MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Bellator 293 | 2023 PFL 1 | Joshua-Franklin | Gamebred Boxing 4 | Over/Under | Ep 424

Episode Date: March 29, 2023

On episode 424 of Morning Kombat Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell have a packed preview show for you. The guys preview Bellator 293, Anthony Joshua vs. Jermaine Franklin, Gamebred Boxing 4 and much more. Next up the guys play a little over/under with the latest news and close out the show with Fan submissions. (9:00) - Bellator 293 (38:00) - 2023 PFL 1 (53:00) - Weekend Boxing Preview (74:00) - Over/Under (91:00) - Fan Submissions Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher 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

You hear that? Ugh, paid. And done. That's the sound of bills being paid on time. But with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card, paying your bills could sound like this. Yes! Earn rewards for paying your bill in full and on time each month.

Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Reveille, reveille, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell.

This is Morning Combat. Hey, it's the 29th of March. Can you believe it? We're almost done with March. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. capital of the status of needles right here in Washington, D.C., joined by a man with some fresh, clean gear on. It's my friend and yours, Brian Campbell. Hi, Brian Campbell. Shout out, Luke. Shout out to you. Shout out to the great people at Contenders Clothing for this badass Rocky Tour shirt, which has every fight he ever had on film.

Show them the back real quick. Show them the back real quick. So it's got every date, literally, in every place from every major Rocky fight on the back like it's a boxing world tour how cool is that including the the street fight with tommy gunn and rocky five that may or may not have ever happened but shout out to my boy chris jay out there and the great folks at contenders uh i'm fired up for that always wearing my mk merch always ready to go luke we're an hour late today but it's still the same great show

hosted by the same great washed dads great great's a strong word i'd say average dads yeah yeah yeah we're trying we're working on it all right we're yeah pathetic dads is a good way to put it too adequate dads maybe maybe but we'll see something like that uh well we got a lot to do today we have let's see there's a bellator card on friday there's a pfl card this weekend there's a bunch of stuff go boxing this weekend there's a bunch of stuff happening so we're going to get you ready for that we're going to do a little over under and then some fan subs so thumbs up with the video if you're watching hit subscribe if you're new here and uh yeah you can follow us on all the socials you can see them all down there it's good good stuff. I want to remind everyone, Showtime is the label that pays.

You can get Showtime.com. 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can bounce. It'll get you Friday's Bellator. BC, when is the next Showbox? The next Showbox is Friday, April 7, 2023 from Baker, California. But I'll be on the old vacay, Luke.

You know how much I love missing opportunities. You never know, when, when, uh, Luke Garrick's walking through that door. You know what I'm saying? I mean, he won't be walking much anymore, but I was talking about, here we go. I mean, I mean, it's not like I made FDR jokes with soccer. I mean, that'd be a little insensitive all these years later, but, uh, but yeah, that was just, you know, the highest form of humor is that's an old Dennis Larry joke, Luke, which probably means know, the highest form of humor is. That's an old Dennis Larry joke, Luke, which probably means it's an old Bill Hicks joke. So, you know, I'm just a, I'm just Steve for Southern. Bill Hicks was good.

Bill Hicks was good. That's the difference. Larry had some good ones too. All right. Remind you on that. Hey, vote for us. We're a pretty good combat sports podcaster. So we tell people and you can vote for us. If you agree, there's the QR code on the screen.

If you're watching on YouTube, put your phone up there. You can go vote. Or if you're listening on the podcasts, you can go to sports podcast group.com. Vote for us. Best combat sports podcast. And in the immortal words of P Diddy Luke, vote or die. That's your only options. Vote or just die.

And I was like, did he? I'd rather just die um that's the deal so do you think if we died that diddy would attempt to capitalize on it like he did big by making uh making like new tracks and new podcasts just with our visage on them yeah forcing sting to get out there at the vmas you. You know what I mean? Would they put our hologram up at Coachella, do you think? I hope so. I hope so, yeah. There you go.

Have you shadowboxing? That'd be some of the best, right? Wouldn't it? All right, BC. We have a lot to get to today. I don't think we have anything else to set up here. So if you're ready, we can get this party started. I want to sell more merch at morningcombat.store.

If you want to wear this fantastic dad hat right here or bomber jackets galore, whatever you want to put on your body, we probably sell it at morningcombat.store if you want to wear this fantastic dad hat right here or you know bomber jackets galore whatever you want to put on your body we probably sell it at morning combat.store um it's high quality that's why the prices reflect that okay uh will rj bumble bragger uh potentially rub your your your clothes on his genitals before mailing it out that's the type of risk you have to take for this show and i think it's worth it to be very fair with you you know what i mean yeah yeah hey you want your clothes tea bag first buy some for morning combat there it is there it is boy hey could you be redder today i've what were you drinking last night what's wrong with you no no no you know any any morning i can wake up and you know it's like you want your coffee nope i, I'll take the Country Time Pink Lemonade.

I'll take that skin tone today. Thank you very much. I don't get how my body works, Luke. I'm probably dying, but it's cool. You look like a hot dog at Piggly Wiggly. I mean, just the worst human on Earth. Ever go to Jamaica and they got the buffet and they have those bright red extra large hot dogs that look absolutely disgusting? You know what I'm talking about?

Like bright red, Luke. I've never been to a resort in Jamaica. Let me assure assure you never know i've been to many yeah many many times yeah did you go did you go off resort i did and then there was a man with a machete who forced me to go back on resort though that's a great story from 2003 if you have time luke okay thank you yeah did i ever tell you about the time I went to Home Depot to go buy a machete? No. Boy, they didn't like that at all. Because of your intimidating size or the scowl that you carried on your face the whole time?

Could have been the scowl, but I don't think it was that. I think it was the mere request. So I needed to clear my brush and I grew at that part of my life where I was doing that kind of thing. I grew up in South Georgia where you just had to have a machete to clear the brush.

And the house I had purchased at the time was like, hadn't been, uh, it hadn't been used in a long time. So we had to really go through and like hack stuff out. And so I go to the local home Depot and I'm like, Hey man, I can't find your,

uh, your machetes anywhere. Like what, on what aisle are they? And he was like, sir, I don't know if you know what you're talking about. This is a Depot. We don't sell that kind of thing you know what you're talking about this is a home depot we don't sell

that kind of thing here what are you talking about he was like yeah that i was asking and i'm like look man i'm just trying to clear some fucking brush he's like go somewhere else to get those kinds of things that was uh all right off to the army navy store i go there you go they had plenty i'll just shoot all the weeds down. That should work. There you go. Yeah. He didn't, he couldn't believe I was asking for a machete. I was like, yeah, I need a thing that cleans my yard. Why would I need, why would I bet you if you told him you were a veteran, he would have

helped you. People would have been less hostile. No, he would not have been more customer service friendly, but he, he wouldn't have been as indignant as he was. He was like shocked like i went into a church and i was like you guys got any whores here like oh you mean i didn't think i didn't think it was like that out of place to ask for one but uh i guess it was i guess it was oh did bc freeze is that why hey nice computer bc glad you're here really good just a big

contributor you know what i'm saying? Really happy with that. All right. Well, we're going to wait for BC, and then we're going to get this party started. As I mentioned, we have Bellator 293. That'll be on Friday. And then we also have PFL 1 2023 regular season. That, of course, is going to be, let's see, that is, what is the date on that? That is going to be the 1st of April. So that'll be Saturday.

And then I believe we also have some boxing we're going to get to here a little bit later because Anthony Joshua is back in town. Also, by the way, something we haven't talked a whole lot about, just a little bit with the announcement, the GameBread Boxing 4 card. We're going to talk about it a little bit later with Anthony Pettis boxing Roy Jones Jr. Also, Vitor Belfort, Jacques Array, Jose Aldo, Jeremy Stevens, which is a fun, weird one. Pearl Gonzalez, Gina Mazzani, Anthony Taylor, and Paul Daly. You guys know the gist there. All right.

Where are we on BC? We're still waiting on him? Yeah? Going to give that the old college try? All right. They want me to start Bellator. All right. Let's sort of get this going here.

We'll wait for BC to join. He's rejoining now as i'm as i'm being told all right bellator 293 this will be headlined by marcello gulm taking on daniel james i'll pull the ranking up here in just a minute again this will be at the pachanga resort and casino in temecula california friday the 31st of march on showtime marcello gullem taking on daniel james daniel james comes into this contest sort of having made a big impression over tyrell fortune in his last contest at bellator 288 he stopped him with elbows in the second round marcelo gom comes to this position sort of in a relatively similar kind of way too he hasn't lost sense all the way back at UFC and ESPN 7 uh ESPN plus 7 to Sergei Pavlovich he has since gone on a let's see one two three four fight win streak most recently against Davian Franklin at Bellator

283 uh he won that by finish so these guys have moved up in the rankings a fair bit it's interesting that's the main event I actually would have thought that Kat Zingano having a bit more of a, I'll say a name recognition value probably is going to be the highest of anyone in the main or the co-main. So of the four fighters, she's going to be probably have the highest name recognition value. Kat Zingano taking on Leah McCourt at 145 pounds. We'll talk about that in just a second. I bring this up to say it's not really a Bellator call. It's Bellator. It's one.

It's UFC. UFC does this just as much or certainly quite frequently, putting heavyweight fights in main event roles when it's clear that everyone definitely wants to see heavyweights. I don't think that's really in question. The American and general fight fan appetite for them is pretty big. It's just I would have thought Kat Zingano would have got that main event role, personally speaking, although there are questions about that as well because heading

into this contest on the day of the fight she's going to be ready for this 40 years of age eight months four weeks and two days uh she is going to be one of the older competitors i think in all of bellator if i'm not mistaken um all right, so BC is apparently having internet issues. He's restarting now. I guess we'll get things going with him in just a minute here. All right, Marcelo Gomes taking on Daniel James. Let me pull up the odds here, if we can, for just a second. I'm going to imagine Daniel James, well, I don't know,

because he doesn't have quite the record that Gomes does. But I'd be curious to see how they have it here. So let's see as we wait for old BC here and my computer decides to cooperate. Yes, it does. All right. So, yeah, they've got Gohm as a slight favorite. A slight favorite in most places. About minus 160 to James' plus 130.

If you actually look up the Bellator rankings, I will tell you where they sit. Here we go. So for the men's heavyweight division, you've got Gomes sitting at five, and you've got, wow, I think Daniel James sitting at, I believe, seven. Sitting at seven.

So it's five versus seven. We're roughly in that spot. It's a top 10 contest. You got Daniel James, sort of a big guy, a lot older, big power, probably not as well rounded, but from a physical standpoint, he's tall, he's like 6'6". He can make the heavyweight limit, obviously, a he's pushing the upper end of it golem has fought better competition and i think is more well-rounded and it's certainly been to uh some of the bigger cards bigger events bigger organizations in the sport although in many cases felt themselves wanting i think is more well-rounded a better

wrestler between the two in this one it looks to me like I just don't really buy the idea that Gomes is going to strike for long periods of time with Daniel James I don't think he really can I think the power punching is too much I think you know even trying to hurt that guy is probably going to be real difficult. The question there is going to be, can Golem get him off of his feet? Can he put him on his back and hold him there or pound him out from there? So to me, it's like the longer this one goes on the feet, the more it probably spells doom or at least really reduces the chances of Golem winning. James is a huge guy. Let me pull up his stats here if I can for just a second.

