MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Bellator 273 Recap | Khabib Nurmagomedov’s MMA Promotion | Boxing Roundup | Ep. 258

Episode Date: January 31, 2022

On Episode 258 of Morning Kombat Brian Cambell is joined by Chuck Mindenhall to recap a wild Bellator 273. Ryan Bader took down Valentin Moldavsky and Benson Henderson upset Islam Mamedov. Plus, Khabib Nurmagomedov’s EagleFC promotion makes U.S. debut in Miami and the boys talk all th,e latest boxing news. (9:45) - Bellator 273  (25:00) - Eagle FC 44 (36:00) - Boxing Roundup (49:20) - Kayla Harrison (56:00) - MMA Quick Hitters (71:30) - Dm's from Donks (88:30) - HYSTS 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:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Reveley, reveveille, 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.

Oh, yeah. Get at it, Monday morning. Yes, it's the only combat show that can be this weird you're oddly familiar and comforting it is morning combat the award-winning one and it is monday january 31st 2022 negative four was the, thermostat on the wall this morning here in lovely suburban Connecticut. My name is Brian Campbell. Yes, that American Alpha, if you will, that BBC with the damn BDE. And no, that's not my trusty co-host and sidekick. But you know, at this point, a week plus into the other guy's vacation.

I mean, you know, you know, I thought we had a family building here at MK. And it seems like Luke has chosen his Latin women family over us. And that's fine. Enjoy the beach while you're there. But in his place, the man in the damn hat, Colorado by birth, Connecticut by choice. It's Chuck Mendenhall. Brother, you're back for another bang. I couldn't be happier.

I wish I could take three-week vacations like Luke, man. This is ridiculous. But, hey, you know what? This brings us together, BC. I'm all down. Like, let him stay out wherever he's at. Wherever he's at, globetrotting right now. Let him stay out.

Stay away at this point, okay? We're building something special here. Chuck, obviously, we're building something special here. Chuck, obviously we're blessed with your presence. Shout out to Shaq Mijori for sliding in Luke's place on Friday. But Chuck, back for this Monday show and it's a loaded one. We're going to look back at a weird but fun weekend

MMA across Bellator and Eagle FC's U.S. debut. We got a lot of weird and random news to look at involving the likes of Conor McGregor, Tyson Fury, Kayla Harrison, even that Jake Paul guy. So a lot to get to on this loaded show. lot of weird and random news to look at involving the likes of conor mcgregor tyson fury kayla harrison even that jake paul guy so a lot to get to on this loaded show today uh chuck i think we're at more or less i mean you know as far as winters go we're not minnesota right we're not northern maine but connecticut damn close man connecticut will get up in that ass i think we're about

halfway there i could feel in terms of the progression of my seasonal winter depression that times are bleak right now. But we're getting there, Chuck. We're getting there. At least the sun is staying up a little longer. Like, it's not getting dark at 430 like it was there for a while. But, yeah, this is bleak. I feel like Connecticut, I'm not from here originally, but I've lived out here for 10 years now. We always get a spell like this where it's just tundra outside.

You get another snow that freezes. Pretty soon there's mounds of polluted snow all over your driveway and everything else. I'll be happy when it passes, man. Yeah. Shout out to our great producer, Mikey Mormile of CBS Sports, who is complaining about his 48 degree temperatures in Fort Lauderdale this morning. Don't want to hear that. Sorry, Mikey.

Hopefully we can help you through that. Loaded show and loaded merch site for you. If you're fans of what we do here on The Great MK, morningcombat.store. Are you looking at this hat right here? Are you looking at the drug rugs that are back in stock right here? Are you looking at Chuck Mendenhall's chest? No tattoo bond to T.

Check out that right there, okay? MorningCombat.store not only has plenty of new merch, today we are running a sale, a special sale on the old Hood A. Drug rugs, sweatshirts, 15% off using the code HOODIE15. If you're listening at home, that's H-O-O-D-I-E 15 to get your sale right now. Chuck, we did force you.

I mean, you didn't wear that by choice this morning. Our merch master, RJ Dunkelmaker, was like, hey, Chuck. It was a little nudge. That's all that was. But, you know, we got great stuff. I mean, Chuck, can I just, can I show a little bit more? You want to wear this on your back? I mean, come on, right?

Look at that. All right. Yes, I do. I do want to wear that on my back. I mean, you want to outfit your wife in this, Chuck? You know, you can do that, okay? All right. There you go.

I love it, man. All right. Check out that shirt. I love your merch. You got a ton of merch, man. It's good stuff. Morningcombat.store. While we are also selling, hey, like this video. Subscribe to what we do here on Morning Combat every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 11 a.m. Eastern. We're live. It's good stuff. follow what we're doing if you're listening on audio only please throw us a five-star review if you can apple podcast spotify wherever you consume this audio i'm sure we'll create some new scam the

system uh uh you know thing that never pans out in the end but if you could leave us that we'd appreciate that our bosses would too and speaking of big time awards how about sports podcast awards dot com best combat Sports Podcast for 2021. Your boys at MK are nominated. We got big competition again, though. We took down Rogan last time. This time we're going at Helwani, Chris Jericho, a bunch of other big-time names. Vote for us.

SportsPodcastAwards.com. And also Showtime. Why not get 30 days? You got Bellator over the weekend. You got big-time boxing. You got Ray Donovanovan some other awesome shit go to showtime.com for your 30-day free trial as well as your boy bc on chillbox february 18th so check that out chuck before we get into the weekend reaction and the stuff that the you know serious non-bc fan

mma hardcores are here for right because i I hear a little echo in my ear right there. Okay. Yeah, I got an echo. A little echo there, Gaff. All right, there we go. There we go. Chuck, you know, let's be truthful here to the people. All right.

I'll try it. We've made five and now six critically acclaimed documentaries of all things, morning combat, which really isn't just, you know, a bunch of dick jokes and an angry guy. It's the documentization of our growth as men. Chuck, how many of these fantastic five already published docs have you watched? Okay. So let's see see none of them yet but all right well i will be watching them now that i've been made aware of this well maybe you actually were talking

about this before this is i didn't know they were out man i don't pay attention i guess i don't really consume your content that's fine chuck but number six baby titled Best In Show, is going to go live tomorrow. Yes, Tuesday this week at Morning Combat Documentary number six. Shout out to Jake Roseman, our documentarian. We've got a fine little teaser video to ignite the flames for Chuck and everybody else on the outside looking in as we look back on the journey of us winning the World MMA Awards Best MMA Programming in Las Vegas, a couple other stops around the globe. Let's throw to that commercial now to get you fired up for Tuesday.

The biggest fear in life is not failure, it's not losing. This sucks. It's, you know, wondering, could I have been a contender? Thank you, Mielmore. Thank you very much. Could I have been great? The Brian Campbell match.

Suck my... Suck, suck, suck, suck. Oh, my God, man. That is awesome. I mean, Chuck, if that doesn't get you fired up, right? But you were made for that sort of thing. You were made for it. For truth, yes.

I was made for truth. There you go right there. All right, check that out Tuesday, youtube.com slash morningcombat. In addition, my chat with former welterweight world champion Keith Thurman is up there. He'll be back this Saturday. PBC on Fox pay-per-view against Mario Barrios. Very good chat about his

future, his past, and all that. We're talking Manny. We're talking Floyd. We're talking Sean Porter. A lot of good stuff with one time. Check that out at least one time. Thank you very much. Alright, Chuck, let's hit it. Five topics. Looking back, looking ahead. All things in between. And we start Phoenix, Saturday, Showtime, Bellator, 273, and a pair of upsets atop the marquee as two 38-year-old UFC vets prove they weren't on the way out with big-time victories from both Ryan Bader and Benson Henderson. Chuck, we're going to hit this main event right off the top. It was a heavyweight unification of its own for Scott Coker and company.

And Ryan Bader, despite a one in two run at light heavyweight over the last year plus, returned to his division, defended his title against interim strappist Valentin Moldavsky. It goes down as a five round unanimous decision uh you know y'all must have forgot ryan bader still the best in show at heavyweight your thoughts coming out of this one i mean just impressive right you know what's funny is i was thinking about going into this fight of ufc 144 which is almost 10 years ago as of February, which featured Benson Henderson in the lightweight title fight with Frankie Edgar and Ryan Bader against none other than Quentin Jackson. So I was like, hey, these two guys, I've seen them before.

I remember the buildup to that fight. I was watching this and you think 10 years later, these guys are both, I know we're going to talk about Benson in a minute, they're both on their downhill, right? You kind of think after watching Bader, what happened in his last fight, getting knocked out inside of a minute. Um, I don't know. I don't know what I was expecting, but man, I got to say when he returns to vintage Bader and he goes in there and he starts, uh, you know, try, you know, he was very smart, like his adjustments through the fight, like just using his wrestling sparingly, you know what I mean? I just thought that he looked very good for 38 years old.

And, dude, he's back at heavyweight. So, man, it's kind of fun. You know what I mean? I've been a big fan of his. He's one of the few guys that left the UFC and probably had a better run, you know what I mean, outside of the UFC than a lot of guys leave there and they just don't find that kind of success. But he's somehow managed to keep it rolling.

And he's got it going again, man. What was he? He was like two-to-one underdog in this fight, and he pulled it off, so kudos to him. I think rightfully so. The narrative was, you know, is he kind of done here? Is he entering Washedville and is it going to happen fast? Obviously, in hindsight, you look at the stoppage losses

to Vadim Nemkov for the light heavyweight title and Corey Anderson in the World Grand Prix, and they certainly scared you, but we know heavyweight can be a fountain of youth. Bader, 38, that age doesn't, it's not a problem at this weight class. He's a baby in that division at 38, man. Most of the guys are in their 40s. As long as he can show five-round championship cardio, which he did, as long as he can show a balance of his game plan, which he did.

But I think most importantly, Chuck, he had to show a chin. And although Moldavsky isn't a killer from a striking standpoint, he's well-rounded, he's solid, but he's become more of a decision guy at this level. I was very impressed as you were with Ryan Bader. I did score the fight, however, three rounds to two for Moldavsky because I thought he did enough in that final round, a very close one, to edge it out. But I have no problem with Bader winning it. Why? Because the judges stuck, I guess you could say,

to the letter of the law. Moldavsky had better positioning in this fight, but he wasn't busy enough. He was a little busy. He wasn't busy enough landing demonstrative strikes, whether on top or whether times he had Bader backed up. And I think when Bader is able to get the full-on look of that first round where he drops Moldavsky, where he's establishing himself as the bigger puncher, as maybe the bigger threat on the feet, that was key just as much, Chuck, as Bader coming on in that fourth round. I thought that was the turning point of the fight. If Bader doesn't come out, take Moldavsky down, and work from top position, he's going to need a knockout to win this fight,

and he didn't at the end of the day. This is true. You know what's great about him, too, man? It's like you see his adjustments as he's going on, but the way he's able to articulate it afterwards, because I was kind of curious as to what he did in terms of his corner like where he came out in those in the later rounds and he basically was pointing out

that he understood you know the guy's power was surprising him the infighting was a little different than he expected he couldn't blast the double he was like you know he's talking about the single leg that he was able to get but he's kind of breaking it down in a in a layman's way almost for people to understand just how difficult a task that is when you're fighting a guy like Moldavsky, man. I thought, I mean, honestly, I thought it was a very close round, just like you said, but I did score it the fifth round for Bader. So it could have went either way, but I think it's, it's cool for Bader to be in this position now where he's, you know, back with the strap and he's got a couple challenges.

He's got guys in the twilight that are kind of hanging out there waiting for him. So I want to see that rematch with Czech Congo. That one didn't go down the way it was supposed to before. I do, actually. That's interesting. You don't want to see that? Well, it's not that I don't want to see it,

but you could argue here that because the storyline coming in was so heavily centered upon the that that Bader had knocked out Fedor to win this heavyweight title and now Fedor's coaching Moldavsky and it was sort of like okay you beat my student I'm revived and Fedor is coming off of that not that upset knockout of Tim Johnson in Moscow I felt Chuck even if you did it in Moscow by the way that if you stage that as a retirement fight you did it as a rematch for the heavyweight title. Look, there's a lot of business to be had there. And you could argue, Chuck, as a counter, there still is.

You can still do that fight. Maybe you want to set it up. But here's what the decision Bellator made, and then we'll react to it as you teased. May 6th in Paris. And they announced this immediately after Bader's win. Czech-Congo came in the ring. Of course, these two fought in 2019. There was an eye immediately after Bader's win. Czech Congo came in the ring. Of course, these two fought in 2019. There was an eye poke. It was a no contest. So we never got to see the end of it. But 46-year-old Czech Congo still got something. I just feel like, Chuck,

I mean, look, it's big going to Paris. MMA was banned there forever. But I feel like this is the time, man. If Fedor's in that fountain of youth mode that he seems to be in right now, maybe this was the time. Can't they still do it, though? I mean, I feel like, so in the scant evidence we saw of that first fight, in the action we did see between Cech Congo and Bader, Bader was, he looked like he was going to steamroll him. I mean, if I'm being honest.

So I don't really, I see this fight being Bader's fight to lose. I don't really, I don't think the check at 46 years old is going to present much of a threat. But man, I'm with you too. I would have been totally fine. I guess I would have preferred that they went with Bader, especially in that first round when he just about knocks out Moldovsky off that first big right hand that he landed.

And it seemed like we were going to have shades of the exact same thing. He's not a big, I'm sure the Starry Off School is not big fans of Ryan Bader at this point. But that looked close. Man, it was some high drama early. But I still think that fight is out there. And I think that is the right fight to make if Bader gets through Czech Congo. So this will be interesting from just that standpoint. Although Bellator was already in Paris, UFC has yet to make it to Paris.

