MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - BKFC 41 & UFC Vegas 72 Picks | Nate Diaz | Francis Ngannou | MMA Draft | Ep. 434

Episode Date: April 28, 2023

On episode 434 of Morning Kombat Luke and Brian kick off the show by giving their picks for UFC Vegas 72 and BKFC 41. The guys discuss Nate Diaz being arrested and released on bond. What could this mean for his future? Next up the guys give an update on Francis Ngannou's free agency. What is going on here? The boys close out the main topics with some fighter updates and quick hitters. (8:50) - Ok, Bet (28:00) - Nate Diaz Arrested (40:10) - Francis Ngannou Update (55:00) - Fighter Updates (93:10) - Quick Hitters 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

oh yeah i mean you know oh yeah right you just got to let that thing out. Right. Friday, April 28th, 2023. You've stumbled right into the award winning combat sports showcase known as Morning Combat. I'm just one half of the duo, the BBC with that BDE, the American Alpha. I got a couple of their names. they're really not all that accurate probably in reality to my persona but i'm here anyway my name is brian campbell uh we got a great show for you today and a great co-host from washington dc the best damn fight analyst period what was that for friendship hey it's luke thomas, wow. Hey, did you see I got a shout-out from the champ Izzy on my breakdown after the fight? Did he call you a honky by any chance, Luke?

No, he did not call me a honky or a cracker, which I explained yesterday. Let me ask you, BC, do those really sting you when you've ever been called one of those? Does it really hurt? No, because I try to look at the scoreboard and see how bad, at least in the U.S., how badly people of other backgrounds have been. You know, I mean, I got to a point in life, Luke, where, you know, whether it's my family or you or, you know, I mean, it's just I just brush it right off. Right. I remember the first time I got called when I was like, really, that's the that's the word they're going with for us.

All right. No, I really haven't been called a honky too often. How did we end up there, Luke? OK, I mean, do you hear what taylor fimo's saying lately where are we at in these race relations anyway we got a great combat sports show for you today what by the way and his dad doing him zip favors by the way yeah in that regard all right we are going to set the stage for this weekend and place our bets on our okay the return of okay bet ahead of ufc fight night in vegas and of course the bkfc 41 balls bonanza they got going on over there in uh colorado is that where it is luke i forgot um it might be i think it is i always yes yes it is it's because it's the same

arena that the one show is going to be in so So it's just outside Denver, just outside Denver. Broomfield, Colorado. I was just by there on my vacation at Topgolf Thornton, Luke. So shout out to that right there. We also today, we didn't get a lot of dead wrong. I mean, we've been wrong a lot over the past 20-something days when we only did one show together. But I think the dead wrongs were very pedantic. So, Luke, we got a great time filler today.

You and I are going to have a draft to try to see who could create the best mythical UFC International Fight Week card for this July using all active UFC fighters. And then we'll let the fans vote on who's got the best fight card. Let's see, Luke, who can playby and dana white better than the other all right mick all right all right uh and so folks who just to be clear you can't be like drafting like oh i'm gonna draft uh brock lesnar or i'm gonna have brock lesnar fight you know uh aaron blanchfield like no no no no like it has to be like a fight that could actually get approved by a commission yeah like i would love to have take onP. Baze in the Battle of Cheyenne, Luke, but they don't allow me that under the current rules.

Not legal here. Not legal in these parts. The state of Texas, Florida, or Taichi Palace Reservation, Luke, which they're owed a good one coming through. Shout out to Mikey Mormile on the ones and two CBS Sports. You can follow and like us probably on the links below if mikey puts them up there we go uh great to be back with you folks uh luke and i will not be on going on vacation anytime soon although luke we did find you know collectively that our next vacations this calendar year do overlap again so you know really we're the worst two co-hosts that have ever won a countless

amount of awards stumbling and stomping over our competition in the process so there you go yeah that's a fair way to put it bc i wanted to tell you that 2 30 in the morning last night uh barbis was barking at me yeah to uh let him out so i got up at 2 30 in the morning and i noticed that uh he had vomited on the floor which was not great. Then I go to clean up the vomit. I have to go to the cabinet to get the paper towels and all that stuff. Then I come back and he ate the vomit. I was like, wow. Good looking out.

Thanks, buddy. Yeah. They do that in my household too. Only it's like the cats want the poop of the dogs. I mean, it gets weird over here. Nobody needs to know about that. It's just great. Yeah, there we go.

How about your other dog, Luke, the one that's hanging on, fighting? Oh, my God. Here's the thing, man. We got this 16-year-old dog, bro, and my wife and I are on the same wavelength, which is like, you know, when do we pull the plug, so to speak? When do we call it a day? And our rule is if the dog can no longer go to the bathroom on its own if it needs assistance yeah um you know that it's time

and dude she has been right at that precipice i'm not kidding for like five months and just won't go over the hump so every day i have to pick her up and it's raining here today in the nation's capital so we had to clean her paws when she comes in it's like a whole thing she just won't die bc kind of like this show she just won't well hey i mean she's showing quite quite a quite a set of moxie there and and perseverance i can shot her out there but um yeah yeah yeah wow that's those are sad times luke i hope when i'm unable to go to the bathroom on my own which sometimes does happen right now that uh they don't put me out of my misery just the same. Shout out to all the labels that pay us, including Showtime Sports. And you can get 30 days right now.

You can stream it, right? Go to Showtime.com. Take the free test. Great championship boxing around the corner. Saturday night, I believe, will be the replay, 9 p.m. Eastern on Showtime of Gervonta Tank Davis versus King Ryan Garcia. We'll break down the big numbers coming out of that fight later in today's show. Bellator as well.

Take the plunge on that. Morningcombat.store is our merch. Luke, I think we're a little bit behind on fulfilling some of the orders. The great RJ Gangbanger has moved on with his career, future endeavored, and I could not thank him more for being such a critical part. RJ Gangbanger has moved on with his career, future endeavored, and I could not thank him more for being such a critical part throughout the MK lifespan of getting our merch on my body and the bodies of all these weird people around this globe. But you can still order right now.

Somebody's there at the other end of the line, probably. Maybe. Maybe. I think that's a big maybe. Maybe. But, Luke, you know, rj uh i mean we're at the point where we don't even know what his what his government given name is but what a guy big ray was for us what a guy right big ray was great people loved the bomber jackets that was a big ray call and um yeah sorry that he's moved on but um he did he did us great he did us proud yes Yes, yes. Like Pat Tillman, Luke, we will not forget him

and not stop making jokes about him that end up getting edited out of this show. So there you go. All right, how did we end up there? Luke, do we have anything else we want to sell here before we get into this? Let me double check here. I don't think so. No, I think we can go right into it. All right.

Well, hopefully, Luke, you're taking your Caldera Lab skincare product seriously and applying them right after you put it on. Actually, I am. So my wife is like a big skincare person. She's all obsessed with it, and she looked at what they sent me, and she was like, this is legit. This is super legit. Well, we love those partners as much as we love this Turkesterone here from the great people of Black Forest, Luke. So we'll see how my body looks in a couple months. Will it be a wonderland? If so, you can thank Turkmenistan.

Thank you. All right. Here we go. I don't know how we got here. Here we are, though. All right. Let's go on with this show. All right.

Our first segment of the weekend here to set the stage is the return of our betting segment yes this one's called okay bet hey i'm just glad that your setup is working today can i point that out you know we may have found out that it that it wasn't fully my fault the other day okay i'm not throwing anyone under the bus we may have found that that out. Okay. We've, I mean, look, can we have an honest summit here and talk for a show this great, this lauded, this financially supported by the big companies behind it, man, we can't keep this thing on the, on the road. We can't keep this car on the track. What's going on here, dude. I, we need some help. We need some help is the short answer you know what i'm saying uh i can't say much more than that but we need some help there we go there you go help we

need somebody uh i didn't need our boss sam is watching sam time to get into action you know what to do all right last time we did this okay bet luke i was in the process of turning my around right before the vacation i went four and one that week damn only losing on israel out of soyna's comeback ko to regain the middleweight title you went two and three that week so as you can see on the screen the updated okay bet standings luke thomas in first place at 25 23 and 1 bc now does that make me four four four fights back at 21 and 28 or those that tie changes something i don't know i'm about i just want to point out that like i'm literally not much better than if you had just taken a coin and flipped it every fucking time i just want to point that out are you trying to say you're

some really expensive whitening toothpaste away from being Yanni the Greek? I think he's got veneers, right? I don't know. It's impressive, dude. It's impressive. Like, if I'm ever stuck in a cave with spelunking guides who have perished right before us, Luke, I'm just like, Yanni, keep smiling, baby. We got to get to the finish line here, okay? We got to get to the end.

We don't have food or lights or anything. We got to get to the end, right? It is unusual when you see someone in person who's got, like, cosmetically white teeth, you know? You're like, it's like, listen, I know I've got cosmetically brown teeth, but I know that, like, hardcore brushing doesn't get you what these people have uh my teeth look like barnabas's recycled breakfast this morning unfortunately look unfortunately all right well you know the premise we go head to head with five picks

we pick the biggest main event of the weekend we each pick a favorite and underdog along with will a fight go the distance or not and and how will it end, KO or submission. Luke Thomas as the reigning and defending champion. You get the choice of going first or second. Now, I'm not sure if my last pick will work, so if I need to make an adjustment, we can. But for the first one, which is main event, we're going to stick with, obviously, the UFC card.

I'm going to go Ricky Simone. I know that it is very close. He's an underdog, just barely. Sorry, sorry. It's a pick-em in both cases. One way, a six-point way, half a dozen the other. So, you know, it's a tough call. But I just feel like, as we said on Wednesday,

Simone's got an unbelievable gas tank. He's really beginning to put some polish on his game. He got rid of that mullet, which is the most important consideration of them all. It's a tough one. It's a real tough one. But I think over the course of five rounds, I like him to basically outwork Song Yedong. It's, of course, this Saturday, fight night at the Apex, the main event. Ricky Simone currently a minus 125 betting favorite from our friends at Caesars, plus 105 to the donger, Luke.

And you know what? At the end of the day, if you said who has the brighter future, who may be able to go the furthest? I'm picking Song Yudong. But on this fight, on this night, red hot Ricky Simone, I like the edge here. I like the aggressiveness, the cardio, everything that goes with that. Song Yudong is still figuring things out. He shows a lot of promise in so many different categories. Mr. Faber is a fantastic coach behind him,

but I think this is Ricky Simone's night. I will also take the formerly long-haired grizzled one to pull the victory out in this main event. Luke, who do you have for a favorite of this weekend that you're going to lean towards? Man, it's funny. I looked at your picks after I did mine, and I had to change all of mine.

We had almost the exact same picks, so just keep that in mind. But for this one, for the favorite, I'll go Adolfo Vieira. Now, I don't say this with a ton of confidence. He's taking on Cody Brundage. I do feel like for all of the challenges that Vieira has had, and they have been noteworthy. If he got stopped in the first round with strikes, you'd be like, oh, yeah, right, that's have been noteworthy. Like, if he got stopped in the first round with strikes, you'd be like, oh, yeah, right.

That's exactly what's going to happen. But at the same time, he should be able to get the takedown, I feel like. He should be able to get potentially the back. This feels like, to me, like there's enough distance in the place where Vieira has the best part of his game that he could still make this work. So I don't feel great about the choice,

but I'm going to go Hidalgo Vieira in this one for my favorite pick. I mean, if he's going to put it back on the tracks, Luke, it's got to be this fight. That's right. I mean, if you can't win here, then your time at this organization is limited. Currently, Brundage a plus 200 underdog against the minus 240 Hidalgo Vieira. Luke, you could argue this could be the biggest win for Cody since he took Amanda Bobby Cooper off the market.

Right? I didn't know that was a thing. I'll have to take your word for it. I have my power couple rankings in MMA on my OnlyPipes later this evening. By the way, cameo.com slash Brian Campbell, your OnlyPipes specialist right here. Log in.

Join me. All right, let's go to my favorite, Luke. I'm going to stay on this UFC Fight Night card. And I'm going to go Juicy J here. Julian Arosa at featherweight. We know what he can do. We know he gets into fights sometimes, Luke, and it doesn't go his way. He's a minus 150 favorite against Fernando Padilla.

It's time for Julian Arosa to get back on the winning track here, Luke. At 33, that lost to Caceres. First round head kick. It snapped a three-fight losing skid. But I think if you look in the totality over his last eight to nine fights, he's seven and two overall. He's made some good improvements. Can he be stopped?

Can he be touched? For sure. But he puts it back on the track, Luke, and gets the win going here. And I'm going to continue in OK Bet to creep up on you because i've got to get you to a jam band concert oh jesus okay we have a bit of a problem am i allowed to pick the same underdog as you uh no you're allowed to you're not you know you're not allowed i've misread the odds god damn it no no you you picked uh um no i got i've mis pick. I've misread the odds. God damn it. No, no. You picked. No, I misread the odds.

I misread the odds. My underdog pick doesn't work. Oh, you're right. You're right. Yeah. How about this, Luke? Can you make a one-time exception and we can have the same one? A one-time exception?

Okay, Luke. But then we're going to have the same main event pick and now the same underdog pick there. I know. But we didn't have a great... I mean, do these Apex fights. I mean, you know. All right, go for it. UFC in name only is really the best way to put that.

So can I go with my underdog pick? I'll switch it up on you. You stick with yours. All right, go for it. All right, so I'll stick with mine. I had it backwards, so I'm going to stick with mine. Mine is going to be Eddie Alvarez over Chad Mendes. Got to be honest, don't feel great about that.