All right, BC is rejoining. We're going to get him situated here in just a minute. But for Daniel James with a record of 14-6, so he's 41. That's old. 6-6. Big dude. Huge guy. And against Tyrell Fortune, dude, he was just absolutely on fire. Way too big. He does have

wins from long ago against Daniel Malanchuk and then Ruslan Megamedov. These were in LFA. And then some from a long time ago. Obviously, prior to competing in 2022. Yeah, he followed up in 2021 and 2020, but he didn't get to Bellator until the last contest, which was supposed to be against Davian Franklin,

and that one fell through. And then, of course, they made it against Tyrell Fortune. So really, it's not super complicated of a matchup. There's not a ton of really heavy stakes involved that I can tell. Ranking position. Obviously a title picture is kind of sort of hovering around there. Everyone wants a shot at

Ryan Bader. Currently Linton Vassell I think is going to be the guy to get it. So it's not like this one the winner of this automatically gets a title shot. In front of them still would be Moldavsky who I realize is coming off the loss. But then there's Steve Mowry who's undefeated in front of him so or at least undefeated certainly than Bellator and so that that this is kind of like either you're going to get the Steve Mowry fight out of this or you're just going to wait and have to get some other kind of about subsequent

to this one before you get a title shot beyond that not a whole lot really to say about that contest to me the much more interesting one here is Kat Zingano taking on Leah McCourt. I find that one to be much more significant in a lot of different directions, right? So let's get to it here. As I mentioned, Kat Zingano, nearly, nearly 41 years of age. She's been competing for a long time. Record of 13 and 4. She made her pro debut all the way back in 2008 she obviously

made her UFC debut she fought in Invicta against Raquel Pennington winning that one then she fought against Misha Tate on the Ultimate Fighter finale back in 2013 2013 Kat Zingano won that contest nearly 10 years ago was when she made her UFC debut ridiculous right she was 33 at the time and then she had that win over Amanda Nunes which folks kind of forget about she snuffed her out inside of the third round that was amazing but then the Ronda Rousey lost happened and she never really recovered losing to Giuliana Pena, Ketlyn Vieira, beating Marion Reneau, losing to Megan Anderson and then off to Bellator she went and she's had three wins since then against Gabrielle Holloway, Olivia Parker and then Pam Sorensen. Now the win against Parker was great the win against Holloway I did not think that was all that great.

That was a bit of a rough showing for her Bellator debut. But against Pam Sorensen, she looked better in her last contest. I think as good as she's looked, relatively speaking, in some time. Just the reality at 41, you just don't know what's left for her. I'm going to guess, looking at the rankings here for the Bellator 145-pound division, I cannot imagine for women that's a very difficult division which to earn a title shot just given how relatively thin it is kad zingano is already the number one contender there so she's basically fighting to hold her place mccourt is let's see

mccourt is sitting at four so mccourt could arguably jump the spot because between her and Zingano is Sinead Cavanaugh and Arlene Blenko Blenko's had a couple shots at the title I don't think they're really all that eager to give her another one um McCourt I think this would be her first if she got it and for Zingano obviously that's the one with the bigger name value Kat Zingano taking on Chris Cyborg if they could ever do that. Okay, still working on some stuff here with BC. We'll get him situated when we can, but let's talk a little bit more about the situation here with Kat Zingano. So, Liam McCourt, going back to the odds, if I can, for just a second. So, they have this one with Zingano as a pretty substantial favorite everywhere

I'm looking. In most places, places minus 400 as high as minus 500 I think that's right I mean the big question here is and again looking at the swords and fight I think this would tell you that this is going to be a case where I think her wrestling is going to have to be the name of the game she already trains with some with some good people including Justin Flores who I've talked about endlessly that was Ronda Rousey's judo coach he was a decorated competitor himself he was a coach of the USA judo team, and he has been her coach. And you could see her training with him a lot,

working on takedowns from the clinch, a lot of throws, chaining things together, creating advantageous positions on the ground. To me, it's like, dude, if you're 41 years old, yes, you're competing in a, relatively speaking, a very thin division. But even with that, this has got to be it. Like any attempt at a belt or, frankly, even a major weight class title for Kat Zingano,

it seems like this Friday is really now or never. Now, one truly never knows that. What if McCourt wins and it's controversial and they want to book a rematch and she can get it off? That, again, she's already sitting in that position anyway. The question is, what are they going to do with it so to me the the real issue here is going to be whether or not Leah McCourt can stuff the takedown I think if she can even then I think Kat Zingano's probably got a few more tricks on the feet I just think she's been a lot more hesitant to throw as of late again we don't have really a lot of numbers let me pull up up her numbers from Fight Metric. That won't tell you everything, but it will give us a little bit of

help. Let's see here. What were her UFC numbers like in terms of strikes? So again, a lot is going to be aided by ground and pound. So strikes landed per minute, 2.517. Strikes absorbed for Kat Zagano through her UFC run, 1.63. That's low output on the offensive end and low output, or I should say low damage on the absorption end. So she has not taken a lot of abuse. She just doesn't dish it out. The big difference is there for 15 minutes. Again, during her UFC run, 2.77 takedowns per 15 minutes.

So she's almost good for one a round. I think that's what you're going to see. It's only a three-round co-main event. This, to me, looks like they're doing, doing i think bellator is making the right call here which is i would have thought this would go on the main event roll but that aside that aside they're putting zingano with the limited time she has and her already like established position they're putting her in one more fight but i think partly to get her ready, but also to put her in a more easy position to get that title shot, which I think is fine. She's fighting the number four contender. It's a thin division. When I say easy, again, we're all talking about,

relatively speaking, what's going on here. So it's really going to be wrestle or not, right? I mean, that's really what it's going to come down to. Can she wrestle this through? Can she not? If that really doesn't happen, I'm just not sure what to say. And I think if Leah McCourt gets it, that's going to be good for Bellator in a different way. Leah McCourt obviously comes to this contest with a 7-2 record. She's 30 years of age. She is coming off of a win over Diana Silva.

It was not super inspiring. She had the loss to Sinead O'Connor. Also not... No loss would be inspiring per se, but not the kind of loss where you're like, wow, okay, didn't get her hand raised, but she can definitely make some noise at the top of this division. I didn't necessarily get that

impression from watching it personally speaking. Obviously, she's from the UK. She was born in Northern Ireland. She trains out of SBG Charleston. We'll see, Charlestown. She's British, obviously. So we'll see how this goes. Well, the UK, I should say. Um, but you know, uh, she represents the UK. Uh, so we'll see how it goes. Um, I think she is British actually. I could be making up something here. But anyway, Kazangano's fight to win or lose, basically.

And if she doesn't win and it's a clean loss, I think that's really going to be probably it for any kind of major aspirations for what you want to do. The clock is, I mean, the sands are going through the hourglass here. Anytime you're dealing with any division sub 185 pounds and someone's pushing above 35, that's a red flag. And then even in heavyweight, when someone gets 40 or over, you're like, okay, how much time is really left?

I think Zingano has done something pretty miraculous in extending her career as long as she has. So credit to her for that. But it's been difficult. It's been difficult. All right. Also on this card, John Salter, a good middleweight name, is back against Aaron Jeffrey.

How about Rustam Habilov taking on Jaleel Willis? Jaleel Willis, a great guy out of, I think a champion out of LFA for a time and was supposed to make a big impact when he came over to Bellator. Hasn't exactly worked out that way. So he fought Mukamed Berkomov. He loses that one via guillotine choke. Actually So he fought Mukamed Berkomov. He loses that one via guillotine choke. Actually, he fought, excuse me, he fought a couple of bouts before that and they went okay. He decisioned them. Then he, but it wasn't like against super difficult

competition. Then he fought Mukamed Berkomov, who I think just lost to Lorenz Larkin. And he gets finished in the first round. Then he fights Sabaho Masi and he gets finished in the first round. And he has a big rally against Kyle Krutchmer, who's a really good wrestler himself. So he's got a three and two Bellator record. He came to us from LFA. We knew he was really good, good wrestler, takes his time, doesn't rush into stuff, just hasn't quite rolled into that surging contender. I think some of us had thought he might. And he takes on former UFC, or I should say UFC veteran anyway, Rustam Habilov, who sits at a record of 24 and four. Now he's been very active on the UFC side of things

up until he simply was not. He fought last in 2019 and was supposed to fight Koreshkov on a canceled bout in Bellator. That didn't work. And so this is his first fight since 2019. Four years later, basically. Not quite.

Three and a half. He fights now Jaleel Willis. Currently, Rustam Habilov sits at 36 years of age. The guy was 32, 33-ish when he stopped. We all know the drill with him. He can basically do a lot of different stuff. He will probably choose to strike from the outside. You might see him work offensive with takedowns, depending on how Willis is willing

to stuff them. He got a little bit run over in some other areas in terms of the defense of them, and then submissions coming out on the other end. But this is going to be a weird one. It's a question of what does H habilov have left versus where is willis really going here it's just kind of hard to tell with this one in the i think 170 pound weight class so that's going to be a really fun one and a really interesting one as well sullivan cauley who's undefeated i think trains out of arizona with ryan bader and those guys phenomenal ground of pounds on this car taking on lu Luke Treanor. Adam Piccolotti, great black belt and former collegiate wrestler

out of AKA, or used to be with AKA, I'm not sure. I think he's with CSA now. Taking on Rat Garbage, who's back. Mandel Nalo, that should be a fun one. Pam Sorensen's on this card. But the one I wanted to talk about, folks, we're going to try and do this more often now. I'm going to see if I can bring it in here. Let's see if I can. I believe I

can. Yes, I can. So the one I wanted to talk about was a much more interesting name on this card. Actually, if you could, Mikey, just put me up real quickly before we throw to the picture here. I want to talk about Joey Davis. Have you guys heard of Joey Davis? If you're a wrestling fan, like real wrestling, you would know the answer to this question. If you don't, I don't really know what there is to say. He's now still just 29 years of age, goes by the nickname of Black Ice, which is a fucking great nickname, by the way. Undefeated in MMA, currently sitting at 8-0. Undefeated in collegiate wrestling, went 133-0. He is a four-time national champion out of Division II. I believe there were some other two national champions. I think two other ones.

Joey Davis is the only one that's undefeated. So he's the only undefeated Division II wrestling champion in history. So there have been guys who have won four national titles. There have been guys who won four national titles in D1. There have been people who have done Division I national title undefeated. That would, of course, be Kale Sanderson. He has done the equivalent Division II. Now, there's a lot of Europeans who might ask, what's the difference between Division I and Division II? And the answer is it's really not so clear. It's clear in things like American football, right? In American football, if you play for an elite division one program,

so Alabama, Georgia, LSU, something like that, right? Somewhere in there, in that range. Then if you're the starting, let's say, wide receiver for Alabama, the chances that you're going to be better than the starting wide receiver for Alabama, the chances that you're going to be better than the starting wide receiver on some other team nearby that's in a division two program, the chances you're going to be better are like extraordinarily high. It's not quite the same in wrestling where the differences between division one and division two and division three aren't as

pronounced with some exception. Obviously, again, if you go to Penn state, but you're asking what the difference is, it's a different set of opponents. Obviously, again, if you go to Penn State, but you're asking what the difference is, it's a different set of opponents. They have different recruiting dollars, the colleges. They compete against, again, relatively speaking, relatively speaking, somewhat softer or easier competition. They, the competition, you know, there is some interaction, by the way, between Division II and Division I

throughout the course of the four years, sometimes in separate tournaments, unrelated to the actual scholastic program. But the basic idea is that the schools are sometimes smaller, the programs are smaller, the amount of, I should say, the amount of dollars per program is a little bit smaller. And so in conjunction with that, the opponents aren't quite as difficult. The titles are not quite as meaningful. But I want to point out something.

You can get guys who, of course, George St-Pierre never wrestled at all and did quite well. Also, you can get guys who wrestled Division III or Division II, and they can beat Division I guys. Hello, Kamaru Usman, a standout Division II wrestler. Look at what he was able to do against Division I national guys. So when we ask what's the difference between Division I and Division II, the answer on paper is a little bit easier to tell you.

The answer in real life is a little bit harder. Could Joey Davis have competed really well against Division I guys? There's not a doubt in my mind. Would he have gone undefeated? Probably not. Probably not. Would he have won a national title? Also hard to say.

Is he of the caliber of elite Division I guys? I would say that he is, yes, very much so. He was recruited to go play football division one and he didn't want to, he actually wanted to wrestle. And so he did that instead. Okay. He has been off for three years. So actually two and a half years, inexplicable guys on paper and on tape, he just looks like the genuine article in every way. Great wrestling background. Just the kind of right athleticism for the sport.

