MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Bellator vs. Rizin | Fight News | Jeff Molina Suspended | Doug Crosby | Ep 390

Episode Date: December 28, 2022

On Episode 390 Brian is Joined by Shakiel Mahjouri to preview Bellator MMA vs. Rizin. What should we be looking for on this card? Next up the guys run through a bunch of recent fight news. Jeff Molina has been suspended from the UFC. Why and what other repercussions could come? The guys also discuss Doug Crosby going to Eric Nicksick's gym to talk to fighters and UFC Raising PPV Prices. You won't want to miss this episode! Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Reveley, 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, we're back at it

You're looking at me, it's your boy the brian campbell bc one half of your morning combat duo happy holidays to all of you however you celebrated we hope it was happy healthy as we step uh ever so closely to a new year 2023 welcome to morning combat it's bc normally it's lt on the other side. The great Luke Thomas under the weather right now. So hopefully he'll be back next episode. We wish him well as he recovers a little illness through the holiday season. But we do have a replacement today. The great Shaquille Majore of CBS Sports will be on very shortly.

Wanted to thank everybody for, you know, all the love you shared during this holiday season to us. It goes right back at you. All the pre-taped look-aheads for the new year, holiday mailbags, all that stuff, to get you through the holidays. Hopefully you enjoyed that. Please like and subscribe for everything we do here at Morning Combat. YouTube.com slash Morning Combat, of course,

for all of our great bonus content. Follow the show. Support the show. I i mean buy the merch i mean are you kidding me with this great stuff at morningcombat.store maybe uh maybe you returned your your holiday gifts maybe the christmas gifts didn't work out now you got all this money hey why don't you go to morningcombat.store and check that situation out thank you very much excited though to be back for a new show nearing closer to the new year as I mentioned. Still of course one more big time combat sports event with everything going on

in this Bellator versus Ryzen event that's going to go down this Saturday on Showtime. We're going to get to that shortly. But before we do, breaking news overnight that sort of has thrown a lot of things up in the air as we move forward in boxing and of course it involves 28 year old star gervonta tank davis who overnight in parkland city florida was arrested on a domestic violence charge of battery causing bodily harm he remains in custody in broward county and his schedule this is where he's training of course in greater miami for next weekend, next week's Showtime pay-per-view return. Right now, everything remains up in the air as Tank is set to meet with a judge this morning

where he'll be formally charged and assessed bail. Basically, as we stand right now, we don't know what's going to happen moving forward. This is a disturbing trend obviously for such a star fighter who's beloved both in and outside of the ring but has been unable to put some of that outside the ring stuff behind him and some of the charges he's continually to be faced neither showtime or premier boxing champions which of course are putting on next weekend's event saturday january 7th tank davis hector luis gar, a pay-per-view emanating from Washington, D.C. Both parties have not publicly commented.

I have talked to Showtime, and they're currently investigating the situation, and a decision has not been made regarding next week's fight, of course, which was supposed to be hopefully a preamble, a build-up to the big pay-per-view set for April when Gervonta Tank Davis and Ryan Garcia are hopefully set to do battle. A lot of that remains up in the air. We'll be fluid with this. There's a fluid situation, and we'll be with you along the way updating. But obviously for Tank Davis, one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in this game,

but a continued disturbing trend outside the ring that hopefully when we have more information on the incident, which was not released as of yet, in terms of who was involved, what actually took place. All we know right now is that Gervonta Davis arrested overnight and we'll continue to update that. I do want to bring in today's co-host here, replacing Luke Thomas. I mentioned him from CBS Sports. You see him from time to time on this show. Canada's own, the Prince of Persia. What do you want to call you know born in montreal raised a man in vancouver um i'm gonna welcome him in in a second then i'm gonna try to fix an audio issue i'm having here but let's bring him in right now it's shaquille majorie my man the shack attack he's here uh shack could you tell tell the folks uh how you enjoyed your holiday, everything going on?

Give me one minute to figure this award-winning stuff out. Go ahead, Shaq. Take over. Take the wheel, Jesus, please. Okay, there you go. It would not be Morning Combat without Tech Issues for the guest and the host. So I'll do my part to hold things down while we wait for BC to get back. Just getting thrown in the deep end here.

Holidays, nothing too crazy. Worked more than I should have. Spent time with the fiancée have, spent time with the fiance, spent time with her family, with my family, but here we are. I will do my best to hold things solo. You know, there's really only one person capable of holding things down at MK when Luke and Brian are out, and his name is Chuck Mendenhall. But when Chuck's unavailable, and Aaron Braunstetter is done vying

for Best Journalist of the Year, I'm here to do my part. I'm here to help things out. Bellator vs. Ryzen we've got coming up. Insane card. Honestly, candidly, with sort of the abundance, overwhelming quantity of MMA fights that we get,

I wasn't really too excited. But now with a little bit of a lull, while a lot of these promotions are kind of taking some time off for the holidays, I'm kind of amped in doing sort of the preview for this fight. You got the very best from Bellator versus the very best from Ryzen. And it's an interesting proposition, right? Like, we often say, you luke on the show a lot talk about how these companies would do really well to sort of pool their power and put on more exciting fights and we're getting it and although maybe for the north american audience they might not be

too too familiar with the rise in fighters these are the champs from both promotions going at it. And I talked to AJ McKee earlier and when I asked him like, dude what excites you in preparing for this fight? Because from my estimation there's a lot to lose and not a whole lot to gain. If you're a Bellator fan sort of jumping ship to see this card, you might not be super familiar with his opponent Roberto Satoshi, but you're going over there fighting one of the best guys that Ryzen has to offer, and if you lose, you're coming back to Bellator where you're trying to sort of contend with Patricio Pitbull, Usman Amirgamedov, and although these won't really affect Bellator's matchmaking, there's not a ton of upside. So I asked AJ McKee what's so exciting and compelling about this fight,

and this is what he had to say. While there is a lot of interest, I think, in these ideas of doing cross-promotional fights, the Bellator roster is going up against a lot of people who the North American audience isn't super familiar with. For you, what was the primary factor and like I want to do this I get to start and kick somebody in their face again and I can knee them in the ground you know what I mean like since I was a kid just watching Rampage powerbomb people Sakuraba knee

kick people in the head um it's just been kind of like a dream you know those pride days were were just I felt a bit more barbaric fighting it takes us back to those just hood backyard brawls you know what i mean and um just with a bit more technique you know and that's where that's where i feel like the mercenary hasn't really got to expose his full arsenal you know i get to use my elbows still um but implementing the the knees and the soccer kicks, man, that's just something I've been focused on so much. So even when I'm doing my rounds, that's all I'm thinking of, you know, that's all I'm thinking about is like, can I knee here? Can I knee here? And even in the

guard, you know, you get like north-south, you can throw knees from your back. They pass the guard, you can throw knees to the head. So it's really just being able to capitalize on the opportunities in certain positions and yeah, utilizing those skills that I'm not really just being able to capitalize on the opportunities in certain positions and yeah utilizing those skills that i'm not going to be able to use quite too often shaq uh thank you for taking the wheel thank you for uh holding this down i mean it wouldn't be a four-time award-winning program if we didn't constantly face audio issues that one was my fault we fixed it shout out to gaff pierre but you set the stage beautifully they're vamping uh to which is our first topic of course and it's bellator mma versus rising and it goes down uh saturday 8 p.m eastern on showtime

aj mckee though in that main event so shack i want to we heard aj mckee talk about the lure here for him patricio the other fighters on this card, from the standpoint of going to Japan, reliving the pride days, but under the rise in banner and taking on the five of the biggest stars and names in Bellator against that of Rizin. Do you feel after talking to a couple of fighters, and we just heard AJ's words,

that this has sort of that all-star game feel where like it's not going to count on their Bellator record it's technically going to count on the record but it's not as part of their current title plans in in in silo that it's just sort of like hey man let's go out and have fun and entertain the fans yeah there's that's really sort of the main motivating factor for the guys that I talk to, right? It's the fact that, you know, we'll get to the Patricio Pitbull stuff a little bit later, but for a guy who, you know, CBS Sports just named the Bellator Fighter of the Year, it's these sort of things going up against another champion in a different rule set on enemy territory that motivates a guy who's basically accomplished everything there is to accomplish in Bellator.

For AJ McKee and Patricio, it's that valetudo pride spirit that they don't really get to sort of exude very often fighting stateside. So they get to go over there and have fun and compete in the sort of fights that they watched on the way up. I would present, though, that we saw it happen in the first Demetrius Johnson, Adriana Moraj fight. It's all well and good to lean into these hybrid rule sets that I think from what I understand, lean more towards Rison's rule set, but be careful because you may get caught in some uncompromising positions that you're not super familiar with when it comes to muscle memory. Now, uncom compromising positions based on different rule

sets are we talking about soccer kicks to the face are we talking about 12 6 elbows here uh Shaq uh do we need to call Big John McCarthy to sort this out honestly you may because I have some vague memory that there are elements from both rule sets uh meaning on the Bellator and elbows to a grounded opponent on the rise and end soccer kicks the knees to a grounded opponent on the rise and end, the soccer kicks, the knees to a grounded opponent's head. I was having kind of some trouble deciphering that. It's something they'll definitely need to shore up on fight night, but for sure the soccer kicks, the knees to a grounded opponent, those are illegal. And for AJ McKee, it's sort of a throwback to his childhood where he was the one apparently dishing out the soccer kicks.

And he was maybe a little too excited to tell me that story. Yeah, interesting stuff here. Before we get into these individual matchups, and of course, we mentioned off the top there, AJ McKeegan, a main event in a lightweight bout against Roberto D'Souza, Patricio Pitbull, Kyoji Horiguchi, Juan Archuleta, the former champion, Godzi Rabotanoff is going to be the Bellator side of things going up against five different rising stars here. It has an all-star game feel that we mentioned.

Is there, in your opinion, you know, a potential launching point to what this card could mean? Now, let's be fair. I mean, it's your best against our best in theory. There's a tradition in, you know, Japan and New Year's Eve of having a big fun card like this. But could this open the door? Because in theory, and this is part of what, you know, shout out to Josh Thompson of the weighing in podcast, Bellator commentator, sometimes adversary of us at Morning Combat. But lately we've been getting along great.

So shout out to the punk there. Hey, you're starting the show off with the thing he wanted you to talk about so there you go exactly but we remember sort of the thing that now josh kind of has fun with himself where he came out right when this news was announced and said you know this is such a huge story you guys should be talking about this and to be fair we should be maybe his comment on us promoting it went a little bit too far but we can toy that we could deal that with that with Josh after the fact. Look, when we're talking about boxing or mixed martial arts there, as Shaq fades to black, great to see there. We're talking about the idea of everyone in their own league.

