MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Bellator 266 | Smith vs. Spann | Fighter Retirements | Moreno-Figueiredo 3 | EP 204

Episode Date: September 17, 2021

On Episode 204 of Morning Kombat Luke and Brian do a full preview on Bellator 266 and UFC Fight Night Smith vs. Spann. The guys react to Joseph Benavidez announcing his retirement, Brandon Moreno vs. Deiveson Figureido 3 and Mighty Mouse's next fight. 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

Reveille, Reveille, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. Yeah, it is. It is that time right friday september 17th 2021 and you've stumbled into the greatest combat sports show i don't know ever period right you hear you it? It's morning combat. My name is BC, the Brian Campbell, the beige kid with the BDE, CBS Sports,

and Showtime, the employers that pay me. And you know my co-host. Today is his ninth wedding anniversary. We love this man. Or maybe that was Wednesday was your ninth wedding anniversary. Yeah, that was Wednesday. I don't know much about your life, okay? In fact, I'm still getting to know you.

This has been a rocky up-and-down marriage. But he's a fantastic fight analyst ready to set you up for the weekend to come. His name is Luke Thomas. What up, folks? What up? How you doing, BC? I'm doing great, Luke, because it's Friday. So you know what that means for our listeners?

You make rapey voices? Well, that's part of the deal, but with their bitch slap rapping and their cocaine tongue, Luke, they'll get nothing done. They ain't got shit to do on this Friday, so they could be mine, and they will be today

watching this here show, Morning Combat, on the 30th anniversary, Luke, of Use Your Illusion 1 and 2, the seminal Guns N' Roses double magnum opus that was released at this time when I was in 8th grade. Did that move you at all? Not like it appears to have moved you. All right.

No. We're continuing where we were on Wednesday, which is this show just straight on into that iceberg, okay? We're having a good run. Let's hope the band keeps playing, though. The show is fine. The show is fine. We would like for you to like this video,

to subscribe to the show, to continue our march to 100K and what we're doing over there on YouTube. Shout out to our audio-only podcast listeners. There's our social handles below to follow the Monday, Wednesday, Friday live show. The fantastic bonus content in between that you can find on youtube.com slash morning combat, including yesterday's Luke's live chat.

My interviews this week with the likes of Ryan Spann, Lauren Murphy, and UFC Women's Flyweight Champion Valentina Shevchenko. So check all that good shit out. Enjoy that. Also, 30 days free of Showtime. Why wouldn't you? Go to Showtime.com right now. You want to see Yoel Romero's Saturday night Bellator debut.

You can only see that on Showtime. So get your 30-day free trial. If you're not entertained, pound that shit. Pound that sand, okay? You know what I'm saying? Do that shit. Also, please, merch season is hot and heavy right now. We've got some new things up there

on the morningcombat.store from the past week. We've got a new launch also coming this Monday, I hear, of some delectable content. So get outfitted in what we do and what we are. Also, you can head on over to our original form-fitting high-quality 1.0

merch over at store.show.com. That's S-H-O. Check all that out. Support us so we can support you. Luke, also there is a great partnership going on and I'm sure it ties into what you did last night, which is be on the edge of your seat, live or die,

brother. Right? Die. With that Washington football team and a one-point win over the bitch-ass New York Giants. Luke, your thoughts? Well, first of all, edge of my seat is a strong word. I fell asleep through the entire

fourth quarter on my couch, waking up only to Joe Buck telling me that the Washington football team had lost, except that the New York Giants had committed a neutral zone infraction, which then put the Washington football team five yards closer, gave them a do-over, and then they won the game. So it was really a race to the bottom, and it looks like the Giants won barely,

but they won in that sense. The ghost of Trey Duncan still living. But look, week one may be over in the NFL season, but this season is just getting started. When you're talking football, when you're talking MK, and you're talking DK, yes, the DraftKings Sportsbook, we'd love you to download that today. It's the official sports betting partner of the NFL. And to kick off week two, DraftKings giving new customers an incredible deal. How about this? $200 in free bets instantly when you bet at least $1 on any football game this week. The DraftKings Sportsbook, fantastical apparatus.

You want to bet Dana White Contender Series. You want to bet Boxing MMA. That's all good. But you want $200 in free bets for $1 of use in the NFL? Let's do it this week. So a lot of big matchups today. We'll talk about that to close the show as we get fired up. But, Luke, this relationship, it's great.

And if the sportsbook's not available in your state and things are changing rapidly, my state of Connecticut, by the way, betting is going to be legal in October. It's going to be operational. So DraftKings still has huge cash prizes for you on their daily fantasy contest, including a chance to win $1 million for free. So final point on this, Luke, we want our people to download that DraftKings Sportsbook app now,

but use the promo code, right? Flashing hands, jazz hands, if you will. Combat with a K. Promo code combat with a K helps us out here at MK, helps you out with $200 in bets for just $1 bet on any football game. So, Luke, I know that you are just fired up for mk dk and bukake every sunday in in making your nfl action a little bit more action oriented yeah i mean if i was doing a sponsor read i'd probably leave out the word bukake but you know

to each his own well it's really it's really a lithuanian-based word that means happy, right? Just sharing, joy, love, right? It just got bastardized through the years. Luke, our show's also been bastardized with too many long intros and long intro questions to the wheel of death. So why don't we get right into the good shit this week, which is setting the stage for a weekend to come. It was quiet last week despite all things trailer, but we're back from an MMA standpoint

with some Bellator, with some UFC, and Saturday night in San Jose, only on Showtime. Bellator 266 will be in the building at the old Shark Tank. And the main event is one we've been talking about all week. It is must-see for many reasons. Yoel Romero making, finally, his Bellator debut.

Just a few months removed from pulling out of the Rumble Johnson Light Heavyweight Grand Prix quarterfinal bout after he was poked in the eye in sparring. Luke will be taking on former Bellator champion Phil Davis with as decorated a record under this

promotion as you'll sort of find six years into it after himself leaving UFC to become a big name free agent. Luke, this is a key light heavyweight tilt. It's got some title ish implications for sure, but you see those betting odds from our friends at DraftKings plus one Oh five for Yoel Romero minus one 25 for Phil Davis. We've talked storylines we've talked stakes let's talk turkey this Saturday what is style wise going to be the key to who gets their hand raised in this one I think if you look we don't have current numbers I tried to get current numbers for Phil Davis's Bellator campaign

so forget everything before that just what he's done from a number standpoint in Bellator didn't have any, so I went back to Fightmetric to see what we could see there. Now, there's a pretty big difference between, not pretty big, but there's a substantive difference between his UFC and his Bellator campaign. Still, there are some noteworthy similarities, and this is the number I come back to. Again, this is just through his UFC run, which ended in January of 2015, but he only absorbs, according to these numbers, or absorbed, I should say, 1.33 strikes per minute.

Man, that is very, very low. And I think that did carry over to the Bellator side of things. He has become, when the opponents are overmatched, he can TKO them out. He wins in Bellator via head kick. He's got some submissions in there as well. But when he's facing upper-tier opponents, Phil Davis is not

necessarily the most exciting guy I think we can acknowledge that but what he is quite good at is just staying out of big trouble he has lost fights uh both in Bellator and UFC but the common denominator is he's never been submitted and he's never been KO'd it's hard to do anything to him in a real kind of sustained way you can take rounds from him but you know taking him down on the ground I mean I think the last guy BC to take uh Phil Davis down and really hold him down there and do damage was probably like Rashad Evans yeah and that was a long ass time ago too Luke that's a different generation of Phil Davis and MMA to be honest totally totally different so here's what I'm looking at a guy like Phil Davis and MMA, to be honest. Totally, totally different. So here's what I'm looking at.

A guy like Phil Davis has a long reach, 79-inch reach. He's going to sit behind that jab. He's going to use a lot of movement. He's going to stay out of trouble. Really, this comes down to Yoel Romero. If you don't have the weight, so to speak, of the weight cut on you, you didn't have to lose all that. You didn't have to exert all that effort.

You got that little 20-pound allowance there. You need to make something happen. He needs to find a way to force Phil Davis to fight him not at range. To the extent this fight takes place at range, minute over minute, round over round, it's not about that Yoel Romero can lose. And I don't think he can take and hold down Phil Davis, but, you see, if he can shoot and then bring the hands down and then go up top, create some chaos, push him up against the fence, just make him kind of react to these emergency situations, that seems to me a quite winnable path. But if he just plays on the outside like he did against Stylebender, honestly, man, I don't think he can win this bout. No, and look, I'm hoping for the entertainment factor that it does not become the latter, which you just mentioned.

Phil Davis is so hard to look good against, so hard to hit and hurt cleanly, and he's a willing dance partner, Phil Davis, at going either the distance or playing out a long technical point battle. That's not a fight Romero can win, I think, right now, for so many reasons. Luke, the questions are overwhelming that Romero's going to have to answer. The 18-month layoff,

the first time moving up to 205 since 2011, the fact that he's lost four of his last five, albeit close decisions against elite opponents. Also, Phil Davis has a four-inch height advantage, six-inch reach advantage. Davis, never been a finish like we mentioned, but how about this, Luke? In Davis's last 17 fights, 15 of them have gone into the final round. 16 of them have gone into the final two and a half minutes of the fight. 12 have gone the distance. Two of those were first round finishes when he fought in that one night Bellator tournament to make his debut. Outside of that, and specifically his last 10 fights, he goes late into fights. The over-under, I think, betting-wise on this for rounds

is 2.5 minus 200. Dude, you got to take the over there. There's a lot of reasons why if Yoel Romero allows this fight to be anything resembling slow, tactical, or pushing it toward the scorecards, he has all those reasons to be in trouble luke i almost want to tell you that although i believe the fact that this is a three-round fight and not a five-round fight is a big reason why the odds are so close and then obviously romero is a knockout threat to finish the fight with all four limbs at any point that's

why the odds are close. But separate from Phil Davis avoiding the big one, this is an uphill battle potentially for you all, Romero. So, Luke, I want to ask this as simply as I can here. You said he's got to get inside and get underneath that jab and close that distance, no question. The three rounds means he can pour a little bit more out of the jug, so to speak, and not have to worry as much about getting gassed. But do you need to see that Tasmanian devil,

that shit-crazy video game version of Romero that we saw on the Apollo Coast to fight just two years ago to really feel like he's going to have a great chance to win this? I don't think he has to go that crazy, but maybe something a little bit more like the Machida fight. That's a common opponent that he and Phil Davis have. Granted, I think different weight classes, but Machida gave Phil all kinds of problems.

I think Phil, correct me if I'm wrong, BC, I think Phil only won that via split decision, right? Because he sort of played more into Machida's distance game kind of situation. Whereas a guy like Romero was able, it took him a while, it took him a while, but was eventually able to pressure Machida, hurt him, and then once he was able to hurt him, finish him off in devastating fashion. That's really the key here. He has to find a way to ignite or, you know, pull the spoon off the grenade, basically, so to speak, right? He has to find a way to just, I'm telling you, man, and this is the other part too, BC. We're not really talking about this, like the rounded cage.

It's not exactly clear to me what difference, if major at all, there is between the Bellator cage and a flat paneled surface, whether it's six or eight sides. That part's irrelevant, but it's a flat panel. I think it's a little bit harder to corner people. It seems it's a little bit more difficult to do, which means that's sort of another factor that a guy like Yoel is up against. So the thing I would say for Yoel is, to me, not every effort has to be successful. A guy like Phil is not so much of a counter-punching threat. Man, you got

to get in his face and really, really make him nervous and work and backing up. You cannot back up here unless you're setting some kind of phenomenal trap. I want to see something like what he did against Chris Weidman, BC, where if you remember that fight, Romero lost the first two rounds of that pretty cleanly. It was only in the third round where he just decided to be the freak athlete that he is and turn the tables. His manager, Mokikawa, said something to me after that Chris Weidman fight. It's pretty true. It's a pretty simplistic way Chris Weidman fight. It's pretty true.