Already has a lot of the folk style tricks that translate over to MMA, which he uses for ground and pound. He uses all of it. So with that in mind, Mikey, why don't we throw this up here if we can, and let's take a look at this preview I want to set up for you. Here's Joey Davis. Now listen, in MMA, in Bellator, he's fought guys by the name of Jeff Peterson, Chris Cisneros, and Bobby League. Names you're really

not going to be familiar with. He's not beating elite competition, but he already has, in my mind, elite skills. Let's take a look at it. I believe this is the Peterson fight. Yes, this one ends very quickly. Let's sort of go here what you're going to see. So obviously this is Joey Davis and this is Peterson, right? So Joey Davis, nickname Black Ice. You can see it on his trunks here, which I really like. That's kind of cool, right? Black Ice. All right. Neither here nor there. So let's pay attention to this. So what you're going to see is, excuse me, Peter, one more time. Peterson is going to pressure into Joey Davis and Davis is going to pull him into a trap and then send him to the land of wind and ghosts

so here's Davis L stepping he's going to come around and watch my man here just watch Peterson watch how heavy he is on that front foot as he threatens right very heavy he's going to do it again he's going to step in and then again again, he's lowering his level, moving in hard. And I think Davis read that a mile away. So Davis, pay attention to his head level. He's going to level change here as he moves around. Watch there. He level changes.

Let's see what kind of reaction he gets. He level changes. And as a consequence, you see here, Peterson's almost square. He's going to rotate the back leg and then move into him. Davis reads it. Look at Davis. Looks like he's waiting for the bus. Doesn't give a shit what's about to happen because he knows he has an answer for it.

So here he is, lowers his level. He sees from this, Peterson lower his level, footwork and begin to move into him so he just times the entry brings his hands up it forces him to duck into that ka-ba-lam son fires that one off and of course he goes collapsing and then he finishes him off from here boom and then he just rolls away and that's referee look at old frank trigg boy frank and dc been on the same diet can't even hate on him though not much better all right here we go watch this in real time look at davis's feet as he sees the guys just pay attention to the footwork here of peterson for just a second just watch as he steps forward with the jab, foot is off the ground.

That's when he goes. Let's see when it makes contact. And he just, I mean, just look at how perfectly timed this was. Gets him to move into it. So Peterson is moving into him, stepping down, bang, crushes him. One more angle on this. You're going to see, just beautiful. Looks like Christian Bale, sort of. All right, there he goes. He steps wide to block, right? So that's what he's doing.

He's stepping wide to sort of counteract this rotation from Joey Davis. Joey Davis steps forward and lowers his level. That changes him into this kind of posture he goes forward joey flashes the hands he ducks ka-blam son and just annihilates him walk let's look at a little bit later right watch this his ground and pound is tremendous very good ground and pound why do i say that so here we've got bicep control on the right side this is uh chris cisneros this was back in 2019 so he's got bicep control and that's when he's putting all of his weight there so you would think if you're cisneros you would want to clear

that and he should but the problem is he's just pinned this is not just him putting put the screen on me for just a second mikey if you can i want to make a point of something. This is not him taking his hand and just putting it on his bicep. This is him planting his hand on his bicep and resting his weight on it. Big, big difference. Big, big difference between that. Okay, show it again. Here we go. So he posts there, and he's just kind of trying to get a reaction here.

As you see, he bangs on this side while holding it, right? And you can see Cisneros is trying to make a call between, do I block or do I grab the wrist? And so he's trying to fight it. He decides to grab the wrist. Joey Davis is trying to peel. Eventually, he decides, I'm going to grab his wrist, and then I'm just going to slash him, son.

And you can see immediately, immediately, it cuts him open right away. Boom. And here we are a little bit later in the fight. Actually, that's the same one. Actually, a little bit later. And then he takes it from this side, right? Cisneros is pinned up against this fence here. So Davis, look at Davis, high hips, excuse me, pinning him into this position. And then he just grabs the wrist, right? And then he just pushes it down and then rolls the shoulder and then torques everything into it when he goes we'll look a little bit later then look at this look at that cut kablam cuts him right open immediately just does the

damage and he's going to finish him off here right here now watch you're going to see cis narrows try to sit up davis is like nah nah, fam, I'm going to have that one. Pushes his weight all the way through, grabs behind him, and then yanks the weight out one more time, and then now sits him much flatter, pinned like this, as opposed to sitting up. Sitting up would be better for Cisneros. Joey Davis takes it away, but I want you to pay attention

to this a little bit later. Watch the fury with this. And this is is to me, Shavkat Rachmanov-esque in the sense that what you're seeing from some of the better ground and pound guys is they do some ground work where their opponents can make grips around them. We talked about making grips with Leon Edwards. Here you have a case where a lot of guys are now electing to do ground and pound where they exert less physical control over their opponent, but their opponent is

not really able to make grips on them that's the trade-off but here it's not as much of a trade-off because the fence is helping to keep Cisneros kind of pinned up against where he is and just look at this slashing shot knocking him over Cisneros trying to pull Joey Davis has two hands in there he's going to move it around. Doesn't matter. Look at him. Total control. Steps back through in just a second. Just like that.

Steps through and past. Punches over. And is just going to set this dude on fire. Bam. He has nowhere to go. Can't get up. His leg is controlled, so he can't even plant it and turn. So he's holding it and almost not quite shelving it,

but carrying it in a shelf-like way to prevent future scrambling and then just pounds on him and goes after him there with that elbow. And then eventually the ref has seen enough. One more look at a different fight. Another one, last one. Here he is. He's got a guy who wrestled underneath him. He bridges, right?

And this is the guy bridging. And then he shrimps. Here comes his hips back for the shrimp. And so now if you're Davis, you don't quite have the control that you want. You don't have an underhook and the guy is on his side. You would need some kind of method to either roll him back to his back or you'd have to have some other kind of control. He can't roll him back to his back. And this guy's name is Lee. He gets on an elbow. Well, this is what I mean about Joey Davis already having good folk style. He slides. Watch this hand.

He's going to slide it through and grab like that. And then, this is my favorite, he's going to yank it back and force the weight down like this. Watch. Just shoves him down by using that grip and pulling it out from underneath him. And then finally, just watch this, man. Torrential, torrential ground and pound on this guy. Well, he's got this kid's arm underneath here pinned behind him.

So what do you think he's going to do? Right. Dude, look at the dread on my man's face. Just like, fuck this. Why did I sign up to do this bullshit? I am no thank you so here you go you're gonna watch black ice pull it out here we go and he's just gonna set him on fire from here bang bang bang and he's trapped here while his weight look at look at the look at the body of davis

it's directly on top of the upper body of lee or what's his name lee yes right he's just giving him that business just trying to find a way to get away can't do it and look at davis calm the entire time not breathing heavy not making rash decisions, making good decisions, as this dude on top just assassinates him over and over again. He's able to make some control here and hold on, and he gets off after this position. But you get the idea here. Actually, a little more here.

Excuse me. Look at that. Can't get away, man. Just goes on and on and on, and then eventually he's able to write and go flat on his back. That's not a great position either. He wanted to be on your shoulder. Most people will tell you being on your shoulder better than almost anything is better than flat on your back. Almost anything. But the problem was the guy tries to go to his side. Joey Davis makes him pay for it. So he has to go flat to his back and there you go. That's it. That's the

whole show. Ladies and gentlemen, he's still just eight and oh, you can take this off Mikey. If you want, he's still just eight and oh, he's still just eight and oh, I don't know how far he can go. And honestly, I'm not even really sure why he stopped competing, but Joey Davis has like my attention in ways that most guys don't. Um, he just looks like he's ready to beat really good guys right now, but at 29 years of age, time is of the essence. We're going to need to really see him get in there. Okay. All right. With that in mind, let's go quickly if we can to the PFL card. PFL 2023. Oh, here we go. All right.

I don't know what the situation is with BC. They're working on it. Okay, let's talk quickly, if we can, about the PFL card. 2023 PFL 1 preview. In your main event, I got to tell you, man, I just am not loving this main event from PFL. I'm happy for Brendan Lockton. I'm very happy for Brendan Lockton.

You'll recall he's in a he's in the main event he's taking on Marlon Marais yes that Marlon Marais in fact where are the odds on this one I would love to see how much of a favorite they've got uh yeah they've got him as a pretty substantial favorite he's as high as a minus you know 700 in certain spots Brendan Lockton is um I just don't like this fight I just don't like it Brendan Loughnan is really talented came off the contender series Dana White had that really ridiculous opinion like oh he shot for a takedown he doesn't really want it and you know sent him packing he goes to PFL he wins all of his fights except against Muvlet Habalaya which

we'll talk about just a second because he's relevant again and then beats Kudo beats who beats who's who'sitch, beats Chris Wade, then beats Bubba Jenkins, stops Bubba Jenkins in the fourth round, and then became the champion. This was like a really triumphant moment for him. It was a big payday. This was great. I'm really happy for Brendan Lockton,

who seems like one of the good guys in the sport. So I like that part. And I don't hate Marlon Marais. Obviously, we don't want anything bad to happen to Marlon Marais, but it's why we're like, why the fuck is he competing? Marlon Marais obviously we don't want anything bad to happen to Marlon Marais but it's why we're like why the fuck is he competing Marlon Marais let me just read you his okay pop quiz last time he won a fight was what the Jose Aldo fight which was highly disputed in back in 2019 before that it was a Sun Tzu that's the last like solid win he's had the Suncao win back in March, excuse me, February, I should say, of 2019. So it's been really four years since he's had a solid win.

Since then, he lost to Henry Cejudo, got stopped, beat Jose Aldo in a highly controversial one, then loses to Corey Sanhagen via stoppage, loses to Rob Font via stoppage, loses to Marab DiWallis-Willie via stoppage, loses to Song Yedong via stoppage, loses to Shaman Marais via stoppage loses to Song Yedong via stoppage loses to Shaman Marais via stoppage and the Shaman Marais one's kind of interesting because that one also happened in PFL also you might be saying hey wait a second Luke wasn't Marlon Marais a 135er yes yes he was this fight's at 145 so now he's fighting bigger punchers and bigger dudes like I you know it's not like Brendan Lockton's I mean I would be shocked if he does anything other than win this fight. Now, maybe he doesn't win via stoppage.

I don't know. I don't know exactly what kind of game plan Marlon has or if he can keep himself safe. And while Brendan's very good, he's more of like an accumulative threat. He's not like a one-punch knockout guy. So I could see a case where Marlon doesn't get, like, terribly hurt. But, you know, it's not really going to dramatically change his fortunes. He's 34 years of age, which again, we know is not young,

but at a weight class like 135, or in this case, 145, it's just way too little. I hate this fight, if I could be honest with you. I really don't like it. I really don't like that PFL is continuing to use him. I think it's a bad idea. And I think most fans, again, it's not like we wish poorly for Marlon, but when we say we don't want to see him,

it's not because we're like, oh, I'm sick of him. It's not that. It's that, it's like, dude, man, where are we going with this? This is already in really bad, frankly, concerning territory. How much worse is it going to get? Probably a lot worse, it looks like. Probably a lot worse. So there's really not a whole lot to say about this one in the new PFL season.

I just really hate the main event, unfortunately. I like PFL, but I don't like the main event really at all. Although I appreciate that they're putting featherweights in there. I think that's a good sign. Okay, in your co-main is also sort of an interesting pair of UFC castoffs, although in one case, one guy appears to be reborn, the other one not so much. Rob Wilkinson, also fresh off winning the 205-pound tourney from the last season of Bellator.

He is back, and he is reborn. In fact, his last loss in MMA was to former UFC middleweight champion at the time. I think that was his UFC debut Israel Adesanya. That was all the way back in 2018. He hasn't lost since.

Of course, has been in some smaller organizations, made his PFL debut in 2022, beat Bruce Suto, beat Victor Pesta, also a UFCfc veteran delon monte and then omari akmedov who had moved up to 205 and he beat him via doctor stoppage after two rounds he looked good he's taking on tiago majeta santos yes that tiago santos pop quiz how old is tiago santos he is 39 years of age 39 years of age and in fact when age. And in fact, when this bout takes place, he'll be 39 years of age in two months.

