MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Bonus Post Thanksgiving Mailbag (11/27)

Episode Date: November 27, 2020

Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell answer all the questions the fans left in apple podcast reviews in this post Thanksgiving special episode. --------------------------------- '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: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And a revelry, revelry to all of you. Happy holidays. Hoping you're giving thanks for us because we're giving thanks to you. It's Morning Combat coming at you. It is Friday. Let me get the date right. November 27th, 2020. No, we're not recording this on a Friday.

Full disclosure. But that's when you're receiving it. Black Friday, indeed. So hopefully your punch defense was good out there at Kmart this morning. My name is Brian Campbell, the big beige one, one half of your MK duo. The other fella on the other side, you know him. He's the best. He's the best thing going today, guys, at CBS Sports MMA Beyond.

He's got like a million YouTube followers. He lifts weights in his front yard. It is Luke Thomas. beyond he's got like a million youtube followers he lifts weights in his front yard it is luke thomas luke uh you haven't had thanksgiving yet but uh hope you had a good one luke yes this is from the future and um i don't know what happened on thursday but i can say it was probably great happy thanksgiving to you bc hopefully no colombians caught covid happy holidays to everybody this week and hopefully everybody out there is doing a few things. Number one, liking this special edition holiday treat video for you.

Number two, subscribing to this podcast. We're like 69,000 strong, but we're trying to get up to 75, 100. Get Luke's top off. Get a lot of fun things going on if we can get up there. And number three, I hope you clicked yes. Play. I hope you press play on the MK documentary this week. The studio return.

The documentary. Shout out to the folks at Malka and Showtime for producing that. Luke, let's not go any further than that before we do what this show is all about, which is answering the questions from our viewers, from our listeners, all that. Your thoughts on this production hitting the streets, bro? The documentary? Yeah. People seem to like it, dude.

People seem to like it. You and I were a little bit bickericious towards the end of it, but all in good fun, and we were both hungover and tired, and that's okay. In general, I think it was a hit dude don't you yeah i mean i am very impressed by uh you know less than jake our fine former mk cameraman and apparently he was the chief editor on this for malca but they took luke uh an inside look at how the mk sausage is made some of the bubbling difficulties and tensions going on between you and i between jay our own the uh the producer the great producer well the producer and uh you know and they and they mushroom them

they brought them to the surface luke but no no worries if you're a viewer luke and i not getting divorced or fired yet eventually but not yet yes we were we are definitely going to go down in flames but not anytime soon yeah indeed so uh look this is the purpose of this show to give you a little bonus on this holiday weekend not just mk all day nearly every day not just the fun extra interviews you got from francis and gano to errol spence danny garcia a lot more to come next week uh what we did of course was command you to head on over to apple podcast boost our rating there and really just asking your questions you ask it we'll answer it on this black friday luke white people are just

as willing to wait in line at three in the morning and getting the fisticuffs pushing the door open at best buy to get that damn projector screen as any other minority why are we calling it black friday i don't know why we call it well i don't why are we calling it black friday i don't know why we call it well i don't think they ever called it black friday because that's who the racial component was of people taking advantage of the deals it probably had some other component but i will say that there's been people try to shame you if you watch black friday fight videos and it turns out that like millennials and gen z are much more likely of all demographic groups to be involved in those deals right like if you actually what's the what's the demographic

makeup of your typical black friday shopper hey man spans spans the demos white black male female rich poor somewhere in the middle young old right it's a nice little mix i take no shame bc in watching two mothers fucking hammer each other over a toaster at target at seven in the morning i love it you know what i do take shame with and look for some people this is their their holiday week this is their thanksgiving weekend goal for me my family friday the day after thanksgiving you know what we do we put up the christmas tree we put up the decorations and play the music i you know what we do? We put up the Christmas tree. We put up the decorations. We play the music. My wife and kids, they'd be willing to start Christmas season in July if I didn't step in and say,

we must respect the best holiday ever, Thanksgiving first. But the second it's over, Luke, it's Christmas Village. It's the whole thing. I get that for some people. And maybe to them, it's a family thing too. Shopping, getting a great deal all day in lines. To them, that's holidays in lines to them that's holidays to me that's i mean look i i've you know what's worse than people that that watch fight uh black friday fight videos people that wait in line for black friday like i'm not against

getting a deal i've gone out at 2 p.m on a black friday and checked out best bites or hey anything cool here for cheap but i ain't get dude i ain't sacrificing family time for uh for a new xbox come on bro no oh yeah i mean i'm definitely a low life for watching those videos i certainly acknowledge but am i really as bad as the person who camped out to get a ps5 in front of circuit city i don't think that i am but look we all do our own weird stuff so if that's how you get high, then stay there. All right. The goal of this show, of course, and thank you for everything, your support. These are one of the times we get to give back to you, not just the documentary.

This fun episode, answer your questions. Maybe have a little holiday fun here, aside from the typical fight game cycle. So Luke, why don't we kick it off? These are from the people. Now, we don't have names. You know, that gets me mad because I like to recognize our our listeners our viewers you're more like no don't give them any reason to sue us but uh let's start off right here from one of our viewers look i'll pitch it to you hey luke do you have a top five favorite red hot chili pepper songs in your

personal library i mean five red hot chili pepper songs I don't know if I can name five. Well, tell me your fandom of them. At least give us a snapshot of your fandom of one of the better. Okay, so number one, easy for me. Okay, you know what? I'm being a hater. That's not quite true. My number one is Easy BC.

