MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Bellator 301 & UFC Vegas 82 | Fight Announcements | Stevenson-De Los Santos | Morning Kombat Ep 516

Episode Date: November 17, 2023

On Episode 516 of Morning Kombat Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell break down the latest news in the combat sports world. BC and LT start off the show by giving their picks for UFC Vegas 82 and Bellator 301. Next up the guys break down Shakur Stevenson vs. Edwin De Los Santos. What's next for the winner? The boys also break down some recent fight announcements. As always we close out Friday's with dead wrong. (00:09:30) - Ok, Bet (00:36:00) - Shakur Stevenson (00:56:00) - Fight News and Announcements (01:10:00) - Saudi Boxing (01:44:00) - Dead Wrong Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts 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

Reveille, Reveille, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat.

Oh, yeah. Can you feel it? It's Friday. Ain't got shit to do. Might as well douse yourself in the art. It's the award-winning Morning Combat back in your damn face hole. Friday, November 17th, 2023. And look, folks, you may watch other shows, but that's your problem

because this is the only freaking one you need. I'm Brian Campbell,bc with that bde getting up here alpha style on the double a but the man next to me actually lives in the nation's capital and luke thomas i am here with some good news that you shared with me on this day day. Commandant Semper Fi will never die. He has out of the hospital and beaten the heart attack. That's how the Marines do it. That's right. He got a, had a heart attack, uh, about a week or two ago. The Marine Corps updated us yesterday. He's already out of the hospital back at his house, which is over on Eric's road, not too far from where I live. So, uh, fucking one for the commandant. That's what I'm talking about. You know what I'm saying, Luke? Your thumb doesn't too far from where I live. So fucking one for the Commandant, one for the Corps.

That's what I'm talking about. You know what I'm saying, Luke? Your thumb doesn't do this. Fingers extended and joined, thumb along the hand. Use a grifter like South Oregon bird. Yeah, this is what I'm talking about, Luke. One more time. Fingers extended and joined, thumb along the hand.

That is it. And you don't do this. It's completely straight. This arm has to be completely straight. I'm not trying to get any other thing going on here. We do have a fantastic show for you folks. Okay, Beck coming at you. We're also going to look back at a wild two days in boxing,

a pair of Saudi Arabian press conferences in the heavyweight division, and a sleeper from Shakur Stevenson last night. Well, sleeper's a nice way to put it. How about all-time shit fest? I think that might be a better way to put it how about all-time shit fest i think i might be a better way to get into that and so much more uh please tip your waitresses like and subscribe to what we do here on the mk we don't get to these awards and subscriber totals without your addiction level being full-on p1 so thank you for your rabidness. Also, morningcombat.store. I'm not wearing any merch right now, Luke,

but here's the deal. People want discounts. All right, one more time for you. 10% off at morningcombat.store right here, right now, as Jesus Jones once said, Luke, right? Right here, right now, there is

no other place I'd want to be. Looks like that's the only Jesus I'll listen to, bitch. Unfortunately. All right, so here's the deal. Live 10 is your code, L-I-V-E 1-0. Get 10% off for the rest of this show and the rest of this day. And Luke, we have heard from RJ Dunkel. Would you call RJ a mother effer now after his wife gave birth?

Yeah, he's like Danny Garcia. He's RJ make the pussy rain. That's really good. Oh, God. Wow. Wow. Danny Swift Garcia, the former boxing champion. He drinks champagne for the pain.

You know what I'm saying? That's what he does. I wish we had run that today. I wish we had grabbed that. Okay. So, yeah, look, there some big uh deals coming next week as well but today 10 off get in there average joe art the crossover all that and then some tall pale and handsome yeah it's your boy bc getting after it luke odd not all good news today i want

to shout out a mk super fan named evan who's been following us since the beginning he's been nursing his ailing dog, Rossi, and listening to us to get through the hard times. Unfortunately, Rossi has passed, but we bring our love and condolences to a great fan and, I'm sure, a great dog. Got that dog in him. Shout out to Rossi. I'm telling you, man, I had to put mine down about four or five months ago.

Shit was not easy. Not easy, man. So, sincerest sympathies man i know how tough that can be um sorry they had to go through it man but i always say this i always say this always take comfort in the good life you gave them you know what i mean so there you go exactly exactly this episode by the way speaking of the good life we're living now of morning combat is presented by none other than fan dual sports book folks make every moment more with fan dual sports book on that ass luke anything else you want to talk about before

we get rip roaring into this fun time friday event we got going well i gotta take my daughter to see the new trolls movie tonight which uh i told my wife already you're driving because i'm gonna have enough edibles to kill a horse in my stomach. So just so you know. You're like, I'm going to have Delta 17 in my body. She's like, what's that? It's all of them combined. Yeah, yeah.

I've got the entire, you know, I don't even know what the word is. Like every number you could imagine, I'm just going to shove it together and then eat it, and then it's going to be that. Yeah, you're definitely going to accidentally like shove some kid to the ground when you're walking out. You're just going to shove it together and then eat it. And then it's going to be that. So yeah, you're definitely going to accidentally like shove some kid to the ground when you're walking out. You're just going to be a blip. No, no, it's going to be,

there's going to be news headlines tomorrow. It's like first man in history. Oh, D's on marijuana gummies. It's going to be me. There it was right there. Uh, Mikey warm,

I'll CBS sports on the ones and twos are fantastic producers. So thank you very much. Shout them out. Morning combat at gmail.com to reach the show or really reach mikey if you get what we're talking about so if you're willing to show your shaft and i hope you don't we're not going to see it all right that's how this show works uh luke thomas it's time to bang though tooey so let's get into it right off the top we start our friday like we always do head to head five picks it's a busy weekend a bellator 301 tonight ufc fight night tomorrow

we got to say this though let me just say this and i'm and i'm not i'm not trying to dump on anyone i'm just trying to call it as it is right yep dude does anybody give a fuck about this bellator event tonight it's really good why doesn't anybody care that's yeah remember i didn't ask like was it good because Because I agree with you. There's legit fights up and down this card. I can't detect the slightest bit. I mean, Bellator is truly going out with an absolute whimper on this. Not their last event, because I guess PFL is going to keep the brand alive or whatever.

But in this current Paramount era or whatever that's ending, nobody cares. And believe how little they care but they don't they don't care i i hope they will afterwards because it should be a good event tonight a really good event in chicago showtime you can watch it and i had one other plug oh yeah dude how about this youtube.com slash morning combat hey guys we got the goods for you whether you want the serious interviews whether you want bc and mike perry going ham for about 20 something minutes luke that was as wild a mike perry run as i've had in that interview that people can check out he did hang up at the end when i complimented his beautiful wife did you get a chance to see this piece of business at all i didn't get to the end yet i've've started it. I'm about halfway done. Mike Perry is one of a kind. And, dude, deceptively clever.

You know, he does the whole mean mugging bit, but he's clever. He is brilliant as a sort of viral marketer in terms of getting you to care about his weird life. And, by the way, his weird life I freaking love. So thank you, Mike Perry. Also, I chatted with Eddie Alvarez yesterday. It's a very good chat. We talk UFC 300. We talk the end of Bellator, a lot of other topics.

Check that out, as well as all the incredible content we've given you over the past couple weeks. Nobody puts the fist right inside of you and then turns it like MK. Remember that, okay? You don't see aerial fisting people, do you? I certainly hope not. Maybe. You're like after hours, maybe. But yeah, I hope not. All right.

Here we go. Head to head, five picks each. You already know what this is called. This week's OK Bet segment, by the way, brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Make every moment count. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app today because it's fueling this segment where we find out who's going to be at a concert next year that they're really not going to enjoy. This one's called OK Bet.

All righty, Luke. Last week, we tied. We both went three up and two down so we stay at the same level your okay bet standings bc in the lead 81 85 and one yet below 500 for sure luke thomas 79 82 and four also below 500 luke how would you describe your because you know i'm, I'm team vibes. You know what I'm saying? I'll live and die with the feels. How do you describe your recent dip? Well, here's what I've actually done. I was high, and then I've dipped, and now I've kind of risen a little bit, but leveled off. I've leveled off.

I haven't made like a chunk bit of, you know, they call it chunk yardage in American football. I'm not getting any chunk yardage. I'm just running the ball for like three yards every time and i'm getting the first downs i guess but not much more well look i have one piece of sound to throw to before we make our picks for the week and if you want another reason to get fired up for bellator 301 there's an italian gangster who ran his mouth and went wild yesterday. His name is Danny Sabatello. I'm going to want to find out. Do you care about what this man has to say? Let's go to the videotape. It would be nice for this shit to end because he's very below me and I don't really

want to give him the fucking press and make his name any bigger, but I don't think this will ever end. This doesn't have a happy ending. I think no matter what, I'm always going to fucking hate Rock John Stotts. I don't care if he hates me or not. He's irrelevant. And again, even after this fight, after I do beat the shit out of him, I don't know if he's going to retire or not, but I'm always going to want to fight him. I'll fight him again in two weeks. I'll fight him again in three weeks.

I'll fight him again in four weeks. As our career goes on, for up to me, every single fucking fight would be against this little fucking bitch. But unfortunately, it won't go that way. But no, I don't think it ends Friday. Even though it would be nice, it would be a nice little staple to say, sayonara, goodbye, never see you again. But I'll always fantasize about putting my fucking elbow through his skull. Luke, he's talking about Rafael Stotz.

We get the rematch whether you ask for it or not tonight. But I want you to know, the Italian gangster says hashtag fight forever it's never over luke just like the mayweathers i'm sorry the mcgregors versus the uh the dagestanis it's never over according to yeah it's never over fuck size and king cobra uh which they say in the army of the pharaohs so yeah okay did that get you excited that we might see some fisticuffs tonight or no their first fight uh sucked ass i mean i do like rafi on stats and i do think danny sabatello is talented but their first fight um sucked the sweat off a dead man's balls so i'm not that i'm not that pumped for it no it was not i did not i had to drink champagne for the pain when i watched their first fight that's what i had to do could

you repeat that phrase you just said in terms of uh yeah i think it's from uh good morning vietnam suck the sweat off a dead man's balls true or false that's exactly what happened in your back seat while your car was stolen probably yeah probably almost a guarantee almost a guarantee man i didn't have a camera thank god but yeah probably all right i'm gonna go first because i'm in the lead and i'm gonna hold the lead with my feel bag if you know what i'm saying main event we basically kind of allowed ourselves to choose you want to go ufc fight night you want to go bellator 301 i'm going ufc fight night let me read you the updated fan duel odds at the moment here we go minus 440 brendan allen your favorite riding an incredible win streak becoming sort of a sleeper in this division he wears a dead animal on his head

although it may be a recreation but paul craig across from him plus 310 hey look when we interviewed paul craig we we caught a few of his feels i was hoping to catch some secondhand feels if you know what i'm talking about right because true or false he left our room service diaries interview in london in that hotel suite and went directly not to a liquid lunch well may have been liquid i don't know how much he gets down but uh you know what i mean like there was there was pie involved luke right you know what i'm saying right yeah he had to uh he pulled a danny garcia you know what i'm saying he had to go make that thing rain you know wow so he gave the feels that day and you know what i was looking at this matchup in depth i respect what brendan allen brings to the table but luke there is a thing in this game where when you start putting together a win streak against

the let's say mid-tier guys and you're starting to show that you're ready for the top tier, sometimes there's an adjustment period of getting to the level that Brendan Allen is right now. Main event, close-up, all eyes on you, A-side, betting favorite. And it would not be the first time, I think Grant Dawson against Bobby Green just a few months ago or weeks ago, whatever it was. Sometimes you just find out.

The fighter may have the skills, but experience sometimes can matter in these situations. And I did look back at Paul Craig's middleweight debut in cutting down. There wasn't just a comfortability to it, a confidence to it, a smoothness in a lot of ways to how he put that fight away against Muniz and took it. I'm going hashtag feels and I'm not hiding it team vibes all the way paul craig by upset to continue this middleweight reinvention and it's not a stab at brendan allen i just think he's going to come out there and find out luke that there's a little bit more to have gone through and experience and learn to whether you're really ready for this level uh i guess i don't fully understand that if i could be honest with

you let's let's unwrap it a little bit so their records are 17 6 and 1 which means paul craig has 20 let's see he would have 24 fights brend Allen is 22 and 5. He's got 27 fights. He's literally got more fights than the other guy. What experience are you referring to? Do you value being in main events, which Paul Craig has been in the light heavyweight division, or having more experience at a higher level, tasting big defeat on a high level, which Paul Craig also has?