So he's not that old in it yet, but he's close to 40 competing at 205. Not great. His last solid win to me, the Johnny Walker win you would count, but it was a weird performance. So the last really good one was to me the Jan Blachowicz one, which was all the way back in 2019.

Because after that, he fought Jon Jones, destroyed both of his knees, and to me, it's never been the same. Loses to Glover Teixeira, loses to Alexander Rakic, gets the win over a weird Johnny Walker performance, loses to Ankalayev, and loses to Jamal Hill. But you might be saying, well, Luke, that's fine. Glover Teixeira, former champ.

Alexander Rakic, top contender, could end up being champ. That's definitely on the table. Ankalayev, certainly right there. And then Jamal Hill, hello, the champion. So it wasn't like he was losing to really bad guys. He was losing to the better parts of what that division has to offer in the Ultimate Fighting Championship at this stage. Nevertheless, they were just not very inspiring performances.

Dangerous at times. And Wilkinson is a come-forward guy. So let me see the odds on this one. It'll be kind of interesting to see the odds on this one. It'll be kind of interesting to see. Yeah, this one's much closer. They've got Wilkinson as a favorite in many places, but just barely. I think to me that that feels right. It feels right that Tiago Santos shouldn't be favored given the age, given the surge in Wilkinson and his willingness to really, by the way, he's kind of filled out in size too. He's like a big 205-er at this point.

So to me, that all looks pretty good. But if you're Wilkinson and you can't beat Thiago Santos, yes, who has a big name, but is on kind of this pretty terrible and it seems unrelenting losing streak, that would be bad coming off a championship win, right? So I don't think he'll lose, but that could... He does open himself to being hit in

certain ways so something to pay attention to going forward with that as well uh further on this card let me see you pull up the notes here sorry uh okay hold on one second here we are uh yes further on that card down it a little bit here christoph jatko ufc vet taking on will flurry this will be for the 205-pound division. Here's the one that I'm most interested in. First of all, you're going to get a Chris Wade-Bubba Jenkins rematch. That's a big one. I like that at 145.

But the one I care most about is this one. Movalid Habulaev taking on Ryoji Kudo. Okay, why do I like this one? Movalid Habulaev is undefeated. And as you can tell by the name, where's he from? Dagestan, 32. So he's not too old. Has not fought, let's see, since 20, since October of 2021. So it's been a little while since he's been in there, about a year and a half roughly, give or take. And he is beyond exciting. Why?

His win prior to this Saturday was Chris Wade, right? Who was in a perennial season, not favorite, but a guy who you expect to be either in the championship fight or win it himself. Brendan Lockton, the champion. Lance Palmer, multiple-time previous champion. How about before that? Remember that famous jumping knee that happened in

10 seconds where Hub Alive just comes surging out of the air? That was Damon Jackson, the reborn fighter who's back in UFC. He's beaten all those guys and he's back. He's back against a very good, but I think overmatched opponent in Ryoji Kudo. Kudo, by the way,

currently is sitting at 29 years of age, so he's not over the hill, but he is one and three in his last four. Losing in Shuto to Kasuke Sasu. Losing to Brendan Lockton. Beat a guy by the name of Alejandro Flores with a good right hook, and then lost V-Renekichoke in the first round to Bubba Jenkins. Habulaev

should have his way with him, and in fact, if you look at the odds, which we will here, where they have him, oh yeah, huge favorite, huge favorite to win. So just keep that in mind. That's the guy I think you really, really, really want to pay attention to. That's the guy I think you got to make it known. Also on that card, anything else of note

I'm trying to see here? Anything that would stand out, be really fun. Yeah, there's some okay ones here, by the way, input Kasanga and I was winning. He won on the PFL challenger series. So that was the guy that got sent to the land of wind and ghosts by Joaquin Buckley with a spinning kick and everything. He's back. He's kind of really worked on his game.

He'll be taking on Corey Hendricks to open the card. Um, again, Martine Hamlet hamlet uh who was a good fighter i think out of norway he'll be taking on uh lebanon's muhammad uh fuck rededine i'm sure i'm saying that wrong forgive me if i am also the son of conan silveira josh silveira is on this card as well um so that should be a fun one we got him back hey i don't know i know i don't have a lot of legs to stand on here after all these tech issues but i don't think fuck grenadine is the how you pronounce that guy's name just just me jumping back in like nothing happened and and calling you out but uh you know luke you

carried us through that bellator preview in a one-man style and way because you had no other choice and i thank you for that all right you have anything to add on what I said about Bellator? Actually, yeah, about Bellator or PFL. I wasn't listening to any of it, Luke. I was just kind of blindly praising you. What I was really doing was swearing a lot as I figured out that, you know if you buy a MacBook charging cord at an airport store where they sell candy bars, it may not work, Luke.

It may not work for you. You get what you pay for. And boy, CBS is just burning money on you. Well, I paid for that myself, so I guess that, you know, I left mine in the hotel room in Vegas. Look, it happens, all right? Seriously, any thoughts about this PFL card? The main event, we see Brendan Loughnan taking on Marlon Maraich at 145.

I got to tell you, I hate this main event. I like Brendan Loughnan. I like Brendan Loughnan, but I hate this main event, we see Brendan Loughnan taking on Marlon Marais at 145. I got to tell you, I hate this main event. I like Brendan Loughnan. I like Brendan Loughnan, but I hate this main event. They call him Brendan Loughnane on the broadcast, Luke. Did you know he had a UFC fight long? I don't know how to fucking say these names. Say again? I didn't know this when I was doing some Brendan Loughnane research here, Luke.

Do you know he had a UFC fight long before the vaunted Dana White Contender Series when he beat Bill Algeo but wrestled too much and didn't get the contract? Did you know he had one UFC fight long before the vaunted Dana White Contender Series when he beat Bill Algeo but wrestled too much and didn't get the contract? Did you know he had one UFC fight long before that? I didn't. I've never seen it. I mean, this guy's only 33, Luke, but he fought in the UFC back in 2012. Are you here with us?

He lost by decision to Mike Wilkinson in Gold Coast, Australia on the undercard of George Sotteropoulos versus a Pearson, which Pearson is that Luke? Is that Ross Pearson? Yes. Yes. Ross Pearson once got rolling thundered on the, on the, on the junior levels. Don't forget that. I one time showed up to Marcella Garcia's to train and George Sotteropoulos was taking lessons in there. I'm a, you know, people think I'm a day one MMA fan because of my white belt takes, Luke. But I remember when George Sotteropoulos was the future of the lightweight division at one point. Him and Evan Dunham.

I mean, I was there for that, Luke. All right. So it sounds like you have nothing to add to this PFL card. Wow. Okay. All right. Yeah, I want to see what Maheta at 39 can do here, Luke. New promotion. New league. It's not going to be easy. all right uh yeah i want to see what mahetta at 39 can do here luke new new new promotion

new league it's not going to be easy taking on the defending champion rob wilkinson but can he can he can he make a run to the finals here luke can he knock some people out can he do some things we all have legitimate questions about him it did fall apart pretty quickly due to age and injury although he's always going to be in every fight with that threat are you expecting a reinvention here luke or just a fun name that will tune in to watch this is what i said before when you uh were busy scrambling with your shit like a like a i mean just a complete failed inventor back there trying to make things work um so if you look at the odds on this one they're close they're close and the reason why is dude wilkinson is definitely like reborn in the best version of himself but he's aggressive and leaves

himself open you know what i mean like whatever you say about tiago santos and 39 is old and plus to 39 with two reconstructed knees very old but if you leave yourself open with a big puncher like that power is the last thing to go yeah could get you know a full run to win the whole thing bc i'm a little skeptical of but making a move um you know winning here certainly is on the table i think so look five losses in six fights to close this ufc run but they are against super elite competition and outside of the jamal hill fight he's not getting stopped at all luke that was certainly eye-opening when it did happen. But I don't know.

I'm going to give him a fighting chance here. He is a brand-new hashtag girl dad, Luke. Maybe that can – you know, does it light a new fire under you? I never lived that life, does it? Not to beat people up. Okay. All right. All right.

Well, Luke, I will tell you this. Brendan Locknane – and by the way, on this undercard, Chris Wade against Bubba Jenkins, who both came up empty in the playoffs against uh lochnane last year should be a good scrap but you think lochnane i mean look we expect him to beat marlon maraish the name the there's name value in this matchup i get why you hate it without even hearing you talk about it but is brendan lochnane in route to kind of becoming one of the faces of this promotion that's interesting yeah maybe maybe for certainly as like as they make more moves into the uk right they put dan hardy in like a leadership position there they've got pfl europe i think uh obviously he's competing on their bigger cards not the more junior

ones because he is the champion there i think he could be a valuable player in that way. But I just don't like the PFL's long-term fortunes. I just don't think they're moving in the right direction to get where they want to go. So, yeah. I mean, what is he, 33 years old? He's putting it all together right now. Yeah, I mean, he is a deserving guy, no doubt about it.

And he's really come a long way. I'm happy for his success, and I'm happy that he got a million dollars last season and everything else, but, you know, a star for the organization with the organization itself isn't really... Is PFL capable of creating a star?

I don't know the answer to that. I'm kind of skeptical that it is, actually. Maybe Larissa Pacheco will be that star this year, Luke. Could be. Could be. All right, BC, let's talk about the thing back right on time. Let's talk about the weekend boxing preview. So guess who's back?

How about Anthony Joshua? Anthony Joshua is back this weekend on DAZN. He'll be taking on a gentleman by the name of Jermaine Franklin. BC, I have to tell you, Anthony Joshua, I think 33 years of age, there's a lot of folks who are wondering what's left for him. And I said this after the second loss to Usyk. He made that bizarre speech and everyone kind of killed him for it. But my view on it the whole time was it clearly hurt him

that he couldn't win that title. It clearly hurt. He really, really, really wanted to be a champion. It matters to him. So this time BC, he didn't just bring in someone else in his camp. Like he did the last one. He moved his camp to the United States training with Derek James this time in Texas, just doing that. Now BC, he can't become a different fighter than he was at 33 years of age. But here's my question to you. What can Derek James at this stage in Anthony Joshua's career do for him? And what are you expecting here against Jermaine Franklin? All right. Potentially, potentially he can do a lot. But one thing I think we have to realize

that played into that AJ meltdown following the second Usyk fight was I personally believe that was Anthony Joshua who fought well in the first meeting and Usyk lost a clear decision, had us wondering, look, man, if you, you know, if you bite down and become the destroyer against, stop trying to outbox a boxing wizard, get inside, pressure him. And, you know, rely on your strengths, that could be a different fight. My take on that second fight is that AJ did hire a new trainer

in Robert Garcia, and whether or not that was ever destined for true success, I think it comes down to Anthony Joshua. I think the fuel for his meltdown after that second fight was because in his mind, he did everything he could have done to do things his own way. Meaning go back to the drawing board after a close loss, bring in a new trainer, but do things the AJ way. And when that didn't work, when it still wasn't enough, I think you saw the real frustration spill out. I mean, he's known as a sort of humble gentleman

in how he carries himself. That was very, you know, the opposite direction of how he commandeered. The moment was kind of praising Usyk, but not really, you know, at one point had the Ukrainian flag over his shoulder. Usyk had to rip it off. If this new camp with Derek James, and obviously you couldn't pick a better trainer at the right moment in terms of Red Hawk coming off a trainer of the year campaign in a close race, by the way, with Bob Santos, that if this is AJ now going, okay, I did it my way,

no stones left unturned. And it still wasn't enough. If this is a humbling enough moment where he's going to Derek James and saying, I need you to fill in the blanks. I need you to take what I already do, you know, polish it up, make some adjustments here, make some adjustments there. I think he actually could be just fine and could be on his way right back into this title picture and, you know, in a threat to do that. Why Luke? Because a lot of it is already there. You know, Anthony Joshua works hard.