It's a pretty simplistic way of looking at it, but it's pretty true. He was saying that when the fight is calm and everyone is trying to mind their distance and work behind their jab and they're working their footwork, he's like, that's not really Yoel's fight. He goes, but when Yoel brings that athleticism to bear and he starts doing this number and he was just gesturing with his hands,'s like it's over after that you know when he starts really I don't know almost experimenting perhaps in a way but just you know he can't play the risk game like Phil can so let's see let's see who can do better and I gotta see Romero not be full-time counter-striker not be waiting for that opening

to be there because it's it's it's inevitably not going to be there against a Phil Davis. Luke, I love Chris Weidman. The guy can make mistakes at the highest level in the second half of his career, though Phil Davis doesn't make big mistakes, Luke. And sometimes I think that costs Phil Davis in close fights, right? He's 12-3 in the Bellator banner. The only three losses have come against either Nemcov or Bader. Two of those in title fights, two of those by split decision.

I think Phil Davis often does just too little, which means he doesn't overextend himself. He doesn't open himself up to the big shot. If Romero's going to do just too little with him, it's going to be a long night for Romero, and it's going to be a disappointing decision in the end. So, Luke, I've got to see certainly the chances being taken for dynamic explosive striking, but to set

up those chances, Luke, are you going to agree with me that based on prior history from both, especially when Phil Davis faces another wrestler, you're not really going to see shoots from either, shots taken from either unless maybe they're desperate. Do we need to see an early

aggressive calf striking strategy from Romero to try to slow down uh a Phil Davis who might have the quicker footwork and might have you know we know he he manages distance so beautifully do you need to see something from Romero to set up these shots rather than every minute and a half we're just going to roll the dice and try something aggressive two things you could look at uh one was if you just sort of follow the progression of Davis's game he's become much more of a kicker but I wonder if he wants to do that against Romero even though Phil obviously national champion division one and a very good MMA wrestler with submissions to boot on top of that by the way that's another thing we

haven't talked about there is a way where if Romero goes too far you think oh he'll just get knocked out because that's what happens in high-level MMA. Phil, to me, I'm not saying he's not a knockout threat. He has knockouts on his record. But against higher-level opposition, what you might see is something like against Gustafson, where the aggression ended up costing him with a submission against Phil. That was early in the run there for both of them, but still, it did happen. You might see that.

But I would say, dude, you've got to make him react to several variables at once. You have to be lowering your level. You have to be in his face. You have to be trying things. I think you could catch the kicks if those are there. You could try to if that was something that's part of the game plan. I don't know what they have in store, but I would try to make this fight inside of punching range to the extent possible,

and I'm feinting and level changing and dual threading the hell out of this because once you create dual threats and Phil is having to think and worry about both in a real way that that fight becomes a lot more manageable at that point yeah of any other recent fight I could tell you this has the the potential to be fireworks and crazy if Romero understands like what's at stake and the opportunity here and that he needs to really you know show the best of himself because if he does there are huge opportunities at big fights and I think an immediate title shot after this tournament wraps but just the same Luke we're being fair and honest here this could be a snoozer and if it is a snoozer it's Phil Davis's fight to win so let let's slide into predictions here. I'll say the odds again. They're as close as can be.

Plus 105 for Romero, minus 125 for Davis. It's a minus 200 at two and a half rounds you're over under. Look, I think the over for me is an automatic. And if the over is an automatic for me, I think Phil Davis is going to do just enough to win a unanimous decision or some level of majority or split where we go, okay, Romero had one or two really fun moments, but is Davis's jab going to be enough activity to prevent himself

from getting hurt and prevent Romero from getting a chance to win on the scorecards? From what I've seen of late, cost of fight notwithstanding, I think yes, Luke. I think this is Phil Davis's fight to win. I would agree. I do think there's a big X factor here with the weight for Yoel Romero and what it might empower, although it's hard to tell.

But, dude, Phil Davis is a very, very, very tough nut to crack. I mean, the champion has fought him 10 rounds, and all 10 were very, very competitive. It's hard for me to believe that Romero's going to go in there and have more success than that, although you don't want to play too much MMA math because styles do make fights. There is a real possibility here for you all to make it interesting,

but I tend to think he's going to get frustrated. Phil's not. Phil's kind of used to the situation. Phil's much more experienced, frankly, if you want to say that as well. So I like Phil to win win but we'll see. Phil had some good quotes this week Luke basically saying he doesn't think the height or reach will be an issue because Yoel's used to fighting rangier guys but he does believe you know at the end of the day he likes his experience as you mentioned right there but he also just believes

that Romero's threat of a knockout will drive him to train even harder than normal. And while you say, well, you should be training the same level across all the time, I think that's going to be legit. I think we're going to see an as dialed in focus Davis as possible, but that's going to lead to a more technical Davis. And I think that'll be a problem in the end for Romero. So Luke, as we look up and down this car, the co-man event, Neiman Gracie, you can argue, can really need a big win here's lost two of his last three he's a minus 280 favorite against mark lemonger plus 230 any reason to like the underdog here um i have not paid too much attention to the odds that's a say those odds one more time that sounds a little bit more than i had imagined. Yeah, minus 280 for Gracie and plus 230 for Lemminger.

Oh, you know what? You know, I think, listen, I'll say this. I think Neiman Gracie's pretty talented. He's had a couple times where against sort of upper tier-ish opponents, he didn't quite get to shine in the way that you might imagine, but he's much better. Here's the problem. There's a lot.

He doesn't have a major, major, major signature win. He's got some very good wins, but not like a major signature one. And the other problem is, like, dude, the Gracie name, it's still ubiquitous in jiu-jitsu, and it's still ubiquitous to a degree in any way in MMA. At least, you know, it's still a very common name. But I think it's, you know, the reputation's almost working against him a little bit to a degree, where everyone's like, oh, the Gracies, you know, they're not that great of fighters anymore in the modern era.

He's pretty good, man. He's actually quite talented. Yeah, I like him to win pretty big. I think he's got good takedowns. He's got great top control. As you can see, he's a great finisher from the back as well. Yeah, you know what? I thought those sounded a little bit wide at first,

but now that I think about it, no, not that wide. Yeah, I didn't like his activity levels in recent decision defeats to roy mcdonald and jason jackson but you know he did submit ed ruth was seeming eased to kick off that that world grand prix tournament and then obviously retired john fitch with that submission win so uh this is a big opportunity because the belter welterweight division scott's it's fun right now you got yaroslav amosov as your new champion. And we've got some strong contenders at the moment. I want to see if Gracie can put himself back in there.

And Luke, also a feature about Alejandra Lara, who seems to grab a lot of our attention for various reasons. She does some thoughtful protests at the weigh-ins, Luke. She's a good-looking fighter. People tend to comment on that a lot. But Luke, every time we've seen her step up, I feel like we've seen that there's, you know, whether temporary or not,

or not a ceiling. God, can I drop my phone more? A ceiling on how far she can go, Luke. Deanna Bennett is plus 135, minus 160 is Alejandra Lara. I think she needs a big win, like a finishing type win to keep herself in the conversation. I know she's lost to Alima Leigh McFarlane in the title fight. She's lost to current champion Juliana Velasquez. And I know they were somewhat close, Luke, but I think I saw a fairly wide skill imbalance there. And I didn't love her against Watanabe either, as you're seeing in the highlights.

Luke, where are you on the overall stock of a a fun Colombian fighter I think she made the right call as we mentioned before when she moved from Colombia to Mexico that Mexican team that features so many top women fighters is probably a good choice for her certainly I think that's their best chance to maximize whatever strengths that she has I do think she does have some strengths on the ground uh not relative to Ilema Leigh McFarlane but she does have some ability there I think her not relative to Ileana McFarlane, but she does have some ability there. I think her ground and pound is pretty decent, but there's been, as you mentioned,

there's just a lot of development you would have hoped that would have happened at this point that has not. Nevertheless, I would say that the Deanna Bennett fight is winnable. Her last two losses against Miranda Maverick, and I'm not sure who the other one is, they're good fighters. She's not, in recent times anyway, she's not lost to scrubs, but she got kind of beaten relatively quickly and authoritatively.

I think she lost her last two via rear naked choke. So to me, it's a very winnable fight for Laura, but it's sort of just the right kind of fight where it's like, dude, you should be able to beat someone. Granted, women's MMA records are not reflective of their overall ability in the way that men's are, but you should be able to beat someone with a 10-7 record. That should be a very doable thing for you, especially given the relative youth, and I think there's going to be some size advantages as well.

So I guess we'll see, but I'm with you. They're not quite as far along as you would have hoped. Yeah, you've got to get the ground game up to speed. She is a fun striker, excellent at kicking, can put it together, and I do think she's got long term marketing potential, which I think everyone sort of notices. So we'll see what we got there, Luke. Should be an interesting card Saturday

night only on Showtime. Also Saturday, of course, our second topic, Luke. Let's set the stage for UFC Fight Night Las Vegas. We're a week out from the big pay-per-view of UFC 266, and your boy BC did drop a little doogie on this main event in terms of the strength. Although Luke Thomas said this is a great fight and anytime you get Anthony Smith, which is typically a main event

and or even a title fight, Luke said it is must see. I gotta say Luke, after interviewing Ryan Spann this week and getting to know the person just as much as the fighter and watching tape and stuff, maybe I was a little bit, a little bit, a little bit dismissive and condescending, but this is an interesting light heavyweight tilt, just the same. Anthony Smith, a minus 165 favorite, very close here against a plus 145 Ryan Spann, who's won four of five since winning his second chance at the Dana White Contender Series and getting into the UFC. That one loss, of course, to Johnny Walker, in which he dominated early and then seemed to just fall apart.

Luke, the odds tell you this is more or less a pick-em. And when you look at the tape, Anthony Smith is on a two-fight win streak, and he only seems to lose to the best he can lose disastrously but he's tough as nails he's pretty damn well rounded where do you see any advantages in this matchup on paper coming into this for Anthony

sure yeah or either or either yeah so they both have noteworthy strengths and weaknesses I'm going to say that the overall more talented fighter is, at this stage, Anthony Smith. They have a common opponent in Devin Clark, and Ryan Spann won, but it took him a little while to get there. Whereas the guard work, and frankly the takedown and guard work and back-taking work, everything, the overall grappling game, let's say, of Anthony Smith just ran right through him.

It was straightforward. I think you can see Anthony Smith winning via strikes like he did against Crute. I think you can see it was injury as well, but still a pretty strong striking game. And on the floor, he's got, as I mentioned, very good jiu-jitsu. So to me, he's the more substantive threat overall. Where Ryan Spann makes things interesting is he has a much longer reach. In fact, you look at the reaches of the guys that Anthony Smith has lost to, they either match or exceed his reach. That's something to take to note of. Although in the Crute fight, you saw Smith with

a very good jab. Still, he's got a long reach. He can be patient at times. That cost him a little bit when he wasn't against Johnny Walker, but he still in general has shown pretty big patience. In fact, to the point of boredom in certain cases, like in the Sam Alvey fight, but he's very powerful. He comes from a great camp. He has a phenomenal coach, and he's a monster power hitter. He has a phenomenal left hook, a phenomenal left hook right straight, as you saw against Misha Surkinov, and he's a devastating finisher when he has somebody hurt with strikes, right?

