MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Blaydes KOs Daukaus | Kara-France vs. Askarov | Nate Diaz | Boxing Recap | Ep. 282

Episode Date: March 28, 2022

On Episode 282 of Morning Kombat Luke and Brian recap UFC Fight Night: Blaydes vs. Daukaus. What's next for Curtis Blaydes and Kai Kara-France after huge wins? The guys discuss Nate Diaz requesting his release from the UFC. The boys close out the main topics by breaking down the boxing matches from this weekend. We're they impressed by Tim Tszyu's U.S. Debut? The boys close out the show with Dm's from Donks, HYSTS and odds and ends. Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn 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

what did the five fingers say to the face they said here's your oscar hi everybody it is the 28th of march 2022 and it is time for the show that slaps you in the middle of your own monologue about someone's alopecia it's morning combat hi everyone my name is luke thomas i'm merely one half of your hosting duo joining you from the capital of settleson news right here in washington dc joined by the vice roy himself of connecticut until gilbert or excuse me until uh glover to share loses his belt he'll be the king it's brian campbell that's a terrible intro brian how are you yeah that was great luke uh i can only imagine how bad how mad will smith would have been if they played that hassle hall video luke you know i mean that's what it would have been that would have been wild you know what i mean but

you see you notice i did not get up and slap well i couldn't because you were far away but even then i wouldn't have done it i wouldn't i wouldn't by the way i would have taken that shit cold and hard like chris rock did but more to come on that in the future of this show luke we got a lot of actual fights to talk real fights i know it's so weird everyone discussing well it wasn't a fight exactly but in a well i guess something of a violent incident and it's like dude that's all we do for a living that's all we do we just talk about people hitting each other so um welcome to the show we have a lot to get to ufc columbus results we're going to get to uh the big one fight on saturday their 10th anniversary there was actually some pretty good stuff on that.

We'll talk about that a little bit. Obviously, most of that, we're not talking about that shit at all. Hold on. I was just about to say, I was just about to say, I'm going to,

we're probably going to push the majority of that to, uh, extra credit. We're going to talk about Nate Diaz. We're going to talk about Tim zoo. We're going to talk about a lot of different things here on the show. So thumbs up. If you would be so kind,

give the show, uh, subscribe to the channel. If you're listening on a podcast platform, give us a nice by the way one of my uh buddies and friends he was my old producer he's kind of a partner of mine on my personal channel he wants me to plug my tiktok it's at l thomas news you can follow me on tiktok now uh what kind of content luke will can the uh could the good people of america and and beyond expect from your TikTok account? Flaming hot takes, BC.

He's running that account. I haven't even opened TikTok. I was like, you're young, just you do it. And so he's taking it over. But he wants me to plug that at LThomasNews. BC, how was your weekend? There was a lot of fights. What did you do?

Did you watch them? Did you catch up this morning? I did a mix of Saturday night and yesterday. What a fun weekend. What a time, dude. What a time for fights. I mean, I could sit here and wax poetic on how great it is to be a boxing fan right now, and that would be true.

But, dude, you know, coming off of a UFC London card, which was insane, UFC Columbus brought it. So I'm pretty damn fired up across the board, Luke. It's snowed yesterday. It's cold again. But we're almost there. We're almost breaking through. pretty damn fired up across the board luke uh it's it's snowed yesterday it's cold again but but we're almost there we're almost breaking through and you know why don't we we should get rj our rj dunkelmaker our great merch maven luke get him off of creating a january 6th line that i guarantee will be a seller and maybe get a red maga looked hat and says let make extra credit

great again because luke extra credits loaded today. Because, Luke, extra credit's loaded today, later today. It is loaded today. Yeah, there's a lot to get to in extra credit, so we'll have a fun time with that show for sure. Want to remind everyone, if you want to check out that merch that BC is referencing, morningcombat.store. BC, our intrepid merch guy was telling us about a deal that I was not listening to because I was answering DMs on Instagram.

Can you recall what he said? Yeah, look, it's spring cleaning time in a lot of ways. Luke, my wife forced me to get rid of half of my closet, the skeletons and the clothing, Luke, recently. But we're doing the same at morningcombat.store. 20% off all the merch that we're trying to get rid of to make room for the newer and better stuff that's coming in, Luke. So if you've ever wanted to take a spin with our merch, and by the way, look at this hat. I mean, look at this hat right here. Go to morningcombat.store right now.

Some of that shit's going to be 20% off. You're not going to want to miss out, so check it out. There you go. Of course, Showtime.com. If you had it, you watched Tim Zoo over the weekend. If you don't, you can still get it. Showtime.com. Get a 30-day free trial if you like it you can keep it if not you can pound all of the sand uh bc we also have a great sponsorship from athletic greens which you know are you taking your athletic greens this morning which i know has become something of a morning

ritual for you yeah currently on show days i delay it a little bit so I could drink it during the show to show the people that, here's the deal, Luke. It's healthy for you. It also tastes great. It's got this fun tropical taste to it. And you know what's more important, Luke? It tastes clean. And while we're all trying to clean up our lives a little bit more, get back into shape, not turn our liver dark black, it's not easy. but things like AG1, one little scoop per day in your cup of water, stir it up. It's a great way to start things out with so many nutrients, so many gut healthy ways to turn your body and life around. Luke, my wife always tells me, what you start your day with is what you crave the rest of that day. So why don't you crave good shit, Luke? Yes, I don't know how true that is, but I like the way that sounds.

That sounds a little too simple, but it motivates me just the same. That's to your point. It looks like, oh, crap, I start my day with adult films. I mean, that's just, you know, that's a... No wonder I'm watching that during work hours. But in all truth, you know, you don't have to take a bunch of pills or, you know, it's easy to consume. It actually tastes pretty good of all things considered.

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That's what I'm hoping, okay? Right now, it's time to reclaim your health and arm your immune system with convenient daily nutrition, especially heading into the flu and cold season. It's just one scoop and a cup of water every day. That's it. No need for a million different pills and supplements to look out for your health. And to make it easy, you want a little bonus on that? How about this?

Athletic Greens is going to give you for free a one-year supply of immune-supporting vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com slash morningcombat. All right. Again, that is athleticgreens.com com slash morning combat to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. With that in mind, BC, let us begin the rundown. We start with topic number one, and we start, of course, with UFC Columbus, a sellout crowd,

by the way, with a huge gain. I think it had two million dollars or so. Incredible performance that UFC's having these days. I mean, they just can't miss. But Chris, excuse me, Curtis Blades, BC, he actually ends up KO-ing Chris Dawkus in the second round. Didn't shoot a single time. So my question to you about this is,

we knew that Kyle Dawkus, sorry, we knew that Chris Dawkus had more to gain than Curtis Blades did with a win. But the way that Curtis Blades won here, I'm going to call this something kind of close to, not quite, but pretty close to best case scenario. Is that fair or not? Absolutely, it's fair. And I think I just want to correct what you said did did Chris Stalkus have more ceiling uh to to make a leap with a win here in terms of us taking him seriously him being thrown into the top five potentially absolutely but Blades is a lot closer Luke to a title shot

whether it be the full one or an interim one and this was absolutely the performance he needed to restore that confidence in us, maybe even in him. And it's the method that he did it. You heard the announcers during that broadcast say what I think a lot of us were thinking for that round plus that that fight went on. Not only did Blades not attempt to take the fight to the ground, he didn't even use the threat of his takedowns to do that. This was all about him trying to prove, I think that, you know, that negative narrative that followed him following that last big Hulk up that he had, where he looked like he was title contention ready legitimately. And then of course he suffered that knockout loss. And even though he did bounce back with a strong win, we've been looking for this

performance. In fact, Luke, this is exactly what you said last week when we set the table. I want to see offense and I want to see emphatic offense. And to hear the comments from Blades afterwards in the post-fight interview, the press conference, he took to heart the criticism. He took to heart people saying, even at 31, even with the resume he has, even that he's

only lost to the very elite sluggers in key moments in this game, is he well-rounded enough for this? He's heard that chatter. And what did he do? Look, he stepped in there and put on a one-dimensional performance, but it was the dimension he really needed to round out and show us that he's got.

I loved it. I not only loved the setups, I not only loved the power, but Luke, outside of a couple right hands in the opening minute to set his bearings, Blades' defense was also very much on point. I know he took a right hand to land one to set up the finishing blow in round two on Daucus, but for the most part, he was swiveling nicely, his defense was sound. Luke, for him to legitimately contend for a title, Curtis Blades is going to need that threat of his boxing this was the performance I think that showed you at 31 it's still in him and his story

not close to being done in terms of the the the UBL the upper bound limits I think you're dead on the money I mean you know it's funny the way you put it because you're right it was one dimensional but in the larger perspective of Curtis Blades this was something of the most amount of dimension because we already knew he could wrestle we already knew he could you know fire takedowns off I mean he's on the top 10 list I think for the total amount of takedowns ever secured in UFC history per an individual fighter like we already knew that and we knew he could strike a little bit we didn't know he could necessarily do this and so in rounding out the broader picture of Curtis Blades I think you're right boy he needed something big to pump some life back into the idea that Curtis Blades was a guy not so much to make the deep deep insiders but maybe the fans maybe the matchmakers a little bit too right like you know, I've had conversations over the years with many matchmakers,

and one thing that, you know, this sounds kind of obvious, but when you hear it enough from their mouths, it really begins to stand out to you. They put a high premium on guys who deliver. They do. They just absolutely do. I know that sort of stands in reasons, but, like, it does you way more favors than you realize when you can

do something like this when i say deliver i don't mean just action but outcomes he had both here this was in no way a boring fight first round wasn't like the most exciting but it was totally fine and of course he beat him i think 17 seconds into the second round and by the way he did it after switching stances then stepping out and creating a lane for his right hand like that's it's pretty sophisticated i know he ran into one, but he was there first. That kind of thing happens all the time in MMA. And so usually the one who was quicker to the draw, a la Dan Hardy, you know, Carlos Condit, usually wins.

And it was a little bit like that, somewhat different. But the point I'm trying to make here is he showed a lot of sophisticated ability and I think did exactly what he needed to do to of course stay on the winning path but to get folks to realize to your point BC which I thought was just totally the right way worded this is a guy who has been kind of forgotten with the tie to Ivasas coming along and the Asirogan didn't win against um Francis but he has you know asserted himself in that division and of course um uh the gentleman Tom Aspinall as well. This was Curtis Blades being like,

wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Those guys are good, whatever. I am not even close to done yet. And it also should be noted, BC, one more point I want to make here is we already knew this to be true, but look at what Elevation Fight Team has done with a guy like Curtis.

Now, Curtis puts in the work himself and he's the beneficiary of good coaches and good training partners and everything else. But they have taken a guy who was just a wrestler, basically, and they have molded him into what you see today. Dude, if he can build on that, because he's not done. By the way, that's the part we should note here. He's not done yet.

There is still more development that needs to happen to get where he needs to go. But in terms of just pumping energy back into his contendership, BC, I thought this was about perfect. I mean, you're right. We weren't talking about him at all. And there were reasons for that. And just quickly to double down on the stat you mentioned of Curtis being the record holder of the most successful takedowns

in UFC heavyweight history. On the list. Our trusty producer, Michael Mormyle, saying that first in takedowns in heavyweight history are on the list. Our trusty producer, Michael Mormyle, saying that first in takedowns in heavyweight history with 62 successful is Curtis Blades. Second place, Cain Velasquez with 34, Luke. Wow. Okay?

I mean, he's a shooter. Too soon. I know. But here's the deal, Luke. The key thing you said the most was the matchmakers. We can't forget Luke. I mean, I'll's the deal, Luke. The key thing you said the most was the matchmakers. We can't forget, Luke. I'll just let it linger, okay? It's like Luke walking through first class, right? Just

crop dusting all the other people. Just let it float away in this tube here, Luke, okay? Here's the deal. I mentioned it last week, and I think it's true. Curtis had a lot going against him, and it all happened around the same time. And Luke, you can blame me. I interviewed Curtis ahead of the Volkov fight. I'm the lot going against him, and it all happened around the same time. And Luke, you can blame me. I interviewed Curtis ahead of the Volkov fight. I'm

the one who stirred the pot and said, what about fighter pay? Jon Jones is talking about it. Do you really think you're taking care of? And remember, Curtis was like, no, I'll be the one that talks about it. No, they're not. So what happened, Luke? You get on the wrong side of Dana White when that happens, and Dana

White shat all over him. Then Curtis goes out against Volkov and sticks to the wrestling unapologetically, and is just like, this is how I'm going to fight. You're going to have to deal with it. Which, look, you know, John Fitch eventually got a title shot. Sometimes it takes 10 wins to get a title shot in this game, but you're only really going to get pushed and get the opportunities you need to match

you know when you're rising if you have the matchmakers and the company behind you and i think also in that fight luke if you remember blades also kind of gassed out in this in the championship rounds there got the win but it was really unimpressive that was his low moment if you will he needed that he needed the, the recent knockout loss, but he's so young, Luke, and yet so big. Look at where he is size-wise. You're not going to handle him on the ground. He's not easy to knock off his feet. Really, some of the greatest strikers in the sports history have been the only ones to stop this guy. He really might be the complete package to make a run at a title, yet he needed to fix a few different things. And that's why this

performance was so impressive. You can see where his confidence is now. You can see also where he's not just going to go out there and say, you know, I'm going to lay and pray and you're going to have to deal with it. You're not going to do that. You're not going to do that against the very elite in this game. So I'm happy for him because Curtis Luke, his personality is quiet and humble, but he really has a good backstory of overcoming and stuttering and all that. I mean, it's inspirational in a lot of ways. It felt good to see him get this win. It really did at the end of the day. It did. And you know, one little lesson we should take here is I remember I lived through the

beginning middle and end of john fitch's run and i remember there was a two big complaints against john fitch one was when are you going to fight josh koshek which never happened and the other one was okay you know can you win in a way that's a little bit more exciting and john's point was always and you know in theory he was right in theory he was right which is if i keep winning what else does it matter you know but the truth the truth is, man, the game, well, first of all, he did get a title shot, but there was two lessons from it. One, it took forever to get one, and two, I don't think he ever got another one, right, because they were just not going to do any favors for him because they felt like fairly or unfairly he wasn't doing them any favors. But the other part, too, BC, is

it's not fair in some kind of general way to say oh a wrestler isn't exciting enough you need to learn how to strike to entertain the fans to progress your career you can say that's like a reality but it's not all that fair but the truth is even though John Fitch got the one title shot and he got whooped by GSP you know he had other tough fights along the way and he obviously was well-rounded to an extent I don't want to say that John Fitch was you know single-handedly only doing one thing but the point i'm trying to make here is while it is unfair to put pressure on guys to win a certain way or to go to skills that aren't natural to them the ones who actually do that process and do it completely or at least as

thoroughly as they can i would actually argue tend to go a little bit further the game does seem to reward some of that in the end. So you can play this sort of situation like, hey man, I'm a wrestler. This is how I win. I'm dominant. If you don't like it, fuck off. And I understand that.

I completely understand that. Fighting is difficult. You got to win the best way that you can. But the ones who can respond to those professional pressures to do a little bit more, not put themselves in unnecessary danger, VC, that's not what I'm talking about, but to really work on your craft,

to make it something usable in a fight, in this case, a main event to propel your career, the game will just be favorable towards that. The matchmakers will be favorable towards that. The fans, the promoters, the sponsors, the rewards for it are so significant that I think ignoring some of those incentives ultimately holds a fighter back so while I appreciate you know what John Fitch did in his career and he was a great welterweight to be

very clear in some ways very much underrated even after all he did I will say that Curtis Blades trying to go further than that further than he necessarily needed to in some ways, I suppose, to get the most out of himself while he could to answer some of those questions. Maybe he shouldn't have to do that, BC, but that he did do it, I think is going to be a huge reward when it's all said and done. And you look at the timing of doing that. Now, first of all, let's give him full credit. Chris Dawkus' skill is doing that. It's standing in there

and boxing and throwing combinations and big punches. So he went into Chris Dawkus' strength and beat him at it. That's what I love first and foremost. But the timing of it, Luke, the season right now, Francis Ngannou is your heavyweight champion. We obviously don't know about his contract or UFC

future. Oh, by the way, with the knee surgery and all that, he's going to be out for this whole year. Luke, it's time, I think, to put together a matchup for the UFC Interim Heavyweight Championship. And you know how slow I am to try to say, okay, UFC, throw an interim belt out there. We don't even know if Ngannou's going to fight again with the UFC. So talk about the timing of this performance for Blades. Exciting, well-rounded. Luke, he called out Cyril

Ghosn afterwards for an interim title shot. Then Daniel Cormier sort of led him into, because Stipe Miocic was in the building, taking pictures with fans. He respectfully called out Stipe and said, I want to be like you, and to do that i'm gonna have to i might have to beat you what is the next move luke for the ufc do we do an interim

belt and what is the matchup because i got a bunch of names gone blades john jones stipe miucic that's four people for one matchup and two belts, Luke. Or one belt, excuse me. Well, Jon Jones, I don't know what he's doing. We'll talk about him a little bit later, but I don't know what to make of him. Obviously, when he decides to go to heavyweight, that will be of major consequence, but it's just hard to plan a calendar, right? Like, Curtis Blades is actively competing.