Yeah, but this isn't a big card at a big place this isn't a fucking apex that's fair this will play into your hands if it goes this way but i'll tell you what even though brendan ellen is very good on the ground as well and you might be asking me bc how is paul craig going to pull this off i don't know how's he gonna do it i don't know no uh luke he going to do it? I don't know. No. Luke, he's going to do it. Hashtag team vibes. What do we got? What's the prop?

You would think after being like, yo, McKenzie Dern minus 4,000, bitch-ass motherfuckers, you think you might dial it back a little bit. No, you double down, huh? And upon further reference of these odds yeah maybe minus 400 paul craig would have been more acceptable maybe look 450 probably you know i mean i will say this pop quiz bc how old is paul craig 35 how old is brendan allen uh 27 or 8 27 27 27 he's 22 and 5 like bre, Brendan Allen is only now starting to get, however good he's going to be,

he's only now starting to hit it, and he's already as good as he is. Now, I do agree that the odds are a little off on this one. Like, I mean, minus 400 for a guy who is very tricky, very slick, and, you know, not afraid to initiate a sequence where the consequences either way could be, you know, very dire. A lot of guys don't want to do that. They want to be very methodical and slow

about it. That's really not what Paul Craig does. Paul Craig is immediately shoves you into the pool on the deep end and is ready to go. And sometimes that backfires and sometimes it doesn't. I do agree that that kind of thing probably Brendan Allen has not faced before. He's not faced somebody because even Muniz who has good juitsu, is not quite like that. Paul Craig is very anomalous in that way. Paul Craig can turn a negative situation into a finish win pretty quickly, and I don't want to underrate that talent. That's big.

Never forget. I mean, we now know that Ankalayev is a bit of a donk, but Ankalayev was beating the bejesus out of him and then just kind of farted the last what was it 30 seconds or something and got submitted at the end of the third round so never trust a fart luke even in your 30s and 40s right never dude never you gotta get them dude wipes but the point i'm trying to make is brendan allen um i think we're just about to find out how good he is and i think it's gonna be pretty good so i'm gonna go the opposite opposite. Give me Brendan Allen in this main event.

I don't know exactly how it's going to go. I think it's going to be violent and weird by the time it ends. But everything in between is a little harder to say. I think Brendan Allen is going to want to have a very methodical fight. And Paul Craig is going to want to have a very shoot for the stars kind of fight. Like just go for it right away kind of fight. And so it will really be up to Brendan Allen to negate that, control it, slow it down just a little bit, and then apply his game.

We'll see if he can do it. But I'll take Brendan Allen in that main event also, BC, because I have to make another pick this week since I'm behind on the overall amount of picks since so many people I picked end up falling out before the fights themselves happen. So I'm for that Bellator main event, which, of of course is Yaroslav Amasov taking on Jason Jackson. You're going to have to give me Amasov.

I have a super strong degree of respect for Amasov. Jason Jackson is a big guy. He's a very big guy. He's fought several fights at 175. Comes from a good team. He can wrestle. He can strike. He's not a pushover.

But Amasov I there's no way to prove this until there's enough crossover to show people this but Amosov to me is one of the best welterweights in the world and I think he's going to show that here on tonight I did watch some Brendan Allen interviews Luke where I just didn't I didn't get the few I didn't get what I was looking for sometimes it doesn't matter Sometimes that's all a bunch of bullshit. He's rough around the edges, yeah? I just felt like I didn't see that confidence that entering the first main event, ready to dominate,

ready to take over, ready to go to the next level. I saw a little, like, looking around, okay, this is what it's like. Alright, cool. You know what I mean? Like, okay, well, you may find out. You may find out. Look, if he gets subbed and then Paul Craig kind of takes the Derek Lewis thing to the next level and drops not only his shorts but his underpants but then to honor brendan allen defeat has a davy crockett hat looking like hair piece around his crumb would that lead to him

losing his job so are you asking me does he need a manscaped fucking intervention does that as a tribute to Brendan Allen in defeat. Like, sorry you went out that way. Check out my Daniel Boone. You know what I'm saying, Luke? Yeah, it's like, you know, listen, I know I just subbed you, but also I have an extraordinary overgrowth of pubic hair around my genitals, and I hope that this is some kind of homage to you.

Showed so brilliantly. This show doesn't need to exist today i mean we are just absolutely masturbating on air yeah a lot of people are like who would have won all those awards if mk would have wouldn't have happened and would have been canceled after the risen karate chop we'll never know let's go to favorite though i'm gonna go to bellator 301 this evening look i like aj mckee at lightweight i like i, I like the challenge that Sydney outlaw is going to bring outlaw as a plus two 10 underdog to the minus two 70 favorite in McKee. But Luke, I agree with a lot of how you broke this fight down for as good as outlaw is McKee's just better. And his lightweight debut against Spike Carlisle wasn't perfect,

but it showed you what he's all about. Unfortunately, Luke, he's out of this Grand Prix, although we did see him fight in Japan recently. But I like where AJ McKee's at. I'm wondering what his future is. We haven't talked about that. If this merger goes down like we think with Bellator and PFL eventually bringing the brands together, dude, AJ McKee has to be on the short list of the biggest building blocks

they would have for the future. So I think he enters that future with some nice momentum, knowing what's at stake here. He gets the job done. to be on the short list of the biggest building blocks they would have for the future so i think he enters that future with some nice momentum knowing what's at stake here he gets the job done give me an easy favorite win for aj mckee against a good opponent but aj mckee is that dude still i still believe in that i do yeah that's a good bet i'm gonna stick with the bellator card for this one as well for my favorite 155 part of the tourney i think alexander shibley is going to beat the out of patricky pitbull i like patricky pitbull i think he's come a long way um you know trying to live up to your brother's expectations cannot be easy especially when your brother is the best guy to ever fight in bellator

but at the same time uh it doesn't matter shibley is just gonna break all the rules shibley's a minus 750 favorite on on fan duel i mean what are we doing what were the rules i've forgotten them uh we usually try to keep it to like minus 350 and under i mean can i just have this one please i mean can i can i i don't feel like picking another one can i just have this one wow wow you're like we're doing this head-to-head battle i'll tell you what i'll make you a deal i'll make you a deal how about this how about this if he loses if shibley loses you can count it twice how about that no no because look you've already cheated you've got the brendan allen fight in there twice so you've already kind of cheated to begin no i took the brendan allen fight out i took it out oh you took it out at the end yes i

took it out all right all right i took it out i took it all right i'll give you this mulligan and this bonus but you'll owe me one by the end of the season. You know that, okay? You know that. I probably will. You know what? That's okay. I probably will.

If you give me this one, I'll... Listen, you scratch my balls. I'll just enjoy it. All right. Alexander Chablis is Luke's favorite, and we'll all be cheering for Patrycki big time. Let's go over to the underdog. So here's the deal. I still can't figure out why this rematch between Stotts and Sabatello, which Rafael Stotts won a split decision the first time.

It looked deserving, even though the fight blew. And now we have Danny Sabatello as a minus 122 favorite against Stotts, even though Sabatello's fresh off a first-round submission loss to Magomedov. Interesting. You're telling me I can get Rafael Stotts plus 100? I understand he's got to come back from that flying knee knockout loss to Pachy Mix. But I know he's motivated. I know he hates Sabatello.

I have to believe, Luke, for as bad as that first fight was, and boy was it, that we will see more striking in this one. Stotts is a better striker than the two i'm very comfortable here taking stots with the underdog pick and even if the fight sucks he can still get one of those decisions by trying to out wrestle sabatello he's got more tools he takes more chances offensively than sabatello that's the difference in this matchup to me uh yeah i would agree with that i would agree with that. I would agree with that. But Sabatello does have really, really, really, really good wrestling. That is a thing.

Excuse me. Don't die. For my underdog, I'm going to... Did I just hear the Newark train station come out of you, Luke? What is that? I haven't been in the Newark train station in some time. But, you know, when your daughter comes home from preschool and then sneezes in your mouth...

Oh, boy. I don't really know what to do. I don't really know what to do about that. You know, just you're just gonna be sick so there you go uh for me on my underdog pick bc i'm gonna go back to the ufc card and i actually really like this fight because it's not my favorite fight per se um in terms of like oh it's the best you can get or whatever but i do think it's pretty well matched. I'm going to take the underdog here, Chase Hooper fighting Jordan Leavitt. Jordan Leavitt is a slight underdog at FanDuel, modest underdog, plus 180 to Chase Hooper's minus 235. Now Chase Hooper, in terms of a grappling contest, is coming off of beating Clay Guido by calf slicer.

So you know, my man's got skills on the mat. He's growing into his man strength. But Jordan Leavitt is also pretty clever on the ground. He couldn't get it done against Patty, but he should be able to get it done against Chase Hooper, I think. So give me Jordan Leavitt. Jordan Gordon Leavitt from Third Rock from the Sun. Luke, decent actor. Did you ever see 50 First Dates with, or 500 Days of Summer with, all right, I'm going down a long rabbit hole. 50 First Dates I've seen. I've not seen 500 Days of Summer. 500 Days of summer with alright I'm going down a long rabbit hole 51st dates I've seen I've not seen 500 days of summer 500 days of summer with Zoe Deschanel who I used to love

Luke until she married one of those weird property brothers now I'm out I'm out dude I'm out isn't it Zoe Deschanel yeah probably Luke but do you think we've gone on record being 100% across the board on pronunciations and or caring about the pronunciations of regular white women I did see this I did see this tiktok trend and it was what's a word that you didn't know how it was

pronounced and you said it in public and everyone was like what the fuck are you talking about and one person had um for manslaughter they had they didn't know how it was pronounced so they said man's laughter i was like yeah that's a bad one i saw another one too where it was uh rvca and they were like yeah all right there you go i had never heard it pronounced i had never heard it pronounced wow all right didn't bj penn come from there yes yes or at a bare minimum had a sponsorship agreement, but yes. Speaking of future governor Penn, did you see that he conspiracy theorized on Instagram that it was a Donald Trump body double that showed up at UFC 295,

but then added in. And by the way, I'm still voting for Trump. How do you, I mean, what do you make of that? Um, I think CTE is a terrible thing.

Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Yeah. I'm not trying to be difficult, but I'm like, how cooked do you have to be to say and believe things like that? I don't really know. Probably very far, you know? Also, did you see the Jan 6 guy with the Brendan Allen hat is going to run for Congress? Oh, the uh what's his

name the q anon shaman is that his name yeah yeah yeah hope he wins they'd be very fun for me okay here we go uh keeping the trend going here over under will they go the distance or not dude i'm gonna go off the menu a bit here bellator 301 preliminary card heavyweights tyrell fortune versus marcello gom they both finish and get finished often this fight will not go the distance all right that's a fair point uh bc i'm also gonna go to the bellator card i don't know if it's on the prelims let me see where it is yes it is on the prelims yeah you know me dude i i don't really fuck around too much with these denise killelholz taking on sumiko inaba um fine fight by the way at flyweight women's 125 good contest actually but uh give me that fight going the distance so there you go eat shit wow

luke breaking a lot of rules on this just you know some are legality rules others are just like sportsmanship and honor he's like nah bro I'm not going to that jam band show. Stuff it, Oteel. By the way, Oteel was texting me about your Newark hate, Oteel Burbridge. He wanted to shout out that Wayne Shorter, the late, great, amazing jazz player, Luke, who was in Weather Report, had one of the greatest careers of all time from Newark. I had no idea. I thought it was Shakur Stevenson and communicable diseases

that were the notable alumni. You know what's also from Newark? Urban blight and sadness. So there you go. Okay. All right. There you go. It looks like take your jazz fusion and suck it.

No, Luke. There's two cities in America I've had a knife pulled on me. Right? One here is D.C. in the 1980s. The other one was Newark new jersey in 2003 so wow so yeah okay all right you know you can die in patterson too luke just one t right there's one t in patterson new jersey yeah yeah you can also there's there's also a high t all around that city you can die very easily there's no question right you know what i mean it's i'll tell you a story you ever seen do you know what the do you know what the uh official like city motto is of trenton

trenton new jersey and i see it because every time i'm on the amtrak train they pass right by both ways coming and going trenton makes the world takes and i'm like guys i don't think we need you i don't really i just don't think we need you at all. Sorry, Trenton. You're worthless. Trenton takes. Luke Thomas bakes. That's how this transaction works. K or sub time, Luke. I'm going to go for this. Wow, a lot of Bellator showing up here.