And I feel like, before I give you my answer, you're a Chili Peppers fan, right? Yeah, more casual than hardcore but definitely a fan yes okay so i mean i feel like their best song by a country mile is under the bridge right which is the one where he talked about uh anthony key just talked about heroin addiction and overcoming it and all that nonsense um so that is definitely my number one go-to uh the cover of uh stevie wonders higher ground i'm kind of partial to a little bit um what else am i in favor of bc let me see i would say the end of the night so i was a big blood sugar sex magic which was their first real sort of mainstream commercial album where they got a little bit away from being more just, you know, funk and other things.

But I love that big late 90s sort of, I don't know if you call it a comeback. Don't call it a comeback if somebody's been here for years. But the whole Californication, Don't Stop, Scar Tissue, that whole run of Radio Rock hits. During a time, Luke, you will remember when Radio Rock was the shits, right? It was like nickelback and and you know all kinds of rap rock crossovers they brought the good stuff during that run they were rock and roll during that run yeah and that was such a huge time for that was really the peak of rock and roll if you ask me or at least its last peak anyway so i would say okay we've got

uh i like californication too but you got got Under the Bridge, Breaking the Girl, I would add, Higher Ground, and I'm going to throw in, not that it's one of the better ones. I am not a truly purpose-officio, not OBC, but I'll throw in Aeroplane. It's my aeroplane, that one. Do you also, wait, look, let's stay there. Do you also like your pleasure spiked with pain? I certainly do. i certainly do i certainly do good so all right give me your top five i don't think i have a top five and i and the reason why i won't force one out is i want to i want to respect the band and say i'm a casual

i'm a radio listener i'm a youtube listener i'm not a album listener of them you know who's probably real mad listening to this is cbs sports uh combat editor brand Wise, our good friend who's a hardcore, he's so hardcore his wife once bought him what they thought was front row tickets to the Chili Peppers loop. Turns out it was a Chili Peppers cover band. That was probably a fun night out. That happened to me. I was dating a girl

and she thought she got me tickets to see The Roots, but she actually got me tickets to see who was the famous crooner, the woman who sang At Last. At Last. Yeah, I know. Her band is called

The Roots Band. That's the name, The Roots Band. I ended up seeing her and she was drunk as shit, singing and trying to twerk at like age 70 uh it's not earth the kid earth the kid was the black cat one edda edda james or something edda james edda james yeah and edda james in her prime was like the you know couldn't be topped but you know at age nearly age 80 not the same show yeah she's in her girdle yeah i guess i don't need that yeah

i don't know uh luke so brenna probably pissed off but i'm gonna say like remember when vlad klitschko it is in his prime would come out to can't stop that song's badass right see i don't hate that song but doesn't like tj dillashaw come out to it it feels like a little bit like elevator music i'm a day one ish kill a shaw fan so i'm fine with that i love yeah whatever but i'm not gonna pretend to be hardcore i'm a cash so let's move on. You don't like Under the Bridge? It's their best song. It's fan friggin' tastic. It's like the odd ballad

from this funky, fresh fusion band. Yes, they're friggin' fantastic. Shout out to Rick Rubin, who was a huge influence in their career, by the way. And by the way, if you are getting... When Flea discovered Cannibal Corpse on social media this year it was a wonderful wonderful time wow uh by the way loved flea and kidis's cameo in point break with swayze and uh gary bucey he's had a

flea's had a bunch of cameos yes yes and also that jump shot he hit and i think it was the third mtv rock and jock basketball game he had a big corner jump shot to like win it in the closing seconds i was there i'm not there but you get what i'm saying there all right enough babbling enough babbling all right all right bc my turn my turn to ask you ready here we go is habib risking turning into an icarus which is to say is coming back for the 30 and 0 record and we're assuming that he does that at this point just flying too close to the sun okay so there's a lot of stuff going on here luke um you know he says we you know remember in the show we were like well i'm not going to talk about him coming back for 30 you know until i hear until i hear it from you uh is that the goo goo doll no that's uh no until i hear it from jim blossom better than ez Better than Ezra? One of them. It's one of them, Luke.

Dishwalla? No, that's... Tell me all your thoughts on God. Yeah! Cause I'd really like to see him. Yeah! Tell me if I'm better. Okay, okay, okay.

So, Luke, Habib came out and was like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'll smash your opinion if you believe that. But then did you see he just put on social media this week like Dana White, I'll see you soon, boy. I don't know what's going on. I don't get the Icarus reference. He could walk away at perfection right now.

Yet 30 and 0 would be a nice round number. There are two things i think he could do or should do luke and one of them is not conor mcgregor because he's not motivated by money so why do it right if he's not motivated by the money from it he doesn't want to reward this guy that he thinks the pos either get gsp in some form catch weight just do it because your dad wanted you to or i said this before i'll say it again specifically angle tony ferguson he's got to beat dobronx first and that's a great ass fight but say look this was the fight the fans always wanted five times was a charm nope we're gonna go for the sixth time and if i you know i'm gonna

walk away at 30 i'm gonna put i'm gonna ted williams it i'm not gonna you know i might be hitting 400 today but i got there's more there's a double header i gotta play both games all right i'm gonna fight tony ferguson i'll have huge respect for his daggy balls if he does that okay yeah those daggy balls certainly like hibbity hops i'm not really all that concerned about a bc this is not saint pierre you know who i mean almost quite literally walked out of the octagon on his hands and knees after fighting johnny hendrix and i thought hendrix won that fight whether you think he was on the sauce or not you just asked me who I thought did the better work once the cage door was closed.

I thought it was Johnny Hendricks, but obviously St. Pierre got his hand raised. But his face was a mess at the press conference. He was in a shitty mood hyping the fight because he was just burned out from the fight game. I mean, I get that Habib is probably feeling a lot of things about what he wants to do, and a lot of those are probably not centered on fighting.