As far as we know, Gon is actively competing. The champion just had surgery and is rehabbing but it's still oh we'll see what happens with him actually i don't even know what's gonna happen with him but to answer your question bc you've got tuivas out there you've got aspinall out there and you've got now curtis blades reasserting himself what's the best way to do it i still believe and i know that people want to make different fights for different reasons so all i can tell you is a fight i want to see that I think would still be valuable for the division I would like to see what he called for maybe not for interim title

per se but certainly I would like to see him fight Cyril gone I think the way in which Curtis Blades won this fight plus what we knew from before which is dude there's not a lot of guys at heavyweight there's a lot of guys at heavyweight who can wrestle defensively and offensively but there are very few guys who when Curtis Blades wants to fight the way that he has previously which is just kind of like relentless takedowns now maybe he could be a little more careful about them that's an interesting especially in a five-round contest you know experiment I want to see Cyril gone past based on what Francis did I'm not saying France Francis some kind of slouch even though wrestling is in his native skill necessarily either. I'm just pointing out like the kind of threat that Curtis blades poses.

I feel like gone should have to pass that before we've sort of figure out what else is next for him. And if you're blades and you beat that, you beat the guy who's ranked number one, that puts him back in front of Francis or whoever ends up being there on the other end in a very important way way although i recognize that doesn't necessarily solve all the problems about interim titles and and champs and whatnot do you think there's enough star power in gone versus blades for an interim title to be worthy or does that not matter at

this point gone's proven himself to be legit despite having just lost but i don't know i don't know because the thing is god just lost a title fight like putting him back in an interim one it's kind of weird you know that's why you know look you did we mentioned basically six names right here right atop the division that that we have that need that need big fights this year if we do what you did gone versus blades god i love that fight i love the style contrast i want to see it over five rounds and luke again it's rare that i get excited or feel there's a need for an interim belt, but I think that should be for the interim title. And then here's what you have to do next.

Again, Luke, they don't pay me to matchmake, but I'm willing. Jon Jones's heavyweight debut against the greatest heavyweight champion of all time, Stipe Miocic. It sells itself as a pay-per-view main event. And if I'm the UFC, I don't give John everything he wants. But look, like, I made him a little bit. I pay him for this debut, right? I mean, it's Stipe. Dude, we're there for that fight. It's huge.

And then, Luke, how do you like these apples? Tom Aspinall versus Taito Iwasa to find out who really does have next? I mean, Luke, it kind of matches and sells itself here, okay? What if you did this? What if you did Curtis Blades versus Stipe? Find out who really does have next. I mean, look, it kind of matches and sells itself here, okay? What if you did this? What if you did Curtis Blades versus Stipe? You could put an interim title on that one because Stipe, for folks who may not know, Francis, obviously champion,

so then the ranking would be as it stands, and we haven't updated since Saturday's fights, but as it stands, Cyril is at number one, Stipe at two, Taito Iwasa at three, Blades sitting at four. You could do Blades versus Miocic, and that would be... Because here's the thing, BC. Here's one thing that I'm doing. In my mind, I'm like reserving Stipe Miocic for Jon Jones' return.

Because that, to me, would be one of the more important fights that they could make, maybe, frankly, in UFC heavyweight history, at least non-title. Or you could put a title on that one, too. But the thing I'm saying is I'm not denying Jones the opportunity when he decides to come back, but, dude, he hasn't fought in two fucking years. Like, why are we holding Stipe for John if we don't even know when John's coming back? Let's put Stipe in rotation with the people who are already there. Do you agree with that?

Yeah, I do, but I also wonder if those fights play out the way you and i just said i think ufc ends up putting the interim title on the jones stipe fight to make it even bigger and i think they say hey gone and blades like thank you very much but we don't need you for this at this moment and then luke tell me if i'm getting real cray cray here couldn't you separate if you're going to do john versus stipe for the interim title for this at this moment. And then, Luke, tell me if I'm getting real cray-cray here. Couldn't you separate, if you're going to do John versus Stipe for the interim title, would you want to then, instead of Blades gone, make Blades and gone fight one of Aspinall and Tuivasa? Is that more fair?

Let's see, picking off both contenders. People are like, oh, we don't want contenders to fight each other. But it's like, okay, fine. But if you did Aspinall versus Tuivasa, at least one of those contenders to fight each other but it's like okay fine but if you did Aspinall versus Tuivasa at least one of those contenders emerges if you do Aspinall versus X and Tuivasa versus Y it is at least potentially possible that both lose in which case you're like you know so there's a little bit of a risk there yeah it's fair Luke it's good it's fun though and think about it it's not often that we have a deep heavyweight, deep, deep-ish heavyweight division where there are at least, tell me if I'm wrong,

there are at least five UFC heavyweights right now that you think legitimately could be champion of the year. So that we know Francis could be, because he is. I think Gon could do it. Could Stipe do it? He sure the fuck could, Luke. Let's put some respect on it. Yeah, he could do it um could stipe do it he sure the fuck could luke let's put some respect on it yeah he could do it i've been disrespecting him his whole career let's put some respect back i would bet i would bet on francis to win another fight but yes you're right like it would be foolish to say he couldn't do it okay so then you need two more aspinall and maybe blades yeah you

know what uh tight to evasa i do think is very, very good, but I don't know that I see his upside as quite as high as Aspinall. And Blades I think has lost to Derek Lewis and I realize Tai beat him, so there's a little MMA math involved. But would you pick Tai to beat Curtis Blades? I would pick Curtis Blades to win.

Dude, that's a great fight. That's a great freaking fight. Seriously, that's a great... And they're currently ranked right next to each other, 3 and 4. Oh, my God. Let's do that in a stadium in England. You know, Luke, I could do some consulting work for matchmaking. Seriously.

Seriously, okay? I'll say this. The top six or seven at heavyweight is fun right now. You've got Francis, Cyril, Stipe, Ty, Curtis, Derek, Tom Aspinall, and then you've got Volkov sitting at seven. Even he's still pretty fun. Everything I just listed up there, all of the, and by the way, haven't even mentioned John Jones, throw in John Jones there.

All of those permutations. There's a lot of fun you can have with that. Like there's, there's some decent fun to be had at heavyweight for sure. Heat check moment, BC heat check moment. I'm just heaving them in. Remember like Steph Curry warmups from like the tunnel and he's just waxing it? If Francis comes back to the UFC and stays here,

are we walking into right now the golden era of the UFC heavyweight division? The most maligned, up and down, inconsistent division in this company's history. We know, Luke, that that little window when Kaneane jds verdum like that was

you know lesnar that was a fun time but we've never really had more than two to three guys with a pulse at one time competing and fighting each other are we entering something truly special here luke we might be we might be. We might be. You know, as MMA goes, I mean, MMA heavyweights have had some great moments. And a lot of times when folks weren't looking, you know, early UFC when you had Pedro Hizzo versus Andrei Orlovsky or Couture versus back when he was before the War Master,

the Babyface Assassin, Josh Barnett, those were not on the same level, but those were pretty fun days. There was a bit of an interesting battle, although obviously UFC was not nearly as good when it was Pride versus UFC kind of heavyweight theoretical battles. 2004, when Fedor fought Crow Cop, that was a pretty great heavyweight era. But I think what I'll say is this, BC. One, as good as Fedor versus crow cop was and

those guys are true heavyweights these are like true heavyweights these guys could not make 205 in many cases doc is notwithstanding but certainly blades gone that kind of thing could not make heavy or light heavyweight if their lives depended on it and the other thing i would say is we celebrated fedor versus crow cop in 2004 when it happened, 2005, whenever it was. At the time, it was being really great. I mean, they had sold out. There were like 90,000 people there when they watched it. This era, I think you were right to point out, very maligned.

Very maligned heavyweight era. Oh, heavyweight MMA is just bullshit. And relative to bantamweight, it isn't nearly as good. That's a fair point. But I think relative to how maligned it is when you actually compare how fun and good it could be, I think this era stands in a fairly unique spot. Well, also, look, it took a while for that division to evolve to the standards of the modern game.

I'm not here to crap on Tim Sylvia as UFC heavyweight champion or, you know, a young Arlovsky or Rico Rodriguez. And of course, you know, I tend to sometimes over inflate Randy Couture's true value. But, you know, you look back on those guys and you see how limited they were. And typically, look, because they're bigger, heavyweights tend to be less skilled in comparison, which is why we spend time debating pound for pound lists. But, dude, that's changing, right? From Ngannou to Aspinall to, you know, up and down. I mean, Stipe even, why is he considered, you know, the most decorated greatest heavyweight

in UFC history? Because he really, in a lot of ways, was so perfectly well-rounded and tough as nails that it was like a new era was upon us. So, yeah, Luke, I think, you know, and while you mentioned Fedor and Crow Cop, right, that wasn't UFC. And I am talking specifically UFC. This really could be something special, but we do need Francis to re-sign

and we do need him to get healthy. And then every fight from here on out afterwards is going to be a blockbuster, Luke. It really will be. I mean, when you got this many capable names. So I just got myself really excited about this. No doubt about it. Okay.

So we go to now point number two, topic number two, we stay with UFC Columbus. How about this? We'll talk about Alexa Grasso and everything else. We got to talk about this one for the flyway title. Although in either direction at one 25, there's going to be an implication here. We'll talk about Kaikara France,

defeating Asker Asker off BC. I mean, I'm going to gonna say this I'm gonna say this see if you agree with me and then take it from here that to me while he had a knockout against Cody Garbrandt in his previous fight Kaikara France did for me this was by far the most important fight of Kaikara France's career and I going to say this is the fight to me where he showed far more well-rounded ability, not just in terms of, you know, wrestling versus grappling versus striking, but in mixing them in strategizing and everything.

I was super impressed. Was this the best performance of Kaikara France's career? Okay, let me answer those first. Yes, it was. At at 29 he's put it together he had a couple early UFC losses we know of the pedigree you know we know of the gym's pedigree it really what I'm saying there but Luke he has lived up to the reputation of that gym on this three fight win streak is this more impressive and important than than a suspect Cody Garbrandt moving down in weight?

Absolutely. Because Askarov is that dude that we talked about last week. And I said, you know, this might be the best flyweight in the world right now. We're going to have to find out what happens in this KK France fight. So to answer your question, yes. But before I'm ready to fully celebrate Kaikara France with you, I got to ask you this, Luke. How about I not ask you?

How about I tell you? I don't think he won this fight, Luke. Oh, fuck off. You gave him the third round. Let me just see this. First round to Askarov. First round to Askarov. Second round, France.

So you're giving him the third. Give me the case for the third. So here's the case for the third. So am I saying it was a robbery? Absolutely not. This was a great, not a great, it was a very good close fight between two guys ranked two and six that are among the elite core of this fun as shit division flyweight, okay? But here's the deal.

You nailed it. First round, Askarov all the way. Second round, Kaikar France put on a striking display. Here's the third round though, Luke. Askarov gets the early advantage by taking him down and then getting to the back and threatening a submission again. And he was doing the backpack thing a couple times in this fight. No, he didn't get it. But obviously, Luke, when you are putting the threat on of a submission, it's part of the criteria for scoring a fight. I know in the final two minutes, and I do give Cara France credit for being so poised, he didn't rush it. You know what I'm saying?

Like the clock's ticking down, but he didn't rush it. He put together a couple punches, yes, but Askarov was also countering clean and had a big right hand of his own in the final minute that when you're doing the math, scoring the for yourself did you like Cara Francis striking in the final two minutes a little bit better than Askarov's yes I did too but you do have to weigh in taking him down and once again taking his back in that quick transition I saw an Askarov that was trying to win the fight constantly I think it's close but I think there's a strong case for 10-9 Askarov in that final round. And I think the fact that all three judges went 29-28, it's like would I have felt better if it was a majority or a split decision and KK France still wins? I don't know, Luke. All I'm saying here is I'm not crying robbery. I'm not trying to back up my prediction that Askarov is that dude.

He still may be that dude even with this loss although let's be critically fair i want askar to be a little bit more aggressive striking wise than he was but i think he was surprised by how good car france's striking was you know i just think luke at the end of the day it was more of a flip the coin on what you preferred in that third round i don't think it was slam dunk because car france landed two clean punches in the final couple minutes that he automatically wins that round i just don't mean mma mma fans. MMA fans, there's a subset of them, in which I would put you in that category, who are not willing to attest to the meaningfulness of leg kicks.

Let me read you some stats here. Here's why I can't give him the third round. Now, I grant that the backpacking has to count for something. give you that this is why asker asker i've won the first round his control time right three minutes and nine seconds two sub attempts with a takedown quantitatively he only landed three strikes but kai car france only landed four so it's basically neutral there and then you have all of this other stuff that happened on top of it. Okay. He won that round.

Fast forward to the third. He has one minute and seven seconds of control time, which is good. That definitely counts. I recognize. That's real. Zero for three on takedown attempts. He had 12 significant strikes to Kaikara France's 23. I grant that it was a bit of a right hand there, and I grant that he had the backpack.

The problem with Askarov in my mind in this fight, even in the first round, he won on control time. He just wasn't putting a lot of dynamic offense behind the control positions. He was kind of going for subs. They were kind of close at times. They weren't really all that close. I thought the hand fighting from the back was really good from cara france and then on top of it at distance he was getting leg kicked to death um at least relative to what askerov could do i went back and i watched that third round again this morning just to be sure that i saw it the way that i'd seen it the first time and yeah dude

it was pretty clear to me that he did it askerov was trying i grant you i think that layoff kind of hurt him a little bit. I think that layoff where he was off for like a year or more, he just seemed a little bit not fully putting all of his pieces of his offense together. So what I'll say, I'll pitch it back to you, BC. I'll say this. I think that was not Askarov's best performance by a long shot.

I think when he gets back and gets in the groove, I think he's going to see some people at the top of this division again. But on this night, Kaikar France stuffing two of 14 takedowns, preventing Askarov from doing anything meaningful with control positions, and then really not giving that much of it away in the third round relative to what else he had done, for me, makes him the clear winner in the third. Right, and I know it's easy to say BC, you're crazy, because Kaikar France had the biggest moments,

specifically in that second round. He had huge moments. Obviously not enough for a 10-8 round, I know it's easy to say BC, you're crazy because Kikar France had the biggest moments specifically in that second round. He had huge moments, obviously not enough for a 10, eight round, but you know, that stands out in your mind that when you're going, okay, am I really going to split hairs when I saw this guy land the better shots? Well, you know, I think in that third round, it ends up being a coin flip, but I get what you're saying. You would have loved this to be a five round fight. And I think that's the only argument I make from time to time is if it's a borderline or an actual number one contender fight I kind of want that to be a five round fight because it's supposed to prepare you for a title and you know there's situations where there's people that are end up in five round fights because

they're in a fight night main event you're like that guy shouldn't be anywhere near a five round fight this is a case where I would have liked to have seen it. Now, based on where they were at the end of three, is Karl Franz looking like the fresher fighter who probably wins that anyway if it's five rounds? Probably, yes. I think we're going to end up seeing this again down the road. I think it's a strong bet to say Askarov will end up fighting for a title in this division eventually, but I think you're right.

