MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Bellator 297 Recap | Cannonier Defeats Vettori | Arman Tsarukyan | Tim Tszyu | Ep 454

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

On Episode 454 of Morning Kombat Luke and Brian break down a packed weekend in the combat sports world. The guys start off with Bellator 297. What are the guys thoughts on Vadim Nemkov's performance? What do the guys think about Sergio Pettis vs. Patchy Mix? Next up the guys break down UFC Vegas 75. Where did this win put Jared Cannonier in the title picture? Tim Tszyu had a dominant win this weekend, Is he finally going to get the Jermell Charlo fight? The guys close out the show with Dm's from Donks and HYSTS. (4:00) - Nemkov Outclasses Romero (15:00) - Pettis Defeats Pitbull (42:30) - Cannonier Defeats Vettori (59:30) - Arman Tsarukyan (68:50) - Tim Tszyu (82:00) - Dm's from Donks 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

and we have no ads hi everyone welcome it's a 19 edition of, or I should say 19th day of June, 2023, and it's time for Morning Combat. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm merely one half of your hosting duo, joining from the capital of the South Unidos, right here in Washington, D.C., joined by the... What is this fucking guy? Just the absolute worst human ever. It's Brian Campbell. Hey, Brian, happy Father's Day. Thank you, Luke. Also, Juneteenth today, so federal holiday as well. So celebrations rightfully so. Mike Perry and beyond, Luke. Happy to be here, though.

Big fun, fun combat weekend, to be fair, over the weekend. Had a hell of a great Father's Day. I hope you did the same, Luke, and all the other dear old dads out there. Even Robert Thomas, Luke, I hope he had a great Father's Day. I hope you did the same, Luke, and all the other dear old dads out there. Even Robert Thomas, Luke, I hope he had a great Father's Day. Yes, he certainly did. He's actually going to visit me this week as well, so he's going to have a great one. I had a pretty good one too. My wife took me to something called Sumo and Sushi, and it's this sushi dinner where all these sumo guys from Japan who used to –

they're no longer active but you know they're still like with it kind of and uh they did like a sumo demonstration for you and all kinds of stuff it's actually pretty cool that's that's awesome luke i i uh you know i had a nice hike had a nice dinner out you know uh you didn't do shit for father's day did you no that's all fun it was that was my call i was like no we're taking the dogs and the kids and the family like we're going on a full hike they hate hiking luke i have to like drag them you know what i mean yeah that sounds fun sounds miserable but sounds fun you know i mean it was sweaty but it was great it was great yeah well to your point bellator on friday there was some respectable ufc action on saturday uh as well as tim zoo doing some pretty interesting

stuff regis pro gray looking not so great. So there's a fair amount to react to. So thumbs up if you're watching on YouTube. Please hit subscribe if you'd be so kind. Sort of standard reminders here, folks. You can see all of our social stuff there. Let's see. First things first. Showtime.com is the label that pays. Showtime.com. Get a 30-day free trial if you like it.

You can keep it. If not, feel free to bounce. Of course, morningcombat.store. That's where all the merch is. Yeah, you can go and find stuff there. And of course, you want to reach the show. Morningcombat at gmail.com. If not, feel free to bounce. Of course, morningcombat.store. That's where all the merch is. Yeah, you can go and find stuff there. And, of course, you want to reach the show, morningcombat at gmail.com. Go ahead, BC. Speaking of merch and our former and hope to be future merch maven, RJ Dunkelbanger, Luke, I did see on Instagram that the great Dunzelman himself got engaged over the weekend.

Did he really? I do have to shout out rj from this distance and say well done well done friend all right that that and the bomber jackets will be his two high watermarks and those would be his legacy yep absolutely absolutely hey you know you know he also got married over the weekend luke that guy nick with an h the sound guy that we work with in the mk studio you know that guy? He loves hockey and white women. He found the ladder there at the altar. It was interesting. How do you know that? Instagram. See, I befriend these people. They do services for us. The best service I could do is just know them, I think. Yeah, see, I don't try to befriend every co-worker, but you do. Every

stranger and every co-worker, and then it blows up in your face, and you're like, Luke, help me, and I'm like, this is where you're on you're on your own i don't seek help from you that's the difference look i accept oh you do oh you do hey gay hey we have to go meet this person come with me i don't want to be solo yes you do yes you do you've definitely done that all right that was that by the way but yeah no it wasn't happy but to that point bc if you're ready to get things started i am as well all right topic number one, if we can get things started here on today's Morning Combat, we start with Bellator on Friday. So Vadim Nemkov basically outclassed Yoel Romero for the majority of five rounds,

not the fifth round per se, but even then it was kind of a spazzy thing that Romero did at Bellator 297. So BC, I kind of want to ask the question this way. There were some questions coming out of it about how good Nemkov looked. In your mind, he won four, sorry, on the scorecards, he won 49-46 across the board. Did he shine or did Romero show that Nemkov doesn't necessarily belong inside the global top five of 205? Good, good Lord. Take that thought out of your mind he looked absolutely

fantastic if there was any pause in nemkov's overall performance and how he graded it was the real danger that yoel romero brings he went full-on drunken master right emmanuel augustus on the boxing side he went full-on look if i here's where romero was he knew after probably about midway through that second round if he tried to fight nemkov straight up his eyes were going to get swollen shut he was going to get continued to be pieced up to romero's credit whether you enjoyed this fight or not and there were high points and low points no question about it romero gave himself his best chance at 46 a division up above his best weight class to remain dangerous there by disguising these explosive strikes

that he's known for with such, you know, weirdness, with such disguise of pretending that he's punch drunk or just trying to whatever. And to his credit, Luke, he landed a few of these out of nowhere from crazy angles to constantly remind Nemkov of the danger of trading with him. Let's not forget a guy who we sometimes call the best striker in the history of the sport. Israel Adesanya was met with that same weird equation when he got popped in round one by

a looping wild shot and he covered up the rest of the way and kind of played, you know, this dangerous game of chess that could have cost him on the scorecards. Obviously, this is an older and in some ways less dangerous and dynamic Romero in this specific matchup. But I thought Nemkov navigated the potentially rough waters adequately, perfectly.

He got across activity. He landed the cleaner blows. He dominated statistically all that stuff and he was never in major trouble after getting hit with the kind of stuff you just can't prepare for because that weirdness that unpredictability that unorthodox unorthodox values that's what makes romero dangerous to begin with along with the physical freak of nature element that he provides can we praise nemkoff i think he is the best light heavyweight in the world this wasn't like the perfect title defense

in that regard because he's fighting more name in romero than you know how much did he earn it how good is he still but romero can still scare you he can still test that chin and if nemkoff wasn't that dude luke he probably would have got dropped and, you know, could have had one of those crazy flash losses. But no, he's here. He dominantly put this guy away, in my opinion. Okay? What do you got? I mean, I don't know if he dominantly put him away.

It was a five-round decision. He dominated the fight outside of a couple moments of, you know, it wasn't, you know what I'm saying? Look, what are we doing here? Come on. I think there's probably a couple things working against Nemkov here, BC, and not necessarily his fault which is to say um this was you could obviously pinpoint fights previous to this one but this was the first fight I ever felt like beginning to end Romero looked old he looked old he finally started to look his age his level change that he does with that knee pound um when he's standing at distance just was completely telegraphed he didn't he had some spring obviously because he's still a great athlete but he just looked a

little diminished to me in a way that was recognizable and um i think meaningful and so for nemkov to not put him away i think kind of hurts him a little bit there at least in the impressions of some people's eyes i mean it should also be noted people who, people who watch UFC and like identify themselves as like hardcore UFC fans, meaning that I'm talking about the kind of variety that are like hostile to the idea that there's talent anywhere else. There's nothing you can do to convince those people, but they're a little bit animated because you're like, Oh, Romero's old. He left the organization. He looked visibly old and your guy over there can't put him away. But I would just sort of say Romero being bigger kind of to an extent makes him a little bit sturdier is one thing I would say. Secondly, Nemkov kind of threw the kitchen sink at him in that second and third round, and he didn't go down.

So I think he was still trying to put a beating on him but not really go after it. You know, he wasn't really trying to force the stoppage in any kind of way and I think the last thing I'd say is even a diminished Romero like an older Romero you know I think there's an impression that because he's older and because he's diminished and he was quite hittable in this fight I mean I think we can all agree with that that you should be able to put him away but like the reality is Romero is going to be one of these guys that's hard to look good against you know Paulo Costa had like a wild fight with him and got the job done, but it was sort of bruising. I'm talking about ones where they beat Romero, and it's one of these like sort of touch-and-go, very mild, like the Izzy fight, where it's like, you know, did Izzy look good beating Romero? No, he did not.

There's a lot of people that don't. He's Phil Davis in that way. So I think a few factors kind of work together here to make people say like, Oh, everyone's telling us Nemcov might be the best two or five, or how come he can't put away a two or five Romero? Who's nearly 50 years old. There's some complicating factors there, but I guess I understand.

Nobody. Calvin Conti 12 years ago, back in Obama's first reign, nobody hurts this guy, Luke. I mean, come on. What,

where's this criticism coming from? Show me these people that you're that you're referencing you don't see a lot of the pushback on your social media about the idea that nimkov is not number one because i got plenty of it on mine you can just go through no i mean you you you you go fishing more with your opinions which is fine that's what twitter's for so maybe you it brings in more you also have a significantly larger fan base than i do luke sometimes i i you know post and ghost get out of there and get back on with my life maybe it's out there but like god i mean there's romero is only here at 46 because of some of these superhuman qualities that he brings to the table nobody does this to him right like come on so what would you say that this victory boosted Nemkov's stock

I mean I feel like it should I feel like when it's all said and done in a year we will say yes but I don't necessarily feel like in the immediate aftermath we're like wow what a Nemkov performance there isn't right but it's not set up to be was Bader's rematch with the retiring Fedor a winning proposition for him in any way unless he did exactly what he did, which was get into an early skirmish and finish him? Romero isn't that type of fighter who hangs around in there. And also, he does, again, present that sort of I-gotta-be-careful danger. But no, Luke, it's a no-win a lot of times when you're facing a veteran

who's there more on name value alone, but he didn't take a step back under any circumstance. I mean, come on. Okay, fair enough. I mean, I don't necessarily disagree with that. I think Romero, as I mentioned, he's just hard to look good against when he's playing these weird-ass games

and everything else. So, it's not exactly clear what will be next for Nemkov at 2055 but it does raise an interesting question about romero bc because again i want to go back to one more time i'm not going to say he looked horrible here in the sense that we knew he was overmatched on the feet he was a very big underdog heading into this he did have the rally-ish kind of thing in the fifth round but i want to home in on that thing I mentioned before which I just don't think is in dispute he looked old like like measurably old he told us last week

that he was not going to be done fighting no matter what happened here what do you think is the road ahead for a guy like Yoel Romero right now I mean if he wants to do it because he loves it and maybe maybe there's some part of him that wants to fight at a high level until he's 50. If anybody could do the rare sort of Bernard Hopkins type thing here, it is Yolo Romero in this case. So if he wants to take attraction fights or just keep doing this job because he loves it, why would he be in this shape at 46 unless he loved it? He does. He's a student and a soldier here and puts his whole life into this. But, Luke, there are extreme limitations when you age with the style he puts out there.

It can keep you around longer doing that style of the one big strike that could change or win a fight. But you're not going to win a lot of fights with that, especially not against good competition. Now that he's slowing down and up a weight class, which makes it even harder to finish guys with some of those big strikes. He's an attraction fighter here moving out. I'm not against Bellator putting him in this spot. In certain categories, he really had to bite down and show out just to finish this fight and remain dangerous in the fifth round. But I think it's attraction fights the rest of the way, Luke, because you can't sustain unless he's going to fight second and third rate competition where he could finish them with some of those mysterious strikes, a much more likely chance there. He's not going to go in and fight the pace that he did against Paula Costa anymore.

Like that, that guy's gone, right? He still can, can masquerade and maintain at a very elite level to at least belong, but there, there, there's no advancement after this i mean here's the thing the idea that romero's going to win a title even in bellator i think is gone i mean maybe he could go back to 185 and maybe he could get lucky but he ain't beating johnny eblin like straight up you know we all know the y'all romero factor right bc like he could throw something crazy it could land you can't rule that out given who he is, even at this advanced age to the point that you raised, but he's not going to beat Johnny Ebelin. Like that's not going to happen. And he's not going to beat Vadim Nemkov. Like he's not going to win in all

likelihood, any kind of title. So the question is what you want to do with him, BC. I mean, here's the thing, right? They used him on a couple of events. And one of those, I think, if not both of them, certainly one of them was overseas in France you could do the hey let's take Yoel Romero to Dublin Ireland tour give him a fight that's you know relatively winnable which they can do in Bellator they have the ability to match make in that way and with the UFC is a little bit more constrained so you could do something like that where you could still get some it's almost like it's a real fight BC but almost like a Harlem Globetrotters kind of thing right that's what I said that's a real fight bc but almost like a harlem globe trotters kind of thing right that's what i said that's an action fight guy now that's what yeah yeah right so take

him to places where the market would be good for it take him to places that the fans love because by the way i want to be clear about this like chicago has a pretty big russian population and nemkov was getting booed walking to the ring. It was all cheers in the Chicago area for Yoel Romero. People still really like the guy. He does have some ability. You can use that. I just want to be clear, it's got nothing to do with the title heading forward whatsoever. Those days are done.

And any more belaboring on here, Luke, would rob from the time that we have allotted to give Sergio Pettis bouquets of flowers. Yeah. All right. So with that in mind, I completely agree. Let's go to topic number two, the guy who had, I'm going to say the biggest win all weekend. We'll talk about what happened to Jared Cannoneer and Marvin Vittori, but I think this was the biggest one. Topic number two, Sergio Pettis. I mean, what do you want to say? He puts on an absolutely stellar performance as he clearly defeats Patricio Pitbull. No doubt about it at all.

Maybe he lost the first round. Maybe you could argue the fifth. That's really about it. Okay, he wins the unanimous story. BC, tell me in your mind, of all the storylines we had on both the Pettis and the Pitbull side, after it was all said and done, what's the real story of this fight? That Sergio Pettis who I already believed came out of his brother's shadow when he won the Bellator championship against Archuleta to

you know really firmly establish himself as not just little brother a separate entity this was a reminder of how great he can be because this was the best victory of his career and when you go over and look back at the names in the UFC, while in their younger days that he did beat, it's overly impressive. But so was this, this version of Pitbull who, yes, we can talk about, and we will, how much did the weight cut compromise him. But what you have to understand is, I hope everybody caught the post-fight interviews that Pettis gave.