Jason Jackson versus Yaroslav Amisov. I know you picked Amisov for your main event pick. I'm going to pick this ends by submission. Wow, that's a ballsy pick. Tell me why you did that. I think Amisov is going to be this ends by submission. Wow, that's a ballsy pick. Tell me why you did that. I think Amosov's going to be able to take him down, but I don't know if he's going to have the success with the ground and pound. I think, though, if this fight goes into those championship rounds,

although Jason Jackson is durable and tough as shit, Amosov raises his game to another level. Look at the story rematch when he was coming off two years away from the sport. Look at the form that he's in right now even though i like jason jackson a lot i think he's a step just a little bit of a step down i think emisov could hurt him potentially get on his back there and pull away a championship round rear naked choke so i'm going sub here a lot a lot of dice roll i'm look i'm rolling i'm going i'm going for it right now you know a little little bit. A little bit. I see that. I respect that. For me, I go back to the UFC card. I feel like this one and the underdog one are the hardest ones for me to get right.

But I'm going to go Michael Morales versus Jake Matthews ending in KO. Michael Morales, a physical tank in this division. Jake Matthews, not so easy to put away. In fact, most of the time he gets put away, it's been via submission or if he loses, it's via decision or something like that. But I feel like he's going to strike it out a little bit more with Morales and Morales is a tough customer. Either way, this one I'm going to sort of take a flyer on as ending in KO. All right. So Luke, let's recap here. I'm a couple ahead of you here it's close to shit every week it could produce a new leader we're at november 17th it's getting it's getting there it's getting nigh right

let me ask a question so the last big ufc event of the week of the year excuse me december 16th assuming there are other events after that like like i don't even know but like a rise in ksw event are we going to count those well let's talk about this now on the 23rd of december you're going to get that big wilder fury boxing pay-per-view and on the 26th you're going to get uh nioa in a way who's going to be a monster favorite the monster against topolis to unify titles they're at 122 um i don't think that is enough for like one week of stuff. Is there fight night cards or any other major? Oh, when's the PFL championship?

25th of this month, which, by the way, I applied for credentials to that, so I should be going. Oh, I hope that smart cage denies you, Luke. Sorry, you can't get in. Yes, disassemble. Yes, disassemble. Yes, disassemble. I'm saying that maybe we end it with the December 16th UFC card. Maybe that's our championship final.

Because we may go into that week two or three games apart, two or three picks apart. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. We'll have to talk about this with Mikey, but it might be December 16th Might be the last one So we've got about a month left or so Can't wait to drag you to a show

And by the way I already said it on Twitter April 2024 It's a festival so you only have to go one day It's not the whole three day thing There's no way that would work But for one of those days There's the Metal and Beer Fest So first of all you can get a great pint of beer, which is not the worst thing in the world.

But I think it's at the Fillmore in Philly. They're going to have the Metal and Beer Festival. And one of the days is headlined by Biohazard. One is headlined by Deicide. And then the other one is headlined by Dying Fetus. You're going to go. If I win, you're going to the Dying Fetus show with me. And we're going to enjoy hearing, you know, make them beg for death.

We're going to enjoy that. Jake Von Amsterdam, get up in the bullpen with that doc cam. We're definitely going to need you, whether we have the budget or not. All right. Let me ask this, though. Let me ask this. Who's paying for this 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 can. Because it ain't going to be showtime. Apparently that's another discussion that we need to have offline, Luke. But this will happen. You better freaking believe it. It will happen. One way or the other. A little bit to set it up. It's got to be the right show at the right time.

Hey, by the way, people want to, they might dead wrong you today. I don't know. But didn't you say that you wish somebody would walk out to Sepultura and then they're like like that's freaking poet on theme song anyway yeah dude i haven't he that might be it i haven't muted almost every time i did not know that so so yeah listening to the commentary on pay-per-views look i think that's really not it's really not it doesn't add much to me at this point um yeah well that's funny because every time laura senko's on a show you listen the whole freaking thing yeah Laura Senko is really good she's really good

Luke this segment of okay Ben she's good I think she's great she's very good to great she's fantastic that was not a slight at her it was a slight at you as was this okay Japan this was at Luke when I was being racist I was being racist at the white guy.

Yes, I was being racist at my friend to roast him, right? This OK, this bad segment has been brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. I said it right. FanDuel Sportsbook. Make every moment more. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app today. Luke, any other comments on Bellator or UFC before we keep the show moving? You know what?

Yes. So let me tell the audience just as a favor about when to expect things. So the prelims start today for Bellator at five. And I believe, I don't know when the main card goes live. I'll double check that here in just a second, BC. But I just want folks to know prelims start at five and then the bellator let's put this up here bellator 301 oops hang on one second i'm trying to get it up here in uh i think kevin aioli is going to be happy that the ufc show is at the apex and not at the strip so he doesn't have to deal with f1 traffic i guess oh um Amasaw versus Jackson. The main card starts on Showtime today, 9 p.m. in the East. So prelims, five. Main card, nine. There.

Whoop. There it is. Hey, let's get into topic number one and move this show along. So, Luke, I spent Wednesday's show belating my future pound for pound king unbeaten shaker stevenson going for a world title in a third weight class at age 26 moving up of course to 135 he made his debut there earlier this year the wbc vacant lightweight title at stake uh look he won that title but how he won it against edwin de los santos brought boos from the crowd beginning in round two. They only escalated through the championship rounds.

Twitter had a field day. It's clear Shakur Stevenson had some form of a left-hand injury, although in the post-fight interview he did not want to get into it, did not want to make excuses, was evasive. But here's the deal this great fighter took home a unanimous decision 116 112 115 113 and 116 112 and in the process by the way limited is very dangerous opponent dominican republic southpaw slugger de los santos to a compu box record of just 40 punches landed over 12 rounds. But Luke, none of that tells the actual story of this fight of which Shakur outlanded De Los Santos 65 to 40 in total.

How would you describe the reaction, and is it justified that people are dropping doogies on good old Shakur after this performance? Dude, I tried to watch this thing, and I could barely get through it. People started booing at round two. You could visibly see them start to leave by round six. We have a stat here. I think you may have read it, but just for folks who may not know,

40 punches landed with the lowest in CompuBox history over 12 rounds. That was De Los Santos' output. And it was punch stats 65 to 40 in favor of Shakur. I mean, BC, here's the thing, right? This is what I noticed about it. There were times maybe midway through the fight where you could tell Shakur had all the reads he needed to and then just didn't do anything about it, like never changed what he was doing,

just kind of kept doing the same thing. And, you know, I get the game, hit and don't get hit, fine. He didn't get hit very much, that's true. But Stevenson turned in an absolute... Okay, he could have been injured, we don't know. I don't know what the situation is i can only know what i saw and what i saw was absolute like just dog shit i mean it was one of the worst most boring performances i've absolutely ever seen this i mean here's how

bad this is bc you really have to ask a question about not so much his talent because one performance while really really bad doesn't undo some of the stuff he's done which has been quite magical up to this point sure but what you do have to say is as a box office attraction this was a disaster for him a disaster devin haney was tweeting during the fighter close to the end of it, I should have offered him 10%, not 25%. I saw other people saying the only way they would ever watch Shakur is if he fought Tank Davis, who is reliably action-oriented

and a monster power puncher. Other than that, they have no interest in him. BC, he still has my respect. He still has your respect. We still know again one one fight doesn't undo the rest of his career but for making people want to see him yeah dude he shit the bed big time with that performance last night here's his post-fight quotes during the interview with bernardo asuna afterwards i had a bad performance tonight that's all i'm really

focused on i wasn't feeling too good so i'll live live with it. It's okay. I came here and got the victory and that's all I wanted to do. When they asked about the left hand, he said, I don't got nothing to say about that. I don't make excuses. It happens. We go through a lot of that as fighters. I just didn't feel good. I didn't feel good before the fight. Honestly, I'd already told myself that if I feel like this in the ring and it's not going well, I'm going to make sure that I box and get that victory, end quote. So here's what I got to say, because, Luke, I am in a position where I've been bold. I've been telling you left and right. We can't mention Shakur's name without me saying, you know what?

I think he's the future Paul for Pound King, and he's probably the only guy that reminds me actually of Floyd. He's a long, soft Paul who can do anything. And, oh, by the way, I love to tell you on Wednesday that his last four fights, he's been walking dudes down, taking risks, not getting, he just knocked that dude the hell out in April. I mean, he's doing things, but if I'm going to carry that energy into the fight, I've got to carry a different energy on the way out. First and foremost, was it masterful what he did with one hand against a dangerous opponent limiting him to just 40 landed in really preventing de los santos from like going after it i think there's

some blame that should go to edwin de los santos who afterwards just called shakur a runner which you can understand i will give shakur that that it's the same thing i've said about terence crawford he's really exciting great now he started a little bit differently the first time we saw him on tv on hbo against brightest pres, he had moved up in weight, took an opportunity last minute and really just kind of controlled that thing from distance. We saw a couple of fights, but Terrence Crawford made those adjustments. He became more offensive, but I always knew in the back of my head, as Shakur knows about himself, that if he needs to win a fight that way from the outside, not taking any chances, he can do it.

So from that regard, there actually is something Shakur will take from this. But Luke, you nailed it on the short term, on the perception, on the commercial value. In my opinion, if you're Shakur Stevens, who we all know is great, you can't be all fight week saying that you're going to sleep De Los Santos, getting in his face after the press conference and saying you done fucked up and just really bringing it to him. After the weigh-in when they had that face-off,

basically promising that you're going to make him pay and you're going to knock him out, while all week ripping Devin Haney and calling him a ducker against you and doing all these things, and then come out with a performance like that. If this was a co-main event or an undercard fight somewhere, you'd go, okay, the fight blew. He got the W. Live and learn.

Grow. Get to the next fight. We'll see what happens. But, Luke, this was a showcase fight. And I don't mean showcase from the opponent level. It's a tough opponent. And this was a legit vacant title fight. But this was F1 week in Vegas.

Let's put a smart move. Let's put a top-ranked ESPN card on Thursday night in the big arena, not the little ones, not the Cosmo Theater, in T-Mobile Arena. And let's proclaim Shakur as everything that I've been saying that he might be. In that regard, it's a massive failure. So, Luke, when you look at the tape, which is not fun to watch, he did push forward against De Los Santos, but every time De Los Santos showed any posture of coming with a punch, Stevenson just backpedaled, got out of the way. But worse, any time De Los Santos did kind of overreach,

the openings were there for the counter left hand. Tim Bradley was talking about it on the commentary the whole fight. I can't speak to the pain because Shakur's not telling us, but even with an injured hand, Luke, I mean, he just won the fight with a jab, and that's due to his brilliance, his defense, his movement. But this was a short-term monster setback in the idea of being able to brag about yourself and the idea of being able to tell people that this guy is must-see, which I called him on Wednesday.

This performance, not must-see at all. And on top on top of that luke there's like i don't know if you notice a lot of celebrities in the crowd michael b jordan was in the crowd joseph accidentally called him michael b carter by the way i don't know what that was about but uh there was also even more to this i want to show a picture that andre ward posted on his instagram of what happened backstage look at this pound for pound King lineage here. Terrence Crawford on the far left. Fucking insane photo, man.

Shakur next to him. Who's no, not the pound for pound King. I have him in the, in the, between five and 10 in my list, but he's getting there. Floyd Mayweather next to him.

Andre Ward on the far right. Pauly Malinaggi repurposed this photo and put their combined record. 141 in O. Shakur went on to walk out to the ring with purpose with Terrence Crawford over one shoulder and Andre Ward over the other. This was in a lot of ways walking to the ring an announcement. You see these guys? I'm of this ilk, right? This is who I am. And while while yes there were certain levels of masterful and how with one hand he won the fight from distance and limited his opponent to 40 punches landed but short term that's a major hit to his reputation you gotta call it out and i think you gotta call out the

rightful trash talk that came in response i don't know who people think really won that debate that haney and shakur has had where, where Shakur says he ducked him and moved up in weight to fight pro gray when he should have defended against his mandatory, which was Stevenson. You get Haney saying we offered him 25% and he turned it down. Bob Arum this week came out and said that offer is false. It never actually happened. They're lying regardless of who says that. How does Shakur stand on anything and like fight back? I mean, another tweet from Devin Haney that came out last night was stop that scared narrative nobody was ever scared of that bum he wanted clout that's all they use my name for there's like some fault maybe potential

falsities built into that statement but how can you argue it against it after Shakur has that performance when well when the last time we saw Haney even if you disputed on the decision he still went out there and beat Lomachenko you know what I'm saying and brought the fight to him I know it's a different opponent different situation I know the left hand matters in this I'm not saying Shakur had to like wear out this left hand and set himself back but look there were obvious openings where he could have stepped in there even with the injury and showed you exactly who he is and what's he's all what he's all about and he chose to just take the the w and go long term this may actually be the best move for him we don't know short term it sucks and you can't defend

it i'm sorry you can't yeah do you know who's another big winner we haven't even talked about from last night frank martin frank martin was a guy who had basically we thought locked up a deal to fight Shakur Stevenson and it fell apart and everyone and their brother was accusing Frank of ducking and it could have been that we don't know we don't know what really happened with that we don't know what really happened so it is weird

but I can understand why someone might look at that and be like well he ducked I get that but after last night you might be saying Frank Martin dodged a bullet in terms of being involved with a guy who is hard to hit and also would have just brought the whole atmosphere down. Instead, he probably gets to fight somebody else. And on top of it, now Frank Martin can be like, oh, you guys said I was afraid of that guy.