He wasn't offensive enough in the key spots. It hurts the argument of trying to claim that that he might have won this fight or you know at worse than a flip the coin situation in the third round but i also wonder about that wrist uh injury recovery he didn't look like he had the same confidence in his boxing that he typically does he was he was over dependent on his on his grappling game now with that said lu, we got that debate out of the way. Was this the breakthrough fight Kaikar-Fritz did? Absolutely.

Luke, he is rolling right now with not only a level of confidence that's impressive, and even though it was cheesy as shit to do the OH to the crowd, it worked. So shout out to Kaikar-Fritz on there. I was going to say, dude, Jose, and don't you remember that Ohio crowd? Granted, his opponent was Russian, and people are just being totally irrational about any normal Russian at this point, but I did hear them cheering his name,

and then he goes and he does the O-H, and they said Ohio or whatever, however the stupid chant goes. Dude, I thought that was pretty cool, actually. I thought that was a nice little moment there. Dude, it worked, and my point on that is, like, he's feeling himself, and this is typically what happens when everything comes together in your game. I give him credit for that.

Luke, remember that question I asked you, I think it was on Friday's show. I said, look, you know, and I expected a more offensive Askarov for whatever reason. Maybe it was Kai Karfrance's speed and accuracy. We didn't see it. But I said, does Karfrance really have the firepower that he needs to kind of get the upper hand and potentially walk through Askarov and I didn't I didn't believe it Luke I had to see it he does have that firepower he's absolutely legit and you know let's be honest here we know we're going to a fourth Figueredo uh Moreno fight for

the title if I'm Kaikar France I is he next Luke because he may have just secured it I mean who else would he have to beat dude who else I don't know I mean that's the thing again I really do believe that that was not Askarov's best showing and I think that there was a poor showing or something but you know the time off I don't know he didn't quite look fully himself but I'll say this about about Kaikara France I did not think he was going to win this contest and you know me BC I'm as biased towards those New Zealand fellas as anybody and I mean I knew he was good on the feet and can make it a fight, but I kind of thought he'd get overwhelmed in the end. And he didn't. If you would have told me, BC, that Askar Askarov in a three-round contest was only going to get two of 14 takedowns, I'd be like, no chance. Not a chance in hell. And that is the actual truth. he only got two of 14 i cannot believe that but that's what happened dude kai car france and adesanya and a lot of those guys they get kind of labeled because it's from city kickboxing that's all that they can do and for a time they did have

pretty clear vulnerabilities in sort of the grappling and wrestling side of the game and i'm not here to say that they're going to go out wrestle bow nickel tomorrow but it is also pretty clear at this point that they have brought in a lot of additional help to get them up to speed and dude you're not going to take down Adesanya very easily you are not going to take down Kaikara France very easily it's going to be very very difficult to do and when you stand at range with them they're going to fuck you up those guys are good now very well-rounded. And I really, really loved a lot of the decision-making here. I loved how he pressed Askar Askarov back. It was more than just, oh, he's not getting overwhelmed in the grappling department,

although Askarov catching the back early in the first round wasn't great. But it was more just like the strategic thinking through the second round to make that left hook land a little bit better, trying to come on top of the jab or at least the hook, depending on the stance, what Askarov was doing. And I want to say one more thing, BC. I see this all the time. Certainly Askarov is not interested, in my opinions, on grappling. But I have noticed a lot, man. In MMA today, if you put on the body triangle, we've talked about this. John Danaher has made a point that if you do the body triangle, it's still, it's not a neutral fight because one person is giving the back,

but it's still two hands versus two hands in one head versus one head. It's, it's still mathematically a, a, a fairly similar kind of struggle when you incorporate and take away what use your leg to take away one of their arms. Now you have two arms versus their one. And that becomes a much easier kind of battle.

Pay attention to how many times people put on the body triangle and then struggle the rest of the round to get the choke because the hand fighting has become so good even against guys who are kickboxers by trade like kaikara france that you can now get the back and for three minutes and nine seconds you can't do fuck all with it look something to pay attention to let me let me let me double on that and say um sometimes dc gets much maligned as a commentator because uh dominic cruz says he doesn't watch enough tape and he's more of an entertainer at times than an explainer i think since that moment dc's been stepping up his game and his obviously his breakdowns of the wrestling is you know as educated as anyone i love what he said about when when Askarov had the backpack on in the first round.

He's saying, look, you see a guy around the back of the other trying to go for a choke. You're thinking about the pressure on Kaikar France's legs, but how about the gas that Askarov is wasting trying to hold himself up on there? I think that's part of it too, Luke.

That took a lot out of him attempting to go for that choke in the backpack position that um i don't know it's interesting look i'll say this kai car france it the takedown defense was key the striking is what was flashy but he was so good in that second round i think a lot of people get knocked out with those type of punches that he landed on askrov like askrov Askarov had a bite down there, dude. So, so look, I got nothing bad to say about your boy KK France here. I want to say a lot of good things though, about this division as a whole. I don't know if you watch deep on that undercard, Luke, but that fly away from Brazil, Matias Nicolaou, I thought he looked great against David Dvorak and, and, you know, up and down this top 10 in the post Demetrietrius Johnson, post-Henry Cejudo era of 125, in which it survived almost being thrown in the dumpster, it's not only must-see no matter who's fighting.

Seriously, from like Bonterine to Tim Elliott. I mean, like, dude, if it's a flyweight fight, I'm freaking circling it on the fight night calendar. Where does flyweight belong right now in luke thomas's pound for pound top five best divisions in the ufc so we'd go bantam i still might go light yep and then you gotta go you gotta go women's straw or i'm walking out of this studio luke okay yeah women's straw sure and then probably featherweight and welterweight in some kind of order there so I still wouldn't have it here's the one thing I would say remember when they were getting rid of it I still believe this so I really

do at least from a commercial standpoint I think it'd be better if we actually had 135 145 155 165 175 185 205 I actually think that would be much better for all parties involved. But I do recognize that while the flyweight division was depleted, its resurgence should not be seen as an accident as MMA becomes more global and there's more talent recruited and everything develops along the way. It has certainly proven to be a very valuable division for the Ultimate Fighting Championship and any organization that has a deep division with 125 in it. Okay, did you put Welter in middle at four and five?

Did you just do that? No, Feather. Feather and Welter. Okay, look, dude, Feather's the sneakiest division in the UFC right now. You're right. It does belong in the top five. But I got to take Welter out of there and I got to throw Flyweight in. It's not as deep with world-class names, but the entertainment value and the elite parody across the board. Dude, I think Flyweight belongs at number five.

And Luke, I think Heavyweight should be above Welterweight at this point. I said it. Well, I mean, you're just saying words. No, I'm not. Dude, I love Welterweight, but it's wrestle-heavy, Luke. It's, I mean, we got, you know, we got to. I mean, the back half of it is well i mean here's the part of it there i'll say this welterweight is in the middle of turnover you got

you know you got what's happening with masvidal he's obviously getting older just lost wonder boy kind of can't get back that beats some of the better guys but you know it's very old i think close to 40 at this point and so there's a little bit and vicente luke has been on the way out for a while Leon Edwards is dude there's just some turnover that needs to happen both with guys aging and guys who've been around for a long time who've been denied opportunity and I think that will flush some of it through because you remember you have Sean Brady on the come up Hamzat Shumayev on the come up um Shavkat Rakhmanov on the come up there's a lot of names in that division that are going to i think tear through a lot of people that are going to burn some excitement to it but i i grant your point fly weight is uh for as good as it is and how valuable it is to have guys that talented it is too uh

quite maligned unfairly and and it's i'm glad to see it back and doing what it's doing no doubt that uh women's bantam, Fly, and Feather are the three worst divisions in the UFC? Women's Flyweight? Well, I mean, here's the thing about women's Flyweight. Like, okay, it needs some turnover. It needs some turnover is what I would say. Because at the top, we've talked about this.

Andrade is number one ranked, already lost. Chukagian, already lost. Murphy, already lost. Maya, already lost. Dude, you're the fifth ranked contender who's good. Tyler Santos is quite good. But it's pretty rare to see them be like, okay, well, let's just go down the list.

Oh, the top four have already lost convincingly. Let's go to Tyler Santos. That is so rare. Granted, they got a tough champion at the top yeah it's not it's not a great division but it's turning look it's got some long-term turnover potential from manon ferro who's going to be a big part of extra credit to uh tatiana suarez the much forgotten name to to a few others but i you know it is what it is at the end of the day and also luke your explode exploitive use of the word come up reminds me of MK Doc 6

when you and I are getting dressed for the awards show in the room and Jake's got that music creeping on the come up. And we walk down the hallway like bosses. I'm like, yeah. A little bone thug. Yeah. All right, BC. Topic number three, we'll stay with the card.

You had mentioned someone else, but I want to give you the floor to give any other name you'd like to. Who else stood out to you from this card? Because, by the way, there was a few standout performances here that deserve to be recognized. Dude, sneaky good card across the board. Not the action and crowd participation of UFC London, but a lot of people had really strong performances and made leaps. Luke, Mark Jacasey is coming the hell on.

Dude, he's a wrestler. So here's the deal. I didn't even get excited about this fight because I forgot on paper that Vlachislav Borshev is freaking Slava Claus. It's Mr. Faber's guy. Dude, when he walked out and it turns out he was that same guy, I was like, yeah, this fight's going to bang. Luke, the fight didn't bang at all because Mark Jocasey, who has juggled the wins and losses,

has looked the part of aggressive, entertaining, can-do-anything-at-anytime striker, and then that didn't really go anywhere. And he's been in the ups and downs. His commitment to just suffocating Slava Klaus and really just taking the fight away from him, entertaining as hell, no. But you want to talk about life preserver. You want to talk about starting a new run when he's still so young.

And like Curtis Blades, going off of his skill to round himself out. Luke, I had to be impressed by this, dude. You had to be as well. Yeah, no doubt about it. I didn't see that coming. I did not see a 30-27 off the back of wrestling coming. Let me pull up his stats here if I can, because I didn't watch this live,

and then I saw all of the reactions to it. I'm like, you got to be kidding. I mean, I knew he was like, you know, decently well-rounded or something. I didn't know he was going to score. Ready for this, BC? 11 takedowns. 11.

Three in the first, three in the second, five in the third. He was a fucking sheet of ice over that Russian. How about his control time, BC? 3.55 in the first, 4.08 in the second. And ready for this one? 4.21 in the third.8 in the second and ready for this one 421 in the third this dude was barely the only time this guy could stretch his arms was when he was in between rounds sitting on the stool it's ridiculous how this guy was all over him and he's still only 29 and you know that he had he had

come back before from a three fight losing streak and won two in a row but then he lost two in a row and when you get in that rut luke you you become you know a journeyman who can become an expendable journeyman once you once you you lose more than you win this is a big win i mean this opens up the the the door to what he might be able to be obviously in a tough division at lightweight i love to see that and i want to shout out another i know you're i know you're going to pump up alexa grasso on extra credit i got two other names to talk about quickly. Luke, I don't always talk nice about Sarah McMahon. I respect her.

I just always feel like it's an older retread from the Rousey era, right? She's 41, and I saw what Juliana Pena did a year and a half ago. She went out there against Carol Hossa, Luke, and just was aggressive as shit in all the strong ways that has made her, you know, a perennial threat in this division, which, you know, really Bantamweight has not been deep since Amanda Nunes took the torch and ran it through. Shout out to Sarah McMahon at 41, Luke, because, you know, you never know how much longer someone has left when they're fighting on their name still. She's not fighting on her name with this performance. She's always in tip top shape and she used her strengths to her advantage. Obviously, you know,

she's going to take the fight to the ground, but the constant threat of submissions, I was not only impressed. I want to see her again. Yeah. I would certainly agree with that. Can I take this moment to shout out the guy who he didn't win in his hometown but I was happy to see him get that opportunity how about Matt Brown and Brian

Barbarina bro I mean they went after each other now I thought people being like fight of the year was a little strong I didn't quite see it that way but it was a hell of a fight back and forth it sucks that Matt Brown did not get a win in his hometown. I feel terrible for him for that. But Barbarina was the rightful winner. I mean, what are you supposed to do? I thought he was the guy who did the best work in that one. In fact, I was surprised. Barbarina's got a real weird style where he kind of lets the other person dictate

how the fight's going to go a little bit, like where it's going to be and under what terms, and then just fights them on that. And Matt Brown had those amazing trips and turns in the clinch matt brown has a whole clinch video on um bjj fanatics if you haven't checked it out i i bought it but i haven't watched it yet but you know he's a master of the clinch and barbarina was kind of lighting him up with elbows in there too although you know uh obviously you know brown was doing some good work on top of it but it sucks that he didn't get the win but it was a hell of a fight and b Brian Barbarina saying, that's the end of my contract. I asked UFC if they wanted to get back at me.

They didn't really say anything. If this is it, I'm just going to go work on the farm. That's maturity. I have a lot of respect for Brian Barbarina. That was a hell of a performance. He deserved the win, and I don't know what's next, but I hope it's good things. I hope he gets another flyer.

I think he deserves it. They both gutted this shit out. I don't think it's a fight of the year contender necessarily i just think like it was savage and there were certain moments end of the second maybe all of the third that were just ridiculous i mean when matt brown rallied for that third round takedown and the announcers lost their shit it was a great moment the crowd going nuts but to see the face of matt brown afterwards not just the you know the blood and the carvings on it, but the disappointment. I mean, at 41, he emptied it out and came up just short.

So much respect to both of these warriors. It was a big part about why this card was good. And Luke, real quick, but I got to circle this name because we're going to be talking about him in the future. It looks like a Shmesh Factory guy who might have necks with the Abe Lincoln beard. Alish Skob, Kaziriev, I know I butchered that, Luke. But that bearded middleweight with the weird takedowns that DC was going nuts for, what he did to fellow Russian Denis Tolulian was savage. Luke, this guy won the Dana White Contender Series. This was his UFC debut.

He's a little round around the belly. And after just being a force in there, he climbs the fence, asks for a title shot with a discount double check with a smirk on his face, and then says on the microphone, hey, Dana, I could lose a little bit of weight. Let me cut down to 170. I'm going to smash everybody. At this point, Lukeke i think we are trained to realize that when guys look like him fight like him talk like him you got to believe

in him because this dude's coming on this dude's coming on i mean his dude that takedown he had that dc went nuts for you know the creative use of of the technique which i am not equipped to talk about there it is right there in that picture. Loved it. Loved it. You know what's scary is however many of these guys break through from that area of the world, you're just blown away by. And then when you watch regional MMA over there, you realize that this is just the tip of the spear.

There is, depending on how UFC wants to sign them or Bellator or whoever, I don't know how it's all going to sort itself. But you watch, granted, that's associated with Ramzan Kadyrov, but if you watch ACA, my God, dude, there are dozens and dozens and dozens of guys, not exactly quite like this, but relatively on par, not far away.

We talk about the Russian invasion. I'm not even sure it's fully started in terms of all the talent that's going to move over into the major promotions as they graduate through. I mean, yes, of course, you know, we see it more now than we have in a long time, but there is another wave coming along in terms of, you know, matriculation. It's going to be, it's going to be interesting to see what MMA looks like in terms of its demographic breakdown from nationality in 10 years, let's say, and how redistributed it is in terms of what world powers look like. Yeah. I need to sound a little political. I didn't mean for it to sound that way, but no, no. And I need to learn how to pronounce this man's name to put the full respect on them.