We love the idea of could this champion from this brand face this champion from this promotion? Is it going to happen with the UFC and somebody else? I think that's about as unlikely now. I mean, we're not in the days of UFC sending Chuck Liddell over to Pride to try to prove that they also may have the best fighters in the world. But from that standpoint of what this could be, could this be the lighting of a match for more things exactly like this, in your opinion, in the same sort of season when the idea of maybe

Kayla Harrison of PFL and Chris Cyborg of Bellator having some type of similar crossover promotion co-pay-per-view what do you think this event comes Saturday night represents to that idea you know okay maybe it won't involve the UFC but can the other organizations play ball is this just the beginning totally and I really hope this is a trend that we see continue because it's what I think these other promotions outside of UFC need to do to really draw attention to themselves. I don't think it's enough to just be the alternative on a different network with a different coat of paint with different fighters. You need to provide some sort of alternative that the other products are not. And that's why I think one championship is super interesting, because you do get to see Muay Thai fights, jiu-jitsu competitions,

all under that one championship banner. And dude, the fights slap. They go really, really hard. To see Bellator and Ryzen occupy a slot on New Year's Eve that the UFC is not, doing an all-star game between their two guys, champions from both divisions. And I saw reports that there's already interest in doing a second one. This is what you need if you want to stand out as an alternate to the big promotion, the big boss giant of the industry. I hope this is the start.

I hope there's enough sort of metric success to identify that, hey, this is something other promotions should get in on. Yeah, you know, we've seen it a little bit in the past. Bellator and Ryzen have joined forces in the past and allowed, you know, Darian Caldwell and Kyoji Horiguchi at Bantamweight to have their two-fight series. It does, though, knee-jerk reaction for us that come from the pro wrestling side. And Shaq, you do great coverage for CBS and beyond in that space. Although, let's be fair, Shaq, you're not as old and washed as guys like Luke in my age so when I'm going to make a reference to the 1980s and super

clash which is essentially you know post WWF launch of Wrestlemania taking the promotion national some of the other regional promoters were like man we got to compete with that why don't we join forces unfortunately back in those days when they put out these super clash cards the cowboy mentality came into play and you know one promoter didn't want to put over the other promoters fighter and then you know some people accused vergana of keeping all the payouts from super clash 3 so it never happened i do wonder in mma if there is that future even just in this sort of one-off island sense where not island meaning Japan whereas you know all-star game type of sense once a year could could more than one promotion send their best to you know to one region for one night to see what happens I mean it's such an intriguing thing that just really

triggers the pro wrestling fan in me of what could have been back in the day you know what I mean it's I don't know I don't want to overplay that narrative but I do think what Josh Thompson the spirit of what he said to start was this is a great thing for MMA I mean? It's, I don't know. I don't want to overplay that narrative, but I do think what Josh Thompson, the spirit of what he said to start was, this is a great thing for MMA. I mean, it really is. Now it's up to the fighters to go out there and deliver. But I wonder if because it's got sort of an all-star game feel where it counts, but doesn't count in some regard, does that mean we're going to see all action fights where these guys are just going to, you know, leave, throw caution to the wind?

I kind of have that feeling, Shaq. Oh, totally. And I think we're going to get to it with some of the matchups. But a handful of these fighters on the rising end, they have some areas of their game that are super, super strong. Like the two guys in the main co-main spot, Roberto Satoshi and Kleber Koike Erst, they are insane submission specialists. It's about all they do.

And so while that has its limitations at the highest level, they've ascended to the top of Rison's division. I'm interested to see how it matches up against some of the more well-rounded guys in Bellator. But you've got the Bellator guys excited for the soccer kicks and the knees. And you've got on the Rison side a lot of guys whose sort of lack of diversity in approach makes for a lot of aggressive forward action big scrambles i think you're going to see some really fun fights here because like you said there's not too much at stake and i think the styles lend really well to some high-paced action yeah i mean the stakes really involve i mean everybody wants

to win there's some level of stakes involving, look, can one promotion beat the other? You know, if there's five matches here of Bellator versus Rise and which one can come out on top of here, but let's look at some of these matchups. This main event we mentioned, lightweight AJ McKee, fresh off, of course, lost his featherweight title, but came back, made a strong lightweight debut there against Spike Carlisle in somewhat of a batshit crazy fight because that's what the Alpha Ginger does. But McKee survives and advances, but he does welcome Satoshi, a.k.a. Roberto D'Souza. 14-1 overall, Shaq, and while he was stopped by Johnny Case in 2019 under the rise in banner, his most recent fight was avenging that in April of this year, submitting Johnny Case in the opening round.

He's got a strong Brazilian jiu-jitsu background and a big-time ground game. How do you sort of size up with A.J. McKee, who can do everything, how this fight might look? Well, you know, I know that sort of records don't tell the whole story, but I think it lends really well to what we talk about, about the well-roundedness of Bellator's roster and sort of the one-minded, aggressive approach of Ryzen's. Because you've got AJ McKee, six KOs, seven subs, six decisions. That is about as even of a split as you can get. On the other end, Satoshi, 14-1, four knockouts, 10 submissions. This guy does not play around. When it comes to the fight, you know, McKee,

we've seen it with that McKee-a-teen, all these crazy submissions. He does get taken down despite his strong wrestling base. Part of me wants to believe that that is because he trusts so much in his submission skills off the back. And I think he knows with a guy like Satoshi, that's not at all his best chance to win. I mean, we're talking about one of the biggest submission threats in all of MMA. I think for McKee, the key here is going to be to keep the fight at range. He's got long dynamic strikes, lots of jabs, maybe not too many flying knees unless, you know, he's got Jorge Masvidal versus Ben Askren itching. If he can keep this fight at range, it's his all day. And I think he should be

the favorite because he's so well-rounded. But dude, Satoshi does not play around. He pursues the takedowns very aggressively. And I like something he does that not a lot of these jiu-jitsu specialists in MMA do. He's not just going to flop to his guard when it doesn't work out. He will throw knees off the break. Shout out to Sean Sheehan for his great breakdown of this card. He will shoot for a takedown, and if you sprawl on him, he'll use that to try and take your back or pull you in. He's not a guy that's going to be deterred, and he's really, really strong. So if he can get a grip on McKee, he's either jumping to the back, or he's shooting for a takededown or he's throwing knees and elbows. He understands that the best way to get to his bread and butter is to kind of hide it behind the striking.

And he does that. And it's something I think a lot of other BJJ specialists in MMA kind of need to take a look at. Yeah, this should be a very interesting matchup. I want to see if McKee can try some of that highlight reel stuff that he often teases and sort of bring that out completely in this fight. In that co-main event, though, this could just as easily headline. It's Patricio Pitbull, the featherweight champion, who claimed it back this past calendar year in that sort of odd rematch against AJ McKee. Only odd because it was very tactical. It wasn't as aggressive as we saw in the first round finish in their first fight for McKee.

But Pitbull's the champion again. But he welcomes this fellow who I refuse to get this wrong. How about this? Kleber Koike Erbst. Am I close? Am I close, Jack? You know I can butcher a name, you know, worse than Brendan Schaub these days. But I want to get that right.

A whole, like, 30 minutes or whatever dedicated to Ryzen must be your worst living nightmare. Oh, I love that stuff. Let's do it. Let's do it, okay? Kleber, Koike, Erbst is how I heard it. I do not present myself as an expert on the matter. All right. Well, what we can tell you is this Japanese fighter who was born in Brazil, has a Brazilian father.

He's got just one loss in the last six years. And it's to a guy we, of course, know too well in Matthias Gamrot current ufc contender that was back in 2018 under the ksw banner he lost the decision he's won seven straight since then and you know against names that we sort of know asakura nishiora uh patricio pitbull is going to come out guns blazing and we know he's got the guillotine in the back pocket when he needs it what are you looking for in this matchup for a guy where, you know, a lot of us are just getting to know in Earp's? Yeah, it's a lot of the same as the McKee-Satoshi fight. And just a quick mention because I forgot to.

Satoshi's got a win over Tophik Messiah, who is like right up there for lightweight title challenges in Bellator. So that dude is legit. Back to this fight. I think it's Pitbull Pitbull versus Erpst is McKee versus Satoshi in a lot of ways except Pitbull is a way more sound uh defensive fighter there are so few that first McKee fight aside he gives such few defensive gaps that a guy like Erpst who again has to be super aggressive with the wrestling,

try and take you down. He's got great back takes. He's got great triangle chokes from the bottom. But I don't know that he's going to be able to get the fight there. Like again, I broke down the records there, right? Patricio, 11 KOs, 12 subs, 11 decisions. Erpst, 27 subs, 2 KOs, and 2 decisions. So Erpst has to do one thing and one thing really well, is get in there, take down Patricio, and hunt the back. The issue is, aside from some front kicks that he likes to throw at range, he does not have very good striking. And you are going to be hard, hard pressed, my friend,

to force a gap or an error or a mistake out of patricio pitbull he is the greatest bellator fighter of all time he is the featherweight champion he never lost that lightweight title i think erps is in for a really rough night it'd be very interesting you caught up with patricio Pitbull, who just, I mean, I could not say this more complimentary to both brothers. Savages, Shaq. Just absolute brawn, violence. I mean, they're going to show up to your party to steal your girl and take the keg home with them. That's how they get down. But, you know, I want to hear from Patricio. Can you set up our clip here, Shaq? Yes, sir. You know, we teed it up a little bit in advance, but I think something that the mental part of the game is so important, right? And if you're not motivated, you're going to flounder.

And so what I really wanted to know from Patricio is, like, why do you take a fight like this? And the answer was actually very significant, because as a guy who's accomplished everything there is to accomplish in Bellator, I still want to see that McKee trilogy. This is something new. It's a chance to fight another world champion, a new rule set. He grew up training

with guys like Shogun Hua and Vanderlei Silva, so this is something he's been dreaming about for a very long time. You know, it's a thing that is going to happen in MMA. And it's the biggest thing that can happen in my career. Champion, organization versus organization,

that's the biggest step the sport was needed. I'm very excited to go in there and put a big show. Now, Shaq, when we talk about the rule set changes and some of these things, we're talking about a ring here, right? We're not talking about a cage. Yeah, square, different shape. Not sure if you noticed. And that actually does have some profound effects, right?

Like working up against the cage, very, very different versus working up against the ring. Obviously, you can fall through. The size makes a big difference. We saw how fights at the Apex versus fights in the major arena sort of changed the approach for guys who like to be on their gas pedal a lot or like to brawl so there are all these little things that i think the bellator guys are maybe underestimating in terms of sort of the unique challenges it's going to provide and again maybe they go into it prepared but my concern like in that first dj versus more ice fight is what's going to happen if you're hurt or if you're caught up in the moment and one of these things that you're not used to sort of creeps up on you.