In fact, I think Chad Mendes probably wins outright, but because Eddie Alvarez is the bigger guy and God only knows what's going to happen in a sport like this and in a contest like this, it's worth taking a flyer on him. He's not a substantial favorite according to bkfc odds by the way are always really hard to find but in this place i have them i think it's uh draft kings they've got chad mendez as a minus 140 eddie alvarez is plus 120 which by the way is quite accurate i think in terms of who deserves to be favored but i'll take

a flyer on eddie yeah i was going to go in that same direction. Now I'm switching, but I do think that's a very interesting fight. Chad Mendes has more BKFC experience fresh off his debut win. He might be, you could argue, a little bit fresher overall. And does Eddie have a history of, you know, taking extreme damage and he's able to be hurt? Even in fights that he wins, he's able to be hurt early and rocked hard. I think there's a lot of reason to go, okay, you know, you pick the fresher guy here, but look, that size difference is interesting on sort of leveling off and evening the gap there. I think

it's the same thing in that main event with that size difference where we kind of like, maybe we like Mike Perry. I don't know. We'll see, but he's got that ability to close that gap, even though the size difference is there. I agree with you. I wonder if Eddie can shock us and surprise us here and remind us who he is. Be the bigger man, land big shots, avoid that, go there. Underdog on the fly though, Luke, let's stay in that UFC card. I'm going to go with the Polish power. I'm going to go Punschkis only on this breakfast. Michal, Michael, however you want to say it, Olek Shasek, plus 295 against Kyle Barajo minus 370. Al Ferran's going to have to get this into a brawl, Luke. But if he does, your boy's a little bit wild at times, right, Kyle?

Sort of. Sort of. Not so much on the ground. Not on the ground. He welcomes the chaos, all right? Yes, he does welcome the chaos, yes. We're going to have to see this be a little bit of a street fight here for Olaksevich to get it done. But, Luke, I'm going to lean that way. I'm going to go with this underdog.

Because if I take my natural selection in a lot of these matchups, Luke, you've seen my record. It's under 500. So why don't I just bet against myself? Let's go with the Punschke. All right, for over-under, I'm going to stick with your fight for the favorite. But I'm going to say it uh well your fight for the favorite but I'm gonna say it's gonna go the distance the erosa padilla fight I'm gonna go there on that one um I just feel like erosa is a lot more experienced certainly at this level but they have a similar frame they have a similar fighting style I kind of feel like this one might be all over the place

and as a consequence ebbs and flows. But it probably, there's a good chance it will go the distance by virtue of the fact that there is a little bit of parity here, even despite the experience gap between them. So that's my over-under to go the distance, Erosa Padilla. Well, I'm going to alter on the fly to make up for that late change here, Luke, and go like this on the BKFC 41. Very interesting main event. Luke Rockhold, Mike Perry.

Perry, your betting favorite at the moment. What do you have as odds for that BKFC 41 main event? So for the main event, Mike Perry minus 190, Luke Rockhold plus 160, if you can believe that. Well, look, I'm talking about which fight will go over or under. I'm going to take the over on Perry and Rockhold to go the distance in this fight. Let me put some respect on the size, the combat history of Luke Rockhold.

I do, if I had to pick who would win, I like Mike Perry in this one. This is his sport. This is a matchup. But let's take that size difference and understand that Perry's going to be more about pressure. Do I believe he can be a one-punch knockout threat here? I'm not really sure here in the size difference and understand that Perry's going to be more about pressure. Do I believe he can be a one-punch knockout threat here? I'm not really sure here on the size difference. Even if he wins, I see Rockhold making it to the end of that fifth round. All right.

I'm not sure if I can pick this one for KO or sub because it's not MMA. So if I have to change it, let me know. You've probably broken enough rules, so stick with it, Luke. Stick with it. All right. I just feel like we'd be missing on this when we didn't have a chance to include it in the betting, but I think the fight between Mike Perry and Luke Rockhold is going to end in KO. I'm going to go the exact opposite way. Now I can see Brian's case for why that one might go to

this again. These BKFC fights are weird, man. And though the one with, uh, Mike Perry and then MVP went an extra round after that. So, you know, they can move in really unpredictable ways. But I just feel like Mike Perry's doggedness and Luke Rockhold's susceptibility to a big shot just has this one set up probably for Mike to win. But here's the other part about it. Luke is huge.

And if he can, even at 185, leverage some of that natural size advantage to himself, and Mike Perry is quite hittable, honestly, he could go down too. So I think Perry versus Rockhold ends in KO. We also could see cuts come into this and force an early stoppage, so you never know. Interesting pick there. I'm going to go the same on the idea of how it's going to finish.

I'm going to take a knockout for my pick, but I'm going to go back to UFC. We've got this heavyweight tilt on the six fight main card marcos hogerio de lima against newcomer waldo cortez acosta luke they both um have been in stoppages more often than not before you got two heavyweights looking to bang and make their name i'm gonna take the ko on this one i believe uh i believe cortez acosta is from the dominican republic if I'm not mistaken. There you go. All right. There's not a lot of Dominican male fighters in the UFC.

No, a lot of great shortstops, Luke, but not, you know, a few boxers, but not a ton of MMA stars right there. That's our okay bet head-to-head. We'll see how these things continue and play out. Luke, I didn't want to go too much further without closing on that interesting rock cold Mike Perry fight ultimately how do you think it goes down who gets the advantage here and do you think it leads the winner into something big in that promotion or not

I feel like um the winner here is going to be set up to do something kind of interesting. I tend to think Mike, as I indicated with the betting, I tend to think Mike Perry is going to get that done. And I feel like if Mike Perry goes in there, like, honestly, honestly, Mike Perry's best win in UFC was probably Paul Felder, but that was Felder going up a weight class and it just didn't really work out well for him. I remember covering that fight live and, you know, Felder was talking about how he felt much better at 170, but then when you saw him land cleanly

on Mike, it just didn't have much of an effect. You know, obviously he's a bigger dude, like the power is not going to be the same. And so, you know, that's a nice win by Mike, but if you really think about it, like what's his best win in BKFC, it's definitely MVP. And then you add Luke Rockhold to it. Like, honestly, we're talking about what it means for BKFC. It's one thing. But if Mike Perry goes in here and beats Luke Rockhold,

you could very easily, in fact, I think you'd be required to say his best wins have happened in bare knuckle, not in MMA, certainly over the most high-profile opponents. And in this particular case, one that's much larger than him and was a UFC weight class champion in his prime. I mean, that's a remarkable turn for a guy where his best work was not in MMA. His best work was done in a sort of a composite or competing similar combat sport.

That is amazing to really consider. For Luke Rockhold, I think it would be a lot of redemption redemption a lot of redemption even though mike perry is smaller and whatnot we know he is the underdog heading into this weekend and you know that fight against paulo costa was weird but it wasn't he didn't come out looking great in that one if he comes out here and he has a good jab and he's stinging and he's sticking and he's moving boy that would be that would do a lot to i think restore a his competitive possibilities to make money at age 38 but also like you know what kind of an overall fighter slash to some extent martial artist he actually is yeah yeah that if we're going skill for skill in this particular sport you get why the the betting oddsman lean perry on this one i think luke's gonna have to show us a

lot as much as i'm picking an okay bet for him to ultimately go the distance here which is possible because luke this bkfc thing it is still a little bit weird for anyone who's coming from MMA or boxing as either a fan or competitor and trying to just imagine that it's the same type of fight. You can hurt your fists early. Not everybody knows how to really get the right leverage behind the bare knuckle shots to make them work. Some guys like Mike Perry are like, look, I'm just going to get in your chest and spam you. There's also the potential of using that dirty boxing and the clinching to your favor. It's hard to really know.

Even if Rockhold comes out and establishes a stiff jab and uses his size and can even hurt Mike, is that going to be enough? I don't know. These fights are hard to bet on, but I think Mike Perry is just much better built for this. And I wonder if Rockhold's riding some of his own epiphany from that Costa fight of, you know what, I am a warrior.

Why not? Let's just be that. Is that the best place for him to be right now? Outside of the paycheck, no. I mean, Rockhold's a skilled technician in there. I mean, he can hurt you for sure. He's got great top game. He's got so many parts of his MMA game that are great,

but we're just as shocked as anyone that he's doing this, to be fair, right? You know what I mean? Also, like, here's the other part, too. Like, if you caught early, early Luke Rockhold, this somewhat makes sense. Like, for example, when he fought Jacare for the Strikeforce middleweight title and he won it.

This was just prior, yeah, just prior to their subsequent move to UFC you'll see Rockhold was a dog like in fact Jacare was clearly the much more senior I think well-rounded fighter at that time but Rockhold just had a little bit of that bite down on the mouthpiece and go to him and it made the difference in the end actually and it's why he won I can see why he sees himself that way, given that he has actually performed well in bouts of consequence previously. But that was a long time ago, man.

That was a really long time ago. And the miles have been considerable. And Mike Perry is just not to be trifled with in a format like this, dude. So I appreciate what Rockhold, I appreciate the spirit that he's bringing. I really do, but it's an uphill climb, man. Closing question, because the temperature on Mike Perry, you do have to admit and agree, has turned significantly along with, you know, on par with his own maturation as an adult male.

I mean, it wasn't that long ago that he's knocking out old dudes in bars. Like it was real not that long ago. But it's a different man now. He's a family man. He's got two kids. Did you see the video of Coach Latorre presenting him with the Nike boxing shoes for this fight? Like, he just seems like this happy-ass dude. If he goes out there and beats Luke Rockhold and, like you said, now has maybe the best wins in his career back-to-back in this sport,

is he now fan favorite, Mike Perry?ry like this has been a remarkable public turnaround he might i mean he looks to me like one of these guys who growing up and for a long time maybe didn't have much you know just didn't both material possessions and then also achievements that that boosted his life in a kind of noticeable way I don't know if he had any of those things but now he's got some of those things he's got some decent paychecks he's got some big wins he's got some big fights and he's got a family and he's got love in his life and like you know if your bank account's full and so is your heart it's just hard to be as as angry at the world and kind of like lashing out at it and um whether that will change him as a

competitor i doubt it at least for this particular fight but um yeah i think those changes have made him a lot more approachable a lot more likable and you know the dude wants the smoke in a way that is appealing to fight fans there's a lot to like about this version of mike perry that just wasn't there maybe three or four years ago luke some people now this is getting close to home but some people believe all the words you just said also apply to you after tuki and bc appeared in your life i don't know about bc but definitely tuki okay well there you go hey look let's go quickly not a topic too and keep the show moving. Hey, Nate Diaz. Yeah, we saw him on Have You Seen This Shit on Monday, but this thing won't go away. We remember in the streets of New Orleans after the Misfits boxing card on Saturday,

it was Nate Diaz choking out a Logan Paul lookalike. Subsequently, alternate angles of that video have come out that made it, to be fair, look a lot more like self-defense. Well, Nate Diaz voluntarily turned himself in a couple days ago to the New Orleans Police Department at 7, 10 a.m. Central Time. According to the statement here from Zach Rosenfeld, we continue to look forward to presenting all the evidence and videos that show Nate was acting in self-defense. And that arrest warrant was for suspicion of second degree battery.

And those charges are considered a felony in Louisiana and do carry a maximum potential penalty of up to eight years in prison, quote, with or without hard labor and up to a $2,000 fine. Luke, do you believe here after seeing multiple angles and after really taking stock of the scenario that there is a strong case to make that Nate Diaz was a civilian who acted in self-defense well I'll tell you it's weird in these red states that have the stand your ground laws because that can really change the dynamic significantly it's actually of note that yesterday news broke that Joe Schilling former Bellator kickboxer Bellator MMA fighter kickboxer, one of the better American talents, certainly during my day.

He was granted civil immunity from a lawsuit because he was in two years ago involved in a he knocked a guy out in a bar very quickly. And there's video of it. I'm sure most folks have seen it. And I guess they're standing your ground laws in Florida, obviously. So he was not held criminally liable and then even though he was sued because he was not held criminally liable he was there for given civil immunity since all of it was by according to Florida law above reproach so Joe Schilling felt like he had been done wrong by the media had been done wrong by other actors in the space and that he was utterly exonerated I will tell you watching the tape

you know, it looks like he is the aggressor, but then there's some nuances to it where the guy he knocks out does this in his face right before it. And Joe had, I guess either testified or somehow made it known that he had considered that to be a threat and he exercised on that threat and he was ultimately exonerated.

So these situations can look one way and then be legally handed out another one i don't know enough about the law in louisiana or new orleans in particular about how that's all applied to make a a clear legal claim and i especially thought like i i've known joe shilling for some time and i met his family who are just like legitimately like the sweetest people on earth like really great people and um and so i was worried about him i was worried like i was like dude like it's just not worth the trouble i still hold that to be the case in just about every scenario where mma fighters are getting or you know whatever uh pro fighters are getting into

trouble in public and in nate's case too dude like it's obviously he needs security like real security to can keep him out of trouble, especially now he's out on bond, by the way. So your margin of error is thin at this point. And the Diaz guys roll deep. So I don't know if he'll be exonerated. I certainly hope. But it's just one more reminder that, yeah,

you might get out of this situation. And shouts to Joe Schilling. Congrats to him. He got out of his scot-free. I'm happy for him. I legitimately am. But I still feel like using violence to adjudicate dispute in anything

other than a last resort, it's going to go poorly for you over time. It's going to go poorly. That's not wrong to say. And when you're a professional fighter and you've got them dangerous hands and feet, Luca, you know, that you can classify as dangerous weapons.

That also changes the equation. I do think there's a marked difference from the facts that we do have, though, in comparing the Schilling situation to Nate Diaz. I'm not saying that Schilling wasn't in a spot where there was this drunk asshole harassing everybody and threatening that, you know, violence wasn't, you know, was it needed or was it even close to the conversation? You know, it's hard. You know, we weren't there. We weren't we weren't able to tell. But like some of that instant media reaction of the Joe Schilling thing was sort of like you're, you know, an elite level fighter in multiple disciplines. This is some drunk guy in a bar. Maybe the best thing is to just defuse that, call the cops and not knock him out.