But as soon as that law changed, of course, Bellator rolled out, I believe, what's that? The Timothy Johnson versus Czech Congo card in which Johnson won a very close decision and ended up getting his interim title opportunity. In closing quickly, Chuck, Moldavsky, he's only 29, so you still have to feel like his future's bright. He didn't get handled in this one. He had his moments and was able to secure you know, secure some, at least two clear rounds, it seemed. What do you need to see change from him to get over this hump? Honestly, a little more urgency. You kind of pointed it out because I thought it was fairly clearly two to two, right?

Going into that final round, you'd like to have seen him selling out a little more. But at the same time, man, I mean, he does that. He did have his moments. He's looked very good in the lead up, you know like to see him selling out a little more but at the same time man i mean he he does that he did have his moments he's looked very good in the lead up you know to this fight like his his previous fights he's still young in that division man i i know he'll have a bright future plus man when you're when you're training with the best guy there's expectations i'm sure that line reflected you know fade or a million ankle more than anything just being from that camp and everything so uh i think he looks good, man. Maybe a little more urgency kind of knowing what's, uh, where the fight is at and when to bring it at the end there.

Yeah. You wonder if these two could end up seeing each other again, down the road, if Bader stays on top, Chuck, that co-main event had a somewhat interesting, similar storyline with former UFC lightweight champion, Benson Henderson riding a three fight losing skid, but across two divisions, always against top competition we were wondering is if Islam Mamadov was billed rightfully as top competition he came in fresh off his own Bellator debut

beating Brent Primus the former champ by split decision we would have another split decision in the end on this co-main event competed at lightweight. Chuck, do you think the judges got it right? Let's start there. I scored it two rounds to one for Islam Mamadov. You give Benson credit. He had the guillotine in round one. He had some big moments.

How did you see it played out? I had it the same as you. I mean, it was kind of a guillotine fest. I felt like the chokes were just the constant threat. Benson Henderson, it's weird when you're fighting in your hometown, like right. Like he's got his family there. He's in his hometown of Arizona. You always wonder to what extent the judges are skewed just because the crowd is that

on one fighter's side. And you get inexperienced commissions on some of these states that you're not in regularly. Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, I thought, I thought it went that way too, but it's tough to save like the Benson Henderson. He did enough. Like, I don't think it's controversial. Um, I thought he did enough that he put, there was enough threat, you know, he thwarted enough takedowns. He was able to like win a couple of those scrambles. He showed some, I mean, dude, he'd lost three fights in a row. I wasn't sure what form you're getting in. I felt like his pressure, the pressure on him in this fight was pretty big because if you lose this one,

I mean, you're pretty much, I think he's pretty clearly done at that point or getting very close to it. So to pull it out, to dig deep, it was clear he had a very good camp for this fight. Nobody wanted to fight this guy. You know what I mean? And I felt like he kind of stepped in. And that's kind of vintage, you know, Bendo, right? Like remember the Brandon Thatch back in the day? Nobody wanted to fight that guy either, and especially upper weight.

And here he comes, Korshkov, same thing. Nobody wanted to fight him. He took him and lost that fight. But he just never backs away. So when you see these kinds of performances, it just reminds you how good he really is when he shows up to fight like that. Yeah, absolutely. And it was interesting, Chuck, in the post-fight interview, you know, it was great to see his kids there and for him to have this moment. I feel like, tell me if you, if you read the same thing from his words

that he was almost, I mean, look, it's crazy to say this because he had a great camp, but I feel like he was expecting to lose and expecting to retire in front of his people jog right it was almost like i don't know what to do next i didn't know i was going to win this you know no i agree with you 100 and i mean that's where that first round became like kind of fun that's what made this fight fun in general was just watching the way it all went down uh seeing him you know nearly I mean, I don't know how close it came to being a submission, but it seemed tight, you know what I mean, when it's happening, and you just have these vintage moments. I love these guys who are former champions, and they're in the twilight of their careers,

but they somehow find that gear. So many times we've seen it. There's so few graceful outs in the sport. We see guys who just falter down the stretch, especially against the guys who are supposed to beat them. They're supposed to be the stakes slid under the door situation. And you know what, man? He just didn't do it. I think you're right, though.

I think he probably looked at it like it's like the Rocky thing. I'm just going to try to go to this. I'm going to put up a good showing, but I'm probably going to lose, and this will be it. So I think he was a little surprised he won, man. Well, he says his future is uncertain. For Islam Mamadov. He didn't sizzle, but he didn't look horrible.

He was in there against an experienced, tough guy. Look, he's got Habib Nurmagomedov in the corner. And did you see that little moment when Mamadov's in the choke and you see Coach Habib like, if you tap, I'll F and kill you. That's the look that Coach Habib had right there. I got to believe, given the iron sharpening iron in that camp, that Mamadov will be fine. He may not be front and center in the Shmesh Factory's best offerings for the future, like, you know,

Mahachev or Usman Nurmagomedov appear to be, but he's pretty damn good, though. Just the same, Chuck. It's hilarious to me, though, that anybody with that OV last name, Dagestan, you see any of these, and they're an automatic, like, you know, minus 300 favorite to beat whoever. It doesn't matter who they're facing at this point

across MMA, and I have guys who are like degenerate gamblers who contact me, and every time they see a Dagestani fighter, it's like they're loading up, and I know they were loading up on this one, so dude, I mean, he, that's, that's a lot stacked against you when you really think about it for Benson,

Benson Henderson. So for him to come through, it was pretty cool, man. Yeah. For both, you know, both old guys,

both 38 year olds fighting in their home state there though. Maybe, maybe got a little hometown. I don't know, but look, they survive in advance and that's what matters. You know, who didn't though survive in advance,

Chuck, who you would think I wouldn't put this in the first topic of the show, but Big Tuna Ben Parrish had become a one-night folk hero in a way that I couldn't avoid. So I did question why Bellator was opening the prelims, you know, the YouTube fight card with this and not putting this forced into the main card like it's some Greg Hardy sideshow,

but it turns out in the end that three and oh sullivan call collie he put it on old big tuna uh your thoughts after this uh you know unique opening bout chuck well man you know four months is a nice victory lap most of us don't get those four months to kind of feel good about ourselves and to you know fight bullying and everything else that was going on man i mean the guy to kind of feel good about ourselves and to, you know, fight bullying and everything else that was going on, man. I mean, the guy who kind of emerged as like, you know, this kind of cult figure in MMA over those that time. This is the kind of fight, though, that it's a tough one, right? I mean, it was so one sided. I didn't really feel like he had much of a chance here. So I felt a little bad for him, to be honest, man. Look, it's on brand, though, for him to take

this L because his story is more about kind of coming over the top and surprising you. So I think there's some big victories left for Ben Parrish. You know, I think you've got to match him. You think so? Well, let's put it, you know, big could be a relative word. I want to see Bellator continue to feature him,

and here's who I want him to fight. You remember that meatpacker that they put in there against Jake Hager? Remember that cult hero himself? Oh, yeah, I do remember him. Yes, I remember that guy. I forgot that fella's name. They got to make big tuna against our buddy Uncle Pauly from the slaughterhouse. I'd like to see that fight, but no, let's see Ben Parrish bounce back.

Did you think Sullivan Colley looked like a future guy for Bellator? It's tough to say, man. I mean, he looked good in this fight, but you're like, is it just because Parrish is that bad? I don't know, man. He looked good, though. I mean, he looked good. I love me some Ben Parrish. All right, we'll keep it rolling here.

Habib, we mentioned him. He had a busy weekend. He was in Phoenix on Saturday, but on Friday, I had the day wrong, so dead wrong me right now. Last week, it was Friday night, Eagle FC 44. And the promotion headed by the former UFC lightweight champion made its U.S. debut in Miami. Chuck, this turned out to be a mixed bag of like feel good stories with Rashad Evans. We'll get to that in a second.

Some, you know, decent elite-ish looking MMA. Then there's celebrity announcers all in all when you went back and sort of you know picked across the buffet and sampled it a little bit what's your take on the current status of eagle fc and what it maybe could be in the american mma market moving forward you know man we've seen so many promotions come and go. Like I, and I'm not one of those guys who puts a ton of stock into like the commentary and stuff like that, unless it's like that crazy triller event where like, it was just so mad. It was like a fun house, you know, like that was going on that night. Ray Flores. But like, you know, I kind of dig it because first of all, Chael Sonnen is a voice

that you get you know we're used to having I like his his style I liked Henry Cejudo you know like it was it was fine all that was good um the fights themselves were pretty good I mean ultimately it's always there's always a little bit of a different skew right like if somebody's fighting out of the UFC they're not fighting in Bellator it's like you kind of look at them with different eyes and a different promotion so like you get guys like uh uh caratana for instance or tyron spong where you get like you know you get like your boy rashad evans and you just look at them different like you just kind of it's like a reinvention and so in that aspect i kind of dig it it was a very pro looking show some of the camera angles through the fence and stuff like that were annoying.

And they did a lot of obstruction stuff and a little bit of vertigo. But besides that, I thought that everything else was pretty good. Besides the vertigo, it was a good night. They were rolling that camera around a little too much, man. Yeah. I mean, look, I like the ambition at least. I thought it looked more professional than your average, you know, regional MMA show or even wannabe sort of next level show. They're going to have to build that roster. You have to believe that Habib's Smash Factory pipeline will help that. But I kind of liked it overall, Chuck. I'll say this.

It's an ambitious announce crew. I forgot the name of the fellow who was sort of playing the de facto play-by-play role, but you did have with him Chael Sonnen, Henry Cejudo, and Kamaru Usman, as you mentioned. Dude, it was kind of a fun listen, to be fair. You know, I mean, it was. It was different, right? I mean, it was like, that's the thing.

As long as it can distinguish itself a little bit. And I mean, those dudes, they're spot on, man. They know what they're looking at. So it was good. All right, Sergey Karatanov in the main event, a well-traveled heavyweight, has had some pro boxing experience in the last couple years as well i mean chuck he put it on tyrone spong in the second round tko you'll see a little bit more of that and have you seen this shit uh full mount all that but chuck the storyline out of this was obviously rashad evans our friend of

the program really a friend to mma the ufc hall of fam He hadn't won since 2013. He hadn't fought in, what, three, four years? At 42, to be fair, he was in there with an Uber driver and Gabriel Checo, but dude, Rashad looked like he turned back the clock from the standpoint of his speed in wrestling.

How impressed should we be with this? About as impressed as you think you should be, which is like, you, you know, you think he should win this fight. If he loses this fight, it's a really bad look. But the fact that he came back and you know him, man, you work with this guy. He's such a down to earth guy. I, every time I see him, I always ask him like, uh, when you coming back, you know, when you're going to do this thing. And he's been talking about it for a long time. So you did not want to see him in there with a guy who was you know potentially going to put him out because that would have been a very

sad thing i think it was the right sort of thing for a re-entry fight you think about all the things he's had to go through too i remember just even the ufc 205 and 206 when he was trying to fight on those cards in new york and i think it was toronto and he was getting bad testing they would not uh they would not sanction him for the fights. And you just think at that time, which was a long time ago now, how hard it was for him. And he's had multiple setbacks.

Like you mentioned, he hasn't won since 2013. But man, I still always think back to the Rashad Evans, and I saw little flashes of that again where he had that swagger, man. He was walking across back on the tough days, and then when he knocked out Chuck Liddell in Atlanta, one of the first fight cards I was sitting cage side at. It's just cool to see a guy who wants it that bad and is willing to train.

He looked in good shape and he's willing to put in the work and try to see something different at the end of his career rather than what had happened to him. So he was kind of my feel-good story of the weekend man to know what he's been through like mentally physically spiritually just from the standpoint of like he never really had a twilight in MMA because injuries and and just kind of some bad luck like like let's not forget his last win in 2013 against Chael Sonnen he looked like he was ready for another title run I mean he he demolished Chael he did and then he had that was ready for another title run. I mean, he demolished Chael.

He did. And then he had that really unfortunate stretch with the injury. And what, the cadaver didn't work out or whatever the heck that was, and he had to have the surgery done again. And then when he's, you know, making some desperate moves down to middleweight and losing to guys that really have no business, you know, having success against him, that's frustrating. So to know that he healed himself in every way, in this good of shape, not fighting a killer.

I mean, I don't mean to make jokes, but this guy, Gabriel Checo, was pushed as a submission expert. And Uncle Chael spent the whole fight talking about all the major mistakes this guy was making on the ground. You wonder if he could have caught a heel hook there if he was a little more seasoned. But big win for Rashad. You just don't want to see him unnecessarily step up into a dangerous fight. Is there a world in which, because we never see this, is there a world in which an ex-great fighter can coexist fighting as a, like, regional gatekeeper because they just love it? Is there a world in that?

I don't think so. But, I mean, you could, I would definitely, if he wants to keep going, and obviously, like, they're talking about, like, bringing him on for multiple fights, which it's always a little weird when this happens because I think there was a point in time where I didn't want to see Rashad fighting anymore. I was happy to see what I thought was his retirement. So I don't want to see him. I'm with you. I don't want to see him in there against killers. Um, but at the same time, man, if he can find guys with names that kind of makes sense, you know, they, sometimes they book these twilight fighters against each other. Well, I'll throw you one. Because guess who tweeted about it?

Okay. Tito Ortiz wants a trilogy with Rashad. Oh, man. See, that would be... I'd be okay with that. I'd be okay with that type of fight. Is that something Rashad wants? I mean, it's sloppy as shit, but that could be an Eagle FC, like, strong co-main, right?

Yeah. Or maybe their biggest fight of the year. We'll see what happens with them. Overall, I didn't hate it. It wasn't bad, man. It wasn't bad. What did you think about Ray Borg, who's somehow only still 28, former UFC title challenger, had a rough stretch personally

and professionally, but he's bounced back. He had a rough first round against Cody Gibson, but came back looking strong and said, quote, afterwards, I'm still one of the best in the world. Could we see him, you know, get back into truly elite, you know, promotions again after this? I think so, man.