Yeah, you asked Patricio his thoughts on the on the rule set. Let's hear what he had to say about what he's up against. or the Duel of the Three MMA, it was Vale Tudo. And the rules was like that. We can kick the head on the ground. So I am very excited to put that on the show. And we know the rules is going to mix up. They're going to put Elbow in the game too. So it's going to be a real Vale Tudo again. pro fighters, but the enthusiasm they have for kicking another person in the skull reminds me why you and I do not fight. But shout out to Oscar Willis, who got a dub. Yeah, shout out. Just the

same there. E. Casey Lydon as well. Shaq, before we continue on this card, it is sort of interesting for Bellator as we point the arrow in the direction of 2023. I think there's a lot of questions about where a lot of these guys go. Will we see Patricio enter this proposed lightweight world Grand Prix and try to regain his title? Will we see him cut down to bantamweight, which he's threatened to do a few times, to try to become really the first three-division champion in elite MMA, I think, that we know of? Or is he going to rematch AJ McKee? This is something you asked

McKee about. What they are expecting. Do you, before we throw to the McKee sound, have any kind of... If you were the matchmaker, regardless win or lose, what each of these guys do Saturday night on Showtime, 8 p.m. Eastern, in this challenge against Ryzen, do you want to see

McKee Pitbull 3 next year? Do you want to see McKee Usman Ramaga Medov in the lightweight tournament what the heck's gonna happen here yeah um I mean I think it's very clear that this is something Bellator has on the forefront of their mind because they keep booking Patricio Pitbull and AJ McKee on the same card and my boy McKee man he's talking so much crap but he always finds himself fighting on the undercard of the guy who just beat him um what i know for sure is patricio said that he will not be going back to lightweight that is now his brother's division even though patrick he lost the title patricio is not touching

lightweight so unless usman's dropping down it doesn't sound like that fight's happening anytime soon mckee wants the pitbull rematch number one. He won't go to featherweight for anything else, but he'll do it for that fight. And you can tell it's really what's sort of motivating him right now. He doesn't even want to think about Usman until he gets through that Patricio fight. Very interesting, the decisions that will be made next year. Looking forward, by the way, to a potential lightweight Grand Prix there with all the names floating around. I don't know. I've loved, especially of late, how these tournaments have developed. And, you know, tournaments can be hit or miss.

It can be cliche at times, but Bellator's on a good run with the Grand Prix in this regard. Also, if I may, I saw this kind of floating around after I posted the McKee interview, but I feel like if you're McKee, and obviously he's still growing and improving, you might want that Usman or Megameda fight sooner than later. I don't think that guy is done improving and leveling up, and I hate to see what he looks like for opponents in a few years. He is coming the heck on. Wow. Wow.

And there we go with that. Shaq, to further further tease people can see these interviews at length and a lot of the other stuff you got going on that your Shack MMA channel that's correct right please that is the one no tech issues over on that side everything's pre-produced and looking great thank you thank you using that probably backwards Canadian zoom whatever they got up there I don't know the Bronstetter connected me recently I'm what kind of link is this I don't know I don't what is me recently. What kind of link is this? I don't know. What is this?

What do you got going on? Let's go on down this card. Kyoji Horiguchi, huge name. Whether he's under the Bellator banner or the Ryzen one, he's got a rematch coming up here against Hiromasa. Ogikubo? I'm not even going to bother. I'm not even going to bother.

All right. Well, look, Horiguchiiguchi a big time betting favorite as we look at the odds at the moment minus 550 he won a decision over haramaso a few years back but this is horiguchi in an interesting spot in his own arc when you think about just two fights ago he goes in there against sergio pettis for the bantamweight title is dominating 90 of it and then gets knocked out and and you know one of these come from behind victories for the ages. And then he enters the World Grand Prix there and gets upset by Patchy Mix, who spurning from that fight and the follow-up submissions could be the favorite as we enter the final.

Where is Kyoji Horiguchi at? And did you see this first fight between these two? Yeah, so actually, if i'm not mistaken um they actually fought twice they also fought back in 2013 and horiguchi won that one by rear naked choke so if that's correct horiguchi's actually two and oh going into the series by the way weird that he's the reigning uh rise and bantamweight champion yet he's representing bellator in this card i get having him on it but neither here nor there um I haven't watched the fights, did not have the time to do that. From what I can gather, Horiguchi, way more well-rounded. Hiramasa relies a lot on

takedowns and top control, although he's not the best at always keeping that control. Not too much of a finishing threat either. So you've got Horiguchi, a guy with huge power who is very competent on the ground and in these wrestling exchanges. I think this should be pretty favorable for him, what it means for his future. I'm not so sure because Horiguchi is one of these guys who you always feel is right there, right on the cusp of truly achieving greatness. I mean, he did it against Sergio Pettis for the better part of five rounds. Man, he was my favorite going into that Bellator Bantamweight Grand Prix, and after the

Apache Mix lost, I'm worried the guy may have topped out a bit. I mean, he was the favorite coming in, you said it, and he couldn't have looked more dominant. He's the former Bellator champion from that two-fight series with Caldwell, but there was just something about i think i misread in real time the patchy mix loss and sort of saying you know what was wrong with horiguchi when in reality in

a lot of ways this is patchy mix putting his entire career together at the right time and coming on but interesting questions for horiguchi to answer as he enters this third fight against haramasa and where he goes moving forward. I'd forgotten, as you mentioned, the reigning Ryzen champion just the same. Interesting on the rules there on how you hang on with that title. Shaq, there are two more matchups on this card. We're going to see Juan Archuleta at Bantamweight, the former champion, take on Sush Chul Kim in a lightweight bout to open it, matching Godzi Rabotinov against Koji Takeda.

This will be on the Showtime card at air Saturday, 8 p.m. Eastern. But there's also an undercard that's going to be titled Rising 40 that will be available as a Fight TV pay-per-view. We're going to see John Dodson on that card. We're going to see Naoki Inoue, Johnny Case, as I

mentioned earlier. So, a lot of action to close the year here. You got any early picks for fight of the night or or something you're watching closer than others oh okay um i'm gonna go mckee satoshi um i just think patricio is too defensively sound to make that one ultra competitive i feel like mckee for better or worse, we saw in the Spike Carlisle fight, like he's got a mean streak in him

and his corner was lambasting him for engaging with Carlisle in these brawls when he was clearly the more superior technical fighter. I just have a feeling that McKee's gonna have a little more fun with it. He's probably not gonna go to the ground, but I expect him to throw some crazy spinning shit up top just to keep it fun

for the fans. Yeah. I'm looking forward to this. This should be fun. Saturday night, 8 PM. Eastern. Don't miss it there on showtime.

Shaq heavy lifting out of you today, coming out here, giving me the Japanese MMA breakdown, which, you know, I'm always front row for, it was an early morning. It was an early morning trying to make sense of this.

Yeah. People don't realize, you know, for Shaq to join this show, it's a butt crack of dawn over there on the beautiful left coast of Canada. Do you have any opinions on Nova Scotia, Canada? Most directly Mount Unaiki, where the Paquettes reside? Yeah, well, shout out to the Paquettes.

Also shout out to Rene Paquette, a fellow Canadian. No, man, I'm honestly disappointed with how little of Canada I've traversed big city living over here we don't have time for those people well Shaq you're a lot younger than me I presume you seem to be in decent shape I don't know about this rave habit on the side a lot of flashing light sticks

but that's your life but Shaq you see this class it's not cow cosplay by the way I was wearing a t-shirt and a pair of shorts that just so happened to be cow prints. Did we run that clip on the show and just out you and embarrass you? You just verbally outed me. I'm like, this man's dressed like a cow. What are we doing here?

But, you know, enjoy yourself. There's like 30 of us. But Shaq, you're younger and more in shape than me, but I'm trying, especially with the new year coming. I'm trying to turn that corner. And I know you've been ogling this glass right here, this magic powder, right? Eight ounces of water and one scoop of green. You're wondering, BC, what's that all about, right? Tell me about it, man.

You are the picture of health that I hope to achieve when I'm your age. Look, it's about Cliff's Notes. It's about cutting corners. No, it's about this. It's about starting my day the right way with something that makes me feel good, that I know is healthy, that's got that nice, subtle citrus taste. I'm talking about AG1, Athletic Greens. And with one delicious scoop every morning in your glass,

you'll be absorbing 75 high-quality vitamins, minerals, whole food source superfoods, probiotics, adaptogens, all that stuff that helps you start your day right. Shaq, isn't it about building a foundation? The first thing you put in your body is what your body is going to crave all day. I like to put good stuff in. Listen, based on the things you have said on this show, the lesson I've learned is if I take AG1, I won't have to do all the backtracking that you are now at this stage of your life.

My fiancée is a nurse. She constantly harasses me for not taking my vitamins. I think AG1 is exactly what I need. Wow, shout out to your fiancée there. The thing about this is, you know, we hope Luke Thomas recovers from his illness. My family's been under the weather of late, but I don't know, Shaq. I don't know if the science proves it, but everybody in my house gets sick. I stay healthy. I also drink this every day. Coincidence? You know what I'm saying? There it is. But to close here, look, lifestyle friendly, whether you eat keto, paleo, vegan, dairy-free,

gluten-free, whether you dress up like a cow and go to a rave, it contains less than one gram of sugar, no GMOs, no nasty chemicals, no nothing. And okay, it's one thing for a washed 44-year-old dad to tell you, how about those 7,000 people that put out five-star reviews? How about Tim Ferriss? How about Michael Gervais, right? How about them? Right now, if you want to reclaim your health and

unlock this magic secret it's very easy athleticgreens.com slash morning combat your first order right now how about five free travel packs I take them on the road keeps me healthy and happy and how about that one year supply of immune supporting vitamin d those little drops put them right in there again that's athleticgreens.com slash morning combat to take ownership of your health shack you're vaping you're vaping god what are you luke thomas i said you're vamping to open the show while we have technical issues you're helping me out on the ag read we appreciate your services here shack you know you're you're kind of like our little brother here in the mk family we like that i appreciate that man you guys have been super kind to me um and that's a lot coming from luke who uh isn't

always the most gentle i mean he's trying you know he's conveniently forgot we had some shack sound to throw to a few times but you know that happens you know yeah you guys have done your part i appreciate it thank you all right back right back at you topic number two today shack in the mma news cycle we got some recent fight announcements of sorts to react to to get fired up for potentially let's start right here UFC 284 hey Kaikara France out of that Perth return due to injury was expected to face Alex Perez one of my favorite undercard fighters though Luma Luke Boonme is in against Elise Reed so follow that February 11th UFC 284 Shaq are you moved at all about this February 4th offering UFC Vegas 68, Marcin Tybura versus Blagojevinov? Dude, you know, it's not sexy, but Tybura is pretty good. I feel

like he keeps losing those really important fights. And he had a pretty bad like one and four skit at one point losing to guys like Verduem. But Tybura is pretty legit. And he's a tough out for just about everyone. And he's very tough out for just about everyone, and he's very quietly sneaky, as you would put it, put together a five-in-one run, beating guys like Sergei Spivak, he beat Alexander Romanov, and that's a really impressive win, and he got Greg Hardy out of there, and you know that makes a lot of MMA fans happy. Tybura, 37 years old, but you know, you mentioned something that Luke and I didn't mention and are probably going to get dead wrong to shit come Friday, is that Alexander Romanov, who was on a great streak there in August of this actual year, UFC 278, did drop one to Tybura. So before that,

Tybura had lost to Volkov, but he had run off that five-fight win streak before that and some of those names you mentioned. So heavyweight, you don't worry about age i think we do need to refocus our efforts on who this guy is i always looked at him tybura as sort of a tough out to gatekeeper ish to decide who's coming or going and right now alexander romanoff's got some more work to do um i feel like he should be my boy bog boy but who knows here we're gonna find out there february 4th ufc UFC Vegas 68. The same night, though, Shaq, how about this? CBS, Bellator back with a bang, as we talked about. I don't know, Shaq, if you like to pronounce it Fader versus Bader, or the other way around, Fador.