But BC, he's not declining. You know what I mean? Like, he's not like his game isn't suffering or something. So, like, I don't know if who, you know, I don't know exactly what's next. Is he going to bite off more than he can chew? But as long as he's fighting another man who's 155 pounds i mean my guy's got a shot to win bc yeah yeah i mean he does he's gonna be favored against every single one i mean look like seriously we said this when he originally beat gaethje and said he's gonna leave if he leaves

now he will legitimately be leading at leaving at like the mountaintop with something that maybe only jim brown of the nfl did back in the day or whatever like you know, even when Barry Sanders walked away, he had stuff left in the tank, but he was never going to be the same. Barry Sanders. The key of that transaction was that if he would have hung around for a year and a half, he could have broke the rushing record. And he's like, I don't care. I'm going to stand by my principles. I respect people with conviction and core values and all that. So it's on him, whatever the hell he wants to do. Look, he has nothing to prove to us nothing nothing at all wouldn't it be great to be in that spot where you got nothing to prove to

anyone luke right my whole life has been just constantly trying to prove that i'm not an absolute piece of dog crap yeah i mean how am i doing well your family is a bunch of scholars and you're like i'm gonna go into like mma uh breakdowns yeah by the way do you what happened to dissected you got a new spinoff franchise what's going on here yeah well you know i don't know if we can tell the whole story dissected is still gonna be around did you make a joke on an episode of dissected and you got it shut down by showtime legal is that what happened no bc i exercised more caution than that um I just, I can't really talk about it, but I have to break them up.

So you'll get a little bit of both, but there you go. Technical difficulties and dissected. And brosected. I like the name though. Well done. Technical difficulties. Thank you. All right, let's advance.

Let's advance here, Luke. What do you got? What do you got? My turn? It's you. You're up. All right, Luke, out of the following 2020 COVID standouts, not on this list though. A lot of people had great COVIDs, right?

Michael Jordan's last stand. The damn Tiger guy. Can you just ask the question? So they put him in the can. Yeah, Fauci. Fauci had a good year. But of these MMA fighters, Luke, who will have the best

career of guys that had 2020 standouts your choices are comes out jimayev jerry prozhatska prohotska jerry prohotska yeah john john blackowitz um no uh kevin holland or d mornir lazaz yeah it It's either Chemaev. Although he's interesting. The real choices are Chemaev, Prochazka, and Holland. Yeah. I mean, here's the thing. The obvious answer is supposed to be Chemaev.

But honestly, man, I'm not saying everything is a fraud. For me to say the whole thing is a fraud and a setup, I have to know better. And I don't know better. But here's what i do know he hasn't really proved a whole lot other than he's obviously good but lots of people are good in the ufc we don't really know how good he is um now we're going to find out when he faces leon edwards and he goes and he beats leon edwards okay then at that point you have definitive evidence beating gerald mearshart in the way he did was impressive and and the other two donks. But those other two donks, I mean, they're not going to make it in the UFC much longer. Mearshart, you know, he's, I think,

a competent, decent middleweight. I think he's got parts of his game that are actually quite good, but, you know, I didn't like the way he was approaching the fight. Chamayev has ability, but relative to the hype around him, he hasn't proven that. Prochocka is, to me, very interesting, and I think can make a run at 205. And Holland I like as well, but I think that there's a lot of hype behind him

that he hasn't proven yet. So, which is to say, all three guys are very talented and will go far. I'm going to do the black horse option, BC. I'm going to go Prochocka. 205 is much more of a wide open division. open yeah it's much more of a wide open division uh than the other ones that well chamaya 185 might be a somewhat wide open but 170 not really and kevin holland i like but um i don't know can you use the term upper bound limits in this conversation at all?

Yeah. Well, here's the thing. The reason why this question is interesting is because you actually don't know the upper bound limit of any of them. If I may. To me has more known weaknesses, but he's competing. I think at a space in time where it's more available to advance.

Well, let's just tell the truth here. I don't know who the guy D is. Does he fight for the UFC? Look, am I a filthy cash? Who the hell is that? Munir Lizez?

Yeah, he does. I think he's Moroccan. He had that war in his debut. I'll pull it up here in just a minute. But who do you think? Holland looks really good, but I don't know if he has that upper, that final gear, that spectacular gear to beat the elites. And Prochazka is wild and dangerous, dangerous Luke but I don't know if he's as

well-rounded and technical enough to be great I think it's got to be Chimaev correct Chimaev I think is the other choice by the way Munir Lazez had the back and forth war with Abdul Razak El Hassan in July at 500 oh yeah yeah i do remember that it might see here's what happens and let's be honest luke this isn't you know this isn't nationalism or racism sometimes foreign people show up on the ufc screen you watch and once you're like well that guy's kind of interesting but it takes two to three fights before the name and the face and the fighting all comes together in your brain right yeah i think that's fair unless i mean dude jan was that guy for like seven years.

Yeah, Johnny Blachowicz. Yeah, I know that guy. All right, all right. Yeah, team me up, Luke here. Let's go. All right, here we go. Which happens first, BC? You got three choices.

Which happens first? A, UFC abandons the pay-per-view model, which I mean either means they go fully TV or something like WWE B the judging system is revamped or C we see a fighter win a belt in three separate weight classes. What do you think? Wow. Okay.

I'm tempted to say three. Let me try to talk to myself out of saying three. It's not going to be B Luke, because I think that just given the fact that each state has their own rules, which is so fricking stupid. MMA is like a professional sport right now. We have major league promoters, mid-level, small level ones. And yet every state's like, no, in this state, you got to put your, if you have one knee and your package on the ground, you can keep, you can need the face. But in the other state, it's BS. They're not figuring that out.

