MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Bellator 263: Patricio Pitbull vs. A.J. Mckee Instant Reaction

Episode Date: August 1, 2021

Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell have you covered with an instant reaction to Bellator 263. Tune in for a break down of the biggest matchup on the card. Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oh hello hello donkeys! Let's see it is 1232 at night on the East Coast technically August 1st. My name is Luke Thomas and this is the Bellator 263 post-fi show right here on Morning Combat. Of course as I mentioned my name is Luke Thomas. I am merely one half of your hosting duo. Brian Campbell is fulfilling some CBS sports duties. He will join us here on the show as soon as it is over. Okay, a couple of news and notes here. First things first,

please give the video a thumbs up, hit that subscribe button if you are new here. We do the Monday, Wednesday, Friday thing for the live MK shows, but we do extra stuff like this for some of the bigger fights, UFC, Bellator, and the like. Of course, we have some socials, which I think we have a graphic for. If you want to see that as well, you can catch us on Instagram, on Twitter, a lot of different places. And of course, Morning Combat is there as well. Now, Bellator 263 literally just finished moments ago. We're going to get to those results. Obviously, I'm assuming if you're here, this is just a disclaimer, you don't mind getting some results. We're going to do those here, and we're going to get to those now.

Okay, so let's get to it. Bellator 263 took place at the Forum in Inglewood, sort of like Los Angeles, California. And yeah, AJ McKee wins. He defeats Patricio Freyde via guillotine choke at 157 of the very first round. Boy, there is a lot to say about this. I don't think anyone, we did CBS Sports HQ earlier today, and they asked me, you know, different ways about asking how good AJ McKee is. And I was like, well, here's the deal, folks. If he doesn't win tonight, meaning the title, he's going to win eventually. It just seems impossible that that's not in his future. But you thought maybe this could have been a bridge too far.

Maybe, you know, listen, Patricio Freire is 34 years old, but he went into this fight as not merely the double champ. But this was the other point. Dude, he ran through everyone that was in front of him in that tournament. Now, yeah, you could say Pedro Carvalho, not necessarily the toughest test imaginable for him, but he did what he was supposed to do with that test, which is pass it with flying colors. And then Emmanuel Sanchez, tough as nails, they had a tough fight their first go-round. Pitbull demolished him the second time. He couldn't even get it out of the round and so you

thought okay well if he doesn't win tonight he'll just win later and then he goes and does this where they kind of felt each other out of kickboxing range the whole time but eventually McKee threw a kick that Pitbull thought was going to the body so So Pitbull brings his hand, drops his level to one side to anticipate the absorption he was going to have to do. And instead it goes to the head. And it rocks him, and it rocks him quite badly, as a matter of fact, to the point where McKee thought after that, and maybe another punch or two, I have to go back and look, that Patricio drops

McKee thought he won he put his hands up like he won but you see Patricio kind of rally himself there just for a little bit get tries to get off the canvas and so what happens is he eventually finds himself into the arms of a guillotine and McKee just kind of stood and pulled and it wasn't like the most technical pull um because you could see one side of the neck exposed but like it wasn't fully exposed it was obviously listen he got the job done because you saw patricio's hand go limp so it closed the show at 157 folks i mean let's just be clear about something real quick that is as close to what conor mcgregor did to jose aldo as anything i've seen since then this This established figure,

just happens to be Brazilian, by the way, but this established figure, the guy, and by the way, featherweight as well, which is kind of funny, dominant for so long, like the division at the time that Jose Aldo was the champion was synonymous with his name. You can't talk about Bellator's featherweight division without talking about what Patricio Pitbull has done in it for the last 11 years almost.

I mean, he's been, if not the dominant figure the entire time, he's been one of the more pronounced standouts. And then obviously the last five or so years has been really the standout figure. And then AJ McKee goes in there and demolishes him. AJ McKee had a tougher fight against Derek Campos. AJ McKee, I think he made shorter work of Darian Caldwell, but this is one of his easier fights if you just look at the way it went.

What McGregor did with UFC and then 13 seconds, and it's all obviously orders of magnitude bigger in terms of box office, and maybe you even want to argue for sporting relevancy. There's a debate to be had about that. That's fine. I'm not making them.

I'm not trying to suggest that they are identical. They are not identical. But proportionally, they're pretty close. For AJ McKee to do something that, frankly, not really hardly any other organization can do. Like, one of the bad parts for Bellator, and bad is not necessarily the right word, but one of the limits to them, I guess maybe is a better word to say, is UFC has locked up most of the best talent,

but certainly not all of it, and some of it resides in Bellator. They can carve out a portion of their business that caters to that end, but the thing that Bellator sort of benefits from by being a number two and a distant number two but a number two just the same is that they can cater to a wider range of career stages you can make your Bellator debut there and then go from like the guy who's sort of getting his feet wet as a pro to then getting incrementally tougher challenges when you got five six seven or eight fights to then really moving it from prospect to contender through the

early teens. And now if you're AJ McKee into the 18th fight in your career, you've seen how things go in UFC. You can't really do that there. They cater exclusively, it's a strong word, almost exclusively, I should say, to that stage of talent development where people are kind of ready to go and see what you got. There's some, obviously, prospect to contender building and everything else, but you have to be of a certain level to just really kind of get going there.

Bellator can give you, they don't have as much of that, but they can give you other pieces. And AJ McKee is like proof of concept of what they're able to do now obviously he's an incredibly special talent and he deserves all the praise here I just mean to say this is such a unique moment frankly in moderate MMA MMA really anywhere while it does have shades of uh McGregor versus Aldo and sort of the narrative and the upsetting of established fighters and whatnot. Although it wasn't really an upset in the sense that I think right before fight time, right before fight time, McGee had become a slight favorite. Okay, but neither here nor there.