I think when you see all the footage of the Nate Diaz situation and you take into account that it was in a street in which fights were breaking out, this Logan Paul lookalike guy who, oh, by the way, has an MMA background was also coming after Nate as the video shows, like aggressively. And on top of that, you know what Nate didn't do? He didn't pull out a weapon. He didn't throw haymaker punches all around that could have caught people randomly. He subdued the biggest threat in a somewhat efficient way. Now, I know he choked him and then dropped him like, you know, Bones Jones versus Machida and the guy hit his head on the ground. But he also diffused the situation using these, you know, dangerous and elite skills that

he has. And I think that situation was much more volatile and violent. And when you tie that to, there is a culture in the influencer boxing space, as we play these videos often on, have you seen this shit to do ridiculous things, to try to get people to fight you. We've seen that go down from gotcha hat to remember when that radio announcer guy,

Joey B or Scotty B, whatever the hell that guy's name was, he wanted to fight Malinagi really bad. So he kept pouring like shaving cream on his head in public. Remember that guy, Corey B, you know what I'm talking about? And guess what? They ended up having a boxing match to settle that. I feel like in this case, Luke,

this is the same night that somebody that chased him more through something at Nate, that there's already heightened tensions. Can we argue, get security, and maybe even avoid crazy volatile public situations? Yes, I can argue that for anyone that's famous, by the way. I could do the whole, what are you going to gain by being in the club at 2 a.m. when you already have everything? I can do that bit. But I also believe in this case that I think Nate was kind of in the right in that situation.

I mean, a guy with fighting experience is coming at him in a way, right? And Nate just took control of it, defused that guy, put that guy out and moved on. Dude, we expect Nate to like, you know, he's 209. You kind of expect him to like pull out a weapon or start a massive riot. No, he just took care of the situation almost like expertly, like a mature trained person should. I think this is far different from the Schilling situation. Yeah, I'm not saying the two are equivalent,

but the news about him making Bond and then the Schilling resolution in the civil trial came out the same day. So there is a natural comparison just by virtue of the timeline of the reporting. I think your points are well taken. I've seen some of those videos as well. To me, it's not so clear that it's Nate going in there

and acting all crazy in one of these scenarios. To your point, he used situation to diffuse the attacker, dropping him on his head's not great, but it wasn't from the top. It was sort of from halfway. Anyway, I'll just point this out. The amount of risk that these guys expose themselves to. And then because they're capable fighters,

how they want to use that to adjudicate the problem in a world where, and especially in a country that's armed to the teeth with this kind of stuff, I just think is a risk not worth taking 99% of the time. If it worked out for this fighter or that fighter and it might work out for nate because i think your recitation is pretty accurate great great but they don't need to be in situations like that to begin with um all you need is somebody some discretion is some discretion is advised in that way right you get stabbed from behind or something you may never

fight again you may die leandro low how about leowe? This was in Brazil, but they also have, obviously, weapons problems there as well. He gets into some dispute in a club over a bottle, uses it to get his bottle back when the guy takes it, and the guy just ices him right in front of his face.

Now, that's not the same thing as what happened here, which is a little bit more about self-defense versus not, but what I'm pointing out is it's a volatile, deeply unpredictable world, and there are dangerous, stupid people who would

love nothing more than to Lord that over everyone. And problems happen when it does do like it. Leandro Lowe should not be dead today, but he is by virtue of just the world we live in. Some, some appreciation for that, those limits I think is more than prudent. It's necessary at this point. So does fake did fake So did fake Logan Paul press the charges, or was this because the video became so viral that the police department had to press charges? I'm not sure about that part. I actually don't know.

Because you did see a lot of people. Well, certain states, they don't need the victim to press charges. In every jurisdiction, that's not necessarily the case. And when a video gets that viral and it's it's obvious that it's that city i could see them wanting to step up and put that out but i just wonder like this is what this fake logan paul guy wanted he wanted an interaction here he got it there is to some degree still like the play stupid games get stupid prizes thing going on right like

i like well here's the thing the reason why someone was making an argument, it's like, hey, if Conor did this, you guys would be killing him for it. And I'm like, well, there might be something to the idea that Nate gets better treatment from the MMA media than Conor does for his adverse behavior. There's something to that, I think. On the other hand, it's like, dude,

look at who Nate is slapping around and choking out. You know, it's mostly just D-bags like like connor punched an old man in the bar for like no fucking reason like that's a very sympathetic character the problem is like dude if you're i mean the guy's life is he's a fake logan paul like the whole thing is just the saddest shit you ever heard of in your life you know he's lost money on nTs somewhere in his life, right? And probably a lot of money. That's the kind of guy who lost money in crypto for sure. You know, these are not sympathetic characters. It's like these guys, and I saw one of them, the guy Chase Damore, who was involved like on the other side of the street with who knows else

was involved in that thing. And then he puts out a video afterwards like, Nate, I'm coming for you. It's like, guys, why are you trying to fuck with like wild animals? Like, I mean, that's not who they are, but I'm saying it feels like that. For life-changing clout. For life-changing clout and money. Look, you know what's one thing we don't identify a lot? Because the Paul brothers, when they have box, they've tried their best to take it as serious a turn and approach as possible is they still though have that you know next generation social media influencer idea in their head that like anything that happens to me me getting knocked out cold in the ring in front of millions

it's worth it because my life's a movie and look at this crazy thing i just did a lot of guys i think in this era have some of that too, of like, let me film myself getting knocked cold. Right? Like they just want to be a part of that. But also you you're finding out right now that you could get life-changing money and become like overnight famous. I didn't know chase to more was before he got DQ'd over the weekend, Luke, and then threw shit at Nate Diaz. Now he's trying to get himself into a fight where he can make millions for doing that. So you do kind of get it. it you get it I saw I get it on the sense of these guys are just creatures of attention like they're so attention starved that any version of it no matter if it's

unceremonious or totally degrading they'll take it because x some is better than none right so that's the way they go but i just mean to say like i'm here cautioning these mma fighters to stay out of trouble as best they can especially the senior ones who've got some money they can be sued out of on the other side that doesn't mean that they'll do it and these fucking morons these these influencers fucking with real pro fighters not smart super super super super not smart dude one of these guys is gonna fuck one of them up and that's not advisable either i don't commend it recommend it applaud it or anything but these guys keep doing this shit they're gonna get it not everyone is dylan dennis who just takes l's

like that and doesn't do anything about it some of these guys are gonna do something about it it's gonna be ugly all right there you go hey luke let's slide over to topic number three i think it's about time we do a francis and ghanu update uh you know i stood behind him huge and i still do on the idea of the reasons why he walked away from the ufc gave up the heavyweight championship amid debate over a failed negotiation of not just for for more money but obviously for fighter treatment and everything like that. But here we are X amount of months later. And to be fair, the UFC has moved on rather quickly, although it obviously helped that they had John Jones in the bullpen waiting, but that division's turned around into the

future with big matchups coming. Dana White's basically said Ngannou will never fight here again. And Ngannou has still yet to sign anywhere specific, whether that's MMA with the suitors like One, PFL, and or Bellator, and the potential of crossover boxing matches against maybe Tyson Fury or Deontay Wilder or Anthony Joshua. The latest update we do have, though, is Chachri Sidyong Tong, the head of One Championship, caught up with Ariel Hawane this week on the MMA Hour and said, quote, Francis has an X-factor. He's a giant monster. He has a bunch of week on the MMA Hour and said, quote, Francis has an X factor. He's a giant monster. He has a bunch of offers on the table.

He's waiting on our final offer. We have given him, I don't know, my team did it, but I'm going to meet with Francis this Saturday. Luke, I'll quickly throw to some sound. I caught up with the ace himself, the ace hole, Rich Franklin, vice president of one championship and UFC hero. And I did bring up this question about Chachere's comments and about the idea of Francis Tawan. Would you like that? Let's hear from Ace here before we react.

You know, I mean, I'm going to put my fighter cap on here completely. Yeah, you have to, because on the back end, you know, this is the fighter life. I wake up now. Sometimes I have a stiff back, you know, look, this is the fighter life. I wake up now, sometimes I have a stiff back, you know, a little tight here and the neck there from all the years of abuse. And so while you're competing, you know, you have to take advantage of those years and do as well as you can financially. Because once that closes out, a lot of athletes have difficulty reinventing themselves or finding a placement somewhere in the industry or whatever it is they're going to do to make money. And so it's like the more successful you can be with

your finances, the better off you can be down the road because your money makes money for you rather than you having to work. And fortunately for me, I'm a college educated guy and I've been blessed with making good business decisions financially throughout my career, but then post-fight career, I've had a great career with one championship. So, um, things worked out really well for me, but, uh, make no mistake about it. I would not have been complaining had I had another decimal place on the paycheck when I was competing as an athlete. So, you know, when, when there's a fight and people are making money, um, this is, this is coming from a fighter at the end of the day. Uh, you know, if you're going to fight,

you're the one that's going to have the busted up knee or the broken bones or the scar from the stitching and all that kind of stuff 10, 15, 20 years down the road. Not the promoter, not the fans, not anybody else. It's you. Smart. That complete interview. You can check out at youtube.com slash morning combat.

Of course, setting up next week's one debut in the u.s friday night on a prime video luke let's ask the hard question here and that was obviously rich talking about the francis decision in general uh rich also said hey we'd love to have him at one um i'd love to put him in there against the winner of arjun versus uh malik in there which would be an incredible fight um before i get to where he's going and where he should go i do believe the tide has turned publicly for whatever that's worth a lot of people go and see francis that's why we don't bet on ourselves and take chances look you ain't got shit he also hasn't signed yet but as we stand right now has francis and ghanu lost this battle already by choosing to give up the UFC and go on his own?

Or is it still too early to tell? How would it be anything other than too early to tell? Like, I don't even understand the argument. Like, he didn't immediately leap into... Say again? There's a lot of people that are going, you missed Jon Jones. You asked for things that can never be given. And, you know, blah, blah, blah.

So what are you going to do you go sell yourself to boxing go ahead everyone's moved on without you that seems to be that and look i don't i don't engage in that i still think just a bunch of bullshit cling close to that virtue he made a virtue decision let's let it play out first well he made a business decision too i mean even if it was based on values it had business implications and those will wear his head. Listen, we were not blind to the risk he was taking. I think on this podcast, you and I were both saying we really admired his gusto, but it involves some risk. There's real risk, right? And people being like,

oh, you know, we haven't signed anywhere else. Who are you going to fight? Well, there's a reason why it's difficult to find other options. It's because the industry is controlled by a dominant monopoly power and you work outside of that. Yeah, it's going to be hard to get fights. I mean, I think he knew that. A couple of things I would say, number one, to the extent that it was a principled decision and everyone else can make up their mind about it, but to the extent it was one, it's already one that has paid off in the principled sense, right? Where what is the reward of virtue? As Aristotle taught us many, many, many, many moons ago, virtue is its own reward. If your desire is to live according to your virtues, then doing that, no matter the external costs,

is the point. People don't think about it. I mean, these influencers live the opposite kind of lifestyle, utterly principle-free of any kind of dignity or anything else and self-respect. And so they work in the opposite direction. That seems to be the modern way of understanding growth and achievement is the sort of transactionalism that goes with it. So I want to point that out. But the bigger issue is in talking about the business implications, we haven't even begun to see how this is going to play out. The idea that it's already over is moronic. It's not even... Dude, they haven't... He hasn't even caught the ball on the kickoff yet.

Like, we're still in between their touchdown and waiting to punt to the other guy. Like, that's how far back we are. Because the point I'm trying to make here is this. Like, we don't know what Deontay's going to do. We don't know what Tyson Fury's going to do. All he has to do is get one of those fights. One of them, and he will

make oodles and oodles and oodles of fucking money. And it might take some time to do it. I don't know. So we'll have to see on the, on these other side, like if you don't think that these other MMA promotions are trying to like throw cash at him, they absolutely are. He's waiting for his best opportunity. So what I would say is, listen, one more time, let's remind folks, did Francis Ngannou take a big ass risk leaving in the way that he did given the landscape? There's simply no denying it. And he very well may fall from a business standpoint flat on his face. It is far, far too early to tell what that is going to look like. I fully agree with that. And I also think that because he stated outright that boxing would be his

first priority, that's going to be the biggest check most likely he could possibly get. Like you said, that may take time to negotiate maneuver, but he's not going to then publicly sign for the most part, unless a great deal comes in that he can't pass up. He's not going to then announce, Oh yeah,

I also signed with the PFL too. You know, right now he's going to wait. Unlike Jake Paul, Luke, he's going to wait, you know, finish out the boxing part and then move on and go to that side. So there's still time. Now let's talk about the idea of Chachere saying, yeah, we've, we're in the middle of talks and we're going to speak again. Luke, who do you think right now is the clubhouse leader in getting him on the MMA side? And I ask that with the hedge of we haven't received any internal communication. All you hear right now are rumors, but there is some thoughts of the idea that Bellator could be for sale. Could PFL have interest? There are some sort of whispers out there in the universe of what could come.

What do you want for Francis's MMA future and what does that look like so let's talk a little bit about that because I think it's important and I do have a little bit of information regarding that that I've not shared publicly so I'll do it here now there was a report I feel have to forgive me I don't know who put it out there BC that the PFL was you know in the final stages of acquiring Bellator. And I saw that and I was like, because I've talked to some folks who have talked to me about the Bellator sale. Now, granted, it's been a few months since I talked to them.

Maybe not quite that long, maybe a couple of months. And at the time, that was not really in play. That was not what I was told. I circled back to some of them when this report came out and what they told me that, here's the quote that I was given premature. They didn't say it was wrong. They didn't say it was false. And I got to tell you, a PFL Bellator.