The first one could happen, but I think given that UFC is still locked into the deal that they're in right now, and it's profitable, and I feel like they still thrive and need the traditional pay-per-view market. Now, WWE did go all into the streaming in 2014. They risked future money and they said it's going to be one price no matter if it's wrestlemania or it's a you know payback or backlash or like uh the equivalent of like the last ufc pay-per-view we just saw look right just like a complete mail-in most you know it's all the same price and look it's it's worked to a degree but you could argue if they'd gone the other way or if they split that up so i don't think we're going to get there yet it's got to be

c so the answer luke is or the question off of the answer is who will it be now it could be henry cejudo if they give him a chance and somebody like volkanovsky's the champ who is smaller and cejudo goes out there and fights a great fight. It always could be somebody like Conor McGregor if he goes in there against the right welterweight and knocks him out. I think he's proven to this point, Luke, in three welterweight fights. One against

Cerrone, that doesn't count, but two against a legitimate Now, is Nate Diaz a legitimate welterweight or is he a blown-up lightweight? He's a blown-up lightweight. Okay, but he didn't have knockout power in that he had beat your ass power he had cut you and knock you down power he didn't knock out power but still he could he could potentially stop somebody he's in this equation but it's probably more likely to be an israel out of sonja if he can go up there and in one fight win the 205 title and then say look i'm gonna do it i'm gonna f around i used to kickbox

it heavy so i'm gonna go up and let's say john jones is the champion let's say they have this epic fight and not is he it's possible it's in play luke is there anyone else we're not thinking of i don't think valentina can get down to 115 is there anybody else we are not thinking of could figurato win at one i mean he hasn't won the bantamweight belt but he obviously could make else we are not thinking of. Could Figueredo win at one? I mean, he hasn't won the Bantamweight belt, but he obviously could make Bantamweight and be competitive there. Could he even fight at 145?

Could he do it? I don't think he could do it. He's so little. He's so small. Yeah, I don't know. Your two clubhouse leaders, if he came back, would be Cejudo, Connor if he gets a welterweight title shot somehow, depending on the matchup and then adesanya those are your those are your best choices if comes out chamayev lives up

to his top end billing i guess he can win one in every weight class right okay there you go i suppose that would be uh that would be one all right hit me with the next one all right uh this is luke it says if luke had wait is this to me or you I don't understand how the people write. Is this me reading it to you? I guess so, right? Number five on our list here? Yeah, you have to read that. I just read the last one. Okay, Luke.

If Luke, meaning you, had been in A Few Good Men, the movie, would you have given PFC William Santiago the code red if ordered to do so? Okay, so private first class William Santiago. Would I have given the code red if ordered to do so okay so private first class william santiago would i have given the code red probably um did you have you seen this movie like parts of it on hbo as a kid i don't remember the storyline i remember the big moments of course look you can't handle here's how you can't handle the fact that i can't remember it okay dude here's how warped the marines are the marines are made in this movie by the people who made it to look like bullies who are just like ravenous about power and physical domination over each other we're the marines i know you seems right seems

about right okay and i was like dude if you talk to marines about a few good men they're like god i love the marines and how they're portrayed in this movie it's like you know they're being portrayed as bad guys right and they're like yeah but in the best way possible so that's just something you have to understand listen in my time in the marine corps i saw an absolute fuck ton of hazing but one of the reasons why this movie is terribly unrealistic is if you're a colonel in charge of guantanamo Bay, you're not giving orders about individual low-level enlisted guys and who gets hit with the bar of soap in the sock or whatever. You don't make that call. They're way too busy.

They barely even know. They couldn't name one private in a fire squad if their lives depended on it. That's going to come from somebody at the sergeant level, at the NCO level, or the staff NCO level. So that movie gets that really wrong. And have I seen hazing like that? Maybe not to that extent where they fucking kill a guy, no. But have I seen hazing in the Marine Corps that came from some kind of order,

from some kind of corporal or sergeant or staff sergeant? All the fucking time Sergeant all the fucking time, all the fucking time. It's, it is, it was routine. You know,

you see just all kinds of crazy shit in the field anyway. But the second part of the question is, do you think Colonel Nathan Jessup, that was Jack Nicholson. I didn't get there yet. I needed your answer. You said, yes,

William. So what I, what I have done it, I mean, I didn't, people are not going to believe me. I witnessed a shitload i don't think i ever really took part in any hazing but like if i had been ordered to do so probably like did you ever see the show oz if they ordered you to do some of that kind of stuff would you have done it

yeah but it isn't like dude like rules in prison are different man like if someone's like you got to stab a guy we're just going to stab you to death in the shower. What are you going to do? I need you to rape this man. Yeah. All right. Okay. The second part.

Do you think Colonel Nathan Jessup was correct in his you can't handle the truth speech? That must be Jack Nicholson. Was he correct in saying that? I don't know anymore. I used to think that there was some truth to it. But I grew up in the military when gays could not openly serve and women couldn't be in combat billets. And all that has changed. And it's like that scene with Bill Murray in Ghostbusters BC,

dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria. You always thought if those rules were broken, there would be mass hysteria, and there just wasn't. In other words, there was sort of like these ugliness to the way in which the military combat arms conducted themselves that you thought was sort of like the secret ingredient in the sauce. If you'd asked me 20 years ago, I absolutely would have told you yes. Now I'm not so sure. Okay. In light of what you just said, do you think it's time that we remove the gender barriers on public restrooms? Well, they mostly have in the city here where I live. They just have.