So there's a lot to like in either case. It's just the issue for me is with Spann, what he's going to have to overcome here or not, but this is what I think he's up against. He tends to sort of stalk a guy with their back to the fence, which I tend to think he probably will get in the case of someone like Anthony Smith. But from there, he just kind of waits, waits, waits, waits, waits. He doesn't really create a lot of openings. He kind of waits for one to materialize almost in the counter-striking game, and then he'll kind of blitz there in the moment. And that's pretty good

because he is quite fast, he has good hand speed, he has good power. More often than not, that does some good work for him, but that almost cost him the fight against Sal Malve in the third round. And against a guy like Anthony Smith, who is very, very durable, I wonder how good that's going to be. The thing that I'm looking for, BC, is Anthony Smith doesn't really check leg kicks. Sometimes he does, but he kind of takes a lot of them. In fact, you'll recall Rakic dropped him in the first round just with leg kicks. It was a thing. He took his legs out from under him, and he couldn't do much to him on the ground, right? Anthony Smith, pretty good underneath to kind of avoid most of the trouble, but he did get him down with that. To me, Spann's going to have to open up his offense a little bit. He's going to have to, again, go back to what Yoel Romero, we prescribed for him. You

got to create some dual threats here. You got to make Anthony Smith get open, and then from those openings, use a more diverse striking game than just that left hook right straight which is quite potent but perhaps a little bit one note so to me the more talented guy Anthony Smith the more powerful athletic striker is definitely going to be a guy like Ryan Spann and who makes the better decisions in between is what's going to decide I think that's a brilliant way to look at it Luke because even in the two fights in which most his two most recent fights Ryan Spann in which he looked great in spots the opening minute against Johnny Walker and the opening minute against Misha Surkinoff he had a overly aggressive strikers coming at him if you blitz Ryan Spann with that reach and that

power and that six foot five frame he'll get you know he'll get you out of there he'll hurt you like he did to both guys I think he made a great point the problem that he ended up submitting Devin Clark with somewhat relative ease when he finally got the position in the second round, but it took him a lot of pawing and backing Clark up to the cage. But to your point, not really doing anything with that position, being far too patient. It plays into the theme of what this fight offers. Is Ryan Spann for real? I think that's part of why me and a lot of people right away were like, this is a main event. Are you kidding me? But what this offers Ryan Spann is the showcase, the spotlight,

the opportunity to beat a battle-tested guy who's always in main events to prove that he's ready to start legitimately competing for a title. He's going to have to be much more active, to your point. I like what he does on the ground when he finally gets it there, but I need to see some urgency. And Luke,

I really enjoyed my chat with Ryan Spann that you can check out on YouTube.com slash Morning Combat. He's a nice guy. Because I think, not only is he a great guy, but I think he's one of those guys who personality-wise, you know, he's got the Superman tattoo, but he doesn't overly leap into your living room and say, this is me and this is my story.

Luke, he talks specifically about how free he feels the last two or three fights from some mental health things that he's overcome through therapy. And, Luke, it's interesting, right? When you think about, we say with fighting, which anything, it's 90% mental, right? We don't talk about that enough. And you think with fighting, well, if I'm angry, a lot of fighters come into the game, as Rashad Evans often tells us, from a sort of hurt from a from a place of hurt right from a background that produced uh issues in you that you want to get out so you're thinking well

you know being hurt being angry that's going to make me a better fighter but at the highest level Luke where there's so little that separates you you're not always getting the best out of yourself and Ryan Spann is figuring that out the happier that he is now he didn't want to get into the issues and I respect that but the happier he is now to release the happier that he is now, he didn't want to get into the issues and I respect that, but the happier he is now to release the issues that have been plaguing him in his life and be a more flowing, easygoing fighter, he feels

like that's opening it up in terms of his offense. And Luke, I asked him specifically about this. His first four wins, albeit on the regional level, were all by submission. He still has more than double submissions to knockouts. He's got 11 career submissions, five career finishes, but the knockouts have come as he's moving up in class with the UFC,

which you don't always see, and I asked him about that, and Luke, he said, I don't know if you ever heard this before, but he said, I'm too nice of a guy. I would submit fighters early on because I didn't want to embarrass or hurt them when I had them in a compromising spot, and I had to be woken up in camp by a teammate to basically be like, you're so close to finishing all these guys. You need to bring the dog out of you. Look, I don't even think I've ever heard anybody say it like that, but he's found how to access that dog. And he comes in here, especially if you just watch the first-round knockout against Surkinov, as a capable potential contender.

Given Smith's durability, I'd have to see Anthony Smith make a mistake or really come at him to be in that range, but this is going to test so many elements of what we talked about. Spann's IQ, his potential five-round stamina in the main event. We're going to find out all those things we need to know. So at the end of the day, UFC, it is good matchmaking, even if I would have liked it, Luke, more in a co-main. But this is going to be a very interesting event.

It's definitely a little bit better as a co-main if there was a really hot main event, I agree. But it's got some value. It's got some value. Well, Spann also talked a lot, Luke, about his life situation. We hear that a lot as fighters really try to get closer to becoming the one percenters, the title contenders, the champions, the names who make the money. I asked Spann specifically, Luke, what is

his motivation heading into this one? Let's hear what he had to say. What is in your daily focus that drives you to be better? Taking care of my family, man. Being able to give my kids the life that i didn't have and being able to change the life of the people that saw the

things that we had to see like my mother my brother uh my wife like times are hard and like i'm in a position now to change it you know like yeah i'm i'm in the process of trying to buy my wife a house you know like trying to get out the apartment that we've been in two bedroom apartment with five people man like you know i'm six five i need room i love it i love it right that that's what drives me man Sheets trying to motivate himself to run in the morning he's fighting on on the potential of life changing

passion here for him and his family yeah he seems like a great guy I just I wanted to laugh at the beginning there because you're asking about like what are you focused on. Meanwhile, he's not even looking at you and he's clicking and clacking on a keyboard. No, he had a Rubik's Cube. Luke, off the top, he did an apology. He's like, I'm not going to be looking at you a lot because I'm figuring out this Rubik's Cube.

I don't know if that's like a pre-Fight Week mental game. It is. I watched his pre-fight scrum he did with the media. The Rubik's Cube is quite intentional. He keeps it around to just sort of get his mind off of everything else, which is fine. It's just kind of funny because I can't say how many times I've done interviews with fighters like for my radio

show and you can hear them going through the drive-thru and opening their car doors like ding-dong ding-dong and it just drove me nuts. Brought me back to that. But as you can see, dude, this is a humble guy. It's a humble guy. This is a humble guy, man. He's got really, you want to call them basic, but they're not basic.

Foundational aspirations. I want to give my family a better life than what I inherited. And these are my way to do it. This is quite, if you can't get on board with that struggle, man, this is not the sport for you, quite frankly, as an observer or even a participant in one dimension or another. This is what the game is about. This is who the game, in many ways, is kind of built around in certain ways. So to me, I think this is a very winnable fight for either guy. Spann, I think, is going to have to level up to get there. And I think a guy like Anthony Smith is going to have to show us, if you really are that guy who is as talented as some people say that he is, you have to consistently show that over time against opponents

who may not overall have the same kind of skills. It's an intriguing matchup. I like it. Luke Ryan Spann ranked 11th by the UFC coming in. Anthony Smith, number six. Spann believes this win puts him in a one to two fights left to get to the title level. A little crowded at the moment with the champion Blahowich set to face Glover Teixeira. You've got Yuri Prochazka on deck.

Luke, for number six, Anthony Smith. We spent so much time on Spann. Where would he go with a win? What's really at stake for him in this one? Well, what he said he wanted, I watched his pre-fight scrum too, or whatever you want to call those things that they do now at the Apex. He wants to get a rematch against Alexander Rakic. That Rakic fight sort of has been sticking in his craw a little bit.

And if you go back and you watch that fight, Rakic did a really good job of managing distance, blistering leg kicks, and then getting on top and sort of staying out of the guard work of Anthony Smith. So it was dominant in the sense that you could tell who won all the rounds and who was doing the better work, but it wasn't like an overwhelming show of force. That's the part that was kind of lacking. And I think Smith thinks if he can get another crack at the guy, things could go a little bit differently. We shall see because Rakic is also himself not too far from a title shot. If maybe on deck waiting for the winner of Teixeira, no, I guess Prochaska might be up there. So it's hard to know exactly which way the wind is blowing with this.

But that was what he spotlighted as what he was looking for. I think Smith's a bright guy, and he understands that after you've had a couple of losses and you lost some teeth along the way, including you lost to Jon Jones, and then the guy who's fighting for the title took away some of your teeth, it's going to take some time to re-inspire confidence in UFC matchmakers to get a title shot but a quicker way to get there might be not just beating Ryan Spann but getting a shot against Rakic and writing that you know wrong so to speak that's what he seems to be wanting all right the five rounds are going to tell us a lot about how good Ryan Spann is Luke how good is he who wins Smith Spann with these

close odds on Saturday night I think the odds are fair man again I sort of laid this out in the way in which I view it when thinking about how it might go I tend to think that who we go back to the Trevor Whitman challenge right that's the way I like to call it it doesn't exist in that way I'm just giving it that name but the Trevor Whitman challenge is when it comes down to the highest level or the highest level possible what you're looking for here is who makes less mistakes I think you could argue that there are plenty of mistakes either guy makes they're not a perfect fighter no fighter is but I would argue that Spann has gotten into a little bit more trouble with some of the mistakes that he's made

now you might also argue those are mistakes that he made growing up in the game at this level and that Smith's just had more experience, so he has sort of ironed out those things earlier. And in fact, there is no difference. That could be the case. Again, the odds, as you indicated, they're very, very close. But just based on what we've seen, I think that Ryan Spann is a devastating finisher. And I want to go back to this one more time because we've not talked enough about it. Dude, both guys come from absolutely phenomenal coaches. Mark Montoya in the case of Anthony Smith and then Saif Saoud in the case of Ryan Spann. Dude, these are well-coached fighters. In the case of a guy like Spann, having a guy like Saif Saoud who understands what the mistakes might be, he knows his fighters better than we ever will. I know he sees them, and I guarantee they put a lot of work in.

So, you know, this whole thing could blow up one way or the other, but I just tend to think, I tend to think Spann showed a little bit more carelessness at times than Smith, and that might make all the difference at this level. Yeah, I think this is, you know, as 50-50 in a while in terms of picking it, but I tend to lean on Smith the same regard. And Luke, as much as we play jokes around here sometimes, because you do love Anthony Smith almost as much as you love City Kickboxing, Big Booty Latinas, Abortion Rock, Danny Segura.

What's wrong with Danny? Dude, you freaking love Danny. I love him too. I'm just saying he's in your top five of most loved things. Do you remember MySpace? You could have your top friends. I'd put Danny up there. It was Tom and Danny Segura.

We know that. Shout out to Danny Segura, by the way. Big fan. Anthony Smith is a good broadcaster, by the way. I want to give him that fire. I don't like the hand tats as much because it's my own personal style, Luke, but he's a good broadcaster, and I think he's still good enough to win this fight so i like him by decision to teach span exactly where he's at span just 30 years old though we'll see what he

can do with this win or lose luke moving forward good fight luke same division for the co-main event devin clark two and two in his last four including losses to both eventers, taking on a man who you can argue could really use a big win so he could let out one of those large war cries like Luke did at the live show for us in MK on our two-year anniversary, Jan Kutelaba. Luke, is Kutelaba just a fun, weigh-in, sideshow crazy man? Or is he a guy who could potentially get closer to figuring out how to be a ranked competitive man here? This feels like a slot for him to showcase his potential upside

if it's still in there. But Luke, on his run lately, which has included a pair of losses and a no decision, he needs to get back in that column. Well, it's a little unfair if you look at his record because he's got the two losses to Ankhalaev. Now, the second one is entirely justified, but the first one was, you know, it was just a weird, bad reffing situation.