But here's the deal, that's still your main event. Unfortunately, though, lightweight heavyweight champion Vadim Nemkov is scheduled for that co-main event against Yoel Romero, which is a sexy offering, now off due to personal reasons for Nemkov that have yet to be announced but Bellator subbing in Johnny Eblen to make the first defense of his middleweight title against the team Fedor prodigy here Anatoly Tokov who's 7-0 under the Bellator banner and Shaq I gotta be honest I've been telling Luke for a long time Anatoly Tokov is coming on. He's built like a brick shithouse.

He kind of exemplifies what this Team Fedor movement is all about under the Bellator banner. I wanted Nemkov Romero. We can't get that. What kind of matchup do you think Johnny Eblem versus Anatoly Tokov will be come February 4th? It's great. Both have done very well under the Bellator banner. I think, if memory serves correct, Eblem is like 8-0 in Bellator. Tokov is 7-0 in Bellator. Tokov, very experienced. But unlike Gegard Mousasi, and let me shout out the Dreamcatcher, one of my favorite fighters of all time.

You know, he's been to the top end. He's been fighting for a long time. And although that was an upset loss to Eblem, I think it was going to happen sooner or later. Tokov is a tough, tough out. And I kind of love, he is part of Team Fedor. I do love how they're kind of stacking Fedor's fighters underneath him. I think it's a cool little line to draw through. Regarding Nemkov versus, by the way, I think Tokov should probably be the favorite in this fight.

Regarding the Bader Romero thing. Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're picking the challenger here as the favorite. I'm going to pick the challenger. Dude, I like Tokov. Super experienced, super tough. And thus far, he has passed every test in Bellator. Are you not on the same page as me here?

I am. I didn't go to the level of favorite, though. Eblen, you know, deserving some respect from what he did to Musashi. And when he's able to dominate you, can he physically dominate Tolkoff? Look, I want to see that happen ultimately, right? Yeah, we will see. It should be a good fight. If Ed Lincoln wins this, he's going into the category of, like,

legit possible long-term middleweight champion. Maybe I'm not giving Gegard enough respect. Obviously, he was doing really well in that late stage run, beating John Sal run, beating John Salter, beating Austin Vanderford. But I don't know. I've got a good feeling about Tokov. I think he's the real deal. Yeah, absolutely. And we've got to put some respect on Coach Fedor. I know Habib getting all the rub of late, you know, rightfully so as fighter turned coach, but Team Fedor producing. Let's go to UFCfc vegas 69 this news got a lot

of people buzzing it's february 18th and it finally gives us a bit of clarity on which direction this loaded ufc bantamweight division is headed in the new year how about marlon vera versus cory sanhagen shack what do you love about it and what are the real stakes here in your in your mind can i start with what I hate about it? Yeah, please go ahead. Listen, I know a lot of this stuff is logistics, but UFC President Dana White said at a press conference later in this year that if he had it his way, every fight night would be on the road.

How do you book Marlon Chidovera versus Corey Sanhagen, at least on the surface, a potential fight of the year for 2023, and you book it at the UFC Apex. How the hell does this happen? That is a fight that deserves and demands people screaming all around the arena. So this is becoming a developing theme or thing. You know, Ariel's gone ham on it, and I've agreed with him. The whole idea of, like, we're so far out of the COVID window. UFC was ahead of the game back then, and the Apex was, like, the perfect asset they already had in their holster

to be the leaders and be ahead of the game. But now they're continually going back there when we all know how much better the fights are in the full arena and the fighters getting that full experience, the fans to be called all that great stuff but Shaq there's a video I want to mention that I'll be referencing in a second in a different news story did you see that thing that MMA I put out the headline of their clip was the UFC has a major gambling problem James Cross James Krause is only the beginning and while you know it certainly identifies the the direction of of betting and everything going on there,

which is a very serious subject, more on that to come, it also sort of identified a real layman's term explanation of the nerd stuff on the details of why the UFC is in the financial position they're in, why they do keep fighter pay as low as physically possible, how this affects their parent company endeavor. I watched that video and I've got to be very impressed with who put that out at such length, but it sort of suggested, in theory,

that the UFC may be staying at the apex longer than we realize because when you lower those overall production costs, it helps endeavor so much more in the long run. Are you buying that sort of way of looking at this? It's super convenient for the UFC, right? And I think Luke has brought this up for the past. Like, you're cutting down on travel costs. You don't have to worry about, you know, loading trucks with all this gear.

Like, I don't know if you've ever, I'm sure you have, but for those who haven't, these productions, UFC, WWE, these traveling circuses, like, they've got a lot of big trucks. They've got to transport all the stage equipment, the octagon. All that stuff has to be brought over and set up, right? So it is way, way, way more affordable to book stuff at the UFC Apex. If anything, that's more reason for me to dislike it. I don't know.

I mean, look, a video like that, shout out again to the channel there, MMA Eye. You know, the video really suggests a lot of things that would make a lot of sense. That, you know, it's in the UFC's best interest to always keep pay as low as possible, and it has a lot more to do with terms like

Ibita and John S. Nash and, you know, tying it into Endeavor purchasing the UFC and taking on all that debt and having to pay it off. And the whole idea, of. Nash and, you know, tying it into to endeavor purchasing the UFC and taking on all that debt and having to pay it off. And the whole idea, of course, that, you know, we already knew with the ESPN deal was a major change in giving UFC that sort of baseline amount of guaranteed money per card, where does that make them as motivated to make these sort of super matchups that drive up pay-per-views? It's a good debate for the future. How that pertains to them potentially staying at the apex, though, just to kind of cut costs, it just doesn't make sense

when you're putting on fights this freaking good. I know, you know, Paul Anka and the Nelk Boys and sometimes at Zuck get to get prime seating there. But when we're talking about Marlon Vera versus Corey Sanhagen, when I prefaced it by asking you the stakes, this could have just as easily, in my opinion, been Marlon Vera versus Sean O'Malley in a rematch for the interim title. Why do you feel this was the direction of Vera versus Sanhagen, and what does that mean for the big names that we're hearing talked about? Sterling the champion, Cejudo who could be next, or O'Malley who could be next. What does this matchup say about those guys? Yeah, I was, honestly, when I first heard the matchup, I was a little confused, because when I think about Marlon Chidovera, I think of a guy who's on the precipice of a title shot.

And when I think about Corey Sanhagen, I think of this guy that everyone keeps sort of labeling as a future champion, but a guy who repeatedly, unfortunately, and he is amazing, has fallen short at the highest level against Sterling, against Pio Duran. There's a few things at play here. It seems like we're heading towards Aljamain Sterling versus Henry Cejudo. But with Cejudo, I'm never really sure what to believe. Sean O'Malley seems to think that might be the fight that's happening. If I were to guess, the UFC's still working on Sterling Cejudo, and maybe has Sean O'Malley lined up in the event that Cejudo can't make that fight happen. Okay.

Chido Vera, while we do think of him as this guy who's on the precipice of a title shot, when you look at his last three wins, think in terms of like title contention the most impressive at bantamweight is actually rob font who isn't a guy we currently think of as a title challenger there was frankie edgar and unfortunately we love frankie to death we saw what the last couple of fights were like same with dominant cruz um both legends looked impressive because Chido Vera typically starts slow and sort of analyzes what's happening. And then once he gets his range and his reads, you see him turn it up in pretty brutal ways down the stretch. But Chido hasn't actually faced, like, a legit title challenger yet. And Corey Sanhagen is very much that guy.

And though I don't believe that Sanhagen gets a title shot off of beating Vera and I do think that Vera might get a title shot off of Sanhagen anything could change as soon as Sterling loses that title if we see Sean O'Malley or Henry Cejudo as Bantamweight champion Sanhagen's got wins off two tough outs in Song Yedong and Chido Vera he's right back in the mix and the real victim in all of this is poor Marab Davalishvili who I think the UFC and Dana White are just spiting after that performance against Jose Aldo that although victorious Dana was super unhappy with yeah interesting you said a few things that are interesting I mean I get what you're saying where when you look at Vera's run since that Aldo loss

he's 4-0 font the best contending win because we're considering Davey Grant a step below and then Dominic Cruz and Frankie Edgar, both of which he finished by knockout via kicks, by the way, you know, are names that are somewhat past it. You can't argue necessarily against that. But this to me and this decision to not put him in an O'Malley rematch or not put him in an interim title bout or basically say, you know, you're going to have to win a little bit more to crack this this core is that they feel like the time's now for O'Malley as much as you said look maybe the direction they go is Sterling versus Cejudo and O'Malley's sort of the backup in case of anything it could it just be as

is possible that we're coming in the direction of O'Malley versus Aljo for the title with Cejudo waiting for the winner? Totally. I just, there's some sort of holdup. I don't know what that is. We've seen Sterling mention after the TJ Dillashaw fight that he wants, what was it, like six months off, an extended period there. I just don't think the UFC has anything finalized. And for them, the safest bet is to remove Sean O'Malley from any other possible matchups until this is all sorted out.

Because look, Cejudo coming back has value, right? It has value. I like the O'Malley fight more. So, you know, if you're going to maximize that value of when he comes back the first time and it's a storyline, do you want that against Aljo or do you potentially want that against your rising stud in O'Malley? That's why I think this is more, you know, look,

but it's not like we didn't know. We were already told by Dana that if O'Malley beat, uh, Peyote or Jan, he would be next for the title. I wondered if that could come in some form of an interim belt, which isn't necessarily needed, but would allow Aljo to face Cejudo.

Now this is really leading me to believe O'Malley could be next. And, and you know, would they want Cejudo's comeback to be against a champion O'Malley if he can get past Sterling as opposed to against Aljo? I don't know. I mean, look, all this is is us continuing to disrespect Aljo. I mean, look, he gets a lot of disrespect.