In the cage, he referenced it, but he went deeper in the press conference. Here was a guy on an 18-month layoff with a serious injury. The division had almost moved on without him. He had lost out on the chance of a million dollars. We were already ready to kind of crown Patchy Mix, right, as the next full champion. Oh, suddenly Patricio drops in. Hey, great idea.

Pettis admitted afterwards, I got caught up in it. The doubts of my own, can I still do this after 18 months on this level? Was that victory over Horiguchi more, you know, smoke and mirrors when he was getting dominated or was it one calculated perfect strike in a big moment? He basically admitted afterwards that looking across at Pitbull and the build of this fight, he got caught up in the legend of Pitbull and was doubting himself. He didn't believe he was going to win this fight. He got caught up in the legend of Pitbull and was doubting himself. He didn't believe he was going to win this fight. He was almost convinced and complicit in that convincing, which is so great when a fighter actually is this vulnerable and shares this level of honesty because it's relatable to us in any challenges in our own life. He was basically okay with the

fact that he was probably going to lose this fight. And then he went out there, they touched gloves, it started happening, and he just settled into the perfect flow. And from the stance switching, the control of distance, everything, he looked like the bigger fighter in there, which is crazy because we talked about how much Pitbull has always been fighting over his weight class. But for a guy who doesn't have big time finishing power, he certainly established a threat with the spin kick that rocked Pitbull and said, look, if you cross this line, if you try to be that bully, I can take care of you. But really, it was the complete game of Sergio Pettis, including on the ground, which never allowed Pitbull to be in dominant advantageous positions. This was an absolute complete performance. And he did it after an 18-month

layoff coming off a somewhat, you know, not questionable win, but questionable to where his elite stock really was. This game, like anything else in life, is 90% mental. And Sergio Pettis just navigated, you know, the kind of thing that we can all relate to. But only when it mattered, he was a true gamer. Like, yeah, this might be the best win, best performance of his entire career. I mean, let's just set the context here.

For the first time in his career in 2018, Sergio Pettis had back-to-back losses. He lost to Juicier Formiga and he lost to Rob Font, both of those again, in 2018. Since then, he hasn't lost a thing. He has been on fire. Just 29 years of age, he'll be 30 in August. But this is the best stretch of his career, which by the way, since the Rob Font fight, he had one more against Tyson Nam in UFC, and then has been off to the races. But in his last three three fights he's defeated Patricio Pitbull the best fighter in Bellator history he defeated Kyoji Horiguchi which was again to the point you raised the the method of victory was ironclad but up to that point it was not going so well but

nevertheless he got the he got the last laugh quite literally and then he defeated before that one archer led of the previous bantamweight champion down in this organization um this is the best run of his career this is the best he's ever looked he put three of the very top credible wins you you can't look at anything else on his resume he's got wins over joseph benavidez he's got a win over brandon moreno he's got a win over john moraga and some other ones but you can't call this the best three-fight winning stretch of his. You can't call any of those, excuse me, the best three-fight winning stretch of his career. It's right now. And to the point that you raised, I mean, we'll talk about Pitbull dropping to 135

and what it meant for him physically in just a second. Because he did not look drained, BC. But he didn't look exactly like himself. Nevertheless, not the point. The point is, he took those risks heading into this, not exactly knowing how it was all going to shake out when he went down a weight class. What gifts was he going to get?

What pros and cons may there be? He was rolling that dice, and he rolled it. And Sergio Pettis looked like his timing was on point, his takedown defense was on point, his circling was on point, his shot selection was on point. He had Patricio on point his circling was on point his shot selection was on point he had Patricio Pitbull for the first time I've ever seen confused like he could not figure out a way to get into range without getting lit up or the other guy just moving away he could not find a way like usually he's able to counter strike and he's got huge power at 145 and that disciplines everyone he

couldn't get any of that going against Sergio Pettis his game as we traditionally understand it and by the way like there's something to be said for him being 35 and a little bit on the decline but nevertheless like his game as we understand it was nowhere to be found Sergio Pettis took away not merely the winning chances of Pitbull, he took away all of the conditions under which Pitbull thrives, and he did it from basically, basically beginning to end. Again, that fifth round, there was a little bit of hurry-up offense happening on the Pitbull side, but that was really about it. Both guys filling each other out early. By the second round, this was Anthony, excuse me, this was Sergio Pettis' fight. fight BC it's hard for me to say whether he's past his brother at this point but I will say this his stock as a credible top fighter is as high as it's ever been

yeah it was not this high UFC at all he has truly leveled up to a new level and I was blown away by his performance it's always going to be hard to surpass a brother who was on a Wheaties box and was a champion in two major league promotions but this run to your point has really established himself as his own entity and you can always say like nobody really talks or things like that like who cares no they do it matters to the fighters why is Tim Zoo after his last two wins going say my motherfucking name it's don't call me hall of famer costas used kid right like this matters to identity to to hot to the motivation you have and whether that was a big you know can of chips on his shoulder or not sergio has been able i think to eclipse that he's operating as such a great run right now and look you know there's some elements of the weight

cut that limited pitbull, but really dude, it may have been the disciplining. I mean, that spinning kick knocks out most people to be very fair. Pitbull took it, you know, but I think there was certainly, you,

you always wonder on some of those shots, Luke, if there's, if you're kind of, you know, if you're kind of cobweb for the rest of the fight and does that affect you? I always like make the point of like Anthony Joshua and the first Ruiz fight where he got rocked early equilibrium off lingered for a couple rounds never

quite the same either whether it was some element of that or the way cut or not pettis set up conditions that made it very difficult for one of the best fighters on the planet to operate and do what he does i mean this is just so brilliant because it's not just oh he's quicker and speed was a major part of his attack it's it's the full combination of his game it's not just oh he's quicker and speed was a major part of his attack it's it's the full combination of his game it's the mental the iq and and like i said to go through that mental barriers that he had a breakthrough just to get to that point and and execute like this is saying something about how he's wired but uh just such a full full bloom is the best way to say it full like he came full bloom in this fight

and really showed you the complete package. And look, I have never even heard, maybe this is the casual in me exposed that the Pettis brothers' father had been killed in the way he was and, you know, how much that had affected them. This is a tough family, Luke. I got a lot of respect for these guys.

Yeah, both brothers have been, I mean, the two Pettis brothers, WEC, UFC, and Bellator champs between the two of them. Boy, that's pretty fucking good. That good that's you know certainly they're not the stars that the diaz brothers are right but in terms of title winning guys in terms of who they've beaten ufc or i should say it overall in mma their records well again you know nate and nick have some pretty decent records too but they've got certainly not the blemish free records relatively speaking anyway that the pettis brothers have,

and ultimately they don't have the same kind of upside in terms of the names either, given that the Pettis brothers have all those titles to their name. But I think your point is well stated, BC. Pettis was faster, certainly. Naturally, you could just tell he's much quicker at 135. Remember, he's a flyweight who is moving up to 135 at this stage of his career. He obviously competed previously at 125. So he's just naturally a little bit of a quicker

guy, but it was more than that, man. His timing was on point. Again, the tricks he was using to confuse Pitbull, people could just not get a read on him. He could not figure out what can I do to get my way to the inside where I can let my you know my real boxing game go did a little bit of kickboxing from the outside it wasn't that so just to say oh because Pettis won on physical advantages well he definitely had some but that really wouldn't explain the the win the what explains the win is the combination of being the naturally uh more like suited guy for Bantamweight in addition to having the the right game plan executing on that night confusing his opponent really just taking it to him and also he had to show a good chin i don't

know if you saw i wish i had added it to have you seen this shit uh there was a video in the locker room where the two fighters were embracing and talking afterwards and kind of saying oh did i get you there i hurt you where pettis is like man you rocked me with those big right hands a couple times so he really had to show everything to get there. But look, here's the pun for a reason. Million dollar follow-up question. How much did Pettis' performance against Pitbull, in your mind,

change the early betting odds for this unification as millionaire Pachy Mix brings that interim crown in because this is already on paper a fantastic fight but what did this win on friday do for your interest in this a lot a lot again he didn't just beat a name you know what i mean like yes patricio pitbull does have a name uh and he gets the value of the win by virtue of that. But, you know, he didn't eke it out. It wasn't close. Like, this was clearly one guy was just way better. So my impressions of how good Sergio Pettis is have gone up significantly.

Now, I think Pachimix is probably the guy to beat. I think in the grappling department, he's going to give Pettis a little bit more trouble with the backpack style of carry and attack that he can get. I also think I mean look we did to Rafael on stats like he's no slouch on the feet but Pettis it dude would it how could you and I say you and me together like how could we see the last three fights that Pettis has had including this one obviously on Saturday in particular and be like oh Pettis is out of this it would seem absurd to say something like that.

He is very much in this careful manager of distance, great experience, beating the best fighters of his career now in quick succession. Yeah, I think he's absolutely capable of winning that contest. I'm very high on Patchy Mix, and he's different than Pitbull for a lot of reasons.

But this whole time, BC, cards on the table, I thought Pitbull would win. Totally wrong. I was looking forward to a Pitbull-Patchy-Mix fight, and Patchy-Mix on Friday's broadcast even told them he was looking forward to seeing Pitbull win because he wanted to be the guy to beat him, but I got to tell you what,

it's nice to see a young guns tournament, right? Two guys in there. I think Mix is right at 30, but basically two guys 30 and down or right around that mark. Some of the younger names, so to speak, in this division finally coming of age on the Bellator side, not so much UFC, and really beginning to take over.

It's exciting. The Bellator 135-pound division is really, really, really good, and I'm almost glad in a way that it wasn't someone coming down from 145 who took it over. It were the guys who have been there this whole time staking their claim. let's give the respect now to pitbull this didn't go his way but the guy's got huge balls his ambitious level of doing something so difficult at 35 cutting down 10 pounds going to a division he's never competed at before after winning a second title 20 pounds higher and then being in this fight at times or at least a threat level ultimately it was

Pettis's next level performance that did a combination of discipline or limit him but Luke we can stop with the talk to cutting to 125 it's not healthy and as we saw here it's not just easy to jump down there are limitations we have to wonder if some of those limitations and Rashad used to always be honest Rashad Evans and talking to me when we did a podcast together about if you cut down in weight, your punch resistance level, you know, with the oxygen available to your brain is just not the same. That could have been part of that where, where Pitbull was rocked by that big strike and kind of never got back on

track, but he never stopped trying Luke. But if there's one thing, and I think Jose Aldo saw this cutting down to Bantamweight, just the same, your activity level cannot be the same over five minutes per round that it is when you're not as drained. So, you know,

does people have a style where he could compete here as a big, heavy counter puncher with, with a good ground game? Yes. But I, you know, it robs from that horsepower and that long, you know,

and that, that stamina to be as great as it can be it doesn't necessarily seem worth it to move on from here what are your thoughts yeah here's what i would say about pitbull going to 135 he didn't look slow but relative to the best guy in that weight class right now anyway in bellator he looked slow you know what i mean he didn't look he didn't look objectively slow but slow enough for this contest, so that was a problem. BC, here's the biggest one to me. We know Pitbull has dynamite power at 145, and as we saw against Michael Chandler, pretty fucking good power at 155, too.

I even said it on Friday, and I would stand by this. Of Volkanovski, Pitbull, and Max Holloway, who's got the best punching power? It's Pitbull at 145, no questions asked. His power looked drained to me at 135. He did not have the same pop. And so if you don't have the same, like you're landing some of these, dude, he would land on Pettis sometimes. I'm not saying they were insignificant,

but dude, normally when he lands on opponents, you can see the fucking shock on their face. Like, Whoa, what happened here? They hadn't been hit like that. They begin to change how they operate. They begin to change tactics. They get a little further away. They don't want any piece of that. It becomes a real problem. He could not discipline Sergio Pettis that way, even when he was landing. So he's getting hit when he does land. It's not having the same effect and it's getting harder and harder to just to find the target dude he was up against it to the we the one thing i

will stand by on friday's analysis beyond this is when you ask like hey he's already saying what about going to 125 dude forget it forget it forget it the question is that as at 35 years of age and by the way bc the 35 year old demarcation line strikes again from 125 to 170. We talked about it with the Henry Cejudo fight coming back about how difficult that record is. Only two wins in UFC in that space for title-winning fighters would be Tyron Woodley. Here at 35 years of age, again, producer Pitbull comes up short. So it's interesting that 35 is this sort of bizarre demarcation line. But BC, I think he needs to go back to 145, defend his title.

I don't know how much longer he's got at the top in that weight class. And then after that, it's fun fights for him, really, is sort of the way. Because this triple champ effort is a no-go completely at this point. Yeah, I mean, unless he said, this is the only thing i care about the rest of my career i'm going to build my body at a maintenance level where i can pull this off and even if i'm diminished from what i can be above it still matters to me if he wanted to do

that could he compete here maybe but the question is is it worth it he already has a title at featherweight and even though his chief rival of the moment, AJ McKee is operating at 155 in that tournament. I still think the Aaron Pico fight matters and could be, you know, as, as big of a deal as possible here in terms of two big names coming together. And, uh, Pico does have a scheduled fight, but if he wins that Luke and, and moves further out of the shadow of that shoulder injury, a weirdness against Kennedy against Kennedy, it's time to make that. And I think that's a fantastic fight and certainly worth staying around for. But, yeah, you got to capitalize from there. I will say moving forward, I love that stat about 35 and over. But, Luke, portions of our fan base have flooded my DM saying, Luke will use this comment on Monday, so you better be ready to roast him. I'm not going

to roast you but i would like a hand check when you deliver that that that stat next time because it's it's a it gives you a 49 times level of sick passion into your face that some people misread as you know as you being like rapey and stuff and you know you just you're just a passion you're a numbers guy you're a numbers guy luke the over 35 i don't even say what you're talking about oh some some people that are anti-luke are like you know this is one of luke's you know most annoying tropes i think that status is it's still 35 year old age marker thing yeah yeah like people people see the passion in your face when you deliver it and they get i don't think it creeped out or intimidated luke it's weird you know i never i mean this is what i understand about some

of my like some of my people who don't like me just don't like me for the views or whatever which is fine i mean that's inevitable like not everyone's gonna like you it's something like this that it's like hey here's an interesting stat that i find fun to talk about this is what this is what makes me an asshole i'm just trying to understand here like that's a yeah you can't win look you can't you can't beat the internet you can't this is this is what i mean about like you know detractors on the internet it's like dude there's plenty of them that have occasionally very smart things to say. We're all stupid people. We all do stupid shit.

