the body. And Herman went down, and after Chris Toione, the referee, Toione,

Toyota came in there, waved off, gave him the five-minute break, ruled it a low blow. Rashad, the replay showed clearly that it was a hard knee to the stomach, and it looked like it would have knocked Herman out because he covered up into the shell and was getting plastered with punches. Here's the deal, though, that got people upset. Ed Herman milked it,

took like the full five minutes, recovered from this second round knee in which he looked out, and then rallied to win the damn fight afterwards, Rashad. Let's talk about this because i have praised lionheart anthony smith in the past he could have been your light heavyweight champion against john jones if he sold that dq tell me if i'm wrong or not on that illegal strike no you're absolutely right i mean you know uh ed ed did what he he he did what the referee allowed him to do you know what i'm saying i

mean should have ed been like all right look i'm faking look i got yeah i don't know because he he might have not really known that he he didn't get hit in his in his junk or how low that blow was because in all in all honesty sometimes when you get hit in the liver, it sends a shot of pain and it hits your butt. You know what I'm saying? It feels like you need to boo-boo for a second. So he could have thought it was a low blow. But at the same time, the referee needed to be in position. Not even be in position.

He needed to take a second to kind of look at how it just it was it was it was just bad it was just terrible altogether um very unfortunate very unfortunate because the next round uh he got caught in in a kimura that's the kimura that you never see you never see anyone get caught in a core like this not at this level not not like that unreal would you call that white belt shit is that what they call it that that was white belt ish shit yes for sure like um so here's the deal like i don't want to damn ed herman either it's a smart manipulation of the rules if he knew better look the replay showed he got hit flush in the kind of mid stomach but the knee did slide down and i think it did at least catch contact with

the groin on the way out so i know in a fight you're right rashad i gotta we gotta respect that in a fight your mind is in a few different places when you're getting hit afterwards he was like i'm not really sure what it hit but i felt it but this has like the feeling of like a soccer match and all the flopping or the nba flopping this has a feeling of sort of milking the system would would the respectful thing have been to like take a 10 seconds and then get back and be like no no i'm good i'm good or are you okay with when the system gives you this do you take it i mean yeah i mean yes yes if the system gives it to you then you have to take it you have to take it because here's why you have to take it there's going to come a time where something comes up

short against you you know what i'm saying you're going to come up on a shorter than a stick and that's how it works like eventually you know it for some somehow some way this will find its balance it'll balance out some way somehow and he's saying ed herman will get sent life will send ed herman to hell eventually so it'll be karma's real i like i don't know it's kind of like you go to walmart and you you know you buy something with a 20 bill and they give you back like you know 22 and change and you don't realize into walking out and you're like oh whoa oh i guess it's my day today and you don't realize it until you're walking out and you're like, oh, whoa, I guess it's my day today. And you keep going.

I guess it's equivalent of that, right? Equal to that. Yeah. I mean, it's a referee's job to not make that mistake at all. Well, let's add Chris Tagnoni. How do you pronounce his name? Chris Tagnoni? I think so.

Yeah. Well, first of all, shout out to the UFC for paying Mike Rodriguez his winner's share, even though he technically lost this by submission. But Dana White, I don't know if you heard it, he went off at the presser afterwards. Rashad, he was using words like Steve Mazzagati. So, look, Dana White doesn't use the N-word, but the equivalent of the N-word for Dana White is using Steve Mazzagati, and he compared that to this situation and basically wants to see where this guy never works again.

I think this can be fixed with a change in the replay rule, which under that fight's terms, you can only replay a fight-ending scenario. But obviously when a situation like this could affect the end of the fight so greatly, which it did, can we just change the damn unified rules and not have it where every other state has a different set and we're not really sure which state we're in at the moment? Like, please. Absolutely. Because here's the reality of the situation. You're going to make a mistake. And as I was saying in the beginning, you know, that was a