Well, here is the way to do this, which no one ever talks about is possible. The best way to do it is you have like, if you can make it, you have a series of individual rooms that anybody can just use yes rather than like grouping everyone 50 to a room and then people all get weird about who's doing what and who's not doing what rather just make it like here you got one stall one person at a time and everything else is you know it's wide open right do it do it do it that way and fucking be done with it i I tend to think it's not a big deal. Would you feel comfortable, like, post-Chipotle, 1 a.m.,

just tearing, tearing, like, peeling paint off the walls, Luke? If there was, like, some respectable females in there, no, you wouldn't, Luke, you wouldn't. BC, today I forgot to take a dump before doing deadlifts at the gym, and I consistently farted audibly. I consistently farted every time I tried to get into the position before the pull. That's a true story. I kept farting, and you know what?

I'm 41. I'm like, I don't even care anymore. Yeah, yeah, you obviously don't. All right. Please, please continue, Luke. All right. BC, thoughts on Danaana white heavily encouraging finishes and if this is fair because there have been recent cases where it has almost definitely affected fighters performances what do you think um like in theory no it's not fair because in, in what I say by encourage, I mean, they encourage to the level that you're financially motivated to get finishes.

You get bonuses, you get more opportunities. If you're exciting now, look, you can argue and say, even without that, like, let's say boxing where that's not there. Well, if you're a finisher, you still some, in some ways get advantages promotionally. Why? Because people want to see finishes, but Dana White is obviously extreme in a purposeful way in that regard. So in some cases it's not fair because the goal in MMA is to win the fight, to win the championship. And it's any way possible, even if you are a John

Fitch or a point fighter or whatever, Luke. But we've said this before when this subject was brought up. I mean, it's Dana White's sandbox. You know the rules coming in. Like, Leon Edwards might have to win 12 in a row before he gets a title shot. He knows that. We know that. That's what it is. That's where it's at right now, okay? Two turntables, a microphone, and the bald guy who makes the rules.

So is it unfair? A little, but it's not, like, to the level where you are completely handcuffed in your career, cannot advance and you, whatever. I mean, look, it's, it's look, there's two games in the fight game.

Cause it's entertainment at the end of the day, right? It's not like high school sports. So there's the, there's the game where you try to win. Then there's the game where you can get more money by being popular that, you know, there's critical and there's commercial,

the two values in this game, the commercials up to you. If you fight and you get finishes, you're more likely to get commercialized. it's part of the game anyway dana way just exploits it to a certain level to try to create a tone and and it's it's it's it works look it's working it's been working for a while okay sort of i mean i'm not i'm not one of these guys that is on board with this idea that like oh man they're firing everybody and then they're substituting them with um contender series guys and we all know the story about contender series like you can win 30 seconds

with a knockout and they'll sign you and reality is that's not really a great way to know who's going to be good and who's not but like you understand dana white's position here the roster is swollen they do need to make some cuts that's the first thing i'd say second part is there's no regional mma or at least very very little they're going to be overly cuts. That's the first thing I'd say. Second part is there's no regional MMA, or at least very, very little. They're going to be overly reliant on that show and The Ultimate Fighter as a way to recruit new fighters. Now, this conversation is not totally about Contender Series. It's also about just in general how they get performance bonuses

and who seems to get the rub and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I mean, listen. So this is what I mean when, if you're a promoter, what is it you think the promoter wants? Like, and what is it you think the promoter's going to do? Like, is Dana White breaking any laws

by structuring the business the way that he has? Now, you can maybe make a case that down the line, if this court case proceeds, we'll discover that they have. But to this point, as I speak to you now, has it been determined by any regulatory body or any court of law or any other entity that could sort of adjudicate these matters that they've broken any law?

No, nothing. They've broken no laws. So this is just going to be the way that it is to a degree. I don't know how healthy it is for the sport to fetishize it quite the way that he has, but I also don't think the it is for the sport to fetishize it quite the way that he has, but I also don't think it's the sky is falling either, to be quite honest with you. We just had a pay-per-view where Brian and I debated whether or not the co-main event was kind of fucking boring. And that's like the best person in that weight class. So

in the end, there'll be a series of incentives that guide behavior. The promoter, unless he changes the rules, the promoter figuring out a way to incentivize finishes, I don't think is necessarily all that big a deal. So do you think this debate is akin to, let's say, if you own a business and you're hiring somebody to work the door, secretary, cashier in the front, whatever, and you may have somebody who's fantastic at their job, but they look kind of gross, and they stink, and they're rude to people,

and you want somebody that better represents your brand, so you hire the good-looking younger person who's nicer to the people and makes them feel like they want to come back. Dude, this is the way the world works. You know who likes pretty women, BC, everybody, everybody does.

Why do you think that they are in charge of the door at the most expensive and, you know, exclusive New York city clubs. These are not clubs I care to get into. I don't give a shit, but if you've ever been and tried to get into a really nice club in Manhattan,

you've got a gorilla of a guy who's working security, and the person who is inspecting everybody else is a woman, and she's absolutely fucking ruthless, and she's probably an 8 or a 9 out of 10 on everybody's scale. This is just the way that it goes. Is it fair? Fuck no. Is it right? Of course not. It is

just the way the world works. You want to make things easier on yourself. Hire attractive people to make those goals get to where you want it to go. And, yeah, it fucking blows. But, you know, people go, well, pretty people get special treatment, BC. Yeah, you think? You think that's true? In the UFC, the pretty people are the people that bang and get knockouts, Luke.