Fun, fun fighters. I mean, you know, dude, he obviously can take you down and can be a submission threat, but he had some hammers on the feet too so uh it's a fun time what if what a fun time what a fun card more to come on this card okay not only and have you seen this shit but on extra credit later today let me pump that all right yes let me plenty coming on extra credit pardon me all right let's go to topic number four a little bit out of the uh beaten path bc we're bringing it up here because in part i didn't i was surprised there wasn't actually at well maybe i wasn't surprised there wasn't as much attention on this as you might imagine do we have the tweets we can put it we have the tweets let's put it up here if not we

can just sort of you know ad lib but basically bc nate diaz takes to twitter and asked the ufc to release him from his contract saying he wants to fight doesn't want to do this publicly but they're leaving him no choice and he's got shit to do so what is the right question here are you surprised that there that he did it probably not that there wasn't as much reaction to it like people almost just inherently dismissed it and there's the tweet right there and this is on top of him in weeks prior stating outright and then tagging bellator in the tweet saying he wants to go there which i'm not even sure how that works with your contract if that's legal or not but okay bc what's the right way to look at nathan diaz banging the

drum on social media to get out of his contract i think we still have to ask ourselves the same question I keep asking every week on this show which is this Nate Diaz wants to fight Dustin Poirier in what could easily you think I'm crazy could easily be a pay-per-view main event or a badass co-main on any giant card Dustin Poirier wants to fight Dana White wants to fight the fans love that fight Luke why are we 8 months later or so and this fight hasn't been made why is Dustin tweeting in response to Nate

I want to fight I just want to fight what the hell is going on here I don't mean to always be the quick trigger conspiracy theorist or be the quick trigger person that is always oh Dana's up to something. Is it because they're trying to keep these people in the bullpen away from becoming Jake Paul's next opponents, knowing that Nate Diaz has one fight left on his deal? I don't know,

Luke. I mean, I'm not, I'm not particularly overly interested per se in Nate Diaz leaving the UFC to box Jake, Jake Paul. But what I am interested in is fighters being able to maximize what's left of their financial growth potential here. It's why when GSP had an opportunity to box Oscar De La Hoya and then we find out even though GSP's been retired for what now? Four or five

years? He can't box who he wants because he's got to wait out the extended terms of his contract. It's ridiculous. There's already enough fighter pay issues, contract issues. We see the details all the time. You turn down a fight, your deal gets extended. You win a championship fight, your deal gets extended. Here's 36-year-old Nate Diaz, who, whether it was his fault, whether it was Dana's fault,

or whether it was both, sat out, Luke, for what? Three years in the midst of his absolute financial prime after two pay-per-views with Conor McGregor? So he comes back, and you know he's been Nate Diaz, right? You know, two losses in a row, but headlines with Maz Vidal, puts on, in the long run, a fun performance against Edwards where he nearly rallies to victory. But that's like almost a year ago at this point.

He's 36 and not getting any younger. Give this guy a fight and let him figure out what's next for him or just release him like i actually support him going out there and so your question is why aren't no one talking about it maybe because it's nate diaz and he tweets crazy shit all the time maybe because we're in an era where people are doing this more often right we saw john jones we see connor retire on twitter every year it seems like we see it a lot right but in this specific case for a hero like this who shed so much blood i remember what he was paid for in some of these big fights luke peanuts let the guy freaking go if he goes and boxes jake paul and makes all the money in one night that he would have made in five years, it's not going to pass the... You know, Jake Paul's boxing pay-per-views

are not going to trump UFC anytime soon, right? Do I want Jake Paul to stop trying to lure Conor McGregor into an MMA fight? Yeah, I'm done with that bullshit. But if this is the avenue that Nate can go while he's still physically able, let the guy go. What are we waiting for? Hey, UFC, hey, Dana, can we speak publicly on this? Like, what are we doing here?

All right. This guy hasn't fought since last June. He's been linked to a Poirier fight now for, you know, almost a full year. Make the freaking fight. Or let the guy go. Understand something. So, like, he's been with the UFC since 2007. Since 2008.

In 2008, he fought three times. In 2009, he fought three times. In 2009, he fought three times. In 2010, he fought three times. In 2011, he fought four times, right? And those four were Dong Hyun Kim, Rory McDonald, Takanori Gomi, and Donald Cerrone. The Cerrone one was incredible. 2012, twice. 2013, twice.

Then, once in 2014, once in 2015, the two McGregor fights in 2016, three-year gap, we moved to 2019, he fought twice, missed 2020 altogether, and fought one time in 2021. Now, I'm not here to say that the lack of activity since 2011 and 2012 is entirely the fault of the UFC. That is in no way what I'm saying. I'm sure that Nate Diaz is not necessarily the easiest guy to negotiate with, but I just want fans to inventory something about contracts. I had a debate with someone on Twitter, or an argument, or whatever you want to say.

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And they were talking about the strength of the UFC brand. And it should be noted, the brand does have a lot of strength, right? You know whatever else you want to say about who's on the roster and who's not they are obviously very capable promoters they know what they are doing in large part and they've really worked out a pretty great system they have a great broadcast partner like their success is not accidental for a lot of reasons however it is also true that the brand is artificially propped up by virtue of the fact that fighters are locked under contract for long periods of time and they're not able to move

around. There is this artificial construction that makes the brand what it is, where if the contracts were much more in the favor of the fighters having the ability to move after, let's say, two years or so, the brand simply would not be what it is. They would still be good promoters, but it wouldn't represent in your mind or frankly in the marketplace what it does today. I want folks to inventory that yes, Nate Diaz probably has in many parts sat out by his own desire.

Although I also want to point out how much time in the career of Nate Diaz has been lost by virtue of having battles with his own promoter years and years and years and years and I don't know that all of that BC translates into four fights a year it's not I'm not saying he'd be Canelo either but to your point it's not that they haven't had at times a fruitful working relationship but I would say at most times it's been pretty fucking acrimonious Nate Diazz was complaining a lot before the mcgregor stuff and even afterwards was kind of sitting out and complaining you i really wonder whether a different promoter who was a little bit

more giving up front to him whether that would be the case and we don't know the answer to that because he is still locked into long-term contracts that very much favor the promoter always keep something like that in mind dude i okay i think we're right to say it could be 50 50 in terms of why nate sat out those three years after the two connor fights and whose fault it was diaz is always tend to over inflate things right they never think they lost i'm sure they over inflate their value in that moment even separate from the fighter paid debate in question right but it's criminal that he went three years without fighting when he was that popular and commercially relevant and

beloved on a critical sense from every single fight fan but that's a whole topic from fucking three years ago luke we're talking about right now. The dude's 36. I mean, did you see that actual, what he said in the tweet of, mother effers be crying because they got dropped from the UFC. I can't pay out this bitch. What else could it be, Luke? He's openly saying on Twitter, which is not a Nate Diaz move to go this way,

per se, of like, you know, at Hunter, at Dana, like, let me go. Right. per se of like you know at hunter at dana like let me go right so so it you know we've talked about this before when when when no one wanted to fight hamza now we got gilbert burns it's going to be a big deal um do you does he have to sell his soul to like a hamza loss just to get out of that deal i bet you'd do it tomorrow if he had to that's what i I mean, BC, for folks who don't know, Floyd Mayweather used to be promoted by Bob Arum by top rank. BC, for folks who are not aware, what happened at the end of the Mayweather-Bob Arum relationship? So around 2006, Mayweather was being set up to fight Antonio Margarito, who was a welterweight champion.

Floyd was moving up to welterweight. Both were promoted by Bob Arum in top rank. Floyd came to Bob and said, like, you know, okay, cool. I mean, I'll take that fight if I have to for $8 million, but I think I'm worth more. I want to fight Oscar De La Hoya. I think I can move up, you know, a couple weight classes and make $20 million in a fight. And Bob's like, no, you know, you'll never do that. You can never do that. Well, there was a clause in Floyd's contract that he could be bought out. So this is where the genius Al Heyman, founder of the PBC, came in, and they bought out Floyd's remaining top-ranked deal for $750,000.

And what did Floyd do? Two fights later, he moved up and fought Oscar De La Hoya at 154 pounds in the biggest pay-per-view in boxing history, which even now, Luke, is what? The third biggest fight all time after Mayweather pacquiao and mayweather mcgregor so um floyd's going on to uh do pretty damn well after that and that's obviously a special individual case but they hit a crossroads of i think i'm worth more you don't see my value is there a way we can just part on you know on good terms there obviously Obviously, UFC doesn't work like that. There's a lot of reasons why they wouldn't or shouldn't or couldn't.

But if a guy's got one fight on his deal and he wants to fight and you've got a marquee, can't miss pay-per-view matchup, what the hell are we doing? What are we doing? Just let him buy it out. Just let him buy it out. And also ask yourself, I'm not saying that a free market Nate Diaz can just extend this run another five years.

I don't think that's right. In fact, I think it's the opposite, right? How many big fights does Nate Diaz have left? Okay, a big fight against Jake Paul would be one. If Conor ever gets free, that's another big one, but he's also under lock and key. It's not like there's a few different ways you could make some interesting money if you're Nate Diaz.

But dude, Nate Diaz is how old? Let's see. He is currently sitting at 36. He'll be 37 in the middle of April. That's a terrible place to be at 170 pounds at the elite of MMA, or even 155 elite of MMA. His record, he's got 33 professional fights, of which the vast majority have taken all but 1, 2, 3, four, five, six, seven have taken place in the UFC.

You got the most out of them. You got the most out of them. The Nate Diaz experience will forever be tied to the UFC. Let the guy go or give him a fight. Whatever you have to do, let's move this process along. But I want folks to remember those contracts. There's a reason why they're different between mma and boxing and the onerousness of them in mma props up the brands to a degree artificially never forget that uh luke if this is directly

related to jake paul is this dana being afraid at what type of momentum Jake can build by fighting what would be by far the biggest, you know, ex-MMA fighter turned boxer he could fight in terms of name value, in terms of, you know, us thinking it could be a competitive fight? Or is this Dana just going, F you, Jake, you know, you already embarrassed me publicly, so I'm going to work every legal power I have to prevent you from keeping your momentum going. Yeah, it's probably that. I mean, I don't think at their heart of hearts they're like, oh, we want to deny Nate Diaz making money.

I don't think that they care about that per se. I don't suspect that it's that malicious. But in terms of denying either Jake – remember, Jake Paul is the boogeyman, right? Lawrence Epstein telling the Sports Business Journal, one of the reasons why fighter pay is such a topic of discussion is because of Jake Paul trolling not because of low fighter pay so they have placed him as a very controversial important figure which I think is to a degree somewhat inflated and not really all that accurate the point I'm trying to make here is I bet it probably has more to do with that than it does with, you know,

if there was no Jake Paul out there, and he could go to Bellator, which hasn't even ever put on a pay-per-view, except for the one under Bjorn Rebny, right? I think that's right. The Tito versus Rampage one, or even that kind of fell apart, but whatever it was.

Was Bellator MSG a pay-per-view with Fedor and Jail versus? Oh, yes, it was. That's right, it was. And I think it barely cleared 100K.view with fedor and uh i think oh yes it was that's right it was and i can think it barely cleared 100k that's right but the point i'm trying to make is this not a huge pay-per-view threat although nate could obviously make it one for a very short time you know there's always that to deny them as well but it's like this is the thing i'm saying about the ufc dude they're like they're borderline printing money at this point nobody is a threat to them not jake Paul, not Bellator,

not PFL, not one, nobody. And of course, you don't want to let your guard down. Wow, I thought I was the one who was dying of communicable diseases. But now, BC. I think I caught a floater in that Athletic Greens Cup, Luke. The one drawback of the great

provider there. Well, it's not them that's doing that. That's the way you drink, AG1, which they don't recommend. But I'm just pointing out here, BC, the threats are not all that real. Diaz is these 37 in a month, man. What the fuck are we doing? Let the guy go. Let the guy go. Or give him a fight.

But let's move this process along. Let's move the show along. Yeah. Last but not least, we go to topic number five, the weekend boxing recap. Let's start with the one on Showtime. Tim Zhu, he gets it done. And in the end, actually, it was pretty goddamn impressive.

But it started out a little shaky, getting dropped in the first round. Although he finished the round, you know, respectably. And then from there on, I think, took the fight to Tyrell Gauthier. BC, what did you learn from the Showtime and American debut of the son of the legend Tim Zhu yeah let me paraphrase my own tweet after the fight kind of summing it up Tim Zhu absolutely proved that he is of the in my opinion that he is of the elite at 154 pounds, a loaded division. But luckily for fans, a loaded division of flawed and sometimes vulnerable elite fighters.

So while he proved that he's elite, he's going to have to fight his way through some very big fights to end up being the last man standing when this is all said and done. And that's because of his style, Luke. There's a little good and a little bad in here. So here's the deal. He is a constant pressure fighter, but never reckless. It's technically strong. He controls distance.

He gets right in front of you, and he lets those hands go. But he doesn't move his head, Luke. And I think that's why he got caught with that right cross to drop him, surprisingly, in round one. And that's why even even as he's looking to put the finishing touches he was never able to drop Gaucher again or finish him but he took a lot of big counter shots in return to do that but at the end of the day that's his style he digs in there now is he irresponsible defensively no but almost like a poor man's prime Gennady Golovkin, he stands right in front of you and he basically says, if you're going to land with me, I'm going to land even bigger.

And we're going to find out whether your chin, your gas tank, your toughness is on the level of mine. This style is going to break a lot of people. And I know a lot of people are going, didn't you watch the Hall of Famer, Coach Jizua's father? He also at times had head movement issues and maybe took a little bit too many shots to get his off. It's kind of who they are, Luke.

I don't think Tim Zhu is the pure dynamic boxer that his dad was, but Tim Zhu is elite. His poise, his understanding of this game, and his constant in-your-face, backing you to the ropes making you get him off of you making you dig deep and throw big shots back to get him off of you it's a hard style to beat luke i think he's going to take some clean shots to get there i think he's going to have to get dropped even sometimes in his biggest fights but in terms of an announcement that he's here oh he's here this was a strong

debut across the board punch stats wise he absolutely dominated Gautier who is a tough out in this division Gautier wanted to be a lot more offensive this fight than he typically has been I think he came out with those intentions Luke but when you've got Tim Zhu walking you down there's not a lot you can do but dig in and fight and if you don't have the same power firepower as Chin is him you end up lowering your output and fight. And if you don't have the same firepower as Chin is him, you end up lowering your output and you end up hiding behind that guard, and he is going to pick you apart to the body. So I think I saw a lot of reactions that were maybe a little too aggressive

in both ways, people saying, oh, there's nothing to worry about here. This guy is amazing. And then other people going, see, he got dropped. I told you he's not legit. Oh, no, Luke, he is legit. But he's got a dangerous style that's more dangerous for his opponents, of course, but a little bit dangerous for him as well. Yeah, I didn't walk away from this being like...

I walked away being very cognizant of, I think, both things, right? To your point about the defense, I did notice something, though, early on. Early on, he was doing rear hand parries and he was slipping a little bit trying to slip and then come over the top to counter some of the jabs of gaucher and that's when he was starting to get in trouble a little bit he got timed perfectly on that punch from gaucher if you go back and watch he actually catches uh you know we always talk about it on dissected catching him on the half beat he does exactly that i mean it was just absolutely perfect uh by gaucher but i'll say this i think he had to

change his tactics a little bit where he had to just kind of go high guard and block and then he does he does a lot of like blocking and then just walking through like he doesn't even try to like move his head a little bit because i think he was getting into trouble with that so it's a little bit of blocking a little bit of catching and shooting from him a little bit uh through the course of that fight as it went on but i'll say this for all the defensive issues that he may end up encountering and i think those are real i don't think folks should look sideways on that um he did change tactics in this fight a little bit to account for that and number two he's got some pop man yeah like he's got some his hands are are quick. They're accurate. We're going to, I did a big preview for Spence versus Ugas.

And you'll see that like the lead hand of a guy like Spence does a lot of work in those fights in this one. Not quite to the degree that Spence does it, obviously, but you saw some of that as well. He's crafty in there. He's crafty in there. He's got some real tricks. He's got good pop. He's got good hand speed.

I liked his intensity after getting dropped and getting up and then getting right back after it not taking his foot off the gas and then in around five and six dude he was absolutely driving punches home I could have sworn Gauthier was going to go down and what was it the fifth round when he got hit with a hard right hand we don't have the highlights but his gloves nearly touched the canvas it was bad and he was up against the ropes I didn't get the sense that he's going to beat the very best of this division, BC. He still has to grow. This is his 21st fight.

There's still some development that's required. But I did see that he is a formidable new entrant at the near top of 154 pounds. And he earned this one fair and square no doubt about it quality quality win you know if you look back at his other bigger wins there you know domestically when he beat dennis hogan when he beat jeff horn even when he beat a tough out in takushi takashi inoue i think he had an easier time based on the the skill level there and the circumstances and he was more able to walk guys down and go to in power I think in this fight, Luke, he really wanted to make a statement.