The point being is what you had was something highly unusual. You had this guy who was the consensus best fighter ever in that organization. And really before him him I don't know who you would have even pointed to he someone had to achieve something so great that the question even became relevant that happened through Patricio and then on the other side you have this guy who as I mentioned it was proof of concept of all the different ranges that Bellator could cater to in terms of professional development and career stages, and burns through all of it undefeated, total in his hometown, total swag moment,

and comes out and beats Patricio in a way that, dude, nobody has. The last time I saw someone kind of put it on him in this way was in the first Vyshal fight, whatever Vy'jas fight it was when they fought in the Kimbo and Ken Shamrock main card. Patricio got tuned up a little bit in the first round and then

came back and dropped him and then finished him off with some big punches. Dude, listen to his losses. Joe Warren took a split decision over him and had to eke it out wrestling. Pat Curran got a split decision over him and had to eke it out. Daniel Strauss got one over the course of a five-round fight, but had to earn it. That was sort of peak Strauss. Benson Henderson got it sort of technically through an injury because he was losing that fight.

Those are the only losses this dude has. And then AJ McKee comes in and just blows up everything you are supposed to understand about how either the fight game works or how good Patricio is. Like if this was the first time you tuned in, you're like, what's the hoopla? Can you imagine? Same thing probably happened to poor Jose Aldo to a much bigger degree. People tune in for the first time. They're like, oh, what's this Conor McGregor guy up to? and then he goes and just dusts them off in 13 seconds you're like this is the guy everyone was telling us about but you know the real heads know what time it is i'm pointing out how many times in mma have you ever seen a consensus standout figure against an undefeated phenom whose entire existence has lived under that promotions banner and then they collide at the end of a tournament

for the belt and for every other bragging right imaginable. Like you just don't see stars aligned in that way very often. And what he was able to do is just absolutely remarkable. A.J. McKee, absolutely remarkable. I mean, that wasn't, I think he took one hard inside leg kick, maybe a couple of other punches somewhere else along the line, but it was patient, patient, patient. I have to go back and look to see if he landed any middle kicks before that, or if he just kind of faked them out with his eyes or whatever the case was there. But you know, you want to call, not that anyone was calling AJ McKee lucky, but like if you wanted to say that, you know, at what point does that argument fall apart under the weight of just the evidence of success? Like, okay, maybe a couple times he got lucky, right?

Maybe once there and around he got a good, you know, the judges nod or something. But after 18 of these, man, at some point, you just, and not that I see a course of people denying him. He wasn't quite the troll of the establishment in the way that Conor McGregor was. But to the folks that may have been skeptical, including me to a degree, including me to a degree, I mean, what are you supposed to say now? That is one of the more coming-of-age moments you're going to see in MMA. Frankly, that's one of the better nights that Bellator has had, I'm going to argue, in a fairly long time, in part because of COVID. This was sort of their first, I know they had the France show and some other stuff has happened. They had some fans over at Mohegan, but this was like the first sort of

tentpole show they had done in a while. And could tell there was a big difference you could tell that the heads were out the the hardcore fans for this one in a way that they hadn't been before and the card was good even though they had lost the the stats and um megamedoff fight this was a good night for bellator but for aj mckee i'm trying to think of like there's a few of these moments in mma Obviously, McGregor sleeping out, that was one. I would say it's a little bit different. All these are going to be dramatically different in certain ways. But another one that sort of falls kind of in line with this, this contender blitzes through the establishment to take it over in, you know,

these grand and convincing ways. I'm going to say Shogun Hua going through that, I think it was a 2005 Pride middleweight tournament. Of course, Pride middleweight was 205. That's what they called it. So when he just burned through that tournament, that really put him on the map in a way that nothing else really ever had. And the names he was beating along the way to do it, including Rampage and others, was pretty impressive.

It's in that vein. It's in that vein. It really is. It's hard that vein. It really is. It's hard to convince people of that, I think, who are not overly familiar with the resumes of either guy. But if you just examine the body of work that Pitbull had turned in, and then if you examine the kind of rise that McKee had been on and what this signified, this was, for folks who didn't know what Strikeforce was like, it was like this.

This is a little bit closer to what Strikeforce, not every time. Strikeforce had challenger shows and they had some nubby shows too. Don't get me wrong. You don't want to say things about Strikeforce that are positive to the point of being false. But they did feel a little bit more like this. A little bit more like this. A little bit more with the crowd. A little more with stakes involved.

But this one is as big as they come. Now, there's always going to be this question, and it's not an unfair question, which is, okay, how does AJ McKee stack up against the best of the UFC? And what really folks want is an answer that we just really can't give without more information. Unless they fight, no one really knows. You're allowed to make an argument for whatever thing you want to say. I think there is a plausible case to make that AJ McKee, I wouldn't make the case that he's the best featherweight on earth, but here's what I'll say. He's probably, I think it's very fair to say he's exactly on par with the top five, and

I'd like to see him go and see what he can do inside the top three. I think that would be, I think he can hold his own definitely in the top five, and I think he'd probably snatch a couple of wins in the top in the top three um you know I think that's a defensible statement so somewhere in there but he is on par with the very best that that division has to offer um I I don't know what I mean listen this is the run he was on and you can see I could tell you exactly where you can see him level up. He gets wins. Here is when he took a turn. So he fought a bunch of guys with no even Wikipedia entries. And then he beat Justin Lawrence and John Macapa.