Here's what I think about Kutaylaba. Sorry, Luke, not a no contest, a draw against Dustin Jacoby. My bad. A draw against Dustin, who's massively improved. By the way, another Mark Montoya-trained fighter. I think Kutaylaba is probably most accurately viewed as the kind of challenge that a real title contender

has to get through and show that they can handle in order to go on to bigger places, which is not to say that he's not a formidable challenge. In fact, it says he is exactly that. But you're asking me, like, do I see a realistic path for him for a championship opportunity in his future or anything even close to that probably not but if you're not a very top tier fighter this guy's gonna he's gonna eat you alive that's the kind of thing he offers because do one of the major challenges is you know there's pressure in

the fight game in terms of guys cornering you and then whatnot and doing everything behind it and then there's the insane pressure. And unless you have the kind of skills, like, for example, a Mega Man Uncle I have has, you know, it's going to be a hard day for you. So I view him best in that sense. And a guy like Devin Clark is not the same, but is typically the kind of guy who likes to apply pressure himself. He wants to get the takedown. He wants to lead the dance.

He wants to sort of set the tone there. So you're going to have two rams just running into each other, both in need of a win. Both are good fighters, but in the case of Kutaylaba, since you asked, one never knows. You don't want to bury fighters before their careers are over, but I just don't quite see enough development there to make me think he can challenge the top tier of that division.

It's an interesting fight fight and the odds reflect that when you've got Devin Clark a plus 120 close underdog minus 140 for Kuti Laba Luke I think at this point Clark may be the more well-rounded skilled fighter but I think Kuti Laba still has the much brighter top end in bright spot I mean when you consider Clark is just six and5 in the UFC, all six wins by decision, he's good, Luke. But I don't see a lot of flashes of great. Now, have I seen that consistently from Kutelaba? No. Sometimes it's a little bit more of

the bark than the bite. The bark does get you in the building and close to the TV screen. This is an opportunity for Kutelaba to change his fortune moving forward, because, Luke, if he can't beat a Devin Clark right here, and it's no gimme, the odds are telling you that, he may be just another guy.

So that's going to be an interesting fight in that regard. Luke, not the deepest card, but a couple names worth mentioning, and you said it earlier this week. You've got Armin Sorokin as the guy you're focusing in. I don't even think that's on the main card, right, Luke? That's the – no, it is. I'm sorry. It's in the midst of the's on the main card right luke that's the uh no it is i'm sorry it's in the midst of the six fight main card on saturday night a lightweight bout with christos

giagos i'm butchering everyone's name luke because that's how i was raised but armin saruki and a minus 700 favorite uh yet it seems to be right on luke yeah armin saruki is a fucking beast i'm just gonna say it to you plain plainly as I can. This guy is an absolute savage, and he's not far enough along to declare this very true. I don't know how far he's going to go, BC, because there is one big knock on him, which we'll talk about in just a second.

But the good side is that this guy has all the goods you think to potentially become champion. I mean, he really is that talented. He's that young. He's that athletic. And in the department that sometimes seems to matter the most in MMA, the wrestling sort of grappling department, he is better than most of his peers already.

The one big knock on him is not that he can't beat a lot of these guys. I think he's probably going to beat Gyagos from pillar to post. The issue is that he doesn't have a lot of finishing skill. He can ride out the rounds dominantly, but he never seems to push, at least not recently anyway. He doesn't seem to push the fight along in a way where the danger and the damage is increasing as it should be over time. He keeps a pace on them. It's like the runner who just, if you're running a race, they're just constantly in front of you, and you can never catch up, no matter what you do. And you can do a lot with that.

But the driving of the stake into the heart, that's the kind of part that's missing. That's why I think they're still slow rolling this guy just a little bit, right? Because you've beaten guys like Davi Hamos on the ground. You've beaten Frivola and other ones as well. He's got some of the skills. Let's see if he can turn that finishing corner, or at a bare minimum, even if he doesn't get the finish, BC,

just show that you can increase the level of danger as the fight progresses, given that you have such a lead on these overmatched opponents. That's what I'm looking for here. The win or the loss to me is not really in play. How much can he hurt this guy to the point where he either gets the finish

or gets damn close in the process? Yeah, they say be the hammer in life, Luke, not the nail. Saruki and, uh, straight from the Smech Factory, right? He's a hammer. Is he from the Smech Factory or an associate Smech Factory? He's Armenian by, uh, by

nationality, but I think he is mostly out of Russia. I don't think he's part of the Dagestan Russia crew. I think he is mostly out of Russia. I don't think he's part of the Dagestan-Russia crew. I think he's more... More of a satellite factory, but they still smash just the same. Anybody, listen, if you're from Georgia, the country, Armenia,

Azerbaijan, Iran, Dagestan region, Chechen region, they're all hammers over there. All of them. Old country way, as the Iron Sheik would say. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, indeed. Luke, he's the biggest favorite on the card.

The second biggest favorite is Montel Jackson. I asked this, Luke, because Cheyenne Bays has gotten us talking a lot about fighter pay and her story, while her husband, J.P. Bays, is back in this Bantamweight tilt as a huge plus 450 underdog. Am I wrong for watching this mainly for the soap opera part of seeing if J.P. Bays is back in this Bantamweight tilt as a huge plus 450 underdog. Am I wrong for watching this mainly for the soap opera part of seeing if J.P. can fight like a maniac and bring some more finances to that household, Luke? I'll tell you what's kind of interesting. How about this?

How about the size differential? So J.P. Bays is 5'5", Montel Jackson 5'10". That's going to be fun. But this is, of course, the more interesting one. JP Baez, I can never pronounce that name correctly, 67-inch reach. BC, Montel Jackson, 75-inch reach. A massive difference there.

That's just how he does it. Yeah, Montel Jordan, just the same. I think what you're probably going to see is Baze try to make this at least something of a mixed fight where the ground plays a big role. But, dude, that's quite the hill to climb. It's going to be fun to see. And you mentioned, Luke, this interesting tilt at women's band and weight.

Panty, how do we say Panty's last name? Because I don't want to be a good one. Kianzad. Kianzad. Kianzad has a four-fight winning streak against former title challenger Rocky Pennington. Luke, you would agree that old Rocky at 33 has seen better days,

although she is fresh off a win over Marion Reneau, has lost three of five, comes in as the betting favorite, though, against the red-hot Panny. As we look at the odds at the moment, plus 110 for Panny, minus 130 for Raquel. Is there anything left in the tank for all rocky here luke yeah i mean this is the last five of raquel pennington right so she has the win over renault but renault retired after this right i think or that's one of the other one uh that she lost a home okay i mean that's fine holly holmes look quite good she has a win over aldana um that's pretty impressive,

even if that fight was, I think, a little bit closer than just sort of stating it outright. She has the loss to Duran Dami and then the loss to Nunes. Now, the loss to Nunes, remember, that came controversially when she wanted out, her corner sends her back out there, and then she gets completely obliterated in the fifth. And then, so losing to Duran Dami, who has improved and also probably a terrible fight to come back to, given that circumstance, whatever. Here's what I would say. I thought she'd be like done, done after the Duran Dami who has improved and also probably a terrible fight to come back to given that circumstance whatever here's what I would say I thought she'd be like done done after the Duran Dami fight and then she's shown a little bit of life left I think in the case of what she's up against dude Penny Keonzad is easily easily easily one of the most improved fighters in all of the UFC and in particular on the women's side of the game she is massively improved based on what I've seen from her years ago much

better boxing her jiu-jitsu has come a very long way she knows how to win rounds she knows how to manage a fight and when there's a finishing opportunity she seeks it as well I have been extremely impressed with the work that she has done so to me it's like you got somebody who has just now figured out how to put it all together. And is really showing very impressive results. Against someone who has been pretty close to the mountaintop. And had a lot of struggles. Just based on that alone.

I kind of expect Kianzad to win. But I think it would be a little bit foolish. Brian I don't know if you agree. Pennington still shows glimmers of ability. And glimmers of really kind of getting after it a little bit. And that will make it a little bit tough for Keon Zod. But skill for skill, I think Keon Zod's just better. And Rocky's very durable.

And, Luke, you don't see a lot of finishes in the women's game statistically compared to the men. And seemingly not a ton of Bantamweight. And, you know, even Panty's win streak has been all decision wins, albeit, you know, against faded former contenders in the likes of Betch Kohea and Alexis Davis, although a good win over Sajara Eubanks in that run. But this is going to be interesting mostly because this division is void.

Luke, we're void of names worth talking about. We want to ask the lad to get back in the mix and show us what you got. We're going to keep retreading GDR and Holly Holm. I mean, so if Panic can win five in a row, these are an escalation in the types of names she's beating at least. So I got my eye on that one. And also, Luke, just added to the card to open up the night, a women's flyweight tilt pairing Emily Whitmire as the minus 120 favorite

against Hannah 24K Goldie. Luke at plus 100, who has more canceled fights than appearances so far in the UFC, and at 0-2 in the octagon can really use a win. Luke, you a big Hannah Goldie fan? She's got some ability, but, you know, she's lost her last two of the three. She's like the female Sean Shirk, Luke. She's like who? Hannah Goldie? She's the muscle shark? No, I wouldn't go that far. She fights like the female Sean Shirk, Luke. She's like Hannah Goldie.

She's the muscle shark? Nah, I wouldn't go that far. She fights like it. Huh? She fights like it. Sean Shirk had dominant takedowns for his era. I don't think that's quite true. But in any case, if you look at who Emily Whitwire has lost to in Vianna and Hibas,

she's lost to somewhat better competition. So this is a tough one. I don't really know which way this is going to go. I think we ran into Emily Whitmire at High Rollers when we went to RBC. Yes, we did. We ran into a few gimmicks, too, along the way. They're just putting them in your hand, right? I don't know what you're talking about.

We also ran into Jake Shields, and then he just sent you to hell on Twitter today, Luke. In that same conversation, he also told me he likes to fuck around on Twitter and social media. So what am I supposed to do? Do you want to get mad about it? It is what it is. Luke, this is the MMA Hardcore Special today.

We're not talking Paul Brothers. We're going deep on this card. Quickly, Joaquin Buckley, Luke, fresh off getting head kicked by Dick Rico. I want to see, as a minus 210 favorite, the highlightin Buckley, Luke, fresh off getting head kicked by Dick Rico, I want to see as a minus 210 favorite the highlight reel specialist himself if he can bounce back big against Antonio Arroyo, so that's got my eyes on that one, Luke

fair enough, that's a good one to pick the Armin Saryukian one is the only one that I really am just desperate to see, that's the one where I really want to see if this dude can start turning some corners. Because if he can, I'm telling you, he is going to go very far. All right.

Well, speaking of going far and then saying that's enough, Luke, we've got a pair of high-priced, big-name fighter retirements in the last 24 hours. So let's give them their flowers right here, Luke. Big news this week. Four-time ufc title contender and long time uh flyweight veteran joe benavidez calls it a career luke a 28 and 8 record um also carlos condit but let's let's start here on joe b luke as classy and as regular a dude, Joe Jitsu, as you can find in this game. And consistently, Luke, one of the best in this sport,

just you hate to say it as the first line of his obit one day, never got over that hill, but boy, did he go out swinging in trying to do so, Luke. He was one of the faces of this division since it was first launched. Demetrius Johnson was sort of that boss at the end of the video game he had problems getting over but you look back on an incredible career a fight of the year victory over Henry Cejudo Joe B was as good as it gets in this game Luke how will you remember um Mr. Mr. Olivi in this case yeah I I mean, I can't say enough good things about him.