And I think it goes back to he has a next-level poison understanding. Like, nothing phases him in there. That could be dangerous if you're willing to take too many big shots to get yourself, of course. But I think he committed in this fight to making a statement. I think he tasted Gaucher's power early, and even though he did get dropped from it, it was a flash knockdown more or less that he got up and said, okay, I can take this. You're not going to be able, though, to do that against everybody, particularly Jermel Charlo, who has three of the four belts and is Jermell Charlo versus Brian Castaño too. Also, Erickson Lubin, who's fighting on in a few weeks on Showtime against Sebastian Fundora.

If Lubin wins, he's also a mandatory. Why is there more than one mandatory? Because there's more than one belt around the winner of Castaño Charlo. But he's going to be right in the mix. But what I said earlier, Luke, about the vulnerability of this division, this division's great, but there's so much parity. You never know who's going to win. We saw, you know, Jarrett Hurd a few years ago looking like the best thing in this division. And then J-Rock just, you know, comes out of nowhere and just overwhelms him. And then J-Rock

gets knocked out by Banana Rosario in the next fight. So there's a lot of like, I'm not really sure. Brian Castaño may very well win this rematch. Some thought he should have won the first one against Jermell. Maybe Charlo comes out of it. Either way, we are going to see some very fun fights for the titles moving forward. Tim Zhu's going to be in those fights. And I think, Luke, he's going to have to take on some damage to win them. And maybe at the end of the day, that's just who he is.

I mean, would you like him to be a little bit more selective in the boxing, use the jab more? 100%. But I'm not sure everybody can take that beating Gaucher did, is really what I'm trying to say. I think that's probably right. I think that's probably right. He said he wanted to be the bad guy. In the end, he was fighting like a bully.

You know, he was fighting up in the grill, pushing him around, digging to the body, catching him as he was exiting off the ropes. There was something to his style matching his presentation of who he is, which I kind of liked. So it was a little, it wasn't without its difficulties, but in the end he was clearly the better boxer. I mean, he got, yes, he got knocked down the first, but the rest of the time he was absolutely sticking it to Terrell Gauthier. All right, BC, let's move to now top rank. And this one you had put on my radar and I, it's not that I couldn't believe that Miguel Burchelt got dropped or got hit hard, but if you told me he's not going to make it to the back half of this fight, I would have been surprised.

Jeremiah Nakatila, did I pronounce it right? Correct me if I'm wrong, from South Africa. Boy, this dude can thump, and he put it on Burchelt to the point where the doctor, I think, or the coroner in the middle of the, in between rounds was just like, I've seen enough of this bullshit. How impressed were you by Nakatilla? I think Nakatilla is from Namibia, Luke. Close enough. They had him in South Africa.

Let me double check that. I did it wrong, but go ahead. I think we owe Shakur Stevenson an apology. So what does that mean, Luke? Shakur Stevenson, who just blew away Jamel Herring to win a title and is now going to be facing Oscar Valdez. I think that's April 30th. Either way, it's a must-frickin'-see unification bout with two unbeaten champions.

But when Shakur Stevenson, two fights ago, fought Jeremiah Nakantia, we were like, in fact, I was like in the interview with him, Hey, Shakur, why are you fighting these dudes? Why are you doing this? We need some big fights here. It ended up being a mandatory what, a mandatory what have you, Luke. But we saw a very defensive Shakur Stevenson in that fight once he tasted Nakatia's power. And we all looked at that as a negative.

I think this fight showed us that is Jeremiah Nakatia raw as shit? Yeah, hell yeah, Luke. But this dude brings it. And he has a bazooka right hand. It's a looping right hand. Sometimes it's straight. Sometimes it's,

you know, curving in there, but he hits everything with power. And I think his most impressive punch was those right crosses to the body where he would faint a jab upstairs and then come with a hard right cross downstairs. Either way, Miguel Burchelt's got some problems,

Luke. You want to talk about somebody who was the boogeyman in a division. For four and a half years, Miguel Burchelt was the best brawler in a division full of them because even though he's from Mexico, even though he's life or death, he's got some craft. He can jab. He can set up his punches. He was sort of like the most crafty brawler for about four years in this division. We saw Oscar Valdez move up and absolutely blow him away. There was some concern of whether Burchell could even make 130 anymore. So he moves up to 35 in this fight.

Luke, he didn't have anything. He didn't have head movement. He didn't have punch resistance. I liked, of course, the mini comeback he had in round five to try to make it a fun war. And this was a savage fight. In fact, there's an MK donk, Luke, from Vegas. He's's a doctor and he dm me and he was like dude should i go to this fight i was like fucking go to that fight dude it's gonna be a savage it was i never thought it would be this one-sided i respect miguel burchel afterwards for saying all true champions

need to take a loss and it's what you do to bounce back from it. And I'm going to prove to you guys that I can. Luke, I got a lot of questions for Burchelt moving forward because, you know, eventually, as you like to say, paraphrasing that bill is due of all the damage that you, you know, endure. And Burchelt has given more damage than he's endured, but he got knocked the hell out against Oscar Valdez. And sometimes in your 30s, guys are never the same after that. I think there's plenty of reasons to believe that this might be the case for Burchell. So big win for Nakatia. Now we want to see him again against basically anyone because, you know, it's hard to tell how good he is when somebody who's as great as Shakur Stevenson

is boxing circles around him. But this dude is going to make some fun-ass fights. If I'm Bob Arum and company, I'm signing this guy for a few more. Yeah, so to dead wrong myself, you're right. It is Namibia. This is the problem with watching fights on mute. You miss a lot of pronunciation and some of the more important details. So you're right.

He is from Namibia, not South Africa. Is it Nakatia or Nakatilla? I've heard both, Luke. I've heard of both. Okay, I'll just say Nakatilla until better corrected. But the thing I wanted to say is you're right, dude. You watch this fight. You know what's interesting about it to me is Nakatilla's mechanics,

they actually were not as smooth as Burchelt's in a lot of ways. You know, like the trajectory of his punch and some of the setups, I'm not saying that they're bad, but they're a little bit unusual. They don't look as refined as they're supposed to, but then the effect that they would have was so pronounced you couldn't possibly deny it in the end you're right about this guy i i don't know exactly how far he'll go and it's hard to see him as being the division's best and in fact you know shaker stevenson kind of tells you he's probably not but you want to make sure you got

some action fights somebody who is can reliably thump on a card bro bro, you call this dude, he is ready to go. But to your point about Burchelt, you know, this is what I wanted to say, and I said at the beginning, BC, which was, you know, it wouldn't surprise me if he got dropped. Okay, dude, now we're getting to a point where he has taken a fuck ton of damage. I don't really know, you would know better, but I don't, I don't, I'm not saying he can't get another win that's nice but he is past the point of having good punch resistance i don't think that's yeah we're at a stage now where he can fight very little inside of a space where somebody can hit him hard we've learned enough through our years covering combat sports that when it goes it goes and i think it's like that

like that yeah yeah all right last but not least i think this was a seventh round stoppage how about josh warrington and spain's kiko martinez now of course warrington had to i think vacate the title he never actually lost it to kiko martinez martinez beat the guy that kind of inherited it so this was warrington coming back around trying to get the belt that he had actually technically never lost bc all action fight martinez i think got dropped in the first of memory serves and then on top of it warrington we later discovered he put out a video on social media you can see it broken hand and a broken face and still managed to score a very like gritty stoppage against the rope line towards the end of that fight dude that was a you said it and we've been talking about it

the uk boxing fans oh my god there's just nothing like them there's nothing like them okay so we didn't really preview this fight i think we mentioned it and to be fair i didn't watch it live i ended up watching it this morning look what an all-action war this was this crowd in leeds england which is warrenton's hometown i mean in between rounds they're like dancing and doing the way i mean it, it was everything that we say about Ireland and the UK, the MMA and boxing fans, but particularly boxing. You know, Eddie Hearn is known for making a fun night out, but it's the people, Luke.

It's the people that make this. They just willed Josh Warrington on. And just to correct the timeline a little bit, so Warrington came out of nowhere to win the featherweight title when he upset Karl Frampton. We were like, who the hell is this guy? And then he got stripped of the title because of some sanctioning BS during the pandemic and then got upset by Mauricio Lara, got knocked out.

They did that rematch. Unfortunately, I think there was a clash of heads and it was a no contest. Some people said this should have been Mauricio Lara getting this chance. Instead, it was Warrington against Kiko Martinez, who's been around forever. But, Luke, Kiko had knocked out Kid Gala, had to win this title. Either way, it's back in Warrington's hands, and boy, does he deserve it. The broken jaw, the broken hand. But from round one on, I really urge anyone who has the chance to go back and watch this do so.

Luke, did you see Warrington, who's a fun fighter because he's not a pure boxer and he's not a huge puncher, but he's an interior effective technical brawler. And he gets inside of you. He lowers his shoulders into you. He almost turns his back into you. I mean, he just bulldozes you like Sean Porter, like a running back going up the middle. Dude, this was a physical ass war and at 36 kiko martinez bit down and left whatever he had left in that ring and they had fought already

in 2017 warrington had won a majority decision this is how you come back and leave no doubt regain the title moving forward at featherweight um i think you gotta watch you gotta watch josh warrington every time out i mean if you didn't already, you do now. Fun as shit guy who goes after it, Luke. I want to see a third fight with him and Mauricio Lara, and I want to see Warrington against any big name he can get because this was a fun, fun performance. A little one-sided, of course, but a back-and-forth spirited brawl.

There was cuts. There was everything that you'd want in this. Oh, man. Look, I don't know how we're going to do it. Would it take like Tyson Fury versus Anthony Joshua for all four belts for you and I to get on a plane and go to the UK? I don't know. Would it take Showtime being the provider of some type of pay-per-view in the UK for us to get there? Either way, you and I need to get there. We need to taste this. We need to taste this.

We need to experience it. We need to rub it on our bodies. And we need to do a live show with big-time guests in front of 5,000 fans, okay? We need to, brother. I couldn't possibly want to go to any other place to do a live podcast than the UK right now. Or Ireland. Ireland as well.

Top blokes. They get me, Luke. They understand me okay bro they're the i'm just there you know you can say what you want about brazilian fans and they're good fans but they're just nationalists like they're not they're not quite the same and you know you know shouting you're gonna die is not quite as nice as just the endless singing that they do in europe or at least that part of europe um it's just a different experience down there i mean we already have you doing incanto karaoke and by the way shout out incanto winning best uh animated oscar academy award i want to get you doing sweet caroline on camera okay and that

the worst fucking song ever and that's the why it's just the worst fucking song it's just the national white people's anthem i mean the worst the fucking worst i'll never sing that song at least not for anything other than money all right that's our top five bc before we get to dms from donks let's pitch it to the producers here for a second so bc and i went to miami last week that's where i got this communicable disease and we sat down with a gilbert burns inside of sanford mma and bc we teased it before i I'll say it one more time. You guys know I don't really care for doing interviews all that much because to me they just feel very artificial. This is anything but that.

If every interview I could do would be like this one, I would only do interviews. I cannot overstate to you how forthcoming Gilbert Burns is in this interview. And I'm told, BC, correct me if I'm wrong, we're going to put this out tomorrow. Is that true? Yes true that is true ahead of this this clash with Hamzat Chemaev that's a big deal for MMA and certainly a big deal for Gilbert Burns's chance of getting right back to that title level once more all right let's roll the tape on April 9th, one of the most important fights in the welterweight division that you could make with or without a title it will take place ufc 273 jacksonville florida and it will involve

hamzat shemaya versus our next guest gilbert dorino burns they catch me vaping yeah just a little tease there, Luke. I didn't realize all that goofy shit I was doing was going to be part of the serious video. Can we edit that part out? We got to work on your level change. You just kind of lean forward and fall. We got to work on your... Yeah.

Well, you know, I see a high crotch, Luke. I go after it. You know what I'm saying? That's the history of my life, okay? I will say this. I saw a lot of high crotches yesterday at the D.C. Tattoo Festival. Let me tell you. Yeah, you did.

You said Miami. I know you flew into Miami, but where is Sanford? That's basically Fort Lauderdale, right? No, isn't that Deerfield Beach? Something like that is what they were telling us? It's all Florida to me, Luke, but they couldn't have been more welcoming at Sanford MMA. What a facility, too.

It was great to see. Dude, we pulled up and that that uh i don't know if they can show the video again but that drone shot that they got at the front of it where sanford mma the the way when you pull off the highway you actually go to one road where sanford's right in front of you it looked like an amazon warehouse it was so big the space in florida is crazy those gyms their state of're state-of-the-art facilities times 1,000. In fact, we were in there. There was, I think, a Miami Marlins player, not a starter, but on the squad,

throwing pitches to work on his craft. Oh, yeah. They go well beyond MMA. And Gilbert was saying they have all kinds of dudes who play for the Dolphins and whatnot come into the gym. I was like, holy shit. We saw Robbie Lawler, Linton Vassell, Ian Gary. Well, we should say that.

Robbie Lawler saw us and then made a beeline for the exit. He was like, do not approach me no fucking way, bro. He saw cameras and two guys in blazers and was like, no. Bye. See you later. So look out for that tomorrow i cannot wait to show that to you guys all right bc time for us to answer the questions from the viewers it is time for dms from dogs hee haw hee haw okay bc from custom props one

now this is interesting you have to set this one up, BC. Will Tank Davis leave Mayweather Promotions, which might sound like a crazy question for folks who may not know. If so, who do you think he signs with? BC, there's a reason why this gentleman is asking this question. What is it?

So here's the deal. Tank put out an interesting sort of retweet, quote tweet, in which he said, they're making me, meaning Mayweather Promotions, fight this clown, meaning Roley Romero. retweet quote tweet in which he said they're making me meaning mayweather promotions fight this clown meaning roly romero gervonta's words not mine although you know what if the if the glove fits luke right uh we must acquit it uh so and you know he said because this is the final fight on my contract and tank has gone on to post some interesting tweets that he also deleted luke

including one of a private dm or text conversation with derrick harman of top rank now if you don't know derrick harman he used to he once fought roy jones he was a respectable uh super middleweight i think light heavyweight fighter he's now bob arum's driver he works for top rank you know essentially soliciting hey we'd love to meet with you and talk with you but we want to keep it on the down low. Well, Tank put that shit out there. To further, I don't want to say complicate, but expand on this, Floyd Mayweather himself was on his website or show of choice, Fight Hype, where he typically goes on and talks and said, look, you know, Tank's deal is up.

And, you know, if he wants to go, he can go. But, you know, we hope we've done enough to show him, you know him that we're for him and we've gotten him this far and all that. Luke, this is interesting. Now, obviously, there's potential layers here, meaning Tank is a PBC Al Heyman fighter who just so happens to be promoted by Floyd. So could he leave Mayweather Promotions and then still fight for the PBC and be promoted by TGB Promotions or any of the other sometimes promoters that PBC uses? Potentially, yes.