He's a finisher with both hands. He can box enough against the guys not named Usyk or in theory, Tyson Fury, that a lot of times he can lean on that boxing and the threat of his power to win. It just so happened in two fights with Usyk, Luke, I don't think he put his best strategic foot forward. I don't think there was enough of a buy-in and a focus on roughing up the smaller fighter, leaning on him, going inside, going to the body. It's not so much for me about Derek James as it is about Anthony Joshua. If AJ is where he needs to be mentally, if he can go back into student mode, if he can humble himself enough to welcome everything that James can bring for him, not only do I like this matchup for him and giving him a

chance to work on that stuff in the moment, but we know Derek James, he's never had a heavyweight before, but he has three super elite clients in Jermell, Charles Errol, Errol Spence, and Frank Martin. How could he not add what's going on there? I watched the press conference. I watched the interviews. Look, AJ kind of sounds like AJ always does saying the right things, humble, but if Luke, this is an AJ going, I did it my way to the limit of

what was possible now i need not only new help to get over this hump of these super super elite heavyweights i need to buy in this is bc's two-set take i think we could see a very much improved aj luke because all the tools are there is he ever gonna outbox jury or usic no no there's not many other guys in that category though outside of outside of Fury or Usyk. So this really could be, if we're going to see AJ attacking the body, if we're going to see him being smarter in how he sets up his approach, this could be the right perfect showcase to get us all excited about him again. But what I like about the matchmaking is,

let's put some respect on Jermaine Franklin's name, this also could be a trap fight if he's not there, Luke. So I kind of like all the stakes and the odds in the matchup here as we head into Saturday because AJ deserves a step down in competition, but he does have some work to figure out. What is your confidence level on the potential of AJ coming back, even potentially better than before? Hi. Hi.

I mean, when you say better than before, it's like it's hard to know how much better is there anyone in your mind bc with derrick james where how do i ask this has he had in your mind i know you mentioned the three elite clients we're all familiar with the unified champ undisputed champ i should say in in charlo and then obviously spence everyone knows and frank Frank Martin recently announced himself. But has he ever had like a reformation project where he took a guy who was good but not great and then turned him into something

much better than he was? Is there anything in that in his past? I mean, I realize that's not exactly what Derek James is trying to do here. Like Anthony Joshua is still very good, but he wouldn't be working with Derek James if he wasn't trying to change something. How capable is Derek James of... I mean, it's Derek James of – it's one thing to be like, oh, I coach these really good guys.

I'm not saying he's not partly responsible for their success. But those are guys who are at the top of their game. Joshua found the top of the game and found himself wanting. What can Derek James do or has done in the past that gives you confidence he can lift him? Well, Derek James is sort of an interesting character in that he – if if you want to make an MMA comparison maybe it's a Trevor Whitman a guy who doesn't just take look a lot of guys they're they're known they become very famous for the success they have as a trainer and then suddenly it's open season on their gym and they're filling up the gym like crazy we saw Freddie Roach go through that we even saw Eddie Reynoso go

through that recently remember when Andrew Ruiz came in and out? I mean, a lot of these guys coming in and out. Luis Neri and then going, you know what? It's not for me. A lot of times you see the complaints. Why did Ryan Garcia leave Eddie Reynoso's gym? It's because he didn't feel like he was getting the one-on-one attention. Part of Derek James' strength is, like Trevor Whitman,

he focused exclusively on elite clients that he believes that he can take to the top. Does he have specific heavyweight experience? No. Does he have specific elite- experience? No. Does he have specific elite level reformation project assistant, you know, experience? Not necessarily. Although he did take on Jermell Charlo after Charlo, then under Ronnie Shields had made a name for himself and I think made him

even better. So Luke, I think it comes down to the student at the end of the day. That's why this is such an intriguing return for AJ, given the climate right now, if Fury and Usyk are not going to fight each other, could AJ get... And by the way, if they don't fight each other,

Daniel Dubois has the next shot contractually at Usyk for all three titles. But where does AJ fit into that mix? Right at the top if he comes back with a bang. So look, I do like this matchup because Jermaine Franklin fought really well against Dillian white and franklin does not from saginaw michigan a little portly around the waist but he did not have the experience to give me the belief he was going to have the performance against dillian white that he did last year he had beaten guys like a jerry

forest who's somewhat of a low-level heavyweight name but did it by split decision hadn't wowed us how did jermaine franklin wow us against Dillian White? It was by being tough. It was by standing there and taking, you know, outside of the last 20 seconds of round 12, where Franklin looked hurt and he actually looked like he was ready to go if there was another 10 seconds. He stood in there and was very durable.

He had smart counter shots. He could put combinations together when White would get a little bit exhausted after throwing a bunch and need to wait a little bit. This is kind of that perfect test for Anthony Joshua in a sense, because Franklin, you know, he's got decent hand speed. He's an accurate puncher, not going to blow your doors in, not a monster knockout threat, not going to, you know, run a track meet and outwork you. But if you're not where you need to be, he can keep a fight close. He proved that against White. A lot of people thought he beat white by the way and you know i'm glad that he gets this reward but it comes down to aj and if aj buys it i mean look when you look back at the rematch with usic did he make adjustments

yes do we expect aj to be closer in the second fight i think on the scorecards he was but i didn't see him bite down on what could could have potentially been the right game plan to disrupt a guy like Usyk. Still following around, still trying to play chess with the chess master. It's up to AJ up here to know that situation by situation, matchup by matchup, you do need to be different. You do need to play roles sometimes. You're not going to outbox Usyk on that level, right? Against Franklin, different kind of matchup, not going to matter. But I want to see, can he carry out this game plan?

Can he avoid getting touched up? Can he come out there and lean on his strengths and land the big power shots? Because when AJ gets you hurt, he typically gets you the hell out of there. That's the kind of stuff I want to see. If he goes in there and knocks out Jermaine Franklin, we're going to have a different kind of conversation about what this heavyweight top end picture is going to look like to close the year. I think boxing needs AJ. And I think AJ needs this fresh change, but he needs to buy in on it

completely. Like, look, I don't, if you ask me straight up to the, what's the Robert Garcia experiment, you know, was it ever destined to win? Could it have won? Did Robert Garcia fail? It's hard to tell man, one fight, a fight that big. Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's it looks like a regular chicken sandwich but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich McSpicy consider yourself warned limited time only at participating McDonald's in Canada it just I think AJ has to want it to work that's my American take on this okay just also he stayed in London for that one like he kind of did I'm not saying the same things he did before because by definition he didn't but it seemed like he realized okay if i'm gonna get the most out of changing trainers i gotta do that i'm gonna go train with them in their place i'm gonna

get the fuck out of london just switch it up do everything i need to do and i think obviously he can get great training in london but if you're looking for a switch if you're looking for a change getting out of that probably will be good for you. I'm expecting a good AJ. I'm expecting a very good AJ when we see him again. How good? I guess we'll find out, but I'm excited about it. I'm not sure what else is on that card, BC, of interest.

There's also the card on ESPN Plus between Robisi Ramirez and Isaac Dogbo. Do we care about this? Yeah, we do. We do about it. So Isaac Dogbe, former 122-pound champion. Dogbe, is that how you pronounce it? Yeah, Dogbe. What happened to him is he ran into Emmanuel Navarrete in that division

two times in a row, lost it, and then controversially went right back for a rematch. I think that the issue for Dogbe at times was the relationship with his dad as trainer. And I think he's, if I'm correct, amended that and brought in another voice in the corner he's rebranded himself reinvented himself and there's certainly still time for a guy from ghana who's so aggressive can box a little bit but loves to get in there and punch roboc ramirez luke is that is that guy with a great amateur background and has made a lot of noise of late this is a pretty damn good

matchup i mean you got to give espn a top rank that, that respect, even when the names maybe don't always wow you matchmaking wise, it seems to be pretty right up. But, uh, uh, 29 year old Southpaw is the Cuban born Robesie Ramirez. Um, let's see the guy that lost. Yeah, Luke, he lost his pro debut. Do you remember that that was back in 2019? He lost a split decision in a four round fight and it looked to be like, oh crap, is this guy a bust? Is he not going to live out that way? I mean, it was almost Aaron Pico-like in that regard to come in with a lot of fanfare and lose your debut.

But he has run off all victory since then, and he's starting to stop people too, along with that good, savvy Cuban amateur background. It was a good-ass fight on Saturday. I believe it's taking place in the featherweight division. Yes, the vacant WBO featherweight title will be at stake. So definitely something to watch out for. I know I didn't properly set the stage for Lawrence Oakley's cruiserweight title defense last week, Luke.

It was a lot going on that week, and it fell out of my radar. But you know I'll be on this one. All right, fair enough. Let's talk about the last major topic here, GameBread Boxing 4. I'm not really sure what to say about this one in terms of X's and O's, BC. It's not really so clear. So let's just sort of set the table here for everyone who may not know. This is GameBread Boxing 4.

Apparently there have been three previous ones, Jones Jr. versus Pettis. This will be at the Fiserv Forum. I believe this is where the Bucks play in Milwaukee milwaukee if i'm not mistaken it's going to air on fight pass for those who are uh interested on saturday 7 p.m start time for the main card i believe bc in your main event it's an eight uh round three minute rounds obviously boxing contest i believe it's a pro fight between roy jones jr and anthony pettis what the hell are we supposed to say about this in terms of X's and O's, BC? I mean, look, I think in this main event, we have to really hope it's not gross. We have to really hope

in either direction, to be fair. Roy Jones is... We know Roy is washed. Roy is one of the greats of our era. We're a delight to see him, but at this stage, he's very old. Anthony Pettis is shopworn too, man. Look, Roy's see him but at this stage he's very old dude anthony pettis is is shopworn too man look roy's been old for a while roy's been old for like you know 15 years

of staying active when he shouldn't have been against he's 54. very varying levels of competition that got lower and lower by the end of it uh you know he lost cleanly that exhibition against mike tyson but but you know got in great shape and came in game and all that. You know, I don't want to see him get hurt. I don't want to see Roy to have such a boxing advantage here that Anthony Pettis gets hurt. To be honest, look, I get why they booked this fight because they want this pivot into boxing for, for game bread and Jorge Masvidal to really bang.

But I think the fights that they have below that are the ones that I think are more interesting, especially to MMA fans, but especially the idea, could this business model work? You're not bringing in YouTubers, but you're not at the same time putting on, you know, real boxing. Having MMA veterans fight one another and in some cases here getting rematches of actual MMA fights, I don't think that's a horrible way. In fact, again, if I'm Zufa boxing, this is probably the stuff I should be putting on at the end of the day. I don't hate it. I don't hate Vitor Belfort against Jacare if they both feel like they can get another payday and want to be in there against each other.