But liking this statistic is an interesting thing to talk about, especially when you host shows like this. This is why you're just like, okay, dude, I don't take any of these fucking jamokes seriously for two seconds. That's why you won't befriend our audience. I understand it, Luke. No, dude, you're so wrong about this. I've talked to so many people in my DMs that't befriend our audience. I understand it, Luke, right? No, dude, you're so wrong about this. I've talked to so many people in my DMs that are members of our audience. I'm just like, what am I supposed to do

with someone who is so fucking dumb that they think harping on this as like some kind of cudgel to beat me over the head with is a interesting or otherwise bright way of attacking me? Like, I literally don't i don't i literally don't even understand it's like dude you know he fucking likes he likes fucking vanilla ice cream dude what the fuck like you basic what am i yeah i do like what am i supposed to do about that like i don't that's a that's a really disreputable thing well because one of my sons loves vanilla

it's his favorite ice cream by far and i always call him basic luke and uh is that your favorite no i i it's actually not my favorite but i end up eating a little bit of it because it's tuki's favorite and so she never finishes it so i end up just he ends up countering that there's like six different flavors of vanilla within the vanilla universe luke and you know that's sort of true but it's a little overstated that's not good enough reason to only eat vanilla all the time i'll say say that, you know. All right. Anyway, neither here nor there on that point, BC. Okay, so we got the Pettis side.

Pitbull, 35 years of age, whatever you want to make of that. It is pretty close, or it is pretty clear that whatever his title future is at 145, I bet Bellator is looking for, like, hmm, who's the next one? You like the Pico fight next. Oh, yeah. I guess we'll see which way it goes in the end. Hey, quickly, Luke, I wanted to get your take on that gutsy, not gutsy in terms of bravery,

but Corey Anderson really had to gut out a technical battle with Phil Davis and make sure he hit high notes to win the judge's favor. It's a split decision. A lot of times against Phil Davis at the elite level, that's what happens. But I was really impressed by, you know, I wondered if he would do it by, by going balls out and trying to make it a fight. He, he instead met Davis technically at each stop, but was more active. And I thought that was a difference, man.

Here's the guy. I mean, we talked about it with Romero, but it's really true with Phil Davis, dude. It is hard to look good against Phil Davis because Romero at least was very hittable Phil Davis is not very hittable and Corey Anderson was finding ways at certain times to kind of put hands on him but nothing ever like super hardcore ever lands and at least it's just hard to get sustained offense against a guy like that plus he can wrestle plus he can slow down the fight he avoids contact that isn't advantageous to your point, we were talking about this when we were watching the fight. A lot of Phil Davis's striking is just to make contact and exit.

Like it's almost literally point fighting. He's not actually trying to knock you out. And I know that's not pleasing to the fans. I'm not, I'm not saying it should be, or like super smart. We have to love it. It's hard for the opponent to do anything with that. It's touch and quite literally go, but it's not touched to set up a big shot later or a big punch. It just is this kind of like tag. You're it. It's frustrating to fight a guy like that for Corey Anderson to get his hand

raised, man. This is what it means. Like does Corey Anderson beating Phil Davis mean he's going to beat Vadim Nemkov? No. does Corey Anderson beating Phil Davis mean he's going to beat Vadim Nemkov no does it mean that he is in the upper upper upper upper tier and probably should get a title shot against Nemkov soon yes it does if you can beat even a 38 year old Phil Davis especially as like kind of thoroughly ish as Corey did it that is extremely impressive in my view.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, look, there's a storyline there in the Nemcoff thing. It would be a trilogy, the first fight, a no contest, but we all felt like Anderson had figured something out, Luke, that nobody else has really been able to figure out. I mean, Phil Davis made fights difficult for Nemcoff, but in this Bellator run, who has really put Nemcoff behind or silenced some of what he does great? That was Corey Anderson there. Didn't show it in the rematch. You got to put Nemcoff behind or silenced some of what he does great. That was Corey Anderson there.

Didn't show in the rematch. You got to give Nemcoff that credit. But if that's where we're headed, Luke, I'm here for that. You? Yeah. No, I honestly, like, I knew that was, I mean, I kind of thought Phil might get it done. By the way, 38, we'll talk about Phil in just a second. But Corey Anderson's pressure, Corey Anderson's pace, his offensive and frankly

defensive wrestling ability, his ability to create scrambles was really good. I just think that he was his level of activity, his movement, just the amount of work that he does. Like Phil, I'm not going to say he's lazy. I mean, look at him. He looks like he's in tremendous condition, but he doesn't have like a high work rate style. Corey does. And I think in the end, that kind of won out last thing on Phil Davis BC 38 years of age dude he was this was his 15th Bellator fight they announced on the broadcast he only had 13 fights in UFC he has officially fought more for Bellator than he did with UFC and what's interesting BC is he kind of came over as this really kind of splash uh signing and

I think obviously he won a title on early on he was he was doing a lot of media dude I can't remember the last time I've seen a Phil Davis interview I swear to god I cannot remember the last time I've seen one at 38 years of age he's clearly not out of it but he's not going to win a title either I it's an interesting and strange legacy he's had in the sport it is it is because like you wouldn't call him marketable but yet i've enjoyed interviewing him at times and you remember that that i think you referenced it that press campaign bellator did when he was champion to try to almost put him in these like comedic skits like he's kind of an interesting dude and has a legitimate background

of elite national championship pedigree at penn but Luke, like never able to sustain that into, let's be honest, a very good fighter in some categories, sometimes look like he was angling toward greatness, but never became truly great because I think we all have had this opinion. Like there's an extra gear that he's just never been able or willing to activate. Is that fair, Luke? I mean, there's some, like, there's some not disrespect, but sort of keyboard activate. Is that fair, Luke? I mean, there's some like, there's some not disrespect, but sort of keyboard warrior. Yeah, man, tell everybody to just go guns blazing. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying more offensive intention. Could that have made him great, Luke? When you look back on, on, on, I mean, he was, you know, he gives, he gives great fighters really tough nights, but I don't feel like he ever

gives himself the best chance to win so what's interesting about that is I mean let's look at his losses right you could definitely say that about the Corey Anderson fight to an extent you can say that about both Nemkov fights less so the first one first one he kind of took it to him a little bit and then lost in the end the Ryan Bader fight in New York City both of them didn't do much so you couldn't really you know I think it fits your theory uh there's the Ryan Bader fight on UFC on Fox 14 I've forgotten that one I'm assuming it's going to be pretty similar to Anthony Johnson Anthony excuse me Anthony Johnson fight that was the one in Baltimore where he was kind of like showing him up and he got kind of hit on the feet and then was very hesitant to attack after that now

in fairness Rumble can crack like nobody could, so I understand being hesitant there, but I'm just pointing out. And then he lost to Rashad Evans as well. Like every time he had one of these fights, not so much against a big name because he beat Glover, he beat Liotto, he beat Mola Wall, he beat some good names. I'm just sort of pointing out there's been these times where he had to step up and really kind of use a broader array of offensive skills that he just didn't necessarily work on.

He was interesting because he came around at a time, BC, when there was like 205 has had a history of like really good wrestlers being a part of it for a very long time. Randy Couture, obviously, you can go back further than that, but he was kind of the next wave of that. And he was really good at submissions, he was good obviously at wrestling as well like when he put away um uh uh gustafson he remember he choked him out inside of a round yeah right so he was this new combo but the game never got developed past that it just kind of was that and he had enough skills on the feet to avoid getting banged up too much and he just kind of rode that for the next like 10 years and it worked for the most part but not enough like i don't want to be negative he was the bellator champion he's beaten

big names but a lot of times that's when he can dictate the terms he's great he's great on top in that regard you know like he's great running downhill with in control of a fight because he's in such great shape his defensive uh you know foundation is so strong but man the thing that we always say when he does lose close fights against the elite typically is man if he was just busier if he was just you know looking more to do damage with his strikes rather than as an in-between or i mean most of his strikes are defensive based luke in a lot of ways i don't know i mean there have been fights you mentioned that first nemco fight he was more aggressive than normal. But is it like, like that's a lot, not taking that extended damage has allowed him

in a lot of ways to have this great run of consistency that I think he deserves respect for. I mean, nobody puts in harder work. You see the shape he comes in. But like, is it fear that if he gets into a war, the chin won't be there? I don't know. You know, there's something blocking him in some degree

from trying to be the most dominant version of himself. I think he makes a good check, and I think if he feels like at 38 years of age, he probably doesn't have a whole lot of time left. Why not just fight safely with the time you have remaining and have your brain intact when you're done? That's probably what he's thinking. That's probably what he's thinking.

All right, let's go to UFC if we can. Topic number three, how about Jared Cannoneer? So starts out a little bit rough for him in the first round as he's playing with stance, but by the second round on, he was in a groove. He beat the bejesus out of Marvin Vittori by the time this fight was over. In fact, I want to talk about Vittori's chin

in just a minute, BC. But here's the question. No doubt a good performance for Jared Cannoneer not arguing anything otherwise my question is not that rather how much did this meaningfully improve his chances of getting a title shot which is what he says he ultimately really just wants I mean it helps I think his problem is that Dana's sort of already identified the pathway for Duplessis if he can upset Whitaker on July 8th. Or let's say if Whitaker smears the African potential champion across the canvas, do we go into a trilogy there? That's a sexier fight for the promotion than going back to cannoneer but did cannoneer do everything in his power to give himself the best chance to either crash that party or still maintain a hold in terms of being in line

to get back there to the title yeah man you heard him say on the broadcast talking about in the announcers that this was his best camp of his career in terms of the amount of work he put in and and the aggressiveness that he showed Could he have that same success offensively against Adesanya or Whitaker? No, because it's style dependent. And in this case, Vittori is there to be hit in a lot of ways. But what held back Kananir the most against Adesanya, he wasn't offensive enough to give himself a chance outside of one big shot to put a dent in there, to have a chance to either outpoint or stop and finish

Izzy. At the very least, from a confidence level and certainly from reputation, I think he repaired a lot of that because anybody else gets knocked out in this fight, most likely from Kananir. And on top of that, Luke, Kananir had to show a chin early on and a recuperative ability right away after getting visibly rocked by Vittori. So I was really happy with his performance, with the fact that this fight was everything you said it wasn't, Luke. So I want to throw it back to you, Mea Culpo, you know, Omoplata.

Remind me, don't tell me about the tenor of what I said. Remind me exactly what I said. No, I don't speak in absolutes, Luke, okay? I'm paraphrasing you. You mean factual statements? Tell me exactly what I said that was. I'm more absolutes, Luke, okay? I'm paraphrasing you. You mean factual statements? Tell me exactly what I said that was. I'm more about feeling, Luke, all right? What I felt in that moment was that you were basically, Luke,

I mean, I won't show you my package, but you were willing to urinate on this matchup. And I get it in this current season. You know, was this card must-see TV? Nah, nah, brah. Here's the point about this fight, BC. matchup and i and i get it in this current season you know was this card must see tv nah nah bro here's the point about this fight bc i mean was it more exciting that i had probably indicated yes of course it was i mean i won't i won't sit there and fight you on that but like this is the point about this fight and then these cards more generally it's like it's not that you don't

learn anything from it or that there isn't the capacity for excitement on occasion right because that is true that is true and so there can be a certain kind of um you know dismissiveness among people like us that is unfair all right fair enough i'll take that l however like here's my problem with this fight i in answer to the question here's my answer did it move canon near closer to a title shot i mean maybe technically but not realistically right that? That's the problem. And it was really bad for Marvin Vittori, which we'll talk about in just a second. Now, that's not Kananir's fault.

Kananir actually did a great job in making it really bad, but he didn't meaningfully improve his chances while it was really bad for Marvin. More to the point, it was like, did this fight actually need to happen? In other words, could middleweight have moved forward, but, you know, could not have moved forward, rather, but for this fight happening? And the answer, of course, is know, could not have moved forward, rather, but for this fight happening?

And the answer, of course, is no. So my point being is, like, what really was on value? You had guys who are known as decision machines, which you got here as well, although it would be a one-sided one. It just happened to be a little bit more exciting because one guy was not up to par. Fair enough. If that's better for you, great.

But it doesn't really change the broader problem of what these kinds of fights are and what that says about the matchmaking. And so for that reason, I'm just not super high on it. If this is about matchmaking and it seems to be at the end of the day, Luke, not either some sick grudge you have against anybody or you just not being willing to understand that these two guys were going to come in hungry and want to really hold their spot.

And to do that, sometimes you've got to go crazy. They were willing to do that. you gotta you gotta go crazy they were they were willing to do that they were both willing to let it all hang out luke at the end of the day and that hunger it matched up this for cannon near dude cannon near did show me something i will say a little bit new like part like we knew that vittori was hittable but guys have been a little bit hesitant to stand in there with him dude fucking cannoneer just by the time like the third round was going right just marched into him at times you could see he put a hand on him throw the punch with the other hand and then come over with the elbow on that one like he was right there in his face that's

a level of guts that you just don't see from a lot of guys so i definitely tip my cat to jared cannon my cap cannoneer like there was nothing, nothing accidental about the way he won this one whatsoever. Okay. Critical, true or false question based on this performance. Cause I do think this was a, even though he's,

he had a fight in between this fight and the out of Sonia fight. I think this was the fight where he kind of kicked, kicked out all the remaining demons of the out of Sonia fight. Like he was willing to take the risk. Do you think at his age right now that cannon near has come to terms with the decision that if i get a second chance i'm willing to get ko'd you know you know i'm willing to get wiped up to go after it i'm willing to take to risk it all to for the ultimate prize i felt like there was some sea change in the way he looks at this. I think there's a little something to that. I mean, the question is whether that will matter in the end, right,

just based on skills. But, again, dude, this performance was really admirable from Jared Kananir. I grant that completely. I grant that he had a little trouble and adjusted and had ultimately, like, once he fixed some of the problems with the stance and everything and which side to go he was off to the races um he was like could you really say that jared cannoneer didn't do enough to put marvin vittori away he did more than enough for the typical

opponent marvin vittori just happens to be made out of cement or some shit right like yeah he did a middleweight record for for combined uh power shots landed right i mean yeah truly a math a statistical anyway historic performance for this division like just absolutely fucking shocking and to the point that we were talking about previously in the kind it was he didn't leg kick him to death i mean it was in his goddamn face he was doing this so yeah i take that i take that as real i take him as maybe exercising some demons and maybe he needed to do that would you pick him over izzy would you pick him over, Izzy? Would you pick him over Whitaker?