But this could also be Tank looking around, realizing that there is a large group of young future star fighters in and around his weight class. And you know how hard it can be, Luke, to make these cross-network, cross-promotional fights. You know, I do wonder what's going to happen next if Tank becomes a free agent at this point in his career having being already established himself as a legitimate pay-per-view player a guy who can sell out arenas all over the country LA Atlanta Baltimore and now he's coming to New York to the Barclays Center to fight Roley and he'll sell that out I I guarantee it. Dude, there's a big deal first of all, but if you're a boxing fan, there's a lot of potential

on what this could do. Now, I know there's a little counter for me saying we work for Showtime. I'd love to see him stay on Showtime. I hope that works out. Believe me, by the way. Of course, of course, but he's his own man. But, you know, he is his own man. He's going to call his own shots. Something to watch closely, Luke. We'll get into Devin Haney a little later in the show. He also just switched promoters and was a network free agent so there's movement right now

and i think um wherever anyone ends up i like when the fighters take their own career in their own hands because you know sometimes they want to fight guys but the promoters of the network can't make it so we'll see we'll see what's going on here luke all right um i it's something you didn't expect because the closeness or at least the presumed closeness of tank and floyd make you think that this is just something that's going to happen forever and it might i i don't know um but they've been rocky luke to be fair okay let's be fair all right i don't i don't want to share all rocky but okay yes hold on i know what you're saying rocky and there's been times where like i think tank may i'm just

guessing i don't know like tank doesn't talk to me so i'm gonna guess here maybe a little bit overbearing floyd's been maybe a little bit um and maybe he just wants to like see what happens i mean who knows he's a young guy still right so like there's a there's a lot of that still happening but i will tell you that in my head as something again you're much more i'm trying to catch up to you in boxing i'm very far behind but you know my impression was like oh that will just continue because it's good for business maybe not maybe not well look al hayman's not a promoter he's a manager and you know he just so happens to manage what like 50 of the relevant fighters in the game today it seems like and there have been fighters in the past who have kept al on as their manager advisor but gone to different network

danny jacobs went to the zone and you know in hbo first and then the zone so i don't know what's going to happen here luke but um floyd and and and floyd has long put the arm around gervonta and said this is the guy this is the next one and you know so far he's been proven right but i hear what you're saying sometimes it feels like floyd's a little bit too much commandeering the microphone and they've also had some up and downs personally that's gone public in the past over some decently salacious things so who knows where things are actually at right now luke but meet me offline on our patreon show and i'll tell you more okay fair enough all right from m sherman 08 question what current fighter's career would benefit most from a colby cummington type heel turn you mean getting punched in public i

don't know about that but you know i was thinking bc like who is a real big what's the word baby face is that the idea like it's a little late but like imagine wonder boy was like and your kids are you know stupid and your wife is ugly. It would be, I don't know, it would be weird, but he's so close to 40 it wouldn't work. Is there someone who's real nice who could jack it up by having a heel turn? I get the spirit of the question. What you're saying is who can we bring up that's really nice

who can then become really mean, but they don't even have to be really nice. They just have to be somebody who's overlooked, let's say on a promotional push level, yet has really good ability. And could they, by taking on a character, which we go back to Floyd Mayweather, when he took on the, when he stopped being pretty boy, Floyd became money Mayweather

and was so genius and calculated, it opened up, you know, millions, right, to him. Who could do that in a way that in theory covington said he did to save his job although they can't seem to prove that that actually happened right that sean shelby actually told him that he was yeah but like at the same time does that sound out of character it doesn't sound out of character all right so who is a fighter luke of a kind or at least low profile personality who's very good and you wonder you know with an ideal pr turn you know a villain taking on a villain character could just go through the roof couple names stand out um she doesn't need to but it would be weird

if valentina shevchenko did it yeah right. Right? I mean, she's the champion, but you'd be like, what? You know, that's a little strange. Kayla Harrison could maybe, you know. Kind of did. Kind of did that last year. A little bit. But he said, listen to the thing. He didn't say heel turn.

Colby Covington heel turn. I mean, like, find the line and cross it habitually. What about Rose? Imagine if Rose just became like an absolute bad not the nice beautiful person that she is and she supports so many good things imagine if rose is just like f you and f your mom i just kind of you know what about robert whitaker like dad oh yeah statesman in certain ways you know couldn't be nicer impossible to dislike that's what if he just went whoop you know and turned it all away but he would make is he a hero in many ways you know

it'd be it'd be a weird look glover you imagine glover being like fuck all you hoes i'm gonna beat the fuck out of everyone all right what's the this is gonna be a controversial statement but what's the true spirit of this question the question surrounds colby who took on a a first day a trolling and then eventually a like political stance to try to gain following. What if Islam Mahachev came out as like pro Putin F Ukraine? I'm not I'm not asking for this, Luke. I'm just saying, you know, he has the ability to like take that persona and become public enemy number one. Right. Yeah, that would be disgraceful.

But yeah, yeah. Disgracefulness sells. persona and become public enemy number one right yeah that would be disgraceful but yeah yeah disgracefulness sells you know hey usa i'm coming for you next i mean it could get it could get bad it's actually not a bad call that's actually uncomfortably better than my call i have to tell you all right from at sahir 16 uh was what will Will Smith did justified? Well, that butchering of the English isn't justified. Would love to hear your guys take on, especially in light of the Jorge Colby situation. I mean, everybody is going to take this shit to death.

I'll just say this, BC. Obviously what he did is pathetic and cowardly and bullshit, and you can't support it. But what I would say, though, is the thing that really stood with me when it was all over is this dude walks up you know it wasn't it you went and everyone was like oh he could have he could have really hurt chris yeah if he had closed his fist he fucking hit him with an open hand like can we calm down on this leads to death takes a little bit but what i would say is the thing that really captured my attention was he goes up there. He does it.

He sits back down. Everybody comforts him. Then he wins the award and does a speech about, about love. I'm like celebrities or elites in this country can basically do whatever the fuck they want. Like when Donald Trump was like, they let you do it. He,

he's 1 billion percent correct for better or in this case certainly for worse okay before we get into the blame and that luke you would you would argue that this felt like a sort of top five twitter moment all time like real-time reaction to something i mean it's not jack ruby shooting oswald on national television but it's about as bizarre as it gets because the slap alone is a moment, right? Like Kanye interrupting Taylor Swift. It was like a moment, right? But you have on the back end him winning the thing, and it's like, do you realize how I always argue

that UFC 229 post-fight brawl, don't you realize how close that was to the whole arena, fighting each other, people being unsafe, and it's the palace brawl? Do you realize how close that could have gotten to, like, security ushering Will Smith out and, like, you know, the show being stopped and them just announcing his award while he's, like, in a police car? So, like, the fact that it played out that way and that just minutes later he won the award and then had to give a speech in which he's apologizing and justifying at the same time. To the Academy, though. Not to Chris.

No, not to Chris. It's wild. All right. I like that the spirit of the question asked the Jorge Colby part. Yes. Because you and I reacted in a way to that that was, some people thought insensitive or not in touch with reality, and my response was, I don't think the worlds Colby and Jorge live in are reality.

It's trash-talking fight promotion game, and one person or both regularly go too far. And there's a receipt sometimes when you do that. I'm not saying, you know, it's street justice. I'm not saying I support what Jorge did by any means, especially the hit-and-run strategy. I have a different take on the... I think Chris Rock is almost the accidental hero here.

Now, is the joke that he said out a lot? Of course. But that is a forum, being an awards host, trying to be edgy, right? Like no one's probably ever going to be. Remember when Norm McDonald did that ESPYs one that ESPN wants you to forget about and just roasted everyone? I mean, there's some great moments in the history of hosting a major award show and being edgy. I don't know if Chris Rock knew about the alopecia, why Jada Pinkett Smith now has to have that haircut,

although I think in the past she may have done it for style purposes. So it's like it was a G.I. Jane joke. It was a sort of lowbrow but not too deeply offensive, in my opinion, joke, but it was out of line. I mean, the joke was fucking – the joke was shitty in what it was making fun of but it was not that bad of a joke I mean it didn't justify that but I saw an interesting story overnight from the guardian that had read Will Smith's autobiography that came out last year and said

apparently when Will Smith was young his dad punched his mom brutally in the face and she was like bleeding and Will Smith and his siblings didn't do anything about it. Right. Cause they're small and they're scared. And that ate at Will for the rest of his life. And Will claims that he's been building up this lovable, happy character publicly almost to sort of offset that. But the fact that he didn't come to his mom's aid ate at him for his entire life, including when his dad was, I guess, on his deathbed and sick. He considered killing him as revenge. Okay. Wow.

So that at least shows you the foundation of coming to his wife's aid and protecting her publicly. But Will Smith laughed at the joke when it was delivered. I know Jana gave an odd face, and any of us as a husband in that moment is going to be in an awkward position, yes. But you have to consider the stakes not just that you're up for that award 10 minutes later the biggest award of your entire career by the way the biggest moment really and will smith is on everything he's on everything luke music movies tvs on everything that's the biggest moment of

his career without a without a shadow of a doubt he almost he almost botched it he almost punted it away to try to what prove to a to a comedian that i mean like it dude i don't i don't like your joke you know credit to chris rock for one in the moment dealing with it putting his chin out like okay you know you're pissed i'm sorry but then rolling with that punch dude that's that's number one the fact that he rolled with that slap. It wasn't a punch. It was a slap. It was an open hand.

He did not close his fist. It's a big difference. So the fact that he rolled with it, lessen the blow, and the fact that he was able to carry the show on, like we didn't need to stop and rush to commercial. We didn't need to get a replacement host or just say, hey, go online for the rest of them. I mean mean he just

rolled with it is as impressive a live tv moment i mean look luke you and i get little tastes of this when we're doing live streams or whatever we know in the back of our mind that she can go haywire at any point in fact it does right they go cory and it will be in our ear and say hey guys uh we're gonna get we're gonna get this guest oh no's not here yet. He'll be an hour away. Go vamp for an hour, right? You expect that things can go wild. Dude, what Chris Rock did to pull that off, he's the real MVP in this, Luke. I know a lot of people are going, that's what, Will Smith is a hero. That's what you should do. Dude, there's a time and a place. No, Will Smith is not a fucking hero. Will Smith is a dumbass. If Will Smith did that backstage, I wouldn't have much to say negative because chris rock knows

that he's in the business of of taking chances and sometimes luke that bomb is going to blow up in your head that grenade is going to go off in your head yeah i mean you know that exaggerate what the threat is like again he didn't close fist punch him you know everyone chris rock is fine like everyone's fine like i don't want to make this up people like that is uh that is in intense violence well it's wrong it's definitely wrong but i don't know if i've i've seen intense violence it doesn't look like that but um the thing i want to say is this is not a complicated thing and going back to colby and jorge there is a meaningful difference and i don't again you can explain this to people and they hear what they want to hear dude i will

repeat exactly what i said when i was in miami or fort lauderdale whatever colby's the victim colby's the victim it's not very hard to figure out. Speech is protected. Violence against others basically is not. This is not a complicated argument to make. The difference was Colby went out of his way to antagonize dangerous people. And the point I'm trying to make here is,

yes, of course, Colby has a right to do all of those things. But when you antagonize dangerous people for, frankly, years, years, you have to ask from a risk management standpoint what will happen here. Not what should happen, what is appropriate to happen, what people are entitled to do. Just what will they? Chris Rock made a fucking joke. Chris Rock is not a dangerous street person. He is a comedian and an entertainer. We're at the fucking Oscars.

The elite of all elite, you know, in terms of what people in society go to. He made one offhanded remark, and the joke was kind of shitty. I agree. You know, making fun of someone's alopecia is not nice. It's mean. It's a very mean thing to say.

And he stands up and does that shit. Dude, that's weak. That's fucking weak. But the point I'm trying to make is about Colby's situation. The reason why it's different is, dude, you antagonized people who are violent for a living purposely for a long time of course nothing should happen to him of course he should press charges and if he wants to sue jorge jorge made that choice for him and there's no sympathy for him that is different antagonizing dangerous people from an entertainer making a mean

joke on stage they are not necessarily from a risk management standpoint they're not equivalent and you know the guardian piece did point out that the last few years there had been a string of chris rock public jokes against both jada and will so look dude like i'm not justifying one percent of one percent of 1%. Get over it. No. Get over it. I'm saying that to try to fill in the blanks of the motivation. But again, if he had done that backstage, if you had heard after the fact that backstage

he slapped Chris Rock and warned him, you would go, okay, dick move, but I get it. If someone's, you know, because, you know, Luke, you got to ask yourself this knowing Will's recent history. Hold on. Hold on. Stop there. Hold on. Yes, go ahead. Go ahead. Why would you would you get it dude what culture are you living in this is not the

middle ages someone says something and it has an effect if you have dignity it doesn't matter what the fuck they say you the person can't take it from you it is inherent to your humanness it doesn't work that way like oh my honor has been betrayed motherfucker this ain't the 15th century that you it doesn't work that way you can say whatever you want it doesn't affect human dignity at all it's the violent act afterwards however violent it may be that actually is is is the thing that really affects the human dignity and human worth. It's not the words. That was just a setup for me to say, shouldn't he be more angry at his son's friend who Jada slept with

than Chris Rock? And maybe this was it all busting forth because while that's a funny joke, it's also real and also entanglements. But also, you know, a lot of people tweeted afterwards like, oh shit, smith's got some serious problems if he's willing to do that in this moment 10 minutes before the best you know yeah it looks like there's some internal struggle going on so i wish everyone well shout out to chris rock for holding it together but um i mean it's pretty weird to begin with that that they

that they have that they sleep outside of marriage with different people i mean but that's just my two cents luke okay by the way we have a meme here the producers want to show. Can we see the meme? It's just Will Smith slapping DC. That's it? Yeah, apparently that was me accepting the best MMA podcast award, apparently. Also, I've seen other memes with Anthony Smith, not Will Smith, approaching me and doing the same thing.

But shout out to Anthony Smith. See, that's the thing. This is not an even matchup, okay? By the way, Luke, if I'm Brendan Schaub, a comedian who can actually fight, I'm building my entire material around Will Smith moving forward. I'm challenging him. Just come get me type shit?

Yep, yep, okay? Because he's not going to take that slap, okay? He knocked out Crow Cop. He's just going to swivel and come right back and be like, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Well, he shouldn't do that either. But, okay.

From at Telvin Kip oh yeah better 90s yes better 90s show fresh prince of bel-air or saved by the bell bc whatever you want to say about what happened yesterday i mean the guy made a mistake i don't i'm not going to judge him in his entirety by that one act i gotta say first prince of bel-air much better show much as a program it's a i mean quincy jones is behind it it's a it's a damn well better show but more historically entertained luke more endearing to my heart now i was a fresh prince super fancy every episode a million times right i mean they switched moms out of nowhere unexplained and viv we got a new and viv but dude saved by the bell hit a little bit harder at least in my household luke okay all right well you're also intensely white so there's that as well i don't think it's a race

thing luke in this case really you don't think there's a difference between a mostly white cat cast and a mostly black cast and the fact that you preferred the former rather than the latter you think there's zero to that no i just think saved by the bell was the goofy absurd humor that that that hit with me luke okay i think i would say this saved by the bell was a little bit pre-teen whereas i feel like fresh prince was that but maybe a little bit older i don't know there's no is there is let me ask you is there a difference in age demo? Not huge, slight between the shows. It feels like there may have been.

I think that's fair. Dude, how snacky was Carlton's sister Hillary back then? Yeah. In the famous words of many of my friends, because Lord knows I would never say this, she could get it. You know what I'm saying? She could get it.

Oh, God. Wow, wow. We better move on. All right, let's move along. From at Rolly Anderson. It's a very straightforward question, BC. How do you want to answer this one? Because we do have one.

I don't know if we can tell them what the answer is. Can y'all start doing room service diaries again? How do we answer this? I'll answer it like this. Room service diaries again how do we answer this i'll answer it like this room service diaries isn't dead it may look a little different moving forward though may sound a little different may taste a little bit different now look now now it tastes a little different like ag1 when you just pour water on top of it rather than mixing it or like a full-on ag1 experience yeah what i'm about to say like we're not changing the formula of room service diaries for this reason but what i'm about to say also relates to the

reality of room service diaries so here's the here's the real deal holy field luke tell me if i'm sharing too much okay we put out a segment in which we drink alcohol and openly say things that eventually will get us fired yes we've gone pretty close to the fire but you know that shit burns and the more we gain followers win awards do whatever stuff looks good on the other side to the to the bosses i think the more the bosses might end up watching our shows luke so you know um i don't think room service diaries in its original form is sustainable as much as people love it it is hard to make great decisions while drinking 40s and talking about um boobs and rap music right i mean it it's hard look it's hard right it's it's uh it's a recipe for cancellation which so we're not changing it necessarily because of that.

We're changing it because we've got a better idea with the same title, I think. But we are changing it also because of that. I think that's fair. Here's the point. Here's what I'll say. You will see room service diaries again, and probably sooner than you might imagine. And it will look pretty similar, but it will be an upgrade.

It will be a substantive. Is that true? It'll be a substantive upgrade. Yes. I was going to say, there's a substantial investment going on in this show's future, and RSD is one of those pillars.