And John Macapa, he knocked out. There he leveled up. Then this is where everything turned. May 11th of 2019. And this is the run he was on. He beat Pat Curran, who was a former champion. He knocked out Georgie Karakhanian, who was on the card tonight. He did it in eight seconds into the first round.

Then he beat Derek Compost by armbar, a fight he was dominating the entire time, basically. Darian Caldwell took him down and then got submitted a minute and 11 seconds into the first. Darian Caldwell, former NCAA national champion wrestler, has wins over Brett Metcalf. And then he knocks out, excuse me, I should say he nearly knocks out and then standing guillotines. Again, there's a little bit of Jon Jones, Leota Machida there a little bit too. Standing guillotines, the best guy to ever fight in this organization at any point in any weight class. I mean, you know, like you could say what you want about some of the quality of the opposition, given that Veltor obviously is not going to have the same kind of roster as UFC.

Fine, you can make the argument that there is more to prove. Okay, but Curran, Karakhanian, Kompos, Caldwell, and Pitbull, and you stopped four of the five, including the last four, KO, submission, submission, submission. Dude, and you're 26, and all of your fights have been in Bellator. This is the best thing to happen to Bellator. I mean, Kimbo Slice was different. He obviously didn't bring the validity

in terms of the talent that AJ McKee does. He obviously brought the eyeballs. And to this day, Kimbo Slice remains the most popular fighter in the history of Bellator. But in terms of the validation that this win brings for them and somebody that they can bankably say that they took from cradle to stardom,

it's a good night for them. It's a good night for them. It's a legitimately good night for them. You have options as well. You could run a rematch back at 155. Remember, Pitbull is still the champion upper weight class. In fact, I'm going to say that with Emmanuel Sanchez losing, I thought if he won, they might ricochet him back into a title shot. But since he lost to Mads Brunel in

the co-main, it's not exactly clear who the number one contender would be. You could maybe argue running it back with Caldwell, but I don't see what the point of that would be exactly. Maybe somebody that Pitbull being along the way on the other side of the bracket, I don't know. But it looks like 155 might be something that they're looking to hammer home as well. You could run the fight back in that way. I don't know if they'd want to do that or not. I'd be curious to see where Brian's head is at on that. But you know, you obviously have a lot of other fights you could make up a weight class. But like, dude, the wind is still at this guy's back. If he can stay healthy and he can stay committed to the craft. I mean, one of the things he showed in this fight that I thought was pretty remarkable was go back and look at the compost fight, which was not long ago.

The compost fight was in December of 2019. Oh, you know what? Almost two years, a year and a half. That's a long time when someone is that age, they get better so quickly. But if you go back and look, he's just kind of chucking the book at Derek Campos just throwing all different kinds of offense at him some of it stuck you know some of it didn't but it was just kind of like you know uh sort of offense by volume and it wasn't super strategic in that way in fact that's how he ended up getting reversed but that that was also how he set up the triangle in transition okay so you saw the best of him there. Like, to go from that, where you're... Undisciplined is a strong word, but it's not as carefully managed as perhaps it could be,

especially when you're thinking about what the energy output you might need for a five-round fight. I picked up on the first minute and a half that this fight took place. I'm like, okay, he's taking his time. This is the right call. This is the right call, because you want to keep the volume up if you can,

but you want to make sure you stay with what you're good at, which is keeping someone on their toes, but you would want to edit it back a little bit to have enough for the later rounds. He did that and then still found the mark the first time he threw something of, frankly, significance. That's remarkable. No one does that to Pitbull. That is extremely impressive.

Even in my wildest imaginations, I thought even that would be a little bit hard to foresee. I thought if he would have won, it would have been wearing him down over time. And by time, I mean two, two three rounds if it went to the fourth we'll have to see there are still some questions to be asked of him which is what if someone does wrestle him but avoids the sub and takes him to the fourth round what will he look like there a fight like that tonight doesn't really answer that but it does tell you that in a year and a half since the compost fight, he showed incredible maturity, incredible patience, that in the year and a half since then, he didn't buckle under the pressure.

He didn't buckle with the extra cameras. He didn't buckle with the main event status. When he went into the tournament to see what he was made of, he shined the entire time. As the stage got bigger and as the lights got brighter, his performances matched that through each stage that's boy that is something that is that's a special special fighter and that's a historic night for this division uh it's a historic night for bellator and a historic night

for grand mma performances and by the way, it continues the great trend. This was going to be true really, no matter what, because it was the end of the tournament, but like really the best weight class in the history of Bellator, I would strongly argue has been featherweight. There's been incredible standouts in other weight classes. But going back to what Patricio has done and then Pat Curran and Daniel Strauss

and, and then now this new era of guys, it's pretty incredible. Okay, I think we have the king of Connecticut joining me from his studio, smiling awkwardly. Do we have him, Jay? Why don't you pot him up here? Is that him? There he is.

Hey, I thought we were in the California Penal League. We're wearing cutoffs. I'm dressed for HQ here, Luke, okay? I see that. You know what? I was not doing HQ, so I was like, I'm, what is the California Penal League? We're wearing cutoffs? I'm dressed for HQ here, Luke, okay? I see that. You know what? I was not doing HQ, so I was like, I'm not doing that shit. All right, BC, I've been ranting and rambling about this. Here's what I said.