I don't hate Jose Aldo and Stevens in a rematch, Jeremy Stevens. I don't hate Pearl Gonzalez against Gina Mazzani, even if I missed. I called her, Luke, the person that got punched out by chris cyborg in the parking lot of that ufc um remember they had that like big summit meeting with all the fighters and i was wrong there luke it wasn't gina mazzani who was it you remember when cyborg like heard the talk trash oh it was um what's her i forget her first name but her last name was magania yes yes angela who she she went after me for a while on twitter i forget what it was i either i either blocked her or something and then she just kind of fizzled out into whatever

the she's doing with her life these days okay let me ask it back at you pettis versus roy is weird there's a way it doesn't suck or make you cringe it It's largely weird, but it gets people in the building. Do you think there's an appetite in the combat sports world for washed up MMA guys, boxing each other, not, not YouTubers, not real boxers, each other, Luke. I don't want to say no in that there is absolutely no way to do it, but I'm going to say no in that we haven't really figured out how to do it. In other words, I get the idea that some folks are going to want to see these people all on the same card because, hey, all these stars together,

like Jacare's on the card and Vitor's on the card and Roy Jones Jr. and Pettis, these are names that current MMA fans and combat sports fans in general have a great degree of awareness with, especially with Roy Jones Jr. But at the end of the day, if you an mma fan are you gonna pay consistently a lot of or are you gonna pay consistently money or even time like attention dollars so to speak you only get 24 you know hours in a day are you really gonna spend that time

watching mma fighters over the hill box each other. Dude, MMA fans, we've been working and massaging our audience for a long time. There is something of a crossover between MMA and boxing, but it's not nearly as a lot of folks might imagine. And it takes time. You have to really work on the audience. It's not so easy. And there's a lot of MMA fans who just don't like boxing. I'm skeptical. I'm skeptical. I'm not saying no. By the way, I'm not even hating on this event. If the event goes forward and people like it, now the main event itself with Roy being 54, I don't love, but whatever,

this idea that they have, if this actually works, then I'm not really mad at it. I'm like, this would be a great thing for fighters to have. And if people like it, fine. But what I'm just skeptical of is that will there be enough fan preference to make this profitable over the long term no i don't think that it would be i think it depends on the product it's it's in some way the same things that we had said about the original launch of this celebrity bubble when the paul brothers

were taking you know and when they were coming in, I always said, look, you make really exciting fights where you're not sure who's going to win, whether they're sloppy or not. I think that's ultimately the hook on these sort of fringe boxing ideas. And just to correct a couple of things. I know you said it could air on UFC fight pass. I'm seeing fight TV and I'm seeing a $50 pay-per-view charge for this guy. Let me double check while you say, let me say,

let me double check while you say, look at that up. And one other change Luke originally originally scheduled was paul semtex daily against anthony taylor who we have seen a few times now i remember he was the one who punched dylan dennis in the parking lot and he's been on some jake paul cards daily pulled out joe riggs will replace him against anthony taylor jesus yeah that happened so um by the way this says you can get it on um fight pass for sure i mean i'm sure there's the upgrade chance there of the pay-per-view but this is a pay-per-view fight i mean i think it's the only way you're bringing in roy jones oh you still okay so okay yes you

can watch it on fight pass even on fight pass you have to pay 49.99 for it so yeah there you go i mean you got a lot of names dude you got there's there's worse ways to spend your time in the combat sports world there's a lot of grossness at the bottom of the food chain this is in the direction of that luke but i do want to give it a chance to not completely make me gag what if pettis and roy have this i mean the thing is i don't want to see roy again i don't want to see guys in their 50s are there late 30s and early 40s ex-mma fighters who could either be over there and be KFC or could be at the Lava Shack fighting the governor and they can do this instead and maybe get a payday is it healthy for them no is it better than some of the other really weird bottom of the food

combat chain uh yeah it is a little bit better than that in my opinion yeah yes and also remember the length of the rounds and then the fight themselves that you know only eight rounds with roy a lot of these other fights are like six rounds four rounds you know it's not like a a lengthy amount of time but at the same time yeah listen here's what i'll say if people watch it and they have a good time cool if it ends up making good money and they can do more of this no problem with it i'm just skeptical the fans will embrace it but we shall see we shall see um one one thing i wanted to bring up because there's this fellow named pro mma weeb who tweeted at us before the show he said you'll probably not cover it but i wanted to know uh about takaru takaru he just signed an exclusive guaranteed minimum

750 000 per fight making him the highest kickboxer of all time highest paid kickboxer yeah you care about that at all because uh this guy pro mma we wants your opinion on it i i we've talked about on this show before if there is you know listen bc and i have extensive cte let's just be very real about that like we our brains don't work right but one of the bigger get like there are things i know more about in the fight game than bc and conversely like he knows more about certain things than i do and then together we're able to make that work bc i'd say if both of us have a blind spot it's on the kickboxing side of things we just don't pay a lot of attention to it and not because i have anything against it just is a strictly a time

management issue i only have so many hours in the day so i have seen the kickboxing folks on my timeline get very excited about it but i'd be speaking very much out of turn if i try to give you any kind of i appreciate that i think the fans at the end of the day they appreciate when you're real luke when you bring it in good faith and you just did all right so all you takaru super fans out there you're not getting that from us it's not it's not an irrelevant piece of news it's just not one that we have a great grasp on. That's the only thing I'd say. Yeah, we have a better grasp on female

bare knuckle fights, to be very fair with you. Yeah, that's more you. That's not even me either. That's just a you thing. Even I don't know shit about that. Alright, with that in mind, let's play a little game before we get to fan subs, BC. Now that we got you back on, we'll just get right to it. Time for Over Under in this bitch.

Look at that. All right, BC, we've got, let's see, one, two, three, four, five, six. We've got seven of these. So this is you asking me the questions. I have not read these in advance. That's right. So BC normally does this, but he was being super lazy yesterday and punted, so I had

to pick it up from him. So we're going to reverse the rules here a little bit. You see that little dig I took? Yeah. I mean, you want to, you want to show receipts, Luke,

I'm here for it. All right. Yeah. You're like, you're like, I got to be my wife's slave today. I ain't doing shit for you bitches. And I was like,

I was my first day off for a long time, but you know, I'm teasing. I'm teasing. All right, BC. Something we didn't really get into. So let's get into it real quickly here to start over under before we get to

the first question here it's about cowboy serrani we didn't talk about this he got into the hall of fame your thoughts on cowboy serrani quickly entering the hall of fame look what is cowboy serrani is being one of the rare fighters who never won full undisputed ufc gold but that shouldn't in my opinion not disqualify you from big accolades being considered a legend. I mean, look at what Dustin Poirier has done, despite having at one point been the interim champion. It's rare to have a resume this good to be at this point. And then you add in with Cowboy being such a fan favorite, being a character, an icon, and being a guy who carried that old, old, old school,

anytime, anywhere, against anyone mentality. I'm not against him going into the UFC's Hall of Fame at any point. I guess, Luke, larger, I don't understand both the UFC's criteria. I know, well, technically the criteria for this is the modern wing, which Cowboy gets in, which means you had to have your first fight, what, after the year 2000, and you had to have been retired for more than a year and you have to be at least 35 to get in. So Cowboy fits all of those. But look, is he a first ballot Hall of Famer even under the UFC standards? In my opinion, I would say no. I think he's a guy that should get in anyway because of the accumulation of who he fought.

In some ways, who he beat, but also the overall character and willingness. But like when 11-7 Matt Serra got in, it seems to be no rhyme or reason of who gets in or when. So am I happy? Does he belong? Yes. Cowboy, I've enjoyed a lot. One of the worst interviews in the history of the sport, Luke. But I did find a way down the stretch, usually by pissing him off to make something fun happen but how could you know there were points you know in cowboys run where he's like arguably the most popular fighter in the sport right you know you put that guy on

fox against anybody and and budweiser nation is showing up but i don't know if i fully understand why he's in like first chance compared to other guys luke i mean i do understand it but i i think you know what i'm saying right yeah i know what you're saying all right so let's play the over under side of things here we go so we're not including grappling so if he takes like a grappling super fire this doesn't count but for boxing kickboxing or mma i'm gonna put the number at 0.5 number of times we see cowboy serrani appear in a combat sport from now until the day he dies see the 0.5 is the hard one here because i want to say under he's he's he's jacked up on roids now willingly openly he's living you know the retirement life if he gets an itch i'd love i

think he's been close enough to acting luke, you know, bit roles and smaller things that there might be a run for him in a, you know, direct to DVD type type way in terms of being like, you know, WWE secretly has their own movie studios and they put out like a shit ton of these direct to TV action movies that you're just sort of like, it was okay. Could he make some long runs in that? Yeah, possibly. But this is the fight game and you never say never. So technically I have to say over, will we see him eventually take an ill-advised boxing match?

What if this game bread thing turns into something? What if Zufa boxing turns into something? Yeah, we're going to see him at least one more time in a boxing or MMA match. Even if it's as sad as the Liddell Ortiz trilogy bout was at the time where it was just like two guys going, Hey, this is the last stand. Let's cash in that lottery ticket. We will see him again, Luke. I think it'll be ill-advised. I think he'll get knocked out, but them are the breaks in this game.

That's your first one. I think that's the correct answer, by the way. Let's put up the graphic here first, if we can, Mikey. Let's check this out. Alistair Overeem, as we know, has been suspended a year and had his glory in kickboxing when he gets better. He already overturned a testing positive for a banned substance.

I just don't understand how on earth he could get caught and why on earth. Why would you go into business with Alistair Overeem only if you wanted him drug-free? I don't even understand that, but okay. Neither here nor there. BC, here's your question. Ready? Number is three. Number of fights

Alistair Overeem has left in any striking-based combat sport. I'm going to take the under. I'm going to take the under. I think you'll see him back relatively soon. Do you have the age of this gentleman? I'll look it up. I think he's 39.

I think he's like 42. Not that that necessarily, you know, by any stretch disqualifies him, but. Yeah. 42. Do you think there's a, you know, there's going to be a delay in him returning to elite level kickboxing because of this. Could he get it? I mean, look, I wonder still, let's say PFL signs in Ghana, right. Or let's say one does.

When you're looking at name heavyweights that you could talk yourself into Let's say PFL signs Ngannou, right? Or let's say one does. When you're looking at name heavyweights that you could talk yourself into being okay with him fighting, he's still high up on that list. But, Luke, at some point it's got to go. At some point there's a – you know, I mean, he's been knocked out many times before. He's been knocked out devastatingly. The most devastating knockout I've ever seen in the history of the world against Francis Ngannou. So I'm not saying that we're going to be running out of the way to even make that one. But yeah, I'm going to say

the under because when it goes, it's going to go really fast. I think, you know, two more, two more. I mean, am I wrong, Luke? Or you think he'll fight forever? Like Prokop did until they removed him? He might. He might. It really is just a function of how many of them are big dollar

ones. Right. You know? And I don't know how many of them are big dollar ones. Right. And I don't know how many of those are left, but it's harder to say in kickboxing, right? Especially if it goes to East Asia for some kind of opportunity. It's very difficult to say, which is why I wanted to put it in there. All right, let's go to the next one. Before I get to it, let me set this up here just a little bit. So Valentina Shevchenko has been doing a few of the media rounds since losing her title to Alexa Grosso. And recently she had commented that she thought, you know,

referee Jason Herzog interfering and standing them up was really just not fair, which was like, huh? Well, she's doing a media tour after losing, kind of making excuses depending on your perspective, right? Let's sort of keep that in mind. So let's kind of have a similar question about her. The number is three. How many title fight wins does she have left before retirement?

I put the number a little too high, but the title makes it, makes it hard here, makes it really hard. I guess that's the point of the question. I mean, can she regain this title if she's given the immediate rematch that feels is coming? Of course. If she did that, could she go on to, you know, defend against, let's say, Firo and win on a style-based matchup? Or defend, you know, after that against some...

Yeah, I was all setting myself up for the under. Wait, title fight wins, though. So that would mean she would need to regain. She's not going to win the title three times separately and lose each one. This division is catching up. She's 34 years old. I'm not against her here, Luke, being a little blamey, a little excuse-laden, because I feel at that level it is part of her retaining her own level of invincibility.

I don't think she's somebody who doesn't do the work and doesn't try to evolve like that's all we ever talk about with her is that's what she does so uh title fight wins in any weight class yeah all right if we're saying any weight class i'm gonna take the over i don't think she's done i don't think she's anywhere near done i think it's just as likely don't think she's anywhere near done. I think it's just as likely she figures out a way to beat Grasso in a rematch. And then could she chip away at some of these other names? She could. It also could fall apart right away against a Blanchfield, against somebody else.