Can I throw an idea, actually, to give Aljo a bit of respect? Maybe. Maybe UFC wants to get what they can out of Cejudo because, like you mentioned with the video that covered the James Krause stuff the UFC loves to feed their old aging veterans to up-and-coming fighters and just devalue the hell out of them maybe absolutely maybe the UFC does want to work with Cejudo and I would argue Cejudo's got a way better chance of beating O'Malley than he does beating Aljermaine Sterling so maybe this is a chance for Aljo to get a bit of a rub off Cejudo to then fight O'Malley. Because I don't think you want Cejudo beating O'Malley,

just wrestling him to death and then holding that title hostage again. Interesting. This division is so loaded, so fun. Can't wait to see it all play out. And Corey Sanhagen has a very big opportunity to catapult himself back into this title picture should he stop the red-hot run of Marlon Vera. Finally, on these fight announcement reactions, UFC San Antonio for March 25th. I mentioned that Alex Perez is out of that return in Perth against an injured Kaikara France, but he's going to get a rising Manel Cop on this date, March 25th.

So that's a good-ass flyweight fight to look out for. But the big news from that same card comes from Welterweight, fresh off being stopped in his first pro defeat against Remember the Name. Sean Brady back in tough, back in potentially very entertaining against one Michelle Pedata. Wow, Shaq, this was a sexy one I didn't see coming. But we know Sean Brady has added more tats to his neck and the back of his head. He's ready. He means business.

He's going to have to step his striking game up, of course. That's ultimately what cost him against Bilal Muhammad. How do you like this matchup? Hey, is the tattoo now, like, forever dead in the water, or is there something that we can do to expedite this process? You know, I think think i was in hindsight i mean i they caught me at a at a at a good time meaning you know my you know my biggest fears in life usually involve you know spiders black licorice uh chicks that smoke and and needles

right you know so it's like i they hit me right at the perfect midlife crisis we're on the couch we're sitting in row eight john brady's. We're talking about bringing the cameras to Philly. Oh, we're gonna have tacos as well. This is great. We'll all sit down with the doc cameras. You know, unfortunately, Shaq, I'll do anything for the doc. You know what I mean? I'll do that. That's, you know, I'll do anything for those doc cameras to provide these MK fans with entertainment. So I think I slipped a little too easily into, yeah, sure. I'll get a tattoo. Why not? He's going to have to beat more people than the dangerous and respectable Michelle Pineda

to get me to put that needle in. But it's possible down the road. I'm glad it's not completely dead in the water. How about Sean Brady versus Bilal Muhammad part two one day? How about that? You put it out there, folks. Hold them accountable. Look, Michelle Pineda sometimes is up and down.

We know how big this fight would be for Brady to round out his game with a striking comeback, bounce back big. We know how hungry he is. We know how good he is on the ground. Pineda is wildly unpredictable, both in style and the level of performance he'll give you. You can lure him into some crazy shit. Sometimes he's doing it on his own. But Shaq, the rare times we've seen Michelle Podeta commit to wrestling and commit to using all of his strengths in the direction of winning fights, strengths meaning he's in incredible shape, great gas, take all that stuff,

not gassing yourself out, doing backflips on the way to the cage. In Vancouver. When this guy focuses, damn, do we see flashes. But I am wondering if he's just never going to find that consistency because he loves entertaining the fans too much, dude. That's what this guy loves to do. Are you at all surprised that he's ranked number 14th at welterweight? I was shocked.

What do you think it should be, higher or not at all? Not at all. I mean, now I don't have the benefit of knowing where the guys he beat were ranked at the time, but everyone he's beaten that stretch is currently unranked. That's Ponzinibbio by Split, Andre Fialo, Nico Price, Chaos William, and Zalim Imadiyev. I just feel like Walter Waite is so deep of a division that he's ranked right now. But because he is, I think this is a really solid fight. Sean Brady, I think the UFC still has high hopes for, and it's a chance for him to bounce back. He's fighting a guy who's got, at least to date, way more dangerous strikes than Bala Muhammad,

who we just saw kind of put it on Sean Brady. At the same time, I think Sean Brady, Michelle's pretty strong, granted. Like, he's very strong, but I don't think he's got anywhere close to the same level of wrestling that Sean Brady has. Like, Bilal was able to deter and fend off Sean Brady from grappling. I don't know that Pejea is going to be able to do that. But I like the matchmaking, because you need to give Sean Brady something that he can bounce back from, but at the same time, if he hasn't been able to close the gaps that cost him against Bilal Muhammad, now you've got Michel Pejehe, a very exciting guy,

a dynamic striker with a big personality, and you're moving that guy into the top 10. So I actually really... Shout out to whoever booked this fight. I think it's really solid. I think there are pros for both guys involved, and I don't think the loser... Like, you haven't lost a ton of the loser, right?

This is a matter of proving who's really deserving of a top 10 spot check let's transition into topic number three and this is a continuation of what really long term could become the biggest story in mma in some recent years uh no not the aliak potential here as luke thomas identified which is potentially in play for 2023 but it's the fallout of the James Krause betting scandal. And we've got another name to add to what Krause being suspended until the further investigation to Derek Minner,

who was involved in that somewhat sketchy ending that fight. And basically everyone involved with Krause's gym now unable to fight until they changed their affiliation. We now have Jeff Molina in the new cycle being suspended by the nevada state athletic commission so melina was supposed to fight jimmy flick on january 14th he withdrew due to undisclosed reasons uh after the recent news the we wonder if this withdrawal is you know in complete direction reaction to the suspension ufc has banned kraus indefinitely as as I mentioned the exact terms of Molina suspension has not been made public we don't know a lot of details but we have to assume

it all connects to to what happened here and I want to shout out one more time that MMAI video which really put all the facts in the forefront check this goes deeper this this Kraus thing than I really even realized um I hadn't heard his entire interview with ariel from earlier this year at complete length i had heard excerpts but you basically had james cross at that point i mean in hindsight damn was this a bad idea just sort of publicly bragging about a few things not just the money he's making gambling running the discord comparatively to the money the humble money he's bringing in as a coach or or with the gym but taking over other bettors accounts which is illegal and making bets for them and when you

have that Derek Minner fight situation and by the way a few other fight scenarios that involve Kraus that now in hindsight you're like was there anything else there now we had jeff molina to hear i'm interesting to get your overall take on sort of how big this thing really is and and and whether whether or not ufc and the nevada state athletic commission are done dropping the hammer to build up those walls to make sure this doesn't happen again yeah no this is this is huge this is like francis and gano huge this is like Francis Ngannou huge. This is like the teeth in my mouth huge. Like this is, dude, the FBI is probing. The FBI is looking into this situation. The last time the FBI was looking into something in my sphere of work, Vince McMahon stepped down as the CEO of WWE and he has not come back. Now, I'm not suggesting that Dana White is any sort of issue.

That's, you know, I don't think anything really has to do with him beyond, I guess, him and the commissions moving forward have to have a more foolproof approach to preventing something like this from happening. Dude, to be fair, I don't know much about gambling, but it seems that James Krause does. And I would heed anyone. I mean, maybe, first of all, don't do illegal things that are going to get you probed by the FBI. But maybe take a little bit more care into researching sort of the legality of the things you're doing. And maybe not out yourself quite so publicly, quite so easily. Regarding Jeff Molina, man, I don't know. We don't know exactly what this is.

The Nevada State Athletic Commission is supposed to meet and sort of determine his future. But as of right now, it's said his status is uncategorized. So we don't know exactly what this has to do with. I think obviously, based on the acceleration of this issue with Kraus, insider gambling, etc., etc. It probably pertains to that to some degree. We obviously don't know for certain. I just, I think this is the beginning. I think a lot is about to get unearthed. Now, I don't think, for the most part, and I say this just based off the information I've seen in my own opinion, I don't know that the UFC has this tremendous gambling issue or insider betting issue,

but there's clearly a huge lack of security in place to avoid stuff like this. I think it was Mark Raimondi from ESPN who put out a piece where he spoke with a coach anonymously where the coach said, yeah, man, I was in the same locker room because I guess all the blue corner fighters are in one area and all the red corner fighters are in another. And he's like, I looked over and I saw the guy was limping. And so I just popped open my betting app and I put some money down. So there's going to have to be something done to prevent this from happening in the future. For me, the biggest obstacle, and we saw it with TJ Dillashaw and that shoulder injury he suffered that he kind of kept hidden going into the fight against Sterling, is it's for this exact reason that sports like the NFL have an injury report, right? But the problem is, and you've heard this from basically every fighter that's ever done an interview, they never go into a fight 100%. So I don't know what you're going to do. One, to incentivize fighters to come forward with injuries when they have a win, a show win split where they only get, you know, let's say 20 grand, 12 grand, 40 grand for showing up to the fight, and they only get the other 12, 20, 40 $20,000, $40,000 if they win the fight.

So you're telling a fighter, hey, be more forthcoming about your injuries, and oh yeah, you're not going to get paid the remainder of your, you know, half your money, potentially. And you're not going to, and you're going to have to foot the surgery bill, because these injuries happen in training, not in the cage. So look, there's a lot going on right now. And again, that MMAI clip could not frame it better and give their own take on sort of the future, which I think a lot of us already realize that, you know, labor issues are to come. And this is partly why UFC's on really day one in terms of the overall season of gambling being legal

and the UFC getting so much money from that DraftKings deal, which they have to protect. So it's like Luke and I debated when the Kraus thing first broke out. I think rightfully so. We both agreed, like, kind of most importantly here is the integrity of the sport protection. Because, you know, as soon as you're not looked at as legitimate, everything could go away, including the gambling connection. But I think it's more financially based, I think, at the end of the day than even their own reputation.

UFC has to protect the merits, of course, of this giant DraftKings deal, which means so much to the parent company bottom line, along with that ESPN deal, which is why, again, we talked about it back in 2020, Dana White was so aggressively forthright to put the show back on the road no matter what because he had to meet the minimum dates. We've been talking about that for years. But, man, does that MMA video echo true that something is big time coming.

And I think the connection between TJ Dill's struggle in public so deeply in multiple interviews after his title loss to Sterling with the shoulder injury and this whole idea that, okay, the Derek Minter situation, especially with all the movement leading into that fight and the books taking it off because of the suspicion, is sketchy enough in the idea of wanting to never have the image of fixing fights or someone taking a fall or all

that. But what if the Derek Minner situation is more in line with the TJ Dillashaw one than we realize? What if in Minner's head, we're already hearing how often the fighters can't even afford to take an elite camp to try to win a fight that would put them in a situation where they don't have to worry as much about the finances. What about somebody like Minner who suffered the injury outside of it and is just thinking, I got to get my recovery covered, my surgery. If I go into that fight and who cares

what happens, maybe it wasn't as much on the surface about gambling and it became more of that i don't know but either way i think that video nailed it perfectly the biggest thing ufc has to change in this scenario is that right there that crossroads a fighter gets to where it's like i'm going to take this fight and potentially lose my placement and all that because not only do i need the money but i need i need to be repaired and i'm not going to be able to afford it now if i may brian that's that's a massive crossroads that we're at that's that's connected to gambling but not caused by it but we'll have a spillover there's no question about it yeah there's this is such a big problem and people smarter than me are working on the solutions.