That's the guy you think I was afraid of? He had tweeted a laughing emoji and then like a dinner plate with a fork and a knife like this. I could I could have eaten this guy alive and Frank Martin. I tell you what if Frank Martin had fought that guy last night BC Frank Martin might have won. He might have won that contest. Frank Martin's slick and powerful and so he comes out of this looking way better than he did before. Not a great night for Shakur Stevenson. Not at all.

Do you throw any shade at De Los Santos? This was his moment, his opportunity. And I felt like he never fully committed to like trying to corner Shakur and just go after it. A little bit. I do a little bit. I don't think he, like, if you ask, did he do everything he possibly could have, I don't know that you can look at this and be like, yeah, he sure did. On the other hand, I don't really think about this as like,

oh, Edwin De Los Santos just didn't do what he was supposed to. I look at this like there was one guy who had a job to do. And again, if he was injured, you know, what can you say? It is what it is. But the lion's share of the blame and the lion's share of the fallout will fall, whether it should or it shouldn't, right on top of the head of Shakur Stevenson. Bad night. Real bad night.

Well, Luke, you already know that I grew up around crazy. I'm kind of normal with crazy. In some ways, I kind of like it. I mean, my favorite combat sports fighter right now is Mike Perry. Go watch my 20-minute interview with him. It's out of control. It's great. I love it. But I have a second favorite combat sports fighter right now is Mike Perry. Go watch my 20-minute interview with him. It's out of control. It's great. I love it.

But I have a second favorite combat sports athlete too. And, Luke, you know where I come from, Naugatuck, Connecticut. This is on record. They pumped chemicals in the river for like 50 years without even caring about the future. That was my drinking water. Okay, maybe not directly, but that was my drinking water, Luke, okay? My second favorite crazy person is one 140-pound you know him as roly right rolando romero um sign up for ko's he's been ripping shakur for like a long time it's just nobody seems to i don't know people don't like

roly i get why luke i mean there's some controversies in his wins i get it last night was not a great showcase but but shur is infinitely better than Roley. That's why. People are allowed to dunk on you when you have a performance like that. So let's see what Roley said. Mikey's grabbed these. These could be fun.

Let's go into this. Roley says... Can I read these in his voice? Please. This motherfucker invented the cure for insomnia. I've never seen a fight announced with the lights off must be the lack of attendance to the most boring fighter in history how about this one i'm gonna stop with the voice mental pressure a term used when a top rank fighter is doing absolutely nothing but standing there but they got to convince the public they are winning the fight

example loma is applying mental pressure to Lopez. Crying, laughing emoji. Shakur's coochie hurts. Bend over, bitch. Let the coochie breathe. I just heard his corner say that. And then this motherfucker put himself to sleep. That's why he didn't throw any punches.

Laughing, crying emoji. I got to tell you, him saying he heard corner say shakur's coochie hurt that got a little laugh from me that got that's so good i don't care that people hate roly i love him i'm trying to create a weekly segment on the show for roly to just chime in and say shit luke i'd be down for that would you would you end the show if i did that you know what's funny is roly is a bit of a weirdo but he's still never done anything as weird as getting high on energy drinks and then crashing his car, which was a monster truck, with his own face on the side of the monster truck.

Do you know who did that? No. Do you remember this? Rampage Jackson did that. Do you remember that? Oh, God. I haven't thought about that in a long time. So Rampage was in a, I don't know if it was a monster truck,

but it was like a souped-up truck, had his face on the side of it ran from the cops crashed it when they asked him what was wrong he'd like he hadn't eaten in days and had nothing but energy drinks left and right yeah it was great wow luke sounds a lot like your wake-up routine unfortunately i know you very well i mean it's not good well i would crash a car with my face on it but uh the dc youth have stolen it so what can i do? Yes. Yes. So Luke Shakur may end up one day with that great group and that same lineage of pound for pound players. But I don't know. I don't know what this means for his matchmaking.

Now, just remember when you have a performance in which you don't look great, sometimes it can make people go, oh, you ain't that. I'll fight you now. Do you think there's any silver lining where because of that injury and because he chose to fight passively knowing the skills he had to pull off although look that fight was close on the cards it could have blown up in his face do you think as as probably the most avoided elite fighter of the moment outside of demetrius andrade do you think that this will lead to him getting bigger names?

Stevenson? Or Roley? Stevenson. Do you think people will run from him now? Yeah, people are going to avoid him like the plague. Because here's the reality. The ones who really know, know he's still really good. And they also know he might be box office kryptonite. Like, dude, why would you fight him if you don't have to? Serious question. If you don't have to, why would you fight him if you don't have to serious question if you don't have to why would you fight a guy who's both excellent again not what he's last night i realize is the worst showcase for this but in general why would you fight a guy

who's excellent and is coming off of a fight that had people leaving halfway through the fight in the main event like why the fuck would you do that? He's going to have a hard time. By the way, he became a three-weight world champion last night by age, what, 26? What is he? People are losing sight of the fact that this was something of an achievement. You could say,

at 130 right now, this is not a grand achievement. He didn't beat somebody really difficult to get it. You can see the trajectory he's supposed to. Last night should have been a big dub for him. And it was only a technical, and it was mostly just a giant L. And I hate it for him, but it's the reality. Sure, and I threw out the offer of,

would this make people who might be either avoiding him or not wanting to fight him see an opening? I wonder if you're Vasily Lomachenko. Some people thought you had already beaten Devin Haney earlier this year, and that was a really good fight, by the way, that got overshadowed by the disruption in the scorecards. Does this make it to where you go, oh, I see his weakness. I can do that.

I wonder because I think now that he has a title at 135, meaning Shakur, him against Loma would be great. It would be great. Did I say 130 i'm sorry i meant 135 um no i don't think so dude i don't think i think what people this is what it provided it provided that's what i mentioned we mentioned who's who was like our huge winner last night frank martin frank martin as i mentioned before huge winner because now you have reason to be like i'm not fighting that bump because you can tell the public look how shitty he looked when in reality you know he's not shitty but you do know that like

his stock as a box office attraction has probably never been lower since he got started and so you can say why would i ever ever take this fight he's no good we saw that now the world knows blah blah blah blah blah it's like complete cover for having the option to take something else and um he's just gonna have to reckon with that yeah better recognize you know what i'm talking about luke in that co-main event quickly by the way uh how about emmanuel that was a great fight robson robson conceso the former gold medalist it goes down as a majority draw two judges had it even the third judge had it for Navarrete I believe by one point they'll probably do a rematch both seem to like that idea but look

that was a very very good action fight between two pretty damn near elite guys right I mean this is this was a good ass fight dude Hobson I think it's Hobson Hobson can say so not off the canvas twice twice and i think won the 12th round so got off the deck twice to get two scorecards that were a majority draw now it sucks because obviously for conceso because the title stays with navarrete but at the same time dude what a fucking ballsy effort from him pushing super hardcore into the last like fourth of the fight and again especially winning the 12th round dude hats off to can say so he took it to him after having navarrete take it to him great the co-main delivered big time i really like that fight do you think navarrete who has already won titles in three weight divisions and is so tall, long, and awkward and unorthodox,

do you think he plans on moving up to 135? And do you think he could do anything against Shakur? Or would it be touch and go, touch and go all night long? I don't see anything that tells me he can beat Shakur. He's a good fighter. He's a good fighter. That's what you mean. He's raw in some ways, but he can make up for that in other ways, right?

It's weird it's where he looked great he's more than just a come forward brawler that's really unfair but he's not some like crisp hybrid between he's a he's a boxer puncher kind of but you know god for a guy that's good i don't want to call him limited limited in the sense of how many weight classes he could really take over limited in that sense but very very limited i meant limited that there are legitimate technical holes in his game but i think he covers up for a lot of those holes by being so long and aggressive and awkward but there are the there is the right fighter and can say so had his moments there where you can exploit that um but i don't know how much higher he can keep moving up.

I mean, he seems really big, though. I don't know. We'll see. Anyway, let's get back to the MMA. Topic number two, fight announcements. We want Luke Thomas' reaction. So we teased that this was a rumor reported by Ariel Hawane. Now it looks solid. January 20th, UFC 297 in Toronto.

Jan Blachowicz versus Alexander Rakic. This seems pretty important here, Luke, looks solid january 20th ufc 297 in toronto jan blohovich versus alexander rakic uh this this seems pretty important here luke in the top five of this division first fight was not great ended in uh injury so they're kind of running it back but i'm alexander rakic has been kind of the forgotten man at 205 blohovich has kind of been the man, and I think he's, I don't know if his time is over or not. This fight is really going to sort of tell us a little bit more about that, isn't it? Because the fight against Poiton was close, it was really close, and he's by no means done, but Rakic, I thought, has always had the physical tools to be a great 205-er and some of the technical tools, but not quite enough with the time off. How's he going to look? What has he done to his game in

the interim? And what's really left of Jan as like a top dog in this division? This is a great, great contest. I don't know how fun the fight will be, but I can say it's very, very meaningful. Yeah. I hope we end up seeing them trade a bit and we get some of that legendary Polish power out there. This could be, I mean, the fight is important. It matters for sure. Staying on this card, 297 in Toronto. Reminder, Sean Strickland, DDP main event. The women's Bantamweight vacant title bout co-main.

Then you've got Jan Blachowicz in Rakic there. You've already got Arnold Allen and Movesar Evloev, which is a fantastic fight. And some of those others that we mentioned, Mike Millat against Neil Magny, Charles Jordan against Sean Woodson. How about this? If this ends up on the prelims, good Lord. So the most handsome man in the Oceanic region, Carlos Olberg, called out Dominic Reyes for better or worse after his last fight, and UFC matchmaker said, how about it?

Luke, it's going down in Toronto. Boy, does this feel like uh winner go home for good old dom reyes the former title challenge two-time title challenger i don't give a shit what anybody says that guy beat john jones you can go back and you can watch that fight it was it was it was not the runaway that folks thought uh that some thought reyes really housed him slightly closer than the Mejeda fight. But I think, I don't know, I don't know if I can go, I mean, yeah, in the moment, I guess you could have made the argument.

I thought John won that fight. I thought the Mejeda fight you could have gone the other way. But I don't know, it's all close. Yeah, see, I don't feel that way about the Mejeda fight, although I do recognize it was close and just boring. But I do feel like Reyes, I mean, at a bare minimum, I think Reyes gave him his toughest fight maybe ever. Because you might say oh well Gustafson gave him his toughest fight but Gustafson kind of faded much worse well you know Reyes faded down the stretch I'd have to go re-watch them but in either case it's either Gustafson or Reyes right like those guys really pushed John

and ever since then it's just been a fucking nightmare for Dominic Reyes um you know it's funny remember Olberg called this guy out. And we were all kind of like, oh, really? This is, you know, kind of trying to grab some low-hanging fruit here. But I tell you what, closed mouth, don't get fed. The UFC matchmakers gave him exactly what he wanted. And Olberg's had some issues about defensive liability. But it looks like, to me, he's been tightening some of that up.

So big stakes in this one, too. Reyes can get a great win when no one expects it. And Olberg can get a nice win where he can, it should be very manageable for him if Reyes is truly shot. So I guess we'll see. Reyes is 33, four-fight losing skid. Began with the Jon Jones very close decision at UFC 247, but then stoppage knockout losses in succession to Jan Blachowicz for the vacant title,

Yuri Prochock, although, boy, did he hurt Yuri in that fight. And then that first round knockout loss to Ryan Spann after having moved his camp and life to Connecticut to join Glover Teixeira, Poetan, and everything they got going on there. Luke, if it was as simple as me asking you, is it over or is there still time? For Dom Reyes, where do you lean? I just say this. If he gets stopped early where you are certain that his chin can no longer take a shot,

then it's over. But if that doesn't happen and he just loses a competitive fight, that's a little bit different. That's a little bit different. But if he takes a shot, and I'm not like a competitive fight, that's a little bit different. That's a little bit different. But if he takes a shot, and I'm not talking like a huge shot, but let's say, you know,

like there's some kind of way to tell that he just can't take a punch anymore, then yeah, it's over. Didn't he, wasn't he like the headline guest you had at a live radio show in Vegas with Misha Tate? He wasn't the headline guest. No, I had at that show,

I had Valentina and her sister show up. Valentina Shevchenko. With Pavel? Huh? With Pavel Fedosov? No, Fedotov. No, just those two. So I had those two.