But I don't think we're seeing physical evidence of massive age decline. She's making adjustments to natural age decline. the fact that you've definitely seen the division catch up i mean you're definitely without question and there's always going to be an element when she was dominating that lower tier level challenger consistently of were we overrating her in our eyes to some degree i mean yes of course we were right i mean that's just it's just the nature of it yeah luke i'm going to take the over and i'm pretty secure with that i'm pretty secure with that. I'm pretty content with that. I'd definitely take the under on that, but okay. BC,

let me read this to you. So, Benil Dariu spoke to Submission Radio on why he didn't call out Islam Makhachev. He says, nah, I worked so hard to win that fight. Why am I going to give my shine to him? I'm going to give my shine to the people who helped me win in my fight. I find call-outs like, please fight me. No, I know who helped me to get there fight i find call outs like please fight me no i

know who helped me to get there and where i am why am i going to waste my energy talking taking that shine that's on me and giving it to someone else i could care less i've said it before and i'll say it again i'm not begging for a title shot if they just want to keep putting guys in front of me then i'll just keep chopping heads off which i really just don't understand so question bc with that in mind the number is 1.5 the number of wins benil doryush needs before he actually gets a title shot yo that's a good question so wow this is well done here luke this is a mikey more model special right here he needs one more win so the answer is the under he needs just the one yeah he needs one more win he needs one more win tell me why you can only wait around so long in that regard i think that at that point if he gets

another win and some of these other guys try to sort of figure themselves out um i mean look if he beats charles olivera yeah luke he's, if he beats number one, Charles Oliveira, the former champion after that near sort of historic run out of nowhere, especially if Gaethje and Poirier end up fighting each other, which is almost like they're choosing the route of big all action fun super fight against one another. Yeah. One more and he's in. The rest of that division is not, you know, Fazeev just took a step back. Gamrod, you know, Saryukian had step backs on their rise, although they, you know, they're going to be back in big fights. And then you get RDA in the tarantula to round out the top 10. He's going to get the next shot.

I mean, Poirier-Gaethje, I don't think is necessarily going to produce that, Luke. If they're going to fight each other. Poirier-Gaethje you don't think is going to produce that. I think it's going to produce a great fight. But I think if, because it's the quality of the win that I'm banking on. If you beat Charles Oliveira and you've been a guy who's been waiting on the outside looking in like Bilal, like Max had to do one time, like Tony had to do forever, you beat somebody like that, it's going to trump everything. You beat Charles Oliveira right now, look, it's going to trump everything, and he's going to be next for Islam Macha. All right, let's go to the next one.

So we knew that Diego Sanchez fought Kevin Lee and headlined Eagle FC 46 on March 11, 2022. The organization, of course, also signed former heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos to headline Eagle FC 47. However, the May 2022 show also marked the organization's final event in the United States. Eagle FC went on to host four more events. This is from Bloody Elbow, the last of which took place on December 10th, 2022. There are currently no plans for any more events in the foreseeable future. And in fact, you have their, excuse me, their, I forget the guy's title

in the organization here, but he says, quote, Eagle FC depends on Habib. He said this to an interview. So Eagle FC will go on. We will push it forward. We have so many young guys who are competing, so we just don't want to stop and leave this behind. However, that interview took place a while ago. The most recent one, he says, quote, we're on pause.

Of course, without without habib it's hard to do anything he was always moving forward like a train but we'll get together and we'll see how to do it all without habib so here is the question bc the number is 0.5 the number of total eagle fc shows that will take place at any point in the future at any point in the future the any point in the future really clouds it to me because could they could they run off another run of you know russian-based shows and just kind of go on and yeah so in that regard luke i'm going to take the over because you're allowing me to take that that out which is you know i don't know the the reasoning like they could go to russia right

now and run off one a month for a while. The idea of them doing what they tried to do in a short season, come to the US, put on shows with like, you know, pretty decent production elements, paying a lot of famous fighters to be your announced crew, to do podcasts before it, to do all that stuff. Yeah, that's over, Luke.

I think part of it, of course, is Habib wanting to take more family time and lessen his schedule after an aggressive run. I think a lot of it is just the realization of the money. Look, they had to have taken a loss pretty heavily for every single one of those American shows and, you know, didn't get a backer jumping in saying we'd like to add you. part of the vehicle, which is the UFC Fight Pass engine of these regional promotions that essentially play their whole role. Their whole role is to play middleman to get you the younger guys off of the circuit that have bright potential.

And then, you know, you can watch those videos by that guy MMAI and see the relationship between how these managers slash local promoters who have TV contracts with Fight Pass end up operating to lower the salaries coming in. I don't think that's what Habib tried to bank in on. So, Luke, technically, I'm going to take the over because I think doing local Russian shows is a different thing altogether. But remember when we had Shale on that RSD? Yeah, he was like, yeah, I think it's coming to a close.

That was the day of the presser for Anderson Silva-Jig Paul. He was like, matter of fact, guess that's done with. There's no more money, and they're not going to invest it. So I think sometimes, Luke, you take a big swing, and let's give Eagle FC credit. They took a fairly large swing and had the celebrity face people there, like brought in the X names that were close enough to their primes. It was like, oh, they got Kevin Lee and Junior Dos Santos.

Okay, can't make money off of that unless you're committed to lose over the long haul or unless you have some huge TV deal. They don't have any of that. But you just said they did a number of Russian shows, including December. So, yeah, look, it's the over. It's the over on that. All right. All right.

Two more of these. Yeah. Two more of these and we'll call it a day on this. All right. So if you look it up in the USADA database, today is what, the 29th of March, 2023. So we're about three months into the year. Obviously, Conor McGregor has not been tested yet, even this year.

BC, I'm going to put the number at three. The number of times USADA will test Conor McGregor this year in 2023. We're already three months down. The number is zero. So in nine months, I'm going to put the over under at three, three number of times you saw it. It will test Connor McGregor. Are you going to take the over? Are you going to take the under? I hate that I'm giving you all cute, cheeky answers here. Luke, maybe I'm breaking the spirit of it. I'm going to take the over because I think what's going to eventually happen to fix this. And, you know, if you have questions about the legality or morality of this, ask Novitsky,

it's fucking illegal. You know what I mean? Like this is not my job anymore. I'm so glad I don't have to deal with this. All I have to deal with is slaps. You know what I mean? You know, no, Luke, uh, ultimately what's going to happen is they're going to announce the Conor Chandler fight for later this year. There'll be some bullshit massage statement from usada saying no you guys don't realize we actually started testing him earlier than you thought it just didn't go public and then you know what they're going to do the last three months before the fight luke tests the absolute shit out of him so they can say look people we did it this is what you wanted he's clean so it's going to be the over but is it going to be handled in any sort of way that makes sense no it's going to be dog and pony and we

already have the face of the organization going not my problem dudes okay and everybody just seems to be okay with this yeah what a what a crock of shit luke that they're cooking up over there you know what i mean all right and last but not least, BC, we just talked about it at GameBread4 Boxing. Gonna put the number at two. Number of rounds Vitor Belfort versus Jacare goes total. And I should

kind of put before it goes sad or before it goes south. But I just can't imagine that one going for very long. BC, what do you think? So if it goes three, that's the over a two and under. Yeah.

I'll take the over. I like a third round stoppage for Belfort. How many, how many rounds is this fight? I think that one is six. I'll double check. Could be. Yeah.

Look, look, you got to give Jacare a chance to six, six, try some things out, get hit with a big shot, cover up a little bit. I'm going gonna go over on

here but belfort by finish seems to be the smart bet he seems to have of all these guys he seems to have a certain amount of extra juice left if you know what i mean that extra gear you know what i'm saying yes yes yes yeah you know uh right, BC, that's it for Over Under. Why don't you show us what's up with the fan subs? Yeah, why don't we see what these people put on our fridge this week? MorningCombat at gmail.com allows you the chance to send in your artwork, pictures of you wearing tight T-shirts with your girlfriend, and then we can judge your musculature and all that stuff.

It's called fan submissions. You've got mail. Viewers. This week's mail fans writing into us starts with Jacques. Luke, what's up, Luke in BC? I wanted to get my brother tickets for UFC 286 for his birthday, but unfortunately as a broke university student, that was far out of my budget.

Instead, I decided to hit some regional MMA at Cage Warriors 150. And of course, I had to rep MK. It was a great evening with amazing finishes, the best being a spectacular spinning back kick from rising prospect Lon Kavanaugh. Keep an eye on him. He'll be in the UFC soon. The only downside was the extremely overpriced beer, which I know you are used to in the States.

Thank you guys for making the best sports content and combat available and for getting me through the grind of a four-year engineering degree best wishes jacques and ps since you guys are best friends now here's us with the main man arnold allen outside the yo2 for the ufc london card yo my man's shirt that says Paris on it, it's like the worst fitting shirt of all time. Yeah, yeah, it is. Go back to the other picture. Him and his donk friend repped MK, okay? Yeah, I gotta say, I like Jacques.

Jacques needs to get his friend a ticket to the barber. Instead of the fights, to get him a ticket to the barber. I think that's more in order. That's his brother right there, Jacques' brother. Okay, yeah. He needs to get his brother a ticket. He's like, I got my brother a ticket to the fights to the fights no no get him a ticket to the barber chair yeah please please do that but uh thank you for supporting the uh indie scene here the mma regional scene you never

know i always tell people i always do especially now with these ufc tickets like the big the shows on the road they're insanely priced they're going back to london we didn't even talk about they're gonna go back to london in july dude those tickets i think just to get you in the door like american or like four or five hundred dollars yeah just like the worst ones dude right now the ufc i think my personal take because there's only so much they can make in actual pay-per-view sales they're just gouging they are gouging every i mean did you talk about the the octagon yet with the names in it did you talk about that yet no we'll get to that in a minute okay i mean they are gouging every inch that's why i think you're going to see more hometown fighters fighting

in their home country with the hopes of selling out that box office as fast as possible only now they're doing vegas boxing prices what i mean by that is why are the number one gates in like combat sports history always boxing matches in Vegas, but yet they're at the MGM Grand, which hosts what, Luke? Like 10,000, 12,000, right? Yeah, if that. Because they can gouge up the price.

The casinos will get most of them. High rollers will get the rest for the most part. You know how that works. No different than the Super Bowl, Luke, which last time I checked, if you even have a chance of getting a ticket, it's a minimum of $ for the upper upper extreme deck right in terms of regular price yes the thing is we're making every ufc card now a super bowl price ufc has always had a leg up on boxing other mma organizations and large even you can argue other sports because from start to finish you get you

get pretty damn consistent action across the board good fights finishes right like even if the early names aren't great but they're testing you know they're cutting corners and testing the patients here in a lot of ways to extreme gouge what do you have a take on the extreme gouge level lately well and in general just going to like anything now is expensive if you want to go to a sport like dude like the wizards fucking blow and any good wizard seat is like a hundred bucks well just trying to make me pay 200 for melon camp what am i an american fool luke i mean come on you know well you are an american fool but here's my point just think about it like me it's gonna be me my wife and tuki so that300, plus tax and everything else, so let's say $320, $330.

You're going to have to park or Uber so that you can factor another $30 or $40. Dude, parking at Cap One, $75. $75. So stupid. Then if you want to get – I don't drink any beer, but let's say you want to get beer, that's going to be $15 or whatever, or food, whatever. Dude, to go to a fucking game for the shitty-ass Wizards, it's like $ or five hundred dollars like it's just absurd what these teams are doing to people these

days so like i definitely feel for people who want to go to ufc shows and i'm like oh my god but dude to get tickets to major acts is expensive to get tickets i don't know what happened in the pandemic where tickets just went absurdly expensive for everything remember what willie nelson said in half bake luke i remember when a dime bag used to cost a dime you know yeah well here's the thing to get back to the original to get back to the original point i don't know we never used them well i was like to get back to the original point it's what i always tell folks dude like don't wait for ufc to come to town go see regional mma it's cheaper the action's actually going to be pretty good especially if it's an event that airs on like fight pass um you're supporting your local

fighters like it's just a better you get much closer seats like it's just a better night go go unless you're rich you can do whatever the fuck you want but you know and somebody might throw up on somebody yeah my collapse yeah yeah yeah there's gonna be jizzing it's gonna be awesome it's gonna be great it's gonna you know someone you might take you might take a limb home with you luke if you sit close enough let's go to mentonio mentonio says there was epic lighting in mk episode 422 yeah what was that with that luke there was there was weird reflections in your glasses and you did not want to talk about it at all it's the it's the lenses the lenses i have to get non-reflecting lenses uh basically because you can see you can see it here too they they reflect so if i go up past you can't see if i go down you can't see but

if i go right in the middle it catches everything and so yeah but you know what are you gonna say life question what's your history with contact lenses people have recommended that i get them here's a true story i can't i i didn't realize i had a thing about it until uh i did the show with craig carton mman censored live on spike tv and they had a makeup person for that and the makeup person would always take the makeup shit and like bring it real close to my eyeballs and i realized i can't i can't deal with stuff like touching my eyeballs like that and so i'm just gonna wear glasses and not contacts i just don't like it all right what if you get dms from people telling you that they had that same feeling and then they

tried and the new ones are great and they're you know it could change your life would you consider i'll just block them on social media all right there, there we go. Let's hear from Tim. He says, rate my tat. And like Luke, I also love Arnold, so I'm hoping he digs this one. And P.S., Luke, I got this tattoo just north of D.C. in Frederick, Maryland. Frederick, Maryland actually has some good tattooing. This is pretty good. This is pretty good.