I probably wouldn't, though. No, but with an injury that he had against Whitaker, he still remained dangerous enough to hurt Whitaker in that third round and at least create an opening of opportunity. I think, you know, he, he will have learned now the ultimate lesson of losing to both of those two all-time greats, Adesanya and Whitaker. Again, that if he's going to beat them, if he gets the second chance, he's, he's going to have to risk it all. He's going to have to be more offensive. He's going to have to put himself in more positions where something could happen, regardless of the risk that that takes. Not an easy proposition for anybody, especially when you're as technically skilled as Kananir. and i do give him a lot of credit for the added work he does nobody comes in there better shape uh and and he you know he's got a very good striking game in that regard but

luke here's the million dollar question again i put i ask all the hard questions in your direction will cannoneer get that second title shot will happen? Or will he end up losing to a number one contender? Or what? What is your take on this? I think if Izzy wins, probably not. His next fight, I guess we'll see how that goes. I'm going to guess probably not. I'm going to guess probably not.

History is littered with guys who get the one title shot, they underperform, and then they are desperately seeking a second one and it just doesn't work um i'm gonna i'm going couldn't rule it out but you're asking me gun to my head which way would i pick i would pick against him not getting it yeah just just just based on how if past is prologue then that's the way that this typically goes unfortunately for him unless you know unless robert whitaker beats izzy when they fight for the 15th time luke and then then suddenly you're like, man, I could see that cannon near fight again. I could see that. Here's the question.

What kind of chance are you given? I know you're going to pick Whitaker because anyone with a brain would pick Whitaker. But how much of a chance are you given Duplicy? I'm not. Okay. Let me say this. Let me say this. Hold on.

Let me just hear me out. Hear me out. I mean, any man with two hands, Luke, right? Right? You know what I mean? Hold on. Hold on. You would never, ever, ever pick Duplicy over Whitaker if they were both healthy and, like,

you're positing that nothing stupid happens. Can anything happen? Yes. I'm amazed. Like, the most dangerous freaking sport, even compared to boxing, in terms of you could lose 50 different. There's 50 ways to leave your lover Luke in this in this case right you know what I'm saying um but dude I'm on such a Paul Simon run right now I know you don't want to talk about this good lord I forgot how great that 70s run was back to this Luke um

yeah dude 10 out of 10 times Whitaker's gonna going to clean up, dude. Okay, I'll just say this. I'm picking Whitaker. I will never change that. What I will say is duplicy is enough of a spaz where weird shit can happen. Yeah, weird shit can happen. Dude, he does the most random shit. Like, how do you? This is echoing our conversation about Juliana Pena's chances against Nunes, and you fight in the, you know fight as the resident Latin Fauci yourself.

Luke, you fought the good battle. Turns out you were right. Anything can happen in this cage. This ain't that fight, Luke. This ain't that matchup. All right, all right. Nevertheless, let's talk about Vittori for just a second, BC. Simple question.

What does he do from here based on the situation that he's in, given his age, where he needs to go? Give me a state of things and how to get to a better place. Well, the problem is this isn't the first time in recent memory that I feel like we've been in this conversation. This like, oh, man, you know, when he gets to that highest level, nobody tries harder. Nobody's more durable, all that stuff. And he was stupidly durable. I mean, insanely durable.

And I don't mean stupid like it was a bad decision that he almost looked like he rocked cannon near again late in that fight like he's he just we don't look at him as a one punch striker he doesn't have plus level in any category it seems but will and resistance which shouldn't be looked over it's just we're still where we already were in terms of where are those next level improvements to at least hone in on one skill. Like I get that he's well-rounded enough and so durable that against second rate guys, he can kind of outlast them or in some cases stop them.

And he's got a wrestling ability. I mean, he's a good ass fighter, but he's trying to be great fighters. And, uh, you know, it,

what he has right now, it's just not going to work Luke. And I think the problem is that we are now revisiting the same conversation. and what he has right now, it's just not going to work, Luke. And I think the problem is that we are now revisiting the same conversation, only he just took a middleweight record of concussive blows to get to this point. How much does that slow him down, set him back? He's young enough where he could still

make the biggest run of his career by maximizing everything he's got. There's a lot to like about who Marvin Vittori is, biggest run of his career by maximizing all of the, you know, everything he's got. And there's a lot to like about who Marvin Vittori is, but he is just not elite in the areas where the fights mostly take place on the feet. And the main reason outside of a lack of one strike finishing power, in my opinion, is his defense and head movement is atrocious for the elite level. And maybe it's the chin that has allowed him to the, you know, go the distance against Adesanya and a title fight and, and remain a threat, but that doesn't last. It's not gonna last forever. And I think this fight,

you know, that has to take a, you know, in the, in the career power bar, that's got to take off a, a, a chunk. There's no question about that. Luke, he can't win against the best guys in the world when he's there to be hit that often that cleanly that consistently i love his warrior spirit i love his backbone i mean it's commendable but it it's it's it's nearing that point where it's commendable to a fall i mean it might be past that point to be fair um he can't win under the way it is structured right now at this level. It's not going to happen. I'm going to say this. Uh, I actually feel like this could be a really good opportunity for him. And here's what I mean. Obviously getting your ass kicked is terrible. And I want to say this

just on health terms, forget anything else just on health terms. After all that abuse he took, he needs to take some time off, like some real time off. Um, honestly, six months to me would be insufficient to be quite, to be, to be perfectly candid with you. I'm talking nine months, a year, potentially even longer than that for two reasons. One is I just, the brain health and everything else. That was a car crash he was in. You need to take some time to be in recovery mode for that reason. But the bigger one is BC.

We had seen this in his last fight against the Leeds A, which was that given his youth, and he's so fucking naturally perfect for this weight class, he's huge and he's tough. And we can say this very clearly. That's an all-time chin performance in MMA history, certainly in that middleweight division. I mean, that guy took, dude, Ken Anear is not a soft touch guy at 185. Ken Anear was hitting Vittori so hard when he was throwing the right, he would lose his balance after landing on him

because he was just hauling off as hard as he could. And Vittori sit there and took it. I mean, and this didn't happen once or twice. This happened several times through the course of that five rounds. So an all-time legendary chin performance. I tip my hat to him, but this is the thing I wanted him to do after, I think it was the Whitaker fight BC. It was clear that like he needed, it was clear that he's good at a lot of things. He's not great at anything. If he really wants to be, what I think is still actually his potential,

but who he wants to be, it is not a difficult equation. It's hard to get there, but it's a simple equation. You have to be good at everything. You have to be great at one thing. That's it. You cannot be champion in the Ultimate Fighting Championship in 2023 or 2024 or any time in the near future if you are not great at something.

Take the time to both heal up here and take the time to work on the craft, then come back against a more reasonable opponent when you're ready. Forget his fucking ranking. Forget his positioning. All of that is smoke and mirrors. You're not holding on to anything at this point that doesn't matter what only matters is skill development with the time that he has remaining which is still at this point bc pretty significant that's it that's the only thing he has to do i mean i've all i've always said well you know it's hard it's like would you rather him just be a full-time striking spaz?

No, he's still going to open himself up without any kind of defensive foundation to be even more likely to be hit. I mean, would you like him to lean into the wrestling, Luke, and use all that? I mean, he's in great shape. He's got a great motor. The will is next level. I mean, would you like to see him more as just a grind you to the ground,

ground-and-pound specialist? That's got to be a better path than the one he's doing now. Yeah. I'm not sure what that is. I think you'd have to find that himself. You have to figure out, does he want to put his energy into wrestling? Is that something he can scale for 25? Does he want to get better at boxing? Does he, what does he want to get better at? Does he want to get better at the clinch? Does he want to get, I mean, he needs to sort of figure out where he wants to do his best work. Like what is going to be your, I'm, I'm, I'm changing the term of it. What's going to be your safe place in a fight when I, what's the safe place for, um, for Izzy it's at kickboxing range, right? That's where he can see, he can think he can calculate for Habib, wrap the legs.

You got a wrist. That's the place where he can begin to, that's his home base where he can begin to operate. Vittoria needs to figure out what that is lean into that completely and then just go in that direction as far as he possibly can because if he just has what he has now yeah you're gonna beat you're gonna beat good guys but you're just he's only 29 years of age by the way dude i want you to understand something marvin vittori is younger than sergioettis. He's fucking younger than Sergio Pettis. I mean, just understand that. Like, this is the kind of guy we're talking about here. He still has a lot of time on his side to get better,

but unless he really, really steps out of competition for just a moment and invests in the skill development, I just don't see how that's going. Tell me how we get from what we've got to where he wants to go without that. That's the part I just don't see. I just don't me how we get from what we've got to where he wants to go without that. That's the part I just don't see. I just don't see how you get there. Yeah.

All right. Or just get divorced. Luke, that seems to be a good thing. Lately fighters are having their best performances ever. It's like the bet. What's your best rock album? The one that I wrote during my divorce.

You know what I mean? That's, that's, that's art. Luke, I guess. All right. BC question number four for you.

Topic number four. So. Armand Saryukin was back in action, BC, and he did score a third round finish over Joakim Silva. Looked pretty good, actually, if you just watched the final beating that took place. But let me ask you this. Did he impress you here, or did he make you question about where he's headed? I'm impressed more than I'm anything else. It was a monster favorite over a not even ranked opponent. And you heard him afterwards talk like at length, nobody wanted to fight him. So I get that and respect that. So he's just like, let's take on anybody, even if I don't know anything about this guy. Well, this guy Silva, he was in great shape and he was willing and he took a beating at times. But you're talking about that one big left hand. But what did Sarukian do when that happened? When he got staggered, he behaved, as Teddy Atlas would say, like a fighter, right?

He tried to get the fight to a clinch. He shot a takedown. He recovered, shook out the cobwebs. And guess what he did in round three? As you said, put him away with violent vicious active grounded pound uh overall this was a step forward in my opinion on the evolution of armin sarukin which is necessary if he's ever going to you know defeat uh mahachev in a rematch if he's going to truly contend and be in title contention look he thinks a victory here over an unranked guy makes him automatically the number one contender it'll take more time than that but for how close he was against gamrod and how good he's shown flashes

at times the thing i said the most that he's going to need to make that leap it's obvious right so you got to round out that striking this fight especially in that first round where he looked like rose against andrage in round one of their first fight i mean it was just wonderful to watch the stance switches, the way he incorporated kicks, the power that he lands. I mean, he's built like an Armenian God, Luke, which is, he's got to be your favorite fighter of all time. He has to be right now. I will say this though, Luke, if you're going to harp on one strike in this sport, which is so hard, and yet he navigated those rough seas perfectly. Dude, this guy is a stud who's ironing out his craft in real time.

Yeah, he's going somewhere, Luke. I'm okay with this growth. He's not perfect. Few have been, but he is of that ilk, in my opinion. He is ready for that next level. I'm not nearly as convinced as you are at this point. The problem as I see it is twofold. There's two problems that he's got that are pretty big. The first one is that he doesn't nimbly mix submission attempts with ground and pound for one to facilitate the other.

He just kind of, and I'm not talking about the finishing sequence where he didn't really need to do that because if you just kept pouring it on like he did, that was fine. But I mean, in general, what's one of the things I've been bringing up about his development sequence where he didn't really need to do that because if you just kept pouring it on like he did that was fine but i mean in general was what's one of the things i've been bringing up about the his development is that he doesn't have enough ground and pound usually if any guys are laying underneath him an open guard he sometimes does but when they resist when they're on the move habib would find all kinds of ways to wrap control and then take you over and uh and then throw ground and pound on top of it he just doesn't seem to be nearly as close to that.

And part of the reason how he was able to do that is some of the tricks he would use, including but not limited to, various uses of the throat and the forehead to manipulate both body posture and then threaten the submission. Okay, so there's that. That's one problem that I have. But that's not the biggest problem.

This is the biggest problem. I don't mind that he got hit with a punch against a lesser opponent and then was able to basically get the takedown right out the round and then finish him in the next one. That actually, to your point, speaks pretty highly of him. Actually, it speaks very highly of him. And that first takedown he goes in the first round where he got hit with a hard whizzer from Silva,

and then he still kind of gathered the far knee and turned him over. I mean, it's incredible, dude. He's an incredible wrestler. He's an incredible athlete. He's got a ton of moxie. He's got a ton of, uh, of, of gusto and all those things are great. It's his distance closing. His entries into closing the distance are a huge fucking problem, a huge problem. And it didn't just get cost him a little bit in this space. Dude, another guy up this weight class at another level who's very good, like a Fazeev or if he's, you know,

obviously Fazeev's going to have to spend a lot of time wrestling, but I'm just saying if he tries these entries against someone a little bit higher up the food chain at 155, it is going to be a massive fucking problem. You could say, well, maybe he wasn't using his best distance closing material on this guy because he didn't need to okay well i mean he kind of did number one and number two it's like dude you are the sum total of your habits like you need to do what you're tasked with doing and do it all the time the right way so that by the time it comes fight time it becomes

second nature to you you are how you do one thing is how you do everything right i i'm just not convinced like he's still doing the same things he's been doing bc he's a phenomenal athlete he's a phenomenal wrestler he's got he's got some good striking at kickboxing range i will say that's come along actually i feel like that's pretty good but but to get from the outside to wrapping up with a guy when he's standing up if he's not level changing dude he is a mark my fucking words he is going to get into big big trouble against a sharpshooter in this division if he does not clear that up that is to me a big problem i mean not a perfect fighter i guess i don't i those things that you're mentioning which is part of his evolution and like i said not a perfect fighter by any means but i think he's able to compensate for some of those technical gaps

with his aggression and his will and his in the danger level that he brings and his willingness to go after but i think i'm watching him add craft little by little i mean he used to just be leap with the jab and sort of try to take you down luke i mean he's because he's figuring out and we're really adding the the leg striking i mean, I think he can really work guys over with the calf strikes, Luke, and build off of that and continue the threat of the body kicks and the high kicks. I mean, he's putting that together where, yes, would I favor him to end up as the champion in this division? No. But even with two setbacks against very good guys on the road here, I still think he's in position to enter this party equipped enough, Luke equipped enough to potentially make

some noise. I mean, I think the version that he's becoming could win a championship, whether you'd favor it against these. I mean, look, my chef might be a great, he might be a great one, Luke. I mean, he might be, he might be a special great one. They'll have the rematch eventually. We know that. But who will he be by that time, Luke? He's not the number one contender, as he said. Not after this one. No, I mean, this is my thing. It's like, BC, I take your points. I don't think they're wrong. I think they're right.