Coming together, there are downsides to that, I mean, because it creates yet more consolidation in the market. On the other hand, in terms of creating a, not a legitimate competitor, but a secondary organization that can put on very meaningful fights, that narrows that gap significantly. That's a huge change in the industry. If those two joint forces are made one league, true or false, that has the potential to be even more of a power move in the competitive global mma space than when strike force launched the heavyweight grand prix oh okay yes and no yes in the sense that they would have a roster that would put them in a very elevated place better than strike force's roster relative to ufc which we know and and turned out the grock hold became a champ.

DC became a champ for BCO became a champ. A lot of guys became champ. Although Fabrizio obviously had a previous dent in UFC before that, but, um, you get the idea. Like a lot of guys ended up doing really well. Um, I think it would surpass that. The only difference is that the UFC controls much more of the industry now relative to when Strikeforce was around. But I do think it would be, I would call it a game changer.

It would be a game changer if PFL and Bellator became one organization. I don't know if that's going to happen. I don't know if they're going to buy certain rights to it. Who the hell knows what all this is going to end up looking like in the end. But if they were to become a single organization and you combine those rosters, you'd have something going then. You'd have something pretty special at that point, which would put one on the outside looking in.

Because listen, does one even have a heavyweight division? Aside from Malikin and aside from Buller, can you name two or three other one heavyweights? Like you really can't. And then here's the interesting part about it. Brandon Vera sometimes? Yeah, but I think think he's retiring and here's my point i like francis to beat buller probably without much issue yeah he probably beats malikin too malikin might win that one malikin is i i'm telling you he's the most underappreciated guy in mma today in terms of what he's achieved and how much fanfare he's got on the back

end. Malikin is a fucking hammer and a half. He can wrestle dynamite ground and pound. He is in your face from the word go. Dude, he's a problem. So Francis probably beats him, but that's not an easy fight. But after that, what are you going to do? It's like a tough challenge that nobody knows. I mean, I guess they could have Francis doing some Muay Thai with four-ounce gloves, which is also kind of fucking terrifying, but you get my point. If I'm him, I'm waiting to see if these two forces consolidate, if a boxing opportunity emerges, because that then puts you in some really good options.

Right now, it's not really that situation. That would be a welcomed change. Certainly not under the idea of, like's bring the ufc down you know this topic comes up in the pro wrestling space when i used to work in luke of like you know everybody wants whether it's aew or japan everybody wants this like everybody wants a head-to-head war because it's the best for competition at the end of the day whether that's wCW versus WWE. In 2013 in boxing, there was an HBO versus Showtime war in terms of, like, rosters and making big fights, and it was great for fans.

That's what we want in MMA. We want constant competition. We want guys to be able to become big-name free agents and get huge money in doing so. And you want, yeah. Here's the only thing i worry about though with that is the only thing i said this to you before like bellator and again who the hell knows what this is all going to look like in the end right but if they did consolidate i would worry about

the mma marketplace a little bit where pfl is going to want not everything that bellator has if they can end up purchasing them they're going to want the higher end version of what they have which would still create a very dynamic organization the best number two sense strike force i can say that right yeah pretty comfortably um but it's going to ice out a certain portion of the market that some of these fighters rely on and i don't know who's really going to fill that except for like decidedly regional level mma again it would be good in certain respects it'd be bad in other ones um but there are yeah so i'm glad you brought that up because there is that other side of it and there are people that are like man you just

want to see ufc or you know wwe go down that's why you're cheering for a competitor the idea though of of having strong competitors in the marketplace when there is no setup for interleague play so to speak that does create more division though so do you think that's the pulse of the fan that's the pulse of me after years of covering this business and you know you want to see competition for various reasons but do you think the general fan at home wants anything to do with that or they just want the best fighters in the world to be under the brand they trust that they tune into every saturday candidly i think most fans up to this point have been quite content with the warm blanket of monopoly um if i can just be totally honest with you it would take something dynamic you know it's funny everyone everyone has a lot of like

really glowing things to say about oh remember the great days of strike force and they were like strike force held a very preeminent spot but dude i remember when strike force was around and gilbert melendez couldn't get media coverage i remember when strike force launched the heavyweight grand prix and everyone panned it everyone was like yeah it's not that great, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It turned out to be like it had some issues with Fedor and Overeem never meeting, but produced Daniel Cormier, and this match with his fight with Josh Barnett was incredible. I mean, it was just this amazing.

I don't remember people shitting on that, Luke. I remember being insanely excited that they might have something over the UFC right now. Dude, I mean, yes, it's mixed. It's always mixed. It's never one or the other. But what I'm telling you is I know a lot of media outlets and and fans had a harsh and negative view of any non-UFC promotion for reasons that can only be described as you're just not them not because there's anything wrong with the product they just

didn't have that halo over them and it affected them no no that is a real fact in reality so i speak for myself not for the fans luke because fair enough don't you remember jay larkin remember jay larkin from um the boxing business yeah yeah he went over to mma initially i think with the ifl and he thought he was going to have some grand ideas about how to reshape the industry and he came across prior to his unfortunately untimely death and Jay Larkin was like no no no they just love Monopoly they don't love anything else it's a waste of time you know

it's sobering to hear something like that but it's quite real. MMA fans love Monsopsony like most people like Cunnilingus Luke right you know what I mean you just said nothing in the english language i just want to point that out all right all right uh do you have uh to close

on francis um are you expecting a decision soon or no no no unless unless unless there's like movement around him in an unexpected way but short of that no all right topic for luke quick roundup of recent fight news involving huge names does it get any bigger than israel adesanya your middleweight champion once again but what he revealed now was that he was injured ahead of ufc 287 in the rematch with israelineda. In fact, Luke, a grade one MCL tear of his knee and strained ligaments were the damage he carried into the cage. And I believe we have a video related to this.

This is wild. Yes. Another one. He just, because he knew, he was like, fuck, I got to get him down. And look how it, let's slow it down. Damn. Damn.

Fuck, that was painful. It's okay, it's okay. I just don't want anyone to freak out. That looked bad. I mean, look, when it was revealed after Habib finished off Gaethje to close out his career, that, oh yeah, by the way, I had like a broken foot and all these other physical ailments on top of, you know, risking my unbeaten record in my final fight against a guy who may or may not have been one leg strike away from putting him in peril.

It is a manly thing, Luke, to reveal after the fact, after a win, we would call it an excuse if you did it, you know, after a loss. But do you like this new trend of just, you know, being like, oh, yeah. And by the way, I could barely even get I could really stand. I mean, I'm personally never surprised. I've seen these guys go in there with bonkers injuries you would have just never thought of. And remember, like, I've been covering MMA since before

even accidental insurance was introduced, in which case guys would always hide injuries and then use the fight to then get medical care. I've been like, oh, my knee tore in the fight. Meaning it, you know, when in reality, a tour a month before,

and they just need to get it paid for. And they otherwise don't have insurance. I remember those days a lot, you know, and to see the days are still around. Did you see TJ Dillashaw's last fight? Okay. Yeah.

Well, that's a little bit different. I mean, he just decided to go forward in a really medically inadvisable way, but when he didn't have to but the what i'm trying to point out here is you still see it obviously for different reasons where guys have to conceal injuries one more time dude the real takeaway for me from that fight was the insane mental fortitude that izzy had to do that i don't know if we ever talked

about the fight together on on the air um dude one of the most remarkable acts of self-belief in athletics you will ever ever see that was true when we thought he was 100 healthy to keep that mindset when you have the injury knowing what the game plan is just takes it to the next level it will be 20 30 40 years and i mean this before you see someone who takes your breath away with their mental fortitude in a moment of consequence and dire consequence in the way that he did un-freaking-believable by the chance you know you know i can't miss a chance to do an mma show and either talk about Gastelum or Adesanya and not bring it back to UFC 236 in Atlanta, Luke, with me with the orange hoodie on. Were your pants around your ankles in Atlanta when that fight happened?

Because I'm really beginning to wonder about you. I will say this. There was like a long delay after that fight before the press conference. And then Izzy finally came out. And if you can remember, his face, Luke, was grotesquely swollen. His speech was off from having to talk like that. And I remember there was a feeling I felt from the end of that fifth round all the way to that press conference of like, we knew Adesanya was great. Like we knew what he's good at, he's great at.

But dude, we had no reason to know or believe he could go through war like that and be so willing. And then you find out after the fact what he, you know, what he voiced to Gastelum from across the cage to start round five. And it's just, I remember having that feeling of like, holy shit, this guy is like, he's here for it. Like he's here for all of it. Like he is exactly who you need to be to become exactly who we think he has a chance to possibly become. It's not that he hasn't done awesome things since then, but this was the first time that I had that same feeling of like, there's an alien walking amongst men here. And like, I mean, he had to dig deep to overcome everything associated with the rivalry and where it was at that point. And the public stigma now of, you know, going from love to suddenly, Hey, and, and, and, and I know it's not really, Hey, but you get my point more. Although he probably does. They probably do see a lot of, Hey, he seems like somebody who gets in the trash talk with the audience,

Luke gets involved in it and, you know, builds memes against it. But when you go into a like career defining celebration that began almost as if he followed through on the knockout strike and then instantly his body just morphed into like you know like in fortnight when you hit that emote that emoji button like that shows that it was real and it came from something deep like a you know deep cries out to deep, man. He had to dig deep to get himself mentally in a spot to be able to deliver that. And I was glad that he did

and that we were able to see that celebration. Now, did you see that celebration, Luke? All memed up now, there's like 50 versions of it with like video game overlays. It's insane. It really is insane. What's really remarkable is he shoots three arrows and then breaks the uh you know the the the pantomimed bow over his knee he later said he

didn't even mean to do that on purpose it was just his spirit guiding him the one for the three losses and then the rivalry's over when he breaks it over his knee like that really just remarkable and it tells you something man like people haven't seen the sugar rashad evans rsd which i'm telling you is the best one we've ever done in my view in my in my opinion in my opinion it's the best one we've ever done and it's in part in almost totality i should say by virtue of rashad's willingness to talk about his life but to talk about not just his strengths and accomplishments which we do but his fears his not just his strengths and accomplishments, which we do, but his fears, his doubts, his, his failures and all that in between. And when you begin to realize how heavy all of that stuff weighs on you, not just the losses, but the expectation, the knockout loss himself, right? Cause he got knocked out by Machida and here he got, well, he didn't like

the stoppage, but he was really hurt obviously obviously, in the first MMA fight against Podeta. And then to just find a way to come back from that in the authoritative manner by inviting contact. I mean, it is – I wish I was a poet. I really do. I don't have the words to frankly describe what you're looking at there, but it is the rarest, the rarest of human triumphs in terms of spirit and commitment to one's like, I mean, cause here's the thing, dude, like when things go wrong, I don't know how you feel, but I began to feel like, okay, it went wrong for a reason. And the reason is I'm bad at this. I can't do this. I did it wrong. I something is wrong with me, something I can't fix in many cases. And again, I began to get down about it.

He never got so down about it that he ever lost hope for a win. In fact, he was quite confident through all of that difficulty, through getting finished twice. It's just an absolute inversion of what you expect a human to be able to do. Superhuman really is the best way to describe that. It reminds you, or at least it reminds me that like okay this sport we're in we're lucky enough to be in this spot in our jobs because we love these sports so much but like we love the out of this at the same time and and i don't know look it's hard to like we try not to get too close to the fighters you

know i don't we don't become friends with fighters for the most part there's a mutual respect sometimes there's guys that are mk cool and they'll even wear our merch and that's great luke but like at the end of the day to me like you follow these fighters close enough they're human they're real people luke probably wouldn't like most of their politics but there is a reason that this is my favorite sport and i have so much reverence for them. It's that they are able to tap into almost a superhuman level of inspirational living and feats within the sport that touch so close to life and death and, and, and the real things that I get inspired by being around them doing inspiring things. That's why, you know, the Edwards knockout of Usman

with the John Anik call on top of it, or Peña, you know, just willing herself past Nunes. Like, there's times when you just drop everything and go like, man, that's more human than it is prize fighting right there. And I really appreciate those moments because if you get caught in the other side of it, Luke, and you follow what these fighters say a lot

and, you know, things they do, I mean, they are just like us, Luke. They are just like one of us. But they have an opportunity to put on a cape every once in a while, and I'm here for that. Okay? I am, really. By the way, our producer, Mikey Mormyle,

says the Sugar Rashad Evans RSD Tuesday. Boys and girls, mark your calendars. That one is not to miss. I mean, he's going to tell you a story about a conversation he had with randy couture the night before the chuck liddell fight that if you haven't heard it it's it's just ridiculous damn damn all right love that right there oh look quickly uh adesanya then went down on the uh on that monster logo in the center of the cage and you know that the monster logo has long been by conspiracy theorists uh talked about

being the the 666 in hebrew right the monster signal upside down and uh what did adesanya do he like crossed it out and pissed on it right luke you know like representing jc you know what i mean like was that a little bit too much because brock lesnar tried that once in that in the great course but light debate and dana had him uh you know running back to the microphone quickly to apologize yeah i don't know about any of this stuff but it sounds real stupid all right luke okay okay this man's firm in what he believes in all right yeah yeah he is but i don't think it's anything to do with some dumb ass conspiracy theory that someone who has never read the bible or any has any real genuine understanding of it thinks that that's i mean it's just not it's just it's it's nonsense for

juggalos basically yeah you might be surprised look okay you might be all right so quit your fight career and uh start comedy there you go uh, it's interesting that he did that so publicly and that everyone's like, yeah, let's just forget that didn't happen. We'll just move on. There are some deep thoughts on that. It's interesting. Also, I'm ready to move on from that. He's about to kill Whitey if DDP upsets.