I'd be curious to know what you think about it. And, of course, we'll talk more on Monday as we get more details and think about it through all the way. BC, this is as close as I can remember something feeling like Conor McGregor icing jose aldo in 13 seconds a lot of differences of course a million of them but i haven't felt like that night i haven't felt today like i had since that night agree and that was the proper comparison for this fight that i don't think we we rightfully picked up on ahead of time of the sort of

defending rock solid champion that had been the face of the division for so long and the new upstart is he for real well we can only find that out if he goes in there and beats that person so it had that storyline but Luke uh comparative yes because McGregor did it even quicker against Aldo and easier in a way than than even AJ McKee here did although McKee like, that's why I had that shit eating, eating grin. I mean, this was remarkable. The ease, um, nobody does that to pit bull Luke. I really felt like, like I was, I was trepidatious this week in doing the whole, you know, every once a generation, there's a tiger woods, a Floyd Mayweather of MMA,

all that bullshit. Right. Because, you know know it looks good against a certain level of competition and to your point when we were making the predictions you this week you know it's pitbull right you're not gonna have you're gonna be able to take those same chances and make certain mistakes and do that that's why i predicted okay mckee would win at basically even odds but it would be a decision i thought it would be a different kind of fight the fact that it went the way it did felt like we literally watched somebody burst through you know like for for high school football think Friday Night Lights Texas they got the banner and the cheerleaders are holding it and the state champion team comes running out you know during the announcements they push through and break through the band it was like AJ McKee did that through your TV screen

uh it was one of those moments where you you didn't believe he was going to be able to do that with that level of ease now look I'm not saying he's the greatest fighter of all time I'm not saying he's going to go out there tomorrow and do that same thing against you know Volkanovski or whatever I mean it's it's it is what it is right now within the storylines of this fight which was the the battle for Bellator history but as we stand right now aj mckee's the number one pound for pound fighter in bellator he's the featherweight champion i think he should fight next to the lightweight champion he's two wins away from owning the record for most wins

in bellator history he just tied the record for most finishes in bellator history i mean this is a remarkable journey and when nobody does that to a fighter of Pitbull's caliber he's only lost in you know decisions and a lot of these Luke we talked about in the resume review the Joe Warren fight the first Pat Curran he's the he's the fresher fighter coming on late in these and you're like okay he came up short but he figured out what he had to do and it's not that I'm retiring Pitbull it's not that he couldn't win a rematch it could look completely differently but as we stand here right now Luke because that's what the instant analysis is supposed to do It's not that I'm retiring Pitbull. It's not that he couldn't win a rematch. It could look completely differently. But as we stand here right now, Luke,

because that's what the instant analysis is supposed to do, yeah, it does feel a lot like Conor McGregor and Josie Aldo, only it feels a little bit more breakout surprising because I didn't think he was going to be able to do that. And what a night for Bellator, Luke. And this is not some ViacomCBS take. This is a promotion that needed this night to be big. It got promoted as the biggest fight in Bellator history. But, Luke, had it been a five-round slow decision,

it would have been what it had been. You know what I mean? We still could have had the same changeover in power. But, no, it was spectacular. And now you have not just one but two, really, because for a lot of folks who are casual fans, maybe they don't even know Pitbull. Now you you got two fighters that you need to see all the time uh hey uh Teddy KJB style pay that man his money let's if you want to keep AJ McKee and Bellator

pay that man his money because this is a special individual a special talent and Luke you mix that with the Dagestan invasion you mix that with seeing Coach Habib with the Bellator t-shirt. It just felt like this was a huge night for Bellator. The crowd seemed packed. People seemed happy and ready to spread COVID to each other. It's just, this was a home run for Scott Coker and company. So, you know, we're not paid to say this, but I will say this. Congratulations, Luke, for this brand that had had such a revolving identity.

They did the grassroots thing, and it worked, and they hit a home run, and we have a viable, legitimate, world-class star in A.J. McKee, who I don't know, Luke. He might be the best featherweight in the world. I don't know. But the fact that we're having that conversation means Bellator won tonight, and that's a significant development considering, yeah, you went up against maybe the weakest UFC card of the year,

but you hit a home run in that slot, in that placement. Big night. Big night in MMA, Luke. Yeah, I think for Bellator, you're right. Again, I saw Rampage fight Joey Beltran at the now-defunct Revel in Atlantic City. And that was under the Bjorn Rebney era, and it just felt, you know, dead. And those shows at Mohegan, listen, we've been there a million times. They're doing the best they can with the situation that they have. In fact, it's pretty fortuitous that Bellator and the Showtime Championship Boxing can go there,

no doubt about it, and they have lit fans back in there. But, you know, taking it to AJ McKee. By the way, getting a hometown pop, I didn't, for some reason, I wasn't surprised by BC per se, but I guess I wasn't thinking about it, and then he gets it. Dude, everything lined up AJ McKee's way. He brought that to bear, but I guess what I'm saying is, great night for Bellator in the way things worked out for them. And then AJ McKee,, you know, you talk about doing everything right. I don't know what else this guy can possibly do up to this point

to have done it any better. You know, runs to the title, they don't look this good. They're usually choppy. They take a couple chances. This one was just, I mean, a bullet to the top. I mean, let's talk about keeping that same energy. The reason why I predicted this fight, if he won, A.J., would probably be a decision is I don't think you i didn't think you could take those chances

against pitbull i thought he would be a lot more passive i thought he'd be more willing to use his distance in length advantage to kind of try to control the fight from the outside i expected a pitbull surge in certain moments but he kept that same energy of a freestyle free-flowing any strike at any time and it worked and and it all goes back to what we talked about in the build-up with that poise and yeah he had a different childhood than others luke you mix the the craziness of his childhood in long beach california and in compton mixed with the fact that he had a legitimate martial arts expert and a father and grew up in gyms with tito Ortiz and Rampage Jackson. I mean, that's a different upbringing, let's say, to desensitize you to the potential of