But this is the thing. It's like he's 26. You can see some incremental movement headed in the right direction. But he's talking about fighting Michael Chandler. Now, again, he just called him out. UFC may be like, eh. All I'm pointing out is he's got ambitions for here

when I wish he would climb more slowly here, especially because he's only 26. That's it. That's true. What would that look like, him against Chandler, Luke? What the hell would that look like? I mean, it'd be beautiful. It'd be... I mean, it'd be a lot'd be I mean it'd be a lot of clinching it'd be a lot of wrestling it'd

be a lot of big punch exchanging a lot of man in there Luke a lot of a lot of man a whole lot of man there I'm not like here's the point like I'm not even saying that you know I would favor probably Chandler to win but like so you can could win that right like so you can he's damn right he could I mean my point being is if he has like another year or two of like working on this shit like in two years he's going to be I mean at that point Chandler be 39 but you know what I'm saying like this version versus that version of so you can I would pick so you can no problem it's just he keeps trying to fucking rush it. And I'm like, your game is you're trying to push your matchmaking ambitions, in my judgment, ahead of the development. And I think they should be much more in concert.

In fact, you'd almost want the matchmaking to be a lagging indicator, not a leading one. And he's doing the opposite. Luke, could you update us on your Armenian pound-for-pound rankings from the standpoint of love? You know, we could have things in there like System of a Down, Carl Parisian, you know, Shabazian, you know, Head Movement. You know what I mean?

We got a lot of options on the board here, Luke. Manuk Akpoyan. How do you say it? Akupon, right? How do you say that guy's last name? I don't know. I'm not sure who you're talking about. Manuk from the boxing scene, the LA Times.

Our guy. I don't know his name. Akopian. There you go. Akopian. Luke, I'll even allow you Venice Martirosian here. What are your updated Armenian power rankings? 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. I'd say number one is probably Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who's a soccer player.

Okay. He's probably the best Armenian soccer player in the world currently. So I'd say him as number one. I'd put carl number two carl parisian point number two because he was such a you know an innovator you could put his coach go court javichian in there as well um who else in terms of armenians would i really is it the guy who married serena williams like uh ohanian isn't that his name he's Armenian how about um producer Mikey's cousin cousins who worked for CBS says our new social guy who starts next week is Armenian uh-oh that either means he's going to be really good or really ornery and I can say that

there you go Luke okay uh thank you that's good That's good. Very good. Very good. Okay, BC. Last but not least, let's talk about this. Topic number five. Tim Zhu took a, what do you want to call it? Tune-up fight? Stay busy fight? Maybe is a better way to put it. Stay busy. Yeah.

Against Carlos Ocampo. And we all kind of thought, hey, Tim Zhu is the better guy here. He's probably going to win. But okay, BC. Question number five for you. He blasted him out in 77 seconds and it is looking to me like the guy who fought to roll gauche he is so far from that at this point he he got dropped on the gauche fight at least early came back and won

but i'm saying the tony harrison fight not in any way in any way accidental he looked even better here completely dialed in so my question for you is as follows what did this win do to build anticipation for a showdown with jamel charlo well look the anticipation was already there even from tim zu beating terrell gaucher in his u.s debut even with some of the ups and downs of that fun action fight uh but this has made tim zu a better fighter and by this I mean the consistent injuries to Jermell Charlo which has now twice you know postponed this now you got to give credit to Zhu who's 28 coming into not only you know his finding out how good he can be in the

ring his full-on man strength but also his full-on swagger doing again like I said earlier the say my say my fucking name afterwards and my motherfucking name doing the whole like i'm not just my dad's son i'm something separate this brings confidence even more to zoo but let's remember he was going to go into that charlo fight straight out of that gauche one where we had so many questions why because he went into what he calls uh predator you know terminator sorry terminator mode a lot of arnold going on in my head uh terminator mode like right away and what that meant was dropping his hands not showing defensive responsibility and just trying to will himself through gaucher now look

he leaned on his intangibles and power punching in one but the more systematic breakdowns that he's had against tony harrison and now ocampo this is more of a of who tim zoo really is the guy that came up and beat jeff horn you know and and really got on our radar uh his power is absolutely lethal and the fact that now he's figuring out the distribution system to really work from middle distance where he's going to be a problem for you because his technique is strong but he knocked out a guy in ocampo who had only been stopped by Errol Spence on a body shot in the first round at welterweight. When Ocampo moved up to 154 the next fight, he won 12 in a row, including nine by knockout before fighting Fundora. But Sebastian Fundora went the distance over 12 rounds and couldn't drop or finish Ocampo.

Tim Zhu blasted him out of the ring. So, Luke, what does this do for the Charlo versus Zoo matchup? I think this really raises the confidence level, the overall stock on the side of Zoo, and really only brings up more questions about Jermell Charlo, who is a gamer, delivers in the big fights. We're not questioning that that but he's 13 months now on the shelf with lingering injuries he's fighting uh Tim Zhu who I think is so much better off for having taken these stay busies where he's improved I mean beat the only guy to beat Charlo and Harrison and beat the bags off of him Luke he's a problem right now where do the odds on this fight in your mind land after these two performances uh i would still have charlo as the favorite for some pretty fair reasons i think you know obviously he's the guy

with all the belts anyway and that win over castagno after the draw i didn't think he deserved the draw but then stopping him in the 10th round in the rematch was big i mean it was really big like that was a very very impressive thing that he did. And we talked about the reasons why. He didn't run from Castaño. He accepted the pressure and then beat him where Castaño wanted to apply it. So I actually feel like Castaño is a very different fighter

than Tim Zhu, but it's almost like, even though it was 13 months ago, having two fights against Castaño will help him a little bit against Zhu. But BC, this is where I come down on this question. Like, what does it do for him? What does it do for this fight? BC, it not only makes him the guy that everyone wants to see fight Charlo

for whatever he's doing. You know, number one, it's going to be exciting. Look at the come forward style that Tim Zoo has. He only brings the fight. That's all he does. This is not a guy who fights on the back foot, you know, and then tries to use boxing magic. No. Boxer your face period number one but more than that bc like even if you're like me and you favor charlo to win because i think he's a very slick boxer in

addition to being very physically sound at this weight class like does tim zoo based on his last two performances does he make you believe that he can beat Charlo in addition to it being an exciting bout? He absolutely does. And if you think that Tim Zhu can beat him, the only way he can beat him is a long, in-your-face, pronounced pitch battle, at which point he will just be, if he wins in that scenario,

he would be the one who just, you know, by the end, just kind of edged it out like it's gonna be hell in order to do it this is what you're looking for all the titles that charlo has a top clear contender who has a come forward style and you know the only way it gets settled is brutality dude sign me up yeah i mean the intention he showed to take the fight to a compo without any hesitation, but also not recklessly. But just went after him with technique combinations and was knocking such a durable guy around the ring. Dude, you put that up against what Charlo does great. Charlo does a lot of things very well.

But what he does great is efficiently counterpunch with one big shot akin to Canelo's initial rise up the 168 ladder akin to Gervonta Davis in some regard. Sometimes I, I do get scared that Jermel's not throwing enough punches. And I think that's made some fights closer than they could have, or should have been particularly has lost to Tony Harrison in their first fight, but dude, he could, Charlo has the power to absolutely knock down and, you know, to break up the wiring inside of Zu and his intentions of what he wants to do.

But the good thing about that Gaucher fight, I think, for showing us and himself is that Zu has this next level want to go through hell, a willingness to get to the other side. That could lead to a spectacular combustion when this fight happens, Luke. And it could be, you know, the end of this summer. And it's like, damn, damn, like this is the best, this is the best case scenario for Zoo that this happened. A lot more questions in Charlo's favor,

but I think overall, to your points, it makes it a much bigger, even more important fight and it was already pretty damn important yeah no doubt about it i uh i was blown away by this i thought he was just going to you know six seven rounds march him down it'd be fun kind of thing and this was more like in a fight it's hard to it's in a fight you're expected to win it is difficult to over perform and yet he somehow found a way to do that did he not that's the part to me that's so like amazing he had the wind at his back the entire time and he just he turned into an effing tornado out there okay triple g dude he looked like triple g in there i mean seriously he did look he did look a little bit like triple it's funny i hadn't even thought about that but like you mean like a prime triple g right like yeah i mean he was that middleweight machine he's not the boxer or had the amateur

background on the level of triple g but that idea of a of a tank that's going to come at you with some with some craft mixed with the intention it's going to go you know i mean that is going to be able to use i mean no one used used their jab as a weapon better than Triple G. When Tim Zhu commits to that jab and starts going downhill against you, it opens up the combinations in a Triple G-like way. You know, it's fun to watch. BC, very quickly, Regis Progray was able to defend his belt over the weekend against Danielito, as the gringos would say, Zorilla, Zorija.

But he won. Progr grade got the job done barely but here's the problem he looked bad and this was a new signing for eddie hearn and match room and they got in they got i mean i'm not saying it's fair i'm not in any way like defending it but they got murdered on social media on saturday night what's the story here? How should we look at this? And also this was, you know, homecoming back in new Orleans, headlining this moving King center. So this was a big deal for Rougarou.

And did he deserve the win? You can certainly argue that in a fight that was so weird was, you know, frustrating and boring at times, but here's what I don't love. And I get why it's happening. The narrative that has started with pro gray in his post-fight interview where he, you know, talked about it being a difficult fight,

but ultimately said, Oh, but Zaria just ran the whole time. And now we've got promoter Eddie Hearn, you know, fill in the airwaves with, you know, that's a disgrace. No, one's going to want Zaria to fight again with that type of style. And, you know, to be fair, when you fight like that, where you don't throw and you circle away a lot, yeah, it's Guillermo Rigondeaux. It's frustrating. It could keep you out. But what everybody's missing here is the reason why the fight became that way. So Risha can punch.

I mean, I called one of his fights at NBC Sports, but it was a fight that once he got the once the fights didn't start going his way and there was an accidental foul, it looked almost as if maybe he was looking for a way out of that fight. He lost his big step up against Arnold Barboza last time out. But as a late replacement, he's dangerous because he's got big time power. And he dropped Ruger in the first round. The referee missed it. It was straight up a right cross. And I think it disciplined Ruger more than Progray, Eddie Hearn, or any of them want to admit publicly. So while the rest of that fight did see Zorizia frustratingly stand in a counter-punching pose, not throwing, what we're missing here in the nuance is he essentially drew a line in front of him and said, if you cross this line, Progray, I'm faster than you thought. And I certainly hit hard with both hands. I think Rougarou was not willing to take the risk because he was so frustrated that every

time he did try to get inside, he was met by suddenly a Zorija who would throw. And that's not like Regis. And he did also say afterwards that the pressure of selling the arena and, you know, tickets to family being the hometown homecoming, he said it was a lot. He said it messed with him. I think it did because in the second half of this fight, if you watch, Procreate was coming up short with everything, like comedically short, like coming up with uppercuts from distance, like not even coming close. He tried his best to bring the fight to Zaria, and that's why I think it's okay

that two of the three judges scored it for him. But you saw that third scorecard. It was completely in the other direction for Zaria. I thought it was basically a draw or one round either way, but it ultimately depends on what you're looking for in these largely shitty rounds. This fight looked a lot like Andy Lee versus Peter Quillen for the middleweight title back in 2015, where there was a couple of knockdowns early. And this one, you know, Zaria got knocked down

on an overhand right by Progray, but the rest of the fight was boring and they were just holding their their weapons and not throwing it yeah but I think that's because Zaria put that line in the sand and said you come forward I'm gonna catch you big so Luke this was not a good night for anything the only good thing that happened for Progray is that he retained the title and uh I think they do have to look in the mirror a little bit and realize that that knockdown changed everything in the opening round. No doubt about it.

I mean, if you're – it's like Lopez just retired, man. Lopez, after the Taylor performance, I'd be like, first of all, Taylor beat Rougarou, albeit years ago, but still, he did win. Dude, I would favor Lopez to beat that Rougarou. The question is like, dude, does Danny Garcia with Derek James, does he beat this version of Rougarou? He might.

He might. Wait, who are you telling? Danny Garcia, what? Sorry Does he beat this version of Rougarou? He might. He might. Wait, who are you saying? Danny Garcia, what? Sorry, Ryan Garcia, not Danny. Oh, well, here's the deal. You have to wonder whether this was the best thing to happen to Pro Gray in disguise. And what I mean by that was Bill Haney,

the father, trainer, and manager of Devin Haney, who is a network and promotional free agent, but also rumored to be going to that upstart promotion out of Saudi Arabia that signed Alexander Usyk. He was in attendance. He put Devin on FaceTime afterwards in the locker room to Regis and Progre was like almost saying, you know, maybe this will get me the Haney fight because I did look beatable in this regard. I'm not saying Progre did that on purpose. He took a risk, right? I mean, he could have easily lost his title right there to a guy that not a lot of people know who fought a very frustrating style, but this may actually get him at Luke. If, if Haney wants to make a big debut, if he ends up signing with the zone for however long and goes in that direction of boxing's broadcasting landscape, um, Rougarou is a big name. He's got a title. And if you feel like you saw something there that who's a better technical fighter especially from distance than you know Devin Haney right he owns that distance when he

boxes you he's not afraid to put in boring fights if that's the best way to win I wonder I wonder if that leads to us to that fight all right we shall see that is it for our top five let us move quickly to the next segment we put up a post on social media you guys fill it up with questions the producers pick them and then we ask it's time for dms from the diggity dogs donkey just sounds like he's just jizzing oh oh all right uh from dollin m johnson bc thoughts on john jones oh yeah good question thoughts on john jones going to the pfl event and wearing their merch from head to toe well they have to do that because they're cornermen i want to be clear about that i we asked aj mckee about that when he had all the pfl gear on it's the same thing okay do you think he should

get an angry phone call from dana i wonder if they do behind the scenes get that because everyone came at dana after conor mcgregor entered the the fighting surface on bkfc and went nose to nose with what was it uh mike perry mike perry i'm sorry um and you know dana i thought dana answered it perfectly every time he said no these these guys are adults and they're fight fans and they wanted to go somewhere and they got caught up in it and be a part of it. That's great. I do wonder though,

if there's some brand management work done behind the scenes, whether it's Dana or somebody else calling up and just saying, hey, just so you know, like don't go out of your way to do that. That's not the best look for us. Although Luke, you could just as well argue, hey, it makes headlines. It's good advertisement for everybody.