perspective that he couldn't see. He couldn't see that that perspective that angle uh and there's so many things to watch him watching so many things all at a split second you know what i'm saying so it's really it i do understand danny white's frustration i do understand where he's coming from where he's mad at but at the same time there has to be a system set in place where if something does happen like that where the referee couldn't see it from some other angle and there's some kind of uh controversy it can be reviewed reviewed i would love if somebody could get mazzagati and dana white in the same room at the same table maybe put like a jail-like clear screen between them and then just have them go at it and just argue that'd be great rashad it'd be great tv okay mazzagati uh reff me when i fought forrest griffin and you know how I was hitting Forrest at the end and it was over

and I looked up at Mazzagati to stop and he didn't. You know, he stopped a little bit. Afterwards, Dana was so pissed off, man. He was so pissed off. He wanted me to just like, he's like, bro, I see you looking up for him to stop. And he wasn't fucking, he wasn't stopping. He wasn't stopping. The thing is, Mazzagati still goes to fights.

He doesn't ref anymore, but he works for the Las Vegas Commission. So he's the guy a lot of the UFC fights that sits next to the cage with a referee's uniform on, like an old-school black-and-white striped referee's uniform. And he's like the timekeeper-type commission guy that's right there making sure everything's regulated. It's interesting how he's – I'm sure Dana loves that, by the way. All right, Rashad, my other quick point was on that bellator rollout of announcements uh put a put a pin in thursday night october 29th

from the mohegan sun bubble it's going to air uh 9 p.m eastern on the cbs sports network this bellator card i'm not sure what number it is but welterweight champion douglas lima is officially moving up and he's going to fight Gegard Mousasi for the promotion's vacant 185 title. Rashad, this is daring to be awesome from our guy Doug Lima, who, you know, of course we can rightfully say I'd like to find out where he actually ranks among the best welterweights in the world. But here's the deal about Bellator, Rashad, okay? Sometimes we can frame Bellator, we can focus too much on the old guy

fights we can focus too much on well you could go there to rehab yourself and yes if you want to you could go there to take soft matchmaking you could also go there if you want to be great and take one tough ass fight after another which Lima's doing good god he fought Rory and then what uh he fought Rory again and then he fought i mean now he's gonna fight gay guard i mean this guy you know he won the welterweight grand prix he showed you he's absolutely legit now he's gonna move up to middleweight to find out how great he can be i love this so much inject me rashad right now i mean right here right here okay please i love it i love it too and i love that lima's uh challenging himself

like this because this is what it's all about you know you get a chance to compete against somebody as uh as talented and as good as uh gay guy musasi you know you arrive on another level when you can uh beat a guy like that so uh yeah this is what it's all about but you know for bellator this is the direction that they need to move and they need to start making sure that they invest in the talent that they have. That's the biggest thing that Bellator is lacking. They're just lacking the love for their own talent that they bring up through the system. I think that they started to put more hype on their fighters because they have great talent, but they just don't give them the spotlight over old talent.

That's fair. Very fair. Indeed. Rashad, what is your odds and ends this week? What did we miss? My odds and end, it comes from the UFC fight that I was at this weekend, and it was an early fight. It was the Roosevelt Roberts and Kevin Kroon fight. And that fight was amazing. Kevin Kroon stepped in a fight, late fight replacement with 72-hour notice,

and went in there, came out to what a wonderful world and put on a show a 35 second victory where he came in and landed a big shot that stunned roosevelt roberts but then he then transitioned into a standing guillotine choke which he doesn't even know he even claims how to do but somehow found his way to make it mark make his mark but what makes it so impressive to me is you know this guy the the journey that crew has been on you know crew is is a lifelong journeyman when it comes to mixed martial arts never made over a thousand dollars competing in the smaller regional shows and was actually had a contract to fight in the ufc but failed this covid 19 test and then was uh cut from the ufc but then they brought him back because when he thought he he

got cut from the ufc got the contract got cut from the ufc after he failed the test and he thought the world was over and then just when he thought it was over he gets another chance but it was fighting at a higher weight class and it was fighting against roosevelt roberts and he just said you know what i'm gonna take it and that's why i did what dan and white awarded him so big afterwards he's like you know what you uh you take big chances and you get rewarded big so shout out to him dude his celebration felt really good that's one thing fan era rashad i almost feel like fighters when they win to fill that gap of not having screaming fans it's almost like we're getting some over celebrations and i'm here for it i love this change we are seeing people like maniacally celebrate like connor jumping the fence after

knocking out siever to find jose type of celebrations lately and uh this one was deserving i don't know if you heard his interview afterwards he He was completely, obviously, humble and shocked and happy. But he's like, yeah, I want to fight next week, too. I can make 45 or 55. And if you give me another week, I can make 35, too. What was his nickname, too? It was something real white trash. I loved it.