It is what it is, okay? Up to a point, though. Even then, though, like, even then that's true? In the UFC, the pretty people are the people that bang and get knockouts, Luke. It is what it is, okay? Up to a point, though. Even then, though, like, even then that's not totally true, which is why the argument is a little bit overstated. If you can win and, you know, on occasion have a nice – I mean, look, Valentina Shevchenko has had almost twice as many decisions as she's had finishes, and they revere her and promote her like she's the fucking Terminator.

It's just not true. You have to always go out and do that. Now, do you have to have the occasional Jessica Ai or Juliana Pena moment in your career? Yeah, you probably should. You can't just have nothing but John Fitch moments. But if you can balance it out even a little bit and you can win, dude, you can go pretty far with it. It just helps if you're attractive or you have an attractive fight style or you know some of the thing that you can hang your hat on luke if you had been in a coma for the past 10

years but still held the same level of ufc and mma fandom that you do and you re-emerge just in time for saturday's pay-per-view last week and i told you hey look there's jennifer maya in the main event you're like who's that and i told you she's either damian Maya's daughter or wife. Which would you have believed more? Wife. All right. BC. I'm not sure. I have to explain this one.

I think I have to read it to you, Luke. I think that's how the rules work. Okay. Oh, yes. Sorry. Go ahead. So, Luke, this viewer is saying thank you for the rights in perpetuity answer about why is music dubbed 14 to 21 days post event can you just give me a refresher on what that means luke

if you watch a pay-per-view live and you hear everyone's walkout music like caitlyn chukagin comes out to dmx where the hood at if you wait a year or two or something and then you go on fight pass and you listen for her walkout, the chances are you won't. You'll hear some other kind of music that is sort of like, you know, whatever UFC owns, like their own in-house music dubbed over it. The reason why is because you can buy the rights for a certain amount of time, but they tend to not buy them in perpetuity. Yeah, and if you want to know the rest, hey, buy the rights. How bizarre, right, Luke? You know what I'm saying? to not buy them in perpetuity yeah and if you want to know the rest hey bother rights how bizarre right luke you know what i'm saying so luke why is ufc 217 226 229 subject to this rule but not

227 and 249 and if everybody knows rights in perpetuity then why don't fighters walk out to something that does not fall subject to rip that's interesting question i guess okay so i don't know the answer to why 227 and 249 is the way that this person describes it i honestly don't know um but the question to answer the question about like why don't they do it to something that's not that way well for one they don't really have control over it it's the ufc as a broadcast entity that has to purchase these rights um so you'd have to find a way to work that through ufc now you could say well what about just using your own music rampage had his own rap song for a time or something like that maybe that's a way to work around to bc but you know as well as i do when fighters come out to songs that they had

a rapper or you know rocker friend right them. Those songs tend to suck balls. Luke, what song in the UFC is most identified by one fighter? It doesn't have to be your favorite song, the best song. What song is like where you hear the song, you think of that fighter instantly? There's probably a couple. One, Biggie, Kicking the Door. Who comes out to that? Who are you talking about uh frankie edgar yes yes yes that one yep um your reign on the top was short like leprechauns that one uh so that's one i would say back in the pride days the rude sandstorm one was big um oh matt hughes country

boy can't survive is big yes uh when when i hear that uh what's that chel sun and song it comes out the two comes up for the some honky tonk song they're being a dangity worst fucking entrance i love that shit the beginning it's like it's, it just catches you off guard that you're like, what? Yeah, what is that song? Dude, that shit, like, you know, Chael, it's, dude, it's amazing that Chael would come out to that music

because he understood the business of promotion early in that era in ways that, and Steven to this day, most of his contemporaries never did. How did you not have an iconic walkout song? How did you come out to some song

about a honk-a-tonk in tennessee it's awful too much fun by daryl singletary yeah yeah too much fun what's that shit yeah i mean who the fuck sings that as like you know an anthem and you can't even say oh it's because you don't like country country boy can't survive hank williams jr i mean you know it's exactly what we're talking about you can do it if the shit works yeah if it doesn't you know you know you fuck off ronda rousey's um you know bad reputation was pretty big very iconic and identified with just her i'm not good at this i'm trying to think of famous fighters and i'm like i have no idea what their song is what was chuck ledell lesnar came out to uh enterman, that was kind of big. Yeah. What was Liddell's? Do we know? He had a DMX song.

And so did Anderson Silva. Yeah. Liddell with the – yes. That was – which song was it? It was Come Through, Run Through. That one, right? Yeah, I think so. Where My Dog Is?

Have you ever listened to like Where the Hood At? The lyrics are insanely homophobic? Well, yeah, I mean, that's most of yeah, that's all right. Yeah, that's great. Luke, let's let's roll on here. You got the next. All right. All right.

Have you guys ever watched the comedy store doc doc like the documentary on Showtime? Also, have you guys ever been there? No and no, but I do enjoy Showtime docs outside of trying to pump it because they're the label that pays me and I will check it out. Right now I'm into that doc series, Luke, real quick. Rick Rubin, the famous music producer,

I referenced him earlier. He has the Shangri-La documentary series on Showtime, which just basically has bands coming into his famous studio and he works with them. It's just very interesting. Have not seen the comedy store. How about yourself? I've not seen this one, but I have seen it came out. I want to say 2002 ish.