I had the Shevchenko sisters. Izzy showed up. Laura Sanko showed up. Dominic Reyes showed up. Yeah, it was a big night. I don't think Anthony Smith. I don't remember if he was there. I don't think he was there. Alright. The same night, Luke, January 20th in Toronto.

Hey, I love this shit. Jasmine Jazdavisius against Priscilla Cachoeira. Luke, that screams action and big chances taken and a lot of wild scrambles as well. Yeah, I love this fight. Love that she's back get another chance you know her last fight wasn't her best one but uh you know her improvement is real

her improvement is quite real so love this contest good card you got a canadian on the card that's good stuff yeah yeah along with mike malott that i mentioned there let's keep the calendar going to february 3rd it's a fight night card i got four fights for you here i don't know how much you care about any of these luke do you like ali ashkkab-Kazirev versus Mahmoud Muradov? Yeah, that's a cool fight. Next. Femba Garimbo against Kiefer Crosby. Are these real names?

Yeah, awesome, great, cool. Vivian Araujo against Natalia Silva. I'm a big fan. That one's a little more interesting, in part because your pants will be around your ankles, and also because both of them are physical fighters, and I like the fact that that one's got a little bit of edge to it. Yeah, I like that.

Luke, I only follow on Instagram ranked fighters. The ones that are ranked in my mind. No, I'm kidding. That's gross. We're going to take that out. We're just going to remove that. We're going to take the chunk and remove it from the show, all right? People have asked me, like,

hey, do you think UFC Fight Pass will stream boxing fights? And I'm like, I don't know, but I know it's BC's hope that Brazzers will start streaming MMA fights because there's nowhere else he'd rather be. Finally, on that February 3rd fight night card, it's Julia Stolyaryenko against Luana Carolina. You in or you out? No card it's julia stolyarenko against luana carolina you in or out no that's all right it's cool okay one week later fight night february this one i like uh brad tavarez against robocop gregory jodorigues yeah luke they're gonna bang bro

let me tell you something about brad tavarez' resume, dude. Brad Tavares has fought nothing but fucking hammers. Listen to who this guy has fought. Chris Weidman, Bruno Silva. Not all wins. Not all wins. Chris Weidman, Bruno Silva, Drikus Duplassie, Omari Akhmedov, Shoeface, Edmund Shabazian, Izzy, Christoph Jocko, Talas Laitis, Elias Theodoru, rest in peace. And then Robert Whitaker, Tim Boach, Yoel Romero, Lorenz Larkin,

Ricky Fukuda, who you might remember, he was a good fighter out of Crazy B Gym for a while. Aaron Simpson, Phil Barone, Seth Bozinski. Dude, my man fucking Brad Tavares has been around and fought tough guys, and Robocop is another fucking name that he's going to have to go through. You know, I understand that Brad Tavares doesn't have the most Sterling record, 28, not a bad record, but you know, he doesn't have a Habib-like record, fair enough, but no one's going to ever say he got the soft touch.

This guy has had to fight really tough guys over and over and over again. Good for him, man. Luke, in like fifth grade, we had a sleepover at Nick Urbani's house, and he rented RoboCop, and I was so excited, but I was also like, you know when you're a kid and your big action movies come in you're excited but you're also like a little

nervous is this gonna scare me am I ready for this that opening scene spoiler alert where the man has in the opening scene the bad guy is the woman and like a chokehold with a knife and then RoboCop like shoots in that tiny little gap to hit him right in the crotch Luke and shoots his balls that's

that was i remember thinking like oh yeah i'm on to something good here dude i don't care what you say or anybody else the first robocop holds up dude holds up nothing nothing nothing will top for me the first time i saw predator which was at home on betamax in the in the 80s yeah well that's a different movie altogether look that's an all-time great all right but do you have love for the robocop or no you're done i didn't see robocop until i was an adult my parents wouldn't let me um so i didn't catch it till later but yeah wow do you ever wonder luke because you had told me once that your sister spent a lot of her youth in france

and we know that you were born in italy had stops in Doha. India. India. Had stops in Doha. Wow. The king of CTE. Yeah, that's me, Luke. Also, you lived a cup of coffee in Doha in Japan. Do you ever wonder if you had been born at a different time or your dad's job had gone a different way that you could have had like a completely different, even crazier? In fact, my dad has told me this explicitly and i asked him like what was like

before everything went awry what was the plan and the plan was to grow up in europe yeah whenever you if you are a few my dad was a low level but my dad was a diplomat technically and so if you live overseas they send those kids to what they call American schools. You may have heard this before. There's an American school in any place you go to in South America, Asia, wherever. So I would have gone to some kind of American school in France or whatever the case, learned a bunch of languages and probably just spent my life out there. And then the way my dad describes it is that was the plan until your mother had, quote, her fit of liberation. Your dad must have hated women's lib, dude. Just must have.

Oh, dude. My dad wasn't anti-feminist in that way. I don't think that's quite what you're talking about. But, like, I'll just say this. We've talked about this before my parents hated television they thought nothing good was ever on television and that they they were both unanimous in that regard my dad's favorite show by far when i was growing up not even a close second married with children my dad loved married with children if you know

anything about that that makes a lot of sense all right i'm back in on your dad all right i like you i like that a lot um yeah i was never supposed to grow up here and i was definitely never supposed to go to georgia like that was never ever ever part of the plan but you know life goes in funny ways all right um luke i don't know how to say this without offending you so i'll just swing big all right we're at the age now where unfortunately you know our parents are getting old our friends parents are passing my best friend ed's dad just passed away r.i.p love you all that if your father goes one day luke are you hoping at least for a deathbed confession of jfk or something from his career with uh serving this government like the

diplomat like confession at the last minute yep no because all the stories my dad tells me about what he did were like interesting and cool but not they weren't it's i don't know how to explain they were much more mundane than you might imagine like they're they're interesting but they're not it wasn't it doesn't i don't know how to explain this exactly um imagine if he's like you're like dad did you just say no that's a dad building seven dad what do you know and he's like check my las vegas rental building and you're like oh god damn you know like come on dad right right one more time dad did you say you were proud of me oh no you want me to be clean your bedpan. Oh, okay. All right, got it.

There we go. Very good. Luke, are you a big Willy Wonka guy or no? You know what? It's going to make me sound like a bitch, but I tried to watch the Johnny Depp one with Tukey the other day, and she hated it. It sucks.

It's weird. I do remember liking the Gene Wilder one, right? Yeah, not liking, loving. I mean, that's my entire youth,ke was the willie walker movie but um do you think in hindsight grandpa joe was a dirtbag for being bedridden for 20 years while his daughter could barely afford to to you know put food on the table working all those jobs and then the moment his grandson gets a free pass to a to a candy factory the dude hops out of bed dancing and his i mean his daughter's got to be like i cleaned your bedpan for 20 straight years yeah and all it took was a was was chocolate

yeah i mean the lesson there is uh leave your grandparents and let them die slowly on their own that's the lesson there wow wow okay finally uh february 17th is uf UFC 298. Danny Barlow versus Yusaku Kinoshita? So sweet. Great. Next topic. Okay. Also, Luke, it seems like that December fight night card that was supposed to be in Asia is now going to be in Vegas.

What happened there? Do you know? I don't. They were supposed to go to Shanghai, and then they all were like, yeah, we're not going to go to Shanghai. We're just going to go to the Apex. And I'm like, why would you do that that i don't know what the story is can we do uh wayley zhong versus uh yeah already i don't know what the fucking hold up is but all right i mean dern

didn't win so let's do it right let's do it let's do let's let's let's let's have an all chinese main event for a title i'm in for that sounds. Sounds great to me. All right, number three, Saudi Arabia, Luke. That was a big day, big couple days there in Saudi Arabia. Two big press conferences to announce a pair of big-time boxing pay-per-views. My favorite is pair-reviewed research. That's really the best kind. Are you having your David Hasselhoff moment there? No, I didn't know if I was going to come back with the air hair bit

or the bait or fade or Luke. You know, I really have limited options here, so I was just kind of caught in transition there. Luke, let's go to the bigger of the two. February 17th, it's actually happening. Four belts, the first undisputed heavyweight championship fight in this four belt era one name one face one chance it's everything we ever wanted right i know we just had is it

well i everything i ever wanted okay i gotta tell you bc can i interrupt here and just say something please two things occurred to me watching this presser yesterday maybe no three three things number one this whole shit where tyson fury calls everyone a sausage just it doesn't it No, three. Three things. Number one. This whole shit where Tyson Fury calls everyone a sausage, just it doesn't. It doesn't. It used to be a dosser. Then it was other things.

Okay, but he's been calling people a sausage for a while, which, by the way, if you're an American, I just want the Brits to know this. Like when we hear you guys call each other sausages, we're like, wow, you guys suck at insults. I actually don't think you suck at insults, but the sausage thing just sounds so fucking lame i cannot possibly describe i could be happy using that apple i could see david appleton yeah dosser to me is funny dosser to me is fine and the brits

that you know they can play the dozens i'm not saying they can't but the sausage thing anyway it felt so flat to me yesterday. It felt so flat. That's number one. Number two, part of the reason it felt flat was, dude, Nganou has taken the fucking buzz out of this fight a little bit. Not all of it, not all of it. And three, I got to tell you, you know who looked infinitely more confident on stage yesterday? Usyk.

Okay, I got a video I'm going to throw you in a second that gets to that let me just finish the intro yeah four belts one champion alexander usik brings three of them to the table tyson fury brings his wbc belt we're finally going to do this february 17th maybe it took saudi arabia i think it did take saudi arabia i think a lot of these fights i mean look this december 23rd one that we're going to get to in a second is eddie hearn and frank warren working together despite being rivalries saudi arabia for better or for worse is bringing the money to the table and making the fights happen should Fury Usyk have already happened yes at least we're getting it so the biggest kind of fireworks if any was the face-off we'll show that in a second

but before the face-off there was a little bit back and forth I want to run a little bit and then we'll we'll kind of react but watch tyson fury's mannerisms everything i got questions about that let's go to the videotape here i'm gonna bust him sausage ugly little man rabbit run rabbit run rabbit run run run i don't want to more more you know what's coming. You're getting smashed to pieces, Sausage. You're fighting the best British heavyweight there's ever been. The fucking Dauntless in these waters, me. You beat all the rest of them, but you ain't beat Tyson Fury yet, Sausage.

Look at him, his heart's pounding now. He's like a little pussy with an earring in. Shit house. His bollocks have shriveled up now, they have. Little Sausage. I don't i don't see you're fucking pussy i'm very happy to be here thank you so much everybody people i more speak in the ring very good very good thank you Get knocked out, motherfucker. Out called, sausage. Rabbit.

Okay, Luke. I want to hesitate on overreacting because Tyson Fury, every other day, every other hour, can just flip his personality in such bizarre ways that you never really know what you're getting. But true or false, the feeling you got watching that was akin to when Rousey at the Holly Holm press or weigh-in like went way beyond over the top. Called her fake sweet. Like, fuck you and like you bitch and like trying to really in a lot of ways amp herself up. Why? Because she had been so busy filming a movie or whatever, like doing a lot outside the cage. She went to that fight, maybe not fully ready,

and then it was the worst style matchup, and she got sliced up easily. I kind of doubt that with Fury, but the sign may be there coming off of that Ngannou fight. How did you read his demeanor overall here? I won't say sad, but desperate. Desperate to make this big. Desperate to convince people that he's something that...

Well, I mean, Tyson Fury is a formidable fighter. I'm not suggesting he's not. But, you know, after... I don't know. It's almost like he thinks we didn't see the Ngannou fight. So he comes out. He's like, I'm just going to do the same Tyson Fury bit. Going to call this guy a sausage.

And everyone's going to be like, oh, wow, that's so funny and great and it just felt flat it felt so flat to me um i i the i will say in real time i remember when rousey was like i was like why was she so fucking bitter at holly holm holly didn't do it it wasn't like holly holm was talking shit about her you So in that sense, it does feel the same, but it also felt a little angrier. This one felt like, hey, everybody. Here's what Tyson Fury does. Every time he enters the room, he walks in like Michigan J. Frog.