I mean, I thought he, it is, I don't want to say his prime, because honestly, he's probably just coming into his prime at 28 years old, man. But when he was younger and fighting in the UFC, you'd see him fighting, man. I thought I put him up there with the best in his class. He was that good. I'm almost of the belief that a guy like that sometimes has to get out of the UFC. It's like you have to get out of the UFC. I don't know what it was.

There was just like a negative cloud kind of hanging over him. And I know he had his issues with his kid. He had glass in his eye from the Habib Conor dolly, right? Yes, I mean, there's been a lot of issues, but sometimes if you get out of there, you just put an episode behind you, you go find your bearings,

and I think that's what he was doing. It was a great showing, I thought. He looked pretty good. Find your bearings, get a few fights, and then if you return at some point to that situation, you come back stronger. I think he's one of those guys, man. He did not, by any stretch, feel like he wasn't still growing into who

he was going to become, so I still believe in him, man. To close on Habib's promotion moving forward, and obviously, look, manager of the Stars, Ali Abdelaziz, had a big role in this. You saw a lot of dominant MMA fighters in the crowd. I mean, even Joe, you want a champion was in the crowd too. They got a good South Florida

sort of celebrity turnout. My big question is what, like, who are you trying to be in this space? It's very crowded, of course, with UFC, Bellator, PFL, and sometimes one, you know, having stake in terms of, of the big names. And then you've got your, your feeder promotions who sort of know their role as feeder promotions. I think it'll be interesting to see what Habib sort of defines long-term is his own lane. I say that because on one hand he was asked about fighter pay and fighter treatment in the UFC. And he had a quote before the fight card saying about UFC and Bellator,

if they don't treat good fighters, or I guess he's saying they're fighters good, Eagle FC is here. Okay, that leads me to believe he wants to be something that competes, but then he's also revealing that he made an offer to Jake Paul. Yeah, we offered him. We offered him, Khabib said. We offered him fight. Now we're waiting for answer.

If he want, we're here. Chuck, I just don't think that's the right play for this, for this brand, right? Well, it tells me that they're sort of still groping for their identity a little bit. And honestly, you're, when you're in their position, you have the name that you're associated with, Khabib Nurmagomedov, you have some guys that have name value. I think that that's what you're trying to do. You're trying to find the hook. I don't know what direction it's going to go. I almost like, because we know, like we talk about fighter pay.

We talk about all this stuff. We know what the UFC pays its fighters. We know what Bellator pays its fighters. You almost want to have as many promotions that are viable on a national scale like that with good, you know, streaming or TV deals and all that, for these fighters to want to go to as possible. So in my mind, the most valuable thing that they could do is to be that, right? To be the other, another alternative to those. And basically, you know, maybe you have some old names like Rashad Evans, maybe you have

a Caritano, but you also have some young guys. I think that that's the best, you know, rooting system for them to start getting rolling. I don't know about the, I don't know about the Jake Paul stuff. That's kind of, it's like when you get into that game, it's a whole different ball game. And sometimes those places can go belly up pretty quick. Yeah. Also kombache in this same sort of level of space.

We'll see where he goes. If MMA fighter pay continues to be a monster topic, Chuck, you can feel good knowing that at the highest ends of boxing, they still get in ranch, bitch. Big time news over the last few days. We know Tyson Fury will not be allowed to see his foes step aside to set up the Alexander Usyk Undisputed Championship fight. So Fury's going to face mandatory challenger and really the best heavyweight in the world who doesn't have a title at the moment, Dillian White.

And they went to a purse bid for this WBC title mandatory fight. And Frank Warren, the co-promoter of Tyson Fury, who runs Queensberry Promotions out of England, set a new boxing purse bid record. You see the tweet there by Dan Raphael committing $41.25 million to earn the right to stage Tyson Fury versus Dillian White. The targeted date for this fight, Chuck, April 23rd in the UK. They want to do a massive outdoor soccer stadium. The fight's going to air on ESPN pay-per-view

because Fury, who's also co-promoted by Bob Arum of Top Rank, that's the side of the street he sits on. But quickly about the money here. If I'm right, I believe the previous record for a purse bid, and if anyone doesn't know, in boxing, when you you got fighters on opposite ends of the street but they get mandated by the sanctioning body by the wbc meaning you guys have to fight next if the two sides can't come up with a deal on which network

will will run it which promoter will be the lead they go to a blind purse bid i think the record truck was 27 million when vladimir klitschko fought Alexander Povetkin, like, you know, seven, eight years ago. There was a rich man in Russia who put up a just absurd amount, put up like $27 million so he could bring that fight to Moscow. This not only shatters that record, but Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport, who promotes Dillian White and, of course, promotes Anthony Joshua and has and has ties with the zone he bid blindly 33 million and came in second place chuck uh it's interesting to have you on today as a more of an mma only guy when you see this type of cashola being thrown around for guys not named floyd or canelo good time to be alive on the on the heavyweight boxing scene right so is warren kicking himself that he went to $41 million rather than just, like, bidding $34 million?

Like, is that going on? Like, he shattered. Like, it was not even close. Those types of numbers on the heels of this Francis Ngannou, you know, getting $600,000, you know, purse, and we don't know the full, like, the full extent of that, but it's absurd. Even the step aside, you know, stuff that was we don't know the full, like the full extent of that, but it's, it's absurd. Even the step aside, you know, stuff that was going on on the sidelines where they were trying

to work out, uh, to get you sick in there quicker against, right. Like the step aside, like with doing white and all that stuff, it's like, he was going to, he won the lotto either way, right? Like he's either stepping aside, making a lot of money, probably more money than you can make in an MMA at all, or he's getting $7 dollars and potentially almost 12 million dollars it's just a that's that's a lot of winner right there man and we don't have that at mma it's like it's the craziest thing ever to see those numbers so close together right like when you shake my head chuck it's crazy man you know i get a lot of fans tweeting back at me and going, hey, stupid, you're the one that should know this. Obviously, those elite main eventers in UFC are getting a couple extra million

in pay-per-view points. It's like, okay, you know, a couple of them that can produce big pay-per-views? Yes. A Jon Jones, a GSP, a Ronda Rousey, a Conor McGregor, they'll receive a couple million extra. I've always argued they may get a little bit more as well because UFC, I believe Chuck wants the, the,

the outward image to be that they don't pay people. So they don't have to pay people, right? They can throw it to who they need to behind the scenes, but just the facts are staggering. Here's a fact, Gary Russell jr. Who headlined Showtime boxing two weeks ago made more in that mandatory title

defense, which he lost by the way, he made more in that mandatory title defense which he lost by the way he made more in that than the entire UFC 270 card Sean Porter man as the b-side of his pay-per-view against Terrence Crawford last November made three times what the entire UFC card did Chuck it's not like boxing has one fight a year where everybody gets paid and then that's it and the rest of the sport is dead. I mean, this is obviously the highest end with this heavyweight bout. And if you're looking for specific numbers based on the percentage split ordered by the WBC, which they do it based on the fighters popularity level in terms of what they've previously brought in and made. Fury will make $29.5 million.

That's so crazy, man. Dillian White will make a career high 7.3 and here's the cool part the final 10 of the purse which amounts to 4.1 million which is what four times the amount of what everybody got paid or two times about yes that goes to the winner that's the remainder yeah so it's like a bonus winner take all now if you're not a boxing fan dillian white is very capable of pulling the upset here. This will be a very good fight. Looking forward to that April 23rd, but damn, they getting paid. Chuck, to keep it here, topic three, a couple pieces of boxing news. Canelo Alvarez is mulling, of course, a May 7th return, probably Las Vegas. He wants to get back

on that schedule of Cinco de Mayo weekend in May, Mexican Independence Day weekend in September, both in Las Vegas. Here's what we hear from ESPN's Mike Coppinger, that Canelo's fielding two different offers. One, a one-off fight with the PBC to fight middleweight champion Jermall Charlo in May at 168 pounds for all four belts. And the other one, a two-fight deal with Eddie Hernan Dazon that would see him move back up to light heavyweight, fight unbeaten champion Dimitri Bivol for the WBA title in May, and then come back in September in a trilogy against Gennady Golovkin, also at super middleweight. Chuck, you come in and out for Canelo fights.

It's the biggest name in the sport. Who would you want to see him face next as a guy on the outside looking in here? As a guy on the outside, I would like to. I mean, I'm casual by that standard, right? But I would like to see that trilogy fight with Triple G. So if it can happen in September and you get two fights out of that deal, that's the one I prefer. But, I mean, honestly, that guy has got the world eaten out of his hand, doesn't

he? He's like after the hold of zone, what's happened there? And now he's able to kind of pick and choose. I always, again, this is just like we were talking about. Very few MMA fighters put themselves in positions to make, you know, these kinds of decisions. I don't feel like there's a bad, a bad route for him here, man. But honestly, if I could choose it though, I'd like to see the Triple G thing happen. And I think a lot of fans would. I'm sort of

so close in in the game, I realize Triple G is getting a little washy. I have fear that that's just going to be a one-sided, but maybe that's more of me. He's almost 40 now, right? Yeah, maybe that's more of me being a Triple G fan and lamenting the fact that he had to wait so long to fight the best, but

I think the two-fight offer is kind of meaningless from the fact that he had to wait so long to fight the best. But I think the two-fight offer is kind of meaningless from the standpoint that Canelo has all the power. He's the free agent, promotionally and network-wise, who can fight anybody for the most amount of money. So it's not like he's going to go, oh, give me the security of the two-fight deal necessarily, right? I do think Jermall Charlo, for May at least, is the biggest pay-per-view he can make

and would be big, whether it's on Showtime or Fox. It'd be a very interesting style matchup. I kind of hope he goes in that direction, but I have no problem, Chuck, if he fights one of the light heavyweight champions, whatever. What's he doing right now? Because he's got time, right? He's got a little bit of time. Is he doing some golf tournament or something like that? He's living it up. Yeah, he's a celebrity. He's doing his life, man. He's got time, right? He's got a little bit of time. Is he doing some golf tournament or something like that? He's living it up. Yeah, he's a celebrity. He's doing his life, man.

He's living life. He's doing the celebrity golf stuff. He's showing up at that rave with that F1 driver doing drunken karaoke. I mean, he's living it, bro. Okay? I love it. I love it. He's wearing pajamas everywhere he goes.

Speaking of boxing, Chuck, I know this is going to fire you up. All right. The biggest fight in women's boxing history, at least from a credential versus credential standpoint, number one versus two pound for pound. It is booked. It is made. April 30th, Madison Square Garden.

It'll air on DAZN when Katie Taylor brings her four lightweight titles against seven division champion Amanda Serrano. Chuck, we've been building to this a long ass time. Now that Jake Paul and MVP promotions got involved, it raised the stature of it. Look, style for style, Chuck, this is the fight in women's history. I know we saw Leila Ali versus Christy Martin. And, you know, I mean, I know we've seen a couple sort of celebrity matchups, but this is the goods right here. I say, Chuck, this is the time to make a statement and change these archaic women's

boxing rules of two-minute rounds, of ten-round championship fights, of giant-ass gloves, and do what's right here. You know? Oh, I agree with you, man. You know, it's a weird thing because coming from the MMA side, I know you saw this whole thing too.

There were critics, right? There were critics who didn't think there was going to be a draw. I know we're going to talk about some of that Bob Arum stuff in a minute. But there were critics about female involvement in MMA, cage fights and all that stuff. The greatest thing that the UFC ever did, and this was obviously Scott Coker before that with Strikeforce and other promotions before, but was to say, like, we're going to do exactly the same as what the men have going on, right? They're going to do five-minute rounds. They're going to do everything.

Put them on. You get Ronda Rousey. She makes this crossover. Dana White discovers that there's a cash cow, and I mean a transcendent cash cow. And it's a weird thing when people don't, you know what I mean? Like one side of it in combat sports doesn't really understand that that's a possibility. It is a huge possibility. And I really think that this particular fight happening at Madison Square Garden, I'm kind of getting the love.

I feel like a lot of MMA people are paying attention to it. This is the kind of fight that could put it over in the biggest kind of way. So I agree with you 100%. It should be exactly like a men's fight in that sense. There's really no reason to make these modifications at this point. Shout out to Eddie Hearn. Shout out to Jake Paul. Shout out to everyone involved.

I'm glad both of these women are going to get paid. I'm glad style-wise, look, this is going to be a war. I mean, Katie Taylor is such an aggressive come forward boxer serrano's a slugger who could box or brawl she can do it all this is gonna be fun but not everybody loves it so so chuck here's the deal when you get really old if they keep putting a microphone in front of you eventually you're gonna have a really bad bob feller moment what i mean by that is remember when bob feller was like 91 and they had him on like sports center on a phoner and he said some disparaging quasi racist misogynist comment i forgot what it was and people are just like dude what do you expect this guy's born in like 1915

all right um no excuse in the modern era but bob arum the ceo of top rank that same night april 30th he's gonna have a can't miss fight in las vegas Vegas when Shakur Stevenson and Oscar Valdez unified titles at 130. So he was asked whether, you know, that'll be a problem going to head-to-head. Here's Bob's response. ESPN couldn't care less. As good as a fight that is, come on, for whatever reason, people don't particularly pay attention to women's fights. Chuck, this statement does not wear well when Michaela Mayer, one of the top rising women's boxers, is like a featured player on top rank in ESPN.