Hold on. Now, I missed this. People were asking me about this. So did he get super racial in that video? So basically, people have gone back to the original comments from Duplicy and the context around them. And while those comments can certainly be misread that started this whole thing, there's now a retroactive belief that like he really didn't make it racial. He was just talking about like, you know, I'm from Africa and I'm the and he didn't say that the other guys weren't real Africans. He was basically saying,

I'd like to get in the cage with you and find out who the real African champion is. I'm not defending him. I'm saying that's the now backlash around the horn from people are going like, okay, he didn't necessarily take it there. And now Adesanya is like, kill Whitey. I mean, we are getting like, this is getting kind of gross. Like Luke, even if I'd be cheering for Whitaker, if I just, if I'm UFC, I'd have Hamzat weigh in seven pounds over and just switch this main event again, Luke.

I'd just switch it. I'd just get him out of here. I only saw the first 20 minutes of his podcast because I just don't have time to watch, unfortunately. But I was asked about it yesterday without having seen it, so I don't really know what to say except, you know know you can make fun of whitey and no one really cares i guess is really the answer i don't i don't make the rules uh i'm not necessarily fighting that battle either i just kind of i don't like any element of this fight in what it's been dipped in whether i'll just say

the weird part is this it's just it's it's not the same analogy at all because it doesn't work. But it'd be sort of weird if one of us went up to a Native American guy and said, let's see who's the real American. It's like, I don't know if you can do that that way. I see what DDP is trying to do. He's trying to be like, listen, born here, live here. I represent this place. It means a lot to me. I love it.

I don't want to be anywhere else. I want to call myself an African champion or whatever. That seems utterly reasonable. It seems totally reasonable. Do you think he would play Sun City, though? You know what I mean, Luke? I don't get that joke. Do you remember in the 80s, a lot of musicians were going to South Africa, but they were getting paid essentially in apartheid.

Oh, right. John McEnroe refused. John McEnroe refused to play over there. They put out like a We Are The World style song that was like, ah, ain't going to play Sun City. And then all these people went and played anyway and got a lot of money. Luke, but you think DDP would play Sun City city that's really what we're what we're trying to define yeah i don't know i don't want to i don't want to make i don't want to i don't want to say

i don't know but i'm just sort of pointing out like i get where he's coming from but you know even if you don't make it racial the fact that he is the descendants of colonists automatically introduces race like it just becomes a thorny issue to try and push he hasn't accomplished what he the opportunity he's getting here if it beats whitaker dude obviously that changes everything but but what are we doing here what are we doing in general ufc i mean can we have a talk please one-on-one offline me and the ufc luke uh let's keep the updates going here's arnold allen um he's not going to be on UFC London.

He caught up in studio with Ariel and he said, after the max fight, I'd like to have a reset. And it is quite soon, meaning the London card. I'd like to go in 100% physically, fix everything. Because the last few camps when I fought Hooker, I was coming off a broken hand and it wasn't healed. Then they offered me cater and I was like, all right, let's go. And then he damaged it and it became obviously that it wasn't healed after that. Blah, blah, blah. He would go on to explain it deeper. But Luke Arnold Allen, hand injury, not going to be around anytime soon.

What I want to know from you is because you and I never got a chance to talk about that fight either. And I was super freaking impressed with Max. Super, Luke, because I respect how good Arnold Allen is. But there was a backlash on top of the backlash from folks that were like, hey, hey, you white belt piece of shit, BC. Max actually looked old and a little bit compromised in that. It's that Allen really ain't that good. I mean, Luke, some of our fans have some wild opinions

that they tossed back at me with. That was a real thing you got? Oh, I got that a lot. I wouldn't have mentioned it if I didn't get it a lot, but I, I wanted to, I wanted to take your temperature on the stocks of Holloway and Allen coming out of that.

Okay. So, so did Max look as fresh as he's ever looked? No, no, I don't think you could. I mean, the guy's been through some shit,

but given what he has been through and given what he was able to do in this fight, it was a remarkable achievement. Absolutely blowing well past what I thought was going to be possible. And I'm sure I'm not alone in that regard in terms of people having some concerns related to damage and age,

not like numerically, but miles. And I do think that Arnold Allen didn't fight his his best fight he obviously turned it up in the fifth and that was a really good one dude arnold allen is an excellent fighter and um he's gonna fight for a title look he's gonna he probably will fight for a title at some point he is world class there's just no denying it i mean if your takeaway was max isn't good anymore, he's old, and also Arnold is not good, your takes are shit. Maybe their takes were more like. They're what Barbas ate at 2.30 in the morning last night.

I'm just going to put that out. Well, maybe it was the recycled puke after eating his own recycled puke that they're mentioning here. Maybe they thought, okay, BC, don't jerk him off, though i i did get like old jordan vibes there luke it was like a a an adaption to where he's at mentally and physically at this age but leaning on the experience and figuring out how to outdo a younger guy who was like on the move and coming up yes so like to your point is he using some of the other skills that he's earned over time that aren't the same kind of physical skills for example that he used to kind of just bulldoze

past jose aldo not once but twice stopping him both times yes there probably is something to be said for that but that still makes him dangerous that still makes him like he was like in control of that man you know right right so my point being is yeah is max a little bit older than he once was in a way that is noticeable fine he probably he probably is but the trade-offs there seem fairly minimal in terms of what he gains in experience and how to fight appropriately and then uh you know he's not the same physical thing but it still makes him a very difficult level to beat right so all right, as the almighty rest of Luke, he's close him in for us, the hobby.

They've, they've got something going there. Certainly you could have liked introducing the new mix spicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. Mix spicy. Consider yourself warned.

Limited time only at participating mcdonald's in canada foot on the gas a little bit more at times but i always can counter that look max was on the move it was hard to catch up to him what would you alter what would you work on would you go back in the gym with pacer and be like inject me with whatever you got pops okay because i would have but what would you work on here luke uh i think his issue is going to be volume and pressure he's got a style that is i would say more naturally suited to counter fight and it's perfect for that because he's got a little bit tank davis style a little bit like not a lot of high output doesn't get hit too much kind of waits for good opportunities and then begins to put it on now that the hooker fights obviously a little

bit different but hooker was in a weird one 45 pound weight class. He shouldn't have been in at that point. So, you know, that's fine. And the cater fight, unfortunately we didn't get a great answer on either, but he looked pretty good up until that point.

But in general, I think that what you saw in that fifth round is when he is a driving force with high output, dude, he's a hard guy to deal with. Max had real problems in that fifth round trying to deal with it. Now, that's not the game plan for every fighter. What I'm saying is he needs that gear more readily accessible.

He needs that gear, something he can dial up relatively easily without waiting until fifth round theatrics to get to it. If you want to still have that natural, I'm going to wait and see what I'm doing style. Fine. But when the, when the time calls for you to press on the gas, I think he's got to be able to switch gears much more quickly and much more

easily. And if he does, he's going to be a really hard guy to be. He is because his understanding of, of technique. I mean, like when he had that big rush in the second round, for example,

against max two, that was some really creative footwork feints to get in and weave in and set up those combinations. He obviously has monster power. I mean, he would have hurt and dropped a lot of other fighters with some of those single shots he was hitting Max with. But, you know, it's weird. His actual boxing movement reminds me of Carlos Adamas a lot, you know, the middleweight secondary title holder, who is a southpaw, doesn't throw a lot of punches, but when he gets you hurt with one of those sniper shots, he suddenly becomes a maniac and is coming after you

and walking you down because there was something to the idea of when he did step on the gas, you did see Arnie have some success there, even though he had to take chances and be able to be hit by Max. I will tell you something. Again, this was brought to my attention yesterday and I wasn't aware of it. Apparently, like there was, I guess there are some people in the industry, how do I say this? Or fans and media alike. So this is not one or the other where they're just kind of tired of Max. You know, someone was bringing it up to me and I was

like kind of shocked to hear it. And now that you're saying some of this, maybe I shouldn't be so shocked. It seems to me that what's really happening here, or at least one other element in play that you could not dismiss, is that Max is a very inconvenient role or playing an inconvenient role in that division, which is not letting them turn all of their attention to Volkanovski and whatever else he's going to do. He's still kind of there, and I think they view that as like a nuisance to the cleanliness of how divisions are supposed to be ordered.

I mean, to the point about Izzy, right? First ever two-time UFC middleweight champion. Up until him, when you lost the belt, fucking you didn't get it back. That's true. He has reintroduced himself, and what has it caused? You're like, Drigas Duplicy versus Whitaker? Are we going to have to fucking do a third Whitaker? It makes matchmaking difficult.

Dude, Max makes matchmaking at 145 difficult because of the role that he plays, but that's not a reason to dismiss his ability. That's not a reason to dismiss the danger he poses. That's just a different question about the danger he poses that's just a different question about how you deal with someone in that position look they're not going to do it but if the UFC suddenly announced that Adesanya defends next against Hamzat Chemaev and is in his like I guess official middleweight debut although not really um do you think that uh

that would be welcomed by the by the fan base and not questioned or criticized just because it's such a great fight. It'd be questioned or criticized at first and then utterly welcomed. Yeah. Yeah. It'd be welcomed. It would be spectacular. All right,

let's keep the updates going. How about Yuri Prohotska? He gave up his light heavyweight title and watched Jamal Hill scale that mountain. Here's an update talking to low kick MMA. My shoulder is great. I'm working on that every day. Last month we did amazing work. That's why I'm so happy for that. Everything's an update talking to low kick MMA. My shoulder is great. I'm working on that every day. Last month we did amazing work. That's why I'm so happy for that. Everything's

going smoothly. Uh, I expect step-by-step to be back at the end of the summer, September, something like that. Now it's April. I think I need to finish rehab and make great preparation for four more months. And, uh, he's going to practice, practice, practice and see how he feels. Also, he was asked about Alex Pineda moving up to 205 after losing to Izzy. He said, that's a nice standup style guy, a lot of skills. And I'm looking forward to be seeing him in our division because he is high. He is high. He's well, he might be high. I mean, hope he is. He's very good for our division. Good feeling in his movement. Good timing. Maybe he means he's high level. Anyway, he says he's a good warrior and he'd like to see him. Luke, this was weird. Prochaska just like willingly gave up the title and then was like, I'll be back sooner than you guys think. Like, I'm not even removing him from pound for pound consideration like you would if a guy's been, you know, off for a full year's like no i'm gonna be back like real soon what does the future of this division look like then in terms of scheduling i don't know i mean here's the thing i think that he was wise to his future when he

initially got evaluated and when he initially got evaluated like yeah you're not coming back anytime soon so i appreciate that he didn't fuck around and then give it back. And then, of course, during the parts of rehab, he feels like he can come back stronger. You know, it's kind of funny about that. A buddy of mine had a similar surgery to me in a similar time frame and was able to get back much quicker. I think he was back fully capable within like seven months, something like that, which is very, very fast on that timeline. Mine was about a year before I felt like myself again. So, you know, I can understand why he's in a different position now and feels like, okay, this is great, blah, blah, blah.

By the way, did you see that video of him hitting mitts like way out here? Didn't inspire confidence, if I could be honest. I don't know if he was just doing a thing where it was like he was trying to see what his end range was or whatever. But, dude, I'm excited about him coming back back I'm excited about Pereira at the top I'm excited to see what's going to happen with on Kalia I'm going to I'm excited to see what life is still left in Blahovich none of these guys have this transcendental purpose or this transcendental you know stature in the sport okay fine that's not really the situation that we're in but

there's a lot of fun permutations between them I should say among them i'm here for bro i'm here for it i'm here for the parody i'm here for the circus let's get these guys together and see what happens yeah i'm here for poet on jumping into this pool my only question is does ufc wait four years return to then schedule him against jamal hill as as the new champion against the one who never lost it. Or only if the timing works out, only if the timing works out, then who do you debut Poetan against? Cause if that's like uncle,

I have, that's like, wow. Welcome. Okay. Welcome. Well, you can do Blachowicz still a tough,

that Polish power is real. Luke. That's dude. It's all real. I mean, don't get me wrong. Like, you know,

it's out of the frying pan into the fire. Sure. That we do it that is true um hey luke is there still life for another one of my favorite fighters remember that guy is a 115 strawweight fighter yeah well that's interesting uh luke i'll say this kelvin gastel and we've long said it he loses to the elite in a way that could suggest that I guess what 31, that he still could be elite. But what about the idea of going back down to welterweight where he was never able to consistently get on weight? Well,

Luke ESPN Deportes is Carlos Contreras. Legaspi reports that Kelvin told them he's coming back to welterweight and that UFC executives have agreed with the move and they expect a fight in september he also said he will work with dana white's personal nutritionist to make the move luke you've seen dana why he is shredded ab wise have you seen this yeah but the guy he's got the guy he's got who by the way and let me here's a here's a heads up for everyone out there yeah if someone identifies themselves as a biohacker they're stealing your money just very clearly want to

put that out there okay what if they identify as a lord or a laird they they are also stealing your money dude that's gonna be my new i'm gonna make a i'm gonna make a social media handle called lord biohacker yeah and then i'm and then i'm going to make a, I'm going to make a social media handle called Lord biohacker. And then I'm, and then I'm going to have like a crypto coin. I just steal things from. That's fantastic. Wow. Luke, can he regenerate?

Can he find a second life where his power will be bigger, but he probably should wrestle more too. Luke, let's be honest here, right? I mean, here's the thing, dude. It's like, first of all, I feel bad for Chris Curtis. Cause I don't know if we ever talked about that I feel so bad for him because he got headbutted KO'd and had to wake up and then lost a fight and then it shouldn't have gone that way so I feel bad for him but you know to your point Kelvin Gastelum looked pretty good in that fight but here's the thing dude at middleweight has he ever except for the Izzy fight has he ever just been like wow man

like when has he been like consistently fight over fight really wowed you? It just doesn't happen. Like, he and his frame doesn't even look like it fits at 185. And I know, I know he's had a million issues making 170. But if there is an actual way, if, if, if there is an actual way to do it, I think he's much better suited at 170 pounds and would vastly prefer to see him there. Would you also agree, though, that there are levels to nutrition and understanding how to execute it? Remember when Joanna used to say, just for example, that I want to have kids one day, staying at 115 might actually kill me. And then she stayed at one 15 and, and, and got a new nutritionist and did it

a completely different way. And, and I guess, you know, a healthy way. And it's been able to do that a bunch more. Um, if you're, I mean, look, I, I do, I am surprised sometimes that even at the highest level that sometimes this, this stuff does slip through the crack or you're not doing it, or you've always done it this way or whatever, like, couldn't this markedly change him? I want to show you something. There's these guys I really like. In answer to this question, here we go. Let me show this to you guys. This dude.