And I said this in the live chat yesterday, BC, which is worth repeating. We measure greatness a little too limited in MMA, where it's like, okay, we'll start with who was champions, and then we'll go from there. But, dude, you can't convince me that his resume isn't better than some people who wore hardware around their waist. It just was, in part because for a long stretch of his career, he wasn't even competing in his normal effing weight class.

In fact, his first four losses came to Demetrius Johnson and Dominic Cruz. The Dominic Cruz fight, he lost twice. That was a 135. Like, do you even want to count that? I mean, you can count it, but like, it just doesn't represent him. And then the first Demetrius Johnson fight was a split decision loss. Okay, he got KO'd in the second one. But you get the idea.

Like, dude, this was a guy who was out there unnaturally competing way above his weight. And to me, what he represents is that first, not the post-tough boom. The post-tough boom ushered in people who were kind of already there, who were in that sort of UFC-ready weight classes. There was a second wave just behind it of people who were in that sort of UFC ready weight classes there was a there was a second wave just behind it of people who were that sort of WEC come up where you know 145 135 and so forth who were able to do pretty and 125 eventually as you saw we able to do pretty spectacular things and team alpha male I think kind of had the playbook from like 2008 to I don't know 2015 ish 2016 ish

on how to be a really dominant wrestle boxer in this game. And he was a big, big, big part of it. He may have not had the celebrity, per se, of Uriah Faber or the hardware of Demetrius Johnson, but dude, he kind of split the difference there a little bit. He was extremely talented. He showed how good fighting could be at a lower weight class. Again, he did it outside of his weight class.

To me, he's a really, really special talent. He's a guy deserving of a ton of accolades. He fought until it really wasn't possible to go any further, and he called it off. Maybe you could have called it off after the second Figueiredo loss, but he wanted to give it one more try. Dude, listen to the names he's beaten. Again, and again, some of these are going to be up a weight class. Danny Martinez, Jeff Curran, Big Frog, who is a big name. Hani Yaya, Miguel Torres. Folks won't know this, but this is a very good fighter. Vagni Fabiano, Ian Loveland, Eddie Wineland, Yasuhiro Urushitani, who was a dominant force in that weight class over in Japan until they brought him over.

Ian McCall, Darren Uyoyama, Juicier Formiga, Tim Elliott, Dustin Ortiz, John Moraga, Ali Bagoutinov, Zach Makowski, Henry Cejudo, don't forget that, Alex Perez, Dustin Ortiz, and Juicier Formiga again. Dude, that is a baller-ass resume if ever there was one. Yeah, I feel like because he never won the title in either promotion that there would be people that will forget about him over time. Yet Luke, you know, we talk about the four Kings in boxing in the 1980s and the great Showtime documentary about Leonard,

uh, Hearns, Duran and, uh, Hagler. There's a fifth King in that Wilford Benitez, Luke, who lost to Sugar Ray Leonard,

but, but you know, lost to Hearns, but beat Duran who sometimes people say, you know, it's just as good as those four and fought most of them, but doesn't get, get linked with that. You just laid out the names of the, who sometimes people say, you know, is just as good as those four and fought most of them, but doesn't get linked with that. You just laid out the names of the guys who brought life to the idea

of small fighters, of fighting, you know, below, you know, lightweight or featherweight, whatever, the faces of the WEC. We think back of that era. We think Dominic Cruz. We think, you know, Uriah Faber, Jose Aldo, Demetrius Johnson, the small weight guys who, you know, transitioned to the UFC and were the faces. And Joe was right there with them, Luke. He fought in the inaugural UFC flyweight title bout, that split decision you mentioned in his first fight with Demetrius Johnson.

And it could have just as easily gone his way on the scorecards that night. But I think more than anything, Luke, along with being a great guy, and I always thought he was a very wise quote, you know, a very thoughtful quote, he stayed at a super elite level for a long-ass time. He's 37 years old. He walks away on a three-fight losing skid, yet, you know, went for it twice against Figueredo and, you know, was in that Askar-Askaroff fight and, you know, given everything he had left. So he was able to keep it at a high level for a long time. And Luke, considering he's been more or less on top for a long-ass time, he was one of the first really, really well-rounded, you know,

perfect sort of fighters in that regard. At an early time, as people were, you know, rotating from specialization into being complete mixed martial artists, I always thought he was a threat in all aspects of his game. He changed with the times in that regard and stayed up very high. Sad to see him go, but it seems like the right choice, Luke. I would challenge that a little bit. I think you're right, BC.

You're absolutely right that, again, he started making a name for himself in a big way around 2008 or so. Those guys out of Team Alpha Male, I think they wrote the book for that era on wrestle boxing. They really did. No one did it better than them, particularly in those weight classes. They had a game kind of perfectly situated for their body size.

But eventually, I think what cost them is not just the age, but the striking game kind of moved on past what they were able to do. A lot of them just sort of leaped into range in that way that they did in that time, which again, in that era, was perfectly serviceable for winning big, big fights, as you can see. But it just, it ended up not being enough. The one thing I want to point out is he never had back-to-back losses throughout the course

of his career until the Figueredo pairing. And then of course, Askarov on top. Other than that, if he had a win, he always rebounded. In fact, he got KO'd by Demetrius Johnson. One punch in the first round, right? We all remember that. After that, he went on a 1-2-3-4-5-6 fight win streak, which included Tim Elliott with the

guillotine choke, where Tim had to tap with his feet because he was getting guillotined from Mount and his arms were completely closed. Dustin Ortiz, Moraga, Bagotinov, Makovsky, and then Henry Cejudo. Dude, dude, that is a very, very good resume. So, Luke, we hate to have this conversation,

but it comes up even in the NBA when we talk about greats like Charles Barkley or Karl Malone who were, you know, top 10, top 20 talent of all time but never got the ring. Where do you place him on that countdown, the one that Michael Bisping used to head off that now includes Dan Henderson Dustin Poirier the guys who have never won a full UFC championship but have certainly been of that ilk is he is he up there with Faber and Hendo and those guys where would you put a number on him Luke

yeah um I don't know what the number would be, but if you're asking me, does he belong in consideration with one of the best lighter weight fighters of all time? Sure, sure, absolutely. I just don't have, without making a list, it's hard to know where to put. Do you have a better number? Like, do you know where you would put him? I mean, top five, you know,

I think I've got to put Henderson above him and Faber, yeah, and Poirier for now. He's right there, though, Luke. He's right frickin' right there, I'll tell you that much. You know, he had the chance twice against Figueredo. We were hoping he was going to sort of get that Bisping moment, that opportunity, but didn't get it. It doesn't soften an incredible career.

But, Luke, our second retirement, same age at 37, active of late the great carlos condent luke i want to throw it to you because you love his seminal title war with robbie lawler and appreciate that fight maybe more than anyone i know um talk to me about the feels of seeing carlos condon a former welterweight interim champion say goodbye uh it's a tough one because a I kind of thought it should have happened a little bit sooner but I'm I don't think it's a disaster that it happened now in other words like you know did he wait too long maybe a little bit but not so badly I hope um but dude what can you I mean I said this on

Twitter like there are careers and then there's what Carlos Conda did. Understand what we're talking about here with somebody. We are talking about somebody who made his pro debut less than a year after 9-11, and he did it in fucking Mexico. He went down there and just beat up some guy. Through all of the aughts and everything else, he worked himself to a championship level and did it without

you could say maybe in the Diaz fight he kind of compromised his style but more and more often than not in basic terms he never ever changed the way he was uh which was just complete gameness and how do you define gameness gameness is pursuit of the fight despite the physical consequences I mean if that's not Carlos Condit I don't know who. And that you can do that all the way through the championship level is absolutely remarkable. He came from the WEC to the UFC very much as an afterthought. Folks didn't know, the hardcores did, but the casuals didn't really know much about him. And then he had a fucking war with Martin Kampmann. And he earned every fighter's respect, he earned every fan's respect, he achieved great things and you mentioned that Lawler fight, dude that Lawler fight, if you've not seen it, I don't think either of them were ever the same after that

I don't think Robbie Lawler's retirement is very far from where we are right now and I'll say this if that's not the best fight in welterweight history it's the most thrilling and it's thrilling in part because of what Carlos Condit did the sacrifice he laid on the altar of athletic greatness to achieve something and about I thought he won by the way is astounding you will not see guys like this very often who are absolute fire eaters and

at the same time championship level fighters it is extremely rare and he was that personified he was a human highlight reel he he had a sick side to him that would just go after it which was best exemplified in that lawler fight well that's your favorite you know i can't put it above lawler mcdonald but i do think it had a fifth round i'm talking about a lawler condit that is uh you know on pace on par with any with any round in terms of just the go after it and the the stakes were high, and the shit. Luke, for as much as we know him as such a celebrated and loved blood and guts warrior,

you talk about that WEC debut in 2007, that through 2012, so right before his title loss to GSP in 2012, Luke, he went 10-1 with the only loss being a split decision to Martin Kampmann, which, as you mentioned, was a freaking war. And his wins during that 10-1 run across WEC and UFC are highlighted by Jake Ellenberger, Rory McDonald, Dan Hardy, Stun Gunn, and Nick Diaz. God, that is a freaking... And there's like three straight knockouts in the midst of that

against those names where you're talking about a natural-born killer indeed. Dude, and don't forget, the McDonald fight, Rory was beating the shit out of him through two rounds, and then in the third, if my memory serves, he turned it around and then punished McDonald to the point where he baited a referee stoppage. It was incredible. Follows that up with a one-punch KO of Dan Hardy.

Follows that up with a double switch knee on the stun gun, Jonghyun Kim, and then follows that up by winning an interim title against Nick Diaz. I mean, you've got to be fucking kidding me. That is just otherworldly levels of ability. I mean, yes, there are guys who did more you know to saint pierre obviously again you can say some other ones perhaps as well but we are talking about a very very unique fighter the likes of which will not be repeated anytime soon and we don't we don't have a you know a self-made list of rankings in front of us of who are the best welterweights in sports history up and down but when you look at the names of those

victories that i just mentioned the high level of them and the fact that he did win an interim title even though i don't love the presence and the use of interim titles look that that's a i mean that's a freaking impeccable resume for a guy who i think too many people think about the blood and guts fight of the night side of him which is fine because he was that guy but you want to talk about the accomplishments on top of that he really is one of the best all-time great which is fine because he was that guy. But you want to talk about the accomplishments on top of that. He really is one of the best all-time greats. I mean, there's no, you know, I didn't like seeing him hang on and be a slower fraction of himself the last couple of years.

But when he was at his best, dude, good Lord. I mean, I'm glad he retired because, you know, losing to Robbie Lawler had to be difficult. But then he fought Demi and Maya. Okay. Then he fought Neil Magny, who's, you know, losing to Robbie Lawler had to be difficult. But then he fought Demian Maia. Okay. Then he fought Neil Magny, who's, you know, a top-ranked fighter. And then Alex Oliveira was a bit of a tough one to swallow. But then Chiesa, you know, he's a top-ranked fighter.

And then he goes in the wins against McGee and Brown. Those were nice. And then he lost to Max Griffin, who I think is a good fighter. But you have to ask yourself, would a guy like Carlos have lost to a guy like Max five six years ago probably not probably not and so I think for that reason he was like okay let's let's just call it a day before there's any damage done and I'm pretty glad but I agree with you dude like in boxing where you have so many titles I think you can use titles as a baseline for who did something and didn't like it would be very hard for me to think about like who's the best boxer who never won a title I don't I mean you could answer that question obviously a lot

better than I can but is it anybody even remarkable in MMA dude and of course he got the interim title and he and he was the WEC champion so he did have hardware but I'm saying a full-on UFC title he never got it dude you rob everyone not you but like the proverbial, of history if you don't tell the story of people like this, even though he didn't get a full weight class title. I almost don't want to put him in that list I just talked about with Benavidez because he does have the WEC title and the interim title, which together should almost equal, just like Dan Henderson's hard to put in that list because everything he accomplished elsewhere outside of the UFC.