In fact, they put her on the undercard commentary team because she's sort of a growing star. You had Jake Paul respond with a tweet that said, Men like this dinosaur are the reason women haven't been given a fair shake in many parts of society is is grandpa just telling the truth Chuck or is it time that we remove this this like misogyny from the game I mean come on we're just I was just mentioning the Dana White thing right he was like women are never fighting the UFC as soon as it happens you see the full potential of it it It's really, it comes down to, I honestly believe there's a huge appetite for combat sports and competitive. And if you've got transcendent, if you've got transcendent players, like people who are very good, can back it up,

that can actually talk the talk, it doesn't matter. I mean, I feel like people will pay attention to a big fight. They'll pay attention to a big fight. But Bob, I mean, I just feel like every time Bob Arum is brought up at this point, it's like, dude, he was 10 years old when the freaking Great Depression ended, man. Yeah. He was a teenager when World War II ended. I mean, this guy is like, he's like a throwback to some other time. The fight world that he knew back in the day is not the same thing. And honestly, man, as crazy as it sounds,

if you're trusting business sense and understanding of where things are at, the pulse of what's happening, I'm trusting a Jake Paul over a bomber. At this point, he's too out of touch, man. He's too out of touch. We'll get into it later in the show. Of course, people want to hear our take on this diss track,

but Jake Paul is using his platform to go after certain things that we could say are wrong about combat sports so it's just interesting right um you know it was oh god bob yeah thanks bob thanks bob see but in like boxing this stuff actually happens all the time i would have liked to have heard lu's take on this one, man. I got to be honest. You little prick. Shut the fuck up, you little prick. All right. We mentioned, Chuck, for topic four, we mentioned that Canelo Alvarez in boxing owns a kind of leverage

and ability to move around and call his own shot that nobody else does. He's the pound for pound king. He's the biggest draw in the sport. It makes sense. How about Kayla Harrison, the free agent, kind of trying the same thing, but ineffectively. Here's the deal. Kayla Harrison caught up with MMA junkie Danny Segura, friend of the program, MMA beat alumni. And she says, quote, the UFC made a good starting offer, but PFL is definitely the front runner.

Now, Chuck, that's an interesting free agency update. I think from the beginning, I believe PFL had the best chance financially to lure her, but here's the interesting part that she told Danny. I had a plan in my head of what I wanted to do. That would have been honestly, ridiculously bad-ass. You guys would have all said,

all right, she's the go. We will shut up now. It was going to involve multiple promotions, multiple belts, multiple weight classes, kill a legend to become a legend i was it was going to be badass but it didn't pan out chuck that tells me she had an idea to essentially go to you know i'm paraphrasing here or guessing go to bellator and fight cyborg on a one fight deal or whatever go to ufc and fight newness and just kind

of jump around like house of pain and show people that she's the best the mma promoters they don't want anything to do with this type of uh business plan you know what i'm saying no that's the problem right and especially the ufc i feel like scott coker is actually open-minded when it comes to co-promotion or like lending or you know any, any of that sort of thing. But the UFC is absolutely closed off or traditionally has been to that sort of thing. But it's strange in her position, in her position, PFL is basically a slam dunk for her to go cash another million dollars and then whatever she can get endorsement wise besides that. I mean, that's the route, right? Especially if you're going to have to sit on the sidelines now while Juliana Pena plays out the sequel, right, with Amanda Nunes, and that can't happen for a while. I just, I can't see why you would do anything. Her star power is not going anywhere,

man. I feel like she has learned over the course of like, you know, the last couple of years how to use her platform to advantage and put herself in a position where she's negotiating these kinds of things i only feel like she's going to get bigger through this year even if she fights nobody's you know what i mean she's only gonna and whatever it is i do feel like you know there's that footage of her like cussing when amanda nunez is losing the fight i know what's you know i know they were teammates all the things that are kind of going on the fallout amanda opening her own gym all that stuff but i really believe that that was a big time you know payday for her if she was going to segue the ufc that was it and once that happened the pfl i think was the forerunner from that part right like

from that point on it's a million bucks i mean literally it's like it's she can go to make that deposit tomorrow the only thing about that pfl million bucks is it comes in a short tournament season format. And that's why she told Segura it'd be impossible for her to make 145 pounds four times in five and a half months to complete the PFL tournament and schedule. Not tournament, regular season and playoffs. You get what I'm saying? But that she would have to be a 155er. I got the feeling, Chuck, that she's like, all right, I'll go back to PFL if I have to. I know I can jack up my price there a little bit more and sort of, like you said,

continue to push my brand and dominance out there. But I think she either needs Cyborg and Bellator or any of the elites in UFC to fully stamp that she is top three pound for you. You know, top three pound for pound, maybe even number one for all we know. And I think that, you know, Luke and I have debated this for months that she wants to be great so badly that as much as PFL will make the most dollars and cents,

I just wonder if UFC can just jack that up a little bit more, whether she just bites at it, right? And I love the ambition of looking at this, like I'm the star i want to change the way stars are presented but what level of superstar chuck would it take for somebody to get to that point where they can call their shots in a canelo like way you know she's not there with full respect no she's not and i mean we're watching in ghanu i mean we're watching in ghanu like this is a guy who uh put in a position. He's gambling on himself, all this stuff. He wasn't able to really budget. We'll have to see

how that plays out. But I do think that Kayla Harrison has, I mean, she has as much shine as you can possibly have outside the UFC coming in. If she were to come in, that opens up so many possibilities. Obviously, that Peña thing, if Nunez goes through her, there's a whole, you know, that thing is revisited. You could almost start to put an asterisk on the first fight. I don't think it was a fluke, but, like, you could start to put an asterisk that whatever being complacent in that fight. Those big fights are there. The only thing that sucks about her going to PFL is I don't know if Chris Cyborg will still have the same, you know, panache coming out of 2022 and stuff like that. So I'd rather see it now.

You'd rather see it now while they're kind of at these high places in their marketability and just general interest than down the line. Well, PFL just signed last year, Julia Budd, the former Bellator featherweight champion. You wonder if someone's going to pick up Megan Anderson, who's, you know, a big 145-er and would be an interesting sort of opponent if PFL can grab her. You know, I kind of, you know, if I, it's weird. I want to see Kayla tomorrow in UFC against the very best. But if I could storybook this for her,

and I have no idea what the talks between her and Bellator were, or if that was ever serious, I kind of feel like the natural progression would be go to Bellator, prove you can beat somebody as legendary as Cyborg first on a short contract, and then go to UFC from there. I mean, that's escalation. If you did it in that route, she would be huge.

I mean, I think that at that point, especially if it's Amanda Nunes and she recaptures her title, and that was the escalation. Harrison's coming off of a Cyborg victory. I mean, can you imagine how big that fight would be? That would be huge, man. It'd be monster. And her final quote on her future was, anything I sign with any promotion will be very, very short contracts.

You can't buy my soul. End quote. I mean, that makes sense because she doesn't want to get locked in anywhere. Maybe, you know, probably it's probably one more PFL season and then get the money with UFC. That's probably the path. The greatest thing, though, is the PFL. Like, I don't know how much people would be paying attention to it without Kayla Harrison. You know what I mean? and then get the money with UFC. That's probably the path. The greatest thing, though, is the PFL, like,

I don't know how much people would be paying attention to it without Kayla Harrison. You know what I mean? I feel like a lot of the interest. Well, there's a lot of smart cage fans out there, apparently, Joe. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a very intelligent cage. You've got to give it that, okay? It is that.

It is that. But, I mean, honestly, it's like, I think that it's a boon for them to kind of have her, obviously, but, like, she draws the eyes. She's proven that she's a star in the making to kind of have her obviously, but like she draws the eyes as she's proven that she's a, she's a star in the making there. Yeah. Yeah.

You're absolutely right. Topic five, Chuck, we always close with some quick hitters. People think we do it because we're lazy, but there's just a lot of fun news out there that, you know, I want the people to get your take.

Number one, speaking of manager of the stars, Ali Abdelaziz, he says publicly that the best featherweight fighter in the world today, Zabit Magomed Sharapov, is back training and has entered the USADA pool. Ali plans to speak with UFC next week about Zabit's potential return. And he also had a cryptic IG post, Magomed Sharapov, which said, on February 28th, I will destroy someone. Chuck, this is the guy, okay? I saw the third round against Jeremy Stephens, and I'm still telling you,

this is the damn guy. I love me some Zabit. Can we get excited now that it's not all over, that this is happening? Well, regardless if we can or not, I'm excited. I'm like you, man. I had him kind of dog-eared to be the guy who was going to take over that division at one point. He adds so much dimension to that, that whole weight class. But, man, I got to say, like the one thing that, you know, you get asked a lot of questions.

The one question that we get all the time on the other podcasts and just I've had people asking me is like, what's up with Zabit? When is Zabit coming back? And it's like nobody really knows man I mean I feel like we've been in this uh for the last year year and a half you've been in this like holding pattern not sure if he was going to come back so the fact that he's coming back at all or that all signs point to that is good news I love him I think he's an awesome fighter man he's been around the guys who they know what they're doing. And I feel like we're only scratching the surface. I don't even feel like I know his entire arsenal yet.

Like where he was at and the guys he was beating, like the Calvin Cater fight, people keep talking about, yeah, but he was kind of changing it. If it's a five-round fight, it's going to be different. I mean, the truth is we just don't have all the answers with Zabit so far. So I'm excited to see him back in there to fill in those blanks to be honest man yeah did i say jeremy stevens i meant that third round with calvin cater yeah yeah it got a little sideways for him of course um yeah yeah i mean like you know i joke around but i think he has the potential to be the best he's got a lot to prove to us if he can get back he'll be

31 in march but we'd just like to see him back in any form as long as he's healthy to do that he presents a very very interesting uh skill set for this division and size and smarts and all that uh chuck uh conor mcgregor revealed in an instagram post which of course served as a commercial for proper 12 just the same that he's close to starting a training camp which would make sense because we're guessing that he's coming back for International Fight Week in July, but will do so sober and, quote, complete abstention from alcohol. Chuck, this would be different, of course, from the Habib Nurmagomedov training camp in which he admitted. Let's drink it at the press conference.

He sort of said it without saying it, that the whole Habib camp was like rock star party lifestyle, if you know where I'm going with that. Okay, white lightning, bro. That's where I'm going with that. I don't know if the Dustin Poirier comeback fight camps had the same, you know, I know he looked great against Cowboy in the camp and in the fight. I don't know if he went back on the sauce for the two Dustin fights,

but does this do anything? Because, look, when you're Conor, you're always going to have a ninth live. There's always going to be people going, you know what? F it. I believe in this guy again. Does the idea of sobriety in training camp make you believe again? Why not, man? I mean, honestly, if that's really the play,

if that's kind of the direction he wants to go, it's just one more little subtle seed planted from him to say, you know what, man? I wasn't taking it as seriously as I should have been, or whatever. It's like you can keep planting these seeds. If that's really the case, and if sobriety is going to help him get back where he was at, I'm all for it, man. But I don't know. It'll be interesting to see, right? It's interesting to see a whiskey baron swearing off the sauce.

I mean, it should be just kind of taken for granted that probably you're doing that but this is conor mcgregor a whole different a whole different animal in this game man all right if ufc does move forward with dustin poirier versus nate diaz which dana just said what last week i want it and both fighters want it so let's let's book it already who does conor fight in July? God, man. I would love to see him fight Max Holloway, but I don't think that's going to happen. Who do you like? I mean, the thing about when he fought Cowboy was, yes, it was a soft touch.

It was a get well fight, okay? Yeah, yes. But it was under the auspices that he was going to fight three times that calendar year something that got taken away by covid yeah his season right is that it called it yeah if we're under the belief that connor is ready to go back on a full-time schedule for the first time in a long time i mean you can argue last year was a was a he tried a full-time schedule he fought twice and got injured. But if he's willing to do it and considering the injury, could I be coaxed into some in-between fight? It's not a soft landing on the cowboy level,

but it's also not a title fight or a Jorge Masvidal pay-per-view fight. What about him versus RDA, dude? There's nothing soft about that, by the dude? It's not, there's nothing soft about that, by the way, you know, for the record, there's nothing soft about that. But what about a fight like that? That would be a tough fight for sure. I would be completely in favor of something like that because honestly, he's operating on such a different level and he has so much casual interest. You don't have to have him in there against some killer who's going to take his head off and take the rest of his mojo from him.

What you want to do is have him go in there and beat somebody, right? Like you're mentioning with the Cowboy Cerrone. Look how much his star potential raised again just after coming back and getting that one win. It was like all of a sudden so many of the narratives were reintroduced. All those things came back. It seemed like he was the moneymaker again. He was the guy.

He just beat Cowboy Cerrone. A lot of guys are beating Cowboy Cerrone at this point of his career. So I think you're right. It wouldn't be bad. It would just be smart business as a businessman to come back and try to take on somebody you really feel confident you're going to beat. And the UFC would be smart to do that because then you can get a big fight. I think if you put him in any kind of really big fight right away,

it's just the kind of precedent and favoritism that has made so many people turn against the UFC, right? Like all these guys who can't get shot. So they're in a weird position, but I would prefer, honestly, that they do that. 100%, you nailed it when you said if he's coming back, he intends to stay stay and he wants to have multiple fights, a build-up

fight would be the perfect way to go. And to be fair, this is the treatment that really only he would get and deserve because of his star value. We all know that. We're all saying that up front. How offended would you be if they rolled out Frankie Edgar in a retirement fight at Lightweight? Wow. I wouldn't be offended

at all, man. First of all at all man first of all i would love it because it would almost be like this uh lifetime achievement award for frankie right like hey man thank you here's what you get as a parting gift that type of thing that would be great for him uh line his pockets a little bit and honestly that would be an intriguing fight i'd be down for that okay okay all i do is matchmaker they don't pay pay me for that. You're a matchmaker. Speaking of Cowboy Cerrone, he is targeted for an April 30th return against one Joe Lozon in Old Guy on Old Guy Crime. It could be wild. It could be gross.

Your thoughts on this, Chuck? Well, we haven't seen Joe Lozon a lot. The one thing I will say is Joe Lozon likes to – he's not a crusher, right? He doesn't go in there trying to injure life with one big right hand or something like that. So it's a little bit of a softer landing between two veterans who can mix it up in a lot of different ways. If you're going to book Cerrone and if you're going to book Lozon, that's the kind of matchup I'd like to see at this point. So I don't have a problem with it. I don't have a big appetite for it.