For one, you definitely need to separate fighters from—they can't be in the same room anymore. I think that's just a given. There's only so much you can do by telling people, hey, you can't do it. James Krause, here's a cautionary tale of what not to do. I know we talk about fighter pay a lot on this show, 16% revenue split, etc. I think a very simple way to boil down just how little money these fighters make, I've talked to a few of them over the years. If they start on a 10-10 or a 12-12 split, so let's say they go in there, they get 12 grand to show they lose the fight. Their training camp, paying all their sparring partners, their coaches. All that costs about $12,000.

So they're basically going in there, getting beat up, not making a dime off of it. The other thing with even if you cover the fighters' injury costs for camp, if fighters have to pull out more frequently because of injuries, because like we said, every fighter goes in there with injuries, you're not going to have UFC events. Like, if you start paying for these guys' surgeries and they say, okay, I'm injured, I'm not going to fight, what product does the UFC have to ship? Because I don't think they're getting many fights.

Yeah. No, it's a great point. And I couldn't shout out the MMA analytics team over there at MMAI enough for sort of framing it as, we all know that the rise of the Dana White Contender Series you know I mean look it's a it's a it's this incubator that that creates the the onus on action which Dana wants and loves but it also like you said the 10 and 10 basic contract structure allows essentially a factory to produce aggressive hungry poorly paid people to come in, fight desperate to desperately seek. Again, not always financial excessiveness, just being able to train in the day-to-day. There's so many

things that are going to play off of both the gambling and the injury side of this that, yes, it is eventually going to lead to some type of monster crossroads where change is needed. Is that a fighter union? I don't know because it seems like it's impossible for the fighters to fight. I mean, you almost feel like for something like that to happen, for a union to be created and stepped in, you would need like 90% of the roster to hold arms and not move and say, we're not fighting until then. You know what I mean?

If it's anything less than that, the UFC can go, okay, you guys are done. We got a whole new season of contender series coming in under this brand that are ready and they're, they're cheaper than ever. I mean, that's, that's where it's at for UFC to keep these numbers and levels, you know, uh, financially in the direction they're going, which is making themselves crazy rich. But unfortunately it's really at the expense of the fighters, which is why anyone who has a feeling of fighter pay talk again, it's not going anywhere. And it's only becoming more and more unpeeled, the onion, and it's making us all cry, Shaq. Okay? Because we do care about

these people as people, not just warriors that we're throwing into the Roman cage here. I mean, you know what I'm saying? I'm hurting. I'm hurting, Brian. Damn. Alright. Well, how about this transition to topic number four? You got all that stuff with

fighter pay gambling, and it's all connected with the Ali Act and You got all that stuff with fighter pay gambling, and it's all connected with the Ali Act and labor and all that stuff that's coming. We also got a scoring issue right now in general with the criteria and how it's being laid out. And the big name that's coming up is one Douglas Crosby. I did, Shaq, go back and read Shaq Mendenhall's fantastic 2015 feature on MMAfighting.com from having spent time interviewing Crosby and getting inside the mind of the madman judge

who I hadn't seen appear all the years on Chael's podcast. I didn't know much about this guy being a, you know, all that stuff. Shaq, the biggest problem with his recent scorecards, the 50-45 for Sabatello and Bellator, the next night's placement that he had in the UFC card, is that we're talking about does this guy even understand the criteria or is he using his own? I believe we have sound here from respected coach Eric Nixick of Team Couture in Las Vegas. And, you know, MK fan himself. Love that guy. About recently when Doug Crosby had to speak to his gym,

or was it at a gym, Shaq? Or I know also the Nevada State Athletic Commission forces judges to join a Zoom call with the coaches to better fully explain the scoring criteria here. But here's Nixick overall trying to understand Doug Crosby in real time with us. Who did you stop tipping with the judges? Because it seems like they're not along your side anymore,

man. Man, I don't, you know, you know, you know how it is, Angie. It's like,

you just, you just never know week after week. And, and the hard part is, is there, I feel like their, their standards change fight after fight, you know, and there's, there's a lack of consistency there. So, you know, we, we actually had a Zoom meeting a few months back and that was Nevada State Athletic Commission put together a Zoom meeting with, with a bunch of judges and a handful of MMA coaches. And the job with that was kind of like for us to be able to sit down and actually talk and mend some fences and ask some questions

and things like that. But, you know, I mean, I'll be transparent with you guys. The number one outlier in that Zoom meeting was Doug Crosby. Like, he didn't want to be there. You know, he felt combative in the meeting. Like, he thought, like, I don't know,'t know, I guess he was above this meeting for us. That's the way I felt, and not only myself, but the other coaches that were involved in that meeting.

It was pretty evident. Then he wanted to come to the gym after and explain his version of judging. I was like, well, you're in, you're, you're, you're in a zoom meeting with all your superiors. Why do you need to come on your own to come to talk to us about what you see and what you feel is right in judging. You have that platform right then and there. So right. Like I, I didn't let him in the gym. I let him in the gym. I just left, you know, I was like, if you want to talk to whoever you want to talk to, but I'm not going to sign off on that. And I just took off, you know? So I, in my mind, I was like,

maybe he's mad at me. I don't know. So, but at the end of the day, like you just can't have that sort of thing. I feel like it's just the inconsistencies of the sport. You know, we've seen this for years. We're going to talk about it again and come next week. Cause there's going to be a bad decision. And, you know, until there's some, something that changes that, you know, we're just going to be stuck in this limbo.

Shaq, well, shout out to Eric Nixick there appearing on the MMA show on Sirius XM. A lot of people now are talking about this. Rafael Stotz went off on Crosby on Ariel's show. We also have a quote here from Chris Curtis on Crosby showing up to his gym, and he essentially said that every question he asked Crosby, Crosby answered back with a question. Very Jesus-like. Here's the quote from Curtis, though.

I'm trying to get an answer and not have this philosophical Mr. Miyagi effing debate. My family's Southern. I'm super respectful, especially when an elder is speaking. I literally walk the eff out of his conversation like this is ridiculous. So, Shaq, you know, we could continue to laugh at length of the cowboy ways in which Douglas Crosby operates, but this is connected to that larger picture of, you know, when a fighter gets a poor decision, boy, does it affect them financially under the UFC's pay structure. And the whole idea of betting in integrity of

the sport is pretty big big UFC doesn't specifically control this though this is the commissions that produce the the officials how important is it to remove a spirit like Doug Crosby moving forward we are 2023 coming up upon god I don't want to debate any more MMA scoring I just want to get the system right yeah yeah um so i mean matter of fact if you it's not a judge's job in that moment on fight night to debate the merits of the scoring criteria or how it should be scored it is the judge's job to score based on what the criteria says so if if Doug Crosby has protests, complaints, concerns, criticisms, amendments that he wants to make

to the criteria, that is fine, but that is not his role on Fight Night. It is to judge as the criteria states. I did this feature for CBS Sports a couple months ago on why judging is still so broken and confusing in MMA.

We talked to Big John McCarthy. We talked to fellow MK alum Aaron Bronstetter who has taken the judging course, Mark Ratner, executive vice president of regulatory affairs of the UFC, formerly with the, I think, director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission. There's really three things that comes down to. Inconsistency, accountability, and education. The first two. There is basically no barrier to entry beyond taking the course to being a judge in MMA. If the guy at the Commission likes you, you're basically in. That's a court in John McCarthy. The other thing is, and I think

this ties into why it's so confusing, that the commissions traditionally haven't applied these updated rule sets from 2017 equally. Both Aaron and John sort of independently suggested, you know, Aaron said that in 2017 when the new scoring criteria was applied that evoked more 10-8 rounds, we were seeing it happen almost across the board until roughly the Izzy versus Blachowicz fight where UFC president Dana White apparently took issue with the scoring. Aaron noticed that after that, you weren't seeing as many 10-8s in Nevada. Big John kind of had around that date circled and said that Dana White got upset. And ever since Dana got upset, Nevada scaled back 10-8s. We started seeing them return

to it again with this past pay-per-view. So the problem is that these judges are not applying the scoring criteria universally and equally. I get Luke's point that if the scoring criteria is this complicated that maybe it needs to change, I agree to some degree, but I'd also present that scoring in MMA I don't think can ever be quite as simple as scoring in boxing just based on the variety of skills and tools at play, what effective grappling versus effective striking is. I think that's always going to cause issue, but I think fundamentally the biggest issue of all is that there's very little oversight as to who is judging. There is no uniformity across the board of how it's being applied.

And nothing's ever done to these judges who are drawing out bad scorecards. At the very least, have a commission rep sit down with the media if you don't want to have the judges do it. And just field questions.aron had a great idea have someone like sal domato on the broadcast who can explain scoring to the fans there just needs to be something done to keep the process more streamlined from start to finish i mean you're preaching to the choir with all the issues here but i think a lot of the issues as lu often rants, does point back to the commissions who don't always have the best reputation at outlawing their own. I do like in reaction to the

back-to-back questionable scorecards from Crosby that Andy Foster of the California State Athletic Commission changed their rules to basically say if you want to judge a fight on consecutive nights and you're in California you can't go further than Nevada. You can't do what Crosby did, which is be in Connecticut, get on the plane the next

night and be in a premier spot in Nevada. You're right. There's no uniformity state to state. How many times did we used to hear the UFC broadcast open with Anik going, well, tonight's card in insert state is under this rules. It's like, it's all bullshit. We're too far into the process. UFC is too important to to have

these things that are in theory out of their control end up end up causing monster debate issues financial change in terms of who wins and loses i mean they got they meaning the sport they gotta get a handle on this and i've never been against all the things we always debate go to five judges for title fights. You know, all that stuff you want to do. Change the scoring system altogether. I don't see any change, though. I don't see any promotion going, hey, we're going to start this. We're going to test

this new scoring system on this regional promotion with the help of the Nevada State Athletic Commission to see if it... No, I don't see any of that, Shaq. Okay? So, I just see a lot of people making money, but whatever. I can't... Well, sorry, to wrap up on my end, if Big John is correct that it was pressure from the UFC and Dana White for Nevada to stop following their own scoring criteria. Yes. What do we do?

Like, it's so broken and it cannot be fixed if the people who are responsible for applying the criteria, if true, have said we're not going to do it. What do you do about that? Yeah. Yeah, we got some issues here. I mean, the UFC persevered. I thought this was a great year, by the way. And we are consistently getting great fights. But topic five is one more thing that might be out of the UFC's hands into some degree.