Hello, my baby. Hello, my darling. Hello, my ragtime gal. And everyone, pay attention to me. All the lights are on me. Fuck you. Fuck fuck you you're great fuck you like he just does he makes everything the tyson fury show and he was trying to do that here and it just felt flat to me i just didn't buy it at all and i think francis punched a big hole in the uh the myth of tyson fury a little bit right so i'm i'm gonna hesitate from saying like this

is full-on rousey he's not focused blah blah because again he's fury he does he's always going to be like wild it's always going to be on the edge luke it just is right i mean you know he he had the the kind of step away from the sport that would have killed most people or at least ruin their careers that it's miraculous that he came back from those four years of depression drug use weight all that stuff but he still plays up or down the level of his competition he's still kind of wily and crazy like a fox where you just never know but i think what you said nailed it in at least how it was perceived you can't act like the nganu fight didn't happen or isn't reshaping the

way we're looking at this fight. That's why it was a horrible idea and really just not a desperate money grab because Fury is doing very well right now and has a lot going on from the Netflix show to all these monster paydays in Saudi Arabia. But it really felt like it wasn't about what it should have been. It didn't seem like Fury, despite what he said, took that fight seriously or came in like real shape. It felt like, oh shit, I got to do this now because there's so much money at stake. And now what does that mean heading into the fight? Now he was asked about the Ngannou fight. He had a sit down interview. I think it was with BT Sport. And he said the fight with Ngannou went great. And here was exact quote I got paid I got laid I got out of

there and now I'm on to the next one but we also had where he was asked about it during the press conference it was basically like he said I didn't even I'm not even thinking about that fight and I never thought about it again after it happened I've essentially got 50 million reasons which he's talking about the payday he got or atday he got, or at least boasting that he might have gotten. And he's saying, you know, I don't care about that. That led to Francis Ngannou tweeting and quote tweeting and kind of throwing it back in his face. But I don't know, Luke.

I mean, you know, he's sort of a natural deceptive salesman. It's hard to tell. But I do think there are enough signs here where it's like, I don't love reaction about the inganu fight at all i don't love it at all i don't love the just ignoring it or just acting like it didn't happen now i don't love inganu saying i got robbed and everybody knows it either i thought fury won the fight but it's got to be a major embarrassing wake-up call that's what it's got to be luke and maybe that's maybe that is enough to bring out the very best of him against usic maybe that scare is enough don't wait let me ask you though does it have to be that or are you wishing

it will be that it will be what a scare for him scary wake-up call like maybe it actually won't be that at all well i i want it to be a scary wake-up call because i want to see what i'm saying like you're saying it has to be that and and I'm saying I don't know if Tyson Fury has internalized it that way. That's fair, too. But you wonder because he can live so loose, is his eye not on the ball? I think it will be for this

training camp at least, Luke, but I don't know. I just think you can't lie to yourself. What happened in that Ngannou fight is changing the way we perceive the odds to be in this Fury-Usyk fight. It is. It just is, Luke. And maybe Fury wants that to be

because maybe he wants Usyk to be more offensive and come at him rather than make him chase. I'm not going to forget. It's the same thing with Shakur. I'm not going to forget everything we've seen from Tyson Fury. I am excited for him. but I'll say this the presser for this one happening just off the heels basically was that October 28th was that fight yeah it's like oh it feels so close together that

you can't separate the two enough you know and as a consequence one is bleeding into the other one and so you know you're a sausage it's like oh my god guys can we can we stop with the sausage bit please let's throw the face off to put a to put a a final note on this it did get a little little hairy there sylvester stallone setting him up uh were you surprised at this physical contact here luke no no what's he gonna do just have a normal face off he's got to do something to get the and these two are having like the weirdest dance with one another as they do this all right i'm gonna say it i'm gonna say muffin top there is just unbelievable i'm gonna say it deep inside and the fight may happen and be great and give us exactly the

answers we're looking for but as a boxing pur purist, I hate what this has become. I hate that the stain of Ngannou is hanging over this. I hate that it doesn't seem like Tyson's really at his, let's say, best or most motivated or most dialed in. This fight should have been built up more without the Ngannou fight and really playing into the history. But instead, what has Fury done this whole year? Act like he didn't want it at all. So while it's awesome that he was, I guess, pump faking us and just being who he is,

and now we have it, what we have just doesn't feel like what it could or should be. And that could just be... It will feel better. By Valentine's Day, right? February 14th, a few days before, it will feel better. It really will. But right now, it's Day, right, February 14th, a few days before, it will feel better.

It really will. But right now, it's like, dude, the long shadow of the Ngannou performance is still very much hanging over. And here's the other part, too, BC. It wasn't like they had a presser in London. It wasn't like they had a presser, and I know he can't come to the States or whatever, but in New York City or whatever. They had a presser in Saudi Arabia. Like, they're back to the scene of the crime, so to speak, right? Not a crime, but you know what I mean like the expression they're back to where not only did

it just happen that you had you got away by the skin of your teeth but on top of that it was in this fucking city that it happened in like it was just right there so the the hangover effect is real all right I want to talk about somebody else's demeanor. It was the day before in Saudi Arabia, and it was to hype up this big December 23rd pay-per-view card that will feature a lot of big names in the sport. I mean, Dimitri Bivol, a ton of big name heavyweights, main event, of course, Anthony Joshua against Otto Wallin, co-main event, Deontay Wilder versus, wow, just completely blanked here, Luke, versus Joseph Parker, the former world champion. And, you know, a small handful of other legitimate heavyweights across the board on this card. Hopefully it leads to Wilder and Joshua fighting next year. They both are into it, it seems, but I thought even their responses were kind of weird. Wilder's like, I've come to terms if it never happens,

but hey, AJ, I just want you to know I respect you and I hope it does. And I don't know if you saw, Luke, what's the name of that guy that's running all this he's got a twitter account he follows everybody he actually follows me i found out the other day that guy grabbed the arms of wilder and fury put him around him for a for a picture and then at the end joke that he was going to put their hands together obviously it's already a bit of a joke that they're not fighting one another but anthony joshua coming off the two straight losses to usic switching trainers three times now he's officially with derrick james but derrick james isn't going to be his trainer for this fight he's going to bring in ben davidson who ben davidson excuse me who was tyson fury's trainer for the first wilder fight he's still

gonna understand that at all can i tell you that well he's still gonna here's what I think it is he likes working with Derek James but Derek James is in Texas and AJ's in the UK where Ben Davison also is and you know what I mean like so I think it's going to be where he's going to go work with DJ at times but this is who his trainer is and Luke there was some weird moments like where people weren't even talking to AJ and he turns around and yells things at big baby draw Miller. Who's also on this card and was mouthing. And it just felt like something still was off with AJ. So even though AJ came back and beat Jermaine Franklin with Derek James in

his corner, it just, it took him so long to finally let go and deliver the knockout that we had a lot of shoulder shrugs afterwards about, is he still that guy? Well, now you find out that he went away and put himself in darkness for four days in isolation. He paid $2,500 to do this, to get with his inner thoughts. Well, he seems to be acting out is what I can say. And in particular, dude, he got absolutely slandered by Jarrell Big Baby Miller. You'll remember Joshua was supposed to fight Big Baby the same night that Andrew Ruiz knocked Joshua out at Madison Square Garden.

Big Baby took all the drugs available. I mean, dude, guys, when I say he took, like, you know no one else in boxing was on steroids at that time because Big Baby had them all in his system. As Dennis Larry said about Keith Richards, we have to wait until you die to get high and smoke them and smoke you, smoke your ashes, because there's no drugs left. He was talking some shiat at AJ. AJ got pissed. Let's listen to part of it. I don't like none of them motherfuckers, you know what I'm trying to say? But one thing I can tell you is that after I finish with Duke Dubois,

I definitely want Manuel Charke because he got that belt. Them dudes got losses, and there ain't nothing over there for them belts right now. But I tell you one thing, though. We all know for a fact that AJ don't want no smoke with Deion. Shut the fuck up. Don't start with me, you know. Even though. Miller, don't start with me.

You know I'll come over there and slap you, and I'll see you brought your mom here again. I almost kicked your ass last time. I see you brought your mom here again because you need a rent pay. Boys, shut up. You're not built like that. But like I was saying, we all know that AJ don't want no smoke with Deontay. As much as I don't like Deontay, I know Deontay will put that motherfucker in the grave. So I'll make it easy for you.

Either you can fight Deontay and go to the grave or fight me and go to the hospital. Either way, you can get your ass whooped. So pick your poison. So let's stop all that talking. Take Eddie Hurton out your ass and pick somebody that really can fight. Either me or Deontay, one of us Americans whoop your ass. Stop running over your English muffin. You are not doing nothing.

Listen, bro. You softening babies. You are not doing nothing to me. Watch your mouth. So, Luke, I'm not going to sit here and say Big Baby's right on everything he said or he even has the grounds to say anything. He touched the nerve. AJ hates hates him i wonder if aj subconsciously blames big baby taking all those drugs for this turn in his career which began with late replacement andy ruiz who came in there and upset him and look at the road aj's been on it's been wild since then but luke something's

off about aj it's obvious if if there was a fix you would want, you would want 2018 Anthony Joshua to come back. The guy who took chances. He was still vulnerable. He would still get hurt sometimes in fights. The guy who fought Klitschko. Against Klitschko where he got off the deck. Carlos Tackham, people forget,

hurt him bad in the first two rounds. He didn't really show it, but he recovered. But he would come back and knock these dudes out. Even though he knocked out Jermaine Franklin, he's broken, Luke, and it still looks, after watching this press conference as a whole, I'm speculating from my chair in my basement, obviously, but I'm not sure he's fully back. And Ben Davison as a defensive coach, it doesn't mean he can't train full,

but you know what I'm saying, he's more known for his defense, where Robert Garcia, who he was with two fights ago, AJ, might have been a better coach for what we need him to be right now offensive come forward not be afraid to get knockout be smart of course but lean into those strengths throw combinations be physical luke i'm not sure they can rewire the computer in time for forget wilder valine may give them real problems here this is a this is a real fight dude let me just say this and i said i said this to you um we were texting about this a few weeks ago which was you know like doing all these like darkness retreats and blah blah blah it's like everyone's different Everyone is different. But a lot of prize fighters, I've seen it so many times,

they suffer some kind of trauma in the ring itself or the cage, whatever, and their brains don't work the same anymore. And then people will say, oh, their brains are broken, like they lost the fighting spirit. And it's like, well, I can definitely say that they might have lost the fighting spirit to an's like well i can definitely say that they might have lost the fighting spirit to an extent but i don't think their brains are broken and i hate the way that we talk about it yeah because the reality is the way he is now and he's trying to fix it like nothing is broken when you're when you suffer trauma like that the body and i think

the brain's natural response is to protect itself it's to protect the interest and I think the brain's natural response is to protect itself it's to protect the interest and I think the people who have gone through those the body sort of reorients itself to say that was a really awful experience let's not do that again and they the prize fighter wants to fight that but like the normal response is to be where they are it's not normal to prize fight for a living it's not normal it's not normal to to subject yourself to this like we this was never ever i don't believe in intelligent design or anything but i don't believe that we evolved in any kind of way to just like you know be okay with suffering trauma continuously and so like i you know if he's trying to get something back for a competitive purposes that he's lost, I can understand that.

But I hate this way of talking about people who have suffered physical trauma. He's been decked and whatever else. And then they're like, oh, he just doesn't want it like he used to, blah, blah, blah. No. He has his body and his brain have responded to this in the way in which you would expect a person's body and brain to respond to repeated forms of trauma so that they don't have to suffer that anymore he's not broken he's where he's supposed to be it's just inconvenient for a prize fighting career yeah and it's not fully fair but at the same time it's like we see what are probably the issues it's hard luke he fought

well in both fights against usic but like it was the wrong strategy against one of the most skilled heavyweights we've seen in decades from from pure boxing and a guy who's smart and dares to win and usic like it that wasn't the style that was going to win it and now he's going to enter his fourth straight fight with a different trainer fourth fourth straight fight with a different trainer. Fourth, fourth straight fight with a different trainer. Let me, let me say two things.

One, the gentleman you were talking about, um, he does follow me. His name is Turkey. Alal. Sheesh. Yes.

Sheesh. Um, I'm not sure how you pronounce his name. Please forgive me if I got it wrong. The other thing I would say is I don't even mind the Ben Davison thing, but it's like, dude, let me get this straight.