Yeah, what a freaking great career. And it just, you know, it's not his fault he was in the GSP era. And, you know, it's not his fault that although he gave what was left of him against Lawler, that was a split decision. It could have gone either way. I mean, he could have exited that night, although that was the first of a five fight losing streak, probably justified. So, you know, justifiably given the damage. But, you know, he could have just as easily been the champion that night. So what a remarkable run, 32-14 for the 37-year-old to walk away, but that almost doesn't really matter in the end, Luke.

It's what he left behind. An ambassador, too, for what the UFC was really marketing itself to be. You know? We'll match the best against the best. If you just look at where he fought in the early stages of his career, he tells the story of MMA at the time. He had a lot of regional fights in the New Mexico area, and then he got really his first big start in Japan.

This was in 2005. Japan had a massive MMA scene at the time, and then he went in his real big introduction to the big stage. You could maybe say the Kitawaka fight he had in Pancas but i would argue it'd be the rumble on the rock and where he beat uh hanato verissimo who was folks i mean i know that was bj penn's jiu-jitsu coach for a long time and then he triangled frank trick he did lose ultimately to jake shields obviously jake shields very talented but you know that's when he announced that he was a player among the top welterweights in the world.

And so he went and ended up in WEC not too long after that, after returning to Pancrae. It's just an interesting way to look back in time, so to speak. And he was at his best at that point right around the WEC, merging into the UFC, where the sport had really started to make major inroads in the mainstream. And, Luke, I just remember, like, the kind of tough dudes with tats and an affliction t-shirt and a chain that listened to like, you know, early 2000s hard new metal and you, those

guys, Carlos Condit was their favorite fighter. Like no question. Every guy you ran into, like at a bar who, uh, you know, who you could tell like fights and you talk to him and that dude, he was every single one of those guys, rightfully so just an absolute badass favorite fighter. It seemed like people were either a cowboy guy or a content guy back then luke the real fan the real fans luke you know what i'm saying kind of interesting they never fought you know yeah that is very interesting uh luke we talked flyweights with joseph benavidez's exit from the title picture in the sport altogether let's talk flyweights

again for topic four because this slid in our dms this week kind of out of nowhere ufc 269 on december 11th we're gonna have a trilogy title fight when defending champion brandon moreno takes on davison figuerito for the third straight time luke i've seen polarizing reactions to this online. What is your reaction? Because I'm very surprised by this. I was surprised at first. I was surprised at first, but then I thought about it a little bit. Tell me what you think.

This is the way I looked at it. One, this has a real boxing feel to it. You ever notice sometimes they'll just pair two fighters and boxing together because they kind of just do good business or the fights themselves, they just seem to go well? Ask yourself this. Did Pacquiao and Marquez need to fight five times? They didn't need to fight that many times. I know early on they needed to because there was a lot of controversy

about the way that the fights went in terms of the judging and whatnot, but the last two you probably didn't necessarily need. They just kept making them because, well... I mean, to your point, Luke, the fourth one, which was the best one by far, in my opinion, there was a lot of columns written that this was customer fatigue. We don't need it. We've seen it enough. Blah, blah, blah. Right, exactly.

But sometimes you can just pair them up a little bit. Now, you know, I also made the point where it's got a little, a little, BC, before you kill me for the comparison, a little Vasquez Marquez in it. But obviously this is different because it's just the one major weight class title. And so the stakes are significantly bigger. And so for that reason, you would imagine there'd be more discretion given to the matchmaking. Still, you can't tell me that the fight's going to be bad. I would be hard pressed to make that argument.

I would have liked to have seen a fresh contender roll through. I think most of us would have, but the way they explained it was the guy who was there, Pantoja, is not going to be ready, so they just had to find someone else. You could have maybe said Askarov. Okay, I don't know why they didn't go that direction, given that he had the win over Benavidez, but at the same time, maybe they don't think he's ready. Maybe they think he needs another win. Whatever the case, it's kind of fun. It's kind of different. I guess I don't love it, but I definitely don't hate it. Okay, here's why I don't like it. And it's really hard to say you don't like it when, to your point right there, these guys make great theater in their first fight. If it wasn't for Ioana and Wei Li, it would have been the fight of the year. I mean, the reason why I don't like it is this. I think Askarov is more than deserving,

and the fact that Moreno just finished Figueredo. So you're asking your champion, who fought five rounds life and death with Figueredo, and you could have argued he deserved to have won it, you ask him to run it back a second time, he does. He finishes Figueredo dominantly, and it's this great story, and now you're asking him to do it again? I almost feel like Figueredo dominantly and it's this great story and now you're asking him to do it again I almost feel like Figueredo you know he look he was he was a great champion in that short

window and he's a badass and he's one of my favorite fighters Figueredo but he didn't have it the kind of decorated title run where you're like no he deserves this or even though these guys made two good fights were really one amazing fight and then the second one was fun but quick somewhat quick i don't think it was like we need to see this third one so when i look at esker esker of luke said what is he 14 0 and 1 3 0 and 1 since coming to the ufc and that only blemish if you call it that a fight of the year's contender split draw with the current champion, Brandon Moreno, in 2019. It just makes more sense than anything that this guy is atop your rankings that he would get next.

He already proved that he can push the current champion, and he just retired Benavidez and had won a fight over Pantoja, a top contender before that, and had won a decision over Tim Elliott, a tough out, before that. So I don't think anyone else deserves this more than him, and I'm not fighting this battle because I'm an Asghar Asgharov superfan, even though, Luke, I'm a card-carrying member. You better believe that.

But then answer the question, then. Why do you think they passed over him and they identified Pantoja as the guy? Marketing. Here's what it is, Luke. This card is December 11th in Las Vegas. It's their end-of year major if you look at you know ufc having like golfer tennis majors and what do you want you want a big audience and you don't with amanda nunez juliana pena have a huge marketing hook to get people in there but what you do have is a a Mexican champion for the first time here in Moreno who people love, and you've

got a proven guy who's a badass in Figueiredo who you know is going to push the pace and make an incredible fight. I think it's more like, let's try to bring as many Mexican-Mexican-American fans to Las Vegas that weekend. Let's make this as big of an event as we could by putting him against somebody that you know,

the former champion, who just gave you two good fights against him. I think Askarov's much more deserving now. Wouldn't you have liked this, Luke, a little better if Figueiredo had to come back and beat a Pantoja or prove himself again, and you could do this third fight a little bit more down the road as champion, or even if Moreno had lost the belt as the number one contender fight? I just think it's a little bit of panic. as champion or even if Moreno had lost the belt as the number one contender fight.

I just think it's a little bit of panic. Let's take advantage of Moreno on the marketing side. Do they think he has a better chance of beating Figueredo than Askarov? I don't know, Luke. That's deep-level conspiracy stuff that only happens in that war room. But I think I laid down enough of an argument, Luke, where you can't tell me I'm wrong, at least not to my face. And I'll see you in person on Sunday night. No, I think you make good points.

I think that's a great point. I hadn't really fully considered the depth of where they were putting this and what that might mean. Also, you know, again, I don't know if this is the case. Correct me if I'm wrong. So, Zhang Wai Li, she wins the title and then loses it in her subsequent bout, and granted, there was the pandemic in between, or something to that effect, right?

She didn't have a clear title defense, and they were hoping you could, like, okay, we got a Chinese champion. This is going to be our key to unlock the market, which, of course, we know is, if not guaranteed, your best chance of unlocking any potential market. They finally got a Mexican champion. He just beat this guy. It was exciting. Fans probably won't rebel. To your point, there are some indications about where the fight is being placed on the

card and in what part of the year and this i think they just want to see how long they can keep this not how long they can keep him champion but if they can give the matchmaking a little bit of a twist this way versus that way and he can extend his reign as champion it just gives them a better chance to make the most of what it means to have a mexican ufc champion that could very well be I think that's a pretty good theory. We don't know how much longer Figueredo can even make this weight, to be fully honest, Luke. And this card needs some type of marketing anchor in that regard. But, again, I can't hate on it.

And certainly this card has some other fights I'm really into, like Cody Garbrandt in KK France and Montana De La Rosa, Macy Barber. So we'll see if they add sort of a third big draw or if they keep it as is. Excuse me, Luke, I had a little indigestion here. But again, can I argue this much against this fight? No, this fight's going to be badass. So thank you, UFC.

Thank you, Flyweight. All right, Luke, let's keep the show rolling. Our final topic is a very interesting one from, I don't know, I was going to say down under. Not down under, but far over. Singapore. One championship. Luke's friend and accounting major, Shatri Sityangkong, appeared on Luke's other friend, Ariel Helwani's MMA Fighting MMA Hour show.

And had a big announcement, Luke. And I'll tell you, it's pretty damn unique. A mixed rules fight for 1X on December 5th. They're calling it 1X. What does that signify, Luke? Their 10th card? 10th anniversary, I feel like. 10th anniversary of their promotion.

And here's what it's going to be. Demetrius Mighty Mouse Johnson, one of the all-time greats, fresh off his loss, though, in a title bout with one championship, against, I want to pronounce this right, Luke, because a title bout with one championship against, I want to pronounce this right, Luke, because when I see it, I see Rod Tang. But this guy, Ro Tang, is an absolute beast of a brawler, fighter, warrior, Muay Thai machine. This will be a mixed rules bout on December 5th, a four-round fight. Two of them will be Muay Thai rules.

Two of the rounds will be MMA rules. They will be alternating four-ounce gloves for all of them. And a pretty good card on top of that, Luke, with Bibiano Fernandez defending his Bantamweight title against Hands of Stone John Lineker. Love it. And a featherweight title bout between Tom Lee and your boy Gary with two Rs, Tonin. Luke, how do you react to this interesting style of matchmaking for Mighty Mouse?

Well, it's different, but it's not highly unique. This was already done, I think, either by Dream or Pride. I forget who did it at the time. I guess Pride had already closed up shop, so it had to be Dream. You mean with Shinya Aoki? Shinya Aoki did it, yes, against, I forget his name, the guy who was a cosplayer. And he ended up winning, I think, inside the MMA portion of the whole thing, which made it so funny. I remember when that happened, and people hated it at the time.

But it was part of sort of Japanese New Year, if memory serves. And so a little bit of craziness, a little bit of showmanship goes a long way. This is sort of out of that playbook. Listen, you know, I think that the people who run one championship, they don't love anything more than hemorrhaging money and then not telling the truth about it. But aside from that, their product is pretty good for the most part. I kind of like it. Is this my favorite thing in the world?

Well, I don't know about that, but they're making, I think, mostly effective use of their roster. You know, Mighty Mouse did lose his last bout pretty convincingly, or I think he got stopped. So they're looking for an interesting way to make use of him, make use of Rod Tang, and then go from there. And this is a decent way, I think, to accomplish that. That's an interesting bout. I think fans who like one championship will probably like that a lot.

And I'll also say this. There are pluses and there are minuses to the Athletic Commission controlling the fight game model. One of the downsides is that getting rule innovation in place and moving is very, very difficult. One championship doesn't really have that. It's not to say that they couldn't get this fight done under a commission model. They probably could, but it would take a lot of extra work.