But it is a larger growing issue with some fans. How about this? UFC going to raise pay-per-view prices once again. Now, I say out of their hands because this is a decision made by ESPN Plus and Disney, but starting with UFC 283, pay-per-views will now be raised to $79.99. That's an increase from the current price of $74.99. You can insert, of course, that famous Dana White quote when the deal with ESPN, the landmark deal was signed about what a great value this will be for fans. Unfortunately, this is the fourth price increase since he said that, since ESPN has signed

with the UFC in 2019. So Shaq, also ESPN+, the subscription service, of course, required to watch UFC pay-per-views recently raised its price for its base service 43% in August from $6.99 a month to $9.99 a month. So the math experts out there are telling me that if you're paying $9.99 a month for ESPN+, then now $79.99 for every pay-per-view, you're going to pay $1,079.76 uh for the calendar year is that uh you know i mean it's still great it's freaking i mean it's the basis of our show shack we love the ufc right but you okay with that you okay with that at the end of the day i mean not every pay-per-view is worth 80 you know as a boxing fan and there's too many boxing pay-per-views and a lot of them aren't worth it i'll tell you that right out front um you know a lot of them are though but is this is this how far is too far on this yeah well let me first uh as a representative of the great white north express my sympathies

because i don't have to pay a subscription i just go to ufc fight pass i dropped the equivalent of about 50 us i got the fight So I'm sorry to hear that. For the year or for the event? No, per fight, per event. But I don't, there's no subscription fee. I just pay the 50 US. Exchange rate and loonies, that's probably the same in the NCHEC, right? So here's the problem.

If it makes dollars, it makes sense. I'm sure the bigwigs at espn have gone through the math my estimation is that a lot of hardcore fans are going to fall under one of two brackets either they pirate all the streams so this does not affect them at all or that's illegal i'm you didn't hear i'm not telling you we're at a stream that's fucking illegal I love the throwbacks there's a there's a there's a few good ones

we could bust out here on the other end if you're morally opposed to pirating and you're a big UFC fan unless you're being priced out

you're probably just going to pay for it the reason I think they're doing this is because generally where the most money comes in on pay-per-views is from the casual audience, right? So the casual audience, they're

either going to a bar to watch with their friends where the restaurant has packaged a certain price deal for them to air that at their venue, or you've already decided in advance with your buddies, hey, let's get together, some pizza buy the fight so i think for the casual market they're probably going to tune in based on the fights and the names that interest them and the price is kind of a secondary issue for the casual for the mainstream sorry for the hardcore fan base this either either isn't affecting them at all because of the way they're getting the content or if they're really dedicated they might just have to pony up so it sucks it's awful i hate it for you guys i'm sure eventually

it's going to catch up to me but i'm sure that they're doing this knowing that they're not going to lose enough of their audience to offset the price increase right i mean look i also can't go overly ham about this because I'm expensing pay-per-views and have Shaq since like, you know, 2008 in terms of the jobs I had at the time. And before that, yeah, I had an illegal box. So, you know, the old 90s black boxes that that gave you the free one. So I'm maybe not the perfect customer for this, but can they prove that in a court of law that I did check? I don't know if they can. But the deal is with this, the only thing I'm concerned about is sort of the direction that the company's going since the ESPN deal, which we've talked about a lot of the idea

that, you know, they are financially motivated to fulfill the ESPN deal rather than make the biggest fight possible. It doesn't mean they're not going to make the biggest fight possible when it's there or the biggest fight possible. It doesn't mean they're not going to make the biggest fight possible when it's there or the biggest fight card possible, but because they're getting the equivalent of 500,000 buys per pay-per-view card from Endeavor, I'm sorry, from ESPN to put on these cards,

boy, is that a nice fallback to, you know, fights fall apart or you don't have to overly pad up. And we already know that fighter pay-wise, if you're going to get a big name atop the card like McGregor, you're going to see a pretty barren undercard underneath that and we've sort of become accustomed to that's that that's a boxing move but that's and yes it all aligns with some other disturbing trends which is you know most of these pay-per-view cards are filled with guys straight off the contender series so it's great opportunity for them and they come in hungry and they produced incredible finishes

that make them candidates for money lion's hammer of the month which i'll get second but the whole point is shack that you know it's like i love the that they're in this point financial stability of course ufc being on espn like it's great but that whole change about their financial structure you it's like i can't you know card to card the pay-per-view is still friggin strong but are we overall heading in a direction that's not wonderful slowly but surely we are i mean it's just maybe that's inevitable because at the end of the day shack if the fighters are one day going to get paid and get what they deserve it's going to affect matchmaking that's just the bottom line

and ufc has an unprecedented level of control over their athletes. But this price increase, UFC's new financial motto and direction after this ESPN deal, things are different, man. And they're not trying to make up, it doesn't feel like they're trying to build these pay-per-view stars individually with the same passion and energy.

Well, I think they saw, with Conor McGregor's rise, the downfall of that. Even though it wasn't a ton, Conor got an unprecedented amount of leverage on the UFC. Shout out to what I think is the best moment of 2022, is when they tried to take the old dog out back in Nate Diaz and just have him mauled by the wolf, Hamzat Chemaev. And Hamzat misses weight, Nate Diaz is like, F that, I'm not fighting him.

It was beautiful to see. It was by far the best thing that happened to me in 2022, aside from getting engaged. I don't want to get in trouble there. Well, not all the good things can last forever. Hopefully your marriage can. I'll shout out to that. I just mean, you know, UFC will adjust. They always do. But interesting developments as we sort of close up the storylines of this week's news cycle, which have echoed in general this whole year and this direction we're moving heading into 2023 a lot more to watch but ufc still delivering on the whole uh couldn't be happier in that regard but shack we try to point

out we're going to point out the scabs on the ass cheek that's what we do okay in this game uh shack uh hey it's money lion season right now we know about money line one of our favorite sponsors and you know they know how to do money so you, when you're talking about the Moneyline app, we're getting closer to that end of the month. We now have the nominees for the second hammer of the month to be handed down by our friends at Moneyline. Aaron Blanchfield, the recent Room Service Diaries guest, got the first call. Every week we look at these undercard shack or the opening of these main cards which young fighters doesn't be young which fighter is just coming on jumping through your

screen making noise making me want to put them in my cupboard of eastern european hammers and bring it out but they don't have to be from eastern europe shack it's that spirit that we're talking about so how about we reveal the nominees right now il Let's do it. Ilya Tuporia. Woo! Hatchie Mix. Roman Delidze. And my man, Billy Q, on that incredible comeback win he just recently had. You want to vote to see who wins? How about you go to moneylion.com slash morningcombat.

You can scan the QR code below. Find out more information. Of course, you can share your vote on social media, at Moneylion on Twitter, at MoneyLionInc on Instagram. Use that hashtag, Hammer of the Month. You can use Holy Hammer, just the same. But one day left to vote, so head on over to MoneyLion.com slash Morning Combat right now to find out more information.

Shaq, out of those four, you got a favorite in that stable? Oh, without a doubt, Ilya Teporia. That dude can bang. And people forget, because he doesn't need to use it, because he's knocking out fools left and right, that that guy's first seven pro wins were all by submission. I called it. That fight is my Tyron Woodley darin' till.

I said Bryce Mitchell is going to have nothing for Ilya Teporia, and I was right. And I did not win cbs sports 2022 prediction cycle i did beat you brian campbell thank you thank you i don't want to i don't want to go dead last like it was looking for a while in my debut year great reference until woodley really really appreciate that absolutely uh shack those are our five topics of the week we of course love you filling in here for the ill-lucid. We'll be back shortly. But we wanted to close the show not with, you know,

probably a blackout there on the screen there. We don't want to close the show with have you seen this shit fan subs. We'll get all that stuff caught up when Luke is here. But we did have an unfortunate passing in the MMA community and somebody whose name has meant a lot to a lot of us as fans in terms of when we came into the sport and somebody who certainly had such a major impact on the UFC's growth that's Stefan Bonner who passed away December 22nd at the age of 45 in a UFC statement it sort of said that the belief here is that he had a heart issue while at work we know that

Stefan Bonner as a retired fighter, has undergone some personal issues along the way involving substance abuse injury and all of that. But Shaq, when we're talking about a legend in the history books, here's the statement Dana White and UFC put out about what Stefan Bonner means legacy-wise to this company. Stefan Bonner was one of the most important fighters to ever compete in the octagon. Dana said his fight with Forrest Griffin changed the sport forever,

and he will never be forgotten. The fans love him. They related to him, and he always gave his best. He will be missed. Shaq, I think Dana actually did sum up exactly across the board what Stefan Bronner brought from the colorful personality, the willingness to exchange. But you see the picture of him and

forrest griffin they'll be forever linked you can never i mean really it gets romanticized and almost myth myth mytholized or whatever word that means but the idea of bonner griffin won the first tough finale and what that meant to the company at that time on cable tv trying to stay alive that's a big reason why this great brawl is in the UFC Hall of Fame and was one of the first choices, which is why Stephen Bonner can be called the UFC Hall of Famer today. But when you think, you know, even separate from the impact of that Forrest Griffin fight,

what do you think about when you hear a name like Stephen Bonner gone way too soon? Yeah. On the note of the fight itself, I itself i mean guys if you're not aware like the way dana white elevates that fight like he's indebted to stephen bonner and forrest griffin that that finale is what changed their entire trajectory on tv they signed the deal for another season of tough that night it was all going downhill um so please remember what bonner and gr and Griffin did for the content that you're watching today. My favorite thing about Stefan Bonner, I actually went back because, believe it or not, it was a little before my time. I went back and watched The Ultimate Fighter 1 start to finish.