I don't need to see it, but I'm fine with it. If both those guys want to fight each other and they feel like they've not um you know they've not had the chance and this is it go for it man cowboy is 38 he hasn't won since 2019 but he's so active that uh he's lost yeah five since then including one no contest against nico price so and lozano's been out like since that time too right like yeah i mean it would take a lot for the UFC to cut Cowboy, right? I mean, would you say he's in that Matt Hughes, Forrest Griffin, Stefan Bonner, we love you for life category? I think so.

I think Dana really loves him. And I really do believe that. So probably Cowboy set a bar for every other fighter to kind of hate him for, which was always saying yes. Because then you have this expectation from UFC, like, hey, Cowboy says yes. He's used that example so many times. But the truth of the matter is he is that guy, right? Like, he's like, he's always willing to step in and fight. And I think that the UFC, you know, has big time gratitude for that, man.

He saved him a bunch of times, too, like stepping in on short notice and things like that. So yeah, I think he's going to get that treatment. Just like you scouting ladies on your college freshman dorm room floor. The UFC loves people that say yes, Chuck. Yes. Yes. Yes. Good comparison. Yes, exactly. Chuck, where did you go to college that people need to know? I went to a place called Metropolitan State in Denver.

Wow. Don't look for it. No, you could look for it. It's on the Aurora campus, downtown Denver. Okay. I didn't ever know that. That's great. I mean, I went to Noggin Valley Community.

I usually say that and people are like, isn't that where Spider-Man went to school? You know. But where did you go? I did a couple of years at Noggin Valley Community College, Chuck. Okay. Then I did, I served time at Southern Connecticut State state university okay served time all right yeah yeah sounds like pretty good uh chuck paul craig the light heavyweight future contender possibly he's back to face nikita krilov march 19th in london cry love kri love puzzle love whatever uh good good ass fight

chuck your thoughts i don't mind that. That card's actually going to be fun, man. I mean, they're adding some, like, that's a fun banger fight right there. So I'm down with it. I like that. I like that matchup. Oh, I skipped over one here, Chuck. Ronda Rousey won the Royal Rumble Saturday night.

Oh, yeah. Just four months after giving birth to La'akia Makalapuaokalani oh kalanipa i was gonna ask if you could pronounce that all right yes yes chuck uh do you effing care at all not really um i was interested obviously i i thought she was going to be on it i thought she was gonna get one of those late numbers and she you know we'd hear the uh whatever joan jett song kick on sure enough it happened my son i was watching with my son and he was like how'd you know you called it you know but i'm like of course you know this is going to happen i didn't care but it was interesting to see the pop man didn't you i mean it seemed like she got a huge pop in st louis which is uh i i wasn't sure

what she did but i felt like she got the biggest pop of the night man like it was pretty crazy they're not afraid to to to put the some pop put some pop in on the arena speakers as well. They're not afraid to do that. Well, maybe that's what it was. It had an MMA flair as Brock Lesnar also won the men's Royal Rumble the same night with the 30th. I didn't watch it. It's been called the worst Royal Rumble of all time.

It seems par for the course in what's driving me away from this genre for good. You go in and out. Like, you go in and out of the wrestling world. The thing is, when I go in, Chuck, I'm in. You go way in. Bro, I am in, bro, okay? And I'm out right now, and I'm out with a bang. And it's no disrespect to AEW.

I love them. But the other people, the Vince McMahons, they've robbed me of the spirit of this. Yeah, I understand. I get it. I get it. I get it. Speaking of light heavyweights and your time in college, Jan Blachowicz has pulled out, Chuck, of his March 26th bout against Alexander Rakic due to an undisclosed injury.

This sounds like a phone call to the one and only Mr. Must-See TV himself. Anthony Smith can fix this problem, Chuck. Yeah. Or they could just postpone the fight, right? Because if you're trying to, I don't know the injury. Do you know what the injury was? It was undisclosed up to this point. If he's able to roll, obviously, like,

I'm guessing this fight has title implications just where they're at in the rankings. So if you wanted to kind of match it up, because they do this timing-wise anyway, to May or June, you've got the Glover to share title defense happening in May. So they could do that. But, yes, if it's one of those injuries that's going to keep him out, whatever his name is, Jan, like if he's going to be out like an extended period of time,

Anthony Smith 100%, he should jump in there. I mean, it makes sense in the rankings. Jan Blachowicz is No. 1. Prochock is No. 2, but he's got the title fight. Rakic, 3, and then you've got Anthony Smith at No. 4. I mean, it makes sense in the rankings. Jan Blachowicz is number one. Prochock is number two, but he's got the title fight. Rakic, three. And then you got Anthony Smith at number four. And, you know, all jokes aside,

Anthony Smith is on a very good run right now. And he's looking to be back. He's actually the nicest guy. I mean, he's really, he's a really good broadcaster and like radio host and podcast host. It's just, he got caught in the crossfire, Chuck. It happens, right? Yes, I've been caught in that crossfire. I know what that's like.

Chuck, do you care about Misha Surkinov against Wellington Turman February 26th at UFC Vegas? Not really. But Wellington Turman sounds like a guy who travels with very expensive luggage, doesn't he? Like nice handbags. Yes, best handle since Samsonite. Yes, go love it. yes best handle since samsonite yes and finally in our quick hitters chuck uh chel sunnan has been cleared of all charges related to that las vegas battery case at the luxor would you say still undefeated chuck yeah i would actually you know what man he was if i understood the

situation right he was uh sticking up for his wife or there was somebody being rude to his wife or whatever. Wasn't that the gist of this? Hey, come on. Leave it in Vegas. And at the Luxor. You'll see that in real. Bad things happen at the Luxor.

First of all, Chael, what the hell are you doing at the Luxor? That's what I was wondering. Can we upgrade that, please? Because, you know, Chuck, I always make the joke there's a line. And when you're a regular Vegas hotel stayerer as we are in this business there's a line that everybody draws for themselves some people's line is lower some people are like nah bro the tropicana ain't bad you know what i'm saying yeah um dude the luxury is well below that line of oh my god okay it's the so in the ranking system like there's the the hooters hotel which i think

they've since renamed i had to stay there a couple of times back in the day now that's the Hooters Hotel, which I think they've since renamed. I had to stay there a couple of times back in the day. Now, that's the bottom rung. They have Dollar Blackjack. Yeah, there was Dollar Blackjack, actually. That was the bottom rung. But then you had the Luxor, Tropicana. Circus, Circus. Circus, Circus.

Excalibur. Yes, Excalibur. That's the one. Excalibur. Really bad. So you wanted to be across the street. You wanted to be MGM Grand, or you wanted to be one of those. Well, here's a tough question.

This is a tough question because I've recently put below my line officially both the MGM Grand and New York, New York. I mean, the thing is I like the New York, New York restaurant casino scene. I like it as a cut through to the arena. I like it. Yeah, the proximity to the arena. I don't like staying there. And the MGM Grand is an absolute asshole now. Okay. Me and you rode the roller coaster one night.

Remember that? Dude, I almost threw up. I had the 3D face mask on and stuff. Oh my God, that was nauseating. I remember that, yes. Two old guys trying to remain relevant, just like the show today. All right, Chuck, that'll do it for our five topics.

Let's get into segment number two, where we give you, the viewer, a chance to ask us the tough questions every Sunday night on Instagram, at Morning Combat. We put up the post. Chuck, the picture was of you and I in merch with our arms around each other on the couch. It was a little awkward, right? Yeah.

It was awkward, but comfy. I mean, it was good. Well, okay. You're like, it was warm. We had a movie on. It was just lame-o. All right. This one's called DMs from Dogs.

Hee-haw. Hee-haw. All right. We start with at Aurelius92. Chuck, let's go to you on this because you're benefiting from this. I think you are. I don't know. Maybe this is a chore for you.

No. Why is Luke on vacation every other month? Because that cat is in a different tax bracket than us, man. I mean, he's able to do whatever he wants, I think. I honestly don't know. Is he on vacation a lot? Like, I feel like he kind of is. He kind of is, right?

Here's the deal with him. And this is a philosophical debate that we all have when it comes to our jobs and vacation time and our family um i personally think that when you get to this level you're allowed to take three week vacations a year i mean you get you get the time it's paid for you gotta unplug to be this good chuck to do stuff like this every day or MK all day, nearly every day, you got to be like refreshed. But my problem is I cap that like when my wife's like, hey, we should go away in a couple of months. I try to cap it at a week max.

I thought Luke was going to be back today. And then I find out, no, he's not gonna be back till Friday. Bruh, we're still doing two week vacations in 2022. So, you know, and by the way, my wife's on that same side of the street as he, she's always saying, you know, can we, can we go away for a week and a half, two weeks, three weeks? Chuck, I can't unplug for that.

I've never done that. I've never done that. Not since I've been a full, you know, basically full time in MMA. I don't think I've ever taken a two week vacation. I'm aware of, I don't remember doing that. But you can't. You usually can't.

There's too much going on at all times. If Luke is watching right now on the beaches of Columbia, then I saw the pictures he texted us. It was beautiful. I wish him well. His lovely family. If this is what he needs to get right, Chuck. Okay.

Because he's an ornery blowhard, that guy. All right. Yeah, I know. I know he is. So I guess we can mention he's in Colombia. I thought that this was top secret. Well, he told us we can't, but then he's putting it all over his IG story, all right? Okay, all right.

Latin women all over him and stuff. I mean, what does his family have, Chuck, that we don't, that he has to choose them over us? Curbs? I mean, I don't know. I haven't looked that close. All right, Chuck. This one's from Brad Dougie Stevens. Just like Biz Ping and Sonnen, who will be the next current fighter to retire and become

successful in the YouTube podcast world? Can I also add one Brendan Schaub to that list? Oh, yeah. Because he's also successful and thick with like a yes he is in a row okay is he still so is he still is brendan still kind of a because i think for a minute man he was kind of like the top of the charts with the whole rogan oh you'd be surprised yeah yeah definitely he was up there. Chuck, let's go full disclosure here. You followed him on a comedy tour, correct? I didn't follow him.

I went out and met him at Zany's in Nashville for a piece. So I saw him do three sets there and met some other comedians and stuff. That was fun, though. It was pretty cool. And I got reamed, I mean, reamed for writing it positive. I guess it wasn't a glowing thing, but I was being positive and I framed the article poorly. I had to turn it around so fast.

I didn't have time to really do it the correct way. So I got reamed for actually giving him kudos and saying he was funny, man. You're allowed to tell the truth, Chuck. If he's funny, say he's funny. I was telling the truth. The crowd loved him, man. It was three sellouts.

The crowd was going crazy. I tried to spar with him on the air. He wouldn't take the bait, all right? Really? Dude, one of the performances, the Tennessee Titans were there. They're all like laughing, hooting it up. I mean, that dude, he's got it going. People don't want to accept it, but he's got it going.

Tough ending for Steve McNair, though, just the same, right? Yeah, it was a tough ending. I'm just saying. I think there's enough time removed where we can talk about it. Yes, we can talk about that now. Sahel Kazemi, what was her name? Yeah, it was a tough inning. I'm just saying, you know what I mean? I think there's enough time removed where we can talk about it. Yes, we can talk about that now. Sahel Kazemi, what was her name? Yeah, wow, okay. Chuck, who do you think fits that trifecta of success

that only Brendan Schaub, Chael Sonnen, and one, who's the other guy? Gosh, man. Bisping. Look, obviously there are certain personalities that are going to work in this type of independent youtube you know variety show that we do here who do you think of today's fighters has this potential i mean o'malley's already doing it bro i mean that's the thing right it's got to be somebody with a command it's got to be somebody with that kind of command because a lot of the people they

use for the espn or espn and ufc broadcast and stuff they're smart they're analytical but they're they're boring um i don't know if they would be able to carry that type of show you got to have like an entertainment thing to you right like you got to have something more that's tough i don't nobody pops to mind well you got to take to give hot takes that could upset it's you know in some ways it's similar to like when you're an announcer you got to give you know if you're a color commentator for ufc you got to give sometimes harsh takes about active fighters but this is a little different you've also got to be able to carry it personality wise um it's not jumping out at me who who is who's got that vibe i mean maybe sean strickland but it could be a dark one you know oh my god can you imagine but see yeah I can't I would be intrigued by his first couple right like I'd want to know what he's

going oh he's going to say because that's uh yeah that guy goes down some dark paths man and the more you peel back about his past the more it's like oh my god what because nobody did a uh you know credit check on this it's funny in boxing funny, in boxing, we don't really have this, you know, like Tim Bradley and Andre Ward are great transitional broadcasters. I really like what

Sean Porter's doing, but you don't get a lot of fighters who are capable of pulling this off and being good on the mic, whether it's in a professional setting

or in a, you know, podcast setting. MMA, maybe it's, maybe the, maybe the, I don't know,

what's safe for Chuck? I don't know why it is, but Chael Sonnen, that's where he changed the game, man. Yeah, maybe it's, maybe the, maybe the, I don't know. I don't know why it is. Is it safe to get punched in the head? That's where he changed the game, man. Yeah. Maybe that is it. I mean, I think he changed the game, like, because it was, it was, you know, his ability to just show up and command a room at press conferences and to command every time somebody put a mic in his face, he knew what to say. I mean, I think he changed the game. So if he set the bar, maybe some of the guys were like, hey, for me to actually do something like that, I need to be more willing to give those opinions and stuff.

I feel like he kind of changed it a little bit. So I got to give him all the credit for this. What about Adesanya? What about Derek Lewis? Derek Lewis, maybe. Although he's so shy, really. I feel like he's not. He's a little bit introverted that way.