So let's see what happens, right? Okay. With that out of the way, BC, we are done with DMs from donks. It's time for your feces. Yeah, right. Hey, this is one of our better episodes. I got to give it up to you, Luke, okay? Yeah, Mondays are good episodes.

Mondays. I like Mondays. We scour the globe, of course, for the good, the bad, the ugly, the in-between, combat sports, and beyond. It's called HYSTS. Have you seen my feces? All right. When I use public restrooms and I don't flush afterwards on purpose,

that's what everyone says, or that's what I ask. Yeah. Wow, that was gross. Okay. UFC fight night in Columbus. Luke, we talked about former heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic getting down with the OH. I think it's the new thing because Curtis Blades also did this, Luke, on Saturday. If you show up, someone's going to hand you a beer and you've got to chug it, right?

Yo, look at how he sticks his tongue out first. Look at that. You see that? Oh, wow. He's like welcoming it in. Let me see. Do I do that, too? I might do that, too. Hold on. I might change my game up. Yeah. A little bit. Hey, tongue out first. Look at that. You see that? Oh, wow. He's like welcoming it in. Let me see. Do I do that too? I might do that too.

Hold on. I might change my game up. Yeah. Hey, by the way, Stipe's a cool dude. You got to give him. I mean, like, I've underrated him too often, Luke, and no, he's not a flashy personality, but when you hang out with him, when you interview him, the guy's awesome. Yeah, he's a real dude.

He's just a real dude who can fight his ass off. And by the way, there's colombian in every picture to his left bottom right of the screen is uh a colombian american named hector castro who is a former mma manager well he's still i think he manages a couple people put on please put on some of the very first professional mma events in colombia and uh is an all-around good dude i would love to see his Encanto review, Luke, to be fair. All right, let's see. Luke, we mentioned Brian Barbarina and Matt Brown went to war. Luke, that was insulting.

Don't give me that face. Don't get Will Smith soft on me. I didn't know. I wasn't mad at it at all. It's fine. I have no issue. You're like, it was just a bad joke. I know sold it.

No, no, no, it's fine. It's fine. Luke, round three of Barbarina Brown was a shit storm. Look at the final 10 seconds. Wow. Yeah, dude. I mean, this was crazy. I couldn't believe.

Were you surprised at how well Barbarina landed as Tukey knocks on my door, even though I've given specific instructions to not mess with me today? I mean, what are we doing? Well, look, she's pretty excited. I mean, an i mean come on dude an oscar for a car i'm gonna let her come in here and slap me just to you know create some excitement luke i hope barbarina gets the contract for him and his family but either way here's a wholesome moment after the fight with the with the multiple barbarina kids coming up to make sure Daddy's okay. I pop for these moments, Luke. Yeah, these are tough. These are tough. But

he's okay, and this might be his last one anyway, and then he's back with them, and I never really fully appreciated this until I became one, and these are just the best. These are totally the best. These kids better hope he's fighting sooner. They'll be working the plow with him, Luke. You know what I'm saying? Okay. Well, you turned

a perfectly nice moment into it. No, you say he's a farmer. That's what you said. Yeah, he wants to go back and work on the farm. Eventually he will, yeah. All right. Neil Magny came from behind, Luke, to get a nice win over Max Griffin. Yeah, he did.

Dude, Max Griffin put it on him in the first round, man. But check out the closing seconds. A damn near gotch pile driver from Magny. Damn! Yeah. Dude, he dropped him on his head. Which, by the way, folks asking, can you pile drive an MMA? No, you cannot.

You cannot spike someone on their head. But if you notice, he kind of, it's a little bit off to the side, you know? Wait, wait. Didn't Jessica Andrade, whose nickname in Portuguese is Pileriver, win a title by piledriving, Luke? Sort of, sort of, yeah. I mean, it's a little gray. I guess what they don't want to see is like a 12-6 straight up and down neck compression. Yeah.

You know, like that. But anything short of that, they kind of just let it roll, you know? Yep. All right, Luke, real recognized real in the locker room. Check out KK France cheesing it out with MK Instagram follower Joe Burrow. Yeah, Joe Burrow, friend of the show. I'm just going to call him that even though that's utterly false. I mean, to be fair, he might have been following below the belt

and then it just changed over, Luke. That may be what happened. Probably true. But my point is here, he's a good MMA fan, a hell of a quarterback, and I'm jealous that he doesn't play for my team. Yeah, I think he should play for MK, actually. I think he should be our new correspondent, Luke. Yeah, we should. Catching up with Joe Burrow.

What's new, bro? Yeah, indeed. Luke, I'm going to play sound in a second. This is from Fury FC. The guy's name is Jordan Pluton. Listen to this liver kick. Oh, I heard this. Yeah.

Good Lord. And he's one of those guys that you can see a definite improvement every time he's out here. A huge improvement this time in conserving energy. Oh, big shot. That's it. Out. Yeah. That was a big shot to the body.

Good God. I tell everyone, you can hear it in the the apex but if you've never been to a fight and i bc you've heard it send me a thousand times go to a regional mma show in your neck of the woods and in fact this weekend that's all you're going to have access to go spend the 20 30 bucks that you need to get in and you will understand fighting in a very different way than you have before uh yeah first of all how about jordan pluton's hair which is ridiculous but then he was grinding after that flip on the canvas which is so regional mma i love it but also luke you know when the 10 second clappers in boxing and

mma that the time keepers use it's those two giant plastic or wood blocks whatever the hell they are and they go to let the fighters know that's's what that kick sounded like, dude. That's crazy. It did. Yeah, but them hitting it actually super hard, more than normal. That thing, a liver punt, a liver shot, excuse me. Golly, dude. That must have

sucked to be that guy. I feel bad for him, but shouts to the winner. He did a great job. Luke, a lot of people taking a bite out of Boxeo this weekend. Mike Tyson, Holyfield style. This is top rank from Las Vegas. Nicholas Pablo DeMario putting the bite. Yeah, I saw this too.

Let me ask you about this. Now, I know that the referee has discretion on this, but let me just ask you your feeling. I feel like if you bite a motherfucker in a fight, they should call it. You should call it, yeah. What they typically do is take away two points, because I guess there's levels to it, I guess. We've seen it a few times.

Remember when Ivan Redcox did it on the neck of that dude that time? Was it Danny Garcia? Yeah. I mean, at this point, yeah, you should be disqualified. I agree with you. He did that to Josue Vargas,

who rebounded from his first defeat to get a win. But later on, Luke, in Buenos Aires, Aires Argentina I don't know the fighter's name but we got another fight check this shit out what are we doing here bro bro what the fuck yeah I dude I gotta tell you like I'm see I've never been a pro boxer I've only ever the most I've ever done is just spar it's never even and I've you know I've been tuned up a spar. It's never even, and I've been tuned up a few times. It's never even occurred to me to just bite a motherfucker. Would you call it a pussy move, Luke?

Would you call it a pussy move? I would, no, because I don't think those dudes are not tough. But to me, that is like the ultimate, that's to me surrendering without like tapping. You bite people, you're out of options. That means you know that other guy is better than you and you are you can't stand it that's what it is will smith basically a little bit different obviously because that's you know words and versus actions

fighting but it's it's him being like i can't take how much better you are fuck you indeed they say bad things happen in threes even later sat night, Luke, check out this pussy doing it a third time. I mean, come on, bro. Right? How did it work? Bro, letting your cat nibble on your face is extra dangerous. Dude, Reggie Jackson just chews up my beard. People in my house think I'm weird, but he's so lovable, Luke.

Yeah, he is lovable, but cats, they go from zero to 60 without warning. I think that's pretty fair. All right, Luke, let's move on to more prescient things like dick and balls. Here's Devin Haney's response. We're going to get to Devin Haney to close the show, but George Cambosa is telling Devin Haney about the flight, that it's 19 hours from the U.S. to Melbourne. And here's Devin Haney. I know how long the flight is.

Long as my dick. Don't try to talk Haney. I know how long the flight is. Long as my dick. Don't try to talk me out. Bitch, I'm on my way. Luke, your thoughts on that response? Have you seen Devin Haney's hog? I mean, I don't know. Is he right? At one time, I laughed in high school.

One of my friends was asked what he was going to do for an hour-long presentation because it was like, how are we going to talk for an hour? And he goes, I'm just going to unroll my hog for an hour i was like well it's very funny actually if it doesn't help us in the moment you know forgotten 90s movie with with tons of one-liners jamie foxx tommy davidson you remember you ever see booty call a long time ago dude yes it holds up all right jamie foxx like, my dick's only two inches from the floor. From the ground.

Vivica Foxx, what a movie, Luke. That's a prime movie. George Kambosis later countered, Luke. He wasn't talking about hogs, though. We're just going to start talking about each other's genitalia. All right, let's keep it going. BC, when you and I break up, are we going to do this? Well, you're a dickless loser, and I your balls i hate your balls bc yeah yeah all right uh we got some politicians in the wild luke is this really bernie at the vegas airport

gotta blow it up i can't see bro what i am not bernie kind of looks like him dude did i tell you one time i had a 6 a.m no i had a 5 45 a.m flight out of vegas okay and i was flying the nubber shit i was flying southwest which is you know roll the dice fly southwest that's really how i look at it it's gucci spirit luke yeah so i was Southwest. Do you know who was on my flight? And by the way, Southwest is like, there's no first class, there's no business class, whatever. Jon Voight was on my flight.

Let me tell you, Jon Voight, this was 2015, 2016, something like that. Jon Voight was looking for- Who's his famous hot daughter? Angelina Jolie. That's right, that's right. I was thinking Jodie Fisher, but no. Bro, Jon Voight looked like he was one of those.

You ever seen those old dudes who are confused because they can't find the commode and they just look kind of helpless? Jon Voight was looking real helpless at 545 in the morning trying to find a Southwest flight. I was like, damn, bro. Okay. Two years ago, I was on a flight with Jeff Skunk Baxter. You may not remember him, Luke, but he was the guitarist of both the Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan.

And he had like the walrus mustache. He was a good guitar player. There was a, when he got off the plane, there was a line of people waiting for him with like handfuls of memorabilia for him to sign. Like who's following like 70 year old Jeff Skunk Baxter around the country knowing that he's going to land

and getting like shit signed. It's just weird. Also, one time I was in Dulles and I was boarding my flight. This must have been 2010, 2011, something like that. I can't be sure about it, but I will never forget. I'm walking to... I'd gone to the

bathroom right before boarding had started because using the bathroom on a flight is tough when you're my size. And I go to line up. And, of course, work had paid for my travel. So whatever the last group is, that's the one I'm in, of course. And I look over to my right and BJ Penn is just sitting there by himself. And there was no one around him. And, you know, this is obviously pre-pandemic by a long shot.

He's just sitting there, not reading anything, not looking at his phone, just kind of looking around. And not one person in the airport either recognized him or went up to him about it. Defending Lava's check. Yeah, and then he fist fought someone in front of the, you know, Annie's famous pretzels or whatever. I love what you're like, you know, a guy with a hog this big, it's tough to fit into that

urinal there on the plane. No, it's not that. You've been on those flights. I can't even put my head up straight. Can you? Barely, Luke. It's tough, dude. It's hard to wash your hands and stuff. It's difficult. If I called you Armenian Shrek once in a while, would you be upset at me?

Nah, it's alright. Some people think Conan Silveira is going to kick my ass for calling you Armenian Shrek once in a while, would you be upset at me? Nah, that's all right. All right, all right. Some people think Conan Silveira is going to kick my ass for calling him Brazilian Shrek that one time, Luke. He's a nice guy, actually. Get in line behind Will Smith and Anthony Smith. All right, Luke, speaking of presidents in the wild and urinals, this goes together perfectly. You wouldn't feel weird using this. I would feel weird using this i would feel weird using this i'm telling you our kelly'd be

into it i'll tell you that much luke okay yeah all right uh let's get out of here before we're fired uh speaking of urinals let's let's continue this content please gaff thank you luke would you have any performance issues here? That's funny. That's funny. That's weird. By the way, are these automatic? Because I don't see any flushing handles on these things.

No, that's got to be automatic. That means there's urine all over the floor. Luke, check out this donk trying to create a bathroom circus with these restroom stilts. I'm sure it's going to end great. That looks like Mikey, our producer kind of right that looks like john voight on the way to his flight let me tell you i mean is there a worse place for your face to hit than a dude who at the airport chiles over served this fucker too many cadillac margaritas huh all right uh the only thing grosser than that Luke is this next video. I know this is a skit, a bit, but I couldn't

do this. You couldn't pay me to do this, Luke. Just like I can't sit in a hotel tub because it just feels too gross. Let me see. Dude, what the fuck is this? I mean... I appreciate the show she's providing, but she's a little gross, if we can be honest.

Let's keep going. Hey, 1X in Singapore. Perfect transition. Let's go to Shotree and Company. Luke, did you see the pure joy on the legend himself, Seksayama, who I would love to see pass a PED test after rallying was i mean for as as as non-nimbly as he moved he was fucking shredded dude he is all man first of all shinya

ioki another legend almost had him submitted luke and he rallied back look at the joy okay no this is this is hotel staff trying to get me to wake up on my trip because I'm so fucking tired. I refuse. In the main event, Luke, Stamp Fairtex. I'm sure it's her government given name. She didn't win, but look at this entrance. It was a good fight, actually. I mean, they just do it differently in Singapore, Luke.

I love it. Yeah, this is kind of me at all of my wife's parties when I'm in Colombia I bet you they all they only talk Spanish to each other and they ignore you constantly Luke no they're pretty nice they treat me real good I'd be lying if I said I was mistreated oh look then again they could be using a bunch of slang I don't know and then fucking absolutely assaulting me verbally but I don't know that either so Luke remember when Inganu won the title and Dana didn't show up to put the belt around him and acted like he was busy shotry did something weird here here's shotry sid yong tong uh after nong oh won a one title basically like here hold this shit i don't care and there was one time by the way uh he came out one time with a mask that was like below his nose and i'm like you don't need that mask if you're going to just wear it that way and then the next time he came out he had no mask at

all he was like fuck it but why is he pissed at Nong Oh did he vote him off the island on Celebrity Apprentice 1 Championship Edition Luke I don't I don't know how I don't know enough about one's inner workings to know if there's some kind of beef. All right. Sick knockout alert, Luke. Christian Mbili sent Najib Mohamedi to the land of winning ghosts, as you would say. Dude, we have two angles of this. This is insane. It happened in Montreal.

Oh. That's like a Ric Flair bump right there, right? That's crazy. Man, he sat him down. there, right? That's crazy. Man, he sat him down. You know what? That's reminiscent. It was a kick, not a punch. But of the Terry Hedum KO to Edson Barboza.

Yeah, yeah. Just how kind of like the body. I mean, it's not quite. Terry Hedum was like fully stiff when he fell over. That's not quite that. But here's the ringside version of it. Yeah. Wow.

Mohamedi, our boxing hardcore fans will remember, was a mandatory challenger for Sergey Kovalev a few years back and actually had an HBO main event and got sent to hell there too, Luke. But nice guy there. Calls himself Iron Jib. Big fan of him. Hopefully you'll visit him one day down under, Luke. By that, I mean hell.

Luke, let's lift some weights. You know who's still lifting with gloves luke your boy bruce buffer your thoughts oh buff what are we doing fella i mean he's kind of cut for 60 right hey listen i'm not i'm not knocking the hustle at all like you know that's great but it's like dude what is it you think these gloves are doing for you you know what i'm saying like what what is it that they're doing for you getting loyal gains luke that's what they're doing okay hey no the weights are getting the loyal gains but it ain't helping his grip i can tell you that all right let's let's play rate my

lift form here's former two division champion conor mcgregor so this is the alico um trap bar um does he always work out with an erection? Like, what is he doing? Remember that? Remember that that phoner he had at the weigh in against Floyd? Look, he was super. I mean, I'll say this, like the form. Dude, why are you wearing the gloves?