And that guy had so much personality. Kind of a bro, a little bit provocative. He liked to poke the bear but there's a scene a scene stealing scene where he's just going in on diego sanchez for eating all the asparagus in the house make some suggestions that maybe he banged diego's mom like it was such an unnecessary escalation over some vegetables but it's one of my favorite all-time tough moments. I know we hear about, you know, let me bang bro all the time, but Stephan made that season. He was one of the contributing factors to why all the behind the scenes stuff was so much fun. And he was always that personality. When I was working at ESPN and working behind the scenes on the very beloved MMA live show,

which was, you know, one of the big forerunners in UFC coverage going on that national crossover level. Stephen Bonner was one of my favorite analysts that would be brought in to talk to him off camera to laugh with him. He was the ultimate bro shack. And he has such an interesting legacy for a guy who never did get to the level of being an elite or title contending fighter. You know, I'll never forget the image of him slumping

after he finds out he lost against Griffin, the decision after that incredible brawl. But then get, you know, finding out that he's also getting the contract, one of Dana's greatest moments of them delivering that to him. And, you know, I mean, he was eight and six overall in the UFC, 15 and nine overall in his pro career,

which ended in 2014 under the Bellator banner, lost to To ortiz that we'll likely forget but it's like it's not overrun with a ton of wins but maybe you know because in a lot of ways the impact of the griffin fight and because damn did he always go in there and let his hands go he was always a very well-known fighter was early like i mentioned in terms of try to create a broadcast career on the side was a great representative of who the ufc was is this you know raw on the edges young upstart promotion and sport in a lot of ways uh of trying to take that to the to the national level when you look at his career okay he did beat keith giardini beat did beat james irvin fought a lot of

the biggest names but fell off but but shack i, and we played a little picture of that, I would say UFC 116, which was, of course, Carwin versus Lesnar is really my favorite pay-per-view card in UFC history. That main card in particular was just magic. You know, Liebens rallying against Akiyama. But don't forget about that rematch, Stefan Bonner against Krzysztof Szczesinski. Bonner had been stopped in their first fight, which was earlier that year in 2010,

but the heart Bonner showed in rallying in that rematch to get the stoppage win in round two, which by the way, ended a three fight losing skid for Bonner. So that, you know, that could have been a disastrous loss in his arc. That was probably in hindsight, in my opinion, the best of Bonnerner the mountaintop moment that's exactly who he is short of the performance against Griffin in 2015 which was so you know monumental uh but that was the start of a three-fight win streak for him to end his UFC career um he was never great was pretty damn good Shaq yeah mean, let's not brush over, you know, when you say 8-6, it sounds sort of mediocre, but five of those guys that he lost to, UFC champions, Anderson Silva, Forrest Griffin,

Leota Michita, sorry, there's Leota Michita fight and Jungle fight predating the UFC, but there's also Jon Jones, Rashad Evans, and that was a close fight. Mark Coleman, former champion. Mark Coleman, so he's not going out there and losing to nobody's he's going out there with a ton of heart and indomitable spirit a willingness to fight the very very best guys in the sport and there's a reason that though he doesn't have a UFC title to his name we remember him when we think about fighters of those eras like Silva Griffin Rashad Tito we do think about Stefan Bonner.

Absolutely. And that three-fight win streak I mentioned, which led up to the end of his UFC run, it got him, Shaq, a fight that I think we were surprised when it was announced. If you remember his pay-per-view main event role opposite Anderson Silva, it was October of 2012. It was UFC 153 in Rio. It was like a stay-busy one one-off you know as as Anderson would do up at 205 and he of course did the dance on Forrest Griffin previously uh James Irvin of

course uh as well when they were counter-promoting against Strikeforce that time but Shaq uh here's what I'll always say I mean he got finished in the first round by Anderson Silva he made a big error I think he tried some spinny shit and got caught. That knee. But there's two things about that fight that aren't the best things to respect that I always did respect. I mean, that's Bonner's moment, mountaintop moment, separate from the origin,

the ultimate fighter finale. You know, he didn't win. This wasn't a title fight, but he got himself into the B-side of a pay-per-view. And you know what, Shaq? He left no stone unturned. Yeah, he doped and got caught for the second time was a suspended post fight for his positive test to draw standalone I'm sure that's

in the winstroll category but Shaq he was both jacked and tanned as shit in that fight so if you're gonna have your mountaintop moment and yeah he cheated and got caught and maybe didn't have a ton of chance in that fight to begin with style-wise. But I'll always respect that Bonner went all in and got all dolled up for that and tried his best and went out on some failed spinny shit. That's sort of, again, also who he was. And maybe in some regard, Shaq, that thing that we're celebrating, he's like the perfect Dana White fighter, coming hands down, chin out, throwing bombs, right? You know, that

quirkiness in his personality, maybe that led in some degree to some of the rough moments he had down the stretch in recent years. You know, he tried a pro wrestling crossover at one point. Remember the rough interviews that he put out and the issues he had with medical care and all that. It was tough to see it end like that. I did see Sean Strickland, current UFC middleweight, come out with an interesting video, which at first offended me. But I did kind of get that spirit where he came out and said, you know, instead of everybody posting on social media the picture of the one time they met him, where was everybody when Bonner needed him in recent years? And obviously none of us know the true day-to-day situation unless we're close to Bonner at where he was. But, Shaq, I do think in general it's, there's a lot of unhappy endings in combat sports. I'm sure

that, you know, this won't be the last of them. Somebody gone too soon who was beloved but then had a rough stretch toward the end there. I don't know what UFC's responsibility in any of that in a larger picture is. You remember they gave cake lifetime jobs to Liddell and Matt Hughes to basically retire

and then... You mean the ex-employees? Yeah, those were rescinded upon the Endeavor deal and the fallout of that. It's like I don't want to play up this Strickland thing too much because it was kind of crass at the same time, but I do get his spirit, and I do wish, I mean, you know, it took NFL players a long time to do a big lawsuit and finally get some type of post-career love and compensation and medical care and all that.

Is there more UFC should be doing for their heroes like this that did so much for them? Certainly. As with all things, like, I don't know that Sean Strickland is the best deliverer of information. But there is a point to some degree right like if you were close to Stefan Bonner or if you were the UFC who has the means by which to support these fighters who gave so much at the tail end of their career there absolutely should be some sort of long-term health care or fun for these UFC fighters now if you're a fan who met Stefan Bonner once and took a picture and had a pleasant encounter, I don't know how much of an impact or imprint you're going to have on

his personal life or what ability you realistically have to pull him out of whatever he's in. To that, I would say, I don't think Stefan Bonner would want to be remembered most for his down times. I think he would want to be celebrated for how much he gave to the sport of MMA. So if you're not close to Stefan Bonner, 100% you should be celebrating. If you're close to him and you think you did your best to support him and it wasn't enough, it happens in life, unfortunately. But if you're the UFC, I really hope there comes a time where they are forced into position to take care of their fighters

because they're not taking great care of them during their careers, and they're taking no care of them after the fact. Yeah, yeah, a lot to think about with that. But as sad as this news is and it is tragic, it didn't take long for me to put a smile on my face, and that's because, really, like the spirit of the people that did post the picture, the one time they met him and they loved him. Man, Bonner made you like him.

He was a great character. And I think more of all those great moments they delivered on camera and off. I mean, it was just such a such a lively spirit. And damn, I mean, he's one of my favorite fighters, Shaki. You know, he's like the ballroom brawler that that walked into the elite UFC cage. And it's tough to see, man. Tough to see. You know, it's no different.

I mean, it's no different in the NFL. It's no different in any sport where you can get short periods of big windfall, but there's a lot of tax to pay on that. And, you know, who knows how it was related to this situation. But rest in peace, Stephen Bonner. You gave us a lot, and we love you back in return. Shaquille Majorey, we love you as well.

Sliding in for Luke Thomas today. I mentioned your Shaq MMA channel. You do great pro wrestling work. You want to plug things here? Plug some shit, okay? Let's plug away for the benefit of this audience and for myself. Don't worry about the wrestling stuff. I don't want to bore you.

Shaq MMA on YouTube. That's where you'll get all of my interviews. We've got recent ones with Yuri Prochocka that I think went really well. Jamal Hill, AJ McKee, Patricio Pitbull should be live, I think, at about 11 a.m., 2 p.m. Pacific today. You can check out the car wreck that was my Patti Pimblitt interview. Always fun to see something go just absolutely terribly. Hey, you got in the news cycle about this whole aerial fallout i saw that check yeah i don't someone's like oh you really should have grilled him more you should have really pushed into the aerial stuff i'm like i like aerial's been a great help to me in my career i'm not gonna just sit here and like be

a platform for patty to just crap on somebody who can't talk back but you know you gotta ask the question at least i threw it out there it was a bad interview he told me i knew nothing about fighting because i suggested that he got hurt in that luigi benjamini fight which yeah i mean that'll always be the frame the famous response roger mayweather you don't know shit about boxing floyd senior says the same i mean look like that you know we don, we didn't fight Shaq. He was cutting weight. It's okay. I get it. It's just what it is, okay? They will never get their

respect. That's fine. But I love those guys just the same. Shaq, you do great work. You're hungry. You go after it. We appreciate the times that you cross our space and help us out. Love your work on CBS Sports, so enjoy there. Luke Thomas, hope you make it back and feel great.

You will be back with a bang. I know that. And by bang, I don't necessarily mean your brand of energy drink choice, since you're more of a rain guy lately, decrepit. I mean, I'm the gas station guy. This guy lives in a vape pen, but, you know, it makes him happy at the end of the day. You can buy our merch there at morningcombat.store.

Shaq, have they mailed you anything? You deserve a smile today, Shaq. Do I out you guys? I mean, we could probably I got nothing, but I get my clips played. Shout out to Mikey and you and Brian. You and Luke, excuse me. And

I will be now taking AG1 so I don't end up like the two of you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. You can get Showtime, by the way, because you're going to need it Saturday night. Bellator vs. Rizin. It's going down 8pm Eastern only on Showtime.

I think Shaq faded to black there, but he did great until then. You can get 30 days free right now going to Showtime.com and, you know, how about that holiday deal? Six months at $3.99? I mean, could you do better than that i don't really think you can all right and this is fantastic content i mean just announced january 20th bethlehem pennsylvania showbox is back your boy bc on the call so six unbeaten fighters across

that triple header bellator coming up more championship boxing to come uh we'll keep you updated on the fallout of what went on with Javante Davis overnight and how that does affect next Saturday's pay-per-view fight. Still up in the air now. Unfortunate news, though. We'll keep you posted on that regard. Thank you very much for tuning in this Wednesday. We made it. Shout out to Gav Pierre,

Long Island Luke Noseda on the ones and twos, Mikey Morms and my folks there behind the scenes, Malko Showtime, CBS Sports. We're going to be out of here with two more words. And please guys take care of it up here. Enjoy this time off if you're doing that. New Year's are coming. No limits.

Okay. This is going to be the year that you get in shape. It's also going to be the year you get happy. Okay. MK will be there along the way. Wednesday February 8th. Final plug. It's MK in the UK.

Morning Combat. Headlining. The podcast festival known as PodLive brought to you by the Sports Podcast Group there in London. We were 2022's best sports podcast. We are going to be doing a live show at King's Place in London. There's only 500 seats. The tickets are

flying off. A lot of holiday gifts as tickets here. So go to this QR code at the bottom, scan it. More information there in the description on YouTube. We're going to need to see you there. We're going to have special guests that will be announced. BCLT, UK, MK. It's fantastic. We can do this together. Hopefully my Welshman will show up and induct me. I don't know what kind of initiation. I'm not a fraternity guy, so I don't know what kind of initiation they got over there in Wales, but as long as it's involving Cardiff and the Calzaghe family, I'm there. Thank you very much.

The show's over. You've been warned. Love you. Thank you. It's over. That's it. I can't do this anymore. I can't even do it.

I mean, two hours every day? This is ridiculous. I mean, what are we even doing here? You know what I mean? I mean, what is this?