Like, Izzy would be okay. I think he would have no problem giving a... But you know what's funny, man? Does he have that entertainment it thing? I feel like he has it as a whole package, you know what I mean? Some people have it to just sell themselves in the moment, but they might not have it to week to week talk about the product and be entertaining.

That's the thing, man. It's tough. It is pretty interesting here. I'd listen to a Dom Cruise podcast. I know that would be different. It wouldn't be as charismatic. That would be cool. But it'd be interesting. Now that he's eaten so many mushrooms and stuff like, and he's kind of like, you know. Has he? Well, I've heard stories. You know what I mean? I don't know if he's really, maybe I'm being fed false information,

but he has. Dude, we should go lick toes with him and Rashad. Yeah. He's got some, he's got deep takes, man. Have you heard him recently? Like he's, it's all enlightenment and love. And I mean, he's like, you're talking about Dom Cruz,

the guy who told us we keep this. Yeah, Dom Cruz, he's having his late Beatles moment. Like he's kind of becoming more, he's expanding. You know what I mean so i'd be interested in that okay yeah that's a very interesting take all right this one's from sergeant molina bc who would you rather be locked in a room with for 24 hours sean strickland or mike oh my god um wow this is a long time man a loaded question here but are they basically saying who you're less likely to get Benoit'd by?

Is that where we're going with this? I think I would have a way to navigate the craziness of Mike Perry easier. Yes. I don't know, Chuck. I kind of like a little crazy. I kind of like, you know what I mean? Same. I like chaos.

Yeah, I like a little raw energy out of somebody. You know what I mean? I of i kind of yeah i like a little like little raw energy out of somebody you know what i mean i've been like that growing up like i could i could chameleon my way around like the high school hallways and talk to the to the to the stoners wearing the drug rugs talk to the metal heads talk to the wannabe gang members talk to the this talk you know what i mean and just kind of like fit in yeah your your worry with mike perry might be that he just you tell so many stories that at some point you're like i mean i feel like he'd be funny for the most part he'd sit in there and kind of uh tell you stories and say crazy shit but with strong sean strickland i mean at some point he may

just try to shiv you you know what i mean well yeah or he may just like kill you we pick up a hitcher and he just starts like you know dismembering him in the back i mean it's possible okay all right i mean this would be a great documentary right speaking of mk docs right okay uh this one's from at homes dot joel how high is the ceiling on tim zoo and where does bc rate him against the charlos and castanhos of the division chuck if you don't know this tim zoo is the son of boxing hall of famer kosha zoo he is an unbeaten junior middleweight out of Australia. And he's right at that point, Chuck, where he has just beat the big name former guys, champions from Australia, that he could be like the Jeff Horns, those type of guys. And he's ready to like go on the global scene and come to America. I think I rate him pretty high. Like, do I know he could be in contend with a Charlo or Castaño at 154?

I think he contends against them. Does he beat them? We'll have to see. But what I've seen so far from Tim Zhu is great poise, very precision punching, seems to just have that thing of being a son of a legend in any sport that they have this sort of like natural comfortability with the moment and the expectations and the, I mean, it's like, you know, Chuck, like shout out to our dads, but if we could have grown up in the shadow of dads doing something just dynamic,

it would have just osmosis, you know, just fallen on us. Right. You know what I mean? Yes. Yeah. I think he's going to be special. I think he's going to win a world title. Can he beat a Jermel Charlo? I don't know, but I got to see it. Have you seen anything from this kid yet? Want to own part of the airline you flew with on your last vacation? Or part of the company that makes your favorite triple shot latte with extra foam?

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Not yet, man, but now you've got me psyched to check them out. You know, you mentioned these guys, and it's something that I would like to see more of, like just get into boxing. I feel like it should happen. But do you really think that at this point, or is this just your enthusiasm, that boxing is at a spot that it hasn't been in our lifetime? I feel like at this moment, like you're mentioning these guys like that who are coming up,

and there's so many good names. You get these heavyweight guys. Now you're seeing these figures come out where the price is i mean the price the purse price is ridiculous like right and you're i feel like people are excited to see these guys fury the cross-pollination with some of the mma guys just all of it do you feel like it's in this great spot i feel like boxing's better now than it's ever been yeah and you know here's the thing so boxing kind of right around 04, Lennox Lewis retired. The heavyweight division kind of went to shit. You still had Floyd and Manny and what was left of Oscar De La Hoya carrying big brand.

So at the elite level, you still got big fights and big storylines. It was great. At the hardcore level, you still got all the great stuff you would need. I like the the middle class got eliminated and boxing went through a really tough time in the last 15 to 20 years but it's had some every other year kind of boons where like one year be just loaded with great fights or the next year you know pbc got launched and suddenly boxing's on national tv again it's like we've had some ups and downs we're coming off a 2021 that was great and anytime i told the mma fans on the show i know you hate boxing but you gotta watch this fight on saturday it's paid told the MMA fans on the show, I know you hate boxing, but you got to watch this fight on Saturday. It's paid off. The fight's delivered.

The best are more or less fighting the best. Canelo is a guy you can watch and like Floyd before him and get behind the storyline. The heavyweight division is must see. Are we in a spot where boxing's biggest kryptonite elements are gone and we can all move forward happily no it's always going to

be their truck because the sport's disorganized and it's sure dirty as shit i mean there's a lot of bad going on but yes i believe right now even if i don't think everything is going to the level that it could be it's in a good spot it's in it's a pretty social media probably i feel like the ufc when it came in you know mma but especially ufc knew how to handle social media somewhere even if it's never been acknowledged boxing has learned to use social media better because the names at least for the longest time it was on everybody was if you didn't pay attention there were woodwork contenders you didn't know who these guys were like the guys coming up so i feel like these days you kind of you kind of know the divisions a little bit and you kind of know,

you know, who's coming up and all that stuff. It's just a little different. I feel like people are a little more tuned into it. I mean, there's still too many pay-per-views. So if you were like, Hey,

I kind of like this. Should I go hardcore? It, they don't make it easy. There's still too many fake titles. There's still too many of all these things that'll piss you off. But as long as the fights that are supposed to be good, Chuck deliver that, that's a bandaid that can keep you off but as long as the fights that are supposed to be good chuck deliver that

that's a band-aid that can keep you going for a while and you can still appreciate the grade of this sport without getting caught up in some of the bs but uh yeah i just like your boxing insight yes i just like that we're that as a show here mk we're opening people up to the idea of what they might be missing hey man you started this you started this show. You said you're going to talk about boxing, too. And I was like, I don't know, man, because MMA fans just can't stand to think that way. But you guys have pulled this off. And I feel like this show particularly has drawn interest from that MMA side into the boxing world. That's an achievement.

Thank you, John. I'll take that for now. You got it. You want to sit on the couch again later and hang out and watch some movies? I'd love to, yeah. I'll put that tie-dye tight shirt back on so I can show my robust winter belly. This one's from at IanWasHere666. Does this mean that he dabbles in the dark magic, Chuck?

Oh, my Lord. He says, does watching fights ever feel like a chore? I'm just a fan, and keeping up with all the MMA promotions as well as boxing and glory kickboxing sometimes becomes a grind. Does the media ever feel like that sometimes? Day one donk here. Chuck, does this job ever feel like a job to you? Yes, it does, Brian.

Yes, it does. Does it to you? I mean, honestly, when you don't have an offseason and you have multiple promotions and they're all building themselves and there's always a new cycle that is just on top of that, I mean, it can get to you. And we were talking a little bit last time, last Monday. social media feeds and people's feuds, all the useful idiots in the sport, all the things that people are feeding information, this and this and the managers and all that stuff, man, it gets, it becomes a grind. It becomes a big time grind. So, um, I think that you have to, at some point kind of protect or compartmentalize and treat the fights. They kept up, you have to kind of hold them in a special place to really keep that enthusiasm going because there for a while man

if it was a 13 fight UFC card you'd be like oh my god especially if you're at the event and you had to sit through all of that it became a grind so I feel like I've had to kind of take a step back for a minute and then re-watch

it, try to gain some of the enthusiasm regain some of the enthusiasm i had and and protect those fights like protect them from all that stuff don't try to get jaded by them and watch them for what they are but yeah man it becomes a grind for me oh absolutely and you know covering both sports the highest level can be a grind when i used to cover pro wrestling on top of this it became i know possible i don't know how you do that well you had to make a decision that there's only so deep you can go you know what i mean and sometimes you know it's it sucks but um we know what i do to fight it i try to watch as many fights live as i possibly can so even if you're off you know and sometimes you're like okay i should unplug and go with the family i do but

i'm like i agree i could you know because re-watching stuff you're not in the mood to re-watch you can't retain it can be hard yeah it's also weird there's something about the live kind of i don't know what you know it's going to sound kind of dominant cruisish but it's like the psychic energy of it because it's like you're kind of everything's being contextualized in the moment right like you can kind of understand the gravity of this fighter or that fighter or what they have or their factions or whatever is going on by the moment you know what i mean but when you when you go back and nobody else is watching it's just you it can feel a little uh i don't know it just feels like you're taking notes or something yeah it feels very lonely yeah all right lonely that's the word well chuck uh some people are alone this winter and luckily we have created this companion segment that just

lights them on fire with joy and laughter and guilt uh we scour the globe chuck uh every monday for segment three uh searching the highs and lows the good the bad the ugly the in between and combat sports and beyond we like to call it have you seen this show? My favorite segment. Are you kidding? Oh, God. Yep. There we go. There we go. Thank you. Thank you, Luke.

Soft serve. All right. Sorry, they're texting me. They're texting me. Okay, here we go. Chuck, not Luke. Chuck, we start off with Bellator 273 from Phoenix. Chuck, did you see lightweight Chris Gonzalez

needing just 36 seconds to detonate one Sadawad? No, I did not see this live, but, man, that's beautiful. Yeah, that's high kick heaven right there, okay? Look at that. Yeah, well done there. All right. Okay.

Carrying it on, Darian Caldwell, your former Bantamweight champion, looked great for two rounds, but I don't know if you heard Big John McCarthy was like, he's going to gas, he's going to gas. Boy, did he gas in round three against Enrique Barzola. I received a text from one Luke Thomas saying, is Caldwell the Kevin Lee of Bellator? This was a bad loss, Chuck. Man, that's actually a really good comparison.

Because with Kevin Lee and with Caldwell, I think that when they started, you saw the flashes of how good they are, and you had a bar set that was up here that they never got close to. Even given the fact that he won the belt, he never seemed to get above the bar where people were setting for him. But, yeah, this was a bad one yeah you just saw it coming a mile away and then he essentially just kind of gave up there and and and had nothing left tough tough turn of events there because he was wrestling like a

maniac in the first two rounds uh i put an asterisk next to this guy's name or a circle or a gold spot star 22 year old featherweight lucas b Brennan had yet another spectacular submission on the Bellator undercards. Look at this sick sub of Ben Lugo. What do you call this, Chuck? Dude, don't ask me. Big brother. Choke. Yeah. I mean, look, he's got the leg pinning it backwards. I mean,

that's just... That was nice. That's beautiful. He's got Chase Hooper vibes, right? Yeah. How old is he? 22. Deuce, deuce. 22, yeah. All right.

Look at him. Right now we would have Luke break down the technique and then mention something about the leg or arm. This is where you don't get, you know, you're getting a poor translation over here. Looked like a choke to me, Chuck. All right. Here we go. Phantom weight Blaine Schutt asked for it, Chuck, in the center of the cage like it was Holloway-Lamas in round five

and he received it from Team Fedor's... I'm impressed you know that. That's good. Nikita Mikhailov gave it to him, Chuck. Oh, boy. Yeah, right here. Right here. Right now. Dude, I love it when these things backfire. It's always hilarious. This is where I want it

to end. Right here. Right on the monster logo. There we go. Oh my god. Speaking of Blaine the shutdown shut, Chuck, your thoughts on his tattoo design? Oh man, another one of these? These cages, links, I don't understand

these guys. It's like they want to become a grid or something. I don't get it. There was a guy in the UFC who had the same thing. forget his name now but i don't know it's bizarre machine has that same thing but he's does he on the other side of it he's stuck behind these are now bars you know sorry they're bars sorry sorry screw that joke all right chuck i don't know how she does it but our good friend vanessa demopos just can't stop showing up in this segment. Your thoughts to her at-home training routine here, Chuck. My lord. Let's take a look.

We're at the gym training. Good technique. Yeah, see. The heavy bag is a little different because it moves. It's a little different than a pole. It's different than the pole, but she adapts well. I will say that.

She's very adaptable. Yeah, I'll give you that. All right, top-ranked boxing was in Oklahoma. Keep an eye on Bruce Shushu Carrington. Look at the brutality on this finish in the corner. Oh, man. Oh, boy. Oh, that was poised, man.

Did you see him? He waited. He waited, and he just tucked that undercut. Or that. Yeah, look at that. Oh, that was poised, man. Did you see him? He waited. He waited, and he just tucked that undercut. Or that. Yeah, look at that. He was a big-time amateur trained by former U.S. amateur coach Kay Caroma. This guy, Shushu Carrington, looks to be legit.

But, Chuck, this looked like Ray Mercer against Tommy Morrison. Referee just leaving this guy hung out to dry here. That's beautiful. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, what is up with that? What is up with that? Yeah, that guy's from Oklahoma. He takes it easy, you know, whatever.

All right, on the same card, hey, Chuck, Muhammad Ali's grandson, Nico Ali Walsh, has become a, I don't know, a Jake Paul of sorts for ESPN and top rank. I talked about his lack of head movement and the fact that he's going to get splattered. I'll give him credit, at least offensively. He looked great. This is his first fight under new trainer Richard Sloan, who replaced Sugarhill Stewart, who I think

he was a little bit too busy, and Nico Ali Walsh needed direct coaching. But Richard Sloan, who was in Smoke and Joe Frazier's corner back in the day and is a very famous boxing artist, I like the improvement offensively. I still think he's got many defensive holes, but what do you think about the Ali shuffle here before the finish? Pretty nice. I don't know how sustainable that sort of thing is, but, you know. You've got to move your face, Brian.