But in this case with John, I mean, it's how many times we've seen habib with a bellator t-shirt and scott coker's arm around him right i mean that's that's the gig that that's what that's what happens you're allowed to corner your teammates you know regardless of promotion it would be really petty if ufc you know as the industry leader was like no active bellator or anybody else fighters can corner you and then you know like no that's that's ridiculous i do wonder like at what point the ufc is going to pass a rule that would be blatantly illegal uh but they'll let it slide because the only way to get it proven illegal is you have to challenge it in court you know yeah like it is different than when you're getting interviewed like john wasn't interviewed on the pfl broadcast to be to be like

lured into some Francis fight. And we'll get to the Francis stare down and have you seen the shit. But, like, it wasn't like it was next level. Red Okamoto interviewed him. Oh, he did interview him back. Okay, I actually forgot about that in the moment. And I actually talked to some people. I know some people who work at the PFL, and they told me they set all that up.

Let me ask you this. Is that allowed because it's all ESPN in terms of like it's literally promotion for the same network? I mean, okay, so legally the UFC can't prevent them from doing that, right? They cannot prevent them. I'm talking about backroom provisions. I'm talking about picking up the phone and saying, don't effing do that again, you know? I mean, here's the funny thing. It's like, dude, what else?

Like, okay, I don't know how much SportsCenter you watch. I tend to leave it on in the background. I've seen a lot of UFC features on SportsCenter. I don't know if I'veCenter you watch. I tend to leave it on in the background. I've seen a lot of UFC features on SportsCenter. I don't know if I've ever seen a single PFL one. PFL doesn't do UFC. Excuse me. PFL doesn't. I should say ESPN doesn't do PFL a lot of favors.

I mean, it's a big network to be on, but in terms of all that extra programming. Dude, it's like if you have like why sign them if you're just going to bury them you don't need them to fill up your hours on your network you have plenty of other things you could fill up you don't need it for that so why did you sign them it's really a weird thing and i i honestly wonder if there's a little bit of pressure back behind you know closed doors on the ufc the espn side to like downplay that relationship oh yeah i'm shocked that ufc like

would allow this without making a big coup behind the scenes. But I also wonder if look, PFL has a lot of celebrity investing in backing at the end of the day. Is there some people that are just aligned with each other behind the scenes, Luke? And this was a thing where they're thinking, Hey, if they follow through on their ambitions and bring in Jake Paul and bring

in Francis and Gano, like we'd want that on ESPN. Like, yeah. So you get it from a network standpoint, although I agree. I think it's surprising. I think it's surprising that Connor was allowed to be in the BKFC ring, even though Dana had a good answer for it.

I would think behind the scenes. Why? Because it's like first rule of protecting your brand, Luke. You know, I tell you that story all the time. My sister worked at Pepsi and people got fired for having cookouts in Facebook pictures of Coca on the table in the background like high-ranking people got canned like that's that there's there's big brand protection in that

um i'm happy that they're not jumping in but i almost expect they would right wouldn't you expect that um no i would not expect that you're talking about employees versus independent contractors no i would not expect that at all and you're right about the okamoto interview i just wonder if that's espn related but it's interesting it's fun it isn't a fun isn't this one of like the indescribable fun moments of an mma fan when you're like oh that's like almost like that's illegal look there's habib with the bellator shirt like that's yeah a little bit uh all right number two from high on tubs high on tubs should vittori move camps, BC? Considering he's so young and has plenty of potential,

it does look like he hasn't progressed much with the camp that he's in. Here's the problem. He was with Kings MMA. He recently relocated to Las Vegas. I think he's been with Extreme Couture most of that time. You saw Dewey Cooper, for example, in his corner. That's a Las Vegas guy, the Black Cobra there.

I don't think it's the camp. I think it's, he's in a plateaued stage of development and he's trying to push through and that's tough to do. Um, outside of free agent coaches like Joshua Fabia for comedic purposes, Luke, is there somebody that you think matches up? Well, potentially you never know the chemistry is going to work out but like i mean look at look at what pico going to jackson wink has done to him is there something like that okay ride a horse with a big dong it could change your perspective on life lou that's a great question i have to think

about that a little bit um not the dong part i wonder how well he would be served at like a like a henry hoofed type guy you know um because so he can take a guy like vittori in terms of like a come forward kind of kickboxer i wonder what that might do for him um i don't know i don't honestly i'd have to talk to marvin and talk to his coaches to get a sense of like where he sees himself and like what those things are that matter to him without that because again dude like what's he really good at like he because again dude like what's he really good at like he's good at everything what's he really good at nothing you know taking a punch and and stay to his credit because like there's one thing to take big damage and survive

but he he bounces back quickly and is functional again i mean it's an insane it's an insane recuperative system that he has but yeah that's the elite skill luke and you don't want that to be your only elite skill no you definitely don't all right uh from steven deadlifts thoughts on holloway versus young not young what i'm saying can't a chance on jung i'm talking about you know fucking uh carl young scientists yes uh thoughts on holloway versus jung being announced bc there was a lot of people who are really upset at this which i understand holloway's probably going to beat the fucking breaks off of him yeah um but i it's hard for me to be like like what is ufc doing i kind of get it what the fuck is supposed to do with max even though it does fall into the recent line of

questionable matchmaking decisions where it's just sort of like copy and paste to try to you know why are vittori and can they're even fighting to your question probably because they needed the main event with ranked guys the problem was they were like the only ranked guys in the entire card more or less them in saruki and so uh but in this regard look it's it's fun too though there is a fun element here and if holloway is kind of waiting around and seeing is there going to be an opening for me to fight for the featherweight title against Rodriguez or or should I move up or whatever like he's allowed to stay busy if you want like look we always say this sometimes people there's some things going on with Canelo Alvarez right now Luke that we don't love right trying to get Badu Jack down and waited for the freaking 20 pounds 20 pounds for the Cruiserweight

title basically not fighting Benavidez, even though it's extreme, like dare to be great moves, but people are like getting on him, Luke and saying, well, you know, this is Mayweather. Like, and by people, I mean, my editor, Brandon wise, Luke, I'm just going to love that shout out. But basically I'm saying like, I don't like this moves from Canelo of late, but he doesn't have a track record where I'm like throwing huge darts at him because he, he tries to make the best fights. And when he does do things that you may not love, like a mandatory here or Rocky fielding there, Luke, it's like his fourth fight of the calendar year.

It's like, he's just, just, he's just being a man out there. Um, dude, this is, this fight works in many ways. And it's, it's, it's probably a fun attraction fight in Singapore too, with the big names there and their fighting styles and their long backgrounds and the fact that both these guys just want to share the cage with one another and make some art. I do like to – we can get all on meritocracy, Luke, and sometimes get all on, well, that person cut the line

because they sell pay-per-views and all that matters. But it's also fun sometimes to just put out a little Bushido into the world, Luke. This is going to be great. Also, here's the other part too it's like guys as long as these dudes keep wanting to have like retirement fights which my understanding this is what that is supposed to be for for korean zombie in the ufc just keep being disappointed like how many times do you need to see the fact that the ufc is absolutely not the place you want to be if you want a soft landing for a retirement fight? Like not the fucking place to do it.

It's just going to go extra bad for you. So is there a chance that, you know, Korean Zombie who does hit hard and whatever could win? Of course, you know, but Max Holloway has a absurd chin even to this day. He still appears to be after that Arnold Allen fight, one of the top fighters in this division. He's going to almost certainly, if not humiliate Korean zombies, win rather spectacularly in all likelihood.

And everyone's going to go home disappointed. I'm going to be like, right, stop. You know what the score is ahead of time. This is almost certainly going to go very, very badly for Korean zombies. Just get that through your mind. Even if it goes very badly for Korean zombies. So just get that through your mind. Even if it goes very badly for him, it could still be what you're excited about. Yeah, it could be.

Two guys you really like who seem to fight for all the reasons we hold dear, Luke, putting it up against one another. I mean, this is no different than Uriah Faber versus Frankie Edgar or Chuck Liddell versus Rich Franklin, right? It's just where we're at. But Max still retains a certain level of if you plug in max but max is strategically waiting he's got to see what happens july 8th you know this lou all right all right fair enough i'm just pointing out like you know people like why can the ufc do different retirement fights because they don't because they don't you're not going to get a soft landing all right from o From O'Reilly7402, after Pitbull failed in his attempt, what current fighter in any of the major promotions do you

see succeeding in getting a title in three separate weight divisions? So here's the interesting part, BC. We now have some pretty conclusive evidence that like guys trying to get greedy and get another weight class by draining themselves almost never do it it's very very difficult to do so you really are talking about someone who can go up to more weight divisions so i'm going to say that i still think that 135 to 145 spot oh sorry 135 to 155 spot is doable because 145 to 170 is too big now maybe you could do 170 all the way up to like Anthony Johnson, right? Remember, he was 170. He made 205.

I suppose that's possible. But I still feel like you have to keep the weight classes in reasonably close order. I think 135 to 155 is probably a good place. Yeah. I mean, could Cejudo do it against a featherweight champion on any given night? It's possible. But who's jumping, who's screaming. That's the guy to watch. It's hard to see. You know what I mean? You have to base, look,

you have to be in a spot marketing wise. Like you gotta be on team UFC for this to happen, right? You know, you've got, there's gotta be momentum behind. There's gotta be a want and a reason to do that. So, um, I don't know, man. I mean, what about, you know, they're not going to let Valentina fight for the vacant Bantamweight and featherweight titles in her next two fights. So probably not likely there. Also, we haven't talked about this. Like, what about on the women's side? I mean, I don't know how that would work because they're going to get rid of 145.

But I guess if they ever brought Adamweight. No, I guess you could do straw. Yeah, you could do it. Could you really do strawweight all the way up to Bantam, though? I don't know if you could do that. Andrade was super elite in all three, right? So it's possible. She won a belt only in one of them.

I know. It didn't happen. I'm saying it's possible, but I don't think there's anyone right now who's showing you. Yeah, I suppose it's possible. I suppose that's possible. I mean, but maybe, yeah, I don't know. Dude, it's hard to tell. You have to have a game that would sustain, you know,

if you're moving up especially. Or maybe you have to – maybe is it better to start in the middleweight class like Pitbull did, then move up. No, but then you don't want that extreme. Yeah, I don't like the draining thing, dude. That just doesn't – you're not the same guy down like that. All right. From lastly, from Flannels and Jits.

Happy Father's Day, Brian and Luke. Do you have a favorite moment of being a dad bc i mean i have millions of them luke i have an insane amount um you know my kids are they just finished their freshman year in high school so i mean look just getting to go see them compete they're on the track and cross country and basketball teams is a joy i never imagined on this level but you know what happened last night, Luke? We did the Father's Day hike, dinner. We went to the lake, and then we came back, and I was like,

kids, you know, it hasn't always gone great when we team up with video games because of my explosive video game rage that only gets cooked up when you're home alone in the 80s and your parents are working and you're just playing video games, 18 hours a day. And, you know, you, you rage quit and you'll fight anybody, including your own siblings, you know, if you lose. Uh, but I talked them into reuniting on Fortnite, Luke, we did, and they, they adhered to my rules, which is no build. I mean, yeah. What am I, what am I seven years old? I'm not, I'm not out here against trying to build walls. I'm trying to get into wars, though, as a trio, Luke. And, you know, we put on the headsets. We were a full nerd and we did it. And you know what? We won. We won.

We achieved victory royale. Everybody was happy. It was those moments, Luke. Those moments, right. Watching the Rocky movies in a row and just connecting with my kids. Oh, dude, we went to the Fast and Furious yesterday, two days ago as a family. We went to the theater, Luke. Those are the moments, dude, we went to the Fast and Furious yesterday, two days ago as a family. We went to the theater, Luke. Those are the moments, dude. Those moments right there. How was fast? How was fast and the stupid? As ridiculous as you could guess. But dude, the formula works. Shout out to Dom Toretto, right? You know, a quarter mile at a time. That's all I can live at 50. You know, my wife's trying to get me to remember this and that 15 minutes at a time.

That's all this brain can handle,ke okay all the cte and ct you can handle here but um it was entertaining it was fun the kids had a great time those are the moments that to me are just incredible luke just incredible and they're basic simple easy ones you know because that's what it is what's what's fatherhood i mean 90 is showing up to be very fair it is 90 is just just being willing and able and there yeah i basically agree i think i don't know if i have a favorite but some of the things i like more than others are like for example do you know what a balance bike is bc yes yeah so for folks who don't know like when we were kids the way they got you to ride a bike

is they would give you training wheels and then they eventually just took those off and then you kind of had to learn how to balance that apparently the new method is they give you these little kids a bike but it has no pedals no brakes but it has just the seat no training wheels either so they have to kind of learn how to use their feet to kind of go forward and get that balancing act a little bit better and i've been working with tuki like every day she loves she loves riding the bike but you know it's hard for her to like go fast because there's really no brakes and how do you build that up? But the other day, I found this alleyway where

no one uses, and there's no cars, and it has a slight decline, so she can go kind of fast and then ride out. And then we've been practicing where I would catch her at the end of it every time, and then I kind of tried one. I was like, this is going to be sketchy. Here's how this goes. I'm going to let you go all the way, because she was doing

really well. She was in clear control. That's solid 80s parenting. I support that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, she had a helmet. We have helmets on and everything, knee pads and stuff for her. So she's not really in that much danger. But I let it happen.