that this isn't a normal way to aim, you know, to grow up and write yourself a check at age 12 years old for a million dollars and all these great, you know, mythical stories that we're telling. Yet in the biggest fight of his life, he went out there and acted like it was no big deal luke there is a special bit of poison him and uh man to see that come to fruition in such an overwhelmingly powerful way it's huge look i look i don't want to over fillet no hold on we should we should talk about one thing real quickly before today i think you could argue and even then it wasn't complete but before today you could argue that um sort of the biggest name or the biggest development project that came out of bellator maybe you could have said eddie i think michael

chandler obviously because he was there a little bit longer probably is a bit of a better name now there's just no question you want to ask like what is the best guy that bellator has produced not signed and repurposed not caught at a later but they were still kind of viable or something no from the ground up who did you make and of course to be clear we're all saying aj mckee made himself but it's a partnership between the fighter and the promotion on the promotion side when they ask the question who did you make they're going to point to this guy as the ultimate proving ground of what they've accomplished absolutely and like i said in the bill you know this was what aaron pico was supposed to be and he still might be a champion and a great fighter but aj succeeded in a way that you know had to had to even exceed what we thought pico could do in a best case scenario. I mean, this is perfect grassroots targeting a prospect, signing him,

building him up, and then giving him the chance to show you how great he can be. Luke, where I said I didn't want to over-filet, I don't mean fish filet, I mean from the standpoint of filetio on what this means to Bellator, but did you see that piece that Bloody Elbows John S. Nash wrote ahead of there? I don't know if you know this guy. He's very, look, I don't know. Maybe the IRS should go after him. He's probably got some secrets. He's trying to talk about what everybody else is putting down on their tax forms. But, you know, his piece, Luke, really focused on all the things you're talking about, what's at stake in Pitbull, McKee. How about just from

the standpoint that it could produce the number one fighter in the world in that division and what that could mean for Bellator moving forward Luke what is this fight's long-term value from the standpoint of attracting free agents and I don't mean past their prime free agents who are upset with the UFC's pay scheme I mean the potential of legitimately whether they're coming from the UFC or coming from anywhere else, in their prime, people who want to come to Bellator and prove that they're the best in the world and their weight class there because they believe that there are enough fighters in those weight classes. And right now, let's be honest, Bellator's strong at featherweight. They're strong at light heavyweight, right? They've always been pretty darn good at bantamweight.

Free agent-wise, you think this has long-term legs potential in building a star this bright? I'll say this. Look, as you said it before, I'll echo it one more time. There is simply no denying, no matter what your preference is as a fight fan, that this was anything other than a great night for Bellator. You can debate how great, in what ways it was great, but you just look at what has happened here, and they're going to be pretty pleased with it still i don't see it as any i don't know that nash necessarily argued this but to answer your question as i best understand it i don't see this as necessarily a tipping point or straw that breaks the camel's back however in the spirit of what this means for bellator as being a good night certainly events like this i I think, do two things.

One, BC, when you get a guy like McKee making a million dollars. We've seen some guys, you know, make interesting choices about their career, going from UFC to PFL or just picking up PFL along the way out of the regionals because it's kind of like a quicker path to a million bucks if you can win. Obviously, that's fraught with peril, but it's a decent way to get someone to take the carrot to go forward and work with your organization. So one, he gets a million bucks. No one lose sight of that.

I think that helps. Obviously, the way that this guy shined like that, that's going to make that division look a whole lot better. And again, as a general notion that Bellator is a place that can put on events that people care about and fights that matter, this had a little bit of that was the battle for San Jose, but this had a little bit of Kung Lee versus Frank Shamrock feel to it, to a degree, in some ways. But I guess what

I'm pointing out is, sure, it matters, it helps, it's great, but more would need to happen. I think what you would look at here is, if I'm a coach, and I got really good guys in my gym, and we'll talk about this with the Russians here in just a second, BC, and I would say, hmm, you know what? This guy may want to go and do UFC or Contender Series or whatever, but we can just do this path with Bellator if we want, where we can get the guidance we need at the various different career stages, something I thought Paige Van Zandt could have benefited from

even at a more developed stage, and I think that could send a positive message about getting guys a little bit earlier in the recruitment process that's fair okay i've got a couple questions for you luke is that all right on the show right yeah let's do it let's do it okay um look the would you agree with me that as dominant as aj was in this fight we still didn't necessarily get an answer to a ton of our questions because it was a two-minute fight that was slow early. So do you think this says that AJ's ceiling is even bigger than we thought it could be or still unknown

based on the surprising nature of this outcome? It could be a little bit of both. What's Conor McGregor's, to bar the term I use all the time, upper bound limit? Well, dude, when he was shining at his best, it seemed like in those moments, on those nights, was shining at his best, it seemed like in those moments, on those nights, he was unbeatable, it felt like. But then when he kind of came back to earth, you got a sense that he's obviously a very good lightweight, but not the best one on earth.

Now, I don't know where McKee stands. I told the audience right before you came on, BC, when folks asked me, how good is he? I say he's on par with their top five. I don't know which ones he would beat. Maybe none of them, maybe all of them. I don't know. But I think he's on par with their top five. I don't know which ones he would beat. Maybe none of them. Maybe all of them. I don't know. But I think he's probably in that level. Somewhere in that space is where I think he deserves to go, and you can argue about where. I guess I would just say, BC, as I... I don't know.