You ever seen this dude? Let's see if we can get him on the screen here. Here we go. Jordan Sullivan is his name. He goes by the underscore fight dietitian. So this guy is Izzy's dietitian, Leon Edwards, Volkanovski. So he's three UFC champions. When have you ever seen those guys, anything other than on weight and ready to fight full five rounds? You've never seen anything other. This dude, again,

Jordan Sullivan, his name, the underscore the fight, or excuse me, the underscore fight dietician. He's verified. He's got about 100,000 followers on Instagram. Can't recommend him more. To your point, these guys, it's so amazing to me. You know what's something we bring up all the time? It's not related to nutrition in any capacity. We're always like, how do these rich athletes end up with these really shit tattoos? It's like, dude, you have all the money in the world to afford a better one.

Why don't you get one? Because they just don't know any better. It's the same thing with nutritionists in many case. You have all the money in the world. Why are you paying for subpar care? You need to be getting guys who have proven results, who have academic or otherwise important certifications, who understand the human body,

who understand the weight cutting, rehydration, every part of that process, what nutrients you need on what time, on what schedule, how much weight you can cut, when you can cut it, what methods you can cut by. You need that. That's what you need. Those guys exist. And so many fighters, I have seen good ones. In fact, think that they're going to use some old school method or some, you know, my wife makes all my meals and it's like, oh my fucking God, guys. You need a pro to handle this if you want to succeed at the highest level.

Get one. This dude, I'm not paid with him. I don't have any. I follow him on Instagram like anyone else. I don't have any other relationship with him. And if he's busy. That dude is a beast. Chef KAS, Luke, okay? That's what I'm talking about Instagram like anyone else. I don't have any other relationship with him. And if he's busy, that dude is a beast. Chef K-A-S, Luke, okay?

That's what I'm talking about. That's right. He'll show up with weird shit to attach to himself glowing for no fucking reason. He lives the life. Chef Cass lives that life. He might ejaculate in your land, Yeager. Who's to say? All right.

Wow. Wow. I did not endorse that half of that message there. But shout out to Aaron from Washington State. If he's still listening to us, love that guy. yeah luke i you know i also wonder too well jorge mazdal's 2019 was certainly an extreme scenario of somebody who had been established for a long time at a certain level who then figures it out it doesn't just have one great fight but like can put it together for a year and a half let's say and be the best they've ever been. Sometimes Luke, and I don't know Gaslam close enough. I'm not in camp with

him. Sometimes is it just that, like, you know, we've seen this at every level in every sport, some athletes coast on their athleticism, for example, or basically have they given their all. And sometimes people haven't figured out how to fully give their all. And some of it is the education of training and nutrition and everything we're talking about. Like it all comes together. Mindset too. It's all got to come together. But sometimes you can see somebody stumble into, okay, now is the time I have nowhere else to go. No chances left. Like, let's figure out how great I can be. If he cuts this down a healthy way and, you know, dials into, let's say, a work ethic he's never seen before, I do wonder what he looks like at welterweight. Can he make

some fun fights happen? He's going to be a threat. Dude, he had to make his striking during the fights in which it was looking very good, and I know he's been streaky, but dude, he really worked on that striking to be able to last in that division against bigger fighters, Luke. Having the power, the quickness, starting in and out. He's got skills. It's never really been his issue. He's got skills. Sometimes he's put it together better than others. But in general, I think he's got things where if he can get to 170, and to your point, not just get to the scale, but compete at 170 in a reasonable way, I think he can make some noise.

I really do. I think he can make some noise i really do i think he can make some noise maybe he needs the captain el barra scene or does he already work with him luke i don't even know who kelvin works with um he is at arizona right now right so he's with those guys yeah okay so all right well hey hey Luke, let's find out also about Max Holloway's future. He talked to Ariel about the idea, long rumored, talked about, whispered, of a move up to 155. Max says 100% that it will happen, but he doesn't necessarily know when. Obviously, he's waiting to see the fallout of Volkanovski versus Yair. Luke, Yair Rodriguez's victory and the idea of a Max Holloway title rematch could alter the future of Max's career over the next couple of years, that result. So I understand why he's waiting here.

What do you think, though, is best suited? I mean, best suited, I think, is Volkanovski goes, you know what, win or lose, I'm done with this division. I'm going to lightweight. I'm chasing Islam. Again, that opens the door again for Max. But what do we do if Volk stays, dude? What the hell do we do here?

You don't have a choice. You're eventually going to have to do a fourth fight. That's it. Oh, you're not saying go to lightweight, Max? I thought you were going to say, Max, I'm sorry. You have to go to lightweight. And you can just take, you know, there's a lot of fun older names. He could fight the Poiriers again, the Gaichis, like that level, Chandlers.

Nah, he still wants that championship smoke and i'll tell you what i mean again whether by hook or by crook if you're beating guys like arnold allen over the course of five rounds i can see why you think you might be capable of holding gold in that division like only championship level fighters are going to beat arnold allen period right like uh so so here's what would change the equation if Yair wins but here's the problem if Yair wins Yair's gonna have to win twice right he's gonna have to slide Max in there they love Max man UFC loves Max you want to know why because he's a modern day folk hero Luke I'm not saying I agree with it or like it but we've gotten to a place in MMA today where if you beat someone who is forget about the championship which yes is relevant obviously but more to the conversation

is the pound for pound number one guy or perceived to be pound for pound number one guy by many people if you beat that guy you're going to have to beat him twice it's just just the way that it's been going okay but there are factors there are factors that lean either way. Like for example, Whitaker was not allowed to slide in after Poetan stopped Adesanya, even though we all could have been, would have accepted it. Not necessarily because of Adesanya star power or rain, even though those were probably part of the equation because he was in the midst of this great rivalry. The rivalry in this case would be on the flip side. If Yair wins, dude, UFC knows that Yair versus Volk too is going to be there,

but you could welcome in a new chapter in the Max versus Volk rivalry that could completely change it. And that's potentially Max coming in as defending champion against the only guy that's been able to handle him in this division who's coming off of losing his belt. You know mean like i'd rather set up that because how many losses does alexander volkanovsky have in in the ufc at 145 uh zero zero and you need to tell me that the first person who puts one on there is gonna just do it and then move on to something else but it would lean in the idea of if we could make max volk for not only viable but needed the best way to do that is to take a chance on max who just showed us against alan that he's still that dude with a bullet right now he's different but he is still that dude and like you said he is

not going to stop trying to be the best he can be. That would make that fourth fight a lot bigger, wouldn't it? It could. Here's another X factor you should keep an eye on too. Ilya Toporia. Ilya Toporia, I think, is destined to be a spoiler one way or the other. Now, he's got a fight against Josh Emmett coming up. And Emmett has nuclear power.

And Toporia has shown some ability to be hit, especially early, but his power carries up. His power is fucking dynamic. I mean, he's got nuclear power, too. And black belt in jiu-jitsu in the whole nine yards. If he beats Emmett, he could slot in in some kind of interesting way, or what ends up happening is...

I thought he was. I don't know if it's official, official, official, a badass fight dude that is right here's the other part though here's the other part so let's say yair wins and they do decide to do an automatic rematch right then you got max versus toporia and i gotta tell you toporia could put some hands on him uh in a way that is troubling i think for max that is also a real possibility like and now here's the thing here's the thing if volkanovski gets his title back and max wins you just have to do a fourth fight you just don't have a choice at that point but i think they're trying to see is there some way where we can avoid this by other guys winning i guess we'll

find out do you think max could wrestle more? I'm not asking you if he should. Do you think he could wrestle more? I think he could wrestle about what you saw in the Yair fight. I think he could do that, right? That was impressive. He figured out a way to win in a very tough fight after getting lit up early. Could he take some wrestling in a couple of rounds

in a five-round fight and use that to complement everything else that he does? Yes. Yes, he could. Could he just be like a five-round fight and use that to complement everything else that he does yes yes he could could he just be like a a wrestle first guy i don't think so no all right well yeah i don't mean that way i just mean having it out there more having it in his arsenal available to him all right luke topic five before we get into our mma draft uh it's quick hitter so let's start with this uh big news out of tank Davis versus Ryan Garcia. Last Saturday, it's going to be replayed this Saturday on Showtime.

And of course it was a monster hit for those that Showtime pay-per-view, which of course does fall under the larger Paramount global brand. As we are a part of, I love that label that pays us, but Luke, that label had to be very excited about these two stars joining together and producing one point more than more than 1.2 million pay-per-view buys in this modern era of piracy streaming competitive options

in the entertainment space all that stuff and the fifth biggest gate in las vegas combat history besting any ufc fight and only topped by the first two Canelo-Golovkin fights. And then of course, Mayweather versus McGregor and Pacquiao. So this one beat Floyd Canelo, which was a monster fight that produced 2.2 million pay-per-view buys. So Luke- Where BC and I met each other. Indeed. Pay-per-view 10 years ago. Pay-per-view buys in this day and age are different, but that's also what makes this number so large. What does this

say about, I don't know, these two fighters, the sport, that even in a streaming hot era, they were able to produce 1.2 here? I think a lot of credit should go to Ryan Garcia. I want to be clear about that. I think he brought a huge audience to this. I think Tank's ultimately going to be the beneficiary of it all

by virtue of the way he won and everything else. So Tank's probably a bigger star today than Ryan was before the fight. But I do mean to say, like, Ryan deserves a lot of credit for bringing attention to that fight, promoting it the right way. I give credit to Ryan, dude. He wanted the smoke from day one, and right up until he ate that body shot, he was bout it, bout it. So I think it speaks to that. from day one and right up until he ate that body shot, he was about about it. So, um,

I think it speaks to that. I also think it speaks to just the reality of, you know, boxing's looking to move on a little bit from the old stars and they were, you know, who's the next one up, one up. And these guys masterfully filled that role.

Tank Davis did his job in promoting this contest. And this whole fucking idea, like boxing is dead, dude. The only people saying this are people who don't watch boxing it's just fucking nonsense the sport does have its problems it's got its drawbacks and limitations and cancers and every other problem it's not hard to find real criticisms of the way in which boxing runs as an industry um in any manner of respect but

the idea that there aren't meaningful fights happen, that fans don't care, that they don't want to watch, that they've moved on is such shit. It's not real. It's totally false. It's total bullshit. We're talking about a historic gate in this day and age, historic level of pay-per-view. Both guys were in their 20s. Dude, you give people what they want and the audience is there the audience is there and they'll pay top dollar for it too on top of it everyone bellyaching about 85 dollars for the pay-per-view and that's a lot of money i'm not saying it's not it's a lot of money but they paid it they paid it in the end um however much they break down between the

zone and the showtime side of things so i'm just i just feel like this is a clear indication that you know this fight was promoted well. It had a lot of the right ingredients. Everyone did their job. But if you hear someone being like, oh, I saw someone in the comments, or maybe it was one of your tweets being like, but everyone told me boxing was dead. Is now UFC dying?

Folks, UFC is not dying. Boxing's not dying. It's okay. You can watch what you want. But stop believing or even listening to people who want to tell you that boxing is dead. They don't watch it. They don't know what they're talking about. They have an agenda. Don't listen to them. All right. Luke Thomas policing all potential narratives, but I do agree that, you know, when Oscar said this could be a fight that,

you know, to grow boxing, I if it could be a fight that grows boxing and probably you know potentially in a big way it always depends on what happens next how quickly does ryan garcia come back on his own network and you know will be a big enough fight to keep that momentum going as he looks to continue to build his star and obviously it surrounds what could be next for tank and we all have our potential dream opponents here luke but quickly i did chat with uh with calvin for Ford briefly yesterday, the trainer of Gervonta Davis, hoping to get, get that, that video, uh, acquired and finalized and posted on morning combat. But the, I talked about what's potentially next Luke. And according to him,

they would really love to get the Pitbull Cruz rematch out of the way. And that was a fight that took place, uh, in, in, as a late replacement when, when Roley Romero was originally going to be the pay-per-view opponent. And if you remember, Gervonta broke his hand. I don't know if it was before the fight or in the early rounds, but that led to a close performance there in a 115-113, 115-113, and 116-112 decision win. Look, we would all love that it's Haney or Loma or anyone. Yeah, it's not going to be, but. But the Cruz one is certainly interesting from a boxing standpoint.

Will the general public want to take another big bite out of it? I don't love the Cruz fight, if I could just be honest with you. I don't love it. And I know that the scores were close. I've even seen some truthers being like Cruz won. Cruz did not win. Sorry, he didn't. And yeah, it wasn't Tank's best performance but he was better than

Cruz for the vast majority of that fight whatever the scoring ends up ended up being um I don't think he's on Tank's level I do think he's a good fighter I think it's actually you know I don't think it's an easy fight for Tank in that sense but I like do I really believe he can upset the apple cart here no I don't I don't. I don't. Well, he does give you that pressure style that a lot of people want to see, specifically against Tank, who limits his output, is a great sharpshooter, sniper, all that. Cruz did have success, you would argue, though, Luke,

like getting in the chest of – Okay, he did have success giving him a somewhat difficult time for a sustained time. You know what I mean? Like, Roley had a pockets where he was dangerous, and then he got knocked out. Ryan even had a small pocket where he was dangerous. Cruz stayed around in that, whether that was the broken hand of Tank or not, and he stayed in it, you can argue, for sure. Yeah, Cruz is surprisingly clever, and there were some shots he landed on Tank

that I was a little bit surprised by, especially early. Now, those went away as the fight wore on for the most part, but he's got a limited style, Cruz. He's very much down here, and then he's throwing big overhands as he changes levels and whatnot. He's got a very limited style. Within those limits, he's actually pretty clever. He's pretty clever. So I do agree that there were several long stretches where Gervonta was trying to get a beat on him and not really succeeding and getting hit.