And she took it and then rounded the corner perfectly and then put her feet down and then slowed down. And she turned around with the most unmistakable face of joy you could ever see in your life love it like some of my favorite dad moments like that one like that one to me was fucking awesome it was so awesome to see that i really really brought me such great joy to see her so happy and then like confidence build and new skills like that's what being a dad's all about as far as i'm concerned it's really not about what it makes you feel like it's really what about what you can do for them.

So, yeah, no doubt, Luke, it's, it's, you know, you put enough,

we're all, we're all human. So we'll screw them up on our own backs in a lot, but it's like, what can you do with your time to impart love, respect, joy, you know,

all, all those great characteristics that we want to pass on to other people. It's, it's the most beautiful thing, Luke in life. It really is. You know, you know, what's great characteristics that we want to pass on to other people. It's the most beautiful thing, Luke, in life. It really is, you know? You know what's not is BC's feces. Yeah, yeah, that's a good transition. Luke, we have a short-come-bust but powerful version today.

Thank you, Mikey Mormyle, on the ones and twos. I've scoured the globe for the good, the bad, the ugly, the highs and lows, some of the in-betweens too, Luke, from combat sports and beyond this weekend this is called have you seen this shit oh god oh oh luke thomas uh let's start ufc from the apex right a lot of craziness went down there involving referees and shit. Did you see this craziness? Flyweight Carlos Hernandez was robbed of a slam and elbow KO against Dennis Bonder when instant replay revealed a clash of heads. He still won on a technical decision, but can we go to the videotape? That's why UFC appearance.

He lost his pro debut boy old jaron do you hear me jaron valel letting it go yeah dude was that the right call look at the end of the day? It was weird. I am always going to be the one that errs on the side of what instant replay shows, but to me, it's just a part of takedowns. That's the problem. People think, oh, MMA fighting is worse for concussions than wrestling because of all the strikes, which is true, but it's not like concussions aren't a thing that wrestlers like, don't worry about. They absolutely worry about it.

Cause it's a real problem because it's just a natural part of taking someone down at times. So to me, it's like, I kind of get it. I do get it. I get it by the letter of the law. They had to,

but like, maybe this was one of those things that needs to be kind of rethought a little bit. I don't know. Look quickly here. This is probably the time to talk about it. keith peterson didn't smell like victory and you know dom cruz kind of bit his tongue the best he could luke uh in that early fight it happened what what division is this uh bantamweight dan argweda versus ronnie lawrence luke and you had the

keith peterson tap where he grabbed the guy's hand and then he misrepresented the tap. Yeah, he fucked that one up. Yeah. Do you have a take on this, Luke? He messed it up. There's just no denying. Keith Peterson just made an error. I mean, it's very simple. It's very straightforward. The only question is what we should do about it, what the commission should do about it, what the UFC should do about it what the ufc should do about it right but he absolutely made an error i mean

this we talked about this on the rsd that we did it's like dude these guys everyone expects them to have amazing judgment and they should have better judgment than someone who is not trained obviously but they're not going to have like impeccable judgment it's not possible they're going this is an error-filled situation so all we can do is to the best of our extent put in rules that can remedy some of those problems that you can't get the fight back and all that kind of stuff i get but yeah he fucked up he made an error the commission should look into whatever possibility they can to remedy the situation and that's it dom was humane he could have dunked all over keith pearson but he probably would have lost his

standing in in the broadcasting chain making it too much about himself i.e. Dan Hardy versus Herb Dean unfortunately the way that fell out but Luke one thing he did was was uh expose how bad it is for the fighters obviously no win bonus here both guys you know put it all in and and it's it's a bad result for both of them so I don't know what could you do what should you do isn't the most isn't the best thing you actually could do restarting the fight isn't it isn't it like if the okay so in the case where the person is fully conscious um like in this case you know because there could be different circumstances about what's happening but in this one the guy was like alert i do think you have to restart it yeah i would prefer to see it that way yes again i think you'd have to ask both combatants like if both combatants agree or whatever like if you find some kind of mechanism to get it going again but um yeah i

would agree yes keith peterson is fair normally and look this is a very difficult job and you're going to make mistakes i'm not going to hold that against somebody i just want a system that has you know can can deal with those mistakes the the most way. But did you see when Saruki got full mount and ended up getting the finish in the co-main event that Dom praised Keith Peterson once again for letting the fight play out? He let it play out too long, it seemed, though, in real time, right? Listen, okay, so here's the thing. That style of intervention where you let it go,

I wouldn't say super long, but maybe a little bit longer than it could have gone. I think Dom prefers that. Dom personally seems to prefer, and a lot of fighters are this way, hey, I would rather go a little long, not crazy long, but a little long rather than a little short so the other guy has every opportunity.

And so in the case where he stopped, if he was like, hey, this is the Saryukian fight, right? So he had every opportunity Silva did. you can't say he didn't like to dom that's like a very clean situation i would argue he could have intervened a little bit earlier but not the end of the world yeah but to be fair also saryukin wasn't fully putting the strikes together even in that hugely advantageous advantageous position until that final sequence. A lot of them were grazing or not fully hitting. He had some wild whack-a-mole shots going on, Luke, that weren't fully accurate.

Once he zeroed in, though, he was able to force a stop. Yeah, whatever. I mean, it is what it is. Let's go back to the fight action here. Luke, here's lightweight Manuel Torres obliterating Nicolas Motova via helbo in round one yeah this one was nice damn yeah that is super sick that freaking fast finish luke brought to you by jimmy johns not one of jimmy johns is not that good but that elbow is ridiculous don't get mikey up in arms mikey is mikey are you aren't you jimmy john's exclusive or is that the other guy uh not burke kreischer the other jersey mikes isn't that what yeah yeah

yeah mikey's a jersey mike's crying oaf likes jimmy john's the most i don't know loves it luke uh dude was that his debut manuel torres that was very impressive it might have been i'm not sure but that dude could you play the clip one more time i just want to point out something like this is one of the benefits to the octagon where you can get a lot of guys are stationary. If the other guy is moving into you, you know, you've got some choices to make. He just takes lead outside foot position and then takes up enough range to go like that. I thought he was going to hit him coming in. So I just want to pay attention to like guys being flat footed, who's moving, what that does in boxing.

A lot of guys moving in like that get caught. In MMA, it's actually the opposite. More guys standing still get caught, which kind of tells you about the counter-striking capabilities. So, yeah, nice win. Look, the incredible Armenian Hulk, Armin Saruki, and called his shot after the victory. Let's listen to him.

We couldn't find anybody. Just he upset this fight. That's why I appreciate it. And now I'm going to be number one contender. You know, guys, when I fought first time with Islam Mahachov, you gave me three weeks. If you're going to give me eight weeks, I'm going to smash him. Send him the location.

Habib's boy will get smashed. You could talk yourself into seeing that soon, but it won't happen yet. It won't happen yet. He's 26. The world is his oyster. I just want to see him take his time, but he is exciting.

He is exciting. Luke, speaking of the lightweight champion of the world, Islam Mahachev, he was talking to Daniel Cormier on ESPN Airwaves, and he was dropping a dookie on the BMF. Let's listen in. Dustin Poirier fighting Justin Gaethje for the BMF title. So,

what, man? What is wrong with you? That's one question. If Dustin Poirier beats Gaethje, and he's going to fight next for the title, lightweight title. He gonna come with BMF title. I don't want this.

This belt for the bums, you know. First time who fight for this belt? Diaz and Masvidal. And Masvidal. The people who never can be champion you know they give him some belt guys be happy fight for bma then i have to stop this after this stop honestly somebody give me this belt tomorrow i don't want this and that's it I can beat this guy easy look I love this I love him going full foreign bad guy mode and just shitting on everybody but um it wasn't ESPN Airwaves that was Daniel Cormier's YouTube channel but uh good content right there I'm telling you I mean the point is like obviously for guys like Islam those titles don't mean anything but like what Islam fails to appreciate is the fight game rewards two things.

Excellency, which it rewards him for. And then for bravery. And for that kind of bite down on the mouthpiece style of fighting. It rewards both of those. The BMF belt, obviously, is just a made-up thing. But it's kind of a souvenir. A purple badge? A purple thing of honor. A purple heart, yeah.

It's kind of like for the people who fight with bravery in a way that, you know, not that Islam doesn't fight with his own version of it, but he's not like a balls-out kind of guy like that. Yeah, but he's willing to if it has to go that way. He's willing. Believe it. Yeah. PFL 5 from Atlanta, Luke.

It was finally the meeting we all wanted john jones versus francis and gano right next to the smart cage luke uh they had a very i guess jovial uh thing back and forth but it also was some posturing of like i'm the baddest man i'm the king all that stuff uh you know i liked when francis countered john uh saying that you left we could do this fight but you left and you know francis is like bro you were what about the three years before that uh but it's just a it's just a tease it's just a lame tease at the end of the day right it's really but bc here's the thing i tweeted this and it got like a bunch of responses on saturday when this video came this was friday night but i mean i'm saying i i tweeted this on

saturday dude this is the crazy part about this this fight even now even now could be made today you could make this fight today there is nothing legally preventing the ufc from co-promoting and i know what folks say well the ufc has never co-promoted they don't want to co-promoting. And I know what folks say, well, the UFC has never co-promoted. They don't want to co-promote. They don't have to co-promote. And I understand that they've conditioned everyone to think that it's normal and fine that they don't co-promote, but it's just a choice. It's just a choice. That's their choice to do that, which of course they don't have to. And the response is, oh, why would they? Why would they elevate another promotion by risking their guys? It's like, let me see if I understand this. The main criticism I hear from MMA fans about boxing is that the boxers themselves and then boxing promoters

need to take and accept more risk to make the fights that people want to pay money to see. But the UFC should avoid risk to avoid making the fights that people want to pay money to see by virtue of the position they have in the market. Guys, that is not a convincing argument. Not a convincing argument. Because in UFC speak, Francis was deemed not acceptable

to stay a member of the country club. So once you leave, Luke, you are not allowed back in. I understand. That's how they do business. I get it. But my point being is that when you say things, not you, but the proverbial you out there, when they say things like, hey, well hey well if the UFC did that they'd be elevating another promotion in a way that they don't want to and I'm like I get that I actually get that logic but that doesn't that

doesn't remove them from sharing some and by the way I'm not fully blaming them I think you know could you blame a little bit of John sure could you blame a little bit of Francis of course you could I'm just saying the UFC gets a share of that blame as well. And if you're arguing, well, they don't want to elevate a competitor or anyone else in that space, then what you're saying is not that they don't deserve blame, but that any blame that comes their way is worth it by virtue of this business strategy that they have taken into account.

So to me, when you say things like, why would they? It's like, I get that they wouldn't, but you still play a role. This fight could easily fucking be made. By the way, BC, UFC, and PFL, they both air on ESPN. That's what I was going to say. You don't even have to figure out the network shit. Speaking of sharing the hardest part of it, which is why am I going to do a 50-50 cut with that other network?

That ultimately is the thing. Seriously, that's the thing that gets in the way the most in boxing. I've got this fighter. That's why right now Golden Boy Promotions is suing Ryan Garcia because they want to enforce the deal they have. They are accusing Team Garcia of negotiating behind the scenes with other networks and promoters and stuff. We're like, no, we make the rules of where these fights go. So that's the biggest hurdle at the end of the day, especially when promoters are, I'm sorry, when promoters and networks are not on good terms

with the other side of the street, right? But what made the legends? What made Bob Arum and Don King? There's a lot of dirt in there and craziness, but they were also willing to work together when it mattered. I wonder if there is a call from Disney, Luke, to Dana and Hunter and Ari. Is there, true or false? Yes or no? willing to work together when it mattered um i wonder if there is a call from disney luke to dana and hunter and ari is there true or false yes or no does disney slash espn say hey we just

saw that that face off on our airwaves man i know they're talking about spinning off espn completely like i don't think that they care who is uh they're dude google um usually it's it's been rumored more than it's been reported but it has at least been rumored that since the return of bob eiger taking over for bob chapik as the head of disney that there are some internal deliberations about whether or not they want to keep espn as part of their portfolio or whether or not they want to sell based on all of these media rights that they're going to end up owing over the next 10 years or so. I just want to point out, anyone can get blame in the situation

for like, why didn't we have a Francis Ngannou versus Jon Jones fight? There's a lot of blame to go around, but it's just not true and fully disingenuous to blame the fighters in this case when we have a situation today that in no way precludes this

fight from happening, in in fact facilitates it by both being on the same network partner give me a break what if espn inside the smart cage allowed john francis to have a duel but it was like a it was like a high court debate luke and would you would you would you could you sell that on pay-per-view for $2.99 a piece? No. No, you couldn't. All right. Let's go back to the PFL action, Luke. Defending featherweight champ Larissa Pacheco mopped up on Amber Leibrock over 45 seconds

to head into the playoffs. I said on Friday that I thought Pacheco would win, but maybe Leibrock would make it a good contest. I appreciated her story. I still do, but yikes. This was was a beaten bc this was a beaten um luke with with the word being that kayla harrison's deal with pfl is done no matching at the end of 2023 and i don't think the pfl is rolling out pay-per-view until next year was this a monster miss to not be setting up Kayla versus Pacheco four in the finals like what happened what are we doing I don't really

understand what the with the PFL and I guess Kayla I don't know if I I just think she wants to be out of there I don't even know if she wants to compete there anymore I mean she's done she doesn't do media for him anymore like I don't see her paraded out in that way I just feel like they're done with what at some point you reach a relationship where people from the outside look at it and they say like okay but you guys could still do this for the other they're still salvageable territory but then both entities internally you figure out just don't want to work in that way anymore they're they're past it and she appears to just kind of be over it it's weird interesting stuff luke uh especially interesting with amandaunes retiring, right?

Yeah, I wonder what that changes to, yeah. What that means for the future of women's featherweight in the UFC, which isn't even a guarantee that Kayla could make that consistently since it's a task. I think she probably ends up in Bellator, if I'm being honest. But then again, if PFL purchases Bellator, she's right back there. So who knows? Okay, but Bellator does – when Coker says Bellator has the deepest and best 145 division in the world, that's true, right?

That's a true statement. No. No, it's not. 145 women. They have the best 145. Dude, do you know who's in UFC's – oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You mean on the women's side.