I don't know what else to say. What was the other part of your question? All right, I've got three questions. That was the first. Number two, Luke, if you're Scott Coker and company, and I think this is worth debating, do you run this back at 55 for the bell? Right.

Is that the smart move based on, I mean, if Pitbull wins, you could go to a trilogy and you still have AJ as the featherweight champion, but what if you're basically taking two belts out of Pitbull's hands? It does prop up McKee even more as the guy. What do you do next if you're Coker? Do you have to go right to making a 26-year-old a champ champ? I don't think you do. I don't think you do.

Don't you want to see him against the other side of the bracket first? Don't you want to see him against? That was the other part. You can see him against the other side of the bracket. The thing that sucked was Emmanuel I said this earlier Emmanuel Sanchez lost I thought if he won he could have put himself in a spot I will say this though dude Mads Brunel I did not think he won 30-27 I thought 29-28 was defensible clearly he took the third round the second round was the swing round I don't know how the fuck they gave

him the first but whatever still he showed himself to be resilient under pressure he has good takedowns he has good top control uh He's got great submissions, which means he probably has some decent submission defense. That would be an interesting fight against McKee. The problem is there just isn't an obvious number one guy at 145 you would point to. You just think, oh, what's another big fight you could make? You could do the champ champ fight up at 155. Yeah, but do you want to burn that thing right away? seems like a bit of a waste no fair point a fair point um all right what what if what if put what if patrice this isn't my third one but what if patricio said f it i'm going down to 35 to become the first three division champion and then we did mckee

versus patricky for the vacant title at lightweight see See, I could be a matchmaker, Luke. I'm a matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match. That's what I do. Luke, my third and final question to your bitch ass is 5-0. You can admit the resume review curse is real because Pitbull didn't just lose. No, no, Porky Pig, you just spit that sentence out even worse. Pitbull didn't just lose by, like, decision, Luke. He got put to sleep with his own finishing move, bro.

Resume review. You know what I'm saying, bro? Who's next, okay? You want to put a Canadian under the spotlight? How about I put you under? How about I put your career under the resume review? Yeah, I've already taken all the L's that are possible. Don't worry.

There's not many more you can hand out that I haven't already seen. Listen, I'll say this. Certainly the timing has been hilarious in the way that we have picked these targets, but I think, you know, in a matter of seriousness, obviously I don't believe in curses because they're not real, but it is funny that we keep getting these guys. BC,

because this is the truth. All the fights we've picked, we kind of knew that the fights were big, right? So we kind of knew, like, we want to do this one, this one, this one, UFC or belts or whatever it is. And BC and I always go back and forth. Do we want to do this one or this one? And every time, if you notice, BC, I guess you could say Dustin would be the different one. But in general, for all the other ones, we kind of picked the one who was either the way more senior of the two or the one who was the much hotter popular figure of the two.

We never went with like the sleepy, not sleepy, but we never went with like, you know, the crafty underdog or the guy who was, you know, doing things a little bit different. We always went with the established power one way or the other. And it has blown up, blown up in our faces. I'll say this. I don't, it was the right call to do the patricio pimple resume review his career especially after taking the l he did today which was to your point and i said it too no one beats him like that there there needed to be a moment where you pause and you say hey we should celebrate this guy's career but maybe we should change the name

and like you know how there are those memes of the three dudes carrying the coffin and there's that techno song in the background yes we should we should make that that like the official uh like meme and song of resume review uh final question for me uh i don't know if you can see in that zoom window that producer jay by the way is producing this post show uh jay going with the with the sleeveless t-shirt sun's out guns out you into that luke he looks like an app he looks like he's cooking ketamine on his stove i mean could you be a way can you bring in that camera do you have that ability here jay to bring in your own camera wow jay jay wearing like a 1980s cut off uh this is great yeah uh all right let's go down this card just the main card real quickly, BC,

and see what you think, and then we'll call it a day here on this post-fight show. All right, so we talked about the main event to death. We'll have more to say on Monday. Very quickly, Mads Brunel, Emmanuel Sanchez, are you with me? Again, no problems with Brunel winning. It's fine. But round one, how? No, no, round one, here's what I'll tell you.

He did good in round one. He stood with Emmanuel and decided to trade, attempt to trade evenly with him, only it wasn't even. Emmanuel Sanchez won round one. So I don't understand that, Luke. I thought, though, that he did control two and three. It's one thing for Mads in the interview afterwards to say, you all say I'm just a submission guy.

I can box too. Well, you won the fight because you wrestled. That's what you did. I thought his control and his activity from top position was what should have won him that fight. I do understand people on Twitter coming at me saying you're overlooking Emmanuel Sanchez's offense from the bottom, but you know, Burnell controlled the fight, put the guy exactly where he wanted to do and got the win and was, you know, was brave in spots when he needed to be. Luke, that's seven in a row for him. This guy's streaking and peaking.

He's good. It's a ballsy win against a very, very tough out, Emmanuel Sanchez. So I had a 2-1. Burnell, I would not have had a problem if Sanchez had won that 2-1 either, Luke, because the rounds that I did give Burnell, again, it was more on some of that cage control, although I thought he was offensive from top, but it wasn't overly dominant, and there wasn't a ton of damage either way in rounds two or three, I thought.

But, you know, the judges gave it to him. It was a good fight. It was a pretty damn good fight. And that's the thing overall, Luke. The card kind of delivered. I mean, you mentioned. Dude, the prelims were good, too. That's what I was going to say, that you mentioned to me over text. I wasn't even watching originally, and you were Dude, the prelims were good, too. That's what I was going to say. You mentioned to me over text, I wasn't

even watching originally, and you were like, these prelims are bonkers, and it's all these guys from the Shmesh factory, and they're just knocking dudes cold left and right, and it was pretty fun to watch. So, speaking of which, Usman Nurmagomedov beating the fucking brakes off Manny Morrow.