That's actually very good. Is that the Terminator, Luke? Yeah, it's the Terminator. They've taken some creative license in a few different directions, but that's really, really... It's like the Terminator, but it's almost like American traditional style. Yeah, I like it a lot.

That's really good work. That's solid. It's not a tumor. Hey, don't you fucking besmirch the goat on this show. What is your name and what does your daddy do all right uh luke uh michael says non-american donks trying to figure out when mk starts let's look at this um okay what are these fucking nerds wearing i don't know uh maybe they're in has one okay there's there's six guys on this screen is there one in there that's ever sexually pleased a woman not one i mean look at these virtually virtual they're probably talking to at zuck right now

luke okay this is this is great they're just they're just looking at bbl's twerk on tiktok look how close do you think we can actually are we are as a society to actually being able to plug into the matrix like think about what movies about the future like total recall remember when you could pay to take that vacation in your mind and you could pick like slutty women as opposed to sporty one always go sporty by the way um i mean are we close to that you could argue luke that you know i could put on my headset and play xbox and talk to fortnite players around the world and already plug into that shit but are we close to that i have no clue i don't i mean plugging into the matrix the matrix was a program that was made by uh basically sentient really what i'm asking you

is with video games to a level with virtual virtual reality to a certain level, with the fact that a lot of people don't like their regular life and want to plug in somewhere, are we pretty close to being able to do that where you're just sort of like, I'm not going to live today. Let me plug in and enjoy myself. Yeah, it's called a bong. It's called a gravity bong. Try it. Yeah, i actually have yeah hey i don't i don't like my life anymore spin the gravity bomb yeah there you go yeah split in the back spin the black circle that's what i do on my turntable luke whenever i don't

like life i go back to the 1970s and it's glorious uh this one's from michael oh no that was michael let's go to alan w look you know Alan W right just a genius he says I'm one with the universe and the universe is with me namaste okay I love the tattoo by the way it's very nice yeah is this yogi Luke the

yogi here do I need this in my life masala that's it would you ever consider covering over the chest and stomach tats you already have by putting that that uh oh yeah oh yeah i'm getting i'm getting one cover up uh soon actually oh nice what are you getting you want to talk about my full sleeve and over onto the top of the chest okay well alan w has provided uh words for that first picture. It says, I'm your donkleberry. Say when.

Oh, there we go. There we go. There we go. Is that BC as what? Wyatt Earp or the other guy? Who was the guy who died of tuberculosis? What was his name? Played by Val Kilmer.

It was either Wyatt Earp or the other guy. Probably. In Tombstone. In Tombstone. What the fuck was his name? There's someone who lives in like new mexico who's screaming at the screen right now he's like i could be your huckabee right now and we're like we don't need you we don't need you hey there's another pic from alan

w it says i walked along the avenue i never thought i'd meet a donk like you meet a donk like you with bloodshot eyes and row eight high the kind of high that gluttonized me doc holiday by the way what's his name doc holiday thank you and i ran and got to circle k and i ran and i ate all night and day like it's thanksgiving day luke is that some song lyrics i should have known yeah and i ran i ran so far away from flock of seagulls gotta get away yeah yeah there you go well done alan w thank you very much that's a decent photo i'd put that on a post yeah my hair just looks like the ass of a skunk you know what are you gonna do what are you gonna do right there i mean we would have been pretty lame if our prime was in the early 80s there luke we would have been pretty lame right yeah as opposed to now

i like to think i have a timeless look now look you know you're i mean out of time yeah timeless out of time all right uh morning combat at gmail.com is the look there are there are some whispers online that the whatever we had at some point with fan subs that it's over now yeah it might be do you want do you want to get to the uh the u Yeah, shortly. But either people are out of ideas, Luke, or the people that had good ideas that really loved our show no longer love our show as much. Well, Danger Mouse really losing him was, as a regular contributor to this, it hurt us big.

How about Damien the Donk, Luke? Is he in jail? I don't know where that guy is. Yeah. Listen, people, the MMA fans, come and go, bro. This is the reality. People are. Did we ruin them?

Web scream used to be like part of our lives on a daily basis. Did we ruin all these great people? Will Jay Paquette be found somewhere? He's too busy giving directions on ways. In Greek. I love me some web scream. I mean, one day will we find Jay Paquette living in a van down by the river, Luke, because of us, or is that inevitable anyway?

No, because his wife looks like a baller. But he's definitely got some... You're going to see him perp walk before too long, I think. I'm kind of hoping for an happy redemption story, like an arc, you know, where he just becomes like a credit to his society. Like he stops taking from the society. By what? Going to jail?

And he starts giving, Luke. Well, I'm sure he'd be willing to give to those this dude had this dude in public had underwear on the outside of his pants the first time he met us i mean yeah you know got some all right what do you got for me here luke what else you got let's let's look at this one thing here before we call it a day on the show so the ufc announced for a thousand dollars you can get your name printed on the octagon canvas of like an upcoming event and then after the event they would cut it out and put it in a plaque with like you know some other decoration related to the event itself and then send it to you i don't know if we have the uh oh he didn't have the video i don't know if you have if you have any graphic about it uh mikey or anything you can put on the screen just let us know we'll

throw it up but bc here's the thing that kind of got to me. It's like, dude, we talked about this when we were in studio last time. Not this idea per se, but if you just watch the Octagon, it's completely saturated with ads to the point where literally they're running out of real estate to put ads on it, which is why they're doing this. This is a way to generate revenue that they otherwise wouldn't be able to generate. And they don't have any more free real estate of much anyway inside the octagon like you pay whoever's the main sponsor gets obviously the center of the part but all the all of the padding on the top on the on the on the not the stanchion but the the post itself has it on the lighting around it has it each each panel has it each side panel has it on the lighting around. It has it each,

each panel has it. Each side panel has it like there's nothing left to do it. I just want to point out something like clearly the UFC has given a lot of thought to who's going to advertise where it's going to go, what it's going to look like. And I don't even mind that this is a relatively creative idea or however you want to look at it, but it's like,

it's so fucking insane to me by the way i was looking up old videos of the ufc like justifying the rebach deal and like remember when they said all the fight all the money was going to go to the fighters and they get 20 of whatever else they sell like just all this shit that ended up not being true but clearly what clearly is true is they've put a lot of thought into monetizing that space utterly decorating it to the point now where they're just putting fans fucking names on it for a grand and my point being is you can't tell me that the level of consideration that goes into that and how what an eyesore that is is in any way a better version of doing things than letting fighters have their own uh advertisers or pay or at least

some version of it some some least some version of it. Some, some, some, some version of it. They're printing fucking fans names on the Octagon canvas and the fighters are still at the mercy of whatever venom in this case is going to do for them. Yeah. I mean, in that regard, look, there's sort of a couple of debates within one, like is there a limit of shamelessness that the UFC should have in terms of

monetizing its own logo and name and brand reputation. I mean, you know, I'm starting to wonder, Luke, can we just run fan messages in the bottom of our screen throughout this whole show and, you know, charge 99 cents per and, and, and, you know, or maybe I'll just open up an only pipes, you know, maybe cameo.com slash Brian Campbell and I'll do the same. But, you know, the idea of the octagon looks like a triple a baseball fence right now. You know, it looks like looks like we got you know you know ron's lawn care next to uh you know family foot care and it's like crazy crazy steve's bail bonds yeah so it's like how you know what does that actually mean when someone like budweiser someone pays for a big logo but there's 40 of them around there i think but

anytime you're you're linking it back to the idea of we have a major problem in terms of the disparity in fighter pay compared with other pro sports that UFC competes with. Yet all UFC is doing is trying to create more ways to make their own individual revenue. That's separate from there. It does like, is this like, is there going to be a sale or something like this?

You know what I'm saying? Remember like in 2016, when they packed all those fight cards together, they were so deep. The buildup to UFC 200. I mean, there was, you know, fight cards every night with title fights atop it. In all that whole calendar year, the pay-per-views were just jacked up unnecessarily even, to be fair, with just deep, great fights.

But okay, the idea was that's going toward the sale and it's all helping the numbers rise leading into the sale. What's going on right now? Is it just like, I almost feel like everybody involves like, let's get every red cent we can, and then we'll just leave. Yeah.

Let's look at the video. This is the video that UFC put together. So the names would go on the black, like demarcation line, essentially. Well, that video is just, I mean,

just cranking along. Yeah. It's using the the charging cord that i tried to this morning look the one i bought at the gas station there to power my macbook i don't advise anybody to do that yeah i don't know this is gonna work yeah i mean you can you get the idea you get the idea because you can see the plaque in the background which is where the piece of your name gets cut out and then put on there have you ever actually gone to the ufc memorabilia site luke but then spent a lot of time there and went like deep into the menus not like seven or eight years dude there are things on there that would freaking blow you away they used to have the hot dog brander on there you ever see that

they got all weird stuff like that i'm talking talking about, you can buy like John Jones's personal logo on a giant ring for like $7,000. Like they have weird, really weird stuff on there. That's super crazy expensive that you're just like, who the hell would ever buy this? But you know, if there's a market for it, that's fine. I mean, look, this is no different than like Yankee stadium shutting down. And then, you know, cause they built a new one and then they want to sell like every piece of plastic or steel from it and have like, you know, your name autographed on it or something. I mean,

and there's a market for it. I get it. It looks nice in a living room, I guess. Remember that time my name was on the mat, but you know, is that going to help? Is that going to help, um, you know, Alistair over to Overeem pay for his dental insurance when he's 60 Luke? I don't know. I don't know. I don't think it will. Right. I don't think that it will. I don't think that it will. All right.

But that's the show for today, everyone. Let's remind everyone, even though BC was here for like a third of the show, you should still vote for us if you feel generous. You can go to sportspodcastgroup.com. You can vote for us, Best Combat Sports Podcast, or you can vote for someone else because we really are pretty terrible. But, please vote for us it'd be great uh bc showtime.com is the label that pays you go to showtime.com get a 30-day free trial you can watch the bellator event bellator 293 on friday um and uh bc anything any final thoughts before we call it a day

um probably not like you know i mean i went why you went, why, you know, I'm at, it was barely hair. I mean, I mean, I sat here the whole time. I just, you know, I didn't really bring much to the table today, so I should just sheepishly kind of crawl away. Luke probably. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, glad you're here, BC. Glad you're here. Uh, email the show morning combat at gmail.com for Friday's fan, excuse me, Friday's dead wrongs, Wednesday's fan subs. And if you just want to reach the show in general. Did you tell the people that we're going to Fort Lauderdale soon? I didn't. You want to tell them real quick, and then we'll call it a day?

Yeah. So next week, Luke and I are going to be on the ground in FTL, the home office of CBS Sports, where Mikey Mormile lives and has very elevated THC levels. And we're going to be doing some big boy shit, a lot of big-time content coming your way, room service diaries on location, big sit-downs ahead of some big fights in the future.

So get fired up because we're going to go back into that kitchen and start cooking. And, you know, when we do that, Luke, it gets pretty saucy in there, and I like it like that. It gets spicy. We have some fun stuff planned for you guys, so be on the lookout for that. All right.

Then I go on vacation, Luke, and then you're all all alone and then you go on vacation and then i'm all alone and you know we really plan that horrifically dude we have to do it when our kids go on spring break i don't have a choice anymore for the next 14 years i'm locked into that so yay uh all right for brian campbell for mal, for our good friend and producer, Mikey Morms from CBS, everyone at CBS, that's Brian Campbell. I'm Luke Thomas. Thank you all so much for watching. Catch you on Friday.

And until then, may all of your gains be loyal.