I loved it. Yeah, you know, he kind of reminded me of, have you ever seen that movie California with Brad Pitt in it? Yes. He kind of got a little bit early in him. Come kind of he kind of got a little bit early in him come on early he got a little bit of great early in him feel good moment tough break for roosevelt roberts right keep i keep picking them and then it's not working uh it was a tough break but here here's the thing with that whole situation like when when you're a guy like roosevelt roberts

or not even you know just just someone in that position position where you're a veteran in the UFC and you're fighting against a guy who's a late replacement, you have to meet that energy. And especially now with this pandemic fighting, these guys are getting this opportunity from these regional shows and they're realizing like, this is it. This is it for me. And they've, you know, they understand how hard the landscape is to even make it into the UFC. So they're willing to give it all. And for them, this is their title fight. So you have to match that energy.

If you're a veteran like Roosevelt Roberts or someone of that matter going in there against these guys. And he didn't do that. Yeah, absolutely. A fun week of fights. Look forward to showtime's return this weekend. That Colby Covington,

Tyron Woodley fight going to be fun. Rashad Evans, great going up and down MK with you. As you're part of our extended MK universe here, you have joined a list of royalty of people that have replaced Luke and I. It includes Chuck Mendenhall, the man with the damn hat, and Aljamain Sterling. Okay, okay.

I'm up there with some good people. Nice little crew that we're rocking out right there. Rashad, I've been jamming on that Peloton. One of these days, I'm going to come in with a tight jawbone. It's a rich guy thing, but it's working. I'm loving it. That's good, BC. It's all about the routine and stay consistent.

Consistency, yeah. It's kind of off-brand for me to eat clean. Diet is what creates abs, BC. Diet. Diet, okay, okay. So, Rashad, you know what I do when I pull up on a cumberland farms right what do you do when you walk in on a cumberland farms and you see like or maybe circle k wherever you're going in your uh you're in south florida i don't know what they got you got the rollers right you got like the tornadoes with the buffalo uh you know i mean you

got i mean like they're just screaming for you there There's the damn Slurpee machine. There's the 99-cent pizza. What do you feel on the inside? I get really excited. I walk by all of that, and I just go right to the front and just get the rolls. Just get the rolls. Shout out to that, indeed. Please try Showtime. Take the 30-day challenge, and tell me if you won't come back, okay?

I think you will. I think you're going to stay with it. Go to Showtime.com. Right now, I'm knee-deep in that Suge Knight documentary. Fantastic. I watched the damn one on Jeff Beck. It was great. A lot of great stuff on there.

Check out Outcry if you haven't seen that, along with our interviews online, Morning Combat as well. Luke Thomas will be back next week, guys. It's a big week. We're going to launch this vehicle. We're going to give you at least three live shows a week. Obviously, next week is the double Charlo pay-per-view adesanya costa oh good god yeah let me get some of that rashad right i mean that was weird but like you you got that right you got that yeah i got that i didn't get the pump but i I got it. Sorry. Follow him at Sugar Rashad Evans on the Instagram, on the Twitter.

Support what we do. Obviously, store.show.com. You can get your merch. Rashad, Evan, any message to close? In all seriousness, quarantine's been rough, but I've learned you've got to take care of yourself. You know what I'm saying? Absolutely. That's what it's all about, BC.

Taking care of yourself. And a matter of fact, I'm about to go to the gym right now and get some work in so gotta keep them abs going baby that's what i'm talking about all right a 40 year old with abs never heard of it until now all right it's here it's there that's rashad evans uh and that's it for us uh for sugar rashad for jay the producer i am your, BC. As Luke would say, may all your hoes be loyal. We'll be right back. We'll see you next time.