You've got to move your face. Chris Liebman taught us that. You've got to move your face. They've got to be careful how they market him. They were a little bit too aggressive the first few fights, but he is fighting every month. If he can keep getting better at this rate, maybe there's something

there, but we've got to wait and see. Yeah, man. Things got hairy at the Friday weigh-in for top rank between Pink Tyson and Carla Torres. Pink Tyson on the left. I don't believe that's your government name, though, Chuck. Look at Mark Chinook getting in the middle right there.

Dave Schaller needs to take some notes on how to break that shit up, all right? The action would continue in the ring. They had a nice little slugfest, Chuck. I'm sure you watched this on Saturday. No, I did not. Let's see. Pink Tyson would get the L, but she was putting it on her ear.

Which one's Pink Tyson here? Just kidding. Come on. Yeah. All right. Hey, enough fights in the ring. We love subway fights on this show. Oh, my God.

Chuck, how about this? I love that you find these. How about this unexpected valor in this subway fight right here? Oh, my God. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh. He's like. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh.

He's like, hey, hey. Hey, hey. We don't need a felony here. We don't need a, yeah. We don't need. Look at this, Chuck. If they can change, we can change, right? Oh.

Dude, that's wild. You've been in New York City a lot, man. Like, you see some crazy things. And every time I'm on those platforms like that, I'm like, ugh. And I've seen guys fighting, too. So this is not new. But seeing somebody go over like that, ugh. What do you think was the issue between them?

God. I have no idea, man. Disrespect or, like, a half of a cookie? What do you think it was, Chuck? All right. One's as likely as the other, man. All right. Crimson Mask of the Week goes to Jose Perez of CFFC 105.

I believe that's maybe Poland or Russia, but it aired on UFC Fight Pass. What happened? Damn. I think he got... That's pretty bad. Abdul of the Butcher got him with the fork in the turnbuckle there. Wow. That's what I was going to say.

It reminds me of the old wrestling magazines back in the day. You didn't see it live. You just saw saw a picture and the dude's face would be completely covered in blood can we teach people what it's like to grow up in the 80s how gnarly was it when you're like six years old it's 1984 and you walk into the corner store and the wrestling magazine's just filled with ridiculous i know man just savage blood on everybody i loved it i loved it and they would be next to the Fangorios and all those monster magazines. They were kind of in the same section. Were you a comic book guy, Chuck?

Not really. Not too much. I mean, I had some. I went through a little phase. You were cool. That's what that means. Eagle FC 44 in Miami. I talked about it. Now you can see it. Sergey Karatanov went full mount on Tyrone Spong. And then, Chuck, what do you call this?

A half crucifix here when he pins the arm down? This was great. Yeah. I mean, literally, this was just like watching, you know, somebody get mauled near their locker or something. You know, it was like one of those types of fights. Once it went to the ground, this was just almost brutal to watch. I'm like, unless he throws him in the subway tracks and lifts him back up,

this is not going to be nice. Spong had no plan B here. They even called him a polar bear beforehand, and that's what it looked like. That's what you get. If you ask for it, you get it. All right, little showmanship here between Ray Borg and Cody Gibson in the aforementioned fight. Look at this action.

Can we blow this up? Eagle FC bringing out the fireworks. Yeah. Little swipe the shoulder. You ain't touching me. Yeah, look at that. Yeah. You big Cody Gibson guy? He's okay, you know. I paid attention to him. He's good.

Alright. Chuck, who would you rather buy a used car from in this photo? Okay. Luke Rockhold and Pete Rose. Pete Rose. Yeah, win the effing game, says Pete. I mean, you know, the car won't start if you buy it from Pete, but there's going to be some stains on the cloth if you buy it from Rockhold, right?

That's a unique pairing right there. That's great. What the hell? They just had an event together or something? What is this? I don't know. Celebrities, they find each other, Chuck. Look at you and I hosting the show, right?

All right, Polish MMA time. You always got to be careful in Europe because any stare down, Chuck, can turn into fisticuffs instantly. Let's check this out. Oh, it's on. I love it. Look at the guards! Look at these ninjas, Chuck! What is going on? What is this?

Well, it is COVID season. All we need is Chael saying I need you to stay away from me, right? I love how the guy who got hit. Oh, Chuck. Oh, my Lord. That guy was holding back. Wow.

Wow. Still going on. It's like the palace is rolling. Yeah, we don't get stuff like this. No, we don't get enough of this. We're on live TV, folks. All right, Gus Johnson. Yeah, we don't get this in Strikeforce Nashville anymore.

Dude, this is great. That's mesmerizing. That guy just goes right into a stance. I love it. Let's go over apparently we had the best NFL playoffs back-to-back weeks we've ever seen. I didn't see any of it, okay? Great guy. Never watched it. But check out what happened here at Luke's favorite stadium as the

Eagles fans come down. Wow! I did see this, yes. Yes. Shout out to that player helping all the players up, all the fans up. Jalen Hurts. Yeah, Jalen Hurts. Damn, man.

This was, where was this at, Philly? I don't even know. It looks, the colors look like it's Washington. Oh, this is actually, was this in Washington? Because I feel like I saw Luke, because he's always humiliated, right, about everything that goes on in Washington, the football team. So I'm guessing that's where this was he's always humiliated, right, about everything that goes on in Washington, the football team.

So I'm guessing that's where this was. Well, you bite the stadium, it'll bite back. Let's go to the University of Kansas as the players exit the floor here, Chuck. You've got to protect yourself at all times. Oh, God. Damn. Oh, God. Is that at?

I like how a couple guys still ran into it as it was flapped. Look at this. Boom. And then boom. Fog Allen rolling over in his grave. That's not good right there. Oh, my Lord. Hey, Chuck, big week for small people.

Let's shout them out. Brock Lesnar picking up Wee Man of jackass fame and throwing him through a table at a restaurant. Your thoughts? Yeah. I mean, those jackass guys, they're everywhere man they're everywhere they were just at the they're at the ufc and the wrestle or whatever it was royal rumble right they're both things they'll shamelessly promote stuff there's no question about that and they'll do this kind of thing but that wasn't the biggest small person slam of the week let's go to midget mma chuck i don't know if we still call it that i didn't know this was a thing actually oh my god this looks like a capoza special here okay oh no oh god okay they're gonna they're

gonna cancel this show let's move on from that yeah all right hey chuck real recognized real this week as anderson silva joined boxer Robson Conceição in the gym in Brazil, leading up to Conceição's victory over Xavier Martinez in Saturday's ESPN main event. I'd take tips from this guy. Oh, yeah. Well, depending on the actual tip. I mean, he did

try to send me an indecent proposal that time. That's right. I assumed you meant the tips you're thinking yes yes yes so all right that's great hey it's time for the scorpion of the week let's go out to the slopes here tony danza look away if you're watching chuck this is why i don't ski all right oh no i mean did jfk jr have to die for us to keep watching this? Look at this. Oh, boy. Yeah. All right.

Yeah. Let's watch some child abuse. Ow! If we're going to go down this road, let's keep it going here. Chuck, you know, you got the outdoor pool, but in the winter, you got to stay away from it. It's dangerous. Look at this kid ice skating on his own pool in his slippers. Oh, my Lord. Yeah.

Spoiler alert, Chuck. It's going to go bad for him.. Oh my lord. Yeah. A spoiler alert, Chuck, it's gonna go bad for him. Oh my god. It's one of those spiral... I mean, if you're the dad and you're filming this, are you like, oh no, look, there's the dad. He's getting involved. Yeah, look at that.

Stupid ass. Oh boy. Damn. Alright, let's keep it going, Chuck. He's still struggling. He's still struggling as we cut him away. UFC 27 had a legendary knockout that didn't happen in the cage. Look at Don Fry mixing it up with a fan. The old cowboy

can still throw, Chuck. It's all this now? Alright, he's a legend. You don't want to mess with him. No. Probably had too much to drink. What is with people messing with these guys? Come on. Oh, wow.

Look at that. Right cross. Got him. A little doink. Got him. A little doink. Whew. Damn, dude.

I didn't see that. That's crazy. I didn't even notice it. That was the same day Don Fry spoke to media members and said he wants to fight in Ghanu. So I was like, all right. That's great. That's great. He's going to get a fight in one way

or another. All right. Hamzat Shumayev has switched camps, which now allows him, Chuck, to wrestle with Bellator welterweight champion Yaroslav Amasov. This is a nice little grappling pairing here. Yeah. They had other guys there, too. It was like a monster team, man. It was like five of the

I forget who all was there, but I saw the photo of them all posing. Yeah, look at that. I mean, that's how you get better, okay? You train with the best, all right? For real. That dude is a beast, man. We know that celebrities are going to hoop it up,

and it'll probably be awkward, and it'll probably end up on the show. So let's go to Fedor in Phoenix, Chuck. Look at this. They had to reinforce the backboard for the old Russian bear. Let's see, Chuck, rate his form, please. Okay. Well, I think it was in Phoenix that Shaquille O'Neal took down a backboard. I remember one time he dunked it and the whole thing came down.

That was the closest I've seen. That's the closest I've seen to one of them coming down. Did he call glass, Chuck? I don't know. That reminds me of the McGregor at Madison Square Garden. Were you there on that? And he shot this awkward shot. This was just like heaving it through the basket, which is crazy.

But these guys, man, I don't know. This sounds like a Danny Brenner stage set up here, you know? CJ Tuttle. They're like, let's put a ball in Fedor's hands, you know? That's like the move. That shot was completely without grace. I mean, there was no finesse whatsoever to that shot. Now, normally we make fun of MMA fighters trying to play basketball,

whether it be Conor McGregor or Habib or Habib's dad going shirtless and just punching people on the court. And, you know, that Dagestani style of basketball, which involves violence. Yeah. You know who can actually bowl? Cyril Ghosn. I'm trying to say Cyril like Shaquille majorie says it check this out no way going windmill is that regulation i mean it could be an eight foot hoop like in the movie above the

rim it's six or four holy shit man i heard he could ball i already could ball that's the first footage i've seen of it that's uh that's pretty impressive man that's that's not bad now chuck to close here you've heard about my liver problems, probably ad nauseum. I've got non-alcoholic fatty liver disease from years of, you know, eating out of gas stations and just, you know, not putting my health first. And now I'm, you know, a humbled guy trying to change that. Sure. But speaking of livers, are you down with the liver king on instagram uh no well liver king lives a very old school diet oh my god and here's him taking a bite out of uh an actual liver from a cow so this guy only eats raw meat and he walks all over like the migrant people used to carrying weight. And that's what he does for workouts. Luke thinks he's all over PEDs, Chuck. But just

your thought, what kind of cash value would it take for you to take a bite out of this? Dude, it wouldn't come cheap. 250 bucks? No, I'm kidding. Come on. I wouldn't do it. I'm with you on that. My dad used to always have that you know dilemma of would you eat crap for you know two million dollars you'd be like of course i would i'd be like well two standards in life there's a lot of money you know yeah um this guy liver king though he's jack that is that is that's really what they call him like what's what is this oh he refers to himself in third person as Liver King. Yeah. Okay.

I'll have to check this out, but that's pretty disgusting. There are members of the MK staff, given my liver history, that are hoping for like an interview guest spot type deal here with the real Liver King, you know? Yeah. I would watch that. All right. Well, that's the shit of the week, but we got a little bit more shit for you in the segment that we call Odds and Ends. Chuck, I'll go first here.

Okay. They've been waiting for our reaction, so why don't we give it to them? Jake Paul teased that he was putting out a diss track against UFC president Dana White, and boy, was it ambitious. Over three minutes of this music video, I believe we have a little cut to throw to, to react to this piece of art. Okay. We'll be right back. Allie and Lomang. Chillin'. McGregor, I ain't seen you win in five years. You rich little weirdo ugly ass veneers. Took so many losses, wound it up in VMAs. Trying to fight with MGK, no surprise here.

Lamborghini boat, but your career is sinking. Really got me wondering what D is thinking. I ain't even dissing, now I'm really speaking. Wound it up in jail too many times without a lick of drinking. Little D. Devlin shot right there. I like the inflection he's putting on his voice. It's, uh, I don't know. Chuck?

Um, he had an actor, a bald actor who was nowhere near the build of one Dana White. That's what's so funny. Playing Dana. And he's also like 20 years older than Dana White. Yeah, now Chuck, here's the deal. I have supported Jake's antics a lot because I think he's bringing to light things that need to. He's not backing down from Dana.

I thought he completely trolled Dana in that back and forth video thing they had. This is next level. I don't believe this is going to bring a response from Dana because I think this was a little bit too far over the lame left field fence. Like it was a little, you know, he went for it. And, you know, I agree and you know i agree with you i agree with you it's what the kids call a try hard you know it's like it's a little bit it's a little bit trying too hard man they've called me a try hard before in this show yeah yeah well i have tried pretty hard no wait i i somebody sent me this and i watched it uh on my phone days ago but like chris cyborg is at the beginning, right?

She's at the beginning of this. Antonio McKee also. And McKee, that's right. I knew there were a couple of cameos. Okay, that's pretty funny. I mean, so that's the point. The little skit they did was Cyborg sitting at the negotiation table with Dana White and them telling her, basically, she has no rights.