I just feel like by the seventh, eighth round, he had Cruz's number, and there wasn't a lot of adjustment Cruz could do after that point. But even for his narrow come-forward style, he's clever. He's tricky. Cruz rebounded after that loss, the first of his career. And by the way, he's only still 24, the pit bull, by scoring two straight impressive knockouts,

one against obviously a faded Yorickas Gamboa. But the argument from the Cruz side is, you went into the 12th round with Gamboa. I knocked him out in like two violently. But Cruz is back home. Yeah, but also this version of gervonta is much better than the one that's certainly and you know but cruz has been talking that talk let's see if he gets it either way uh great news for everybody who loves boxing hopefully the momentum

can continue across the board uh luke remember when the the tank had a mole in the ryan garcia camp and then that fighter came forward and said claimed claimed that he hurt Ryan's ribs during sparring ahead of that. Look, it turns out that guy's name he's from Mongolia. So I'm going to butcher. This is send Batar or Denabot. He goes by the fighting nickname of Ching is con he's five and oh, with three KOs.

Do you know he'll be fighting this weekend in the co-main event of a Lou DiBella card? That's going to air on the zone. Lou DiBella card that's going to air on DAZN. Lou DiBella just brought his prospect series to DAZN. He's going to take on the well-traveled veteran Eddie Mercado. Luke, do you have any interest in Chinggis Khan moving forward after becoming a sparring hero and turncoat, even though, Luke, he denies giving that information to Team Gervonta? I haven't heard from chingus conning uh since he was chingy and he was staying at the holiday inn me and my friends or something

something something remember that song that's all right luke i don't i don't know what just happened there i hope it was good though i hope it turned did you remember chingy had that song holiday inn uh you know i wasn't really in my wheelhouse at that point in my music list. Is this the same wheelhouse where you're like, I've never heard of Still Tipping? What is that? Yeah, you know, I don't know. I don't know, Luke. I don't know much about purple drink either, but Marcus Russell could have been something.

I'll tell you that, right? Do you know what the actual purple drink is? Do you know what the substance is? Is it like NyQuil with cool coolators or like a juice on it i don't know luke promethazine is what it's called yeah it's it's pharmaceutical grade it's basically nyquil right with like sweetened yeah but like right like it's like nyquil is like you're over the counter shit this is like uh this is the heavy duty artillery you know what i mean is it uh worse for today's future than uh thanoko, Luke, or less worse?

I will never forget meeting up with my fraternity brothers after we graduated college and they were still drinking Four Lokos. This was when the Four Loko removed the caffeine, but it was still this disgusting sugary drink. They would take a five-hour energy and then pour it in the Four Loko

and then drink it. You mix extreme caffeine with easy-to-drink energy and then pour it in the four loco and then drink it yeah that's uh you mix like extreme caffeine with easy to drink liquor aimed at high school kids loaded up on sugar um you're gonna have problems and there were luke they oh man there were some bad problems with that uh do you care at all that the zone has signed an additional boxing prospect series that of Jake Paul and his MVP promotions. They're going to call it most valuable prospects and Ashton H2O Sylve, the young boxer Jake signed and put on his pay-per-views of late is going to be, I guess, the face kicking off the series.

Is that noteworthy in your eyes, Luke, as Jake is staying in boxing? Only insofar as they make fights that are interesting. I gather that it's prospects, so how interesting could they be? But even on that level, some are better than others. If it ends up being a good product, sure. If it's just another thing to just do, then no, I don't care. All right. So let's see.

Hey, you know where I watch my prospects? Showbox. That's what I'm talking about. The new generation, Luke. They couldn't name it the next because of Star Trek, okay? Oh, that's right. 21 years ago. You know that pay-per-view King Floyd Mayweather, Luke? He's still making pay-per-views.

They're paying him. How about this June 11th boxing exhibition Floyd is giving us against amateur mixed martial artist and grandson of the notorious one. It's John Gotti, the third Luke. I, you know, even with Floyd's bingo card of late reaching all different categories of social media influencer to like Uber driver, I did not expect this Luke, even,

even though he almost fell on that helicopter pad that time, I did not accept expect Mayweather Gotti here. Luke, you into this? No. Does Floyd need money or something? I don't understand why he's doing all this shit. I get it. It's easy money, but it's like if you've already got a bunch of money,

do you need to do this to get the easy money? I don't get it, man. This is his BKFC, Luke, and he's not really getting hit. You know what I mean? money do you need to do this to get the easy money i don't i don't get it man kfc luke and he's not really getting hit you know you know what i mean like i mean it is like i'm just dude he's out there beating up like cartoon characters and then the dudes in time square who wear like the hulk outfit and shit like that you know let's not forget though that mike tyson tried to build a global pay-per-view series that was him sparring with his fat friend, Corey T. Rex Sanders, who was wearing a T-shirt, Luke. Remember that thing died after the first night in Ohio?

I watched every second of that pay-per-view. They then canceled every other tour stop because people love Mike Tyson, but they don't want to see him spar his friend. You know what I mean? And with headgear on, like, what are we doing? Come on. Yeah. Okay. We'll see what happens with John Gotti III third now is he a is he a good mma fighter i know he's been he's been bouncing

around the amateur barely pro level for a while and i give him i think he's okay all right my understanding is having i've not researched him extensively but to the extent that i have my understanding is that he does train very diligently and like yeah he's in the gym a lot. It is a real clear part of his life, but how good he is, you know, I don't know. Luke Jacksonville is going to get a gift on June 24th. After all the great service they've done to UFC during and after the pandemic, how about Tabitha Ricci versus Jillian Robertson? Does that move you Luke at all?

That's a fun fight. Yeah. I liked that one. All right. Yeah. Mikey was like, she would keep this in the show. I was thinking, damn right. It's a great fight, dude. Right. Yeah. Okay. Luke, Molly McCann will be back after the Aaron Blanchfield bleaching there, Luke. And it's going to be in UFC London. It's going to be against Julia Stolarienko. because Julia collapsed on the scale last time trying to make 135 and this fight was announced as a flyweight fight you've not only heard people run in and say oh this is Molly getting her own meatball to bounce back you got Casey O'Neill basically calling out the UFC for this match making related to that scale incident that was very scary luke thomas what do you say about this i mostly don't have a i don't mostly don't care um hope she makes weight safely this is this would be like if the cameras were around you'd be like i don't care if she lives

or dies to tell you the truth right like. Like that would definitely be that moment. There'll be times where like, we'll be having a conversation. Like, should we include this in the show? And should we not, or do we want to mention this person or not? I want to be like,

just to make sure, like, I'm very clear about my preferences. I'll be like, listen, I don't care if they live or die. Okay. You understand?

Like we don't have to put them in the show, but not for this one. I obviously don't wish harm on these people, but you know, I'm like, look, do you think that camera guy over there should be like openly watching pornography on his phone while he's filming this and you're like you know frankly if you know if he can if he caught

aids right now in front of me and melted you know that you know i'd just step over and i'm like serious question could the malca camera guys have cured cancer by now by working on something rather than being on their phones during the show? I honestly think that they could have. If you added the accumulative hours. Malcolm Gladwell has told us they only need 10 more thousand hours, Luke, to figure that out. All right. Let's go to our final segment, Luke. We are going to go head to head and draft our own super fight card.

So here's the deal. Imagine a scenario where Luke and I were called into that war room with Mick, Sean, Dana. And they're like, guys, you've seen our cards lately. They suck. Help us win back the fans on International Fight Week. Here's the rules. You get access to anybody, male or female, that's an active fighter on our roster and you can draft 10 fighters each and make a five fight pay-per-view card that the fans of morning combat

will then vote on to find out who'd be a better matchmaker promoter luke are you more uh scott coker or jared scala you know what i mean that's what i want to know right now okay i'm definitely scala definitely yeah you are i'm gonna pay these guys to not shoot takedowns uh that's our scenario head to head luke thomas how do you want to decipher who gets the number one pick uh i think our producer should should choose uh mike Mormile, can you flip a coin? Mikey, can you flip a coin or something? Yeah. I mean, so look, we are going to be...

BC gets to go first. All right. So, Luke, we are going to draft single fighters here, not matchups. We can draft married fighters, too, to be fair. And then we're going to match them up as we go here. So, you know, there could be some chess playing and some cock blocking you know what i mean your favorite there it is uh luke with the number one pick in the morning combat wait we gotta do the sound there you go with the number one pick bc selects hamza chamayev oh

okay all right tell me why you picked him you got to give me like the milk hyper breakdown Alex Hamzat Chamaev. Oh, okay. All right. Tell me why you picked them. You got to give me like the milk hyper breakdown. Well, look to two division threat can do a lot of different things. Brings a star factor due to not having yet seen how grand his ceiling might actually be. That mixes with how nasty he carries himself,

both inside the cage, wrestling people as he's yelling at the promoter and how he just acts like a absolute badass outside of it because he's clearly about that life now potential cons in this draft pick uh he may have been forced to come out of retirement uh after kovid sent him back twice uh because ramzan said so all right for uh I guess I would have the second overall pick in the draft right yes yes with the second overall pick in the draft I'm going to take John Jones John Jones will be my top pick because I feel like I can't we can't do crazy matchups right like I can't have him fight a flyweight or something stupid. You can fight somebody out of division.

It just has to be like realistic. Have we thought about it? Have we talked about it before? Right, right, right. So something like that. What I want to say about Jon Jones, arguably the greatest fighter of all time, certainly in the short list and doesn't have a whole lot of time left but still has a little bit of juice as a marketing attraction. I'm going to go Jon Jones for my

number two overall pick. That juice comment was not a double on trondra right or a salute to one of the most underrated soundtracks uh in movie history right a double on chandra i don't know who on chandra is but an entendre she was the fourth destiny's child luke destiny was just not in her favor in the end though okay wow john jones this early it's a great pick it's going to be interesting brock lesnar not available for you luke's not available not available international fight week matchups with the second pick uh third overall in the mk draft man this is tough because i didn't think all these people would still be on the board at this moment you know what luke thomas

i'm gonna i'm gonna go right for your jewels, man. I'm going to take Israel. You fucking bitch. You fucking bitch. You absolute sack of shit. You don't even want him. He might not even make my main card, Luke. He may be on the early prelims just to F you. Yeah, yeah.

All right. So I understand you picking that. So with the fourth overall pick in the draft, now this is not who I'm going to have fight Jon Jones. I don't have to draft them in that order, putting that out here. Very easy. I'm going to go Conor McGregor. I'll take Conor McGregor here.

I almost picked him number one overall, Luke, and I think most of America would have, right? Probably. They probably would have led with him, but we're stupid, so what are you going to do? Yeah, we are. All right, you're up but okay here we go uh luke with the third pick overall seventh overall a fifth maybe i don't know here we go number three for bc give me max holloway because i can make fun fights with him in two divisions against everybody for

the title for money for anything luke give me give me give me brother because uh you know i've i've picked against him long too way too often throughout his career look it's about time i get on the max train here all right with my uh where am i am i uh six i think i'm six overall pick yes i'm gonna take islam makachev he He's going to fight Conor McGregor. You can go ahead and book that one right away. And you already named the fight. Damn. Yeah. So we got Conor McGregor versus Islam Makachev.

Book it, Dano. I did not expect you to go this way at all, Luke. You thought I was going to go like Shavkat Rahman. I was going to fight some no-name dude or something. Yeah, well, I actually thought you were like, well, look, technically I could see Volkanovski and Izzy fighting each other for the Superfight title because, you know, Volk used to play rugby, so that makes it fair.

I thought you were going there, Luke, all right? No, I'm not going there. Damn. And you announced the fight. Do you think that's your main event? No, that's my co-main. Oh, shit, you don't even know yet. Okay, Luke, wow, a lot of big names out there for me. event am i no that's my co that's my co-main oh shit you don't even know yet okay luke this uh

wow a lot a lot of big names out there for me man i can be fun i could have fun i can go weird i could do a lot of different things here but instead i'm gonna go i'm you got to take talent there's too much talent left on the board i have to pick alexander volkanovsky the pound for pound king i have to i mean and not to fight max a fourth time i I just know that he can't be out there for you. Luke, I got to win this. People are going to buy my pay-per-view over yours. They're going to stream your bullshit, affliction, second-rate, knockoff, bodog bullshit card, all right?

Oh, that is awesome. My affliction card. That's great. Okay, so this one is a little bit weird, and I acknowledge it's a little weird, but again, we're going to meet in the middle. Okay. We're going to meet in the middle tip to tip. That's what we're going to do.

We're going to meet in the middle. So who is John Jones going to fight? You might be asking. Well, he's going to fight at two Oh five. Okay. He's going to fight at two Oh five. This is interesting. He's going to fight Robert Whitaker. Robert Whitaker.

Get the freak out. Fuck you. Fuck you. He's up one weight class. He was a welterweight. Come on. He was. He's a 185 pound former champion.

He beat you all Romero twice. He is going to fight John Jones. He can't fight a 205. First of all, and I'm the biggest living legend Robert Whitaker fan there is. First of all, he can't fight a 205. Yes, he can. John Jones is going to move down to then just, he'll just sit on him. Dude, it'll look like the gone fight all over again.