They have a certain nimbleness, I'm pointing out, BC, to make changes to their product and bring it to the marketplace that differentiates it in a pretty easy way. Maybe this is your thing, maybe it's not, but I like that there's at least one reasonably dominant player outside of the UFC who can do that kind of a thing. So it's interesting. I like it a lot.

Now, Rod Tang is, I don't want, what am I supposed to call him, Luke? I can't pronounce his last name. What am I supposed to call him? I don't, just call him Rod Tang. I don't know how to pronounce it either. This is beyond my purview. I'm being open with my ignorance here. So Rod Tang's a badass.

You would know him because one championship of late on those four TNT cards, Luke, they rolled him out there twice on those MMA cards in Muay Thai bouts. He's 24 years old. He turned pro at age 16 in Muay Thai bouts. He's 24 years old. He turned pro at age 16 in Muay Thai, and Luke, his professional Muay Thai record is 267 wins, 42 losses, and 10 draws. He fought

six times alone in 2020. So this guy gets after it, and of course, we've seen highlights of him, Luke, doing the Ricardo Mayorga, pounding his chin and giving out free shots. He is an absolute badass. This fight, uh,

135 pounds. So it's going to be interesting because, you know, Demetrius has got a lot to prove coming off that loss. And, um, I want to see how these styles and these, these round rules changes,

you know, brings in on here, Luke. And I think seeing John Littaker in a title bout against Bibiano Fernandez is sort of a pairing with that is smart matchmaking here from one. Luke, we are quick to criticize Chaudhry and his celebrity apprentice turn, but I'll care about this on this night. All right?

It's not Triller-level expired food, but I'm into it, Luke. We should also note that we're talking about one matchmaking, but there was a report from Bloody Elbow this week digging into the finances of one as they've looked into it over the course of the years. This is the most recent one. Would you know it, BC? They continue to have hemorrhage millions of dollars

and then not tell the truth about that. John S. Natch had a report in which he took their own public filings and dug in and came out and showed that essentially one sold itself the the i the the the naming rights of itself to itself to a subsidiary company within its organization for what like 400 million so it's a it looks like the company acquired this giant amount of money that they sold it to themselves. And then of course, you know, Shotry who I give credit for sitting in

with Ariel and I give Ariel credit for asking these types of questions. They asked him about it and Shotry danced around putting down the report. Luke got a second chance from Ariel to sort of explain what errors there were in the report declined altogether. And then I saw John Nash tweet that they even reached out to one before that went public and gave them two weeks of time to come back with you know either quotes reasoning whatever and they declined so luke all those facts in front of us and the fact that john nash took the information from one's own you know financial report um it kind of makes you look like a clown show again it does yeah i mean again their product on the actual mat i i tend to like more often than not i tend to

think it's pretty good um but i wouldn't trust personally speaking you know in my opinion bc i wouldn't trust a thing he has to say look would you be more likely to buy a used car if you had to? From Chakri or Dana? Which one? Oh, Dana. Dana times 1,000. I would never trust. Yeah, but Dana. Dana might have.

Listen, I might have to pay more for that car than what I wanted, but I trust that the car is in good shape and it's fine. Dude, Dana would 100% have sex in the backseat before selling it to you. 100%. You know what? I'll just take it to the old Jiffy Lube and have him vacuum out the back seat before selling it to you 100 you know what i'll just take it to the old jiffy lube i'm having a vacuum out the back whatever i gotta do but that i would buy that car from chakri nah i'm gonna go find the local fucking bike shop i'll i'll be on my way thanks all right luke that is it uh he may be dead wrong about his own finances but luke speaking of

us sometimes you and i yell into a microphone long enough each week that we are also dead raw. So why don't we hear about it right now? Seven different levels to devil worshiping, horse and sex, human sacrifices, cannibalism, cannibals and exorcism, animals having sex with them, camels, mammals, and rabbits. But I don't get into that. I kick the habit. Go ahead. Yeah, I'm big meat.

Call me Larry Hoover. All right, Luke, morningcombat at gmail.com is where you better, if you're going to come, you better come on. You better bring it. You better bring receipts in terms of what we got wrong. Luke, number one, this is from Jordan in Hawaii. I believe Seth in Austin also wrote us. But Jordan says, episode 203 at 1 hour and 56 minutes,

in discussing the possible record for the Washington football team this season Luke predicted seven and nine which as a fellow WFT fan in terms of the team's potential I agree with however what Luke failed to realize oh my god does this person not know NFL you have a bye week so you only have 16 fucking games no Luke what the person what you don't know is that the 2021 NFL season now has 17 games. It does? Therefore, the predicted record would either be 7-10 or 8-9. Love the show, Jordan from Hawaii.

Are you sure? You are dead freaking wrong, Luke. Hold on. I'm going to look this up. Are you sure? I'm saying it's true. I'm going to look this up, ho. All right, so they've got, let's see. I think you're the ho, Luke. I think you're actually the's true i'm gonna look this up ho all right so they've got let's see i think you're the whole luke i think you're actually keep going i'm gonna look it up well there's

nothing to go but watch you squirm luke let you slide let you ride it's a homicide you know what i'm saying yes what the fuck is this i'll show you how death row pulls off that who ride luke week three is buffalo four five six seven eight week nine is the bye week so you now have 10 11 i mean you're just wasting time you're right you're actually dead wrong luke okay yeah all right whatever suck a dick yeah thank you jordan for saying what needed to be said all All right. We've got people named Vu, Goran, and Abdullah sliding in this week. On Monday's episode at number 202 at 135.07 on YouTube, when watching the soccer video during Have You Seen This Shit, Luke asks if the jersey is a Galatasaray jersey.

Galatasaray. Galatasaray jersey galatasaray galatasaray it is an as roma jersey for maryland pijon sick and you luke apparently or dead pionich i think is how i could be wrong i think it's pionich but i could be wrong about that too okay that's wow luke there's there's over two here to start off wow okay motherfucker are you under the impression you haven't had some doozies here well i'm able to defend most of mine i think at least i hope luke here's greg sliding in last friday i threw down the gauntlet for bc by telling him i'd be back to dead wrong his ass this week so here i am this week bc had more screw-ups on the mic than john Jones has had outside the octagon. And here they are. The first dead wrong came in at 1915 of episode 201 while discussing Donald Trump's role at

the Triller pre-fight press conference. When referring to the fact that Trump called Evander Holyfield the greatest light heavyweight, he called him not one of, he called him the greatest light heavyweight of all time, Greg, BC claimed that Evander never even fought at that weight. As a matter of fact, Evander Holyfield actually began his career as a light heavyweight prior to making the jump to cruiserweight. So my man BC was simply dead wrong in this one.

Hey, Greg. Hey, brother. Not so fast, my friend. You know who's dead wrong on this one? You are, motherfucker. Because even though Evander Holyfield debuted in his pro boxing debut in his first three fights at 176, 177.5, 178, all four of his first bouts came over the 175-pound lightweight limit, which would make all of his first fights cruiserweight fights

brother so you sir are dead wrong even though evander's body was much closer to light heavyweight at the time those are officially cruiserweight bouts eat a dick motherfucker nice one that's a good that's a good you ever seen those scenes in the movie, BC, where someone throws the grenade, and then they catch it and throw it back? That is technically possible. It just depends how long the timing is before it goes off. Some have three, some have six. But in any case, you're the guy who threw it back,

and then they fucking blew up, and you won. That's what you just did. Hey, Greg, I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast, all right? Yeah. Yeah. Right? You eat pieces of shit. All right.

Greg continues. Next, BC was dead wrong in episode 203 while discussing ul romero's recent fights claiming that his loss to adesanya was a close split decision despite it actually having been unanimous greg i will give you that i will take that l i did look it up afterwards yes adesanya won by unanimous decision despite me scoring it three rounds to two for the Soldier of God. Simple mistakes, but BC, I'm afraid you were dead wrong not once but twice. I'll be back on the segment again next week to take one of your souls. So watch your Ps and Qs.

Also, Greg says, P.S., Phil Davis by boring-ass decision is the bet tonight or Saturday night. I mean, can you say he's wrong? I don't know. We'll see. All right. One more. This one's from Max.

Wow. They're coming after me hard here, Luke. Brian, listen, you were you were you if you're real confident when the guns were aimed at me, but now they're turned on you, my friend. I'm just I'm just yeah, I'm just dodging the haters left and right. On Wednesday's show, episode 208, during the Wheel of Death portion, Brian began his intro into the P.F. Chang AF question. When you started reading the question, I was 30 years old, but by the time you finished reading the intro, I was 35 years of age.

In this five-year gap, I missed birthdays and funerals and the birth of my children. You are dead wrong sir i'll never get that time back so so so someone someone brought this up to me in my live chat bc what do you think about this they said not to change the length of your answer or your question excuse me but that the length of your question and it's up to you how long you want them to be but they are going to be inversely proportional to how long my answer is in other words if your question is long my answer gets to be super super short conversely if you ask me a short one i can go long well my knee-jerk response to that is one that's the bit two i like a little nuance to set things up and three there's a more than 50 chance at any time

luke will break the code of the segment in terms of a you know a good faith answer to a decently faith question and just be like oh you know i don't even i don't you know i don't i don't i'm not going to answer that so sometimes i do it luke so the segment is not two minutes long but luke i will say this. From people I love and trust, including our producers and other people, they said, BC, you got it. You got to stop. Okay?

I'll tone it down a bit, Luke, if that means you'll actually try. Because what you put out Wednesday, Luke. Actually try. I actually try. Do you remember that performance that Great White had the night that the venue burnt down? Yes. No, nobody does luke because all those people died that was like your performance on not everyone died many of them lived here's the point though this is what you need to think about when you craft those questions sometimes you ask for like a list and you ask me on the fly. I'm not saying you can never ask list questions, but it's a little bit easier for me to think about what's sitting at the very top, you know, for good or bad experience or a thing I like,

rather than top three or top five. It takes me some time to figure what that is. And I can't do it very well on the fly. Well, Luke, that's why you get paid the big bucks to do it on the fly. Because if I showed you the plays I'm going to call ahead of time you would go oh i'm not answering that and that would break the spirit of no no but you can just say instead of you know your top three songs what was the song in high school that made you the most you know embarrassingly emotional something like that rather than hey name top five county crow songs you listen to it in arby's bathroom

once like i don't fucking know luke okay i'll tone it down but the real issue here is you i hope you know that okay you're you something usually happens in the show at some point i don't know if it's triggered by your neighbor's lawnmower or your daughter or me saying something but you get triggered and then you're talking about your ass and you gotta gotta shit, we gotta get through the show, and then it just goes to shit, and then before you know it, Luke, you and I break up, and we hate each other for the rest of our lives, and then, you know what happens ten years from now, Luke? We gotta meet in Cleveland,

talk over dinner, and do a documentary about it, because we're finally friends again after talking bad about each other publicly for years, alright? I don't want to go down that road with you, although Doc 5, Luke, coming out next week, must be a little spicy. We'll see. Luke, we always close

Friday's show with insulting you and telling you how you can be better. We also have a segment called Just the Tip? Tip to Tip? I still don't know the name of the segment. Tip to Tip. There we go. Tip to Tip, where we make a recommendation. We shout something out

this is not my tip this week but good god if you're not watching the 4 part 30 for 30 of the 86 miracle meds Luke and you're not watching the stories of drugs and debauchery that is as good as that gets what was that? you said debauchery wrong

how did I say it? like a dumbass that's the way I was raised look okay um that look did you see did you hear i was raised i was raised on a 16 game nfl season okay go fuck yourself did you hear what that man said he told that girl to say luke um did you hear doc gooden saying and i don't want to give a spoiler but did you hear doc good saying in that documentary that after len bias died of cocaine, he mourned it for five hours

and was nervous that it could have been him? And then he picked up the phone for his drug dealer and was like, get me the Len Bias stuff. And he basically did that every day for the 1986 season. I've not seen this. That was tough to see, Luke. That was tough to see. It's good theater.