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Yeah. I mean, UFC doesn't even have them. I thought you meant on the men's side for just a second i'm like dude fuck no no what are you talking about usc doesn't even currently have it so yes yes that would be true yes they do and obviously by the way they're trying to get flyweight going as well it's on the men's side so we'll see heavyweight dennis goitsov needed 18 seconds i think it's gold solve i don't think it's an i it's an l gold solve to send jorgen de castro uh to the bottom luke

yeah there he went. Wow. When the big guys fall, their legs come up with them. Have you noticed that? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. If a tree falls in the forest, Luke, and no one notices, it still fell, you know what I mean? It still fell, Luke, right?

Still went down. Hey, let's go to the Zone Boxing from New Orleans. Luke, unbeaten women's super bantamweight prospect. Have you ever heard of Ramla Ali? She was a minus 1,800 betting favorite. She was a Somali Olympian and one of the 2023 time Women of the Year. She got KO'd in monster upset fashion against Alejandra Guzman as a minus 1 favorite she got crushed dude

what was it left hook that one sent her down a left hook that's in her packing beautiful punch look at this yeah right to the body left upstairs perfect one two put her on her I mean that was nice shit yeah dude listen boxing is not as chaotic as MMA, but every once in a while, man, every once in a while. Yeah. I mean, that's wow. She has. That's a that's that's a big turn of events here.

Let's go to Regis program. Look, he told me when I interviewed him two weeks ago that the Rougarou mask he used to wear to the ring that cost like 30 grand to make was stolen. So you know what he did for this fight against Zorija? He brought out his own Rougarou problem bot. Luke, your thoughts? I don't even know what to say. If you don't know, a Rougarou is a mythical Bigfoot type thing

in Cajun culture. Is that cool? I think it's cool. That's cooler than jake's robot right yeah but the question is not that the question is like how sad is the human living inside of knowing that union luke is probably the same sad gross sweaty guy but i have to be here to tell you because i did see a picture of you in chewbacca this weekend that that nearly broke twitter and and produced some lols for me um i think rougarou bot kicks chewbacca's ass do you see how mean you look dude yeah he looks mean but he's not so mobile chewbacca's

mobile as shit you know chewbacca is definitely more loyal first of all chewbacca i mean come on this guy in the suit is getting paid i just want to point out like every time i see the dudes who are in these suits like these problem bot suits remember the first time you saw star wars and then luke takes the mask off darth vader like how is darth vader an old ass librarian looking motherfucker you're like mr mendenhall can you put your your sporty cap back on please yeah it's like dude how did he turn into a just a hoe ass bitch i mean with the can't put the thing on, he looked great. You know, it kind of has been like that with the problem bots. Luke, it's nothing a double-egg couldn't figure out.

Let's go to the LFA cage. A double-egg could cause you some trouble if you don't lock the door. Oh, yeah. Dude, this used to happen way more routinely on the regional scene. Way more. Dude, the ground could open up on the regional scene. You could fall through i mean yeah i've seen cages break i've seen ring aprons break i've seen ropes break i've seen cages

break it's uh you know this is the dude if you fight in regional mma you don't know if your opponent is going to have a knife steroids in their system the cage is going to be locked hiv you don't know anything you're just in there i mean that's not that's not this level this is lfa i'm just saying like you know take your life into your hands out there fighting outside of uh major promotions you're damn right about that that's what caused shevchenko to lose to karmush in their first meeting right when when it was like there was a cut and then they just waved off the fight without even checking it and it was like shevchenko lost by like submission it was a weird weird ending there uh luke this is your college baseball call of the week let's listen in you can't turn the black cock black we can't turn the clock back i know it's after midnight we can't

turn the clock back and turn it back into the mid-80s and put on a whitey herzog team no you can't luke you definitely once you once you go black you can't turn that cock black wow wow i was like dude just get out what's in your heart fella just live your trip okay there you go hey let's go to the soccer pitch this young fan luke got more than a mouthful right that's like me when my wife wakes up Let's go to the soccer pitch. This young fan, Luke, got more than a mouthful, right? That's like me when my wife wakes up. I'm almost like, good morning, honk honk. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. Look at this French cabaret looking motherfucker to the right. Go play that one more time. Is that happy? Look at this. Look at this old ass man with this fucking. I mean, dude, you just know you're in Europe when you see shit like that, right? You know what I mean?

That's David Appleton in like a year from now, Luke. You know that. This is Europe number one right there. Dude, I can't wait for Appy's absinthe era, Luke, period. That's going to be great. When Appy just becomes a full-on low-track, yeah, it's going to be fantastic. Let's go over to the barber shop look this is

your haircut of the week and it might be the best haircut ever i want to cut you and treat you right i almost admire this almost what come on that's that's art that's art right there it is art but art for what instagram like you can't walk around that way can you look the kids today they did it all for the uh the ig you know that for the for the nookie of the gram yeah i guess so all right uh hey look the 1950s were apparently wild look at this old board game which is uh which is making a little bit of a comeback. What the fuck? No, what the fuck is this? This is some bullshit.

It's just a fun meme to get a chuckle out of you, Luke. She won't be needing these anymore. Wouldn't say we've been missing our cooking, right? Yep, okay, there you go. Luke, Yankees announcer announcer john sterling the old radio voice uh he had a wake-up call here let's watch it on this one now the three two swung on a pop foul back here oh oh oh it really hit me i didn't know it was coming back that far. Ow! Wow, he sounds like Harry Carey in his late days.

I mean, look, do you think that's his old voice? Yeah, that's definitely his old voice there. Susan, yeah, yeah, there you go. Luke D., look, now, we would all be hurt if that happened, but, dude, if you're on the air, you can't be, like, whining into the microphone. You got to hit the cough button and cry like a real man, right? Yeah.

They don't know about the cough button. There's a button you can press. It kind of mutes you for a second. It allows you to cough or whatever. He just sat there and complained about it on air like a bitch. Yes. All right. Luke, let's go over to the basketball court.

This had potential to be your play of the week. Hey, it's the basketball court. Yeah. Yes. He's playing the basketball oh oh oh yeah got him yeah that is one more time watch this fat fuck look he broke his ankles and the fence that's great yes my man took my man was like yo you need, you need a landscaper? He was like that Hawaiian Punch guy, right, Luke?

He's just like, the kid will be eating breakfast. Oh, the Kool-Aid guy. Yeah, the Kool-Aid guy. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's cocaine for kids, Luke. That's fantastic. Dude, I bought my daughter, regrettably. Boy, do I regret this.

She only had, I'm not even kidding, like a quarter of it. But my daughter was with me, and i bought her her first slurpee oh yes okay but they only the only good flavor that she that had that she liked first of all i got she was like which one do you want i got it and i poured it and then she took a sip she's like i don't want it i'm like okay all right oh we're not gonna do that look that's your life in a nutshell that moment right there no so i just poured it out into the trash and then i refilled it with the one she wanted which was blue raspberry and then i had a sip of it and when i call that crack laced with sugar i don't know what else to call that there was nothing in there except artificial flavors because i grew up on 7-eleven hot dogs and and Slurpees, Luke, it's the way I was raised in terms of like an outing with dad.

Right. Went on the motorcycle. We'd have a 7-Eleven party. I mean, look, it's as white trash wholesome as you can really concoct, to be very fair, in my factory town. But I forced my kids to get Icy's for the Fast and Furious movie. And they only sell one, you know, one size, which is like the largest one you've ever seen for like 15 bucks and dude i i mean i was i i laughed and i cried during that movie but it was mostly due to the effects of my body after after uh downing that cherry flavored or sorry watermelon flavored which was fantastic look is it weird that i had bubble tea yesterday oh dude that's good that's good it's a good gimmick it is it is a good gimmick it's a gimmick but it's a good oneick. It is. It is a good gimmick. It's a gimmick, but it's a good one. Yeah. All right.

Luke, you ever see a sign somewhere and be like, how many gross things have had to happen for somebody to pay to have that sign commissioned? Right. Let's let's go to inside an elevator in Alabama. How many people pressed? Oh, wow. Mikey says that's the Malka elevator. That's, you know, Luke, you never knowa elevator that's you know Luke you never know right

you never know you never know you know what it's not the Malka elevator because uh I fart in those I don't use my genitals to push uh the buttons I had friends who did this in high school and college they would take their nutsack and then they would like drape it across the door handle of whoever they wanted to do that to um and their keys like when guys would be gone they take their phones and like rub it inside their balls or whatever okay that's disgusting yeah so i had a friend i had a friend that had a drunken uh drunken trick r.i.p uh my man eric uh we would go drunk you know at the end of the night to the diner and he would walk into the men's room and then just decide no matter who's in there or not to just piss over every inch into the men's room and then just decide, no matter who's in there or not,

to just piss over every inch of the men's room. So he'd be standing next to him, and he'd be getting the button to turn on the hand dryer. He'd be getting the smoke detector, the light switches, everything, just walking around, just painting it, and would laugh so hard. Now, look, that's the grossest thing of all time, but he would laugh so hard that it made look that's the grossest thing of all time but he would laugh so hard that it made it a wholesome genuine moment you know i mean you're like i used to clean my first job you work as a doorman my first job we we also had to like take the trash out of the

bathrooms at night so it was mostly just working the door and then a little bit a little bit clean up at the end and uh i i kept telling him please don't stock the men's bathroom with toilet paper except for like one roll. And they'd be like, why? And I'd be like, well, because I'm the one who cleans it, and I can explain to you that every night, I don't know who our customers are that are doing this, but every night it appears that several of our male patrons

decide that urinating all over the spare rolls of toilet paper as well as the current roll of toilet paper is helpful for other customers and i've got this feeling that maybe it's not i got this feeling that maybe it's not i am tired of taking away brand new rolls of toilet paper that have just become urine sponges yeah they don't need to be out there dude that's such a dick move you gotta understand the culture i grew up in that was like our regular lifestyle doing stuff yeah oh i know it was regular lifestyle with my first job oh my god that's so disgusting luke you just look back on how we got here wow wow right yeah okay hey you know people have been reaching

outside bc we don't see good scorpions anymore luke here's your scorpion of the week it's on the bar stool oh my man my man just he just did the like look he did a tony ferguson invert just you know that might yeah that's not a that's not an official scorpion it's more of a you know what he just got halfway through a granby roll is really the only truth yeah that's that's halfway through uh luke this this happened on a podcast the calabasas companion welcomed paulie shore and the Schmo. Let's listen in on this. This is the Schmo with the pro.

We got Pauly Shore right next to me. Nice to see you, man. Hi, nice to see you, Schmo with the do. With the pro. Oh, with the pro. Aren't you a pro or are you just a bro? I'm with you, bro. But we don't know.

We don't know. Just go with the flow. Yeah. Okay. You want some mo? No, I'm cool. You guys want to switch chairs? Bring back the other guy.

Talk to me for a second, man. We're here for Fight Companion. We're watching UFC. It seems like you've never seen a fight in your entire life. I'm going to take Joe for the blow. Here you go. Here we go. Hey, man.

I got some coke right here, man. I got some choky, coky, coky, bro. I went to a line right here. And then. All right. Hey, listen, it's not a toupee. You can touch all you want. You got a quarter? Why did you include that? What the hell is that, Luke? is it you know they took that they unpublished that video they took it down off of the thick boy network i don't know there was a

there was a lot of paulie shore talking about cocaine it was a little awkward but i don't know if you tuned in paulie shore does like cocaine or at least hey how about the rhyming skills from the schmo we like that guy a lot luke we do like schmo also paul Shore, for folks who may not understand this, when BC and I were teenagers, Pauly Shore was extremely famous in the United States. He came out with a new movie. You know what, Jose? You know what he originally was?

He was the original Pete Davidson. Just this absolute nothing who kept banging hot chicks, and you'd be like, how is this fucking possible? And it just kept going. Yeah, I mean, his mom was Mitzi from the comedy store right luke so he he had an in but dude he became like if you were in ninth grade and his new movie came out whether it was son-in-law or encino man dude you went to the theater opening weekend like yeah he was like he was a big star it was like a guaranteed fun time i mean it got a little weird in the end luke and maybe that's explained where he's been the last 20 to 30 years,

but he's still around, Luke. Still around, right? Still going. Do you want to do an RSD with him, Luke? You may have to do a few lines first. Probably sure? Yeah. No, I'm good.

All right. Luke, let's close with some mid-air art. It is boat season, right? It's time for the outdoors. Fourth of July coming. Oh, yeah. Look at that form. Look at that conquest.

That's America, Luke. That right there is freedom. Thank you. One more time. Is that Michael Chandler, by the way? Or Sean O'Connell? This guy's got terrible tattoos dude where are all the white chicks falling off the roof that's what i want to see

next tune in next week uh that's the shit of the week luke uh abbreviated version but still still hit the mark right still got you right in that fuel hole yeah all right listen most of my wife's not working today no one else is working today but we are here out there slaving for you yeah where's ariel show today well you know what i mean luke is he working today i didn't even see no no only we have work holidays apparently well that's because i bet he wanted to because he's a workaholic but um i bet the vox crew took that off so you just can't in that case um but okay thanks everyone for watching here thumbs up on the video you can follow us on all the social and everything there you can check that out put that up there mikey if

you can get a second for follow us on tiktok follow us on the gram follow us on twitter there you go there's all the places morning combat is the place to get that done uh let's see showtime.com label that pays 30-day free trial if you like it you can keep it if not you can bounce you can go to morningcombat.store for all of the merch that may tickle your fancy and then of course morningcombat at gmail.com we haven't done fans subs in a couple of weeks i don't think right bc so we have a big one coming up on wednesday we took one week off due to our press conference schedule change so let's see who's coming out of the woodwork tomorrow who's going to deliver who's going to land that plane on our airstrip? All right.

BC, any final thoughts? Corey Lytle, hell of a pitcher. Not a great pilot, though. Probably too soon. But, you know, you got to stay on the edge. You got to live on the edge, right? We found out. Risen bad, bad lane.

Dale Senior, bad lane of jokes. But, you know, we'll see. We'll see what happens. All right. I want to thank everyone who watched us here today on this Monday edition. Back for you on Wednesday, plus content in between. So for Brian Campbell, I am Luke Thomas. For Malka, for CBS Sports, to Showtime,

and everyone else involved, Mikey Morms. Shouts to him especially here today. We're done for the day. We'll see you guys on Wednesday. And until next time, may all of your gains be loyal.