I'm, I, we're not going gonna get the wilder fight and you're gonna fight defensively like i gotta tell you man why are we tuning in for this oh because valine might beat him valine might beat him i'm not i'm not saying that he won't or that it's 100 valine might beat him but it's like we're so far off the path of like what we actually want or what we as consumers anyway want for the prize fighting career of AJ it's like I don't know man it's a little hard to get excited to be honest I just want to know like what what has really gone on with AJ because you know people always would make whispers that he's being this you know like superstar golden boy model like you know, like superstar, golden boy model, like, you know, representing.

There's so much pressure on his shoulders and he might not really be that guy. Like he, you know, there's always people that criticize him along the way for maybe not showing his real personality. So then whenever we see him break off of that script, we're always shocked. What am I talking about? Something weird was going on ahead of that Ruiz fight, the first one, Luke, something weird, because people forget that when the knockout finally happened, AJ's dad tried to What am I talking about? Something weird was going on ahead of that Ruiz fight, the first one, Luke. Something weird. Because people forget that when the knockout finally happened, AJ's dad tried to attack Eddie Hearn in the ring, and everyone asked all of them about that afterwards,

and no one would really reveal what was going on. There was something monster going on behind the scenes that I think played into some degree to why he lost that fight, along with that really amazing equilibrium shot from Ruiz that dropped him, and he was never the same after that but then you look at the kind of meltdown he had after that one of the Usyk losses you remember that interview when he grabbed the microphone and it was just weird and he had some weird moments at this press conference I don't know if you saw it where um the announcer who works for Frank Warren you know Eddie Hearn's rival announced AJ in and then AJ was like kind of being bitchy and be like, no, I want my promoter to announce me.

And then Eddie Hearn was like, okay. And he just went and announced him. There were a few moments like that where you're just like, so it just, it's hard to see when you look at somebody who's so talented and could be so dangerous, who you know is not in the exact right frame to get the best out of themselves.

Why does that hurt to see it? It's not just the potential of wasted potential. It's I don't want to see him get hurt at the same time. I know I'm asking him to show less care, go in there, go for the knockout, you know, and maybe not be so safe. I know, like, you know, it's easy for me to stay from my basement, but I don't want him in there if he's not in that frame of mind where he's willing to fill those openings and go after it.

Something's definitely off. He still has a chance to be great and win big fights i hope we get the wilder fight say what you will about where joseph parker is at but he also could upset wilder it's not out of the question wilder probably wins by knockout but it's not out of the question parker's skilled they could actually ruin that fight in both fights on december 23rd luke so i'm not in any way expecting to see Deontay Wilder versus Anthony Joshua in 2024 maybe you guys are I don't think that that's fine I I would I'd bet that it won't happen you know what would be boxing this would be hashtag boxing that's boxing if they both lose and then they make the pay-per-view anyway that would be about

look that would just be that's what we do here on this side but like again like i'm with you i think deontay wilder probably will win i don't know about the joshua valine fight valine is very skilled very crafty and more to the point even if joshua wins you know i don't know that he's going to take that wilder fight everyone's like oh yeah they're going to make that fight if they both win are they word oh do you see that do you see that rant that aj gave during the face-off with valine where he was ripping him for not owning his own? Yeah, like intentionally aggressive. Like, don't shake my hand if you're going to talk shit.

It's like, dude, come lighten up, Francis, will you? Well, he was ripping Valiant for not having, like, owning his own business and name and all that. And, oh, that's your promoter? That's who you are? Like, it was kind of weird, dude. It's just there's been a lot of weird moments. It just looks to me like aj's a little bit unhappy if i could be honest with you he looks a little unhappy to me yes he yes you're right uh you know what

else is weird uh this whole dwayne the rock johnson pride thing let's go to the videotape of what started this here's the rock with joe rogan talking about how he almost went went into MMA instead of pro wrestling when he was already in pro wrestling. Let's hear it. I get it. All right. In 97, during that time, while I was still going out to LA and working out, we were crossing all the MMA guys. Pride just opened up in Japan. So I was seeing all these MMA guys going over to Pride. You remember that time, right? I think you might have been with UFC at that time, right? Yeah.

And at that time, I was making $150,000 wrestling 235 days a year. So do the math of that and how much you're making per match. We start hearing, hey, these guys over in Pride are making 250, 350, 500. And I thought then, well, fuck, I don't think I'm going to make it in WWE. People are booing me out of the arenas. I can't be myself. They're telling me to fucking smile.

I don't want to fucking smile. It's not who I am. I start talking to Ken Shamrock at that time who was wrestling with us. I run into Mark Kerr. I start talking to him. He told me a little bit wrestling with us. I run into Mark Kerr. I start talking to him. He told me a little bit about pride. And I have this idea in my head.

Well, maybe I should train to MMA and go to pride and make money, real money. And then I don't have to smile. I'm sure I'm going to get fucked up over there and knock one of my lungs loose. But maybe I could do something. So, Luke, you got the gist there um people started going oh it looks like the rock has become hulk hogan who when not using the n-word tends to lie every time he speaks and there's a whole group of people on the internet who just break down those lies and prove while they're wrong those same people brent brookhouse of cbs sports is one of the leading ones on this started to dispute literally everything of the timeline of what Dwayne Johnson said, that The Rock never wrestled 235 days in a calendar year, and especially the timing about when he talked to these MMA guys in wrestling and when Pride even debuted, which was late 97. Luke, is this just the case of this could be true,

but maybe it happened a year earlier and maybe they were talking about Pancrae's instead of Pride because what he's talking about where he can't be himself, that was his original WWF character, Rocky Maivia, which was the name of his dad, Hall of Famer Rocky Johnson, the name of his grandfather, Hall of Famer, big chief Peter Maivia. They put it together. He was a baby face. He was lame. He got booed out of the building.

But by the timeline he's talking about, 1997, he was already the rock. He was already the lovable heel in the nation of domination and a world champion. So is this a rewriting history? Hey, everybody, buy your project rock shoes or are we just being a dick what do you think well i mean it's just great to see a natural athlete you know um build his physique are you saying he his children's birth names are actually nandrolone and stanazol luke is that what you're saying uh i'm just gonna say you don't get look to look that way on creatine it ain't gonna be well you know i'm. Listen, you know me. I'm pro-drug, but it's just kind of funny to see.

All right, let me just say this. I don't really care what the truth of this is because pro-wrestling is not for me. But it does look like nothing he says adds up. And I think the bigger part here is you got to understand something about The Rock. The Rock is an avatar for this giant, sprawling corporate identity and business frankly and so aside from some of the facts not matching up like if you're trying to promote a certain identity if you're trying to promote a certain business many of the things you say in public won't make sense remember he tried to dunk on me and he because i remember they put out when the when the project rock announcement with the shoe deal with the ufc came out

they they put out well but here was the funny part about it and i didn't realize this at the time i guess i should have but whatever um they put out they they eventually later to like other forms of sports or or or business media put out a picture of the shoe itself. But to all of the UFC or MMA media, they just put out this fucking trailer where he was like, you know, for the hardest workers in the room. And my point was it's kind of weird to announce a shoe deal when no one can see a picture of the shoe. That's kind of weird. And his whole point was it's not weird. It's about these guys.

And then we come to find out they don't get a fucking dime of that deal. They got to wear those bullshit shoes and they don't get a fucking dime of that deal they got to wear those bullshit shoes and they don't get anything why because he's not he is a real person but the rock is a sprawling business corporate identity that has a loose association with the truth it has a loose association with any proposed values that this guy holds dear. That's what he is now. He is a, he is a, the rock is this avatar for something much, much bigger that doesn't give a fuck about the truth.

It cares only about the business interests that he's trying to promote, which are extensive. And I'm not wishing poorly on them per se, but the fact that they do this whole bit, put out this like the hardest workers in the room thing for the shoe deal. And then in the end, you find out the hardest workers in the room don't get shit for it they get nothing it should not be a surprise that it's not necessarily untrue what

he told rogan but the way in which he told it to him is quite clearly untrue um you know you can decide what the truth is yeah i mean pro wrestlers tell stories they're great storytellers in the ring when they're retired they change the story i mean they kind of invented the podcast movement luke i mean all those wrestling interview pods with old names were like a huge part of that takeoff and launch and explosion um but they lie a lot too i mean you know we all i guess we all do to a degree, Luke, you know what I mean? Everybody lies. That part is true. But like, you know, lying about huge stakes publicly is only something that's available to very rich and powerful people.

And so while none of us can say we've never lied or, you know, whatever, we all do. The stakes of what we lie about and then the way in which we might lie about them differs dramatically from someone being like yeah this is for the hardest workers in the room who i'm not going to pay shit to like for example remember that like house he gave to that dude the ufc fighter remember that everyone's like wow that's a feel-good thing and there's pictures of his thing i mean it's not to say that that's not a very kind gesture that might be insanely meaningful for that guy that's really not i'm not challenging that but you cannot convince me that a guy whose business idol and friend is jeff bezos didn't do that to make up for the fact that he got absolutely railroaded and shit on once it

was discovered that the fighters didn't get a fucking nickel of that monster pr move it did yeah it was designed it was designed to repair his image so they actually did a good thing but they did a good thing for a very specific purpose which was to repair damage from his image all right well speaking of really rich people and images luke um all of the peloton machines at the ufcpi are now being removed so i'll take one i'll take one yeah there you go and some sponsor got told to shut the f up and uh yeah i've actually never i've actually never ridden any peloton device are they are they good they are really good they're expensive like four you know when i got mine it was four grand and that was a lot of money yeah i mean but it does a lot i just i

just couldn't stay with it because i'm gonna be honest i mean i was in worse shape then but when i would use it my legs would be so freaking sore that i would have like legitimate trouble sleeping at night like i'd have like i'm a little surprised by that because there's so for folks who may not know this when you work out and you get sore it actually only happens one way so if you curl the bicep, the curling will not make you sore. It's the eccentric that will make you sore. It's only the eccentric that ever makes you sore. And the bike has no eccentric to it.

There's nothing eccentric about pedaling. Very scientific. I have no idea what you're saying. You'd have to speak to a more intelligent coach. So there's two motions to any kind of lift. There's the concentric where you're shortening the muscle. Oh, OK. Yeah. If you're pulling it in and then there's the eccentric, which is the lengthening of the muscle. It's the lengthening under tension that causes soreness. So for you to get sore riding a bike, motherfucker, are you riding it with your hands? Like, what are you doing?

No, I mean, it's just it's just and I did it at my most consistent for almost two months, and it was just, I couldn't, just that, I'm just not, you know, I run, I play basketball, but that specific movement was so aggressive. Well, they make it fun. You get competitive. There's a leaderboard. Luke, like, I got into it when I was into it, but then I fell out of it. But, you know, I mean, I was so much older then.

I look a lot younger than that now, Luke. I'm really starting to turn it around right now. Oh, was that a pandemic purchase when we both got, like, fat as hell? I think so, yeah. I think so. It was a mental health attempt purchase, too, because I don't do good in the winters. I definitely battle seasonal.

But, Luke, I'm going ham at the gym now, so I'm trying to change that this week. Sweet. And, yeah. I'm working out in my front yard right after the show it's gonna be great oh wow that is such a uh wow okay i'm gonna leave that there uh that's it for your topics of the week but luke when speaking of working out speaking of getting after it speaking of having a guide along the way i mean would you want a regimen that would keep you on

your toes how about you check out fitimen that would keep you on your toes? How about you check out FitBod? Okay. How about you download this great app? Because it creates a personalized workout routine that adapts to you and keeps you on track. What does that mean? It's like, as you grow, as you hit those typical sort of plateaus and pitfalls where the gains aren't coming, the app adjusts with you. And Luke, it's got a plethora of help from the standpoint of workout routines. I mean, so many things going on there that can help you take your fitness goals to the next level. BC, how many times for folks who, we're in our 40s now, but even if you're in your 20s, whatever, folks who've gone to the

gym, let's say consistently for a few years, how many times have you gone and you didn't have a plan? You're like, what am I going to work out today? And maybe sometimes that actually results in a good workout. But a lot of times, over time, you're like, I just don't know if I'm training the right way. I don't know if I'm doing the things I'm supposed to be doing. I don't know if I'm making real progress towards my goals. You don't have to worry about that with FitBod because not only does it track your progress and it tells you what to do, it incorporates whether you're going to the gym or at home, all the equipment you have, all the workouts you need, and you know that day when you pop open the app,

what is my assignment today? Boom, done. It tells you. It's done that for me, it's done that for my wife, and it can do that for you. I mean, it's ability to study your past workouts and make those adaptions based on the available equipment you have around the house. Some of us have a Peloton and a bench and some good weights.