So there was a documentary called Comedian and it followed two comedians. It followed the return of Jerry Seinfeld after the end of his show, back to stand up, and he, you know, sort of working through the scene again, and she tried to, you know, shake off the rust. He had a little bit there. And then this other comedian who'd sort of been in the trenches and was trying to make it named Orny Adams. And that, there was a lot of scenes there that took place at what's called the Comedy Cellar in New York City. The Comedy Cellar is probably what the – it's not the one that does the biggest shows in New York, B.C., but it's like all the comedians, comedians know that that's the place that you go to to really get –

at least it was back in the aughts. It was like the place that the best comedians in the city would go to night after night. So I went there so often that you would see commit like very very very famous comedians pop in and they would bump everyone else in line that night and just do a set so i saw dave chappelle come in one time and do an hour-long set that was un unrehearsed unscheduled i saw seinfeld come in so i saw seinfeld from me to this camera uh he came in chris chris rock came in and did a set. I saw Patrice O'Neill there.

I saw Patrice O'Neill, nearly fist fight a heckler there. I mean, I have Dave Attell. All those guys I saw come in and do just phenomenal. Jim Norton was all the time there. Nick DiPaolo. You know, that was just an unbelievable place. So I have a lot of great memories of that. It's probably pretty similar to because the because the comedy store is the L.A. version, basically, of the comedy cellar on the East Coast.

So the comedy store is the one with Mitzi. Yeah. Is that Pauly Shore's mom? I think I don't know. It might be. But, you know, it's sort of an iconic West Coast club like CBGB's or something. But you think Brendan has played the store? But it's sort of an iconic West Coast club, like CBGB's or something, but for comedy. Do you think Brendan has played the story? Dude, he's played there a million times, I think.

I'm sure he slayed, bro. I'm sure he slayed afterwards backstage, too. Shout out to Brendan Schaub. All right. Luke, have you ever seen the Rat Catcher documentary on Netflix? No. What is that? No, the Fox Catcher.

Sorry, Fox Catcher one. Oh. What was that dirtbag's name the uh the rich guy what was his name john dupont do you ever worry that while we laugh and have fun with this that jay is very dupontian and that we're gonna have a schultz brother type exit from the show luke well john dupont was at least successful for having money aaron is not um he drives a pretty nice car all right i'll give me all right here's the thing though he took a fucking beating in that documentary and i think people loved it that's why i'm wondering if uh if we if we should move off

the farm right now okay kurt angle by the way kurt angle was smart he got the hell off of that farm all right yeah all right hey luke here's a question from the viewers um when's the politics coming back watching these fools have breakdowns in the live chat is a priceless experience so what they're asking you luke is why are you not interjecting more politics into these shows just to troll the audience well here's the thing. I mean, what always is so funny about the live chat is whenever I talk about politics, which is relative to the amount of talking that happens per episode, it's not my call. I put up the thread ahead of time.

I mean, I could always ignore the questions. That part is true. But if I'm being faithful to the questions as they're laid out before me and how the audience selected them, because remember, I set it up where, you know, it's ranked, it's ranked essentially. So if you like it, it shoots to the top. You know, if you get enough of them, it's like y'all wrote the questions and y'all selected which ones you thought deserved to be answered more than the other ones. So whenever I hear like complaints about it, I'm always like, okay, then vote it, then downvote it. You know, what do you want me to do? That's the first part I'd say. The second part is, um, listen,

I don't ever expect people when I'm done making any kind of political point in the live chat to necessarily agree with me. But I do think that inside of MMA, there is a obscene amount of group think and not nearly enough diversity of thought. Whether that's true about MMA itself, like how to fix judging. I put out this video feeling like there should be two judges, or two referees, one inside the cage and one outside, and here's how the one outside should be empowered. I had everyone and their brother telling me that was the stupidest idea.

The next week, I got phone calls from two different commissioners at major commissions telling me they love the idea. You know what I mean? And then now you see Nevada. I don't know if they barred it from me. I suspect that they didn't. But this breathing new life into things and taking chances with ideas, yeah, sometimes you're going to say probably stupid things.

But more often than not, you might at least be on to something or you might have an outright great idea. But diversifying the kind of thought that takes place in MMA, I think, is extremely important because everyone kind of either wants to agree with each other or not take too many steps outside of an acceptable Overton window. As it relates to politics, I think that's especially true. Everyone inside the sport is either sort of tuned out to the kind of thing or is decidedly right wing. And I'm not here to say that any of those positions are right and that I've got it all figured out far from it, but you're probably going to be better off in the end. And this includes me as well, hearing from people who I don't agree with, hearing viewpoints that force you to check

the premises of your own, that may challenge your own, or that you hear and you just decide, you know, it's wrong because it's something you really looked into. Fine. But diversity of thought, I'm always told that the right hates academia because there's not enough diversity of thought. Well, here I am reversing the process and trying to do the same thing on the other side. And there are, by the way, to be clear, there's a lot of people who are very receptive to it. Even when they write me and tell me they don't agree. Okay, fine. You don't have to agree. But I think if you're open to the idea that diversity of thought matters, whether it's right or it's wrong, having a conniption fit about it tells me that what you're really not interested in is diversity at all. You're just interested in having your worldview repeated back to you in very comforting ways.

And that's intellectually lazy and a little bit pathetic. All right. That was pretty deep so are you willing to understand then at least that uh george bush's brother was on the board of directors for the uh wtc security staff or no didn't we look into this and it was like only like 10 true of all the so you're saying there's a chance, Luke. All right. What else we got here, Luke? All right. Last but not least, BC, this one goes to you, good sir. If you could bring, I don't know if our producer wrote this like a three-year-old,

but I'll have to translate it from this gobbledygook pigeon English. If you could bring. BC, do you ever see how reflexively shitty I am to people? It does not take much effort. It does not take much effort. Okay, back to it. If you could bring to dinner any three combat sports figures, dead or alive, who would they be?