He was never in trouble. Did it with TKO at 330 of mark number one the first round BC uh that knee to the body was vicious but he was doing I mean everything he really wanted to taking his time uh it seemed like dude they got to get that guy a better opponent because he looks like he is the genuine article I mean he almost head kicked KO'd him you know he just barely missed that in like the opening five seconds of that fight now look he was he was a minus 1400 favorite, so no one's acting here that this is some type of breakthrough win, although Manny Muro has looked pretty decent of late, but I mean, look, overall, Demkoff, champion streaking, Amasov, champion streaking, I know not all of these guys

are from the same, or even from Dagestan for that standpoint, or even from the same, you know, villages. Zakir has Habib and all that. But still, like, going to Europe, finding untouched potential talent, Magomed Magomedov, now Usman Magomedov. Like, dude, Belisar is reloading in a strong way, and these guys are here to fucking take over, Luke. And here's the key, dude. A lot of them are young.

You know, yeah, we're talking about A.J. McKee. He's the brightest star, certainly of the 20-somethings that Bellator has right now. I think that's probably a fair statement, but a lot of these guys, they have 23, 25, 26. There's a shitload of them. He's another one of them. Now, this one I'm a little bit less impressed by.

Islam Mamadov taking a split decision over Brent Primus. I did not mind that he won. You know, Brent Primus' guard work, I don't know what the solution is because Mamadov was inactive on top. I am certainly not contesting that, BC. But this is the thing that kind of gets me. If guys fight for three rounds, someone's on top, the person wants to effect change by either going for an omoplata or a gogoplata, it ties up the arm that gets attacked, but ultimately just results in the sort of cycle of itself being repeated granted nothing really happens meaningfully from the guy on top but nothing really happens meaningfully for the guy on bottom it's i'm not saying he's stalling but it almost has that effect on the on the fight so i get the criticisms here but

how did you see it yeah i i thought he wasn't offensive enough in top position i thought he put out a foundational effort that showed you that with some tinkering he could be really good i don't think he's looked as good as all those other names we just mentioned but the wrestling control was certainly there we just need him to be more dominant and aggressive on top they're not dominant aggressive which can lead to dominance. Because I thought the crowd rightfully booed that. In the end, he controlled a dangerous guy in Brent Primus, a former champion, and

did what he had to do. But I think at this stage of his career, you want to do a little bit more than doing what you had to do. And he's not... As you said to me over text when we were talking about this guy, he's not comparable yet to the others, but he's pretty good. It's just the same.

I mean, he's now 19-0-1 in his last 20 fights. So this guy's pretty damn good too. Luke, can I ask you something? He doesn't make a lot of mistakes, that's true, but he doesn't have the overwhelming offense that the other guys do, and I think that difference should be noted. Can I ask you something about Coach Habib here who was 4 and oh four and oh he's a fucking good coach too man isn't he amazing you know javier mendez also of aka in the corner as well so let's give full respect

but you saw him in the bellator t-shirt how much do you think that was a calculated effort by bellator brass and how much do you think our buddy uncle scott was in the back room going because look you're basically taking the retired, one of the greatest UFC fighters of all time in a legitimate pay-per-view draw like last year, and you put him on your screen in the clothing,

and then Bellator tweeted out, by the way, a picture of Coach Habib in the Bellator shirt with a link directly attached of where to buy that shirt. So there seemed to be some premeditation here and Habib was down for it. You had to feel like uncle Scott enjoyed that Luke. Probably, probably.

I remember when Jake Shields had signed with UFC for like his first, like the first day after he signed, he sat cage side with Dana at either some UFC event or maybe even a strike force event. And they both kind of waved at the camera, like almost like an FU to Scott. You know, so I wonder, I wonder if the moments like that are certainly not accidental, but how much he's exactly. And it means nothing at the end of the day.

Like he's not, he's, he's not coming back to fight AJ McKee. Look, it means nothing at the end of the day. Right. But you know. All right. And then lastly, for the main card, Goichi Yamauchi defeating Chris Gonzalez. Dude, he looked great. This guy on Twitter who has been a great

scout, he goes by the name of Smoogie, he pointed out a while ago that Yamauchi is, you know, again, comparisons are never in total, but is something like Bellator's Charles Oliveira because you take him to the ground, he's got phenomenal, phenomenal guard work and grappling. He is very, very tough to beat there. And now you even saw it with the hands. Dude, Chris Gonzalez is a guy who is a very good athlete,

team alpha male, a great wrestler. But, you know, I watched the footage we see on his previous fights, and what I noticed was he can stand up, and when he does stand up, it does look pretty good. But he usually shoots after about a minute or two and so the stand-up is pretty limited to what kind of risk he exposes himself to obviously he's going to feel a lot safer when he's commanding the wrestling positions but you can't really shoot on Yamauchi this to me was a mistake in taking a fight against the guy Yamauchi

has like what 30 plus fights this was like I think gonzalez has six or seven he should not have taken on a challenge this difficult i know he didn't look that great tonight i don't think it's representative of his upside but this one got out of hand on him fast and credits yamauchi great boxing by him yeah that was a great performance and yamauchi is a guy who i feel like's been around forever then you look him up look he's like only 28 years old and yeah there's like you know losses to michael Michael Chandler or Bubba Jenkins. But, you know, he's been able to rebound from losses and put together three four-fight win streaks. So this was a very strong win, especially to see him that offensive and go after it and put him away.