Dude, I've used this bar. I've used this very bar many, many times. The knurling is not that rough on your hands at all. You don't need it number one and number two the form on this you should be a little bit forgiving because it's not a strict deadlift the hands are in a sort of a side-by-side position versus over under or on top and so um you know and because there's no bar to pull against you it gets a little wobbly in the middle so that's fine the only thing i'll say these, these are called power blocks that he's using,

which are also great. I don't mind this in terms of the range of motion, but I would just caution everyone. If you're lifting weights, your boy had to get surgery for this very reason. I was lifting on a bench press and my elbows were too flared out to my side and it caused on the pull down or know the pull down or the the the

the eccentric portion of the weight it caused my shoulder to rip so what you actually want to do is you don't want your elbows at your sides you don't want them flared out you kind of want them at 45 that is a safe position for your elbows to be in when you bench and you also want to make sure that you're you got some good scapular retraction uh going on there your boy play the play the mcgregor one one more time. I want to see the last one you did. Connor's diesel, bro. Yeah, he's been in the weight.

My man's been in the weight room for sure. Play it one more time. He's making that 170 beginning here. I think he's coming for that belt, Luke. We'll see. All right, hold on. There's the curl. Yeah, he was doing the curls.

Same thing. I mean, he's cheating him a little bit. You see how he's thrusting with his hip and his morning wood or whatever? And he's coming off his heels too a little bit. He's cheek cheating him a little bit. You see how he's thrusting with his hip and his morning wood or whatever? And he's coming off his heels too a little bit. He's cheek curling him a little bit, but otherwise it's fine. Maybe he beat the Irish curse, Luke. It's possible.

He has a lot of money. Luke, do you believe in stretching before lifting? Sort of, but not really. It actually turns out it can be not that great for you. You actually want to stretch afterwards. Why? What do you think about contortion lifting? Is there a future in that, Luke?

Let's check out this video. This is fake, no what the fuck is this can we go full screen gaffney please this is disturbing what part of siberia is this i dude this is from the moon i this from you know also this guy contorts his back in the worst way possible and then has to have fucked up mechanical motion as a consequence. He's like, dude. I get that you... Okay, so for folks who don't realize this, actually, you do want your feet a little bit behind your knees

and kind of tucked behind you. And if you actually look at the way a certain bench presses is done in professional competition, some of them actually don't necessarily make you put your heel on the ground behind you. And if you actually look at the way a certain bench presses is done in professional competition, some of them actually don't necessarily make you put your heel on the ground behind you. So when you get your body to go like that, you're actually tightening up all the muscles for maximum push.

Taking it a little far, BC. Taking it a little far. If your feet, if your shins are on the bench, maybe don't bench. How about that? If you can please yourself, you're probably going too far there maryland manson oh he definitely that dude has definitely s'd his own d oh my god that's a

guarantee that's a guarantee uh luke is this an impressive lift or no i get a lot of lifting videos sent to me i usually throw them out but what do you think about this he's lifting dumbbell racks so it's just a standard block pull it just looks funny for the gram that's all it is you notice he starts pretty high it's called a block pull um hey let's yeah it's legit it's legit it's not a full-on deadlift but it's legit you gotta be strong as shit to do that like oh yeah you gotta be strong as fuck like shop once told you you got a problem with the 400 remember uh no shop can shop can like with not great technique he can deadlift six which is horsepower strong i mean he's strong as shit that guy uh it's time

to visit the barber shop luke loop you like uh luke excuse me you like art you like tattoos how about this razor ramon haircut in honor of the late scott. Your thoughts? I mean, it's good that this guy getting his haircut doesn't have a job. All right. Let's move on to the next haircut. Luke, the future is so bright for this guy. He ordered the Ray-Ban look, Luke. There's a lot of bored white people in this country.

Yeah, there is. This guy's a donk for sure all right let's go out in the streets luke uh you got any tips on how to avoid the cops i've never seen this move before did he just granby roll you gotta be shitting me he scrambles free see you see you copper you know doing the cartwheel has to freeze them that's probably a decent move luke dude he just tony ferguson he was like fuck no you know who he is that's like the poor man's michelle perera yes yes indeed indeed uh luke i don't think this video is real but i was entertained by it shout out to former or current guns and roses guitarist slash for for sharing it this asian lady out here taking souls luke is this some instagram trick yes oh yes yes it is okay all right you know what that's like that bitch obi-wan

oh you want me to fight you darth vader i'm out of here see you in the netherworld yeah but you could argue that although obi-wan spent most of his career hiding in the desert he did get the higher ground on that bitch anakin and and took him out at uh mustafar dude yeah well anakin is a hoe i mean that was the worst part about it they couldn't even make anakin cool they had to turn into a whiny ass bitch and it's like you want me now to believe that this guy turned into Darth Vader? Really? They turned into Robocop and he was a badass.

Yeah. All right, Luke, we got to keep this going here before we're here for three hours and you get another job. Rate that tat. Brock Lesnar super fan edition. Oh, dear fucking Jesus. That just, I don't even want to say what that looks like. That is.

Luke, you a big Jonasonas brother fan how big let's check out this next tattoo is that a tramp stamp yeah yeah it is dude it really is okay dude there are some people that i was i saw some people getting tattoos yesterday, and some of them were like super high quality. Yeah. Then there were some that I was like, you're making a mistake. Well, did this next one show up at the DC tattoo convention? Look, they'll put anybody on a body these days. Even Mago Medoff has Beulah.

Oh, you know, it's not terrible. It Magomedov Hasbula. Oh. You know, it's not terrible. It's not terrible. It's okay. Luke, speaking of Hasbula, everybody seems to have a story who met him of getting like their eyes scratched or like their dick punched.

Did you see this video? I don't know who this guy is, but he turned Hasbula upside down and look at the receipt that the fighting legend has given out here okay i mean it's played with him oh you know what though i gotta tell you people putting hands on hasbulla

yo fuck them man i completely support hasbulla don't pick him up like he's a fucking prop somebody needs to make a a like a compilation of all the fighters who have stories of getting punched really hard by Hasbiel, like in the eye, basically, or in the asshole. I want to see his highlight reel. That's what I want to see. Yeah, yeah. KO of the week, Luke. It wasn't that boxing one.

It comes from UAEW27. The man's name is Khaled Awa. Thank you to Kaposa for putting this out there. Wow. A little bit off balance. Both guys were. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Let's keep it going here, Luke. We have. Oh, there's another video. Wow. Look at that. Wow. I don't think I've ever seen this.

That looks like a Tyler Perry movie knockout. Yeah, it really was. Luke, we got footage of as soon as we finished our first Rooftop Diaries episode with Chuck. Remember that time we all threw up? We finally have the video. We got the Malka security cameras here, Luke. That is lovely. Put that in the Louvre.

Some drunk asshole slipping in his own puke yes please more of that fuck this guy and finally luke how much would it cost to get you to wow i mean first of all that guy must have thrown up for like three hours after this no question about it dude no question um i have seen people eat entirely lit blunts i've seen that i've never seen someone eat a cigarette butt. Well, the good news is that I don't feel like any efforts at scientific progress will be impeded by this man's consumption of cigarette butts. He seems like a, what's the word I'm looking for? Idiot. Yeah, he's white. All right, that's the shit, Luke.

That was a long one, but worth it. All right, with that in mind, we'll wrap this up pretty quickly. BC, time for odds and ends. What do you got? Yeah, so big news here. We know that George Kambosis upset Teofimo Lopez Jr. to get most of the lightweight titles, and he's been linked with Vasily Lomachenko and a few others.

Lomachenko had to pull out of the fight, of course, because he's on the front lines in the Ukrainian conflict with Russia. But, Luke, we've got a winner, and it's Devin Haney. According to ESPN's Mike Coppinger, a big-time deal has been crafted. Devin Haney, who is now a promotional and network free agent after being with DAZN

and Eddie Hearn the last few fights, is going to come to ESPN top rank and Lou DiBella. Lou DiBella promotes George Kambosis, and they worked out a deal. So here's the deal. He's going to fight George Kambosis. Now, Haney has the WBC title. All four lightweight titles will be on the line.

It's going to take place this spring in Australia, and there's a rematch clause in there that if Devin Haney wins, they would rematch in Melbourne. And also, I heard there's a potential option on a third fight for the winner, if they fight twice and if it's Haney, to then fight Vasily Lomachenko on ESPN pay-per-view for all four lightweight titles. Now, that's a big if. He's got to beat Kambosis not only once but twice. But, Luke, we're talking about potential of these young stars finally getting the fights that they deserve, that we deserve as fans. Shout out to Devin Haney for, you know, waiting and then moving when it was time

because I know he's got to beat the champ twice and that's not perfect, but he's got a chance to become a star now because the zone wanted nothing to do with paying for this fight. Good for him. Somebody else did play it up. If he gets all four belts, dude, I mean, who knows what that might do for Tank? Any of these scenarios there's a lot that could shuffle around due to all of this happening in the way that it is because as you pointed out they're carrying with them whoever wins all the effing belts and look devin haney is is the talent's real and he's had the wins over gamboa

linares jojo diaz there's been some moments where we question him, but he looks to be legit, Luke. This is going to be a tough fight. He's going to be in enemy territory. We know Cambosis comes for it. We know the crowd is going to be nuts. They'll do a stadium basically down there. But this will be a fun event, and we'll probably see it twice, Luke.

I know that all the Australian fans are like, BC, really? You guys counted out Cambosis against Tao. Now you're going to count him out against Haney? I mean, the odds are going to be what they're going to be, Luke, but this should be fun to watch. Yeah, listen, I'm going to keep my mouth shut and just say, I can't wait to see what happens. But good for all these guys.

Dude, good for Cambosis getting the belts and then bringing them back home and then making the challenger who wants them to come get them. I mean, I realize that we're unifying here, but you know what I'm saying. Good for him, dude. Seriously, he earned it times a thousand so yeah good for boxing too let's let's make boxing that's right good for boxing all right mine is pretty simple dude so uh i'm not sure what to say about this i don't often come on the show and say what i'm about to say but this time i have to john jones is right there was an article that came out

in the Las Vegas Review Journal over the weekend talking about the people who were involved in that remember that Chael Sonnen hotel incident and it got reported as like he beat up a bunch of people who were insulting and maybe even attacking his wife and then some of the details came out in this article now again I want to be very

clear about this like John like Chael they're both innocent until proven guilty we have and I think john's situation is going to be resolved if it hasn't been already um you know it is what it is uh and for chael he'll have his day in court or whatever's going to happen but remember he was initially charged with like five sort of misdemeanor counts those were pulled out and they they charged him with a lot more including a felony or two count on top of it this article comes out and talks about the couple that was allegedly attacked they it's apparently a dentist and his wife who said that it was entirely unprovoked what what really gets worse about it is they they talked to in the article reportedly chael son and his wife and she said she had taken an ambien at four and then missed all the brawl

and then just woke up with injuries the couple claims when they saw Chael walking down the hallway, he was muttering to himself, already had a bloody shirt on. Now, I don't know what all of this means. And obviously one can assume what it might mean. And I'm not going to go there because I don't know. All I mean to say is these are relevant details that are serious and they are bad. And John took to Twitter to say, you know know everything i do gets magnified to the nth degree and it's been crickets for chael dude he's right he's right he's absolutely right about that

there was hardly any coverage about it now i know it's a little bit different because the first story came out like chael was some kind of last action hero and then the story changed when the story changes you know typically that people lose interest but it's also true that chael has been like people love love chale and and the media likes them and the fans like them and most of the fighters like them and i definitely think that has tampened down some of the response to this story which the details again they are alleged but they're heinous they're not awesome at all there's legitimate holes in the story that i want to bring up but first of all i agree john j Jones is basically tweeting out that there's a double standard potentially here.

And I think he's right because we like Chael. And because it was framed originally what? That Chael was walking through the Luxor at 745 or whatever, you know, PM. Something like that. And ran into some donks. And then, you know, of course, Chael apparently texted Brendan Schaub that one of them insulted his wife, so he was just defending himself. So we took on this hero vibe of, oh, God, Chael did what Will Smith did, right? Chael did what any real man would do, right?

And then Chael gets dropped to the charges, and we come on MK, and we're like, wow, Teflon Chael, man. You know, like nothing can touch him. He's undefeated. But now the story's coming out and what's interesting luke is the dentist heard the comments from shab on the podcast that's echoing what what we thought it was framed as and then was like no no no first of all he's saying he's claiming it happened at um the four seasons which is a little bit down the strip next to the mandalay bay from the luxor so i don't know if chael had uh an incident at the Luxor and then returned to his hotel at the Four Seasons because this doctor and his wife are claiming when Chael showed up there, he had a torn bloody shirt around his throat and he was shoeless. And he not only knocked out a dude who walked by him, he put this doctor in a chokehold and jacked up the wife and she was bleeding.

And it's a really scary story luke and then there's those details about his wife who claims she had the ambien but woke up with all these bruises and is claiming chael didn't hit her so i mean there's a lot that we don't know still but there's a lot that's disturbing about this and um espn has said he won't appear on anything until the situation is resolved one way or the other like you know again i'm not here to say that chail's record is the same as john's i mean there's meaningful differences between the two but to john's point that like dude relative to what he is being accused versus what people are saying out there you know and again if he had done

that which again it would be a very different thing for all of the previous incidents he's been involved in. This one, I think is Chael's. I don't know if he's had many run-ins with the law. That's what I can recall offhand. I mean, there was the real estate thing, but we're talking about violent acts in public. The point I'm trying to make here is you don't see a lot of chatter about it. And there it's serious. It's super serious.

Again, alleged, but it's serious. I saw an interview that was recent with at the eagle fc fight with the schmo and he asked it comedically but asked chael about the incident chael just kind of defended it and deflected it like just went on to the next topic and whatever um but luke there's also like you know if you read the story further um the security team that showed up because chael allegedly assaulted somebody then as this couple was walking back to the room, knocked a drink out of a different guy's hand and assaulted him. And then assaulted the guy and his wife as they're pleading to stop.

And then a security game came. Chael is kneeing these guys in the face and elbowing them and just putting on like a full MMA clinic against whoever comes, you know, after him. So I don't know if that Luxor incident preceded this or if it didn't happen, but there's a lot of unanswered shit related to this. And, you know, the core of what you said is right. Anything that happens to Jon Jones because of his track record

and because he's not even close to as likable, if fair or not, as a public character, we tend to think the worst. And in this case, we just automatically were like, oh, God, Chael defended his wife? Well done, man. Good for you. But learn your lesson. Never go to the Luxor again right you know yeah no no luke no i mean for no other reason i just don't want bed bugs you know what i mean indeed indeed yeah all right

so that's it for us damn we did a two and a half hour show today uh we got to get out of here uh bc it was strong it was strong it was strong it was a good show it was a good show but it was it was still long so let me remind remind everyone, the Gilbert Burns interview. I think we sat with him for 45 minutes. It will be out tomorrow. We're also going to get it either tonight or tomorrow. We'll get out extra credit. We'll talk all about one championship and, of course, the stuff we missed from the UFC.

So be on the lookout for that. Showtime.com is the label that pays. Showtime.com. You get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, pound sand. The email for the show, morningcombat at gmail dot com. Send us there for

Wednesday's fan subs, Friday's Dead Wrong. By the way, we're going to have a little fun this week, so send us everything you possibly can. morningcombat at gmail dot com. Yeah, slow fight week. Slow fight week this week, in case you haven't noticed. We're going to have some fun. YouTube dot com slash morningcombat. Luke, it's not just three live shows, Monday, Wednesday, Friday

at 11 a.m. Eastern on the YouTubes. We hit you up with interviews. We hit you up with extra credit later today. Also, I chatted with Derek James, the fantastic boxing trainer who's going to be in Errol Spence's corner coming up against Ugas. Also, he's Jermel Charlo's trainer ahead of this Castaño rematch. Very insightful chat. Not only was Derek James great to chat with, but afterwards, Luke, he was like, about time I showed up on this show.

I'm like, you know, it won't be the last. It won't be the last. It won't be the last, Derek. I guarantee that. So be on the lookout for that as well. Tons of content coming your way. So like the video. Hit subscribe.

Thanks to everyone, to Malka, to CBS Sports, to Showtime. You can follow us there again, at LThomasNews on uh tiktok if you're interested in the tiktokness of it yeah um and then that's it for us today thank you so much for watching we greatly appreciate it we'll talk to you guys on wednesday be on the lookout for the gilbert burns interview and until next time may all of your gains be loyal