Sometimes you just got a mat to roll out and a sweat rag. The FitBot app will really work to what you have to work with and help you get to that next level and help keep you motivated along the way. It's like having a coach in the palm of your hand. And what does that bring? It brings accountability. It also brings knowledge, Luke. And knowledge is power when you want to start finally taking your health seriously. And I got to say, one of my favorite things that I really enjoy is I always love learning new exercises because sometimes, you know, in any exercise regimen, you'll get some exercises you like more than others. But the joy of the FitBot app is that you might get that reality. That's just the reality of working out.

But you're going to learn a bunch of new exercises over time. Find the ones that really work for you, that really get you that pump, that really get you that result. And it will track your progress with all of them through all of that. What more are you looking for, folks? There it is. Woomp. There it is. How about this?

We're going to remind folks. Oh, yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. Download FitBot today today get a head start on your fitness resolutions don't wait till the new year let's get it going now and if you want to get 25 off your subscription and get three free personalized workouts when you go to fit bod FitBod.me slash combat with a K. FitBod.me slash combat with a K. 25% off and free personalized workouts. Why not start betting on yourself?

Job did, Luke. We all did. Do it with FitBod. Get those skits and bits. All right, 25% off free personalized workouts at fit bod.me slash combat don't forget combat with a k yeah kibbles and skits and bits and bits and let's go over to this segment luke where they come back at us yeah our p1s our hardcores our day ones they hear what we say and sometimes it ain't right. Sometimes it's straight up dead wrong.

Morningcombat at gmail.com. BC, it was a big night in the LT household last night. Do you know why? No. What happened? Okay, number one. Number one. Because I sent you that Instagram video of those Colombian women on horses.

Yeah, I mean, you're like, hey, Luke, did you know there's attractive women in Columbia? I'm like, yeah, yeah. Well aware, well aware. Uh, but no Columbia beat Brazil in world cup qualifiers for the very first time. And number one, the guy who did it, Luis Diaz, his dad and his, both his parents, but more, but one of them was released early. Both of his parents were captured by one of these paramilitary groups called the ELN and they had released him. shows up to this game which was in columbia and they beat brazil he had both goals two to one so they win that was one the second part it was the latin grammys bro latin grammys were on my house last night reggaeton for days yo did jay balvin take home some hardware luke i didn't see jayvin. I saw Maluma. I saw Maluma.

I saw Antonio Banderas was there. That was kind of interesting. Well, did they invite Canelo? Did they bring like all the major celebrities? So here's the thing. It wasn't in the States this time. It was in Spain, which was really unusual. So Shakira was there.

Who else was there? Carlos Vivas was there. Hey, did you just, you just did it. It's not Shakira. Shakira, Shakira. You really did the foreign pronunciation on that shakira that's how you say it dude yeah but we know that we don't say we don't say that when we were from here's the thing here's the thing you guys don't understand this i have to okay hold on hold on hear me out hear me out in the song how does she say her name in the song because that'll decide it and we'll ask her wife that we'll also decide it.

Okay. Fair enough. You guys don't understand. I have to pick my poison. I have to pick my poison, which means if I say Shakira, right. And she's outside the door right now.

She hears me. I'm going to have to hear about it. I'm going to have to hear about it. Okay. Or I can say Shakira and then I i'm gonna get killed in the comments or by you but either way i'm gonna get killed either way i'm gonna get killed so i just have to figure out which way who i want to be killed by that day that's fair that's fair i was gonna give you the email address morningcombat at gmail.com for your wednesday fan subs your friday dead wrongs but you

better freaking bring receipts when you reach out to mike Morms there on the other end of that. Let's go to number one here. This one's from Nick. I'm back here like a bad habit. It's Luke's turn for dead wrong. At around 29 minutes of extra credit, Luke is covering the prelim, early prelims, and while detailing Jamal Emmer's quick win over Dennis Bazookja. Oh, Bazookia. Bazookia.

He says, just say Bazooka, BC. He claimed that Bazooka missed weight when it was, in fact, Emers who missed weight. Dude was in the moment or just didn't know any better that he was ineligible for the bonus with the weight miss as he took the victory lap in the cage shouting 50 Gs. If both of my dead wrongs for this week get read, does that mean I've made MK dead wrong history

and making me eligible for a sweet discount in the MK store come on RJ finger bang hook me the hell on that oh my god yo here's the thing if RJ actually made RJ finger bang shirts with no other information on it they would yeah they would sell

they would sell luke yeah i would wear that to drop off tuki at school i would wear that that's so good wow all right um so luke are you wrong here did you call the wrong i guess i am i thought i thought i could have sworn i saw bazookia with the towel on twitter trying to make weight but but I guess I was wrong. All right. And yes, Nick, if you do want a percentage off for being the first one to potentially get two dead wrongs read, you can get 10% off right now at morningcombat.store using our code LIVE10.

All right. Let's go to this next dead wrong here. This one's from Paul. He's right. Goddamn. Fuck. Yeah. Eat that shit, Luke. From Paul. Hello's right. Goddamn. Fuck. Yeah. Eat that shit, Luke.

From Paul. Hello, MK. Hope all is well. I got a quick dead wrong for Senor Thomas today. Oh, man. I'm getting killed. On extra credit, Luke accidentally said that Joshua Vann and Kevin Borges are great examples of highly skilled but unranked Bantamweights.

Both are actually unranked flyweights. For more info for Thomas' pause for Van, Joshua Van is cornered by head coach and BJJ coach Daniel Pineda, striking coach Frank Gallego, and training partner Dakota Hope. This is a direct reference since I used to train there. Super tight-knit and friendly team. Hey, keep crushing it. Much love. It's Paul from Texas. My bad. My bad. this is a direct reference since i used to train there super tight-knit and friendly team hey keep crushing it much love it's paul from texas my bad my bad i thought they were bantamweights i

apologize i got that wrong bc i'll take that l two l's for me today all right look we got one more and it is from that dude nick he's really he's coming on here wow let's do it here hey donks nick here back on the attack to make BC eat his own ass. Wow. What? Wow, yeah. Let's see if my financial needs get to that point, Luke. We're on OnlyFans doing that.

At 34 minutes and a few ticks into Friday's show, while BC and Luke were debating whether it's Ruka or RVCA, BC decides to break into song. It's a number by Sublime waiting for my Ruka. BC recites the line, on the east side, that's where I met my Ruka. BC, you are dead wrong. The line goes, on the east side, that's where I met my Ramona. Yeah, he's right.

He's right. I'm beginning to think the BC stands for bullshit charlatan. Well, it does at times. Yes. Bullshit. Is it charlatan, Luke stands for bullshit charlatan. Well, it does at times. Yes. Bullshit. Is it charlatan, Luke? Yeah, charlatan. Charlo.

Now, you guys are the best. Keep up the award-winning work. And side note, by the time I discovered Sublime, Bradley Noel had passed away, but I was fortunate enough to see the two remaining original members of the band live with Rome under the band name Sublime with Rome when they opened for 311 in Atlanta in 2011 that must have been a great show Luke are you down with Sublime with Rome which is the only way to see Sublime nowadays or did it die with folks just don't have any idea when that album came out what was the name what was the the big album that they had the self-titled

one right the self-titled one so I remember you know bradley noel or noel however you say his last name he died basically like what right before the release of that yeah and that album you cannot because because culture is different today where things that are big are so splintered everyone kind of likes what they like and there's not much crossover but back then it was crossover and they'll sublime i mean it was hit after hit after hit after hit and then bc everyone did what i did which is go back and then rediscover all of their older stuff it happened before 40 ounces to freedom the whole bit and you're like dude this fucking band was great where the hell were they and bradley noel missed it all because he fucking died man and i went on a me and uncle dave went on a deep bootleg run there's a million bootlegs out there for them unfinished albums like

there's like i've heard every possible thing that bradley noel has ever conceived and he was brilliant 40 ounces to freedom is the most brilliant album to this day in my mind because it goes in 86 genres all at once um that self-titled album you're talking about luke santoria what i got uh what was the other uh wrong way and there was one more single they were all monster hits like they were like monster hits monster hits yeah yeah what a run there um i wouldn't see him today with rome no disrespect but it'd be too much of a tease it's like how do you see i don't know what the equivalent would be but it'd be like i don't know how do you see sound garden uh or no um how do you see van halen with gary chiron is that what you're trying to say something like that i

mean yeah you could you could maybe you know make a substitute for uh what's his face uh sammy hagar but i don't know uh i mean even bond scott died but it would and they replaced him but like it's just hard to explain like bradley noel was the was not merely the front man he was the heart and soul of that band and it just can't be the same without him i don't know it's it's yeah i'm with you well said there luke and the problem is that some of his best songs are all about heroin and they preview his death i I mean, that's the hard part when you go back and listen to the greatness of his songwriting. He was in deep.

He knew it. He was singing about it, and it got him, Luke. He was drug addled, and it worked until it just didn't. Yeah, and then Blind Melon guy Shannon Hoon died right around that same time. That band could have been something, too. That debut album. I don't think they had what Sublime had, because Sublime, they were like party rockers, too. But they were like reggae.

But they were like. Yeah, there was a lot that they could do. Yeah. Yeah. All right. There you go, Bradley Noel. I think that's the whole show, right, Luke? That's it, bro.

We're done. We're done. All right. We banged hard on this Friday. I hope you enjoyed it. Morningcombat.store. Live 10. L-I-V-E 1-0.

Get your 10% off right now. Okay? Let's remind folks, Black Friday's coming up. No, not the album from Cypress Hill, which was Black Sunday. But nevertheless, Black Friday coming up. Don't forget. Yeah, don't forget that shit. Don't forget us when you go

holiday shopping. I have to tell you something. I don't know what the fuck the PFL is doing. So their fights are on Friday, which is Black Friday. So if you want, you can go to Target and watch people fist fight over a toaster and then go and watch professionals do it for money. But, dude, their weigh-in, I'm not doing a bit here. Their weigh-in is at like 6 or 7 p.m on thanksgiving and the press conference is right after that also on thanksgiving guys i gotta tell you i'm not going to that i'm just not

i'm not going to that on thanksgiving age after all yeah no you're the fuck made that call read the room dc right dc loves thanksgiving right yeah dude and nothing's gonna be open like i don't know what the fuck they're thinking but all right thank you very much uh that's the show um i wanted to remind you to youtube.com slash morning combat we do we have so many great bonuses luke's extra credit that we talked about interviews with mike perry and eddie alvarez that are fresh. But look, I've been talking, you've been talking to a variety of different big names,

boxing, MMA, all that, and then some. Don't miss this. Okay, check us out there. And take care of yourselves, folks. It's not an easy life out there, but we can get through it together. All right? Now, don't steal Luke's organs yet because we still have a lot more hardware to

raise luke december 14th is a thursday night the sahara hotel in vegas i don't are we going to be there i don't think we're going to be i don't know i don't know i don't know world mma awards while we haven't had our best year ever by far it's been a really hard challenging year we did have an amazing first three months and i have to tell you i think we're going to close with three incredible months to close this year and we're in the midst of it now could we win this thing what are your thoughts are your thoughts are that we're going to win this or no what do you where are you on this i never think we're going to win i never think we're're gonna win so nothing changes there um i don't know dude i mean you say this year has been hard let's be honest this year behind the scenes and it's not even

just the showtime stuff folks has been existentially hard like rattled this show to its absolute fucking core look you damn near lost your shit and i came close a few times too all right that's where we are dude and it wasn't just you or me. Other people on staff too. It tested everybody. So, dude, it's been rough. It's been rough, but I think we're definitely in a better place now than we were like six months ago or something.

So, fuck it, man. If we win, dude, I got to be honest, I was thrilled about the first one. I didn't take the second one for granted, but I was surprised and humorously surprised. And if we don't win, it's okay. Again, I never expect us to win. I will tell you that this one might make me the happiest of all of them. It might because we've had to eat shit a lot.

You know when there's a great dynasty or any sport, any level, some years it's just, man, they had so many players. But then that year that they won it where they had an average to above average team, but everybody bought in, and they fought like hell, and they walked through the mud, and they got there. That's what 2023 is for morning combat. It wasn't always pretty, but we did get up.

We did get up off the canvas, Luke. We did. Yeah, I mean, Canelo Fight Week when when we had Wednesday's episode that just died, and I had to do it myself. I wanted to. I think you died. I think you died in that process, Luke. I wanted to cry.

Dude, that day, that might have been rock bottom for me, that Wednesday show. That was really, really, really, really, really bad. But we thugged it out. We're here. We're here. Yeah, one day they'll do a documentary about this year oh wait they're actually in production we just need more money luke all right there you go so buy our let's go yeah uh cameo.com slash brian campbell the luke thomas

thursday chat tuki needs shoes but we're out of here folks we love you be good or be gone thanks