And you can see, you know, the giddiness and happiness in the interviews afterwards. Although Big John was really cozy in this Delta variant season. Big John's putting arms around guys like, come here, come hug the big papa bear for the interview. I mean, can we get one of those long sticks maybe during this? You know, it was funny on the broadcast, Luke. Not too funny because I don't want to see anybody die. But when Mauro's like, you know, we're following all California COVID rules

and then behind them there's all these people in the front row with, like, backwards hats and they're doing crotch chops and stuff and they're rubbing up against each other without masks and you know you know okay luke there's so much drama in the lbc you know what i'm saying all right so yamauchi gets a great win and do these prelims you can go to all of them but the two that stood out to me one gaji rabba uh rabba donov rabba donov defeating daniely. This guy looked like an absolute dynamo. He was so careful about how he measured range. He got it super quickly. You could see him touching him up and getting closer and closer

and found the left hook off the kick and just one hit or quittered him. And then the little brother of Zabit Magomedsharapov. How about Kassan Magomedsharapov, BC? Getting a TKO again complete control the entire time 421 yeah good chance you'll be seeing these Dagestanis and have you seen the shit on Monday's morning combat this was some devastating shit Luke I liked it a lot just to circle back to the main event before we call it a day here on the show BC the thing I would say is it so that to me you know I do think the range did play a role when we say the range I mean the the difference in their height and reach both guys were playing

in kickboxing range because I thought actually the game plan of McKee was really smart he kind of stood his ground and made Patricio come to him and Patricio was kind of wary about getting in that space so it kept him pretty far apart and when you've got good setups and you're fast with your delivery with the kicks and the way that AJ is dude it set up a brilliant beginning to the end and dude we all know once he gets AJ gets you hurt or you stumble or whatever he finds the finish or some kind of you know devastating follow-up pretty quickly yeah I mean that's where I said something it's like it's not the first time Pitbull had fought a guy you know this much bigger than him but it's the first time he fought a guy this much bigger than him who's dynamic and athletic enough and risky enough to go after us I think Pitbull

thought in his heart of hearts Luke and obviously this is a humbling loss for him that he was going to see AJ try some of that stuff but let's give Pitbull so much credit his timing, his counter shots are just deadly. I think he just thought he was going to be able to punch the pinata and just counter perfectly I mean that kick just surprised him and that's where the 4 inches of height and 8 inches of reach does come into play

and Luke, you know we certainly need to see so much more on AJ we need to see him in a dogfight, we need to see him in a lot of different scenarios to really know how great he really is. But to be able to have this ability to do that to somebody like Pitbull, it's wild, man. It is wild.

It's like I can't really pick apart too much of the two minutes we saw of Pitbull. He just kind of got caught, and it is what it is. But given what we saw, I wonder if it was inevitable. I wonder if this just ends up being the kind of matchup where this guy's just too dynamic, athletic and long and all of those things. And it does expose the height differential because I was wondering in that first minute, you know, as they started to circle each other and Pipple's cocking that right hand and he's

sort of being poison patient. How is he going to find that opening? You know, is he going to duck underneath the jab and put himself into range? Is he going to really wait for that explosive missed strike to land it? I never really got to find that out, Luke. And that's what happens. I mean, and that's what I'm talking about, keeping that same energy. AJ did that same type of thing against Georgie Karkanyan

and knocked him out in eight seconds. He brought the same energy in there against Pitbull, and he him in two minutes i mean it's wild it's really well hey luke i just got a text from otiel burbridge of course the the great bassist formerly of the allman brothers of uh of dead and company who who returned to active duty on tour in august and you know he says the curse is real luke okay he says i can't wait to see what luke says about the evidence when it gets to like 20 in a row. But fighters are going to start begging you guys to stop doing that. It's coming, Luke.

Curse is real. Oh, Teal knows. Oh, Teal on the base knows, Luke. The curse is real. What are you going to do? All right, when these 24-inch pythons. Yes, I mean, people are allowed to believe in the tooth fairy as well. But, you know, those of us who are adults and who understand math,

we don't do that. All right. So, BCc let's set this up we we don't even have there's no point in getting to it today there was a ufc event we'll talk about it on monday right we're gonna get to a lot more into the details no you're not gonna watch it you're not gonna watch the ufc card no i will jay sensei by the way apparently i did jay wrong. I did Jay a little dirty. I showed Uriah Hall a picture of Jay that didn't accurately depict what he looked like when he was a master of all things mixed martial arts himself. And I incorrectly reported, Luke, that Jay didn't knock Uriah off his feet. He did hit him hard with a spinning back kick. But what I didn't know about the story was that Uriah put it on Jayay afterwards as like uh you know oh you think you think you learned a few things you know

what i'm saying luke uh either way uh did you see his face it looked like hamburger hill afterwards that was tough to see luke yeah yeah it didn't look great um all right so we'll talk about that on monday and everything else including some boxing results and whatnot. As always, thumbs up on the video. Hit subscribe if you haven't already. And yeah, Bellator 263 in the books. A night that Bellator needed, a night that Bellator got, and one of the most historic nights for prospect-turned-contender-turned-champion developments you're going to see anytime soon.

That is the King of Connecticut. I want to thank everyone involved on the Molka side, the Showtime side, the CBS Sports side. We're back Monday, 11 a.m. in the east. Email us, morningcombat at gmail.com if you want to. And it's late, so get some sleep. We'll see you all in about 48 hours or so. Peace.