Sign it. This will be the best thing that ever happened to you. So he's exposing the right things. I just feel like he went so hard in that direction that the real dana is just going to be like whatever i agree with gibson whatever yeah just yes yeah okay i don't mind and he can keep doing i mean this was a little silly but like he can keep you know pounding that drum though i mean that's i feel like it's you're hitting dana in the weak spot when you talk business things like this and you keep raising the awareness that's the one spot he hates you know so i mean the only other time we've seen dana back down publicly was when

brendan shob pushed the eskimo brother thing and he was like last time right and then suddenly like i was like all right all right i'll step away from the yes there are some some roads in dana's world that are too low that are too low so you know you do get the john s nash types of guy i do respect despite having some back and forths with him that he's saying look it's all good but unless this guy's like becoming the bjorn rebney and trying to start the fighter union that he keeps talking about and by the way I do have a specific quote he was on ESPN's first take and Jake said uh I want to create a fighters union this is my goal to really impact the whole entire sport both MMA and boxing

and leave an everlasting stamp I just so happen to not be beholden to anybody a lot of these UFC fighters they're beholden to Dana they can't speak out against him so i'm using my platform i'm one of very few people who actually can i'll say whatever i'll speak the truth i'm doing what my responsibility is as a fighter and someone who cares about other fighters chuck i've argued that i don't necessarily believe that he like really cares i think this is just a strategic soapbox to stand on to try to make changes. Why? So he could get those fighters in the ring against him, like Masvidal, Conor, all those guys.

Do you agree with the John Ashes that say, it's cool that you're doing this, but unless you're like actually going to join hands and try to start something, meaning a, I guess a union, it really doesn't matter. How do you feel that statement? I basically agree with that. You know, I mean, we can, we can say that the intentions are pure. There might be an ounce of truth to that, but I, if you're going off of this guy, he's what,

24, 25 years old. He's very young, but he's mastered this, you know, like he's mastered the game he's playing already. And I feel like this is just part of that game, you know like he's mastered the game he's playing already and i feel like this is just part of that game you know what i mean so he's poking the bear in the right way um and he's getting if people want to they talk about they want to fight him man they want they want his money he's pulling in money that these guys aren't doing like it reminds me but on a bigger scale of ben askren when he came to the ufc and everything was the subplot you know what i mean like where it was him against dana he's doing it from afar man and it's uh he people you know i know that people blow him up on the side saying that it is refreshing that somebody's doing that so it's

interesting man but it's just his game it's his game it's a game look there are some robin hood elements as we mentioned and getting serrano paid and and you know pushing her to the forefront that hasn't been a horrible move uh oh the only, Chuck, it wasn't the worst fight combat diss track of the week. Remember I mentioned a couple weeks ago, fans, that Myrus Bredis, the best cruiserweight fighter in the world today, he's got one of the belts. He's only lost with Alexander Usyk in a thriller. This guy's legit. He won't stop calling out Jake Paul and now he

also has a diss track video. Let's throw to it. Yeah. I mean, who's doing it? And I'm gonna prove that. You know, that's the beautiful thing about this is I'm gonna become a world champion because everyone said I couldn't and that I wasn't

a real boxer hey jake have a butter real man's fight i will put my belts on table do you want to take a bite fight looks like you're scared you little bitch boy kid pick up the phone and put down your toys looks like you have a little monkey balls only hanging around with the porn hot dolls oh i'm sorry i guess that was your girl. She's trying to find a nuts like a little squirrel. I promise I will shut your dirty little mouth. I play with you one round and I knock you out. I will show the world that your fights was set up. I punch you so hard that you won't be able to get up.

Just don't get up. Jake, just don't get up. Hey, Jake, just don't get up. I punch you so hard you won't be able to get up. Jake, just don't get up. Hey, Jake, just don't get up. I bite you so hard. You won't be able to get up. So wait, did he rhyme get up with get up? Yeah, he did. And he talked about his little monkey balls. Chuck? Also, two syllables for the word world.'s impressive well he's from latvia so he's i get it you know he did this in english let's give him credit but chuck i will give him

credit he also got the tattoo that we railed on him for that had the same image of that t-shirt he was wearing that says what jake's bad luck or something or bad karma what the i mean what the hell are you doing like like this is so misguided this attempt there's no chance Jake Paul is going to fight a legitimate champion in his own weight class who has no marketable footprint globally in terms of

like drawing you know what I mean shoot your shot BC like Chuck Jake saying he'll fight Canelo is basically him saying I know i'm gonna get killed but sure it'll be a massive event i'll make history i i persuaded the number one boxer in the world in his prime to to accept me as a as a legitimate opponent that's what that says right whether you clown on it or not i think it's a horrible idea for jake to ever consider a canelo

fight but you know what's ten times more horrible? Him fighting Myrus Brightus under any circumstance. Come on! It's not going to happen, man. What are we doing here? Underwater Lopez. You're not going to get on his nerves and change his mind by agitating.

I mean, come on. You guys are the master of that. Chuck, what do you got in your monkey balls for odds and ends today? You know what, man? So we were watching the Royal Rumble, and Lashley went against Brock Lesnar. And afterwards, I think this is a little bit interesting, right? Because both guys did have spells in MMA. Obviously, Brock Lesnar's more decorated.

But afterward, Bobby Lashley was asked about that, how he compared to Brock Lesnar as an MMA fighter. Did you see that basically Lashley was saying that he's better than Brock Lesnar? And he thinks that he's actually better than him. I just thought that that was really interesting. And it actually brings up kind of a, you know, a thing that you, a point of contention. I'm like, because he was mentioning basically, he said that without disrespecting him, he's capable, he has far more skill, skill-wise, that he's taught boxing, jiu-jitsu at his gym. He was fighting in Strikeforce, obviously, he had some pro fights in Bellator. He's just pointing this out.

Now, I'm asking you, DC, like, if you had to talk about this, if you had to say who has more skills, because I know who has a more decorated, who has the more decorated MMA career. I was going to say, is this a drug tested fight or not? Because that, well, that doesn't matter. I mean, Lashley's 45 and he's yoked up, dude. He's like, he is. Yeah. All right.

Let's say this happens, obviously, outside of the UFC, so there's probably not strict drug testing protocol. You know, it's actually an interesting matchup. I'd actually be down for it. So here's my question on how this could transition from a WWE angle, and a few fans have wanted for a long time, to be fair, because of their backgrounds, to an actual fight. How long does the UFC hold some type of first rights to Brock Lesnar?

Because GSP still can't. He can't celebrity box right now because he's waiting out that period. It's the same period that Francis Ngannou is, right? The five-year period. How much longer would it be? Because Brock Lesnar has one of these names where whatever promotion, whether it's Habib or

Bellator or anybody, if they can pull something like this off, you're going to watch it, dude. You're going to watch it. 100%. And even in the lead-up, even though it was a pro wrestling event, Bobby Lashley was saying, like, I think he was talking to Corey Graves, the dude who's living there, but he was mentioning that he had no soul.

Did you see all this stuff? He was like, he has no soul. It's just that sort of thing. I was like, man, it actually kind of has you fantasizing about if they ever did actually fight. That's the kind of thing, like a novelty type fight that I would be totally down to watch. You know what I mean? Absolutely. Just given that, like you said, as long as there's no commission standing over them saying

you can't, you know, do whatever they're going to do. Do I want Brock Lesnar to cut the line and like he almost did to fight Daniel Cormier for the title? No. Do I want Brock? I mean, you know, what's the what's the number one thing you would accept from the UFC? Would you accept the UFC bringing in Brock to to debut Jon Jones at Heavyweight? I think we'd clown it, but we'd accept it.

But, like, I really only want to see Brock in potential, like, circus fights, right? Sure. Like, you know, it makes—he's sort of that guy. That would be fun. I mean, he went legitimate. Yeah. He was absolutely legit for 2008 and 2009 level heavyweight MMA. So, just in the credentials, obviously Brock Lesnar,

his list of guys he's beat, Shane Carwin, Frank Mir, Avenged That Fight, Randy Couture, and Heath Herring. Those are pretty good names. It's not bad. It's not bad at all. And Carwin, especially where he got just blasted in the first round and was able to do it. So he actually showed some ability to take a shot, even though I think that that was his biggest downfall, is he didn't like being punched, right?

Like he's in the MMA game, but he doesn't like getting punched. Lashley's biggest, now this is a whole different setup, obviously, but if you're going off of the resumes, he avenged a loss against James Thompson. Yes. The Colossus, okay? Yeah, it's like a 2017 record. Josh Eppelt, who's I think his last thing that we saw him was on the Dana White Contender Series, 15-7 overall record.

He beat Jason Guida, you know, that Geico caveman that hits Clay Guida before his fights. And Wes Sims, you know, those are his best victories. He beat Bob Sapp, okay? Yeah, okay. Nobody does that, Chuck. Nobody does that. Yeah, I'd see that. I thought it was perfect for the odds and ends because it actually piques your curiosity

as to what would actually happen in a fight between those guys. I mean, Jake Hager's also in that category. Yeah, that's true. Full-time pro wrestler who's had some fights on the side with Bellator. You can make some fun fights with these guys against one another. It's interesting. All right. Chuck, that's the show for this week.

And thank you for going two hard hours with us. I love it, man. I love it. Two hard men just going after it. A reminder, morningcombat.store is our merch home. And that 15% deal that I said on the top for all hoodies, including drug rugs and the new lines, that extends all week look at the hoodie that Chuck

is wearing right there we want you to use our promo code at morningcombat.store hoodie15 that's H-O-O-D-I-E 15 for 15% off hoodies we've got so much great stuff from mugs to the new sun and fist

lineup to I mean we just got this merch it's just it's coming out of our ear holes check it out morningcombat.store also a reminder at youtube.com slash morning combat tomorrow tuesday documentary number six best in show brought to you by the great jake roseman hits and i want to tell you chuck you haven't watched these docs but luke has a long history of no selling of not showing up to his to his in you know confessional interview times to just being like i don't care he bought in on this doc okay and him and his wife loved it so much that was a part of text messages where jake's where he's pushing jake the documentarian to like hurry up and finish really luke so this has nothing excites that guy i can't wait to see this yeah this has the potential to be our best one i mean

okay we'll see we'll see where it drops tomorrow rankings that is that drops tomorrow all right chuck we just flashed your social handles i always want to give you a chance to plug some stuff your website what is it officially the myth.com i need to start writing on it handles i always want to give you a chance to plug some stuff your website what is it officially the myth.com i need to start writing on it more i'm going to start writing in it more but it's the myth.com mith yep i'm there all the time and uh yep yep and do you currently you have one podcast currently correct i currently have one podcast yes it's uh the m it's the ringer mma show and it's the spotify green room and then it's later released as a podcast so every thursday well it's kind of after every big event

on saturday nights we go head to head with luke i guess in that sense um but also just regular fight weeks we do a thursday pre-show and then a saturday late night show okay yeah now if luke perishes on the plane home that's an awful thing to say out loud. Yes. We're going to need you Chuck. All right. We're going to need you. I'll be here, man. If he perishes. Yeah. I'll be here. Okay. All right. Thank you. I don't know if anyone's looking forward to that. That's an awful thing to say out loud. We wish you well. We love you. Come back safely. Chuck, thank you so much for joining us this week. Thank you, guys. Showtime.com, 30-day free trial. You get championship boxing.

You get a lot of great stuff. Or you get Boy B.C. calling some boxing matches. February 18th, check that out in Orlando on Showtime. Chuck, do you like 70s neo-noir thrillers, or is it just me? Didn't you ask me this last time? I need to check out more of them, I think. Okay. I mean, you're a big taxi driver guy. I do that scarface godfather one and two all the all the hits but

uh i like to go a little bit deeper down the pacino and denaro imdb and you find some find some interesting ones you know like what serpico like justice for all i mean all right anytime pacino's playing a a straight cop in a crooked environment or he's playing you know like a lawyer a straight lawyer in a crooked environment it's going to be a winner okay it's going to be gritty and i watched the gambler with james james khan by the way chuck james khan is awesome james khan is everything i want to be prime james khan not misery he was great in misery but, but not Misery James Caan I'm talking about like James Caan as Sonny

In Godfather 1 obviously Is who I want to be when I grow up But you know James Caan in Thief In The Gambler You gotta watch this It'll probably make you more of a fan He was good in Misery though He was great in Misery

Don't sugar coat it They broke that ankle You remember the ending? He was good in Misery, though. He was great in Misery. Don't sugarcoat it. Yeah. I mean, he took, yeah. They broke that ankle. You remember the ending, that final fight scene in Misery? I mean, that's intense. I want to see that one again. That was a good one.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was a good one. Maybe we'll get together and watch it on the couch. That would be great. Shirtless. That would be wonderful. Chuck, we're big fans of you. Connecticut is your home for now. Are you ever going to live in Colorado again?

Never say never, man. But, you know, when you have kids and they're in school and everything, it's too hard to move. I would move back there, man, but so much is geared toward the East Coast. So it's easier, more convenient to be East Coast. Do you have love for CU football? I do. And, hey, your guy, our guy, the wide receiver coach, right?

Like he just took the job. Yeah, man. Phil McColgan. Phil McKeegan. I'm sorry. Love that dude. Love me some Phil McKeegan. Luke and I got a chance to hang out with him in Tampa.

He spoiled us rotten. We all in big time. Really? What a great guy. I've never met him in person, man. But he's an awesome guy and he's a big time MMA fan. Oh, I love it. And he's a big time morning combat fan.

I see him tweeting about that all the time. Absolutely. He's been an NFL coach a few different stops. You may have seen him on the Hard Knocks show, lighting people up. He's now working with the University of Colorado. Hopefully he could go in there and hear some great stories about Brendan Schaub's days there as a

fullback and throwing people through doors and stuff. It's fantastic. For Chuck Mindenhall, my name is Brian Campbell. This has been a great ride. Shout out to Gaff Pierre on the ones and twos and our great companies behind us. Enjoy yourselves, guys. Winter depression is real. So let's take it seriously. Let's get through this together. Tomorrow's a brighter day. Spring follows winter. Yes, even this year, Chuck. Okay. Amen. That's my self-help thought of the day. We're in this together. And Chuck, we got two words for the people.

You want to hit it? Sure. Yeah. What? What? What are they? What are they? That's three.

We out. We out. That's it. Done. Bonito.