They could be coaches, fighters, famous cornermen, just notable figures inside the sport. Let's talk strategy. Let's really do this question the right way. Are we thinking it in terms of chemistry too? Because if I've got Ali and McGregor at the same table, that could really speed up the enjoyment. That's just fireworks for nothing.

Is that what you want to waste it on? Meanwhile, it looks like I already got it i had it already it's barrowman it's uh volkanovski and uh kai kata france all right it's fantastic all right yeah all right um what do you think what do you who get you can have the first draft pick off the board who you take who you have in dinner i mean okay let's posit something are we assuming that they're going to be truthful or we're just taking them as they am fighters are truthful i i've had situations in larger you know media dinners where you get food and a couple drinks and there's a famous fighter sitting across that they're truthful look okay especially when they're retired they don't give a damn so if they're gonna be if they're gonna be into the

process of having a conversation i mean you gotta go dana white right don't you oh he would don't you but he but he would commandeer and own the conversation because he's a look he's a professional spinster right he controls the narrative yeah just cut his mic like the second debate or like the oscars when you go on too long the microphone just sinks. He is entertaining, though. When I worked at ESPN as an MMA editor, he came in a couple times, and we got to sit down with him for an hour, not in an interview, just in like a let's talk how we can better promote the sport. I mean, look, he holds court.

He's an interview. He's an interesting dude. I'm sure if we raise drinks to him luke you may end up changing your opinion you may go red at the end i'm the one inviting him you may you know yeah you would okay okay yeah you and ron it would be one right okay uh yeah look that's a good call dana's not dana's there that's a great call um i mean should we shoot for the stars i mean is there going to be a better person there than Mike Tyson to entertain you? Is there going to be a better person there?

No, that's pretty good. That's pretty good. And then, man. Don't say Pearl Gonzalez. I was thinking more Cus D'Amato, but tomato but okay i mean that's another way you could go uh probably the same size uh well yeah wow wow luke wow nobody nobody watches this deep into the show um yeah uh i mean michael bisping would be great right right? Yeah, he would be. I mean, only three is like, you got to have kind of a last supper deal

where you just have like a bunch of them. You want to hear, okay, here's what you want out of this, okay? You want to hear great stories, right? You want to hear stuff you've never heard before. Mia St. John. You want to do that. You want to be entertaining.

Asa Akira. Let's just bring Rocco, okay? Let's just go can we just watch him eat no um yeah i mean look can we go wrong here luke i mean how okay mike tyson dana wayne conor mcgregor that'd be a fun that'd be a fun today actually lorenzo lorenzo would be a guy that i would like to over an extended period right eating some pasta maybe at the red rock canyon casino that he owns and just hearing the story yeah that'd be pretty interesting right and like i had a friendly conversation with him at the um were you at the presser when ufc announced that you know the whole ny ny legalization thing and they had Governor Cuomo there signing it in the whole nine yards. Do you remember that?

I remember it. I was not there, though. So I was there, and I had a conversation with Lorenzo in person after the fact. Did you talk about gains and striations, Luke? Well, here's the thing. He is built like a brick shithouse, but he is very short. He's shorter than Joe Rogan. He's short.

He must be like 5'7 or something. 5'8? Something like that. He's not tall. Why would you bring him to a tight? I don't get that. Go ahead. Keep going. I put out a picture. Next to me, recently, everyone was like, you're fucking short. Lorenzo's a good call. I might sub out

Dana for Lorenzo. Keep Mike Tyson. Would you bring Don King? I don't know. lorenzo's a good call i might sub out i might sub out dana for lorenzo keep mike tyson would you bring don king i mean i don't know no he's a dirtbag the only problem with picking obvious ones like dana connor whatever it's like they're so overexposed as well right it would almost be cool to have somebody you know i mean i don't know how far you want to go down the list but you know uh would it suck to have joe lewis or jack johnson or somebody like that you know i mean it would be jack johnson yeah exactly you know what jeff blatnik might be a great one as well rest in peace to jeff blatnik joe san maybe yeah just

hey remember when you uh killed a guy in prison and went to prison for rape you fucking animal yeah wow ninja chop judo chop yeah okay um i mean yeah yeah i don't know uh mostly i don't like talking to anybody so it's a hard question for me to answer bc yeah yeah maybe i'd have shab hapa and ronda how about that that wouldn't be awkward at all hapa Hopper. All right. Okay. I think we're done, right? We're done.

We're done. Okay. This was fun. It was a holiday treat. Okay. I've got life things, important life things to do. Okay. So do I. Well, BC, let's just remind everybody, like the video, hit that subscribe button.

And you know what? On this Thanksgiving Fridayiday share this around or share the documentary around isn't that fair i think that's pretty fair right that's fair and and pass the stuffing the scotty pippin of the thanksgiving meal well you have yeah you had stuffing yeah you did you did yeah oh i don't know yeah we're still trying to figure out what to cook but by the time you watch this yes you'll have cooked it already yeah right right hey happy thanksgiving to your family and uh thank you our mk family here who makes all this possible thank you and web scream too and web scream too all right you want to take us out uh seriously we you know let's have fun but we're giving thanks i love all you people okay we can't

do weird docs without you actually enjoying it. And, uh, thank you for your patronage. Thank you for buying the merchant. Oh, by the way, uh, there's still time for black Friday sale of the merch.

Okay. So go on to, uh, store.show.com. There's a, I know Luke doesn't check his email, but there's actually a black Friday deal. They told us after the show on Monday,

there actually is a black Friday deal. So check our Twitter feeds today. You'll see it. And yeah, thank you to everybody. And that's it, Luke. I'm Brian Campbell. That's Luke Thomas. We are Morning Combat.

So I've got two words for you. We out.