Come on. Fine. Then it looks like, I don't get to vote on which card the fans love. There's different philosophies here, Luke. Okay. All right. There are different philosophies. John Jones, Robert Whitaker at 205.

Oh, again. Well, I was going to be John Jones versus Izzy, but you fucking ruined it for me like the bitch that you are. Yeah, I am. Yeah, I definitely am. You know what, Luke? What you need, I mean, I can go a lot of ways here, but sometimes you need some good old American muscle and a guy who can fight multi-divisions against anybody in any scenario.

Sometimes you got to take the good guys, right? How about Dustin Poirier as my fifth overall pick? Dude, I can do too many great things here with him. You done effed up, Luke. All right. For my – so what pick are we on? Am I on eight? This is the fifth overall for you, and it will be number 10.

Number 10. 10th pick. I'm going to take Colby Covington. I feel like I can play with that a little bit as a heel and create some matchups that folks want to see. I'm going to take Colby Covington. Okay. Okay.

Wow. You know, I haven't made a matchup yet because I've got too many interesting combinations, but I did not see you taking Covington at all, let alone right now. But he does move the needle, Luke, okay? Wow. All right, let me get this out of the way since we're doing wild card picks right now because I don't want to miss it later on.

I'm going to take Bo Nickel at number six overall, number 11. Ooh, that's an interesting pick. Why are you taking him? Because we haven't seen him against a real live body yet. But I could unveil that to you against a huge name on this pay-per-view. You're going to be like, oh, shit, is he ready for that level? I mean, dude, I have Adesanya right now on my stable. I have Chimaev.

I can do some shit right now, okay? My team, I don't have any matchups set yet, but my team, my starting five, Luke, is turning you into a urinal cake. I don't think that it is. Is it my turn? Yes. Okay, for my next pick, I guess the 12th pick in the draft,

I'm going to take Sean O'Malley at 135. Now that's a good pick. I feel like there's some fun things you could do at that division, potentially even upper weight class. Some fun permutations you could work with there. So he is my next pick. Okay, that's what you call a great fight right there.

A fighter that you can use in so many different ways. I like that pick a lot. I mean, that's to load up the early part of your pay-per-view card. If we got five bouts, Luke, the first fight's got to be a banger, right? But how about that second fight? That's some star power you just put in there. All right, you know where I'm going to go, Luke. I could go more American muscle.

Damn, I didn't think you'd leave this many people on the board for me, dude. Right? Create some interesting problems. It really does. All right. But you know what? I'm, again, about having options. And I have too many options if I can pick with my sixth pick,

seventh pick overall. 13th in the draft, Justin Gaethje. Give me the most exciting fighter in the history of this sport. Yeah, I'll take him at number seven, all right? Damn. All right. All right. See, now I've got some choices to make

oh okay okay all right yeah that's what my card looks like right there as we look at our producer's computer um two fights have been solidified is that john jones my main and my co-main is that for the interim title at least the interim light heavyweight title man what a shit fight i can't believe you rolled that doll on me well i didn't have a better choice once you took izzy that was right i was all in on that your game plan was is your pun i love it that's great you know it's great uh so how about this one how about this one for my next pick in the draft oh this is, this is tough. This is tough.

Oh, can I see BC's list? Do we have it? I have chosen seven fighters so far. Chimaev, Adesanya, Holloway, Volkanovski, Poiririer bo nickel justin gaethje okay all right all right all right so in that case then the next fight i'm going to pick uh is going to be next fighter rather with my whatever pick it is in the draft 14 or something i am going to pick a very easy one to like shavkat rachmanov shavkat rachmanov is going to fight colby covington whoa whoa you have announced three fights already wow all right well i'm ready to announce

my first fight luke okay go ahead this will not be this will not be the main event but my co-main event for the vacant no i'm sorry for the interim light heavyweight title is alex podeta versus israel adesanya i think it's an uninspired choice. It wasn't what I had planned, but my talent is too thick at the moment that this just became, you know what, let's get these two guys out of the way and let them dance again. And okay, well, we'll throw an interim strap on there too, because UFC would do that. You know, they would do that. They would. All right. So with my next pick in the draft whatever it is 14 or 16 this is an easy one for me you have been talking about someone putting this guy

to the test perfect opportunity Sean O'Malley is going to fight Umar Nurmagomedov Umar Nurmagomedov is my answer that's a that's a great pick damn and you've got Islam on the same card. So you've got Islam and you've got Umar on the same card. Okay. You saved some of that. My main event is rubbish. Can we just be honest? My main event is rubbish. But everything else below that is pretty good.

You know, I might change that fight. I might take Izzy off of that fourth potato fight, Luke, because I got even more options than i realized here wow but uh yeah or i can just keep that all right give me five seconds of your time here you're on the clock all right you know who i'm picking i can't believe i'm not picking i cannot believe i'm not picking Yuri Prohotska here, Luke. He's out there. Who did you just take after O'Malley? I took Umar Nurmagomedov. I'm going to

take Rosama Yunus. I was wondering. I was wondering how that was going to go. I like that. Okay. Alright, so now I'm really up against it. Now I'm really up against it. Now I'm really up against it.

Hmm. Okay, I have an idea. I have idea. All right, all right, I got my my pick my pick is in it's a big one for my for my whatever it is 16th pick in the draft or 18th whatever it is at this point i'm gonna pick brandon moreno brandon moreno i'm gonna add to the card so you would have a championship fight if he stays at 125, but he might not. He might go to 130, 135, rather. So we'll see how that goes.

But Brandon Moreno is going to be on my card as well. I didn't see that one coming either, although obviously who can argue against that guy? Not me, Luke. I'm going to close with, how about this? The second official fight I will announce in a trilogy for the women's strawweight title featuring the two greatest strawweights in women's 115 history. I'm taking Zhongwei Li and I'm putting her against Rose for the third time, whether you people out there who watched the second Carla Rose fight want it or not. Because I know I do, Luke. And like Pat Berry said, you know, it's every three to four fight rule with Rose. She's got to have one bad one in between.

I don't know how to explain that one, Luke, but I know that this is money. This is business. This is history. This is strawweight. So have we seen your card? No, I got to finalize the other two fights. Why don't you make your next? All right.

So while you're doing that, here's my final fight. So you might be asking who Brandon Moreno is going to fight. He's going to stay at 125, but he's going to fight Henry Cejudo. He's going to fight Henry Cejudo down. Henry Cejudo, of course, remember, is the 125, 135 pound champ. He's at 135 for this fight

against Aljo, but 125 is where he's from. By the way, he coached on the season with Benavidez where Moreno was part of that season. I forget if the season with Benavidez where Moreno was part of that season. I forget if he was on Benavidez's or Henry's team, but there you go. There's my card. Your main event is kind of rubbish,

but after that, it gets pretty freaking good. I like it. I like that card. We'd have to move Moreno versus Cejudo above Covington and O'malley uh in terms of order but this is what the bout card would look like my main event my main card rather okay hold on i'm finalizing my final fight before we go full screen here no look you know what i'm the only thing i did wrong here was not drafting specifically for matchups because there was so much good talent there.

I have too many good, you know, puzzles. I just want to point out, you took Izzy, which really hurt my main event, but you don't have any good use of him, so you really shouldn't have done that. I want to point that out. Well, actually, why don't I take Izzy out of that fight then and surprise you with what I got coming up right here. Oh, shit. Why don't I do that what do you got um as the show goes well over the two hour mark yeah but this is gonna be worth

it okay you're gonna like this okay here we go no i mean i don't know man it. It's a tougher job than people think. But Luke, man, you know what I mean? What do I do, man? You presented your entire card in order, right? More or less, yeah. Okay, okay. I don't like that either. All right, so here's what it's going to be.

In my main event. it's going to be Izzy versus Pidata for Luke at Light Heavyweight for the vacant title. Five, you mean, or three? Three in the MMA space, all right? In the co-main event, it's going to be Holloway versus Volkanovkanovski four dude you're just doing reruns four four luke the featherweight title okay okay all right this was you know i had to fix some things around the number three slot whaley rose three for the strawweight title just all reruns the second fight comes out chamaya versus bull nickel for young middleweight okay that's amazing credit credit where credit is due that's an amazing fight and your opener justin poirier versus justin gaethje too for the title of baddest

in this lightweight slugfest era luke how do you like them apples now a couple late replacements there izzy versus potato four volkanovski holloway four or maybe it's a clarification is the izzy potato four or five whatever that's at 205 that's at 205 luke okay he followed him up there with him all right we? We got Volkanovski, Holloway 4, once and for all at featherweight. Whaley, Nama, Yunus 3. Then Hamzat, Bo Nickel. And the action fight to kick it off. Now the people need to vote.

Okay? That's the thing. All right. Can we see the card side-by-side by chance? Here we go. All right. So we got Izzy Pereira at 205. Holloway, Volkanovski four nama unis jang

three or four whatever the fuck it is by this point hamza versus bo nickel that's sick and then poria versus gaethje too that's also sick but also a rerun okay would you would you have rewired that did i f up by giving people what they don't actually want right now which is max volk for did i f up you just got a lot of retreads yeah you got a lot of retreads on there man i don't know if like what the demand is for that i mean i guess izzy bow nickel for the title and a real roll the dice opportunity right there would you have hated then you do hamzat versus potato that would have been that would have been more interesting hamzat potato would have been at middleweight yeah yeah Or Izzy versus Hamsat And then Nickel versus Potata You could do that, or either way

And then obviously I could do the same things With putting Max against Gaethje, which would be sick Max Poirier 3, which I wouldn't You know, we don't need that, but that's available there Max Poirier Oh yeah, Max Poirier 3, yeah A lot of retreads Then I would have had to make Volkanovski-Poirier

Would you have been okay with that? Yes then I would have had to make Volkanovski Poirier would you have been okay with that yes I wouldn't have loved it but yes John Jones versus Robert Whitaker again not my most inspired choice but it'll hold for now that's the worst choice on all 10 picks Luke okay but then the rest of my card is a fucking banger Conor versus Islam is great

Colby versus Shafkat is great O'Malley versus Umar is great. Moreno versus Cejudo at 125 is fucking great. Yeah, yeah. There you go. So we're going to vote on these. We're going to get the votes to vote on them. I was under pressure there at the end, Luke, with my GM hat on,

trying to book the territory. You know, there was too many good options. I should have stayed matchup dependent there. Yeah, I should have. Wow. Who is your football team? Are you a Giants guy? No, I don't really cheer. You should have stayed matchup dependent there. Yeah, I should have. Wow. Who is your football team? Are you a Giants guy? No, I don't really cheer.

Fancy football ruined my fandom because I started playing in 1990, back when you had to mail each other letters. It was weird, but it was great, Luke. It didn't really answer my question at all. I mean, I was a Bears fan as a kid. I kind of became a Falcons fan during the MC Hammer era with Deion Sanders and Jerry Glanville. But then I was like, who switches teams? But I was so mad that they traded Jim McMahon to the San Diego that I quit the Bears.

But who quits a team? Like, you know what I mean? What an asshole, right? People who don't cheer for teams, you know. I mean, why didn't you cheer for, like, who would it be? Patriots or Giants, I guess, is how Connecticut rolls? Yeah, there were too many Giants fans around me, and I was a little bit of a dissenter when it comes to this.

Like, you know, I'm in Connecticut, but I was cheering against UConn basketball. You know what I mean? Like, I was a little bit of like, you know, fuck you guys for just falling into this without questioning it. We are more alike than you realize, dude. We are more alike than you realize. Yeah, maybe, maybe maybe but we are also

far apart luke and some very key areas that will eventually lead to our demise but you know we're good to be fair right you know wow what a great show today too thank you well the good news is there's no time's gonna see this so we can just do whatever you want that's great uh okay bet is in the books we'll see how we do this weekend um tookie's birthday this weekend luke what is it big big four i'm excited for her congratulations big four four years old and uh she is as lovely as ever yeah the tukester is amazing shout out mikey mormell behind the scenes cbs sports uh you can catch our great bonus content at youtube.com slash morning combat uh we got ace rich franklin demetrius johnson else did I talk to? Oh Mike Perry

you gotta watch me talking to Mike Perry The Mike Perry one is great Rockhold also Chad Mendes from the week before so check out all that good stuff and that's about it Luke Thomas you got other things you want to tell these people? We'll be back on Monday don't forget next Tuesday the Rashad RSD

we've got some other content to get you guys ready for. What is it, UFC 288 that's coming up? We've got some stuff headed your way for that. So, yeah, we're back in the saddle. We're going to be, I think, in studio the 12th of May, something like that. So, yeah, we're back to it. Let's do it. Let's roll.

Yeah, I'm excited to bang. Thank you. Cameo.com slash Brian Campbell if you want. I mean, know look all they have to do is read the reviews and they can see what what type of video the message they'll be greeted with if they i'm gonna use it i'm gonna call it your super chat and i'm gonna do it to get some information from you so uh you know please continue to help those in your life by getting a bc greeting right uh and also you could probably pay for questions on luke's chat but you

know that's cool i mean that's cool luke's got a great chat. I'm sure. I'm sure it's great. Luke, it's probably really good. It's probably great to be honest. I should do a chat more off. Luke, I still want to do that idea where we go head to head, even if it breaks us apart, but like that will force you and me to give everything we have. It's sort of like, you know, this new UFC conglomerate of other promotions. Can they come back and stand up to the man, Luke? I think they can. I believe that the children are our future. You know, I purposely don't seek antagonism with you. I mean, we end up there, you know, so we can avoid it on structured terms.

Yeah, yeah. All right. There you go. That's all I got for you this week. Tip your waitresses. Don't trust them hoes because they ain't never loyal. But this has been Morning Combat for Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell.

Take care of this upstairs, all right? You can do it. You can get through it. Enjoy the fights this weekend. We're out of here. I'm done. That's it.