All right, Luke, how about you go first because I'm hosting this week. What's your tip? Well, as everyone knows, the pandemic was not kind to your boy's figure so i've been steadily working on on everything my physical health and and uh and everything in between and one of the ways i've been trying to fix that is like from the ground up where are all my imbalances where's everything that's gone wrong after 42 years how How do I fix it? And you know, I'm not not there yet. It's going to be a long process. But one of the things I've been really working on is believe it or not, I've got knee problems. And those seem to be heavily related to foot problems. So I've been working on foot health. And I know

it sounds kind of boring. But hear me out for just a second, because I really feel like I turned a corner with this. I started wearing shoes. They're not pretty. They're not great looking, but these are called Vivo. And if you look at them, the toe box is enormous. I'll flip it around here as you can see. It's enormous on purpose. And the whole idea is so that your toes in normal tennis shoes, they get shoved together. It's not natural and it causes all kinds of problems. Bunions, hammer toes.

It can cause imbalances. And actually, one of the reasons I think I dislocated my toes in jujitsu was because i had all these problems when i was pushing off they were not in alignment wearing these has begun to splay them more and the more they splay the better your balance the better your mobility the better your control the stronger your feet get that's the whole idea is to strengthen your feet not just from the wide toe box but from the fact that the more cushion your shoe has, the less work your foot is actually doing and the weaker it becomes. Okay, but this is not about the shoe. One of the things I've been working on to help is this little doohickey. It

looks like a shrimp or a jellyfish or something. It's a toe separator. It actually puts your toes into the proper alignment when you wear it. I've been wearing these for a couple of weeks now, and I've noticed an immediate, an immediate benefit with this. Listen, I'm not a podiatrist. Talk to your doctor. Don't just run out and buy stuff. But if you are like me and you look down and your big toes go this way into the other toes,

you have imbalances. And those potentially, everyone's different. But if you're like me, they have caused problems, real health problems. I want to be around BC for my daughter. Like you, when she goes out to play basketball, I want to be in my late 40s still fucking dunking on her and making her cry like a good dad should, but I'm not going to get there if I don't align my health

in the way that it needs to. If you've got questions about it, go to Myfootfunction on Instagram or they have a website as well. They explain all the mechanics behind this. But these little things here, they were $15 and I cannot believe how much better I feel walking, exercising, jumping, running, everything. Amazing little piece of gear here. Oh, Luke, I support you taking these active turns into being around a long time, but do you wear those on your bare toes? These?

Yeah. Yeah, you don't wear them with your shoes. These are like if you're sitting in the house or something. Those smell like shit when you take them off, Luke. That must be disgusting. Can you wash them? I mean, come on, Luke. I'm going to wash them on your tongue when you're asleep next week. Luke, like you, I'm also having a tip in the direction of health.

Luke, I had my three-month checkup after the diagnosis yesterday. Yesterday was a checkup, the diagnosis of black liver, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Luke, I got some good news and decent news. The good news is, Luke, doctor's happy I'm down 12 pounds and kept it off. My liver numbers are all back within the safe range, Luke. They're high, but they're in the safe range. So I've put that three months to good use by avoiding red meat, fast food, greasy food, and fried food essentially altogether. The minor problem, Luke, is that to fill that hole at at times my carb intake and snacking has been so

through the roof that my cholesterol is at an all-time high so I'm gonna work on that with exercise five days a week but Luke I have been pretty damn good on diet I do need to be better and a big helper and this you know you may feel this you know you're a you're a middle eastern man of origin and love um luke falafel balls are the absolute shit luke and you know some people actually believe that falafel was designed in india your people going back to the sixth century although egypt normally gets the credit historically luke falafel balls whether or cold, right out of the package, have really helped mimic meat or a meatball-type taste on top of everything from salads to all kinds of healthy vegetable-based meals that my wife's been making so that my black liver doesn't explode. I am now, you know, one with these balls, Luke, these sweaty falafel balls. And, um, to some people, this may be part of their everyday diet, but if you're a gas station raccoon eating lover like me, Luke, you ain't never put a falafel ball anywhere near your mouth. And this shit is, uh, it's my new,

it's my new love affair. Uh, falafel is amazing. In fact, uh, one of my New York stories when I lived there was I was behind Natalie Portman in line at Mahmood's in the village. For two bucks, they would give you a falafel sandwich and they would pour the tahini sauce on top. It was fucking amazing, right? Just unbelievable. You know falafel's fried, right? Well, Luke, I buy healthy versions of that. You know what I mean, Luke?

You buy the air fried falafel? It's just chickpeas, Luke, okay? And it just really adds a, you know. Look, I look at the serving size. I look what it's offering me. I usually take half of what the serving size is. And, you know, it's an accompaniment. Who Tremont to the healthy food I'm trying to eat?

So don't you dare, Luke. Because you may be eating some gross, greasy-ass, street-corner New York City falafel as you're slobbering all over Portman Lake in Episode 3, Anakin. She's a tiny person. Dirt hole, Luke. That lame guy that couldn't get laid until he put on the black helmet. Believe me.

But I'm eating the healthy stuff, Luke, because I want to be here. I want to have a liver. I want to have a life. Okay, Luke? So, yeah. Thank you. BC and I were literally – BC and I, this is a liver. I want to have a life. Okay, Luke? So, yeah, thank you. BC and I were literally, BC and I, this is a true story. We were texting yesterday about how much we think Anakin Skywalker is a pussy-ass bitch,

and we hate him. We fucking hate him. Like, I don't even know how, once he put on the helmet, that he became that much of a badass. Okay, obviously, Palpatine, you know, put the Satanism in him with the fire fingers, Luke, but, man, Anakin's an old bitch, right? I mean, he's the worst. He's such a fucking hoe. I thought Luke Skywalker was the whiniest bitch in the universe.

It turns out his dad was. Can you believe that? Anakin, wow, what a fucking chump. How did that guy turn into the coolest character in Star Wars? It's a lie. It's a fucking lie. Now Darth Vader to me P sitting down. Fuck him. I don't like him anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The offensive comments that you wrote about him cannot be uttered

in public, Luke. Those texts that I have. You'd lose your job instantly. I think that's probably accurate, yes. Alright, Luke. I think we did a decent show after two horrific ones in which people vowed to never watch this show again. But, you know, whatever. All right.

My name is Brian Campbell. That's Luke Thomas. Please buy our merch and get ready for Monday when Luke and I return to the bomb shelter, the bomb diggity. We will have a special launch of new merch products you're going to want to check out. You can also buy our new stuff right now. Luke, is there some kind of code I'm supposed to be talking about? Some kind of like, or did I blow that? I probably blew that.

I don't know. Oh, yeah, live 10, L-I-V-E, and then the number 10, live 10. Oh, crap, I blew it. That was supposed to be the 10% off during this live show, Luke. Maybe we'll extend it out. It's okay. The producers are saying they put it in the chat, so it's fine. Okay, okay, live 10 was your 10% off code.

Check out what we're doing on morningcombat. get yourself some showtime because saturday night the only place you can watch you all romero's return legally in the 50 states is showtime so get a 30-day free trial at showtime.com like it or pound the shit out of that sand baby and uh luke people should probably check out our bonus interviews, your live chat yesterday. You want to hear Valentina Shevchenko go 20 minutes with your boy BC? Talk about training on a boat? Talk about texting Dana? Check that shit out, all right?

YouTube.com slash Morning Combat. Luke, what else you got for the people as we head into another week two of the NFL and DK and MK coming together? Well, I think I did pick the Washington football team to beat the Giants, even though it was completely ridiculous how they did it. Here's my next bet, I guess for all of week two. See, I've already done my week two bit. For week three, it's that the Bills are going to give. Well, it's not week three, Luke. This is week three.

I know. I'm just getting in front of it. I'm just getting in front of it, BC. The that the bills are going to give well it's not week three luke this is week i know i'm just i'm just getting in front of it i'm just getting in front of it bc the buffalo bills are going to annihilate the washington football team it's going to be ugly you can get ready for that but how you can get ready for week two of course is downloading the draft king sportsbook app of course the official petting partner of the nfl and you need our promo code to get you some money it's combat with a k k, K-O-M-B-A-T. Put that in, place a $1 bet on any NFL game in week two this weekend, and you get $200 of free bets. Luke, that's an incredible deal.

So here's what I'm going to tell you to put all $200 on. We got Patriots at Jets. It's a big New England tri-state Super Bowl this weekend. You got the damn Pats as about a touchdown favorite, Luke. But these wiry-ass lame Jets are at home, okay? Why not take a flyer? Why not put all 200 on the Jets, on those green shitbags? Come back later.

Spend that money with BC. We'll party together. It's my guarantee, all right? Also, you got Bills. There's some good games this week, by the way. We'll party together. It's my guarantee. All right? Also, you got bills. There's some good games this week, by the way. Texans and Browns is kind of interesting. Saints and Panthers. Rams and Colts.

I like all these. Buccaneers are probably going to wash the Falcons. So you can go that one. And I think, I don't know if you can bet this on the sportsbook at all, but if they bring in Justin Fields for the Bears, they're going to wipe the floor with the Bengals too. So that should be interesting as well. That's the Luke Locke bet of the week.

Put all 200 on Justin Fields. Luke, betting, my editor of Brandon Wise CBS Sports tells me October is when Connecticut will turn on the apps and the machines, and I can legally get on DraftKings Sportsbook in my home state here and bet my mortgage on whoever's playing the WFT. So I'm excited about that. Yeah, and then in November we can go to Webster Hall and go see Dying Fetus together.

I'm pumped. I already have a lot of people, friends of the show, friends of mine from home that are going to be back for that, and they're like, look, I'm going with you. We're going to make this a thing. Like, let's do this thing. Look, I don't want to be in there with those people. Like with that, that thing in the air, that, that killing spirit in the air. I'm not into that shit, Luke. I like seventies, you know, easy living rock. Yeah, I know, but you're a hoe. We got time to time to, you know, spruce you up a little bit. right all right shout out to showtime

malco cbs sports gaff maniche sally al wendling mikey morms on the ones and twos there shout out to our great extended team get ready next week monday tuesday and wednesday live shows on monday wednesday bc and lt back in the jc of jersey city uh you know it's not the most beautiful area but it's got a nice view of lower Manhattan so we'll be enjoying that Luke anything else? I was going to say last week when I went to my friend's party in lower Manhattan it was actually

on the side where from Manhattan I could see Jersey City it looked better across the river I'll say that I was like oh Jersey City looks nice across the river and then you're there and you're like oh right alright shout out to Bobby Hurley and Terry De de hair and all those great saint anthony's heroes there hey it turns out rick flair's a dirtbag huh what happened i guess there was some uh he's trending on twitter and i clicked it and it turns out he like sexually harassed someone

years ago oh yeah the plane ride to death there's that series on Vice. Vice has that what is that? Dark Side of the Ring series. Fantastic pro-wrestling in-depth series. Everyone knows about the Plane Ride of Death, Luke. I don't think this many years later we can condemn him, can we? I guess we can. People knew about that. Is there a statute of limitations on that? Well, he was wearing a robe. He took it off and he

flashed all the women and he did gross dirtbag 1980s things. Yeah, I'm not going sit here and in uh but it's not new news it just so happened that that show came out last night oh i see okay all right all right yeah but yeah he was a hundred luke everybody in the 80s were dirtbags not i'm not clearing them but they were luke all right i think that's probably right yeah all right we are also dirtbags and we are also out We'll be right back. We'll see you next time.